Steamd

Last week, the illustrious Ann Coulter did a blog post called THIS IS NOT A DRILL where she yet again takes people’s quotes out of context and doesn’t get the facts in an effort to make her enemy (which pretty much includes any Democrats and people who have even a slight liberal stance) look bad. When she gets it right she gets it mostly right. However, when she gets it wrong she gets it really wrong. Do two wrongs make a right? Let’s see:

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, or as she is called on the Big Dogs blog, “the worst speaker in the history of Congress,” explained the cause of high oil prices back in 2006: “We have two oilmen in the White House. The logical follow-up from that is $3-a-gallon gasoline. It is no accident. It is a cause and effect. A cause and effect.”

You’re only partially right, Ann. First, calling Nancy Pelosi the “worst” is a matter of opinion. Personally I don’t have much of an opinion of her really. But her quote was back in 2006. Things were much different two years ago. This quote in particular was in direct response to a plan that Bush outlined in an effort to cut gas prices. Bush’s plan seemed to assume that the pumps at the gast stations were the problem and had less to do with the big oil companies and the situation in the Middle East. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Explain this, Ann: Why are big oil companies getting no-bid oil contracts in Iraq? Even the New York Times said that no-bid contracts like this were unusual. And being that the current administration is all over Iraq, do you think maybe they had something to do with this? Even a little bit? Did Bush’s energy plan in 2006 have anything to do with this? Probably not…but it wouldn’t hurt to investigate it. Who the hell knows!

In response to the 2003 blackout throughout the Northeast U.S. and parts of Canada, Pelosi blamed: “President Bush and Rep. Tom DeLay’s oil-company interests.” The blackout was a failure of humans operating electric power; it had nothing to do with oil. And I’m not even “an oilman.”

Ah-ha! First misquote and misrepresentation of facts.

First of all, the 2003 blackout wasn’t just a “failure of humans”. An investigation found that a failure to trim some trees in parts of Ohio may have been the main cause. However, there was a software bug in the computer systems as well that caused all sorts of problems. The end result was a cascading failure of systems that caused a massive blackout.

This particular event caused rise of many questions regarding the need to upgrade and modernize power grids to avoid catastrophic failures such as these. Many members of congress urged Congress for legislation of a new energy bill. Pelosi herself was among these members. But the efforts were muddled with fights about oil drilling and subsidies for nuclear power and environmental issues. The Bush administration was concentrating its efforts on oil drilling with the energy bill, of which Pelosi replied:

President Bush and Tom DeLay put the interests of the energy companies before the interests of the American people by insisting we drill in A.N.W.R. and other environmentally sensitive areas rather than modernize our energy system.

So, as usual, Ann, you took someone out of context and didn’t read the facts. Don’t assume you know enough.

This must be why the Democrats are nominating B. Hussein Obama, who finished middle school three days ago and has less experience than a person one might choose at random from the audience of “American Idol.”

Obama is a hell of a lot smarter than you. You may have graduated from Cornell University with a law degree but it doesn’t look like you did much as a lawyer. Obama on the other hand graduated from Harvard, was a practicing attorney in Chicago, taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School for twelve years, and became the Senator of Illinois in 1996. You can’t do all that if you’re a moron. This guy is smart! Smarter than me! Smarter than you! He has more enough experience. He knows a hell of a lot more about what the Constitution says and what it implies than you do. Do you? Hell, when is the last time you’ve even read the Constitution?

Announcing the Democrats’ bold new “plan” on energy last week, Pelosi said breaking into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve “is one alternative.” That’s not an energy plan. It’s using what we already have — much like “conservation,” which is also part of the Democrats’ plan.

No, that’s only one part an energy plan. More drilling is not a solution that has immediate effects. Even it we were to allow oil companies to start drilling in ANWR and other areas we won’t see that oil for at least another 5 years. Pelosi was calling on Bush to tap into the Strategic Petroleum Reserves now so that we can see some immediate effects on gas prices at least within the United States.

