Understand this.. most in Congress do not read the resolutions they are voting on. They simply vote the most politically expedient way. Whatever maintains the 'status-quo', whatever keeps the 'lobby' content, whatever ensures donations keep coming in.

That is why the economy tanked, that is why these meaningless endless wars persist, why our healthcare and socsec system is dying, and why the citizen continues to end up taking the brunt of it. Loss of jobs, higher taxes, burdened with ever more stupid tax laws and legislation, etc.

Welcome to our Demopublican Plutocractic Kleptocracy.

ya beat me to it RASCH!
the debate if torture is a political right or wrong,or if its its even justified
is IRRELEVANT.
let me say that again for those who got their intellect from a cracker jack box.
the debate on whether torture is righteous,or a political ideology is IRRELEVANT.
RASCH is correct.according to article 3 of the geneva convention,and CIA,NSA and fbi legal guidelines,waterboarding is considered TORTURE,therefore it is against the LAW.not just international law,but national.
dont like the law?then CHANGE it.
but bybee,addington and woo did not do that did they?
they created retro-active legislation that RETROACTIVELY gave immunity to those who were the architects of the iraq war.
if the bush administration was so righteous in the iraq war and its prosecution,why would they have senior white house legal counsel create laws to grant immunity..retroactively?
answer=because the prosecution of the "war on terror" was an illegal war,using illegal "interrogation techniques".
in the aftermath of world war 2,three japanese interrogators were executed.
their crime?...waterboarding.
which court prosecuted these japanese interrogators?....american.
there IS NO ARGUMENT....waterboarding is against the LAW..period.
so for those who feel they can turn this into a political diatribe are just being weak-minded,or even worse...tools for an establishment who left their ideologies a long time ago.
while bansheex may be corrct that in the past it was the democracts who were the chickenhawks,it is BESIDE THE POINT,and has no relevance to the current argument.
and QM's argument is just one big red herring,and avoids the real point in order to push his "i hate libs" polemic.
this IS NOT A POLITICAL TALKING POINT.this is about the honor of the USA and how we,as a nation,are all equal UNDER THE LAW.
jesse ventura put it perfectly,and i agree,i dont care if it was a repub,or a dem that knew about this,and either by action OR inaction allowed this perversion to go on.ALL of them should be held accountable.
this new development with the additional abu ghraib pictures NOT being revealed has me fuming.it smacks of political hubris.my guess is that some
prominent politicians will be exposed as having known about these abuses and let it slide for political expediency.i find this VERY distasteful.
no-one should be above the law.
and waterboarding is torture,it was developed for the sole purpose of producing a "false confession" and did nothing to gather or obtain pertinent information,but did a great job in making our country seem the hypocrite and made or soldiers far less safe.
and QM..please read up on the legalities please.the "national flag" defense was a construct by the bybee/addington crew to do exactly what you did here..
defend torture,and was corrected in 2006.that argument can no longer be used.
somebody else mentioned "citizen rights"..yeah..ok...
go check out MCA of 2006,patriot act 1& 2,victory act 1& 2.
all they have to do is deem you an "enemy combatant" and your whisked away to "secret rendition" club med.there was a post here a few weeks ago about a 16 yr old who was brought in under the patriot act,he lost all rights as a citizen.no habeas corpus,no rights of redress,the state does not have to produce evidence under the vague banner of "national security".
this whole things stinks to high heaven,reeking of political malfeasance and abuse.the worst thing is how it indirectly puts our soldiers in a much worse situation than before.and for what?...nothing,absolutely nothing.
i didnt serve my country to watch a bunch of gray haired chicken hawk pussies,who didnt have the balls to sign up when called, but now are all trash talking tough guys,who put MY kids in danger.
bunch of panty-waist,pussy fags.
im done...there is no argument.
against the law..period.
either change the law,or shut the fuck up.
better yet,put your money where your mouth is,and go sign up for the army.
lets see you trash talk then.
fucking pussies.
/rant OFF
thanks for tuning in to:enoch's cathartic rant.

