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Leaked CIA doc: "Use Plight of Afghan Women to Win Public Support for War"

Posted on August 10, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Between the Bomb and the Burqa Her voice was thick with passion as she argued for ending violence against fellow Afghan women, but the men didn't listen. Instead they hurled insults at her; they called her a prostitute and a traitor to her religion. The stubborn men's insults were abusive and frustrating, but it had been worse for other women in her position. They were threatened and hunted down. Some of them were killed. Like many recent reports in the media, this story conjures up images of a brave Afghan villager struggling against the tyrannical rule of a Taliban court or insurgent militia, but that's not case: the woman in this story is an unnamed member of the Afghan Parliament supported by the United States. The verbal abuse is recounted by another female Afghan official in a recent Human Rights Watch (HRW) report. The men who called her a prostitute were her colleagues and fellow legislators, the supposed enemies of the religious fanatics fighting for control of Afghanistan. Such accounts shed doubts on the narrative of female liberation following the initial toppling of the Taliban, as the reinvigorated debate over the occupation has renewed the media's interest in the abuses suffered by Afghan women at the hands of America's enemies. Human rights advocates may be pleased, but media critics say the plight of Afghan woman is being used to rally support for the war, and as a recent military leak reveals, the government secretly considered such a media strategy as recently as this spring. Time magazine became the poster child for this trend last week with a cover story featuring the disfigured face of a young Afghan girl named Aisha with the ominous headline: “What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan.” “They are the people that did this to me,” Aisha told the Time reporter as she touched her damaged face, disfigured as part of Taliban punishment for running away from her abusive in-laws. “How can we reconcile with them?” Aisha's heartbreaking plea reveals the harsh reality of living in a war-torn and ultra-religious society. She puts a face on the Afghan dilemma, but critics contend that the Time article on Aisha oversimplifies a complicated issue. “Feminists have long argued that invoking the condition of women to justify occupation is a cynical ploy and the Time cover already stands accused of it,” wrote Priyamvada Gopal, an English professor at Cambridge University, in The Guardian UK. “Misogynist violence is unacceptable, but we must also be concerned by the continued insistence that the complexities of war, occupation and reality itself can be reduced to bedtime stories.” A careful editorial by Time editor Rick Stengel insists that the magazine is not “either in support of the US war effort or in opposition to it,” but its intention is also an attempt to counterbalance the recent WikiLeaks release of more than 90,000 documents detailing the military actions in Afghanistan. According to Stengel, the leaked documents cannot provide “emotional truth and insight into the way life is lived in that difficult land,” but a different WikiLeaks release does provide some insight on using Afghan women to promote war. The Red Cell CIA Leak An internal Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) document released by WikiLeaks in March reveals a secret plan to use the plight of Afghan women and refugees in developing media strategies to “leverage French (and other European) guilt” during an especially bloody summer of military escalation. The confidential document was prepared by the Red Cell, a secretive group that consults the US intelligence community. In response to the news that Dutch forces would soon withdraw from Afghanistan, the Red Cell outlined a plan to use Afghan women and refugees in developing media strategies to ensure that more NATO allies would not succumb to public pressure and follow suit. The memo claimed that a “not our problem” sentiment toward the Afghan conflict allowed European leaders to ignore voter's vast disapproval of the occupation, but “forecasts of a bloody summer” could provoke a public backlash. The forecast was correct: June and July were the deadliest months for NATO and US forces to date. The record number of body bags coupled with the firing of former US Gen. Stanley McChrystal and the bloody revelations provided by the massive WikiLeaks release has pushed international support for the war to a new low. Bloomberg reported last week that, in the wake of the WikiLeaks release, approximately 70 percent of Germans want their troops to leave “as soon as possible.” Germany has the third largest military presence in Afghanistan. READ MORE AT LINK: http://www.truth-out.org/between-bomb-and-burqa62110 added by: pinkpanther

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Keith Olbermann Revises History to Praise Clinton and Bash Gingrich

Posted on August 9, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Keith Olbermann on Monday revised history to praise former President Bill Clinton and bash former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. In the opening segment of MSNBC’s “Countdown,” the host railed against a proposal by Republicans to once again reintroduce the balanced budget amendment. Olbermann pointed out to his tiny audience that this was “also pushed by then Speaker Newt Gingrich as part of the 1994 Contract With America.” With total disregard for historical facts, the “Countdown” host continued, “Gingrich failed to pass it, President Clinton raised taxes, balanced the budget, created 22 million jobs” (video follows with transcript and commentary): KEITH OLBERMANN: Sick of Democrats accusing them of having nothing to improve the economy but ideas from the Bush era, Republicans are planning to introduce instead a bold new initiative from the Gingrich era. Our fifth story tonight, it’s called the balanced budget amendment, but it’s real objective is to protect the rich from tax cuts, and without those tax cuts, Republicans will not tell us how they would balance the budget, even if they do give us a few hints, as you’ll see. It was Republican Senator Jim Demint telling the newspaper The Hill that when Congress returns after the August recess, he and his colleagues, including John McCain and Lindsey Graham, will introduce a resolution to amend the U. S. Constitution. The balanced budget amendment, also pushed by then Speaker Newt Gingrich as part of the 1994 Contract With America, would prevent the federal government from spending more than it takes in. But, and there is the rub, it also has a clause barring any tax increases without a two-thirds vote in each chamber of Congress. Gingrich failed to pass it, President Clinton raised taxes, balanced the budget, created 22 million jobs. Really? Well, first of all, Clinton’s tax hikes were part of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993. Gingrich didn’t become Speaker until January 1995. Nice try, Keith. But it gets worse, for what Olbermann conveniently omitted – like so many media members are currently doing to misinform the public about the difference between Republican and Democrat tax policies – was that Gingrich and the Republican Congress forced Clinton to sign the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 which cut taxes. This was when the economy really took off as the GDP grew by 4.4 percent in 1997, 4.5 percent in 1998, 4.8 percent in 1999, and 4.1 percent in 2000. During this period, employers added over 12 million workers to their payrolls. As for the budget being balanced, this also occurred after the 1997 tax cuts in years 1998 through 2001. With this in mind, one seriously has to wonder whether the folks at General Electric and NBC consider this kind of shoddy reporting acceptable on their cable news network. Consider that just a few minutes later, a regular guest on MSNBC, Arianna Huffington, showed an absolutely staggering ignorance of business, taxes, and economics. Two hours earlier, MSNBC host Ed Schultz completely misrepresented the causes of the government shutdown in November 1995. Exit question: would any other corporation in America tolerate such negligence from high-profile employees without at least a reprimand? 