Conservation, efficiency and using oil we hold in reserve for emergencies does not get us more energy. It’s as if we were running out of food and the Democrats were telling us: “Just eat a little less every day.” Great! We’ll die a little more slowly. That’s not what we call a “plan.” We need more energy, not a plan for a slower death.

Right, because a Hummer that gets 12 MPG isn’t really a problem. And, um, an analogy about eating less? In a country that has a high rate of obesity that might not be a good analogy.

Conservation and efficiency is only a part of the plan but not an end to a means. No one can deny that using our energy more efficiently is a good thing. Hell, I use fluorescent light bulbs that have the output of a 60 watt light bulb and they only take up 16 watts. That’s the sort efficiency we’re talking about here.

But there’s more! Pelosi announced that the Democrats also plan to push for “an historic investment in biofuels, efficiency, conservation and the rest.” The “rest” is apparently what she called our “important and essential” investment in alternative energy.

That certainly would be historic: We would make history by throwing our money away on unproven energy boondoggles that have eaten up untold billions since the 1960s without producing a single net kilowatt of power while we all starve to death.

Sitting around and saying “Well, we can’t do that! That’s a waste of time!” isn’t a solution either, Ann. More oil and more drilling isn’t a solution. At the very least, investing in the research and development of alternative energy solutions is a start. Again, it’s not the end to a means. It’s just a start. That’s a whole lot better than nothing at all to me.

The proposal to use energy sources that don’t yet produce any energy is like the old New Yorker cartoon with Obama in Muslim garb — no wait, that was a different cartoon. The cartoon is: A scientist has written out his extremely complicated theory on a blackboard and is showing it to another scientist. The theory consists of numbers and characters and takes up the entire blackboard. About two-thirds of the way across, reading left to right, appear the words, “then a miracle happens,” followed by more numbers and characters.

No comment. You dissed both Obama and scientists in the same sentence. Next sentence.

That’s the Democrats’ plan to run cars on biofuels, solar and wind power: Then a miracle happens. The current Democratic mantra on energy is: “We can’t drill our way out of this problem.” Apparently their plan is to talk our way out of this problem.

You make it sound like that’s the only part of the plan. Yes, eventually we’ll be able to rely more on alternative energy sources…but we’re talking years down the line. Biofuels, solar, and wind power are only part of that. Democrats are right, we can’t just drill our way out of this problem because drilling would require five years till we see the results of that drilling. That’s five years we don’t have. Yeah, we could start it..but we would still need to think about what to do that would have immediate effects.

Democrats are also alleging that the oil companies are sitting on millions of acres of oil but are refusing to drill — presumably because oil company executives hate the American people and perversely don’t want to make money. Manifestly, those acres are being explored for oil or have already come up dry.

Because there is much about the oil companies that has many suspicious. Again, I already mentioned something about the no-bid contracts in Iraq. Oil companies are already profitable. And, yes, I do believe that they have reserves that they don’t want to tap into. Think about it. If you were an oil company and you remained profitable, would you want to tap into your reserves if you didn’t have to? No, you would not. You would hold onto your reserves until such a time as you are unable to get any oil from the Middle East or anywhere else for that matter. Think of them as reserved profits.

If the Democrats really wanted oil companies to find more oil, they’d allow oil companies to drill offshore and to drill in ANWR, which we happen to know is bursting with oil.

But they don’t. They don’t want drilling. They don’t want more oil. They want humans to ride bicycles and then to die. We deserve it: We were mean to the polar bears.

Sigh. Now you’re just being melodramatic. Next.

It’s good to know that in the middle of a crisis, the Democrats are still liars. As long as we’re fantasizing about “alternative” energy sources, what we really need is a car that runs on Democrats’ lies.

