WHITE HOUSE: BUCK STOPS WITH HILLARY ON LIBYA
Today, the White House finally revealed its policy on embassy security: keep President Obama out of the loop so he can claim plausible deniability and blame Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for any problems. In today’s White House press conference, a reporter asked press secretary Jay Carney about the situation in Libya. Carney responded:
The President wants to get to the bottom of what happened. Your own network interviewed the President and asked him about the situation in Benghazi, so I would refer to what the President said.
He is committed to finding out what happened. He is committed to making sure that those who killed four Americans are brought to justice, and he is committed to ensuring that actions are taken after the Accountability Review Board thoroughly assesses this matter, to make sure that what happened in Benghazi never happens again. …. He's not blaming it on anything. This is under review, it is under investigation. And I would encourage everyone to assess that review when it's completed.
Sounds great. Except that when a reporter asked if President Obama would be notified about security procedures at US embassies, Carney quickly demurred:
Q I want to follow on Ann’s question. She asked if the President was upset when he learned that he had not been told about these requests for extra security and that kind of thing. Has he now asked to be informed about such security requests? Or has he given any instructions that they should not be turned down, or that he or his designate should be informed?
CARNEY: It is absolutely the case the President is intensely focused on and committed to bringing to justice those who killed four Americans. He is focused on the investigations continuing so that they can follow the facts all the way to the end so we know what happened and why. He is committed to ensuring that we take the appropriate actions after the Accountability Review Board to ensure that what happened in Benghazi does not happen again. What is also the case is that requests from the hundreds of diplomatic facilities around the country for security personnel or other related matters are made to the State Department. They are not made to the White House. And that’s just a simple statement of fact.
In other words, Obama’s saying that the buck stops with Hillary Clinton. She’d best be prepared to feel the tire tread as she makes her way beneath the Obama campaign bus.
Romney smells blood
ReplyDeleteFrom the Washington Post:
Republicans escalated their charges against the Obama administration for alleged failures in handling last month’s Libya attack, thrusting the death of the U.S. ambassador there into the center of the presidential campaign Friday.
Mitt Romney accused his rival of “doubling down on denial” about the true origins of the Sept. 11 siege in Benghazi, which senior Obama officials initially said appeared to be an outgrowth of anti-American protests, not terrorism. Whether the administration has truthfully disclosed what it knew about the perpetrators of the attacks became a flash point in Thursday night’s debate, when Vice President Biden blamed the administration’s shifting explanations on U.S. intelligence agencies.
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Romney on the campaign trail: Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, buoyed by his performance in the Oct. 3 presidential debate, has been making more of a presence in Virginia this past week, speaking at a campaign rally in Richmond and elsewhere throughout the swing state.
“There were more questions that came out last night because the vice president directly contradicted the testimony of State Department officials,” Romney told supporters Friday at a campaign event in Richmond. “American citizens have a right to know just what’s going on.”
Earlier in the week, State Department officials had said that they had not received reports of protests outside the compound before the killings. But Biden said the explanation that the attacks grew from a protest — rather than from terrorists determined to hit the consulate — persisted “because that’s exactly what we were told” by intelligence officials.
It looks like good old Joe Biden stirred up a hornet’s nest.
ReplyDeleteWatching the vice presidential debate brought to mind the wonderful image of Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan chomping on cigars, playing cards at the end of a contentious day on Capitol Hill.
ReplyDeleteThough they doggedly held to very different points of view, it was never at the expense of their mutual admiration. Because their battles were philosophical, not personal, they infused government with a grace that seems to have disappeared.
But the accepted way to advance your agenda now is to mock and denigrate your opponent, as Joe Biden did two nights ago. Rather than pretending to consider what his challenger had to say, the vice president contemptuously dismissed Paul Ryan’s opinions with condescending smirks, conveying not only a contempt for him, but also a rejection of the notion that a debate ought to be a marketplace of ideas.
If Biden believes Americans find such arrogance endearing, he truly has been breathing the rarefied air of Washington too long.
Does he not grasp the concept of being likable? Sure, he’s memorized applause lines and stuffed himself with enough stats to sink a battleship, but where’s the warmth, where’s the evidence of someone who takes himself a lot less seriously than he takes his ambitions?