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Do you think I’m dumb or somethin’?

Posted on August 9, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Right now the spin is in!!! The fix is in!!! It is all about selling the Gulf Coast region to the American Public and letting them know that it has become A-OK to come on down!!! Hell, it must be good if the President of the United States boasts that he ATE, yes ATE Gulf Coast Seafood this past weekend. Hey, that fish and seafood is alright for y'all to eat it all up!! Shit, forget that BP sprayed over an unprecedented 1.8 million gallons of the toxic dispersant corexit into the Gulf. Hell, we want you to get AMNESIA and forget that this was even used!!! There is no way that the marine life was damaged, no way that this toxic stew will affect ANYTHING you eat, so go at it folks, enjoy yourself!! Let's not forget all the animal, marine life that has died but the public was BLACKED OUT due to BP and the government. Don't forget BP worked harder than a two dollar hoe to hoist away any dead marine life on any Gulf Coast beaches so the public would not see. This is all part of the sell folks!! If you don't have repeated pictures to see daily, hell it did not happen!!! What is happening in this selling of the Gulf Coast is a sham. And to see the Obama Administration a part of this is even worse. We don't know what will happen down the road, but one thing each one of us own is a thinking and usable brain. It is logical that if a company sprayed over 1.8M gallons of a toxic chemical that there is no way the marine life is safe, let alone any food from that region is safe, no matter how many times BP or the U.S. government officials go on television to try to spin that this damage is over. It has just begun. To judge from most media coverage, the beaches are open, the fishing restrictions being lifted and the Gulf resorts open for business in a healthy, safe environment. We, along with Pierre LeBlanc, spent the last few weeks along the Gulf coast from Louisiana to Florida, and the reality is distinctly different. The coastal communities of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida have been inundated by the oil and toxic dispersant Corexit 9500, and the entire region is contaminated. The once pristine white beaches that have been subject to intense cleaning operations now contain the oil/dispersant contamination to an unknown depth. The economic impacts potentially exceed even the devastation of a major hurricane like Katrina, the adverse impacts on health and welfare of human populations are increasing every minute of every day and the long-term effects are potentially life threatening. Over the Gulf from the Source (official term for the Deepwater Horizon spill site) in to shore there is virtually no sign of life anywhere in the vast areas covered by the dispersed oil and Corexit. This in a region previously abundant with life above and below the ocean's surface in all its diversity. For months now, scientists and environmental organizations have been asking where all the animals are. The reported numbers of marine animals lost from BP fall far short of the observed loss. The water has a heavy appearance and the slightly iridescent greenish yellow color that extends as far as the eye can see. [snip] The majority of the disposal operations were carried out under cover of darkness. The areas along the beaches and coastal Islands where the dead animals were collected were closed off by the U.S. Coast Guard. On shore, private contractors and local law enforcement officials kept off limits the areas where the remains of the dead animals were dumped, mainly at the Magnolia Springs landfill by Waste Management where armed guards controlled access. The nearby weigh station where the Waste Management trucks passed through with their cargoes was also restricted by at least one sheriff's deputies in a patrol car, 24/7. None of the above reads like the Gulf Coast Region is the place to be, in fact it is the place not to be, let alone eating anything out of the toxic waters. President Obama states that the Republicans want us to have amnesia or forget all that this administration had to deal with since former President George W. Bush left this country in disarray. The Republicans are betting on that, but what this administration is doing by selling a flawed bill of goods in the Gulf Coast is just the same. To openly spin the “Gulf Coast Region is OK, back in business” is totally irresponsible and disingenuous. This is all about turning the klieg lights off this region who has to struggle for an existence since the horror of BP has come into their lives. The Obama Family will be in the Gulf Region soon for a weekend before they scoot up to Cape Cod for their vacation. As I loved looking at Sasha Obama frolic in and out of the Spain beach waters, many will be watching to see if the Obama Girls will do the same in the Gulf Coast waters. That will be the ultimate sign that the Gulf Region is BACK and it is A-OK!!! I hope NOT to see that photo, but that is the one many will want to see, since millions are staying away from these beaches which are part of the Gulf Coast livelihood. added by: samantha420

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Tony Blankley Destroys Ed Schultz in Debate About Clinton and Gingrich

