American Exceptionalism

By Jeff Simpson

Interesting report coming out for our friends on the right who keep defending torture.

“Debating about it, ummm … Some of the worst things that happened you don’t know about, okay? Videos, um, there are women there. Some of you may have read that they were passing letters out, communications out to their men. This is at Abu Ghraib … The women were passing messages out saying ‘Please come and kill me, because of what’s happened’ and basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. And the worst above all of that is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror. It’s going to come out.”
“It’s impossible to say to yourself how did we get there? Who are we? Who are these people that sent us there? When I did My Lai I was very troubled like anybody in his right mind would be about what happened. I ended up in something I wrote saying in the end I said that the people who did the killing were as much victims as the people they killed because of the scars they had, I can tell you some of the personal stories by some of the people who were in these units witnessed this. I can also tell you written complaints were made to the highest officers and so we’re dealing with a enormous massive amount of criminal wrongdoing that was covered up at the highest command out there and higher, and we have to get to it and we will. We will. You know there’s enough out there, they can’t (Applause). …. So it’s going to be an interesting election year.”

It really shows you what a sick twisted person Dick Cheney(and the rest of the Bush Administration that condoned this) is.    Remember this when your Republican uncle tells you how necessary torture was, right after explaining that Jesus is the reason for the Season.

Quack Walker

By Jeff Simpson 

Scott Walker has proven, four years into being Governor, that he likes to take Wisconsin backwards.   Walker, being ever the opportunist, and master campaigner, has decided to cash in on his regressive policies!   

Annual fall, play duck hunt with Gov. Scott Walker

W9489 Affeldt Road,
New London.

$1000 per person to play duck hunt
$250/$500 for just a hot dog and a jolly good.

Please make checks payable to: Friends of Scott Walker

To express your dismay, please contact
Laura Gralton at 414-881-1005 / Laura@Graltonconsulting.com or
Colleen Coyle at 608-239-5601 or Colleen@ScottWalker.com

In our depressed Walker economy, its amazing that people still have $1000 of disposable income to play a thirty year old video game!   It does make sense though, over the years Atari has been owned by several different entities and so has Scott Walker.

As always, we at CogDis are on the cutting edge and are able to bring you a picture from last years astounding play duck hunt event! 

Also rumor has it that Dick Cheney will be in attendance(unconfirmed), so make sure all of your affairs are in order before attending!  

Quack Quack

        

More About The IRS "Scandal"

By Jeff Simpson

The IRS "scandal" is starting to dwindle and now the righties are desperate.  They want something, anything to stick on the president to cover up their own incompetence.  However its just not working. 

Let's take a look at some real History that they keep leaving out.

First thing is " NOT Just right wing hate groups were "targeted"....

Of the 298 groups subjected to additional review, 72 were “tea party” groups, 11 were “9/12″ groups and 13 were “patriots” groups, according to the inspector general’s report.

 
Secondly.....really no one knew how to be vindictive and attack your opponents using the full force of OUR Government better than Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and George W Bush:

4. The Bush Justice Department Targeted Democrats for Prosecution. Back in 2007, the House Judiciary Committee investigated charges that attorney general Alberto Gonzales singled out prominent Democrats for prosecution, specifically Pennsylvania Democrats -- an assertion that was backed up by Dick Thornburgh, the attorney general under Reagan and Bush 41.
5. The Attorney Firing Scandal. Of course there was the attorney firing scandal in which the Bush Justice Department fired a slate of U.S. attorneys for strictly partisan reasons, either because the attorneys were prosecuting too many Republicans or because they weren't prosecuting enough Democrats.
6. The Bush IRS Audited Greenpeace and the NAACP. Not only was the NAACP suspiciously audited during Bush's 2004 re-election campaign, but high-profile Republicans like Joe Scarborough had previously supported an audit of the organization even though he's suddenly shocked by the current IRS audit story. Also in 2004, the Wall Street Journal reported that the IRS audited the hyper-liberal group Greenpeace at the request of Public Interest Watch, a group that's funded by Exxon-Mobil.

