May 18, 2015

Yeah, but Billy Pilgrim kept coming back. Although the sex was great, we'll blame Obama:

May 18, 2015

Victoria Neuland And Teh Gays Did It. Plus This American Corporation:

Um, yummy fascist cookies!

But the real villain is...



Maybe not so fast, despite media:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024902325

May 18, 2015

I like this one here:

May 17, 2015

LOL, that train's never late!

May 17, 2015

They get paid no matter what they push. Like Eddie Murphy vs. Duke brothers in 'Trading Places':

Where Valentine (Murphy) 'breaks the fourth wall' and engaging the audience as if to say 'You got to be kidding me! How stupid are they trying to make me look?'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_wall

In which we see why the NYT and other media don't give a damn about what they are paid to say. as long as they get paid.

May 17, 2015

I see this image when she talks like that:

Has a brain and knows how to use it.

May 17, 2015

Why should the right stop doing this now? It's been working for 40+ years:

The term 'Ratfucking' and how it applies to Obama and Democrats



Don Segretti 4.0, A Teabagger Nation

By Driftglass - **June 21, 2010**

'Ratfucking' is a method the GOP began during the Nixon era and consistently after that time. Since they have the money to fund pundits to do this for them, it will continue. Beware.

The practice has won the right many victories for them and very effective in causing Democrats to abandon their candidates and their party. The man who originated the term and method was:

Donald Henry Segretti (born September 17, 1941, in San Marino, California) is a former political operative for the Committee to Re-elect the President (Nixon) during the early 1970s. Segretti was hired by friend Dwight L. Chapin to run a campaign of dirty tricks (which he dubbed "ratfucking"[1]) against the Democrats, with his work being paid for by Herb Kalmbach, Nixon's lawyer, from presidential campaign re-election funds gathered before an April 7, 1972, law required that contributors be identified. His actions were part of the larger Watergate scandal, and were important indicators for the few members of the press actively investigating the Watergate break in in the earliest stages that what became known as the Watergate scandal involved far more than just a simple break in. Segretti's involvement in the "Canuck letter"[2] typifies the tactics Segretti and others working with him used, forging a letter ascribed to Senator Edmund Muskie which maligned the people, language and culture of French Canada and French Canadians, causing the soon to be Democratic presidential candidate Muskie considerable headaches in denying the letter and having to continue dealing with the issue. Many historians have indicated over the years that Muskie's withdrawal from the Presidential primaries, and the disastrous Iowa primary loss to George McGovern that precipitated it, were at least partly the result of Segretti and some of the other "Ratfuckers" creating so much confusion and false accusations that Muskie simply could not respond in any meaningful way.

In 1974, Segretti pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor counts of distributing illegal (in fact, forged) campaign literature and was sentenced to six months in prison, actually serving four months. One notable example of his wrongdoing was a faked letter on Democratic presidential candidate Edmund Muskie's letterhead falsely alleging that U.S. Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, a fellow Democrat, had had an illegitimate child with a 17-year-old; the Muskie letters accused Senator Hubert H. Humphrey of sexual misconduct as well.[3] After testimony regarding the Muskie letters emerged, Democrats in Florida noted the similarity between these sabotage incidents and others that involved stationery stolen from Humphrey's offices after Muskie dropped out of the race. A false news release on Humphrey's letterhead "accused Rep. Shirley Chisholm (D-N.Y.) of being mentally unbalanced" and a mailing with an unidentified source mischaracterized Humphrey as supporting a controversial environmental measure that he actually opposed.[3]

In the 1976 film about Watergate, All the President's Men, Segretti was played by Robert Walden.

Segretti was a lawyer who served as a prosecutor for the military and later as a civilian. However, his license was suspended for two years following his conviction. In 1995, he ran for a local judgeship in Orange County, California. However, he quickly withdrew from the race when his campaign awakened lingering anger over his involvement in the Watergate scandal. In 2000, Segretti served as co-chair of John McCain's presidential campaign in Orange County.[4]

He holds a B.S. in Finance from the University of Southern California (1963) and a J.D. from UC Berkeley School of Law (1966). While at USC he became associated with Dwight L. Chapin, Tim Elbourne, Ron Ziegler, Herbert Porter and Gordon C. Strachan, they all joined the "Trojans for Representative Government" group.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Segretti



Back in the Nixon era

It would be tempting to label this "The Return of the Ratfuckers", but of course the GOP Ratfuck squad (from Corrente) --

Ratfucking is an American slang term for political sabotage or dirty tricks. It was first brought to public attention during the Watergate scandal investigation that during the 1972 presidential campaign the Nixon campaign committee maintained a "dirty tricks" unit focused on discrediting Nixon's strongest challengers.

