Alan Grayson: Hates Children, Hates Seniors, Loves Satan

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Townhall approved this fake message.

Really.

This is an open thread.

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Winning their hearts and minds

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ABC News:

The allegations are reminiscent of the military’s darkest days in Vietnam.

Again, young GI’s caught up in a difficult war are accused of widespread drug use and the random killing of innocent civilians, apparently for sport or thrills.

But the parents of one of the five soldiers charged with the premeditated murder of unarmed Afghans say that before one of the murders they tried to warn the Army and a U.S. Senator – and no one helped.

Now their son, 20-year-old specialist Adam Winfield, is charged with taking part in a killing three months after the Winfield family tried to blow the whistle.

The soldiers were serving at Forward Operating Base Ramrod in southern Afghanistan. On a videotaped confession obtained by ABC News, one of the soldiers, Corporal Jeremy Morlock, described how his Sergeant, Calvin Gibbs, had the men in his unit pick out civilians at random and then kill them with grenades and rifle fire.

“Gibbs called it like, ‘Hey you guys wanna, you guys wanna wax this guy or what?’ And you know, he set it up, like, he grabbed the dude.”

Morlock told how Gibbs allegedly threw a grenade at the civilian, and then told Morlock and the others, ‘Wax this guy. You know, kill this guy, kill this guy.’ ”

Morlock said that killing people came “too easy” to Gibbs. “”He just really doesn’t have any problems with f___ing killing these, these people, to be honest.”

Morlock also told investigators he believed that Gibbs was crazy and wouldn’t hesitate to silence witnesses.

“If Gibbs knew that I was sitting in front of this camera right now,” said Morlock, “there’s no doubt in my mind that he’d f—— take me out if he had to.”

This was supposed to be a “good” war. The Nobel committee even gave Obama a prize for escalating it, remember? We’re not winning their hearts and minds, we’re losing our souls.

We need to get out of Central Asia. Now.

Thing One and Thing Two, to Movement Progressives: “Grow Up!”

Obamelot is boring, Seussville is better: Thing One and Thing Two

I wrote much of this a day or so ago but didn’t have time to post it until now. On the completely off chance that someone reading this post hasn’t already heard about the sloppily choreographed one-two punch from President Obnoxious and Vice President Noxious by now, here is a brief replay of their antics.

Let’s start with Thing One’s “Buck Up” lecture from the end of his latest interview with Rolling Stone entitled “Obama in Command” (I’ve pared it down to its nasty essence for brevity’s sake):

We have to get folks off the sidelines. People need to shake off this lethargy, people need to buck up. . . . But if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren’t serious in the first place.

The supporting punch from Thing Two (via CBS):

Biden said Democrats can win both races if they draw clear distinctions between themselves and their Republican opponents, and he urged Democrats to “remind our base constituency to stop whining and get out there and look at the alternatives. This president has done an incredible job. He’s kept his promises.”

The strategy here is pretty obvious, and naturally the puppies who have been kicked have that kicked puppy look on their faces. This reaction takes the cake (via Politico):

“It’s idiotic is what it is,” says Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas, one of Obama’s most pointed critics on the left. “If Democrats, with the White House and Congressional super-majorities, had delivered on what they had promised, and if people had jobs, no one would be whining. They have reaped what they sowed. They haven’t delivered on what they’ve promised — and instead of making the case as to why they would do if they are reelected, they are insulting people.

“It’s a far cry from Bill Clinton’s ‘I feel your pain,’” he added

Markos 2010 is reaping what Markos 2008 sowed. (See youtube of Markos 2008).

Furthermore, Markos (any year’s version of him) isn’t much of a lefty, though he has tainted the left by his poseur alliance with it. He’s a former Repub-turn-“progressive,” a la Arianna. Opportunists both. They came over to my former party to destroy it.

Markos isn’t much of an Obama critic either, let alone one of his strongest critics.

Case-in-point: Kos’ idea of pointy asshat criticism during the HCR debate was to put up that pathetic/progressive banner of “Let’s get reform done right” (or whatever the exact wording of that BS was) at the top of his website. The problem? Reform was already way past being done right and was actively being done wrong. The writing had long since been graffitied on the wall that the public option was a bait and switch and the only “reform” that would be “done” would be a junk insurance mandate. So, all Kos did by chanting “let’s get reform done right” is to get it done wrong.

