Neo-Cons like Dick Cheney, Michael Hayden and Newt Gingrich are up in arms about the release of legal opinions justifying torture during the Bush administration.

Why are they so enraged? They can't be really that mad about "secrets" when the memos simply detail what reporters have already written countless stories on. There is no national security jeopardy in that.

No, they are worried about something else: Being held accountable for creating those opinions, and being written down in history as the authors. Simply put, they are scared for their own backsides!

President Obama's decision in releasing the memos was as much about protecting and restoring patriotic values to our government as it was about protecting the very CIA officers ordered to carry out torture.

I applaud the President's decision to stand strong for our values, while at the same time granting amnesty to the CIA employees who followed Dick Cheney and his Torture Cabal's heinous orders.

By releasing the memos, and at the same time protecting the CIA officers ordered to carry them out, President Obama is doing something no one in the Bush Administration ever did: he is bringing the focus on those who issued the orders.

Its time to bring accountability back to our government and this is a great step. Its time to hold people like Dick Cheney responsible for the programs he initiated.  And this is only the beginning.

Neo-Cons famously like to send subordinates out to do the dirty work. They send troops to die while sitting comfortably in their royal living rooms. They draft opinions on torture thinking they can sacrifice their employees, and avoid responsibility for themselves. 

So keep this in mind when you watch how fuming mad Cheney gets from all of this. Remember, for the first time in a decade he may well be worried about being found responsible in all of this.

Put simply, he's worried about protecting his own backside when he thought employees at the CIA would take the fall for him. Not this time, Dick.

Thanks for your time,
D. Tree

CNN reported today on the growing threat of right-wing extremism and neo-Nazism on the rise in America as a result of the election of our first African American president.

Of course anyone paying attention has seen the signs since Obama was nominated, with the FBI reporting a sharp increase in the number of assassination threats from day one of his candidacy.

But some on the far-right either want to sweep this news under the rug, or they are in denial about some of the less savory elements of our society.

conservative radio talk show host Roger Hedgecock was not persuaded. "If the Bush administration had done this to left-wing extremists, it would be all over the press as an obvious trampling of the First Amendment rights of folks and dissent," he told CNN.

Unfortunately, as is often the case, CNN did not do their full research when printing this story, because Bush DID name left-wing groups as a domestic terrorist threat when he was president!

The extreme right-wing likes to think they are perfect citizens, somehow singled out and always the victims, but its a fake victim mentality. Perhaps they are too self-absorbed in their own angst to recognize and understand what is happening around them. The ironic thing for people like Mr. Hedgecock who either ignore the facts or deny them, Bush conveniently left out right-wing extremists on his domestic terror threat report because they have ties to the Republican Party,

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not include extreme right-wing groups, some of which have ties to the Republican Party, on its list of potential terrorist threats, according to a report last month by the Congressional Quarterly, a publication with high-level sources in Congress and the federal government.

"It is remarkable that there is no mention of the anti-abortion, militia, racist and homophobic groups that do not “publicly ... promote nonviolence,” but rather openly advocate the killing of blacks, gays, abortion providers and government workers. Moreover, these groups have acted on their words. Fascist, racist and anti-abortion groups are responsible for nearly all the terrorist attacks in the United States—with the exception of September 11, 2001—over the past two decades. These include the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, which killed 168 people, as well as bombings of abortion clinics and assassination of abortion providers, and multiple cases of individual rampages, like that of Benjamin Smith, who went on a killing spree directed at blacks, Jews and immigrants in 1999."

We must acknowledge that we have elements in our society that are broken and have been for a long time. I accept that believing in free speech means hateful people like this can say whatever they want short of inciting violence. But when they make threats on the President, or on any American citizens or places, they should be taken as seriously as any other terrorist group.

 Thanks for your time,

D. Tree

CNN contributor Ruben Navarette posted a wide-ranging piece in which he claimed president Obama is "Flunking" economics.

But to many of the rest of us, it's clear that President Obama is flunking economics. He is trying to do too much at once, and so he is not doing any of it well.

He also claims that anyone who criticizes Obama is simply attacked, a clever rhetorical ploy to avoid criticism to himself.

