The once settled, prosperous land has been emptied of big families and is continually losing its most able sons and daughters. It is being transformed into a giant meth lab, an agricultural industrial park, a rural slum, a place for losers. Another chapter in the unsettling of America. I am happy that he won’t be around to read it.
Month: January 2009
The Obligatory Kids with Nazi Names removed from home posting
I’m posting this, because I know that quite a few people read this posting from various places on the net.
The Leighhighvalleylive.com website reports the following:
A New Jersey Department of Youth and Family Services spokeswoman says that the agency would not remove children from a home because of their names.
DYFS made the statement today after The Express-Times reported Tuesday that the state had taken Adolf Hitler Campbell, 3, and his younger sisters, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie, from their parent’s Holland Township, Hunterdon County home.
“Just to be clear, removal of a child from a family is only done when there’s an imminent danger to a child and that wouldn’t include the child’s name alone,”“We wouldn’t remove a child based on their name.” spokeswoman Kate Bernyk said.
Of course, I’m sure that the Alex Jones types will not believe this. There’s two sides to every story, and I’m sure both sides have thiers. But I am glad to see that the reason was not for the names.
My theory is this; that a neighbor saw the people on TV and called child protective and dropped the dime that daddy and mommy were fighting quite a bit and that they saw bruises on the children. That will get kids snatched a big ol’ hurry anymore.
Of course, neighbors have been known to lie out of spite too. Either way, I smell a huge lawsuit against the family, if it goes to court.
Others: Gothamist, QandO, City Room, Patterico’s Pontifications, Outside The Beltway, Don Surber, Wizbang, AMERICAblog News, The Impolitic, New Jersey Online , Sweetness & Light, HotAir
Epic Masculinity Fail Video
RedState Update on Gay Priest for Obama's Inauguration
Exit Full disclosure: I snorted loud on the “Obama likes it both ways” crack. 😛
Zo Breaks it down about Bill O'Reilly's Question
The New President's Ride
Some interesting info on our new President’s Limo is found here.
(H/T Glenn)
Case Study Example of living in absolute denial
Via The Swamp:
President Bush has fessed up some of his mistakes, several in fact, in his final press conference.
But Vice President Dick Cheney is sticking to his story: The only mistake he can think of, in an interview airing on PBS this evening, was his “underestimating” the difficulty of standing up a new government in Iraq.
Bush, in his confessional presser, joked that the press corps had sometimes “mis-underestimated” him.
But Cheney isn’t one for confessionals. Cheney, asked by anchor Jim Lehrer of the Newshour if the Iraq war has been worth the 4,500 Americans lost in the effort, says:
“I think so.”
That’s one of those lines he might have preferred rehearsing – a mistake perhaps. He explains his answer, however: “Given the track record of Saddam Hussein, I think we did exactly the right thing. I think the country is better off for it today.”
When Lehrer asks Cheney about being the most powerful vice president in one of the most failing presidencies ever, Cheney says, “I don’t buy that.”
What doesn’t he buy? The failed presidency. – Read the rest
It is that blind arrogance that I and many other Independent Conservatives have a serious problem with. It’s that whole Nixonian attitude of “I am right and screw you”; is what will be a black mark on the history of America. I, for one, am extremely happy that this Administration’s tenure is over.
I was not very thrilled about Barack Obama being elected President, but anything is better, than that type of blind arrogance. It will be a welcome relief to have a President that will admit when he makes a serious mistake. The problem is that the realization that Bush’s style of leadership was not the right way to go, may have come too late for the Republican Party. Obama’s election was not a endorsement of Liberalism, it was a denunciation of the Neo-Conservative arrogance and Bush Doctrine style of rule.
Hmmmm: Osama Bin Laden challenges Obama in a message
Interesting…..
Via ABC NEWS:
In a direct challenge to President-elect Barack Obama, Osama bin Laden questions whether America “is capable to keep fighting us for more years” in a new audio message attributed to him Wednesday morning on an internet website.
A senior U.S. official told ABCNews.com, “There is no reason to doubt the authenticity of the tape.”
It is the first time bin Laden has been heard from in seven months and puts to rest speculation he is dead. The al Qaeda leader’s last audio message was posted on May 18, 2008…
Today’s message begins with a call for a jihad against Israel because of its attacks on Gaza but concludes with a challenge to the U.S., and implicitly the incoming Obama administration.
“Now America is begging the world for money,” bin Laden says, “and the USA will not be as powerful as it used to be.”
“This rapid failing for America was one of the reasons that the Israelis started their attacks against Gaza and just to make use of what’s left of the Bush term,” he says.
Bin Laden makes reference to Vice-President elect Joseph Biden, quoting him as saying “the financial crisis is bigger than we expected” and the al Qaeda leader counsels patience in continuing to fight the U.S.
Bin Laden appears to be referring to comments Biden made to ABC News’ George Stephanopolous in an Dec. 21 appearance on This Week. “The economy is in much worse shape that we thought it was in,” Biden said then.
“The majority of the U.S. people are happy to get rid of Bush, Bush left for his successor a heavy heritage, the hardest part of heritage is guerilla wars,” bin Laden says…
Hmmm, isn’t that part I underlined what must Liberals say as well? 🙄
If course, many liberals think Obama Osama is dead, so this must be a fake. But you just know the Obambi-Messiah will raise him from the dead and mostly likely walk in water, while he’s at it.
