Check The Diagonal

Punks jump up to get beat down

It’s interesting to watch a collective Republican response to the Christmas Day attack that is based purely on their fear and lack of faith in American fortitude.  This post from the White House is the exact way to handle the Dick Cheney Right these days.  They are the party of irrational hysteria and fear and should be spanked with impunity.

To put it simply: this President is not interested in bellicose rhetoric, he is focused on action. Seven years of bellicose rhetoric failed to reduce the threat from al Qaeda and succeeded in dividing this country. And it seems strangely off-key now, at a time when our country is under attack, for the architect of those policies to be attacking the President.

 

And

There are numerous other such public statements that explicitly state we are at war. The difference is this: President Obama doesn’t need to beat his chest to prove it, and – unlike the last Administration – we are not at war with a tactic (“terrorism”), we at war with something that is tangible: al Qaeda and its violent extremist allies. And we will prosecute that war as long as the American people are endangered.

The Chicago Way.  Watch and learn, Dick.

What a difference one year makes...

At Plunderbund, the impact and meaning of the “Captain Underpants” attack and President Obama’s change we can believe in.

There is no fear.  No panic.  No alarmism.  Not coming from this White House, not from any authorities, not from the passengers (who seem almost thrilled to be the heroes) and as a result, not even in the media.  Republicans started whining from minute one, and got more whiny the less the White House used their preferred language of belligerence.

Al Qaeda seems almost miffed that we aren’tpanicking.  I can’t really recall Al Qaeda so loudly and immediately claiming credit for any attack, not even 9/11.  And yet, they’ve done so here, praising testicle toaster as a failed martyr, making him a banner headline, because the American response isn’t giving them enough ink.

Anyone else noticing how closely aligned the American Neoconservative and Islamic extremist interests and responses are becoming?  The more Obama takes away both groups’ power of fear and hate over the American people the more apparent it becomes. Look no further than Pat Buchannan calling for the torture of the spoiled rich kid, testicle-less, failed underwear bomber.  He was telling us everything he knows before he got off the plane.  What is the use of torture at this point?  We know information obtained through torture is flawed and generally useless.  What Pat is really advocating for here is punishment.  The Neocons aren't interested in actionable intelligence, only the illusion of its possibility, what they really want is to hurt people, bad.

 

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Of course this humiliation of Al Qaeda will cause them to try even harder in the future and we should remain vigilant and expectant of additional attacks on American soil, but what a difference one year makes.  We’ve lost so much after being governed and controlled by the politics of hate and fear for 8 long years.  One year later, I like the look of the politics of hope and change so much better.

Dick Cheney's Richard Nixon moment

Dick Cheney was on Fox News this weekend working tirelessly to keep his sorry self out of a visit from the special prosecutor.  The man is clearly terrified of being called up under oath.  If there ever was a man who needed to be its Cheney.  Unfortunately, my bet is that it will never happen.

 Transcript here.

WALLACE: One specific question about Holder, the Obama administration -- you put out the statement saying that you were upset that President Obama allowed the attorney general to bring these cases. A top Obama official says, hey, maybe in the Bush White House they told the attorney general what to do, but Eric Holder makes independent decisions. 

CHENEY: Well, I think if you look at the Constitution, the president of the United States is the chief law enforcement officer in the land. The attorney general's a statutory officer. He's a member of the cabinet. 

Who's gonna save my soul...

I've just spent the better part of two evenings reading the CIA Inspector General Report and I'm not sure I feel like writing about this at all.  It is far worse than any movie or book I've ever read, and it is not fiction folks, this really happened.  America was once the country of "Truth, Justice and The American Way" but that is all long gone now.

I don't want to believe that my America is a country that would threaten to rape and kill a child or kill and torture innocent people but it is.

After reading, my very first thought was, where is Eric Holder?  The criminality lies with the Bush/Cheney Administration and the Bush Justice Department who re-wrote our constitution in pencil to serve their own personal vendetta against muslims worldwide.  If Holder and the Obama Justice Department do not prosecute, from the top, the people who authorized the torture it will be the second greatest travesty in American juris prudence right behind the actual authorization of the torture itself.

For those who are interested in a reading two great minds on the subject check out:

Andrew Sullivan:

This is what Bush and Cheney truly achieved in their tragic response to 9/11: two terribly failed, brutally expensive wars, the revival of sectarian warfare and genocide in the Middle East, the end of America's global moral authority, the empowerment of Iran's and North Korea's dictatorships, and the nightmares of Gitmo and Bagram still haunting the new administration.

