This is a great article, Marmann........ sm
Posted By: m on 2008-12-10
In Reply to: Republicans and their selective constitutionalism. sm - LVMT
Thanks for posting it.
Way back when the primary caucuses started, I mentioned Chuck Baldwin on this board but I don't think there was a single reply, good or bad, to my post. I wish he had had a little more exposure during the campaigns and was on the ticket in all states. He was not on the ticket in Texas.
To be honest, I really believe that the reason there is so much noise being made about Obama and none about what Bush has done while in office is that most people, myself included, are not aware of all the intricacies of the US Constitution. It is a very intricate document and most American people are only aware of what they had been taught in high-school or college civics classes and not tne entire document along with the US Code which is the law that helps fill in the spaces and further explain the Constitution. Even if there was an awareness on the part of the majority of the people, most would have been reluctant to bring any law suits against Bush due to the fact that we are (were) mired in Iraq and facing challenges on our homefront as well. Bush managed to get us through 9/11 in a way that made us all feel safe. While things might have gone kind of downhill after that with his administration, most people likely did not want to rock the boat and risk showing America as being weakened by the impeachment of her President. This is not said to excuse Bush's actions but just rather to explain how this American feels about the whole situation, and I doubt I am really alone in my feelings.
Now that a precident has been set with the Obama B/C situation, Americans seem to have awakened and started paying more attention to what is going on in our government and researching and finding out what the Constitution really says and not just what the media tells us. Maybe in 2012, Baldwin (or another Constitutional Party nominee) will step up to the plate and campaign more aggressively and win the presidency. It's time someone started running this country the way it was intended to be run.
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Great, great post. Thank you, Marmann! nm
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Marmann - what a great post
Well thought out and worded very well. I hoped for so much from someone who hadn't been in the DC crowd for years and years, but each day am disappointed more and more. I enjoyed the fresh ideas he presented. But, everything has changed from the campaign. It's heartbreaking to see our country headed the same way Germany was with WWII, being run by the same kind of leader.
I do believe you and are I starting to agree on many issues. For me, when I voted for the O I had hoped that things would finally turn around for our country. But slowly any "hope" he offered kept dwindling away. There is no reason to hope anymore because it's just getting worse. He's kept his promise of "change", but he portrayed change for the good, and as we're waking up we are realizing, this is not change for the good. It's getting worse. But he does have quite a way with the words and still makes some people feel good about getting "screwed". But I do not blame the O. He is simply a puppet for the people who are really running the country. He is just a "bearer of bad news". Unfortunately he will be the "fall guy". My best guess is if things keep going this way, he will be a one-term failed present just like J. Carter and Bush Sr. That is of course if they don't change the laws and he be allowed to stay in for 3, 4, 5 or more terms. Don't think they would do it? Well we never thought the constitution would be changed either.
Great article
Great article by Noonan. LOL, she is one of the people the right wingers just love and love to quote her articles..Guess they wont be quoting much from this article. I love it. I sit back and laugh when I see conservatives, staunch Bush supporters, speaking out against decisions he has made and then the ones who are still trying to defend this total screw up person, LOL.
Great article here
I think he is on the money on this one. Flame away, flame away. I have my fireproof suit on.
Great article - sm
I, like the poster below, knew she would do well and this proved it. She's one smart lady and this goes to prove the diplats believe so too.
Can't wait to see her in the debate.
Great article. nm
s
Great article, Lurker; thanks.
Great article! Very well written.
As I've suspected for a long time now, he's deaf and *dumb*!!
Thanks for posting this.
Great article. Thanks for posting it....sm
I had a feeling she'd do well talking with them.
You could make a great article with that (sm)
What you just wrote above would make a great magazine article. People were so tough back then, weren't they? I wonder what we would do? Most of us would not even begin to know how to do any of the things people used to do to survive.
What a great article...thanks for posting it, ms!
:)
Great Mark Morford article
The guy can write and he's right on as usual.
Fun Bits About American Torture
In many ways, the U.S. is now just as inhumane and brutal as any Third World regime. Oh well?
