On Dick Cheney, silly electioneering and holding up unemployment insurance
The recent testimony from Dick Cheney to the FBI clearly shows that he was up to his neck in the treason surrounding the Valerie Plame affair. As any intelligence officer will tell you, releasing secret information to anyone who has neither the appropriate classification clearance or the need to know is a violation of military and appropriate civilian codes.
It is a very serious federal crime. If any intelligence officer were to release classified information to a newspaper reporter for publication about a covert operation he or she would be tried for treason and, if convicted would almost certainly go to prison for a long time. It is that simple. Why could the Neoconservative Obstructionist justice department and their hand-picked U.S. Attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald, find phone calls about selling Senate seats and yet could not indict a sitting Vice President when he clearly was involved in the release of extremely secret and dangerous information?
Either Fitzgerald is not as competent as everyone claims, or he has some motive unknown to us. Perhaps it is Fitzgerald we should be taking a hard look at…not Cheney…since Fitzgerald has not been able to present even the least bit of evidence with the entire power of the Justice Department…and the law…behind him on which to indict.
Someone might say…well, that was politics. OK, then. How about this? Twenty-one members of our own CIA were convicted in Italy for illegal activities they were ordered to do by the White House. Again, you may say…well, that’s war. No, it isn’t. The world is not stupid.
Dick Cheney put a man as ignorant and as lazy as George W Bush in the White House to fool you into thinking that all world leaders are stupid. But these matters are handled by international diplomats who are, by and large, as a class the smartest people on earth. In short, Dick Cheney thinks you are stupid. But the Europeans are not stupid. Once the CIA was warned–and Cheney most certainly knew they were–not to simply cart off people in the dead of night within their countries, then those guilty of it had to suffer the consequences.
These things are discussed and worked out among diplomats. Only if you refuse to discuss them would Americans be tried in this kind of situation. We are not the Roman Empire and some Europeans, like the Italians, will not allow us to act as if we are.
Dick Cheney gave these orders. Dick Cheney is responsible but will never come forward, asserting that he was merely trying to protect this country and those who serve this country must make sacrifices. But these were unnecessary sacrifices, as you can be sure the CIA members involved would tell you, except that Cheney has made sure that they cannot. Because they were his orders and they are classsified and he will not declassify them because it would incriminate him. Of course, these are merely 21 of the hundreds of thousands who have suffered or died because of Dick Cheney.
Hitler used the excuse of the Rhineland to occupy Czechoslovakia. Cheney used the pretense of 9/11 to authorize American military and secret intelligence operatives to roam about breaking intenational law at will. He is a war criminal. He is un-indicted but he is a war criminal. And a war profiteer.
The CIA is hardly the kind of organization to take something like this lying down. If he ordered these actions and now leaves the CIA operatives to hang out to dry instead of seeking prior approval by the countries in question…which surely would have been granted if these were demonstrably significant operations, then, would the CIA retaliate against Cheney? They could. They could assassinate him in retaliation. We know that this is part of what they do. It is documented. They are experts at it.
Who knows? We know that they have done assassinations and could quite likely get away with blaming it on Al Qaeda. But the senior members and quite probably most of the CIA are not themselves assassins. Despite the “renditions,” most of the CIA believe quite firmly in the rule of law. It won’t happen, although there are probably many who wish it would.
Neoconservative Obstructionist split the vote and lose election to the Democrat
Semi-literate Sarah Palin, the successor to George W. Bush as the dumbest active politician, (closely edging out Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota and Steve King of Iowa) decided to involve herself in the 23rd Congressional District election in New York State. What could have prompted her to do that…publicity? Nah! Do you think?
Of course what happened was that the Republicans of upstate New York, an endangered species anyway, were promptly divided between the candidate they had selected and the candidate who was more to the Right somewhere in the political range of Louis XVI. This latter person was the choice of the Neo-Obstructionist, controlling wing of the party, the one chosen by Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity…the non-accountable political gurus. He also earned the support of the token black guy who does some administrative stuff and has the title as head of the Neonservative Obstructionist Party right now. All this controversy split the vote and the Democrat won, the first time in over one hundred years that a Democrat had won in that territory.
We can only hope that this continues because the Democrats picked up two more House seats last night in areas that they would not normally expect to carry. This is important because the House needs to ram through some legislation that the Neocon-Obstructionists are holding up with all kinds of parliamentary delays.
Neocon-Obstructionist Party obstructs unemployment for over 175,0000 Americans out of work
We know that the Neo-Obstructionists are working as hard as possible to delay and destroy affordable and accessible health care for tens of millions of Americans and to make it as difficult as possible for other tens of millions of Americans to hang on to their health care. They deliberately did nothing for several months, then they spent the entire summer traveling around, literally spreading lies about the health care legislation that was being crafted in the House and the Senate.
All the lies were finally rebutted by the Democrats and so the Neo-Obstructionists decided that they would take their time and craft some rather flimsy, health-industry-written, random thoughts on health care and introduce them at the last hour, hoping to stall the existing legislation which is now ready to pass. All the Neo-Obstructionists have had the opportunity to enter amendments and have their input to the existing legislation. But that legislation calls for real reform. The Neo-Obstructionists do not want reform.They work for the health care industry. They want the status quo. (More on that tomorrow.)
Another important item on the agenda, which has been in the works since September is a renewal of unemployment insurance for those who have been out of work for a long, long time. The House passed it right away. (That’s why the Neo-Obstructionists hate Pelosi. She gets things done.) In the Senate, the Neo-Obstructionists tried to stop it but when they saw that all the Democrats and some Neo-Obstructionists were going to insure its passage, about 80% of the Senate voted against a filibuster. So the Neo-Obstructionists took their option to have 30 hours of debate at which time the Senate must vote. But they have stalled that with numerous techniques and now they must vote and unemployment will finally be reissued.
In the meantime, the Neo-Obstructionist Party has held up…they’re proud of this, if you can imagine…unemployment benefits (which the workers pay into..so it is money due them!)It is not too much to say that these people are scum. They are vile scum. Any one who has the power to authorize a citizen’s own money, citizens who are in dire need, and holds it up deliberately. These Neocon-Obstructionists have lost touch with reality.