Spring Break
President Bush needs to get serious about withdrawal
Abstract:
Apparently, it's not just the presidential candidates that are pandering to voters this election season.
On Friday, President Bush released a statement announcing an agreement between the U.S. and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal Al-Maliki to "a general timeline" for the withdrawal of U....
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Registered Independent
posted 7/24/08 @ 8:25 PM MST
What a great commentary, obviously written by someone who knows whereof he speaks. Now there's a novel idea, Collegian . . . . . . .
Originally posted byAnti-Fact Consensus
At some point, Democrats decided that facts didn't matter anymore in Iraq. And they nominated just the man to reflect the party's new anti-factual consensus on the war, a Barack Obama who has fixedly ignored changing conditions on the ground.
It's gotten harder as the success of the surge has become undeniable, but -- despite some wobbles -- Obama is sticking to his plan for a 16-month timeline for withdrawal from Iraq. He musters dishonesty, evasion and straw-grasping to try to create a patina of respectability around a scandalously unserious position.
Obama spokesmen now say everyone knew that President Bush's troop surge would create more security. This is blatantly false. Obama said in early 2007 that nothing in the surge plan would "make a significant dent in the sectarian violence," and the new strategy would "not prove to be one that changes the dynamics significantly." He referred to the surge derisively as "baby-sit(ting) a civil war."
Now that the civil war has all but ended, he wants to claim retroactive clairvoyance. In a New York Times op-ed laying out his position, Obama credits the heroism of our troops and new tactics with bringing down the violence. Our troops have always been heroic; what made the difference was the surge strategy that Obama lacked the military judgment -- or political courage -- to support.
In his oped, Obama states that "the same factors that led me to oppose the surge still hold true," citing the strain on the military, the deterioration in Afghanistan and the fiscal drain. All of those are important, but pale compared with the achievement in Iraq -- beating back al-Qaida and Iranian-backed militias, and restoring a semblance of order to a country on the verge of a collapse from which only our enemies could have benefited.
Politically, Obama has to notionally support defeating al-Qaeda in Iraq, so even after he's executed his 16-month withdrawal, he says there will be a "residual force" of American troops to take on "remnants of al-Qaida." How can he be so sure there will only be "remnants"? If there are, it will be because the surge Obama opposed has pushed al-Qaeda to the brink. The more precipitously we withdraw our troops, the more likely al-Qaeda is to mount a comeback.
Obama treats as a vindication a recent statement by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki calling for a timeline for withdrawal of U.S. forces. But Maliki, playing to his domestic politic audience, can't be taken at face value. Neither Maliki nor anyone around him talks of an unconditional 16-month timeline for withdrawal as being remotely plausible. His defense minister says Iraqis will be ready to handle internal security on their own in 2012 and external security by 2020.
The Iraqis most enthusiastic about Obama's plan surely are al-Qaeda members, Sadrists, Iranian agents and sectarian killers of every stripe. The prospect of an American president suddenly letting up on them has to be the best cause for hope they've had in months. Obama's withdrawal would immediately embolden every malign actor in Iraq, and increase their sway in Iraqi politics.
In his oped, Obama sticks to the badly dated contention that Iraqis "have not reached the political accommodation that was the stated purpose of the surge." In fact, roughly 15 of 18 political benchmarks have been met by the Iraqis -- progress Obama threatens to reverse.
Obama loves to say that we have to withdraw from Iraq "responsibly." There's nothing responsible about his plan. According to U.S. commanders on the ground, it may not even be logistically possible. Does Obama even care? He says that when he's elected he'd give the military a new mission -- to end the war. Conditions in Iraq, let alone winning, are marginalia.
There are two possible interpretations -- either Obama is dangerously sincere, or he's a cynical operator playing duplicitous politics with matters of war and peace. Watch this space.
Captain Pete Hegseth
posted 7/24/08 @ 5:49 PM MST
Five months ago, I returned to Iraq as an embedded journalist, some 18 months after I had completed a combat tour there. It was a worthwhile trip. I returned to Iraq to cover the progress the U.S. military had been making on the ground since the surge had begun. Mainstream-media coverage of the war had largely ignored the counterinsurgency's success, rehearsing outdated notions of the conditions there. You could say I made the long trip to the front to cover an exposed domestic flank of American public opinion.
My fact-finding at the highest levels of strategic command and the lowest level of tactical implementation brought back into view the intricacies of the Iraq experience. What seems like a black-and-white situation on op-ed pages and in TV talking points in the United States is revealed as complex grayscale in Iraq.
So keeping one's ear to the ground and eye on the facts in Iraq is exceedingly important. It takes real effort to cut through the spin and punditry; and if anyone spends too much time away, tempting platitudes like "we've already won" or "withdrawal immediately" creep into the lexicon, complicating one's ability to tailor their positions to reality, rather than ideology.
Thus, trips to Iraq tend to be enlightening experiences -- full of competing emotions, as long-held assumptions, good and bad, clash with self-evident realities on the ground. Any serious student of warfare, particularly of counterinsurgency, will know that every battlefield is fluid, and information that is relevant one day may be deceiving the next.
On Monday, Senator Obama finally had his wingtips on the ground in Iraq, to at last meet with U.S. brass and Iraqi leaders and get his dose of reality. He met with commanders on the ground who told him -- as they recently told Fox News Sunday and the New York Times -- that the timeline for withdrawal that Obama supports would be disastrous, both for the prospects of success in Iraq, and for strategic stability in the region.
Obama heard from Iraqi leaders, Maliki included, who told him the same thing -- and who brandished their newfound reconciliation dramatically on Saturday, when the largest Sunni block rejoined the Iraqi parliament and cabinet.
And Obama heard from Iraqi and U.S. troops and from the citizens of Iraq who have all witnessed al-Qaeda's attempts -- both through their extremist rhetoric and maniacal deeds -- to make Iraq the central front in their war against the West.
Despite these facts -- however the mainstream media chooses to spin them -- the operative question is: Will any of this matter to Obama?
I fear it won't. He's already shown that his version of fact-finding is to lay out an Iraq plan before going there. And while he conceded yesterday that there has been "enormous improvement" in security, Obama remains unwilling to concede change-I-can-believe-in on his three main Iraq tenets: timelines, political progress, and Iraq as a central front.
The statement he released after touching down in-country reiterates his misguided support for "a clear date" for withdrawal, his confused assertion that "political reconciliation continues to lag," and his stubborn insistence that America must "refocus" our efforts in Afghanistan. Obama went so far as to tell an interviewer that he would oppose the surge again, despite the fact that the strategy that has saved countless American and Iraqi lives.
None of this is surprising. An Obama concession on these points would mean political damage-control for weeks. Still, I would like to be believe that Sen. Obama is capable of recognizing -- and adapting his views on -- the changed conditions in Iraq he is now seeing for the first time. A wartime posture demands this. But I doubt we'll ever see it.
The sad reality of this trip is that Sen. Obama has now left Iraq more cemented in his ill-advised positions than ever before. He was willing to throw scraps to commanders and troops ("good job, guys") but sought every opportunity to confirm that his policy views -- which are as outdated as cassette tapes -- had not changed.
The next question, then, is: Who will fact-check the fact-finder? Sen. Obama managed to praise the surge (which he fervently opposed), all the while calling for timelines, degrading Iraqi leaders, and pretending that al-Qaeda in Iraq doesn't exist.
Contrast this with John McCain. Based on his visits to Iraq before the surge, he had the prescience to call for a new strategy and more troops. And despite running for president, he continued to make fact-finding trips to Iraq after the surge, and reported the success of the surge before anyone else. Sen. McCain went to Iraq to gather information that would inform his policy positions -- not to "put lipstick on a pig," as General Petraeus is apt to say.
In the days ahead, additional information will be made public on what General Petraeus and Senator Obama discussed. We'll see if Obama's statements in the weeks and months ahead show whether his ideological approach to the Iraq war has been disturbed by any single fact on the ground.
My fact-finding at the highest levels of strategic command and the lowest level of tactical implementation brought back into view the intricacies of the Iraq experience. What seems like a black-and-white situation on op-ed pages and in TV talking points in the United States is revealed as complex grayscale in Iraq.
So keeping one's ear to the ground and eye on the facts in Iraq is exceedingly important. It takes real effort to cut through the spin and punditry; and if anyone spends too much time away, tempting platitudes like "we've already won" or "withdrawal immediately" creep into the lexicon, complicating one's ability to tailor their positions to reality, rather than ideology.
Thus, trips to Iraq tend to be enlightening experiences -- full of competing emotions, as long-held assumptions, good and bad, clash with self-evident realities on the ground. Any serious student of warfare, particularly of counterinsurgency, will know that every battlefield is fluid, and information that is relevant one day may be deceiving the next.
On Monday, Senator Obama finally had his wingtips on the ground in Iraq, to at last meet with U.S. brass and Iraqi leaders and get his dose of reality. He met with commanders on the ground who told him -- as they recently told Fox News Sunday and the New York Times -- that the timeline for withdrawal that Obama supports would be disastrous, both for the prospects of success in Iraq, and for strategic stability in the region.
Obama heard from Iraqi leaders, Maliki included, who told him the same thing -- and who brandished their newfound reconciliation dramatically on Saturday, when the largest Sunni block rejoined the Iraqi parliament and cabinet.
And Obama heard from Iraqi and U.S. troops and from the citizens of Iraq who have all witnessed al-Qaeda's attempts -- both through their extremist rhetoric and maniacal deeds -- to make Iraq the central front in their war against the West.
Despite these facts -- however the mainstream media chooses to spin them -- the operative question is: Will any of this matter to Obama?
I fear it won't. He's already shown that his version of fact-finding is to lay out an Iraq plan before going there. And while he conceded yesterday that there has been "enormous improvement" in security, Obama remains unwilling to concede change-I-can-believe-in on his three main Iraq tenets: timelines, political progress, and Iraq as a central front.
The statement he released after touching down in-country reiterates his misguided support for "a clear date" for withdrawal, his confused assertion that "political reconciliation continues to lag," and his stubborn insistence that America must "refocus" our efforts in Afghanistan. Obama went so far as to tell an interviewer that he would oppose the surge again, despite the fact that the strategy that has saved countless American and Iraqi lives.
None of this is surprising. An Obama concession on these points would mean political damage-control for weeks. Still, I would like to be believe that Sen. Obama is capable of recognizing -- and adapting his views on -- the changed conditions in Iraq he is now seeing for the first time. A wartime posture demands this. But I doubt we'll ever see it.
The sad reality of this trip is that Sen. Obama has now left Iraq more cemented in his ill-advised positions than ever before. He was willing to throw scraps to commanders and troops ("good job, guys") but sought every opportunity to confirm that his policy views -- which are as outdated as cassette tapes -- had not changed.
The next question, then, is: Who will fact-check the fact-finder? Sen. Obama managed to praise the surge (which he fervently opposed), all the while calling for timelines, degrading Iraqi leaders, and pretending that al-Qaeda in Iraq doesn't exist.
Contrast this with John McCain. Based on his visits to Iraq before the surge, he had the prescience to call for a new strategy and more troops. And despite running for president, he continued to make fact-finding trips to Iraq after the surge, and reported the success of the surge before anyone else. Sen. McCain went to Iraq to gather information that would inform his policy positions -- not to "put lipstick on a pig," as General Petraeus is apt to say.
In the days ahead, additional information will be made public on what General Petraeus and Senator Obama discussed. We'll see if Obama's statements in the weeks and months ahead show whether his ideological approach to the Iraq war has been disturbed by any single fact on the ground.
Registered Independent
posted 7/24/08 @ 8:31 PM MST
YES!!!!!!!!!![QUOTE
Don't you just love this commentary by people who actually know what they are talking about, for a change? What a breath of fresh air.
Oh wait, what was I thinking, of course you don't > . . . .
id="95c5cf0a-9788-4833-a0b4-980a82d43bc1"]Five months ago, I returned to Iraq as an embedded journalist, some 18 months after I had completed a combat tour there. It was a worthwhile trip. I returned to Iraq to cover the progress the U.S. military had been making on the ground since the surge had begun. Mainstream-media coverage of the war had largely ignored the counterinsurgency's success, rehearsing outdated notions of the conditions there. You could say I made the long trip to the front to cover an exposed domestic flank of American public opinion.
My fact-finding at the highest levels of strategic command and the lowest level of tactical implementation brought back into view the intricacies of the Iraq experience. What seems like a black-and-white situation on op-ed pages and in TV talking points in the United States is revealed as complex grayscale in Iraq.
So keeping one's ear to the ground and eye on the facts in Iraq is exceedingly important. It takes real effort to cut through the spin and punditry; and if anyone spends too much time away, tempting platitudes like "we've already won" or "withdrawal immediately" creep into the lexicon, complicating one's ability to tailor their positions to reality, rather than ideology.
Thus, trips to Iraq tend to be enlightening experiences -- full of competing emotions, as long-held assumptions, good and bad, clash with self-evident realities on the ground. Any serious student of warfare, particularly of counterinsurgency, will know that every battlefield is fluid, and information that is relevant one day may be deceiving the next.
On Monday, Senator Obama finally had his wingtips on the ground in Iraq, to at last meet with U.S. brass and Iraqi leaders and get his dose of reality. He met with commanders on the ground who told him -- as they recently told Fox News Sunday and the New York Times -- that the timeline for withdrawal that Obama supports would be disastrous, both for the prospects of success in Iraq, and for strategic stability in the region.
Obama heard from Iraqi leaders, Maliki included, who told him the same thing -- and who brandished their newfound reconciliation dramatically on Saturday, when the largest Sunni block rejoined the Iraqi parliament and cabinet.
And Obama heard from Iraqi and U.S. troops and from the citizens of Iraq who have all witnessed al-Qaeda's attempts -- both through their extremist rhetoric and maniacal deeds -- to make Iraq the central front in their war against the West.
Despite these facts -- however the mainstream media chooses to spin them -- the operative question is: Will any of this matter to Obama?
I fear it won't. He's already shown that his version of fact-finding is to lay out an Iraq plan before going there. And while he conceded yesterday that there has been "enormous improvement" in security, Obama remains unwilling to concede change-I-can-believe-in on his three main Iraq tenets: timelines, political progress, and Iraq as a central front.
The statement he released after touching down in-country reiterates his misguided support for "a clear date" for withdrawal, his confused assertion that "political reconciliation continues to lag," and his stubborn insistence that America must "refocus" our efforts in Afghanistan. Obama went so far as to tell an interviewer that he would oppose the surge again, despite the fact that the strategy that has saved countless American and Iraqi lives.
None of this is surprising. An Obama concession on these points would mean political damage-control for weeks. Still, I would like to be believe that Sen. Obama is capable of recognizing -- and adapting his views on -- the changed conditions in Iraq he is now seeing for the first time. A wartime posture demands this. But I doubt we'll ever see it.
The sad reality of this trip is that Sen. Obama has now left Iraq more cemented in his ill-advised positions than ever before. He was willing to throw scraps to commanders and troops ("good job, guys") but sought every opportunity to confirm that his policy views -- which are as outdated as cassette tapes -- had not changed.
The next question, then, is: Who will fact-check the fact-finder? Sen. Obama managed to praise the surge (which he fervently opposed), all the while calling for timelines, degrading Iraqi leaders, and pretending that al-Qaeda in Iraq doesn't exist.
Contrast this with John McCain. Based on his visits to Iraq before the surge, he had the prescience to call for a new strategy and more troops. And despite running for president, he continued to make fact-finding trips to Iraq after the surge, and reported the success of the surge before anyone else. Sen. McCain went to Iraq to gather information that would inform his policy positions -- not to "put lipstick on a pig," as General Petraeus is apt to say.
