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Post by Galactus on Sept 7, 2006 16:28:16 GMT -5
Rush Limbaugh to me is an entertainer and nothing more. His arguments against Democrats are entertaining in the sense that they are so off base and you wonder how he's going to tie it in. I guess the drugs have been good for him. Al Franken has to have the worst Radio Talk Show in the country. He's a great writer, but a terrible speaker and his constant "um um um, yeah uh, um um" drive me up the wall. I consider them both entertainers too, that's why I picked Franken as the counter (neither of whom's shows do I listen to, though I have heard both) the point is that it's obviously easier to agree with someone you identify with. So to ask if I give equal wieght to Limbaugh as I do to someone like Franken the answer is no and I don't think that's a bad thing or unreasonable. |
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Post by chrisfan on Sept 7, 2006 16:40:01 GMT -5
Rush Limbaugh to me is an entertainer and nothing more. His arguments against Democrats are entertaining in the sense that they are so off base and you wonder how he's going to tie it in. I guess the drugs have been good for him. Al Franken has to have the worst Radio Talk Show in the country. He's a great writer, but a terrible speaker and his constant "um um um, yeah uh, um um" drive me up the wall. I consider them both entertainers too, that's why I picked Franken as the counter (neither of whom's shows do I listen to, though I have heard both) the point is that it's obviously easier to agree with someone you identify with. So to ask if I give equal wieght to Limbaugh as I do to someone like Franken the answer is no and I don't think that's a bad thing or unreasonable. Just so we're clear - in the question I posed to Mary, the issue was not giving equal weight to both sides. She was extending leeway to Daily Kos, and the way the construct arguments. Given the critiques I've seen her give of Limbaugh in the past, I was curious to see how she'd frame the similarities / differences. The argument of expecting Limbaugh, Kos, or anyone else to present both sides fairly wasn't made by anyone. |
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Post by Galactus on Sept 7, 2006 17:31:57 GMT -5
Yeah, I know.
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Post by phil on Sept 7, 2006 19:04:34 GMT -5
No respect for the rule of law
A new commission bill introduced yesterday demonstrates
the US president's continuing war on human rights.
Clive Stafford Smith
Yesterday, President Bush made two significant moves in his "war on terror". He simultaneously proposed a revised version of the military commissions for Guantánamo, and flew in the 14 worst cases he could find in his secret prisons to justify the bad law he wants to pass.
The reason for the transfer is transparently political. The administration has long argued that Guantánamo houses the "worst of the worst" terrorists in the world, yet it has gradually become clear that the "baddest" man there was, at most, Bin Laden's chauffeur. The administration wants to pass a draconian military commission bill and prefers to focus the argument on limiting the rights of al-Qaida's main architects, rather than the small fry who have been held for so long.
Much of the language in the new commission bill introduced yesterday comes verbatim from the earlier incarnation. The law applies retroactively, tossing away several centuries of ex post facto jurisprudence. The "jury" continues to be made up of military officers "convened", (ie, hand-picked), by secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld. Statements coerced out of the prisoner or some person unknown may still be used, so long as the colonel in charge thinks they have some probative value. The accused may still be convicted based on evidence kept secret from him. The bill allows for the death penalty for every crime and is there anyone who believes the Bush administration will seek a lesser punishment for these 14 men?
Most troubling, perhaps, is the implicit repudiation of Bush's recent assurances that he would like to close Guantánamo down. The transfer is an unequivocal step towards consolidating the prison for the long term. If the CIA agent who said that each Guantánamo prisoner inspired ten Muslims to become suicide bombers was correct, then imagine what will happen when Khalid Sheikh Mohamed is executed in Guantánamo a couple of years from now.
Nobody should fall for the latest gambit in Bush's war on human rights. It is time to re-embrace the principle on which America was founded. Genuine respect for the rule of law will make everyone safer.
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Post by kmc on Sept 8, 2006 8:17:54 GMT -5
Torture makes us safer. Phil, stop appeasing the terrorists.
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Post by rockysigman on Sept 8, 2006 11:28:20 GMT -5
This might be more appropriate for Grain of Salt thread, but it's related to what we've been talking about here the last couple days...
Mocking Bush is my patriotic duty
A comedian explains how cruel jokes about the president can stop terrorism.
By Bill Maher
Sept. 8, 2006 | New rule: Bad presidents happen to good people. Amid all the 9/11 anniversary talk about what will keep us safe, let me suggest that in a world turned hostile to America, the smartest message we can send to those beyond our shores is, "We're not with stupid." Therefore, I contend -- with all seriousness -- that ridiculing this president is now the most patriotic thing you can do. Let our allies and our enemies alike know that there's a whole swath of Americans desperate to distance themselves from Bush's foreign policies. And that's just Republicans running for reelection.