- By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, December 16, 2005
We do not torture. Remember it, write it in red crayon on the bathroom wall, tattoo it onto your acid tongue because those very words rang throughout the land like a bleak bell, like a low scream in the night, like a cheese grater rubbing against the teeth of common sense when Dubya mumbled them during a speech not long ago, and it was, at once, hilarious and nauseating and it took all the self-control in the world for everyone in the room not to burst out in disgusted laughter and throw their chairs at his duplicitous little head.
Oh my God, yes, yes we do torture, America that is, and we do it a lot, and we do it in ways that would make you sick to hear about, and we're doing it right now, all over the world, the CIA and the U.S. military, perhaps more often and more brutally than at any time in recent history and we use the exact same kind of techniques and excuses for it our numb-minded president cited as reasons we should declare war and oust the dictator of a defenseless pip-squeak nation that happened to be sitting on our oil.
This is something we must know, acknowledge, take to heart and not simply file away as some sort of murky, disquieting unknowable that's best left to scummy lords of the government underworld. We must not don the blinders and think America is always, without fail, the land of the perky and the free and the benevolent. Horrific torture is very much a part of who we are, right now. Deny it at your peril. Accept it at your deep discontent.
Torture is in. Torture is the tittering buzzword of the Bush administration, bandied about like secret candy, like a hot whisper from Dick Cheney's gnarled tongue into Rumsfeld's pointed ear and then dumped deep into Dubya's Big Vat o' Denial.
The cruel abuse of terror suspects is sanctioned and approved from on high, and we employed it in Abu Ghraib (the worst evidence of which -- the rapes and assaults and savage beatings -- we will likely never see), and we use it in Eastern Europe and Guantánamo and in secret prisons and it has caused deaths of countless detainees. And Rumsfeld's insane level of Defense Department secrecy means we may never even know exactly how brutal we have become.
Torture is right now being discussed in all manner of high-minded articles and forums wherein the finer points of what amount of torture should be allowable under what particular horrific (and hugely unlikely) circumstances, and all falling under the aegis of the new and pending McCain anti-torture legislation that would outlaw any and all degrading, inhumane treatment whatsoever by any American CIA or military personnel at any time whatsoever, more or less.
All while, ironically, over in Iraq, our military is right now inflicting more pain and death upon more lives than any torture chamber in the last hundred years, and where we have recently discovered the fledgling government that the United States helped erect in Saddam's absence, the Iraqi Interior Ministry, well, they appear to be so giddy about torture they might as well be Donald Rumsfeld's love children. But, you know, quibbling.
There is right now this amazing little story over at the London Guardian, a fascinating item all about a group of hardy hobbyists known as planespotters, folks whose solitary, dedicated pastime is to sit outside the various airports of the world and watch the runway action and make intricate logs and post their data and photos to planespotter Web sites. It's a bit like bird-watching, but without the chirping and the nature and with a lot more deafening engine roar and poisonous fumes.
These people, they are not spies and they are not liberals and they are not necessarily trying to reveal anything covert or ugly or illegal, but of course that is often exactly what they do, because these days, as it turns out, some of those planes these guys photograph are involved in clandestine CIA operations, in what are called extraordinary renditions, the abduction of suspects who are taken to lands unknown so we may beat and maul and torture the living crap out of them and not be held accountable to any sort of pesky international law. Fun!
It is for us to know, to try and comprehend. The United States has the most WMD of anyone in the world. We imprison and kill more of our own citizens than any other civilized nation on the planet. We still employ horrific, napalm-like chemical weapons.
And yes, under the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld regime, we abuse and torture prisoners at least as horrifically as any Islamic fundamentalist, as any terrorist cell, to serve our agenda and meet our goals -- and whether you think those goals are justifiable because they contain the words freedom or democracy is, in many ways, beside the point.
Go ahead, equivocate your heart out. It is a bit like justifying known poisons in your food. Sure mercury is a known cancer-causing agent. Sure the body will recoil and soon become violently ill and die. But gosh, it sure does taste good. Shrug.
Maybe you don't care, maybe you're like Rumsfeld and Cheney and the rest who think, well sure, if they're terrorists and if they'd just as willingly suck the eyeballs out of my cat and rip out my fingernails with a pair of pliers as look at me, well, they deserve to be tortured, beaten, abused in ways you and I cannot imagine. Especially if (and this is the eternal argument) by their torture we can prevent the deaths of innocents.