According to Woodward and Bernstein, Nixon aide Dwight Chapin hired fellow USC alumnus Donald Segretti to run a campaign of dirty tricks (which Segretti dubbed "ratfucking&quot against the Democrats in 1972. The purpose of the operation was to create as much bitterness and disunity within the Democrat primary as possible. One notable example of Segretti's wrong-doing was a faked letter on Democratic presidential candidate Edmund Muskie's letterhead falsely alleging that U.S. Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, a fellow Democrat, had had an illegitimate child with a 17-year-old...

-- has never left us.

Much more worth reading at:

http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2010/06/don-segretti-40-teabagger-nation.html

This is why we see one thing after another against Obama, Kerry, Pelosi and other Democrats to gin up outrage. While some things we hear about are based on difference of opinion, tearing up Democrats and our leaders is not productive. Many of the issues have been manufactured about the things guaranteed break the hearts of liberal, progressive Democrats, but usually by Libertarians who do not want the same things. But they want to destroy Democrats because they are the force that robs their coporatist masters.

So what happens is Democrats feel betrayed and then they react accordingly, but are not given opposing information.

As soon as one issue has been debunked, they move immediately to another. It is exhausting to rebutt all of these, and after a while by repetition they are established as a truth by the inability to not rebut them at the speed they are being sent out.

Ratfucking relies upon the learned perception that the well of political discourse has been turned into a cesspool, and counts on the discouraged to lose the will to get into the government to clean the mess up which fulfills its purpose.

Instead, in their place are the Tea Party grifters who become the voices of power, instead of the compassionate who stay out of political life. Thus the RW mission is accomplished.

Another major reason some smears are not rebutted is we don't have Koch billions to fund these smears, so they outvote us with their media dollars and paid pundits. We musr be smart and patient with our movement to not allow them to divide us.

I FYI'd this for the members of the BOG as I read a post was hidden for using the term 'ratfucking' to describe the method. The claim was made it was a homophobic slur, but it clearly is not. Either the alerter and/or the jury was unware of the origin of the term and its political meaning which applies to what is being done to attack Obama and Democrats now.

Anyone who followed the political scene for many years would recognize the approach being used with or without using the word 'ratfucking.' And it is the GOP's own term for it!

But the term is shorthand for a complicatd process. Its purpose is to destroy the reputation or credibility of the Democratic Party and Obama among those who should be rightly proud of our accomplishments. The media is owned by rich right wingers and they do not show our side in a credible fashion.

Make no mistake, it is not just the personality or the actions of our party or our president being attacked, it is the progressive ideas we represent. Those ideas are the enemy the RWers and Koch organizations are fighting by going after our leaders. They will use Citizens United and every other weapon in their hands to defeat us and our hopes for a better America and a better world.

In more recent events, think of the method employed to ruin the Kennedys, ACORN and so many others. We must not be taken in.

**Yes, some of us realized what was happening as the media and pundits formerly trusted did this in the summer of 2010, and it worked very well. We tried to warn others, but they stayed away from the polls and many states now live under the boot of the Tea Party. Same for 2014 now for 2016. The Clinton presidency was attacked before he ever got his agenda going. HRC has not forgotten, and neither should we. But some are not old enough to remember it, others were taken in. And so it continues and will continue.

I suggest people take a look at Driftglass, it's an excellent blog. The link has much more , with information and one video that has not been 'scrubbed' yet.

