Limbaugh: Jackson 'Flourished' Under Reagan,
'Languished' Under Clinton and 'Died' Under Obama. What A Moron.

video details and more

Via Media Matters, more proof that professional windbag Rush Limbaugh has run out of anything that might even charitably be considered as a legitimate thought. Only the truly brain-dead among his fans will swallow the latest uttering:

While fans the world over mourn the passing of the King of Pop, the King of Talk, Rush Limbaugh, put the death of Michael Jackson this way: He "flourished under Reagan," "languished under Clinton/Bush, and died under Obama." Over on MSNBC, both David Shuster and Chuck Todd poked Limbaugh for his unsavory take on the tragedy, with Todd quipping, "It's always Reagan, right?"

Meanwhile, El Rushbo's pals over at Fox News knew exactly how to interpret the wall-to-wall coverage of Jackson's death. An actual Fox News chyron alleged a "cover-up" because the media were devoting more coverage to Jackson than cap-and-trade legislation. Lord, the fun one could have using this very rationale to pick apart the stories Fox chooses to cover. I guess when you're a hammer, everything is a ... wild conspiracy designed to frighten your audience and fan the flames of their paranoia.

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Brutal murder of gay sailor increasingly looking
suspicious, while Obama DOD (surprise) does nothing

"By the time this administration is over, I think you guys will have pretty good feelings about the Obama administration." - President Obama, 6/29/09, speaking to carefully selected gay leaders at the White House

A possible hate crime killing of a gay US sailor on Obama's watch. Navy Seaman August Provost III was gagged, bound by the hands and feet, shot in the head three times, and then his body burned. His relatives say he was repeatedly harassed for being gay, but couldn't seek help from the Defense Department because of the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy. Now he's dead.

Obama administration investigators say it was just a random act of violence. Move right along.

Putting aside my obvious concerns about the Obama administration's lackluster record on gay civil rights, you would think that after the recent uproar over the Obama DOJ's anti-gay DOMA brief comparing gay marriage to incest and pedophilia - and the Obama administration's rushed attempt to play catch up by organizing White House ceremonies, cocktail parties, and an assortment of minor rights - someone in the Obama White House would say "hey, maybe we need to call DOD and tell someone to actually, seriously investigate this murder," rather than blowing off the concerns of the dead US military member's family.

Not so much.

Investigators have called the sailor?s death a random act unrelated to the his sexuality and have taken a ?person of interest? into custody. No charges have been filed.

The dead sailor's aunt says the Don't Ask Don't Tell Policy shares the blame in her nephews death:

?He went to the Navy to serve and protect,? she said in an interview with Beaumont?s KFDM News, ?he didn?t get protected at all.?

Roy told The Associated Press that the military?s ?Don?t Ask, Don?t Tell? policy discouraged her nephew from asking for help.

?That phrase is just stupid because it tells them they have no one to speak to,? she said.

To our president, and to those gay "leaders" advising him that it's okay to drag his feet on his major promises to our community, the message is clear: Political cowardice comes at a price.

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Pull Up A Chair

Happy Fourth of July everyone! Hope you all have a day filled with family and friends, good food, relaxation and a little reflection on what "a more perfect union" might look like. If you have any ideas on how to get us there, I'm all ears. In the[...]

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Docudharma Times Saturday July 4

HAPPY     INDEPENDENCE DAY   Saturday's Headlines: How Sanford spent state money on last year's Argentina trip Iran brings formal charges against UK embassy official FBI chief defended Saudis Babies in China seized then sold for[...]

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Is Sarah Palin Making a Sacrifice Play

Boy you go to Sweden and all hell breaks loose. I said yesterday that nobody pulls something like Sarah Palin just did unless it was part of some deal with a prosecutor who is trying to get them out of office. Max Blumenthal speculates that it stems[...]

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"We Pledge Our Lives"

Signed in Philadelphia July 2, 1776, adopted by Congress July 4, 1776.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Many Americans still felt a kinship with the people of Great Britain, and had appealed in vain to the prominent among them, as well as to Parliament, to convince the King to relax his more objectionable policies toward the colonies. The next section represents disappointment that these attempts had been unsuccessful.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.


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Rumors fly of possible Palin embezzlement
indictment

Raw Story has a summary of the reporting on this. There is simply no way that the GOP frontrunner for president is suddenly announcing her resignation, late on a Friday, the day before a major holiday - the traditional times to dump damaging information - if someone didn't confront her with devastating information. So an indictment sounds possible. Though, Palin doesn't strike me as the type to give up and resign simply because someone's coming after her. The information must be devastating and conclusive.

Wonder if Palin's been to Argentina lately? :-)

Actually, I was talking to Jane Hamsher this morning on our little puddle jumper out of the island of Gotland, and it struck me that maybe Palin is about to get indicted by the same folks who took down Ted Stevens. Remember, Stevens didn't win on the facts - he won because the lawyers at Justice screwed up. Those lawyers must have been ticked that their case fell apart based on a technicality, so to speak. What if the same influence peddling case involved Palin too? What if they went to Palin, showed their hand, and said "we're taking Todd down, unless you resign?"

