Friday Night Fluffy Bunny BBQ

Before

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Because we’re mean like that.

This is an open thread.

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After

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Liberalism Died in a Drone Attack

I’ve sometimes used the term “liberal” to describe the subset of President Obama supporters who put the most positive left-leaning spin on the administration. He gave us “health care” is used when what we really got is a series of waivers, mandatory insurance purchases and a bunch of exchanges which will eventually cost more and do less.

But there are liberals who support the centrist Clinton administration and find President Obama to be a Jackass. There is also that small group of liberals who once supported Obama but had to break ranks when he went against their vision of liberal ideology. Then there are the libertarian who find Obama to be the worst of all worlds.

I’m not very liberal on some issues, but I have a religious devotion to individual liberty. It’s the reason this system of government exists. Libertarians (like Ron Paul) and liberals both believe in the rights of people. The difference is in what to pay for and how to pay for it. That’s where President Obama is the opposite of the liberal / libertarian mindset. He wants to give everything and pay for nothing. When pressed, he wants to tax the rich and take away from the poor. He could care less what people should have the right to do.

Jackass decided some time ago that an American working for al-Qaeda did not have the right to live. Anwar al-Awlaki was not tried or convicted of a crime. He was not charged. He was not sentenced in absentia. He was putting terrorist recruitment videos on YouTube. It doesn’t matter how bad this person was or if he even killed anyone personally. The administration just decided that it would be easier to announce their goal was to make him dead because he made them look bad.

I understand that liberals may consider Obama “their guy,” (for some reason) but this is a step too far. You can’t be a liberal if you don’t believe in personal liberty. You can be a socialist or a communist or a fascist, but liberalism dies in an environment like this.

Otherwise, you’re a party hack who is literally willing to kill anyone to win.

Herman K. K. Kain is a racist!

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It just keeps getting weirder and weirder:

Cornell Belcher: Cain’s “Brainwashed” Remark Was “Racist, Bigoted”

Democratic strategist Cornell Belcher says there is a media “double-standard” over Herman Cain saying blacks have been “brainwashed.” Belcher calls Mr. Cain a bigot and a racist and says this incident is a “teachable moment.”

It’s the revenge of Clayton Bigsby.

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I feel so much safer now

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Jake Tapper:

The Terrorist Notches on Obama’s Belt

The list of senior terrorists killed during the Obama presidency is fairly extensive.

There’s Osama bin Laden, of course, killed in May.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) leader Anwar al-Awlaki as of today.

Earlier this month officials confirmed that al Qaeda’s chief of Pakistan operations, Abu Hafs al-Shahri, was killed in Waziristan, Pakistan.

In August, ‘Atiyah ‘Abd al-Rahman, the deputy leader of al Qaeda was killed.

In June, one of the group’s most dangerous commanders, Ilyas Kashmiri, was killed in Pakistan. In Yemen that same month, AQAP senior operatives Ammar al-Wa’ili, Abu Ali al-Harithi, and Ali Saleh Farhan were killed. In Somalia, Al-Qa’ida in East Africa (AQEA) senior leader Harun Fazul was killed.

Administration officials also herald the recent U.S./Pakistani joint arrest of Younis al-Mauritani in Quetta.

Going back to August 2009, Tehrik e-Taliban Pakistan leader Baitullah Mahsud was killed in Pakistan.

In September of that month, Jemayah Islamiya operational planner Noordin Muhammad Top was killed in Indonesia, and AQEA planner Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan was killed in Somalia.

Then in December 2009 in Pakistan, al Qaeda operational commanders Saleh al-Somali and ‘Abdallah Sa’id were killed.

In February 2010, in Pakistan, Taliban deputy and military commander Abdul Ghani Beradar was captured; Haqqani network commander Muhammad Haqqani was killed; and Lashkar-e Jhangvi leader Qari Zafar was killed.

In March 2010, al Qaeda operative Hussein al-Yemeni was killed in Pakistan, while senior Jemayah Islamiya operative Dulmatin – accused of being the mastermind behind the 2002 Bali bombings – was killed during a raid in Indonesia.

In April 2010, al Qaeda in Iraq leaders Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi were killed.

In May, al Qaeda’s number three commander, Sheik Saeed al-Masri was killed.

In June 2010 in Pakistan, al Qaeda commander Hamza al-Jawfi was killed.

