Our good friend Gordo, of Appletree and the now-resurrected Liberal Avenger, has celebrated Barack Hussein Obama’s triumphal foreign tour:
Obama Draws 200,000 in Berlin, Wingnuts Pout
Obama’s speech in Berlin drew raves from the people of Europe. You can read the transcript here, or watch it for yourself.
Josh Marshall gives some analysis, but I think the messages of change, unity, and multilateralism speak for themselves.
Back during the 2004 campaign, one of my very frequent, though now former, personal correspondents was very fond of telling the e-mail circle in which we participated how much the Europeans loved Senator John Kerry (D-MA), and how they all wanted him to win the presidency. And, I remember telling her, after one of Mr Kerry’s speeches across the pond that yes, Mr Kerry would certainly win the Paris primary. 
Indeed, I believe that Senator Kerry won the electoral votes in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Spain. President Bush carried Poland and Israel, as I recall, which, coincidentally enough, have exactly as many electoral votes as France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Spain combined.
The day after our election, Britain’s Daily Mirror ran a famous cover, “How can 59,054,087 people be so dumb?” I found that rather amusing, since, in the end, George Bush had 62,040,610 million votes, while John Kerry’s total was 59,028,444, much closer to the Daily Mirror’s number.
Fortunately, the President of the United States is elected by American voters, not Europeans.
Maybe the Mirror was referring to Kerry’s numbers????
And it seems that Mr Obama has picked up another endorsement:
Murderer’s Last Words: Vote Obama!
I’m not kidding:
This is the best endorsement he’s gotten since he picked up the William “Dollar Bill” Jefferson endorsement.
By all means let him have Europe’s electoral votes, all Zero of them. While he’s gaining their votes we can work on getting ours for McCain.
One Delaware ‘Reverend’ who is an active Obama fan is Derrick Johnson.
A few years ago, he delivered a stirring eulogy when a local drug thug/bully/bastard-siring punk ate too much lead for his health. The dead creep was defined as a ‘Ghetto Icon’ by the local newspaper and Rev. Johnson continued the posthumous lionization.
The Reverend’s rap sheet includes convictions for gun law violations, theft, and manslaughter.
The Dems may be playing it smart with a push to enfranchise career felons. Birds of a feather?
Shoprat,
You’re gonna love me. I think all you political party poopers are brainwashed.
If all the democrats and republicans can come up with is Obama and McCain for the presidential office investment the nation is in sorry shape.
You two time loser righties voted for ole g w twice…big mistake…but you people will never admit it. The last republican president I had any respect for was DDE not that I have any special liking for a few of the democrat presidents.
I chortle when I hear the rightwingers in congress every day say “well we haven’t been attacked since 911 (a whole seven years)…heil bush.” Well ole buddy since December 7th 1941 up until September 11th 2001, sixty years, nobody attacked inside the U S A borders and there’s been active terrorism going on for those entire sixty years that we were never attacked. Ever ask yourself why was that?
Personally I’m 99.999% sure its because the U S government became as corrupt as the Mafia in making enemies out of nations peoples that once had at least a modicrum of respect for the U S A before the greed driven U S corporations began stealing power from government, dictating policy, finally kidnapping justice and hiding it within the law and anyone not blind, deaf, and dumb with an IQ higher than a Daisy knows it too.
At present we don’t have anything but a cracked hollow shell of a United States of America left.
Rather, what we do have is a private sector United Corporate Ran America…and the wheels are starting to fall off which was bound to happen when their greed became so overt and massively widespread.
Rather than butting heads about who is or isn’t going to be elected president in November, people had better start thinking what’s going to happen if these oil speculators and totally unregulated oil corporation giants keep skyrocketing consumer pump prices and every transport company and individual transport truck drivers park their trucks and all the retail stores have empty shelves. No longer than two weeks of stores not having deliveries or enough deliveries especially to food stores and guess what happens. Revolution.
The simple fact is that “we the little people” in this nation have the power and always have had the power to control the goings on in this nation. It was given to us as a gift called our Constitution.
The problem is until the people in this nation can be shown they have a common enemy to fight and become truly united, we little people don’t realize they have the vast ownership of real absolute power.
