Month: June 2011

Forgive me, I have no transcript of Rush’s remarks since I heard them in the car this afternoon. My quotes are from memory, and thus may not be exactly correct. However, I believe the gist of what Rush said is accurately presented — Steven D

Poor Rush Limbaugh is sad. So sad he couldn’t even begin to express the sorrow in his heart. What was causing him such grief? Well, it seems in the budget negotiations (according to Rush so take the following with a massive container of rock salt) Obama advocated that the accelerated tax depreciation allowance on corporate jets be raised from five years to seven years.

It took a while before I knew that this was the cause of Rush’s great distress, however. First he had to complain that liberals have no empathy for “the real people struggling out there” and that the Obama administration (or maybe just liberals in general — it was a little hard to follow him at this point what with all the sighing and faux outrage going on) was just “a bunch of robots” engaged in a “grand social experiment.”

Then when I heard that the source of his ire was Obama’s proposal to require corporations to write off the costs for corporate owned jets over seven years instead of the current five years, I really had to laugh. Really Rush, you’re sad about corporations having to depreciate their corporate jet costs over 7 years instead of five?

All this moaning over the fact that over the next ten years corporations with enough money to afford private jets will have to pay $3 Billion more in taxes. That’s ten years for all corporations who own a corporate jet. Oh the pain, the injustice of it all! My guess? Rush or his buddies are some of the few people who get to fly in corporate jets rather than go through the hell the rest of us experience when we fly. Oh wait, Obama’s proposal is worse for poor Rush than I thought! Just take a gander at these photos of the luxury private jet he bought in 2008. Or this one:

I guess Rush is mad/sad about the possibility he might get a few less bucks deducted from his taxes. I can see why he might be a little agitated. Still, what Rush said next wasn’t so funny.

Why? Because Rush decided to attack students getting federal financial aid.

(cont.)
Basically he suggested that federal student financial aid in the form of Pell Grants, Stafford loans and other assistance be eliminated. Why? Because those students “aren’t learning anything –(long pause)– useful.” In other words he blamed my kids, your kids, and for those of you a bit older your grand-kids, for ruining our economy and exploding the federal budget. By implication, they are either stupid or lazy or both and they are wasting valuable tax dollars that could go to more worthy causes, such as, for example, giving Rush and his CEO buddies a bigger tax deduction on their corporate jets.

I’m sure some of his audience was lapping this up, especially those who never went to college, but also I’m willing to bet a fair proportion of those who received and relied upon GI Bill benefits (i.e., my father for one) so they could go to school, or cheap student loans and government funded state colleges and universities that allowed their children (e.g., my brothers, sister and I) to afford to go to college without running up $100,000 – $150,000 in student loan debt.

Rush, I know you are a loud mouthed, draft dodging, Oxycontin addict who failed miserably at college and who makes big money only because you are willing to say anything, any lie or slur you can get away with to demean your fellow Americans in order to advance the conservative agenda of the wealthiest people in America, but really, college kids who get federal assistance are to blame for the current economic and budget crisis? Today’s college kids are to blame for the failure of our economy?

Today’s college kids lucky enough to get student financial aid from the federal government in order to pay ever more outrageous tuition and fees — believe me I know because my son graduate Magna Cum Laude with dual degrees in four years time this May — aren’t the problem.

Financial aid to students qualified to attend college is an investment in our nation’s families and our nation’s future.

Washington, D.C., April 30, 2004—A new national report documents widespread and dramatic benefits to the nation from investing in higher education and the critical role played by student aid. […]

The national benefits linked to investing in student aid and college access, according to the report, include: higher tax revenues; lower unemployment; greater productivity; reduced reliance on public assistance; increased consumption; increased civic participation; decreased crime; and increased quality of health, civic life, and social cohesion. […]

Three decades of declining federal grant levels and decreasing state funding for colleges and universities, the study reports, have dramatically shifted the burden of rising college costs to students and their families, especially at lower-income levels. The percentage of family income required to pay for one year of college almost doubled for low-income families—from 13 to 25%—between 1987 and 2001. High-income families consistently spend less than 5% of their income.

