1dogs2's Comments (476)

“Barbara Lee (D, CA) was the sole vote against the authorization of the Afghan war.”

“Then what is God's plan for non-Christians? And how's that plan working for Christians? Christians are among those dying from lack of adequate medical care.”

“How old are you, Lion? 10? People were neither more nor less free before modern medical procedures, but they sure as hell died younger. Do you really believe that it's "God's plan" for the wealthy to survive medical emergencies and diseases and for those who cannot afford the same medical treatments to die? Regardless of age? CHILDREN? Or young adults with children to support?

I'm not worried about MORTALITY, especially my own; I'm worried about those whose sense of MORALITY and social justice is absent. They help perpetuate "wicked corporations" who profit from the suffering of others.”

“Do you understand how crazy the LIFE-robbing schemes of these corporations are? Do you understand that the federal government is the last best hope citizens have against the dishonesty and greed of these corporate monopolies? Do you understand that "liberty" means nothing to the dead and dying who are left to their own devices by companies that take their premiums but refuse to meet their contractual obligations to pay for treatment? Do you understand that inflated corporate profits at the cost of citizens' lives and health in IMMORAL? Do you understand that citizens have more to fear from the unbridled power of the health insurance cartel than they do from their elected officials who are accountable to their electorate?”

“Then you would do well to read the extensive report of the discussions leading to the President's decision at:

nytimes.com/2009/12/06/world/asia/06reconstruct.html?pagewanted=6&_r=1&ref=us”

“It is appalling that a contributing editor of The Nation would parrot the deeply cynical conventional wisdom of the echo chamber in assigning the most momentous decision of the Obama presidency to a purely political motive. Parenti's single contribution to that meme is the offensiveness of his last line: Obama "is willing to kill to get reelected."

The testimony at the congressional hearings this week demonstrated that this administration consists of serious people with different points of view led by a President who understands that the weightiest decisions need to be made through a process that reviews all available information and encourages expression of different points of view, an examination of all the options and open discussion that leads to consensus. It is one of the gifts of this President to foster an atmosphere that permits this sort of decision-making -- a refreshing change from a President who asked his gut or his "higher father" what to do about the most serious issues facing the nation, and a Vice-President who regards such a process as "dithering."

Does Parenti seriously believe that the 2012 election was a prominent, let alone the decisive, factor in the consensus reached in these discussions?”

“I've had nothing but contempt for CNN as a "news" outlet since the Paula Zahn cheerleading contingent reported on the invasion of Iraq.”

“Why would anyone believe a Rasmussen poll?”

“I too have been thinking about JFK's election and how our politics and the attitudes of the Catholic Church have changed since then. JFK had to overcome the suspicion of many Americans that electing him (or any other Catholic) to high office would result in governance unduly influenced by Catholic dogma.

The overt meddling of the Catholic bishops in health care reform, as well as the hypocrisy of a church that would impose its dogma on a nation of diverse beliefs by threatening to torpedo a measure that would give substance to its own central teaching as set out in Matthew 25 and its tolerance of sexual predators among its priests while trying to impose its intolerance of gays on the whole nation have, 50 years after JFK's election, given substance to that suspicion and undone all that JFK did to end anti-Catholic bias in our politics.

The suggestion of the Bishop of Providence that Patrick Kennedy leave the Church if he's not prepared to vote for bills that the Church supports is shocking evidence of the failure of the bishops to understand and respect the separation of church and state that is established by the First Amendment. A backlash against Catholic politicians may well result.”

“My greatest fear with respect to a HCR bill has always been that it would be so watered-down that it would be doomed to failure.”

“Your solution will not and cannot work unless and until the insurance companies' anti-trust exemption is removed and the anti-trust laws are enforced against them.”

“Are you serious? Do you have any idea how many issues he deals with in any given week, from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to HCR to economic reform and climate change legislation to any number of foreign policy problems?”

“We should send it to the GOP instead?”

