Republicans or Democrats…Who is to Blame?

I decided to actually watch CNN tonight to hear what all the pundits had to say about the bailout failing to pass.  Let’s just say my head hurts now.  Before I even get into the Dems and Repubs, it’s amazing to me that we only hear one side of this argument.  Everything on the news is how the bailout just has to be passed and it was a major mistake not to pass it.  What about the other side?  

I even heard these morons say that yes the bailout is horrible but we just have to pass it.  We do?  Can’t we pass something else?  Don’t we have the power to rewrite bills or make new bills that may work better?  I seem to remember reading that in Government Class.  CNN completely ignored the other side of the argument in all their newscasts tonight.   It’s like I’m listening to the state run news network just repeating the talking points handed to them by the administration…strange feeling.  This is the United States of America, right?

Ok, now on to Congress…Now let me see, I’ll start with the Repubs blaming Pelosi’s speech (her Speech!) for the bill not passing. Seriously? 

• Did your feelings get hurt?  How old are you idiots? 
• Just once, just once, I would love to hear the Republicans take responsibility for their actions.  Guys you failed to get the votes to pass this bill.  End of story. 
• They BLAMED THE SPEECH!  They continue to just amaze me.

Ok now I’m going to rip the Dems…so any Democrats out there who can’t take it then you better look away.

• Pelosi why do you still have a job?  Every day that you wake up do you look in the mirror and just ask yourself if you can screw up as bad as you did the day before?
• Did the Dems blame the Repubs for not getting enough votes?  They said that they got their fair share and the Republicans didn’t get theirs.  Are your legs broken?  Get off your asses and go get more votes if you believe in this thing so much.  WTF?  That’s the weakest argument I’ve ever heard…oh wait.  They blamed THE SPEECH!

So CNN went on to say that the house Republicans who voted against the bill were putting their re-elections ahead of the country.  But, then they went on to say that 90% of the calls into those same Repubs offices have been against the bailout.  Don’t they work for those people?  Aren’t they supposed to represent them?  I’m so sick of this crap about putting the country ahead of everything else…this is not the Soviet Union!  You are free to have differing views here in this country.  In fact, it’s healthy and natural. 

The majority of American people do not support this bill and the congress who represents them voted it down. So what’s the problem?  If it’s so important then explain it to the people of this country and stop trying to scare them into supporting it.  I mean, I know that’s Bush’s only motivational tactic but someone in congress should be able to do something.  How about those two idiots running for President?  Maybe they could explain it to the American people.  I’m pretty sure that’s how this whole thing called government was supposed to work.

And does anyone, anyone have a problem with the Democrats in Congress lining up behind President Bush on this? 

I know this post is long but I got one more thing to say.  Where is Dick Cheney?  Where do you think his money is?  Dubai?

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The Iraqi Lie

I’m sure many of you have seen the headline “False Statements Preceded War” (although I couldn’t find it on CNN and I’m sure it is disappearing from the headlines) but how many of you have actually read what the The Center for Public Integrity wrote?

On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony, and the like), Bush and these three key officials, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both. This concerted effort was the underpinning of the Bush administration’s case for war.

It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to Al Qaeda. This was the conclusion of numerous bipartisan government investigations, including those by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (2004 and 2006), the 9/11 Commission, and the multinational Iraq Survey Group, whose “Duelfer Report” established that Saddam Hussein had terminated Iraq’s nuclear program in 1991 and made little effort to restart it.

I encourage everyone to actually read the article instead of the “fluff” AP piece.  I believe that the media wants to ignore this story as much as possible because it makes them look at themselves and feel guilty.  They are also responsible in pushing this propoganda on the American People.  It would be interesting if someone did a similar study on the media during this time.  Why did they refuse to call Bush and his cronies on lies such as this:

In an interview with Polish television on May 29, 2003, President Bush stated: “We found the weapons of mass destruction.” Bush was referencing two trailers or “mobile labs” discovered in Iraq.

Just days earlier, the Defense Intelligence Agency had concluded that the trailers “could not be used as a transportable biological production system as the system is presently configured.” It was ultimately acknowledged that the trailers had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction and were probably used to manufacture hydrogen employed in weather balloons.

It would also be nice if someone did a similar study on what most Democrats were saying during this time.  Most of them turned their backs on the anti-Iraq war movement that was going on at the time.  I always thought it was interesting that even though millions of people across the globe refused to believe the propoganda…we still attacked Iraq and really without hesitation. 

I had been thinking about a blog entry on the impact the media has on the presidential elections and when I saw this story yesterday it just reminded me of the power they have.  Watch for a new blog post on how the media influences the elections…soon.

Is Impeachment still off the table?

I know this isn’t getting a ton of press in the U.S. but in the foreign press they are eating it up.  Scott McClellan was always thought to be “one of Bush’s guys” but if you remember back to when he quit a lot of the speculation was that he was losing his credibility and that he couldn’t continue to lie to the press. 

So what will Congress do with this new information?  The democratic leaders keep saying that impeachment is off the table but this could change things.  Plus, how will republicans respond during an election year.  They won’t want to come off as soft on political corruption.  Honestly, I’m sure both sides want the story to go away so they don’t have to take a stand one way or the other which is probably why it’s not being pursued stateside. 

Pat Tillman’s Death and the Cover Up

That’s right I didn’t say alleged…come on it was a cover-up.  Anyone can figure that out. 

Think about this.

