Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Obama Speech - Teleprompter Goes Out
Here is a timeless classic that I just found, two days after posting my previous entry.
Monday, March 09, 2009
Obama Retains Another of Bush's Evil Dictatorial Powers
ITYS ... YA:
Supreme Court urged to drop enemy combatant case
Yahoo! News, Wed Mar 4, 6:00 pm ET
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration on Wednesday renewed its request that the Supreme Court ... not rule on whether a president can indefinitely detain terror suspects in the United States. ... [Click here to read the rest.]
Aw, but it's completely okay if Obama does this sort of thing, because, unlike Larry Moe Curly Soprano-Bush, Obama is civilized and sophisticated and liberal. Right? Evil isn't evil if the leaders committing it are civilized and sophisticated and liberal and supposedly photogenic and supposedly charismatic and supposedly intellectual.
And it doesn't hurt if they are also able to read meaningless rhetoric off of a teleprompter in a supposedly appealing, mesmerizing and inspiring manner.
Oh, and the perpetrators of these evil-for-the-sake-of-good acts must only be members of the U.S. federal government (or members of American law enforcement agencies, or members of foreign governments that have the U.S. government's temporary blessing), because U.S. leaders are the duly self-appointed "good guys"; and the duly self-appointed "good guys" are always allowed to commit evil acts if they are spun as "good causes." Besides, they have been trained (by their very own agencies, mind you) to know "the difference" between "justifiable" and unjustifiable evil far better than anyone outside the U.S. government could ever hope to grasp "the difference."
Yep, that's "hope" and "change," all right. If only I had known that Obama wasn't using those words in the same sense(s) that the dictionary defines them, I might not have been so skeptical about him during the presidential campaign. Well..., Actually, I would have, because every carefully selected presidential candidate is merely a temporary PR manager for a permanently entrenched power elite (aka unelected bureaucracy) that never changes its policies.
Great Question
"All the hardcore, Jim Jones kool-aid drinking Obama supporters never really cared about ending the wars. They just wanted a Democrat to micromanage them. Obama has made it abundantly clear his policies are no different than Bush's. So why then, did all these Obamabots hate Bush so much?" ••• JesseKantstopolis, who wrote it as a comment on this excellent YouTube video on March 4, 2009.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Driving Over the Cliff
By Paul Craig Roberts
CounterPunch
...To whose agenda is President Obama being hitched? Writing in the English language version of the Swiss newspaper, Zeit-Fragen, Stephen J. Sniegoski reports that leading figures of the neocon conspiracy--Richard Perle, Max Boot, David Brooks, and Mona Charen--are ecstatic over Obama’s appointments. They don’t see any difference between Obama and Bush/Cheney.
Not only are Obama’s appointments moving him into an expanded war in Afghanistan, but the powerful Israel Lobby is pushing Obama toward a war with Iran.
The unreality in which he US government operates is beyond belief. A bankrupt government that cannot pay its bills without printing money is rushing headlong into wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. According to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Analysis, the cost to the US taxpayers of sending a single soldier to fight in Afghanistan or Iraq is $775,000 per year!
Obama’s war in Afghanistan is the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. After seven years of conflict, there is still no defined mission or endgame scenario for US forces in Afghanistan. When asked about the mission, a US military official told NBC News, “Frankly, we don’t have one.” NBC reports: “they’re working on it.”
Speaking to House Democrats on February 5, President Obama admitted that the US government does not know what its mission is in Afghanistan and that to avoid “mission creep without clear parameters,” the US “needs a clear mission.”
How would you like to be sent to a war, the point of which no one knows, including the commander-in-chief who sent you to kill or be killed? How, fellow taxpayers, do you like paying the enormous cost of sending soldiers on an undefined mission while the economy collapses?
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. [Read the rest here.]
CounterPunch
...To whose agenda is President Obama being hitched? Writing in the English language version of the Swiss newspaper, Zeit-Fragen, Stephen J. Sniegoski reports that leading figures of the neocon conspiracy--Richard Perle, Max Boot, David Brooks, and Mona Charen--are ecstatic over Obama’s appointments. They don’t see any difference between Obama and Bush/Cheney.
Not only are Obama’s appointments moving him into an expanded war in Afghanistan, but the powerful Israel Lobby is pushing Obama toward a war with Iran.
The unreality in which he US government operates is beyond belief. A bankrupt government that cannot pay its bills without printing money is rushing headlong into wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. According to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Analysis, the cost to the US taxpayers of sending a single soldier to fight in Afghanistan or Iraq is $775,000 per year!
Obama’s war in Afghanistan is the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. After seven years of conflict, there is still no defined mission or endgame scenario for US forces in Afghanistan. When asked about the mission, a US military official told NBC News, “Frankly, we don’t have one.” NBC reports: “they’re working on it.”