>> ^StukaFox:
"He came in with a recession" -- WHAT?!?!?!


Clinton's entire term was a dot-com stock market bubble whose inevitable and proportionate bust began to occur in 2000 when Bush took office. Greenspan was very loose with money as Fed chairman under both Clinton and Bush, and Bernanke is even worse. Not wanting the painful withdrawal to happen under his watch, Bush did what was politically expedient and shot up the veins with record deficit spending and artificially low lending rates. Greenspan price fixed interest rates down to a record low 1% rate in the middle of a recession and held them there for a year. That transformed the speculative misallocations from stocks to real estate, got consumers borrowing and spending instead of saving to produce, and the day of reckoning was effectively postponed and enlarged until Obama's term. Obama is essentially choosing the same reinflationary path, and it's really only a matter of time before our creditors become net sellers of our bonds and turn the game into a hyperinflationary nightmare.

It also helped that Clinton repealed Glass-Steagall, which allowed much higher leverage and the securitization of mortgages. Ideally, we'd just get rid of the spiker and stop trying to regulate the drunken behavior, but Republicrats don't seem to think in those terms, they're quite party-whipped. I talk to Democrats who think Clinton decreased the national debt, social security is a success, Vietnam was a Republican war, banks don't create money, the dollar is still backed by gold, trade deficits are good. It's quite sad, just two socialist parties who spend all day trying to figure out who's more to blame while libertarians sit back and watch the country go to hell.

>> ^Psychologic:
>>Back before 9-11 when Bush pulled out of the ABM treaty and rejected the Kyoto protocol (somewhat of a change in foreign policy), that was seen as the "Bush Doctrine" of the time. Then after 9-11 it became the "with us or against us" attitude of unilateralism. It wasn't until we invaded Iraq that the "Bush Doctrine" included preemptive war. That's why I said that the term isn't very specific... you can't just look at its first use and claim that is the answer, because it was used well before preemptive war was even mentioned. Personally I thought the current Bush Doctrine was that it is our duty to spread democracy throughout the world.



Yea, that's all I was saying. He was trying too hard for a "got ya" moment. Even after he explained what he meant by it she still tried to avoid answering the question. I'm in no way trying to defend her, but when I was watching the interview and saw him ask that question I was admittedly asking myself "which part of the Bush Doctrine". Perhaps that is a lack of experience on my part.
Either way, I'm in no position to question Palin's abilities, especially with her being the USA's most experienced energy expert and all that. =P



What i'm saying is the first time the actual term "Bush Doctrine" was formally used was in a paper about that speech and it clearly defined what the Bush Doctrine was from that speech. I'll see if I can find it and i'll post a link. From there people have just used it to involve various changes to foreign policy for political expediency.

You've pointed out a perfect example of what i'm saying. You thought the Bush Doctrine included spreading democracy, this just wasn't the case at the time of the speech and the original debate about the Bush Doctrine. The speech was given September 2002, before the US "preemptively" invaded Iraq. Now at this point the reasons for the war were not to spread democracy but to stop Saddam from taking out American cities or giving weapons to terrorists that will. When it turned out there were no weapons suddenly the war wasn't about preemptively taking out someone that was about to kill Americans, it became about liberation and spreading democracy. People thus altered the Bush Doctrine from being focused on preemptive strike to focusing primarily on "spreading democracy." Essentially Bush was bailed out from being called on his bullshit because the media bought this new reasoning for the war and then the doctrine was changed, almost 1984 style except that instead of just erasing "preemptive strike" they added "spread democracy." You're right in that now you could claim spreading democracy is part of the Bush Doctrine but I would call it something different because that's what it is from the original understanding. The original Bush doctrine explained the original justification for the war in Iraq. Following the invasion I would call it the "New Bush Doctrine" or "Post-Invasion Bush Doctrine" or "Bush Doctrine 2.0"


I think we're still arguing the same point, that the Bush Doctrine has been confused. My stance is that it shouldn't have been. And it's no one's fault but the Press and opposition in the US. Bush should have been and should still be getting hammered for the reasons for going into Iraq. Claiming a preemptive strike and then when it turns out they had nothing claiming it was all about spreading democracy and freeing subjugated people. All bullshit and McCain will bring the same when he invades Iran.

