• CLIMATE CHANGE AND GOP STUPIDITY

    Jon Stewart Rips Right-Wingers A New One
  • RIGHT-WINGERS BLAMING THE VICTIMS

    When Unarmed Blacks Are Killed By Cops
  • STILL NO SCANDAL

    No Wrongdoing With Benghazi
  • EBOLA AND ISIS

    Right-Wingers Fuel Racism And Paranoia

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

The Right and The United Nations

Conservatives love to say that the UN is "toothless", yet we only give the dog teeth when it suits our purposes.

When it comes time to be held accountable for things we do, Conservatives piss and moan, "The UN is toothless and corrupt. Poor America!" Yet those teeth are right back in when we want some other country punished for doing the same things we do. Just like the world court. It's good enough to try assbags like Milosevic, but we'll pull out of recognizing its authority, just in case someone takes us to task for doing evil bullshit.

If the UN was so useless, why was Bush using UN resolutions to falsely justify going to war in Iraq? Why did Colin Powell sit in front of the UN and lie. Why were our Republican leaders begging the UN to believe the lies?

Bush stated we had to go to war with Iraq, because Iraq was ignoring the UN. Then when the UN wasn't in favor of the war, Bush... ignored the UN.

The UN is lacking in credibility because the most powerful member of the UN refused to behave by UN standards.

The UN, contrary to popular belief, is not a vehicle intended to promote US interests. Just thought you idiot right-wingers should know that.

If you look at UN troops deployments you'll see a lot of troops that wear flags other than the stars and stripes.

Sure the UN has problems - everything that involves a large collection of nations with individual - and at times conflicting interests - will have. But it can and does help out greatly with disaster relief and peacekeeping around the globe.

...not to mention the successful democratization/elections/constitution drafting in Cambodia in 1993.

...or the successful arms embargo against South Africa as a means to end apartheid.

...or the Suez canal.

...of the unprecedented Greek/Turkish dialogue on the subject of Cyprus in 2004.

Interesting that an institution that the US started is suddenly being bashed so roundly by Conservatives.

As to being at the table with heinous nations, how many of those nations have we consorted with, especially the Saudis? Why isn't anyone bashing the Israelis, who have ignored their fair share of UN mandates? It is better to have communication open with these nasty little countries so that we at least have a glimmer of what they're doing.

The death of the League of Nations was one of the reasons why World War II happened. For small countries who are basically ignored (read: we can't get anything from them) things like the UN are the only way they *might* get heard. Otherwise, we end up with isolationism. That worked out really well in the late 1930's didn't it?

Like it or not, we live in a world where everyone is interconnected in one way or another. We can't be isolationist anymore. Republicans are trying to tear the UN down. That's like ripping a house down when your pipes get messed up. Rather than doing as the Bush administration did, which is to be an all-talk-no-action coward, maybe we might actually try diplomacy instead of faux intimidation?

Maybe it's because the GOP loves to cater to their Jesus freak fanbase, who think the UN is the "one world government" talked about in the bible? After all, if they believe in talking snakes, they'll believe anything.

And it isn't just the little nations we were hocking loogies on, folks. We were raining all kinds of misery on major European nations that have traditionally been our allies (NATO, right...) because they had the temerity to actually question us.

The Right is the worst kind of coward... they pretend to be tough with the UN, AND they kowtow to the UN.

That's not leadership, that's childishness.

Don't lie about it unless you've a better plan.

Of course if you want to ignore the facts of the situation in favor of a good dose of right wing propaganda circle jerking - be our guest.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Strolling, Not Jumping

Bill Sparkman, a US Census Bureau employee in Kentucky, was found hung to death with the word "FED" written on him with a marker.

Naturally, people are guessing his tragic death was caused by some right-wing radical, due to the inescapable fact that Conservatives constantly generate paranoia about the Census.  And of course, conservatives (you know, the party that always lies and jumps to conclusions) are scrambling to say "Don't jump to any conclusions!"