In the days ahead, additional information will be made public on what General Petraeus and Senator Obama discussed. We'll see if Obama's statements in the weeks and months ahead show whether his ideological approach to the Iraq war has been disturbed by any single fact on the ground.[/QUOTE]
Don't you just love this commentary by people who actually know what they are talking about, for a change? What a breath of fresh air.
Oh wait, what was I thinking, of course you don't > . . . .
id="95c5cf0a-9788-4833-a0b4-980a82d43bc1"]Five months ago, I returned to Iraq as an embedded journalist, some 18 months after I had completed a combat tour there. It was a worthwhile trip. I returned to Iraq to cover the progress the U.S. military had been making on the ground since the surge had begun. Mainstream-media coverage of the war had largely ignored the counterinsurgency's success, rehearsing outdated notions of the conditions there. You could say I made the long trip to the front to cover an exposed domestic flank of American public opinion.
My fact-finding at the highest levels of strategic command and the lowest level of tactical implementation brought back into view the intricacies of the Iraq experience. What seems like a black-and-white situation on op-ed pages and in TV talking points in the United States is revealed as complex grayscale in Iraq.
So keeping one's ear to the ground and eye on the facts in Iraq is exceedingly important. It takes real effort to cut through the spin and punditry; and if anyone spends too much time away, tempting platitudes like "we've already won" or "withdrawal immediately" creep into the lexicon, complicating one's ability to tailor their positions to reality, rather than ideology.
Thus, trips to Iraq tend to be enlightening experiences -- full of competing emotions, as long-held assumptions, good and bad, clash with self-evident realities on the ground. Any serious student of warfare, particularly of counterinsurgency, will know that every battlefield is fluid, and information that is relevant one day may be deceiving the next.
On Monday, Senator Obama finally had his wingtips on the ground in Iraq, to at last meet with U.S. brass and Iraqi leaders and get his dose of reality. He met with commanders on the ground who told him -- as they recently told Fox News Sunday and the New York Times -- that the timeline for withdrawal that Obama supports would be disastrous, both for the prospects of success in Iraq, and for strategic stability in the region.
Obama heard from Iraqi leaders, Maliki included, who told him the same thing -- and who brandished their newfound reconciliation dramatically on Saturday, when the largest Sunni block rejoined the Iraqi parliament and cabinet.
And Obama heard from Iraqi and U.S. troops and from the citizens of Iraq who have all witnessed al-Qaeda's attempts -- both through their extremist rhetoric and maniacal deeds -- to make Iraq the central front in their war against the West.
Despite these facts -- however the mainstream media chooses to spin them -- the operative question is: Will any of this matter to Obama?
I fear it won't. He's already shown that his version of fact-finding is to lay out an Iraq plan before going there. And while he conceded yesterday that there has been "enormous improvement" in security, Obama remains unwilling to concede change-I-can-believe-in on his three main Iraq tenets: timelines, political progress, and Iraq as a central front.
The statement he released after touching down in-country reiterates his misguided support for "a clear date" for withdrawal, his confused assertion that "political reconciliation continues to lag," and his stubborn insistence that America must "refocus" our efforts in Afghanistan. Obama went so far as to tell an interviewer that he would oppose the surge again, despite the fact that the strategy that has saved countless American and Iraqi lives.
None of this is surprising. An Obama concession on these points would mean political damage-control for weeks. Still, I would like to be believe that Sen. Obama is capable of recognizing -- and adapting his views on -- the changed conditions in Iraq he is now seeing for the first time. A wartime posture demands this. But I doubt we'll ever see it.
The sad reality of this trip is that Sen. Obama has now left Iraq more cemented in his ill-advised positions than ever before. He was willing to throw scraps to commanders and troops ("good job, guys") but sought every opportunity to confirm that his policy views -- which are as outdated as cassette tapes -- had not changed.
The next question, then, is: Who will fact-check the fact-finder? Sen. Obama managed to praise the surge (which he fervently opposed), all the while calling for timelines, degrading Iraqi leaders, and pretending that al-Qaeda in Iraq doesn't exist.
Contrast this with John McCain. Based on his visits to Iraq before the surge, he had the prescience to call for a new strategy and more troops. And despite running for president, he continued to make fact-finding trips to Iraq after the surge, and reported the success of the surge before anyone else. Sen. McCain went to Iraq to gather information that would inform his policy positions -- not to "put lipstick on a pig," as General Petraeus is apt to say.
In the days ahead, additional information will be made public on what General Petraeus and Senator Obama discussed. We'll see if Obama's statements in the weeks and months ahead show whether his ideological approach to the Iraq war has been disturbed by any single fact on the ground.[/QUOTE]
Drilling Without Oil, Tax Cuts Without Growth
posted 7/25/08 @ 3:38 PM MST
Senator McCain is in the unenviable position of running on the track record of a president with the worst economic performance since Herbert Hoover. He has adopted the strategy of ignoring the record while embracing his predecessor's policies. McCain is betting the media will be so incompetent that they will not notice. He might be right. The basic story here is very simple. The centerpiece of Senator McCain's economic agenda is the continuation of the Bush tax cuts. Of course, he has tossed out a few other items, but impact of his other proposals, such as ending earmarks, is trivial. For all practical purposes, McCain's economic agenda is Bush's tax cuts.
We could have an interesting debate about whether giving tax cuts to the wealthiest people in the country is good economic policy, if we didn't already know the answer. We have had almost eight years of President Bush's tax cuts and the record is as clear as it can possibly be. When it comes to producing economic growth that benefits the middle class, the tax cuts were dismal failures.
The economy is now in the process of sinking into the second recession of the second Bush administration, and President Bush already has the worst record on job creation of any president since Herbert Hoover. At the current rate of job loss, it is entirely possible President Bush will have created fewer private sector jobs in his entire eight years in office than the 2.6 million annual average for the eight years of the Clinton administration.
We could have an interesting debate about whether giving tax cuts to the wealthiest people in the country is good economic policy, if we didn't already know the answer. We have had almost eight years of President Bush's tax cuts and the record is as clear as it can possibly be. When it comes to producing economic growth that benefits the middle class, the tax cuts were dismal failures.
The economy is now in the process of sinking into the second recession of the second Bush administration, and President Bush already has the worst record on job creation of any president since Herbert Hoover. At the current rate of job loss, it is entirely possible President Bush will have created fewer private sector jobs in his entire eight years in office than the 2.6 million annual average for the eight years of the Clinton administration.
Democrats Drive an Economic Downturn
posted 7/28/08 @ 8:37 AM MST
Why do Leftists compare the Gingrich economy vs. today's Pelosi-Reid economy to defend Obama? Afterall, Clinton was a non-factor in the late '90s economic boom. Bubbah merely signed Gingrich reforms (Contract w/ America)-- and then took credit for the Gingrich economic boom.
Naturally, Leftist economic historical revisionism is tangential to how the Join Chiefs adjust levels of our American armed forces in particular theatres of the Islamo-fascists' war on us. Now, try to stay focused.
Naturally, Leftist economic historical revisionism is tangential to how the Join Chiefs adjust levels of our American armed forces in particular theatres of the Islamo-fascists' war on us. Now, try to stay focused.
Dr. Ayad Allawi
posted 7/25/08 @ 3:40 PM MST
Dr. Ayad Allawi, the former interim Iraqi prime minister previously referred to even by US Congress members as a "Bush puppet," voiced his strong support for a US withdrawal timeline during a Wednesday Congressional hearing.
During his term in office, from June 2004 to April 2005, Allawi endorsed the US's controversial bombings of Fallujah and echoed Bush's speeches almost word for word in many of his own statements; The Washington Post reported that Bush administration officials coached Allawi on the content of his public comments. Prior to his involvement in the US-backed, post-invasion Iraqi government, Allawi worked with the CIA.
Yet, on Wednesday, Allawi blatantly called for "a time frame for reduction of US forces," a statement that stands in stark contrast to the hazy, deadline-less "time horizon" recently advocated by President Bush. Allawi stressed that the Iraqi people's wishes should take precedence in any agreement on the future of the American presence in Iraq.
During his term in office, from June 2004 to April 2005, Allawi endorsed the US's controversial bombings of Fallujah and echoed Bush's speeches almost word for word in many of his own statements; The Washington Post reported that Bush administration officials coached Allawi on the content of his public comments. Prior to his involvement in the US-backed, post-invasion Iraqi government, Allawi worked with the CIA.
Yet, on Wednesday, Allawi blatantly called for "a time frame for reduction of US forces," a statement that stands in stark contrast to the hazy, deadline-less "time horizon" recently advocated by President Bush. Allawi stressed that the Iraqi people's wishes should take precedence in any agreement on the future of the American presence in Iraq.
Craig Hawley
posted 7/25/08 @ 4:07 PM MST
Ah Max putting his two cents in and hyper linking Allawi. LOL!
Once again Max puts his faith in others besides the commanders on the ground and people like Capt. Hegseth.
Max is an anti American traitor and anyone that recognizes and reads his hyper linked posts will quickly see a pattern of hating anything America does and glorifying any terrorists.
He called Presidents of America Mass murderer's and denigrated American troops while at the same time calling terrorists some kind of glorified freedom fighters.
May I point out that Radical Islam is getting converts at the point of a gun and car bomb.
Exactly how are you a freedom fighter when your war is to enslave by force the planet under sharia law.
Max drink a big cup of SHUT THE F UP.
Move to a country where your freedom fighters dwell and join them. Then at least we can respect you before our troops annihilate you. LMAO!
Finally I want to say from an old Huey Crew Chief and Air Cav Member ( 2/10th ), to Captain Hegseth , THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE SIR.
It is people like you and others in our military that give me hope for our future.
Europe has swung to the conservative side in it's recent elections and we can only hope the U.S. does not negate those gains by electing the most Liberal member of the senate , with no experience to lead our country.
If Obama is elected and sits down without preconditions with state sponsors of terror , expect us to lose decades on the war on terror. It will be a green light to all who have a grievance that all you need to do to get a sit down and concessions and legitimacy from the President of the United States is to kill enough Americans through terror to force him to sit down with you.
Obama has made so many incredibly ignorant statements and flat out lies it is hard to believe anything he says.
We know that he was close friends and was mentored by Bigots and racists , yet he never realized who they were until ti was pointed out to him by the press and some tapes. What a load.
Couple that with Obama's Wife Michelle and their anti American books and writings from college while living in Ivy League bliss and you don't have to be a rocket scientist to see that he is elitist , racist , bigoted and so inexperienced as to be dangerous if elected.
What he has is Charisma, good looks , articulate , and somehow even though the man was keeping him down , he got an Ivy League education so he is not stupid.
He is what we in advertising used to call all sizzle and no steak.
The most telling thing I have seen on him that proves my point beyond the shadow of a doubt is a survey that I saw on Fox News I believe.
The questions were beyond simple. And they covered all demographics.
1: Why do you like Obama?
The answers to this question were right from the TV. Change you can believe in , he is new and fresh , he is gonna change the world , etc. .........
2: Can you name one accomplishment of Obama.
The answer to this question was just as predictable. One person in twenty thought he vaguely remembered some bill of Obamas back in Illinois.
That's right people. Out of twenty people of all colors and ages and sexes , one thought he knew something.
THE OTHER 19 DIDN'T KNOW ONE DAMN ACCOMPLISHMENT , BUT WERE RABID SUPPORTERS AND WERE SAYING THEY WOULD VOTE FOR HIM.
WAKE THE HELL UP AMERICA BEFORE IT IS TO LATE.
Once again Max puts his faith in others besides the commanders on the ground and people like Capt. Hegseth.
Max is an anti American traitor and anyone that recognizes and reads his hyper linked posts will quickly see a pattern of hating anything America does and glorifying any terrorists.
He called Presidents of America Mass murderer's and denigrated American troops while at the same time calling terrorists some kind of glorified freedom fighters.
May I point out that Radical Islam is getting converts at the point of a gun and car bomb.
Exactly how are you a freedom fighter when your war is to enslave by force the planet under sharia law.
Max drink a big cup of SHUT THE F UP.
Move to a country where your freedom fighters dwell and join them. Then at least we can respect you before our troops annihilate you. LMAO!
Finally I want to say from an old Huey Crew Chief and Air Cav Member ( 2/10th ), to Captain Hegseth , THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE SIR.
It is people like you and others in our military that give me hope for our future.
Europe has swung to the conservative side in it's recent elections and we can only hope the U.S. does not negate those gains by electing the most Liberal member of the senate , with no experience to lead our country.
If Obama is elected and sits down without preconditions with state sponsors of terror , expect us to lose decades on the war on terror. It will be a green light to all who have a grievance that all you need to do to get a sit down and concessions and legitimacy from the President of the United States is to kill enough Americans through terror to force him to sit down with you.
Obama has made so many incredibly ignorant statements and flat out lies it is hard to believe anything he says.
We know that he was close friends and was mentored by Bigots and racists , yet he never realized who they were until ti was pointed out to him by the press and some tapes. What a load.
Couple that with Obama's Wife Michelle and their anti American books and writings from college while living in Ivy League bliss and you don't have to be a rocket scientist to see that he is elitist , racist , bigoted and so inexperienced as to be dangerous if elected.
What he has is Charisma, good looks , articulate , and somehow even though the man was keeping him down , he got an Ivy League education so he is not stupid.
He is what we in advertising used to call all sizzle and no steak.
The most telling thing I have seen on him that proves my point beyond the shadow of a doubt is a survey that I saw on Fox News I believe.
The questions were beyond simple. And they covered all demographics.
1: Why do you like Obama?
The answers to this question were right from the TV. Change you can believe in , he is new and fresh , he is gonna change the world , etc. .........
2: Can you name one accomplishment of Obama.
The answer to this question was just as predictable. One person in twenty thought he vaguely remembered some bill of Obamas back in Illinois.
That's right people. Out of twenty people of all colors and ages and sexes , one thought he knew something.
THE OTHER 19 DIDN'T KNOW ONE DAMN ACCOMPLISHMENT , BUT WERE RABID SUPPORTERS AND WERE SAYING THEY WOULD VOTE FOR HIM.
WAKE THE HELL UP AMERICA BEFORE IT IS TO LATE.
Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain
posted 7/27/08 @ 11:04 AM MST
Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain was formed to dispel the myth of "Straight talkin", principled, maverick war hero" McCain. Through more than two decades of investigation of his behavior, through open-source documents, public statements of his colleagues, and personal conversations with other Vietnam POWs, we have come to the unavoidable conclusion that he is unfit by virtue of his temperament, character, dishonesty, and emotional instability to serve as President of the United States or in any other position of public trust.
U.S. media has created and sustained an overwhelmingly positive image of John McCain's character and his status as a "war hero." People who are willing to reveal the most damning facts which threaten these myths are largely ignored or heavily edited, and are most often treated in a "Kill the messenger" fashion. We have been forced to conclude that only by producing our own newspaper ads, radio and TV commercials can we expose the "real McCain" to the American people.
We have professional television directors, advertising consultants, and several national organizations who are working with us to launch this national media campaign.
We believe this media campaign has the potential to avert the very likely devastating consequences of a McCain presidency.
Even though it appears that McCain will have the required delegates entering the convention, we are going to do every thing possible to prevent that from happening. "Let the Rebellion Begin," visit www.republicanteaparty today and sign the "I will never vote for McCain" Pledge.
If you believe as we do that the future of our Republic could well hinge on bringing the runaway "Double Talk Express" to a grinding halt, please help sponsor the WHY? McCain ads - Donate Today!.
U.S. media has created and sustained an overwhelmingly positive image of John McCain's character and his status as a "war hero." People who are willing to reveal the most damning facts which threaten these myths are largely ignored or heavily edited, and are most often treated in a "Kill the messenger" fashion. We have been forced to conclude that only by producing our own newspaper ads, radio and TV commercials can we expose the "real McCain" to the American people.
