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Today's Top News
'The Responsible Left': Funding Obama's Expanding Wars
The cowardly Democrats who checked their spines at the door to Congress when they voted Tuesday try to defend their flip-flop on war funding. Frankly, it is embarrassing.
New York Democrat Anthony Weiner, who voted against the war funding in May—when it didn’t matter—only to vote Tuesday with the pro-war Dems, sounded like an imbecile when he made this statement after the vote: “We are in the process of wrapping up the wars. The president needed our support.” What planet is Weiner living on? “Wrapping up the wars?” Last time I checked, there are 21,000 more US troops heading to Afghanistan alongside a surge in contractors there, including a 29% increase in armed contractors. Does Weiner think the $106 billion in war funding he voted for is going to pay for one way tickets home for the troops? What he voted for was certainly not the “Demolition of the 80 Football-field-size US Embassy in Baghdad Act of 2009.” To cap off this idiocy, Weiner basically admitted he is a fraud when he said the bill he voted in favor of “still sucks.”
Jan Schakowsky, who has done some incredibly important work on Blackwater and the privatized war machine, also voted against the supplemental in May, but switched her vote on Tuesday. “I do believe my president is a peacemaker,” Schakowsky said. “I’m going to give him what he wants.” A peacemaker who is expanding war? Moreover, what happened to the system of “checks and balances?” If Congressmembers, especially anti-war ones like Schakowsky, start just giving the president “what he wants,” then where is the peoples’ voice?
How are these people sleeping at night?
Obviously these folks are partisans or else they wouldn’t be
Democrats, but this “Dear Leader knows best” mentality is cultish.
Republican Rep. Ron Paul, who, whatever one thinks of him, has been
consistently opposed to these wars, put it best when he rose on the
floor Tuesday to speak
against the war funding: “I wonder what happened to all of my
colleagues who said they were opposed to the ongoing wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan. I wonder what happened to my colleagues who voted with me
as I opposed every war supplemental request under the previous
administration. It seems, with very few exceptions, they have changed
their position on the war now that the White House has changed hands.”
One “anonymous” Massachusetts lawmaker told Politico
that those Democrats who voted for the war funding and IMF credits are
“what we call the responsible left.” Barney Frank, another flip-flopper
on war funding, compared the anti-war left to the Rush Limbaugh
right-wing, saying, “They have no sense of reality.” Perhaps Rep. Frank
should ask the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who lobbied intensely
against the war funding he supported if they have “no sense of reality.”
As previously discussed,
this vote was a crucial test—because the White House and pro-war
Democrats actually needed to get some ‘anti-war’ legislators to vote
with them or the bill would have failed—in determining which Democrats
have a spine when it comes to standing up to the war and which are just
party operatives with their principles and votes up for political
bidding.
While the White House reportedly
told some Democrats who voted against the war, “you’ll never hear from
us again,” Obama has made it a point this week to intervene to defend
those hypocritical “anti-war” legislators who voted with him. Rep.
Steve Cohen, D-Tenn was one of the 51 Democrats who voted against the
funding in May and then consciously misplaced his principles Tuesday.
Cohen was targeted for his hypocrisy by activists, spurring President
Obama to issue a statement to local media in his district praising Cohen:
The White House Press Office called the Washington bureau of The Commercial Appeal late Wednesday afternoon offering the statement after anti-war liberals across the country derided Cohen as a “fraud” and one who deserved a place in the “Hall of Shame.”
“Congressman Cohen is a leader in the United States Congress and a
strong voice for the people of Tennessee,” Obama’s statement declared,
adding that Cohen’s vote will “ensure our men and women in uniform have
the resources they need to protect our country.”
What is
particularly telling is how Cohen doesn’t even pretend his vote had
anything to do with principle or representing his constituents. It was
simple partisanship. “Maybe [Obama] just wanted to respond to people
who helped him,” Cohen said. “Yes, I was surprised but I’ve been in the
president’s corner on several occasions and it’s good to have him in my
corner.”
All of this sounds, frankly, corrupt. Instead of using
cold hard cash, the White House threatens to pull the rug from under
dissenting legislators and offers its support to those who cede their
conscience to the president’s agenda. So much for change.
This
spending bill is likely to sail through the Senate where there is no
group even vaguely resembling the ever-shrinking anti-war crowd in the
House. Once again, here are the Democrats who turned their backs on
their pledges to vote against this war funding:
Yvette Clarke, Steve Cohen, Jim Cooper, Jerry Costello, Barney Frank, Luis Gutierrez, Jay Inslee, Steve Kagen, Edward Markey, Doris Matsui, Jim McDermott, George Miller, Grace Napolitano, Richard Neal (MA), James Oberstar, Jan Schakowsky, Mike Thompson, Edolphus Towns, Nydia Velázquez, and Anthony Weiner.
