And, FWIW, all these things make America look stupid to outsiders (I'm in Canada - we can't even compete in the Publicly Stupid sweepstakes you guys dominate...)

TWS I agree with nearly every word of this, and the exposure of the insanity out there.
The only one thing I disagree with is the right to bear arms thing photo tag, as that dude was no where near the president and being monitored quite well. (I remember the incident clearly.)
Personally I wouldn't be stupid enough to carry within 50 miles of the President, but that's just me. (and I'm a total gun nut, at that.)
On everything else, you're dead on. These racist, evil screwtards need to shut the hell up and start dealing with reality.
The President of the United States deserves our respect, even if these people don't agree with the fear being shoved in their ears by the Limbags of the world.

Rated!

I enjoyed your post. Agreed with most of it. :-)

Excellent.... Powerful.

Some of the comments Bachman is making surely border on sedition or incitement to violence. She is, as we Brits say, bonkers.

Thank you all for your comments and ratings.

Andy - you're right about the proximity of the gun-toter, but I still think it sends the wrong message especially in connection with the poster he was holding.

Myriad & GeeBee - other countries must either be laughing hysterically at the US, or simply shaking their heads in disgust.

Lija & davyboy - thanks again, I appreciate it.

Yes, yes and yes...rated.

I like your calling out the code word "arrogance". The world has changed, will continue to change and it ultimatley won't go back to what it was. There maybe a few set backs and last gasp efforts for the "good old days" but they will fail. I am a believer in the audacity of hope.

Yes, this "Impeach Obama" nonsense! Can anyone articulate fully what impeachable offenses he has committed?

I really doubt it.

Great post! Thank you!

Do not let the Tea baggers, etc and their incoherence distract you from the truth.

Obama is a war criminal.

Impeachable offense?

How about using missiles launched from Predator drones to kill women and children in Pakistan, a country we are not even at war with? A country that is our ally?

This is a war crime.

It is an impeachable offense.

Blowing little kids to pieces the way Obama has blown hundreds of little kids to pieces this past year violates every treaty we have signed for the past century concerning the conduct of war.

It is murder.

But they are brown skinned kids, so that makes it all right?

Yes, Obama did not start Iraq/Af/Pak, but -- "The truth is that every morning war is declared afresh. And the men who wish to continue it are as guilty as the men who began it, more guilty perhaps, for the latter perhaps did not foresee all its horrors." -Marcel Proust

Obama is responsible for the horrors and law breaking that are happening NOW. He supposedly knows better, but yet he is continuing rendition, FISA warrantless wiretapping, GITMO, the Patriot Act and many other illegal actions begun by Bush. All despite having the power to stop these illegal acts immediately with executive orders and by virtue of his controlling the executive branch. For example, he can order the DOD to stop missile attacks into Pakistan and they will cease. No act of Congress required.

Obama can instruct the DOJ to stop defending rendition cases and let the chips fall were they may in regards to illegal actions by the CIA. Instead, Obama has the DOJ vigorously defending illegal Bush era policies and actions. Just last week an appellate court held that even though the CIA snatched an innocent Canadian student, had him tortured for a year in Syria until the CIA realized he was innocent and Canada has subsequently admitted it's complicity with the USA in these heinous acts, the USA's role is shielded due to "secrecy concerns" and the case is not allowed to proceed. It was Obama's DOJ attorneys making these morally indefensible arguments. Is this right? No, it is criminal.

This is the CIA that has had people boiled alive and raped with broken glass bottles to extract fake confessions to justify the American empire's illegal wars. And Obama shields them.

Just as Obama signed into law last week an exception to the Freedom of Information Act that will allow the Pentagon to continue to stone wall requests by the ACLU and others for the photos of military law breaking (torture, beatings, rape, murder) in Iraq and Af/Pak.

Yes, standing up and keeping his campaign promises might "cost" Obama a second term, but such is the price of doing the right thing. Instead, Obama is sucking the corporate tit and giving in to the perpetual war machine, the insurance corporations and big pharma.

It is not racist to say this.

Obama is a war criminal like Bush before him.

How much evidence of his wrong doing will it take before you realize he is no better than those before him and perhaps worse?

How many must Obama murder?

How do you justify those deaths?

Mimetalker, Jeanette & devilgrrl - thanks so much for your comments and ratings.

BBE - we get it; you keep repeating yourself every chance you get. Good for you. Were you so "vocal" from 2001 - 2008 about War Crimes? Take your pick - Bush, Cheney, Libby, Rumsfeld, ... No need for you to respond any further (you're boring).

BBE - other than whining - what are you doing to stop him. Are you advocating his assassination? And where you this up-in-arms the past thirty years of abuses against humanity brought forth by corporate America? Or are you one of these assholes that only spews forth when a democrat that ran as a moderate is in office? I agree with The Wright Sight - you're piss boring.

My money says Obama will disapoint the Pentagon on troop infusion. If he does not.... sadly we are looking at a mimum
of 10 more years.
Safe haven for Al Quaida to train and flourish is overrated
propaganda. Stifle the cash benefactors and this movement will wither. A military insurgence without the support of the warlords
will fail. I personally do not believe this is achievable. Karzai
is back in the palace. Time to leave.

re: Pearl Necklaces

In the words of ZZ Top (edited by me):

She's really upset with me again,
I didn't give her what she likes.
I don't know what to tell her,
Don't know what to say.
Everything got funky last night.

She was really bombed,
And I was really blown away,
Until I asked her what she wanted,
And this is what she had to say:
A pearl necklace.
She wore a pearl necklace.
She wore a pearl necklace.