Posted on August 9, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

MSNBC’s Ed Schultz on Monday absolutely got his head handed to him in a debate with syndicated columnist Tony Blankley. Clearly underestimating his opponent, Schultz rudely introduced the subject of a Republican proposal to not have the Congress come back for a lame duck session after November’s elections by saying, “No one knows better about shutting down Congress than someone who was right there working for Newt Gingrich when it happened before.” Not letting this stand, Blankley gave the “Ed Show” host a much-needed history lesson (video follows with transcript and commentary):   ED SCHULTZ, HOST: The GOP wants to work three weeks in four months. Got that? While railing about wasteful government spending with a straight face. I don’t know how they do it. It’s absolutely stunning. No one knows better about shutting down Congress than someone who was right there working for Newt Gingrich when it happened before. Tony Blankley was press secretary to the Speaker and he’s now a syndicated columnist. Tony, do you think, good to have you with us tonight. TONY BLANKLEY: Good to be here. SCHULTZ: You bet. Do you think it plays to the sensibilities of Americans to suggest a plan that, gosh, the Congress would only be in session to do something for the American people several weeks out of the next four months? BLANKLEY: Well, first of all, I’ve got to correct the record as I expected I would. Newt did not close down the government in ’95. The Republican Congress passed two bills and the President Clinton decided to veto them because he didn’t like what was in the bill, which was funding plus requiring to balance the budget in seven years. And by the way, if you dispute it, I do have in my hot little hands the transcript from Nightline of the night the government closed down with Cokie Roberts and President Clinton agreeing that he vetoed the bill. So, putting that aside, we didn’t want to close down the government. We wanted to balance the budget. For the record, here is that ABC “Nightline” transcript from November 13, 1995: COKIE ROBERTS, HOST: [voice-over] A political impasse over the budget- Pres. BILL CLINTON: I would be wrong to permit these kind of pressure tactics. Rep. NEWT GINGRICH: It’s very sad to see the President choose this political game. COKIE ROBERTS: [voice-over] -and federal services hang in the balance. Tonight, as the clock strikes 12:00, the government shuts down. ANNOUNCER: This is ABC News Nightline. Substituting for Ted Koppel and reporting from Washington, Cokie Roberts. COKIE ROBERTS: It’s after midnight in Washington, so the government must be closed, right? Well, technically right, but this is Washington, after all, and nothing is quite that simple. After casting his threatened vetoes, President Clinton and congressional leaders met tonight, trying to fix the mess they had made, but the meeting broke up not long ago, with only the promise to meet again tomorrow. Each side is trying to score political points in this budget drama without getting blamed for chaos. ‘Protector of Medicare’ is President Clinton’s chosen role, and he refused to sign the bill to keep the government going because it required Medicare recipients to pay more for some premiums than they currently expect to. Republicans playing ‘protectors of the purse,’ but both sides are worried that voters will see them as game-playing politicians, and an ABC News/Washington Post poll released tonight shows that’s exactly what voters do think. Nine times in the past 14 years, the government’s officially run out of money. Four times it’s actually shut down. This is becoming a well-worn script. But the poll also shows that Republicans get more of the blame for a possible shutdown; 46 percent say they’re at fault, 27 percent blame the President. Those numbers serve as a backdrop to the events of this very long day. Nightline correspondent Michel McQueen has our report. RADIO ANNOUNCER: Federal shutdown, will it happen? Stay tuned for instant updates. MICHEL McQUEEN, ABC News: [voice-over] As the sun rose, so did the volume in a divided Washington. Vice Pres. AL GORE: [NBC] They have not done their job. Now they’re trying to make an end run around the Constitution, around the normal procedures. Rep. ROBERT LIVINGSTON, (R), Chairman, Appropriations Committee: We’ve done a lot to work our way toward the President. He has not done thing toward coming toward us. MICHEL McQUEEN: [voice-over] Eight-thirty A.M., President Clinton vetoed the first of two bills at issue in the budget crisis, one that would raise the federal debt limit and require a balanced budget in seven years. Pres. BILL CLINTON: It would allow the United States to pay its debts for another month, but only at a price too high for the American people to pay. MICHEL McQUEEN: [voice-over] And as federal workers headed to the office, the confrontation over the other bill – providing money to keep the government operating temporarily – cast a shadow over the workday. 1st FEDERAL WORKER: I think it’s nonsense. I’m involved in personnel, so I’m the one who’s going to be going to my office to type up furlough letters, including to myself. 2nd FEDERAL WORKER: Reality is that the Congress and the President have to get together and come to terms on exactly, you know, what needs to be done to ensure that there isn’t a shutdown. Pres. BILL CLINTON: Thank you. MICHEL McQUEEN: [voice-over] Mid-morning. In a duel to seize the moral high ground, the President and House Speaker Newt Gingrich delivered speeches to friendly audiences. Pres. BILL CLINTON: As long as they insist on plunging ahead with a budget that violates our values, in a process that is characterized more by pressure than constitutional practice, I will fight it. I am fighting it today, I will fight it tomorrow, I will fight it next week, and next month. Rep. NEWT GINGRICH: We can balance the budget, we can save the Medicare trust fund, we can reform the welfare system if we can have an honest dialogue among ourselves as a people. MICHEL McQUEEN: [voice-over] At the Senate, the first sign of movement. Republican budget leader Pete Domenici offered a compromise to freeze Medicare premiums at their current level. Sen. PETE DOMENICI: Now, of late, and I don’t know whether this is acceptable across the board, but I’ve at least discussed, after talking with my staff, I’ve discussed with the Republican leader here and with others that perhaps the solution is to freeze that at $46.10. MICHEL McQUEEN: But at noon, despite the glimmer of progress, all signs still point to a government shutdown, with no clue about how long it will last, or what the long-term impact might be. And although Washington has seen these shutdowns before, nearly everyone agrees that this one is different. NORMAN ORNSTEIN, American Enterprise Institute: It has the potential of a serious disruption, and an historic change. You have a Republican Congress, especially a Republican House, bound and determined not to compromise and to push its vision of the budget and of the role of the federal government down the throat of the President of the United States, and you have a president saying, ‘I draw the line in the dust, and I won’t let this happen.’ HELEN THOMAS, United Press International: You always had the sense that it was very- it would be resolved very soon. There seems to be a different mood this time around, a real- there’s a real division of philosophy, I think, of government. It’s- it’s, I think, a real crisis. MICHEL McQUEEN: [voice-over] The real crisis for federal workers, like these in a Social Security office in Kansas City, was the fear of losing a paycheck. 3rd FEDERAL WORKER: When we go on furlough, then that means immediately we have no income, and even if it was just us, it would be one thing, but we have a child to take care of. MICHEL McQUEEN: [voice-over] And at this national park in Ventura County, California, rangers were preparing for limited operation. NATIONAL PARK RANGER: The areas will be closed off to the public, but we will maintain patrols of the area and maintain a patrol staff for emergency medical services, protection of the resource, and search and rescue operations. MICHEL McQUEEN: [voice-over] Back in Washington, twice as many people as usual showed up at the passport office, fearing the office would soon close. Two-thirty P.M. Presidential spokesman Mike McCurry threw cold water on a proposed compromise on Medicare and on the Congress’s overall approach to funding. MIKE McCURRY: The President is very concerned about 60 percent funding level. He has made that clear repeatedly in the statements he’s made the last two days, and that just is an unacceptable [crosstalk]. REPORTER: So that’s a veto. That means a veto, correct? MIKE McCURRY: It’s unacceptable. MICHEL McQUEEN: [voice-over] And with the White House unwilling to compromise, senators said they also were not interested, and that they would send the President their original funding bill. They pointedly noted they would remain on the job. Sen. BOB DOLE: We’re prepared to act up until midnight, or after, if necessary, to prevent a shutdown of the federal government. MICHEL McQUEEN: [voice-over] And the blame game continued. Rep. NEWT GINGRICH: We want the country to understand that the only way the government will close tomorrow is, it is President Clinton is determined to close it. MICHEL McQUEEN: [voice-over] And shortly before 9:00 P.M., congressional leaders reached out. Rep. NEWT GINGRICH: We want to go down and talk with the President about how to keep the government open, and to try to have a discussion about how we will get to a balanced budget and keep the government open, and the- he said no preconditions, and we said no preconditions. MICHEL McQUEEN: [voice-over] It was the Republicans who asked the President for the meeting, and while the phone call got them an invitation to the White House, it could not save their funding bill. Within the hour, the President issued a veto, his second of the day, guaranteeing a government shutdown at midnight.  Got that? Just as Blankley said, the shutdown was indeed caused by Clinton’s vetoes. Not surprisingly, the facts weren’t getting in the way of Schultz’s point: SCHULTZ: Well, let me, so you don’t have history revisionism going on here, Tony, the fact is is that it was Newt Gingrich who made the decision based on the action of President Clinton that okay, that’s it, we’re just going to shut her down. The President was not advocating shutting down the Congress. Is that correct? BLANKLEY: That is not, that is not true. Newt passed, we passed, we passed the bill with the money and the debt limit raise which is what was required. By the way, I have a Congressional Research Service study that says the same thing. Republicans passed the bill. The President vetoed it. For the record, here’s what that CRS study said: The most recent shutdowns occurred in FY1996. There were two during the early part of the fiscal year. The first, November 14-19, 1995, resulted in the furlough of an estimated 800,000 federal employees. It was caused by the expiration of a continuing funding resolution (P.L. 104-31) agreed to on September 30, 1995, and by President Clinton’s veto of a second continuing resolution and a debt limit extension bill. Schultz still wasn’t giving up: SCHULTZ: Was, was… BLANKLEY: That’s the record! SCHULTZ: I don’t want to spend too much time on history… BLANKLEY: I know! SCHULTZ: …but the fact is President Clinton was not advocating shutting down the Congress… BLANKLEY: And neither, and neither were the Republicans. SCHULTZ: …nor does he have the power to do that. BLANKLEY: He did by, by vetoing the bill. SCHULTZ: Oh, okay, Because he didn’t play ball the way you guys wanted to… BLANKLEY: Exactly. SCHULTZ: …that’s how you interpret it. BLANKLEY: There was a real argument to be had and you could haggle over it. We wanted cuts in medicare spending, he didn’t. But the fact is we, we passed the legislation that would keep the government open. He vetoed it because he didn’t like the other provisions that were in it. Indeed, and no matter how much folks like Schultz want to blame that government shutdown on Gingrich and the Republican Congress, it was in fact Clinton that forced it with his vetoes. Not accepting defeat graciously, Schultz foolishly came back for more, and once again got destroyed by the astonishingly more knowledgable Blankley: SCHULTZ: Okay, so the next point is this. How did the next election go for the Republicans after that? BLANKLEY: We held onto the House for another ten years. SCHULTZ: And how many seats did you lose? BLANKLEY: ’95 to 2006 before we lost it. Talk about walking into a gunfight with a knife. For the record, despite Clinton’s re-election in 1996, he had absolutely no coat-tail that year as the Republicans did surprisingly well in the Congressional balloting losing only six seats in the House while gaining two in the Senate. As such, on this subject, Schultz was once again all wet. Of course, there’s a much larger issue here. The media are realizing that this November is going to be very bad for the Democrats they support, and they’re pulling out all the stops to lessen the damage. This of includes revising history much as Schultz attempted here to blame everything that has gone wrong in this country – even a government shutdown fifteen years ago – on the GOP. Beyond this, as Gingrich is rumored to be a presidential candidate in 2012, there’s a new movement by so-called journalists to tarnish his record irrespective of the facts. In this instance, the paltry number of people watching fortunately had Blankley there to correct the record. Sadly, on this shill network, that is rarely the case. Bravo, Tony! Bravo!