Now, of course, you're gonna say, "But Bill, ridiculing Bush is like shooting fish in a barrel," or, as Dick Cheney calls it, "hunting." Maybe, but right now it's important, because America is an easily misunderstood country these days -- a lot of the time it's hard to make out what we're saying over the bombs we're dropping.
But we are not all people who think putting a boot in your ass is the way to solve problems, because even allowing that my foot lodged in your ass would feel good, which I don't -- what then? OK, my boot is in your ass, but I can't get it out, so I'm not happy, and it's in you, so you're not happy -- there's no exit strategy.
Anyone who opposes the indefinite occupation of Iraq shouldn't be labeled an al-Qaida supporter. That's like saying that if I tell my exterminator that there are more efficient ways to rid the house of vermin than hitting them with a hammer, I'm "for the rats."
Questioning whether it still makes sense to keep troops under fire is supporting the troops. Asking for a plan supports the troops; asking when they'll be leaving supports the troops. Sitting around parsing the definition of "civil war" doesn't support the troops, it supports the president, and he's not a soldier, he just plays one on TV.
So yes, for the sake of homeland security, I ridicule the president -- but it gives me no pleasure to paint him as a dolt, a rube, a yokel on the world stage, a submental, three bricks shy of a load, a Gilligan unable to find his own ass with two hands. Or, as Sean Hannity calls it, "Reaganesque."
No, it pains me to say these things, because I know deep down George Bush has something extra -- a chromosome. Cruel? Perhaps, but it may just have saved lives. By doing the extra chromosome joke, I sent a message to a young Muslim man somewhere in the world who's on a slow burn about this country, and perhaps got him to think, "Maybe the people of America aren't so bad. Maybe it's just the rodeo clown who leads them. Maybe the people 'get it.'" We do, Achmed, we do!
And that's why making fun of the president keeps this country safe. The proof? I've been doing it nonstop for years, and there hasn't been another attack. Maybe the reason they haven't attacked us again is they figured we're already suffering enough.
If I could explain one thing about George W. Bush to the rest of the world it's this: We don't know what the hell he's saying either! Trust me, foreigners, there's nothing lost in translation, it's just as incoherent in the original English. Yes, we voted for him -- twice -- but that's because we're stupid, not because we're bad. Bush is just one of those things that are really popular for a few years and then almost overnight become completely embarrassing. You know, like leg warmers, or Hootie and the Blowfish, or white people going, "Oh no you di-int."
So while honoring the anniversary of September 2001, we must also never forget September 2000. That's the month when Gov. George W. Bush said, "I know that human beings and fish can coexist peacefully." If you don't believe me, you can look it up on both internets. The world changed on 9/11. He didn't. That's why we owe it to ourselves, and our children, to never stop pointing out that George W. Bush is a gruesome boob.
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Post by strat-0 on Sept 8, 2006 13:09:04 GMT -5
Awful sorry about that, Tony... Uh, by the way, thanks for all the support.
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Post by kmc on Sept 8, 2006 13:11:57 GMT -5
Maher is spot on, as always. You take a stand against that asshole now, because in the future when your children ask you what you did during the American dark ages, you can tell them truthfully where you stood.
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Post by Galactus on Sept 8, 2006 17:48:19 GMT -5
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Post by strat-0 on Sept 8, 2006 19:46:54 GMT -5
Awful sorry about that, Tony... Uh, by the way, thanks for all the support. In case that was too cryptic, Blair will be stepping down this year. I have a lot of respect for him -- too bad he threw his eggs in the wrong basket. |
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Post by phil on Sept 9, 2006 8:34:50 GMT -5
Bush faces Republican revolt over terror trials
· Worries over treatment of Guantánamo detainees
· Defendants to be barred from seeing evidence
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Saturday September 9, 2006
The Guardian
President George Bush yesterday faced growing opposition from his fellow Republicans to a pillar of his war on terror: his plans to prosecute detainees at Guantánamo at military commissions.
Mr Bush had hoped to use the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on Monday to shift the focus of November's congressional elections away from the war on Iraq to national security. But the strategy misfired with key Republicans balking at a White House proposal for legislation on military tribunals that would deny Guantánamo detainees the right to see classified evidence against them.
