SoonerBlue

Mostly politics, a few current events, a squirt of seltzer down yer pants .. a little blog for my rambles and rants.

2009/11/6

Fort Hood massacre

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@ 10:22 AM (21 hours, 37 minutes ago)

 

I've been trying to understand the horrors that happened at Ft. Hood yesterday. My heart goes out to the families who were devastated by this tragedy. Just unbelievable.

Why did these people die? On a well-protected and supposedly safe Army base? Why did this Major go on such a rampage? We won't know his motivation until a lot more facts are uncovered...but that doesn't stop the speculation.

A spokesman from the Department of Defense said it's an isolated case. A Ft. Hood General said the evidence does not suggest an act of terrorism.

Better tell that to the rabid righties...who don't seem to have the decency to allow people to get over their shock before they start the most vile smears of Islam and Muslims.

Muslim does not equal terrorism...see the last four or five terrorist killings in the US. There is a difference between Muslims and Muslim Jihadists...just like the difference between Christians and Christian killers of abortion doctors. Both are examples of religion gone crazy. Jim Jones is an excellent example of religion gone crazy...he just killed with Koolaid instead of bullets.

It's usually Middle East military returnees who snap and go on killing rampages. Like the one Marine who killed five people at Camp Pendleton, three of them his family. There are many other sad examples.

But, this Major had never been to war, he was a mental health professional who counseled soldiers returning from war. A war he saw through the eyes of broken soldiers disintegrating under the stress of seeing and participating in atrocities.

TV said Hasan received poor performance reports when he worked at Walter Reed Hospital, so he's been having trouble for a while. That's why they sent him to Ft. Hood.

From what we know so far, I tend to think that this is just a very mentally disturbed officer...who was building up steam against going to a war that he didn't believe in. His religion obviously had a lot to do with his state of mind. Witnesses said he yelled out "God is Good!" in Arabic before he started shooting.

No, I don't think that al Qaeda is infiltrating our military. But, yes, this tragedy probably resulted from Hasan's conflicts with duty to his religion and duty to his country. These mixed loyalties caused him to crack.

He had actually hired a lawyer to help him get out of the Army.

From all accounts so far, he did not want to be deployed to Iraq. So maybe this whole thing was like "suicide by cop"...except this time the cops were military.

Living in an Army town, I've been worrying about something like this. Thousands of war vets, lots of tension, lots of frustration, lots of stress and PTSD from being deployed too many times...you figure sooner or later, someone's gonna blow.

It's the same in Ft. Hood. An Army wife living on base told a TV reporter that she used to feel safe living there, but there had been a rise in domestic violence, in bar fights, etc.

I hope they can keep Hasan alive...the better to figure it all out.

And it's great that Kimberly Munley is still alive...she's the first responder who put an end to the carnage when she shot Hasan. Most excellent. You go girl! I'm sorry you were shot four times...and I didn't like what I heard on TV this morning -- that there may have been "friendly fire".....

And bless those soldiers who quickly used first aid techniques to save so many lives.
 
Life will never be the same for Ft. Hood, but there's no tighter family than a military family. They will help each other through the healing, I wish them peace.

2009/11/5

Righties, Riddle me this

 

It should've been a piece of cake for Tea Party candidate Doug Hoffman to win NY-23...but he lost in a district that has voted GOP for 138 years. What happened?

Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh were pushing hard for Hoffman...who also had Sarah Palin's mavericky support. How did the Tea Partiers turn an otherwise easy victory into defeat? What happened?

You say that the loss of two Dem governorships is a 'stinging rebuke' to the White House.

But you say nothing about how your hero Hoffman's loss is NOT a 'stinging rebuke' to extremist wingnut politics?

So much for the anti-Democratic Congress/White House Teabagger movement -- because Democrats GAINED seats in the House. Seats that can vote.

So, was Tuesday's election a wake-up call for Dems...or reality check for Repubs?

Righties are saying that President Obama has lost his mojo because NJ and VA elected GOP governors.

Let me get this straight -- two state elections losses by Democrats are a 'stinging rebuke' to the Democrats in the federal government...while two Democratic victories in federal elections don’t mean a thing?

The GOP lost both Congressional races the other night, including one in a district they'd held since the days of the Civil War. A 'stinging rebuke' to Obama, no doubt...

Lefties are saying that the state election results don't have as much national significance as the Congressional results, because state elections focus mostly on local issues and state issues.

Let's talk about the significance of state races. How about in November '01, when GWBush's approval ratings were in the 80s, and Democrats went on to win gubernatorial races in NJ and VA? That was certainly no portent of things to come -- the 2002 mid-terms didn't go very well for Dems.

Governorships have NEVER been a reliable barometer of national politics.

Incumbents also usually get kicked out in the mid-terms....and an especially bad time to be an incumbent is during an economic catastrophe.

A lot of people are saying that there's not much of a lesson to be learned from a bunch of low turn-out races in an odd year...except for, um, it's the economy stupid.

 

2009/11/4

For Fox sake!