We have professional television directors, advertising consultants, and several national organizations who are working with us to launch this national media campaign.
We believe this media campaign has the potential to avert the very likely devastating consequences of a McCain presidency.
Even though it appears that McCain will have the required delegates entering the convention, we are going to do every thing possible to prevent that from happening. "Let the Rebellion Begin," visit www.republicanteaparty today and sign the "I will never vote for McCain" Pledge.
If you believe as we do that the future of our Republic could well hinge on bringing the runaway "Double Talk Express" to a grinding halt, please help sponsor the WHY? McCain ads - Donate Today!.
ZERO evidence McCain was a traitor
posted 7/28/08 @ 11:20 AM MST
Why do they hate McCain? There can be lots of issues you disagree with him about. But why try to destroy him?
Because of the seriousness of the charge, the utter absence of any evidence and the clear intention to harm McCain, these slanderous charges are clearly the hateful lies from convicted felons.
Because of the seriousness of the charge, the utter absence of any evidence and the clear intention to harm McCain, these slanderous charges are clearly the hateful lies from convicted felons.
Leftist Dems (Posing as Republicans) Against McCain
posted 7/28/08 @ 1:53 PM MST
Just whom do you think you're going to fool with this idiot idea?
It's never going to get off the ground.
It's never going to get off the ground.
Originally posted by*Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain
Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain was formed to dispel the myth of "Straight talkin", principled, maverick war hero" McCain. Through more than two decades of investigation of his behavior, through open-source documents, public statements of his colleagues, and personal conversations with other Vietnam POWs, we have come to the unavoidable conclusion that he is unfit by virtue of his temperament, character, dishonesty, and emotional instability to serve as President of the United States or in any other position of public trust.
U.S. media has created and sustained an overwhelmingly positive image of John McCain's character and his status as a "war hero." People who are willing to reveal the most damning facts which threaten these myths are largely ignored or heavily edited, and are most often treated in a "Kill the messenger" fashion. We have been forced to conclude that only by producing our own newspaper ads, radio and TV commercials can we expose the "real McCain" to the American people.
We have professional television directors, advertising consultants, and several national organizations who are working with us to launch this national media campaign.
We believe this media campaign has the potential to avert the very likely devastating consequences of a McCain presidency.
Even though it appears that McCain will have the required delegates entering the convention, we are going to do every thing possible to prevent that from happening. "Let the Rebellion Begin," visit www.republicanteaparty today and sign the "I will never vote for McCain" Pledge.
If you believe as we do that the future of our Republic could well hinge on bringing the runaway "Double Talk Express" to a grinding halt, please help sponsor the WHY? McCain ads - Donate Today!.
evidence McCain was a traitor
posted 7/29/08 @ 12:11 PM MST
Ted Sampley, a Vietnam Veteran and former Green Beret, issued a CHALLENGE to John McCain "If you can show us that the information presented in our mailer is untruthful . . . we will Stand Down"
This CHALLENGE was issued during an interview with INSIDE EDITION on January 17, 2008.
This CHALLENGE was issued during an interview with INSIDE EDITION on January 17, 2008.
Craig Hawley
posted 7/27/08 @ 11:44 AM MST
Another over hyper linked post brought to you by Max the scumbag 911 lunatic idiotarian.
The group was formed to slime McCain for the left. Remember General, Betrayus Max. You were on that bandwagon to. The left assured us he was a Benedict Arnold and the surge would not work. Obama said so also.
Now the left praises the General and Obama said he always knew it would work , but he removed all mention of his previous words from his website. To bad we have his old words on tape.
He is a lying scumbag that just told the world he is a citizen of the world not the United States.
Faced with an opportunity to show us his so called love of country he abandoned us and America to kiss Globalist ass.
He is a traitor and a punk. He is an elitist , arrogant , bigoted , racist piece of trash along with his Racist American and white hating wife.
Anytime these truths are made evident the left sand Obama howl foul like girly men.
He says lay off my wife and kids but used them as campaign props. I think the press should lay off his wife , the second she shuts her mouth.
When you speak as a representative of a campaign you are fair game for the press.
It is pretty simple really. You can vote for the people that voted for the war and then when it went badly gave up and screamed defeat as loud as they could for political expedience , or you can vote for the people that changed the strategy and as Americans always have adapted and started winning.
You can vote for the man that promises to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by leaving Iraq no matter how the ground commanders say , or vote for the man that stood behind the surge when it was political suicide , and is responsible for winning and wants to leave when we are finished.
It is no accident that our sworn enemies like Hammas want Obama elected. They see him as a weal apologist that will give them the best chance for defeating us.
Only a complete idiot would vote for a person that people have have sworn to their god to destroy us want to win.
Looks like there are a lot of idiots on the left
The group was formed to slime McCain for the left. Remember General, Betrayus Max. You were on that bandwagon to. The left assured us he was a Benedict Arnold and the surge would not work. Obama said so also.
Now the left praises the General and Obama said he always knew it would work , but he removed all mention of his previous words from his website. To bad we have his old words on tape.
He is a lying scumbag that just told the world he is a citizen of the world not the United States.
Faced with an opportunity to show us his so called love of country he abandoned us and America to kiss Globalist ass.
He is a traitor and a punk. He is an elitist , arrogant , bigoted , racist piece of trash along with his Racist American and white hating wife.
Anytime these truths are made evident the left sand Obama howl foul like girly men.
He says lay off my wife and kids but used them as campaign props. I think the press should lay off his wife , the second she shuts her mouth.
When you speak as a representative of a campaign you are fair game for the press.
It is pretty simple really. You can vote for the people that voted for the war and then when it went badly gave up and screamed defeat as loud as they could for political expedience , or you can vote for the people that changed the strategy and as Americans always have adapted and started winning.
You can vote for the man that promises to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by leaving Iraq no matter how the ground commanders say , or vote for the man that stood behind the surge when it was political suicide , and is responsible for winning and wants to leave when we are finished.
It is no accident that our sworn enemies like Hammas want Obama elected. They see him as a weal apologist that will give them the best chance for defeating us.
Only a complete idiot would vote for a person that people have have sworn to their god to destroy us want to win.
Looks like there are a lot of idiots on the left
Craig Hawley / Tweedle-Dee of the dumbshit duo
posted 7/28/08 @ 9:13 AM MST
I am a proud member of the unhinged lunatic fringe who is quick to call you an unpatriotic traitor for speaking truth, because -- in the words of Jack Nickelson's character in "A Few Good Men" -- I can't handle the truth.
Originally posted byCraig Hawley
I am a scumbag lunatic idiotarian.
I am a lying scumbag.
I am a traitor and a punk. I am an elitist , arrogant , bigoted , racist piece of trash along with my Racist American hating wife.
Only a complete idiot would vote for a person that people have have sworn to their god to destroy us want to win.
Looks like there are a lot of idiots like me out there
Craig Hawley
posted 7/28/08 @ 2:42 PM MST
Yep iot is Max another favorite thing he likes to do. Take a post and alter it.
Thanks you max you hide behind your hyper link nick douchebag.
Looks like I got Max really mad. My day is made.
God I love making Max angry. It is just to easy.
LMAO!
We know it's you max. So have some guts and stop pretending to be your hyperlinked persona.
You blew it when you said you would never post here again and then lied to get back in and were exposed. Now a child can see your writing style and over use of hyperlinks since sockpuppuet taught you how.
Man you are like a middle school kid.
You could have saved face by never telling me your name Max was fake also and admitting what a paranoid freak you are.
Then you swear in writing never to post here again and do so under assumed names , something you said you never did , ( even thought when you made that statement you were using Max a fake name ), and destroy your credibility and marginalizing anything your lying butt says.
Come on Max grow a set use your real name and just talk without all the two year old spy drama.
Thanks you max you hide behind your hyper link nick douchebag.
Looks like I got Max really mad. My day is made.
God I love making Max angry. It is just to easy.
LMAO!
We know it's you max. So have some guts and stop pretending to be your hyperlinked persona.
You blew it when you said you would never post here again and then lied to get back in and were exposed. Now a child can see your writing style and over use of hyperlinks since sockpuppuet taught you how.
Man you are like a middle school kid.
You could have saved face by never telling me your name Max was fake also and admitting what a paranoid freak you are.
Then you swear in writing never to post here again and do so under assumed names , something you said you never did , ( even thought when you made that statement you were using Max a fake name ), and destroy your credibility and marginalizing anything your lying butt says.
Come on Max grow a set use your real name and just talk without all the two year old spy drama.
Originally posted byCraig Hawley
Another over hyper linked post brought to you by Max the scumbag 911 lunatic idiotarian.
The group was formed to slime McCain for the left. Remember General, Betrayus Max. You were on that bandwagon to. The left assured us he was a Benedict Arnold and the surge would not work. Obama said so also.
Now the left praises the General and Obama said he always knew it would work , but he removed all mention of his previous words from his website. To bad we have his old words on tape.
He is a lying scumbag that just told the world he is a citizen of the world not the United States.
Faced with an opportunity to show us his so called love of country he abandoned us and America to kiss Globalist ass.
He is a traitor and a punk. He is an elitist , arrogant , bigoted , racist piece of trash along with his Racist American and white hating wife.
Anytime these truths are made evident the left sand Obama howl foul like girly men.
He says lay off my wife and kids but used them as campaign props. I think the press should lay off his wife , the second she shuts her mouth.
When you speak as a representative of a campaign you are fair game for the press.
It is pretty simple really. You can vote for the people that voted for the war and then when it went badly gave up and screamed defeat as loud as they could for political expedience , or you can vote for the people that changed the strategy and as Americans always have adapted and started winning.
You can vote for the man that promises to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by leaving Iraq no matter how the ground commanders say , or vote for the man that stood behind the surge when it was political suicide , and is responsible for winning and wants to leave when we are finished.
It is no accident that our sworn enemies like Hammas want Obama elected. They see him as a weal apologist that will give them the best chance for defeating us.
Only a complete idiot would vote for a person that people have have sworn to their god to destroy us want to win.
Looks like there are a lot of idiots on the left
Chris Davis
posted 7/27/08 @ 2:02 PM MST
I hate to tell you this, Sean. You're just a punk with an opinion. You're not a reporter, let alone a national reporter. Please stick to local columns. I understand that would be tough. You'd actually have to pick up the phone and ask real, live human beings questions and stuff. It's easier spouting off about national politics. You can just piggy back off the work of other reporters, and plug in your half-baked pontifications about shit you kind of understand but not really. No grown-up really cares what an 18-year-old thinks about troop withdrawal timetables. Come on, Collegian scribes. Strap on the boots (or flip flops), hit the streets of Fort Collins, and goddammit do some journalism! You've been given the opportunity to have your words appear in a newspaper. A real one. Yes, it's one a college paper, but thousands of people read your words. Quit blowing it!
Chris Davis
CSU alum, Fort Collins resident
Chris Davis
CSU alum, Fort Collins resident
Craig Hawley
posted 7/27/08 @ 4:15 PM MST
Hey Chris I agree sometimes the Collegian blows assignments and stories , but somehow I doubt that calling him a punk is helpful.
Now I don't want to get into a fight with you , but could not one say that your just a punk Alum with an opinion.
I doubt calling you that made you feel like doing a better job of writing your post and I doubt you insulting him will garner the response you say you want.
So how about a little criticism without calling him a punk.
I'm just saying.......LOL
Now I don't want to get into a fight with you , but could not one say that your just a punk Alum with an opinion.
I doubt calling you that made you feel like doing a better job of writing your post and I doubt you insulting him will garner the response you say you want.
So how about a little criticism without calling him a punk.
I'm just saying.......LOL
Obama should not have apologized for Wright's comments
posted 7/28/08 @ 7:01 AM MST
Originally posted byOh, how soon we forget, Craig. Recall this is the same Sean Reed who zealously defended the noxious Rev. "G-D AmeriKKKa!" Wright (see above hyperlink).Craig Hawley
Craig opined: Hey Chris I agree sometimes the Collegian blows assignments and stories , but somehow I doubt that calling him a punk is helpful.
I generally agree with you, Craig. But merely identifying Sean as the "punk" he is (masquerading as a budding journalist) is entirely appropriate-- at least until his writing demonstrates some redeeming sign of intellectual maturity. This brand of insipid bloviating is merely refried pablum for the DailyKostard crowd-- unfit for College newspaper publication.
[Punk: n. ('pungk') Slang. 1. A young person, especially a member of a rebellious counterculture group. 2. An inexperienced young man.]
McCain should apologize for Hagee
posted 7/28/08 @ 9:54 AM MST
The equally fringe, radical and hateful (at least) Rev. John Hagee -- a white evangelical who is the pastor of a sprawling "mega-church" in Texas -- enthusiastically endorsed John McCain. Did McCain have to jump through the same hoops which Russert and others set up for Obama and "denounce" Hagee's extremism and "reject" his support? No; quite the opposite. McCain said he was "very honored" to receive this endorsement and, when asked about some of Hagee's more twisted views, responded: "all I can tell you is that I am very proud to have Pastor John Hagee's support."
In the framework of the Russert-led establishment press, white evangelical Christians are, by definition, entitled to great respect no matter how radical, extreme and hateful their professed views are. These are, after all, religious Christians -- People of Faith -- and, as such, it is wrong, even bigoted, to suggest that they should be repudiated. There is nothing ever radical, hateful or dangerous about the views of white evangelical Christians like Hagee.
Thus, white evangelical Ministers are free to advocate American wars based on Biblical mandates, rant hatefully against Islam, and argue that natural disasters occur because God hates gay people. They are still fit for good company, an important and cherished part of our mainstream American political system. The entire GOP establishment is permitted actively to lavish them with praise and court their support without the slightest backlash or controversy.
By contrast, black Muslim ministers like Farrakhan, or even black Christian ministers like Rev. Jeremiah Wright, are held with deep suspicion, even contempt. McCain is free to hug and praise the Rev. Hagees of the world, but Obama is required to prove over and over and over and over that he does not share the more extreme views of black Ministers.
In the framework of the Russert-led establishment press, white evangelical Christians are, by definition, entitled to great respect no matter how radical, extreme and hateful their professed views are. These are, after all, religious Christians -- People of Faith -- and, as such, it is wrong, even bigoted, to suggest that they should be repudiated. There is nothing ever radical, hateful or dangerous about the views of white evangelical Christians like Hagee.
Thus, white evangelical Ministers are free to advocate American wars based on Biblical mandates, rant hatefully against Islam, and argue that natural disasters occur because God hates gay people. They are still fit for good company, an important and cherished part of our mainstream American political system. The entire GOP establishment is permitted actively to lavish them with praise and court their support without the slightest backlash or controversy.
By contrast, black Muslim ministers like Farrakhan, or even black Christian ministers like Rev. Jeremiah Wright, are held with deep suspicion, even contempt. McCain is free to hug and praise the Rev. Hagees of the world, but Obama is required to prove over and over and over and over that he does not share the more extreme views of black Ministers.
Obamarama
posted 7/28/08 @ 10:33 AM MST
I guess it bears repeating for thick-skulled progressives...
Hagee did not marry John McCain to his wife.
Hagee did not baptize McCain's children.
Hagee did not damn America from the pulpit.
Hagee did not pantomime fornication from the pulpit.
McCain did not attend Hagee's church (ever).
McCain did not call Hagee his "spiritual mentor."
Hagee was not even McCain's pastor.
Hagee is merely a distant political ally. The qualities of that political relationship do not compare to those of a deep spiritual mentor.
So sure... Hagee's a whackjob. Yet it is monumentally illogical to try to equate Obama's close relationship with Wright to McCain's with Hagee once you objectively examine the facts.