She gets a charge out of bein' so weird,
Digs gettin' downright strange.
But I can keep a handle on anything,
Just this side of deranged.

She was really bombed,
And I was really blown away,
Until I asked her what she wanted,
And this is what she had to say:
A pearl necklace.
She wore a pearl necklace.
She wore a pearl necklace.

She's so cold, as pure as the driven slush.
And that's not jewelry she's talkin'about,
It really don't cost that much.

She was really bombed,
And I was really blown away,
Until I asked her what she wanted,
And this is what she had to say:
A pearl necklace.
She wore a pearl necklace.
She wore a pearl necklace.

Wright: you can delete my previous comment if you want -- but seeing that Bachmann woman always brings out the evil in me.

skeletnwmn - Pearl Necklaces is perfect! It stays.

"She gets a charge out of bein' so weird,
Digs gettin' downright strange."

BBE, your points are well taken, but I don't think those are the reasons the right is citing for impeachment. I rather think that most of them are in favor of the things you mention.

Yes, I was just as vocal about Bush and calling for his impeachment, indictment and conviction, although I felt Cheney should be impeached first.

There is nothing "boring" about the truth.

You call my points boring because there is nothing you can argue to justify all those dead bodies Obama is piling up. You have no response. So you blithely toss out boring.

Just because it is now a Democratic President committing war crimes does not mean we should look the other way.

The children Obama kills are just as dead as the ones killed by Bush.

The party doesn't matter.

As far as what I do? I open my wallet wide and support the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the various movements to then impeach/now indict the Bush regime, Healthcare Now, Amnesty International and many others. I call and write my representative and senators so often I am sure their staffer's are sick of clicking the auto-reply. I protest in my community several times a month against the wars, the corporate prison complex, and other issues. I vote and contribute to third parties despite all the Good Germans who say I am wasting my vote and money. I write letters to the editors. I do what any citizen can.

But what does that matter as long as there are so many people like you who are willing to overlook Obama's crimes because he is a Democrat.

DeMain - the Right and their lack of reason do not matter. What matters is that Obama is continuing the illegal acts of Bush and people are giving him a blanket pass for atrocities because he isn't a Republican. How pathetic is that?

If you decried FISA/Gitmo/rendition/torture, etc under Bush, why is it now suddenly different under Obama when Obama does the exact same things (FISA/Gitmo/rendition/torture, etc)?

dvlgrl - It has been centuries of corporate abuse. Not a mere 30. Start with War is a Racket by Marine Gen Smedley Butler, two time Congressional Medal of Honor Winner. That will take you back to WWI and gives many examples of how industrialists whose operations were subsidized by public funding were able to generate substantial profits from mass human suffering. Sound familiar?

Well beatiing up a woman with a disability at a town hall meeting would be one of them. Refusing to investigate it by the Federal Justice Department and the White House (with a police report documenting criminal assault and battery) would be another. Refusing to investigate civil rights abuses and IGs at three federal agencies by the White House would also qualify. Lying about the cost of the bank bailout and trying to cover it up, expanding Executive Privilege, undermining FOIA, expanding FISA, deploying more troops than George Bush in less than a year, rampant cronyism, breaking every single campaign promise, healthcare deform, secret deals with pharma companies that are absolutely suicidal, undemocratic attempts to make the mainstream media fall to heel, failure to deal with the rights of the LGBT community, the complete lack of any movement on the rights of the disabilities community and deploying more troops than George Bush to two different theatres in less than a year would also qualify....I could go on, but there is plenty to criticize Obama on. And made me lose respect for the man long ago.

Oh, and using the White House website as both a billboard and product placement for the largest IT monopoly in the World (Google) while allowing them to collect your personal information for their own personal profit while breaking federal disabilities law. While handing out the best bailout funds to his personal cronies and complaining about the fact that he spent a quarter of a million dollars of the taxpayer's money on date night with his wife while millions of Americans are losing their houses and jobs while the unemployment figures go through the roof because the stimulus (which equals the cost of one year in Afghanistan, a war we are going to lose) was too small. Which he was repeatedly warned about, but yet decided that he was smarter than anyone else on the planet and went ahead on anyway.

And despite the fact I voted for him, I think he's a crook. Having violated every single campaign promise he made. I don't have any respect for him at all.

He's a liar, a crook, a phony and up to his neck in corruption.

And if you don't see that, you are blind.

Yeah well Marguerite, I guess I'm blind and proud of it. You don't even make any sense.

TWS, I think those two are your average concern trolls - big yawn!

The louder they shout, the whiter they get.

Here's some relief, though, in the form of plummeting numbers on those Americans who actually consider themselves Republicans, now versus the beginning of August:

http://crooksandliars.com/node/32204/print

Not pretty for them. They've slipped below 20 by now. Virginia and New Jersey were about unemployment. People would have voted for a possum. When folks have a clear choice, the GOP tanks. Look at New York's 23rd.

BOKO!

devilgrll - you return to the fight once again. If either one had commented again, I was going to invoke the Emma Peel on them.

BOKO - thanks for your comment and rating. You're exactly right about NY #23. The Repubs are cannibalizing themselves. Great!

Madagascar! That's where your avatar is from! Ok...ok. It took me a while but I got it. That was driving me nuts for ages! Whew.
Oh and on this whole debate thing, anyone who disagrees with TWS just to disagree is a disagreeable person.
I don't have much else to say about that.

Andy - BBE would disagree with you on that.

Yes, Alex the Lion - GOLD STAR to Andy Heizeler!