AG Ficus Update

by matttbastard

x-posted @ Comments From Left Field

Update: I could get used to this BlogBurst thing.

In a post earlier today on CFLF, Mick Arran came up with what I believe to be the perfect candidate for the position of new US Attorney General: a potted plant. In comments, yours truly suggested the law school @ Regent University as particularly fertile ground to find a suitable shrub. Besides, I’m pretty sure Regent U. alumnus (and American Center for Law and Justice head honcho) Jay Sekulow already has the inside track.

(h/t Right Wing Watch, which also notes that the ACLJ has gone international!)

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*Poke Poke Poke*

by matttbastard

x-posted @ Comments From Left Field

Update: BlogBurst FTW!

I really wish von still hung around my all-time favourite regular online haunt*, Obsidian Wings. Would love to see if this would cause him to at least reconsider his stubborn contention that US proxy ally Ethiopia = teh good guys teh lesser evil. (Butbutbut teh radical ICU wuz harbourin ur Al Qaedaz in Somalia – surgical strikes FTW!!111 Oops, sry – we missed.)

Related: Human Rights Watch also fails to see the inherent wisdom of “realism” (to the bellicose consternation of the Ethiopian Gov’t); Eric Martin on “Green Zone 2.0” and other all-too-familiar scenarios occurring in the Horn. Also see Thomas P.M. Barnett’s must-read report on AFRICOM, “the American military’s new frontier outpost”, and Der Spiegel on how the US has exported the GWOT–and ‘rendition’–to Africa.

(Yes, I’m blatantly attempting to rouse von out of self-imposed main page exile. I miss him–and his punk-themed posts. More von-bait:

Current – Continued Rantings [live in Indy @ The Sitcom, ’94])

* (Besides CFLF, of course *ahem*)

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Off The Reservation

by matttbastard

x-posted @ Comments From Left Field

One wonders which Alan Greenspan bombshell will provide more ammunition for right wing character assassins – claiming Iraq really was about the crude, dude; or “harshly criticising George W Bush for ‘abandoning fiscal constraint’ and praising Bill Clinton’s anti-deficit policies during the Nineties as ‘an act of political courage.'” Oh, and don’t forget the Big Dog’s “sharp and ‘curious’ mind, and ‘old-fashioned’ caution about the dangers of debt.”

Al’s really asking for a full-on bombardment from the flying monkey brigade.

Speaking of Iraq (and death from above), the same Observer article quoting Greenspan’s treasonous observations of President Clinton’s superior financial acumen also reports that a recent poll indicates more than 1.2 million Iraqis “may have died” as a result of the US-led invasion and subsequent occupation. ORB, the UK polling firm that conducted the survey, doesn’t cop out with the passive voice:

In the week in which General Patraeus reports back to US Congress on the impact the recent ‘surge’ is having in Iraq, a new poll reveals that more than 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have been murdered since the invasion took place in 2003.”

As John Boehner would say, ‘a small price’ to pay.

Related: Defense Secretary Robert “Iran Contra” Gates foresees a US presence in Iraq for a “protracted period” in a “much more limited role” if “conditions prevail in Iraq that allows us to continue the drawdown that the president has talked about” (in other words: “stay the course, motherfuckers”) as McClatchy factchecks (and finds wanting) President Bush’s spurious claim that “ordinary life is beginning to return” to Iraq as a result of the (PR) surge.

Update: More on Greenspan’s upcoming memoirs (including more praise for President Clinton) from Bob Woodward (h/t Raphael Alexander).

(Gates links edited to provide source(s) for Gates quote – damn AP and their continuous updates lol.)

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