When our government is all but unresponsive and fails to enforce the laws and Constitution, and a private sector business leadership that thinks anyone beneath them is so worthless that manufacturing their jobs can be sent out of the country, effecting their very survival, expect them to continue to buy all the price gouged consumer products and servicet and then foolishly think that this action will not cause an adverse domino effect tumbling down around their own ears in say a short seven to twelve years and have to go begging to the government ie the taxpayers, the very people they looked down on to bail them out.
Friends and neighbors we don’t need just a new president, another four to eight year transient occupant of the White House…we need a very nearly across the board NEW CONGRESS; as nearly unbiased group as possible of thinking people with fresh ideas making policy in our national seat of government! Very obviously the at constant loggerhead two party political system has failed and even splintered apart within each of the two major parties…and its time for an at least three major political party system where plurality votes crush loggerheaded nitwits that have been in congress for decades and haven’t had a fresh thought cross their minds in years, and plurality winning for all not just the democrats or 0republicans. I say this because the majority of voters in this nation DO NOT belong to either of those parties in any official capacity and vote not for the party but who they personally think best to do the job even if its a overall wearing hillbilly.
I never cast a vote for either the bush’s and wouldn’t cast a vote for sonny bush if he was running for dogcatcher. But I have an advantage over most people when it concerns g w bush…I’ve known him since 1967 when he was a punk little rich boy, when he wuz da big oil man in Midland and couldn’t drill through a Pennzoil oil can and find a drop…Arbusto? How about ARBUSTED…bush gutted and ruined every business he had direct operational control over…fact! If it wasn’t for Da Da and his Arab Bin Laden cousins especially Bandar bush/Bin Laden, george walker bush would be mucking out horse stalls somewhere.
Shoprat…have you ever wondered why the democrats held majority in the congress for well over half of last century? Look over your “right” shoulder in a mirror and then at the congress from the mid 1990′s to 2006 and the corruption that developed and now tearing this nation into shreds.
Things are going to get much worse for at least the next two years before any positive changes can be expected…you rah rah for war and now can’t win it rightwingers let it all go toooooo far for it to flipflop back on track with any deal of speed. And for anyone that thinks either McCain or Obama is going to pull off a miracle…well you have my sympathy.
Have you a nice day Shoprat….while you still can.
TP
Arlington, Texas
(I just love how the righties choose their own blog names…usually suits em to a tee every one.)
For Ken and Dana.
My first day here in “your moderated blog” and went to the About us section and could help but notice something you said that I put brackets on below:
About Us
This is the political website of Ken Vermillion and Dana Pico, mostly conservative, sometimes not, usually Republican, but not always. {We believe in the Bill of Rights,} {we believe in capitalism,} and {we believe in an aggressive foreign policy.} Political correctness will not be found here.
Care to tell me what the “Bill of Rights” is?
I know what you think it is, the first ten amendement to the Constitution popularly known as the Bill of Rights…which in actuality is merely a bill of privileges that the congress can change or even go so far as to repeal. And republicans and democrats are famous for trying to have one or more of the so-called bill of rights altered or repealed.
I too believe in capitalism, within reason, with enforced equitable fair regulation. Almost virtually unenforced regulations that has allowed greedy capitalists unrestrained activity is how the nation got into the mess its in in the first place. Regulations and laws without equal for all enforcement is like having no laws or regulations at all. Non enforcement of regulation and law is is exactly why people all over this nation can hardly step out their front doors without tripping over illegal aliens and don’t come back saying “illegal immigrant” because there is no such thing as an illegal immigrant. If you said “illegal alien wanna be immigrant” that jumps the gun breaking our immigration law with his/her first ILLEGAL step across our border I would agree.
Do keep in mind that violation our immigration law with their illegal entry is just the first crime they commit, second being entering the buyers end of forgery to acquire forged or stolen identity cards, greencards, social security cards, visas, etc. in order to further commit crime by using those documents and lie through their teeth to attain drivers licenses, public health ID’s etc.
