Tuesday, November 06, 2012

He's such a little four-year-old girl



BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE

SINCE HE'S NEVER COME OFF MANLY,  CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O DECIDED "OH F**K IT!" IN IOWA AND CRIED LIKE A LITTLE TITTY BABY IN PUBLIC, IN FRONT OF THOUSANDS WITH PHOTOS AND VIDEO QUICKLY TURNING IT INTO MILLIONS.

IF TOM HANKS WERE TRULY HIS FRIEND, TOM WOULD TELL HIM, "THERE'S NO CRYING IN POLITICS!"

AS TEARS STREAMED DOWN THE DRAMA QUEEN'S FACE, YOU WOULD HAVE THOUGHT HE WAS YET AGAIN ON THE LAP OF LOLO SOETORO ALL OVER AGAIN.

WATCHING THE CRY BABY BOO-HOO IN PUBLIC, WE WERE REMINDED OF HOW HIS CAMPAIGN RESPONDED TO A RIVAL'S EYES JUST MOISTENING -- NO TEARS FALLING.

SO THESE REPORTERS CONTACTED PUBLIC EMBARRASSMENT JESSE JACKSON JUNIOR -- THE ONLY CANDIDATE RUNNING FOR ELECTION WHO HAS NOT BEEN SEEN BY THE PUBLIC SINCE JUNE -- AND WE ASKED LITTLE JUNIOR WHAT HE THOUGHT OF HIS ONE-TIME FRIEND'S CRYING?


 JUNIOR JACKSON JESSE: BARRY O CRIED ALRIGHT, LIKE A LITTLE BITCH, BUT NOT IN RESPONSE TO VOTERS -- NOT IN RESPONSE TO SANDY, NOT IN RESPONSE TO OTHER ISSUES THAT HAVE DEVASTATED THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, THE WAR IN IRAQ, WE SAW TEARS IN RESPONSE TO THE CHANCE THAT HE MIGHT NOT BE RE-ELECTED.  TEARS ABOUT HIS OWN FATE, BUT NOT HURRICANE SANDY.


EVEN JUNIOR HAD A POINT.

FROM THE TCI WIRE:



 
As last month drew to a close, the US Dept of Veterans Affairs announced that the home loan program which was created as part of the GI Bill of Rights back in 1944 had awarded its 20 millionth home loan.  The VA's Undersecretary For Benefits Allison Hickey declared, "The 20 millionth VA home loan is a major milestone and is a testament to VA's commitment to support and enhance the lives of Veterans, Servicemembers, their families and survivors.  As a result of their service and sacrifice, as a group, they prove to be disciplined, reliable, and honorable -- traits that are ideal for this kind of national investment."  The VA has a history page on the GI Bill of Rights of 1944 which opens:
 
It has been heralded as one of the most significant pieces of legislation ever produced by the federal government -- one that impacted the United States socially, economically and politically. But it almost never came to pass.
The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 -- commonly known as the GI Bill of Rights -- nearly stalled in Congress as members of the House and Senate debated provisions of the controversial bill.
Some shunned the idea of paying unemployed veterans $20 a week because they thought it diminished their incentive to look for work. Others questioned the concept of sending battle-hardened veterans to colleges and universities, a privilege then reserved for the rich.
Despite their differences, all agreed something must be done to help veterans assimilate into civilian life.
Much of the urgency stemmed from a desire to avoid the missteps following World War I, when discharged veterans got little more than a $60 allowance and a train ticket home.
 
Veterans of today's wars also have The Post 9/11 GI Bill. ("The Post-9/11 GI Bill provides financial support for education and housing to individuals with at least 90 days of aggregate service after September 10, 2001, or individuals discharged with a service-connected disability after 30 days. You must have received an honorable discharge to be eligible for the Post-9/11 GI Bill.")  Many of the leaders on the Post 9-11 GI BIll are no longer in the House -- the 2010 midterms saw a number of them lose their seats.  It's another election year.  Voting in the US is done on Tuesday.  IAVA's Paul Rieckhoff (Daily Beast) looks at what the Barack Obama and Mitt Romney campaigns have addressed or haven't addressed in their campaigns:
 
Eleven years ago in October, American military forces launched a war in Afghanistan that's still raging today. One would think that the war and the postwar care for the veterans that fought in Afghanistan and Iraq would be a crucial part of the 2012 presidential campaign, but that hasn't been the case.
In stump speeches and campaign pit stops across the country, President Obama and Governor Romney have made cursory references to veterans' care and benefits, but offered little in the way of specifics. And in the debates, the candidates spent more time talking about Big Bird than they did vets' policy. ObamaCare versus "Obama Cares" and "Romnesia" are funny, but also a sad commentary on the state of our political discourse. The Main Streets in countless American towns and cities are pushed aside for carefully crafted PR zingers.
But whoever wins on Tuesday, America's 2.5 million post-9/11 veterans -- more than 60,000 in Ohio alone -- will be looking to the president to address the education, housing, employment, and health-care challenges they face every day -- and to do so substantively, the same way they have tackled the fallout from Hurricane Sandy. Just because the war in Afghanistan will end someday doesn't mean it already has, nor does it mean that the effects of it are going away anytime soon. Quite the contrary, in fact.
 