- Posted in
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53 Comments so far
Show AllI don't know karate, I don't know judo, I don't know even fist-fighting or wrestling, having done very little of any it, I'm a peace lover! But just put me in a room alone with any one of these fucking cowards. They'll get their fucking war...
nedlud
My sentiments exactly.
Violence should be left to the world of sports. (And no, war is not a sport).
If these slothful warped politicians vote for wars they should have to fight them.
Clowns, all of them.
nicely stated, my friend. we have been sold out on every issue; what will it be today?
“We are in the process of wrapping up the wars. The president needed our support.”
The only thing you're wrapping up, you chump, is your political future. It will be delivered to you in 2010 or 2012, probably by Glenn Beck or Michelle Malkin or some other Republican with dirt under his fingernails. You Democrats are apparently too stupid to remember Richard Nixon and 1968. You truly are jackasses.
Lets see how many of these scum-bags the voters send back to Washington. My money says the America will send them all back, what choice do they have there is no one else to vote for in this one party system.
I know that the reality is that Americans for the most part will send them all back because they seem to have a short memory span, but I like to believe that people are starting to wake up and realize the truth, that both parties are corrupt and that voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil, and that they will leave both the Republican party and the Democratic Party in droves and become members of a third party.
We still have time to get more third party candidates to run for political office and if people vote for whatever third party candidate is listed than it will send a strong message. I know the reality is that this country is doomed to fail because we have to many Americans who didn't care enough to save her and stand up and fight, but I never stop hoping, because to give up all hope is to admit defeat.
I do think people are waking up that they have been lied too and fooled. I do think that people are waking up to the fact that both parties are corrupted and are part of the problem and not the solution. The question is will we the American people care enough to throw all the bums out and take this country back and once again be a country of truth, justice, and honor. We have lost that and we have a government that is not ruled by the values and ideals that this country was founded on but is ruled by their greed, lies, and lack of moral principles.
So then the question becomes: why vote?
Boycott the national elections
if you can get three million to write in "no vote" that'll make a statement.
odoco
Oh Yeah! The minority status republicans would love for freedom loving, justice loving and truth loving folks to boycott their already rigged elections! They might not even have to cheat to win then!
"WHERE IS MY VOTE?"
These sell out politicians bank on one thing and that is Americans, by en large, don't care what happens "over there." Never have, never will. It doesn't affect them personally so there's no viable opposition to these expanding Wars. Obama knows that those of us in the Progressive Left are a minority who he can easily dismiss. And the so-called Liberals out there are making excuses for Obama's disastrous polcies on a daily basis....
Having said that, I still want to thank people like Jeremy Scahill, who consistently seek the truth and isn't afraid to expose these frauds for who they really are. Keep it up!!!
Growing up, my New England Yankee granddads would would warn us kids, "don't ever trust politicians, they are thieves and liars". Today Democracy Now is honoring I. F. Stone who also preached that, "All governments lie".
Ingrained in me are these facts. Forewarned, rarely do politicians act contrary to my assumptions.
At the rate Obama is going, he did no favors for Congressman Cohen when he defended him with the usual boilerplate fluff.
At the rate Obama is going, he won't be welcome at the party convention in 4 years--when at least Bush made it to 8.
The social fantasy of a generally rational government with elected representatives generally acting in good faith is sustained only by the collective prefrontal lobes of its participants and interested third parties.
Now maya is becoming a bit tattered, so that at least a few more observant, open-minded viewers can see the truth behind the veil of illusion: Amerikan national politics is a lizard-brain driven, sub-human social organization and alliance that accounts for the travesty that Amerikan national politics has become.
It evokes the scene(s) from "Men in Black", where creatures that appear to be normal (if not particularly attractive) humans turn out to be robots or androids operated by a tiny alien critter in a cockpit control room inside the skull.
Or a few "Star Trek" episodes, in which an entity appearing as a beautiful woman or humanoid trickster or enormously scary monster turns out in the end to be an erstwhile master of illusion in the body of a tiny, weak insectoid alien being.
The branches of government still superficially resemble the generally rational structure and process many of us learned in elementary school civics class.