Kathy Kattenburg points out: "It seems that haunting right-wing refrain about waiting for all the facts to be in only applies to liberals and Democrats. There’s been a fair bit of speculation about who might have killed Bill Sparkman and why, based on the relatively few facts that are known in the case right now, but here Dan Riehl has gone and started speculating on the possibility that Sparkman was a child molester – based on no facts at all."

What's interesting about this, is that since the overwhelming majority of child molesters are conservative Christians (and that's not even including all the child-molesting Republican politicians), Riehl has inadvertently made the speculations that the murderer was a conservative nutjob even stronger.

A casual stroll isn't a jump.




Sunday, September 27, 2009

Sanctions Work, Sorry!

The Epic Failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq proved one thing clearly: that the UN-enforced sanctions regime actually worked. Contrary to what Republicans-Pretending-To-Be-Libertarians have said, we know that containment helped destroy Saddam Hussein's war machine and his capacity to produce weapons. Or are Republicans still pretending they actually had WMD's?

2007: Iran Sanctions Are Meant to Prevent War, Bush Aides Say

2008: Bush, E.U. Threaten New Sanctions Against Iran

So, why is it NOW a wrong for a president to push for sanctions?

"But White House officials said Western intelligence agencies have known about the facility for several years and believe that Iran acknowledged its existence Monday in an attempt to head off intense criticism that they knew was coming."

So why didn't the previous administration that Republicans love so much, do anything about it?

Glenn Greenwald has a handy round-up of links and discussion regarding the Iran issue here. You see, the radical Left actually uses something called citations:

Should any Iraq lessons be applied to Iran? The claims about Iran raise more questions than they answer. Virtually none is being asked by America's media.

Update IV at the bottom is interesting:

"...the rule Iran violated is a 2003 amendment between the Iranians and the IAEA that purports to require notification to the IAEA immediately upon Iran's deciding to build such a facility -- not merely 180 days prior to its receipt of nuclear material. Iran denies the validity of this agreement, as it was never ratified by its legislature, and -- as early as 2007 -- advised the IAEA that it did not consider itself bound by this provision. Thus, it seems clear that Iran complied with all of its obligations under international law with the possible exception of an amendment to an agreement between it and the IAEA which Iran has long claimed is invalid and was never ratified."

What plan do the Republicans have? Invasion? Will we be greeted as liberators?

Since America's fighting keyboard right-wing elite wouldn't have to worry about actually fighting, where's the problem?


Saturday, September 26, 2009

Yep, The Adults Are In Charge

Today Lindaman complains about how Iran stating they have a second nuclear reactor is somehow indicative of leftists catering to Iran. Based on nothing, of course.

They are legally allowed to operate that facility under the Non-proliferation treaty. Ever heard of that? Why would we punish Iran for not breaking international law? As long as they're open with the inspectors, who cares?

"This installation is not a secret one, which is why we announced its existence to the IAEA," Ali Akbar Salehi said.

"When I took over the job in July, I committed myself to accelerate cooperation (with the International Atomic Energy Agency) and, within the existing framework of regulations and of our cooperation with the IAEA, we announced the existence of this installation to the agency."

Salehi did not say how long the facility had been under construction or whether it is finished.

Iranian officials say Tehran is only obliged to inform the UN watchdog of the existence of any new site 180 days before putting radioactive materials into it.

Before that, they insist, Iran does not need to say anything about building new nuclear sites
.


Also:

Iran last month accepted long-standing requests by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for greater access to two key nuclear facilities, diplomatic sources said in August. The move appears to represent a shift in Iran's willingness to cooperate with the agency, which has expressed increasing concern with Tehran's lack of transparency on certain activities.

Tehran allowed IAEA inspectors to visit its heavy-water nuclear reactor under construction at Arak, the first such visit in nearly a year. After being barred from the reactor last fall, the agency was forced to rely on satellite imagery. The completion of the reactor containment structure and roofing over other buildings soon made that monitoring ineffective.
...
Iran also reached an agreement with the IAEA to expand monitoring at its commercial-scale uranium-enrichment plant at Natanz. For the last several months, the IAEA has held discussions with Iran regarding improvements in the agency's monitoring activities at the facility in light of Iran's expansion of the plant.


