I have a theory that Sarah Palin has the intent to humiliate John McCain as often as possible. Maybe it’s because McCain wouldn’t let her give her own concession speech. Maybe it’s some of the things McCain’s advisers have said about her. Or, maybe, it’s just a joke the gods are playing on McCain for being so stupid in his choice of running mate:
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) defended the controversial enhanced interrogation technique of waterboarding this weekend, and implied that the practice would still be commonplace “if I were in charge.”
“They obviously have information on plots to carry out Jihad,” she said at the National Rifle Association (NRA) annual meeting on Saturday evening, referring to prisoners. “Oh, but you can’t offend them, can’t make them feel uncomfortable, not even a smidgen. Well, if I were in charge, they would know that waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists.”
The best part is that McCain won’t allow himself to react to this because he can’t admit the magnitude of his mistake.
Palin is so stupid she still doesn’t realize that choosing her as VP candidate was an integral part of the PrObama fix. McCain can’t say anything because he was a witting part of that fix. Or maybe he wasn’t…he’s pretty dumb too. Either way, Palin was the guarantee.
AG
Whaaaaa? The McCain campaign/Republican Party/PermaGov/whothefuckknows conspired to elect Obama?
Good Lord, Arthur, you’re debasing yourself. Got any more glowing things to say about Cliven Bundy?
Why not? The Dems “debased” themselves to elect Bush II.
Twice.
If it’s all one UniParty/PermaGov, in the long run what’s the difference who’s in the catbird seat? The same controllers run the real show.
AG
What, Arthur, no mention of the Illuminati and citations from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion? Are you mellowing in your conspiracy theory addicted old age?
It’s not a “conspiracy,” exactly…more of a cooperative. Give a little, get a little. Have you noticed that…regardless of how hard the media try to brainwash us…popular opinion on such things as gun control, foreign military adventures and punishment for economic criminals means nothing to the controllers? The U.S. is supposed to be a democracy, a place where the representatives of the people take actions that the majority of those people want. But when push comes to shove, nothing ever changes. Not really. One side says one thing, the other side says another. Then there’s an election. And then? Nothing changes except the rhetoric.
The greatest fix is one where the fixers profit no matter which side wins.
That’s where we are now, brother. If it wasn’t clear what’s up when Gore and Kerry conceded the obviously stolen elections without a fight, it should be clear now. Where are the economic criminals? Still in power. Have we brought the troops home? No. Are guns still available for less money than it costs for a 30,000 mile automoblie tuneup or a set of good tires? Bet on it. Really. What has changed since JFK went down? Not a damned thing.
Think on it.
Front men come and front men go, but the controllers still run the real show.
Think on it.
AG
What has changed? Cliven Bundy has brought slavery (and no doubt indentured servitude) into mainstream media discussion as if they are legitimate options in the US.
But…It is only 18 days until the opening of the NC General Assembly session. And another season of Moral Monday.
“What has changed since JFK went down?”
Well, Arthur, there’s this little matter of Civil Rights, for starters, but I guess you and your guru Rand Paul prefer not to think about such details.
If an entire, thriving culture…the urban black culture of the ’30s, ’40s + ’50s…has been decimated and replaced by gang warfare, sorry excuses for schools, rancid projects and some middle class black suburban ghettoes…because that’s what most suburban black neighborhoods really are these days, white flight made them that way…how effective has the Civil Rights bill really been, Nick?
Sure, 10%…or even 20% or 30%…of the black population is living better than were their equivalents in the pre-“Civil Rights” days, but what about the 70% or 80% that’s still stuck in gang-infested, drug-infested ghettoes? What’s it done for them except trap them on yet another set of mean, dead-end streets? The state of urban America is a thousand times worse than it was in the ’40 s and ’50s. Murder rates are skyrocketing, the entire educational system is breaking down, the prison population is soaring and children are being shot in the street by other children.
It ain’t working, Nick.
Not by a long shot.
Things have certainly changed. They have regressed.
What’s that you say? “At least we have a black president!!!”
Yeah. Right.
Window dressing.
There are presently (as of 2013) 43 black members in the House of Representatives and one in the Senate.
