kpete
kpete's JournalDavid Gregory's so-called "mistake" reason enough to boot his ass right out of the "Meet the Press"
DAVID GREGORY:And you talk about the humanitarian assistance. The level of suffering is huge. The fact that Assad has killed-- about a million people have died, the refugee crisis adding numbers to that, by almost another million, I mean the scale of mass suffering is huge in Syria.
SUSAN RICE:
David, I think it's more like 100,000, which is--
DAVID GREGORY:
Excuse me, I messed up, I'm sorry.
SUSAN RICE:
--horrific. But--
DAVID GREGORY:
Yeah, 100,000 killed.
SUSAN RICE:
Not a million.
http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-transcript-feb-23-2014-n36721
Dick Cheney rips Obama for defense cuts: “He would much rather spend the money on food stamps"
“Absolutely dangerous,” Cheney told Fox News host Sean Hannity. “I, obviously, have not been a strong supporter of Barack Obama but this really is over the top. It does enormous long-term damage to our military.”
“They’re basically making the decision, the Obama administration, that they no longer want to be dominant on the seas and the skies and in space,” the former vice president added. “This notion that we no longer want to have a force that’s capable of any sustained occupation of a foreign territory, that’s a basic fundamental decision that drives — supposedly justifies this. But lots of times, you don’t get to make that choice. Circumstances will make that choice for you.”
Cheney said that his “old friends” in the Middle East had told him that they no longer trusted the United States to use military power when it was necessary.
“I think the whole thing is not driven by any change in world circumstances, it’s driven by budget considerations,” he insisted. “He would much rather spend the money on food stamps than he would on a strong military or support for our troops.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/25/dick-cheney-rips-obama-for-defense-cuts-spend-on-military-not-food-stamps/
Americans rising up against government - Three examples of pushback against the ruling class.
Though people have taken to the streets from Egypt, to Ukraine, to Venezuela to Thailand, many have wondered whether Americans would ever resist the increasing encroachments on their freedom. I think they've begun.Three examples of pushback against the ruling class.
America's ruling class has been experiencing more pushback than usual lately. It just might be a harbinger of things to come.
First, in response to widespread protests last week, the Department of Homeland Security canceled plans to build a nationwide license plate database. Many local police departments already use license-plate readers that track every car as it passes traffic signals or pole-mounted cameras. Specially equipped police cars even track cars parked on the street or even in driveways.
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On Friday, after more public outrage, the Federal Communications Commission withdrew a plan to "monitor" news coverage at not only broadcast stations, but also at print publications that the FCC has no authority to regulate. The "Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs," or CIN (pronounced "sin"
involved the FCC sending people to question reporters and editors about why they chose to run particular stories. Many folks in and out of the media found it Orwellian.
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Meanwhile, in Connecticut a massive new gun-registration scheme is also facing civil disobedience. As J.D. Tuccille reports: "Three years ago, the Connecticut legislature estimated there were 372,000 rifles in the state of the sort that might be classified as 'assault weapons,' and 2 million plus high-capacity magazines. ... But by the close of registration at the end of 2013, state officials received around 50,000 applications for 'assault weapon' registrations, and 38,000 applications for magazines."
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Though people have taken to the streets from Egypt, to Ukraine, to Venezuela to Thailand, many have wondered whether Americans would ever resist the increasing encroachments on their freedom. I think they've begun.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/02/23/license-plates-guns-news-federal-government-column/5759933/
Cartoon: The gun - by Tom Tomorrow
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/02/24/1279154/-Cartoon-The-gun
“Did I say I was done?”
Look at that face: “Did I say I was done?”
http://underthemountainbunker.com/2014/02/22/morning-coffee-caturday-49/
Right-Wing Bloggers Paid $500 for a blog post praising Ukraine’s ruling Party of Regions.
I’m shocked, shocked to find that grifting is going on in here (via):
[…]
The model resembles a recent stealth campaign in which bloggers were paid by the Malaysian government to write favorable stories, though the Ukraine campaign appears to have involved smaller sums of money.