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Michelle Obama Kicks It Euro-style While Americans, and Barack Obama, Watch

Posted on August 9, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

The press won’t go there because, well, they love President Barack Obama and this story, accurately reported, is painful. I haven’t gone there because I don’t really care what’s going on between President Obama and his wife. President Clinton defiling the Oval office concerned me because his actions were a big f-u to the American people and showed blatant disrespect to the office and the country. Michelle being pissed off at Barack Obama? Eh, who isn’t? Also, Michelle being a petty, selfish woman? Also not news. If reports are to be believed, Michelle Obama is the reason America has the shining tower of intelligence Joe Biden instead of Hillary Clinton. Petty. They’re two of a kind. Still and all, this story has become more newsworthy as the scope and cost of Michelle’s trip to Europe has dribbled out.  Mickey Kaus says: So Michelle Obama vacations in Spain with her daughter and a huge posse, leaving her husband  alone on his birthday  and undermining his party’s political chances ( bad recession ‘optics’ ). This is the sort of story on which I suspect there are three levels of perception: 1. Unsophisticated : Jeez, they must have had some kind of fight. She’s pissed! This is a big ‘screw you.’ 2. Sophisticated and well informed:  At their level everyone is too smart and experienced to let any kind of spat affect state affairs. These things get planned out well ahead of time by staff. Only the unsophisticated jump to conclusions on the basis of crude external appearances. 3. Real Insider:  Jeez, they must have had some kind of fight. She’s pissed! This is a big ‘screw you.’ Ha! Well, though no one would say it, this was a big “screw you” to the president. Turns out, it was a big screw you to the American Taxpayer, too. From the  Seattle Times  that emphasizes (of course!) the private nature of the trip and that Michelle Obama will pay back some of the cost: The opulence of the European trip also has drawn scrutiny. Michelle Obama is staying at the Hotel Villa Padierna, a Ritz-Carlton resort in the mountains outside Marbella. The resort has two golf courses, a posh spa with Turkish baths, views of the Mediterranean Sea and a high-end restaurant specializing in avant-garde fare. Room rates start at $400 and rise to $6,500 for a two-bedroom villa with a private pool and 24-hour butler service. While her friends arrived in Spain on their own, Michelle Obama flew in on a type of aircraft also used by Vice President Joseph Biden. It costs the government $11,555 an hour to operate the plane, according to the Air Force. Assuming a nearly eight-hour flight to nearby Málaga, the total round-trip cost of the flight is about  $178,000 . Anita McBride, who was chief of staff to former first lady Laura Bush, was not surprised the trip has its critics. “When you are a public figure, it can be difficult to lead a private life. Despite the fact that much of this trip is paid for personally, the American people know that there are costs borne by the taxpayers and it’s to be expected that the more expensive the trip, the greater the risk of criticism,” McBride said. The optics are so bad, even Democrat (and Journolista?)  Kirsten Powers calls this a “Foolish Trip” : Some argue that Michelle should be able to travel wherever she wants if she’s paying for it herself. This is naive. She is the first lady at a time when Americans are experiencing great economic pain. There are endless great locations here at home that she could put on the map with a visit – American hotels and restaurants that would be grateful for the business generated by such a high-profile visitor. If it’s a huge sacrifice for her, so be it. Sacrifice is actually a noble trait, last I checked. Plus, if she keeps this up, she will be able to vacation anywhere she wants in about two years. The choices regarding this story are unpleasant for Democrats: 1. Barack and Michelle are fighting and she is so selfish she doesn’t care how it looks. (Actually the best scenario.) 2. Barack and Michelle are just self-indulgent and don’t care about the American people or how they might feel. Michelle feels entitled to a vacation, and dammit, she’s going to have one. 3. Barack and Michelle know how this will look and have no interest in Democrats getting re-elected in November. I happen to believe all three are true. It’s really not in President Obama’s best interest to have the Democrats in charge after November. So, President and Michelle Obama just push on doing whatever they want to do. There is also an element here that the President hasn’t quite grasped his responsibility as president-to represent the people. And the American people suffer while DC is rolling in it gangster style. Forget spats, optics, elections: The Obamas display contempt for the American people. Living like Kings while people are jobless and losing their homes is not just gauche, it stirs Americans at a primal level. Most Americans left another country so that average people could have a chance and not be lorded over by faux-aristocrats. Crossposted at Liberty Pundits

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Michelle Obama Kicks It Euro-style While Americans, and Barack Obama, Watch

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BP is selling the fake story that there’s no oil

Posted on August 9, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

BP's PR department is trotting out its paid shills to sell the false story that most of the oil spilled in their leak has been 'processed by nature' and has miraculously dissipated. Don't believe a word of it…. ~ Ohhhh … this is what BP's public relations department has been working on. BP is trying to sell the story that “everyone” is asking “where is all the oil?”. More than a few stories have popped up during my news reading that raise that question. One of the most galling articles was written up in Time.com by Michael Grunwald which carried the headline “BP Oil: Has the Damage Been Exaggerated?” His piece extensively quotes people who Grunwald admits are on BP's payroll. Not surprisingly, their quotes overwhelming call into question the real impact of the oil, actually downplaying the disastrous impact of dumping a few hundred million gallons of oil, toxic dispersants, and methane into the ocean. Let's look at some of Grunwald's piece. Marine scientist Ivor van Heerden, another former LSU prof, who's working for a spill-response contractor, says, “There's just no data to suggest this is an environmental disaster. I have no interest in making BP look good — I think they lied about the size of the spill — but we're not seeing catastrophic impacts.” Heerden, who gets funding from BP, suggests that a lack of data means the impact wasn't catastrophic. It ignores that the disaster is still relatively fresh and that loads of data will be collected in the future by scientists studying the leak. It also blithely flitters over the fact that BP has resisted scientists from collecting data at every step of the way — for one, we don't know exactly how much was leaking out because BP didn't allow flow-rate monitors to be put in place. Another bit of Heerden: Mother Nature can be incredibly resilient. Van Heerden's assessment team showed me around Casse-tete Island in Timbalier Bay, where new shoots of Spartina grasses were sprouting in oiled marshes and new leaves were growing on the first black mangroves I've ever seen that were actually black. “It comes back fast, doesn't it?” van Heerden said. No, it doesn't. Heerden is dissembling, grasses don't “come back” in mere months after a spill. You can still scratch below the sand in Valdez, Alaska, and find oil. It's the same for nearly every large oil spill in recent history. Yes, oil does eventually break down, but when a large spill happens, a lot of the oil can get preserved underneath the surface, screwing up the food web for decades. BP's spill was unique in how deep it was; it's thought that the cold, dark, deep waters the oil flowed into could act as a similar preserving agent. And even when the oil does get eaten by bacteria, it can cause massive dead zones by sucking out all the oxygen out of the surrounding waters. Another: So far, the teams have collected nearly 3,000 dead birds, but fewer than half of them were visibly oiled; some may have died from eating oil-contaminated food, but others may have simply died naturally at a time when the Gulf happened to be crawling with carcass seekers. In any case, the Valdez may have killed as many as 435,000 birds. NOAA says that for every one bird that was found oiled and dead, another 99 were brought out to sea and were uncounted. Those 3,000 dead sea birds mean that at least 297,000 other birds died unseen. That's not too far off from Valdez's official tally of 435,000 birds. Both are terrible numbers. Another gem: LSU coastal scientist Eugene Turner has dedicated much of his career to documenting how the oil industry has ravaged Louisiana's coast with canals and pipelines, but he says the BP spill will be a comparative blip and predicts that the oil will destroy fewer marshes than the airboats deployed to clean up the oil. “We don't want to deny that there's some damage, but nothing like the damage we've seen for years,” he says. Oh, I feel better. BP's single spill didn't do as much damage as decades of the oil industry tearing up the Gulf Coast. Don't you feel better? The one paragraph where Grunwald talks about the potential dangers — the long-term effects on the food web and ecosystem and the potential for huge dead zones — are followed with this breezy throw away: “People always fear the worst in a spill, and this one was especially scary because we didn't know when it would stop,” says [geochemist Jacqueline] Michel, an environmental consultant who has worked spills for NOAA for more than 30 years. “But the public always overestimates the danger — and this time, those of us in the spill business did, too.” It ends: Anti-oil politicians, anti-Obama politicians and underfunded green groups all have obvious incentives to accentuate the negative in the Gulf. So do the media, because disasters drive ratings and sell magazines; those oil-soaked pelicans you saw on TV (and the cover of TIME) were a lot more compelling than the healthy ones I saw roosting on a protective boom in Bay Jimmy. Even [Rush] Limbaugh, when he wasn't downplaying the spill, outrageously hyped it as “Obama's Katrina.” But honest scientists don't do that, even when they work for Audubon. “There are a lot of alarmists in the bird world,” Kemp says. “People see oiled pelicans and they go crazy. But this has been a disaster for people, not biota.” How can Paul Kemp possibly say that the oil spill isn't a disaster for “biota”, also known as all the plants and animals in the Gulf? Hundreds of millions of gallons of oil and nearly as much natural gas was released into the ocean. The spill is now killing everything in its path, leaving behind oxygen-starved waters and contaminating the food chain itself (oil has been found inside baby crabs). The oil that makes it ashore chokes off plant life and decimates birds and habitat. It settles in and is likely to cause death and disease for the next few decades. On top of the oil, BP dumped millions of gallons of Corexit, a toxic, oil-derived solvent and dispersant that helped keep the oil from floating to the surface and that has been shown to make the oil more toxic by making it easier for organisms to absorb. BP's oil spill killed a lot of life; it's downright preposterous for anyone to suggest that it was anything short of a disaster. Mac McClelland, who has been covering BP's oil spill better than almost anyone out there, was wonderfully blunt in a recent article in Mother Jones: “WASHINGTON (AFP) – With BP's broken well in the Gulf of Mexico finally capped, the focus shifts to the surface cleanup and the question on everyone's lips is: where is all the oil?” NEW ORLEANS (Mother Jones) – I don't know who the BLEEP (Shea's note: Mac doesn't say 'BLEEP', but MNN likes to keep the language PG-13, so I have to bleep out her much better original word) these everyones are, but I'm happy to help out them, and ABC, and this AFP reporter writing that due to BP's stunningly successful skimming and burning efforts, “the real difficulty now is finding any oil to clean up.” (the rest in comments) added by: samantha420

