"This is a time for reflection, not retribution. I respect the strong views and emotions that these issues evoke. We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past. Our national greatness is embedded in America's ability to right its course in concert with our core values, and to move forward with confidence. That is why we must resist the forces that divide us, and instead come together on behalf of our common future."
-President Barack Obama, April 16, 2009
(blog note - NOBODY is above the law. Not even Bush, Cheney, Gonzales and Rumsfeld. Investigate them. Arrest them. Prosecute them. And if need be, jail them. Or pardon them, as the case may be.)
Posts
42 comments:
> Our national greatness is embedded in America's ability to right its course in concert with our core values, and to move forward with confidence.
That's a great line.
Ok, if that is the case, Mr President, then I NEVER, EVER, EVER, want to hear about reparations for slavery. In fact I believe the US govt has paid out $ to the Japanese survivors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, they should pay that back too. If we can not "look back" and "lay blame" on others for the past, then I really don't want to hear you do it. In fact, stop going around saying "I inherited a mess". Though while true, saying this is just another way to cast blame and if you are unwilling to or afraid do so in the case of your predecessor, than extrapolate that principle into all matters. and stop whining about the mess you walked into. Just STFU and do your damn job for once!
-JDF
Like the man said:
"...nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past."
Obey your master.
International War Crimes Tribunal.
Bush and Cheney (and Gonzales and Rumsfield and Miers) better not venture outside the protection of the United States anytime soon.
> extrapolate that principle into all matters.
I hate this line of reasoning, which is voiced on occasion. This is not flipping hamburgers at McDonalds. If you've ever worked there (were you aware that 8% of the entire US population has worked there), you know that when the beeper beeps, you flip ALL the burgers. You don't flip some and not others. You flip them all.
World affairs however is slightly more nuanced and complicated than working at McDonalds, in case you haden't noticed.
I've now read the torture memos.
And anyone who did not stand up against Bush and Cheney as they did their evil deeds, or even today, is on the same moral ground as a Nazi.
Shame on America. Shame on Congress. Shame on our courts. Shame on our media.
America has been shamed.
And when our brave troops are picked up in Iraq or Afghanistan or places around the world, and they are tortured, as per the instructions in these memos, if not worse, you'll understand why we have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history. One that will have repercussions for decades, if not longer.
Shame.
Shame, shame, shame.
One more time, for the Fox News or MSNBC crowd that doesn't get it:
F*ck Harry Reid
F*ck Nancy Pelosi
F*ck Chris Dodd
F*ck Barney Frank
F*ck the Democratic Party
And ABOVE ALL, F*ck George Bush and F*ck Dick Cheney, and their now-dead party.
Got it?
I dont get it.
How did these guys slip out the back door?
They wasted over $1 trillion dollars and killed and injured over 500,000 humans and hoaxed millions of home buyers into a ponzi trap loan scheme that provided loss, desperation and despair while at the same time asking the American Workers to work for one third of their current wages so we can compete with a SURGE of new cars made in China and sold in America?
Wow, did they pay off our elected officials or what??
So this is the "PNAC" huh? Nice job dick heads.
What should I tell my chidren now? That it's ok to lie, steal and cheat? WTF?
Opps. I mean a blatant idiot. Sorry.
Are you a Saudi imbed?
‘We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.”
Doesn’t he contradict himself?
And by the way, look in your very own backyard,there is no place more rotten and evil then Europe.
so no matter how ugly a picture you attempt to paint on America, it will never compare to despicable Europe
Arrest them? Prosecute them? Jail them?
NAW! We'll leave that to countries that STILL ADHERE TO THE RULE OF LAW---like SPAIN.
Now that's some Changalange I Can Believe In!!
Too bad the CIA secret prisons and black sites are still operating all around the globe.
Dude Keith, you are as blinded by your ideology as any republican or democrat is.
Why are you telling certain groups they cannot be a part of the protests against government spending and bailouts!?!
Your seriously scary love for Obama blinds you from being an independent thinker.
"...What should I tell my children now? That it's ok to lie, steal and cheat?..."Of course it is, but with a very important caveat: ONLY for the big players.
Think BIG; budding criminals.
"We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history"
Have been?? Like the dark and painful chapter is already behind us? The party is over and the hangover is just setting in.
You got that right, Keith! Failure to investigate and prosecute the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Cheney regime is one of the three main reasons why I'm disgusted with Obama (along with bailing out the bank maggots and continuing the national surveillance state.)
My absentee ballot was for Obama, and I like some of the things he's doing like moving toward normal relations with Cuba and letting states set their own policies on marijuana laws. But if they don't investigate war crimes, Obama and the cowardly Democrats are accomplices to the Bush criminals.
"Investigate them. Arrest them. Prosecute them."
It would be nice. I read a piece in the NYT's yesterday explaining how very hard it is to pursue any type of mortgage fraud. Prosecuters and the public do not want to devote the resources. But it seemed there was almost nothing at all being done. If they can't even prosecute or don't care about the little fish, its discouraging.
