Wednesday, April 11, 2007

WHY WE'RE ANGRY

Just got this letter from John Conley, the Marine combat Vet (who sent me his Purple Heart, God bless him!)

Dear Lyd,

What Imus said was inexcusable and deserving of decisive punishment, but more inexcusable to me is the ongoing urgency to completely destroy his life and the very positive things he and his wife have built to help kids fight cancer. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have both needed forgiveness in the past for racial slurs and incidents (Jackson with his anti-semitic "Hymietown" remark in describing New York City and Sharpton with the Tawana Brawley myth he rushed into and helped perpetuate.)........both incidents just as inciteful, if not more, than anything Don Imus has said or done.

In this case not only is there no forgiveness, but the punishment grossly outweighs the offense and a feeding frenzy has developed among bored journalists trying to uncover new excuses to hammer Imus even harder. The theory seems to be that If you want to prove you're not a racist, then step up and take your pound of flesh from Don Imus. I fear the pendulum is now swinging a little too far the other way.

John
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Part of being a public figure or celebrity means dealing with unsolicited opinions about yourself. On this blog as well as on others, I have been stung and hurt to the core by cruel, sexist comments. The first time it happened, my cheeks stung and I burst into tears, feeling lower than I had in my entire life. I can't imagine what these young Rutgers women must have felt like after working hard to get to college, to earn their place on the Rutgers team, to make it to the finals — only to be dismissed as whores (no matter the catchy slang, "ho's" means one thing and applies to the worst thing men can call women.) Black women have it harder than any other group; they have been marginalized, forsaken, forgotten and maligned and yet they have such dignity and innate beauty in the face of unbearable hardship.

Imus lost his MSNBC show, a signal that sexist, racist hate-speak will not be tolerated on the public airwaves. But much worse than Imus on any given day, are Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage — who also have their own shows. They systematically engage in hate-speak and Nationally syndicated Clear Channel radio host Glen Beck has actually sent out screaming death wishes to certain Democrats he hates. He called hurricane survivors in New Orleans "scumbags," and said he "hates" 9-11 families: "I didn't think I could hate victims faster than the 9-11 victims. (More below, but first this...)

Please Go back and listen to Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly's shows. Every single day, they provoke people to hate their fellow man, to hate anyone who is not pro-Bush, pro-war labeling peacemakers as traitors. Every other word out of their mouths conveys their disgust for perceived liberal bias, for human rights groups, environmentalists, liberals, gays, Muslims, women's groups, feminists, "Hollywood" Democracts and their fellow man.

Is this kind of hate-mongering good for America? Is the politics of personal destruction good for America? Does anyone know the truth about the "Swift Boat Veterans" who ruined John Kerry? Did the media ever get the word out that the man behind this campaign was a completely deranged individual who was caught lying and posting threats on blogs -- and had no credibility whatsoever? I will post the truth you missed in my next thread.

On all these political talk shows, every single pundit, except for Keith Olbermann — are raving right wingers. Chris Matthews aside, there are no other intelligent, Progressive or Democrat-leaning talk show pundits with thoughtful, reasoned voices -- such as Paul Waldman or Scott Ritter or Robert Dreyfuss or Arianna Huffington. The list is endless. We have so many wonderfully intelligent people that could be talk show hosts, yet we get these sinister loud-mouths who dumb America down such as Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh.. and of course Bill O'Reilly, one of the most hateful hypocrites on the public airwaves. Why are they still on the air? They take glee in stirring up hatred. What a tragedy for America. We need to become a softer, kinder nation. We need to come together and see each other with fresh eyes. We are all one race, and we are all flawed.

BUSH LIED, THOUSANDS DIED and are dying ....WHY?
In case you didn't know the reasons most Americans are so upset with Bush, here is a brilliant article that describes how we feel. This is an an article by Paul Waldman, Senior Fellow at Media Matters and author of "It's Not Enough to Be Right: What Progressives Must Learn From Conservative Success." We had him on our show a few weeks ago. Don't forget, this Saturday morning at 9 AM PST we're honored to have Congressman Charlie Rangle, who has been serving America for over 30 years. He's a great wit, and a man with such a keen eye and big heart. He's on CNN and MSNBC almost every week.

ALL THE RAGE
There's No Denying it, we Progressives are Angry
by Paul Waldman

We can’t deny it any longer. There’s no point in hiding it, no point in trying to explain it away. Yes, it’s true: We progressives are angry. And we no longer care if the centrist, moderate guardians of the establishment scold us for it.

Our anger is not just some vague feeling whose source we can’t put our finger on. It isn’t based on absurd conspiracy theories and it isn’t illogical.

We’re angry because of what has happened to our country, because of how we’ve been treated, and because of the innumerable crimes the conservatives have committed. We’re angry at the president, we’re angry at the Congress, we’re angry at the news media. And we have every right to be.

Yes, we’re angry at George W. Bush. We’re not angry at him because of who he sleeps with, and we’re not angry at him because we think he represents some socio-cultural movement we didn’t like 40 years ago, or because he hung out with a different crowd than we did in high school. We’re angry at him because of what he’s done.

It’s true, we don’t like the fact that the most powerful human being on the planet is such a ridiculous buffoon that he can’t put two coherent sentences together without beginning to giggle and shimmy his shoulders. But we’re not angry because we think he’s stupid, we’re angry because he treats us as though we’re stupid. We’re angry that he lied to us, and lied to us and lied to us again. We’re angry that when he lies to us it isn’t because he’s caught up in scandal or got caught doing something he shouldn’t have, it’s part of a carefully constructed plan to fool the public.

Yes, we’re angry about Iraq, and we may be for the rest of our lives. We get angry every day when we open our newspapers and see the photo of another young soldier who died for this, another one maimed for life, another one with a tormented and broken soul. We’re angry about the couple of trillion dollars this war will cost. We’re angry about the thousands of young men around the world have been driven into the arms of al Qaeda, who have decided to devote their lives to killing Americans because of this war. We’re angry about the thousands upon thousands of Iraqis who have died in the orgy of bloodshed we unleashed, and the living too, those whom we said we were coming to “liberate,” but who now find themselves in a suffocating, endless miasma of fear and misery and death.

We’re angry that when we talk about ending this monstrous war, the soulless hypocrites who are glad to send more and more men and women to be scarred and maimed and killed in Iraq have the gall to accuse us of not “supporting the troops.” We’re angry that people whose actions exhibit nothing but contempt for freedom and liberty and justice, who wouldn’t know real patriotism if it came up and smacked them across the face, pin a little flag on their lapel and say that we’re the ones who hate America.

We’re angry because people who said the Iraqis would greet us as liberators, who said Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were good buddies, who said this nightmare of a war would bring a flowering of democracy across the Middle East—this band of idiots, the Kristols and the Krauthammers and the Kagans and the Kondrackes, is treated as “serious” and “credible” on matters of national security, while those of us who were right about the war are dismissed as some sort of fringe whose ideas are too silly to listen to.

We’re angry that America may now be the only country in the world in which torture is an officially sanctioned policy, proclaimed proudly in public. We’re angry that in our name prisoners are subjected to sleep deprivation, water boarding and other forms of psychological torture to the point where they are literally driven mad. We’re angry that the president has decided, over 750 times, that if Congress passes a law and he doesn’t like it, he’ll just ignore it. We’re angry that this administration has argued over and over, in public and in court, that if the president does it, it’s not illegal. We’re angry that they tell us we have to shred our freedoms in order to be safe, and that so many of our fellow citizens shrug their shoulders and think it’s no big deal.

And we’re angry that Bush has made our nation so hated around the world. We’re angry that the next time a Democrat gets elected, most of their time will be spent cleaning up the god-awful mess Bush has made of everything.

We’re angry that we and our children and our grandchildren will have to keep paying off the nation’s debt, which now stands at nearly $9 trillion. We’re angry because every other industrialized country in the world has a single-payer health care system that works, and we pay more for ours than any of them, yet we have 45 million people with no health insurance. We’re angry that the insurance companies have convinced their obedient servants in Congress that the Rube Goldberg perpetual paperwork machine we have now is somehow “the best health care in the world” and preferable to a system in which you go to your doctor, get treated and go home, without having to fill out 10 forms and get down on your knees before the gods of the HMO bureaucracy to get a partial repayment minus your deductible and your co-pay.

We’re angry that the federal government is brimming with people fundamentally opposed to the mission of the agencies over which they preside, the anti-environmentalists who run the Interior department, the mining company lobbyists in charge of mine safety and the union-busters in charge of worker safety. We’re still angry about Hurricane Katrina, that our government left thousands of its citizens stranded to suffer and die, while the president thought that the guy presiding over the disastrous failure was doing a heckuva job. We’re angry that our government sends religious fundamentalists around the world to discourage condom use, thus condemning untold numbers of people to unwanted pregnancy, disease and death.

We’re angry that forty years after the Voting Rights Act, the Republican Party continues to exploit racism and do everything in its power to stop black people from voting in each and every election. We’re angry that in the richest country in the world we can’t seem to find our way to a system in which you go to the polls, cast your ballot and know that it will be counted. And yes, we’re still angry about what happened in Florida in 2000, that through lying and cheating and pure luck the Republicans were able to steal a presidential election, and five unprincipled partisans on the Supreme Court helped them do it. We’re angry that every time we look at Al Gore all that pain and frustration and outrage comes bubbling up through our guts no matter how hard we try to “get over it.”

We’re angry that some of the most powerful people in America see nothing wrong with getting down on their knees to kiss the rings of radical clerics espousing a theology as maniacal as any on earth. We’re angry that we have to endure lecture after lecture on “family values” from people who rush from their pulpits, whether in church or in Congress or on cable chat shows, to a motel room to give in to their desires and revel in their transgression before rushing back to those pulpits to wag a finger in all our faces with talk of sin. We’re angry that people whose souls are so twisted by hate and shame they make John Winthrop look like Wavy Gravy have the nerve to tell us how to live “moral” lives.

We’re angry that when some pompous fool who less than a decade ago demanded that Bill Clinton be impeached in order to demonstrate our fealty to the “rule of law” comes on television to explain how Scooter Libby’s perjury and obstruction of justice mean nothing and he must immediately be pardoned, Wolf Blitzer doesn’t say, “Get out of this studio, you contemptible hypocrite, and don’t ever come back.”

We’re angry because a repellent ghoul like Ann Coulter can regularly advocate the murder of people with whom she has political differences, yet continue to get invited on the Today Show. We’re angry that journalists who ought to know better tut-tut progressive bloggers for using dirty words but don’t blink an eye when conservatives spew forth the most abominable hatred and calls for violence that one could imagine.

We’re angry that there is not a single show on cable news in which a progressive is given an hour to spout off his or her opinions, but that privilege is given to the likes of Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck and John Gibson and Tucker Carlson and Joe Scarborough and all the other two-bit electronic hucksters of phony aggrievement.

We’re angry because snake-oil salesmen like William Donohue— despite being an anti-Semitic homophobe —can issue a press release expressing patently phony outrage about something somebody said, and get the mainstream press to jump like trained dogs. We’re angry because a band of liars like the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth can hoodwink the media into doing their dirty work for them. We’re angry because every despicable Republican attack gets recycled as knowing, arched-eyebrow commentary by “mainstream” commentators.

Those are a few of the things we’re angry about, and yes, that’s a lot of anger. But you know what? There’s nothing wrong with being angry. Anger is the appropriate reaction to moral outrages, to crimes against our common humanity, to the actions of those who would turn our country into something twisted and ugly.