Anderson Cooper takes on Palin's spokeswoman, and pretty much makes mince-meat of her.


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Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President

Some of the president's supporters may be politely ignoring some of the issues involving him.  Whatever the strategic benefits at the moment, doing so may not be in the left's long term interest.

For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.

No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post

On Tuesday lambert pointed out something I had not noticed: Talking Points Memo had not covered Matt Taibbi's Rolling Stone article on Goldman Sachs, and its coverage of them has been very light in recent months.  Caveats:  TPM advertises itself as "Breaking News and Analysis" and it gets to decide what is news and what merits analysis; Taibbi's article was a lengthy narrative in a magazine and not breaking news, similar to Todd Purdum's profile of Sarah Palin in Vanity Fair this month; while a web site has nearly unlimited space to devote to news there are only so many hours in the day end workers to publish during it.  There are any number of good reasons why a site like TPM would not have covered it.

It still seems a curious omission though.  After all, Purdum's article got a brief mention and link on the front page.  Financial scandals are covered there, and a search on Bernie Madoff brings up three pages of results.  Like Martha Stewart before him Madoff seems to have become a synecdoche for the entire financial industry.  Now, Stewart's crime was a half million dollar stock scam whereas Madoff's was a $50 billion Ponzi scheme, so the latter had a much larger impact.  Still, it A) only affected private investors and B) is relatively small when compared to bailout, son of bailout and who knows what other giveaways we are only vaguely aware of at the moment.  It seems that an article like Taibbi's would serve an important reminder as to what the stakes and who the biggest players really are.

Maybe some of the president's supporters prefer to turn a blind eye towards a scathing indictment of a company whose employees have lavishly funded the president and with whom he appears to enjoy a warm relationship.  If so it is troubling.  I am somewhat sympathetic to the view of politics as team sport.  We have a long tradition of a two party system and it is easy to see them as opponents on a playing field.  You don't harshly criticize your captain any more than you would take a shot at your own goal.  That is what the opposition is for, and if it is not willing or able to do so then you are under no obligation to help them out.  As Bobby Bowden once told Lou Holtz after a lopsided win, "it's your job to keep the score down, not mine."

Taking that approach may not be in the left's ultimate interest though.  For one, it moves the dialog closer to the whole "who won the week?" mentality - where policy is trumped by process - that progressives found so objectionable during the Bush years.  If they embrace it now that Democrats are in control they will lose the chance to distinguish themselves from conservatives in any substantial way.  That not only opens the door for Republicans to come back once the political winds shift but it sets liberals up to be regarded with the same deep distrust that has put the GOP in such a hole at the moment.

Strict obedience to the president did not serve conservatives well in another way:  Because they never allowed a vibrant opposition from the right to develop they became hitched to Bush and had no ideas to offer once he left.  When you tie your fate so closely to a leader and the leader becomes deeply unpopular you become, well, the Republican party circa 2009.  Instead of simple triumphalism liberals should see the current disarray on the right as a cautionary tale.  George Bush looked unassailably popular not too long ago and supporting him without reservation seemed to be the surest bet in politics; couldn't that apply to Barack Obama too?

As a liberal, what bothers me most about what looks like an unseemly deference towards the president from the left is my belief that we are (or should be) more adversarial towards those in power.  The idea of nearly automatic reverence for those in authority - what Taibbi called the peasant mentality - is an inheritance from conservatives.  Seeing the press corps stand at attention (via) when the president walks in, or military trappings attending him (as Avedon points out - and we can never be told often enough - "The President of the United States is a civilian. You don't salute him. Ever. Even if you are in the military."), or what Glenn Greenwald rightly called creepy assertions that we are obligated to fall in line behind the president simply because he is the president: all of that should rouse the authority-hating impulse of the left.

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Top Honduran military lawyer: We broke the law.

Digby makes a great point regarding the recent removing of President Manuel Zelaya from Honduras by the military and the subsequent confession from the military that what they did was illegal. Their reasoning:

''We know there was a crime there,'' said Inestroza, the top legal advisor for the Honduran armed forces. ``In the moment that we took him out of the country, in the way that he was taken out, there is a crime. Because of the circumstances of the moment this crime occurred, there is going to be a justification and cause for acquittal that will protect us.''

[...]

So when the powers of state united in demanding his ouster, the military put a pajama-clad Zelaya on a plane and sent him to Costa Rica. The rationale: Had Zelaya been jailed, throngs of loyal followers would have erupted into chaos and demanded his release with violence.

''What was more beneficial, remove this gentleman from Honduras or present him to prosecutors and have a mob assault and burn and destroy and for us to have to shoot?'' he said. ``If we had left him here, right now we would be burying a pile of people.''

Digby points out:

I think this is a natural outgrowth of the example the US has set over the past few years. People no longer believe that the rule of law is something they must adhere to as long as they can justify their actions as being done to "protect the country." I suppose it was always so, but America has made a fetish out of this excuse through this decade so I think it's taken on a new veneer of legitimacy. Certainly, it has made it impossible for any American leader to condemn this sort of thing with even the slightest bit of credibility.