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The Obama Body Count grows larger every day. But Jake left out a few. What about all the women and children that were “collateral damage” to the deaths listed above? What about the innocent lives that were taken when we blew up the wrong houses?

Just out of curiosity, are we running out of terrorists yet?

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This is Kafka on bad acid

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Marc Rubin:

Every day I get emails from a variety of “progressive” groups and the theme is always the same. “Republicans want to destroy this”, or ” Republicans want to kill that”. They want money for their organizations or political campaigns and they want it based on telling you how bad Republicans are. Well, okay, they are bad. But they aren’t the problem. And never were. The real problem is that Democrats and these groups not only don’t want to face what the real problem is, they are afraid of trying to do anything about it.And that is that Barrack Obama is and always has been a political and policy fraud.

Obviously things arent exactly what everyone who supported Obama believed they would be. No real health care reform, no public option, no reducing the deficit by eliminating the $800 billion in Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 5%. No real financial reform. all of which could have easily been accomplished by someone who knew what they were doing and had the backbone and conviction and integrity to do it. There was also no standing up to Republicans nor pointing out that of the $1.7 trillion budget deficit almost all of it is completely the result of Republican economic policies and putting two unpaid for wars (which accounted for more than $ 1 trillion of the deficit) and an unpaid for drug prescription program on a government credit card to paid for later so that they could enact the Bush tax cuts. All by the way, without a word from the hypocrites in the Tea Party.

So what are organizations like MoveOn and the PCCC really so upset about? That Republicans are acting like Republicans? The Republicans are only doing what the people who vote for them want them to do as repulsive as it may be. Is it the Republicans fault that Obama and congressional Democrats never did what those who elected them wanted them to do? Is it the Republicans fault that none of the Democratic initiatives, things that most people believed were best for the country, never got through? What is it that these groups want Republicans to do? Act like Democrats?

Here is a flash for Move On, the PCCC, Credo and Democratic candidates for congress and their donors and supporters — that is what elections are all about. And in 2008 the country threw the Republicans out of control of all 3 branches of government after 8 years of disastrous Republican governance, elected a Democratic president and gave him the biggest congressional majority any president had in 60 years. And what did the Democratic president do with the biggest congressional majority any president has had in 60 years? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He said he wanted to work with Republicans and incorporate Republican ideas ignoring the fact that if the country had wanted Republican ideas they wouldn’t have thrown them out of office in the first place. Which is why Democratic voters stayed home in 2010 giving the Democrats the worst defeat of any political party in 80 years.

Obama’s first three years in office has left the Democrats with the worst of all possible worlds. Its not as if their agenda passed and it didn’t work. Obama compromised the agenda away and replaced it with half baked ineffectual policies with nothing behind it. It’s his compromises that didn’t work. But its Democrats who stand to take the brunt of the country’s frustration with Obama just as they did in 2010 if nothing changes.

Here is what Democrats and so called “progressives” need to get through their heads. Accomplishing nothing is exactly what Obama did in his previous 11 years of elected office. And being intellectually and politically dishonest and duplicious is also exactly what Obama had been in his previous 11 years of elected office and what he was during the entire 2008 Democratic primary season. .Its there for anyone to see. It’s who and what he is. And isnt. And what he is always going to be.

But to listen to MoveOn and congressional Democrats trying to raise money, it’s the Republicans that are the problem.

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We get Republican policies passed by Democrats. The Republicans call the policies socialism.

The policies fail. The Democrats get blamed. The “liberal agenda” is discredited.

This is Kafka on bad acid.

For those who claim “McCain would have been worse,” at least in that scenario the Republicans would be taking the blame.

SCFOAMF

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The Rule of Law

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As you already know, alleged terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki has been killed by a Predator drone strike in Yemen. A lot of people who should know better are cheering for his death.

The most common reaction seems to be “Good riddance, he was a scumbag.”

I don’t know if he was a scumbag or not. Frankly I don’t give a shit. Besides, being a scumbag isn’t a crime.

I believe in the rule of law. The law says he was entitled to due process. The 5th Amendment to the Constitution says:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

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Anwar al-Awlaki was not charged with any crime. He wasn’t a fugitive from justice. He wasn’t killed fleeing or resisting arrest. The government has not even made a specific allegation of a capital crime.

I don’t mourn the death of Anwar al-Awlaki. I mourn the death of the rule of law.