In three decades, need-based grant aid has plunged from 61% of the share of federal student aid to 22% today, while loans have soared from 34% to70%. Pell Grants now pay for only about 34% of the average cost of attendance, down from 84% in the mid-1970s.

Corporate jets, on the other hand, are an investment in the comfort and luxury of senior executives (and their clients, friends and family members) of large corporations. People like Rush Limbaugh.

No wonder Rush is so upset. Obama doesn’t care enough about about him.

EXTRA BONUS COVERAGE!!! Here’s what Rush said yesterday about Obama’s proposal to eliminate this tax break for corporate jets (via Media Matters):

LIMBAUGH: Here is Obama with corporate jet owners in the crosshairs again — and remember, now, it was just last week, the USA Today ran a story about how the corporate jets were starting to fly again, corporate jet owners were utilizing the aircraft. It was a sign! USA Today so happy! It was a sign of economic recovery. Today in his press conference, Obama once again cranking up the class warfare.

[…]

RUSH: This is just — dangerous is what this is. This is full-fledged demagoguery, and we’re listening to this from the chief architect of the destruction of this economy. And once again, pitting groups of Americans against each other. One group — his aim is for one group of Americans to hate and despise another group. What? What are you – well, that’s what he’s banking on: he’s banking on that most Americans will agree with him because this is fair, and to a certain extent there’s some Americans who will agree with it. [Premiere Radio Networks, The Rush Limbaugh Show, 6/29/11]

Flying corporate jets are a sign of economic recovery? For who exactly? Not these people:

June 30 (Bloomberg) — More Americans than forecast filed applications for unemployment benefits last week, indicating little progress in the labor market. […]

Weaker demand in recent months has prompted some companies to trim their workforces, adding to concern a cooling labor market will further restrain consumer spending that accounts for about 70 percent of the economy. Federal Reserve officials last week retained record monetary stimulus to help the economy withstand a “temporary” slowdown in growth.

“The labor market is not making any material improvement,” said John Herrmann, senior fixed-income strategist at State Street Global Markets LLC in Boston, who projected 429,000 claims in the latest week. “Consumer spending will be more constrained.”

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/06/30/bloomberg1376-LNLS201A1I5301-2TH3ABSS53MNRC6TND1LFN2I2V.DTL#ixzz1QnKu2y6a

Well what do I know. I am only a lowly blogger, not someone with “talent on loan from God.” By the way Rush, I heard you defaulted on that loan a long time ago. I sure hope God (or the Flying Spaghetti Monster) extracts his/her pound of flesh from you in the afterlife. No one, and I mean no one, is as deserving of that special treatment as you.

Apparently, Dana Milbank likes it when the president is kind of a dick. Even though he, like Mark Halperin, thinks the president was engaging in “class warfare” by going after tax breaks for private jets, he still found the president’s performance in yesterday’s press conference “refreshing.” He thought it was refreshing, in part, because the president asserted that American is “the greatest nation on Earth.” I guess it doesn’t take much to impress Mr. Milbank.

He was also impressed by the president’s dismissive attitude about questions related to Libya and gay marriage. I think that Milbank would be most impressed if Obama openly insulted and mocked the press.

As for the merits of anything the president had to say, Milbank is completely silent. All that matters is that the president wasn’t “passive.”

I am glad that Mark Halperin called the president a dick on Morning Joe this morning. I’m also glad the producer didn’t know which button to push to prevent it from being broadcast. I’m glad not because I agree with Halperin that the president was being a dick, but because it forever removes any doubt about Halperin’s political bias.

“I thought he was a dick yesterday,” Halperin, who also is a senior political analyst for MSNBC, said on Morning Joe, referring to the President’s conduct during his press conference.

Host Joe Scarborough hoped to prevent the comment from being broadcast, saying, “Delay that. Delay that. What are you doing? I can’t believe… don’t do that. Did we delay that?”

Just minutes later, Halperin quickly apologized to the president and viewers for his choice of words. “Joking aside, this is an absolute apology. I shouldn’t have said it. I apologize to the president and the viewers who heard me say that,” Halperin said.

“We’re going to have a meeting after the show,” Scarborough said.