Years ago, when Bob Montgomery was hired to be the color man on Red Sox [team stats] telecasts, station boss Joe Dimino told him, “Pretend you’re in someone’s living room with a bunch of guys, watching a game, and someone asks, ‘Hey, Monty, why did that happen?’ Be someone the viewers would like to watch a game with.”
That dynamic works in politics, too. Indeed, it explains why Tom Menino, the most unlikely candidate, is also the most unbeatable incumbent.
John F. Kennedy is remembered for his wit: “Politics is an astonishing profession. It has enabled me to go from being an obscure member of the junior varsity at Harvard to being an honorary member of the Football Hall of Fame.”
It was Reagan’s trademark, too: “Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards; if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.”
Likability is a timeless quality. Kennedy, a Democrat, became president at 43; Reagan, a Republican, assumed the office when he was 69.
Wouldn’t you have loved to watch a game with either of them?
And that’s got nothing to do with the economy, or foreign policy, or social issues.
It’s not even about being seen as a good president.
It’s about being seen as a good guy.
Don’t they understand that at the White House anymore?
-— joe.fitzgerald@bostonherald.com
Biden’s behavior was an embarrassment. How could any serious person respect such a buffoon?
ReplyDeleteMy thought of the debate, that I can’t seem to get over, is that Joe Biden was sneering and condescending in his continuous laughter of serious issues facing our country. These are not laughing matters to the American people.
ReplyDeleteO'KnowNothing will just have to fire Hillary for not telling him our guys were defenseless out there. After all, we can't have this fiasco. If only his subordinates had just informed O surely things would have been all better. It's all the fault of somebody other than Obama.
ReplyDeleteb
Big Cluster Fuck In The Making? --
ReplyDeleteIs the White House throwing Hillary under the bus on the Benghazi attack?
posted at 4:44 pm on October 12, 2012 by Allahpundit
My guess is no, they wouldn’t dare, but the Daily Caller and Tom Maguire make a fair point. In the span of about 18 hours, we’ve had Biden and Carney each insist that blame for Benghazi’s security failures lies outside the White House. It’s State that’s responsible for protecting U.S. diplomats in the field, which means if the buck doesn’t stop with Obama here, then it must stop with you-know-who. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, as cabinet members are expected to take the heat for the president when something goes badly wrong. But in this case you-know-who has her eye on running in 2016 — possibly against (heh) Biden himself — and surely doesn’t want Benghazi staining the foreign policy credentials she’s worked hard to build.
Throw Bill Clinton, official Obama campaign surrogate, into the mix and we’ve got the makings of a nuclear clusterfark of ego, ass-covering, presidential ambition, and Clintonian drama. Edward Klein says the chain reaction is already in motion:...
from Hot Air
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/12/is-the-white-house-throwing-hillary-under-the-bus-on-the-benghazi-attack/
Say it ain't so, Joe.
If it weren't for the dead, it would be a really entertaining disgusto to watch.
The dogs beginning to turn on one another....the hyenas beginning to eat their own guts.....(love that image, that's from Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa)
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ReplyDeleteThere are 6,000 American banks, but “half of the entire banking industry’s assets” are concentrated in five institutions whose combined assets amount to almost 60 percent of the gross domestic product...
"For all its bluster, Dodd-Frank leaves TBTF entrenched. . . . In fact, the financial crisis increased concentration because some TBTF institutions acquired the assets of other troubled TBTF institutions. The TBTF survivors of the financial crisis look a lot like they did in 2008. They maintain corporate cultures based on the short-term incentives of fees and bonuses derived from increased oligopoly power.”
Capitalism — which is, as Milton Friedman tirelessly insisted, a profit and loss system — is subverted by TBTF, which socializes losses while leaving profits private. And which enhances the profits of those whose losses it socializes. TBTF is a double moral disaster: It creates moral hazard by encouraging risky behavior, and it delegitimizes capitalism by validating public cynicism about its risk-reward ratios...
Break Up The Big Banks
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O, say, before I have to go - talking about B-Ho fucking with YOUR constitutional rights, in this case what we know as freedom of religion -
ReplyDeletehttp://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/10/catholic_bishops_call_biden_out_for_lying_about_hhs_mandate.html
I'll get around to mentioning how he is trying to take total control of your life when I have more time later. For now, just begin by thinking doctor/patient relationship.....
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Have a great day, q and all.
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ReplyDelete2nd Amendment Rights?
What about 1st Amendment Rights? And which are more important?