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Spike Lee Fans at the Pentagon?

Posted on August 9, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

(Daily+Censored) A disgruntled Pentagon spokesman, Geoff Morrell, recently vented about WikiLeaks’s behemoth bequest to the media of 70,000 classified documents. Morrell told the Associated Press: “If doing the right thing is not good enough for them, then we will figure out what alternatives we have to compel them to do the right thing.” I thought at once of Spike Lee’s film, “Do the Right Thing,” in which the owner of a Brooklyn pizzeria that has only Italian movie stars on its “Wall of Fame” is reprimanded by one of his black patrons for not including an African-American. All hell breaks out when the shop owner refuses to post a picture of a black celebrity on his wall. One wonders who the Pentagon might feature on its Wall of Fame—Osama bin Laden? Its appeal, on Thursday, to WikiLeaks to “do the right thing” and hand over, or permanently delete, whatever classified documents remain in its possession is based on voiced concern by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Admiral McMullen, and others in intelligence that these leaks jeopardize the safety of our troops in Afghanistan as they contain the names of Afghan informants. Of course, it’s not just safety, but morale others piped in. After all, it’s not exactly good for morale to find out that your government is concealing the real number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan nor is it good not just for the troops, but for national morale to learn that Pakistani spies are lunching with Taliban leaders. In the end, it’s a real game changer to find out that all fire may be friendly fire, so the Pentagon wants accountability, and possible criminal liability, from WikiLeaks for their disclosures of secret But, WikiLeaks is not the first to endanger covert intelligence operatives. Where is the Pentagon’s lust for holding those accountable who leaked the identity of an undercover CIA agent, Valerie Plame-Wilson? Was it good for the morale of intelligence agents to know that their identities, and their lives, have been politicized? Why is it that the congressional subpoena of Karl Rove was allowed to slip through the cracks? How is it that Rove, and those for whom he provided cover, managed to escape prosecution? Does the executive branch have lifetime immunity from criminal misconduct? More to the point, placing the media spotlight on WikiLeaks, and its Australian founder, Julian Assange, provides effective cover for other news of potentially graver consequence. For instance, we now know, from an AP exclusive report, that a handful of so-called high value detainees were brought to Guantanamo Bay in 2003 ” years earlier than previously disclosed then “whisked” into secret overseas prisons deliberately so that they would be deprived of access to attorneys. As a prominent lawyer tells the AP: “This was all just a shell game to hide detainees from the courts.” And, speaking of shell games, all this Pentagon and media focus on WikiLeaks’ transgressions has managed to keep people from asking whatever happened to nearly $9 billion in Iraqi funds for which the U.S. Defense Department is unable to account. In a recent audit of how DoD money has been spent, the U.S. Special Investigator for Iraq Reconstruction according to AP, now says that “over 95 percent of $9.1 billion in Iraqi oil money tapped by the U.S. for rebuilding the war-ravaged nation” has yet to be located. These funds are separate and distinct from more than $50 billion Congress appropriated for rebuilding that country. Why is there no outrage over what amounts to a slush fund for independent contractors, oil companies, and war manufacturers? WikiLeaks has graciously offered to let the Pentagon review, and redact, more than 10,000 documents that they now have in their possession. The Pentagon doesn’t appear to be the least bit moved by their offer. Ostensibly, doing the right thing for the Pentagon means destroying any evidence of misconduct, and adding yet another unwitting shill, Julian Assange, to ts Wall of Fame. http://dailycensored.com/2010/08/06/spike-lee-fans-at-the-pentagon/?utm_source=f… :+Dailycensored+(Daily+Censored) added by: treewolf39