Maybe you are one of these people. Eye for an eye. Water torture for an explosive device. Does this mean that you are, of course, exactly like those being tortured, willing to go to extremes to get what you want? That you are on the same level morally, energetically, politically and, like Cheney and Rumsfeld, you are dragging the nation down into a hole with you? You might think. After all, fundamentalists terrorize to further a lopsided and religious-based agenda. We torture to protect ours. Same coin, different side.
It is mandatory that we all acknowledge where we are as a nation, right now, how low we have fallen, how thuggish and heartless and internationally disrespected we have become, the ugly trajectory we are following.
Because here's the sad kicker: Torture works. It gets results. It might very well save some lives. But it also requires a moral and spiritual sacrifice the likes of which would make Bush's own Jesus recoil in absolute horror. Yet this is what's happening, right now. And our current position demands a reply to one bitter, overarching question: What sort of nation are we, really?
Thoughts for the author? E-mail him.
Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SF Gate and in the Datebook section of the SF Chronicle. To get on the e-mail list for this column, please click here and remove one article of clothing. Mark's column also has an RSS feed and an archive of past columns, which includes a tiny photo of Mark probably insufficient for you to recognize him in the street and give him gifts.
As if that weren't enough, Mark also contributes to the hot, spankin' SF Gate Culture Blog.
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2005/12/16/notes121605.DTL
©2005 SF Gate
No flames. I thought it was a great article. nm
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This is a great article written by Jim Cramer...
he is the money guy on CNBC. We listen to him sometimes, have read a couple of his books, and because of watching his show in Sept or Oct of last year, we pulled our money out of the stock market, which was the BEST idea. It is an interesting artcile to some, maybe not to others.
http://www.mainstreet.com/article/moneyinvesting/news/cramer-my-response-white-house
I agree. Great article. Thanks, LVMT for posting it.
To m: LOL. No problem. It's very easy to do on this board.
Great and really informative article, but the reasons we find the economy in this problem....sm
is all the banking deregulation that has taken place over the past 9 years or so....without any regulations at all, the banks have had free reign to wallow in their greed, invest their investor's money in very speculative and dangerous deals trying to make as much quick money as possible, and when it all blew up in their face, we all are expected to rescue these despicable creatures because the econmomy and wellfare of the nation, its homeowners, small businesses, etc., will just be the true victims suffering every greater losses. Yes, I agree that soem of the article's highlighted practices are very frightening for us, but right now we are facing an unprecedented financial tragedy in this country....blame all the banking deregulation, and those who proposed/allowed it as "free enterprise (interpreted=unbridled greed and robbery) as the horrid lesson here.
Great post, great insight, great analysis, thanks!..nm
nm
Each brown place in the link takes you to a different article that supports this article...nm
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Well said Marmann
This is one post I definitely agree with you on. Corruption is on both sides. I don't think any one party has any right to lump the other side into one category. I say if you do the crime you do the time and it doesn't matter what political party you belong to. Name me an honest politician and I'll....well actually I don't know what I'd do. HA HA. There are just a few that are decent but that is a very few.
Hey, Marmann.
Do you ever feel like you are trying to reason with cement? That is how I feel when I respond to some of these posts.
Marmann
Hello Marmann: I too hope you will be feeling better
Marmann...the OP would be 3rd under GP's
By OP, I meant "other post." I appreciate your reply which I am still digesting and will answer soon while trying to grab a bath in the meantime!
Marmann......... sm
Please don't ever apologize for sharing. I, for one, don't mind at all and find the information fascinating and useful. CF is such a cruel disease as it does attack so many different systems and causes general havoc. I had not heard about the GI symptoms, though.
May God bless you through your illness and bring about healing for you. There is a cure out there...they just have to find it. In the meantime, be kind to yourself and take good care of yourself. I do enjoy your "discourses" (hehe) here. :o)
To:Marmann......
THE HORROR!! THE HORROR... I CAN'T TALK ANYMORE....