At every key juncture, Kos has enabled O when he should have put pressure on him to “deliver” on what he “promised” or else he can count on someone else to vote for him come election time. Kos and his Comatose Band of Frickin Soldouts are only whimpering now because Obama took the tops off their sippy cups.

Make room for Melissa at the loser lunch table!

Melissa McEwan, the latest blogger to be slushied by the Obama machine

I saw this righteously indignant rant from Melissa M at Shakesville last night:

1. When I wrote passionate criticisms of a Republican administration and Republican Congressional majority who failed to champion LGBTQI equality, assailed women’s bodily autonomy, treated Roe as a suggestion, refused to disclose lobbyist visits to the White House, invoked the separation of powers to protect themselves, called for spending freezes on social programs, legitimized rightwing extremists, advocated for offshore drilling, pushed HSAs, escalated a war, thumbed their nose at due process, engaged in black ops, treated scientists with contempt, expanded the executive’s extrajudicial powers, demeaned liberal activists, and invoked state’s-secrets privilege for bullshit reasons, I was a principled progressive.

2. When I write passionate criticisms of a Democratic administration and Democratic Congressional majority who fail to champion LGBTQI equality, assail women’s bodily autonomy, treat Roe as a suggestion, refuse to disclose lobbyist visits to the White House, invoke the separation of powers to protect themselves, call for spending freezes on social programs, legitimize rightwing extremists, advocate for offshore drilling, push HSAs, escalate a war, thumb their nose at due process, engage in black ops, treat scientists with contempt, expand the executive’s extrajudicial powers, demean liberal activists, and invoke state’s-secrets privilege for bullshit reasons, I am a stupid ingrate who doesn’t understand how politics works.

Yes, Melissa, this is how they operate.  In 2008, we were smart, politically savvy, astute observers of the body politic *until* we announced we were supporting Hillary Clinton, who we had determined from observation as the best qualified candidate for president.  Suddenly, we weren’t smart anymore.  No, we were racists, dried up pussies, stupid, low information, working class, uneducated.  In general, we were stupid voters who had never paid any attention to how politics works.  We lost a lot of friends.  People ran screaming from us in terror in case the cooties we got were contagious.  I mean, wouldn’t you rather be a hot, young, creative class voter than a tired old Roseanne Barr?

But we stuck it out because we are not Roseanne Barrs.  We’re just people who happened to see the peer pressure tactics of the Obama machine for what they were.

Now, it’s YOUR turn to feel that kind of unpopularity.  Isn’t it fun?  Nothing you say will be taken seriously anymore.  Your opinions can be dismissed.  You’re naive, stupid, a whiner.  You’re a loser.  Oh sure, they loved you in 2008.  That’s because they had you convinced that some dude was going to protect your reproductive rights better than some 60 year old woman or anyone from the Republican side of the aisle.  And how did that turn out?

The funny thing is that we’re still personas non grata and you’ll probably gravitate to the other new losers.  *You’re* not like one of *us*, right?  What Jane Hamsher calls “a certain kind of woman”?  And what kind of woman would that be?  The kind that were right about Obama?  I think Jane has us confused with some of the people who became Tea Partiers and birthers.  That’s not who we are.  And we’re not all women either.  It’s a shame really.  Together, we could be formidable and shake the bastards to the core.  But as long as they continue to atomize the left by planting misrepresentations of Bill Clinton’s record in the comment sections of your blogs, keeping the former Clintonistas at arm’s length. we will never become a threat to them.

We would mail you out our complimentary Welcome to Under the Bus package with its white sheet and hormone replacement therapy starters but myiq2xu bristles when he doesn’t hear an acknowledgment that you piled on us during the primaries for no legitimate reason. I don’t argue with a homocidal clown.