One of the writers who participated in the campaign, who spoke on the condition of anonymity and because of lingering qualms about the arrangement, they said, described being offered $500 for a blog post praising Ukraine’s ruling Party of Regions. The payment was arranged by George Scoville, a libertarian media strategist, and Scoville’s name was on the check, the source said.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/exclusive-how-ukraine-wooed-conservative-websiteshttp://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/43104_Buzzfeed-_Ukraine_Paid_Right_Wing_Bloggers_to_Post_Talking_Points
OMG! Scott Walker Gets Grilled on EmailGate - On Fox "News"!
OMG! Scott Walker Gets Grilled on EmailGate - by Chris Wallace (!) On Fox News!
Actual journalism was committed by Chris Wallace who tried hard to get Republican Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker to actually answer a question he didn't want to answer about the almost 28,000 documents released this past Wednesday. Kudos to TPM for watching Fox News Sunday so we don't have to.
This is video you need to watch:
WALLACE: In one email that was released this week, your then chief of staff Thomas Nardelli, let’s put this up on the screen, writes campaign and county workers that you wanted to hold daily conference calls, “to review events of the day or of a previous or future day so we can better coordinate sound timely responses,” and in another e-mail county administrative director Cynthia Archer suggests that colleagues should use a private e-mail account. “I use this private account quite a bit to communicate with SKW,” that’s you, “and Nardelli, the former chief of staff.” Question: if county workers were doing nothing wrong, why should they be using a private e-mail account?
WALKER: Well, but that’s exactly to my point. you had a Democratic district attorney spend almost three years looking at every single one of those communications, interviewing people, talking to people and closed the case.
WALLACE: Did you have your own private e-mail account?
WALKER: It’s one of those where I point out district attorney has reviewed every single one of these issues.
WALLACE: But sir, you’re not answering my question.
WALKER: No, because I’m not going to get into 27,000 different pieces of information.
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MORE:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/02/23/1279780/-OMG-Scott-Walker-Gets-Grilled-on-EmailGate-On-Fox-News
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/02/23/3321041/scott-walker-chris-wallace/#
“It might be said that online trolls are prototypical everyday sadists"
There is now scientific evidence that Internet trolls are indeed just as mean in their private lives as they are in their digital ones, and it appears the driving force behind their trolling is good old-fashion sadism.
The research comes from a team out of Canada from multiple universities who put their findings rather bluntly. “It might be said that online trolls are prototypical everyday sadists,” the investigators state.
In other words, Internet trolls are not the nicest people in the world, but they are as old as time.
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We all know a troll when we see one; it’s that person who drives the discussion off-topic, the person who says something so egregious you know they are baiting someone for a response, and when they get that response they latch on and never let go.
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/research-suggests-sadism-spurs-internet-trolls-022314
http://globalnews.ca/news/1157137/internet-trolls-are-sadists-and-psychopaths-canadian-study/
Since 1968, More Americans Have Died From Gunfire Than All U.S. Wars Combined
In 2012, on the PBS News Hour, Mark Shields stated that since 1968, "more Americans have died from gunfire than died in … all the wars of this country's history."
Politifact.com did a study to determine the validity of Shields's claim. Here's what they found via the
Congressional Research Service:
Another 362 deaths resulted from other conflicts since 1980, such as interventions in Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, Somalia and Haiti, but the number is not large enough to make a difference.
Gunfire deaths
The number of deaths from gunfire is a bit more complicated to total. Two Internet-accessible data sets from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention allow us to pin down the number of deaths from 1981 to 1998 and from 1999 to 2010. We’ve added FBI figures for 2011, and we offer a number for 1968 to 1980 using a conservative estimate of data we found in a graph in this 1994 paper published by the CDC.
Here is a summary. The figures below refer to total deaths caused by firearms:
Politifact ruled that Shield's statement is true:
1.4 million firearm deaths trump 1.2 million deaths from war. They also note these figures refer to "all gun-fire related deaths -- not just homicides, but also suicides and accidental deaths."
Thank you, Mark Shields. Thank you, Politifact for the research.
MORE plus supporting links:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/02/22/1279667/-Study-Proves-Since-1968-More-Americans-Have-Died-From-Gunfire-Than-All-U-S-Wars-Combined?
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