But when push comes to shove, our seemingly intelligent and sophisticated political class reverts to a primitive, lizard-brained form of behavior in which all principle and high-mindedness collapses before the primitive instinct to submit to the demands of the Alphas in charge: Don't rock the boat! Gotta support the team!
So, as Springfield teevee anchorman Kent Brockman says: there you have it.
· Yr Obd't Servant
There was always the possibiliy that he would, at the very least, be an improvement over the Clintons. There was the possibility (I know it seems remote in retrospect) that he would shift course (I know, it seems naive now). Who knew with what shock doctrine-like speed that he would forge full speed ahead, while the chorus urges us to give him more time.
Was there that possibility?
Easy to speculate now.
True and fair enough. Doesn't that mean there was not?
The problem isn't that people don't understand what they get with Dems as much as they often don't feel like they have a choice.
Unlike many progressives who are aware of a choice, the majority of the country is not. It is the Republicans which are a horrible choice, and the Dems which are a horrible choice often wrapped in a prettier picture. For many people there are Evil and Lesser Evil.
What people are afraid of are Reps. and rightfully so. They are not as afraid of Dems yet. Maybe after this round they will be. Then they will look third party.
But for a lot of people, taking the chance that maybe 10% or even 20% of the populace votes 3rd party.And they don't win. (It's most likely won't be enough to win.) Then you are left with Republican rule. And that’s bad. And people are rightfully afraid of that.
Also, people like myself who believe very strongly in most progressive view points and the candidates that push them.
But I have an even stronger distrust for out Government. And I see Republicans that say no just for the sake of saying no. With no care for the consequences. And I see Dems that try to appease these folks with no care for the consequences.
And that makes me believe that even a person with a heart of gold, a will of iron, and work ethic to go along with it. Would get 0% of anything done, with the 535 Congress members we have before us.
So it frustrates me to the point of screaming when smug progressives throw the fact that they voted 3rd party as if that makes it ok that the country is falling apart. (Not calling you Smug btw). As if Dennis or Cynthia gets in and everything just magically gets fixed.
Also it is equally as frustrating to hear because just because YOU recycle doesn’t mean that we don’t have a trash issue. Just because you eat healthy doesn’t mean we don’t have an obesity problem.
It often seems that progressives relish in saying they vote 3rd party to remove them selves from the processes of having to work together. It’s like a child yelling they didn’t do it so why should I have to clean it up. Sure you’re right you didn’t break the lamp, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t offer ways to clean up the mess.
Some good points here but then you go into the rationalizations that progressives couldn't get anything done considering the political landscape.
Well, why bother at all since you have already written it off--and if not now, when the country backs the progressive view from the environment to closing Gitmo to health care and the Right is at ebb tide, when would be the opportune time?
That is the point.
odoco
Passionate and sincere thoughts, but my thought is this: working together with either the Republicans or Democrats actually means selling your soul. With few exceptions in the Democratic realm, and virtually no exceptions in the Republican realm, these folks are bought and paid for.
I fought the urge to go third party for my entire life, feeling as you do. After yesterday's war vote I called the state dem committee and informed them that me, my mother and son have forever caste them aside. Today, I will officially join the Green Party, understanding its limitations, but also understanding that at least its platform is one based on humanity, diversity and sustainability. The duopoly offers none of these as they/it is controlled by the corporate trusts.
I no longer care to participate in the raping, destruction, illegitimacy, maliciousness and dishonesty of the Democratic Party. I would rather die honest attempting to make real change than to remain within the Democratic Party, still attempt change, but die only 5% honest due to the many, many moral abnormalities now being exposed by the leadership of the party..
Hi odoco,
At first, I was quite shocked to read this from you. However, I understand your pain and strongly sympathize with you and we welcome you over especially given yesterday's worst vote to continue the war and yet stifling health care reform. I forgive you and millions others who are willing to correct their mistakes. Welcome.
P.S.: I still haven't forgotten the wise lessons you taught me on the two wolves. I was just so upset back then because I didn't think that we really had two wolves but one wolf with two different names. I wish you and your family the best.
odoco
thank you.
And the two wolves do exist, but their forms are represented by contradictory sets of values, the worst of the two to be found in each of the ruling political parties - one party is not inherently 'good' and the other not inherently 'bad,' but both are inhabited by people who espouse selfishness, greed, inhumanity, and ultimately, death to those that oppose them.
