Clipmarks | BobbyRutan's clips

Palin's Foreign Policy Experience - 20 Meetings for a total of 12 hours

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 04:11:46 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: Examples:

March 10, 2007 -- Palin hosts the annual Fur & Ice reception in Fairbanks for about 30 diplomats and international tourism representatives. A Palin press release issued before the event noted, "Governor Sarah Palin will welcome members of Alaska's diplomatic corps to Fairbanks to view the ice carvings of Ice Alaska's 2007 World Ice Art Championship." Following the afternoon reception, Palin attends the NCAA rifle championships.

March 19, 2007 -- Palin meets with 10 foreign exchange students.

May 15, 2007 -- Palin holds a "brief courtesy" meeting with Martin Uden, then the head of the British consulate in San Francisco. The calendar notes, "He'll be visiting Juneau today off of one of the Cruise Ships."

Clip Source: www.motherjones.com

Calendars Show Gov. Palin's Foreign Policy Experience: About 20 Meetings for About 12 Hours

after John McCain picked her to be the GOP's vice presidential nominee, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin claimed that her foreign policy credentials were enhanced because "you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska." She also pointed out that she had experience dealing with trade delegations

Later, asked by CBS News' Katie Couric if she had ever participated in negotiations with Russia, Palin said, "We have trade missions back and forth. We—we do—it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia

the calendars tracking Palin's official meetings

as governor contain not one listing indicating she ever met with a Russian official.

the 562 pages of her daily schedules

indicate that Palin had few meetings at all with any foreign representatives and rarely dealt with any topic related to foreign policy

Clip Source: farm2.static.flickr.com

Clip Source: www.motherjones.com

Palin spent

12 hours over the course of 19 months on these meetings

Tags: stunning foreign policy experience

The Constitution Lives! Almost killed by rebubbacans, making a comeback.

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 18:32:41 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: Members of the area's Uighur community reacted to the decision with jubilation. "We won!" one attendee exclaimed after the hearing, setting off a loud cheer.

Scores of detainees are challenging their detentions in federal court after winning a Supreme Court ruling in June that gave them the right to have their cases reviewed by federal judges under the legal doctrine of habeas corpus.

The government suffered a major setback in June when a federal appeals court found the evidence against one Uighur to be so weak that it compared the government's legal theories to a nonsensical 19th-century poem, Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark." The court ordered the man, Huzaifa Parhat, released, transferred or offered a new military hearing.

The government chose not to retry Parhat and announced it would no longer treat him as an enemy combatant. It subsequently did the same for four others and added the final 12 late last month.

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

A federal judge today ordered that 17 Chinese Muslims held at the Guantanamo Bay military prison be released into the United States by Friday, agreeing with the detainees' attorneys that the Constitution bars holding the men indefinitely without cause

It was the first time that a U.S. court has ordered the release of a Guantanamo detainee, and the first time that a foreign national held there has been ordered brought to the United States

a small band of captives, known as Uighurs, who have been held at Guantanamo for nearly seven years and are no longer considered enemy combatants by the U.S. government

U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina

rejected government arguments that he had no authority to order the men's release.

"because the Constitution prohibits indefinite detention without cause." He added, "The separation of powers do not trump" the prohibition against holding people indefinitely without trial

He cited a June decision

that found evidence against the Uighurs to be unreliable

Tags: fear is all rebubbacans have to offer the usa

Why CIA Veterans are Scared of McCain

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 18:01:05 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: McCain is influenced by a circle of hardline Republican legislators and congressional staff as well as disgruntled former Agency officials "who all had these long-standing grudges against people in the Agency," the former senior intelligence officer said. "They think the CIA is a hotbed of liberals. Right-wing, nutty paranoia stuff. They all love the military and hate the CIA. Because the CIA tells them stuff they don't want to hear."