Average folks are rightly wary of someone like Obama who willingly exposed himself to 20 years of Wright's noxious "liberation theology." They are not uncomfortable with someone who is merely politically astute, like McCain.
There are problems with McCain. But a McCain presidency would be less of mess than an Obama presidency. That doesn't make McCain a perfect presidential candidate. It does make McCain the best choice amongst flawed candidates.
Hagee did not marry John McCain to his wife.
Hagee did not baptize McCain's children.
Hagee did not damn America from the pulpit.
Hagee did not pantomime fornication from the pulpit.
McCain did not attend Hagee's church (ever).
McCain did not call Hagee his "spiritual mentor."
Hagee was not even McCain's pastor.
Hagee is merely a distant political ally. The qualities of that political relationship do not compare to those of a deep spiritual mentor.
So sure... Hagee's a whackjob. Yet it is monumentally illogical to try to equate Obama's close relationship with Wright to McCain's with Hagee once you objectively examine the facts.
Average folks are rightly wary of someone like Obama who willingly exposed himself to 20 years of Wright's noxious "liberation theology." They are not uncomfortable with someone who is merely politically astute, like McCain.
There are problems with McCain. But a McCain presidency would be less of mess than an Obama presidency. That doesn't make McCain a perfect presidential candidate. It does make McCain the best choice amongst flawed candidates.
McCain Pastor Problems
posted 7/28/08 @ 12:59 PM MST
McCain said he was "very honored" to receive Hagee's endorsement.
When asked about some of Hagee's more twisted views, responded: "all I can tell you is that I am very proud to have Pastor John Hagee's support."
Here is just a small sampling of the belief system of this welcomed McCain supporter:
* All Muslims are programmed to kill and we can thus never negotiate with any of them.
* God caused Hurricane Katrina to wipe out New Orleans because it had a gay pride parade the week before and was filled with sexual sin.
* The End Times -- Rapture -- is imminent and the U.S. Government must do what it can to hasten it, which at minimum requires: (a) a war with Iran and (b) undying, absolute support for a unified Israel, including all Occupied Territories
Hagee believes that "the president's support for Israel fulfills a biblical injunction to protect the Jewish state," which "will play a pivotal role in the second coming." These views are not unrelated to Hagee's support for McCain. Quite the contrary; Hagee cited McCain's so-called "pro-Israel views," his belligerence towards Iran, and his social conservatism as reasons for the endorsement. And in critical contrast to Obama and Farrakhan, McCain actually seems to share some of Hagee's more twisted views, as evidenced by McCain's joyful singing about dropping bombs on Iran.
When asked about some of Hagee's more twisted views, responded: "all I can tell you is that I am very proud to have Pastor John Hagee's support."
Here is just a small sampling of the belief system of this welcomed McCain supporter:
* All Muslims are programmed to kill and we can thus never negotiate with any of them.
* God caused Hurricane Katrina to wipe out New Orleans because it had a gay pride parade the week before and was filled with sexual sin.
* The End Times -- Rapture -- is imminent and the U.S. Government must do what it can to hasten it, which at minimum requires: (a) a war with Iran and (b) undying, absolute support for a unified Israel, including all Occupied Territories
Hagee believes that "the president's support for Israel fulfills a biblical injunction to protect the Jewish state," which "will play a pivotal role in the second coming." These views are not unrelated to Hagee's support for McCain. Quite the contrary; Hagee cited McCain's so-called "pro-Israel views," his belligerence towards Iran, and his social conservatism as reasons for the endorsement. And in critical contrast to Obama and Farrakhan, McCain actually seems to share some of Hagee's more twisted views, as evidenced by McCain's joyful singing about dropping bombs on Iran.
Rev Rod Parsley
posted 7/28/08 @ 1:02 PM MST
John McCain says Reverend Rod Parsley is his "spiritual guide."
Reverend Rod Parsley believes America was founded to destroy Islam. Since this is such an outlandish claim, I have to add for the record, that he is not kidding. Reverend Parsley says Islam is an "anti-Christ religion" brought down from a "demon spirit." Of course, we are in a war against all Muslims, including presumably Muslim-Americans. Buts since Parsley believes this is a Christian nation and that it should be run as a theocracy, he is not very concerned what Muslim-Americans think.
Reverend John Hagee has called the Catholic Church the "Great Whore." He has said that the Anti-Christ will rise out of the European Union (of course, the Anti-Christ will also be Jewish). He has said all Muslims are trained to kill and will be part of the devil's army when Armageddon comes (which he hopes is soon). John McCain continues to say he is proud of Reverend Hagee's endorsement.
What separates all of these outrageous preachers from Barack Obama's? You guessed it. They're white and Reverend Jeremiah Wright is not. If it's not racism that's causing the disparity in media treatment of these preachers, then what is it?
Reverend Rod Parsley believes America was founded to destroy Islam. Since this is such an outlandish claim, I have to add for the record, that he is not kidding. Reverend Parsley says Islam is an "anti-Christ religion" brought down from a "demon spirit." Of course, we are in a war against all Muslims, including presumably Muslim-Americans. Buts since Parsley believes this is a Christian nation and that it should be run as a theocracy, he is not very concerned what Muslim-Americans think.
Reverend John Hagee has called the Catholic Church the "Great Whore." He has said that the Anti-Christ will rise out of the European Union (of course, the Anti-Christ will also be Jewish). He has said all Muslims are trained to kill and will be part of the devil's army when Armageddon comes (which he hopes is soon). John McCain continues to say he is proud of Reverend Hagee's endorsement.
What separates all of these outrageous preachers from Barack Obama's? You guessed it. They're white and Reverend Jeremiah Wright is not. If it's not racism that's causing the disparity in media treatment of these preachers, then what is it?
Craig Hawley
posted 7/28/08 @ 1:09 PM MST
Hey Max read Obamarama below and then stop bringing up Hagee because you don't do Obama any favors by comparing apples to oranges. LOL!
Your sheep must have starved to death by now. LMAO!
Your sheep must have starved to death by now. LMAO!
Originally posted byCraig Hawley
Hey Chris I agree sometimes the Collegian blows assignments and stories , but somehow I doubt that calling him a punk is helpful.
Now I don't want to get into a fight with you , but could not one say that your just a punk Alum with an opinion.
I doubt calling you that made you feel like doing a better job of writing your post and I doubt you insulting him will garner the response you say you want.
So how about a little criticism without calling him a punk.
I'm just saying.......LOL
McCain would start WWIV
posted 7/28/08 @ 9:02 AM MST
A former White House national security adviser says if John McCain becomes the next US president the world will move toward World War IV.
Former US President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski criticized US officials in Senator McCain's camp for pushing the presumptive Republican nominee toward a radical foreign policy on issues such as Iran.
Brzezinski described McCain's presidency as an 'appalling concept' as it would lead to the World War IV, arguing that from the viewpoint of figures surrounding the Arizona senator the Cold War counted as World War III.
"Well, if McCain is president and if his Secretary of State is Joe Lieberman and his Secretary of Defense is [Rudolph] Giuliani, we will be moving towards the World War IV that they have been both favoring and predicting," Brzezinski cautioned.
Earlier in October 2007, President George W. Bush, who has endorsed John McCain, warned of the eruption of World War III should Iran continue uranium enrichment.
Former US President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski criticized US officials in Senator McCain's camp for pushing the presumptive Republican nominee toward a radical foreign policy on issues such as Iran.
Brzezinski described McCain's presidency as an 'appalling concept' as it would lead to the World War IV, arguing that from the viewpoint of figures surrounding the Arizona senator the Cold War counted as World War III.
"Well, if McCain is president and if his Secretary of State is Joe Lieberman and his Secretary of Defense is [Rudolph] Giuliani, we will be moving towards the World War IV that they have been both favoring and predicting," Brzezinski cautioned.
Earlier in October 2007, President George W. Bush, who has endorsed John McCain, warned of the eruption of World War III should Iran continue uranium enrichment.
World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism
posted 7/28/08 @ 10:02 AM MST
Always fun to see one of Jimmy Carter's hacks saying something idiotic for international consumption. As an added bonus, he's being quoted by the mouthpiece of the Iranian mullahcracy (PressTV)-- monsters who came to power during Zbigniew's watch.
Thanks to you, Zbigniew, these Islamo-fascists have been prosecuting WWIV on "the Great Satan" for over 30 years now. Nice of you to remind us.
Thanks to you, Zbigniew, these Islamo-fascists have been prosecuting WWIV on "the Great Satan" for over 30 years now. Nice of you to remind us.
Zbig: Obama foreign policy adviser = Jimmy Carter II
posted 7/28/08 @ 10:11 AM MST
What an idiot!
Naturally, Zbig's a top O-Bambi foreign policy adviser;
Naturally, Zbig's a top O-Bambi foreign policy adviser;
Originally posted byMcCain would start WWIV
Senator Obama is standing by one of his top foreign policy advisers, Zbigniew Brzezinski, despite concerns that aligning with the former aide to President Carter will undermine Mr. Obama's support with the pro-Israel community.
Mr. Brzezinski, who served as national security adviser in the Carter administration, introduced Mr. Obama before a major policy speech on Iraq yesterday in Iowa, where the Illinois senator praised his work on the Camp David Accords and called him "one of our most outstanding thinkers."
O-bambi's "new brain"
posted 7/28/08 @ 10:21 AM MST
LMAO! Last year this loser from the Carter-era was hailed in The Economist as Obama's "new brain." What happened to the old one? Certainly it's not worn out from use.
If this is the caliber of Obama's "advisers," America may well be lost, if McCain doesn't win.
Isn't this just the politics of FEAR that Leftists are always whining about?
If this is the caliber of Obama's "advisers," America may well be lost, if McCain doesn't win.
Isn't this just the politics of FEAR that Leftists are always whining about?
fearmongering McCain
posted 7/28/08 @ 1:30 PM MST
Supporters of Sen. John McCain seized upon comments about terrorism made by Sen. Barack Obama in an interview with ABC News Monday, saying his approving words about the prosecution of the 1993 World Trade Center bombings indicated a naïve, pre-9/11, and dangerous view of how to combat terrorism.
"Senator Obama is a perfect manifestation of a September 10th mindset," declared Randy Scheunemann, the McCain campaign's director of foreign policy and national security.
Obama said that he didn't oppose all the efforts per se, but that "it is my firm belief that we can track terrorists, we can crack down on threats against the United States, but we can do so within the constraints of our Constitution."
"We voted for war against al Qaeda," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. "But Saddam Hussein and Iraq had nothing to do with Al Qaeda, nothing to do with the attacks of 9/11. So this is a completely fraudulent, fear tactic, scare tactic, play to the lowest common denominator strategy by John McCain and his colleagues."
"John McCain is Washington's biggest supporter of the worst policy decision of our generation," Kerry said of McCain's support for the Iraq War. "He has failed to learn the lessons of 9/11. We are paying for that failure today. He is the candidate of the Iraq war mindset. A mindset that completely misunderstands and dangerously underestimates the threats of the 21st century, of war-fighting and terror."
"Senator Obama is a perfect manifestation of a September 10th mindset," declared Randy Scheunemann, the McCain campaign's director of foreign policy and national security.
Obama said that he didn't oppose all the efforts per se, but that "it is my firm belief that we can track terrorists, we can crack down on threats against the United States, but we can do so within the constraints of our Constitution."
"We voted for war against al Qaeda," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. "But Saddam Hussein and Iraq had nothing to do with Al Qaeda, nothing to do with the attacks of 9/11. So this is a completely fraudulent, fear tactic, scare tactic, play to the lowest common denominator strategy by John McCain and his colleagues."
"John McCain is Washington's biggest supporter of the worst policy decision of our generation," Kerry said of McCain's support for the Iraq War. "He has failed to learn the lessons of 9/11. We are paying for that failure today. He is the candidate of the Iraq war mindset. A mindset that completely misunderstands and dangerously underestimates the threats of the 21st century, of war-fighting and terror."
Originally posted byO-bambi's "new brain"
Isn't this just the politics of FEAR that Leftists are always whining about?
Craig Hawley
posted 7/28/08 @ 3:00 PM MST
Thank God someone is using fear with regards to Obama.
This man said the surge would never work militarily. He said he would sit down with state sponsors of terror and people who are right now killing American troops.
Let me spell that out for you. Obama said if he was President he would still be fighting in Afghanistan. He then said he would sit down with Ahmadinejad without preconditions.
Iran has been and is training fighters deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are killing Americans with identified Iranian weaponry.
So Obama would sit down and talk to a man that is killing our soldiers and not even ask him to stop killing out troops first.
This would guarantee us being seen as weak pussy's by the Islamic Radical world. They would then be emboldened to do more of the same ten fold as it had obviously worked in forcing the American President to come to them with his hat in his hand while they continued to kill our sons and daughters.
Wonder if Obama would feel the same with his two daughters in the military in Afghanistan like my Step Son is right now.
Your damned right I am scared of Obama and any one with half a brain should be.
F Obama. he is a traitor committing treasonous acts and making treasonous statements that could kill my family.
Any person with any intellect knows that long ago Israel and others had ten times the terror. Why.
They negotiated with terrorists and this encouraged more. When they started taking the offensive and making it very costly to their enemies to use terror , the attacks lessened.
Any person even thinking about sitting down without preconditions with a terrorist should not be elected dog catcher let alone commander and Chief of our military.
It would be a slap in the face of every American killed in this war , and Barrack promises to do just that.
You can't love the troops like the left says they do and then call their greatest general Betrayus , or them murderers in haditha , or sit down with no preconditions with the man responsible for blowing up their comrades.
The biggest lie of the left is that they like the military. THEY HATE THE MILITARY AND WOULD LOVE TO DESTROY IT.
Remember we are stretched thin because Democrats and Clinton gutted the military.
If Liberals had won we would not have the Stealth Bomber or fighter crucial to military success on today's battlefield.
Many of the weapons systems we have that work today like Patriot missiles would not be here to use if Democrats won.
They oppose almost all things military and then run out in the flag to take credit for the success of said weapons systems.
Liberalism is a disease and needs to be excised from our society like a cancer.
Look at Europe in their last elections they swung to the right. Europe is having all kinds of problems with their Muslim populations they so Liberally accepted with open arms. The liberals did it and the people are turning to conservatives to fix it.
Islam is a creeping death sentence to all who allow it to flourish.
Stop it now or be prepared to live under an Islamic Caliphate and in a world that will make Nazi Germany look like a liberal paradise.
This man said the surge would never work militarily. He said he would sit down with state sponsors of terror and people who are right now killing American troops.
Let me spell that out for you. Obama said if he was President he would still be fighting in Afghanistan. He then said he would sit down with Ahmadinejad without preconditions.
Iran has been and is training fighters deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are killing Americans with identified Iranian weaponry.
So Obama would sit down and talk to a man that is killing our soldiers and not even ask him to stop killing out troops first.
This would guarantee us being seen as weak pussy's by the Islamic Radical world. They would then be emboldened to do more of the same ten fold as it had obviously worked in forcing the American President to come to them with his hat in his hand while they continued to kill our sons and daughters.
Wonder if Obama would feel the same with his two daughters in the military in Afghanistan like my Step Son is right now.
Your damned right I am scared of Obama and any one with half a brain should be.
F Obama. he is a traitor committing treasonous acts and making treasonous statements that could kill my family.
Any person with any intellect knows that long ago Israel and others had ten times the terror. Why.
They negotiated with terrorists and this encouraged more. When they started taking the offensive and making it very costly to their enemies to use terror , the attacks lessened.
Any person even thinking about sitting down without preconditions with a terrorist should not be elected dog catcher let alone commander and Chief of our military.
It would be a slap in the face of every American killed in this war , and Barrack promises to do just that.
