Clipmarks | masbury's clips

Bush now travels 6000 miles to find a sympathetic audience

Fri, 16 May 2008 00:27:58 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: And there tells Jews that Democrats are like Hitler-appeasers. Wow. Slimy.

Clip Source: warincontext.org

In his eighth year as president, George Bush still lacks the courage to address anyone but an overly sympathetic audience. Indicative of his plummeting approval rating, he now has to travel six thousand miles to find such company.

at least Joe Biden gave a straight response: “This is bullshit.”

Here’s how Bush defines “negotiate”:
1. Use words to force the other party to think the way you do, or if that doesn’t work,
2. Use the threat of violence to bend your opponent’s will, or if that doesn’t work,
3. Use violence to force your opponent into submission, or if that doesn’t work,
4. Use violence to annihilate your opponent.

Tags: bush

Navy accidentally bombs Ocala National Forest

Thu, 15 May 2008 21:01:06 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Even America's not safe from America. Burns down 250 acres.

Clip Source: www.clickondetroit.com

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- During what was supposed to be a routine training exercise, a bomb landed off-target, landing and igniting a fire in the Ocala National Forest this week.

The 500-pound, laser-guided bomb was released from an F/A-18 Super Hornet on Tuesday, and detonated about 1 mile east of the Pinecastle target range, WJXT-TV in Jacksonville reported.

About 250 acres of forest and swampland were burned, according to Mike Drayton, a fire management officer with the U.S. Forest Service

Tags: military

Even Cindy decides to boycott Sudan

Thu, 15 May 2008 18:51:56 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: After calls by McCain for international economic sanctions against Sudan, the AP points out Cindy has $2 million invested there.

Clip Source: www.motherjones.com

John McCain has been critical of China for its willingness to do business in Sudan. "China needs Sudan's oil," he has said. "The politics of oil impede the global progress of our values, and restrains governments from acting on the most basic impulses of human decency."

Turns out it's not just China that ignores Sudan's humanitarian atrocities in order to make a profit.

Cindy McCain, whose husband has been a critic of the violence in Sudan, sold off more than $2 million in mutual funds whose holdings include companies that do business in the African nation.

The sale on Wednesday came after The Associated Press questioned the investments in light of calls by John McCain, the likely Republican presidential nominee, for international financial sanctions against the Sudanese leadership.

Tags: mccain, politics, elections

Biden: Bush Knesset comment "bullsh*t"

Thu, 15 May 2008 18:42:46 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: "He’s the guy who’s weakened us. He’s the guy that’s increased the number of terrorists in the world. " Gates and Rice call for dialog with Iran; Bush likens Dems to appeasers of the Nazis for advocating the same thing. It is bullsh*t.

Clip Source: www.democraticunderground.com

(CNN) — The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Joe Biden, D-Delaware, called President Bush’s comments accusing Sen. Barack Obama and other Democrats of wanting to appease terrorists "bulls–t” and said if the president disagrees so strongly with the idea of talking to Iran then he needs to fire his secretaries of State and Defense, both of whom Biden said have pushed to sit down with the Iranians.

“This is bullsh**t. This is malarkey. This is outrageous. Outrageous for the president of the United States to go to a foreign country, sit in the Knesset…and make this kind of ridiculous statement,” Biden said angrily in a brief interview just off the Senate floor.

Tags: biden, bush, foreign policy, war, iran

Crouching in a corner, covered with a sheet for hours - tragic!

Thu, 15 May 2008 18:37:49 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Your tax dollars at work: Most evidence against so-called "20th hijacker" comes from torture-induced statements. He appears to have lost his mind at the hands of his torturers; no case against him has ever been made; his internment continues indefinitely. It's the Spanish inquisition, by medieval American government. We'll never know if he's guilty or not, just that he was hurt badly enough to confess before he became too crushed to face trial. This is as completely criminal as 9/11 itself.

