#103344 by Grousefeather on 9/28 at 6:25 pm: “...for a politican to vote against a bill when they know their vote isn’t needed for the bill to pass anyway. In this case, it’s politically expedient for Hillary to make it appear she’s against more funding for the war, when she knows full well there’s enough votes for the funding to be allocated without her vote….”

The oldest trick in the political book is to accuse your opposition of doing what you do and would do yourself. That is so typical of the Republican God’s Own Party mob. Think about it!

Thanks, Louise.  That has to be the funniest piece I have read on Truthdig.

#102941 by Louise on 9/27 at 5:56 am
(167 comments total)

Cerena, did you catch that frog? That’s something science needs to see! Sounds like a genetic mutation. [Or a misplaced morphing politico] Hope your fingers OK.
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Ah Louise…NOW you tell me!! If I’da known that all frogs don’t have forked tongues, I would have tried to catch the sucker, and sell him to a biology lab, or maybe the military. (I once had a dog that I had to turn over to the military, because the thing was so damn mean, it would attack anybody, including the hand that fed it…MINE).

Anyway, now I know why nobody believed my story about the frog biting my finger, even though as far as I’m concerned, a reptile is a reptile. Don’t snakes have forked tongues? Well, in my logic… there you go. (even though I admit that it smacks of the “they all look alike syndrome”.

Besides, there’s a whole family of them out there, living and thriving among my plants. Lizards too. They were cute at first. Now the lizards look like alligators, all grown up. And, not a single one is paying rent, or otherwise earning their keep in any measurable way, unless we consider their place in the overall environment/ecosystem.

But, you’re right-on with the morphing politician diagnosis. We have a Congress full of reptiles. From what the daily news brings, the Congress has failed to agree to a longer rest time for our troops, (that’s real “supportive” of them, huh?) And it would also appear that the Congress has also approved the use of force against Iran. Busy week for them. And…they also managed to fit into their important debates, the serious question of Hip-Hop Lyrics, since that has apparently become such a destabilizing element of our society-at-large. All real important business for our Congress to address.

You’re right. I should have caught the frog, and asked it to “take me to its leader”. 

Meantime, my finger is fine. My state of mind is a different story.

#102942 by Ernest Canning on 9/27 at 6:04 am

“Louise, our leaders have “brain cells?” When did they get them?”

Oooops! my mistake ...

Maybe not “brain cells” more like electric impulses.
Something has to be there to keep the jaws moving and the tongue flicking and the eyes blinking.

Neuron nerve endings?

Meissner’s corpuscle?

A reflex response characterized by reflex leadership, initiated by reflex cause? Such as in a congressional aid poking ribs, or someone showing up with a check.

Maybe the camera lights are enough to trigger the electric impulses.

Or the smell of money.

Absent brain cells, it doesn’t take much.
Hold a lighter in front of a slug. Excellent example.
Or maybe not. I think Slugs have brain cells.

Perhaps science needs to study that unique species called Politician. The remarkable, functioning without brain cells, Hominid.

Louise, our leaders have “brain cells?”  When did they get them?

Cerena, did you catch that frog? That’s something science needs to see! Sounds like a genetic mutation. [Or a misplaced morphing politico] Hope your fingers OK.

Hillary is the perfect politician for the empire. We really don’t need to listen to anything she says. What we need to do is figure out how we can overcome media bias, corporate control and populace stupidity. Because in the final analysis what THEY decide is what will determine who our next emperor [or empress] will be.

“You know it’s those damned Iraqis fault for getting us into this mess.”

Thanks for the chuckle, Mudwollow. I’d still be laughing except reality moved in. Amazing how easily our self-righteous leaders switch their brain cells on and off, huh. We all know the populace cant remember anything for more than three weeks, but these congressaurs are supposed to think for us ... so we don’t have to remember anything for more than three weeks!

How dumb was that? My comment I mean.
They represent us, duh ... so of course they cant remember anything for more than three weeks.

” . . . all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily (and) adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
H.L. Mencken, July 26, 1920

This quote has been referred to on more than one occasion regarding Bush. But what grand epiphany has occurred in the nation’s collective grey matter that will suddenly overcome generations of mediocrity and corruption, and demand our political leaders grow a brain and a conscience?

Perhaps a miracle will happen?
Don’t hold your breath.

In the meantime, we do have ONE candidate who exhibits smarts and courage.
Kucinich.

Now, you know I am right about the man, because if I weren’t, the media would be courting him with the same passion they exhibit for Hillary.

If you don’t do anything else this week, tell someone about Kucinich.
http://www.dennis4president.com/

By the way, sorry I went off on the stupid populace.
Obviously they’re not all stupid and there is growing hope.
Witness this site and all of you posters.

Thanks.

Both you and I were wrong, Cyrena.  She doesn’t speak out of 2, 3 or 4 sides of her mouth.  She speaks with a forked tongue.
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You know you’re right Ernest. Forked tongue it is.

And, you know something really strange? I was working in my garden a week or so ago. And, well…(you’re probably not gonna believe this, because nobody else has)..A FROG bit me on the finger.

