Saturday clicks: Booo-ruguay, Bibi leashed? Hip-hop and basketball, and Dubya’s presidential rank
And just like that, the World Cup saga has its villain. Thanks to a red-carded handball, and a few failed free kicks by Ghana, Uruguay enters the semi-finals, free from the burden of international support. They play the Netherlands on Tuesday.
**UPDATE: the Cup now also has its Big Dog: Germany eliminated mighty Argentina Saturday, blanking them 4-0 the same way they dispatched England.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is shooting down reports that Israel is on the verge of apologizing to Turkey for the flotilla deaths. An apology would be quite a reversal if true, and quite a feat by the Obama administration behind the scenes. Up to now, Israel has claimed the people killed on board that Turkish flag ship, including a 60-year-old man and a 19-year-old teenager, all shot multiple times at close range, some in the back of the head, were “Turkish jihadis,” or even al-Qaida, something the U.S. intelligence and the international community have found dubious (Fox News and American Democratic lawmakers excepted.) And Israel has, up to now, offered plenty of snarky derision, but no apologies for the loss of life, while resisting cooperation in an international investigation. Since then, there has been some walking back, with Israel easing the Gaza blockade, and letting the cookies and candy in, at last.
So who’s in charge over there? Just speculation on my part, but given that the original story mentioned that racist, extremist Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman had been cut out of the secret Turkish talks, maybe once he got wind of it, he brought Netanyahu to heel.
Power of hip-hop edition: Jay Z’s Nets vs. Spike’s Knicks. But only one guy owns a piece of the team.
Filed under “WTF???”: Kendrick Meek is waging war on competitive bidding for home-use medical devices under Medicare on behalf of the device companies. Um … okay … Read more
Blair’s promise: U.K. would back U.S. in Saddam overthrow
Tony Blair reportedly promised to back George W. Bush if he decided to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein … and he apparently made that promise a year before the invasion, at a time when Bush was telling the U.S. media no such decision had been made … the Times of London reports on a series of secret notes that tell the sorry tale of how Great Britain followed Bush and Cheney off a cliff. Read more
Reracked: Bush/Rumsfeld could have gotten Bin Laden in 2001
… but of course, they let him get away:
A Senate Foreign Relations Committee report issued this weekend says that al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden “was within our grasp” when he was “cornered” in the forbidding mountains of Tora Bora in December, 2001 under intense U.S. bombardment.
… The Senate report says that while bin Laden was writing his last will and testament on December 14, “Fewer than 100 American commandos were on the scene with their Afghan allies and calls for reinforcements to launch an assault were rejected.” Read more
If Pol Pot had a daughter…
… she would probably be a lot like Liz Cheney … On another note, our bridge trolly friend has launched a brand new think tank to try and keep her father’s torture and war machine alive (and to push for a brand new war in Iran.) Her partners in the new venture? Bill Kristol, right wing 9/11 widow Deborah Burlingame and a bunch of leftover advisers from the failed candidacy of John McCain. But why would anyone listen to a woman whose only claim to foreign policy expertise is that she happened to be born to the world’s toughest talking draft dodger, a man who has been wrong about literally everything he has said or predicted since reaching the age of majority, and the only 9/11 family member Glenn Beck doesn’t hate?
Liz says she wants to go back to the thumb screws and drills to the head policies that “kept us safe” under Bush and Cheney. Well … not to be mean, but I seem to recall that 9 months into the Bush-Cheney bad dream, we got attacked by al-Qaida, after Dick failed to do his job as head of Dubya’s terrorism task force, and Condi and George spent time hiking the Crawford trail instead of perusing the memo entitled “Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside The United States…” kept us safe, you say? I say “not so much …”
Wackenhut meets Bush-era nude crude
Is it just me, or did way too many Bush administration-era scandals involving security or the “war on terror” involve weird, often homoerotic naked stuff? (Warning: photos after the jump)
For the prosecution: Don Rumsfeld and the Bush Bible briefings
More news from the Dr. Strangelove era in American politics. GQ nails the Pentagon’s Jesus briefers, and paints Don Rumsfeld as perhaps the worst Defense Secretary EVER.
GOP to Cheney: ‘back to your hidey hole!’
Republicans on Capitol Hill have enough on their plates just pleasing Rush Limbaugh every day. The last thing they want is Dick Cheney running around without his shock collar on… From The Hill, word that Congressional GOPers feel they’d have a better shot at reinventing the party without the Man from Hopeless (hat tip to ThinkProgress):
Rep. John Duncan Jr. (R-Tenn.) said, “He became so unpopular while he was in the White House that it would probably be better for us politically if he wouldn’t be so public…But he has the right to speak out since he’s a private citizen.”Another House Republican lawmaker who requested anonymity said he wasn’t surprised that Cheney has strongly criticized Obama early in his term, but argued that it’s not helping the GOP cause.
The legislator said Cheney, whose approval ratings were lower than President Bush’s during the last Congress, didn’t think through the political implications of going after Obama.
Cheney did “House Republicans no favors,” the lawmaker said, adding, “I could never understand him anyway.”
Cheney responded to requests for comment with the following statement: “GRRRRRRRRR….”
Six years later…
The Iraq war is officially six years old. Not exactly a joyous birthday. Over at IAVA, veterans reflect, as does this veteran, who now calls the war an “organized armed robbery”:
In New York and elsewhere: protests. In the media, print and television? Not much coverage. And Bush and company are still walking around free, spinning away. So there you go. Happy anniversary.
The Robert Gibbs funnies: Rush wasn’t available
Gibbsy hits Rush and Darth Cheney (whose outrageous “stuff happens” interview on CNN ruined my otherwise pleasant weekend) all in one snark:
Bravo!
For your viewing pleasure: the Chris Matthews Ari smackdown
Ari Fleischer (who apprently really is a douchebag, Jon Stewart!) and a charter member of the hilarious Bush Legacy Project, defends the Bush years, and declares it “shameful” to place 9/11 within the Bush years, when clearly he wasn’t president until immediately afterward. Enjoy!
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
BTW the one thing Matthews didn’t do, was point out to Ari that 1) the recession that Bush “inherited” began in the second quarter of 2001 — after I’m pretty sure he was president. And the so-called “record job creation” Ari touted during Bush’s term, which he said were the best EVER! … were actually the third worst job creation numbers of all the presidents dating back to Harry Truman. Only Bush’s father and Gerald Ford saw fewer jobs created on their watch. Payrolls expanded by about 3 million during Bush’s two terms, or about 375,000 per year, which puts him DEAD LAST in the per year number versus all the presidents since Harry gave ‘em hell. Here are the totals:
Truman – 8.4 million
Eisenhower – 3.5
JFK – 3.6
LBJ – 11.9
Nixon – 9.4
Carter – 10.5
Reagan – 16.0
Bush I – 2.5
Clinton – 23.1
Dubya – 3.0
Source: Wall Street Journal
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