Dick Cheney is unpatriotic pond scum. His latest round of Obama bashing has taken him down to a new level. It’s one thing to disagree with policy, but Cheney has resorted to the lowest level of personal attack on the President.

Cheney addressing the latest attempt by Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab to blow up an airliner in flight said in his acerbic statement:

He seems to think if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of 9/11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core al Qaeda-trained terrorists still there, we won’t be at war.”

Cheney also said Obama outwardly “pretends we aren’t at war” and he repeated his months-long criticism that the new president has made America “less safe.”

Cheney also asked in his patented sardonic way:

Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war? It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency: social transformation, the restructuring of American society.”

Cheney seems to think we are at war with a state. Wrong. We are at war with an ideology. There are no western fronts to line up the artillery and blast them to smithereens, or unload the latest 30,000 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bomb on the communication center. Even Patton couldn’t pull this one off.

These guy’s communication center is a cave somewhere in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

Cheney blasts the current administration for the exact same decision the Bush administration made with Richard Reid, you know, the shoe bomber? Bush was on vacation when that incident happened. 6 days later he made a comment.

Reid was tried, convicted and sentenced in Federal court. Same with Zacarias Moussaoui.

Apparently, Cheney doesn’t have any faith in a U.S. Justice Department when he is not pulling the strings. I guess he is also still pissed that Scooter Libby didn’t get off scott free.

Cheney is trying to put the Obama administration in as bad a light as he can so he hopes the public will forget just what deep shit the Bush administration (with his blessing, of course) put us in. Their administration drove us to the brink of financial insolvency, started a war with a country that had zero to do with the 9/11 attacks, and alienated the U.S. from all but our stanchest allies.  

9/11 happened on the Bush/Cheney watch. We should never forget that. They had the intelligence that Bin Laden was going to try something, but they sat on that. Then they blamed Iraq, and started that war and basically forgot about Afghanistan.

White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer wrote on the official White House blog:

It is telling that Vice President Cheney and others seem to be more focused on criticizing the Administration than condemning the attackers…

For seven years after 9/11, while our national security was overwhelmingly focused on Iraq — a country that had no al Qaeda presence before our invasion — Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda’s leadership was able to set up camp in the border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan, where they continued to plot attacks against the United States…

Meanwhile, al Qaeda also regenerated in places like Yemen and Somalia, establishing new safe-havens that have grown over a period of years. It was President Obama who finally implemented a strategy of winding down the war in Iraq, and actually focusing our resources on the war against al Qaeda…

Seven years of bellicose rhetoric failed to reduce the threat from al Qaeda and succeeded in dividing this country. And it seems strangely off-key now, at a time when our country is under attack, for the architect of those policies to be attacking the president.

Strangely off-key indeed. Turn in your U.S. lapel pin Mr. Cheney. If you think our government isn’t doing all that’s humanly possible to protect you, then leave. Your vitriolic partisan bullshit is no longer relevant.

So, what do you do when you can’t move forward? Well, you move back, of course. And that’s exactly what the RNC is doing in their latest attempt at sobriety. A  new resolution that calls on party members to stand up to President Obama’s “socialist” agenda and would prohibit RNC funds from going to GOP candidates who disagree with elements of a proposed ten plank ideological platform. Oh, is that what you call it?

Well, here is the latest version of the aforementioned resolution in all its resplendent glory, with my observations notated in-line, bolded & italicized:

Proposed RNC Resolution on Reagan’s Unity Principle for Support of Candidates WHEREAS, President Ronald Reagan believed that the Republican Party should support and espouse conservative principles and public policies; and

WHEREAS, President Ronald Reagan also believed the Republican Party should welcome those with diverse views [Except for those that don't agree with us]; and

WHEREAS, President Ronald Reagan believed, as a result, that someone who agreed with him 8 out of 10 times was his friend [Just not as good a friend who agreed with 10 out of 10 times ], not his opponent; and

WHEREAS, Republican faithfulness to its conservative principles and public policies and Republican solidarity in opposition to Obama’s socialist agenda is necessary to preserve the security of our country, our economic and political freedoms, and our way of life [That is if our health care holds out ]; and

WHEREAS, Republican faithfulness to its conservative principles and public policies is necessary to restore the trust of the American people in the Republican Party [By keeping our collective penises in our pants] and to lead to Republican electoral victories; and

WHEREAS, the Republican National Committee shares President Ronald Reagan’s belief that the Republican Party should espouse conservative principles and public policies and welcome persons of diverse views [Except for those that don't agree with us]; and

WHEREAS, the Republican National Committee desires to implement President Reagan’s Unity Principle for Support of Candidates [Read: you better agree with us]; and