One more thing:

This is for Peter Daou, who pointed out that it is Obama’s lack of principles that is the problem with the left blogosphere.  I wrote this post about the very same thing about a year ago.  I’m reprinting it here in it’s entirety. It’s not that we were cheering for Obama’s failure.  We’re not Republicans.  But we did expect him to do the right thing for all of the citizens of the US, not just the ones who funded him.  Based on our observations of his career in the Senate, the way he ran his campaign and our own personal experiences in 2008, we had no reasonable expectations that he was going to govern as a Democrat.  This is how his administration has played out, exactly as we predicted.  Jane et al are little late to the party, Peter.  They still hate us and have a weird notion of who we are.  It’s leading to the marginalization of the left.  There’s not much time to fix this.  They need to get a clue and fast.

I wrote this in April, 2009.

Thursday: This is what happens when you don’t have principles

Posted on April 2, 2009 by riverdaughter | Edit

What do the following posts have in common?:

The New Masters of the Universe by James Kwak at baselinescenario.com

The Obama Enigma by E.J. Dionne at WaPo

G20 Color Commentary by Adam Posen on Planet Money

What’s Wrong With Washington? by James Wolcott at Vanity Fair

Actually, the Wolcott piece doesn’t belong.  I just liked his description of Fox News gasbags like Karl Rove and Bob Beckel as “plump juicy roasters”.  Wolcott makes it safe for the mixed metaphor.  The piece is hillarious and spot on.

For the other three, the theme throughout is one of trying to make sense of several moves by the Obama administration and the various players in the economic mess.  One gets the sense that what is going on is not that hard to figure out: The finance industry is taking us to the cleaners.  It is going to prolong the recession/depression because it is going to be the last entity called upon to make any sacrifices.  Each piece suggests that the White House is playing a dangerous game and gambling whole industries and our futures by engineering workarounds that won’t upset the bankers and their friends in the private investment clubs who stand to make out like bandits on our dime. Each solution is tailored to extract the least amount of pain from the wealthy and well connected and saddles the rest of us with the most risk. At the heart of this is the fact that each crisis is dealt with individually, as if the other crises were unrelated.  Each is solved in isolation, deal by deal, banker by banker. And it’s ticking off the rest of the world.

Nicolas (pronounced nee-ko-la) Sarkozy may be a petulant prima donna but he’s right about one thing.  The world cannot get on its feet economically if we continue to deal with the finance industry in a piecemeal fashion without regulatory fixes.  If there continues to be separate deals for each problem and no international or domestic law to hold the financials accountable, there can be no trust or faith in the system.  If there is no trust, there is no confidence that once leant, your money will come back to you.  People understand risk.  What they don’t understand is how their governments can allow them to be fleeced.  Confidence needs to be restored to the system to make sure the money flows to where it is needed.  That can’t happen until the big countries involved agree to set standards for financial transactions and regulations.  We are global now.

But this is not something that is in Obama’s blood.  Obama is of the “everything is on the table” variety of president.  Actually, I don’t think we’ve ever had a president who has ever put his principles on such a sliding scale as this one.  George W. Bush was a stickler for details compared to Obama.  And Bill Clinton, that master of triangulation, at least had the perfectly rational excuse that he was faced with an overtly hostile Congress and national press.  But what is Obama’s excuse for throwing away the tenets and principles of the party he comandeered to shmooze his way to the top?  He has every advantage a president could want and still he sides with the bad guys.

Well, we shall see if Sarkozy follows through with his threat and walks out.  Europe may not be doing enough to stimulate the economy but at least they aren’t stupid enough to throw more money at the banking industry and not ask, “And how do you intend to spend this?”  You have to draw the line somewhere.  And after all,  a leader has to have principles.

OT

It occured to me that there are those who would argue that healthcare benefits that the unions demanded are ruining the auto industry.  This is the lame excuse we hear from the plump juicy roasters on cable TV all of the time.  You know, “Healthcare costs add $X to the cost of an automobile, blah, blah, blah.”  It makes you kind of PO’d to buy a car if your mind is on how many gall bladder operations and hemorrhoid treatments those X number of dollars paid for.  But even if the UAW *did* ask for so-called “gold-plated” policies {{snort!, like a working class guy isn’t going to have to run the insurance gauntlet anyway}}, the cost of those policies wouldn’t have increased so damned much if it hadn’t been for Harry and Louise.

Remember them?

If you don’t like the cost of the cars, you can send a thank you note to the GOP.