I now understand that most of the 'good' wolves simply live outside of the 'system.'
odoco;Had a smack in the heart and brain idea the other day while taking my daily walk;Never expected my reps to do everything that I wanted but thought that the corprdems would at least vote liberal sometimes!Well,in that walk,I decided that there would be no more votes for the lesser of 2 evils,vote my conscience and hope for the best.Haven't felt this good in a long time.Will still do what is possible for me to do without the dem monkey on my back.Will still throw word rocks at them and my hope is that all of the many diverse people on this site would pool and do something;there a lot of older folks like me but we need a mole tent full of liberal minded folks of all ages.For a label my preference is liberal because progressive sounds to centrist and liberal pisses off everybody who is not and I like that.Be kind to your family and yourself.Tony
A little poem I wrote
AQUARIAN LIFE
It is a wonderment of life that brings forth a creation through a life that already is and ever there is two to make a one or more.
To clone or test tube is biological, all done with smoke and mirrors for do they not start with preexistent life in store?
How deep does the keys to a whole person go into the past? Imagine ancestors back how many generations and branches.
Where does this body, mind and spirit go from here; Is it written from it’s past or does it start with a new book and not just a page? With life as with snowflakes there are no matches.
The Creator started it all at the beginning, bang!!!, all of us were there, no newbe’s in this species, we is who we was with some advances, one hopes. We all jumped away with both feet.
Aquarians, the water bearers, a sign that resonates with me because I’m one and I think that there is a capacity to do much good in this world, the age of Aquarius is here! Yet is free will ever at the forefront and you can see where that got us! It is you that you will always meet!
A little wordy but a thinker and most of it holds for all of us not just Aquarians. Just felt a need to write it. Enjoy! Tony
I respect and admire your ability to summarize things, Rich. Pretty much says it all.
That said, I have also noticed a disturbing trend. It seems there are also paid contributors on the right disguised as disgruntled leftists; I gather this by the same people always showing up.
Despite the corporate duopoly, what could be more sad than some neo-con collecting funds to project his or her alter ego on a leftist forum?
Barney Frank, another flip-flopper on war funding, compared the anti-war left to the Rush Limbaugh right-wing, saying, “They have no sense of reality.”
-------------------------
Mr. Frank, my view of reality, which encompasses being anti-war is, by a magnitude of many degrees, far more evolved than yours.
As a man who has fought for equal rights and respect for gays you're very quick to pigeonhole a large group of people you apparently have less than a scintilla of understanding of.
Is this slur an example of your reality superiority?
For shame.
Frank is one of those Democrats who used to be considered "one of the good guys" by liberals and progressives.
Like John Conyers, David Obey, and Henry Waxman, et al, for a long while they earned and apparently appreciated "leftish" progressive support as "True Friends of the Little Guy".
But, like Frank, all of these politicians have soured on their progressive constituency as they themselves have become steadily more corrupt, co-opted, and self-serving.
And they ALL have taken to "losing their tempers" and superciliously scolding constituents who dare to confront them over their criminal malfeasance.
And the scolding always takes the same form: the protestors, or dissenters, are "clueless" simpletons who "don't understand how government works".
Their scathing denunciations, apart from their "you kids stay the hell off my lawn!" tone, have the moral gravitas of an AK-47 wielding bank robber hissing from beneath his ski mask, "You just don't have a CLUE how the banking industry works!" to a crowd of stunned and dismayed customers.
Frank's "sense of reality" is directly derived from a former colleague, Ozzie Myers, whose employment abruptly terminated after he was busted in the ABSCAM sting.
Myers' famous observation is tattooed on the hearts of Frank and his depraved colleagues: "MONEY TALKS; BULLSHIT WALKS!"
· Yr Obd't Servant
That Bayonne, N.J. native Barney Frank actually had the gall and the stupidity to compare the "anti-war left to the Rush Limbaugh right-wing, saying 'they have no sense of reality.'" The reality, as Congressman Kucinich has attempted to point out, apparently to no avail, is that there is already money in the pipeline to provide for the welfare of the troops that are in Afghanistan and Iraq. The reality is that Bush's war on terror, which Obama is now continuing, is just as bogus as Bush's explanation as to what occurred on Sept.11, 2001. The reality is that it is the inflammatory presence of the United States military that is the cause of so much of the violence that is occurring in the Middle East. The reality is that the people of Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan will continue, justifiably, to resent the fact that innocent civilians are being ripped apart by America's bombs and drone missiles which will result in the continued resistance to American militarism and imperialism by the citizens of those countries.
It seems apparent that Barney Frank and the other Democrats who voted for the war funding are just as militant and just as hawkish as the Republicans, despite whatever false platitudes that they profess to utter.