Again, no comment. This is about as hypocritical as it gets. Ann, your total neo-conservative views are blinding you to the fact that not all Democrats are liars any more than all Republicans are liars. And yet time and time again you yourself have lied in the form of misquotes, the misrepresentation of the facts, and a point of view that all Democrats are liars. It’s not healthy for the Republican party or for the conservative movement, Ann.

The problem is this: our energy policy sucks! And, quite frankly, I don’t care which side solves the problem. All I care about is that someone is actually attempting to get it done. If that means more drilling then do more drilling, but do it in a way that is still environmentally conscience. We do have the technology to drill in a way that is environmentally conscience; why isn’t anyone talking about that? If part of the solution requires tapping into the reserves to provide immediate economic relief then, dammit, just do it!

However, I’m still all for alternative energy sources and I think it would be highly foolish to not invest in the further research and development of these sources, proven or not. The solution to our energy problems is not just one solution; it’s an animal that is multi-layered. Till you understand that you’re never going to get it.

Next time, do your homework, Ann! You really need to get a grip.

P.S.: Read up on the Pickens Plan. Interesting stuff.

About a week or so ago, Ann Coulter published yet another doozie of a blog post entitled “Bush’s America: 100 Percent Al-Qaida Free Since 2001“. Now, you’d think I’d be wise and simply ignore her antics, but to be honest I find it very difficult to ignore this level of ignorance and stupidity. The problem is that there are others who actually believe that what Ann writes about is dead-on correct, that is that her opinion is indeed fact, and that she is telling it like it is. Being that Ann is part of what Arianna Huffington calls the lunatic fringe, I find it only fair that I deconstruct what Ann has written and essentially show just how ridiculous her presumptions are. So, let’s start at the beginning of her post:

In a conversation recently, I mentioned as an aside what a great president George Bush has been and my friend was surprised. I was surprised that he was surprised.

You’re surprised, Ann? Bush has an approval rating that is less that 30%. Why wouldn’t anyone be surprised by that comment? You’re the minority, Ann. And this sounds made up.

I generally don’t write columns about the manifestly obvious, but, yes, the man responsible for keeping Americans safe from another terrorist attack on American soil for nearly seven years now will go down in history as one of America’s greatest presidents.

Produce one person who believed, on Sept. 12, 2001, that there would not be another attack for seven years, and I’ll consider downgrading Bush from “Great” to “Really Good.”

Congratulations! All that propaganda and FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) that Bush, Cheney, and others have spread actually worked. You actually believe that just because we haven’t had a major terrorist attack since 9/11 that we’re actually safer? And that we have Bush to thank for that? And that makes him a “great President”? What planet are you living on? Do you realize that some of our civil liberties have been taken from us because of the Bush administration? And you think that’s ok because, after all, we’re safer and we having had another terrorist attack? Ann, our forefathers would roll over in their grave if they knew that we sacrificed our civil liberties just to protect our borders.

Merely taking out Saddam Hussein and his winsome sons Uday and Qusay (Hussein family slogan: “We’re the Rape Room People!”) constitutes a greater humanitarian accomplishment than anything Bill Clinton ever did — and I’m including remembering Monica’s name on the sixth sexual encounter.

Pop quiz, Ann! What’s worse? Getting caught getting a blowjob from an intern? Or getting caught lying about the reasons for sending hundreds of thousands of troops to either get killed or seriously injured? And, yes, Bush lied. He said so himself that the intelligence was faulty and went to war with Iraq anyways. Yes, Hussein was a bad guy and eventually had to be dealt with…but there was little or no intelligence linking him directly to al-Qaeda. But the Bush administration continued on, lied to the American public, failed to listen to the United Nations, and went to war anyways even though it had little or nothing to do with the Osama bin Laden or al-Qaeda. Thus the Iraq was was predicated on a lie. Show me the facts that say otherwise. Clinton got away with lying about a blowjob. Bush got away with lying about a war and getting thousands of Americans killed as a result of it and having some of our civil liberties taken away from us. Yeah, real humanitarian accomplishment, Ann!