Clip Source: www.motherjones.com

Why CIA Veterans Are Scared of McCain

These critics point especially to the McCain campaign's top national security adviser Randy Scheunemann—who ran a front group promoting war with Iraq and the fabrications of controversial Iraqi exile politician Ahmad Chalabi, the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, and who has lobbied for aggressive NATO expansion. Scheunemann's record, they argue, encapsulates everything wrong with the past eight years of Bush leadership on intelligence issues, from a penchant for foreign policy freelancing and secret contacts with unreliable fabricators, to neoconservatives' disdain for the perceived bureaucratic timidity of the CIA and State Department, to their avowed hostility for diplomacy with adversaries. If McCain wins, "the military has won," says one former senior CIA officer. "We will no longer have a civilian intelligence arm. Yes, we will have analysts. But we won't have any real civilian intelligence capability."

McCain would be an absolute disaster

Tags: mccain would be an absolute disaster

World wants Obama as president: poll

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 06:43:07 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: Will Americans choose to lead the world, or will they once again squander the goodwill that the world would love to heap on the USA.

What will they do?

The countries most optimistic that an Obama presidency would improve relations were America's NATO allies, including Australia (62 per cent).

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

All 22 countries covered in the poll would prefer to see Senator Obama elected US president ahead of Republican John McCain.

In 17 of the 22 nations, people expect relations between the US and the rest of the world to improve if Senator Obama wins.

More than 22,000 people were questioned by pollster GlobeScan in countries ranging from Australia to India and across Africa, Europe and South America.

The margin in favour of Senator Obama ranged from 9 per cent in India to 82 per cent in Kenya, while an average of 49 per cent across the 22 countries preferred Senator Obama compared with 12 per cent preferring Senator McCain. Some four in 10 did not take a view.

Large numbers of people around the world clearly like what Barack Obama represents," GlobeScan chairman Doug Miller said.

"Given how negative America's international image is at present, it is quite striking that only one in five think a McCain presidency would improve on the Bush administration's relations with the world."

Clip Source: shotpolitics.com

Tags: mccain equals bush in the eyes of the world

The Spies who love Obama

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 17:51:22 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: The world is a very complicated place and there are not always easy solutions to a lot of the problems out there," says John Brennan, a top Obama intelligence advisor and former senior CIA official who co-founded the Terrorist Threat Integration Center and the National Counterterrorism Center, a post-9/11 effort to integrate the US government's terror threat intelligence. "If you look at the world in black and white, you miss a lot of the subtleties out there. 'Either with us or against'—the world is not divided into good and evil a lot of time. Despite America's military might, a lot of these problems do not lend themselves to kinetic solutions"—i.e. the use of force. And world dynamics are likely to get more complicated and nuanced, not less, by 2025.
"It's time to update our national security strategy to stay one step ahead of the terrorists," Obama said at Indiana's Purdue University. "It's time to look ahead—at the dangers of today and tomorrow rather than those of yesterday.

Clip Source: www.motherjones.com

The Spies Who Love Obama

Why some of Bush's intel professionals are now working for a Democrat—and how they'd reform the CIA. Part Two in a series on the candidates' national security policies

As has become painfully clear since 9/11, intelligence is only as good as the worldview of the person receiving it.

The team of former intelligence professionals who have come together to advise Barack Obama describe a candidate who they believe is open-minded and intellectually inclined to absorb information—not just the recognized current threats (terrorism, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, a resurgent and more belligerent Russia), but the ones on the horizon (nuclear terrorism, water wars, climate change and the conflicts it could generate)

Obama's intelligence advisors say their experience with the recent administration has shown that leaders who think they already know it all can lead to disaster

Bush administration has done terrible damage to the intelligence business

It's time

for a very serious change

Tags: real change, not mcsame

Dangers of natural gas from shale using high pressure H2O

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 05:02:45 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: Traditional gas wells bore straight into porous stone, using a few thousand gallons of water. But dense shale has gas locked inside

Hydraulic fracturing “fracking,” and horizontal drilling unlock it.