I have friends in IAVA but I'm not a fan of Paul's.  That's long established here.  So hopefully when I now say that he has written a very important column, it means something if even one of his detractors, like myself,  praise it. 
 
I can't praise Barack's lie that he ended the Iraq War, a lie he makes while also negotiating with Nouri al-Maliki to send more US troops back into Iraq.  As Tim Arango (New York Times) reported at the end of September, "Iraq and the United States are negotiating an agreement that could result in the return of small units of American soldiers to Iraq on training missions.  At the request of the Iraqi government, according to General Caslen, a unit of Army Special Operations soldiers was recently deployed to Iraq to advise on counterterrorism and help with intelligence."    Kevin Gosztola (FireDogLake) notes:
 
Each paper praised Obama for ending the Iraq War. The Chicago Tribune suggested, "He set and stuck to a withdrawal schedule for U.S. troops in Iraq." Actually, in 2008, George W. Bush negotiated the withdrawal schedule. It also must be noted the Pentagon wanted to keep 10,000 to 20,000 troops in Iraq as "trainers" and "anti-terrorism forces. They lowered the figure to around 3,000. The Pentagon, along with the Obama administration pressed for immunity for any US troops that would remain in the country. That was met with opposition and, when immunity could not be ensured, the withdrawal officially began.

The US presence did not completely end though. According to the State Department, 16,000 to 17,000 US personnel would remain in the country along with about 5,500 military contractors. The US occupation would also leave behind the world's largest embassy in Baghdad.
How did Obama mark the end of the war? Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick in their book, The Untold History of the United States, gave it proper treatment:
…Obama welcomed the troops home at Fort Bragg. But instead of honestly treating the Iraq War as the unmitigated disaster it had been for the United States, drawing some poignant lessons, and thanking those gathered for their sacrifice, Obama felt compelled to cloak the war's end in the kind of patriotic drivel that conjured up the powerfully haunting words of Rudyard Kipling, the erstwhile proponent of empire, who had convinced his son to enlist in the First World War, only to have him die his first day of combat. In his "Epitaphs of the War," Kipling wrote, "If any question why we died / Tell them, because our fathers lied." Obama's lies would sear just as deeply and painfully. "We're leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people," he told the troops, praising their "extraordinary achievement." The "most important lesson," he declared, was "about our national character…that there's nothing we Americans can't do when we stick together…And that why the United States military is the most respected institution in our land." He commended their willingness to sacrifice "so much for a people that you had never met," which, he insisted, was "part of what makes us special as Americans. Unlike the old empires, we don't make these sacrifices for territory or for resources. We do it because it's right. There can be no fuller expression of America's support for self-determination than our leaving Iraq to its people. That says something about who we are."…
 
 
 
If anyone thinks that the war is over in Iraq, I have only to open my "At a Glance" calendar where I have tried to note the number of Iraqi casualties each day over the last nine plus years: deaths due to explosions, bombs, assassinations. Just a few randomly selected numbers from 2012 (these are the number of dead, the number of wounded is of course much greater). 63, 54, 78, 97, 28, 36, 105, 24, 41, 115 ... the list goes on and on.
One of my hopes on this trip is to visit Iraqi families who have had to return from Syria. Having fled the violence in Iraq, they came to Syria where I met them as refugees. Now they are threatened once again, and there are no countries willing to take them. Many have returned to Iraq, and we are anxious to know how they are doing.
 
 
While some deserve praise, some don't.  Such as a spinner spinning online in an attempt to bully/trick people into voting for Barack.  First, you would have been ripped apart in an undergrad poli sci class for your gross ignorance -- forget an advanced class.  No, we don't have to vote.  Voting is a right in the United Staes.  So is owning a gun.  I don't own a gun.  Second,  Ralph Nader did work in 2000 regarding party building and ballot access.  After that?   He continued to do strong work on ballot access in terms of raising awareness.  As for helping to build the Green Party?  The reality that the Green Party was 'conflcited' (co-opted) is why he didn't run with them in 2004 or 2008.  Distortions of Nader only reveal your sublime ignorance.  In the future, stick to horse race 'coverage' because your tired little mind might be able to handle that.  As for the accusation that the Greens only show up at election time?  First,  isn't that the only time the Democrats and Republicans remember that there are voters out there?  Second, your ignorance of what takes places in the fifty states is exceeded only by your ego assuming you could absorb that information even if the media bothered to cover it.  The Michigan Green Party, to name but one state, never stops working.    From your computer screen, you may think you see the world.  But being aware of what's happening on the ground would require you traveling to many states -- something I've done repeatedly since the month before the Iraq War started.
 