They won't tolerate any criticism of the president or his administration, finding it easier to simply attack critics. And whatever goes wrong that they can't defend or deflect, they just blame on George W. Bush.

 Y'know, there is a point to everything you are saying Mr. Navarrette - but I wonder whether some of the criticism has less to do with the President's economic credentials than with the other many ways in which you disapprove of his performance. The article is less about the ways you would improve Obama's economic proposals and more about the way you apparently dislike him.

 Its also strange to hear this claim about defenders of the President in such a negative light. Most people I've heard defending Obama's agenda are pretty smart, and make intelligent arguments. 

Is this piece really about Economics? Or is this about something else? Perhaps Navarrette simply does not want to go down the road a large majority of Americans chose when they elected President Obama. To them Obama is neither moving too fast, nor is he trying to do too much! He's doing what he was elected to do.

 A large majority still support the wide-ranging economic and political Change the President is trying to bring about. Of course its expensive, and of course its big. We are trying to pull out of one of the worst economic catastrophes in history!

What I don't understand is the growing plethora of people publicly casting doubt, when we are only 2.5 months into the presidency. Bringing Change with a big "C" to Washington is going to be difficult as it is without so many naysayers so early in the process. It's going to take time.

Do we face risks? Yes, but the rewards are high. And frankly we have tried the way of the GOP and it has failed. They are offering the same recycled dishwater plans of tax cuts for the rich but health and education cuts for the poor, and no regulation of Wall Street. The same bad ideas that led us to where we are now.

No we need to do more, and most of the country seems to agree. We need more than the same recycled ideas, we need BIG changes to healthcare, taxes, wall street, and war.

It is time to put progressive ideas to the test.

Thanks for reading,

D. Tree

Electing President Obama would eliminate important checks and balances on liberal Democratic power in Washington and that could be a disaster. It was a disaster when Bush and the Republicans controlled it all. It was a disaster when Clinton and the Democrats controlled it all.

According to the latest Gallup polling, 87 percent of the country thinks the economic picture is getting worse -- another record. The Republican brand is as damaged as at any time since the Watergate scandal 35 years ago. The country is facing the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression nearly eight decades ago.

What [Obama's] campaign has done is create a "brand" that represents change. But voters don't know what that means.

...we have seen thousands of pictures and heard hundreds of speeches and watched in amazement as his team has put together a brilliant campaign that beat back the Democratic establishment candidate Hillary Clinton. But we still don't know him.

From what I hear, the campaign's plans are to put John McCain back in the seat of his A-4 Skyhawk bomber and drop bomb after bomb on Obama to try to convince voters he is unfit to lead.

I think that formula will lead to failure, just as Hillary Clinton's strategy failed.

Personal attacks won't work this late in the campaign and may backfire on McCain

LOL, hope this makes you smile as much as it made me!)

michaelpalinforpresident.com

VOTE SILLY IN 2008!!!

McCain said in an interview that he didn't want the government to bail
out AIG. "But there are literally millions of people whose retirement,
whose investment, whose insurance were at risk here," he said in an
interview with "Good Morning America" on ABC. "They were going to have their lives destroyed because of the greed and excess and corruption."

LIPSTICK

Walters went on to press Palin's reformist credentials, noting McCain has served in Washington for more than two decades and asking repeatedly, "who's she going to reform, you?"

McCain began to answer by saying Democrats have held control of Congress for two years, before Walters quickly interrupted: “But tell me who she is going to reform -- we aren't talking about the economy, we're not talking about housing, she was chosen to reform, who is she going to reform?"

"The Democrat Party, the Republican Party, even an independent," McCain said, appearing somewhat frustrated, "She'll reform all of Washington."

"How? What will she do," Walters appearing somewhat exasperated said. "What is she going to reform specifically, senator?"

From CNN's Political Ticker today.

"John McCain says that he is going to tell all those lobbyists in Washington that their days of running Washington are over, which sounds pretty good until you discover that seven of his top campaign managers and officials are -- guess what? -- former corporate lobbyists,"

"If Obama had done the smart thing, he would have picked Sen. Hillary Clinton for vice president. If he had, he would have united his party for sure and energized his base."

