MEANDERING RUMINATIONS ON SPEAKING OF THE DEAD AND MORE

I watched part of the McCain funeral service at the National Cathedral this morning. I could have done without Joe Lieberman and Henry Kissinger, but I didn't get to choose the speakers, nor should I. Obama was wonderful, but he always speaks beautifully. He made me shed a tear or two.

What does it say about the rotten state of the country when I feel the slight trace of a twinge of nostalgia for George W Bush?

Further ruminations about speaking of the dead led me to think that if public words must be spoken soon after the death that we look for moments of grace in the lives of the deceased. Find those moments, many or few though they may be, and speak of them. History will judge the rest.

Then I thought about Trump, and I couldn't come up with a single moment of grace in his public life. As I pondered further, I became angry, more so at Trump enablers than at Trump.  El Naranja Grande is such an impaired human being that I'm certain he is incapable of change. He must be restrained.

Thus the duty falls to people in government and citizens outside government who have a measure of power to exercise that power to restrain Trump and protect what's left of our democratic institutions. The people of the country and, indeed, the entire world deserve no less than protection from further damage inflicted by a president with such grave impairments.

Don't misunderstand me. I'm in no way letting Trump off the hook, but no thinking person looks to him as having a part in rooting out the rot in the country. I'm furious at the enablers, the American Vichyites, who failed and still fail so miserably to do their duty.

Thus endeth my ruminations.

RIP, JOHN MCCAIN

For all his flaws, and he had many, I believe John McCain cared about our country. The symbolism of his requests to former presidents Barack Obama, a Democrat, and George W Bush, a Republican, to speak at his funeral seems powerful to me. He campaigned for the presidency against both men and lost. I believe at the end of his life he wished for Americans to come together, not at all an ignoble wish.

May God give comfort, consolation, and peace to all who love John.

The Big Orange Divider-in-Chief was not welcome at the funeral.

TORTURE REPORT

From the findings and conclusions of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence aka as the Torture Report. I've read only 40 or so of 525 pages, but below are a couple of snippets about actions taken by those in the highest levels of the White House.

A year after being briefed on the program, the House and Senate Conference Committee considering the Fiscal Year 2008 Intelligence Authorization bill voted to limit the CIA to using only interrogation techniques authorized by the Army Field Manual. That legislation was approved by the Senate and House of Representatives in February 2008, and was vetoed by President Bush on March 8, 2008. (p. 13)
....

At the direction of the White House, the secretaries of state and defense - both principals on the National Security Council - were not briefed on program specifics until September 2003. An internal CIA email from Junly 2003 noted that "...the WH (White House) is extremely concerned [Secretary] Powell would blow his stack if he were to be briefed on what's been going on." Deputy Secretary Armitage complained that he and Secretary Powell were "cut out" of the National Seccurity Council coordination process. (pp. 13-14)

As for what I've read of actual torture techniques, the details made me sick, and I know there is much more and worse to come. I seriously doubt I will read the entire report, but I'll read as much as I can stand.  The CIA was a rogue agency, but the rogues in the White House gave them permission.

President Obama issued an Executive Order directing the CIA to use only the interrogation techniques authorized in the Army Field Manual, but the order could be reversed by the next president. There needs to be a law.

Here's the link to the text of the report.

From the Faux News way back machine - George W Bush:

This government does not torture people. We stick to US law and our international obligations.

Did Bush say one word that was true? If he did, I missed it.

DEAR SEN VITTER - GEORGE W BUSH DID IT, TOO!

Fox News and friends, including Sen David Vitter (R-LA), are freaking out over President Obama's extension by a few days of the deadline for the sign-up period for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. Once again, Republicans demonstrate signs of impaired memory about the rollout of Medicare Part D under President George W Bush.

Below is the text of my letter to Sen David Vitter in response to his recent email suggesting that I send him my ideas on Obamacare.

Dear Sen. Vitter,

Your recent email on Obamacare is nothing but a load of malarkey.  If you see those words as acceptable, you must really think I'm stupid.  After a bad start, Obamacare is doing exactly what it's supposed to be doing.  Perhaps your memory is not entirely clear about the rocky beginning and the extension of the deadline in the rollout of Medicare Part D under President George W. Bush.

'In May of 2006, just days before the end of open enrollment, President Bush took administrative action to waive “penalty fees for very low-income seniors and people with disabilities who sign up late” and allowed “the same impoverished beneficiaries to sign up for Medicare drug coverage until Dec. 31.”