But unlike liberals, who are so anxious to send American troops to Rwanda or Darfur, Republicans oppose deploying U.S. troops for purely humanitarian purposes. We invaded Iraq to protect America.

We didn’t invade Iraq to protect America. We invaded Iraq to take out Saddam Hussein, a man who had not once invaded or attacked the United States.Yes, he was a bad guy…but he wasn’t much of a threat to the U.S…just a threat to the region and to the oil business.

It is unquestionable that Bush has made this country safe by keeping Islamic lunatics pinned down fighting our troops in Iraq. In the past few years, our brave troops have killed more than 20,000 al-Qaida and other Islamic militants in Iraq alone. That’s 20,000 terrorists who will never board a plane headed for JFK — or a landmark building, for that matter.

al-Qaida wasn’t a threat in Iraq till after we invaded Iraq. al-Qaida is linked mostly to Sunni’s, not the Shia Muslims that have been part of the insurgency the past few years.

And 20,000? Where are you getting these numbers from? What are your sources?

We are, in fact, fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them at, say, the corner of 72nd and Columbus in Manhattan — the mere mention of which never fails to enrage liberals, which is why you should say it as often as possible.

Please, say it as often as possible so that others will learn how ignorant you are. It has not and has never been clear as to whether al-Qaida has ever been linked to Saddam Hussein or Iraq. And, like I said above, we invaded Iraq, a country who has not once attacked our country directly. So how is it that we’re fighting them over there so what we don’t have to fight them here? Who? Being that al-Qaida is all but non existent in Iraq, who in Iraq has even remotely thought about attacking the United States directly? Give me the facts.

The Iraq war has been a stunning success. The Iraqi army is “standing up” (as they say), fat Muqtada al-Sadr –the Dr. Phil of Islamofascist radicalism — has waddled off in retreat to Iran, and Sadr City and Basra are no longer war zones. Our servicemen must be baffled by the constant nay-saying coming from their own country.

Muqtada al-Sadr is a Shiite. Shia’s hate al-Qaida. He may be radical…but he definitely has no sympathy for al-Qaida supporters.

The Iraqis have a democracy — a miracle on the order of flush toilets in that godforsaken region of the world. Despite its newness, Iraq’s democracy appears to be no more dysfunctional than one that would condemn a man who has kept the nation safe for seven years while deifying a man who has accomplished absolutely nothing in his entire life except to give speeches about “change.”

“a miracle on the order of flush toilets in that godforsaken region of the world”? So you’re saying that democracy in Iraq is just one step up from a load of shit? That is about as elitist of a statement as it gets. What makes you so much better than the people in Iraq?

(Guess what Bill Clinton’s campaign theme was in 1992? You are wrong if you guessed: “bringing dignity back to the White House.” It was “change.” In January 1992, James Carville told Steve Daley of The Chicago Tribune that it had gotten to the point that the press was complaining about Clinton’s “constant talk of change.”)

Every single Presidential candidate has used “change” as a part of the message of their campaign for just about every election of the past 20+ years. And that includes Republican candidates as well.

Monthly casualties in Iraq now come in slightly lower than a weekend with Anna Nicole Smith. According to a CNN report last week, for the entire month of May, there were only 19 troop deaths in Iraq. (Last year, five people on average were shot every day in Chicago.) With Iraqi deaths at an all-time low, Iraq is safer than Detroit — although the Middle Eastern food is still better in Detroit.

But how many were injured? Do you even know? According to GlobalSecurity.org, the number of U.S. casualties have gone down a bit. But the number of U.S. wounded is still fairly high even though the number has gone down in the last few months. The numbers to date though are still staggaring: 4,070 dead with 30,182 wounded. It’s the wounded I’m mostly concerned about. Do you have any idea of the issues surrounding the treatment of wounded soldiers coming back from Iraq? Do you really believe that they are being treated with the proper level of physical and mental treatment they deserve?