“Thanks for your essay and the summary of the President's accomplishments at the UN. Most Americans are unaware of them, which accounts in part for the mystification of Americans over the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the President. Unfortunately, the hostility of previous administrations to the UN, and especially of the previous administration, has led many to hold the institution in contempt, evidenced by some of the uninformed comments below. Others of us, however, are greatly cheered by this administration's decision to act like a rational member and good citizen in this world body, rather than to take its marbles and go home like a childish bully.”

“Which is exactly what the article says.”

“Attention Elie Wiesel:

We are known by the company we keep -- all of us. John Hagee spreads hate and lunacy every time he opens his mouth. You do serious damage to your own reputation and to the Zionist cause by aligning yourself with him and his anti-Semitic, lunatic-fringe "Christian" fundamentalist ilk. Please do not besmirch the work of your lifetime by associating yourself with this pariah.”

“Kudos to yesterday's commenters who doubted the veracity of the "I've been shot at" story.”

“The 9/11 attack was actually plotted and launched from safehouses in Hamburg, Germany and the US. When we invaded Afghanistan, we did it on the cheap and allowed OBL and his lieutenants to escape. We then dispersed the Taliban and destroyed its repressive regime, which came to power in the vacuum created by our bugging out as soon as we had achieved our objective of helping the Afghanis to drive the USSR out rather than living up to our promise to support the creation of a functioning civil society in the aftermath of the Afghan-Soviet war.

For most of the past eight years, Afghanistan has been left to drift. The promises of development aid from other nations made in the wake of our driving the Taliban from power remain largely unfulfilled. We have propped up a corrupt government widely seen by Afghanis as our puppet while ancient tribal enmities have been exacerbated by our clumsy tinkering with Afghan politics.

According to Colin Powell, if you break it, you own it (i.e., you have a moral obligation to repair it). If you accept that precept, we owe it to the Afghanis to fix what we broke. It not, we are free to go home.”

“Perhaps Gilbert would be less amused by his dirty tricks if he remembered that Karl Rove's mentor, Don Segretti, went to jail for some of his transgressions during the Nixon years.”

“"The minus side of disintermediation: no filtering and fact checking, so propaganda can be delivered as news."

And what of propaganda that the MSM delivers as "news"? The media are free to fact-check to their heart's content AFTER the President's message has been delivered without editing, taking a comment out of context, or otherwise misrepresenting what he said. The media have no one to blame but themselves for this. If we had responsible journalists and anchors not limited to 5-second sound-bites, it wouldn't be necessary to go around them.

It is amusing, however, that the right wing nutters, like WorldNetDaily and Fox, complain both of the end-run around reporters AND of his "over-exposure" when he appears on all the Sunday talk shows or gives extended interviews with the networks.”

“This IS a matter of civil rights, but I wouldn't count on the S. Ct. as presently constituted to protect the rights of the LGBT community.”

“The unmitigated mess that BushCo. left behind in Afghanistan with a war that was allowed to drift for seven years while his ADHD administration created a disastrously costly diversion in Iraq has dire implications for Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and our own and the world's security. By the time Bush was replaced, there were no good options available.

The only good news is that we now have a President who seeks diverse opinions as he carefully considers the likely consequences of every available option. The willingness of partially-informed pundits (never mind the even less informed windbags who comment all over the blogosphere) to deliver opinions and ill-conceived advice that, if followed, would lead to even greater politicization and domestic division than that which has presently all but rendered the country ungovernable before the President has even decided on how to proceed is breath-taking in its arrogance.

Fortunately, Joe Biden has better sense than to take such advice seriously.”

“Excellent point.”

“I agree that NO single parent, whether mother or father, should be deployed.”

“I didn't realize that mothers who suddenly become single as the result of divorce or the death of their husband had the option of "getting out." I was under the impression that, having once enlisted, they were stuck for the duration, regardless of how their circumstances changed, and were furthermore stuck for longer than they volunteered for if stop-lossed.”