Cowards and hypocrites, the whole lot of them.
This is pretty scary when we can't trust our government no mater who is elected.
comment deleted by author
Anything I can think of to say would have to be deleted, too.
Actually these folks read their constituents perfectly well. Their main concern is staying in office, not doing what their conscience dictates. They know they will not lose votes by voting however they please because each knows he or she is the entrenched incubent in their district and the Democrats in their district will continue to vote for them no matter what. Why? Citizens are afraid that voting for a third party candidate is a wasted vote... and that's how it's going to be as long as people continue to vote for a party rather than for a person. If you are so afraid of losing that you sacrifice your integrity to win... you lose by winning... because all you win is an election... not someone who represents you. And when you sacrifice your integrity when you vote, you always elect someone of the same consciousness as you... someone else who has no integrity.
'Left' and 'right' are relative terms. Newt Gingrich or George Bush senior are to the 'left' of George Bush junior, or Dick Cheney but I wouldn't consider Senior or Newtie a leftie by any reasonable usage of the word.
The American political spectrum is skewed so far to the right that 'slightly right of center' democrats like the Clintons, and scores of others, are considered 'lefties' while Kennedy is consided (gasp!) to the 'far-left' and Obama a 'socialist'.
According to the international political spectrum, America has no 'leftists' in national politics - no democratic socialists, no socialists, no labor candidates, no communists, no anarchists, no elected officials representing anything but corporate (rightist) interests; in fact no nothing and no likelihood of anything approximating
'leftism' here in the good old US of A.
Exactly, so while I think Scahil is a good reporter, nothing he is saying about Democrats should come as news to anyone that's been paying attention and more importantly, thinking critically.
Last year you could read post after post denouncing the Democrats for being sellouts. I wrote more than a few myself. And of course, the rebuttal went like this:
1) You must be a Republican troll if you are against Obama!
2) We must stop the Republicans! Obama will save us!
3) Obama is just pretending to be a centrist Dem (to be elected), really he's MLK/FDR.
4) He has to be for the war or else the Republicans will accuse him of being weak.
5) Got elected! History is made! First Black President! Used to be a community organizer! WOW!
6) HONNNNNNNEEEEEEEEEYmoon period I
7) He's only been in office 2 months give him a chance.
8) He's only been in office 6 months give him a chance.
Let's fast forward:
14) He has to tack to the right because he needs to be reelected.
15) Gets reelected! History is made! WOW!
16) HONNNNNNNEEEEEEEEEYmoon period II
17) He's only been......
Cycle repeats. Wasn't it Barnum who said a sucker is born every minute?
Nice job, Jeremy. You're my hero!
I'm so pissed off at the cowardly Dems. If they think we endured 8 years of monkey-boy just to sit back and let them continue down the same path, then they can kiss my pasty-white Detroit a$$. I'm watching my friends and neighbors lose their jobs while we make KBR execs rich-- Eisenhower was right.
JEREMY FOR PRESIDENT !
Why is anyone surprised? The dems and repubs are controlled by the same money groups. I'm glad I voted for Nader.
I keep wondering how long this will all go on before a critical mass of Americans catch on. I'm still optimistic despite the dire conditions to date. I like to keep in mind the principle that 1% of a system can organize the other 99%. Maybe it will be like a rubber-band that gets stretched just so far before it snaps back (sanity becomes restored). Of course the biosphere may become a 'broken rubber-band' pretty soon if we don't make some changes.
Congress is just expressing the will of The People, as usual...
The majority of The People want an end to all illegal occupations - Congress votes to continue them;
The majority of The People want single-payer uni-health care - Congress takes it off the table;
The majority of The People oppose bankster bailouts - Congress ponies up $13 trillion of The Peoples' money;
The majority of The People want Gitmo closed - Congress refuses to fund said closing;
Good thing the Republicans aren't in charge anymore because they never expressed the will of The People...
"this vote was a crucial test"
Another one?
I thought the last vote(S) was/were the "crucial test(S)".
Is this "crucial test" similar to Cheney's comments about the insurgency being in it's "death throes"?
We don't have money for health care to heal Americans but Congress can always find money for injuring and killing in wars. How dare Barney Frank call us extremist because we know the war is a waste of human lives and rather than keep us safe it is creating more and more terrorist every second we occupy their land and kill their civilians.In the meantime America is going bankrupt. Isn't that what Osama bin Laden promised when he bombed the world trade center, to destroy our economy? Isn't that the reality, Congressman Frank, it's the economy stupid.If Americans are free but have no jobs, no food, no health care, no higher education, we will not be free from pain, suffering and early deaths. This is the only way the terrorist can beat us. They have no real military power to invade and conquer America and take our freedom away from us except by draining our economy fighting endless wars we cannot win.
