Dear Republicans

The 17 people who stood on the stage were the 'best' you had?  You didn't have much.

Are Republicans just getting less competent, less qualified, less able to 'be'?  Are Republicans so caught up in the myriad of victimization schemes they have lost sight of the prize - the history and future of the United States of America.  They were a grand party, one with ideas, and men who stood for values and an identity - who were proud of America and were willing to fight til the end to save her from the wrong path.

You have been so long divorced from the people - the immigrants, and working class - you have bought in to the 2nd class status Republicans have held for so long that you believe capitulating to Democrats helps your chances of ... I'm not sure what, but you must believe something.  Each time Republicans hold a branch - Congress or White House, when it turns over, you work nicely to allow a smooth transition.  You don't ram bills through, you invite Democrats to the office and discuss a transition.  Why?  Collegiality?

When Democrats lose control of a branch of government they ram bills through, exclude Republicans from meetings or discussions until the new government takes office.  This has happened each and every time the switch has occurred since at least 1996.  Why do you still insist on following a path that hurts America each time.  They push bills through, hold committee hearings and don't allow Republicans input, even when the national/state votes are for the Republicans.  They play the legalistic game, you play collegiality.  Why?  Are you retarded.  There actions do not benefit America so why do you allow it.  They don't.  What are you afraid of - being called abrasive or pushy ... they already call you that and every nasty name possible.  Where is your spine.  Where is your willingness to do what is best for America and Americans.  In your socks.

Instead the party of ideas gave us 17 people - none of whom would be a very good president.

The Presidency is not just a job.  It is not just an office.  It is not just a position within a building called the White House.  It is the single most important position on planet earth.  From the creation of said position by George Washington, and the manner he carried himself, the respect that was developed within and for the position of President of the United States ... decades and centuries of work by men who treated the position with respect and reverence (yes, I am aware some did not) - centuries of work by men who built the respect up ... to be torn down by either of the two people we are faced with choosing from ... is disgraceful.

You created Trump.  Had someone of stature and respect run, he would not.  Your bumbling useless idiots are what brought him into the game.  You did it.  You and the Democratic party put us in the horrible position we now find ourselves.  Shame on all of you.

Now that he is the President, if you fail to support him, you will destroy the Republican party and doom your chances of ever governing again for 50 years.  It is your choice, but if you choose wrong, America loses.  The world loses.

Signed,
Very unhappy camper

Age and Experience

Society, ours and for the most part, humanity, give a pass on behavior (excepting murder) while you are in your teens or twenties.  You could be 50 and a story comes out from 30 years ago in which you behaved badly and ... you get a pass.  You grew up and ... hopefully behaved.

Donald Trump gets no such pass.  Regardless of his actions ten years, twenty years, or thirty years ago - he was still a mature adult when he did those things and as psychologists tell us, after your mid/late 20s you don't change your character much.  In his case, his behavior hasn't changed much at all.  Whether 30 years ago, 20, 10, or 5 years ago, his words and behavior were then, and are today,  unacceptable.

Richard Branson tells a story about lunch with Donald Trump many years ago in which Trump told him he would get a few people who didn't help Trump in his time of need.  He would spend the rest of his life getting even with them.  And this made Branson uncomfortable.

It should.

Just as it should make us all uncomfortable that Bill and Hillary never let go or forgive people who cross them.  They make a list and check it every so often to remind themselves who they still have to destroy.   They keep secret files and use various entities and resources to destroy people.

There is no difference but scale and the fact the Clintons have access to extreme power and have used it.

Note to Republican and Democratic Party

Why?

You selected a woman the vast majority of your own party do not want.  A woman who is deeply disturbed.  Her health is at best ... not good.  She will probably not finish 4 years because she simply cannot.  Her financial mess makes the Keating scandal look like a few cents were missing, Michael Milken misplaced a few dollars and Goldman Sachs issues seem like it involves change.

She has a husband who may well be a sexual predator.  He is mysogynistic at the very least and has assaulted multitudes of women, carrying on affairs with countless others, including quite possibly, under age girls (Jeffrey Epstein's private island, Prince Andrew et al).  She has allowed it.  Enabling a sexual predator is a crime, and she knew full well all about his extra curricular activities.  How else does he explain flights on Epstein's private plane darting off to a private island?