Paul Waldman is a senior fellow at Media Matters for America and the author of the new book, "Being Right is Not Enough: What Progressives Can Learn From Conservative Success."
© 2007 TomPaine.com

From Lydia: I struggle with my anger toward Bush and I pray for him to gain wisdom, compassion and to truly understand the Christ Truth. As a mother of young sons, I feel such agony over the deaths of our soldiers — young kids barely out of high school — and I am so horrified at Bush's arrogance, that he doesn't seem to care about human life. I am most upset that Bush proclaims he's a Christian, yet persists in doing the exact opposite of the Great Peacemaker's teachings. The "anti-Christ" means "evil in the mind of man; evil in human thought." I do not believe in a physical "anti-Christ" but Bush and the pro-war politicians, including misguided evangelical leaders such as John Hagee, Tim LaHaye and Pat Robertson represent the anti-Christ thought on earth right now; of this I have no doubt. Research how they are connected to White Supremacists. Jesus himself called the religious leaders, the pharisees a "brood of vipers" and got very angry with them. We are angry with Bush for his wanton destruction of lives and our democracy.

But I know that thinking the worst of Bush, or anyone, never helps them. We have to send love to those who are in the dark, that have lost their way. We need to see the good in people, even those we think are evil, becaues there is no power in evil except that which we give it with our thoughts. This is prayer: seeing the good in others so overwhelmingly that our vision of them actually changes the situation. Even with terrorists, dictators, "deciders" — and in the environment, world affairs, financial crises — it works for our worst enemies. It's written in the New Testament, in red lettering.

255 comments:

  1. OUTSTANDING post Lydia.

    It about raps up my feeling exactly.

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  2. Clif:

    The sad thing is Lydia didn't even get half the atrocities covered due to lack of space.

    Great post.

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  3. Yes, excellent post Lydia and so true..

    (I replied to your comment on the previous post Lydia)

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  4. Amazing post Lydia!!!!!!!!!

    You echoed my feelings as if you read my mind!

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  5. Thank you, but Paul Waldman wrote this piece. I'll post the link from Common Dreams and Tom Paine

    I wrote a similar piece last year, but so many atrocities have been added, I have to add several more pages!

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  6. Staples Inc. President receives $9.93 million in compensation in 2006, as his employees average $7.50 per hour.

    Inequity in Corporate America.

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  7. It isn't limited to those of us on the left end anymore.

    Traditional conservatives in the mold of William F. Buckley are howling, and Libertarian types like Ron Paul are up in arms as well. The peculiar populist-winger Pat Buchanan has also had very few kind words for the Commander in Chimp and his lawyer-shooting buddy.

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  8. There are always a few who will defend this mess in Washington and beyond, no matter how bad it gets.

    Curious how those few defenders seem to be un-phased by all the mess around them.

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  9. Staples Inc. President receives $9.93 million in compensation in 2006, as his employees average $7.50 per hour.
    ------------

    Larry:

    How many thousands did he give to GOP? It's the good old boys system..

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  10. Clif, Lydia et al........check out the reviews for this book, it is just what you were both talking about the other day.

    It used to be that more was better. Industrialization, urbanization, specialization and capitalism made people wealthier, healthier and happier. But where are we now? In his new book Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future, Bill McKibben poses the controversial theory that economic growth and industrial expansion just aren't as good for people as they used to be. While the Industrial Revolution gave birth to widely dispersed wealth and a new middle class, McKibben cites statistics that suggest around 80 percent of us are poorer today than we were five years ago, relative to the cost of living.

    And we're unhappier, too—as measured by statistics on depression and surveys that ask people point-blank if they've considered suicide. Many people feel unconnected to family and neighbors. Bigger houses help us live out TV-generated fantasies of the American dream, but they also make us more lonely. We eat cheap corporate junk that was trucked in from over a thousand miles away. And the accumulation of greenhouse gases—a direct result of unchecked growth—threatens the very survival of our planet.

    If more money, more acres and more cheap tortilla chips are no longer the secret to happiness, what is? Farmers markets, as they symbolize the kind of future McKibben would like to see. Such markets provide an outlet for small-scale, organic, non-corporate farmers offering food that hasn't grown tired in its journey from California or Florida. And they provide an opportunity to connect with other people, the beginnings of community. Most of all, they provide a business paradigm that unhooks people from a system of reckless growth.

    In short, McKibben thinks we need another kind of bottom line that doesn't just measure profit, but also measures fulfillment and a sense of connection. He notes in his first chapter that two birds named "More" and "Better" used to roost together on the same tree branch. But these days, McKibben writes, "Better has flown a few trees over to make her nest. That changes everything."
    Beginning with his prescient treatise on global warming, The End of Nature (1990), McKibben has been investigating and elucidating some of the most confounding aspects of our lives. He now brings his signature clarity of thought and handsomely crafted prose to a pivotal, complicated subject, the negative consequences of our growth-oriented economy. McKibben incisively interprets a staggering array of studies that document the symbiotic relationship between fossil fuels and five decades of dizzying economic growth, and the many ways the pursuit of ever-higher corporate profits has led to environmental havoc and neglect of people's most basic needs. At once reportorial, philosophic, and anecdotal, McKibben, intoning the mantra "more is not better," takes measure of diminishing returns. With eroding security, a dysfunctional health system, floundering public schools, higher rates of depression, "wild inequity" in the distribution of wealth, and damage to the biosphere, McKibben believes a new paradigm is needed, that of a "deep economy" born of sustainable and sustaining communities anchored in local resources. Using the farmer's market as a template, he explains the logistics of workable alternatives to the corporate imperative based on ecological capacities and the "economics of neighborliness." With the threat of energy crises and global warming, McKibben's vision of nurturing communities rooted in traditional values and driven by "green" technologies, however utopian, may provide ideas for constructive change.

    To move forward, increasing equality and happiness, we need to turn the clock back: thinking locally rather than globally, buying from and selling to our neighbors to create true communities.McKibben (Wandering Home, 2005, etc.), who has worried about the fate of our planet since at least The End of Nature (1989), weighs in here on the pursuit of happiness. For too long, he observes, we have believed that more equals better and assumed that greater economic growth brings prosperity to all. Instead, he ably argues, growth has increased inequality and decreased human happiness. Americans have been consuming at an unconscionable rate, destroying their families and communities by working longer hours and patronizing huge corporations. Reporting from around the world—he offers examples from China, Bangladesh, India, Central America and elsewhere—McKibben revisits some topics close to his heart: global warming, the rapid depletion of fossil fuels, the growth of agribusinesses, the impending water crisis. He tells stories about ordinary people doing extraordinary things to improve both the local economy and the overall quality of local life. Farmers’ markets are growing around the country; merchants in a small Wyoming town are competing successfully with Wal-Mart (a corporation attacked throughout); a local Vermont radio station actually provides public services and serves the public interest. The author also tells his own stories, which are the gold in the alluvial gravel of all of his work. Here, he describes his recent determination to buy only from local farmers and to eat only foods that are in season. This is something we should all do, he avers; it not only improves the local economy but creates greater community cohesion as well.McKibben tries to stay optimistic in his most quixotic work, but darkness presses at the edges of every page.

    Challenging the prevailing wisdom that the goal of economies should be unlimited growth, McKibben (The End of Nature) argues that the world doesn't have enough natural resources to sustain endless economic expansion. For example, if the Chinese owned cars in the same numbers as Americans, there would be 1.1 billion more vehicles on the road?untenable in a world that is rapidly running out of oil and clean air. Drawing the phrase "deep economy" from the expression "deep ecology," a term environmentalists use to signify new ways of thinking about the environment, he suggests we need to explore new economic ideas. Rather then promoting accelerated cycles of economic expansion?a mindset that has brought the world to the brink of environmental disaster?we should concentrate on creating localized economies: community-scale power systems instead of huge centralized power plants; cohousing communities instead of sprawling suburbs. He gives examples of promising ventures of this type, such as a community-supported farm in Vermont and a community biosphere reserve, or large national park?like area, in Himalayan India, but some of the ideas?local currencies as supplements to national money, for example?seem overly optimistic. Nevertheless, McKibben's proposals for new, less growth-centered ways of thinking about economics are intriguing, and offer hope that change is possible. (Mar. 20)

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  11. MSNBC has just announced they will stop carrying the Don Imus radio show in the morning....

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  12. Couric probably thinks she will get a few viewers with controversy.

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  13. Clif:

    I have never listened to Imus or Limbaugh or any of those guys...they have nothing of interest for me.

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  14. Domestic Policy Subcomittee have requsted answers from seven leading oil companies on why gas prices are going to hit $4 per gallon.

    It's about time.

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  15. Larry:

    I think Couric is a losing situation...she would do best to start writing children's books!

    LOL

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  16. Larry:

    Yes way past time to do some explaining!

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  17. SQ,

    I agree. Couric is horrible and needs replaced. Instead they include her in 60 minutes.

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  18. SQ,

    Bush wants gas prices as high as possible since he has less than two years to rape consumers even further.

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  19. Too bad she kept her mouth shut till after she died;

    Neocon Godmother Considered Iraq War a Mistake

    money quote which she never let the public know about;

    In the book, she reports--apparently for the first time--that she had "grave reservations" about George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq. She notes that at the time, "I was privately critical of the Bush administration's argument for the use of military force for preemptive self-defense." She does not say where and to whom she voiced her misgivings--if she did. Most strikingly, she argues that the war--with respect to bringing democracy to Iraqis--did more harm than good.

    (snip)

    Kirkpatrick suggests the Bush administration and her neocon colleagues rushed into the war irresponsibly:

    Iraq presented a very different set of circumstances from Afghanistan, however. These are things we ought to have known and taken into account when weighing our decision to invade in 2003.

    Iraq lacked practically all the requirements for a democratic government: rule of law, an elite with a shared commitment to democratic procedures, a sense of citizenship, and habits of trust and cooperation. The administration's failure involved several issues, but the core concern is that they did not seem to have methodically completed the due diligence required for reasoned policy-making because they failed to address the aftermath of the invasion. This, of course, is reflected by the violence, sectarian unrest, ethnic vengeance and bloodshed we see in Iraq today.


    No "due diligence." Kirkpatrick is politely charging that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell and other top administration aides invaded a nation recklessly. Can there be a more damning indictment?

    **********************************

    They all knew it was illegal immoral and just plain stupid, but still kept their mouths shut,

    DAMN them.

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  20. The awakening of a neo-con grandmother.

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  21. Right before she went to sleep permanently?

    Well I guess better late then never.

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  22. At least she left behind the truth.

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  23. And her hand in creating 3294 soldiers who returned in the dark of the night in flagged covered coffins.........

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  24. Did Imus actually lose his simulcast, or was it just suspended?

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  25. Nice post, Lydia. I like how you equated your experiences, which if I recall correctly were more than just one dumb comment from a wizened Alzheimer's patient, to the Rutger's team.

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  26. Carl MSNBC fired him, he will no longer be simulcast

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  27. Lydia,

    ...and That's why Regime Change is Coming to America!

    *Cheers*

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  28. Al Franken is on Larry King.

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  29. Al Franken on has just called for Glen Beck to get the boot,

    Way to go Al.

    Beck is an ignorant idiot.

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  30. They need to get Beck, Limbaugh and those idiots on Fox.

    They all do the same thing.

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  31. While they're at it, cleaning house all around, let them lose Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin...hell, just about any snot-nose right wing pundit! They all have this peculiar brand of hate-speak when it comes to people of superior morality.

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  32. Larry,

    quote: They need to get Beck, Limbaugh and those idiots on Fox.