Speaking to House Democrats on February 5, President Obama admitted that the US government does not know what its mission is in Afghanistan and that to avoid “mission creep without clear parameters,” the US “needs a clear mission.”
How would you like to be sent to a war, the point of which no one knows, including the commander-in-chief who sent you to kill or be killed? How, fellow taxpayers, do you like paying the enormous cost of sending soldiers on an undefined mission while the economy collapses?
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. [Read the rest here.]
Obama's Justice Department backs Bush secrecy on renditions suit
Stephen C. Webster
Published: Monday February 9, 2009
RawStory.com
An attorney for President Obama's Department of Justice has told the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that it supports the Bush administration's controversial state secrets defense in a lawsuit over the prior president's "extraordinary rendition" program. [Read the rest here.]
Published: Monday February 9, 2009
RawStory.com
An attorney for President Obama's Department of Justice has told the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that it supports the Bush administration's controversial state secrets defense in a lawsuit over the prior president's "extraordinary rendition" program. [Read the rest here.]
Thursday, February 05, 2009
35 Inconvenient Truths
The errors in Al Gore’s movie.
Published by the Science and Public Policy Institute.
Click here to read those 35 inconvenient truths. People who are truly open minded (aka "interested in the truth, not political correctness," will have no fear of clicking that link (as well as the one below). I was entirely on Al Gore's side until I built up my courage and did my own investigating.
If that isn't enough for you, then watch this excellent documentary produced by Britain's Channel 4 Television: The Great Global Warming Swindle (not your typical "loony conspiracy-theorist" gang, eh?).
Obama, of course, is continuing the lie.
Published by the Science and Public Policy Institute.
Click here to read those 35 inconvenient truths. People who are truly open minded (aka "interested in the truth, not political correctness," will have no fear of clicking that link (as well as the one below). I was entirely on Al Gore's side until I built up my courage and did my own investigating.
If that isn't enough for you, then watch this excellent documentary produced by Britain's Channel 4 Television: The Great Global Warming Swindle (not your typical "loony conspiracy-theorist" gang, eh?).
Obama, of course, is continuing the lie.
Obama to Overthrow a U.S. Puppet?
Eric Margolis
Contributing foreign editor for Sun National Media Canada
February 3, 2009
Washington is rife with rumors that the Obama administration plans to dump the US-installed president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, and replace him by one of four CIA-groomed candidates. The problem is, three new stooges won’t be any better than one old stooge.
London is warning Washington both against a precipitous change of regime in Kabul that would be widely viewed as crass political manipulation. ...
Obama’s dismaying eagerness to expand the war demonstrates political inexperience and a faulty grasp of events in Afghanistan. ... The Afghan War will have to be ended by a political settlement that includes the Taliban-led nationalist alliance that represents over half of Afghanistan’s population, the Pashtun people. There is simply no purely military solution to this grinding conflict – as even the Secretary General of NATO admits.
But instead of diplomacy, the new administration elected to stick its head ever deeper into the Afghan hornet’s nest. The bill for an intensified war will likely reach $4 billion monthly by midyear at a time when the United States is bankrupt and running on borrowed money from China and Japan. ...
Why is President Obama, who came to power on an antiwar platform, committed to expanding a war where there are no vital US interests? Oil is certainly one reason. The proposed route for pipelines taking oil and gas from Central Asia to the Arabian Sea coast run right through Taliban-Pashtun territory. ...
The US and its allies cannot be seen to be defeated by a bunch of Afghan tribesmen. Coming after the epic defeat in Vietnam and the trillion-dollar fiasco in Iraq, defeat in Afghanistan is simply unthinkable to the military-industrial-petroleum-financial complex that still seems to be calling many of the shots in Washington. [Click here to read the rest.]
Contributing foreign editor for Sun National Media Canada
February 3, 2009
Washington is rife with rumors that the Obama administration plans to dump the US-installed president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, and replace him by one of four CIA-groomed candidates. The problem is, three new stooges won’t be any better than one old stooge.
London is warning Washington both against a precipitous change of regime in Kabul that would be widely viewed as crass political manipulation. ...
Obama’s dismaying eagerness to expand the war demonstrates political inexperience and a faulty grasp of events in Afghanistan. ... The Afghan War will have to be ended by a political settlement that includes the Taliban-led nationalist alliance that represents over half of Afghanistan’s population, the Pashtun people. There is simply no purely military solution to this grinding conflict – as even the Secretary General of NATO admits.
But instead of diplomacy, the new administration elected to stick its head ever deeper into the Afghan hornet’s nest. The bill for an intensified war will likely reach $4 billion monthly by midyear at a time when the United States is bankrupt and running on borrowed money from China and Japan. ...
