Hitler, Limbaugh and Beck

Courtesy of Anon 2. Bravo, Anon 2. Well said. Thank you for your wise words of wisdom, to wit:

"Hitler was a dangerous madman whose listeners to his (dangerous) speeches took a whole country and many others to destruction, and 60 million lives. He had them entranced, brainwashed with his speeches. That was according to live witnesses.

There is the danger of Beck, Limbaugh and their ilk in being able to a certain extent to produce what Hitler produced by his ranting dangerous speeches, especially during the (world) German Depression.

People become mesmerized by Beck, etc, hanging on to their every untrue word and believing all of it. Sounds like Hitler stuff, if you listen to their voices.

Has anyone of you ever heard Hitler speak? Of course, through tapes.

Mobs can be and were easily created by people such as Hitler.

Brainwashing, people hanging onto their lips (radio, TV etc.) for more lies, desperately wanting to believe the deceptions.

People are gullible and easy prey. A lie becomes a fact, if it is repeated enough. Cons are master of the latter."


Bravo, Maestro -- Anon 2. I couldn't have said it better myself.

CJP

Corporatism is Fascism, as the New Supreme Court Decision Shows

Here is an excellent comment which Anonymous placed on one of my recent posts, that is worth sharing with the world. Anonymous makes his point so well, to wit:

"When corporate takeover of government happens that is fascism, pure and simple.

“Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.” And this so-called decision by the Court proves that.

Corporations taking over our Supreme Court to regulate voting, and we all know there are too many RIGHT wing judges on that bench, is the obvious and blatant fascism that Adolf Jr started when he stole the presidency over 10 years ago.

The only thing they're going to do is continue the right wing cheating, so they can steal more elections. Talk about voting against your own interests. Is this Nazi Germany or the US (using Godwin's Law automatically loses the argument because my point is valid). This country nearly turned into a carbon copy of then and I have nearly 400 examples that show it.

This decision IS un-American and stomps again on the Constitution, which is there to stop these sociopaths from destroying the country and to keep them in line. And yes, including those on the Supreme Court Bench.

And who is putting their own interest over the good of the country? The Right Wing. It’s their way or else and they’ll do everything they can to stop us from fighting back. Blind obedience to the REICH-wing has gone too far. Enough is enough.

The right wing also stole the “election” the 2nd time where they changed votes automatically on voting machines, which are “regulated” by... Guess who? Yes, Republicans. You do the math.

Germany learned. Obviously America didn’t. The last thing we need is a bunch of little Frieslers on the Bench. Is the Supreme Court turning into the “People’s” Court, which is everything but?"

The Supreme Court's Latest Un-American Decision

From Credo Action -- January 29, 2010:

Tell President Obama and the Congressional leadership to save our democracy.

We need to stop the corporate takeover of our electoral process.

We cannot have a government that is bought and paid for by huge multinational corporations. We need a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. I support Rep. Alan Grayson's "Save Our Democracy" platform. Put the full power of your office behind these six simple reforms to stop corporations from taking over our democratic process.

More than 80,000 CREDO Action members have already signed to stop the Big Business takeover of our government. With your help, we can get to 100,000! Help keep the momentum going by signing this petition.

We deserve a country where our elected officials are not bought and paid for by Big Business. But last week's Supreme Court decision in the case Citizens United vs. FEC overturned over a century of precedent and opened the floodgates for unlimited amounts of corporate money to flow into our political system. Shockingly, the court's decision may even allow foreign corporations and large multinationals to manipulate our elections.

Progress on any issue we care about depends upon our ability to stop the corporate takeover of our electoral process. If we do nothing, this ruling has the potential to undermine the very foundation of our democracy.

Click here to automatically sign our petition to President Obama and the Congressional leadership telling them they must enact strong laws to save our democracy from the pernicious influence of corporate money.

Representative Alan Grayson has been one the most forceful voices in responding to this crisis. He has introduced a number of bills as part of a "Save Our Democracy" initiative to blunt some of the worst implications of the Supreme Court's decision.

The Business Should Mind Its Own Business Act (H.R. 4431): Implements a 500% excise tax on corporate contributions to political committees, and on corporate expenditures on political advocacy campaigns.

The Public Company Responsibility Act (H.R. 4435): Prevents companies making political contributions and expenditures from trading their stock on national exchanges.

The End Political Kickbacks Act (H.R. 4434): Prevents for-profit corporations that receive government money from making political contributions, and limits the amount that employees of those companies can contribute.