Even the Obama administration supported the passage of a resolution in the U.N. Human Rights Council to create an international standard restricting some anti-religious speech (its full name: “Combating Intolerance, Negative Stereotyping and Stigmatization of, and Discrimination, Incitement to Violence and Violence Against, Persons Based on Religion or Belief”). Egypt’s U.N. ambassador heralded the resolution as exposing the “true nature” of free speech and recognizing that “freedom of expression has been sometimes misused” to insult religion.
At a Washington conference last year to implement the resolution, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton declared that it would protect both “the right to practice one’s religion freely and the right to express one’s opinion without fear.” But it isn’t clear how speech can be protected if the yardstick is how people react to speech — particularly in countries where people riot over a single cartoon. Clinton suggested that free speech resulting in “sectarian clashes” or “the destruction or the defacement or the vandalization of religious sites” was not, as she put it, “fair game.”
First Amendment Rights On The Ropes Worldwide
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ReplyDeleteAtronomy Photos of the Year
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ReplyDeleteAround the World in 90 Minutes (in 5 minutes)
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Religion needs to be defamed. Defamation is the glue that keeps religion from breeching the outer bands of reason. Defamation, brutal and unpleasant to the devout, helps to restrain the excesses that come from fanaticism and dogma. It took the blasphemy and defamation of the church during the Protestant Reformation to cleanse Christianity of some of its worse evils.
ReplyDeleteIslam could use a well measured dose of heresy and defamation. Without it, the thought police will quickly evolve into inquisitors. We see a not so subtle example in the current political correctness.
It may sound contra intuitive but the excesses of Islamism will only be restrained by Muslim repulsion of the actions of mad men.
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DeleteOne such law was the Stolen Valor Act, signed by President George W. Bush in 2006, which made it a crime for people to lie about receiving military honors. The Supreme Court struck it down this year, but at least two liberal justices, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan, proposed that such laws should have less of a burden to be upheld as constitutional. The House responded with new legislation that would criminalize lies told with the intent to obtain any undefined “tangible benefit.”
The dangers are obvious. Government officials have long labeled whistleblowers, reporters and critics as “liars” who distort their actions or words. If the government can define what is a lie, it can define what is the truth.
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From Urbangrounds
DeleteIf you dare use your first amendment rights to blasphemy the Prophet Muhammad (pig piss be upon him), you can and will be arrested and held without bail.
Remember a few days ago when our more-Muslim-than-he-is-Christian President uttered words that should scare the Bejeevies out of every American, “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet Muhammad (piss be upon him)?”
Obama wasn’t joking.
Which is why he used the full force of the US government and the justice department to first uncover the identity of the man who created the silly little 14-minute long film “Innocence of Muslims,” and then arrested him.
Obstensibly because of a “parole violation.” Said parole violation seemingly being that he produced this film.
But if you really believe that’s why his identity was vigorously sought out by our own government, and why he is now in a jail cell (and denied bail), than you are a willing dupe that hopefully doesn’t vote or procreate.
Remember, this is the same White House that implored Google to pull the video off of YouTube and the same US State Department that ran ads on Pakistani TV apologizing for a movie they had nothing to do with.
Rick Moran adds:
Lock up the blasphemer! President Obama is as good as his word when he told the UN that the “future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” Mr. Nakoula’s future seems apparent: 24 months in the hoosegow.
No doubt this charlatan violated his parole. But really Mr. Prosecutor, does he pose a “danger to others?” Where did that come from? The man has been convicted of a white collar crime, not murder. Denying him bail is punitive.
And it is punitive because he made a film blaspheming the prophet. Both the judge and prosecutor referenced the film in their statements, which means, I suppose, that Mr. Nakoula’s ideas about Mohammed violated his parole in some way. Or they are using the violation of parole to punish him for his decidedly politically incorrect thoughts.
Obama’s buddies in the Muslim Brotherhood (of whom he has many) will be calling for the imposition of Sharia law, and that they be allowed to stone the blasphemer for insulting telling the truth about their Most Exalted Goat Fucker prophet (piss be upon him). Sadly, Obama will probably give it some consideration…
My blog mentor (even if he is unaware of this arrangement), Ace mocks, “Praise Allah we have captured the infidel and ceased his lies and slanders.”
Mitchell Holman wrote: Modern Conservative: Someone who blocks every effort by Obama to fix the economy and then complains that Obama hasn't done enough to fix the economy.
