From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...
Schooling Cheney
This is just too good. Savor this:
Dick Cheney video clip from This Week: I think the proper way to deal with [the underpants bomber] would have been to treat him as an enemy combatant.
Rachel Maddow: That would be a lot more convincing if you‘d ever done that yourself when you had the chance. Every single person arrested in this country since 9/11 on terrorism charges has been handled as a civilian criminal, which includes being Mirandized—every single one. The only two outliers are Jose Padilla and Ali al-Marri, both of whom were in military custody for a while. (During which they didn‘t cooperate with their interrogators, by the way.) But then even they were ultimately handled in the federal criminal system, treated as civilian criminals.
There are no exceptions to this rule. The underwear bomber is being treated exactly the way that terrorism suspects arrested in the U.S. were treated during the Bush administration---arrested, interrogated, charged as a criminal and, yes, that process includes being Mirandized. The Bush administration did it hundreds of times and the current administration has continued doing it. Only now, the Bush-administration-in-exile would have you believe that what they did all those years was a huge mistake...the mistakenness of which only became apparent when some other president did it, someone who‘s a Democrat.
This is just like the deficit commission or PAYGO or cap-and-trade or televising the health reform hearings or closing Guantanamo or any of these other things, where politicians were for it until Barack Obama signed on with it. Then those same politicians are against it all of a sudden.
It‘s called hypocrisy. And it should be reported as such.
This has become a joke.
I have a new name for Rachel: The Dismantler.
Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Note: Yaaay! The Siemens wind farm skin is back on my margins! Thumpa Thumpa Thumpa Thumpa...Wiiiind Faaaaaarm! Yeah!!!
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the televised health care summit: 8
Days `til the National Cherry Blossom Festival in D.C.: 38
Percent of Maine adults 18-64 who don’t have health insurance: 13%
Percent of the uninsured who have been without coverage for more than five years: 47%
(Source: Market Decisions survey via the Portland Press Herald)
Salary of the President pro Tempore of the Senate (currently Robert Byrd): $188,100
Time it takes a star-nosed mole to eat a mouthful of earthworm: 0.23 seconds
Time it takes Glenn Beck to spew a mouthful of crap: 0.22 seconds
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 169 (including 3 marks of the beast and 1 thwarted attempt to create microchips of the beast). Soul Protection Factor 24 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day:
There she is, Miss Westminster Kennel Club
There she is, your ideal
With so many beauties
She'll take the dog park by storm
With her all-American muzzle and form
And there she is
Sadie the Scotty she is
Furriest of the furry she is
Miss Westminster Kennel Club!
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CHEERS to getting some service. Between the progressive blogosphere and Keith Olbermann, hundreds of thousands of dollars have been raised to help aid the Native American tribes suffering in brutal winter conditions in South Dakota. (You can still donate via the Native American Netroots diaries. Don’t be shy!) And one question we've all been asking for the past few weeks is, "Where the hell is the federal response?" The Senate Indian Affairs Committee finally updated their web site with a statement from chairman Byron Dorgan. A snip:
The Committee has been in frequent contact and worked with the Bureau of Indian Affairs at the Department of Interior, the Indian Health Service and with the tribes, among others, to encourage urgent federal action, monitor the federal response and gauge its effectiveness.
"Some have asked why the committee has not posted information on its website about how to contribute to relief efforts. It is important to understand that the Senate’s rules prevent us from including solicitations for donations of any kind---even in circumstances like this. As much as we would like to do so, it would violate Senate rules to post information on where to send donations to tribes, energy companies, or any other group or organization providing assistance in this emergency.
Duly noted. But one thing we noticed at Senator Dorgan's own senate web site is his list of links to Haiti relief agencies, so I guess the rule only applies to the committee. Out of curiosity I went to the web sites of South Dakota's senators to see how well they were informing the public of the crisis. Here's what I found: Tim Johnson's site has links to Haiti relief, and Senator John Thune has a teeny mention in a three week-old op-ed. I guess they felt street-corner pamphleteering was a better use of resources. Awesome.
CHEERS to "Things That Make Neocons Seethe" for $400, Alex. I know he didn’t nab him personally, but there's no denying that the highest Taliban figure ever to be captured since we invaded Afghanistan nearly nine years ago was caught last week...on Barack Obama's watch. Oh, I could be a real nasty snot and gloat in front of the neocon ditherers on the other side who claim Democrats suck on security. But, no. I'm a patriot, so I'll say this calmly and quietly on behalf of everyone: USA...USA...USA. And maybe, just before lunchtime, perhaps a brief moment of boogie.