The black population of the U.S. is approximately 20% of the entire population. There are 100 Senators, so proportionately there should be 20 black Senators. Not one. And there are 435 Congressmen. Thus if proportionately represented there should be about 86 black Congressmen, not 43. The same numbers hold true for Hispanic representation.
Now…what was that about a black president?
Right.
Window dressing.
Meanwhile the entire culture is breaking down. Members of the armed forces are committing suicide at unprecedented rates. Homes are being foreclosed left and right. Children are being shot in schools by other children. Police brutality nationwide is right up there with Bull Connors and his Birmingham attack dogs, only now the cops are in military gear and under the indirect command of national intelligence services.
And you think that the Civil Rights Bill produced the desired results?
i guess it depends on who was doing the desiring.
Wake the fuck up.
AG
Go on, Arthur (or should I call you Cliven?), do explain to us how blacks were better off picking cotton for their kindly masters or under the wise and gentle guidance of Jim Crow.
“The state of urban America is a thousand times worse than it was in the ’40 s and ’50s. Murder rates are skyrocketing, the entire educational system is breaking down, the prison population is soaring and children are being shot in the street by other children.”
So this is what you talk about with the voices in your head. What a sad, boring, predictable little set of ignorant, racist fantasies you have.
And on the topic of murder rates, you are, unsurprisingly, full of it:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/01/the-year-in-murder-2013-marks-a-historic-low-for-ma
ny-cities.html
Nor is the education system breaking down, although those wanting to privatize the K-12 system would have us believe otherwise. It would take a bit of digging, but there is data out there comparing charter schools to traditional public schools shows that traditional public schools more than hold their own – and that in spite of all the budget cuts our public education systems have experienced.
Cliven Bundy Wants to Tell You All About ‘the Negro’
The maiming and destruction of black life. This is key. What Glymph is discussing is not merely the theft of labor but the total plunder of the human body. Slavery is torture as a system of governance, corporal destruction taken as the mere cost of doing business.
Here are a few additions, courtesy of Glymph, to your morning reading:
Item: Enslaved woman Mandy Cooper was not quick enough churning milk, and thus her mistress had no butter to serve her party along with the cornbread and biscuits. Cooper’s mistress and her two guests–all women–then set upon Moore and “beat me from angah.” Moore’s mistress grabbed a heavy board. Another friend grabbed a whip.
Item: Enslaved woman Alice Shaw was given the task of fanning flies and clearing the dinner table. When she dropped a dish, her mistress “beat her on her head.”
Item: Clara Young did not always respond quickly enough to her mistress’s summons. Her mistress lifted her dress and beat her.
Item: Lila Nichols failed to gather enough eggs. She was beaten by her mistress. This same mistress later set upon an enslaved woman whom she suspected of poisoning her, “leaving her back ‘in gashes.’ She then ordered the slave woman chained until she had recovered sufficiently enough to be sold.”
Item: Delia Garlic was responsible for nursing and caring for her mistress’ baby. “One day I was playin’ wid de baby,” she reported. “It hurt its li’l han’ an’ commenced to cry, an’ [my mistress] whirl on me, pick up a hot iron an’ run it all down my arm an’ han’. It took off de flesh when she done it.”
Item: “Slaves was punished by whip and starving,” reported freedwoman Harriet Robinson. “Master Sam didn’t never whip me but Miss Julia whipped me everyday in the morning. During the war she beat me terrible. She say ‘Your master’s out fighting and losing blood trying to save you from the Yankees, so you kin get your’n here.'”
The idea that Robinson’s master was fighting on behalf of the slaves is both rich and telling. Mostly it shows that Cliven Bundy’s theories are not original but inherited via white supremacy.
Fuck you man, seriously. And you wonder why we accuse Ron and Rand Paul of peddling white supremacy and racism? You embody those same characteristics.
It’s OK, though, Rand Paul has the answer. All we have to do is militarize the border, make sure everybody has plenty of guns, burn as much oil coal as possible, and outlaw abortion. Then everything will be awesome.
Also, make sure we don’t drone people coming out of Starbucks. Droning overseas is ok, though.
I began composing a longer response, but really, Arthur’s willingness to ignore, among many other things, the deadly, oppressive history of Jim Crow laws and social structures (and their close relations outside the South) have me both angry with him and piteous of him. His blindness is evident to all who care to see.