Each hydraulically fractured horizontal well requires 2 to 7 million gallons of fresh water mixed with sand and thousands of gallons of industrial chemicals to make the water penetrate easily.

The frac-water mixture is blasted at high pressure into shale up to 10,000 feet deep, fracturing them. The sand lodges in the cracks, propping them open and providing a path for the gas to exit after external pressure is released.

Besides using vast amounts of groundwater, scientists worry that toxic frac water – 30 percent or more – remains underground and may years later pollute freshwater aquifers.

Millions of gallons of frac water come back to the surface. It could be treated, but in Texas it is most often reinjected into the ground.

Clip Source: features.csmonitor.com

Controversial path to possible glut of natural gas

Water and chemicals injected at high pressure can extract more gas – and possibly pollute drinking water

an advanced drilling system so powerful it fractures rock with high-pressure fluid is opening up vast shale-gas deposits

Instead of falling, US gas production is rising, with up to 118 years’ worth of “unconventional” natural gas reserves in 21 huge shale basins,

scores of natural gas companies are fanning out from Fort Worth, Texas, where hydraulic fracturing of shale has been done for at least five years, to lease shale lands in 19 states

some warn that by expanding “hydraulic fracturing” of shale, America strikes a Faustian bargain: It gains new energy reserves, but it consumes and quite possibly pollutes critical water resources

People need to understand that these are not your old-fashioned gas wells

This technology produces tremendous amounts of polluted water and uses dangerous chemicals in every single well that’s developed

Tags: doesn't sound good at all. read the whole aritcle

Palin linked electoral success to prayer of Kenyan witchhunter

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 04:00:04 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: An African evangelist, Pastor Muthee has given guest sermons at the Wasilla Assembly of God on at least 10 occasions in his role as the founder of the Word of Faith Church, also known as the Prayer Cave.

The pastor speaks of his offensive against a demonic presence in the town in a trailer for the evangelical video “Transformations”,

Pastor Muthee founded the Prayer Cave in 1989 in Kiambu, Kenya after “God spoke” to him and his late wife Margaret and called him to the country, according to the church’s website.

The full Transformations video featuring Pastor Muthee’s story has recently been removed from YouTube but the rest of the story is detailed in a 1999 article in the Christian Science Monitor, as well as on numerous evangelical websites.

According to the Christian Science Monitor, six months of fervent prayer and research identified the source of the witchcraft as a local woman called Mama Jane, who ran a “divination” centre called the Emmanuel Clinic.

Clip Source: timesonline.typepad.com

The pastor whose prayer Sarah Palin says helped her to become governor of Alaska founded his ministry with a witchhunt against a Kenyan woman who he accused of causing car accidents through demonic spells.

At a speech at the Wasilla Assembly of God on June 8 this year, Mrs Palin described how Thomas Muthee had laid his hands on her when he visited the church as a guest preacher in late 2005, prior to her successful gubernatorial bid.

In video footage of the speech, she is seen saying: “As I was mayor and Pastor Muthee was here and he was praying over me, and you know how he speaks and he’s so bold. And he was praying “Lord make a way, Lord make a way.”

“And I’m thinking, this guy’s really bold, he doesn’t even know what I’m going to do, he doesn’t know what my plans are. And he’s praying not “oh Lord if it be your will may she become governor,” no, he just prayed for it. He said “Lord make a way and let her do this next step. And that’s exactly what happened.”

Tags: news america is too afraid to print.

Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 17:09:43 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: Real Estate Agent as top of the State Division of Agriculture? Sounds a heckuva lot like "Your doin a fine job brownie". Of course that was when another rebubbacan, George Bush, appointed Michael Brown head of FEMA, our governments emergency response division to natural disasters and other emergencies.