The funniest part is how Lindaman talks about how strong George W. Bush was on foreign matters. You mean like how he wrote an ass-kissing "We're SO SORRY!" letter to Red China after we crash landed in their country, due to one of THEIR planes causing us to crash?

Obama didn't hesitate about rescuing hostages off the coast of Somalia, scuttling Bush's stupid missile shield, making health care reform a priority, or passing a stimulus bill. You see, he's actually getting things done.

Obama supports multinational sanctions on Iran in response to their nuclear arms program. Our position on Iran has gotten stronger because of Obama. He managed to get Sarko, Brown, Merkel all on one page as far as embarrassing Ahmagiantdouche this morning and publicly call him out on his horseshit on a very global stage. And in the last 3 days he's managed to get Vlad/Dimitri Putin/Medvedev to sound like they'd be open to helping enforce them. The Russians and French are on board. No other (Arab) country in the region wants Iran to have nukes. Obama's succeeding where Bush epically FAILED.

The "bottom line", Lindaman, is that Iran has a right to nuclear power, and no one has said otherwise.

Even the Russians and Chinese seem open to sanctions. Why do you think that is?

The reason Iran went public, apparently, was that Obama was reportedly ready to go public with the knowledge that they had a second plant; or they must have believed he was about to, and went on the defensive. Obama told Medvedev earlier this week. The whole timeline seems entirely orchestrated by Obama, since there is a P5+1 meeting on Oct 1 and he has trips to China and Russia planned for November, right when sanctions might be expected to make it to the UN Security Council.

What has happened here, if you are completely unobservant, is that the US has spent this whole year maneuvering internationally to isolate Iran (while talking the talk about reaching out to negotiate) and North Korea, and find common ground with Russia and China on the nuclear security problems in their neighbourhood. The more magnanimously they've talked about negotiation, the more they've backed Iran into a corner where concessions are their only option. It also makes it more blatantly obvious why they have been a little cool towards Israel when Israel is threatening airstrikes on Iran. Israeli airstrikes would not force concessions at all, not the way three major powers bringing down the hammer of economic sanctions on Iran would.

This is called using diplomacy to solve problems, you right-wingers.

And it's funny how right-wingers are quiet on Israel hiding nuclear weapons. But hey, they still thinks Iraq had WMD's. lol


Wednesday, September 23, 2009

GOP Fights AGAINST Net Neutrality

Although Thomas Lindaman is trying to spin the GOP's war AGAINST Net Neutrality as being "anti-government," it ain't gonna work.

So, ultimately, what these CONSERVATIVE Senators are hoping for is to stifle competition, and throttling Internet communications so that the playing field is predicated on uneven practices.

Tell me again how this fits into a "free market" system? Oh, the markets are free to do what the hell they want, not free to compete fairly...

The Conservatives, (you know, the folks who claim to love the free market), do everything in their power to stifle it.  But then, what else is new?

Here's an extremely basic lesson about economics that conservatives never seem to understand:

Effective competition requires low barriers to entry.

Without regulation, there would be no competition. Big crushes small, end of story.

Anyone who advocates against Net Neutrality on the basis of "free market" is an idiot living on Bizarro World.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Czars - The Right Wing Perspective!

Who says I don't give the Right a chance to speak?