You can't love the troops like the left says they do and then call their greatest general Betrayus , or them murderers in haditha , or sit down with no preconditions with the man responsible for blowing up their comrades.
The biggest lie of the left is that they like the military. THEY HATE THE MILITARY AND WOULD LOVE TO DESTROY IT.
Remember we are stretched thin because Democrats and Clinton gutted the military.
If Liberals had won we would not have the Stealth Bomber or fighter crucial to military success on today's battlefield.
Many of the weapons systems we have that work today like Patriot missiles would not be here to use if Democrats won.
They oppose almost all things military and then run out in the flag to take credit for the success of said weapons systems.
Liberalism is a disease and needs to be excised from our society like a cancer.
Look at Europe in their last elections they swung to the right. Europe is having all kinds of problems with their Muslim populations they so Liberally accepted with open arms. The liberals did it and the people are turning to conservatives to fix it.
Islam is a creeping death sentence to all who allow it to flourish.
Stop it now or be prepared to live under an Islamic Caliphate and in a world that will make Nazi Germany look like a liberal paradise.
Originally posted byO-bambi's "new brain"
LMAO! Last year this loser from the Carter-era was hailed in The Economist as Obama's "new brain." What happened to the old one? Certainly it's not worn out from use.
If this is the caliber of Obama's "advisers," America may well be lost, if McCain doesn't win.
Isn't this just the politics of FEAR that Leftists are always whining about?
Craig Hawley
posted 7/28/08 @ 1:29 PM MST
Jimmy Carter and those associated with him were some of the biggest failures in history.
Nice to see Obama surrounding himself with these morons.
Obama doesn't think he will fight WWIV , because he plans on turning America over to the world and making the planet a no borders Global entity.
Since everyone is so afraid of Obama and no one can criticize the black man I'll go ahead and do it.
Obama is a bold faced liar. If you read his wife and his writings from college you can see their racism even back then. As they sat in Ivy league schools they whined about whitey keeping them down and how crappy America was.
Then they make Wright ( he is not a reverend and I refuse to call him one out of respect for God ), their mentor , and spiritual adviser , for twenty years along with the white priest , and try to tell us that in twenty years they never heard or knew he was a racist American hating punk.
Bull F'ing Shiite.
I guess Billy Bob can now claim I was a member of the KKK for twenty years but I never saw any racism there. LMAO! What a load of crap.
And don't forget it was not just Wright spouting this crap and the p[parishioners sitting their aghast. These blacks were screaming like banshees and nodding their heads yes and dancing in the aisles to Wrights hate.
They looked just like all those moderate Muslims that were dancing and singing when the Towers got hit on 911.
Obama either is a Muslim who can't wait to get elected and give America to his brothers or he is just an ignorant kid with no clue what we are fighting.
Here is someone that does know and wrote a perfect description of the similarities of Islam and Nazi Germany.
I'll send a copy to Obama although I know his Liberal handlers would never let him read it.
I BELIEVE THE FOLLOWING IS A "MUST READ."
By Known author.
A man whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism.
"Very few people were true Nazis "he said," but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories."
We are told again and again by "experts" and "talking heads" that Islam is a religion of peace, and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace.
Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the specter of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam. The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history.
It is the fanatics who march.
It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide.
It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave.
It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honor kill.
It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque.
It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals.
The hard quantifiable fact is that the "peaceful majority" the "silent majority" is cowed and extraneous.
Communist Russia comprised Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant.
China's huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.
The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a War mongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel and bayonet.
And, who can forget Rwanda , which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were "peace loving"?
History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:
Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend from Germany , they will awake one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.
Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late.
As for us who watch it all unfold; we must pay attention to the only group that counts; the fanatics who threaten our way of life.
Lastly, at the risk of offending, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes this email without sending it on, we ourselves contribute to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand
So, extend yourself a bit and send this on and on and on!! Let us hope
that thousands, world wide, read this - think about it - and send it on.
Nice to see Obama surrounding himself with these morons.
Obama doesn't think he will fight WWIV , because he plans on turning America over to the world and making the planet a no borders Global entity.
Since everyone is so afraid of Obama and no one can criticize the black man I'll go ahead and do it.
Obama is a bold faced liar. If you read his wife and his writings from college you can see their racism even back then. As they sat in Ivy league schools they whined about whitey keeping them down and how crappy America was.
Then they make Wright ( he is not a reverend and I refuse to call him one out of respect for God ), their mentor , and spiritual adviser , for twenty years along with the white priest , and try to tell us that in twenty years they never heard or knew he was a racist American hating punk.
Bull F'ing Shiite.
I guess Billy Bob can now claim I was a member of the KKK for twenty years but I never saw any racism there. LMAO! What a load of crap.
And don't forget it was not just Wright spouting this crap and the p[parishioners sitting their aghast. These blacks were screaming like banshees and nodding their heads yes and dancing in the aisles to Wrights hate.
They looked just like all those moderate Muslims that were dancing and singing when the Towers got hit on 911.
Obama either is a Muslim who can't wait to get elected and give America to his brothers or he is just an ignorant kid with no clue what we are fighting.
Here is someone that does know and wrote a perfect description of the similarities of Islam and Nazi Germany.
I'll send a copy to Obama although I know his Liberal handlers would never let him read it.
I BELIEVE THE FOLLOWING IS A "MUST READ."
By Known author.
A man whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism.
"Very few people were true Nazis "he said," but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories."
We are told again and again by "experts" and "talking heads" that Islam is a religion of peace, and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace.
Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the specter of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam. The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history.
It is the fanatics who march.
It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide.
It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave.
It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honor kill.
It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque.
It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals.
The hard quantifiable fact is that the "peaceful majority" the "silent majority" is cowed and extraneous.
Communist Russia comprised Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant.
China's huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.
The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a War mongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel and bayonet.
And, who can forget Rwanda , which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were "peace loving"?
History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:
Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend from Germany , they will awake one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.
Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late.
As for us who watch it all unfold; we must pay attention to the only group that counts; the fanatics who threaten our way of life.
Lastly, at the risk of offending, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes this email without sending it on, we ourselves contribute to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand
So, extend yourself a bit and send this on and on and on!! Let us hope
that thousands, world wide, read this - think about it - and send it on.
Holocaust McCain
posted 7/28/08 @ 1:36 PM MST
In an interview with CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric to be broadcast Wednesday night, McCain said, "This is part of a calculated plan-developing nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. And nations led by all of our European friends as well as other countries-we have to impose meaningful, tough, effective sanctions on the Iranians to modify their behavior. We cannot ever allow a second Holocaust."
McCain said Iran's missile tests "demonstrate again the dangers it poses to its neighbors and to the wider region, especially Israel."
"Ballistic missile testing coupled with Iran's continued refusal to cease its nuclear activities should unite the international community in efforts to counter Iran's dangerous ambitions," McCain said.
Obama, while calling Iran a threat, criticized the Bush administration for using bellicose language against the Iranian government while increasing exports to the country.
The Associated Press reported Tuesday that U.S. exports to Iran grew more than tenfold under President Bush in spite of his criticism of its government as a sponsor of terrorism and warnings against any efforts to develop a nuclear weapon.
"It's that kind of mixed signal that has led to the kind of situation that we're in right now," Obama said on ABC's "Good Morning America."
"At this point, the report is unclear, it's still early," Obama said on CBS News' The Early Show. "What this underscores is the need for ... a clear policy that is putting the burden on Iran to change behavior. And frankly, we just have not been able to do that the last several years, partly because we're not engaged in direct diplomacy."
McCain said Iran's missile tests "demonstrate again the dangers it poses to its neighbors and to the wider region, especially Israel."
"Ballistic missile testing coupled with Iran's continued refusal to cease its nuclear activities should unite the international community in efforts to counter Iran's dangerous ambitions," McCain said.
Obama, while calling Iran a threat, criticized the Bush administration for using bellicose language against the Iranian government while increasing exports to the country.
The Associated Press reported Tuesday that U.S. exports to Iran grew more than tenfold under President Bush in spite of his criticism of its government as a sponsor of terrorism and warnings against any efforts to develop a nuclear weapon.
"It's that kind of mixed signal that has led to the kind of situation that we're in right now," Obama said on ABC's "Good Morning America."
"At this point, the report is unclear, it's still early," Obama said on CBS News' The Early Show. "What this underscores is the need for ... a clear policy that is putting the burden on Iran to change behavior. And frankly, we just have not been able to do that the last several years, partly because we're not engaged in direct diplomacy."
Originally posted byO-bambi's "new brain"
Isn't this just the politics of FEAR that Leftists are always whining about?
You Have Hit the Nail Right on the Head Here
posted 7/28/08 @ 1:42 PM MST
Originally posted byCraig Hawley
Jimmy Carter and those associated with him were some of the biggest failures in history.
Nice to see Obama surrounding himself with these morons.
Obama doesn't think he will fight WWIV , because he plans on turning America over to the world and making the planet a no borders Global entity.
*
Since everyone is so afraid of Obama and no one can criticize the black man I'll go ahead and do it.
Obama is a bold faced liar. If you read his wife and his writings from college you can see their racism even back then. As they sat in Ivy league schools they whined about whitey keeping them down and how crappy America was.
Then they make Wright ( he is not a reverend and I refuse to call him one out of respect for God ), their mentor , and spiritual adviser , for twenty years along with the white priest , and try to tell us that in twenty years they never heard or knew he was a racist American hating punk.
Bull F'ing Shiite.
I guess Billy Bob can now claim I was a member of the KKK for twenty years but I never saw any racism there. LMAO! What a load of crap.
And don't forget it was not just Wright spouting this crap and the p[parishioners sitting their aghast. These blacks were screaming like banshees and nodding their heads yes and dancing in the aisles to Wrights hate.
They looked just like all those moderate Muslims that were dancing and singing when the Towers got hit on 911.
Obama either is a Muslim who can't wait to get elected and give America to his brothers or he is just an ignorant kid with no clue what we are fighting.
Here is someone that does know and wrote a perfect description of the similarities of Islam and Nazi Germany.
I'll send a copy to Obama although I know his Liberal handlers would never let him read it.
I BELIEVE THE FOLLOWING IS A "MUST READ."
By Known author.
A man whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism.
"Very few people were true Nazis "he said," but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories."
We are told again and again by "experts" and "talking heads" that Islam is a religion of peace, and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace.
Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the specter of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam. The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history.
It is the fanatics who march.
It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide.
It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave.
It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honor kill.
It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque.
It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals.
The hard quantifiable fact is that the "peaceful majority" the "silent majority" is cowed and extraneous.
Communist Russia comprised Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant.
China's huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.
The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a War mongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel and bayonet.
And, who can forget Rwanda , which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were "peace loving"?
History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:
Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend from Germany , they will awake one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.
Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late.
As for us who watch it all unfold; we must pay attention to the only group that counts; the fanatics who threaten our way of life.
Lastly, at the risk of offending, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes this email without sending it on, we ourselves contribute to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand
So, extend yourself a bit and send this on and on and on!! Let us hope
that thousands, world wide, read this - think about it - and send it on.
**
Nail in her head
posted 7/28/08 @ 2:06 PM MST
Evelyn, your re-posting of Craig's message without comment fits into the category of spam. As such, no McCain Action Centers for you.
=======================
Wishing you could be a campaign surrogate, but don't have a national platform? Do you find blogging your own opinions tedious? Wish you could have someone tell you what to think during this political season? Well look no further than John McCain's new blog outreach!
That's right; the McCain camp wants to recruit online supporters and activists to serve as comment trolls. From their website:
"Help spread the word about John McCain on news and blog sites. Your efforts to help get the message out about John McCain's policies and plan for the future is one of the most valuable things you can do for this campaign....
"Select from the numerous web, blog and news sites listed here, go there, and make your opinions supporting John McCain known. Once you've commented on a post, video or news story, report the details of your comment by clicking the button below."
Now, don't worry if you've never heard of a blog, or never written a comment, or heck, even used a computer. Because not only does the campaign tell you on which blogs to comment -- Redstate for right-wingers, Daily Kos for progressives (sorry HuffPo fans, we didn't make the list) -- it will even tell you what to say! Just click on the Blog Interaction page for "Today's Talking Points."
Just look at today's gem, entitled "Time For Solutions:"
John McCain will put the national interest ahead of partisanship, he will work with anyone who sincerely wants to get this country moving again. If John McCain is elected President, the era of the permanent campaign will end. The era of problem solving will begin.
You might be thinking, "What's in it for me?" As a matter of fact, for every comment the McCain verifies, you will awarded McCain Action Center. Which is important, because in Fantasy Land 2013, those things will replace the dollar as American currency.
=======================
Wishing you could be a campaign surrogate, but don't have a national platform? Do you find blogging your own opinions tedious? Wish you could have someone tell you what to think during this political season? Well look no further than John McCain's new blog outreach!
That's right; the McCain camp wants to recruit online supporters and activists to serve as comment trolls. From their website:
"Help spread the word about John McCain on news and blog sites. Your efforts to help get the message out about John McCain's policies and plan for the future is one of the most valuable things you can do for this campaign....
"Select from the numerous web, blog and news sites listed here, go there, and make your opinions supporting John McCain known. Once you've commented on a post, video or news story, report the details of your comment by clicking the button below."
Now, don't worry if you've never heard of a blog, or never written a comment, or heck, even used a computer. Because not only does the campaign tell you on which blogs to comment -- Redstate for right-wingers, Daily Kos for progressives (sorry HuffPo fans, we didn't make the list) -- it will even tell you what to say! Just click on the Blog Interaction page for "Today's Talking Points."
Just look at today's gem, entitled "Time For Solutions:"
John McCain will put the national interest ahead of partisanship, he will work with anyone who sincerely wants to get this country moving again. If John McCain is elected President, the era of the permanent campaign will end. The era of problem solving will begin.
You might be thinking, "What's in it for me?" As a matter of fact, for every comment the McCain verifies, you will awarded McCain Action Center. Which is important, because in Fantasy Land 2013, those things will replace the dollar as American currency.
Craig Hawley
posted 7/28/08 @ 2:33 PM MST
Would you like me to play the clip of Obama not to long ago saying Iran was not a serious threat.
Thank you for pointing out he now says they are a threat.
Your the best person on McCains team Max. LMAO!
Keep them coming and we can make sure Obama never gets elected.
One other point. If Obama is elected the checks and balance of government will be gone.
Do you really want Harry Reid , Nancy Pelosi and Obama running the country with no checks on them.
HELL NO
Thank you for pointing out he now says they are a threat.
Your the best person on McCains team Max. LMAO!
Keep them coming and we can make sure Obama never gets elected.
One other point. If Obama is elected the checks and balance of government will be gone.
Do you really want Harry Reid , Nancy Pelosi and Obama running the country with no checks on them.
HELL NO
Originally posted byCraig Hawley
Jimmy Carter and those associated with him were some of the biggest failures in history.
Nice to see Obama surrounding himself with these morons.
Obama doesn't think he will fight WWIV , because he plans on turning America over to the world and making the planet a no borders Global entity.
Since everyone is so afraid of Obama and no one can criticize the black man I'll go ahead and do it.
Obama is a bold faced liar. If you read his wife and his writings from college you can see their racism even back then. As they sat in Ivy league schools they whined about whitey keeping them down and how crappy America was.
Then they make Wright ( he is not a reverend and I refuse to call him one out of respect for God ), their mentor , and spiritual adviser , for twenty years along with the white priest , and try to tell us that in twenty years they never heard or knew he was a racist American hating punk.
Bull F'ing Shiite.
I guess Billy Bob can now claim I was a member of the KKK for twenty years but I never saw any racism there. LMAO! What a load of crap.