The Corporate Propaganda Sunshine Act (H.R. 4432): Requires publicly traded companies to disclose in SEC filings money used for the purpose of influencing public opinion, rather than for promoting their products and services.

The Ending Corporate Collusion Act (H.R. 4433): Applies antitrust law to industry PACs.

The End the Hijacking of Shareholder Funds Act (H.R. 4487): This bill requires the approval of a majority of a public company's shareholders for any expenditure by that company to influence public opinion on matters not related to the company's products or services.

Without these types of laws, it will be even harder for candidates and elected officials to stand up to Big Business. Even before the decision, we too often saw the interests of Main Street subverted in favor of the interests of Wall Street. But with the Citizens United decision now the law of the land, large corporations have the power to spend unlimited amounts of money from their general treasuries to buy elections.

To put things in perspective, the roughly $745 million Barack Obama raised to run for President (which was the most money raised by any candidate ever to run for office in the U.S.) is dwarfed by the $45 billion in profits a single company (ExxonMobil) made in 2008.

We have heard that the Democratic leadership in the House and the Senate will be deciding in the next few weeks upon a legislative package to push in response to the Citizens United decision. We need to ensure they respond boldly.

Two Conservative GOP Lawmakers Drop Out of Nashville's Tea Party Convention

"Two conservative lawmakers have backed out of speaking engagements at next week's National Tea Party Convention, the latest trouble for the gathering of tea party activists.

Reps. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., both prominent backers of the tea party movement, announced Thursday they won't attend the Feb. 4-6 event in Nashville, Tenn. Their offices released statements Tuesday citing concerns about how funds raised by the convention might be used.

Many tea party activists across the country are boycotting the convention because of its $550-a-person ticket price and the $100,000 speaking fee it is paying to Sarah Palin, the former Republican vice presidential nominee.

The convention is being run by a for-profit Tennessee corporation registered to Tennessee lawyer Judson Phillips, who has said he hopes to make money on the convention."

That's how Conservatives run their "Populist" conventions -- with $550 per person tickets and $100,000 Speaker Fees.

Once again, the GOP shows it is the Party of the Haves and the Have Mores. What are all these simple, exploited "Tea Party sheep" doing at Tea Party conventions whose only goal is to wreck these poor people economically?

US Economy Soars -- No Thanks to the "Party of No"

U.S. Economy Soars in Fourth Quarter of 2009

By Neil Irwin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 29, 2010:

"The U.S. economy roared ahead in the final months of 2009, growing at its fastest rate in six years, as corporate America stopped slashing its inventories and again started to invest for the future.

Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity, rose at a 5.7 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department said Friday. That is the highest pace of growth since 2003, and it constitutes strong proof that the recession reached its end earlier in 2009. It was also a surprisingly positive result, well above the 4.6 percent rate of GDP growth forecasters had expected."

A Rising Conservative Disaster

The Republicans are the party of the Haves and the Have-Mores. The GOP is the mortal enemy of the Have-Littles and the Have-Less, which includes most American citizens. Their only weapon is to bludgeon the American people into submission through their Right-Wing Talk Radio Noise Machine and their Far Right Corporate Controlled Supreme Court. They stand for unlimited Profits for the Fat Cats and Nothing for the Poor Mice who populate their Propaganda Tea Parties. A Republican wins a Senate seat in Massachusetts, and in one week the stock market plummets by 500 points. The stock market obviously knows that the GOP is the party of Depressions.

Bush Failed on Terrorism, Obama Did Not

The difference between Bush and Obama is that Bush's 9-11 Terrorists succeeded overwhelmingly whereas Obama's Christmas Day would-be bomber was a failure.

Also, if Obama is being criticized for allowing a Nigerian to board a plane in Amsterdam without having his bloomers scanned, then why wasn't Bush castigated for allowing Richard Reid, three months after 9-11, to board a plane without having his shoes removed?

Barack Obama is the Harry Warren of America's Presidents

Harry Warren was one of America's greatest popular songwriters. He wrote 42 songs that reached the Top Ten of Your Hit Parade -- far more than any other songwriter. Irving Berlin had a mere 33. Warren wrote eleven songs which were nominated for Academy Awards for Best Song of the Year, including three Best Song Oscar Winners.

Yet, hardly anybody knows Harry Warren's name. He was so Unknown that he used to call himself "Harry Who?"

Similarly, Barack Obama has had an amazingly successful first year in office. Yet, too few people give Obama credit for his monumental achievements which include, among other things, saving America from Oblivion --- in the face of a United Republican Opposition which appeared Hell-Bent on wiping our country off the face of the Earth.