Why is President Obama, who came to power on an antiwar platform, committed to expanding a war where there are no vital US interests? Oil is certainly one reason. The proposed route for pipelines taking oil and gas from Central Asia to the Arabian Sea coast run right through Taliban-Pashtun territory. ...
The US and its allies cannot be seen to be defeated by a bunch of Afghan tribesmen. Coming after the epic defeat in Vietnam and the trillion-dollar fiasco in Iraq, defeat in Afghanistan is simply unthinkable to the military-industrial-petroleum-financial complex that still seems to be calling many of the shots in Washington. [Click here to read the rest.]
Monday, February 02, 2009
Obama Continues Crime of CIA Rendition
The role of the CIA's controversial prisoner-transfer program may expand, intelligence experts say.
By Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times
February 1, 2009
Reporting from Washington -- The CIA's secret prisons are being shuttered. Harsh interrogation techniques are off-limits. And Guantanamo Bay will eventually go back to being a wind-swept naval base on the southeastern corner of Cuba.
But even while dismantling these programs, President Obama left intact an equally controversial counter-terrorism tool.
Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.
[Read the rest.]
By Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times
February 1, 2009
Reporting from Washington -- The CIA's secret prisons are being shuttered. Harsh interrogation techniques are off-limits. And Guantanamo Bay will eventually go back to being a wind-swept naval base on the southeastern corner of Cuba.
But even while dismantling these programs, President Obama left intact an equally controversial counter-terrorism tool.
Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.
[Read the rest.]
Friday, January 30, 2009
Already - Three Promises Broken (at the very least)
My own commentary follows the four news clips.
Palitone Press, January 25-30, 2009
For those of us who stand outside the pathetic sham that is American two-party politics and study it objectively, the future under the faux intellectual, Barack Obama, and his cabinet of warmongers is ENTIRELY predictable (almost as if we are reading directly from "the establishment's" game plan — which, basically, we are). But trying to point this out to Americans who unquestioningly believe in that sham is like trying to talk sense to members of a cult who are excessively arrogant and self-righteous due to their cult's long history and almost universal acceptance.
The first time you try to convince members of this cult to, at the very least, investigate objectively all cult leaders — including their favorite ones — in order to discover that they are all frauds, the "cultists" look at you with smiles (or frowns) of supreme condescension, as if you are either a harmless, but deluded, blasphemer or a potential nuisance. If you continue to try to convince them, they will become annoyed and ignore you. If you persist beyond that, they will become openly hostile and shut you out completely. No amount of rational debate or proof is going to convince them to doubt their favorite leaders or their own deeply ingrained, highly partisan perceptions of reality. To them, the phrase, "open-minded, scholarly investigation," is just a trick to get them to read the "loony, biased opinions of deluded fringe groups."
"Luckily," the newest cult leader (Obama) has already started to break his promises to his devoted cultists (even if they refuse to see it), as we tried to tell them he would. Severe disillusionment among his followers is predicted for the not-too-distant future. This I welcome, as disillusionment often leads to a recognition, once and for all, that American two-party politics is, indeed, a sham — a sinister sham.
Update: According to the January 26, 2009, edition of the London Daily Mail, Fifteen percent of Americans appear to have become disillusioned with Obama already. Contrary to what most Obama supporters may think, I think these people have given him more than a fair chance. He just blew it in record time. However, I realize that he has promises to keep to the sleazy establishment that put him in the presidency. Making promises to them is like making promises to the Mafia. You break them at your own risk. That is the sham that is two-party politics.
P.S. Of course, it is always possible (actually, highly probable) that millions of liberals will either deny, ignore and/or justify Obama's broken promises throughout his entire presidency, just as millions of fanatical conservatives continued to deny, ignore and/or justify Bush's actions throughout his entire presidency. As always, in such cases, the permanent beneficiary is our massive, increasingly Orwellian federal government, that continues to function like clockwork, regardless of party.
----------
Obama airstrikes kill 22 in Pakistan
The Sunday London Times, January 25, 2009
Islamabad is the first to get a taste of the president’s ‘tough love’ policy. ... The airstrikes were authorised under a covert programme approved by Obama, according to a senior US official.
----------
US pours cold water over hopes of Iran deal
The London Times, January 30, 2009
The White House warned Iran last night that military action is still one of its options despite the "hand of friendship" offered by President Obama.