Palin, 2006: "People across the nation struggle with the idea of building a bridge because they've been under these misperceptions about the bridge and the purpose," said Palin, who described the link as the Ketchikan area's potential for expansion and growth... Palin said Alaska's congressional delegation worked hard to obtain funding for the bridge as part of a package deal and that she "would not stand in the way of the progress toward that bridge."

Palin answered "yes" to an Anchorage Daily News poll question about whether she would continue to support state funding for the Gravina Island bridge if elected governor. "The window is now," she wrote, "while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist." It was only after she won the governorship that Palin shifted her position. And even then, it's inaccurate to say that she "told the Congress 'thanks, but no thanks.'" Palin accepted non-earmarked money from Congress that could have been used for the bridge if she so desired. That she opted to use it for other state transportation purposes doesn't qualify as standing up to Congress.

To help obtain these earmarks, Palin had hired StevenSilver, the former chief of staff for recently indicted Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, as Wasilla's lobbyist.

And Palin continued to solicit federal funds as governor. A request form on Stevens' Web site shows that she requested $160.5 million in earmarks for the state in 2008, and almost $198 million for 2009.

I know I'm not the only one who finds the two Republican candidates to resemble characters out of an episode of South Park - and as if that wasn't bad enough - their words and deeds just keep getting more cartoonish every day.

Sarah Palin, squinting like Clint Eastwood into the camera, made a claim about selling her state's luxury jet on Ebay:

"That luxury jet was over the top," she told Republican National Convention delegates when she accepted the party's vice presidential nomination Wednesday night. "I put it on eBay."

As intended, that little story line got a raucous round of applause.  You could practically hear every Republican in the audience patting themselves on the back and thinking "we are so much better with money than those liberals!" 

The former beauty queen is clearly comfortable in front of a crowd, and enjoys being center stage.  The only problem is she misled the crowd with a story that was not entirely true.

CNN reports today, the jet didn't sell on Ebay.  Palin did indeed "put" the jet on Ebay, but was unable to sell it.  I guess giving her audience the whole truth wouldn't have made for such a good soundbite, huh?

Of course that hasn't stopped the kool-aid drinkers in the republican party from gleefully repeating the story everywhere they go.  Even John McCain is getting in on the action, saying at a campaign stop,

"How many saw her speech a couple of nights ago? Wasn't it fabulous?" McCain said Friday during a campaign stop in Cedarburg, Wisconsin. "You know what I enjoyed the most? She took the luxury jet that was purchased by her predecessor and sold it on eBay - and made a profit."

Not so fast, Mr. McCain.  The jet was sold by a private broker... for a loss!

Let's review: Palin claims to sell the plane on Ebay to the roaring approval of her audience (she will later claim she didn't lie because she never actually said she "sold" it).  Faithful followers repeat the story everywhere they go as evidence of how much smarter they are, and how much better they are with money than Democrats.  And finally, senile old John McCain repeats the lines given to him by his staff and swallows the lie himself hook line and sinker.

The truth never stood in the way of a good republican talking point.

This whole story is emblematic of the last 8 years of Republican rule.  They make promises to bring us economic success, but bring us losses instead; they claim to be strong on security, but they've made the world a more dangerous place with their reckless foreign policy.  They cast themselves as ethical, but have presided over the most corrupt government in our history. Simply put, they cast themselves as reformers, but bring us more of the same.

There's more to this  issue than misleading the convention about an Ebay sale.

The real story here is about credibility and confidence. John McCain's repeating of the fake story give us a glimpse of the kind of president he will be: a man with no knowledge of the facts on his own, and who will rely on flunkies for information instead. 

Echoes of Reagan and the Iran/Contra Scandal. 

Reagan was so out of touch with what was going on around him, he allowed illegal arms sales to Iran on his watch.  Under a president McCain, we risk another leader so clueless of his surroundings, that he would allow the worst to happen right under his nose.

We cannot afford 4 more years of people who would lie so easily about an Ebay sale; even worse, in these dangerous and complex times, we cannot afford a clueless president who will drive us ignorantly down a road to international and economic disaster. 

To put it simply once again, we need a president who will be sharp as a tack, not one who is as dull as ditchwater.