Keith Olbermann on the Water boarding scandal

From the Countdown with Keith Olbermann:

My response to the debate is below, but I wanted to have Olbermann's response up to share with everyone.

so here they are, in two parts because it was too long for youtube.



and part 2

Who needs rules?

Who needs rules?

If you've been watching the news the last few weeks, you know that there has been a confirmation debate regarding Mukasey. The Dems, and some Republicans, want him to say unequivocally that water boarding is torture. As revealed recently, a former acting assistant attorney general wrote, in a memo, that he considered it torture. Keith Olbermann was upset with the Senators who refuse to do their jobs, and with the President and his administration who continue to defy, subvert and outright ignore the most sacred laws and rules that govern our country. While he and other pundits get upset with the people in power, who should use their power wisely, I am upset with the American people who continue to not care that this is going on and has been going on for the past 7 years.

It is our fault that this continues to happen. If we were to put pressure on the Congress they would hold the Bush administration accountable. But we don't, so they don't. We just don't seem to care. So I ask: who needs rules?

There is much debate over whether Barry Bonds deserves to be in the Hall of Fame and whether his home run record should have an asterisk by it.

Why?

He used (allegedly) illegal substances. Performance enhancing drugs.

So?

He broke league regulations. Almost anyone you ask has an opinion.

Really, officials in the Bush administration outed a covert CIA agent. An act of treason if committed by you or I. Half the country is outraged (either as a conservative or a liberal.) The other half doesn't care.

The Colts were accused of piping in crowd noise to distract the Patriots (the league found no evidence) during Sunday's game. "Cheaters!" some people cried. Considering they lost, maybe they should have cheated.

The Patriots were accused of illegally videotaping the defensive lines hand signals during a Jets game. For this act "Belichick was officially fined $500,000 USD--the biggest fine ever imposed on a coach in the league's 87-year history, and the maximum permitted under league rules. The Patriots were also fined $250,000. Additionally, the Patriots will forfeit their first round draft pick in the 2008 NFL Draft if they make the playoffs. If the Patriots do not make the playoffs, they will forfeit their second and third round selections in the 2008 draft. Goodell said that he fined the Patriots as a team because Belichick is effectively the team's general manager as well as head coach, and exercises so much control over the Patriots' on-field operations that "his actions and decisions are properly attributed to the club." (from wikipedia.org; my emphasis) However, this administration illegally and unconstitutionally wire-tapped innocent Americans and no one gets even a slap on the wrist.

I emphasized Goodell's comments because blamed is always assigned to:
• The head of Fema for the problems in Katrina or the fake news conference
• The troops for what happened at Abu Ghirab
• Scooter Libby for outing Valerie Plame (when they're not claiming she wasn't a covert agent to begin with)
• No one for the Justice Department firings

But what about the person in charge.

"His actions and decisions are properly attributed to the club." Cannot whatever occurs in the Bush Administration be properly attributed to the President? Does not he control his administration? If you hire someone to do a job and they don't do the job right, isn't that partly your fault for hiring them. If it happens once, then you can explain it away as it was just that person who f'ed up. However, if it occurs over and over again (like say fake news reports, fake news conference and fake reporters) then it has to be that the leader is approving of these actions. There's a saying in Texas, as President Bush once tried to share, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

And, is there really more accountability in major league sports than there is in the United States government. The self proclaimed Greatest Country in the World! Several Olympic athletes had to give back their medals when they were caught breaking the rules, but this President gets away with Torture? In direct violation of treaties we signed in good faith with other countries.

Football, baseball, and basketball, as great as they are, are still just games. Why the uproar over something that isn't that important. Our constitution is being violated by the very people who took an oath to "protect and defend" it.

"But, we're in a time of war," they say.

Well, I believe that, proportionally, if you can ignore the document our country considers most sacred because of war, then, if you are in a game in which you are battling to remain undefeated and be the 1 team in the country, you should be able to do whatever is necessary. Pipe in crowd noise. Send spies into the other team. See if you can get the opposing kicker to defect. After all it's just a game, no one dies if you break the rules.

Now, it's not that I think we shouldn't care about cheating in sports, or cheating in general. It's that I think we, as a country, should also care about dishonesty in government. Some have claimed that we must stop professional athletes from using performance enhancing drugs because it sends the wrong message to kids. Well, what message does it send kids when we say that it's okay to treat someone who we think (might possibly be, we don't actually have any evidence, in fact we got his name from torturing some other guy until he gave us a name, any name really) is a terrorist as if they weren't even human. What message does it send when we let the leader of our country get away with whatever he wants. I think sports and politics both send the same message: Do whatever you want to get to the top, and don't worry to much about the rules. They don't apply to you.