Others: Sweetness & Light
The real question people should be asking is……
Why are Conservatives even wanting to dine with Obama?
Jonathan Chait opines as to why Liberals aren’t flipping out about the dinner date last night:
I actually don’t find it terribly surprising that liberals haven’t shown any outrage over Barack Obama’s dinner party with George Will, Charles Krauthammer, Bill Kristol, and David Brooks. I’ll get to my hypothesis why liberals aren’t upset in a moment. But first imagine this counterfactual: George W. Bush (or maybe a victorious John McCain) sat down before his first inauguration with Paul Krugman, E.J. Dionne, and Frank Foer. Would conservatives have reacted with the same equanimity? No, I think they’d have gone nuts. And the reason is that they wouldn’t have confidence in Bush or McCain to be surrounded by liberal ideas without being deeply influenced by them. I don’t think they’d have reacted this way if, say, a President Mitt Romney did the same thing.
And that’s why liberals aren’t having a cow. They know that Obama understands far more about policy than any of his right-wing dinner companions, is used to being exposed to opposing ideas, and won’t come out of that dinner telling his staff, “Hey, did you know we cut half the capital gains tax and raise more revenue?”
A separate issue is why Obama didn’t pick some conservatives with a bit more intellectual integrity than, say, Kristol and Krauthammer. The problem, of course, is conservatives like that tend not to rise to positions of high influence.
As for his question, except for the idiot line at the end about high influence, I pretty much agree.
However, I feel, as a Paleo-Conservative, that the difference between a Democrat and a Neo-Conservative is about hair’s breadth. This is the reason for the Neo-Con’s relationship with Hillary. I mean, they all but sucked up to her.
Perhaps the Neo-Conservatives are trying to suck up, in order to save face in 2010 and 2012.
You notice though that on that guest list, Pat Buchanan or anyone from “The American Conservative” or “Reason” magazine was not there? Just Neo-Conservative talking heads.
It’s going to be a long four to eight years.
Update – Related Video: (H/T to AP)
Exit Comment/Question: I wonder if the Liberal watchdogs will make a big deal about the basketball playing comment? She was being funny, but it was a bit mean. I was shocked she said it. 😮
Others: The Daily Dish, Kevin Drum and Washington Monthly (Via Memeorandum)
Uh-Oh: U.S. Official says Gitmo detainee was tortured
I have much mixed feelings on this one.
Via Washington Post:
The top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial has concluded that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, interrogating him with techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold, leaving him in a “life-threatening condition.”
“We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani,” said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. “His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that’s why I did not refer the case” for prosecution.
Crawford, a retired judge who served as general counsel for the Army during the Reagan administration and as Pentagon inspector general when Dick Cheney was secretary of defense, is the first senior Bush administration official responsible for reviewing practices at Guantanamo to publicly state that a detainee was tortured.
Crawford, 61, said the combination of the interrogation techniques, their duration and the impact on Qahtani’s health led to her conclusion. “The techniques they used were all authorized, but the manner in which they applied them was overly aggressive and too persistent. . . . You think of torture, you think of some horrendous physical act done to an individual. This was not any one particular act; this was just a combination of things that had a medical impact on him, that hurt his health. It was abusive and uncalled for. And coercive. Clearly coercive. It was that medical impact that pushed me over the edge” to call it torture, she said.
Military prosecutors said in November that they would seek to refile charges against Qahtani, 30, based on subsequent interrogations that did not employ harsh techniques. But Crawford, who dismissed war crimes charges against him in May 2008, said in the interview that she would not allow the prosecution to go forward.
Is this woman a far lefty loon? A Democrat? Um, No.
“I sympathize with the intelligence gatherers in those days after 9/11, not knowing what was coming next and trying to gain information to keep us safe,” said Crawford, a lifelong Republican. “But there still has to be a line that we should not cross. And unfortunately what this has done, I think, has tainted everything going forward.”
Which is another way, perhaps more artful way of saying that our Government essentially flipped it’s collective shit after September 11’th. We blew it, and we will have to deal with consequences down the road too. Ron Paul, in his book, “Revolution – A Manifesto”, refers to a CIA term that is used to describe what happens when the United States does things of this nature. It is called “blowback”. I look for the United States to experience blowback because of what happened during the Presidency of Bush. I just hope like hell, that Obama is prepared to deal with such an event. It is truly a sad thing to know, that our Government did engage in such activities that is forbidden under the Geneva Conventions.
I highly suggest that you go read this, because it is, quite frankly, a sobering read. God Help this country in the coming years.
Others: : Jeffrey Goldberg, The Daily Dish, Reuters, Washington Monthly, PoliGazette, Balloon Juice, Pat Dollard, Hullabaloo, Newshoggers.com, Gawker, Jules Crittenden, Brave New Films blog, TalkLeft, Obsidian Wings, No More Mister Nice Blog, Philly.com, Associated Press, Guardian, ACSBlog, theheretik.us, Emptywheel, Sister Toldjah, NO QUARTER, ATTACKERMAN, democracyarsenal.org, TIME.com, JONATHAN TURLEY, The Raw Story, The Atlanticist, Firedoglake, On Deadline, Infidel Bloggers Alliance, Stop The ACLU, Macsmind, Fox News and TPMMuckraker
(via Memeornadum)
