The Common Ills: Iraq is not your football and we blew it in the US

Thursday, May 01, 2014

Iraq is not your football and we blew it in the US

At this morning's House Oversight Committee, Eleanor Holmes Norton made an idiot of herself again. She can't help, she's too old and she's too stupid. At 76, she needs to cease being the visitor to Congress. She's not helping DC get a seat in the Congress. She needs to go.

She's also ethically challenged.

That's Eleanor making an idiot of herself.

It was December 2, 3009. Check that day's snapshot and I note an issue was clarified by Homeland Security's Mark J. Sullivan. I don't make a point to go into how stupid Eleanor was and I even tried to be kind about her in the snapshot. She was horrible. And even through corrected by Sullivan, she continued to repeat the lie (as did others) she had been corrected on which is why, months later (April 2010), we revisted the exchange at Third -- with transcript this time -- in "Eleanor gets egg on her face."

I no longer rush to defend her and her lying became undeniable in October 2012 with Benghazi. She never wanted any answers, she only wanted to tear apart those asking questions.

Today she had to go off on another lying tangent.

I'm not in the mood.

Eleanor suddenly remembers Iraq today and suddenly cares.

People are laughing at her because she identified the Iraq War (which began in March 2003) as being in the 20th century. That's because she's too old for her job and her mind is going. She needs to step down.

She also asserted that the illegal war (I'm calling it illegal, Eleanor's always lacked the guts to) "renewed conflict between the Sunni and Shia." What is she talking about?

Renewed?

You can argue it hardened divisions, you can argue those divisions already existed and were amplified. Those are two positions -- opposing positions -- which can be debated.

But renewed?

She was babbling on like the loon she's become, trying to create a false talking point.

And I'm sick of it. I saw this crap yesterday:

I would have included it in the dictated snapshot but we had more to focus on, remember?

If not, note this Tweet from today:

Yeah, Iraq elections.

I am beyond sick of these Sarah Woods. Like Eleanor, she wants to attack issues raised by Benghazi. She's nothing but a partisan whore.

Can someone point me to "Opinated Dems" vast work on the issue of Iraq?

Can someone explain when the lazy liar ever did a damn thing regarding Iraq?

Benghazi and Iraq are not the same thing.

Liars like Sarah Wood and Eleanor attempt to pretend they are.

They like to say and Tweet things like, "4,000 died in Iraq, only 4 in Benghazi." Sometimes they remember to add "Americans" but sometimes they just let their xenophobia shine.

While letting their ignorance shine as well. DoD puts out the death toll of Americans in Iraq. It only increased by one since the December 2011 drawdown. I know the number, we cite it twice a week here still -- Sunday in "Hejira" and Saturday in "I Hate The War."

But there's a big difference that these lying whores don't seem to get.

It is sad when anyone dies.

But there are certain outcomes that aren't really shocking.

For example, when soldiers are sent off to war, unless you're in denial, you know the odds are that some will die.

That is, in fact, one of the argument those of us speaking before the Iraq War started made, that people were being asked to die for lies.

As a nation, we can mourn these deaths and should.

I am opposed to the Iraq War and I was opposed to our government sending American troops there.

I'm not getting how Chris Stevens is a US soldier.

Can someone explain that to me?

How about Sarah Wood "Opinated Dem"? Can she explain that?

Or is she too deep in her own stupidity?

Troops sent into a foreign country to battle and conduct war are going to result in deaths. That's an expected outcome.

We don't expect a US Ambassador to be killed in a foreign country.

You're mixing two different things to get your soundbyte.

The two are not related.

Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods died.

Why did they die?

Who knows because there's still no real effort at capturing their killers.

But they died.

The government has lied repeatedly about why they died and about how.

In October 2012, at the first hearing of Benghazi, we knew it was a CIA issue. We attended the hearing, one representatives objections made it clear it was also a CIA issue. He spoke -- sometimes to the Chair but with his microphone picking him up -- about certain details being discussed and how they shouldn't be discussed.

Even now, they won't give an honest accounting.

And when someone like investigative journalist Seymour Hersh attempts to, the response is to attack Sy.

He can't even publish these accounts in the US mainstream media. Stupid suck up David at The New Yorker won't allow those reports to go into print at The New Yorker.

He has to publish in The London Review of Books instead (such as here).

And apparently honesty and truth is now translated as attacking Hersh.

Or attacking Sharyl Attkisson.

If what Sy or Sharyl is reporting is so awful and hideous, why the attacks on them?

If it's so awful, it should collapse all on its own.

And since when is David Brock and his template something we on the left want to embrace?

Media Matters is this centuries version of the 90s American Spectator.

Brock's methods haven't gotten any better since the days when he whored for Clarence Thomas and attacked Anita Hill for telling the truth ("a little nutty, a little slutty" -- I believe that was his published slur against Hill).

David Brock is destroying the left.

As the 90s were ending, he confessed some of his lies. Some.

And he was rewarded with money and propped up at the newly created Media Matters.

It is not independent, it is not fair, it is nothing but a Democratic Party Noise Machine.

Some idiots and some liars were stupid enough to think we could take on the right-wing by becoming like them.

As Barbra Streisand's character says in the highly underrated Up The Sandbox, we don't have to become more like you, we only have to become more like ourselves.

Instead of staying true to ourselves, we whored. And that's why when Democrats controlled the House and Senate (the American people delivered control to them in the 2006 mid-terms), the illegal war didn't end.

It's also why, following the 2008 elections, nothing improved in this country.

The jobs?

They're still not there.

That is the most important issue to the country.

Barack is an utter failure.

Jobs.

It's how you build the country.

Clinton? Bill created jobs, Bill also talked about the need for education and education in the sciences.

Did anyone online other than our own Betty not get how cheap and tacky our media had become -- and so many of us in this country had become?