    Idiots on Fox ?

    Are you kidding me ?

    Fox has nothing but Govt shills working there..

    That's not a news agency that's a Govt propaganda tool!

    Even More so than the others...

    More like glorified teleprompter readers and the information is coming straight out of the Pentagon.

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  33. I agree GEF. It is easy to run your mouth when your talking points are delivered to you.

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  34. Senate votes to ease restrictions on Stem Cell research, in spite of Bush's veto threat.

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  35. larry,

    quote: I agree GEF. It is easy to run your mouth when your talking points are delivered to you.

    LOL*)

    And they need brains and degrees for that ?

    Shoot they could outsource all that news reading to border crossed immigrants for less money!

    Instead of Hannity & Colmes we could watch Juanito & Rudolpho and pay them less.

    Instead of O'reilly factor they could substitute O'Jose factor!

    Instead of Fox and Friends they could put on Paco y Sus Amigos!

    Fox would make a profit and their ratings would go up big time! :)

    They could use Fox as a fast tract to Citizenship.

    Read the Fox/Pentagon Teleprompter for 5 years and you become a Citizen.

    Good Deal! :)

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  36. GEF,

    Sounds like all winners and a welcome change to what is already there.

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  37. larry,

    We need someone to send the memo to Faux!

    ;)

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  38. GEF:

    They won't read it unless it says Neo-Con alert at the beginning.

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  39. Ya'll ferget the trailor park nascar set will just have to get another rich foreigner to create another main stream mouth piece fur the reichwing noise machine.

    Other wise they''l have to just listen to their radios from now on, Rush he tell them the truth don't cha know?

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  40. Limbaugh can pop a few more pills in celebration now.

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  41. Rush Limbaugh is Insane because of all the Meds and Island Hopping..

    That Carribbean Sun melts your brain don't'cha know ?

    That good ole boy is one incident away from a long prison term!

    ;)

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  42. Limbaugh likes to make quick trips with his Viagra to South America, seems he pays less money for his obsession.

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  43. larry,

    Oh sure Viagra he imports, but what is he downing while there...

    Perhaps the Feds should take a close look inside those cigars!

    LOL*)

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  44. Limbaugh uses those Cuban cigars and all the Viagra to help his bloated carcass make it through the day.

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  45. Global_Evildoer_Fighter said...
    Larry,

    quote: They need to get Beck, Limbaugh and those idiots on Fox.

    Idiots on Fox ?

    Are you kidding me ?

    Fox has nothing but Govt shills working there..

    That's not a news agency that's a Govt propaganda tool!

    Even More so than the others...

    More like glorified teleprompter readers and the information is coming straight out of the Pentagon."

    Fox lies is the ministry of propaganda......they oughta be in a remake of the movie 1984 because them and the Bush Administration are a bunch of Orwellian fascists straight out of 1984!

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  46. You know larry one of these days someone is going to get so pissed off at Limbaugh that he or she is going to shove that cigar all the way up Rush's brain while it's still lit!

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  47. Fox needs to get all the neo-con blowhards, place them on an island and let them talk their way back.

    There certainly is enough wind there.

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  48. Mike,

    quote:
    Fox lies is the ministry of propaganda......they oughta be in a remake of the movie 1984 because them and the Bush Administration are a bunch of Orwellian fascists straight out of 1984!

    Here's the Media Card!

    Collect them all! LOL*)

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  49. GEF:

    I hope you are right. Limbaugh says racist things every week but they let him go.

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  50. larry,

    NeoConjob Island is a place where everyone believes their own lies and they lie to each other about what really happened on the Island..

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  51. larry,

    quote:
    I hope you are right. Limbaugh says racist things every week but they let him go.

    I guarantee it.

    Either that or Rush will get sued so bad that Rush himself will swallow the Cigar while gasping at the Subpoena!

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  52. Limbaugh bought his way out of pill shopping and the way he is going, maybe he will have to buy his way out of jail.

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  53. Like I said before I really could care less about Imus, I think it is a distraction the Right Wing owned Corporate Media are using to deflect from all the scandals, incompetence and criminality and i really dont want to hear about it 24/7 but there is one point i wanted to address and Lydia kind of touched on it allready.

    Lydia, I agree with you completely that what Imus said is wrong, its dispicable and we really shouldnt have that kind of hatespeak and racial smearing in our media.....and for the record I never listened to Imus and dont think much of him..........now here is the but........

    But I dont want to see this kind of stuff selectively enforced where there is a double standard and only certain people are held accountable.........namely the ones without powerrful GOP connections and allies.

    If we want to get rid of hatespeak, racial slurs and biased news coverage............we need to be fair and consistent and get rid of slugs like Coulter, Glen Beck, rush Limbaugh, Hannity, etc,,,,,,,

    We also need to break up the media empires and conglomerates, bring back the fairness doctrine and bring news reporting back to reporting facts rather than biased slanted propaganda.

    I'm no fan of Imus but I dont want to see him get strung up as a sacrificial lamb while hateful fools like Coulter and Beck have a bully pulpit to spew theor hatespeak because they have powerful connections in governmenent and the Reich Wing fascist corporate media empires.

    I'm tired of all the douible standards and hippocrissy of the Reich Wing......they wanna get rid of fools like Imus fine take out the trash and get rid of Coulter, Beck, hannity etc.. as well and we should not stand for a potential presidential candidate like Newt to smear hispanics by saying spanish is the language of the ghetto and they should all learn to speak American............we dont need this kind of ignorance in a president.

    ReplyDelete
  54. Bush wants gas prices as high as possible since he has less than two years to rape consumers even further.
    -----------

    Larry:

    Isn't that the truth? Gas prices and war machine!

    ReplyDelete
  55. They won't do anything to the neocon talkers.

    Corporate America owns the media.

    ReplyDelete
  56. Hey guys!

    I was working on the new blog and eating dinner... and trying to chat on my blog!

    LOLMAO

    ReplyDelete
  57. Suzie,

    Bush has to get all the oil revenue he can before 2009.

    ReplyDelete
  58. Suzie,

    Don't spill soup on the keyboard.

    ReplyDelete
  59. They need to get Beck, Limbaugh and those idiots on Fox.
    --------------
    Larry:

    I can't stand Glenn Beck!
    Ugh!

    ReplyDelete
  60. Suzie,

    Beck is a neo-racist in the worst way, and an arrogant pig to boot.

    ReplyDelete
  61. Larry:

    The first time I saw him on CNN, I had to shut it off and never watched him since.. He is so repulsive!

    ReplyDelete
  62. GEF:

    I'm glad to see you came over to chat with these guys! ;)

    Are you still here?

    ReplyDelete
  63. GEF is out digging up dirt on Limbaugh.

    ReplyDelete
  64. Larry said...
    They won't do anything to the neocon talkers.

    Corporate America owns the media."

    Thats part of the problem that Congress needs to address.

    ReplyDelete
  65. Congress won't address that, Corporate America owns much of Congress.

    That is why jobs are flowing to China and India.

    ReplyDelete
  66. Suzie-Q said...
    Bush wants gas prices as high as possible since he has less than two years to rape consumers even further.
    -----------

    Larry:

    Isn't that the truth? Gas prices and war machine!"


    Well there's several factors at work here, Bush and Cheney are oil men and are in bed with and beholden to big oil and all the oil cronnies.

    Secondly not only does Bush and Cheney benfit directly financially from high oil prices but so does thedir government which is running huge deficits andf needs all the revenue it can get to fund Bush's folly (his war of choice)

    Governments get more in revenue from high oil prices than the oil companies themselves......for every dollar Exxon Mobil Earns, the goverment gets 25 cents while Exxon only makes a 10 cent profit.

    ReplyDelete
  67. Larry said...
    GEF is out digging up dirt on Limbaugh."

    That shouldnt take very long..............BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  68. Oh and the next time the Neo Cons piss and moan and cry because they are no longer getting their way on EVERYTHING and the majority are no longer ruled by the fringe wacco's and wealthy elite who are a tiny insignificant minority..........remind them about what Cheney and Bush said after the 2004 election when Cheney said the tax cuts are "their due and they deserve it"........and Bush was crowing about his political capital and how he wanted to dismantle social Security and all the other sfety nets and protections for the working class and poor.

    Before these arrogant buffons buffalo you into making concessions remember how they behaved and gloated when they ruled all 3 branches of government and look how they cry and whine mow that they "ONLT" control 2 branches of government.

    ReplyDelete
  69. Halliburton moves operations to the Mideast to avoid prosecution, gas prices rise, Bush stirs up conflict with Iran and for the next two or more years, Americansa will pay with blood and dollars.

    ReplyDelete
  70. Halliburton moves operations to the Mideast to avoid prosecution, gas prices rise, Bush stirs up conflict with Iran and for the next two or more years, Americansa will pay with blood and dollars.

    ReplyDelete
  71. Halliburton moves operations to the Mideast to avoid prosecution, gas prices rise, Bush stirs up conflict with Iran and for the next two or more years, Americansa will pay with blood and dollars.

    ReplyDelete
  72. Mike said...

    Larry said...
    GEF is out digging up dirt on Limbaugh."

    That shouldnt take very long..............BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
    ---------------

    Guys:

    Don't be surprised when Limbaugh gets his Subpoena!

    LOL

    ReplyDelete
  73. Halliburton moves operations to the Mideast to avoid prosecution, gas prices rise, Bush stirs up conflict with Iran and for the next two or more years, Americans will pay with blood and dollars.

    ReplyDelete
  74. Lets hope Limbaugh and Beck get subpoena's together. Throw in O'Reilly and Hannity for good measure.

    ReplyDelete
  75. Larry:

    Do you have trigger finger tonight? LOL

    ReplyDelete
  76. Hey, earlier today as the news was coming in on MSNBC dropping Imus, I added to my blog post about how I think Glen Beck, Rush Limpbaugh and Michael Savage should also be off the air --

    and just as I hit publish, Keith Olbermann came on saying the same thing. Now Al Franken on Larry King --

    I guess this Imus thing is going to start a chain reaction (I hope) going in the right direction.

    We can only hope. But at least it means America is waking up to what these mean-spirited "conservatives" have done to ruin our country — and justify hatred and this rush to war.

    ReplyDelete
  77. Suzie,

    It comes from too much coke.

    ReplyDelete
  78. Imus was the lesser of the evils. Those like Limbaugh and Beck get a free ride because of their right-wing babble.

    ReplyDelete
  79. I guess this Imus thing is going to start a chain reaction (I hope) going in the right direction.
    ---------

    Lydia:

    I agree with that.. let's hope so! ;)

    ReplyDelete
  80. Larry:

    Cola will do that to ya~!

    LOL

    ReplyDelete
  81. Look at all the names Limbaugh calls people, and Beck asking a Congressman if he was aiding the enemy because he was Muslim.

    They do this all the time as well, but they get a pass.

    ReplyDelete
  82. Lydia Cornell said...
    Hey, earlier today as the news was coming in on MSNBC dropping Imus, I added to my blog post about how I think Glen Beck, Rush Limpbaugh and Michael Savage should also be off the air --

    and just as I hit publish, Keith Olbermann came on saying the same thing. Now Al Franken on Larry King --

    I guess this Imus thing is going to start a chain reaction (I hope) going in the right direction.

    We can only hope. But at least it means America is waking up to what these mean-spirited "conservatives" have done to ruin our country — and justify hatred and this rush to war."


    Well thats pretty much the point I wanted to make this morning!

    ReplyDelete
  83. Larry said...
    Suzie,

    It comes from too much coke."

    Lay off the hard drugs Larry theyte bad news LOL :D

    ReplyDelete
  84. Larry said...
    Imus was the lesser of the evils. Those like Limbaugh and Beck get a free ride because of their right-wing babble."

    Yeah and that REALLY bothers me thats why we need to make noise about this so people will listen and hopefully hear the will of the people!

    ReplyDelete
  85. Limbaugh and Michael Savage and Beck and countless others fill the airwaves with racist and sexist comments, and they aren't even fined.

    ReplyDelete
  86. Larry said...
    Look at all the names Limbaugh calls people, and Beck asking a Congressman if he was aiding the enemy because he was Muslim.

    They do this all the time as well, but they get a pass."

    LOL on that note look at Wolfowitz having an affair with a muslim woman............wonder if the Neo Cons will call him a traitoe and say he's "collaborating" with the enemy :D

    ReplyDelete
  87. Wolfowitz will get a pass like all the rest of them.

    Corporate America owns far too much for any justice to really prevail.

    ReplyDelete
  88. disgusting isnt it that American has been bought by these despicable corporate fascists!

    ReplyDelete
  89. Just wait till Bush sneaks the new North American Union by everyone. Jobs will really leave then.

    ReplyDelete
  90. What is that a new version of NAFTA ?

    ReplyDelete
  91. It is an agreement that Congress will not vote on where there are no tariffs for Mexico and Canada and the U.S still will have tariffs.

    It is esentially no borders for either country, and no tariffs for them.

    ReplyDelete
  92. Larry & Mike:

    It's funny that most everyone thinks we get the majority of our oil from the Middle East but we don't.

    We get the majority from Mexico and Canada.

    ReplyDelete
  93. SQ, i've said for years that we ned to invest in developing the vast Canadian Oil Sands, they have almost as much oil as Saudi Arabia and you dont have to use an army to guard it or fight wars and kill people to get access to it.

    ReplyDelete
  94. Susie,

    We get really a small percentsge from the Mideast compared to those in our back yard.

    Bush wants it all so he can control the world.

    ReplyDelete
  95. LA Times:

    A new LA Timesw.Bloomberg poll shows John McCain running third among Republican candidates for President.

    Guiliani has the lead, followed by Romney.

    Guess those Bush hugs aren't working so well.

    ReplyDelete
  96. Mexico has peaked and has declining reserves SQ , many think Saudi Arabia has peaked also, and that is what the puish was to invade Iraq and Iran.

    Bush and his Neo Cons figure if they can over hrow the American hostile governmemts they can install puppet governments loyal to them and then American oil companies can make trillions developing the oil and infrasstructure in some of the only countries capable of increasing production significantly.

    Iraq is relatively untapped and has the worlds cheapest oil and Iran has enormous natural gas deposits, the worlds second largest and huge oil deposits as well.........it is said both companies could tripple their oil output with significant investment.

    Not to mention insuring the dominance of the Petro Dollar.........thats the Neo Cons dream, having them and their oil crommies make trillions off of developing these countries reserves, insuring a decade or two boom because of cheap oil prices that would break OPEC's pricing power and insuring those countries sell their oil in dollars thus insuring the Petro Dollar's Hegemony.

    ReplyDelete
  97. Baghdad:

    Bomb blows up bridge killing 6 and wounding many more.

    ReplyDelete
  98. "If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all."

    ~Noam Chomsky

    ReplyDelete
  99. Well Volt, that was partially the point I tried to make when I said that although I do not like Imus nor support what he said I felt it was wrong to single him out and not others.

    If we make a standard or law it has to apply to everyone not just those who are not politically connected.

    and BTW I NEVER said these people could not express their freedom of speech just that it was poor taste to have a public forum in the MSM to spew hatespeak, racial slurs, death threats or lies.

    They can shout at the top of their lungs in the town square or from the rooftops as far as i'm concerned or use the internet or blogs to have the corporate owned fascist Right wing Media buy them stations to spew this trash in the place of real factual unbiased news is wrong.

    ReplyDelete
  100. Bush wants it all so he can control the world.
    --------

    Larry:

    Yes, undoubtedly he does! Greedy and a warmonger too!

    ReplyDelete
  101. If Bush can get control of the Mideast oil, he can call the shots with all the countries, except China who has been funding the U.S debt.

    ReplyDelete
  102. If Bush truly "CONTROLLED" the Mid Eastern oil that would trump china's holding our debt because we could renig on the debt or pay it back with worthless dollars, while still having access to the oil we need to keep our economy and way of life going.

    Whereas if we do not control the oil and china dumps our debt and our dollar becomes worthless, then we will not be able to purchase the oil we need and our society and way of life as we know it will cease and we will have chaos and anarchy and enter a second dark age.

    ReplyDelete
  103. Dolty Boy you IDIOT, Imus was NOT censored son, he was FIRED.

    See widdle boy, Imus sad a bad bad thing, and the people who hand him money to advertise their products didn't LIKE the bad bad thing he said, so they said they wouldn't hand Him anymore of THEIR money son, it's called the FREE MARKET widdle boy, they get to decide who they give their money to, and since the MSNBC folks depend on those advertising dollars to keep their cabal operation running, they sort of FIRED Imus to find a less radioactive show to attract those dollars back.

    So NUMBNUTS Imus was NOT censored, HE WAS FIRED for his actions on air, just like the american capitalist system allows MSNBC to do to keep their advertisers happy.


    Ain't capitalism Grand son?

    ReplyDelete
  104. Also if that ever did happen China would have to play ball with us for the oil THEY NEED!

    that was the Neo Con master plan, trouble was it was an ignorant, arrogant flawed plan doomed to failure from the beginning........and at this point there is not a chance in hell it can succeed.

    ReplyDelete
  105. China owns much of the U.S thanks to Bush.

    ReplyDelete
  106. If more money, more acres and more cheap tortilla chips are no longer the secret to happiness, what is? Farmers markets, as they symbolize the kind of future McKibben would like to see. Such markets provide an outlet for small-scale, organic, non-corporate farmers offering food that hasn't grown tired in its journey from California or Florida.

    It is a guarantee tat these markets are going to re-emerge.

    When the fuel costs get high enough, or fuel gets scarce enough, you will see localized agriculture and small-scale industry spurred. I don't think that this era is too far off. The Chinese should enjoy it while they can.

    ReplyDelete
  107. They don't make then like they used to;

    Iacocca: Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

    By Lee Iacocca with Catherine Whitney


    Had Enough? Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course." Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out! You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies.Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don't need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we're fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for.



    I've had enough. How about you? I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have. My friends tell me to calm down. They say, "Lee, you're eighty-two years old. Leave the rage to the young people." I'd love to, as soon as I can pry them away from their iPods for five seconds and get them to pay attention. I'm going to speak up because it's my patriotic duty. I think people will listen to me. They say I have a reputation as a straight shooter. So I'll tell you how I see it, and it's not pretty, but at least it's real. I'm hoping to strike a nerve in those young folks who say they don't vote because they don't trust politicians to represent their interests. Hey, America, wake up. These guys work for us. Who Are These Guys, Anyway? Why are we in this mess? How did we end up with this crowd in Washington? Well, we voted for them, or at least some of us did. But I'll tell you what we didn't do. We didn't agree to suspend the Constitution. We didn't agree to stop asking questions or demanding answers. Some of us are sick and tired of people who call free speech treason. Where I come from that's a dictatorship, not a democracy. And don't tell me it's all the fault of right-wing Republicans or liberal Democrats. That's an intellectually lazy argument, and it's part of the reason we're in this stew. We're not just a nation of factions. We're a people. We share common principles and ideals. And we rise and fall together.

    Where are the voices of leaders who can inspire us to action and make us stand taller? What happened to the strong and resolute party of Lincoln? What happened to the courageous, populist party of FDR and Truman? There was a time in this country when the voices of great leaders lifted us up and made us want to do better. Where have all the leaders gone?

    The Test of a Leader


    I've never been Commander in Chief, but I've been a CEO. I understand a few things about leadership at the top. I've figured out nine points, not ten (I don't want people accusing me of thinking I'm Moses). I call them the "Nine Cs of Leadership." They're not fancy or complicated. Just clear, obvious qualities that every true leader should have. We should look at how the current administration stacks up. Like it or not, this crew is going to be around until January 2009. Maybe we can learn something before we go to the polls in 2008. Then let's be sure we use the leadership test to screen the candidates who say they want to run the country. It's up to us to choose wisely.

    A leader has to show CURIOSITY. He has to listen to people outside of the "Yes, sir" crowd in his inner circle. He has to read voraciously, because the world is a big, complicated place. George W. Bush brags about never reading a newspaper. "I just scan the headlines," he says. Am I hearing this right? He's the President of the United States and he never reads a newspaper? Thomas Jefferson once said, "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter." Bush disagrees. As long as he gets his daily hour in the gym, with Fox News piped through the sound system, he's ready to go.

    If a leader never steps outside his comfort zone to hear different ideas, he grows stale. If he doesn't put his beliefs to the test, how does he know he's right? The inability to listen is a form of arrogance. It means either you think you already know it all, or you just don't care. Before the 2006 election, George Bush made a big point of saying he didn't listen to the polls. Yeah, that's what they all say when the polls stink. But maybe he should have listened, because 70 percent of the people were saying he was on the wrong track. It took a "thumping" on election day to wake him up, but even then you got the feeling he wasn't listening so much as he was calculating how to do a better job of convincing everyone he was right.

    A leader has to be CREATIVE, go out on a limb, be willing to try something different. You know, think outside the box. George Bush prides himself on never changing, even as the world around him is spinning out of control. God forbid someone should accuse him of flip-flopping. There's a disturbingly messianic fervor to his certainty. Senator Joe Biden recalled a conversation he had with Bush a few months after our troops marched into Baghdad. Joe was in the Oval Office outlining his concerns to the President, the explosive mix of Shiite and Sunni, the disbanded Iraqi army, the problems securing the oil fields. "The President was serene," Joe recalled. "He told me he was sure that we were on the right course and that all would be well. 'Mr. President,' I finally said, 'how can you be so sure when you don't yet know all the facts?'" Bush then reached over and put a steadying hand on Joe's shoulder. "My instincts," he said. "My instincts." Joe was flabbergasted. He told Bush,"Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough." Joe Biden sure didn't think the matter was settled. And, as we all know now, it wasn't. Leadership is all about managing change, whether you're leading a company or leading a country. Things change, and you get creative. You adapt. Maybe Bush was absent the day they covered that at Harvard Business School.

    A leader has to COMMUNICATE. I'm not talking about running off at the mouth or spouting sound bites. I'm talking about facing reality and telling the truth. Nobody in the current administration seems to know how to talk straight anymore. Instead, they spend most of their time trying to convince us that things are not really as bad as they seem. I don't know if it's denial or dishonesty, but it can start to drive you crazy after a while. Communication has to start with telling the truth, even when it's painful. The war in Iraq has been, among other things, a grand failure of communication. Bush is like the boy who didn't cry wolf when the wolf was at the door. After years of being told that all is well, even as the casualties and chaos mount, we've stopped listening to him.

    A leader has to be a person of CHARACTER. That means knowing the difference between right and wrong and having the guts to do the right thing. Abraham Lincoln once said, "If you want to test a man's character, give him power." George Bush has a lot of power. What does it say about his character? Bush has shown a willingness to take bold action on the world stage because he has the power, but he shows little regard for the grievous consequences. He has sent our troops (not to mention hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens) to their deaths. For what? To build our oil reserves? To avenge his daddy because Saddam Hussein once tried to have him killed? To show his daddy he's tougher? The motivations behind the war in Iraq are questionable, and the execution of the war has been a disaster. A man of character does not ask a single soldier to die for a failed policy.

    A leader must have COURAGE. I'm talking about balls. (That even goes for female leaders.) Swagger isn't courage. Tough talk isn't courage. George Bush comes from a blue-blooded Connecticut family, but he likes to talk like a cowboy. You know, My gun is bigger than your gun. Courage in the twenty-first century doesn't mean posturing and bravado. Courage is a commitment to sit down at the negotiating table and talk.

    If you're a politician, courage means taking a position even when you know it will cost you votes. Bush can't even make a public appearance unless the audience has been handpicked and sanitized. He did a series of so-called town hall meetings last year, in auditoriums packed with his most devoted fans. The questions were all softballs.

    To be a leader you've got to have CONVICTION, a fire in your belly. You've got to have passion. You've got to really want to get something done. How do you measure fire in the belly? Bush has set the all-time record for number of vacation days taken by a U.S. President, four hundred and counting. He'd rather clear brush on his ranch than immerse himself in the business of governing. He even told an interviewer that the high point of his presidency so far was catching a seven-and-a-half-pound perch in his hand-stocked lake. It's no better on Capitol Hill. Congress was in session only ninety-seven days in 2006. That's eleven days less than the record set in 1948, when President Harry Truman coined the term do-nothing Congress. Most people would expect to be fired if they worked so little and had nothing to show for it. But Congress managed to find the time to vote itself a raise. Now, that's not leadership.

    A leader should have CHARISMA. I'm not talking about being flashy. Charisma is the quality that makes people want to follow you. It's the ability to inspire. People follow a leader because they trust him. That's my definition of charisma. Maybe George Bush is a great guy to hang out with at a barbecue or a ball game. But put him at a global summit where the future of our planet is at stake, and he doesn't look very presidential. Those frat-boy pranks and the kidding around he enjoys so much don't go over that well with world leaders. Just ask German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who received an unwelcome shoulder massage from our President at a G-8 Summit. When he came up behind her and started squeezing, I thought she was going to go right through the roof.

    A leader has to be COMPETENT. That seems obvious, doesn't it? You've got to know what you're doing. More important than that, you've got to surround yourself with people who know what they're doing. Bush brags about being our first MBA President. Does that make him competent? Well, let's see. Thanks to our first MBA President, we've got the largest deficit in history, Social Security is on life support, and we've run up a half-a-trillion-dollar price tag (so far) in Iraq. And that's just for starters. A leader has to be a problem solver, and the biggest problems we face as a nation seem to be on the back burner.

    You can't be a leader if you don't have COMMON SENSE. I call this Charlie Beacham's rule. When I was a young guy just starting out in the car business, one of my first jobs was as Ford's zone manager in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. My boss was a guy named Charlie Beacham, who was the East Coast regional manager. Charlie was a big Southerner, with a warm drawl, a huge smile, and a core of steel. Charlie used to tell me, "Remember, Lee, the only thing you've got going for you as a human being is your ability to reason and your common sense. If you don't know a dip of horseshit from a dip of vanilla ice cream, you'll never make it." George Bush doesn't have common sense. He just has a lot of sound bites. You know, Mr.they'll-welcome-us-as-liberators-no-child-left-behind-heck-of-a-job-Brownie-mission-accomplished Bush. Former President Bill Clinton once said, "I grew up in an alcoholic home. I spent half my childhood trying to get into the reality-based world, and I like it here." I think our current President should visit the real world once in a while.

    The Biggest C is Crisis Leaders are made, not born. Leadership is forged in times of crisis. It's easy to sit there with your feet up on the desk and talk theory. Or send someone else's kids off to war when you've never seen a battlefield yourself. It's another thing to lead when your world comes tumbling down. On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our history. We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. Where was George Bush? He was reading a story about a pet goat to kids in Florida when he heard about the attacks. He kept sitting there for twenty minutes with a baffled look on his face. It's all on tape. You can see it for yourself. Then, instead of taking the quickest route back to Washington and immediately going on the air to reassure the panicked people of this country, he decided it wasn't safe to return to the White House. He basically went into hiding for the day, and he told Vice President Dick Cheney to stay put in his bunker. We were all frozen in front of our TVs, scared out of our wits, waiting for our leaders to tell us that we were going to be okay, and there was nobody home. It took Bush a couple of days to get his bearings and devise the right photo op at Ground Zero. That was George Bush's moment of truth, and he was paralyzed. And what did he do when he'd regained his composure? He led us down the road to Iraq, a road his own father had considered disastrous when he was President. But Bush didn't listen to Daddy. He listened to a higher father. He prides himself on being faith based, not reality based. If that doesn't scare the crap out of you,I don't know what will.

    A Hell of a Mess.


    So here's where we stand. We're immersed in a bloody war with no plan for winning and no plan for leaving. We're running the biggest deficit in the history of the country. We're losing the manufacturing edge to Asia, while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs. Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent energy policy. Our schools are in trouble. Our borders are like sieves. The middle class is being squeezed every which way. These are times that cry out for leadership.

    But when you look around, you've got to ask: "Where have all the leaders gone?" Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, competence, and common sense? I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point.

    Name me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than making us take off our shoes in airports and throw away our shampoo? We've spent billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and all we know how to do is react to things that have already happened. Name me one leader who emerged from the crisis of Hurricane Katrina. Congress has yet to spend a single day evaluating the response to the hurricane, or demanding accountability for the decisions that were made in the crucial hours after the storm. Everyone's hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping it doesn't happen again. Now, that's just crazy. Storms happen. Deal with it. Make a plan. Figure out what you're going to do the next time.

    Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing. Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when "the Big Three" referred to Japanese car companies? How did this happen, and more important, what are we going to do about it? Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debt, or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care problem. The silence is deafening. But these are the crises that are eating away at our country and milking the middle class dry.

    I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn't elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of? That some bobblehead on Fox News will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don't you guys show some spine for a change? Had Enough? Hey, I'm not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here. I'm trying to light a fire. I'm speaking out because I have hope. I believe in America. In my lifetime I've had the privilege of living through some of America's greatest moments. I've also experienced some of our worst crises, the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, the 1970s oil crisis, and the struggles of recent years culminating with 9/11. If I've learned one thing, it's this: You don't get anywhere by standing on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action. Whether it's building a better car or building a better future for our children, we all have a role to play. That's the challenge I'm raising in this book. It's a call to action for people who, like me, believe in America. It's not too late, but it's getting pretty close. So let's shake off the horseshit and go to work. Let's tell 'em all we've had enough


    Right on Lee,

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  108. Goodnight Larry!

    Goodnight Lydia!

    Goodnight Mike!

    Goodnight Carl!

    Goodnight Jollyroger!

    Goodnight Clif!

    Goodnight Worf!

    Goodnight John Boy! Turn out the lights, will ya?

    LOLMAO

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  109. If China does get that way, it won't be for Bush not taking care of them.

    ReplyDelete
  110. Good Night Suzie.

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  111. Clif did you see that book review I posted, it discussed the very no growth type economy that you and Lydia both mentioned recently!

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  112. Mike as oil prices and food prices rise, that will slowly siphon the extra cash the middle class used to either save or use for vacations etc off and the economy based on the affluent middle class will continue to contract, which will further escalate the shrinkage of the middle class since a good portion rely on the extra money from the middle class in the industries of travel, resort hotels or places like "Disney and Dollywood" ETC. as these places see shrinking income,the middle class which made their living off this will go away, and there is never going to be enough Wal-Mart jobs for everybody who falls out of the middle class.

    When the price of gas exceeds 5 dollars a gallon, and it will, people are going to both get desperate, and change who they prioritize their financial decisions, however then it will be too late for the mass of the middle class who are in debt up to their eye balls.

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  113. Clif said...
    They don't make then like they used to;

    "Iacocca: Where Have All the Leaders Gone?"

    Nice post...Iococca has put into words what so many of us feel. We have an incompetent and unfeeling person as the so called leader of the most powerful and influential
    nation on the planet.

    Leadership

    I once had a friend, Clemen't Azure, who was the head of the Chemawa Indian School here in Oregon. He was half German and half Dakota Souix, anyway he allways spoke truth and wisdom...He told me once of a new student that walked into the class room and told him...I want you to teach me something. After a moment of silence, Clement said to him...
    I can teach you nothing, but I'll show you what I know.

    This is a man that the toxic Texan would probably dismiss as a half breed. Bush is not a man, but the chief would show him everything he knows.

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  114. Kurt Vonnegut, Writer of Classics of the American Counterculture, Dies at 84

    RIP Kurt,

    Your books made me laugh and they made me think but most of all they made me want the next one, thank you for them all.

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  115. Happy trails Kurt

    May you pass from here to we know not where in peace and harmony.

    Strange weather lately

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  116. Wow, that was an AMAZING article Lee Iacocca wrote, I suggest EVERYONE reads it!

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  117. Mike I liked it so much I put all of it here.

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  118. John McCain has began cutting staff on his election campaign.

    The writing is on the wall for the great war-monger.

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  119. CNN is reporting a large bomb in the restaurant used by the Iraqi parliament in the green zone, which means some of the people elected by the purple finger election might need replacements, and the surge don’t look so good.

    Especially since the explosion took place INSIDE the green zone.

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  120. Blast rocks Iraq parliament, casualties

    An explosion rocked the Iraqi parliament in Baghdad on Thursday and there were many casualties, a Reuters witness said.

    He said the blast appeared to take place inside a restaurant inside the building at a time when many members of parliament were having lunch.

    The parliament building is located in the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad.

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  121. The recent bombing was close to the "safe" street that McCain had his shopping spree with the military.

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  122. Larry, they also destroyed a bridge over the Tigris in northern Baghdad, yesterday, which means they can still get bombs where they want to and the surge hasn't stopped them.

    Think about it in two days they have destroyed a key bridge and the Iraqi congressional building with the Americans claiming they are securing Baghdad.

    No wonder no retired 4 star general wants the cluster f**k georgie has created.

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  123. Pretty bad when their "safe" areas are being blown up.

    Jolly Roger has an article up about one of the creators of the Iraq mess refusing the war czar job as well.

    Its getting worse and they as always won't admit it.

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  124. Larry, that would be Gen Keane, he used to be the deputy chief of staff of ther army, and ran around with Fred Kagan who wrote the AEI paper upon which the basics of the surge are built. Too bad the green zone is not as secure as they keep trying top tell the rest of us Baghdad is

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  125. If they can blow up buildings and bridges in the supposed safest zones in Iraq, think about what that means with the rest of the country.

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  126. John McCain telles reporters the war in Iraq is a "just" war.

    More ramblings from an out of touch war hog.

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  127. Well Larry some sources say the total number of Iraqi casualties are up, we already know US casualties are up, and the US and British are fighting militias in areas they did not have to before the surge.


    CNN reporting the roof of part of the parliament building restaurant has collapsed.

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  128. The walls continue to tumble down and yet Bush still plans on attacking Iran.

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  129. same idiot different country.

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  130. Never said anything about censorship Cliffy. I too believe in the free market.

    But isn't it interesting that your compatriots don't seem to?

    About 30 million people listen to Rush Limbaugh daily, and here we have a group who doesn't, calling for HIS censorship.

    At least I know where the buttons are that change the channel.



    BTW, ME posting a Noam Chomsky quote is quite ironic no?

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  131. I'm also amused at all the talk about "Hate speak"....

    Who gets to define that for everyone?