This is the paternalistic view espoused by Henry Hyde during the Iran Contra scandal, in which he claimed that if the executive broke the law for the good of the country it wasn't a crime. (He said this to justify his view that Reagan's breaking of the laws was ok while Clinton allegedly lying in a deposition was an impeachable offense.) I suppose this concept is also an outgrowth of Nixon's famous statement that if the president does it it's not illegal.

That's the defence that Dick Cheney and his daughter are currently spouting to justify torture - it works, it saved American lives! - as if this is more important than whether or not what they did was legal.

The person who committed the crime is certainly allowed to tell us of the mitigating circumstances which caused them to commit that crime and any court of law would take this into consideration when deciding their case; however, what we are now witnessing in the American political culture are mitigating circumstances being put forward as a defence. The argument being that, if a mitigating circumstance exists, it would be wrong to proceed with prosecution.

But, in reality, their excuses have no more validity than the burglar who claimed his kids were hungry which is why he turned to crime. Maybe a court would decide that I am talking nonsense and acquit Cheney, but the main point is that these matters should be decided by courts.

Obama has stated that the US is a country of laws, but he has done nothing to bring self confessed war criminals to trial, because they are making the very same argument which the leader of the Honduran armed forces is making.

"Keeping the country safe" appears to be the same as a "get out of jail free" card.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Honduras, Obama, Dick Cheney, law and order, Inestroza

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Obama Weekly Address: President Obama Celebrates
Independence Day and the American Spirit

In his weekly address, President Barack Obama celebrated the unyielding American spirit that has defined our past and will lead us into the future.  Even as we face daunting challenges - two wars, a deep recession, skyrocketing health care costs, and a dependence on foreign oil, we have always overcome long odds and faced down our trials.  We must remember and renew that spirit as we confront and meet our current challenges. 
Remarks of President Barack Obama
Weekly Address
The White House
July 4, 2009

Hello and Happy Fourth of July, everybody. This weekend is a time to get together with family and friends, kick back, and enjoy a little time off. And I hope that’s exactly what all of you do. But I also want to take a moment today to reflect on what I believe is the meaning of this distinctly American holiday.

 

Today, we are called to remember not only the day our country was born – we are also called to remember the indomitable spirit of the first American citizens who made that day possible.

 

We are called to remember how unlikely it was that our American experiment would succeed at all; that a small band of patriots would declare independence from a powerful empire; and that they would form, in the new world, what the old world had never known – a government of, by, and for the people.

 

That unyielding spirit is what defines us as Americans. It is what led generations of pioneers to blaze a westward trail.

 

It is what led my grandparents’ generation to persevere in the face of a Depression and triumph in the face of tyranny.

 

It is what led generations of American workers to build an industrial economy unrivalled around the world.

 

It is what has always led us, as a people, not to wilt or cower at a difficult moment, but to face down any trial and rise to any challenge, understanding that each of us has a hand in writing America’s destiny.

 

That is the spirit we are called to show once more. We are facing an array of challenges on a scale unseen in our time. We are waging two wars. We are battling a deep recession. And our economy – and our nation itself – are endangered by festering problems we have kicked down the road for far too long: spiraling health care costs; inadequate schools; and a dependence on foreign oil.

 

Meeting these extraordinary challenges will require an extraordinary effort on the part of every American. And that is an effort we cannot defer any longer.

 

Now is the time to lay a new foundation for growth and prosperity. Now is the time to revamp our education system, demand more from teachers, parents, and students alike, and build schools that prepare every child in America to outcompete any worker in the world.

 

Now is the time to reform an unsustainable health care system that is imposing crushing costs on families, businesses, large and small, and state and federal budgets. We need to protect what works, fix what’s broken, and bring down costs for all Americans. No more talk. No more delay. Health care reform must happen this year.

 

And now is the time to meet our energy challenge – one of the greatest challenges we have ever confronted as a people or as a planet. For the sake of our economy and our children, we must build on the historic bill passed by the House of Representatives, and make clean energy the profitable kind of energy so that we can end our dependence on foreign oil and reclaim America’s future.

 

These are some of the challenges that our generation has been called to meet. And yet, there are those who would have us try what has already failed; who would defend the status quo. They argue that our health care system is fine the way it is and that a clean energy economy can wait. They say we are trying to do too much, that we are moving too quickly, and that we all ought to just take a deep breath and scale back our goals.

 

These naysayers have short memories.  They forget that we, as a people, did not get here by standing pat in a time of change. We did not get here by doing what was easy. That is not how a cluster of 13 colonies became the United States of America.

 

We are not a people who fear the future. We are a people who make it. And on this July 4th, we need to summon that spirit once more. We need to summon the same spirit that inhabited Independence Hall two hundred and thirty-three years ago today.

 

That is how this generation of Americans will make its mark on history. That is how we will make the most of this extraordinary moment. And that is how we will write the next chapter in the great American story. Thank you, and Happy Fourth of July.

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