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Amanpour Elevates British Journalist Who Sees ‘Culture of Hate’ in U.S., Time to Divide Up Our ‘Pie’

Posted on August 8, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Christiane Amanpour elevated a liberal British journalist, with little U.S. television experience, to the This Week roundtable where she presumed the government must run the economy and distribute the economic pie while she took pot shots at how the efforts to control illegal immigration proves America’s descent into a “culture of hate.” Gillian Tett , U.S. Managing Editor of the London-based Financial Times newspaper, began by insisting, that to respond to stagnant employment numbers: “The big question now is can the economy keep growing if the government doesn’t keep pumping in money?” Applying a European economic model, Tett fretted “that so much of America in the last few decades has been about trying to focus on growing the pie, not worrying about how to divide it up” as Americans didn’t “worry about social equity and things like that.” But, showing little faith that Obamanomics will work, she ruminated, “if we are entering a period when the pie is stagnant, the question that’s going to be very political is how do you divide that pie up?” In her final remark on unemployment, she warned “you really are starting to see the beginnings of a culture of hate, of finger-pointing, of scape-goating.” Minutes later, however, in a discussion of the proposal to modify the 14th amendment to end automatic citizenship through birth, Tett assumed those dark days have already arrived: “It’s quick fix soundbite politics in this culture of hate and this, you know, scape-goating that’s going on right now.” Others on Amanpour’s panel: Politico’s John Harris, New Yorker’s George Packer and former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson. Last week, on reviewing Amanpour’s debut: “ Amanpour Slums to Take on U.S. Politics, Flummoxed Pelosi’s Victories Aren’t Better Appreciated ” Comments from Gillian Tett during the roundtable on the August 8 This Week with Christiane Amanpour: > I think it’s important to realize that it illustrates is that the President, right now, is at an important juncture point. For the last year, we’ve had some growth in the American economy, but much of that’s been due to government aid, government spending, or what economists call an inventory rebuild – basically, companies and shops ran down their stocks back in late 2008, they rebuilt them, but that process is kind of finished. And the big question now is can the economy keep growing if the government doesn’t keep pumping in money? > The problem in a way, in a sense the social contract in America., the American dream is starting to fragment because for years America’s prided itself on having an unemployment rate that was a lot lower than Europe’s, but it didn’t have a social safety net like Europe. Now, in a sense, it doesn’t have a social safety net, and yet, shockingly, the unemployment rate is approaching European levels, in some cases actually exceeding it. And that’s a real challenge, not just in an economic sense, but in a political sense too about what is the American dream? > What’s fascinating is that so much of America in the last few decades has been about trying to focus on growing the pie, not worrying about how to divide it up because if you keep growing the pie, through innovation, through private sector enterprise, then you don’t have to worry about social equity and things like that. But if we are entering a period when the pie is stagnant, the question that’s going to be very political is how do you divide that pie up? > And poisonous as well. You really are starting to see the beginnings of a culture of hate, of finger-pointing, of scape-goating. And that could fuel the way for some very nasty, very negative politics going forward.   > [on amending 14th amendment] It’s quick fix soundbite politics in this culture of hate and this, you know, scape-goating that’s going on right now.

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Amanpour Elevates British Journalist Who Sees ‘Culture of Hate’ in U.S., Time to Divide Up Our ‘Pie’

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Maddow Guest Harris-Lacewell Describes Abortion Providers as ‘Termination Services’

