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"Impeachment is off the table," said Pelosi, D-Calif. "Democrats are not about getting even. Democrats are about helping people get ahead."-- Two days after the 2006 midterms, by Bill Myers, National Examiner, November 09, 2006
...
She used the word "bipartisan" at least eight times in her few minutes before the media, and said that she had promised the president that she would cooperate with him as much as possible.
A while back I received one of those emails encouraging me to view a YouTube video with lots of photos of our courageous men and women in uniform. The subject of the email was Support Our Troops. Here is how I replied to that email.
That’s it. Just remember them. For how long? Just long enough to watch a YouTube video?
Remember them? Have we lost them? Are they missing? No, but they are in harm’s way! These American warriors are in the middle of a civil war in a part of the world where they aren’t wanted by most locals. They are risking their lives while we continue to shop, eat whatever we want, drive our SUVs out to end of the driveway to get the mail or wait for the school bus, watch TV in our plush recliners, spend money we don’t have on things we don’t need, play pretend war games on the internet, go to jobs that are far less stressful and harmful to our future and sleep soundly with both eyes closed in our air conditioned homes!
The President has a lot of nerve asking our troops to make the ultimate sacrifice while asking nothing from the rest of us. We aren’t even paying to support our troops - we are borrowing heavily from the Chinese and Japanese to pay for this occupation of Iraq. This unrecognized selfishness is disgusting.
Our troops are living in miserable conditions and are still being killed, and all someone can come up with is "remember them?"
How about we bring them home so their parents, wives and children can hug them. How about we bring them home so they can enjoy what we are enjoying? How about we give them the medical care they need after surviving Iraq? How about we give them a GI bill like the one that was provided to The Greatest Generation? How about we pay our debt to our troops?
Why aren’t we buying ‘GI Recovery Bonds,' or paying more in federal taxes? (Because our government hasn't asked us.)
Sex is a very important part of an adult's life, don't you think? Intimacy, closeness, love, affection, warmth, appreciation, those things are all important too. But there's something about fucking someone else, preferably someone you love but in a pinch, anyone who wants to make like a bunny with you, that really gets the old happy juices (and other juices) flowing.
And if you've had the pleasure of getting it on with someone, maybe a partner, maybe a spouse, maybe just a Friend With Benefits, it's hard to accept that that part of your life may not exist any more. Or may be changed forever.
What about injured veterans? Raw Story carries an interesting article today about badly-injured veterans and their sex lives.
You (hell, all of us, except the vets) probably never thought about what injuries might do to a body's sex life. Because, let's face it, most of us go through life not expecting to get so severely injured that we can no longer get it on with our sweet patootie. Right? Who walks around thinking, "Hell, wonder what I'll do if I lose my leg/arm/half my face?" Nobody, that's who. Nobody in their right mind, anyway.
Of all the grievous harms that have come to the people who signed up thinking they would be defending their country, thanks to the lies of a small group of wealthy, powerful, manipulative motherfuckers, this has to be the worst. And you don't even have to lose an arm or a leg to be affected. You could be one of the 600,000 or so vets suffering from TBI (traumatic brain injury) or PTSD, and still find that your sex life might be fucked (so to speak) for a long time. Psychological and neurological disorders can interfere with behaviors necessary for successful intimacy, such as experiencing and expressing emotion and understanding someone else's needs, the study noted. And anger and aggression, including domestic violence, have been associated with mental disorders.
How do we evaluate that kind of stress and pain and suffering and loss? All we can say is, if our sex life got put on hold for reasons not within our control, we'd be one crabby motherfucker, and wherever we lived, they'd better have some damn good gun control laws.
According to the Veterans Affairs Department's National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, sexual dysfunction tends to be higher in combat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder than in those without.
Meanwhile, in other news, that miserable draft-dodging "I had other priorities" POS chickenshit chickenhawk Dick "They call me Dick for a reason" Cheney had the gall to tell Coast Guard graduates today, about the war into which he and his millionaire buddies dragged us: "The war on terror is a lengthy enterprise, but it does not have to go on forever [,..]".
Do these fuckwits have even the first notion of shame?
[...]
"More than that, quitting would be an act of betrayal and dishonor. And it's not going to happen on our watch."
Crossposted over at ThePoliticalCat
Marisa Tomei John Cusak & Joan Cusak Ben Kingsley Hilary Duff John Cusak War, Inc. opens Friday, May 23, 2008, when will the real War, Inc. be shutdown?
Hmmm, hasn't War, Inc. already been in business for about five years?
Oh, this War, Inc., according to its publicists,Is an audaciously funny and surprisingly poignant film in the vein of 'Grosse Point Blank. Co-written by Mark Leyner, Jeremy Pikser and producer/star John Cusack, the film also stars Hilary Duff, Marisa Tomei, Joan Cusack, Sir Ben Kingsley and Dan Aykroyd. 'War, Inc.' is a political satire set in Turaqistan, a country occupied by an American private corporation run by a former US Vice-President (Dan Akroyd). In an effort to monopolize the opportunities the war-torn nation offers, the corporation's CEO hires a troubled hit man, played by John Cusack, to kill a Middle East oil minister. Now, struggling with his own growing demons, the assassin must pose as the corporation's Trade Show Producer in order to pull off this latest hit, while maintaining his cover by organizing the high-profile wedding of Yonica Babyyeah (Hilary Duff) an outrageous Middle Eastern pop star, and keeping a sexy left wing reporter (Marisa Tomei) in check.