ReplyDeleteModern liberal: Gun grabbin' Captain Planet watchin' NPR listenin' UTNE Reader readin' red diaper doper baby union thugs who protect animals, trees, terrorists, and murderers while killing babies, rights, traditions, freedom, and jobs and think that Supply Side Economics refers to their drug dealer's business model.
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ReplyDeleteAnd the US proposes negotiating with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Cowtowing in fear to these religious nuts is what leads to this, vows to continue to try and kill her and her father.
Pakistani girl shot over activism in Swat valley, claims Taliban
The Taliban claims the 14 year old girl was shot for championing education for girls and highlighting Taliban atrocities.
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Letter from Afghanistan
ReplyDeleteDad,
I am fed up. I cannot believe the lack of attention the recent changes in this war is receiving by the media or the country. I think I saw one thing on CNN about the following subject, but I had to dig extensively to find it. The purpose of this letter is to let you know of the garbage that our soldiers are going through right now. With this knowledge, I hope that you take action by writing your congressmen.
First, because of the recent green on blue incidents or "insider threats" as the new buzz phrase dictates, all coalition forces in Afghanistan have completely stopped partnering with the ANA, AUP, and ALP in order to prevent the death of anymore CF casualties by ANSF or Taliban disguised as them. This is also greatly spurred by President Karzai's indifferent attitude and lack of action to take measures to prevent further insider attacks.
Second, because of this massive change in policy (and complete change in mission) all U.S. forces are forbidden to actively patrol their AO and are to remain on their respective COPs/FOBs. There are only a few exceptions to this rule and they all pertain to "hardening" highway 1 in our AO. We have received orders that clearly state that all CF will no longer be allowed to drop air to ground munitions within the country of Afghanistan. This preempts Karzai’s announcement that will be made shortly that states the above mentioned order, making it a tactical directive that he is ordering.
To the first point: Our mission in Afghanistan is to partner with the ANSF on all levels. Now the policy makers are telling us that we are not allowed to do that and further more we are to take immediate measures to secure ourselves from the ANSF that are co-located with us. So the question now becomes, what is our mission? Furthermore, the implication is that we have absolutely no reason to still be in this country if we are not partnering with the ANSF. So why are we here?
To the second point: I don't think that the American citizens would be happy if they knew that their soldiers were being prohibited from defending themselves in any way because of politically driven orders, but that is precisely what is happening in this war right now even as I write this letter. The soldiers of the U.S. never engage the enemy unless we know that we have will always have the tactical advantage in defending ourselves, that advantage is the use of close air support and air weapons team. To take those weapons away from us is to level the playing field for the enemy and thus exposing our soldiers to more danger. In the school house they teach us that the minimum ratio that we are to engage the enemy with, is a 3:1 ratio. In other words, we have the highest probability of winning because we don’t fight fair. The sound tactical principles behind this teaching have saved lives. The very presence of aircraft over our foot patrols has also saved lives and now our chain of command is being told by our political leadership that this is now not allowed. If we are not partnering with the ANSF and we are not actively patrolling to prevent our enemies from massing their attacks on our COP and we can’t drop a bomb on the enemy that we have positively identified, than what the hell are we doing here?
Give us a mission or send us home. I honestly have no preference on what the politicians decide, as long as they just make a decision. Of course this will be a terrible inconvenience on the current elections so I am sure we will be forgotten, which really does not seem to be too different for how things have been going for the last eleven years.
{…}
ReplyDelete{…}
Do not buy into what the some media outlets have already said about this. Casually saying that this is a frequent occurrence is false, and is an attempt to downplay the major ramifications for these decisions. We have never been so restricted in defending ourselves as we have now. This is not just a stand down. The other implication of this decision is that we will perhaps never regain our relationship with the ANA after we have executed these measures to protect ourselves from them. Essentially, we have left them to die as we watch from our high-tech cameras and UAVs. They will not forget this and I fear the relationship will never be the same.
I love you very much Dad and I don’t want you to worry about me any more than you already are, but I also know that this has to be brought up, someone has to say something about this. It is wrong to keep this hidden away while American soldiers are under constant threat of death and dying. I don’t care if you send this letter directly, this needs to be known.
Your son,
[In Afghanistan]
The idea that regular Army and National Guard troops would be able to ieffectively interface with Afghan troops, comical.