On your statement of being for “aggressive foreign policy”…that’s painted with a paint roller that begs for explanation. I’d really like to hear what you have to say in detail on it. Even if I should not agree with you I can still respect it.
One thing written I was fairly impressed with was where you said “mostly conservative, sometimes not, usually Republican, but not always.
I too have many many conservative values but then again I can not only see over the other side of the fence but have been on the other side of the political fence more than a few times in my life when I deemed it correct to do so.
However as I see it today, there’s a broad void in what I know to be a true conservative and a modern day ultra right wing conservative that label themselves as republican. Those people are in fact why I formally resigned from the republican party after 27 years membership.
Are these statements “politically incorrect” enough for you moderate type folks? Candidly, from my seat, the words moderate and moderator equate the words censor and censorship. Editing is OK as long as it doesn’t go overboard and if I see my posts published in the blog it will say a lot about you and if I don’t see my posts, well that will say a lot more.
This is not for publication.
Edit the latter part of my last paragraph…I saw my first post..congratulations you folks are what you say you are…a rare and unusual commodity in our political world today.
When I see wrong I hit hard sometimes right and left and do it without apology…and I’m not above admitting that sometimes I am wrong on some things and I post that too.
WhahappenedtotheUSA Says:
July 25th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
But what would you classify the World Trade Center Bombing in March, 1993?
What happened: Due to thye unGodly amounts of Spam® out there, this site maintains a “moderation trigger” list. Something in your comment triggered the mod queue, both in the one above and another comment; I released them as soon as I saw them.
Since 2005, I have censored exactly one non-spam comment, when someone tried to use this site to “out” a supposedly closeted homosexual politician; even there, I simply redacted the name of the politician. I have edited a few other comments, usually to insert paragraph breaks when the author did not include them and they were too difficult to read without them, and a couple of really bad spellling errors.
But I don’t edit reader comment content in any other fashion.
Dana,
My reply to your email states my reason for making the inquiry about moderating. Copy and paste my reply in the blog if you wish.
But if you don’t then I will say publicly that there was no offense on my part intended.
Keep up the good work.
WhahappenedtotheUSA wrote:
My reply to your email states my reason for making the inquiry about moderating. Copy and paste my reply in the blog if you wish.
As you wish:
The reason it was released quickly was that I saw it quickly; I just happened to check very soon after you posted. It doesn’t always happen that fast.
For Yorkshire that said: But what would you classify the World Trade Center Bombing in March, 1993?
Yorkshire, Thanks for reminding me I was remiss in forgetting it. I forgot Oklahoma City in 1995 and the Unibomber of the 90′s as well, those too being terroristic acts. I’ll requalify by saying no major attacks on U S soil in those interim sixty years resulting in multiple thousands of deaths and other casualties.
Have you by any chance ever worked in the Pentagon?
The only thing that surprised the boys and girls that work at Fort Foul Up aka the Pentagon, (FFU is an insiders pet name) especially in the counter terror division was the fact that we weren’t attacked by terrorists on a major scale several times before September 2001; the nation’s borders and coastlines being wide open and vulnerable as they are.
Yorkshire, let me say this. It wouldn’t have mattered who was sitting in the White House nor which party said president was affiliated with in either the 1990′s or in 2001. There wasn’t then and still not now enough manpower and resources to stop a well trained, determined terrorist, or small team of terrorists totally unexpected attack.
The next “real” attack will come as suddenly and unexpected as the 911 incident at a time and place of the terrorists choosing.
Our government is doing its best to give the citizens a warm fuzzy feeling that they are actually doing something, and in small parts they are, a few feints have been found out and stopped.
But mostly the government is fumbling the ball by concentrating on the obvious, major border and seaports of entry.
Terrorists don’t operate like a railroad, with predictable schedules and routes and in the terse little book I wrote that was published August 2004 six full months before Homeland Security finally admitted that our nation was no safer…I proved my point.
If this makes you a bit curious and would inspire you to buy the book and see how I proved it just ask and I will give you the title of the book, the ISBN number and a website where the book is still being sold internationally. And believe me I just cited one scenario on how to enter this nation covertly destroy an entire major urban metroplex out of a dozen other scenarios that came off the top of my head. This may also give you a clue as to how in a former life the way I made my living.