Perhaps Obama is the Rodney Dangerfield of America's presidents. The man don't get no respect.

This conundrum is beautifully illustrated by Richard Cohen in today's Washington Post.

Unlike Dick Cheney, Dick Cohen is a Dick well worth listening to -- to wit:


Barack Obama: A Leader Without a Cause

By Richard Cohen

Tuesday, January 5, 2010 -- The Washington Post

Last month, no American soldiers were killed in Iraq. Last month, the unemployment rate dipped a bit, the stock market ended the year up, the financial system did not crater, Detroit's Big Three began to get a pulse -- and yet a consensus started to form that Barack Obama, who is either responsible for or merely presided over all this good stuff, is a failure.

What's more, the consensus came supported by numbers. The polls, according to Rasmussen Reports, showed the president's approval rating dropping two points in December while his disapproval rating gained a point. Obama began 2009 with 43 percent of Americans strongly approving of his performance and ended it with 26 percent feeling that way. Any way you measure the polls, Obama did not have a good year.

On the left, the president is being pummeled for health-care legislation that does not include a public option and that has not dispatched insurance executives to Guantanamo. On the right, he is being pummeled for socializing the economy, establishing death panels and allowing maniacal Nigerians to load their Calvins with boom-boom and fly into peaceful Detroit. It's a cartoon.

In foreign policy, Obama has sorely disappointed his fans on the left for escalating the war in Afghanistan and on the right for not escalating it enough. Guantanamo, which he vowed to close, is still open. He supports gay rights, but don't ask and don't tell about "don't ask, don't tell." He zigs, he zags. Change! Hope! But not much of the former and little of the latter.



To some, he's weak on the environment. To others, he's too strong on the environment. He is camouflaged in the incomprehensible, leaving no (carbon) footprint and quixotically tilting at energy-producing windmills. He confers too much with our allies, bows when he should shake and has not brought peace to the Middle East -- as, you will remember, George W. Bush did.

Much of this critique is asinine. If the Republican Party had its way -- and God sees to it that it doesn't -- the country would by now have reverted to the barter system and the unemployment rate would be around 25 percent. The GOP economic program simply does not exist, and even Bush knew this. When push came to shove, he tossed his ideology overboard and used government money to bail out financial institutions.

Still, the reason the GOP criticisms have started to stick is that Obama can be made into anything his critics want. He is a lean man of ideological clay who has let others mold his image. His bottom line is forever on the move. It's not that he's not good or smart; it's rather that in a political universe ruled by ideological yellers, he lacks both an ideology and the pipes.

The White House faces a major political problem. Obama's first year was not a bad one -- and yet he suffered. The coming year threatens to be much worse. Fatalities are going to increase in Afghanistan. Unemployment could fester. The debt is going to increase, and all over the country, state and municipal governments are going to go broke and look to Washington for help. The land will roil with anger, and Mr. Cool in the White House is not up to FDR-like fireside chats. He was born to blog.

Journalists like to believe that if they are getting criticism from both sides of the story, they must be doing something right. This is not true for journalists -- they may actually have gotten the story doubly wrong -- and it is certainly not true for political figures. In Obama's case, his misfortune is to be a leader without a cause.

He wanted a health-care bill. Why? To cover the uncovered. Maybe. To rein in the insurance companies. Maybe. To lower costs. Maybe. What mattered most was getting a bill, any bill. This is not a cause. It's a notch on a belt.

Obama could be a great president. He has already achieved much -- possibly saving the country from financial ruin, salvaging the auto industry, getting some sort of health-care reform. Possibly, possibly. Yet his numbers sink as his achievements rise. He is the Johnny Appleseed of cognitive dissonance, so utterly detached that when he wins it seems to be only for himself. Pollsters measure him but poets have described him. William Butler Yeats got it down years ago: "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."

Why Neo-Con Chickenhawks can Never Be Trusted to Fight America's Wars

Rumsfeld Decision Let Bin Laden Escape: Senate Report

Published on 11-29-2009

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Osama bin Laden was "within the grasp" of US forces in late 2001 but escaped because then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld rejected calls for reinforcements, a hard-hitting US Senate report says.

The report, set for release Monday, is intended to help learn the lessons of the past as President Barack Obama prepares to announce a major escalation of the conflict, now in its ninth year, with up to 35,000 more US troops.

It points the finger directly at Rumsfeld for turning down requests for reinforcements as Bin Laden was trapped in December 2001 in caves and tunnels in a mountainous area of eastern Afghanistan known as Tora Bora.