You can dress Hillary up but it doesn't change the fact she has lied to the American people on numerous occasions, lied to Congress, lied to everyone ... and you, the Democratic party know this full-well.  She has accepted donations from countries who butcher homosexuals, beat women, enslave women, traffic in human beings, and have no regard for free speech - yet your party attacks the Republicans for supporting Trump.

You have chosen someone who will very nearly be, as old or older than Ronald Reagan and you remember your attacks on Reagan for being too old.  Do you recall?  You should.  She is medically infirm.  Emails released by Wikileaks reveals a lot of evidence of her inability to stay on her feet very long.  I suppose she can be pushed around in a wheelchair.

The security who have protected her, secret service agents, and others have revealed just how much contempt she has for the military and intelligence agencies.  She lied about the classified emails, and we know she knew ... she was in the White House for 8 years.  She attended many meetings and those meetings had classified documents which she was made aware of, during attendance of same.  She is a liar, a horrible and pathological liar, and is unfit to serve in any government position.  She should not be privy to secret documents, nor should she ever be given top secret briefings.  Let her read the NY Times.  In fact, Kaine shouldn't either.  Why does your party select a VP candidate who worked with and aided a communist government.  A vice-presidential candidate who accepts liberation theology.  And you dared whine about Palin and her comments, which were true about Russia being visible from Alaska.  I feel very sad you are so pathetic a group, to have come so far from the time of Carter or even Kennedy.  And despite Kennedy's atrocious personal behavior, he believed in the United States.  The same cannot be said for Kaine and Clinton.

How do you sleep?

And Republicans, you allowed Trump to be in the position he now holds.  You are responsible.  You have allowed this to happen -  by making deals with Democrats, siding with ideologies anathema to your values, and by allowing millions of [Muslims or whomever] into this country is not an American value.  I would explain it to you but it would not be worth the time.  I'm sorry you have bought into the Democrats lies.  That is why the people of the party have deserted you and embraced an obnoxious and crass asshole.  You have created this monster and you have brought the Republican party to the brink of destruction.  He is a by product of your lack of conservative values.  He is a product of the distrust people now have for you.

And why do they distrust you?  Ever wonder?  Making deals that diminish American jobs and world respect.  Supporting policies in order that the administration throw you some crumbs.  Tolerating crumbs.  Tolerating the one-sided policies toward the United States.  Watching as a president uses force in more countries around the world than the previous two Republican presidents combined.  Allowing the use of executive orders/presidential findings, without taking the issue to the American people.  You become complicit in all that crap and why should they trust you.  Running candidates that are deeply flawed (yes, I know, Hillary was ...) - buying into the guilt complex Democrats throw at you. 

You should have had 3 of the Republicans drop out on day 1.  Yes, made them do so.  Had a tête à tête and sided with 1 and made it clear to the others everyone had to, or ... some consequence would befall them.  Then use everything on Hillary and dump it.  Attack her time in the White House - the amazing box of files on the sofa, the lies, the obfuscation, the filegate, travelgate ... then go after her financial and who has given to her ... every name.  Then go after the people around her and where their money was invested or received from.  Go after her time as Secretary of State ... each and every awful moment.  Go after everything ... but you did hodgepodge .... and it failed.  You didn't and now we find ourselves with Hillary Clinton on the verge of taking the White House ... a woman who has held congress in contempt, ignored laws and taken hundreds of millions from people and countries .... she is so tainted I cannot believe she is allowed to remain.  You all disgust me.

Where to go?  I wish there was somewhere.

None of you are worth it.

F@#$ you all.  FX$%# you all for ruining this country, for sending our country on a spiraling downward trajectory from which we cannot ever recover.  F@&%# you all for doing away with our sovereignty and independence.  F%@& you all. 

Pelosi: And she says it with a straight face.

Pelosi: Holder contemptvote about voter suppression, not Fast and Furious

June 21, 2012
Joel Gehrke

The Washington Examiner

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., declared that House Republicans are charging Attorney General Eric Holder with contempt of Congress not as part of an investigation into Operation Fast and Furious, but in order to weaken his ability to prevent voter suppression.