DeleteThe idea that Karzai would vet the trainees, beyond comical.
There is a reason that Special Forces are special, it is not the SWAT training that does it. Rangers can storm buildings, but they don't train foreign troops.
A unique and very special skill set is required
letter from:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.michaelyon-online.com
Religion is a canker on the ass of humanity.
ReplyDelete.
DeleteI disagree with your words but I defend your right to say them.
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The President of the United States micro-managing Security at diplomatic, and CIA outposts? Gimmee a break.
ReplyDelete.
DeleteThe buck stops here.
No one expects him to micro-manage. What I expect him do is accept responsibility for those he has appointed and those who work for him.
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Obama let Romney get away with lie, after lie, and lost an overarching lead in the race.
ReplyDeleteJoe Biden called the tweeb on every single lie, immediately, with the derision the little lying asshole deserved, and stopped the bleeding.
Fuck a bunch of lying, Jesus rode a dinosaur, whiney-assed, deuteronomy-quoting republicans. Joe wiped the floor with the little hypocritical asshole.
And, had a great time doing it.
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DeleteYeh, and he did it in his own inimitible distorting and/or outright lying, rude, crude, obstrepourous, dirisive, mugging, intrusive, blame-shifting, shit-eating grin way.
Kudos.
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Joe Biden has been fact-checked to death, and NO ONE has accused him of the first falsehood, distortion, or lie.
DeleteAnd, yes, he showed absolute contempt for the little lying weasel, as well he should. Sometimes you just have to call a lying sack of shit what it is. If Obama would have shown 1/10th that much fight against the lying main prick he'd still be ahead in this race.
You don't reason with a molting pit viper; you kill it.
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DeleteFrom the WaPo,
“We weren’t told they wanted more security there. We did not know they wanted more security.”
— Biden, speaking of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya
Biden’s bold statement was directly contradicted by State Department officials just this week, in testimony before a congressional panel and in unclassified cables released by a congressional committee.
“All of us at post were in sync that we wanted these resources,” said Eric Nordstrom, the top regional security officer in Libya earlier this year. A Utah National Guardsman who led a security team, Lt. Col. Andrew Wood, said: “We felt great frustration that those requests were ignored or just never met.”
Maybe Biden was too busy in debate prep to watch?
UPDATE: In a bit of post-debate clean-up of Biden’s remarks, the White House on Friday said Biden was speaking for himself and President Obama, not the administration.
“The congressman here cut embassy security in his budget by $300 million below what we asked for.”
— Biden
Ryan, as head of the House Budget Committee, set broad targets for spending in his budget blueprint that would have cut nondefense discretionary spending by 19 percent in 2014.
There were no specific cuts in embassy security, but Democrats have extrapolated the number, across the board, to come up with this statistic. But it is not a real number with true budget impact. Update: The Hill newspaper detailed some back-and-forth rhetoric concerning the negotiations over the funding, noting that the figure also includes money for construction and maintenance, not just security.
By the way, our definitive timeline on shifting administration statements on the Libya terrorist attack can be found here.
“Prior to the election, prior to him being sworn in, Governor Romney was asked the question about how he would proceed. He said, ‘I wouldn’t move heaven and earth to get bin Laden.’”
— Biden
Romney made this statement in a 2007 interview with the Associated Press: “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth and spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person.”
But Biden has ignored the rest of the interview, in which the AP quoted Romney as saying “he supports a broader strategy to defeat the Islamic jihad movement.” Just a few days later, Romney expanded on his remarks during a debate:
“We’ll move everything to get him. But I don’t want to buy into the Democratic pitch that this is all about one person — Osama bin Laden — because after we get him, there’s going to be another and another. This is about Shia and Sunni. This is about Hezbollah and Hamas and al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood. This is a worldwide jihadist effort to try and cause the collapse of all moderate Islamic governments and replace them with a caliphate.”
WaPo Fact Check
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Chaffetz was a bit more candid. He said, fucking right we cut it.
DeleteWhat, building a wall isn't "security?"
Gimmee a fucking break.
And, one of our prior commentors was right; no one has ever identified that house in Benghazi as being "State Dept."
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DeleteI assume you know who Carol Lamb is.
But would more money have prevented the attacks?
Apparently not, at least according to one senior State Department official who would certainly seem to know.