What was Michael Brown's qualifications? Before joining the DHS/FEMA, Brown was the Judges and Stewards Commissioner for the International Arabian Horse Association, (IAHA), from 1989-2001. After numerous lawsuits were filed against the organization over disciplinary actions[5], Brown was forced to resign

Interviews show that Ms. Palin runs an administration that puts a premium on loyalty and secrecy. The governor and her top officials sometimes use personal e-mail accounts for state business; dozens of e-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that her staff members studied whether that could allow them to circumvent subpoenas seeking public records.

Dick Cheney anyo

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Gov. Sarah Palin lives by the maxim that all politics is local, not to mention personal

So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency

Ms. Havemeister was one of at least five schoolmates Ms. Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages

When Ms. Palin had to cut her first state budget, she avoided the legion of frustrated legislators and mayors. Instead, she huddled with her budget director and her husband, Todd, an oil field worker who is not a state employee, and vetoed millions of dollars of legislative projects

Throughout her political career, she has pursued vendettas, fired officials who crossed her and sometimes blurred the line between government and personal grievance

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

Tags: rebubbacans, republiarcans, cheney proteges

Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 03:53:38 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: I am Commando Coalfire Palin.

Life is already better for me now with ignorance and hypocrisy. I feel much better now.

Clip Source: politsk.blogspot.com

Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator

Clip Source: personal-space.com

Sarah Palin has picked out an All-American set of names for her children. There's Track, Trig, Bristol, Willow, and Piper.

Ever wonder, What would your name would be if Sarah Palin was your mother? Well now you can find out!

Enter your Name:

Clip Source: politsk.blogspot.com

Yes, the American people have learned from experience that it's not the content of your resume but the quality of your character that will make you a good president. And with the war in Iraq, the mortgage crisis, the banks going bankrupt, China winning the Olympics, and Gossip Girl on TV, we really need a personality cult more than we need policy. Get our your life insurance, your gun, and your credit card, because we're in for a rocky future.

Tags: america's anti-intellectualism is killing itself.

McCain's Fannie and Freddie Connections

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 04:06:53 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: In McCain's op-ed in the Journal, he and Palin wrote:

For years, Congress failed to act and it is deeply troubling that what we are seeing is an exercise in crisis management rather than sound planning, and at great cost to taxpayers.

We promise the American people that our administration will be different. We have long records of standing up to special interests…

But McCain's own campaign staffers are those special interests, a fact that casts doubt on both McCain's hiring judgment and his ability to pursue tough reforms of Fannie and Freddie.

Clip Source: www.motherjones.com

John McCain railed against Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on the campaign trail today, saying that the CEOs that led the lenders to ruin "deserve nothing" and should have to pay back their severance packages. In an Wall Street Journal op-ed co-bylined by his vice presidential pick, Sarah Palin, McCain suggested bold reforms for Fannie and Freddie that would "terminate future lobbying, which was one of the primary contributors to this great debacle

McCain should look first to his campaign staffers as the cause of that debacle

One

was Fannie Mae's head of lobbying, and spread tens of millions of dollars around Washington in the form of lobbying contracts

A number of McCain staffers were on the receiving end of those contracts, collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars each from the lenders to rep their interests

McCain's campaign manager served as president of a lobbying association that fought to protect Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae from the sort of regulation that McCain is now proposing

Tags: hypocrites, liars, whoremongers, and gold diggers

John McBush on Education and US Technology

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 18:41:30 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: You can't make this stuff up folks.

The U.S. deserves better than the bottom of the class that the Rebubbacans keep offering us.

McBush's economic adviser? Failed 3 grades before he finally got out. Seriously.

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Tags: rebubbacans, they pride themselves on their ignorance

Cindy McCain's Half-Sister: F*** McCain, I'm Voting for Obama

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 05:05:27 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: You can't hide from the people who know you best.

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

Cindy McCain's Half-Sister: I'm Voting For Obama

"I'm not voting for McCain," Kathleen Hensley Portalski tells Us.

"I'm voting for Obama," the Phoenix resident says. "I think his proposals to improve the country are more positive and I'm not a big war believer."

Portalski's son Nathan, an aerospace machinist, is also backing Obama.