According to Scarborough, there had been a mishap with the seven-second delay button – a new executive producer apparently didn’t know how it worked. “You are supposed to know how to do the job,” Scarborough said of his producer. “I would tell you what I think of him, but he doesn’t know what button to push.”

Later in the show, Halperin again apologized, saying, “I can’t explain why I did it. It’s inappropriate, disrespectful. I’ve already apologized, and I will again to the President. I’m sorry, I’m sorry to the viewers…It is disrespectful, what I said was disrespectful to the president and the office but it also lowers our discourse.”

I’m not sure why Halperin thought the president was a dick. Maybe it was because he wants to raise Halperin’s taxes rather than cut money for college loans, food stamps, and unemployment insurance. Halperin should be careful. He might need that last one.

Should evolution be taught in school?

Idiocracy is here now.

Here’s an excerpt from Bruce Springsteen’s eulogy for Clarence Clemons:

Standing next to Clarence was like standing next to the baddest ass on the planet. You were proud, you were strong, you were excited and laughing with what might happen, with what together, you might be able to do. You felt like no matter what the day or the night brought, nothing was going to touch you. Clarence could be fragile but he also emanated power and safety, and in some funny way we became each other’s protectors; I think perhaps I protected “C” from a world where it still wasn’t so easy to be big and black. Racism was ever present and over the years together, we saw it. Clarence’s celebrity and size did not make him immune. I think perhaps “C” protected me from a world where it wasn’t always so easy to be an insecure, weird and skinny white boy either. But, standing together we were badass, on any given night, on our turf, some of the baddest asses on the planet. We were united, we were strong, we were righteous, we were unmovable, we were funny, we were corny as hell and as serious as death itself. And we were coming to your town to shake you and to wake you up. Together, we told an older, richer story about the possibilities of friendship that transcended those I’d written in my songs and in my music. Clarence carried it in his heart. It was a story where the Scooter and the Big Man not only busted the city in half, but we kicked ass and remade the city, shaping it into the kind of place where our friendship would not be such an anomaly. And that… that’s what I’m gonna miss. The chance to renew that vow and double down on that story on a nightly basis, because that is something, that is the thing that we did together… the two of us. Clarence was big, and he made me feel, and think, and love, and dream big. How big was the Big Man? Too fucking big to die. And that’s just the facts. You can put it on his grave stone, you can tattoo it over your heart. Accept it… it’s the New World.

I love that skinny, white, insecure kid from Freehold, New Jersey. I’m going to miss Clarence, too. The two of them brought out the best in each other. People forget, back when Bruce and Clarence first got together, it has highly unusual to have a mixed-race band and it impacted where they could get gigs. Bruce didn’t care. He made his friendship with Clarence an example for the whole industry, the country, and the world. And they were badass.

Over the past decade I and many others have blogged about individual cases where tasers have been abused by law enforcement agencies and individual law enforcement officials. From the Baron Pikes case where a young black man in custody was tased to death by a white police officer in a small town in Louisiana until he died to the increase in taser use in Chicago to the tasing of a a bedridden 86 year old grandmother in El Reno, Oklahoma, to the man tazed while having a diabetic seizure — well you get the point. There’s a vast number of such stories where tasers were used in situations for which they were not intended, but few comprehensive studies to support the claims by activists that taser abuse by law enforcement in America is widespread.

Fort that reason, I’m gratified to learn that the ACLU in Arizona took it upon themselves to fund a study to determine whether tasers are being systematically abused by Arizona law enforcement agencies. The results of that study should not surprise anyone. From the Executive Summary:

Many U.S. law enforcement and correctional agencies in the United States are using Tasers today. In Arizona, where TASER International has its corporate headquarters, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Arizona asked large police departments and sheriff’s offices about the number and percentage of officers armed with a Taser; virtually every sworn officer is provided with one.

… However, all too often, Tasers are used “preemptively” against citizens that do not present an imminent safety threat, and even offensively as a pain compliance tool. What’s more, both TASER International training materials and agency policies anticipate that officers will use the weapon as a pain compliance tool.