Posted on August 8, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

That’s odd, those describing themselves as pro-choice usually aren’t this candid when it comes to abortion. On her MSNBC show Thursday night, Rachel Maddow spoke with Princeton professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell about Republican Senate candidates Rand Paul, Sharron Angle and Ken Buck opposing abortion, including for pregnancies conceived through rape or incest. Harris-Lacewell said this in response to a question from Maddow — MADDOW: So what would be the consequences of having a whole bunch of new sitting senators, elected to the US Senate, who are opposed to abortion not just in all regular cases but also cases in which the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest? HARRIS-LACEWELL:  Well, I mean, I think we’ve already seen the consequences of having a significant portion of even one party, even the party out of power, with a very strong anti-reproductive choice agenda. We saw it for example in the health care fight where somehow, you know, abortion became the central issue in a comprehensive health care reform bill, the central issue became controlling women’s right to choose, controlling women’s fertility, not giving women the ability to control their own, but having the government do it. So, I think clearly every time we move more aggressively against women’s reproductive rights, the more that we will see the consequences show up in everything from health care policy to, you know, potentially actually moving towards reducing the opportunities for women to, uh, you know, actually find healthy, safe termination services. As a conservative you get used to liberals euphemizing on abortion, to the point that when a left winger speaks with something resembling clarity, it’s enough to make you catch your breath. Naomi Wolfe, author of “The Beauty Myth” and “Fire With Fire: The New Female Power and How It Will Change the 21st Century” and as staunch a feminist as you’re likely to encounter, lamented her fellow pro-choicers’ tendency toward evasion in a widely read 1995 essay in The New Republic titled “Our Bodies, Our Souls: Rethinking pro-choice rhetoric.” Among the passages I’ve highlighted — At its best, feminism defends its moral high ground by being simply faithful to the truth: to women’s real-life experiences. But, to its own ethical and political detriment, the pro-choice movement has reliquished the moral frame around the issue of abortion. It has ceded the language of right and wrong to abortion foes. The movement’s abandonment of what Americans have always, and rightly, demanded of their movements — an ethical core — and its reliance instead on a political rhetoric in which the fetus means nothing are proving fatal. … Clinging to a rhetoric about abortion in which there is no life and no death, we entangle our beliefs in a series of self delusions, fibs and evasions. And we risk becoming precisely what our critics charge us with being: callous, selfish and casually destructive men and women who share a cheapened view of life. In the following pages, I will argue for a radical shift in the pro-choice movement’s rhetoric and consciousness about abortion: I will maintain that we need to contextualize the fight to defend abortion rights within a moral framework that admits that the death of a fetus is a real death … Many pro-choice advocates developed a language to assert that the fetus isn’t a person, and this, over the years, has developed into a lexicon of dehumanization. Laura Kaplan’s “The Story of Jane”, an important forthcoming account of a pre-Roe underground abortion service, inadvertently sheds light on the origins of some of this rhetoric: service staffers referred to the fetus — well into the fourth month — as “material” (as in “the amount of material that had to be removed …”) … In one woman’s account of her chemical abortion, in the January/February 1994 issue of Mother Jones, for example, the doctor says, “By Sunday you won’t see on the monitor what we call the heartbeat …” How can we charge that it is vile and repulsive for pro-lifers to brandish vile and repulsive images if the images are real? … We would be impoverished by a rhetoric about the end of life that speaks of the ill and the dying as if they were meaningless and of doing away with them as if it were a bracing demonstration of our personal independence. … After Harris-Lacewell’s brief lapse into candor, however, she reverted to form, blaming the economic downturn for what she decries as harsher criticism of abortion from Republicans ( click here for link to segment on Maddow site; Harris-Lacewell’s remarks quoted below start at 2:32) — HARRIS-LACEWELL: You’ve been doing a lot of history tonight and so I just want to pause and maybe do a quick history lesson here and remind your viewers that what’s happening is, we’re in a period of deep economic anxiety and often when America is in a period of economic anxiety, it starts looking around for individuals to blame. And sometimes the very best place to start asserting control is right in the middle of a woman, in her uterus. … the search for scapegoats also extending to the first minority candidate of either major party, thereby ensuring his defeat in November 2008. No, that didn’t happen either, nor does economic malaise account for shifting public sentiment against abortion (as embodied by Paul, Angle and Buck), a dynamic that long preceded the recession. (After I mentioned Harris-Lacewell’s remarks to a friend, he sent me a link to a great piece at The Onion, titled “U.S. Out of My Uterus,” that dovetails with Harris-Lacewell’s views.) In May 2009, eight months after the economic slump began,  Gallup found that more respondents described themselves as pro-life than pro-choice, and by the substantial margin of 51 to 42 percent — This is the first time a majority of U.S. adults have identified themselves as pro-life since Gallup began asking this question in 1995. The new results, obtained from Gallup’s annual Values and Beliefs survey, represent a significant shift from a year ago, when 50 percent were pro-choice and 44 percent were pro-life. Prior to now, the highest percentage identifying as pro-life was 46 percent, in both August 2001 and May 2002. Would less than a year of economic insecurity account for the shift? I suggest three other causes extending over the past decade, including one that occurred in the same timeframe as the Gallup polling — increased use of ultrasound technology that revealed unborn babies to their parents as never before, widespread revulsion and a Supreme Court ruling against partial-birth abortion, and finally, Sarah Palin. In a provocative Weekly Standard article in April 2009 titled “Honor Killing, American-Style,” Sam Schulman elaborated on the “reaction of horror — visceral, immediate, and continuing — to the Sarah Palin phenomenon of last fall” — We can understand it if we think of one particular affront that Palin presented to the best among us: flamboyant nubility. Sarah Palin decided to carry her Down Syndrome baby to term. Bristol Palin not only decided to give birth to her illegitimate baby, but may have been encouraged to do so by her mother. Babies are born in these circumstances every day. But in the judgment of our most worldly women and of our most persnickety men, these births, however commonplace, offend propriety. To have one such baby may be regarded as a misfortune; to have both seems like carelessness. The unapologetic fertility of this ordinary Alaska family became an obstacle that prevented many from thinking clearly about anything that Sarah Palin might have touched — John McCain, free trade, low taxes, the war on terror. A kind of honor-rage descended, and those whom it touched ran amok. And why not? In the language of honor, the fertility of the Palin women, mother and daughter, was shameless, and Palin didn’t have the decency to be ashamed. (emphasis added) That same Gallup poll found an even split among those most dug in on abortion — 23 percent opposed in all circumstances, 22 percent not wanting any restrictions. Thus, a majority of respondents fall into “the mushy middle,” as described by pro-choice defector Norma McCorvey, better known by the legal pseudonym of “Jane Roe” in Roe v. Wade. “McCorvey still supports abortion rights through the first trimester — but is horrified by the brutality of abortion as it manifests more obviously further into a pregnancy,” Wolfe wrote in her New Republic essay. ” ‘Have you ever seen a second-trimester abortion,’ she asks. ‘It’s a baby. It’s got a face and a body, and they put him in a freezer and a little container.’ ” A “mushy middle” that discerns a moral difference between the single mother with too many mouths to feed who contemplates abortion after unexpectedly becoming pregnant — and the teenage girl who wants a late-term abortion so she can fit into her prom dress. A broad swath of the populace leaning more toward the ever popular Palin and away from abortion apologists.

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Maddow Guest Harris-Lacewell Describes Abortion Providers as ‘Termination Services’

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Force women to bear rapists’ babies, say multiple GOP candidates

Posted on August 6, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Rachel Maddow asks why Democrats aren't making GOP extremism a national issue MSNBC's Rachel Maddow has been researching the positions on abortion held by current Republican candidates and believes that, overall, they are far more extreme than in any previous election year. She also wonders why the Democratic Party hasn't made an issue of this extremism. “The Republican Party is, without actually talking about it, this year nominating a group of candidates for top-of-the-ticket races that are more extreme on the issue of abortion than any other slate of top-of-the-ticket candidates in any other year,” Maddow stated on Thursday. She pointed to several GOP Senatorial candidates or front-runners who have declared that they oppose a right to abortion even in cases of rape or incest, including Nevada's Sharron Angle, Kentucky's Rand Paul, and Colorado's Ken Buck. According to Maddow, these three “small government conservatives” all believe “that government should be big enough that it can monitor every pregnancy in the country to ensure that every single woman who becomes pregnant is forced by the government to carry that pregnancy to term. … This is a position that was beyond the pale even in fringe anti-abortion politics not very many years ago, but apparently those days are over.” http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0806/maddow-gop-abortion-extremism/ added by: unimatrix0

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