    You see, as despicable as "hate" may be, UNLESS it's acted upon in a criminal way, it only hurts the one who carries it.

    It IS a good way to shut up people up you disagree with though.


    Kinda like a "hate crime", We already have laws against certain acts. If you don't think their punished severely enough, then work to increase the punishment across the board.

    If a white mothers son is killed and the perpetrator gets a light sentence, how do you tell her her son's life wasn't as valuable because he wasn't some other color?

    ReplyDelete
  132. Lydia, another excellent post. I particularly like the beginning, as I just posted a similar message about the same people at my place.

    Keeping hate-speech of the air, since hate-speech is already illegal, does not qualify as censorship. Stating opposition to a person's or group's positions is not hate speech. Dehumanizing someone, based on race, religion, national origin, gender, affliction or orientation is.

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  133. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  134. Voltron,

    Oh come'on firing Imus was so justified..

    It's not like it was his first time!

    He was a serial Bigot...

    Everybody knew apparently except MSNBC that a lot of people thought of the Imus show as:

    "BIGOT IN THE MORNING ON MSNBC"

    That's a given..

    If anything MSNBC acted really late...

    As for Beck, I think CNN should have a nice cozy chat with him to tone down the rhetoric...

    As for Rush, well he's a lost cause and yes he has a following but I would say more than half of that following is the Left side listening to the venom so they can fact find later...

    "Know thine enemy!"

    For 6 years the Wingers ruled this country their way and Imho this Nation has gone back in time as far as Civil Rights and freedoms. Yet the wingers spewed away at how wrong we are even though they were in charge.

    Now that the tables are turning because people have peeked and seen the trash for what it is, the Wingers increase their rhetoric in hopes that if their talking points are clever enough(Instead of owning up to the facts) that people will come back to see things their way...

    Well guess what...

    It's over....People woke up!

    In Shock I might add! ;)

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  135. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  136. Dolty might as well stop crying.

    Any poster here who knows anything about GE knows that Imus was doomed the minute he let those words slip from his mouth. They have a pretty clear policy when it comes to making comments of a racist or sexist nature. Imus would have been gone if he'd been a manager on a shop floor. So Imus happened to have a different role-he was still working with a GE business. I knew the second I heard about it that his association with MSNBC was done.

    As far as Beck goes.... the second that CNN decided to shocase Der Reichsfuhrer Beck, I quit watching them. But CNN isn't a GE business

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  137. Voltron said...
    I'm also amused at all the talk about "Hate speak"....

    Who gets to define that for everyone?


    What's the matter, Widdle Twucker?

    Afwaid mommy might get offended now when you say "poo poo kaka" into your widdle twucker CB micwophone?

    Well, here's a clue: don't f*cking do it, jackass!

    ReplyDelete
  138. Voltron said...
    "If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all."

    ~Noam Chomsky


    Truer words were never spoken.

    But here's the thing, jackass: Imus was given a megaphone, gratis, courtesy of the American people, in the employ of a private corporation.

    Free speech is meaningless in that context.

    Next up, we take down Beck and Limbaugh. There's a campaign going on now to boycott their advertisers.

    It's about time decency returned to the airwaves.

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  139. Voltron said...
    If a white mothers son is killed and the perpetrator gets a light sentence, how do you tell her her son's life wasn't as valuable because he wasn't some other color?


    Odd. White victim crimes get far tougher sentences than minorities, so why are you making up shit, Jackass?

    ReplyDelete
  140. Here's another interesting book review about Global warming

    With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change

    by Fred Pearce
    Pearce, author of When the River Runs Dry (2006), prides himself on being a skeptical environmental journalist, and now, after covering climate change for 18 years, he has no doubt that we are "interfering with the fundamental processes that make Earth habitable." Believing that everyone needs to understand exactly what is happening on the planet, Pearce consults with experts on ocean currents, polar ice, the carbon cycle, methane, and soot; reports on the rapid melting of polar ice and the Siberian permafrost, the "brown haze" of Asia, and record-breaking heat waves, droughts, and wildfires; and explains that because the earth's systems are intricately interconnected and finely calibrated, small alterations can have abrupt and enormous consequences. Pearce presents a cogent rundown of the findings that establish greenhouse gases as a global warming catalyst and, most disturbingly, provides careful analysis of evidence indicating that climatic change has never been gradual.

    This book looks at our current understanding of how our planet's climate changes over time. Pearce (environment & development consultant, New Scientist ; When the Rivers Run Dry ) has been writing about climate change for 18 years, during which time he has interviewed scientists researching the phenomenon. His grasp of their work is exceptional. What's more, he has a talent for explaining science in terms understandable to the nonscientist. He explains many scientific discoveries and theories, noting how they interweave into the fabric of our understanding of how the climate has changed in the past?and how it may change in the future. Hovering throughout is the question of how much of the current global warming is natural and how much of it is magnified by human activities. Apparently, there are tipping points after which the climate changes will occur quickly and will not be correctable by human efforts. This enjoyable read was difficult to put down. A superb educational resource.
    Well-documented and terrifying review of the scientific evidence supporting claims that Earth teeters on the edge of a climactic precipice.Pearce (When the Rivers Run Dry, 2006, etc.) begins by dismissing the argument that global-warming claims are "empty rhetoric." Each ensuing chapter describes a specific tipping point-an indicator that dramatic climate change may be around the corner, possibly occurring within the next decade. Along the way, we learn about the ozone, greenhouse gases and phenomena such as Arctic Sea "chimneys." Particularly compelling is Pearce's explanation of why aspects of the Kyoto Protocol, designed to offset global warming, may actually have the opposite effect in Arctic regions. The author profiles scientists and weaves personal anecdotes into his narrative. The weighty and highly technical information in his research-laden text, though laid out in clear prose, at times becomes cumbersome for the layperson. In the end, however, the abundance of facts substantively bolsters Pearce's contention that the end of the world as we know it may be nigh.Important reading for policymakers, climate-change skeptics and anyone planning a future beyond the next decade.

    Pearce (When the Rivers Run Dry ) presents some climate modelers' frightening predictions about the consequences of increased global warming. After studying the history of the earth's climate changes, these scientists have learned that, under pressure from natural forces, major shifts can happen abruptly. Today, with the added stress of human interference, irreversible changes could threaten the habitability of our planet. For example, drought and fire could cause the Amazon rainforest to disappear; huge amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas that can be 100 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, could be released by the meltdown of Siberian peat; and aerosol emissions in India and China could end the indispensable Asian monsoon. Hard-line skeptics disagree, of course, but Pearce cites highly respected scientists who assert that the threats have been underestimated, especially by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Even President Bush's chief climate modeler notes that the glaciers and ice sheets at the poles are disintegrating at alarming rates and warns that we may be only a decade and one degree of warming away from global catastrophe. The science behind climate studies is complex, but Pearce makes it accessible enough to terrify even the most uninitiated layperson.

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  141. Good Morning/Afternoon Lydia and Everyone!

    Have a Happy Thursday!! ;)

    Will bbl..

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  142. Mike- thank you for sending that info!

    Hi S-Q and GEF!

    On our blog BASHAMANDCORNELL.COM we have posted Imus's other racist comments, which I never knew about.

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  143. Lydia,

    Without seeing the list you've posted, I can almost predict which ones are on their.

    Typically, Imus saves his venom for those who can defend themselves, and who've made public spectacles of themselves. This one instance was unusual in that he attacked a bunch of kids who'd done nothing wrong except lose a basketball game.

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  144. Hi Again!

    I'm very busy this morning but hopefully things will slow down a bit this afternoon.

    Do ya like my new avatar?

    ReplyDelete
  145. I changed it for my new blog! ;)

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  146. OK, S-Q, which blonde bimbo is this one?

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  147. Carl:

    Thanks and I don't know! But, it's not the real me!

    LOLMAO

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  148. Carl said...
    Voltron said...
    "If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all."

    ~Noam Chomsky

    Truer words were never spoken.

    But here's the thing, jackass: Imus was given a megaphone, gratis, courtesy of the American people, in the employ of a private corporation.

    Free speech is meaningless in that context.

    Next up, we take down Beck and Limbaugh. There's a campaign going on now to boycott their advertisers.

    It's about time decency returned to the airwaves."

    Excellent point Carl..........one I intended to make but you beat me to the punch although I did touch on this issue last night.

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  149. Oh and Volt, like I said last night............I aqm in no way denying these idiots a voice or the right to express themselves, just saying that ignorant racist or vulgars opinions should not be given a bull horn in the MSM just like biased partisan BS should not be passed off as factual news................that kind of stuff should be relegated to Internet, blogs, radio etc....

    Look at liberal radio its almost dead why arent they given hours on the MSM tv Volt?

    ReplyDelete
  150. Lydia Cornell said...
    Mike- thank you for sending that info!

    Hi S-Q and GEF!

    On our blog BASHAMANDCORNELL.COM we have posted Imus's other racist comments, which I never knew about."

    Glad you got the materials.

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  151. Also Everyone, if you didnt read the post by Lee Iacocca that Clif posted last night then I urge you to, its EXCELLENT!

    ReplyDelete
  152. Kurt Vonnegut on the Righteous Right, Bush, And The Invasion Of Iraq:

    "I myself feel that our country, for whose Constitution I fought in a just war, might as well have been invaded by Martians and body snatchers. Sometimes I wish it had been. What has happened, though, is that it has been taken over by means of the sleaziest, low-comedy, Keystone Cops-style coup d’etat imaginable. And those now in charge of the federal government are upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography, plus not-so-closeted white supremacists, aka “Christians,” and plus, most frighteningly, psychopathic personalities, or “PPs.”

    To say somebody is a PP is to make a perfectly respectable medical diagnosis, like saying he or she has appendicitis or athlete’s foot. The classic medical text on PPs is The Mask of Sanity by Dr. Hervey Cleckley. Read it! PPs are presentable, they know full well the suffering their actions may cause others, but they do not care. They cannot care because they are nuts. They have a screw loose!

    And what syndrome better describes so many executives at Enron and WorldCom and on and on, who have enriched themselves while ruining their employees and investors and country, and who still feel as pure as the driven snow, no matter what anybody may say to or about them? And so many of these heartless PPs now hold big jobs in our federal government, as though they were leaders instead of sick.

    What has allowed so many PPs to rise so high in corporations, and now in government, is that they are so decisive. Unlike normal people, they are never filled with doubts, for the simple reason that they cannot care what happens next. Simply can’t. Do this! Do that! Mobilize the reserves! Privatize the public schools! Attack Iraq! Cut health care! Tap everybody’s telephone! Cut taxes on the rich! Build a trillion-dollar missile shield! Fuck habeas corpus and the Sierra Club and In These Times, and kiss my ass!"

    More here

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  153. S-Q,

    Darn. I have a thing for bubbleheaded bleach blonde newsreaders...

    ReplyDelete
  154. Not that, you know, you're bubbleheaded, of course.

    ReplyDelete
  155. At least 8 dead in explosion at Iraq parliament
    In major security breach, bomber detonates in cafeteria; 2 lawmakers die.

    MSNBC staff and news service reports
    Updated: 1 hour, 51 minutes ago
    BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suspected suicide bomber blew himself up in the Iraqi parliament cafeteria in a stunning assault in the heart of the heavily fortified, U.S.-protected Green Zone on Thursday, killing at least eight people, including two lawmakers, the American military said. At least 10 other people were wounded.

    Thursday's attack came hours after a suicide truck bomb exploded on a major bridge in Baghdad, collapsing the steel structure and sending cars tumbling into the Tigris River below, police and witnesses said. At least 10 people were killed in that attack.