CHEERS to perspective. My, how time flies when you're wrastlin' with a catastrophic economy. One year ago, President Obama signed the "Hey! Let's Go Build Some Stuff!" bill, saying it marked "the beginning of the end." Journalist Ron Brownstein described the significance of that presidential signature back then:
"This bill was a presidency in a box. He achieved more of his aims in this single legislation than many presidents will achieve in an entire term. I mean, there is more new net public investment here on things the Democrats consider essential for long-term growth---like education, scientific research, alternative energy---than Bill Clinton was able to achieve in two terms."
And for a brief moment---too brief---the White House sold it with gusto, but then it got framed by the other side as a bloated, wasteful, ineffective killer of childrens' dreams. But in a comically karmic turn, the spotlight has suddenly swung onto the embarrassed faces of Republicans who are now being exposed as having voted against the stimulus bill while simultaneously bragging to their constituents back home about how awesome the money is for creating jobs and stimulating their state's economy. Kinda funny, really. In that special not funny at all kind of way these loons have perfected to a science. Oh, and you can still keep track of where the stimulus dollars are going by checking in at the White House web site, Recovery.gov. Pay no attention to the $8 billion marked "Other." That'll all be explained in good time. (Hint: It involves ice cream, chocolate sauce, whipped cream, a forest of bananas and 306 million spoons.)
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Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda... GONG!!!
This is another edition of The One Word Answer Man. The DNC asks: How will Republican Recovery Act hypocrites mark [today's] anniversary?
Blubbering.
Now back to Cheers and Jeers.
Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda... GONG!!!
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JEERS to penguin droppings. The Republican pettiness (oxymoron intended) continued last weekend as Dick Cheney went on This Week and said that the Obama administration wasn't giving the Bush administration enough credit for what they did in Iraq. We agree! They must be given full credit, and in fact we're willing to etch it in the closest thing the internet has to granite---a text box:
We hereby give the administration of George Walker Bush complete credit for starting a war that never should have been started in the first place.
We also give them complete credit for the over four thousand U.S. lives and countless Iraqi lives lost during that unnecessary war, with hundreds of thousands more wounded.
We also give them complete credit for the over two-trillion dollars---maybe more---that the war will end up costing.
We also give them complete credit for taking the unprecedented step of lowering taxes and asking for sacrifice from neither American corporations nor civilians during wartime, a genuine sign of extremely short-sighted leadership.
We also give them complete credit for taking their eye off the real ball in the fight against terrorists: Afghanistan..
And just to make it official, I went to Cheney's house last night and peed it into the snow in his front yard. You own it now, pal!
JEERS to Billy's Law. "For every diary there is an equal and opposite diary." Case in point: Diary A, [Jane] Hamsher Proves Old Adage: Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics is followed by Diary B, Jane Hamsher Eats Puppies. You diary people amuse me. [pat pat] I just want to form you all into a great big human couch and take a nap on you. If only Viceroy Blades allowed commingling.
CHEERS to legal libations. On this date in 1933, the U.S. Senate passed the Blaine Act, which effectively ended prohibition. Who says Christmas is in December?
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Five years ago in C&J: February 17, 2005
JEERS to supporting the troops, Dubya-style. Veterans of the first Gulf War who were shot down or captured and tortured by Saddam's thugs sued Iraq and won a billion dollars in damages. Now preznit says the deal's off. Bonus JEERS to Scott McClellan for this bit of Orwellian magic: "No amount of money can truly compensate these brave men and women for the suffering that they went through." So that's what they're getting.
CHEERS to The Lord's kid. Okay, listen up. The piece of the Shroud of Turin that was tested and found to be from around 1300AD, "proving" the image on it couldn't have been Jesus? Turns out it was from a patch used to fix a hole. The original material, according to the BBC, is between 1,400 and 3,000 years old. See y'all in church on Sunday.
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And just one more...
CHEERS to BiPM: Master Sage. I love it when something I spot a mile away turns out to not be a mirage upon arrival. Here's what I mean:
On Feb. 7 Sarah Palin defended Rush Limbaugh's use of the word "retarded"---which he used mockingly 40 times---because she claimed he was using it in the context of satire and therefore it's perfectly acceptable and even chuckle-worthy.
On Feb. 10 we posted in C&J one of the new GOP "rules" we'd formulated from listening to Sarah Palin and the Tea Party Nation crowd. We wrote: "Calling people 'retards' is fine as long as two criteria are met: 1) It can only be used by a Republican as "satire." 2) What constitutes satire can only be determined by another Republican.
On Feb. 16, Sarah Palin followed that rule when she wrote on Facebook in response to (admittedly crude) satire on an episode of Family Guy: "[Y]esterday’s Fox show...felt like another kick in the gut. ... When is enough, enough?"
I'll take a guess. For our side: Now. For their side: Never.
Have a nice Wednesday. See you in detention. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Bill in Portland Maine won't inspire swoons. He's just big and hairy.
---USA Today
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