 Third, according to Statistical guru Nate Silver, it doesn't make logical sense.

The point is, however, that even with no political targeting at all, hundreds of thousands of conservative voters would have been chosen for audits in the I.R.S.’s normal course of business. Among these hundreds of thousands of voters, thousands would undoubtedly have gone beyond merely voting to become political activists.
The fact that Ms. Noonan has identified four conservatives from that group of thousands provides no evidence at all toward her hypothesis. Nor would it tell us very much if dozens or even hundreds of conservative activists disclosed that they had been audited. This is exactly what you would expect in a country where there are 1.5 million audits every year.

Quote of the Day!

By

Jeff Simpson

He really said this:

“The performance now of Barack Obama as he staffs up the national security team for the second term is dismal,” Dick Cheney said.
“Frankly, what he has appointed are second-rate people,” he added.

Yes the Dick Cheney who was Vice President during the biggest attack on our soil in history, championed torture ,  helped out an undercover CIA agent and received five draft deferments to avoid serving in Vietnam, calls others "second-rate" people

 

Mitt's So Bain!

We wrote about how Mitt not only got Booed at the NAACP convention, but that is exactly what he wanted to happen!

Despite being caught red-handed in a serious lie, Mitt instead of owning up to his dishonesty(what republican ever takes personal responsibility) instead Mitt doubled down.  Not only did he not clear things up, Romney demanded an apology from President Obama.  The President and his team came out with one of the better political ads I have seen! 

                                 

As for calling out Mitt for his despicable actions of the last few days, Matt Taibi from Rolling Stone was incredibly harsher than I was:  

Romney really showed us something in his luridly self-congratulating N.A.A.C.P. gambit, followed by the awesomely disgusting "free stuff" post-mortem speech he delivered the next night in front of friendlier audiences. The twin appearances revealed the candidate to be not merely unlikable, and not merely a fatuous, unoriginal hack of politician, but also a genuinely repugnant human being, a grasping corporate hypocrite with so little feel for how to get along with people that he has to dream up elaborate schemes just to try to pander to the mob.

Taibi also took umbrage for Mitt's speech the next night implying that the african american audience only wanted "free  stuff":

So now this is the message: I tried to reason with the blacks, I really did, but it turns out they just want a free lunch.

How’s that for bridging the racial divide? Time to wake up the Nobel committee in Oslo!

As far as free lunches go, we of course just witnessed the biggest government handout in history, one that Romney himself endorsed. Four and a half trillion dollars in bailout money already disbursed, trillions more still at risk in guarantees and loans, sixteen trillion dollars in emergency lending from the Federal Reserve, two trillion in quantitative easing, etc. etc. All of this money went to Romney’s pals in the Wall Street banks that for years helped Romney take over companies with mountains of borrowed cash. Now, after these banks crashed, executives at those same firms used those public funds to pay themselves massive salaries, which is exactly the opposite of “helping those who need help,” if you’re keeping score.

That set of facts alone made the “free stuff” speech shockingly offensive. But the problem isn’t just that Romney’s wrong, and a hypocrite, and cynically furthering dangerous and irresponsible stereotypes in order to advance some harebrained electoral ploy involving white conservative voters. What makes it gross is the way he did it.

 Also one last typical story from Mitt Romney is he recently attended a fundraiser, where Dick  "13% approval rating" Cheney endorsed him.  What is funny is, that everyone knows that Dick Cheney is Coyote Ugly!  In fact Dick Cheney is so politically ugly and unpopular that Mitt forbid anyone from taking a picture of the two of them together! 

Mitt's NAACP Gamble

We covered Mitt 's speech at the NAACP the other day where he brought up wanting to end Obamacare and was summarily booed! It turns out that was not the end of the story.  There is much more here, that shows that Mitt made an intentional gamble and we will see how it plays out.