So in summary let me say no one man president or not can be fully blamed for terrorist attacks occurring unless of course it could be discovered and proven beyond reasonable doubt that that person, president or not, had direct involvement in said act. However I think that even though the United States hasn’t done very well in not making more and more enemies around the world over the past several decades, that actual blame resides on the shoulders of the terrorist actors and their bosses.
Tom Pearson
Arlington, Texas
“Have you by any chance ever worked in the Pentagon?”
I did from about 1994 to 96 with the rebuilding team. I always called it “PPP” Puzzle Palace on the Potomac. The best view was always in my rear view mirror when driving out. In the gift shop there was a watercolor print of that.
The best I can say of the PPP was the cafeteria on the slow side. Best tuna steak sandwich for $3.00
I wasn’t on the inside workings of the place, but observing the place it seemed better suited for a museum at times. The Mac Arthur display is great. But as I keep digressing, it always seemed like everyone was in a hurry to do…… whatever.
The terrorist hit did prove one thing though. They hit the one area that was rebuilt and reinforced as it was redesigned. It did save lives by preventing instant collapse and allowed a lot of people to get out. Someone wanted to not install that to save money. It was insisted that it go in. It paid off.
In the for what it’s worth department, the real terror campaign of the Radical Islamists started in 1983. We were attacked several times here and abroad from then to 2001. There were some who saw it, but since nothing was “bothering” us here, it didn’t exist. Sort of the out of sight, out of mind trick we play on ourselves.
But the 90′s should have been a wake up call. But the political will was lacking. Prez Bubba was more interested in being popular. As we see, you don’t get popular by entangling yourself with things people would rather not do. But what was done in October 2001 in Afghanistan should have been done in 1993. But the political will was there, and Bubba didn’t want to sacrifice popularity to make the case.
On the flip side of Iraq, what is never brought up was how our “allies” that BO was courting the last few days were ready to throw in the sanctions towel against Iraq in 2003. France had abandoned all pretense of following them. Saddam was using oil money on himself, and the will to maintain sanctions was disolving everyday.
Since 911 is still in our thoughts…..
Since 11/12/2001 I heard people talk and have read articles and posts in blogs on the web from some fairly well thought out speculation, to some of the most ridiculous conspiracy theory imaginable on “WHAT “HAPPENED” THAT DAY.”
Well I was at home that day and pretty much saw with my own eyes what happened that day..terrorists crashed planes into U S buildings.
But due to some great deal of specialized training in that former life I hinted about earlier, I was puzzled about WHAT DIDN’T HAPPEN THAT DAY, THAT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED after that first plane hit that first WTC tower.
First one has to know about our civilian/military radar control operation that overlap each other, both operating under U S Government authority… and just in case one of the system in an area fails. In the event one of the other systems goes down, the other system picks up the slack for that particular area of control for both military and civilian air traffic until the other is back up and running. When this happens its ulcer medicine time in the RTC shacks…just ask my half brother Jimmy Tarver that was the Chief RTC for San Francisco/Oakland at Fremont Center if that’s not true.
Now here is the first thing that DIDN’T HAPPEN on 911 and both the civilian and military RTC system were up and operating normally.
After it was concluded and corroborated that an airliner had crashed into that first tower, an automatic first standby alert to the area Air Defense Command duty ready interceptors that should have been issued was not issued by either the New York civilian RTC OOD authority or the military RTC OOD…just in case…something was amiss. These standby just in case alerts ARE automatic as mandated by federal law since shortly after the onset of the Cold War.
I have watched the movie Flight 93 over and over again and if one tenth of it has any shred of credibility to it all I can say is the taxpayers are paying out tens of millions and billions of dollars for a C and M RTC hardware system and an indecisive personnel staff that couldn’t hit the street with their hats; especially when they discovered over their radio networks other planes were being high jacked and more especially after that second plane hit the second WTC tower when a general “this is no drill” alert by mandate should have been issued. But none of that happened until almost 35 minutes after the first tower was hit then for some unknown reason the alert aircraft were either misdirected or self directed east, out to sea. But I will accept that all these things failed out of happenstance bad luck.