    Iraqi officials said the bomber struck the parliament cafeteria while several lawmakers were eating lunch.
    After the blast, security guards sealed the building and no one — including lawmakers — was allowed to enter or leave.

    A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said no Americans were hurt in the blast.

    The bombing came amid the two-month-old security crackdown in Baghdad, which has sought to restore stability in the capital so that the government of Iraq can take key political steps by June 30 or face a withdrawal of American support.

    A senior U.S. intelligence official told NBC News on Thursday that the attack “is the work of al-Qaida in Iraq.”

    “The safe working assumption, based on what we're seeing with targeting and timing is that it's all al-Qaida,” said the official.

    White House, others react
    President Bush strongly condemned Thursday's attack on Iraq's parliament building within the heavily protected Green Zone. "My message to the Iraqi government is 'We stand with you,"' the president said.

    Bush, who planned to meet Thursday with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., both recently returned from Iraq, was being kept abreast of the bomb blast.

    "I strongly condemn the action," Bush said in the Roosevelt Room after meeting with educational leaders. "It reminds us that there is an enemy willing to bomb innocent people and a symbol of democracy."

    The president said that the Iraqi assembly represents the millions of Iraqis who voted in recent elections. He said the type of person who would do such a thing is "the same type of person who is willing to come to kill innocent Americans."

    At the White House, National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe condemned the attack by “terrorists and extremists.”

    Government suggests inside job
    Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh suggested that those behind the attack might work in the building.

    “There are some groups that work in politics during the day and do things other than politics at night,” he told Alhurra, a U.S. government-funded Arab-language channel.

    Video on Alhurra showed what appeared to be the moments just after the attack: A smoky hallway, with people screaming for help. One man was slumped over, covered in dust, motionless.

    TV cameras and videotapes belonging to a crew sending footage to Western networks were confiscated and apparently handed over to U.S. authorities

    Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said witness accounts indicated a suicide attack. “We don’t know at this point who it was. We do know in the past that suicide vests have been used predominantly by al-Qaida,” the U.S. military spokesman said in an Associated Press broadcast interview.

    “We’ve known there’s a security problem in Baghdad, which is why the president has structured a new strategy and why Gen. (David) Petraeus and his commanders are carrying it out,” added Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. “But this is still early in the process and I don’t think anybody expected there would not be counterefforts by terrorists to undermine the security progress we’re trying to make.”
    Sunni, Shiite are fatalities
    One of the dead lawmakers was Mohammed Awad, a member of the Sunni National Dialogue Front, said Saleh al-Mutlaq, the leader of the party, which holds 11 seats in Iraq’s legislature. A female Sunni lawmaker from the same list was wounded, he said.

    A security official at the building said a second lawmaker, a Shiite member, also was killed. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

    But Mukhlis al-Zamili of the Shiite Fadhila party said the second dead lawmaker was a Kurd, adding that six of those wounded were members of the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s bloc.

    Al-Zamili also said he believed a suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest was behind the attack.

    Another member of the National Dialogue Front, Mohammed al-Dayni, also suggested a suicide bomber was behind it.

    “I am standing now at the site of the explosion and looking at the severed legs of the person who carried out the operation. If this tells us anything, it tells us that security is lax,” al-Dayni told Iraq’s Sharqiya television.

    Earlier in the day, security officials used dogs to check people entering the building in a rare precaution — apparently concerned that an attack might take place.

    Green Zone penetrable
    The brazen bombing was the clearest evidence yet that militants can penetrate even the most secure locations. Masses of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers are on the streets in the ninth week of a security crackdown in the capital and security measures inside the Green Zone have been significantly hardened.


    The U.S. military reported April 1 that two suicide vests were found in the heavily fortified region that also houses the U.S. Embassy and offices of the Iraqi government. A militant rocket attack last month killed two Americans, a soldier and a contractor. A few days earlier, a rocket landed within 100 yards of a building where U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was holding a news conference. No one was hurt.

    Khalaf al-Ilyan, one of the three leaders of the Iraqi Accordance Front, which holds 44 seats, said the attack was “aimed at everyone — all parties — our parliament in general being a symbol and a representative of all segments of Iraqi society.”

    Al-Ilyan, who is in Jordan recovering from knee surgery, said the blast also “underlines the failure of the government’s security plan.”

    “The plan is 100 percent a failure. It’s a complete flop. The explosion means that instability and lack of security has reached the Green Zone, which the government boasts is heavily fortified,” he said.

    U.S. Embassy spokesman Lou Fintor said its officials were “investigating the nature and source of the explosion. No embassy employees or U.S. citizens were affected.”

    Attacks in the Green Zone are rare.

    The worst known attack inside the enclave occurred Oct. 14, 2004, when insurgents detonated explosives at a market and a popular cafe, killing six people. That was the first bombing in the sprawling region.

    On Nov. 25, 2004, a mortar attack inside the zone killed four employees of a British security firm and wounded at least 12.

    On Jan. 29, 2005, insurgents hit the U.S. Embassy compound with a rocket, killing two Americans — a civilian and a Navy sailor — on the eve of landmark elections. Four other Americans were wounded.

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  156. Mike, excellent point: the folks who spew their hate on the air, like Beck and Coulter and Rush, don't come anywhere near to representing even a majority of people who might align themselves with these jerkoffs on some of the issues, much less the entire nation.

    They get jobs because they can spew their cynical hatred remorselessly, for "entertainment", the verbal equivalent of Janet Jackson's nipple slip.

    And you know what else? The reason liberals appear so outnumbered is we have a sense of shame and a moral center that prevents us from selling our souls out for the advertising dollar!

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  157. Now, Mike, this attack took place after the surge created that safe zone that John McCain so easily strolled along, right?

    *snark*

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  158. Vonnegut on Bush:

    “Well,” says Vonnegut, “I just want to say that George W. Bush is the syphilis president.”

    The students seem to agree.

    “The only difference between Bush and Hitler,” Vonnegut adds, “is that Hitler was elected.”

    “You all know, of course, that the election was stolen. Right here.”

    "

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  159. "I strongly condemn the action," Bush said in the Roosevelt Room after meeting with educational leaders. "It reminds us that there is an enemy willing to bomb innocent people and a symbol of democracy.""


    Interesting that a brainless thug who is the farthest thing from a symbol of freedom and democracy and is much more akin to a symbol of fascism and dictatorship would even pretend to remotely have a clue as to what a symbol of freedom and democracy is.

    but then again on second thought GWB knows quite well what symbols of democracy and freedom are since he tirelessly curses them and works to destroy them............like when he called that symbol of freedom the US Constitution "a Goddamn Piece of Paper"...........or the way he has worked to violate our freedoms and Constitutional rights by spying on us without warrants, making torture acceptable, denying Habeous Corpus, proper legal representation, the right to fair trials by ones peers, rules of evidence, etc......to American citizens.

    This man is a treasonous foe of freedom and the only reason this ignoramous even knows what it is, is decause he despises it and works tirelessly to destroy Freedom, liberties, privacy and the US Constitution..........That Goddam Piece of Paper he swore to uphold and defend when he seized power!

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  160. Oh and BTW, did you hear that the rethugs "CONVIENIENTLY" lost several thousand e-mails regarding attorneygate..........there are redundant servers and all kinds of backups and several thousand e-mails that just happen to pertain to this particular issue dont just happen to disapear..........These thugs need to be charged with obstruction of justice and locked up if they think they are STILL untoucable and can get away with ANYTHING and do as they please.

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  161. Still trying to protect that lying piece of crap Rove I see!

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  162. Mike,

    It was quite a few more than several thousand they claim to have lost.

    As a Mail Administrator of many years, I can say with utter certainty that this is complete and utter bs.

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  163. More Obstruction of Justice?

    by
    Larry C Johnson

    ?News that White House staffers, which includes Karl Rove and Scooter Libby, used RNC email accounts in order to avoid the scrutiny that normally comes with the White House email account raises an interesting question--Did Patrick Fitzgerald know this? It appears the answer is no.

    If that is the case then we are looking at the potential for new obstruction of justice in the Valerie Plame case. Why? For starters there are the subpoenas the White House received in 2003. They were required to turn over all emails relating to the Valerie Plame case, not just White House emails. Just when you thought the Plame case was at a dead end it looks like the hubris of the Republicans have given it new life. Karl Rove may get frog marched yet.

    UPDATE: Here's the link for what the Department of Justice told the White House to produce and preserve. The White House was told to preserve:

    ALL DOCUMENTSFROM FEBRUARY 2002 TO JANUARY 23 2004 INCLUSIVE INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ALL ELECTRONIC RECORDS WRITTEN RECORDS TELEPHONE RECORDS OF ANY KIND INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY DOCUMENTS THAT MEMORIALIZE TELEPHONE CALLS HAVING BEEN MADE CORRESPONDENCE COMPUTER RECORDS EMAIL STORAGE DEVICES NOTES WHETHERHANDWRITTEN OR TYPED OR IN ANY OTHER FORMAT MEMORANDA AND DIARY AND CALENDAR ENTRIES IN THE Q119
    POSSESSION OF THE OFFICE OF THE VICE PRESIDENT ITS STAFF AND EMPLOYEES CONCERNING ANY DISCUSSION OF THE FOLLOWING ...


    I love the smell of perjury in the morning. Scooter may get some bunk mates.

    ReplyDelete
  164. Essay by E.L. Doctorow on Bush


    I fault this president for not knowing what death is. He does not suffer the death of our twenty-one- year olds who wanted to be what they could be. On the eve of D-day in 1944 General Eisenhower prayed to God for the lives of the young soldiers he knew were going to die. He knew what death was. Even in a justifiable war, a war not of choice but of necessity, a war of survival, the cost was almost more than Eisenhower could bear.

    But this president does not know what death is. He hasn't the mind for it. You see him joking with the press, peering under the table for the WMDs he can't seem to find, you see him at rallies strutting up to the stage in shirt sleeves to the roar of the carefully screened crowd, smiling and waving, triumphal, a he-man. He does not mourn. He doesn't understand why he should mourn. He is satisfied during the course of a speech written for him to look solemn for a moment and speak of the brave young Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. But you study him, you look into his eyes and know he dissembles an emotion which he does not feel in the depths of his being because he has no capacity for it. He does not feel a personal responsibility for the thousand dead young men and women who wanted to be what they could be.

    They come to his desk not as youngsters with mothers and fathers or wives and children who will suffer to the end of their days a terribly torn fabric of familial relationships and the inconsolable remembrance of aborted life . . . . . they come to his desk as a political liability which is why the press is not permitted to photograph the arrival of their coffins from Iraq.

    How then can he mourn? To mourn is to express regret and he regrets nothing. He does not regret that his reason for going to war was, as he knew, unsubstantiated by the facts. He does not regret that his bungled plan for the war's aftermath has made of his mission-accomplished a disaster. He does not regret that rather than controlling terrorism, his war in Iraq has licensed it. So he never mourns for the dead and crippled youngsters who have fought this war of his choice. He wanted to go to war and he did. He had not the mind to perceive the costs of war, or to listen to those who knew those costs. He did not understand that you do not go to war when it is one of the options, but when it is the only option; you go not because you want to, but because you have to. Yet this president knew it would be difficult for Americans not to cheer the overthrow of a foreign dictator. He knew that much.

    This president and his supporters would seem to have a mind for only one thing --- to take power, to remain in power, and to use that power for the sake of themselves and their friends. A war will do that as well as anything. You become a wartime leader. The country gets behind you. Dissent becomes inappropriate. And so he does not drop to his knees, he is not contrite, he does not sit in the church with the grieving parents and wives and children.