According to the Washington Post, Mitt got EXACTLY what he was looking for:

Was he hoping to be booed, as Nancy Pelosi has suggested? Well, Romney himself told Neil Cavuto of Fox News that he’d fully expected the reaction he got. He can’t have been innocent of the fact that the term ‘Obamacare’ is a provocation to many Democrats. Or unaware that describing the president as someone who “has not, will not, cannot” create jobs went beyond just saying the rivals disagree. The post-boo brouhaha has been great for Romney. And given that the man is no fool, I vote that those dots don’t need much connecting.

The former Massachusetts governor didn’t go to the NAACP expecting to win votes. In fact, his true audience wasn’t the one in Houston, but the one in Montana, at a fund-raiser later the same day, where he bragged about giving his NAACP hosts heck:

“When I mentioned I am going to get rid of ‘Obamacare,’ they weren’t happy. I didn’t get the same response” as here. That’s OK; I want people to know what I stand for and if I don’t stand for what they want, go vote for someone else, that’s just fine. But I hope people understand this: Your friends who like ‘Obamacare,’ you remind them of this, if they want more stuff from government, tell them to go vote for the other guy — more free stuff. But don’t forget, nothing is really free.”

That he’s trumpeting to donors how he’s just disabused black voters of thinking they were gonna get “more free stuff” is indeed a bold move — boldly ugly, that is. Somewhere, Newt “Give Those Kids a Mop” Gingrich is thinking he and old Mitt have more in common than he knew.

Michael Tomasky from the Dailybeast was NOT so kind: 

 Until yesterday, I thought of Mitt Romney as a spineless, disingenuous, and supercilious but more or less decently intentioned person who at least wasn’t the race-mongering pyromaniac that some other Republican candidates of my lifetime have been. Then he gave his speech to the NAACP, and now I think of him as a spineless, disingenuous, supercilious, race-mongering pyromaniac who is very poorly intentioned indeed, and woe to us if this man sets foot in the White House as anything but a tourist.

The really strange story out of this whole thing, is that Mitt traveled with his own group of African Americans to make absolutely sure he got exactly what he wanted out of his NAACP speech. 

Many of Romney’s claims were debunked by Senior Vice President for Advocacy and Policy and the Director of the Washington Bureau of the NAACP, Hilary Shelton who said that the only African Americans Romney met with after his speech were those that he brought with him. Mr. Shelton explained that Mitt Romney flew in his own African-American supporters who were not affiliated with the NAACP, in order to have some people in the crowd cheering for him.

 It is sad, but not surprising,  that we are only in July and Mitt and the republicans think its necessary to rile up the far right racist element of their party.  It is sad, but not surprising,  that instead of talking issues they are trying to create a divide between the people.  It is sad, but not surprising, that with party "leaders' like Reince Priebus and Karl Rove that they are going to play the race card early and often(they do have a history of it).  Finally it is sad, but not surprising, that Mitt Romney just can not tell the truth!  

Finally, because it fits so well into this story, and outside of the most extreme fringe of the republican party, no one cares, but Dick Cheney went out on a huge limb and endorsed Mitt Rmoney! 

Bush Knew

Over 120 new documents were released by the CIA regarding 9/11 and they are not flattering to the Bush Administration. Here are some highlights (emphasis mine):

The material contains much new information about the hunt before and after 9/11 for bin Laden, the development of the drone campaign in AfPak, and al-Qaida’s relationship with America’s ally, Pakistan. Perhaps most damning are the documents showing that the CIA had bin Laden in its cross hairs a full year before 9/11 — but didn’t get the funding from the Bush administration White House to take him out or even continue monitoring him. The CIA materials directly contradict the many claims of Bush officials that it was aggressively pursuing al-Qaida prior to 9/11, and that nobody could have predicted the attacks.

The National Security Archive and the person who edited these documents points out this is not good for the Bush Legacy.  