Thanks Marmann
Oh I've made plenty of mistakes, but I learned a long time ago it's okay to say you are wrong. Keeps us human and humble. :-)
Also, thank you for being nice to me. I've read your posts on this board and you have actually changed my mind about some issues I used to believe in. I love hearing people's different opinions because it gives me a different perspective on things and more things to research.
Anthony Hopkins is one of the greatest actors of all time. When you can make a character so real it's just amazing. Hard to separate reality from fiction sometimes.
Have a great weekend yourself.
Hey Marmann............ sm
good to see you around. I know you don't get on very often because of health issues, as you have described here, and just wanted to say I hope you are doing better.
It's funny (funny - strange, not funny = haha) how a person's opinion can change based on their life issues. I know you would give almost anything not to be in the position that you are in now, but be glad that there is some help for you out there in the form of Medicaid and other agencies. My best to you!
Marmann....(sm)
It is for "people like you" that others fight for Medicaid and other social programs. The purpose is to help. You should feel no guilt or shame at all! You have paid your dues, you have worked for years, and if at this time in your life you need to pull on the reserve of social programs that can help, then you, of all people, deserve to recieve those benefits. That's what its there for.
I do realize it can be difficult for people in your positions being stuck with the label of "those people," but you should know better than anyone that that is not what its about. There are people out here who do understand your situation and also understand that most people are only one incident/misfortune away from being in that same situation.
Hang in there and don't let it get you down.
Thank you for that, Marmann. s/m
I agree with your assessment of JTBB's posts, as I as well find them illuminating and well researched and knew she would find this movie as intriguing as I did, as I am sure you would, and I encourage you to to check it out and let me know what you think.
I don't post on this board very much, although I do enjoy reading it, and I very much enjoy the comments that are worthwhile and thought-provoking, (even if sometimes I don't agree), and it's pretty easy to separate out the people who actually have a brain in their heads from the people who accomplish nothing more than being snide, inconsiderate, and really just want to "stir the pot" and be insulting just to satisfy some deeply buried sense of inadequacy by feeling like they need to post a CV which in some way is supposed to prove a person has a clue about anything.
Marmann, I always enjoy your posts as well, as we are usually of the same opinion on most matters, so keep it up!!
Marmann: s/m
When I tried to send you one through this board, your address came up, but the message said MTStars does not forward e-mail to either comcast.net or aol.com. For some reason there have been issues with these two carriers. I had an old work e-mail on here that I used, but I just updated it and it's now under my personal e-mail. Are you worried about security from this website? I'm not too worried only because our carrier seems to have pretty tight filters and I have never had any problems. If you decide to brave it, just holla back.
At any rate, just let me know. The discussions on here have gotten too toxic for me -- talk about swimming in a river of piranha! LOL
G'night.
Hi Marmann............. sm
Good to "see" you! Hope you are feeling okay these days.
In a nutshell, what my statement had to do with was from a biblical perspective. Israel is God's chosen people and anyone who stands against them or harms them is in danger of losing God's favor. I feel, as a country, we are rapidly losing favor with God and I don't want to see what happens when He totally removes His hand of protection from us.
yes, Marmann, sometimes it is best to
takea break to 'clear one's head.' Have a great week, too. See ya...!
Marmann...... Don't know if you will even read this....... sm
but I just wanted to respond to a couple of things you said.
First off, I'm not a big Bush supporter, but he is our President and there's not a whole lot I can do about that. I will say, though, that there was not a question of Bush's citizenship before he even got into office to create for him the stumbling block that Obama is facing. To roughly paraphrase Obama in a speech he gave upon entering the US Senate in late 2004, he stated when asked about plans to run for President that he did not believe in hiring an unqualified person for job and that he himself was not qualified to serve as POTUS. Yet, 143 days later, he suddenly decided that he is qualified after making a couple of Senate speeches and barely raising the blip on the radar during his career thus far.
If the SC does overturn the popular vote, I agree, there will be h-e-double toothpicks to pay in terms of civil unrest, the likes this country has probably never seen before. However, OTOH, the thought of sending an unqualified individual (his words) into the highest office in the land and possibly the most powerful in the world conjures up images of not just civil unrest within our country but global unrest when he brings to pass the items on his agenda, of which I am reserving further comment on at this time.
