President Obama's Weekly Address - December 22, 2012

The President and First Lady Extend a Holiday Greeting and Thank our Troops for their Service

Sometimes I Just Shake My Head and Sigh...

...when I think about elected officials as moronic as Sen. Chuck Grassley having a say in how our government works... or doesn't work as the case may be.

One thing in particular that I didn't miss this time around in the GOP Bullshit Memes Edition of 2012 was the blood boiling ridiculousness that is the teleprompter jab. Obama's soooo dumb.... HOW DUMB IS HE?! He's sooo dumb he can't give a speech without a teleprompter. If he can't read it, he doesn't know what to say. HAR! HAR! HAR!! (This insult brought to you by some GOP idiot reading a teleprompter.)

I know it shouldn't bother me because it's obvious crap, but maybe what bugs me the most is that it's been repeated so often, most of the GOP lemmings take it as fact. They believe this while watching their political leaders READ OFF A TELEPROMPTER! So this time around, I was glad they retired this silly notion. Or so I thought.



Seriously?! What. The. FUCK?! This waste of carbon is a sitting fucking senator in Congress who has watched every President since Lyndon Fucking Johnson use a teleprompter, but obviously the reason President Obama uses it is because he's dumb, right?

And the topper is his comparison to the Romneybot-3000 who apparently is so much smarter, he doesn't need a teleprompter. That Mitt's so quick on his feet that he came up with this little gem while defending his omission of our military troops during this speech at the RNC in what was the biggest night of his political life:

Responding to an inquiry from Fox News reporter Brett Baier, Romney claimed, “When you give a speech, you don’t go through a laundry list, you talk about the things that you think are important.”

Yeah, Mitt wants to talk about the important things. Why waste time giving a little shout out to the troops the GOP always loves to use as a backdrop when you can spend that valuable time letting Clint Eastwood upstage the Republican presidential nominee with an empty fucking chair?

Man, I don't know how President Obama is going to deal with such a razor sharp wit as Mitt Romney during the upcoming debates without a teleprompter.

(Cross-posted on ABLC)

President Obama's Weekly Address - December 24, 2011

The President and First Lady Thank our Troops for their Service this Holiday

Well, THAT Didn't Take Long

I don't know what to make of this. Does it mean that President Obama is taking the reins of this debacle in Afghanistan and picking up the ball that the Bush administration dropped, or is it an attempt to divorce the previous kabal from the mess they left behind by transferring ownership to Obama?

Or maybe I'm just being overly sensitive to 24 hour cable news chyrons.

ADDING... I don't think I am being overly sensitive after the whole "Obama Recession" stuff we've heard over the past few weeks before the market started leveling out.

Montel Williams Cancelled After Fox & Friends Interview

I'm a couple of days late on this but just did some research after hearing about it on the Mike Malloy Show.

Montel Williams was being interviewed by the schlubs over at Fox & Friends to discuss the tragic death of Heath Ledger. What they got instead was unexpected. Here's the video.

What really pisses me off about this interview is the Fox idiot (I don't even know their names) trying to turn the tables on Montel by asking him to tell them about the soldier who died yesterday. In my opinion, the moron was trying to play the "gotcha" game with Williams and say, "See? You don't know either. Why are you putting us on the spot?"

And let's not forget that Montel Williams is a 22 year veteran of the Marines.

After the break, Montel Williams was not on the set. Four days later, after a number of Fox stations decided not to renew his television show for the next season, CBS announced that it would cancel The Montel Williams Show after 17 years. Not only that, it's not going to produce any new shows. CBS will air the "best of" Montel for the next full year. After all, they wouldn't want to give him a platform to shed light on what's been happening in the Middle East that 98% of the American population doesn't know about because we're being inundated with Ledger or Anna Nicole or Britney or Lindsey or Paris or O.J. or Mary Kate & Ashley or Jessica and Tony Romo... and the list goes on and on.

I don't know if the cancellation was in the works and Montel knew about it before his Fox interview, and therefore felt like he could put it out there without repercussion, or if he thought that enough is enough and really wanted to open a discourse of why the media isn't covering the loss of our military and the occupation and escalation in Iraq as diligently as it should. Either way, Montel said was has been desparately needed to be voiced for far too long.

(H/T to Manila Ryce at The Largest Minority)

White House: Troop Cuts? ...Nevermind

President Bush is rethinking cutting troop levels in Iraq after announcing that he would do just that this past September.

Four months after announcing troop reductions in Iraq, President Bush is now sending signals that the cuts may not continue past this summer, a development likely to infuriate Democrats and renew concerns among military planners about strains on the force.

Mr. Bush has made no decisions on troop reductions to follow those he announced last September. But White House officials said Mr. Bush had been taking the opportunity, as he did in Monday’s State of the Union address, to prepare Americans for the possibility that, when he leaves office a year from now, the military presence in Iraq will be just as large as it was a year ago, or even slightly larger.

Well, well... did we really expect any different from the reverse King Midas? Everything this lazy, dim-witted bastard has ever touched has turned to shit. His only successes throughout his entire life are those that his family has handed to him; his failures covered up by bailout after bailout. And now it's up to the next President to clean up this man's murderous mess.

Is This How We Support The Troops?

You gotta hand it to the Pentagon and this evil, corrupt administration. They sure do know how to cover their bases.

Over 1,100 members of the Minnesota National Guard who have been deployed to Iraq for 22 months, longer than any other unit currently serving, are being denied education benefits because their orders were written for 729 days - one day short of qualifying for extra tuition to pay for school.

1st Lt. Jon Anderson said he never expected to come home to this... "It's pretty much a slap in the face," Anderson said. "I think it was a scheme to save money, personally. I think it was a leadership failure by the senior Washington leadership... once again failing the soldiers."

And yet another failure chalked up for the "fourth branch of government", who failed to report this news nationally. I bring this up once again: the "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?" ad gets non-stop coverage on major news outlets, but this sickening story of our government screwing yet again the very troops they claim to support is only reported on an NBC affiliate in Portland, Maine.

Read the entire article here.

Paul Krugman: A Hostage Situation

Paul Krugman's Op Ed in Sunday's New Tork Times:

There are two ways to describe the confrontation between Congress and the Bush administration over funding for the Iraq surge. You can pretend that it’s a normal political dispute. Or you can see it for what it really is: a hostage situation, in which a beleaguered President Bush, barricaded in the White House, is threatening dire consequences for innocent bystanders — the troops — if his demands aren’t met.

If this were a normal political dispute, Democrats in Congress would clearly hold the upper hand: by a huge margin, Americans say they want a timetable for withdrawal, and by a large margin they also say they trust Congress, not Mr. Bush, to do a better job handling the situation in Iraq.

But this isn’t a normal political dispute. Mr. Bush isn’t really trying to win the argument on the merits. He’s just betting that the people outside the barricade care more than he does about the fate of those innocent bystanders.

What’s at stake right now is the latest Iraq “supplemental.” Since the beginning, the administration has refused to put funding for the war in its regular budgets. Instead, it keeps saying, in effect: “Whoops! Whaddya know, we’re running out of money. Give us another $87 billion.”

At one level, this is like the behavior of an irresponsible adolescent who repeatedly runs through his allowance, each time calling his parents to tell them he’s broke and needs extra cash.

What I haven’t seen sufficiently emphasized, however, is the disdain this practice shows for the welfare of the troops, whom the administration puts in harm’s way without first ensuring that they’ll have the necessary resources.

As long as a G.O.P.-controlled Congress could be counted on to rubber-stamp the administration’s requests, you could say that this wasn’t a real problem, that the administration’s refusal to put Iraq funding in the regular budget was just part of its usual reliance on fiscal smoke and mirrors. But this time Mr. Bush decided to surge additional troops into Iraq after an election in which the public overwhelmingly rejected his war — and then dared Congress to deny him the necessary funds. As I said, it’s an act of hostage-taking.

Actually, it’s even worse than that. According to reports, the final version of the funding bill Congress will send won’t even set a hard deadline for withdrawal. It will include only an “advisory,” nonbinding date. Yet Mr. Bush plans to veto the bill all the same — and will then accuse Congress of failing to support the troops.

The whole situation brings to mind what Abraham Lincoln said, in his great Cooper Union speech in 1860, about secessionists who blamed the critics of slavery for the looming civil war: “A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, ‘Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!’ ”

So how should Congress respond to Mr. Bush’s threats?

Everyone talks about the political risks of confrontation, recalling the backlash when Newt Gingrich shut down the federal government in 1995. But there’s a big difference between trying to force a fairly popular president to accept deep cuts in Medicare — which is what the 1995 confrontation was about — and trying to get a deeply unpopular, distrusted president to set some limits on an immensely unpopular war.

Meanwhile, there are big political risks on the other side. If Congress responds to a presidential veto by offering an even weaker bill, voters may well react with disgust, concluding that the whole debate over the war was nothing but political theater.

Anyway, never mind the political calculations. Confronting Mr. Bush on Iraq has become a patriotic duty.

The fact is that Mr. Bush’s refusal to face up to the failure of his Iraq adventure, his apparent determination to spend the rest of his term in denial, has become a clear and present danger to national security. Thanks to the demands of the Iraq war, we’re already a superpower without a strategic reserve, unable to respond to crises that might erupt elsewhere in the world. And more and more military experts warn that repeated deployments in Iraq — now extended to 15 months — are breaking the back of our volunteer military.