And don't forget it was not just Wright spouting this crap and the p[parishioners sitting their aghast. These blacks were screaming like banshees and nodding their heads yes and dancing in the aisles to Wrights hate.
They looked just like all those moderate Muslims that were dancing and singing when the Towers got hit on 911.
Obama either is a Muslim who can't wait to get elected and give America to his brothers or he is just an ignorant kid with no clue what we are fighting.
Here is someone that does know and wrote a perfect description of the similarities of Islam and Nazi Germany.
I'll send a copy to Obama although I know his Liberal handlers would never let him read it.
I BELIEVE THE FOLLOWING IS A "MUST READ."
By Known author.
A man whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism.
"Very few people were true Nazis "he said," but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories."
We are told again and again by "experts" and "talking heads" that Islam is a religion of peace, and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace.
Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the specter of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam. The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history.
It is the fanatics who march.
It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide.
It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave.
It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honor kill.
It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque.
It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals.
The hard quantifiable fact is that the "peaceful majority" the "silent majority" is cowed and extraneous.
Communist Russia comprised Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant.
China's huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.
The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a War mongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel and bayonet.
And, who can forget Rwanda , which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were "peace loving"?
History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:
Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend from Germany , they will awake one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.
Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late.
As for us who watch it all unfold; we must pay attention to the only group that counts; the fanatics who threaten our way of life.
Lastly, at the risk of offending, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes this email without sending it on, we ourselves contribute to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand
So, extend yourself a bit and send this on and on and on!! Let us hope
that thousands, world wide, read this - think about it - and send it on.
My Name Isn't Evelyn
posted 7/28/08 @ 4:39 PM MST
That's a pen name, dimwit. You really don't get who you're dealing with, obviously.
No I didn't re-post someone else's article without comment, my comment was that he had hit the nail right on the head. Apparently you found the unfamiliar format of my comment quite confusing. (See, your lack of college is a lot more significant than you'd like to admit.)
My agreement with his commentary was rather mild and non-confrontational. But I love the way it inspired you to such hostility that you immediately resort to an allusion to violence.
Such overreaction is so very revealing about you and your insecurities, you have no idea.
We're having quite a laugh here at your expense this afternoon, thanks.
No I didn't re-post someone else's article without comment, my comment was that he had hit the nail right on the head. Apparently you found the unfamiliar format of my comment quite confusing. (See, your lack of college is a lot more significant than you'd like to admit.)
My agreement with his commentary was rather mild and non-confrontational. But I love the way it inspired you to such hostility that you immediately resort to an allusion to violence.
Such overreaction is so very revealing about you and your insecurities, you have no idea.
We're having quite a laugh here at your expense this afternoon, thanks.
Lawyers for McCain with nails in their heads
posted 7/29/08 @ 11:20 AM MST
Evelyn, Evelyn, Evelyn, *tsk*, *tsk*, *tsk*,
If, as you say, "Evelyn" isn't your name and is just a pen name, then it is you who has proven herself a dimwit, because nevertheless it is *YOUR* pen name. Own it. And don't get cranky when others address you with it, particularly when this very forum exposes it.
Explain exactly how "Nail In Her Head" is an allusion to violence. Where is the violent action verb there? Having a nail lodged in your head is a statement of condition, explains your limited mental faculties, and that the proper McCain Action Center form for you is "Americans with Disabilities for McCain."
Having a rusty nail in your head says nothing about how it got there, like possibly you becoming a too exuberant in your nose picking or ear wax removal or teeth cleaning with said fastener and poking it too far into your orifice. Self-inflicted stupidity.
"Such overreaction is so very revealing about you and your insecurities, you have no idea."
I think you're just a wee-bit upset that you were flagged for spamming this list with an unedited re-post and for not writing anything meaningful (except your alias).
And with the McCain Action Center discovery, I think that it is dawning on us all who we're dealing with, and it tain't no "Registered Independent", that's fer sure, you McCainSpace Cadet, you.
When you signed up for Lawyers for McCain, what did you put down for:
City:
Law School Attended:
Year Completed J.D.:
State Bar Admissions:
Area of practice:
Nature of Practice:
Gov't/Political/Campaign Experience:
If, as you say, "Evelyn" isn't your name and is just a pen name, then it is you who has proven herself a dimwit, because nevertheless it is *YOUR* pen name. Own it. And don't get cranky when others address you with it, particularly when this very forum exposes it.
Explain exactly how "Nail In Her Head" is an allusion to violence. Where is the violent action verb there? Having a nail lodged in your head is a statement of condition, explains your limited mental faculties, and that the proper McCain Action Center form for you is "Americans with Disabilities for McCain."
Having a rusty nail in your head says nothing about how it got there, like possibly you becoming a too exuberant in your nose picking or ear wax removal or teeth cleaning with said fastener and poking it too far into your orifice. Self-inflicted stupidity.
"Such overreaction is so very revealing about you and your insecurities, you have no idea."
I think you're just a wee-bit upset that you were flagged for spamming this list with an unedited re-post and for not writing anything meaningful (except your alias).
And with the McCain Action Center discovery, I think that it is dawning on us all who we're dealing with, and it tain't no "Registered Independent", that's fer sure, you McCainSpace Cadet, you.
When you signed up for Lawyers for McCain, what did you put down for:
City:
Law School Attended:
Year Completed J.D.:
State Bar Admissions:
Area of practice:
Nature of Practice:
Gov't/Political/Campaign Experience:
Originally posted byMy Name Isn't Evelyn
That's a pen name, dimwit. You really don't get who you're dealing with, obviously.
No I didn't re-post someone else's article without comment, my comment was that he had hit the nail right on the head. Apparently you found the unfamiliar format of my comment quite confusing. (See, your lack of college is a lot more significant than you'd like to admit.)
My agreement with his commentary was rather mild and non-confrontational. But I love the way it inspired you to such hostility that you immediately resort to an allusion to violence.
Such overreaction is so very revealing about you and your insecurities, you have no idea.
Craig Hawley
posted 7/28/08 @ 5:17 PM MST
Well said Evelyn, lol
Max lives in a world of conspiracy theories and shadows. He is much like Mel Gibson Character in the movie , except none of his theories has turned real.
Of course in his mind they all are real.
I am sure he sees black helicopters behind every cloud.
Gotta feel sorry for a guy who obviously has no life or friends , and who after months of ranting has not convinced one person to come over to his side of the argument.
I just hope he doesn't end up being one of these frustrated people that snaps and goes on some rampage.
With his vitriol I can certainly see that happening as he gets more and more enraged because thinking people will not buy his lunacy.
Anyway well said again
Max lives in a world of conspiracy theories and shadows. He is much like Mel Gibson Character in the movie , except none of his theories has turned real.
Of course in his mind they all are real.
I am sure he sees black helicopters behind every cloud.
Gotta feel sorry for a guy who obviously has no life or friends , and who after months of ranting has not convinced one person to come over to his side of the argument.
I just hope he doesn't end up being one of these frustrated people that snaps and goes on some rampage.
With his vitriol I can certainly see that happening as he gets more and more enraged because thinking people will not buy his lunacy.
Anyway well said again
Jim Hightower
posted 7/29/08 @ 9:32 AM MST
Poor George. Poor John. Hoist on their own petards.
Bush and McCain have become brothers in arms on the questions of continuing America's occupation of Iraq, jointly sneering at Barack Obama's pledge to withdraw our troops within 16 months of his taking office. Bush had derided Obama's plan as an appeasement of terrorists, and McCain snapped that proposals to withdraw amount to "surrender." We must stay the course,they shout, with McCain insisting that keeping our forces there for a hundred years "would be fine with me."
The only out that George and John have allowed is if the Iraqi government itself said it was time for us to go. Thinking this prospect was impossible, Bush had declared that if the Iraqis "were to say, 'leave,' we'll leave." McCain parroted the same disingenuous line, saying that if Iraq's elected leaders ask us to withdraw, "I think it's obvious that we would have to leave."
Oops. Twice this month, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has done the "impossible," demanding "a timetable" from Bush for "terminating the foreign presence on Iraqi lands and restoring full sovereignty." Maliki added pointedly that he thinks Obama's proposal of 16 months "would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal."
Frantic, the Bushites tried to claim that Maliki's remarks had been misinterpreted by the magazine that published them – but the magazine produced a recording of the interview, and Maliki's message was clear. McCain, who has based his campaign on his support of Bush's war, has now tried to downplay the desires of Iraq's own government. A top McCain official sniffed that voters care about America's leaders, "not about Iraqi leaders."
I think receiving an invitation from the Iraqis to depart is a grand opportunity. Let's declare "mission accomplished," shake their hands, pack up, and head home.
Bush and McCain have become brothers in arms on the questions of continuing America's occupation of Iraq, jointly sneering at Barack Obama's pledge to withdraw our troops within 16 months of his taking office. Bush had derided Obama's plan as an appeasement of terrorists, and McCain snapped that proposals to withdraw amount to "surrender." We must stay the course,they shout, with McCain insisting that keeping our forces there for a hundred years "would be fine with me."
The only out that George and John have allowed is if the Iraqi government itself said it was time for us to go. Thinking this prospect was impossible, Bush had declared that if the Iraqis "were to say, 'leave,' we'll leave." McCain parroted the same disingenuous line, saying that if Iraq's elected leaders ask us to withdraw, "I think it's obvious that we would have to leave."
Oops. Twice this month, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has done the "impossible," demanding "a timetable" from Bush for "terminating the foreign presence on Iraqi lands and restoring full sovereignty." Maliki added pointedly that he thinks Obama's proposal of 16 months "would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal."
Frantic, the Bushites tried to claim that Maliki's remarks had been misinterpreted by the magazine that published them – but the magazine produced a recording of the interview, and Maliki's message was clear. McCain, who has based his campaign on his support of Bush's war, has now tried to downplay the desires of Iraq's own government. A top McCain official sniffed that voters care about America's leaders, "not about Iraqi leaders."
I think receiving an invitation from the Iraqis to depart is a grand opportunity. Let's declare "mission accomplished," shake their hands, pack up, and head home.
Craig Hawley
posted 7/29/08 @ 10:28 AM MST
Of course max only cares about foreign leaders and terrorists. Americans don't count to you.
You are a Globalist freak and every post you make substantiates that.
Seems Obama is the only one that still says the surge was wrong.
He said it would not work militarily and in fact would backfire militarily. Then he went and flip flopped , and lied and said he had always said the troops would do well.
Yet even though he now says he thought the surge would work he would still vote against it.
Then he goes on a fact finding tour of Europe and Iraq and Afghanistan and before leaving says the facts he finds won't do a damn thing to change his mind.
THEN WHY GO.
By the way this was a non political trip. LOL!
Name the senators that went with him. LOL!
How many of them were interviewed?
And of course we all know that the media is Liberally biased. The three anchors followed Obama and sucked his well you know.
And looks like America is finally waking from the Obama BS fog.
All this obvious media bias is backfiring with the American people.
McCain actually has a lead in the likely voters according to Gallup.
With the press in his pocket as his personal PR machine and ten times more coverage of him then McCain it is a dead heat.
He should be thirty points ahead.
The press tries to rig the election and all they get is a dead heat.
Thank you Americans for seeing this for what it is. An attempt by the left to rig an election.
You are a Globalist freak and every post you make substantiates that.
Seems Obama is the only one that still says the surge was wrong.
He said it would not work militarily and in fact would backfire militarily. Then he went and flip flopped , and lied and said he had always said the troops would do well.
Yet even though he now says he thought the surge would work he would still vote against it.
Then he goes on a fact finding tour of Europe and Iraq and Afghanistan and before leaving says the facts he finds won't do a damn thing to change his mind.
THEN WHY GO.
By the way this was a non political trip. LOL!
Name the senators that went with him. LOL!
How many of them were interviewed?
And of course we all know that the media is Liberally biased. The three anchors followed Obama and sucked his well you know.
And looks like America is finally waking from the Obama BS fog.
All this obvious media bias is backfiring with the American people.
McCain actually has a lead in the likely voters according to Gallup.
With the press in his pocket as his personal PR machine and ten times more coverage of him then McCain it is a dead heat.
He should be thirty points ahead.
The press tries to rig the election and all they get is a dead heat.
Thank you Americans for seeing this for what it is. An attempt by the left to rig an election.
Chuck hagel (R-Senator, Neb)
posted 7/29/08 @ 11:51 AM MST
McCain was pressed about his controversial comment last week that Obama would prefer to lose a war in order to win a campaign. McCain did not back away from the statement, though he said, "I'm not questioning his patriotism."
"I am saying that he made the decision [to support a rapid withdrawal from Iraq], which was political, in order to help him get the nomination of his party," McCain said.
McCain was criticized for his remarks by a prominent antiwar Republican, Sen. Chuck Hagel (Neb.).
"I think John is treading on some very thin ground here when he impugns motives, and when we start to get into, 'You're less patriotic than me,' " Hagel said.
Hagel and Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.),who traveled with Obama to Iraq and Afghanistan as part of a congressional delegation, appeared on CBS "Face the Nation."
Reed, who sits on the Senate Armed Forces Committee, agreed that Iraq has seen a "demonstrable reduction in violence. And one of the facts that contributed to that was the increase of our forces. ... That's a good thing."
Host Bob Schieffer asked Reed why Obama couldn't make so declarative a statement about the success of the troop buildup.
"I don't think his answer is much different than mine. He recognizes these political factors. I think he also recognizes that recently, particularly the prime minister, [Nouri al] Maliki, has taken some very decisive action on his own," Reed said.
"I am saying that he made the decision [to support a rapid withdrawal from Iraq], which was political, in order to help him get the nomination of his party," McCain said.
McCain was criticized for his remarks by a prominent antiwar Republican, Sen. Chuck Hagel (Neb.).
"I think John is treading on some very thin ground here when he impugns motives, and when we start to get into, 'You're less patriotic than me,' " Hagel said.
Hagel and Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.),who traveled with Obama to Iraq and Afghanistan as part of a congressional delegation, appeared on CBS "Face the Nation."
Reed, who sits on the Senate Armed Forces Committee, agreed that Iraq has seen a "demonstrable reduction in violence. And one of the facts that contributed to that was the increase of our forces. ... That's a good thing."
Host Bob Schieffer asked Reed why Obama couldn't make so declarative a statement about the success of the troop buildup.
"I don't think his answer is much different than mine. He recognizes these political factors. I think he also recognizes that recently, particularly the prime minister, [Nouri al] Maliki, has taken some very decisive action on his own," Reed said.
Originally posted byCraig Hawley
Then (Obama) goes on a fact finding tour of Europe and Iraq and Afghanistan and before leaving says the facts he finds won't do a damn thing to change his mind.
...
Name the senators that went with him. LOL!
How many of them were interviewed?
McCain Space Cadet
posted 7/29/08 @ 11:52 AM MST
Memo to Craig:
Stick to the McCain talking points linked above.
Don't make stupid arguments about the lack of checks and balances on Democratic Presidents Obama, Pelosi, or Reid, because afterall you were on the vanguard of those cheering their removal from Republican Presidents Bush, Cheney, and McCain. You can't have it both ways, idiot.
And how exactly, if elected, could Obama eliminate something that his predecessor already killed?
If having checks and balances on a President (and the government) were really an important issue, where were you during the Bush years when the very Constitution that defines them was being trampled on?
Stick to the McCain talking points linked above.
Don't make stupid arguments about the lack of checks and balances on Democratic Presidents Obama, Pelosi, or Reid, because afterall you were on the vanguard of those cheering their removal from Republican Presidents Bush, Cheney, and McCain. You can't have it both ways, idiot.
And how exactly, if elected, could Obama eliminate something that his predecessor already killed?
If having checks and balances on a President (and the government) were really an important issue, where were you during the Bush years when the very Constitution that defines them was being trampled on?