 “I don’t think the Bush administration would want to see these released, because they paint a picture of the CIA knowing something would happen before 9/11, but they didn’t get the institutional support they needed,” says Barbara Elias-Sanborn, the NSA fellow who edited the materials.

Do not worry, it gets even worse for the Bush Administration:

 Many of the documents publicize for the first time what was first made clear in the 9/11 Commission: The White House received a truly remarkable amount of warnings that al-Qaida was trying to attack the United States. From June to September 2001, a full seven CIA Senior Intelligence Briefs detailed that attacks were imminent, an incredible amount of information from one intelligence agency. One from June called “Bin-Ladin and Associates Making Near-Term Threats” writes that “[redacted] expects Usama Bin Laden to launch multiple attacks over the coming days.” The famous August brief called “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike the US” is included. “Al-Qai’da members, including some US citizens, have resided in or travelled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure here,” it says

 Of course know that clearing brush and taking pictures took priority over any attempt to keep Americans safe:

During the entire month of August, President Bush was on vacation at his ranch in Texas — which tied with one of Richard Nixon’s as the longest vacation ever taken by a president. CIA Director George Tenet has said he didn’t speak to Bush once that month, describing the president as being “on leave.” Bush did not hold a Principals’ meeting on terrorism until September 4, 2001, having downgraded the meetings to a deputies’ meeting, which then-counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke has repeatedly said slowed down anti-Bin Laden efforts “enormously, by months.”

3000 + innocent American Lives and trillions of dollars are gone because of the incompetence of the Bush Administration and now Karl Rove and his Anti-American group Crossroads GPS are trying to influence elections and bring us back to the days when terrorists ran unchecked.  

Are we going to let them?   

Literally Adding Insult To Injury

From behind the paywall at Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

A 55-year-old Dane County man is in the hospital after his friend mistook him for a turkey and shot him in the face with a shotgun Sunday morning.

Preliminary investigation shows the 55-year-old, who is from Deforest north of Madison, and his 56-year-old friend from Sun Prairie were hunting turkeys at the Kendall Lake Public Hunting Property on state Highway 80 east of Muscoda around 6:30 a.m. Sunday, the Iowa County Sheriff's Office said in a news release.

The 56-year-old moved from where he had been sitting when he heard what he thought was a turkey behind him. He told deputies he "thought he saw a turkey and fired his shotgun not knowing his friend had also moved his position."

The shot struck the 55-year-old with several pellets in his head, face and neck, the news release said. The injuries didn't appear to be life-threatening, but the man was taken to the Richland Center Hospital by Muscoda emergency personnel.

Imagine, getting shot in the face by your buddy, and then getting told you're a turkey on top of it.

The report does not mention if Dick Cheney was in the area.

And on a more serious note, remember, these are the idiots that Walker and company said can now walk around with guns all the time! Feel safer yet?

Another Example Of Right Wing Hypocrisy

When President Jimmy Carter criticized George W. Bush for his inept and corrupt presidency, the right wing was outraged. Just this one example will give you the flavor of their mood:

Disgrace?

Carter's a disgrace.

He was a miserable failure when he was in office. Absolutely miserable!

There's no question that Carter was an embarrassment as a president.

Jimmy should stick to building houses. His persistent criticism of Bush is unprecedented. Past former presidents have not made a habit out of openly bashing the sitting president.

As usual, Carter is misguided in his ideas about what's right for the country. Now, in his old age, he has become as insufferable as he is wrong.

So why is that I only see right wingers now either ignoring, if not agreeing with (yes, the same blogger), Dick Cheney when he slanders President Barack Obama?

Hopefully, their hypocrisy and hate will have a strong backlash, and the country can continue to move forward again.

Quick To Damn, Slow To Praise

During the recent pirate incident, the right were all over President Obama, condemning him for not blowing up everyone, pirates and hostages alike, or mocking him for not being a cowboy like Bush was.