My finger grew 3 sizes in width, took on a purple tinge, and was throbbing like hell. NOBODY (including the doc that I consulted) believed that I’d been bitten by this frog. My neighbor looked at me like I was nuts, and said, “Do frogs have teeth”?

I said, Not that I know of, but the one that got me had a FORKED TONGUE, and it stuck that sucker into my finger!! (and if anybody had bothered to look, they would have seen the two little puncture marks in my finger.)

Like the frog that bit me, Hillary has a forked tongue.

Thanks for the clarification.

Hillary is telling her people (voters) what they want to hear just as Bush tells his people (voters) what they want to hear. Its not exactly the truth either but does any American really want to know the real truth?

The “state of play” she mentions is apparent to all thinking people who are sufficiently well-informed. These issues have all been raised and discussed in topics here already. For the ordinary person, it is hard to understand, though.

The fact is that the USA has kept a wartime standing army ever since WW2 and the reason is to keep unemployment numbers down and to feed the industrial complex supporting it. The fact that it continues to devour its citizens through unnecessary wars is continually sidestepped.

Perhaps as a result of the current global financial tsunami (originating in US debt!) and the fall of the $US, these things will no longer be fundable. That is, do you want health care and social security - or endless body bags with your employment?!?!

At least Hillary is trying to help improve things. Having a weak congress and a senate hamstrung by a biased Jewish senator is something the US people have bought at a very high price. Its no use blaming the politicians in Iran or Iraq for one’s own shortcomings.

Well, very interesting.  In tonight’s debate, Hillary revealed that if elected, there would still be an American military combat presence in Iraq at the end of her first term in 2013.  Both you and I were wrong, Cyrena.  She doesn’t speak out of 2, 3 or 4 sides of her mouth.  She speaks with a forked tongue.

All such astute comments from you all. Very observant, which means that none of ya’ll would ever make it as U.S. politicians. (me either).

But, Mudwallow,(#102555)you had me rollin’ in it. (with loud chuckles). Just exactly how DID those Iraqis trick us into traveling those 6,000 plus miles, to referee a Civil War they DIDN’T HAVE, until we got there?!?

If they would just cooperate, and sign over all of their oil, (since that’s the ONLY industy the Mob hasn’t yet been able to privatize, and THAT’S what they went to get to begin with)then everything would be fine.

Our troops wouldn’t be able to come home, because they still have to provide security for the oil robbers, but at least there wouldn’t be all of this arguing going on, right?

Meantime, Hillary is just like the rest of them. Ernest says she’s talking out of 2 sides of her mouth, but that’s what the boy is still practicing on. She’s far most sophisticated than that, so I think she’s talking out of 3 or 4 sides of her mouth. Like the more professional politicians can do.

And, like Jose said, we STILL have no idea what her real plan is, because of the political couching of what is coming out of those 3 or 4 sides of her mouth…

She says that the Bush administration has NO viable or even non-viable withdrawal plans, without acknowledging WHY there has never been any withdrawal plans…THEY NEVER INTENDED TO LEAVE IRAQ. Ergo, no withdrawal plans. Why would there be any “post-war” plans, if the whole point was to invade and permanently occupy the place?

And, one has to ask why she never bothered to question the “post-war” plans when she WAS voting to continue funding it.

Any which way the wind blows…..another talkin head, very little credibility. The only thing Hillary has going for her is that anyone, absolutely anyone couldn’t help but be a vast improvement over what we’ve got now sitting in the white house. The real candidates that aren’t as beholding to the large corporate trough are getting no attention from the flapping gums like Tim Russert.The fact is, she DID vote for this war, and has repeatedly because at those times she figured she , with her aspirations to return to Pensylavania avenue, needed to play a strong-woman role. Her political needs outweighed the needs of the country. And thats the common denominator amongst almost everyone running on both sides.

You know it’s those damned Iraqis fault for getting us into this mess. They’re not living up to their part of the bargain. And how did they ever trick us into policing their Civil War anyway? This whole war is actually the fault of those damned Iraqi people. We freedom loving Americans were just minding our own business and then boom all of a sudden we found ourselves in the middle of an Iraqi Civil War.
Good going Hillary. This creative prevarication gets you, George Bush and the entire American public off the hook for the Iraqi debacle. That feels so good. Rewriting history is wonderfully liberating.

http://www.iacenter.org/Iraq/encamp092207.htm

It is important to confront the direct fraud that the Democratic majority in Congress is putting forth in their complicity on voting to fund the war.

Clinton talks out of two sides of her mouth.  She says she will not vote for further funds then moves on to talk about how she will reduce troop levels when she becomes president.  If she was serious about cutting off funds, she would forcefully corner her fellow Democrats into the reality that they have the power to end this illegal war and occupation now.  The reality is that it only takes either 41 votes in the Senate or a simple majority in the House to block all further funding.  That is not something that is subject to a veto.  You have to pass legislation and forward it to the President before the veto comes into play.  If the Democrats simply blocked funding, if the money were no longer there to pay the likes of Halliburton and Blackwater for their services in Iraq, this occupation would end, period!