“If the law protects a scumbag like me, it will protect all of you.” – Larry Flynt

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Execution without trial

Anwar al-Awlaki

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BBC:

Islamist cleric Anwar Awlaki ‘killed in Yemen’

The US-born radical Islamist cleric and suspected al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki has been killed in Yemen, the country’s defence ministry reported.

US administration officials confirmed the reports, according to US media.

Awlaki, of Yemeni descent, has been on the run in Yemen since December 2007.

The US had named him a “specially designated global terrorist” for his alleged role in a number of attacks and US President Barack Obama is said to have personally ordered his killing.

The defence ministry statement said only that he died “along with some of his companions”.

It gave no further details of his death.

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CBS:

Al-Awlaki’s father, who still lives in the U.S., filed a lawsuit against the federal government, claiming his son’s civil rights were violated by the U.S. call for his killing.

A federal court dismissed Nasser al-Awlaki’s suit on Dec. 7, 2010, on the grounds that he had no legal standing to challenge the targeting of his son.

A statement from Yemen’s foreign press office said the al Qaeda suspect “was targeted and killed 8 KM (about 5 miles) from the town of Khashef in the Province of Jawf, 140KM (about 80 miles) east of the Capital Sana’a.”

Al-Arabiya television network cited local tribal sources as saying suspected U.S. drone aircraft – which are known to operate in Yemen – fired two missiles Friday at a convoy of vehicles believed to be carrying al-Awlaki and his guards.

The President of the United States ordered the killing of an American citizen without any trial or due process of law.

How do we know he’s guilty? Because THE GOVERNMENT SAYS SO!!!

Glenn Greenwald:

In recognition of that fact, the Obama administration — once the existence of its hit list became public — began asserting, with no evidence presented and usually anonymously, that Awlaki has an “operational role” in Al Qaeda. But as Yemen expert Gregory Johnsen said today in response to the NYT debate: “We suspect a great deal about Anwar al-Awlaki, but we know very little, precious little when it comes to his operational role”; he added in response to Mendelsohn’s claim that Awlaki “played an important role in a string of attacks in the West”: “We just don’t know this, we suspect it but don’t know it.” Of course, punishing (or killing) Americans based on government accusations that have never been proven in court happens to violate a different though equally critical Constitutional principle (the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee that “no person shall be deprived of life [or] liberty . . . without due process of law).

It will never cease to amaze me how acquiescent the country is to the seizure by this President of the extremist and warped power to target American citizens, far from any battlefield, for killing, all without a shred of due process. It’s not just a profound assault on due process rights but also free speech rights.

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Don’t expect much outrage from Left Blogistan on this. In fact I expect to see some of them celebrating this assassination as proof that Obama is a decisive leader.

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Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance

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Joseph Cannon has a pretty good post about Occupy Wall Street:

The “Occupy Wall Street” movement is morphing into a nationwide movement called “Occupy Together.” (Stupid name, but let’s not quibble about nomenclature.) Why haven’t I mentioned the protests in New York heretofore? Because I am unsure if any good can come of them. There is no leadership. There is no platform. There are no specific goals. No demands. No coherent weltanschauung.

Perhaps worst of all, this movement is primarily the work of young people — in other words, of idiots. They have no sense of history, no idea as to which past strategies have worked and which have failed. Never trust anyone under 30.

Naturally, these fetuses are reliant on Facebook and Twitter and cell phones with GPS — which means that Uncle is keeping track of their every blink, breath and cough, as they keep feeding more and more info to the data-miners. This is a revolution? The first job of a revolutionary is to get away with it — and you’ll never get away with it if you don’t know when to maintain radio silence. (Or computer and cell phone silence.)

As I said: These toddlers are idiots. Never forget that we’re dealing with the same college kids who thought that Obama was the Prog Messiah.

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There is a bunch more and you should read it. Go ahead, I’ll wait for you.

Finished? Okay. This is from a discussion Joseph and me in the comments:

What, then, is to be done?

Goals determine strategy. Strategy determines tactics.

The first thing is to agree on a goal.

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Without a goal how will you determine where you are going? More importantly, how will you know when you get there?

This isn’t rocket science.

A few years ago when my dad died I wanted to go to Oklahoma for the funeral. That was the goal.

After considering my options (plane, train, automobile) I decided to drive, taking my two adult sons with me. That was the strategy.

We planned a departure time, mapped a route, made preparations, and then took turns driving, stopping for gas food and sleep as needed. Those were the tactics.

What is the goal of Occupy Wall Street?