WHEREAS, in addition to supporting candidates, the Republican National Committee provides financial support for Republican state and local parties for party building and federal election activities, which benefits all candidates and is not affected by this resolution [Except for those that don't agree with us]; and

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Republican National Committee identifies ten (10) key public policy positions for the 2010 election cycle, which the Republican National Committee expects its public officials and candidates to support:

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill [Except for fact that Bush signed off on the 1st stimulus package, cause well, we were dying out there at the time.];

(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare [Because the market did such a great job with the banking and financial industries];

(3) We support market-based energy reforms[Because the market did such a great job with the banking and financial industries] by opposing cap and trade legislation;

(4) We support workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check [Because we like secret in general];

(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants [Except for those that perform the menial labor tasks so we can eat];

(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges [Man, we love that word - surge. Just makes you feel, well, virulent - Hey, penises in the pants!];

(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat [Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran...you know how the rest goes];

(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act [Because homosexual activity should be kept where it belongs - in the public restrooms of the Minneapolis Airport];

(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing, denial of health care and government funding of abortion [Because the market will take care of it]; and

(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership [Because Dick Cheney says so...QUAIL! PULL!]; and be further

RESOLVED, that a candidate who disagrees with three or more of the above stated public policy positions of the Republican National Committee, as identified by the voting record, public statements and/or signed questionnaire of the candidate, shall not be eligible for financial support and endorsement by the Republican National Committee;[And will be subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques personally by Dick Cheney] and be further

RESOLVED, that upon the approval of this resolution the Republican National Committee shall deliver a copy of this resolution to each of Republican members of Congress, all Republican candidates for Congress, as they become known, and to each Republican state and territorial party office.

Chief Sponsor:
James Bopp, Jr. NCM IN

Sponsors:
Avie Axdahl NCW MN
Donna Cain NCW OR
Cindy Costa NCW SC
Demetra Demonte NCW IL
Peggy Lambert NCW TN
Carolyn McLarty NCW OK
Pete Rickets NCM NE
Steve Scheffler NCM IA
Helen Van Etten NCW KA
Solomon Yue NCM OR

So let it be written, so let it be done.

The all knowing and all powerful Rush Limbaugh said on “Fox News Sunday” that President Obama is “pursuing a ‘radical’ agenda that is putting the economy and national security in peril.”

And who should know more about pursuing a radical agenda than Rush Limbaugh. The man can’t even properly vet “news” stories. He reported the “story” of President Barack Obama slamming the Constitution in his college thesis as fact on his show. But after Limbaugh found out the piece was a fake, he didn’t apologize for his mistake, he just said something like “well, it sounds right.”

He calls Obama a “child” driven by his “out-of-this-world ego.”

Rush, I thought you were off the Oxycontin.

Rush goes on to say that “And when they get this health care bill — if they do — that’s the easiest, fastest way for them to be able to regulate every aspect of human behavior, because it will all have some related cost to health care — what you drive, what you eat, where you live, what you do — and there will be penalties for violating regulation. It’s going to be the biggest snatch of freedom and liberty that has yet occurred in this country.”

I guess it does make sense that a fat, drug addicted person might be nervous of the ramifications of health care reform. It might tighten up “doctor shopping”. I can see where Rush might be upset about that. Personally, I can’t wait for the regulation of insurance companies. They have been ripping off the average consumer for years.

Rush, take a look back at how well the “free market” regulated itself in the banking industry. And look at the rate of increase of health care premiums and services over the last 10 years. The average person doesn’t have the millions of dollars like you do to be able buy the best health care. $12,000 a year for premiums is just out of reach for the average worker.

And it’s the average worker who keeps people like you in business.

Remember those lyrics from Arlo Guthre’s “Alice’s Restaurant”?

“And I proceeded to tell him the story of the twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and the paragraph on the back of each one, and he stopped me right there and said, “Kid, I want you to go and sit down on that bench that says Group W …. NOW kid!!”

And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W’s where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father rapers! Father rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me! And they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the bench next to me.”

Now, let’s set aside the Group W irony for a moment.

Mother rapers, father stabbers, father rapers, oh my!

Liz Cheney is a fact stabber, or worse, a fact raper!

She says that W (that would be George W, not Group w) did not want to close Gitmo. Wrong. He said he would like to close it in 2006:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-06-14-bush-gitmo_x.htm

She says that her father never made an Iraq to 9/11 connection. Wrong.

In a 2003 interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Cheney said that “the Czechs alleged that Mohamed Atta, the lead attacker, met in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official five months before the attack.” And of course there were many “soft” references to Iraq over the years by Mr. Cheney.