In testimony Wednesday before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Charlene Lamb, a deputy assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security, was asked, “Was there any budget consideration and lack of budget which led you not to increase the number of people in the security force there?”
Lamb responded, “No, sir.”
And, from the Christian Science Monitor,
Did Ryan Budget Endanger Security?
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Oh, it WAS all Obama's fault; but when we get it down to who actually cut the funding it's "Never Mind."
DeleteFuck.
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Delete.
Nonsense.
Fact 1. The Dems claims are based on budget differences between Obama's budget and Ryan's budget neither of which were approved by both houses of Congress the last I heard.
Fact 2. The budget merely sets broad outlines on funds. The various allocation committees and the agencies themselves set the priorities on how their piece of the pie is to be spent. Blaming the Ryan budget for any specific allocation is disingenuous at best.
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Maybe Biden stopped the bleeding for the Obama campaign but he did nothing to slow the momentum Romney’s building in Ohio:
ReplyDeleteRCP Average 10/4 - 10/10 -- -- 47.6 46.3 Obama +1.3
Obama loses Ohio. Over and out.
Other than blacks, Obama’s strength would be with woman and under thirties. Biden did nothing to endear himself to either group.
ReplyDeleteBiden presented himself as a disruptive class bully. The artifice failed.
Are you fucking kidding me? Contraception/no abortion even for the health of the mother/Pell Grants?
DeleteRoe v. Wade? Supreme Court Justices?
If I were a young female Biden would have scared me half to death. And, as a father of a female, I wouldn't piss on Romney/Ryan if they were burning to death.
Half of the American people believe in Creationism, and reject Evolution.
ReplyDeleteSo, yeah, Romney might win this thing. But that just means the American people have made one more idiotic, self-destructive decision.
It's not the first one.
As we speak, a Romney-owned company is shutting down a factory in Freeport, Illinois, and moving it to China. 163 Families off the payroll, and onto unemployment, food stamps, and w/o healthcare (paid for by you-know-who.)
ReplyDeleteThe profits will go directly to Romney's Cayman Islands account. They will never pay for a single Marine Embassy Guard, or Carrier Battle Group.
Nor will they pay a dime toward the Pension Guarantee Fund that will end up picking up what's left of those people's retirement. Nor will they pay a dime toward the unemployment payments, or medical care for those people that have worked there for twenty, and thirty plus years.
Yeah, vote for the thieving, lying sack of shit, folks. He's White, and he wears magic undies while he's fucking you blind. Stupid fucking jerks.
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DeleteGet a grip, Rufus.
I'd suggest a brewski but it's a little early.
At least, take a few deep breaths.
:)
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Fuck it; I'm tired of being calm. Romney, and Ryan are lying, thieving sacks of shit, and they'll finish the disaster that Bush started on this country.
ReplyDeleteI'm tired of worthless fucking politicians whose governing philosophy is "keep'em in the dark, and shovel shit on their head." I'm not a mushroom. The Republican Party is "ate up" with ignorance, and Religious Fundamentalism (bigotry.)
And, now it's looking like the ignorant-assed American people are going to put these thieves, and crooks back into power. I'm fucking pissed.
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DeleteThen you'll be walking around for a month ready to explode.
These polls you guys keep putting up make me laugh. All the results fall within the margin of error. Two years ago you could have predicted either Obama or Romney would win 51/49 and you would have had a 50/50 chance of being right. Probably still do.
Wait until November 6 and then worry about the results. You'll save yourself a month of stress.
Besides, the electoral college is the only thing that matters anyway.
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No, according to people that know me, I don't get ulcers, I giv'em.
DeleteI don't walk around carrying 'stress,' I let it out, and call it a day.
Mitt Fucking Romney paid 14% Taxes. How many AMERICAN JOBS do you think HE created?
ReplyDeleteNow you want to elect the thieving, Cayman/Swiss banking motherfucker President? Just so he can Raise Your Taxes, and cut His some more? Are you fucking kidding me?
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DeleteHey, talk to my wife (well, after you've cooled down a little that is).
She doesn't really like Mitt but she has come to the conclusion that she hasn't seen enough progress from Obama in the last four years. Thinks it's time for a change.
You can argue with her reasoning but I think it reflects the thinking of many in the US.
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I think a large part of it is pure racism.
DeleteNot speaking of your wife, of course. Just the general mood of the whites in the country.