"They're going after Eric Holder because he is supporting measures to overturn these voter suppression initiatives in the states," Pelosi told reporters during her press briefing today. "This is no accident, it is no coincidence. It is a plan on the part of Republicans.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted yesterday to recommend that the full U.S. House of Representatives find Holder in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena that he hand over thousands of documents pertaining to Operation Fast and Furious -- specifically, documents pertaining to the Justice Department's false claim that law enforcement never allowed guns to be smuggled into Mexico to drug cartels.

President Obama asserted executive privilege yesterday over the documents subpoenaed, minutes before the committee contempt hearing began. Holder had previously offered to provide some of the documents to congressional investigators if they agreed to end the investigation.

"The only thing extraordinary about his offer is that he is asking the committee to close its investigation before it even receives the documents," committee chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said during the contempt vote hearing. "I can't accept that deal."

Pelosi denied that Operation Fast and Furious is the real cause of the investigation and contempt charge. "These very same people who are holding him in contempt are part of a nationwide scheme to suppress the vote," she said of her congressional colleagues. "It is connected. It's clear as can be. It's not only to monopolize his time, it's to undermine his name."

"These folks want a plutocracy where instead of the choice of the many the checks of the very very few determine the outcomes of elections," she said.

democrats

Jobs and Unicorns

Paul Roderick Gregory
Forbes.com
12/25/2011

Sen. Harry Reid's Unicorns: Fact Checking A Whopper

Tax policy should be serious business carried out by serious politicians using real facts and figures. This is why we have the Library of Congress and the Congressional Budget Office, among other expert institutions.

How can we take Congress seriously when the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, makes patently inaccurate, outrageous and bizarre claims on an important tax-policy issue without any heads being turned? I guess this is what we have come to expect of Congress. No wonder citizens with favorable opinions of Congress are as rare as unicorns, to borrow a phrase.

Harry Reid’s statement on December 6 on his proposed 1.9 percent surtax on million-dollar incomes has kicked up some dust. Here is his statement:

“Millionaire job creators are like unicorns. They’re impossible to find, and they don’t exist… Only a tiny fraction of people making more than a million dollars, probably less than 1 percent, are small business owners. And only a tiny fraction of that tiny fraction are traditional job creators…Most of these businesses are hedge fund managers or wealthy lawyers. They don’t do much hiring and they don’t need tax breaks.”

Taking their cue, National Public Radio launched a search for one millionaire job creator. They triumphantly announced:

“NPR requested help from numerous Republican congressional offices, including House and Senate leadership. They were unable to produce a single millionaire job creator for us to interview.”

Were it not for Google, I would have accepted Harry Reid’s unicorn story and NPR’s confirmation. Unlike Harry Reid’s office, I went to the IRS’s Table 1.4 “Sources of income, adjustments, and tax size of adjusted gross income, 2009” to check things out. (I summarize my sources in a separate blog posting). Here is what I found:

There are 236,883 tax filers with incomes of a million dollars or more. By Harry Reid’s count, only one percent, or 2,361 of them, are business owners, and a tiny fraction of them create jobs. I do not know what Harry means when he says “a tiny fraction of a tiny fraction.” If we let 5 percent represent Harry’s “tiny fraction,” we are left with 118 businesses owners who earn a million or more and create jobs. Yes, they are only slightly less rare than unicorns, if Harry is to be believed.

This leaves 236,765 million-dollar-plus tax payers, most of whom are “hedge fund managers and wealthy lawyers” who “don’t create jobs and don’t need tax breaks.”

My Google search for Harry Reid’s quarter million hedge fund managers and wealthy lawyers came up empty handed. I could identify at most sixteen thousand “wealthy lawyers and hedge fund managers,” not Harry Reid’s quarter million.

Well, Harry Reid’s numbers leave much to be desired, but maybe he is right that millionaire business owners do not create jobs.

What does the IRS have to say about this? Millionaire tax filers earn a total taxable income of $623 billion, on which they pay the highest average rate (30 percent) of any tax bracket. (Either Warren Buffet’s secretary has an incompetent tax accountant or Buffet has some pretty juicy tax breaks. I think the latter is more likely). A 1.9 percent tax surcharge on million-dollar-earners would yield $11 billion, assuming those shifty millionaires take no evasive action to avoid the tax.