May 16, 2015

JOBS. It supplies Burlington, Vermont with a good standard of living:

Bernie Sanders Doubles Down on F-35 Support Days After Runway Explosion


Senator Sanders speaks out against cuts to Social Security outside the U.S. Capitol on Oct. 9, 2013. (photo: Bernie Sanders)

By Carl Gibson - 03 June 14

Me: “You mentioned wasteful military spending. The other day ... I’m sure you’ve heard about the F-35 catching fire on the runway. The estimated lifetime expense of the F-35 is $1.2 trillion. When you talk about cutting wasteful military spending, does that include the F-35 program?”

Bernie Sanders: “No, and I’ll tell you why – it is essentially built. It is the airplane of the United States Air Force, Navy, and of NATO. It was a very controversial issue in Vermont. And my view was that given the fact that the F-35, which, by the way, has been incredibly wasteful, that’s a good question. But for better or worse, that is the plane of record right now, and it is not gonna be discarded. That’s the reality.”

That was the exchange I had with US senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) at a town hall in Warner, New Hampshire, this past weekend (skip to the 45:30 mark of this video to hear my question). Sanders came to New Hampshire to gauge the local response to his economic justice-powered platform for a presumed 2016 presidential campaign. While his rabid defense of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid and takedown of big money running politics was well-received, he contradicted his position of eliminating wasteful military spending while defending the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program.
The Lockheed Martin F-35 is the epitome of Pentagon waste. The program has already cost taxpayers roughly half a trillion dollars, with $700 billion or more to come during the program’s lifetime. During an interview, Pierre Sprey, a co-designer of the F-16, went into great detail about how the F-35 was a lemon aircraft. Sprey explained that the fighter is an excessively heavy gas guzzler with small wings, a low bomb-carry capacity, low loiter time, is incapable of slow flight, is detectable to World War II-era low-frequency radar, and costs $200 million apiece. And just a little over a week ago, the F-35 caught fire on a runway at Eglin Air Force Base.

To his credit, Sanders acknowledged that the program was “wasteful” in his defense of it. The contention over the F-35 in his home state of Vermont is that the program is now responsible for jobs in his hometown of Burlington, where he served as mayor before running for Congress. Some front doors of homes in the Burlington area are adorned with green ribbons, signifying support for the F-35. Sanders, like his colleagues in 45 states around the country, doesn’t want to risk the wrath of voters angry about job losses related to F-35 manufacturing, assembly, and training if the program were to be cut. And that’s where Lockheed Martin’s political savvy comes into play...

More at link including imbeds:

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/24583-bernie-sanders-doubles-down-on-f-35-support-days-after-runway-explosion

I still love Bernie, and he's a realist. He is not for all tastes. But he's representing his state. I suppose the reasoning if that we don't get these contracts, other nations will. Apparently, the world has not lost interest in the weapons of warfare.

May 15, 2015

K&R. Hope he's right about bringing us together...

Words to write, things to dream.

See ya later, Leo!

May 15, 2015

The amount of dishonest attacks on Obama and Clinton are incredible and don't use facts.

Just often repeated accusations and personal vitriol. They are unworthy and those doing are deeply suspect. Billions of dollars are NOW doing the work the billionaires intend:

'Money doesn't talk It swears.'

~ Bob Dylan

The president of the United States is a powerful person who can do great good or evil.

It would be good to continue on Obama's good hearted and compassionate legacy and build upon it. HRC has said that is exactly what she plans to do. I think Sanders intends to do good things as well, and is why he hwas been welcomed to the party by the head of the evil DNC and HRC. Imagine that...

It would be evil to dismantle this nation, sell it off to the Koches and establish fiefdoms, kill the disadvantaged, go to war in perpetuity for dubious gain to us, the environment or other humans. And to destroy the freedom of the mind and spirit, and the ideals that give it room.

That's what we're up against. We must take our 'wor- out tools' as some would say about the Democrats:

If - By Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And - which is more - you’ll be a Man,* my son!

That could have been written to Obama or Clinton. They are not crooks, they are not into this for their own game. A high calling paves the road and gives one the power to walk it. A low calling serves itself only, and may make history, but it doesn't inspire the human heart's best impulses.

*That goes for a Woman, too. For her work is disregarded and made light of but it can make the world better. It will bring peace. Male or female, we can create a better or worse world.

Last thing on the Democrats, who are maligned so much by too many who do not know our true record.

We have much work to do. The lives of those we love depend on us to not give up.