Posts under ‘Obama’

 

According to this well written piece from David Porter, also carried at HuffPo – US Army General David Petraeus is working to override US President Barack Obama.  

CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus, supported by Defence Secretary Robert Gates, tried to convince President Barack Obama that he had to back down from his campaign pledge to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months at an Oval Office meeting Jan. 21.

But Obama informed Gates, Petraeus and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen that he wasn’t convinced and that he wanted Gates and the military leaders to come back quickly with a detailed 16-month plan, according to two sources who have talked with participants in the meeting.

Obama’s decision to override Petraeus’s recommendation has not ended the conflict between the president and senior military officers over troop withdrawal, however. There are indications that Petraeus and his allies in the military and the Pentagon, including Gen. Ray Odierno, now the top commander in Iraq, have already begun to try to pressure Obama to change his withdrawal policy.

Taking a cue from so many conversations going on across the blogosphere, I am discussing the prosecution of George Bush. 

The world knows what he did.  The American people know what he did.  We have a choice.  We can demand justice.  We can defend ourselves from enemies to The Constitution, both foreign and domestic.  It will not happen if we do not.  The overwhelming call to action at change.gov was for the prosecution of criminal behaviour from the White House. 

George Bush is what we got for pardoning Nixon.  Nixon was a megalomaniac whose paranoia was his undoing.  Bush is much worse: a mouthpiece for the corruption of power amassed in Oil & Defense industry executive suites.  But, the motivations for breaking the law of the land from the highest office are not important.  What is of utmost importance is this: precedent.  In this specific instance, the precedent of breaking the law of the land from the highest office.  It is the path to dictatorship. 

DATELINE WAZIRISTAN:

In a rare public appearance, Al Qaeda CEO Osama bin Laden challenged President-Elect of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama to a basketball game between only the two of them.  In a hastily called press conference near the ibn-Fazal Notouri public square, Mr. bin Laden addressed a pool of war correspondents and two beat reporters from the Green Bay Packers’ Radio Network.  Although bin Laden and the rest of the al Qaeda management team are known for unorthodox tactics, this move has turned more than a few heads.

In prepared remarks, Mr. bin Laden had little good to say about Mr. Obama.

Every morning on my walk to the bus, I pass the windows of a shop called Bazar.  They sell imports, womens’ clothing, shoes, etc.  I often look at the dresses on display with an eye for something my wife would like me to surprise her with.  They often have some posters for bands or performances that I assume the owner fancies. 

However, in addition to their normal offerings for eye-candy, they offered something to reflect Barack Obama’s election.  Entitled "a historic night"; it was several large swaths of white paper hanging in the windows.  The hangings, read from left to right were one-line capsules of events, ideas, statements and thoughts from the beginning of the campaign up to election night. 

 

Here’s another affirmation that the GOP is buried in the mindset of Nixon and Stalin.  Wikileaks and the ACLU (MN) have recently covered the super secret security briefing from the RNC that indicates the usage of the US Military against law abiding US citizens.  Another ‘dragnet’ surveillance conducted by paranoid tyrants in the party of hate and lobbyists (aka GOP). 

In a nutshell, the party that loves (using) the military (to seize power and make fortunes) – the GOP, used military spy satellites to spy on US citizens.  This should come as no surprise, given the Bush/Cheney dictatorship’s penchant for spying on us all. 

“The true strength of rulers and empires lies not in armies or emotions, but in the belief of men that they are inflexibly open and truthful and legal. As soon as a government departs from that standard, it ceases to be anything more than “the gang in possession,” and its days are numbered.” (H. G. Wells, as quoted in the Gravel Edition of the Pentagon Papers.)

The enemies of democracy are the enemies of the rule of law.

“enemies both foreign & domestic…”

Our Presidents and our armed forces swear to protect the Constitution from this threat – with good reason. The Constitution is the rule of law and it is the one thing that can prevent tyrants, thieves and murderers from the ruinous world of their unchecked greed and brutality.

My country just announced that we are migrating to a new platform to manage our domain, United.States.of.America.gov. It’s called Camelot v. 2.0. It is going to really change how we do things around here. It is about time.

I am pretty excited because frankly, since Camelot v. 1.0 was removed, we have changed platforms every few years with sometimes awful results.

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On a January morning at 6am, I left my parents house to enlist in the United States Army Special Forces. It was 1981. I drove down to a building on Michigan Avenue to be processed into the service of my country. I remember filling out paperwork, seeing physicians, answering questions, waiting in line and moving from one room to another for hours. Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, I was taken into a room with several young men like myself. Some I had seen on my rounds that morning and some were strangers. I was excited and eager to begin my tour of duty in service to my country. We looked around the room at each other as we filed in and were asked to stand in a straight line.

The topic of voter suppression comes up at election time and is largely regarded as tricks to keep votes from being counted on election day or stopping voters at the polling place doors. We hear about them all and will hear about some today. These attempts are both obvious and trivial compared to the greater, large scale voter suppression that has been going on for decades.

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I almost pity poor John McCain. Almost. How did he end up with this ‘crap job’? It has fallen upon him to fight the last battle of slaveholders and plantation owners. I expect this bile from Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney and any of the rest that fall into the ‘angry white patriarch’ model that is interchangeable with KKK grand wizard or plantation owner.

The thinly veiled race baiting of the GOP that has been in force since Richard Nixon’s ‘Southern strategy’ is no longer thinly veiled at all. For a generation, the GOP was able to reliably manipulate themselves into power by scaring white voters about the danger to them from ‘the other’. They have expanded the cast of dangerous people to include gays, Latinos, (always) women and Muslims.