In all honesty, I sincerely hope that your last statement will be proven true. If Obama is deemed qualified, inasmuch as his birth certificate (let's just put aside his own statement), I sincerely do hope that he is the best POTUS we could have put in, because anything less will prove disastrous for our country.
Well, I try to be kind, Marmann.......... sm
sometimes I do better than other times! HAHAHA
I agree that God favors honesty in His people and I don't mean to infer that the Israelis are without fault, but I also believe that trying to take Gaza from Israel is wrong because it wase given to Judah, one of the original 12 tribes of Israel, by God through Joshua to be inhabited by His chosen people. As a Christian, one thing that I want more than anything in this world is for Christ to come back and take me home. Some Christians believe that, in order for all prophetical events to be in place for Christ's return, Israel must occupy that land that was given to the original 12 tribes as well as the temple must be rebuilt in Jerusalem which, as you may know, is in the planning stages and materials are being gathered. The main sticking point with the temple being rebuilt is that the Jews believe the Dome of the Rock occupies at least part, if not all, of the original temple site in Jerusalem.
I said all that to say this. Whether we humans see the treatment of Palestine and Isreal of each other as fair through the lens of the media or not, God sees the whole picture and He is in control.
Way to go, Marmann, I find it reprehensible
for someone so cowardly as to personally attack you for your opinion. Just another perfect example of the quality (or lack of) people supporting the McPalin regime.
To Marmann, Linda and others - see information
Please, PLEASE do not always think snopes is correct. They have been wrong on many occasions. Just type in "has snopes ever been wrong" in Google and many links come up to show they have been wrong. Snopes is run by Barbara and David Mikkelson, a California couple who met through an folklore urban newsgroup. And there is no credible sources whatsoever on snopes to prove that this is false. And being from California who are huge Obama supporters...well how convenient they just happen to have this website and can put up information without credible sources and everyone believes them???
To others - If there was "nothing" to this story, Barack would not have been ordered by one of the supreme court justices to submit his original birth certificate which he never did. The phony birth certificate that the Annenberg foundation (P.S. the Annenberg foundation is a staunch supporter of Obama) claims is his birth certificate has too many flaws on it.
I know a lot of Obama supporters are trying to push this under the carpet and pretend it never happened and try to debunk anyone trying to search for the truth.
The truth is that the actual birth certificate was never submitted. And like one of the posters said below "Obama has not shown it. He does not have it and the hospital has no record of birth certificate" the copy they have I do believe will prove he was born in Kenya. If he had it and it was valid he would show it, not have it legally hidden away so that NOBODY can view it. Brother! Talk about sending out red flags. Anyone with any sense can see there is something very wrong with this. If he was legal he would have shown the real certificate a long time ago and proved the "so called rumors" to be false. But because he hasn't anyone with any sense has got to wonder why. Why isn't he showing the true certificate? Why did the DNC give him a pass without checking it out? Who is backing him? Why was he legally allowed to secure the certificate? Too many why's.
But to have the supreme court involved. They don't take "bogus" cases, so there must be something valid to the claim that it will show he was born in Kenya to an American woman and African father and became an Indonesia citizen (and we don't know if he ever applied for US Citizenship).
We will soon find out (I hope). If he does not provide proof then everything he does as a president will mean nothing because it will all be invalid.
I wish you well Marmann and good health
We may not agree on politics but I wish you all the best in whatever you are going through. Hope you won't have a long hospital stay. Take care.
I hope you feel better soon, Marmann.nm
Marmann, you're usually smarter than this....sm
You know that Cheney had to give up all interests in this company before becoming VP...he is also in no way responsible for this happening.
And I agree with the previous poster....you've gotten way out of hand with your hatred of Pres. Bush.
I wonder, when Obama is president, and things of this nature occur.....are you going to blame him, just as you are blaming Bush?
I think not...more's the pity....in your eyes, Obama can/will do no wrong.