But what they did to the culture - how they systematically dismantled core American values like the prohibition on torture and respect for the rule of law - is the worst and most enduring of the legacies.

Glenn Greenwald:

This all occurred because the officials at the highest levels of the U.S. Government pronounced that this was permissible, the protections of the Geneva Conventions were "quaint," obsolete and inapplicable, and the U.S. was justified in doing anything and everything in the name of fighting Terrorists.  As stomach-turning as these individual acts of sadism are, it is far worse to consider that only low-level interrogators will suffer consequences while those who were truly responsible -- the criminally depraved leaders and lawyers who ordered and authorized it -- will be protected.  

It is time for a special prosecutor.

If Obama and Holder refuse to prosecute the crimes of the Bush administration at the highest levels they will be betraying the trust Americans elected them to reinstate and crimes of this nature will become the status quo.

The Bush and Co. incompetence is staggering but not surprising.  We elected a President most people would like to have a beer with, not a brain trust.  The guy is an idiot, we know this.  The reticence by the Obama administration to enforce the laws of our country is what surprises me.  Clinton was special prosecuted for a blow job but the Bush administration whose list of crimes seem endless and read like a Michael Creighton novel are scott free?

Olberman has details on the latest Tom Ridge bomb and the torture report is due to be re-released on Monday.  What the fuck is Eric Holder waiting for?

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and the Earth is more than 6,000 years old.

The science behind Global Warming is irrefutable which I suppose explains why it comes as no surprise that the Bush Administration hid 1000s of satellite images that clearly show the tragic environmental impact.  No WMDs, Global Warming is real, you get the picture?

The Obama administration has released those photos which can be viewed here, you be the judge.

  

Environmental impact aside the social and political impact of Global Warming is already changing the face of our world and impacting its citizens, no matter how resistance the religious and uninterested right-wing of American politics is.

The fifth annual Failed States Index—a collaboration between The Fund for Peace, an independent research organization, and Foreign Policy Magazine details the specific impact in their last section, appropriately titled The Last Straw.  It is worth a complete read.

In 2007, the London-based NGO International Alert compiled a list of countries with a high risk of armed conflict due to climate change. They cited no fewer than 46 countries, or one in every four, including some of the world's most gravely unstable countries, such as Somalia, Nigeria, Iran, Colombia, Bolivia, Israel, Indonesia, Bosnia, Algeria, and Peru. Already, climate change might be behind the deep drought that contributed to the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan and hundreds of thousands of deaths.

Moral Authority

Think about this for a moment. The MSM, Sectretary of Defense, the US Military and the American people are all outraged by the Taliban video showing captured Pvt. Bowe Bergdahl. But, we no longer have the moral authority to be outraged. Bush, Cheney and Co. squandered that in the name of torture. We have also broken international law. Juan Cole sums up nicely..

In fact, as I was reminded by a former ambassador, the Bush-Cheney-Yoo-Armitage gutting of US conformance with the Geneva Conventions really makes it difficult for Washington credibly to complain about the treatment of any of our captured soldiers. The Taliban could hold the soldier hostage forever if they follow the principle put forward by Sen. Lindsey Graham. They could (God forbid) put him in stress positions naked and threaten to release the pictures to his family, and they would have done nothing that Rumsfeld's Pentagon had not done routinely and on a vast scale.

But before I go.

Steve Benen hits it dead on here

It's too late, but if the media insists on characterizing this as some kind of face-off between competitors of equal stature, the least news outlets could do is to point out that Cheney was simply outclassed today. As tempting as it may be to compare the substance of the president's speech with the former vice president's, that's just not possible. Obama treated the nation like adults; Cheney treated us like the target of a con.

And Andrew:

A simple note having now read the former vice-president's despicable and disgraceful speech. It confirms the very worst of him, and reveals just how callow, just how arrogant, and just how reckless and unrepentant this man is and has long been. There was not a whisper of regret or reflection; there was a series of lies and distortions, a reckless attack on a graceful successor, inheriting a world of intractable problems, and a reminder that while serious men and women will indeed move on, Cheney never will. He remains a threat to this country's constitution as he remains a stain on its honor and moral standing. I never believed I would hear a vice-president of the United States not simply defend torture but insist on pride in it, insist on its honor. But that is what he said, with that sly grin insisting that fear always beats reason, that violence always beats dialogue, and that torture is always an American value.

This clip helps express how I feel right now:

...and now you do what they told ya.

After watching the so called dueling speeches by Obama and Cheney I am enraged and sick to my stomach. It’s worth watching and reading the Obama’s speech, it was insightful, direct, comprehensive and very well written. Watch Cheney’s if you can stand to. I found it ridiculously fictitious. A noun, a verb and many 9/11s, a few WMDs that were never there laced with an Iraq connection that even the worst forms of human torture couldn’t force out basically describe it. What I find equally criminal is the MSMs part in all this; in an attempt to clear their conscience of their complicit and enabling silent behavior during the Bush Administration and in order to drive ratings and revenue will continue to provide a platform for the lies, bile and revisionist history of Cheney and Co. They will assist in the re-write it and feed it to America as truth. The same thing was done with Hillary in the primary and McCain in the general. The MSM creates the illusion that these contests and debates and talking points on issues are close and that the airing of them is meaningful and important to the American people in order to keep themselves relevant and in business. I'm taking at the least the weekend off from watching, reading or talking about politics. The American people may really be this stupid and if so we are fucked folks, and I’m tired of screaming at my screen.

Obama, Anti-Americanism and Torture

I'm reminding myself right now that its been a little over 100 days and this President has done much to raise confidence here at home and abroad, he is active, and he is working towards keeping many of the promises he made during his historic campaign. For that he is going to get the benefit of the doubt, at least from me. I've begun to think that we Americans are unable to comprehend what it is like to have a President that shows up to work and actually tries to get things done. Nixon's resignation, Reagan's 2nd term in lala land, Bill's inability to keep his pants on and GWB have lowered the standard for American President so far that we as a country are having a really hard time believing this guy might actually be the real deal. It's the old screw me twice adage, we can't possibly be dumb enough to trust our President. And then there's the nasty bits. What is our fascination with seeing the worst in human nature? We are a society clinging and clamoring for the lowest common denominator. Our movies, music, games and television have become increasingly more gratuitously sexual and violent, our gossip and news media (I say news very lightly) aimed more at character destruction in 30 second sound bytes than enlightenment and education of the people. We spend more time fighting over why we are different socially than we do celebrating our similarities and we seem happy to do it! I agree that releasing the torture pictures would shut the Cheney and Limbaugh crowd up and in doing so would help cleanse America of their stink and lies and dishonor. I had a hard time reading the memos, I can only imagine how terrible the actual photos are. But, I agree with Obama in that those photos will also be used to fan the flames of anti-Americanism in the Arab world. It would be just the break our enemies are looking for as all indications point to anti-American sentiment decreasing drastically in recent months due to the calculated approach of President Obama. Maybe in the end I'll feel screwed. Perhaps I'm being naive and in the end he he will be just another President who let me down. Right now though, I don't think so.

Daddy Cheney can't forgive an administration that was keeping its promises!

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Fear, doubt, and disbelief. Free your mind.

Just a quick couple of comments on the recent Cheney full court press. I think Dick Cheney is going to succeed in making sure the 20% of people who identify as Republicans are as rock solid a constituency as there every was. I also think if this keeps up it will be a generation before anyone else other than that 20% ever identifies Republican again. I haven't spent a lot of time watching Dick Cheney interviews, but I did catch him on Face the Nation this weekend. I make my living in part by watching and reading people, their vocal inflections, choice of words, body language etc. The guilt and panic and fear is just oozing from the man. And remember, he is a 5 time deferment award winner. Towards the end of the interview, around when he threw GWB under the bus in an attempt to save himself he reminded me of the little kid whose Mom just told him "Wait until your Dad gets home" who then spends the rest of the afternoon talking his way out of that beating he knows he's earned and has coming. Dick Cheney has diarrhea of the mouth so bad I can't remember a single thing any other Republican has said all week. Can you?

My country tis of thee...

"In other words, Americans in any town of this country could constitutionally be hung from the ceiling naked, sleep deprived, water-boarded, and all the rest -- if the alleged national security justification was compelling. I did not believe our federal courts could reasonably be expected to agree with such a reading of the Constitution." -Phillip Zelikow former Bush Administration State Department Deputy

The rest of his post on FP mag is worth reading here. All evidence of his dissenting opinion was ordered shredded and destroyed by the Bush White House.

I'm hopeful there will be an independent, special prosecutor appointed by AG Holder and that it will be someone who is willing to take it all the way. While I don't think field opperatives for the CIA should be held responsible for following orders I do think the people who were responsible for bending our Constitution to serve their own personal agenda should be held accountable.

Starting right here....

Bush 43.

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." -Martin Luther King, Jr. Good Riddance.