Anon said: "Are you a Saudi imbed?"
Anon, just get the f*ck out of this blog and shut the f*ck up. It's people like you who perpetuate the suffering of millions of humans by an accident of mother nature that made you and many of your kind so ignorant. What do you know about imbeds--let alone Saudis? Stop watching Idol and get off your couch and try to meet humans. Although I doubt you have that kind of intellectual curiosity!
a little off the story but ive been wondering if these insurance company puppets all, all will not hear me scream rape when i get my health insurance and house insurance bills,.... most likely
Hey Keith, your messianic hero is out of control, printing money to give to fraudsters. The heist never ends:
CNN -- The Treasury Department announced Wednesday the first six participants to sign up for President Obama's plan. They include three of the nation's largest banks: JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500), which will get up to $3.6 billion in subsidy and incentive payments; Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500), $2.9 billion; and Citigroup (C, Fortune 500), $2 billion. The others are GMAC Mortgage, $633 million; Saxon Mortgage Services, $407 million; and Select Portfolio Servicing, $376 million.
...
The modification plan calls for the servicer to reduce interest rates so that the monthly obligation is no more than 38% of a borrower's pre-tax income, and then the government would kick in money to bring payments down to 31% of income. Servicers can also reduce the loan balance to achieve these affordability levels. The government will share in the cost, up to the amount the servicer would have received if it had reduced the interest rates.
And ABOVE ALL, F*ck George Bush and F*ck Dick Cheney, and their now-dead party.
Got it?But love your King Africano, right? Got it.
"[A]nyone who did not stand up against Bush and Cheney as they did their evil deeds, or even today, is on the same moral ground as a Nazi."
Hey Keith,
I totally agree with you. I would much rather be slowly starved to death, worked to the bone, raped, frozen, given nothing but sea water to drink, poisoned, incendiary bombed, or gassed with cyanide (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation) than suffer a little bitch slapping, sleep deprivation, or even water-boarding.
Hell, check out a random episode of Survivor and you're likely to see more severe torture during an immunity challenge than what the memos described.
Many here may not care about Abu Ghraib, but they sure have eaten some of that Domino's pizza you showed us in a previous post, and I think they should care about that!
May I suggest that it's the result of a new culture that Bush has fostered in America? Things like: Easy pass to riches; quick buck; work-no-more for society; be the master and consider that all other humans beneath you; give the consumers whatever sh*t they are willing to buy; make sure you sell as much sh*t as you can; make bankers happy, corporations happy, and sh*t-pizza eaters happy; listen to Rush and Greg and Sean and sell America to the devil if the devil is dumb enough to want to buy!
Shouldn't Obama re-consider? Does Mr. Nice-man realize how much damage Bush and his cronies have done to America? Does he know that
without retribution, America will not go back to normal?
To be sure, he knows all too well that he was elected because people wanted "change," but all I see so far is pocket change--no real substance!
WE ARE GOING TO BE F*CKED AGAIN!
Olbermann:
That means prosecuting all those involved in the Bush administration's torture of prisoners, even if the results are nominal punishments, or merely new laws. Your only other option is to let this set and fester indefinitely. Because, Sir, some day there will be another Republican president, or even a Democrat just as blind as Mr. Bush to ethics and this country's moral force. And he will look back to what you did about Mr. Bush. Or what you did not do.
And he will see precedent. Or as Cheney saw, he will see how not to get caught next time. Prosecute, Mr. President. Even if you get not one conviction, you will still have accomplished good for generations unborn. Merely by acting, you will deny a further wrong -- that this construction will enter the history books: Torture was legal. It worked. It saved the country.
The end. This must not be. "It is our intention," you said today, "to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution." Mr. President, you are making history's easiest, most often made, most dangerous mistake -- you are accepting the defense that somebody was "just following orders." At the end of his first year in office, Mr. Lincoln tried to contextualize the Civil War for those who still wanted to compromise with evils of secession and slavery. "The struggle of today," Lincoln wrote, "is not altogether for today. It is for a vast future also."
Mr. President, you have now been handed the beginning of that future. Use it to protect our children and our distant descendants from anything like this ever happening again -- by showing them that those who did this, were neither unfairly scapegoated nor absolved. It is good to say "we won't do it again." It is not, however...enough.
Yes how about that nano thermite found by 9 Danish scientists last week in 4 different samples of WTC debris.It burns hundres of times hotter than jet fuel.
Any questions why the Towers were smoldering a month after the event???
Here it is
Remember we will put science in it's proper place.
http://tinyurl.com/de6448
Break out the HINDENBURG Keith!
250 MAJOR shopping malls gone.
I just added those to the list of "financial collaterial damages" under the bush and cheney administration.
We are only in the 4th inning.
Just what I thought.
Obama drank the kool-aid. :(
Our country is doomed. WTF!
Obama is just proving that he is the "good guy" puppet as opposed to the Bush "bad guy" puppet....both controlled by the same puppeteers.
Geez where was Obama when the Nazi war criminals were being prosecuted....."let them all go, past is past".