"The vast array of American military power, from sniper teams to the most mobile divisions of the marine corps and the army, was kept on the sidelines," the report says.

"Instead, the US command chose to rely on airstrikes and untrained Afghan militias to attack Bin Laden and on Pakistan's loosely organized Frontier Corps to seal his escape routes."

Entitled "Tora Bora revisited: how we failed to get Bin Laden and why it matters today," the report -- commissioned by Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- says Bin Laden expected to die and had even written a will.

"But the Al-Qaeda leader would live to fight another day. Fewer than 100 American commandos were on the scene with their Afghan allies and calls for reinforcements to launch an assault were rejected.

"Requests were also turned down for US troops to block the mountain paths leading to sanctuary a few miles away in Pakistan.

"The decision not to deploy American forces to go after Bin Laden or block his escape was made by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his top commander, General Tommy Franks," the report says.

"On or around December 16, two days after writing his will, Bin Laden and an entourage of bodyguards walked unmolested out of Tora Bora and disappeared into Pakistan's unregulated tribal area. Most analysts say he is still there today."

Rumsfeld's argument at the time, the report says, was that deploying too many American troops could jeopardize the mission by creating an anti-US backlash among the local populace.

The report dismisses arguments at the time from Franks, Vice President Dick Cheney and others defending the decision and arguing that the intelligence was inconclusive about Bin Laden's location.

"The review of existing literature, unclassified government records and interviews with central participants underlying this report removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora."

The report admits that capturing or killing the Al-Qaeda leader, accused of orchestrating the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States that killed nearly 3,000 people, would not have eliminated the worldwide extremist threat.

"But the decisions that opened the door for his escape to Pakistan allowed Bin Laden to emerge as a potent symbolic figure who continues to attract a steady flow of money and inspire fanatics worldwide," it says.

"The failure to finish the job represents a lost opportunity that forever altered the course of the conflict in Afghanistan and the future of international terrorism, leaving the American people more vulnerable to terrorism, laying the foundation for today's protracted Afghan insurgency and inflaming the internal strife now endangering Pakistan."

As Obama prepares to announce Tuesday a bold new strategy for Afghanistan, Kerry points out at the beginning of the report that when the United States went to war less than one month after the September 11 attacks, the mission was clear: to destroy Al-Qaeda and kill or capture Bin Laden.

"Today, more than eight years later, we find ourselves fighting an increasingly lethal insurgency in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan that is led by many of those same extremists," he says.

"Our inability to finish the job in late 2001 has contributed to a conflict today that endangers not just our troops and those of our allies, but the stability of a volatile and vital region."

A Rapid Response By The Obama Administration to the Foiled Airliner Bombing

From Politico -- January 4, 2010:

All travelers flying into the United States from foreign countries will receive tightened random screening, and 100 percent of passengers from seven terrorism-prone countries will be patted down and have their carry-ons searched, the Obama administration was notifying airlines on Sunday. The more stringent Transportation Security Administration rules, to take effect at midnight, follow the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a U.S. airliner headed into Detroit from Amsterdam.

John Brennan, America's Counter Terrorism Czar, Blasts Dick Cheney's Anti-Obama Comments

From Politico -- January 3, 2010:

On NBC's 'Meet the Press,' David Gregory asked John Brennan -- Deputy National Security Advisor and Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counter Terrorism -- about former Vice President Cheney's statement last week that President Obama was not acknowledging that the U.S. is at war with terrorists.

BRENNAN: 'I'm very disappointed in the vice president's comments. I'm neither a Republican nor a Democrat -- I've worked for the past five administrations. And either the vice president is willfully mischaracterizing this president's position -- both in terms of language he uses, and the actions he's taken -- or he's ignorant of the fact. And in either case, it doesn't speak well of what the vice president's doing. The clear evidence is that this president has been very, very strong. In his inaugural address, he said, We're at war with this international network of terrorists. ... I would not have come back into this government if I felt that this president was not committed to prosecuting this war against al-Qaeda. And every day, I see it in the president's face. I see it in the actions he has taken. And so I'm confident that this country is, in fact, protected by this president's position. ... I think we have to remember who the enemy here is. The enemy is al-Qaeda. And as this finger-pointing is going on in Washington here, these partisan politics and agendas, quite frankly, I find it very disappointing that people would use this issue -- an issue of tremendous import, of national security -- and forget that it is al-Qaeda that is killing our citizens.'