I have to beg to differ with you on one point, Marmann.......... sm
Biracial offspring have existed in this country for many, many years, dating back to the days of slavery when white slave owners would take a slave to be their mistress or even rape an unwilling black slave just because they could. It has even been said that Thomas Jefferson fathered children by one of his slaves. And if Obama was born in Hawaii as he says he was, the culture there was much different than the mainland US, even though there were miscegenation laws in place at the time of his birth. If I understand Obama's family history correctly, his mother and father did not live together in the US, with the possible exception of Hawaii, during their marriage. Most, if not all of their marriage, was lived out in Indonesia.
But I digress........
Whether the man in the White House is black, white or another race or any combination thereof is of no consequence to me. The qualifications based on the Constitution and experience and knowledge to effectively and safely lead America are first and foremost and should be on the mind of every voting American.
Thank you, Marmann - funny not too many people here had anything to say about THAT..
Excellent post Marmann!!! nm
Marmann, I think you need to do a little history review....
//
Marmann: Would you mind if I sent you an e-mail? s/m
I already tried, but MT Stars will not deliver to your server, which also happens to be my server as well. I would like to continue an intelligent rational conversation with a grownup and it is just not possible on this board. LOL
Correct Marmann, and as MTs this will help our pay rate and jobs sm
If companies are rewarded for staying in the U.S., bye bye philipines and barbados and india for MT cheapo transcription. Hello USA hard working MTs finally making DECENT MONEY.
AND.... getting tax breaks.
You made plenty sense, Marmann.... sm
I hope you feel better soon!
For Marmann's post below..... "big corporations
Why aren't you more concerned about how Obama made 2.7 million dollars last year but claims they are still paying off their student loans? Pleeze! That is definitely "selective ignorance" if ever I saw it. He claims he made most of the 2.7 million on the sell of his books.............. yea, right! I guess you believe that too!
AND you don't think for one minute he has the best little 'ol CPA he can find (crooked or whatever) finding him all kinds of loopholes for his big bucks? Funny you don't seem to care what the leader of your country is doing with his big bucks and where he has his big bucks invested and with what corporations; the same ones he is bailing out big time! Get a clue!
For Marmann's post below..... "big corporations
Why aren't you more concerned about how Obama made 2.7 million dollars last year but claims they are still paying off their student loans? Pleeze! That is definitely "selective ignorance" if ever I saw it. He claims he made most of the 2.7 million on the sell of his books.............. yea, right! I guess you believe that too!
AND you don't think for one minute he has the best little 'ol CPA he can find (crooked or whatever) finding him all kinds of loopholes for his big bucks? Funny you don't seem to care what the leader of your country is doing with his big bucks and where he has his big bucks invested and with what corporations; the same ones he is bailing out big time! Get a clue. Oh no, let's not go there!
For Marmann's post below..... "big corporations
Why aren't you more concerned about how Obama made 2.7 million dollars last year but claims they are still paying off their student loans? Pleeze! That is definitely "selective ignorance" if ever I saw it. He claims he made most of the 2.7 million on the sell of his books.............. yea, right! I guess you believe that too!
AND you don't think for one minute he has the best little 'ol CPA he can find (crooked or whatever) finding him all kinds of loopholes for his big bucks? Funny you don't seem to care what the leader of your country is doing with his big bucks and where he has his big bucks invested and with what corporations; the same ones he is bailing out big time! Get a clue. Oh no, let's not go there!
Watch out, Marmann, here I come kissing your butt again! s/m
You are so right in your description of yellow jackets! Just a bunch of brainless aggressors that attack blindly and viciously. LOL
I am enjoying this very much and find it oh so entertaining! Mob mentality is the only fitting way to describe these people. I just haven't figured out if it's just mental defectiveness, self-loathing or just plain needing a good 'ole roll in the sheets!!
Wow, usually people that work in the same industry find a common kinship and are very supportive of each other. Sadly, I don't feel any kinship with a lot of these people. In fact, I go out of my way to avoid people like this because their joy is killing other people's joy and that's a "disease" I just don't want to catch! Besides, I have a feeling that all the negative posts on this thread are all done by the same person. It must be awkward to be so socially inept.
I look forward to more posts by you and JTBB and, disturbingly, to the putrid spewing that will then ensue!! Bring it own, bee-atches!
Happy Thanksgiving right back atcha, Marmann
Hope you're feeling better.
So does someone's comment at the end of the article, discredit the whole article??
Unbelievable.
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