Here's what the hillbillies have to say about Obama's "Czars":

Interviewer: "[Reading Teabagger sign:] 'Fire those whacky Czars.' Tell me about this concern over Czars."
--
Teabagger1: (Reading his own sign) "We don't need no stinkin' Czars"
--
Teabagger2: "Czars in the whitehouse!"
--
Teabagger3: "I'm opposed to Czars"
Teabagger4 (holding sign: "What's a Czar? R We in Russia?", other side: "Jesus is our king"): "I don't even know, what is a Czar? You know, what are they? ... They're a Russian king! Here [chuckles] [reading the other side] 'Jesus is our king'. "
Interviewer: "Do, do you guys share some of the concerns about Czars?"
Teabagger5 (wearing tag: "Abortion IS NOT healthcare"): "Yes, well I don't even know why Obama appointed a Czar, what are they for? What are they doing? Czar come from Cesar in Roman times and then Russian Czar... This is America we don't have Czars, in America. "
Interviewer: "Do you have any thoughts?"
Teabagger6 (also wearing tag: "Abortion IS NOT healthcare"): "Ahn... Well, the Czars, we don't know who they answer to, we don't know how much they're being paid, and what their jobs are."
Teabagger7 (shirt: "I am a Natural Born Citizen. The Citizenry has a 'Duty' to perform a Citizens' Arrest" ): "Take a picture of my shirt!"
Interviewer: "Well, actually, the first 'Czar' in the United States was appointed by Ronald Reagan. Ah, does any find a concern with that?"
Teabaggers: "I'd never heard of that", "Only due to ignorance. I'd never heard of that"
Interviewer: "Yeah, he appointed a Drug Czar. Czars were expanded under George W Bush."
--
Interviewer: "So, Czars aren't relatively new, but you're opposed to them?"
Teabagger2: "Yeah. I wasn't really aware of that until now."
--
Teabagger6: "I just don't know who they answer to."
Interviewer: "What's the concern if they 'have no one to answer to'?"
Teabagger5: "We don't know what their power is. We don't know what they're going to start doing. Are they going to be given land or power over the government?"
Interviewer: "All of the Czars whether under Ronald Reagan, whether under George Bush, or whether under Barack Obama actually have no executive powers no administration powers, they only act as advisory committees"
Teabagger5: "... [shrugs inarticulately] I just don't...[trails off]"
Teabagger6: "You know this how?"
--
Interviewer: "Now the, uh, Czars in the Obama administration are only advisory roles they actually have no executive power."
Teabagger1: "That I don't know."
--
Teabagger5: "Did we appoint them to start advising anyone? Who are they advising? The President? Our government officials?"
Interviewer: "Well, we've had advisors for our Presidents for a long time, I think the concern is, in large part, due to the terminology which began under Ronald Reagan"
Teabagger4: "Yeah, yeah. Well, I, I'm learning a lot more about the Republicans also. I've always been a Republican. I think that's changing."

Well, there you have it!


Why It Doesn't Matter To Intelligent People

Lindaman again defends Glenn Beck, of all people, for his ACORN "research."

Beck is full of shit. Get over it.

He's also angry about how Obama is "removing" the missile defense shield from Europe. Listen: The missiles were NEVER THERE. We're just not PUTTING them there. Why? Because there's a NEW plan that works BETTER. Oh, and as a side benefit: Russia is scrapping a countermeasure plan of their own to deploy missiles near Poland.

The US wanted to build an anti-ballistic missile shield in Eastern Europe. This is ostensibly proposed mainly to protect European countries from ballistic missiles fired from the Middle-east (read: Iran). The anti-ballistic missile facilities proposed are hardened, permanent installations in the Czech Republic, Poland, etc.

Russia has a problem with this. They (ostensibly again) see it as a way for NATO to be protected from missiles heading East-to-West. In reality Russia must know that no missile shield is going to be able to stop 1/10 of what Russia could fire off. But anyway, in response to this they propose putting short range Iskander missiles on the Polish border. What these Iskanders can do is target the missile shield installations, which could neutralize the NATO missile shield in the event Russia feels the need to fire off it's nukes.

Enter Obama. He proposes to scrap the hardened missile shield installations that target long-range ICBMs in favor of mobile installations that target short- and medium-range missiles, as this is most likely what countries like Iran will be firing. This has the effect of being cheaper and quicker to deploy, as well as being more effective against the likely targets. In response to the elimination of the permanent missile shield installations, proposes not deploying the Iskanders which, in the absence of permanent installations, have not much use anyway. Still, it's a concession.