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DeleteI'm sure there may be some racism but I doubt it is widespread or at least significant in this case. Otherwise, why the results in '08.
I wouldn't think it was something you can turn on and off.
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I figure the pubs were just so dispirited by the global meltdown, and the lousy republican nominee that they just stayed home and got drunk. Meanwhile, the kids got all hyped up, and voted for the first time (and, quite likely, the only time) in history, and carried the day.
DeleteThis time the Rushes, and the Hannities have had plenty of time to work up a good racial hatred, and here we are.
The Voter Suppression efforts in Ohio, and Pennsylvania are abhorrent, and the Romney Campaign (via John Sununu, among others) have been despicable in playing up the "should learn to be American, etc" garbage.
It just makes me sick to my stomach that we are going to risk 50 years of Social Progress on these slimey, backwoods assholes.
And, God, I don't even want to think about their energy policies.
ReplyDeleteThe "fiscal cliff" is owned by The Tea Party and its forbears. Obama and the Dems had a compromise on the table but Boehner couldn't get Eric Cantor to walk across the aisle (if you really want to talk about smirky little so-and-so's.) This failure was clearly the subtext of the Blankfein-Bowles-Simpson interview. Wall St wants to see "compromise" and "governance." The "regulatory burden" as well as the "welfare state" are still on the Wall St list, just not at the top. (The Street knows how to prioritize. It also knows how to maneuver.)
From the previous thread:
[Obama's] view is the Constitution is basically a flawed document, historically out of date, and needs to be junked.
I tend to agree that constitutional encroachment/revisionism is the largest threat emanating from the Left. The mere subject spooks me.
The economic stuff - not so much. We know what we have to do - biting the bullet. The constitutional rumblings are a dicier endeavor - pushing the envelope.
The country is understandably conflicted. They are also being patronized by both Parties. How many of them/us recognize this is up for discussion. None of which is being well captured - one might say contextualized - by the media/pundits.
Instead we get smirk 24/7 (oh I get it - that was the use of psychology to subliminally emphasize Ryan's mewling attempts to disguise his not-quite-ready-for-prime-time demeanor. Pretty clever.)
Cutting defense spending, rolling it back to 2006 levels, an excellent move. Now that the GOP is running away from it, just shows how craven they truly are.
DeleteA signature achievement they now disown...
Just shows the lack of principle in the GOP.
The Obama victory in 2008 was anti-incumbent, although there was some hope that the rebound would be more satisfying. This time around, the vote must be for party direction more than the guy at the top. An Obama win ensures Democratic control of Senate. With the added indignity of the Wall St braying, the Republicans may fold and return to governing. Yet another eyebrow-raising observation to emerge from the Blankfein-Bowles-Simpson interview was that neither Bowles nor Simpson was noticeably optimistic. Blankfein, the money guy, implied that GS would survive either way.
DeleteThe so-called fiscal cliff (cue scary movie music) is simply an increase in taxes to Clinton-era levels, and a cut in spending that the Pubs have been whining for since Ol' Hickory was a youngster.
DeleteI read, a year ago, that Obama had plans in place for a 5%, across the board, spending cut. Looks like he's perfectly comfortable with that.
DeleteIt just makes me sick to my stomach that we are going to risk 50 years of Social Progress on these slimey, backwoods assholes.
DeleteYep. That's what's at stake.
So Romney "won" the debate, but at least one focus group preferred Obama's policies. So Romney "debates" better than the "long-legged mack daddy"? (I believe that can be labelled a racist slur.) Why do the parties look to Hollywood for candidates? Why do the intel agencies look to Hollywood for operatives? Romney's debate "performance" means nothing to me. As long as the party infrastructure that fronts the handsome smiling face slithers along on it's collective belly, I will be siding with the LLMD, openly and quite comfortable in the certainty that it could be much worse.
Our #1 Problem is an Enormous Energy Problem - specifically, Oil
ReplyDeleteOur #2 Problem is a totally flawed China Trade Policy - fairly easy to fix, just takes a little time, and
Our #3 Problem is a tax system that encourages corporations, and wealthy individuals to keep their money "offshore." This could be fixed in one piece of legislation.
#1 is, by far, the most serious, and difficult to do anything about. As a result, we'll most likely just ignore it as long as humanly possible (until, right before the folks with the torches, and pitchforks get to Pennsylvania Avenue.)