Originally posted byCraig Hawley
One other point. If Obama is elected the checks and balance of government will be gone.
Do you really want Harry Reid , Nancy Pelosi and Obama running the country with no checks on them.
HELL NO
Registered Independent
posted 7/29/08 @ 11:55 AM MST
All over the news this morning are the very latest Gallup Poll results: John McCain now leading by three or four percentage points among likely voters.
Looks like the novelty is beginning to wear off of the Dems new rock star, as people begin to see that he's just another politician.
Looks like the novelty is beginning to wear off of the Dems new rock star, as people begin to see that he's just another politician.
Greg Palast
posted 7/29/08 @ 12:15 PM MST
America is a nation of losers. It's the best thing about us. We're the dregs, what the rest of the world barfed up and threw on our shores.
John Kennedy said we are "a nation of immigrants." That's the sanitized phrase. We are, in fact, a nation of refugees, who, despite the bastards in white sheets and the know-nothings in Congress, have held open the Golden Door to a dark planet. We are not imperialists and that's why Bush lies and Cheney lies and, yes, the Clintons lied.
Winston Churchill didn't lie to the Brits about their empire: He said, These lands belong to the Crown, we own'm and we'll squeeze the value from them. "Imperialism," as Karl Marx complained, was a good word in Britain, a word that got you elected in Europe until too recently.
Ignore the fey university hideouts of Europe. Go to Vietnam or to Brazil or to Morocco or to Tibet and you'll find the same thing: America's music, America's freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom of spirit and the heartfelt friendship of Americans for others have made the USA truly "the light unto the nations." Americans are not liked worldwide, but loved-sometimes. I find that weird, but it's true-and that drives Osama to bombs and madness.
We are a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the cause that all men and women are created equal. It's silly and precious to point out that these ideals have been mangled, abused, ignored and monstered by those with plans to make us an empire. We know that.
America is indeed exceptional. That's not a boast, that's a job we have to do. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson burdened us with that exceptionalism in crafting the most important international law signed up until the Geneva Convention: The Alien Torts Act, in which the USA takes onto itself the right to bring civil penalties against any act of torture, political murder and piracy that occurs anywhere in the world. It is now being used in suits brought against Chevron Oil in Ecuador and against IBM for the death of slave laborers in Nazi Germany.
Damn right America is exceptional. It is America that defiantly walked out of the first "world trade organization," known as the British Empire, announcing, "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and are ENDOWED BY THE CREATOR with INALIENABLE rights, and AMONG THESE are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
Now, think about that. These rights don't come from Congress or Kings or Soviets, they come from The Creator, that is, we are born free-and "we" are Sri Lankans as much as Minnesotans. Our rights are "INALIENABLE": no one, NO ONE, may take them away, not the Ayatollahs of Tehran or Generalissimo Negroponte at the Department of Homeland Security or the kill-o-crats in Baghdad pre- or post- Saddam.
Will the snarling closet imperialists try to turn America from its cause and soul? Damn right they will. That's why two U.S. military lawyers resigned from their posts at the Guantánamo prison camp. They wouldn't put up with Bush-niks tearing up their Constitution. ("We the people" own it, not "them the Republicans.") In Iran, these two guys would have been shot, in Britain arrested. In America, Bush fears them-that their story would come out-as it did. Only in America could that happen.
No question, the USA holds itself exempt from the legal standards of this world-which are execrable. Whose standard should we adopt? China's torture standard? Britain's Secrecy Act as a standard? Switzerland's Nazi-money-protection standard?
Only in America would a Lyndon Johnson order federal troops to protect Black school kids' right to attend class. You don't have to tell me that Johnson then ordered the slaughter of three million Vietnamese-I know, I went to jail to oppose it. But go to Vietnam today and ask what people they most admire? Mention Russians, they laugh; mention Chinese, they may hit you; mention Americans and they say (to my astonishment, I'll admit), "We love Americans."
They don't love Bush. That's because George Bush is not an American. Look, I didn't think much of Bill Clinton, and he dropped into some of the worst quasi-imperial habits of the New World Trade Order. But Clinton was also more popular worldwide than the pope and pizza combined because he represented that American sense of giving- a-shit, empathy and sincere friendship which are hallmarks of America's Manifest Destiny.
Yes, America does have a Manifest Destiny-to Let Freedom Ring-which the evil and greedy and pernicious would twist into a grab for land and resources and ethnic cleansing. And so the Manifest Destiny of the journalists in our shitty little offices in New York and London is to expose these motherfuckers.
Ronald Reagan said, "America is the shining city on the hill." And he hated it, doing his best to turn it into a dark Calcutta of the helpless. And when that didn't work, George II tried to drown us in the Mississippi.
Go back to Taos, New Mexico, Voting Precinct 13. What you'll find there is Pueblo Native war veterans who raise the flag every day and will fight and die for it knowing full well that the fight must also be taken to the pueblo's racially biased voting booths.
Howard Zinn, a shining historian on our hill, reminds us, "It should be understood that the children of Iraq, of China, and of Africa, children everywhere in the world, have the same right to life as American children."
Damn right, they do. That's what Jefferson meant by "inalienable."
And they won't get their rights to life and liberty from Osama's Caliphate of oil states or China's money-crazed "Communism" nor half of Africa's neo-colonial presidential Draculas or the puppet princes installed today in Iraq by George Bush.
Bush is so far away from his refugee loser roots that he just doesn't get what it is to be American. So he steals the one thing that every American is handed off the boat: a chance. When they take away your Social Security and overtime and tell you sleeper cells are sleeping under your staircase, you don't take a chance, you lose your chance, and the land of opportunity becomes a landscape of fear and suspicion, an armed madhouse.
You want to say that George Bush is an evil sonovabitch? I'd go further: he's UN-AMERICAN.
And that's why he lost the election. TWICE.
John Kennedy said we are "a nation of immigrants." That's the sanitized phrase. We are, in fact, a nation of refugees, who, despite the bastards in white sheets and the know-nothings in Congress, have held open the Golden Door to a dark planet. We are not imperialists and that's why Bush lies and Cheney lies and, yes, the Clintons lied.
Winston Churchill didn't lie to the Brits about their empire: He said, These lands belong to the Crown, we own'm and we'll squeeze the value from them. "Imperialism," as Karl Marx complained, was a good word in Britain, a word that got you elected in Europe until too recently.
Ignore the fey university hideouts of Europe. Go to Vietnam or to Brazil or to Morocco or to Tibet and you'll find the same thing: America's music, America's freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom of spirit and the heartfelt friendship of Americans for others have made the USA truly "the light unto the nations." Americans are not liked worldwide, but loved-sometimes. I find that weird, but it's true-and that drives Osama to bombs and madness.
We are a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the cause that all men and women are created equal. It's silly and precious to point out that these ideals have been mangled, abused, ignored and monstered by those with plans to make us an empire. We know that.
America is indeed exceptional. That's not a boast, that's a job we have to do. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson burdened us with that exceptionalism in crafting the most important international law signed up until the Geneva Convention: The Alien Torts Act, in which the USA takes onto itself the right to bring civil penalties against any act of torture, political murder and piracy that occurs anywhere in the world. It is now being used in suits brought against Chevron Oil in Ecuador and against IBM for the death of slave laborers in Nazi Germany.
Damn right America is exceptional. It is America that defiantly walked out of the first "world trade organization," known as the British Empire, announcing, "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and are ENDOWED BY THE CREATOR with INALIENABLE rights, and AMONG THESE are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
Now, think about that. These rights don't come from Congress or Kings or Soviets, they come from The Creator, that is, we are born free-and "we" are Sri Lankans as much as Minnesotans. Our rights are "INALIENABLE": no one, NO ONE, may take them away, not the Ayatollahs of Tehran or Generalissimo Negroponte at the Department of Homeland Security or the kill-o-crats in Baghdad pre- or post- Saddam.
Will the snarling closet imperialists try to turn America from its cause and soul? Damn right they will. That's why two U.S. military lawyers resigned from their posts at the Guantánamo prison camp. They wouldn't put up with Bush-niks tearing up their Constitution. ("We the people" own it, not "them the Republicans.") In Iran, these two guys would have been shot, in Britain arrested. In America, Bush fears them-that their story would come out-as it did. Only in America could that happen.
No question, the USA holds itself exempt from the legal standards of this world-which are execrable. Whose standard should we adopt? China's torture standard? Britain's Secrecy Act as a standard? Switzerland's Nazi-money-protection standard?
Only in America would a Lyndon Johnson order federal troops to protect Black school kids' right to attend class. You don't have to tell me that Johnson then ordered the slaughter of three million Vietnamese-I know, I went to jail to oppose it. But go to Vietnam today and ask what people they most admire? Mention Russians, they laugh; mention Chinese, they may hit you; mention Americans and they say (to my astonishment, I'll admit), "We love Americans."
They don't love Bush. That's because George Bush is not an American. Look, I didn't think much of Bill Clinton, and he dropped into some of the worst quasi-imperial habits of the New World Trade Order. But Clinton was also more popular worldwide than the pope and pizza combined because he represented that American sense of giving- a-shit, empathy and sincere friendship which are hallmarks of America's Manifest Destiny.
Yes, America does have a Manifest Destiny-to Let Freedom Ring-which the evil and greedy and pernicious would twist into a grab for land and resources and ethnic cleansing. And so the Manifest Destiny of the journalists in our shitty little offices in New York and London is to expose these motherfuckers.
Ronald Reagan said, "America is the shining city on the hill." And he hated it, doing his best to turn it into a dark Calcutta of the helpless. And when that didn't work, George II tried to drown us in the Mississippi.
Go back to Taos, New Mexico, Voting Precinct 13. What you'll find there is Pueblo Native war veterans who raise the flag every day and will fight and die for it knowing full well that the fight must also be taken to the pueblo's racially biased voting booths.
Howard Zinn, a shining historian on our hill, reminds us, "It should be understood that the children of Iraq, of China, and of Africa, children everywhere in the world, have the same right to life as American children."
Damn right, they do. That's what Jefferson meant by "inalienable."
And they won't get their rights to life and liberty from Osama's Caliphate of oil states or China's money-crazed "Communism" nor half of Africa's neo-colonial presidential Draculas or the puppet princes installed today in Iraq by George Bush.
Bush is so far away from his refugee loser roots that he just doesn't get what it is to be American. So he steals the one thing that every American is handed off the boat: a chance. When they take away your Social Security and overtime and tell you sleeper cells are sleeping under your staircase, you don't take a chance, you lose your chance, and the land of opportunity becomes a landscape of fear and suspicion, an armed madhouse.
You want to say that George Bush is an evil sonovabitch? I'd go further: he's UN-AMERICAN.
And that's why he lost the election. TWICE.
Craig Hawley
posted 7/29/08 @ 12:57 PM MST
Very funny reading Greg.
Just reverse about everything you said and it becomes truth.
I can sum your post up in one sentence.
Another flaming Liberal who has not gotten past the fact that Bush won and he lost.
Really Pathetic.
You need to go see a shrink about your unresolved issues of losing two elections.
In this country we have courts where things are decided not in your twisted mind.
The courts decided against you and that is it , it is done you fool.
Do you really want me to go back to the Democrats and Liberals trying to not count the Military ballots because they knew they would go to Bush.
That happened to.
So please stop your whining little sour grapes rant against republicans and conservatives.
It just makes you look stupid.
Even Liberals and Democrats acknowledge Reagan as a great President. And you trash him also.
I was taught in college that most arguments that are completely one sided like yours are usually false.
I will give you bitter.
You are like the Japaneses soldier who refuses to accept WWII is over and he lost.
So close your eyes and click those ruby slippers together and keep repeating we won, we won , we won......
ROFLMAO
Just reverse about everything you said and it becomes truth.
I can sum your post up in one sentence.
Another flaming Liberal who has not gotten past the fact that Bush won and he lost.
Really Pathetic.
You need to go see a shrink about your unresolved issues of losing two elections.
In this country we have courts where things are decided not in your twisted mind.
The courts decided against you and that is it , it is done you fool.
Do you really want me to go back to the Democrats and Liberals trying to not count the Military ballots because they knew they would go to Bush.
That happened to.
So please stop your whining little sour grapes rant against republicans and conservatives.
It just makes you look stupid.
Even Liberals and Democrats acknowledge Reagan as a great President. And you trash him also.
I was taught in college that most arguments that are completely one sided like yours are usually false.
I will give you bitter.
You are like the Japaneses soldier who refuses to accept WWII is over and he lost.
So close your eyes and click those ruby slippers together and keep repeating we won, we won , we won......
ROFLMAO
Greg Palast (from 2004)
posted 7/29/08 @ 4:26 PM MST
I know you don't want to hear it. You can't face one more hung chad. But I don't have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it's my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry.
Most voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. At 1:05 a.m. Wednesday morning, CNN's exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent. The exit polls were later combined with -- and therefore contaminated by -- the tabulated results, ultimately becoming a mirror of the apparent actual vote. Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio's male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state.
So what's going on here? Answer: the exit polls are accurate. Pollsters ask, "Who did you vote for?" Unfortunately, they don't ask the crucial, question, "Was your vote counted?" The voters don't know.
Here's why. Although the exit polls show that most voters in Ohio punched cards for Kerry-Edwards, thousands of these votes were simply not recorded. This was predictable and it was predicted. [See, "An Election Spoiled Rotten," November 1.]
Once again, at the heart of the Ohio uncounted vote game are, I'm sorry to report, hanging chads and pregnant chads, plus some other ballot tricks old and new.
The election in Ohio was not decided by the voters but by something called "spoilage." Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of the vote is voided, just thrown away, not recorded. When the bobble-head boobs on the tube tell you Ohio or any state was won by 51 percent to 49 percent, don't you believe it... it has never happened in the United States, because the total never reaches a neat 100 percent. The television totals simply subtract out the spoiled vote.
Whose Votes Are Discarded?
And not all votes spoil equally. Most of those votes, say every official report, come from African-American and minority precincts.
We saw this in Florida in 2000. Exit polls showed Gore with a plurality of at least 50,000, but it didn't match the official count. That's because the official, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, excluded 179,855 spoiled votes. In Florida, as in Ohio, most of these votes lost were cast on punch cards where the hole wasn't punched through completely -- leaving a 'hanging chad,' -- or was punched extra times. Whose cards were discarded? Expert statisticians investigating spoilage for the government calculated that 54 percent of the ballots thrown in the dumpster were cast by black folks.
And here's the key: Florida is terribly typical. The majority of ballots thrown out (there will be nearly 2 million tossed out from Tuesday's election) will have been cast by African American and other minority citizens.
============
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, "Armed Madhouse" (Penguin Paperback 2007). When Palast, anfreezefromreel.jpg investigator of corporate fraud and racketeering, turned his skills to journalism, he was quickly recognized as, "The most important investigative reporter of our time" [Tribune Magazine] in Britain, where his first reports appeared on BBC television and in the Guardian newspapers.
Author of another New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy- Palast is best known in his native USA as the journalist who, for the Observer (UK), broke the story of how Jeb Bush purged thousands of Black Florida citizens from voter rolls before the 2000 election, thereby handing the White House to his brother George. His reports on the theft of election 2004, the spike of the FBI investigations of the bin Ladens before September 11, the secret State Department documents planning the seizure of Iraq's oil fields have won him a record six "Project Censored" for reporting the news American media doesn't want you to hear. "The top investigative journalist in the United States is persona non grata in his own country's media." [Asia Times.] He returned to America to report for Harper's Magazine.
Most voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. At 1:05 a.m. Wednesday morning, CNN's exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent. The exit polls were later combined with -- and therefore contaminated by -- the tabulated results, ultimately becoming a mirror of the apparent actual vote. Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio's male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state.