Pat Tillman was used to drum up support for the war.  What Tillman did was great, he sacrificed millions of dollars to fight for this country.  Fantastic.  But this story was told over and over again as a way to get people fired up over being patriotic.  That’s fine….it was done.  And that’s a fact.

Pat Tillman refused to do interviews.  He didn’t want to stand out from the rest of the Army Rangers.  He wanted to do his job.  Still, his name was used over and over again by many politicians and policy makers on all sides. 

Pat Tillman was killed by friendly fire. 

The army refused to tell the Tillman family  how he died…for about a month.  even though they suspected friendly fire immediately.  think about this

Army Spc. Bryan O’Neal told a congressional hearing that when he got the chance to talk to Tillman’s brother, who had been in a nearby convoy on the fateful day, “I was ordered not to tell him what happened.”

Ok, I can understand not telling him immediately out in the field but you know he’s an Army Ranger and is trained to deal with people dying around him.  So you should be allowed to tell a fellow Army Ranger what happend and not have to keep it a secret.

Also, this little piece at the end of the article.  (why isn’t this higher up!)

The committee had wanted to hear from retired Lt. Gen. Philip Kensinger, who was in charge of Army special operations and came under the heaviest criticism from military investigators for misleading information about Tillman’s death.

Kensinger’s attorney sent Waxman a letter last week saying that if Kensinger were called to testify he would refuse to answer questions, citing his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Ok, so you take all of that…it at least makes you go hmmm.  that’s strange.

now add in Jessica Lynch saying this:

The committee also heard from Jessica Lynch, the former Army private who was badly injured when her convoy was ambushed in

Iraq in 2003. She was later rescued by American troops from an Iraqi hospital, but the tale of her ambush was changed into a story of heroism on her part.

Still hampered by her injuries, Lynch walked slowly to the witness table, took a seat alongside Tillman’s family members and said the heroism belonged to others who fought in Iraq, such as her roommate Lori Piestewa, who died in the same ambush in which Lynch was captured.

“The bottom line is the American people are capable of determining their own ideals of heroes and they don’t need to be told elaborate lies,” Lynch said.

Now, you could say that all of these people are democrats and against republicans so they will spin anything or that they are being used for this.  If you think this way then you have your head way up the political party (excuse my language) ass and can’t think for yourself.   sorry it’s true.

Remember, a lot of this info is not new at all.  Read a little more and notice the date on this one.

Now, don’t you think there is a reasonable chance that Rumsfeld, Bush, Cheney, Powell, etc.  were made aware that this guy (Pat Tillman) ,who they referred to in speeches from time to time, probably died under friendly fire and that this info will come out eventually so watch what you say. 

If they weren’t made aware of this then the people who work for them should be fired.  And don’t you think that maybe, just maybe, their were conversations about keeping this quiet and hidden from the public for as long as possible until they can determine if there would be a backlash. 

And finally, imagine you are the Tillman family and you are sending letter after letter, making phone call after phone call trying to find out what happened to your son but can’t get an answer from anyone.  Not the people who used his name in speeches and the one’s that called him a hero.  So is this what heroes are treated like?  Shouldn’t someone in the armed forces or this administration be ashamed about what has happened, mad?  I’d like to know the names of people who brushed off the Tillman’s when they tried to get to the bottom of this and don’t think there weren’t people on both sides of the political aisle. 

So that’s the rant today….i promise something funny on my next post.  i’ll make fun of someone and maybe myself.

Cheney and Pelosi going at it.

These two idiots should get married.  Read about their soap opera.

Cheney:

“I think if we were to do what Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Murtha are suggesting, all we will do is validate the al-Qaida strategy,” the vice president told ABC News. “The al-Qaida strategy is to break the will of the American people … try to persuade us to throw in the towel and come home, and then they win because we quit.”

Mr. Positive. Mr. Scary.  Is this guy really relevant to anyone anymore besides Bush?  Pssst….we are fighting much more than al-Qaida in Iraq!  well, we aren’t exactly fighting them, they are fighting each other and we are kind of in the way.

Here is Pelosi with a strong comeback:

I hope the president will repudiate and distance himself from the vice president’s remarks,” Pelosi said. She said she tried to complain about Cheney to President Bush but could not reach him.

“You cannot say as the president of the United States, ‘I welcome disagreement in a time of war,’ and then have the vice president of the United States go out of the country and mischaracterize a position of the speaker of the House and in a manner that says that person in that position of authority is acting against the national security of our country,” the speaker said.

Blah, Blah, Blah.  Just call Cheney an idiot and just say he’s trying to scare people.  The above type of statement gets you a lot of yawning.   I don’t think Cheney is going to respond  (I picture him screaming like that midget on the Burger King Commercials) “What did she say about me?”  It would be great if she said something of substance to make him respond this way….but

The article goes on to list more of Pelosi’s comments.

Pelosi, at a news conference in San Francisco, said Cheney’s criticism of Democrats was “beneath the dignity of the debate we’re engaged in and a disservice to our men and women in uniform, whom we all support.”

“And you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to call the president and tell him I disapprove of what the vice president said,” Pelosi said. “It has no place in our debate.” Bush had previously urged her to call him when a member of his administration stepped over the line by questioning Democrats’ patriotism, she said.

 Uh…I “dignity of the debate”?  What the hell does that mean?  When people are dying everyday…the hell with a “diginity of debate” just get something done you morons.  Or you know, go place your phone call….that’ll show him. 

You both are huge failures and should resign immediately.