Liz Cheney said on the syndicated Fox News Radio John Gibson Show suggesting President Bush honored America’s heroes with a bit more class than his successor.

I think that what President Bush used to do is do it without the cameras. And I don’t understand sort of showing up with the White House Press Pool with photographers and asking family members if you can take pictures. That’s really hard for me to get my head around…It was a surprising way for the president to choose to do this.”

Wrong. As we know, Bush never made a trip to Dover. Ever. CBS’s Mark Knoller reported yesterday that Obama was the first president to visit arriving dead at Dover during the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq.

Liz Cheney is a fact stabber…a fact raper! I wish she would just go sit down on the Group W bench and just shut the hell up. It’s one thing to debate a position. It’s quite another to pull facts out of your ass.

We’ve had enough “ass pulled” facts over the 8 years of the Bush administration, thank you very much.

You’ve heard of FreedomWorks.org, right? The ‘grassroots’ site signing up Americans in droves to protest against government at every turn.

I was poking around on their website, and it was what’s in the footer that got my attention:

It’s a little hard to see, but it says:

Never believe it when someone says, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” – Dick Armey

Now, this is just my opinion, but isn’t that just a little incongruous coming from a former member of Congress. He was a former U.S. Representative from Texas’s 26th congressional district (1985–2003) and House Majority Leader (1995–2003). He has had a fair bit of constructing the government as we know it over his years in office.

Mr. Armey has had some less than becoming incidents over the years though:

• Several of his former female economics students went public with stories of his sexually harassing them — harassment allegedly so severe that at least one student transferred to another school. He would later divorce his wife and marry one of his students.

• In 1995 Armey referred to openly homosexual Congressman Barney Frank, as “Barney Fag”. Armey said it was a slip of the tongue.

• In August 2009 Armey was asked to step down from his lobbying position at DLA Piper, which was doing lobbying work for the pharmaceutical industry to pass health care reform legislation. Armey was simultaneously chairing the conservative group FreedomWorks which was actively working to defeat health care reform by encouraging and organizing high conservative turnouts at congressional and senatorial town hall meetings. DLA Piper was concerned about the conflict of interest particularly since their clients were spending millions in advertising and lobbying money to support the passage of health care reform and FreedomWorks was linked to demonstrations at town hall forums where health care reform was being discussed.

But it’s that statement in the footer of the website that really gets to me. Sure, our government has its issues. Each administration brings its own baggage along as well.

He isn’t saying “I’m from the Obama Administration, and I’m hear to help.” He isn’t saying “I’m from the Veterans Administration, and I’m hear to help.”

At least you could say he was protesting against a certain part of the government.

He is saying “Never believe it when someone says, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

That statement just seems to me to be, well, Anti-American.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Wednesday night accused the White House of “dithering” over the strategy for the war in Afghanistan.

Dithering you say Mr. Former V.P.? Better than being a blathering idiot.

So let me get this straight. Terrorists attack the US. Your administration determines that it’s the Taliban that’s responsible. Your administration also determines they are operating out of bases in Afghanistan. Your administration then sends troops to Afghanistan, which like 99.99% of the country supported. The date: 10/07/2001.

Then, your administration decided that Iraq was so much more of a threat and decided to start a war. The date: 03/19/2003.

At the height of the Iraq surge, 26,000 US troops were in Afghanistan and 160,000 in Iraq.

8 years later, and where is Osama Bin Laden? You had him in your sights, and you let him get away. Then, you start the war with Iraq. Weapons of mass destruction and all. What did you find? Nada, squat, zero, zilch. You found an old man in a hole and declared Mission Accomplished. After your administration screwed it up, now the current administration dithers?

The White House must stop dithering while America’s armed forces are in danger. It’s time for President Obama to do what it takes to win a war he has repeatedly and rightly called a war of necessity.”

So this war wasn’t a necessity when you were in office? 6 times the number of troops in Iraq than in Afghanistan? So the Afghan war was for you, what, like a hike in the woods? Why didn’t you take care of business while you were in office.

Please just fade away Mr. Cheney. We have had enough of your blathering nonsense. Your legacy has already been written.

Just go duck hunting…

Gov. Tim Pawlenty rolled out a series of new health care initiatives yesterday. I feel sorry for Minnesotans already…

Gov. Pawlenty made clear that the proposals are intended to be a “market driven” contrast to President Obama’s health care plan currently being debated in Washington.

“Market Driven”. Oh, you mean profit motivated. Continue…

He termed the Democratic health care bill that ultimately emerged from the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday as “a tax and spending bill masquerading as a health reform bill.”

Oh, you mean stop anything that will help the average citizen. Continue…

• The first part of his proposal would let Minnesotans purchase health insurance plans across state lines.