So what's going on here? Answer: the exit polls are accurate. Pollsters ask, "Who did you vote for?" Unfortunately, they don't ask the crucial, question, "Was your vote counted?" The voters don't know.
Here's why. Although the exit polls show that most voters in Ohio punched cards for Kerry-Edwards, thousands of these votes were simply not recorded. This was predictable and it was predicted. [See, "An Election Spoiled Rotten," November 1.]
Once again, at the heart of the Ohio uncounted vote game are, I'm sorry to report, hanging chads and pregnant chads, plus some other ballot tricks old and new.
The election in Ohio was not decided by the voters but by something called "spoilage." Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of the vote is voided, just thrown away, not recorded. When the bobble-head boobs on the tube tell you Ohio or any state was won by 51 percent to 49 percent, don't you believe it... it has never happened in the United States, because the total never reaches a neat 100 percent. The television totals simply subtract out the spoiled vote.
Whose Votes Are Discarded?
And not all votes spoil equally. Most of those votes, say every official report, come from African-American and minority precincts.
We saw this in Florida in 2000. Exit polls showed Gore with a plurality of at least 50,000, but it didn't match the official count. That's because the official, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, excluded 179,855 spoiled votes. In Florida, as in Ohio, most of these votes lost were cast on punch cards where the hole wasn't punched through completely -- leaving a 'hanging chad,' -- or was punched extra times. Whose cards were discarded? Expert statisticians investigating spoilage for the government calculated that 54 percent of the ballots thrown in the dumpster were cast by black folks.
And here's the key: Florida is terribly typical. The majority of ballots thrown out (there will be nearly 2 million tossed out from Tuesday's election) will have been cast by African American and other minority citizens.
============
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, "Armed Madhouse" (Penguin Paperback 2007). When Palast, anfreezefromreel.jpg investigator of corporate fraud and racketeering, turned his skills to journalism, he was quickly recognized as, "The most important investigative reporter of our time" [Tribune Magazine] in Britain, where his first reports appeared on BBC television and in the Guardian newspapers.
Author of another New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy- Palast is best known in his native USA as the journalist who, for the Observer (UK), broke the story of how Jeb Bush purged thousands of Black Florida citizens from voter rolls before the 2000 election, thereby handing the White House to his brother George. His reports on the theft of election 2004, the spike of the FBI investigations of the bin Ladens before September 11, the secret State Department documents planning the seizure of Iraq's oil fields have won him a record six "Project Censored" for reporting the news American media doesn't want you to hear. "The top investigative journalist in the United States is persona non grata in his own country's media." [Asia Times.] He returned to America to report for Harper's Magazine.
Greg Palast
posted 7/29/08 @ 4:32 PM MST
Are they going to Steal 2008? Don't worry: it's already stolen. But you can steal it back. Ted Rall and I have teamed up for one of the first ever series of hard-edged investigative journalism - in 'toon form. Steal this strip ... and pass it on: VOTE THEFT FOR IDIOTS - PART 1
Greg Palast
posted 7/29/08 @ 4:34 PM MST
Greg Palast and Ted Rall for the second installment of 'Vote Theft for Idiots.'
Greg Palast
posted 7/29/08 @ 4:38 PM MST
"Obama Doesn't Sweat. He should." by Greg Palast
In swing-state Colorado, the Republican Secretary of State conducted the biggest purge of voters in history, dumping a fifth of all registrations. Guess their color.
In swing-state Florida, the state is refusing to accept about 85,000 new registrations from voter drives – overwhelming Black voters.
In swing state New Mexico, HALF of the Democrats of Mora, a dirt poor and overwhelmingly Hispanic county, found their registrations disappeared this year, courtesy of a Republican voting contractor.
In swing states Ohio and Nevada, new federal law is knocking out tens of thousands of voters who lost their homes to foreclosure.
My investigations partner spoke directly to Barack Obama about it. (When your partner is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., candidates take your phone call.) The cool, cool Senator Obama told Kennedy he was "concerned" about the integrity of the vote in the Southwest in particular.
He's concerned. I'm sweating.
It's time SOMEBODY raised the alarm about these missing voters; not to save Obama's candidacy – journalists should stay the heck away from partisan endorsements - but raise the alarm to save our sick democracy.
And that somebody is YOU. Joining with US, the Palast investigative team. Here's how:
We have been offered an astonishing opportunity to place the Kennedy-Palast investigative findings on a national, prime-time, major-network television broadcast. Plus, separately, we have an extraordinary offer to create a series of reports for national network radio.
But guess what? The networks will NOT PAY for our public service reports. We have to raise the start-up funds in the next two weeks to film it, record it and get it on the airwaves.
WE need YOU to fund the reports, DISSEMINATE the findings as we post the print, audio and video on the web– and ACT on it.
So, for only the second time this year, I am asking each one of you to make a tax deductible donation to the non-profit, non-partisan Palast Investigative Fund of $500, $150 or $100.
Progressives have complained for years of no opportunity to get the hard, cold sweaty truth on the air. Well, put your money where your heart and soul is.
Donate at least $500, I'll send you every book I've written and every film, signed.
Send $150 and I'll send you as a gift, a copy of John Ennis' film Free For All, the brilliant and funny film about the Theft of Ohio. AND I'll send you, signed, a copy of my book, Armed Madhouse, plus a copy of the BBC/Democracy Now film investigations, The Election Files and a copy of the spoken word CD Live from the Armed Madhouse all signed.
Donate $100, and I'll send you 3 copies, one signed to you, of "The Elections Files, " the best of our BBC/Democracy Now films – including special never-broadcast interviews with Kennedy and fired prosecutor David Iglesias.
I know you're ponying up for your favorite candidates. But what's the point of winning folks' votes IF NO ONE COUNTS THEM?
Please make your donation – today. No corporation, no big foundation, is going to take on this emergency in our democracy. The election's about to be stolen – for a third time. SO WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?
Donate today (for $1,000 minimum, we'll list you as a Producer of our next DVD, in gratitude). Why? Because the only way to get the vote-chewing cockroaches out of the voting machinery is to turn on the lights – tell the truth on them. On prime time.
After our team busted the story of Katherine Harris' attack on innocent Black voters as "felons," the NAACP sued and won back their rights. The truth CAN make the difference. Yes, we can. Indeed, we HAVE.
Think all votes should be counted in America? Then YOU stand up and be counted. Don't expect networks or commercial sponsors to pay for your democracy. Feed the truth, donate $100 right now and pass on a copy of the Elections Files to your dippy cousin who thinks Kerry lost fair and square.
Donations from our prior and only request already paid for some of our filming in the Southwest. Don't let this story be swept under the border.
If you want more information, go to GregPalast.com, or write me directly at GregPalast.com – and hit the button, "contact Greg."
Pass this on!
In swing-state Colorado, the Republican Secretary of State conducted the biggest purge of voters in history, dumping a fifth of all registrations. Guess their color.
In swing-state Florida, the state is refusing to accept about 85,000 new registrations from voter drives – overwhelming Black voters.
In swing state New Mexico, HALF of the Democrats of Mora, a dirt poor and overwhelmingly Hispanic county, found their registrations disappeared this year, courtesy of a Republican voting contractor.
In swing states Ohio and Nevada, new federal law is knocking out tens of thousands of voters who lost their homes to foreclosure.
My investigations partner spoke directly to Barack Obama about it. (When your partner is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., candidates take your phone call.) The cool, cool Senator Obama told Kennedy he was "concerned" about the integrity of the vote in the Southwest in particular.
He's concerned. I'm sweating.
It's time SOMEBODY raised the alarm about these missing voters; not to save Obama's candidacy – journalists should stay the heck away from partisan endorsements - but raise the alarm to save our sick democracy.
And that somebody is YOU. Joining with US, the Palast investigative team. Here's how:
We have been offered an astonishing opportunity to place the Kennedy-Palast investigative findings on a national, prime-time, major-network television broadcast. Plus, separately, we have an extraordinary offer to create a series of reports for national network radio.
But guess what? The networks will NOT PAY for our public service reports. We have to raise the start-up funds in the next two weeks to film it, record it and get it on the airwaves.
WE need YOU to fund the reports, DISSEMINATE the findings as we post the print, audio and video on the web– and ACT on it.
So, for only the second time this year, I am asking each one of you to make a tax deductible donation to the non-profit, non-partisan Palast Investigative Fund of $500, $150 or $100.
Progressives have complained for years of no opportunity to get the hard, cold sweaty truth on the air. Well, put your money where your heart and soul is.
Donate at least $500, I'll send you every book I've written and every film, signed.
Send $150 and I'll send you as a gift, a copy of John Ennis' film Free For All, the brilliant and funny film about the Theft of Ohio. AND I'll send you, signed, a copy of my book, Armed Madhouse, plus a copy of the BBC/Democracy Now film investigations, The Election Files and a copy of the spoken word CD Live from the Armed Madhouse all signed.
Donate $100, and I'll send you 3 copies, one signed to you, of "The Elections Files, " the best of our BBC/Democracy Now films – including special never-broadcast interviews with Kennedy and fired prosecutor David Iglesias.
I know you're ponying up for your favorite candidates. But what's the point of winning folks' votes IF NO ONE COUNTS THEM?
Please make your donation – today. No corporation, no big foundation, is going to take on this emergency in our democracy. The election's about to be stolen – for a third time. SO WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?
Donate today (for $1,000 minimum, we'll list you as a Producer of our next DVD, in gratitude). Why? Because the only way to get the vote-chewing cockroaches out of the voting machinery is to turn on the lights – tell the truth on them. On prime time.
After our team busted the story of Katherine Harris' attack on innocent Black voters as "felons," the NAACP sued and won back their rights. The truth CAN make the difference. Yes, we can. Indeed, we HAVE.
Think all votes should be counted in America? Then YOU stand up and be counted. Don't expect networks or commercial sponsors to pay for your democracy. Feed the truth, donate $100 right now and pass on a copy of the Elections Files to your dippy cousin who thinks Kerry lost fair and square.
Donations from our prior and only request already paid for some of our filming in the Southwest. Don't let this story be swept under the border.
If you want more information, go to GregPalast.com, or write me directly at GregPalast.com – and hit the button, "contact Greg."
Pass this on!
Ted Rall smears Pat Tillman
posted 7/30/08 @ 7:15 AM MST
[Figures Max admires the likes of Ted Rall.]
This anti-American bile is run-of-the-mill for Rall, who is perhaps the most extreme left-wing commentator to be given regular media access. Rall believes Bill Clinton's pathetic "retaliation" for the 1998 bombing of two U.S. embassies – in which Clinton lobbed a missile into an empty tent he believed once contained Osama bin Laden – was a case of "excessive military power and arrogance." In Iraq, he advises we "Cut and Run Now." Recycling enemy propaganda like Jane Fonda in Hanoi, he writes, "Sooner or later, one way or another, we're leaving – as defeated and bankrupt and demoralized as we were when we fled Saigon. The only question now is: how many more people are we going to kill before we cut and run?"
This anti-American bile is run-of-the-mill for Rall, who is perhaps the most extreme left-wing commentator to be given regular media access. Rall believes Bill Clinton's pathetic "retaliation" for the 1998 bombing of two U.S. embassies – in which Clinton lobbed a missile into an empty tent he believed once contained Osama bin Laden – was a case of "excessive military power and arrogance." In Iraq, he advises we "Cut and Run Now." Recycling enemy propaganda like Jane Fonda in Hanoi, he writes, "Sooner or later, one way or another, we're leaving – as defeated and bankrupt and demoralized as we were when we fled Saigon. The only question now is: how many more people are we going to kill before we cut and run?"
Ted Rall dossier
posted 7/30/08 @ 7:25 AM MST
Rall's only intellectual calling card is his uncanny ability to confront human tragedy with shallow partisanship and base callousness. Rall slandered Pat Tillman, the NFL star who turned down a multi-million dollar contract to serve (and ultimately, die) in Afghanistan. Rall derided Tillman as an "idiot."
Rall has made a tidy living demeaning the deceased. He berated the victims of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre and their families as Nazis, while apologizing for the two neo-Nazi murderers who perpetrated it. However, he found his greatest notoriety not long after 9/11, when he portrayed that tragedy's widows as money-grubbing media hounds in his cartoon "Terror Widows."
In other words, Ted Rall is a total scumbag... just like Max.
Rall has made a tidy living demeaning the deceased. He berated the victims of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre and their families as Nazis, while apologizing for the two neo-Nazi murderers who perpetrated it. However, he found his greatest notoriety not long after 9/11, when he portrayed that tragedy's widows as money-grubbing media hounds in his cartoon "Terror Widows."
In other words, Ted Rall is a total scumbag... just like Max.
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Anti-Fact Consensus
posted 7/24/08 @ 5:46 PM MST
It's gotten harder as the success of the surge has become undeniable, but -- despite some wobbles -- Obama is sticking to his plan for a 16-month timeline for withdrawal from Iraq. He musters dishonesty, evasion and straw-grasping to try to create a patina of respectability around a scandalously unserious position.
Obama spokesmen now say everyone knew that President Bush's troop surge would create more security. This is blatantly false. Obama said in early 2007 that nothing in the surge plan would "make a significant dent in the sectarian violence," and the new strategy would "not prove to be one that changes the dynamics significantly." He referred to the surge derisively as "baby-sit(ting) a civil war."
Now that the civil war has all but ended, he wants to claim retroactive clairvoyance. In a New York Times op-ed laying out his position, Obama credits the heroism of our troops and new tactics with bringing down the violence. Our troops have always been heroic; what made the difference was the surge strategy that Obama lacked the military judgment -- or political courage -- to support.
In his oped, Obama states that "the same factors that led me to oppose the surge still hold true," citing the strain on the military, the deterioration in Afghanistan and the fiscal drain. All of those are important, but pale compared with the achievement in Iraq -- beating back al-Qaida and Iranian-backed militias, and restoring a semblance of order to a country on the verge of a collapse from which only our enemies could have benefited.
Politically, Obama has to notionally support defeating al-Qaeda in Iraq, so even after he's executed his 16-month withdrawal, he says there will be a "residual force" of American troops to take on "remnants of al-Qaida." How can he be so sure there will only be "remnants"? If there are, it will be because the surge Obama opposed has pushed al-Qaeda to the brink. The more precipitously we withdraw our troops, the more likely al-Qaeda is to mount a comeback.
Obama treats as a vindication a recent statement by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki calling for a timeline for withdrawal of U.S. forces. But Maliki, playing to his domestic politic audience, can't be taken at face value. Neither Maliki nor anyone around him talks of an unconditional 16-month timeline for withdrawal as being remotely plausible. His defense minister says Iraqis will be ready to handle internal security on their own in 2012 and external security by 2020.
The Iraqis most enthusiastic about Obama's plan surely are al-Qaeda members, Sadrists, Iranian agents and sectarian killers of every stripe. The prospect of an American president suddenly letting up on them has to be the best cause for hope they've had in months. Obama's withdrawal would immediately embolden every malign actor in Iraq, and increase their sway in Iraqi politics.
In his oped, Obama sticks to the badly dated contention that Iraqis "have not reached the political accommodation that was the stated purpose of the surge." In fact, roughly 15 of 18 political benchmarks have been met by the Iraqis -- progress Obama threatens to reverse.
Obama loves to say that we have to withdraw from Iraq "responsibly." There's nothing responsible about his plan. According to U.S. commanders on the ground, it may not even be logistically possible. Does Obama even care? He says that when he's elected he'd give the military a new mission -- to end the war. Conditions in Iraq, let alone winning, are marginalia.
There are two possible interpretations -- either Obama is dangerously sincere, or he's a cynical operator playing duplicitous politics with matters of war and peace. Watch this space.