Millionaire tax filers earn $221 billion – almost a quarter of a trillion — from business and professions, partnerships, and S-corporations. This is puzzling: If Harry Reid’s figure is correct (2,361 millionaire businesses), then the average millionaire-owned business earns almost a hundred million dollars, and all, except 118 of them, do this without hiring anyone. These super heroes do their own typing, selling, drafting. public relations, building, and manufacturing. They do not need employees. Remarkable!

To summarize:

Millionaire tax filers earn almost a quarter trillion dollars from their businesses. They must hire hundreds of thousands of employees to do so.

There are a trivial number of millionaire hedge-fund managers and wealthy lawyers (who, according to Harry, do not hire anyone and don’t need tax breaks). The millionaire tax surcharge is not aimed at them, but at the tens of thousands of millionaire business owners.

A 1.9 percent surcharge on millionaires would raise at most eleven billion dollars. By today’s standards, this is chump change, within the federal budget’s rounding error.

The millionaire’s tax is not about balancing the budget. It is about gaining political advantage through the use of envy and greed (two of the seven deadly sins).

Why would Harry Reid tell such whoppers, which are so easily disproved?

Ryan Streeter has hit the nail on the head. He writes that even bearded Occupy Wall Street misfits understand the difference between “earned” and “unearned” success. Those who earn success by creating value honestly are the true heroes in our economy. They should be lauded rather than targeted. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are heroes. Bernie Madoff and, now it seems, John Corzine are not, and everyone, irrespective of their political leanings, understands this.

Reid, in his clumsy way, is trying to portray Republicans as the party of dishonest millionaires, who have not earned their wealth, have not created jobs, detract rather than create value, and refuse to pay their fair share. Such class warfare will be the anchor of the Democrat election playbook.

democrats

Obama and Democrats: Giving up on white working class!

November 27, 2011, 11:34 pm
The New York Times

The Future of the Obama Coalition

By THOMAS B. EDSALL

For decades, Democrats have suffered continuous and increasingly severe losses among white voters. But preparations by Democratic operatives for the 2012 election make it clear for the first time that the party will explicitly abandon the white working class.

All pretense of trying to win a majority of the white working class has been effectively jettisoned in favor of cementing a center-left coalition made up, on the one hand, of voters who have gotten ahead on the basis of educational attainment — professors, artists, designers, editors, human resources managers, lawyers, librarians, social workers, teachers and therapists — and a second, substantial constituency of lower-income voters who are disproportionately African-American and Hispanic.

It is instructive to trace the evolution of a political strategy based on securing this coalition in the writings and comments, over time, of such Democratic analysts as Stanley Greenberg and Ruy Teixeira. Both men were initially determined to win back the white working-class majority, but both currently advocate a revised Democratic alliance in which whites without college degrees are effectively replaced by well-educated socially liberal whites in alliance with the growing ranks of less affluent minority voters, especially Hispanics.

The 2012 approach treats white voters without college degrees as an unattainable cohort. The Democratic goal with these voters is to keep Republican winning margins to manageable levels, in the 12 to 15 percent range, as opposed to the 30-point margin of 2010 — a level at which even solid wins among minorities and other constituencies are not enough to produce Democratic victories.

“It’s certainly true that if you compare how things were in the early ’90s to the way they are now, there has been a significant shift in the role of the working class. You see it across all advanced industrial countries,” Teixeira, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, said in an interview.

In the United States, Teixeira noted, “the Republican Party has become the party of the white working class,” while in Europe, many working-class voters who had been the core of Social Democratic parties have moved over to far right parties, especially those with anti-immigration platforms.

Teixeira, writing with John Halpin, argues in “The Path to 270: Demographics versus Economics in the 2012 Presidential Election,” that in order to be re-elected, President Obama must keep his losses among white college graduates to the 4-point margin of 2008 (47-51). Why? Otherwise he will not be able to survive a repetition of 2010, when white working-class voters supported Republican House candidates by a record-setting margin of 63-33.