Here are some stills from the movie:
Cross posted from BFD Blog!
No one should be surprised if the Bush-Cheney junta breaks out of this good-cop/bad-cop routine and attacks Iran just in time to perturb the November elections:
The [Israeli] official claimed that a senior member of the president’s entourage, which concluded a trip to Israel last week, said during a closed meeting that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were of the opinion that military action was called for. [bad cops]Whatever one might think of news stories sourced to unnamed "senior officials," I hope everyone is past assuming this administration acts in good faith. Yes, they most certainly are capable of this; yes, they do wield foreign policy, up to and including war, as a blunt weapon of politics; yes, they are this crass. We have yet to see the bottom of their shamelessness.
However, the official continued, “the hesitancy of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice” was preventing the administration from deciding to launch such an attack on the Islamic Republic, for the time being. [good cops]
News Item: U.S. soldier in Iraq used Koran for target practice
10. Thought they would score some points with John McCain's endorser, Rev. John Hagee
9. Didn't realize it was a Koran; Got disoriented and sick after drinking some KBR water
8. "You shoot at the Koran you have—not the Koran you might want or wish to have at a later time ..."
7. With bullet holes, easier to hang on a nail in the cells of captured terrorists
6. Just trying to work out all sides of the theory behind Woody Allen's "Bullet In My Breast Pocket"
5. Planned on giving it to Jenna Bush, as a wedding present
4. Flushing it down the toliet was screwing up the plumbing
3. Was told it was the Koran that Barack Obama took his Senate oath on
2. Getting in last target practice; Following President's lead, will give up shooting Korans as long as there is war going on
1. They had already shot up their supply of Bibles
Bonus Links
"What If Spartacus Had To Account For 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols ..."
Top Ten Cloves: Reasons How Air Force Mistakenly Flew 5 Nuclear Warheads Across Country
Top Ten Cloves: Ways Military Recruiters Didn't Realize They Were Recruiting Gays
"They will have flies walking across their eyeballs"
This report by Joy First of Madison WI is among posts on the Iraq Moratorium website from participants in Moratorium activities this month:
We Mourn the Dead from Iraq – 9th Iraq Moratorium
As part of the Iraq Moratorium, eight activists in Madison, WI participated in a solemn vigil at Hilldale Mall on May 16, 2008, calling for an end to the war and occupation in Iraq. This was, in the words of Gandhi, “an experiment in truth” as we pushed to see how far we could go in speaking out against the utter devastation and the crippling suffering of the people of Iraq. Two of us had been in court the day before and were found guilty of trespassing after we were arrested for speaking out against the war at Hilldale Mall in February.
Three of us wore paper mache masks of Iraqi women and long dark gowns and we carried paper mache babies, one who was severely hurt. The masks sat on the top of our heads with scarves over the back of the masks that hung down and came around covering our faces. We could only see faintly as we looked through the light-weight fabric over our face. The expressions on the faces of the masks, the Iraqi women, were haunting.
The other five people in our group handed out leaflets about the suffering of Iraqi women, and carried signs saying “We mourn the dead from Iraq’ as we walked in a slow and solemn procession through the mall. We planned to stay there and march for one hour from 5:30-6:30 pm unless we were arrested before then. There were not a lot of people inside the mall, but those who were seemed very interested in our procession and gratefully accepted a leaflet. A good number thanked us for being there or made other positive comments. It was a very powerful experience, very sad, wearing the masks and carrying the babies who were hurt. I have been spending a lot of time with my grandchildren, including my newest granddaughter, Linnea, just one week old on the day of our action, and I was feeling very emotional thinking about the suffering of the children of Iraq.
Mall security asked us to leave and said we could march outside (which was surprising because I believe that is still private property). We went outside because there were a lot of people eating at outside seating at several restaurants adjoining the mall and we were able to walk by them and hand out leaflets.
When we walked back inside the mall, we met the police and they told us we must leave. We decided to go outside again and the police told us we could stay there as long as wanted, but if we came back inside, there would be a physical arrest. I asked the police if this wasn’t private property outside the mall, and the police said it was not, but I believe they are wrong about that. They explained a physical arrest would mean they would handcuff us, transport us downtown, book us, and we would have to pay bail to be released. We were surprised to hear this. We follow the principles and guidelines of Gandhi, Martin Luther King and others doing nonviolent civil resistance to speak out against the war crimes of our government. The police in Madison have always arrested us, wrote a citation on the spot, and released us. When we asked why they would respond with a physical arrest, they said that when the bad behavior continues, they have to take us in. Bad behavior??!!?? Us??!!?? I wonder when someone in law enforcement will have the guts to arrest Bush and his cronies for their bad behavior – war crimes against humanity. We walked for a few more minutes and at 6:30 we left the mall. However, we plan to return and continue our commitment to work for peace, calling attention to the devastating human suffering resulting from the crimes of our government.
Department of Defense Press Resources
Department of Defense Casualty Database (.pdf)