But now I come to what has left me thinking ever since that horrible day and that third plane crashed into the Pentagon where I worked for almost three years back in the seventies.
Washington D C and the surrounding area has been heavily guarded against attack that might come from the air and from long range at sea almost from the onset of the Cold War.
There exists around and even inside Washington D C, since the mid 1970′s the most heavily guarded city on the planet, an anti aircraft missile cordon situated in several separated (can’t say how many) concentric rings around that area to ensure that if the area was attacked from the air that no aircraft would even get close to the Capitol, White House, Pentagon and other designated buildings vital to the continuance of an operating government coming under sudden attack.
These anti aircraft missiles are under the direct control of the Air Defense Command staffed 24/7/365 and has is own operating search radar system operating in conjunction with other civilian/military radar for the WDC area.
In the event that attack is imminent on Washington, there is NO MANDATE for seeking permission to launch and shoot down any threat.
And that leaves me to wonder how on Earth that rapidly descending air liner flying some 500 mph ever got close to the Pentagon unless everybody in a position of responsibility went to sleep at the switch.
These things cited didn’t happen but I won’t try to even speculate as to why and I doubt that we will ever know why. But I have a feeling that more than border security need to be beefed up if we are to have any security in this nation at all.
The sad thing is we know a lot about 9/11. Unfortunately that knowledge is probably in the low double digit percentage points. The rest we might not really want to know.
Yorkshire,
Have you ever thought from a Logistician’s standpoint as to why we have not been attacked here in the past several years.
Terrorists have plenty of money available but not nearly the money a nation as large as the U S A has to spend.
If I were one of those terrorist leaders, from an economic standpoint alone I would automatically know when my enemy sends his people into my web voluntarily, why should I send people that may not be successful into his web and save my money for another time when my enemy is less available where I live.
This hit and strike when and where its least expected guerrilla warfare, popularly called Terror War, has been the bane and dread of our counter terror planning people in the Pentagon for well over fifty years.
The United States spent 14 years in the SEATO trying to fight and win war against primarily guerrillas, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia and we lost our tails not to mention the almost 59,000 men and women lives lost.
And here we are again up to our ears in the same type guerrilla war now going in its eighth year with no end in sight.
Yes. Yes. Activity has slowed to hit and run but if you have noticed the hit and run is spread out further which cause “us” to use up available personnel and resources and send in more personnel and recources which in essence is wearing our people ragged as well as wearing out transport aircraft and cargo ships and their respective crews.
War should be fought to a decisive exact end period like World Wars I and II were and the last wars won and aside a couple of minor league raids the other conflicts were a tenuous stalemate, Korea and an outright loss the so called Viet Nam war, my war for thirty nine months.
At times it is necessary and just for a nation to enter into war and other times not and especially NOT when entry into war is based on faulty or manipulated intelligence data and/or both bald faced lies.
In my own opinion, Iraq as a war waging nation was defeated in 1991 and all the rest was Hussain brag and saber rattling…and if he was to be taken out his own gutless citizens could have done it themselves.
No person on Earth, unless he lives in complete guarded seclusion is beyond the reach of sights a well trained assassin. Especially now in an era where weapons can be guided up a person’s nose.
In any case with the Hussain’s of the world fight fire with fire…had I been in authority I would have done, quietly of course, is give one of those “I wanna be a hero martyr” Arabs fifty thousand and furnished his strap on bomb to kill Hussain.
Libya’s Daffy Kadaffy sure got religion and oh so respectful after the attack where once again bad information prevented his death.
Before all out major war is proposed much less declared, every other avenue of resolution should be implemented first, for all any war is, is the ultimate end result of failed diplomacy.
Yorkshire said: The sad thing is we know a lot about 9/11. Unfortunately that knowledge is probably in the low double digit percentage points. The rest we might not really want to know.
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How could I help but not agree with you 100%.
Truth and learning the truth can at times not only hurt, it can be as destructive as an atom bomb should it effect something on the scale of an entire nation.