Obama’s alternative path to victory, according to Teixeira and Halpin, would be to keep his losses among all white voters at the same level John Kerry did in 2004, when he lost them by 17 points, 58-41. This would be a step backwards for Obama, who lost among all whites in 2008 by only 12 points (55-43). Obama can afford to drop to Kerry’s white margins because, between 2008 and 2012, the pro-Democratic minority share of the electorate is expected to grow by two percentage points and the white share to decline by the same amount, reflecting the changing composition of the national electorate.

The following passage from “The Path to 270” illustrates the degree to which whites without college degrees are currently cast as irrevocably lost to the Republican Party. “Heading into 2012,” Teixeira and Halpin write, one of the primary strategic questions will be:

Will the president hold sufficient support among communities of color, educated whites, Millennials, single women, and seculars and avoid a catastrophic meltdown among white working-class voters?

For his part, Greenberg, a Democratic pollster and strategist and a key adviser to Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, wrote a memorandum earlier this month, together with James Carville, that makes no mention of the white working class. “Seizing the New Progressive Common Ground” describes instead a “new progressive coalition” made up of “young people, Hispanics, unmarried women, and affluent suburbanites.”

In an interview, Greenberg, speaking of white working class voters, said that in the period from the mid-1960s to the early 1990s, “we battled to get them back. They were sizable in number and central to the base of the Democratic Party.” At the time, he added, “we didn’t know that we would never get them back, that they were alienated and dislodged.”

In his work exploring how to build a viable progressive coalition, Greenberg noted, he has become “much more interested in the affluent suburban voters than the former Reagan Democrats.” At the same time, however, he argues that Republican winning margins among white working-class voters are highly volatile and that Democrats have to push hard to minimize losses, which will not be easy. “Right now,” he cautioned, “I don’t see any signs they are moveable.”

Teixeira’s current analysis stands in sharp contrast to an article that he wrote with Joel Rogers, which appeared in the American Prospect in 1995. In “Who Deserted the Democrats in 1994?,” Teixeira and Rogers warned that between 1992 and 1994 support for Democratic House candidates had fallen by 20 points, from 57 to 37 percent among high-school-educated white men; by 15 points among white men with some college; and by 10 points among white women in both categories. A failure to reverse those numbers, Teixeira warned, would “doom Clinton’s re-election bid” in 1996.

Teixeira was by no means alone in his 1995 assessment; he was in agreement with orthodox Democratic thinking of the time. In a 1995 memo to President Clinton, Greenberg wrote that whites without college degrees were “the principal obstacle” to Clinton’s re-election and that they needed to be brought back into the fold.

In practice, or perhaps out of necessity, the Democratic Party in 2006 and 2008 chose the upscale white-downscale minority approach that proved highly successful twice, but failed miserably in 2010, and appears to have a 50-50 chance in 2012.

The outline of this strategy for 2012 was captured by Times reporters Jackie Calmes and Mark Landler a few months ago in an article tellingly titled, “Obama Charts a New Route to Re-election.” Calmes and Landler describe how Obama’s re-election campaign plans to deal with the decline in white working class support in Rust Belt states by concentrating on states with high percentages of college educated voters, including Colorado, Virginia and New Hampshire.

There are plenty of critics of the tactical idea of dispensing with low-income whites, both among elected officials and party strategists. But Cliff Zukin, a professor of political science at Rutgers, puts the situation plainly. “My sense is that if the Democrats stopped fishing there, it is because there are no fish.”

As a practical matter, the Obama campaign and, for the present, the Democratic Party, have laid to rest all consideration of reviving the coalition nurtured and cultivated by Franklin D. Roosevelt. The New Deal Coalition — which included unions, city machines, blue-collar workers, farmers, blacks, people on relief, and generally non-affluent progressive intellectuals — had the advantage of economic coherence. It received support across the board from voters of all races and religions in the bottom half of the income distribution, the very coherence the current Democratic coalition lacks.

A top priority of the less affluent wing of today’s left alliance is the strengthening of the safety net, including health care, food stamps, infant nutrition and unemployment compensation. These voters generally take the brunt of recessions and are most in need of government assistance to survive. According to recent data from the Department of Agriculture, 45.8 million people, nearly 15 percent of the population, depend on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to meet their needs for food.