Obama is a spineless tool...just like his predecessor.
Fuck You, BoJangles, you Socialist POS.
Bushco & Cheneyburton have to go down.
Monsters, Murderers and Torturers.
WORST EVER IN HISTORY
Fuck You, George Bush. A pox on your entire Family and that goes double for Crooked Cheneyburton.
Is there No Justice in America?
"Got it?"
It's simply amazing how so many are seemingly unable to grasp the insidious nature of the choreographed interplay between the two dominant political parties and how it allows powerful interests to promote/enact destructive policies.
By this gaming of the political process, they effectively marginalize those who would inspire more thoughtful/meaningful debate and therefore, establish a more functional system of give and take that leads to the development of fundamentally sound policy with fewer unintended consequences.
But, of course, it's the unintended consequences that these controlling interests are most concerned about: they cloak the process of discovery in order to achieve potentially negative results.
Negative for the vast majority of us and lucrative for the very few.
President Obama would be wise to discount the advise of his political 'handlers' and appoint a Special Prosecutor to thoroughly investigate the abuses of power by the previous administration.
Unless Bush/Cheney and their cronies are held accountable for their wrongful actions, any/all attempts by the Obama Administration to remedy those wrongs will be in vain.
"Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom." --Thomas Jefferson
"nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past."
A true leader must establish trust and demonstrate accountability in order to command respect.
We, as a nation, have been misdirected and abused by a nefarious administration hell-bent on achieving the accomplishment of a special interest agenda.
There can be no compromise in rendering full punishment under the guidelines of established law.
To maintain a politically expedient course of inaction will eventually be construed as complicity.
And the ensuing loss of credibility and trust.
Is it in the best interests of our country to abandon the rule of law and delay/deny justice in order to preserve an entrenched, illegitimate corporatocracy?
Apparently, President Obama doesn't want to rock the boat.
Or maybe he's not in a position to make waves.
Whoever is in command of the ship of state wants this issue to be dry docked until it'll pass muster.
Treason.
And yes, 9/11 was a "fake" planned attack by bush & company - behind closed doors. And millions of people know it. But when we elect officials who say they'll go after theses thugs - they get to DC and get paid-off and turn their heads.
There is plenty of 100% proof that Bush and company lied about 9/11 - but who will arrest them when the CIA and our elected officials are all liars and crooks too??
Hell, just above all, the airlines could not even show proof of 19 ticket sales to the 19 (fake) hijackers!
The GOP/DEMS are both criminal anti-American networks thugs so BEWARE!
It's the crime of the Century.
Our government will always be under control of criminals unless both parties are outlawed and we start over. But its too late.
Our ship is going down fast.
I used to get pissed of at this, but now I just laugh as we watch our country burn in hell from what they've done.
I like your words Went2Puke. I'm going to borrow them because I'm feeling lazy this morning. Hope you don't mind.
Jayman01844, just get the f*ck out of this blog and shut the f*ck up. It's people like you who perpetuate the self loathing of millions of humans by an accident of mother nature that made you and many of your kind so ignorant. What do you know about nano thermite--let alone large scale fires? Stop watching Idol and get off your couch and try to meet humans. Although I doubt you have that kind of intellectual curiosity!
250 MAJOR shopping malls gone.
Nope. If borrow and spend is the religion, malls are the temples. Ready for a mall bailout?
You fools don't get it. Some really shady people with scary connections were involved in these deals. Obama likes living, breathing, and all that other stuff associated with existence in this world. If he tried to extract any penance from the "dark side", he would be removed (like JFK) by orders from a higher authority. His actions are those of a rational politician. You expect him to die tilting at windmills, but he isn't that stupid.
Obama green lights politicians now and in thefuture to break the constitution, the law, and moral behavior. And get away with it.
Cuz, hell, Bush and Cheney just got away with torture.
Nice words Obama but how about some action?
The mass media (left and right) has made this all about "water boarding" and Guantanomo Bay but the torture and murder were on a scale way beyond what they mention most commonly in the media. How many of you have really learned what was going on at Abu Ghraib and continues to this day in other black sites around the globe?
Abu Ghraib Torture and Murder.
So Obama is complicit in covering these war crimes up. It's far worse than these lame memos (as bad as they are) show.
And just remember when you listen to Fox or the other fake conservative media white wash torture as "water boarding" or "harsh interrogation". It's much much worse than that. It is Nazi level rape, macabre beating, sexual torture, battery acid and torturing to death etc etc...
Then the fake conservatives will talk about how evil the Islamic suicide bombers are but never do they talk about the true horrors that have been revealed. That's propaganda people. Stop deluding yourselves you fake conservative Rush, Hannity, Medved, Prager, Beck listeners. Same goes for the Olbermann and Rachel Madcow shows which may attack the right but rarely do they question Obama and they never present the true picture of the horror inflicted on the Iraqi and Afghani people.
Incredible new footage of BO's operation to save the captain & crew from pirates:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs_Sb-P1_UY
Post a Comment