^Actually Joe, if Ms. Palin faked a pregnancy to cover for her daughter then I DO believe it is important. IF true, it would show how willing she is to brazenly lie for political expediency. We swarmed Hillary for her lie about her trip to Bosnia, so why isn't this just as important?

You make a VERY valid point that she is hopelessly underqualified for the job. In fact I agree with you that it should be the voters' primary concern about her. HOWEVER, do you have to be so goddamn abrasive about it by calling people "asshats?" Fucking A, dude.

I know we don't follow Robert's Rules of Order here, and that's great. But if I had replied with: "Don't be a dumb motherfucker, Joe. It shows that she's a liar and a hypocrite, you fucking asshat," would we be thoughtfully exchanging ideas? I mean come on.

At once terrifying and hilareous. I suspect he may have been playing to his constituancy more than stating his beliefs--at least I hope so. He'll likely be rewarded November by the good ol' Southern Baptist boys in his district for standing up for the Truth(r).

I suspect more than a few 'religious' politicians are merely religious out of political expediency (Obama, McCain anyone?).

*political expedience

The real problem with impeachment is that even the Democrats are against it.

Take your pick of reasons, what they say varies from the ignorant ("We don't believe in partisan witch hunts"), to the apathetic ("It wouldn't make a difference at this point anyway"), to the politically expedient ("We don't want to distract from the election with a controversial move").

All of the above forget that the rule of law is supposed to apply to everyone equally, and that the President commits 4 impeachable offenses before breakfast every morning, and crimes that'd be interesting to an international court of law every month or two.

It isn't going to happen before we have a new President. I'm hoping that with a new congress, and a new President, they at least consider some sort of investigation of the crimes of the Bush administration.

I am too.

I think it's a mix of cowardice (afraid that Bush's conflation of funding a bad war with feeding & clothing troops in a theater of war will stick), political expediency (wait to fix Iraq, because it'll give the Dems the White House on a silver platter in '08), and the fact that they have only the slimmest of majorities on the best of days (51/49), and the Republicans now filibuster everything by default (60 votes to end those), and Bush vetos anything like a withdrawal requirement (override takes 2/3 majority of House and Senate).

They could always stage a big showdown like Gingrich did, and threaten to not approve any budget, but the spinelessness prevents that. Everything they do short of that, they just don't have the votes for.

Doesn't hurt that they're planning to use it to try to keep building their majorities, particularly in the senate, and run for the White House on it too.

Funding the legislation with a cigarette tax was just politically expedient. To the best of my knowledge, no study has ever shown a link between increased prices and a reduction in cigarette smoking, especially among the poor. Clearly, cigarette smoking raises health costs for everyone, and in the abstract, it makes sense to tax that to help pay for healthcare. But the reality is, this tax will hit hardest the very people the legislation is aimed at helping.

In the words of Mark Shields, "taxes ought to be based on the ability to pay. The smokers in this country have become the untouchables."

BigBikeMan,

"From your posts I get the feeling you're left of center, like most sensible people, but you hold the democrats holy."

Actually I'm a Green and consider myself just short of the radical left.

Maher poo-pooing the Democrats is just fine with me - they deserve a shitload of poo-pooing.

I think he's an asshole for disparaging the 9/11 Truth Movement.

I think that the crimes of 9/11 were covered up by the Bush administration and that the perpetrators are still at large, i.e. they can strike again, and probably will when it proves politically expedient to the neocon agenda.

Don't have time to watch all of it but looked relatively interesting, if not particularly original. The convergence of the world's economic, political, military and communication systems has certainly had a huge effect on the nature of news, especially in the United States. It's for that reason that I try to get most of my news from the News Hour with Jim Lehrer on PBS, as it has remained disentangled from the politics and money, and the politics of money, that has destroyed the creditability of network and particularly cable news. When CNN devotes it's 5:00-8:00PM timeslots to Nancy Grace and Entertainment news, it's pretty clear where their priorities are.

The real reason I decided not to watch all of this video however is that it did not appear that it was going to investigate the most important question associated with it's subject matter. The guy already seems to have decided what ethical war reporting is, and is devoting his movie to showing how war reporting of the Iraq War is unethical. I am already aware that reporting of the Iraq War, especially in it's run up, was hardly critical; I don't need an hour and a half long video to tell me that. What I would like to see examined is to what extent media manipulation during wartime is permissible in a democracy. I raise this question because the United States' most glaring military weakness is it's dependence upon popular support for any war it chooses to undertake. The Media war therefore becomes nearly as important as the ground war, yet two entirely different sets of rules and outlooks apply to the two wars.

An ethical war is the most desperate action a state can take, it is the least worst of bad options undertaken to acheive a greater good that exists in the long term. For a population accustomed to instant gratification, sacrifice and struggle for an uncertain positive outcome in the distant future is anathema. That's why leaders of states exist: to have the broader perspective of what is in a state's, and hopefully the international community at large as well, best interest. In democracies however, those leader's power is dependent upon the support of a general populace that is incapable of looking at the long term. To what extent then, is a leader ethical in taking undemocratic action to serve the best interests of the people? During wartime this becomes a question of what price victory. It's easy to dismiss this as an absurd question, that of course we shouldn't allow undemocratic action by our leaders because that would be undemocratic, but to do so would be to say that if the majority has decided it wants to march off a cliff then those in a position to redirect them should stand aside and let them march to their doom. Not all wars, and not all policies are such life and death issues, but even in less desperate situations I think it's an appropriate question to ask.

I bring all of this up because it seems fairly clear that the American public has decided that the sooner American involvement in Iraq ends, the better. The problem with that line of thinking is that Iraq is located in the Middle East, not South East Asia. Even if tomorrow the entire nation rallied behind a plan to end dependence on foreign oil and to cut all ties with our allies in the region, it would still take us several decades to completely disentangle ourselves from the middle east. My point here is that even if we wanted to, we cannot immediately end involvement with the most strategic region in the world. The outcome in Iraq is one that we are going to have to live with for a long time to come, we cannot simply wash our hands of what happens there. So the idea that rapid withdrawal is in America's best interest is in my opinion pure fantasy. It may be nice in the short term to stop having to read reports of American casualties, but in the long term we will have to deal with the consequences of a failed state smack dab in the Middle East. Victory is critical in my opinion, but the American people no longer have the will to win. The politically expedient move is to withdraw but such a move would be to the long run detriment of the nation. The rational decision for our leaders is irrational. This is perhaps the greatest danger of democracy, to what extent should we try to correct it?

Enzoblue, I have to disagree. I am a former Marine-- I was in during Gulf War I, stationed in Quantico, where this Sergeant is now. The five part order includes an objective. As a Lieutenant, I was required to give an objective, and if the order was well-formed, that objective was clear. Going into a mission without a clear objective is tantamount to suicide. That was the first thing I learned when I learned to give orders at TBS. Having servicemen follow unclear objectives isn't discipline and it isn't patriotism: it is poor leadership.

Granted, I participated in my share of mickey mouse maneuvers where the objective was not clear, but normally that was because the C.O. had not done his homework (sometimes that C.O. was me!), or there was a lack of information. That is understandable. But an order cannot lack a clear objective because of political expedience. This is what these servicemen are objecting to.