This study confirms what many of us have been saying for years: that tasers are not merely used as an alternative to lethal force. Far from it. Indeed, there primary use in many cases in simply to coerce and intimidate individuals who pose no danger of imminent harm. The number of reports of taser misuse are not simply the result of “liberal bias.” The abuse of tasers by law enforcement officials is not the result merely the result of a few bad apples or rogue cops. As the ACLU in Arizona has documented, the use of tasers to compel compliance and even torture people already in custody is not a bug, it’s a feature. It’s right there in the instructional materials provided by Taser International, and, at least in Arizona (though I’m quite sure this is the case in many other states as well) in the policies for using tasers adopted by many law enforcement agencies.

Here’s some other relevant findings by the ACLU:

One of the most striking and more significant findings that came out of the ACLU of Arizona’s study is that, contrary to claims by Taser proponents, the frequency of deployment of lethal force has not declined with the advent of Tasers. […]

[T]he ACLU’s survey of Arizona law enforcement agencies revealed that jurisdictions have adopted a patchwork of inconsistent policies regarding the Tasing of pregnant, young or elderly suspects, use of Tasers near a flammable substance, using Tasers on intoxicated people, and deploying the Taser multiple times on an individual. […]

… Amnesty International’s recent 127-page report highlighting deaths associated with Taser use found that the county in the United States with the highest number of reported deaths was Arizona’s own Maricopa County.

As the ACLU makes clear, Taser International has always touted that tasers are a safe and effective alternative to lethal force. What Taser International fails to mention, however, is that tasers are most often used in situations where lethal force is not necessary or warranted. Let me quote the study again:

[T]he reality is that the majority of Taser shocks fired by officers do not take the place of gunshots, but rather other, less-lethal uses of force, such as baton strikes, chemical sprays, and the like. As the ACLU of Arizona’s law enforcement survey suggests, Tasers are routinely deployed in situations where lethal force would not be justified (i.e., in the absence of an immediate threat to officer or public safety.) […]

In a 2004 special report, The Arizona Republic analyzed use-of-force reports from the Phoenix Police Department for 377 incidents involving a Taser and found that in nearly nine out of 10 cases, the subjects had not threatened officers with any weapon before a Taser was used.

In short, tasers have not lowered the rate at which deadly force is employed, despite Taser International’s claims to the contrary. What they have done is to increase the use of an often deadly device to coerce people to comply with the police in situations where there is no danger of any threat to the officers or to the public. Tasers have been employed against diabetics, people with epilepsy, people with heart conditions, the elderly, children and even pregnant women. They have been used against people already handcuffed and in custody. For all too many law enforcement officials they provide a lazy way to deal with people with whom those officers come into contact.

And to be fair, this isn’t a problem only in Arizona, The ACLU cites the following 2007 report by the Houston Chronicle as further evidence that Taser abuse and misuse is widespread in other communities across the United States:

In Houston, for example, a 2007 investigation revealed that in 95 percent of more than 1,000 incidents over two years, Tasers were “not used to defuse situations in which suspects wielded weapons and deadly force clearly would have been justified.” In approximately 35 percent of the cases examined by the Houston Chronicle, no crime was committed at all. And of those people charged with crimes, most were accused of misdemeanors or nonviolent offenses.

Taser abuse is rampant. The statistics in Arizona clearly document that this is the case in at least one state. It would be easy to bash Arizona, but we know from the studies that have been done in Houston and Chicago, and the other, numerous local news reports that incidents of taser abuse by the police occur all across the country. As Annie Lai, staff attorney for the Arizona ACLU, and a co-author of the report succinctly put it:

“In many cases, you find that officers go for the Taser as the first instinct, rather than being trained in situations to de-escalate a situation or using alternative, less-severe uses of force.”

That’s the problem in a nutshell. If you are a police officer, why try to resolve a situation peacefully, or use a less lethal method to deal with individuals who do not immediately comply with what you tell them to do, when you have your trusty taser right there on your hip, ready to pull out and shock non-violent offenders or simply innocent individuals who pose no threat to you or anyone else. It’s a lot easier to use a taser rather than deal with the “hassle” of keeping the “peace” by using less violent means. Thus, we end up with police using tasers indiscriminately against almost anyone who looks at them cross-eyed, or (in the case of some sick and sadistic cops) as a means to torture individuals already safely in custody. In situations in which officers would never think to use a firearm, they are more than willing to use a taser.