Clip Source: www.truthdig.com

a battered man with signs of diminished mental capacity, a man who authorities concede was so badly abused

that

The Pentagon has formally dropped charges

conceding that most of the evidence it has came from Qahtani’s own coerced statements

No case that details Qahtani’s supposed role in the 9/11 plot ever has been presented

his abuse at the hands of American military interrogators is well known

By late November, the detainee was evidencing behavior consistent with extreme psychological trauma (talking to nonexistent people, reporting hearing voices, crouching in a corner of the cell covered with a sheet for hours on end)

still considered an “enemy combatant” and so can be held at Guantanamo under the Bush administration’s unique theory that it may hold whomever it wants for as long as it wants

the next president may bring us relief, but not absolution for having condoned the unconscionable

Tags: gitmo, torture, news

Cindy's gonna fund her boy and it's none a'yer biznis

Thu, 15 May 2008 18:10:53 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Mama, can I have the keys to the learjet tonight? Teresa Heinz Kerry didn't get away with it. But Cindy gets a pass. For now.

Clip Source: www.truthdig.com

Cindy McCain, wife of the Republican presidential candidate, displayed poor taste in flaunting her family’s special immunity from press scrutiny. Declaring on NBC’s “Today” that she would “never” release her income tax returns even if she becomes first lady, the Arizona beer heiress showed no concern that she and her husband will have to meet the same tests as other would-be White House occupants—ever.

That silence similarly contrasts with the hell raised four years ago over Teresa Heinz Kerry’s reluctance to reveal her tax returns alongside those of her spouse, the Democratic presidential nominee and senator, John Kerry

Now comes Mrs. McCain

her company plane has been flying him and his entourage of lobbyists around the country at bargain rates, a particular boon during the many months when his campaign was out of cash

they appear to have used their charitable foundation

to ensure that their children attended elite schools, by strategically donating very large sums to those institutions

Tags: mccain, elections, politics

Plan to blame Iran for arms goes awry

Thu, 15 May 2008 17:48:59 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Media blackout on story, so Bushco propaganda campaign continues unabated.

Clip Source: www.commondreams.org

plan to create a new crescendo of accusations against Iran for allegedly smuggling arms to Shiite militias in Iraq encountered not just one but two setbacks.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki refused to endorse U.S. charges of Iranian involvement

and a plan to show off a huge collection of Iranian arms captured in and around Karbala had to be called off after it was discovered that none of the arms were of Iranian origin.

The news media’s failure to report that the arms captured from Shiite militiamen in Karbala did not include a single Iranian weapon shielded the U.S. military from a much bigger blow to its anti-Iran strategy.

Tags: media, iran, iraq, war

Pressure mounting on Big Oil

Thu, 15 May 2008 17:41:35 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: demand from investors and public for green energy development

Clip Source: www.commondreams.org

Americans — from nonprofit groups to the Rockefeller family — are starting to fight back against the petroleum industry, which is earning record profits as consumers face spiraling gas prices.

66 of 78 adult heirs of John D. Rockefeller, who founded the company’s predecessor, Standard Oil, supported four resolutions aimed at making the oil giant hew a more environmentally friendly

Exxon saw a record $40.6 billion profit in 2007

“We think a few of those billions should go towards looking to the future

also includes

institutional investors

whose managers fear that the company’s refusal to look beyond carbon fuels could lead to its downfall.

demanding that API forgo a planned multi-million dollar public relations campaign in favor of investment in alternative energy sources

“The best public relations your industry could buy would be to take the funds you have earmarked for this campaign and spend them, starting today, to create and bring to market renewable, sustainable energy sources.”

Tags: energy, environment

The 8th-richest U.S. Senator: Elite John McCain

Thu, 15 May 2008 16:16:27 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: But the millions are a family secret

Clip Source: www.abcnews.go.com

Reading Sen. John McCain's, R-Ariz., personal tax returns, which the White House hopeful released today, you'd never know he's the Senate's eighth wealthiest member.

McCain's returns show he earned about $400,000 last year and gave a lot to charity. That's well above the poverty line -- but well below the $27 million to $45 million reflected in McCain's Senate financial disclosures.

The secret? The vast majority of the McCain family wealth comes from Cindy, McCain's second wife, who is heiress to a fortune built by her father, a beer distributor, whose firm she now chairs. Unlike the Obamas and Clintons, the McCains file their taxes separately -- and Cindy's returns are off-limits to the public, the campaign says.

McCain lists no other investments, no retirement funds, no savings, no properties.

Tags: mccain, politics