If nothing is done to wind down this war during the 21 months — 21 months! — Mr. Bush has left, the damage may be irreparable.

Boehner Threatens Cutting Off Funds for Iraq

SF Gate: (03-02) 04:00 PST Washington -- The House minority leader threatened Thursday to get his members to vote against a $96.3 billion spending bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan if Democrats persist in plans to attach conditions to the money that would tell President Bush how to conduct the wars.

Murtha's plan would "attach requirements that no units could be sent back to Iraq until they are fully trained, equipped and rested." Sounds like a good idea, doesn't it?

But here is what John Boehner said: "We will not support a bill that inhibits the president's ability to wage this war,'' he told reporters. Boehner added that if the committee bill includes such conditions, he will direct top House Republicans to press their members to vote against it.

So let me get this straight:

The "We-Support-the-Troops" GOP House leader is saying that they will vote against funding $96.3 billion for the war because of the condition that the troops should be fully trained, equipped and rested before being deployed... is that what I'm hearing? These pigs would cut off funding for the troops they say they support if there is oversight on how the money is spent?

The only thing inhibiting the president's ability to wage war is his myopic view of the world through his rose-colored glasses.

The blank check days are over, Johnny! Get that through your thick skull. And you sons of bitches have the audacity to crow about the Democrats not supporting the troops when you'd rather send them into a meat grinder ill-equipped and poorly trained? How are poorly trained troops supposed to win your war on terror if they don't know what the hell to do once they get there, you idiot? Go ahead, vote no. You'll save the Dems a lot of trouble answering questions from the morons who insist Dems don't support our military.

You and everyone like you make me sick. Support the troops my ass! You bastards will do anything to further the corporate cause, making money hand over fist while American blood soaks the sands of Iraq in a pre-emptive, illegal war that is destroying their country when THEY HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH 9/11!

Dick, Go Home!

From the NY Times: KABUL, Afghanistan, Feb. 27 — A suicide bomber blew himself up this morning outside the main gate of the United States military base at Bagram while Vice President Dick Cheney was inside the base. Mr. Cheney was not hurt in the attack.

The Taliban took responsibility for the attack and claimed that Cheney was the target. The inital reports of fatalities are inconsistent, but at least one US soldier was killed in the blast.

Do us all a favor, Dick: stay home. You're hated here too, but I think you're probably a little safer here than in the Middle East. By the way, the reason I suggest this is so you'll stop putting our troops in harm's way.

Sunday Reading

Here are a few links you should click and peruse. Happy Sunday.

Bob Geiger: Dumb Stuff Republicans Say on the Senate Floor

Nicolas von Hoffman: The Worst President Ever

Paul Rieckhoff: Anna Nicole Smith Died. So Did Three American Troops

Flip Flop... Flip?

In a letter distributed yesterday evening to Senate leaders, John Warner (Va.), Chuck Hagel (Neb.) and five other GOP supporters of the resolution threatened to attach their measure to any bill sent to the floor in the coming weeks.

Too little, too late, jackasses. These are the same people (except for Norm Coleman and Susan Collins) that voted to block debate on their own resolutions just two days before.

What a sad waste of time... Did you see that? Another helicopter went down. Ooh, did you hear that loud noise? Another car bomb exploded in another marketplace killing yet more and more innocent men, women and children. I guess we can wait and stall and play more political games. What's the rush?

Still Got Your Limbs? You're Going Back.

We speak of the over 3,000 dead American soldiers but don't often think about the wounded. At this point, there are over 150,000 Iraq Veterans receiving diability benefits, according to the Veterans Administration. This is due, in part, to the medical advances that have happened in the last 30 years. Injuries, that in the past would have been fatal, can now be better treated on site and thus save the soldier. But now it seems that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is minor and treatable, according to the US Military, and soldiers suffering from PTSD can be redeployed. This is outrageous!


EXCERPT: On Christmas... Army Reservist James Dean barricaded himself in his father's home with several weapons and threatened to kill himself. After a 14-hour standoff with authorities, Dean was killed by a police officer after he aimed a gun at another officer, authorities told the Washington Post.

Veterans for America's [Steve] Robinson told Inter Press Service that Dean, who had already served 18 months in Afghanistan, had been diagnosed with PTSD. He had just been informed that his unit would be sent to Iraq on Jan. 14.

"We call that suicide by cop," Robinson said.

I don't know about you, and I can't imagine what these troops are going through, but I can only think that if I were in their situation, I'd want someone of sound mind next to me and not worrying if he'd taken his medication that day. Why would you want anyone who is medicated to have a firearm is his/her hand?

Read the story.

Troop Deaths Officially Hit 3,000

The death of a Texas soldier, announced Sunday by the Pentagon, raised the number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq to at least 3,000 since the war began, according to an Associated Press count.