And interstate banking paved the way. And we all know how well that worked. Continue…

• The second part of his proposal would establish a “tiered provider system” for the state-run programs MinnesotaCare and Minnesota Advantage that would make consumers pay more for clinics.

And paying more is…what the average consumer wants? Is he taking a queue from cable companies? Continue…

• The third part of the plan would require adults making at least 133 percent of the federal poverty level pay for some of the health care expenses under MinnesotaCare.

And paying more is, again, beneficial how to the average consumer? The Republicans just don’t get it. Screwing the average working consumer is not in the best interest of the country. Stop throwing Hitler’s name around and get to work on getting a cohesive, well thought out plan implemented.

People are dying, literally dying, every day for health care reform.

Just do it, or get the hell out of the way.

The White House is calling a report by America’s Health Insurance Plans “…self-serving analysis from the insurance industry, one of the major opponents of health insurance reform.”

Among other items, the report says:

• Health insurance premiums for the typical American family would increase by another $4,000 by 2019

• Premiums for individuals could rise by an extra $1,500 if the Baucus plan is implemented

• A proposed tax on employer-sponsored, high-cost “Cadillac” plans could result in higher premiums for many private consumers

White House spokesman Reid Cherlin responded:

This is a self-serving analysis from the insurance industry, one of the major opponents of health insurance reform.

It comes on the eve of a vote that will reduce the industry’s profits. It is hard to take it seriously. The analysis completely ignores critical policies [that] will lower costs for those that have insurance, expand coverage and provide affordable health insurance options to millions of Americans who are priced out of today’s health insurance market or are locked out by unfair insurance company practices.”

And this is a shock to anyone? The insurance industry is rightfully sweating bullets now. What is being proposed will create a sea change for them, and after years of tweaking the for profit system they have in place now, they are scared of what may be coming.

Why wait to the end of the process?

Strategery…

Get those consumers fired up just before the vote, put that uncertainty cloud out there again, and who knows, profit may reign king once more.

Just in case you are wondering what the mission of America’s Health Insurance Plans is, here is a blurb from their website (emphasis is mine):

America’s Health Insurance Plans is a national association representing nearly 1,300 members providing health benefits to more than 200 million Americans.  AHIP and its predecessor organizations have advocated on behalf of health insurance plans for more than six decades.

AHIP’s principal purpose is to represent the interests of our members on legislative and regulatory issues at the federal and state levels, and with the media, consumers and employers.  We provide information and services, such as newsletters, publications, a magazine, and on-line services. We conduct education, research, and quality assurance programs and engage in a host of other activities to assist our members.  All our programs are designed to serve our member organizations and to inform policy makers and the public about health care financing and delivery.

Our goal is to provide a unified voice for the healthcare financing industry, to expand access to high quality, cost effective health care to all Americans, and to ensure Americans’ financial security through robust insurance markets, product flexibility and innovation, and an abundance of consumer choice.

Explain to me again what a robust market is?

Iran’s supreme leader on Sunday blasted U.S. plans to overhaul the setup for a missile defense shield in Europe, calling the Obama administration’s intentions “anti-Iranian,” state-run media reported.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said:

This is something that is in the doctrine of anti-Iranianism, since the policy and the 30-year-old history of the Islamic Republic has proven that Iran wants to live in peace and under the spirit of equality and fraternity, with its Muslim neighbors and the rest of the world.”

Obama said the change of gears was based on an “updated intelligence assessment” about Iran’s ability to hit Europe with missiles.

So this is the tit-for-tat that has been going on with Iran since the Islamic Revolution. Classic Middle Eastern “negotiation”. North Korea plays this game too. Unfortunately, it will be another 8 to 12 years of sanctions and forcing Iran’s leadership to over spend on the military, as well as  to find a way to support the grass root movement, to finally get the people to revolt back to the future. Soviet Union redux.

You can’t change Iran without getting the common folks on board first. Unlike Iraq, these guys probably do have a nuke in the oven and would use it if attacked.

Fox News ran a newspaper ad today accusing the network news organizations and the other cable news outlets of not covering the Tea Party protests last weekend in Washington.

Of course, all the outlets did cover it, and they all put out statements to that effect.

Fox News. UnFair and UnBalanced.  I mean really. They could have said that the others didn’t cover the rally as much as they did or as intensely as they did. That would be fair.

Fox is really stretching the boundaries of even an entertainment channel now. 1st Glenn Beck seeing carvings on the 30 Rockefeller Center complex as past predictions of Obama’s coming, now outright lies about competitor coverage.  What’s next, on air fights with Keith Olbermann?

I think someone needs to check on the tea the folks over at Fox are drinking.