I am still waiting for one, just one, to give the credit to him and apologize for speaking out of turn now that the last hostage has been freed unharmed, through the use of force as ordered by President Obama (emphasis mine):

Navy snipers on the fantail of a destroyer cut down three Somali pirates in a lifeboat and rescued an American sea captain in a surprise nighttime assault in choppy seas Easter Sunday, ending a five-day standoff between a team of rogue gunmen and the world's most powerful military.

It was a stunning ending to an Indian Ocean odyssey that began when 53-year-old freighter Capt. Richard Phillips was taken hostage Wednesday by pirates who tried to hijack the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama. The Vermont native was held on a tiny lifeboat that began drifting precariously toward Somalia's anarchic, gun-plagued shores.

The operation, personally approved by President Barack Obama, quashed fears the saga could drag on for months and marked a victory for the U.S., which for days seemed powerless to resolve the crisis despite massing helicopter-equipped warships at the scene.

I also can't help but believe that if this had happened a year earlier, Bush/Cheney would have found this as the excuse they were seeking to invade Iran and get us stuck in yet another quagmire.

Palin Derails Straight Talk Express

Sarah Palin, the only hope for the McCain campaign, is either a fool, or her handlers are fools.

First, basically acknowledging the fact that she has no foreign relations experience beyond seeing Russia from her house, Team Spuds has her meeting with dignitaries at the United Nations. Mmm, McCain's campaign must be so strapped for cash after running all those smear ads which have been thoroughly discredited, that they could no longer afford cable TV with all those National Geographic specials.

While she was to meet with said international dignitaries, Team Spuds banned all reporters from the event. Needless to say, that went over like a lead balloon. Already tired of the McPalin's constantly harping that the media was biased and against them, the media warned that they'll just take their cameras and go home, thereby denying Palin the attention she desperately wants and that the campaign desperately needs.

There are numerous reasons for Team Spuds keeping their lipsticked bulldog on a short leash.

First of all, she just doesn't do well when she isn't following her scripted teleprompter-provided speeches.

Secondly, she can't seem to open her mouth without the lies just flying out on their own accord.

Thirdly, Team Spuds can not afford to have any questions about Troopergate to come out. She would have a hard time explaining why she did a sudden reversal, and after initially agreeing to cooperate with the investigation, she decided that it was too partisan to allow it to go on. It beats me how a Republican can complain about an investigative body, of which 10 of the 14 people on it are also Republican. Lawyers from Team Spuds have sued to have the investigation stopped.

After switching directions regarding the investigation, Palin switched to a third direction. Now she is suddenly OK with an investigation, and will again cooperate fully. That is, she will cooperate as long as it is done by the personnel review board, which coincidentally consists of three Republicans that can be fired by Palin on a whim.

So, to be perfectly clear, she is accused of firing someone because he wouldn't fire her ex-brother-in-law, who had already been investigated and punished. Then, when an investigation starts to see if she abused the power of her office and fired the person for personal reasons, she agrees to cooperate and then stops cooperating. She then states she is willing to cooperate, only if the investigation is done by people whom she can fire for no reason at all, or for a reason such as, they find her guilty of abusing her power.

Only to a Republican would that make any sense. And only a Republican would see nothing wrong with this. After all, this is right out of the Bush/Cheney playbook.

For further analysis, I would recommend this expose from Mudflats, written by people that actually live in Alaska, but have not claimed to see Russia from their porch. In fact, keep an eye on the whole blog. Well written and gets to the meat of the matter.

Another Similarity Between Bush and McCain

Grumps has another wonderful post up, complete with this picture, which I swiped from him.

In his usual understated way, he points out how McCain is getting sued by not one, not two, but three different artists for using their material without their permission, in other words, infringing on their rights, and breaking the law.

Imagine what he would do if he became president.

And also note the similarity between McCain and Bush, who has also spent the last eight years trampling on our civil rights and taking things, like foreign countries, that don't belong to him.

Imagine what he would do if Cheney, in the next five months, lets him be president.