    He is the President who does not feel. He does not feel for the families of the dead, he does not feel for the thirty-five million of us who live in poverty, he does not feel for the forty percent who cannot afford health insurance, he does not feel for the miners whose lungs are turning black or for the working people he has deprived of the chance to work overtime at time-and-a-half to pay their bills--- it is amazing for how many people in this country this President does not feel.


    But he will dissemble feeling. He will say in all sincerity he is relieving the wealthiest one percent of the population of their tax burden for the sake of the rest of us, and that he is polluting the air we breathe for the sake of our economy, and that he is decreasing the safety regulations for coal mines to save the coal miners' jobs, and that he is depriving workers of their time-and-a- half benefits for overtime because this is actually a way to honor them by raising them into the professional class. And this litany of lies he will versify with reverences for God and the flag and democracy, when just what he and his party are doing to our democracy is choking the life out of it.


    But there is one more terribly sad thing about all of this. I remember the millions of people here and around the world who marched against the war.

    It was extraordinary, that spontaneous aroused oversoul of alarm and protest that transcended national borders. Why did it happen? After all, this was not the only war anyone had ever seen coming. There are little wars all over he world most of the time. But the cry of protest was the appalled understanding of millions of people that America was ceding its role as the last best hope of mankind. It was their perception that the classic archetype of democracy was morphing into a rogue nation. The
    greatest democratic republic in history was turning its back on the future, using its extraordinary power and standing not to advance the ideal of a concordance of civilizations but to endorse the kind of tribal combat that originated with the Neanderthals, a people, now extinct, who could imagine ensuring their survival by no other means than pre-emptive war.

    The president we get is the country we get. With each president the nation is conformed spiritually. He is the artificer of our malleable national soul. He proposes not only the laws but the kinds of lawlessness that govern our lives and invoke our responses. The people he appoints are cast in his image. The trouble they get into and get us into, is his characteristic trouble. Finally the media amplify his character into our moral weather report. He becomes the face of our sky, the conditions that prevail: How can we sustain ourselves as the United States of America given the stupid and ineffective warmaking, the constitutionally insensitive lawgiving, and the monarchal economics of this president? He cannot mourn but is a figure of such moral vacancy as to make us mourn for ourselves.


    E.L. Doctorow

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  165. Hey, wait a minute!

    White House employees are specifically BANNED from using the White House telephone system to conduct business for the political party in power.

    Email has been assigned, in court decisions, to being a form of telephonic communication.

    Ergo, IF Karl Rove and Scooter Libby were using their RNC domain emails inside the White House, they're in a lot more trouble than even obstructing justice. This is a felony violation of campaign finance laws.

    ReplyDelete
  166. Al Gore had to go over to the OMB in order to place fund raising calls during the 2000 campaign. I remember that from the sham investigation of the Buddhist contributions.

    ReplyDelete
  167. White House lost Over FIVE MILLION e-mails in two year period

    I think this deserves its own post…CREW:

    Today, CREW issued a new report, WITHOUT A TRACE: The Missing White House Emails and Violations of the PRA, and made the shocking new disclosure that the Bush White House has lost over FIVE MILLION e-mails in a two year period. The report also details the legal issues behind the growing controversy over the White House e-mail scandal.

    Christy Hardin Smith has more

    **************************************

    SOMEBODY'S IN TROUBLE.......

    Couldn't happen to a more crooked bunch of criminals......

    ReplyDelete
  168. He would probably do a Better Job then the fooles in charge have done.

    ReplyDelete
  169. Clif said...

    S-q A Long read but worth the time, you might want to make a post about this

    Iacocca: Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

    10:40 PM
    -----------

    Hi Clif:

    Thank you for the article and I will try to post that tomorrow! Today has been very busy and hectic for me... ;)

    3:15 PM

    ReplyDelete
  170. P.S.

    I know I'm on Lydia's blog but just wanted to let you know that I had answered you on my blog too. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  171. Hey there guys! ;)

    We have moved the Suzie-Q blog to Wordpress now! :)

    http://suzieqq.wordpress.com/

    ReplyDelete
  172. Is that picture of you Suzy?

    If it is you're smokin.

    ReplyDelete
  173. Ok, time to make myself "highly" unpopular.


    I have succeed in totally alienating more than half of my friends at ThinkProgress (where I've been graciously permitted to return), so now I will alienate a few here.

    Listen up.

    Don Imus was NOT TRYING TO BE RACIST.

    I repeat. Don Imus was NOT trying to be racist.

    The media, along with Al Sharpton and the Rutgers coach have wrongly branded Imus's statement as intending to insult the Rutgers players, and therefore is a racial slur.

    This is false!

    His statement was intended to be a compliment. He was trying to say the Rutgers girls were tough, and that he was surprised they were beat by Tennessee.

    Listen to the video again.

    LISTEN

    He was trying to call the Rutgers girls "tough" and he was trying to "sound black" and ended up sounding racist.

    What he said was wrong, but it wasn't MEANT to be.

    ReplyDelete
  174. Al Sharpton has blown this way out of proportion, and is fanning the fires of racism by prosecuting racism where racism doesn't exist.

    ReplyDelete
  175. Anyone wanna touch that one?


    Anyone dumb enough to touch that one? LOL

    ReplyDelete
  176. Hi Worf!

    No, that isn't me! I actually look more like Jessica S. (blonde/brown) LOL

    I needed a change though for my new blog... ;)

    ReplyDelete
  177. Worf:

    I'm not sure on the Imus video.. it's difficult to understand exactly what he is saying! LOLMAO

    So, no, not touching that! hehe

    ReplyDelete
  178. Hi Worf,
    We missed you.

    I agree with you, I don't think Imus's intention was "racist" and I certainly think there are worse talk show hosts, much worse than Imus.

    But go check out all his other comments from earlier: he called Gloria Estefan a "Chihauha ho'"

    And he called a Jewish person something worse, just casually, to be funny

    So maybe the network decided it needed to make an example of him.

    ReplyDelete
  179. Has anyone ever tried to call someone a "tough son of a bitch" or a "tough mutherfu##$er, and had it come out wrong?

    You know what I am saying here right?


    You can call someone a fat bastard and have it be an insult. But I have a friend who when I see him I say "hey ya fat bastard", and he doesn't think its an insult. And its not.

    Imus tried to say they were "tough mutherf@#kers" and "nappyheaded ho's" came out. Listen to the video again and listen with new ears.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  180. Lydia Cornell said...

    And he called a Jewish person something worse, just casually, to be funny

    So maybe the network decided it needed to make an example of him.



    So does Carlos Mencia but people get him. Imus is a white guy trying to sound cool. An OLD white guy (almost 70). I am not defending his words here, I am just CONDEMNING the media frenzy an the BEARING FALSE WITNESS by people accusing him of saying that as a racist slur when there was no racist slur intended.

    ReplyDelete
  181. We're having Eric Burns on from Media Matters before Congressman Rangel on Saturday.

    Burns is here to discuss all the Imus stuff and more about all the other hosts, including a campaign to get Rush Limpbaugh off the air.

    ReplyDelete
  182. There are 2 lies here.

    1. That this comment was designed to insult the Rutgers team for losing to Tennessee.

    2. That it was racist in its design.

    In order for number 2 to work, the activists need number 1 to be accepted first.

    So the media claimed Imus was insulting the girls and besmirching their skills.

    If they could not get people to accept that, then no one would accept that he meant it in a hurtful and racist way.

    They needed number 1 for number 2 to fly.

    But a quick review of the video shows that number 1, is a lie, and he was trying to console the players and compliment Tennessee on beating such a ROUGH BUNCH OF GIRLS.

    He was also consoling Tennessee in a round about way by saying they were tough and he favored them for the win.

    But you won’t admit that, because then you rabid cries of racism lose their credibility.

    You need to sell the first lie in order to sell the second.

    ReplyDelete
  183. I agree with you Worf.

    Please go and read my post, read the letter from combat vet John Conley who said the same thing you are saying.
    He's the Marine who sent me his Purple Heart.

    This is a media-created story; the media persecuted and destroyed Imus.

    ReplyDelete
  184. Lydia Cornell said...
    We're having Eric Burns on from Media Matters before Congressman Rangel on Saturday.

    Burns is here to discuss all the Imus stuff and more about all the other hosts, including a campaign to get Rush Limpbaugh off the air.


    Wow. You're really going to get to interview Rangel? Thats great. I have a lot of respect for him.

    ReplyDelete
  185. Lydia:

    Cool! Rush should have been taken off the air a long time ago. He is truly a racist and hateful person!

    Btw.. did you receive the invite for my new blog? I emailed it a few minutes ago..

    ReplyDelete
  186. I disagree with this guy wanting to take limpballs off the air though. I just will not sign on with the censorship of the public airways or the silencing of one opinion over another.

    Free speech means free speech for all. Including those whose words make your blood boil.

    ReplyDelete
  187. Lydia Cornell said...
    I agree with you Worf.

    Please go and read my post, read the letter from combat vet John Conley who said the same thing you are saying.
    He's the Marine who sent me his Purple Heart.

    This is a media-created story; the media persecuted and destroyed Imus.


    I am relieved to hear it. I didn't know if you'd be willing to make the stretch.

    Its like a witch hunt. If anyone senses you don't want to immediately lynch Don Imus then you are a racist.

    I was crucified and burned in effigy over at ThinkProgress, lol.

    ReplyDelete
  188. When Imus apologized the big person would have accepted it it. He clearly meant to say they were tough, and that he was surprised that they lost, but instead the media twisted it and accused him of intending to racially slur the team for losing.

    Bearing false witness is still my least favorite sin.

    ReplyDelete
  189. Suzie-Q said...

    Cool! Rush should have been taken off the air a long time ago. He is truly a racist and hateful person!



    Well I agree he is racist and hateful I disagree with silencing him. If people want to hear him let them. We cannot censor the airways for the guys we don't like and leave them open for the guys we do.

    Its all or nothing.

    Either we believe in free speech for all, or free speech for none.

    ReplyDelete
  190. Don't worry Lydia, I won't call in, LOL

    ReplyDelete
  191. Worf:

    I just don't tolerate racism and hate, so I guess that is why I don't listen to those that spread that type of message.

    I tend to be around positive people and try to avoid negative people. ;)

    There is too much hate and racism in the world!

    ReplyDelete
  192. In non-Imus news that is of the utmost importance....

    If there is anyone who thinks that Iraq can't get a lot worse than it already is, I have two words for you.

    Just Watch.

    ReplyDelete
  193. I WORFEUS said...
    I disagree with this guy wanting to take limpballs off the air though. I just will not sign on with the censorship of the public airways or the silencing of one opinion over another.

    Free speech means free speech for all. Including those whose words make your blood boil."

    Before I address the Imus comment I want to quickly address this..............freedom of speech or freedom to express an opinion is one thing...........the ability to have a MSM bully pulpit that reaches millions, possibly billions people and to to call for people to be killed or to smear people racially or spew lies and unsubstantiated hateful BS to discredit your political oponents is quite another.

    Now in a blog or on the Internet or satellite radio I say ANYTHING goes but in a medium that is paid for by corporate advertising and reaches millions and even billions I say no..........I say we should have more factual news and more honesty, integrity and decencey in the MSM.

    We also need to bring back the Fairness Doctrine, and make sure there is a clear distinction between real bonafide News that reports facts and honest non biased news and shows that are all opinion, and biased fluf.

    ReplyDelete