 
If you only listen to Fox News. you'd think a couple of wins for Republicans last night will kill the chances of healthcare reform. Maybe someone should tell them that McDonnell and Christie are governors and can't vote on healthcare reform in Congress.

But, guess what? The two Democrats who won congressional elections yesterday in CA-10 and NY-23 CAN vote on the healthcare bill.

In fact, when they won both of those congressional seats, Democrats expanded their House majority. Yesterday, Democrats had 256 voting members in the House...after Owens and Garamendi are sworn in, they'll have 258.

I'll loan you my garlic necklace, silver bullets and crucifix

 

I followed last night's election results with great interest...Democrats won a couple and lost a couple. Looks like voters are the most upset about jobs and the economy.

I already knew Republicans would win governorships in NJ and VA. Democrat Jim Corzine ran a lousy campaign based on Karl Rove's dirty tricks and deserved to lose NJ.

We had a sucky candidate who ran a sucky campaign in VA...enough for Republican Bob McDonnell to get by with that thesis he once wrote on keeping women subjugated. He also probably won because he didn't buy into Tea Party ideology and kept Sarah Palin at bay.

So Teabaggers can relax....New Jersey and Virginia are safe from a Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

Let's party like it was 1871! The NY-23 Democratic win against the Tea Party Conservative candidate sure helped me sleep a little better. Looks like the traditional wing of the Republican party said "hell, no" to the crazies.

Take that Teabaggers and Birthers! You drink too deeply from the cup of Palin, Beck and Limbaugh.

But don't get too giddy, lefties... this doesn't mean the Teabagger movement is smothered in its crib. They won't give up this easily. But if NY-23 was a trial run for Florida.... if the Republicans don't want to see Florida go the way of NY-23, somebody better rein 'em in.

In a way, I hope no one does...we Dems love to see them run wild.

It was a shame that left-wing zealot Republican Dede Scozzafava got chased off from NY-23 by Glenn Beck and the Teabaggers -- hey, nice name for a rightie rock band -- but the crazies didn't have the smarts to back a moderate who could win in a moderate district by just being moderate.

It was good that Dede threw her lot in with loyal comrade Democrat Bill Owens...and if he isn't up to the job of crushing those capitalist pigs, Chairman Obamovich can always exile him to Siberia...or North Dakota.

Is anybody amused because the Republican Party spent $900,000.00 on a Republican who dropped out and endorsed the Democrat? Or because the combined votes for Scozzafava and Hoffman would have given them a win? In a district that had been held by the GOP since 1871...when Ulysses S. Grant was President....

The GOP might be better off taking a Hoffman loss, rather than emboldening third parties in 2010. Remember Ralph Nader and Florida in 2000? Third parties are suicide...but the hard-left and hard-right wings often get impatient with the moderates and try it from time to time.

I know the Republican establishment is spineless and out of ideas, but for us to have a decent two-party system, someone needs to save the GOP. It dang sure ain’t gonna be me...but if someone wants to try, I'’ll loan you my garlic necklace, silver bullets, crucifix and wooden stakes....oh, and you might need some pitchforks and torches.

And don't worry, there's not all that many of them...they call themselves the base of the party, but they're just the fringe...the lunatic fringe.

I have a year's supply of popcorn, I'm going to love every minute of the Loony Teabagger Revolution. It's going to make the Goldwater thang look like a walk in the park.

2009/11/3

Cheney dithers...can't remember

 

If government officials can get away with anything as long as they invoke loss of memory, maybe Bill Clinton should have just said, "I cannot recall having sex with that woman."

After a lengthy legal battle - Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics had to sue the Justice Department - notes from Dick Cheney's FBI interview about the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson's covert CIA identity were finally released.

Surprise, surprise, like Alberto Gonzales and many other officials in GWBush's White House, Cheney couldn't remember much of anything...even crucial details like whether he told Scooter Libby about Valerie Plame Wilson.

Scooter's own notes produced at his trial show that in mid-June 2003 Cheney told him about Wilson's wife being in the CIA.

Scooter took the fall for Cheney, who probably told him that Bush would pardon him...that's why Dick was so mad when Bush didn't.

Read about it here: "WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald famously declared in the Valerie Plame affair that "there is a cloud over the vice president." Last week’s release of an FBI interview summary of Dick Cheney’s answers in the criminal investigation underscores why Fitzgerald felt that way.

On 72 occasions, according to the 28-page FBI summary, Cheney equivocated to the FBI during his lengthy May 2004 interview, saying he could not be certain in his answers to questions about matters large and small in the Plame controversy.[..]"

Here's more from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics.

Maybe a little waterboarding could refresh Dick's memory...

Seriously, this is not only about lying to the FBI, or outing a CIA agent for political gains, or covering up the Plame outing...it's about Dick Cheney never being held accountable for eight long years of criminal activity.

His secrets will remain safe as long as the mainstream, corporate media refuses to touch Cheney or Bush... or any of their cohorts. The Wilsons have a pending civil suit which may bring a little closure to this outrageous act of treason ...but there is so much more...so much.