Speaking of Starship Troopers (rated #47 for movies from the 1990's):
ReplyDeletePaul Verhoeven’s gonzo satire was destined, even designed, to be misunderstood. An action spectacle with the heart of a Grade-Z creature feature, the movie was derided as “90210 in space,” missing the fact that Verhoeven deliberately cast blandly good-looking actors as fodder for the movie’s militaristic mill. Stealing shots from Triumph Of The Will, the story of a society abandoning individual rights, and even identities, in response to an alien invasion, Starship Troopers is a wicked, acidic comment on how easily people can be convinced to trade freedom for security. That it also functions for the unaware as a full-throated Fascist recruiting ad is part of its brilliance. Verhoeven admits and even indulges its appeal before turning it inside out.
I always regarded the "Fascist recruiting" as tongue-in-cheek. Maybe I should have taken the subliminal messaging more seriously. Think I'll take another look at Reservoir Dogs.
DeleteThe book, darlin', read the book.
DeleteIsaac Asimov called Heinlein a "flaming liberal."
DeleteI believe that is the source of the term.
This campaign cycle is dominated by ideology, as articulated by the extremes, as noted previously by many others. Another reason why the polling may not capture the public mood, which is bristly.
Speaking of imagery, The Full Biden:
ReplyDeleteAlternatively, he "stopped the bleeding." Or, if you prefer, Biden "probably gave depressed Democrats an emotional jolt." We at your Speculatron would simply say, to use the cliche, Biden did what he had to do -- stand firm behind the president, offer a rousing and emotive performance, and, yes, show the sort of aggression in opposition that President Barack Obama, for a multitude of reasons, will not be able to.
A chance to cut is a chance to cure, and that is precisely what Biden set out doing in 90 minutes of sparring with his "friend," Republican vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan. Lop, chop, slice -- and the Obama supporters who were left wondering what happened in the first presidential debate were back up off their fainting couches and reaching for their foam fingers.
And Biden brought the full Biden -- he flashed big, sarcastic smiles, jumped into any dead-air that Ryan provided to interrupt and object (deploying a similar technique that we saw former GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum use during the primary season's debates), and used grand and emotive melodramatic gestures like he had spent most of his debate prep studying at the feet of François Delsarte.
No one would call Biden's performance especially nuanced...
Romney surrogates, in the immediate aftermath of Thursday night's debate, made it clear that only Romney is allowed to smile ebulliently, laugh out loud, deploy zingers, and interrupt people. (When Romney does it, it's super-strong and presidential, when Biden does it, it's conduct unbecoming.) They didn't enjoy Biden's performance, not at all. Which is going to be fine with Team Obama Re-Elect, because that was the point. Biden, and only Biden, had the leeway to push boundaries and buttons. Obama can't take it as far as his running mate (in any event, it's not in his nature), but Biden has now opened up a little space for Obama to attack without being thought of as antic.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteIn a classic Mad Magazine cartoon, the Lone Ranger and Tonto are surrounded by a horde of hostile Indian warriors. The Lone Ranger says to Tonto "what do we do, now?," to which Tonto replies, "what you mean 'we,' kemosabe?"
David Frum thinks Paul Ryan has trouble with the Royal "we:"
...a connection dangerously missing from a Ryan presentation that oftentimes seemed to speak from a position far above the concerns and struggles of the great American middle.
[Ryan:] We want everybody to succeed. We want to get people out of poverty, in the middle class, on to lives of self-sufficiency. We believe in opportunity and upward mobility. That's what we're going to push for in a Romney administration.
A fine thought. But it would have been more finely expressed had the "we" in Ryan's mouth more often referred to the country, and less to a party or a political operation.
Rufus is a canker on the ass of humanity.
ReplyDeleteChief Plenty Coups Aleek-chea-ahoosh of the Apsáalooke
Guy's a moron, Chief, you got that right.
ReplyDeleteBuck Buckett
Chief, sometimes I think he got the worst of my kind, and the worst of your kind.
ReplyDeleteBuck
Not worth bucket of buffalo chips, Buckett. Him smoke pipe out own ass. Him like smell of own gas. Him funny ha-ha though.
ReplyDeleteChief Plenty Coups
i saw your post, through the subject is new too me,its easy to understand the facts behind this.
ReplyDeleteIncrease Youtube Views