Betty alone was left to champion Curiosity, the Mars Land Rover. She noted it should have been named Time's person of the year, she noted how the children's enthusiasm and interest created by Curiosity could impact our knowledge of science.

But it was left to Betty to bang that drum all by herself.

Because we had a White House that didn't give a damn about the sciences. That didn't give a damn about where this country will be in thirty years.

Instead of creating education goals that would match a new economy, the White House chooses to whore for charter schools.

No surprise there, Arne Duncan's been whoring for charter schools long before Barack was elected.

The Democrats had control of the White House, of the Senate and of the House and they didn't do one damn thing to improve the lives of Americans.

And they weren't pressured to because faux groups like the one led by David Brock went around attacking Republicans.

Republicans weren't in charge.

The left wasted its moment, refused to apply pressure to those in power.

That's why the awful ObamaCare came into being. (Which Sarah Woods loves and insists is working.)

Americans had the right to buy or not buy insurance.

All ObamaCare did was take that right away from Americans and tell them that they had to buy insurance or they would be fined.

Now you can defend Barack on this by saying, "If he'd done what was needed, more people would have lost jobs."

Because what was needed was for the US to have what other advanced countries have -- hell, even Iraq has it. That's universal health care.

Not buy insurance, do away with the insurance agencies because all they've ever done is run up costs (and screw people over).

All Barack had to do was expand Medicare.

That's what the country needed.

And you can argue against that by pointing out that destroying the health insurance industry would have put a number of people working for that industry out of work. (Though many of us would immediately counter that the expansion of Medicare would create new jobs and then we'd be left to dicker over whether more jobs were being lost than were being created.)

When RomneyCare was being pushed by Mitt Romney, it was an obsession on my local radio station. They couldn't stop calling it out. My local radio station is KPFA. It's in the Bay Area. In California.

But we had hours and hours of programming devoted to calling out a program in one state on the other side of the country.

I didn't object, I didn't see it as a hit job on Mitt.

I agreed with the coverage because forcing people to buy a product is not universal health care.

But, strange thing, KPFA didn't give us any criticism of ObamaCare -- the same program but on a national level.

About eight weeks were spent with KPFA programming denouncing RomneyCare -- a plan that was not in our state and not going to effect us in the least. But when it went national, KPFA didn't say a word.

Because it was pushed by Democrats.

And as awful as that is, what's even worse is how KPFA, The Progressive, The Nation and other supposed 'independent' and 'alternative' outlets have spent six years of non-stop whoring, selling the worst crap to the American people instead of demanding that a supposedly Democratic administration stop serving the corporations and start serving the people.

We're the only ones, right here, this site, that have even bothered to note the development under Secretary of State John Kerry -- the State Dept is now in the debt collection business for corporations. And Kerry brags about what he's doing for corporations -- brags in hearings. Again, it's disgusting and appalling but no one in 'left' media seems to notice.

How bad is the do-nothing Democratic image?

The Simpsons mocked it (rightly) last month in "Days of Future Future" (written by J. Stewart Burns). Adult Nelson explains to adult Bart that his mother is still working as a stripper.

Nelson: With Social Security a thing of the past, she can't afford to retire.

Bart: I don't know how that happened in a Senate with 99 Democrats.

Nelson: That one Republican is great at getting his way.

Even now, the Dems control the Senate and the White House and can't accomplish anything.

In 20 years, the Sarah Woods can look back and feel 'proud' that they attacked those who questioned Benghazi.

Eleanor will be dead but her image will be further tarnished.

I care about Benghazi.

And, poor Sarah Wood, not only am I on the left but I also have a record of opposing the Iraq War.

And the two issues are not related. Again, troops sent into a foreign country tragically will result in deaths. Diplomats sent into a foreign country are not expected to be killed.

Benghazi was a failure and all the lying and whoring won't change that.

I defended Cindy Sheehan's right to ask why her son died, I defend Pat Smith's right to ask why her son died.

Four Americans died in Libya.

I can -- and have -- opposed the Iraq War and I can also demand answers regarding Benghazi.

It's amazing that ten years ago, on the left we were thrilled with Hersh for breaking news about Abu Ghraib and, to a lesser extent, with Attkisson for breaking news on KBR.

But today, we demonize them. Today, we hug a known liar like David Brock -- who also has serious mental issues and addiction issues that have not been addressed -- and try to act like he did back in the 90s 'but for the left.'

You're not acting for the left.

You're nothing but a kiss ass for the powerful.

As Goldie Hawn says in Shampoo, "stop kissing everyone's ass that comes into that shop. That's not going to put you in business. That's going to make you a kiss-ass."

Six years and all that's been accomplished is showing how disgusting we can be on the left. How we can trash four dead Americans and the people who ask questions about their deaths, how we can trash the last real journalists in the country -- investigative journalists -- in our attempt to 'serve' the White House. We're not serving democracy, we're not serving the people.

The corporations are thrilled. They've had six years of everything they want and they'll probably get even more in the next two years.

And it's not because of the right-wing, it's because on the left We The People comes second to the Cult of St. Barack.

But don't worry, the same Barack who refused to take a selfie with a 13-year-old girl in South Korea took one with pop tart Justin Timberlake so everything's right in the world, right?

And look at the media today, so excited, stroking their real and phantom penises (yes, the girls are whoring with the boys today) as though the photo has any meaning to anyone's lives.

Shorter version of this entry?

As Peter Fonda's Captain America says in Easy Rider, "We blew it."

We'll note violence and other things in today's Iraq snapshot.

The following community sites -- plus Jody Watley, Antiwar.com, Susan's On the Edge, the House Veterans Affairs Committee, Jane Fonda, the Guardian, Great Britain's Socialist Worker and Pacifica Evening News updated: