Looking back

How To Make A Republican Tell The Truth
Posted by Plaid Adder
Added to homepage Mon Feb 28th 2005, 03:02 PM ET

I heard this from someone else over the weekend and it is brilliant:

It works just like the Salada Tea Bags lines, or that game people play with cookie fortunes, where you add the words "between the sheets" to make a meaningless platitude much more interesting.

All you have to do in order to make Republican domestic policies make sense is take their talking point and add the words "...if you're rich!"

For instance: "Privatizing social security makes a lot of sense...if you're rich!"

Or, "Our health care system is the best in the world...if you're rich!"

Or how about, "The economy under Bush is the strongest it's ever been...if you're rich!"

Just add three little words, and all of a sudden, these bastards are telling the truth.

It's most fun if you do it in a group with one person beginning the talking point and everyone else finishing it in unison. I think it coudl be productively adapted as a protest tactic for some of those Social Security meet-ups Santorum and friends are doing now, for instance.

Whee,

The Plaid Adder

NEWSWEEK: White House Slow to Read Signs in Port Sale; Congressional GOP Did Not Want to Explain Sale to Public
Senior White House Official Conceded to Not Knowing About Port Deal, Tells Rep. Peter King to 'Go Ahead' on Going Public

NEW YORK, Feb. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- For the past two campaign cycles, Karl Rove has successfully painted Democrats as soft on national security. The Dubai sale offered them a golden opportunity for payback, report Senior White House Correspondent Richard Wolffe and White House Correspondent Holly Bailey in the current issue of Newsweek. Dubai Ports World already works closely with the U.S., shutting down its commercial traffic whenever the Navy sails in. So when it first approached the Feds about a takeover in mid-October, there were no red flags. They finished their formal review in mid-January with no public fanfare and no extended inquiry, write Wolffe and Bailey who, in the March 6 issue (on newsstands Monday, February 27), reconstruct the events of the port sale and explain how an obscure maritime takeover turned into a political shipwreck.

The GOP leadership on Capitol Hill did not want to get stuck trying to explain the sale to a public anxious after hearing how little had been done to protect U.S. ports. The White House, meanwhile, was slow to read the signs, write Wolffe and Bailey. Nobody had tracked the bidding war for the venerable British ports company called the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co. (known as P & O). And nobody noticed an Associated Press story-on the day of Cheney's hunting incident-that aired the security concerns of a small Miami port operator called Eller. A disgruntled partner of P & O, Eller feared that an Arab government takeover could trigger a political backlash that might jeopardize its business. Its lawyers approached the Feds but were brushed aside; the security review was long complete.

Rep. Peter King, the GOP chair of the House homeland security committee, called the White House to ask about the deal a few days after the AP story. A senior official told him not to worry, but conceded he didn't know about any investigation into the Dubai company. When King said he planned to go public, the White House official just shrugged and said, "Go ahead."

When the crisis came to a head, Bush ordered his staff to contact each cabinet secretary involved in reviewing the sale to make sure that everyone stood by the decision. Reassured, Bush called reporters to his conference room aboard Air Force One, where he suggested that critics were indulging in anti- Arab prejudice and promised to veto any legislation blocking the deal. Midweek, as he stepped off the plane in Ohio, the president was greeted by Rep. Steve Chabot. The congressman pressed into the president's hand a cartoon from that morning's Cincinnati Enquirer. It showed a grinning Arab emir spreading his arms over an American port. The caption read, "Relax, Homeland Security has everything under control."



Support the troops
by kos
Tue Feb 27, 2007 at 02:56:04 PM PST
Glad to see all those great "troop supporters" allowing this to happen.

Rushed by President Bush's decision to reinforce Baghdad with thousands more U.S. troops, two Army combat brigades are skipping their usual session at the Army's premier training range in California and instead are making final preparations at their home bases.

Some in Congress and others outside the Army are beginning to question the switch, which is not widely known. They wonder whether it means the Army is cutting corners in preparing soldiers for combat, since they are forgoing training in a desert setting that was designed specially to prepare them for the challenges of Iraq.

Cutting corners like this, in addition to sending them to Iraq without proper armor, is getting people killed. And all to save two weeks.
"Support the troops" indeed...
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Walter Reed: Problem Solved
by BarbinMD
Wed Feb 28, 2007 at 07:27:39 AM PST
Reacting swiftly to the shameful treatment soldiers receive as out-patients at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center that was revealed last week in the Washington Post, the Pentagon has solved the problem:

Soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s Medical Hold Unit say they have been told they will wake up at 6 a.m. every morning and have their rooms ready for inspection at 7 a.m., and that they must not speak to the media.

Collective punishment, institute a gag rule and the problems of neglect, bureaucracy and questionable disability ratings are gone.
And apparently operating under the policy of "better safe than sorry," and only days after the Pentagon arranged for journalists to be given a tour of the newly painted, cleaned and repaired Building 18:

They were also told they would be moving out of Building 18 to Building 14 within the next couple of weeks...It’s also located on the Walter Reed Campus, where reporters must be escorted by public affairs personnel. Building 18 is located just off campus and is easy to access.

And if all that doesn't take care of the shocking revelations about the disgraceful treatment given to wounded soldiers and their families at the "crown jewel of military medicine," a first sergeant has been relieved of duty.

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Studies: immigrants raise wages; are more law-abiding
by kos
Wed Feb 28, 2007 at 09:07:34 AM PST
It sucks for the xenophobic wingnuts when their talking points are contradicted by the facts.

Two new studies by California researchers counter negative perceptions that immigrants increase crime and job competition, showing that they are incarcerated at far lower rates than native-born citizens and actually help boost their wages.
A study released Tuesday by the Public Policy Institute of California found that immigrants who arrived in the state between 1990 and 2004 increased wages for native workers by an average 4%.

UC Davis economist Giovanni Peri, who conducted the study, said the benefits were shared by all native-born workers, from high school dropouts to college graduates, because immigrants generally perform complementary rather than competitive work.
As immigrants filled lower-skilled jobs, they pushed natives up the economic ladder into employment that required more English or know-how of the U.S. system, he said […]

Another study released Monday by the Washington-based Immigration Policy Center showed that immigrant men ages 18 to 39 had an incarceration rate five times lower than native-born citizens in every ethnic group examined. Among men of Mexican descent, for instance, 0.7% of those foreign-born were incarcerated compared to 5.9% of native-born, according to the study, co-written by UC Irvine sociologist Ruben G. Rumbaut.

So they raise wages and are incarcerated at dramatically lower rates than native born Americans.
So why are we supposed to hate them so much?
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Update [2007-2-28 14:44:58 by ePluribus Media]: The AP (via Santa Fe New Mexican) has a report on the Iglesias news conference today.

Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty told the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month that most of the U.S. attorneys had been fired for "performance-related" reasons. But Iglesias said he called his news conference Wednesday to present evidence that's "demonstrably untrue" for his office.


Cheney and Bush are going to hate this book "3 Trillion Dollar War"
by testvet6778
Wed Feb 27, 2008 at 05:34:49 PM PST
There is in the Guardian tonight dated Feb 28,2008 an article about a book The Three Trillion Dollar War being released in the U.K. today written by Nobel Prize Winning Economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard Professor at the Kennedy School Linda Bilmes. She is the one who gave the report to Congress on the fact that taking care of the wounded soldiers alone from the Iraq war would be one trillion dollars. It seems as if they got more "curioser" and after being accused of being to "outlandish" in her estimates of the "true cost". Below is excerpts of the article but you need to go to the link and read the entire piece, it is well worth the time.



Bernanke ready to sacrifice average Americans to save Wall Street
by Chris in Paris · 2/27/2008 09:34:00 PM ET · Link

Gosh, thanks. While I appreciate the public arguing between Federal Reserve governors on the subject of whether to focus on inflation or Wall Street, it's discouraging to hear Bernanke so willingly point towards another Wall Street gift. During the Bush years, the middle class has been shafted and has not enjoyed the economic benefits that mostly helped the wealthiest Americans. There was no trickle down and they didn't even try to hide behind such false stories as they did during the Reagan years. They simply didn't give a damn.

Now all of the excesses of the Wall Street wet dream, where they were given full authority by Republicans do to pretty much any damned thing they liked, are crashing down. Suddenly, we're all supposed to jump and give Wall Street more free money so we can help them bounce back. Money isn't falling from the sky, it's leaving your wallet to bail these bums out. The same middle class who has footed the bill for Iraq, footed the tax cuts for the rich, more expensive health care, fewer benefits and payed the price for lack of traditional regulation, is being asked to sacrifice - again - so that Bernanke can help Wall Street dig out of the hole they put us in. We're in for a bumpy ride one way or another so let Wall Street fend for themselves and think about the middle class. Inflation and sagging wages are taking their toll, but don't tell that to Bernanke. He doesn't give a damn unless you are Wall Street.



Sen. Whitehouse Prepares the Nation for Torture Horrors
by buhdydharma
Fri Feb 27, 2009 at 02:40:07 PM PST
Senator Whitehouse is on both the Intelligence Committee and the Judiciary Committee. Thus he perhaps more than anyone else has access to ALL of the available information on the Bush Torture Network. Including the remaining pictures and videotapes from Abu Ghraib that were concealed from the public view. Pictures and videotapes that even Rumsfeld was shocked by, even though, as has become apparent since, he authorized them....or at least the programs that led to them.. Before he was implicated he had this to say...

What is shown on the photographs and videos from Abu Ghraib prison that the Pentagon has blocked from release? One clue: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Congress last year, after viewing a large cache of unreleased images, "I mean, I looked at them last night, and they're hard to believe." They show acts "that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhumane," he added.

A Republican Senator suggested the same day they contained scenes of "rape and murder." Rumsfeld then commented, "If these are released to the public, obviously it's going to make matters worse."

And that is only one of the horrifying aspects of what has occurred in the Bush Torture Network. Thus Senator Whitehouse's warning to the nation.

....

As we work toward a brighter future ahead, to days when jobs return to our cities, capital to our businesses, and security to our lives, we cannot set aside our responsibility to take an accounting of where we are, what was done, and what must now be repaired.

We also have to brace ourselves for the realistic possibility that as some of this conduct is exposed, we and the world will find it shameful, revolting. We may have to face the prospect of looking with horror at our own country's deeds. We are optimists, we Americans; we are proud of our country. Contrition comes hard to us.

But the path back from the dark side may lead us down some unfamiliar valleys of remorse and repugnance before we can return to the light. We may have to face our fellow Americans saying to us, "No, please, tell us that we did not do that, tell us that Americans did not do that" - and we will have to explain, somehow. This is no small thing, and not easy; this will not be comfortable or proud; but somehow it must be done.

IF the full story of the Bush Torture Network is ever told out loud, on televison, it will shock the nation...and perhaps even the jaded and inattentive conscience of a nation that has been buried under eight years of horror upon Bush horror. None worse than what was done to our fellow human beings, in our names.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/2/27/17407/9646/766/700982