"It would be unacceptable legally in my opinion to give someone the death penalty in a trial where they never had heard the evidence against them," Lindsey Graham, a former military judge and a Republican senator from South Carolina who is a member of the armed services committee, told the New York Times yesterday. "Trust us, you're guilty, we're going to execute you, but we can't tell you why'? That's not going to pass muster."
Military law experts have also lined up against the proposal. "I am not aware of any situation in the world where there is a system of jurisprudence that is recognised by civilised people where an individual can be tried and convicted without seeing the evidence against him," Brigadier General James Walker, the staff judge advocate to the marine corps commandant, told the armed services committee.
Mr Graham and other high-profile Republicans such as Senator John McCain of Arizona have produced their own draft legislation on military tribunals which would guarantee suspects the right to see all evidence against them, and bar evidence obtained through torture.
Under the White House plan the fate of Guantánamo defendants would be decided by a jury of five military officers - 12 if the charges carry the death penalty. As well as the use of classified evidence off limits to the defendant, the prosecution could use hearsay and evidence obtained through coercion. "It would be up to the judge to determine, based on an argument by the accused, whether he believed something was torture and needed to be prohibited," John Bellinger, the state department legal adviser, said.
The president is to spend the weekend visiting the crash sites at the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania before a primetime television address on Monday that caps a series of speeches this week defending the administration's stewardship of the war on al-Qaida in the wake of September 11. However, the president's strategy of using the anniversary to advance his agenda sparked a second rebellion from Republicans in Congress.
Legislation authorising the National Security Agency wiretaps was also stalled yesterday after three Republican members of the Senate judiciary committee joined Democrats in demanding tighter controls on the administration's powers to order surveillance of phone calls and email of US citizens.
The supreme court ruled last June that the administration's military commissions failed to meet US and international standards of fairness, and were not authorised by US law. And a judge in Detroit ruled last month Mr Bush's order to the NSA to conduct wiretaps without court oversight violated the US constitution.
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Post by phil on Sept 11, 2006 7:47:25 GMT -5
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Post by phil on Sept 11, 2006 8:07:47 GMT -5
Turning up the volume on terror
In its reaction to the 9/11 attacks, America abandoned the customary self-control of democracy.
Simon Jenkins
As the jets slammed into the twin towers this day five years ago, I immediately felt a visceral surge of sympathy for the city where I lived as a boy and which I visit every year. I have always regarded New York as London's blood brother.
I wrote that the horror I could see unfolding on my television screen was a madness of which the world had never been free and would never be free. But beyond the personal tragedies - and they occur somewhere every hour of the day - it did not and should not be allowed to "matter". Madness carries no meaning. The deed was not politically significant and must not become so. It did not tilt the balance of world power. It did not diminish America's leadership of the west, indeed sympathy for America and her restraint in response would surely enhance it.
Democracy was not damaged by the attack. Those who chose to take up the "white man's burden" and prescribe solutions to the world's problems - as had America since the fall of the Soviet empire - must accept that there would be prices to pay. There would be prices especially where that policing involved military aggression against lesser states, as we have seen in Sudan, Iraq and Serbia.
There could be no formal defence against acts such as this, certainly no military defence. Terrorists were shadowy people, moving from country to country, vulnerable only to assiduous intelligence. As a vast cloud rose over lower Manhattan I also wondered at the cheap construction of the building - a previous attack on it in 1993 had failed and thus been largely ignored by the authorities.
I wrote that to treat the outrage as a declaration of war would be to abandon the customary self-control of democracy. It would glorify the terrorists among their own class and people and help them do their work. Nobody, I wrote, should want to see Americans terrorised into overreaction. Overreaction would mean global isolation. An isolated and hated America would be a dangerous America. In this age, maturity lay in learning to live with madmen and sometimes that meant dying with them. That is the real price paid for freedom.
I still believe everything I wrote then. Nothing that I wrote came to pass. America displayed a terror that surprised and shocked its friends. It dissipated the sympathy declared worldwide in the aftermath - including blood-donor points in Gaza - and proceeded with a massive military response that continues bloodily to this day. The result put a megaphone to 9/11 and turned Osama bin Laden into the hero of anti-Americanism everywhere.
Now we are making the same mistake again. When dignity and common sense should suggest private commemoration and public silence we have seized the amplifier of terror and turned it to full volume. We have given terrorism what it craves: a state memorial.
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Post by kmc on Sept 11, 2006 8:45:26 GMT -5
9/11/06
Five years later - score is still Terrorists 1, USA 0.
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Post by phil on Sept 11, 2006 9:16:26 GMT -5
More of a stalemate with innocent peoples
getting killed everyday and no end in sight ... !!
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