That he dares to dish out heavy doses of condescension while spewing his ahistorical racist ignorance is truly mind-boggling. His rhetoric is disintegrating before us.
I just find it both funny and pitiable that Arthur Gilroy is simultaneously the most blinkered cultist on here and the most sanctimoniously passive-aggressive proclaimer of his own originality and insightfulness.
You know what they say:
Scratch an American libertarian, find a neoconfederate.
The black community is much better off now than pre-Civil Rights on a whole hosts of measures: high school graduation rates, poverty rates, college graduation, infant mortality, and so on–and for most of these measures, they are better for the majority of African-Americans, not some small percentage.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t huge problems still to overcome, but to suggest that black folks are worse off now than in the ’40s and ’50s is nonsense. Even areas that worsened post-Civil Rights, such as out-of-wedlock births, incarceration rates and violent crimes, have been declining since the 1990’s.
Looks like the Moral Monday movement is catching on throughout the South. Let’s hope it continues to flourish.
I agree that the plutocrats and military-industrial complex have too much control of our government. That doesn’t lead me into your delusional maze of conspiracy. Nor does it prevent me from knowing that your Paul movement, if placed in complete power, would be even more extremely servile to the plutocrats, with an extra helping of more extreme racism.
Perhaps you should stop digging, Arthur.
I wonder whether Sarah Palin feels we should “baptize” members of the Alaska Independence Party the same way? Or is she not so eager to apply such treatment to the terrorists she used to pal around with?
Good Lord, she really is a horrible person. You can hear her bleating, sneering voice anytime you read her quotes- her nastiness and stupidity just jump off the page.
Yes, perhaps the McCain campaign should have avoided giving a big megaphone to a person with the opinions of your average Free Republic online commenter. And the psychodrama which appears to be playing out is that Sarah knows that McCain, his campaign staff and supporters disrespected and mistrusted her, which ENRAGED her. Since election day, she has raked in worshipful crowds and big-time grifter money, all of which tells her over and over “It was McCain the RINO that was wrong, not me!”
McCain is a prideful man. I think at some point enough will be enough. It’s just going to take a reporter with the willingness to put stupid Sarah quotes in front of him and risk the Senator’s anger by asking him follow-up questions.
John McCain’s ability to show “pride” ended when he had to grovel to get Palin to come and save his re-election bacon. There’s not a chance that he’ll say anything to annoy the Mother of Meth-heads or her somewhat diminished, but still vocal, clique of teabaggers.
You may be right, but now that he’s safely re-elected, there may be a limit to the extreme humiliation he is willing to take. The torture issue is something McCain has shown himself to care about quite a bit- he’s been very nasty recently in taking down Cheney and other GOP leaders who won’t shut their pie holes about the glory of torture when the U.S. does it.
If he’s willing to give comments like these from Palin a pass, I’ll be surprised, but it’s possible that his gutlessness and lack of principles will continue, I concede.
“there may be a limit to the extreme humiliation he is willing to take…”
I suspect that John McCain would cheerfully take what we would consider to be humiliations galore provided that he got to continue to spend Cindy’s money, live in Cindy’s houses, and open his warmongering yap on the Sunday shows. I don’t think that “conservatives” operate with much of a sense of shame, if any.
Vengeful enough, but not smart enough to be a constant thorn in the side of McCain.
She’s merely pleasing the audiences that lavish attention, envy, and money on her. IOW, it’s business. One that’s doing surprisingly well considering that she’s been politically irrelevant for years.
Almost as amazing in the longevity of the shtick as Ann Coulter’s one-word titles showing up at your local library, isn’t it.
And the grift goes on…and the grift goes on….
A paid performer delivering to her audience.
Or how about this sick shtick:
The article in LifeNews seems driven by some Catholic publication that seems equally sick.
Notice no one knows exactly what is getting incinerated? It could be spent umbilical cords for all they know. But anything to gin up the outrage.
Yes, “aborted babies” to generate electricity. How does he propose we eliminate biological waste, which is quite hazardous? Dump the waste in the river, the same way his Big Oil overlords wish to do to our water supplies?
It’s a shame they didn’t get around to burning the toxic Canadian waste masquerading as a Senator from Texas. Just think of all that hot air waiting to be used!