----------
In America, Speaking the Truth is a Career-Ending Event
Counterpunch, January 26, 2009
Paul Craig Roberts
The Bush regime was a lawless regime. This makes it difficult for the Obama regime to be a lawful one. A torture inquiry would lead naturally into a war crimes inquiry. General Taguba said that the Bush regime committed war crimes. President Obama was a war criminal by his third day in office when he ordered illegal cross-border drone attacks on Pakistan that murdered 20 people, including 3 children. The bombing and strafing of homes and villages in Afghanistan by US forces and America's NATO puppets are also war crimes. Obama cannot enforce the law, because he himself has already violated it.
----------
I Told You So----------CounterPunch, January 23, 2009
By Ron Jacobs (retitled by MW of Palitone Press)
...Since he was elected, Mr. Obama has hedged on this promise [to bring the troops home from Iraq]. Since he was inaugurated, the Pentagon and its civilian boss, Robert Gates, have hedged even more. Now, they insist, US troops should remain. ... Even if Barack Obama overrides the Pentagon and Mr. Gates ... there will still be around fifty thousand US troops in Iraq. This is because Obama's call to bring all troops home from Iraq that began his campaign somehow morphed into a call to bring home only those troops determined to be "combat troops."
Palitone Press, January 25-30, 2009
For those of us who stand outside the pathetic sham that is American two-party politics and study it objectively, the future under the faux intellectual, Barack Obama, and his cabinet of warmongers is ENTIRELY predictable (almost as if we are reading directly from "the establishment's" game plan — which, basically, we are). But trying to point this out to Americans who unquestioningly believe in that sham is like trying to talk sense to members of a cult who are excessively arrogant and self-righteous due to their cult's long history and almost universal acceptance.
The first time you try to convince members of this cult to, at the very least, investigate objectively all cult leaders — including their favorite ones — in order to discover that they are all frauds, the "cultists" look at you with smiles (or frowns) of supreme condescension, as if you are either a harmless, but deluded, blasphemer or a potential nuisance. If you continue to try to convince them, they will become annoyed and ignore you. If you persist beyond that, they will become openly hostile and shut you out completely. No amount of rational debate or proof is going to convince them to doubt their favorite leaders or their own deeply ingrained, highly partisan perceptions of reality. To them, the phrase, "open-minded, scholarly investigation," is just a trick to get them to read the "loony, biased opinions of deluded fringe groups."
"Luckily," the newest cult leader (Obama) has already started to break his promises to his devoted cultists (even if they refuse to see it), as we tried to tell them he would. Severe disillusionment among his followers is predicted for the not-too-distant future. This I welcome, as disillusionment often leads to a recognition, once and for all, that American two-party politics is, indeed, a sham — a sinister sham.
Update: According to the January 26, 2009, edition of the London Daily Mail, Fifteen percent of Americans appear to have become disillusioned with Obama already. Contrary to what most Obama supporters may think, I think these people have given him more than a fair chance. He just blew it in record time. However, I realize that he has promises to keep to the sleazy establishment that put him in the presidency. Making promises to them is like making promises to the Mafia. You break them at your own risk. That is the sham that is two-party politics.
P.S. Of course, it is always possible (actually, highly probable) that millions of liberals will either deny, ignore and/or justify Obama's broken promises throughout his entire presidency, just as millions of fanatical conservatives continued to deny, ignore and/or justify Bush's actions throughout his entire presidency. As always, in such cases, the permanent beneficiary is our massive, increasingly Orwellian federal government, that continues to function like clockwork, regardless of party.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
The More Things "Change" ...
London Times OnlineUpdate 1 of 2, 8:38 AM, January 24, 2009:
January 23, 2009
President Obama 'orders Pakistan drone attacks'
Missiles fired from suspected US drones killed at least 15 people inside Pakistan today, the first such strikes since Barack Obama became president and a clear sign that the controversial military policy begun by George W. Bush has not changed. ... locals also said that three children lost their lives. [Read the rest.]
Obama Dips His Hands in BloodUpdate 2 of 2, 8:38 AM, January 24, 2009:
Posted by Lew Rockwell at 07:28 AM
Obama seemed like a decent guy, but as president, he has no hesitation in killing a group of people in Pakistan, including three little children. But what is murder in the private "sector is just public policy for the state, and Obama is head of state, so he wields his terrible, swift Predator on people he doesn't know, and of whom he knows nothing. During the campaign, he famously said that if missiles were endangering his daughters, he would "do anything" to stop them. Think anyone else feels the same way? (Via Antiwar.com)
I say: Obama "finally" has some innocent blood on his hands; and he even broke international law to accomplish it too. What an enlightened soul.
Of course, like most war criminals Obama can always say, "I was only following orders."
However, if he really believes that then he didn't need to run for president in the first place, because he knew what he was getting himself into. If he didn't know from the beginning, then it should have become abundantly clear by the time he was the sole remaining democratic presidential nominee.
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