Here’s some real numbers that will help put it all in perspective:

3,990: American troops who have died in Iraq since the start of the war. [icasualties.org, 3/17/08]

29,395: Number of U.S. service members that have been wounded in hostile action since the start of U.S. military operations in Iraq. [AP, 3/11/08]

60,000: Number of troops that have been subjected to controversial stop-loss measures–meaning those who have completed service commitments but are forbidden to leave the military until their units return from war. [US News and World Report, 2/25/08]

5: Number of times the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment has been sent to Iraq. They are the first Marine Corps unit to be sent to Iraq for a fifth time. [San Francisco Chronicle, 2/27/08]

2,100: Number of troops who tried to commit suicide or injure themselves increased from 350 in 2002 to 2,100 last year. [US News and World Report, 2/25/08]

11.9: Percent of noncommissioned Army officers who reported mental health problems during their first Iraq tour [Los Angeles Times, 3/7/08]

27.2: Percent of noncommissioned Army officers who reported mental health problems during their third or fourth Iraq tour [Los Angeles Times, 3/7/08]

Al-Qaida is virtually destroyed, surprising even the CIA. Two weeks ago, The Washington Post reported: “Less than a year after his agency warned of new threats from a resurgent al-Qaida, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden now portrays the terrorist movement as essentially defeated in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and on the defensive throughout much of the rest of the world, including in its presumed haven along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.”

It’s almost as if there’s been some sort of “surge” going on, as strange as that sounds.

Just this week, The New York Times reported that al-Qaida and other terrorist groups in Southeast Asia have all but disappeared, starved of money and support. The U.S. and Australia have been working closely with the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia, sending them counterterrorism equipment and personnel.

So if Al-Qaida is all but non-existent in Iraq and the surge is working, then why don’t we have an exit strategy? Why, if we are supposedly successful in Iraq, can we not have a plan to start pulling troops out of Iraq instead of allowing more and more troops to continue third and fourth tours?

But no one notices when 9/11 doesn’t happen. Indeed, if we had somehow stopped the 9/11 attack, we’d all be watching Mohammed Atta being interviewed on MSNBC, explaining his lawsuit against the Bush administration. Maureen Dowd would be writing columns describing Khalid Sheik Mohammed as a “wannabe” terrorist being treated like Genghis Khan by an excitable Bush administration.

This isn’t fantasy land, Ann. People who attempt terrorism in our country rarely get interviews unless they happen to be born American citizens. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols got interviews. But did the guy who help bomb the World Trade Center in 1993, Ramzi Yousef, get an interview? Umm, doesn’t look like it.

We begin to forget what it was like to turn on the TV, see a tornado, a car chase or another Pamela Anderson marriage and think: Good — another day without a terrorist attack.

Yeah, yeah…and we’d all be sitting around wondering when Paris Hilton will land her ass in jail for the umpteenth time. People love good tabloids. Who cares.

But liberals have only blind hatred for Bush — and for those brute American interrogators who do not supply extra helpings of béarnaise sauce to the little darlings at Guantanamo with sufficient alacrity.

If Liberals have a “blind” hatred for Bush, then Conservatives have a “blind” hatred for Liberals. Am I correct?

The sheer repetition of lies about Bush is wearing people down. There is not a liberal in this country worthy of kissing Bush’s rear end, but the weakest members of the herd run from Bush. Compared to the lickspittles denying and attacking him, Bush is a moral giant — if that’s not damning with faint praise. John McCain should be so lucky as to be running for Bush’s third term. Then he might have a chance.

Yes, people have lied about Bush. But for every lie there is a fact behind it that proves he has made decisions that resulted in poor judgement, decisions that cost people their jobs, their freedom, and their lives. Not only are there liberals who wish to avoid kissing Bush’s ass but there are also conservatives as well who wish to avoid it as well.