"I wouldn't vote for John McCain if he was a Democrat," he tells Us. "I would not vote at all before I'd vote for him.

"I question whether Cindy is someone I'd want to see in the White House as first lady," he adds.

Portalski went public with her connection to the McCains after hearing Cindy say on the trail that she was an only child.

"I'm upset," she told NPR. "I'm angry. It makes me feel like a nonperson, kind of."

"It's terribly painful," Portalski added. "It is as if she is the 'real' daughter. I am also a real daughter."

The Washington Post subsequently reported that Cindy has another half-sister who seems to have slipped her mind:

Clip Source: www.1369lightbulbs.com

Tags: john mcbush whore mongering gold digger

3 Latest Polls show Obama leading McCain

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 07:25:28 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: Sorry but the conservative narrative that Pit Bull Palin's snide speech has erased Obama's months long lead over McCain rings hollow.

Clip Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

RCP Average08/29 - 09/05--46.644.2Obama +2.4

Gallup Tracking

09/03 - 09/05

Obama +2

Rasmussen Tracking

09/03 - 09/05

Obama +3

Hotline/FD Tracking

09/02 - 09/04

Obama +6

Tags: obama still leading.

The VP Choice that Lost the Presidency for McCain

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 05:11:57 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: It's also a slap in the face of Democratic women voters. They don't get Hillary but they get Sarah as the first potential woman President? In fact, I can just hear Biden saying, "Sarah Palin, you are NO Hillary Clinton!"

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

The VP Choice that Lost the Presidency for McCain

I think we will look back at today as the day when the Republicans most certainly lost the Presidency.

In choosing Sarah Palin of Alaska for Vice President, the Republicans have made a cynical but clever choice. At least they think it is clever.

Clip Source: wonkette.com

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

She has NO national experience.

She has never been under the intense scrutiny of a national campaign.

She is under investigation for some incident in Alaska that is messy and personal.

She has no international experience.

When Republicans and independents go into the voting booth, will they have the confidence to vote for a McCain-Palin ticket, knowing that John McCain has had several recurrences of his skin cancer, and will be the oldest President ever? Can they imagine Sarah Palin stepping into the Oval Office and dealing with all the problems we face right now?

It's a slap in the face of other Republican women like Kay Bailey Hutchison

Tags: john mccain whore mongering gold digger

John Edwards = John McCain

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 22:46:32 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: Edwards was a typical "guy" in his cheating ways: "But going out and getting stupidly laid and then coming home and reconciling with the wife is not the same as going out, getting stupidly laid, then divorcing the crippled wife and marrying the pretty young thing (and taking out your marriage license before the divorce is final). One is stupid. The other is cruel. Brutal. Heinous. And well within the moral capacities of our Republican presidential candidate."

Cenk Uygur, in his regular blog at AOL News, observes, "Now that Edwards has admitted to an extramarital affair, everyone will now condemn him and say he has no political career left. I want to ask all of those people, how is Edwards' affair any different John McCain's? If Edwards is disqualified from running for office because of this, isn't McCain as well?"

Clip Source: www.editorandpublisher.com

Reaction from across the political spectrum has been strong to the news of John Edwards admitting he had an affair in 2006, with many condemning Edwards' actions and denials. But it may also produce an unwanted aftershock for John McCain, reviving references to his own extramarital affairs back in the mid-1970s.

Steve Chapman, the generally conservative Chicago Tribune columnist observed today, "Not that Republicans would be able to make full use of this exposure had Edwards been the nominee. Their prospective nominee, after all, was guilty of the same sin during his first marriage.

McCain

said that he was dating Cindy for nine months while still "cohabiting" with his first wife.

The Los Angeles Times recently revealed that McCain had not been fully truthful on the timeline for his divorce and remarriage.

So you heard about Edwards ditching his sick wife? Wait till you get a load of McCain....'"

Clip Source: www.1369lightbulbs.com

Tags: john mccain whoremongering gold digger