A cop armed with a taser doesn’t have to put up with any lip from anyone. Even a routine traffic stop can end with you being shocked multiple times if he or she is in a bad mood, or you fail to comply fast enough with the cop’s demands. The taser encourages violence against ordinary citizens by the police, rather than discourages it. And in all too many cases it kills people. People like Baron Pikes whom I mentioned above.

Yet, where is the outcry in the national media about this epidemic of police abuse and excessive force? No where to be found. I guess we will just have to wait until some celebrity or pretty blonde young woman from a good family suffers death by taser before the national media will stand up and take notice.

In the meantime, the widespread use of tasers is eroding the public’s trust in their law enforcement officials. I know that I always get anxious when I come across a police officer these days. He or she may be a dedicated and helpful public servant who plays by the rules, but how can you or I know for certain. We can’t, and that’s the real tragedy the ACLU has documented and wants to solve. Yet without coverage by the media of this problem leading to public outrage and a demand to deal with these issues, it’s unlikely that individual states or Congress will do anything to stop what happens all to often to many, many people in the United States of America: torture, and far too often death, by taser wielding cops.

Yes, once more, if a Republican acts badly, rest assured come conservative website will find a way to blame that perennial bogeyman of the right –George Soros.

Now first along comes Christan Schneider a senior fellow at the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute who writes in the National Review (repeated by the the heretofore little known Jonathan Tobin at Commentary Contentions and subsequently re-trumpeted by the geniuses at American Thinker and who knows where else by now) has learned the real truth behind Prossergate: it was Soros all along:

First the NRO:

To date, Bradley has not filed any kind of charges against Prosser. Instead, the story was leaked to the George Soros–funded Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, who used three anonymous sources to back up Bradley’s story.

Then Tobin’s take:

But it turns out the charge against Prosser may be as bogus as the liberal claims that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and the GOP-controlled legislature were turning the Badger state into Nazi Germany. […]

The story was leaked to the George Soros-funded Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, which promoted the accusation against Prosser and backed it up with anonymous sources. […]

This is just another sign of how brutal the battle between liberals and conservatives in Wisconsin has become. Having failed to stop the governor’s legislative agenda via boycotts by Democratic legislators and then a failed court challenge, is appears the next phase of this no-hold-barred dustup are attempts to personally destroy those associated with support of Walker’s ideas.

Always love it when the Right plays the Nazi card against liberals, don;t you?, Meanwhile, American Thinker then takes the story and re-translates into this accusatory screed:

This is par for the course for George Soros and his band of political activists and their wealthy liberal backers. They are perfecting the art of character assassination as a political tool. This “game” was played quite well in Colorado and was the basis for a superb article back in July 2008 by Fred Barnes (see “The Colorado Model: The Democrats’ Plan for Turning Red States Blue”). A book was later written about this history (The Blueprint: How the Democrats Won Colorado [and Why Republicans Everywhere Should be Worried] by Adam Schrager and Rob Witwer).

But Colorado was not the only state where Soros & Company have tried these dirty tricks.

I wrote back in 2008 in “The Soros Connection in the Minnesota Senate Race Vote Count” that a Soros-supported group ginned up calls for investigations of Norm Coleman in his race against the Soros-supported Al Franken […]

Now Soros and his merry band of liberal operatives are trying the tried and true tactic of sponsoring smear lawsuits.

Lawfare — the newest political tactic. And just another way to smear opponents. When people see smoke, they naturally tend to think there is fire. Soros likes smoke — and smokescreens.

Yes, because God knows, whenever a Republican gets her or himself in trouble you know it must be becuase the the sinister and secretive George Soros and his merry gang of “rich liberal activists” are behind it all (by the way, can one of you hook me up with Mr. Soros? I’d love to get rich for all the liberal “dirty tricks” — like telling the effing truth about climate change, Iraq, homophobia, Fox News, etc. — I’ve perpetrated against the right since 2004).

You know, I hate anonymous sources too. Maybe we should ask Justice Prosser to just clear this whole thing up once and for all. I’m sure he can just issue a denial and that will be that. Oh wait, he did issue a statement. I wonder what he said? It turns out, not a whole hell of a lot:

Once there’s a proper review of the matter and the facts surrounding it are made clear, the anonymous claim made to the media will be proven false. Until then I will refrain from further public comment.

What a bold rebuttal! Funny how the right keeps ignoring that Prosser hasn’t officially denied he choked Bradley. Then again, he’s a lawyer as well as a judge, and we all know anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. And telling a a little (you know, like “She attacked me! I was only protecting myself from her tiny fists of fury”) can lead to lots of problems for politicians and even judges. Best to issue a non-denial denial and let your “anonymous friends” find someone to blame for the mess, someone who will provide a distraction and muddy the waters. Someone whose name they always drag out whenever they need to make it appear as if they are the true victims. Someone like “George Soros.”

You know, if Soros was responsible for even a tenth of the stuff they blame him for, he’d be working 24 hours a day just on attacking Republicans. You see, this is the difference between conservatives who do something “scandalous” and Democrats. If you are a Democrat, your fellow party members force you to resign. If you’re a Republican? Well they rally round the poor abused victim of these “outrageous and false allegations” and then they point the finger at George Soros, or President Obama, or Keith Olbermann, or whomever is handy that particular day.

Sorry George. I guess it was your turn in the right wing’s never ending game of “pin the blame on the liberal.”

But seriously, about that funding I need …

Ps: The sources of funding for the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism are disclosed at this LINK:

The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism is a nonprofit, nonpartisan 501(c)3 organization that is primarily funded through grants and donations from foundations and individuals. A smaller amount of its revenue is earned through production of commissioned reports.

The Center’s first major grant, a gift of $100,000, was awarded by the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation in 2009.

The Oklahoma-based foundation continued to support the Center with grants of $100,000 in 2010 and $75,000 in 2011.

In 2010, the Center received a two-year $75,000 matching grant from Challenge Fund for Journalism VI, a joint program of the Ford Foundation in New York, the McCormick Foundation in Illinois and the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation.

The Foundation to Promote Open Society, which works in cooperation with the Open Society Institute in New York City, awarded the Center $50,000 in 2009 and $100,000 in 2010 (to be spread over two years).

The Center also is grateful for contributions it received from the Peters Family Foundation in Utah in 2009 and 2010, the Evjue Foundation in Madison in 2009, 2010 and 2011, and the Wisconsin State Journal in 2009.

The Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (of whom Mr. Schneider mentioned above is a Fellow) is funded by grants from The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation to the tune of $8.47 Million. For more about the Bradley Foundation’s origins and history go here:

Harry, along with his older brother Lynde, started the Allen-Bradley company, a major manufacturer of electronics and engine parts. After a bitter strike in 1939, Harry became increasingly political. Although his company boomed because of World War 2-era contractsfrom the government, Harry abhorred any intrusions into his business: especially labor organizers (who he termed “communists” in his memoirs), as well as pressure to hire women and minorities in his plants, a move he resisted until his death. Responding to the civil rights movement and liberalism in society, Harry became obsessed with right-wing politics. According to scholar William Schambra, Harry even studied Lenin and Stalin for ideas on how to wage guerrilla warfare against the left. He joined candy manufacturer Robert Welch to be one of the charter members of the John Birch Society (along with JBS board member Fred Koch, the father of Koch Industries executives Charles and David Koch), and financed other right-wing firebrands. […]

After the Allen-Bradley company was purchased by Rockwell International in 1985, the Bradley Foundation surged with an additional $290 million in funds. The money has gone on to finance ideas held strongly by Harry Bradley: anti-affirmative action scholars, anti-multiculturalism books (the Bradley Foundation underwrote the notoriously racist book The Bell Curve), anti-welfare campaigns, privatization efforts, neoconservative fronts, and tens of millions for groups opposed to public and private sector unions, particular in the field of education. As conservative writer Al Regnery has observed, conservatives have relied on the Bradley Foundation to finance the backbone of radical policy ideas that first take root in Wisconsin but are then championed by Republicans around the country. Gov. Scott Walker’s current fight to crush labor rights in Wisconsin is the fulfillment of Harry Bradley’s John Birch Society dream.

Hmmm, the John Birch Society, eh? Fascinating.