Republican debate

I wasn’t sure what I was going to write about after watching the Republican Debate. There was a lot of the same: McCain still talking about giving the surge a chance to work in Iraq. Giuliani still running on fear. Romney and Huckabee love God. Tancredo hates Mexicans. Ron Paul seems like he’s at the wrong debate. Seriously, Ron Paul sounds like a college professor debating students. He answers a question about religion mentioning that the first amendment states that the Congress “shall make no laws”, and everyone else mentions how much they love god and how much god loves us. When asked the rare question, he used the constitution and reasoned political theory to back up his answer, everyone else went to knee jerk responses that evoked belief over reason. Stick in there Ron, keep trying to bring the Republicans back to their original ideals of small government and fiscal responsibility.

The thing I wanted to talk about is one of the issues, of which there are many, that I disagree with Rep. Paul of Texas: Gays in the military. I believe it is time for us to join countries like Great Britain and Israel in allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in our military. The way the question was posed to Rudy Guliani was, “Recently we’ve learned that several talented, trained linguists. Arabic speakers, Farsi speakers, Urdu speakers, trained by the US government to learn these languages to help us in the war on terrorism were dismissed from the military because they announced they were gays or lesbians. Is that in your mind appropriate?”. His answer was, “This is not the time to deal with disruptive issues like this.” When is the time to bring up the fact that we have a dearth of Arabic translators and we’re fighting a war against people who speak “Arabic, Farsi, and Urdu”? Would it be a better time when we can’t translate a key piece of intel until days after an attack? Would that time work for you? Why must “no option be left off the table” when it comes to interrogation techniques or the use of nuclear weapons, but gays wanting to fight for our country is an option that should not even be brought to the table.

We have a volunteer military, and they aren’t volunteering like they used to. At a time when the military is lowering it’s standards to include felons and no longer dismissing new recruits for drug abuse, alcohol, poor fitness and pregnancy (also in time.com) can we really afford to turn anyone away. Especially those as important as translators. Are we really that homophobic? I guess we are.

The work we have to do is too important and the costs of failure are too great to continue to feed the fears and prejudices of a small group of outspoken individuals. McCain impressed me the most when he spoke of Hispanic involvement in the military. He stated that if you went to the Vietnam memorial you would notice many names of Hispanic origin. And if you go to Iraq or Afghanistan you will notice many Hispanics and several who are not citizens, but merely have green cards and are still standing up to defend this country. He could have easily been talking about gays, and if he had any guts he would have. Gays and lesbians fight and die for this country all the while keeping who they are a secret and when they get home they cannot enjoy the same rights as every other citizen of this country: to fall in love, get married, to pursue happiness. Evidently the Republican party only supports “most” of our troops.

j.r.

Ben Affleck's not that bad

Ben Affleck’s not that bad

Hear me out. I was watching Real Time with Bill Maher, and if you saw the last show before his hiatus, you saw Affleck get pissed at the Democrats for caving to Bush’s demands. I’m a Liberal first and a Democrat second and the Iraq spending bill is one of the reasons. Why the F@#k didn’t the Democrats just send back the same damn bill and play chicken with the President until he blinked. He only has a 33% approval rating! Who did the Democrats think they were going to piss off! Over 63% of the country actually say they DISAPPROVE of him. (if the numbers don’t add up to 100 it’s because I’m using average polling and around 2-5% of people actually have no opinion. NO OPINION! We’re living during an administration that makes Grant’s look like Camelot and you have NO OPINION! Ugh. Humans!)

The Democrats were elected because of the mishandling of the Iraq war (amongst many other things). They were elected so we’d finally have a check on his power. Rubber stamp days over! My ass! Ben’s point was that the Democrats are so scared of being called Pussies that they will do anything to avoid that. I agree! It takes courage to stand up to the bully and say, “No, you get out of the way.” The rule during the Clinton (Bill) campaign was “if you hit me, I’ll hit you back.” Apparently the rule for most Democrats is, “If you try to hit me, I’ll get out of your way.”

I remember watching the Democrats signing the bill and thinking how weak they looked. I know that’s not nice, but they did. They just looked frail. Then they proved me right when they backed down. It’s not like they didn’t know he was going to veto it. He was saying he was going to do that before they ever sent it to him. DID THEY THINK HE WAS KIDDING!? They had no back up plan? There was no huddle where they planned on what they were going to do when he sends the bill back, LIKE HE SAID HE WOULD!? Fuck! Eric Cartman said it best: “I hate you guys.”