This is essentially a win-win situation for all parties: Europe gets it's missile shield, Russia doesn't feel threatened, and the US saves hundreds of millions of dollars in developing long-range missile shields that likely wouldn't work reliably anyway.

This is why Obama was elected. Because he's NOT STUPID like right-wingers are.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

How Right-Wingers Cover Up Blunders

After Thomas Lindaman, just like all the other right-wing mouthpieces like Fox News, got royally punked by the fake ACORN story... they tried to cover up their screw up by now attempting to focus on the people calling these racists as "racist." They're squealing like crazy.

Sorry, assholes. You're racists.



What do you call these signs if there's no racist element to the knuckle-dragging illiterate tea party protesters? These neanderthals were bringing guns and carrying signs calling him Kenyan and Muslim and emphasizing his middle name. Why does Lindaman stick up for birther nuts?

That's not dissent over policy. That's dissent over his race. Were these people rejected by the protesters or welcomed with open arms?

manofmystique said it best:

These white conservatives are only playing dumb. They know full well that racism is behind most of the attacks on this President.

We watch day and night and night and day how these talk shows pundits and News agencies cover current events, and we see how they ignore, overlook and downplay obvious racist comments and behavior directed at this President.

This alone proves these so-called educated people are aware of the circumstances surrounding the attacks on this President.

Take for example Obama's campaign run: Hillary and her husband Bill Clinton engaged in racial politics. Hillary felt the need to point out that the "base of her coalition are white [people]" and Bill brought up Jesse Jackson’s name for no good reason than the fact Obama is black, just like Jackson.

This kind of dirty politics went on the whole time Obama campaigned. It got worse when Obama ran in the general election against Republican candidates John McCain and Sarah Palin. It got downright nasty. At one time ALL of McCain’s ads opposing Obama were negative, negative and full of racial overtone.

McCain did not bother to offer his ideas and policies for America while campaigning against the black man; instead he just attacked the black candidate relentlessly. In fact, during the first of three debates McCain did not look at Obama. That is classic behavior from a white racist. They believe a Black man is not their equal.

These talk show and conservative liars know all about Sarah Palin’s divisive speeches at her rallies and they know about the racist signs that were on display.

Many of her supporters were yelling “hang em high”, “off with his head” and “kill the n*&^er”. At the same time Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity under the guise of free speech LIE, misrepresent and criticize EVERTHING Obama does, while ignoring the good.
It doesn’t stop there.

You have Tea Party (lynch mobs) rallies. You have people bringing guns to a Presidential town hall meeting and Republicans advocating failure for the President. This same Party says no to everything Obama proposes.

You have “Birthers” questioning Obama citizenship and “Deathers” lying about “death panels, both cults refuse to accept truth or reality; on top of that threats on the President’s life increased 400%.
I could go on and on.

The point is there is no excuse or doubt conservatives know racism is behind most attacks on President Obama. This whole denial act is a joke.

Why do they play dumb? They play dumb because they have no intentions on improving race relations. They play dumb because they agree with those who speak hate. They play dumb so hate mongers don’t go away. They play dumb so they can continue to deceive the American people. They play dumb hoping something bad befalls the President [If that happens blacks cannot fault them].
They play dumb because they have no interested in changing their wicked ways.

Think about it, if they were to acknowledge racism is behind attacks on Obama, they would be expected to speak out against this behavior.

Can you imagine seeing [these] racist people speaking out against racism?


And Lindaman: If you claim that these people do not represent all Conservatives... too bad. You're the guy that continually tried to paint the entire organization of ACORN as corrupt, because a few INDIVIDUALS tried to reach their quotas on the REGISTRATIONS by giving false names.

These aren't "a few bad apples." These racists are YOU.

Right wingers are tired of being on the wrong side of racial issues (due to them being racists). So they're trying to shift the social discourse to make it so that an accusation of racism is more offensive than actual racism. They're so desperate, they'll even try to quote MLK. Funny how they forget that he was killed by a racist.