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The Three Levitating Government Officials in China

On the evening of June 26, an Internet user made a post titled <Too fake: the propaganda photo for our county> at the Tianya Forum.  “I had nothing to do today so I visited the website for our county government.  The headline story was about the upgrade for the road to the countryside.  I looked at the photo and I almost coughed out half a liter of blood!  Even a rank amateur like myself can tell that this was a PhotoShop job, and they had the nerve to put this on the home page!”  The post included a screen capture of a photo, in which three men were “floating” over a road.  There were clear indications that this was a composite job.  According to the caption: “County mayor Li Ningyi and vice-mayor Tang Xiaobing are inspecting the newly constructed country road at Lihong Town.”  This post drew plenty of readers, and the Huili County Government website was even down for a while because of the heavy traffic volume.

 « click

More photo’s of the three leaders …  

"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

I wanted no part of Libya’s civil war, as I made as clear as possible for weeks prior to our commitment to that clusterfuck. And now pretty much everything I feared has come to pass, with an added bonus of the administration thumbing its nose at the War Powers Resolution. That’s a nice little cherry on top.

What did I say? I said the opposition was too disorganized and weak to topple Gaddafi and that we would have to get deeply involved in training and arming them. I said that it wasn’t in our national interests to be involved in Libya and that it wouldn’t have any support from the public. I said that we didn’t know who we were dealing with or even who we’d like to see in a future government in Libya. And every single piece of that is detailed in the linked McClatchy article.

No one wants to see a bunch of innocent people get gunned down by a lunatic. But sometimes you are just not in a position to help. Another thing I said was that once we committed, we ought to go take him out of Tripoli, dead or alive, and get the thing over with. Because it isn’t humanitarian to arm a country up for a prolonged civil war that kills many more people and leaves more destruction than anything that you prevented in the first place.

What’s become an open-ended conflict, military officers and experts say, illustrates ill-defined U.S. objectives, the limits of relying solely on air power and the lack of diplomatic tools to broker an end to Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s regime. Thousands of anti-Gadhafi rebels have been killed, and some at the Pentagon worry that the mounting deaths and reduced U.S. involvement have jeopardized what President Barack Obama called a campaign to protect Libyan civilians.

“We are losing the goodwill this was supposed to create,” said one senior military officer who wasn’t authorized to be quoted by name.

Meanwhile, no one appears to give a damn about the Syrians, which at least means that we’re not bogged down in that country, too, bleeding more money and good will. Every bad thing that is happening in the world is not our responsibility. We can’t fix everything. We need to learn that.

On this whole debt limit deal, the White House seems to be supremely confident that they’ll get something done and that it will be the Republicans who will blink. That’s not to say that there won’t be some ugly concessions made, but when it comes to facing their respective bases of political support, it’s the Congressional Republican leadership who will be getting the worst beating.

The reasons are fairly simple. John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are not teabaggers, and the people they answer to want no part of a default, or even the threat of a default. Moreover, the White House feels that they’ve framed this extremely well and the Republicans have screwed themselves by pushing the Ryan plan, and by walking away from table in support of tax loopholes for multimillionaires’ yachts and private airplanes. In short, the White House thinks the Republicans have an awful political argument and that they know it. Finally, and crucially, John Boehner has an incredibly difficult task. He must get a bill passed in the House that can also pass in the Senate, which is still controlled by the Democrats. Everyone knows that Boehner can’t do this by relying on his own caucus. And he won’t be able to attract any Democrats for anything remotely resembling what he’s led his base to expect. To even get a bill on the table, he’s going to have to back down and craft something widely acceptable to Democrats. It’s not unlikely that he’ll wind up in a bind where he actually pushes a bill that has more Democratic support than Republican.

And I don’t think the White House plans on giving him a whole lot. Maybe some cost savings on Medicare, but no reduction in benefits. Certainly not a balanced budget amendment. And there will be an elimination of significant tax loopholes.

The thing I am still worried about is that Boehner won’t be able to figure out how to get this done. It’s basically a suicide mission, as I can’t imagine him surviving in a leadership position if he passes a Democratic-majority debt limit bill. But it doesn’t appear he has any other choice. The White House just isn’t buying his threats. They know his masters expect a deal, and soon.