So I agree with Ben Affleck… and Bill Maher, of course, in saying that the Democrats need to grow a pair.

The good is oft interred with their bones, so let it be

In all the articles about the death of Jerry Falwell most gloss over the fact he said: "The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the Pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'"

Not to mention glossing over the numerous times he made anti-semitic comments (like God doesn't listen to the prayers of Jews or that the Anti-Christ is here and is "of course a Jew"). Granted he apologized the next day for the 9-11 comments (which, I guess makes it o.k., something like, "you see on that day I thought the ACLU & Lesbians were the reason God allowed terrorists to attack America. But since you don't agree with me, I'm sorry.") and all his other hateful comments. But that doesn't make it o.k. He was hateful and a bigot, and I'm sorry for his friends and family for their loss, but he was not a good person. He subverted the word of God for his own ideology (granted I'm an atheist but still) and he made it harder for true people of faith to be taken seriously. I guess I should be more angry at the religious people who aren't crazy for not standing up to people like Falwell and Robertson and taking back their religion. A religion whose basic tenet is love for all and judgement for no one, except by God.

As they said over at the Huffington post
Forgive me if I do not cry.

LOU DOBBS IS A RACIST

LOU DOBBS IS A RACIST

I keep watching Lou Dobbs and what keeps coming to mind is, “He’s really scared of Mexicans.” I intend to watch a little bit more before I truly declare he hates Mexicans, but every episode I watched discussed the failure of the U.S. to keep Mexicans out. He’s afraid everyone’s going to have sex and there will not be anymore white people. He doesn’t say white people, he says Americans. If you’re born here you are an American. You’ll still be called a Mexican by whoever hates you because you look like one and probably speak Spanish, but that doesn’t make you NOT AN AMERICAN! The other reason I think he’s a racist is this: if an Hispanic and a White person have a child…what race is it? If you have an answer, you might be a racist. On the Daily Show they had an author who said that Americans were “short-sighted” when it came to History, and he’s right. It was not that long ago that Americans decided that if you had even a drop of Black blood in you, well, then you’re black. During Jim Crow it was if you carried 1/32 percent African Blood. (www.jimcrowhistory.org) What makes this racist is that the obverse is not true and it should be and if it isn’t the only reason can be that you think one race is pure and the other is not. (It’s not just Lou Dobbs; there are several news reports that bring up that Hispanics will make up the majority of U.S. citizens by “future date to be scared of”. This doesn’t make sense for the reason I mentioned above. If Mexicans and Puerto Ricans and other “Hispanics” are just having kids with each other then this makes sense. But if I have a child with a white woman, can I call my kid white, or because I’m an impure race is my child doomed to be Hispanic. –See 1/32 rule above)

Now I know Lou Dobbs has a lot of “reasons” for keeping Mexicans out of the U.S. and some of them are valid. However, I can’t hear any of that because he talks about Aztlan (sp?) and how there are people who want to give this country back to Mexico. REALLY? There are people in Texas who want it to secede from the Union and for Texas to become its own country. I think they’ll have the same amount of success, don’t you?

And as to the belief that they refuse to assimilate. I think this is sometimes true, but I would say it is rare. The first generation usually clings more to its roots, but the next generation is more Americanized and the one after that even more so. As I look at my own family: My grandparents speak only Spanish, my parents speak both, and my sister and I had to learn Spanish and neither is fluent. (My sister can carry a conversation; I can barely put together a sentence). This is generally the way it goes for all immigrants. I’ve met several Asians (Vietnamese, Filipino, Chinese) who cannot really carry on conversations with their grandparents, because they can’t speak their “native” tongue.

Even if it was true that immigrants aren’t assimilating, what’s so wrong about that? I’ve seen what assimilation has done to this country; a nation where no matter what city you go to everything is the same. A nation of McDonalds, Chili’s, TGIFridays, Targets, Best Buys. Everywhere you go there they are. Why travel? Every city is starting to look exactly the same. But not the border towns. I went to the Rio Grande Valley a couple of weeks ago and ate at 4 independently owned restaurants that were cheaper and better than the blandness that is taking over this country. And I didn’t have to seek them out, as you have to in Austin or Houston; it’s where everyone goes to eat. Maybe we need a little less assimilation. Maybe we need a few more people doing their own thing. I don’t think Mexicans are a threat to this country. Like the Irish and others before us, a hundred years from now people will wonder what all the ruckus was about. At least that’s what I hope, and will continue to hope even after they’ve put me into an internment camp.