“In other words, you can apply after May 15th without penalty,” Bush told seniors during an event in Florida. “And that’s important for low-income seniors to understand.”

Republicans seem to have selective memory recall about the periods in recent history when they were running the show.  Why not spend your time and our tax dollars doing something useful, such as helping the uninsured in Louisiana obtain health insurance, rather than repeatedly harping on the evils of the Obama administration?  The constant reiteration of the same old, same old is beyond tiresome.

Thank you for your attention.

HE WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it passing strange that the name of the most recent Republican occupant of the Oval Office is never mentioned by the members of his own party, not even in whispers?  Republicans reach back to Ronald Reagan and even as far back as Abraham Lincoln, but George W Bush has been effectively airbrushed out of Republican history.  W has not been seen nor heard from during the campaign, nor at the convention.  Which Republican candidate for public office trumpets an endorsement from George W Bush?  He's the invisible man.  Come to think of it, the Republicans are silent about W's father, George H W Bush as well.  It's as though the two presidencies never happened.  And that's not to speak of Richard Nixon, whose presidency never happened, either. 

Democrats have not forgotten W and often speak of the wars, the deficit, the tax cuts for the rich, and the economy in deep recession, on the brink of a depression, that he bequeathed to the country and to the president who came after.  How ironic that Republicans blame Obama for the last 12 years with nary a mention of George W Bush.  As Democrats say, the election of Romney would take us back to W's policies, but "on steroids". 

OH THIS IS RICH

Dick Cheney by Gage Skidmore

Former Vice President Dick Cheney took a shot at President Barack Obama late Monday night after it was reported that the president has attended fewer than half of his daily intelligence briefings.

“If President Obama were participating in his intelligence briefings on a regular basis then perhaps he would understand why people are so offended at his efforts to take sole credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden,” Cheney told The Daily Caller in an email through a spokeswoman.

“Those who deserve the credit are the men and women in our military and intelligence communities who worked for many years to track him down. They are the ones who deserve the thanks of a grateful nation.”

Hey Dick.  When did President Obama claim that he took out Osama Bin Laden single-handedly?   Poor Dick and the Neocons.  This really sticks in their craws.  Bush probably doesn't care, because he said to Fred Barnes about Bin Laden, “I truly am not that concerned about him.”   

What good purpose was served by Dick Cheney and George Bush participating in the intelligence briefings on a regular basis if the two did not do a damned thing in response to the warnings of his intelligence and national security staff that a terrorist attack in the US by Osama Bin Laden might be imminent?

Picture by Gage Skidmore from Wikimedia Commons. 

WHO HAS THE BETTER VIEW?

Two American presidents visit the DMZ in Korea.

Thanks to Doug.

VALERIE PLAME AND JOE WILSON - NO APOLOGY YET

From The Huffington Post:

Seven years after top officials in the Bush administration turned their world upside down in an attempt to convince the public to support the war in Iraq, Amb. Joseph Wilson and outed CIA agent Valerie Plame said they still have not received an apology from anyone involved.

"No, in a word," Plame laughed and told The Huffington Post when asked if she or her husband had heard from any Bush officials. She said the closest thing she has received to an apology is when Richard Armitage, the former No. 2 at the State Department, publicly said it was "foolish" of him to leak Plame's undercover CIA identity.

Apparently Valerie Plame 'deserved' to be outed as a covert officer in the CIA's counter-proliferation division, because her husband's report which followed his investigation of the claim that Saddam had purchased enriched uranium from Niger did not line up with the Bush administration's contention that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, including materials for manufacturing nuclear weapons.

"One of the things that we have always tried to say is that whatever has happened to us as a consequence of the battles we've been involved in over the last seven years, and however painful it may have been for us, it is nothing compared to what has been done to our country -- and particularly the service people and their families -- by the ill-conceived war in Iraq and by confusion of what the mission was in Afghanistan," Wilson told The Huffington Post in an interview on Friday.

Yes, indeed. No good deed went unpunished for those who did not hew to the party line in the feverish atmosphere within the Bush administration as it prepared to invade Iraq.

Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson are patriots in the truest sense of the word. I was outraged by Plames' outing, and I'm still outraged today that this sort of dastardly deed was done in the name of pursuing a war which should never have started, a war that was justified on the basis of lies and misleading information. As Wilson describes the situation in Baghdad today, we will leave behind a sad legacy, which cost us and the Iraqi people dearly, but it's way past time for us to go.

Valerie Plame's picture from Wikipedia. Joe Wilson's picture from Military Religious Freedom Foundation.