You’re exaggerating on how well Bush has done. I think his approval rating speaks for itself. You can’t get an approval rating like that without even Republicans not approving of him. People aren’t in denial over Bush doing a bad job. It’s not just their imagination, Ann. And a moral giant? Wow. You must have really low expectations.

Once again, Ann, you fail to back any of your opinions up with the facts. If what you say is true, where are the facts, ma’am? Blind criticism based on unproven facts isn’t the best way to “tell it like it is”. I can find highly reputable sources that will backup each of my claims. Can you? Best get your facts straight instead of trying to pass off your opinions as fact.

This whole Republican vs Democrat, conservative vs liberal, left-wing vs right-wing crap is getting really old, Ann. The fact of the matter is you can’t blame everything on Liberals and Democrats. Not every Liberal and/or Democrat is bad anymore than I can say that every Conservative and/or Republican is bad. What you don’t realize is that this sort of bi-partisan way of thinking is what is damaging the politics in this nation. All it does is turn people against one another and makes them lose sight of what the real issues are.

Seems that every blog post I’ve read by you, you’re always constantly attacking someone. You’ve compared Obama’s book about his father to Hitler’s Mein Kampf, which I feel is by far one of the most outrageous statements from you to date. You constantly try to pass off your opinions as fact and have a highly slated view of the fact. Plus, you tend to take things completely out of context. It’s as if you pick apart everything and only leave in the parts that illustrate and justify your point of view.

I’m all about the freedom of expression and sharing one’s opinion with others. You have every right to blog about whatever you wish to blog about. But even I get things wrong and I have no problems admitting when I’m wrong when I don’t get the facts straight. Why can’t you, Ann?

Last I checked we’re all Americans. Maybe if you spent more time treating all Americans with a little decency and respect, rather than attacking any opposing viewpoints at the first chance you get, you might get more out of it. Spreading lies and hate is no way to improve the political situation in our country.

Go rent and watch this DVD:

Iraq For Sale: The War Profiteers

The amount of corruption and profiteering from the likes of Blackwater, Halliburton/KBR, CACI, and Titan is staggering! And the creators of this film are not lying about it either. Plenty of evidence and facts to backup their claims.

After watching the film, I feel that our occupation in Iraq has less to do with fighting terrorism and more to do with oil and government contracts. Do the math. The more troops we have in Iraq the more money these companies will make. The so-called “surge” in Iraq is nothing more than a “surge” in profits. For the past five years we let the Bush administration and our government line the pockets of corporate executives by privatizing so much of our military operations. All the while we were told that we were fighting a “noble cause” and that if we didn’t then the “terrorists would win”.

Some of these companies received these contracts without any opposition, any bidding, with no competition, and continues to be granted these contracts with little or no oversight. It should come as no surprise that Halliburton, the very company that Vice President Cheney was CEO of, got the majority of these contracts. As a member of the military serving in Iraq you can’t shit, shower, or shave without some form of intervention from Halliburton. What’s worse is that nothing has been done in Congress; no amendments or bills have been passed to ensure that these companies have proper oversight.

The United States government is being charged outrageous amounts of money with millions of dollars in overspending. This is your tax dollars at work, folks. If this doesn’t piss you off then I don’t know what to tell you.

I’m outraged beyond belief. I figured there was some corruption for sure…but this? Hell no! What they are doing is so un-patriotic, un-American, and un-Christian. It’s an absolute outrage! And we’re to believe that we’re actually fighting terrorism? The hell we are! It’s a lie, plain and simple. These people are profiting off of terrorism and the deaths of others. And it’s wrong…so damn wrong. So wrong that its about as bad as terrorism itself.

This needs to change. We need to stop the war profiteering. And you can change it by voting for someone who won’t put up with it any longer. McCain sure as hell won’t do it. I have serious doubts that Clinton will do anything constructive after her recent comments about Iran. So that only leaves one candidate left.

Guess who.

UPDATE: You can watch the entire film online at Freedocumentaries.org.