How do you spell Bush?
O-B-A-M-A
First of all, let me thank Jeremy Scahill for mention Ron Paul. Congressman Paul is the ONLY Republican in Congress with a since of morality, as shown by his answer at 6:45 in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvC4Fue_2BA (All but five of the Republicans voted against this funding, but they made it clear that that was only because of the monies it contained for the IMF.) Paul has stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Dennis Kucinich and Lynn Woolsey on this subject. As Rep. Kucinich has pointed out, we cannot afford these wars. Paul goes even further and says that the empire we are trying to hold will break this great nation. The sooner we leave Iraq (and Afghanistan and Germany and Japan and South Korea etc.), the better it will be for America, both morally and financially.
Finally, to paraphrase Henry David Thoreau, the moral arguments against war in general are many and weighty and deserve to prevail. But the sentiment in the Congress did not turn against the war in Vietnam until it was clear that war was a financial nightmare. Likewise, Iraq and Afghanistan will only end for financial reasons. Maybe then we can get back to minding our own business.
Please, no more drivel about Ron Paul. He was quite accurate and courageous to point out the problems with the empire and so has proved to be a valuable commentator, but his solutions are often moonshine.
As I was looking back over some older articles, I ran across this one. Just let me mention that maybe the solutions of the peace movement will not be generally accepted but they are NEVER "moonshine".
Don't bother yourselves with voting third party next election. Just vote again for the sure thang.
What is the only four letter word that has five letters?
Hint: Go OBAMA yourself!
Move over Cheney and Bush! This dictator has style!
I'm getting the feeling that representative democracy is a facade in the U.S.
A corporation is a dictatorship. So are we.
Anyone saying we are "wraping up" the wars needs to be rapped on the mouth.
According to residents in the area, in an initial strike, two missiles hit the compound, killing one person. When people rushed to the scene to rescue the wounded, two more missiles struck, killing eight, the residents said.
--Drone attack noted in the NYTimes last night
Note that Obama uses dead and wounded as chum. When the villagers move in to carry away their wounded and dead, they fire another two Hellfire missiles at them.
That is the man who is swaying everyone in this country. The most dangerous president in history.
Maybe if we bring back the language of the 60's instead of the euphamisms of the Bush/Obama era, people might oppose this war like we opposed the war in Vietnam (I was a child then, but I opposed it) - so instead of a "surge", let's call it "escalation", let's see the images of the children killed by our bombs, the body bags, the flag draped coffins, then people will rise up against all of this killing in the name of .....??? right??? people really don't support this war, right? Our "leaders" in Washington are only doing what we are allowing them to do. Have there been any anti-war protests since Obama took office and the new Democratic majority was sworn in? Sorry, I am rambling, but I don't think we can just blame Obama, we need to get out there and make some noise folks! Bring back the sit-ins, the teach-ins, the protests that shut down cities, universities, etc. Otherwise, it will be business as usual while we sit in front of our computers and complain about not seeing the change we asked for.
The "responsible left" will be responsible for more:
murdering, maiming, massacring, torturing, savaging (all the joys brought to us by the military),
arbitrary and unlawful detention,
destruction of foreign people's property,
destruction of other lands' environment (depleted uranium and other such military pollution -- remember agent orange in Vietnam), vegetation, animals, mountains (bombing of mountain tops and such), etc.
Feel free to add to the list.
"Obama’s statement declared, adding that Cohen’s vote will 'ensure our men and women in uniform have the resources they need to protect our country.' "
How much longer will these D.C. imperialistic warmongers be allowed to use this time-worn lie?
If we withdraw from Afghanistan, will we have to fight the Taliban in our streets here at home? Will al-Qaeda hijack four airliners and "again" somehow, miraculously elude the world's most extensive and sophisticated air defense system? Will Taliban/al-Qaeda terrorists roam our cities carrying suitcase nukes unless we bomb Afghan villages? Will the Unocal Caspian Sea pipeline have to be canceled and will Russia and China then have the same "control" over their neighboring countries that the U.S. has over its southern neighbors? Are the Monroe Doctrine, the Truman Doctrine, the Carter Doctrine and the Bush Doctrine now threatened by the arrogance of nations who insist they have rights in their own geostrategic areas? Heavens!