Next topic on the elections: Barack Obama supporters better get outraged.  Republicans vote.  I'm sorry if that's upsetting news to anyone.  I've done every task in the world on campaigns during my lifetime and that includes getting out the vote on election day.  I've driven seniors to polls, you name it.  I live in a state that has gone Democratic in the last five elections.  We also are still voting -- due to the time difference -- when most states have stopped.  Regardless of what the prediction or, yes, 'call' is, Republcians still show up to vote in those last hours.  Many Democrats don't.  Point being, this nonsense of "Barack's going to win!"  It's hurting Barack and anyone who tells you otherwise doesn't live in the PST time zone which regularly sees how this sort of 'the winner's known' talk effects turnout.  It may hurt him just a little, it may hurt him a lot.  But you should be demanding that media stop saying he or anyone has won.
 
Democrats are more likely to be working class and they're more likely to have obstacles to voting.  You start saying that Barack's won, your hurting his turnout and you're hurting the Democratic Party turnout.  Not just in the PST states, but in all the states.  Encouraging people not to vote -- calling the election the day before the vote is encouraging people not to vote -- can also hurt Senate races, House races and state and municipal races.  People are busy enough as it is, don't give those who want to vote but are buy a reason not to.  (And I'd make this point if Mitt Romney were the one the press was saying would win Tuesday.  Although I'd be less concerned about turnout being depressed as a result because, again, Republicans vote regardless.  CBS could call it for Barack at 7:30 PM EST tomorrow and Republicans on the West Coast would still show up at the polls.)
 
 
Howard Kurtz (Daily Beast) observes a Barack defeat "will also be a crushing blow for the punditocracy that headed into Election Day filled with confidence that Obama had it in the bag." Liz Marlantes (Christian Science Monitor) tries to provide caution and that's appreciated but she also reveals a knowledge gap:
 
In addition, the growing prevalence of early voting has provided analysts with a more concrete metric – allowing prognosticators to base their assumptions not only on what polls suggest will happen on Election Day, but also on what early voting patterns suggest has already happened.
 
 
English lit is not poli sci.  Maybe people who didn't study poli sci shouldn't be presenting as 'experts.'  Liz's comment above? You have nothing to base a conclusion on.  The votes have not been counted.  Not even the early votes.  Not the mail-in votes.  Not the votes that will be cast on Tuesday.  You have nothing.  You don't have early prognostics.
 
You have polling which can be an indication.  Provided the pollsters are doing their job correctly and provided that people aren't pissed off at the pollsters.  Meaning when someone says, "I'm doing a poll . . .," respondents aren't thinking, "I hate that polling firm/outlet, I'm going to f**k with this man/woman and lie about my vote."
 
Predictions don't win elections, votes do.  Nate Silver and the rest have already destroyed whatever was left of campaign reporting because the coverage is even less about issues.  (In the film, Network, these worthless types were represented by the character Sybil the Soothsayer.  Remember when so many on the left couldn't stop citing Network and insisting we heed its cautionary tales?)   Now they're taking over the last hours of the election as well.  Supporters of the nonsense Nate does like to claim, "Well sports . . ."  Correct me if I'm wrong (and I may be, I don't follow sports) but predicting a winner in sports is based upon using their past performance in that season.  There has been no 'win' in a general election this year that you can base another one on.  Tomorrow is the contest.
 
I don't care who you vote for.  If you choose not to vote in a race or not to vote in all races because you make that decision, that's your choice and be happy with it.  (I will not be voting in the presidential race, no candidate earned my vote.  I will be voting in other races)  But I do care that whomever is elected is elected by the people and not by the media.  The media overwhelmingly wants Barack to win.  That's been obvious for some time.  But preening and strutting before an election may not bring about their desired result. 
 
 
Trusting the media worked out real well in 2000, didn't it?  And it worked out real well with the Iraq War, too, right?  (Wrong in both cases.)  Do you really want to be a Quil Lawrence?  March 7, 2010, Iraq held parliamentary elections.  March 8th, Quil did what?  Before votes were counted, Quil was on NPR's Morning Edition telling Steve Inskeep that Nouri did "very well."  Maybe Barack will do "very well," too?  "Very well," when the ballots were actually counted and Quil Lawrence had left the region and moved on to another story, translated as: Nouri's State of Law came in second to Iraqiya.  Second place isn't winning in an election.
 
 


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