The better-off wing, in contrast, puts at the top of its political agenda a cluster of rights related to self-expression, the environment, demilitarization, and, importantly, freedom from repressive norms — governing both sexual behavior and women’s role in society — that are promoted by the conservative movement.

While demographic trends suggest the continued growth of pro-Democratic constituencies and the continued decline of core Republican voters, particularly married white Christians, there is no guarantee that demography is destiny.

The political repercussions of gathering minority strength remain unknown. Calculations based on exit poll and Census data suggest that the Democratic Party will become “majority minority” shortly after 2020.

One outcome could be a stronger party of the left in national and local elections. An alternate outcome could be exacerbated intra-party conflict between whites, blacks and Hispanics — populations frequently marked by diverging material interests. Black versus brown struggles are already emerging in contests over the distribution of political power, especially during a current redistricting of city council, state legislative and congressional seats in cities like Los Angeles and Chicago.

Republican Party operatives are acutely sensitive to such tensions, hoping for opportunities to fracture the Democratic coalition, virtually assuring that neither party can safely rely on a secure path to victory over time.

stupid people

Obama: A Pathological Liar? Or is it politics.

Clinton seemed to be a liar also.  Obama.  I have to wonder if it is their being a liar or whether politiocs simply makes you into a something you are not - political 24/7.

CURL: Is Obama a pathological liar?

By Joseph Curl

The Washington Times

7:17 p.m., Sunday, July 24, 2011

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

"Mendacity is a system that we live in."

- Brick, "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"

In the weird world that is Washington, men and women say things daily, hourly, even minutely, that they know deep down are simply not true. Inside the Beltway, we all call those utterances "rhetoric."

But across the rest of the country, plain ol' folk call 'em lies. Bald-faced (even bold-faced) lies. Those folks have a tried-and-true way of determining a lie: If you know what you're saying is patently false, then it's a lie. Simple.

And lately, the president has been lying so much that his pants could burst into flames at any moment.

His late-evening news conference Friday was a tour de force of flat-out, unadulterated mendacity — and we've gotten a first-hand insider's view of the president's long list of lies.

"I wanted to give you an update on the current situation around the debt ceiling," Mr. Obama said at 6:06 p.m. OK, that wasn't a lie — but just about everything he said after it was, and he knows it.

"I just got a call about a half-hour ago from Speaker [John A.] Boehner, who indicated that he was going to be walking away from the negotiations," he said.

Not so: "The White House made offers during the negotiations," said our insider, a person intimately involved in the negotiations, "and then backtracked on those offers after they got heat from Democrats on Capitol Hill. The White House, and its steadfast refusal to follow through on its rhetoric in terms of cutting spending and addressing entitlements, is the real reason that debt talks broke down."

Mr. Boehner was more blunt in his own news conference: "The discussions we've had with the White House have broken down for two reasons. First, they insisted on raising taxes. ... Secondly, they refused to get serious about cutting spending and making the tough choices that are facing our country on entitlement reform."

But back to the lying liar and the lies he told Friday. "You had a bipartisan group of senators, including Republicans who are in leadership in the Senate, calling for what effectively was about $2 trillion above the Republican baseline that theyve been working off of. What we said was give us $1.2 trillion in additional revenues," Mr. Obama said.

That, too, was a lie. "The White House had already agreed to a lower revenue number — to be generated through economic growth and a more efficient tax code — and then it tried to change the terms of the deal after taking heat from Democrats on Capitol Hill," our insider said.

The negotiations just before breakdown called for $800 billion in new "revenues" (henceforth, we'll call those "taxes"), but after the supposedly bipartisan plan came out — and bowing to the powerful liberal bloc on Capitol Hill — Mr. Obama demanded another $400 billion in new taxes: a 50 percent increase.

Mr. Boehner was blunt: "The White House moved the goalpost. There was an agreement, some additional revenues, until yesterday, when the president demanded $400 billion more, which was going to be nothing more than a tax increase on the American people."

But Mr. Obama, with a straight face, continued. "We then offered an additional $650 billion in cuts to entitlement programs — Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security."

The truth: "Actually, the White House was walking back its commitments on entitlement reforms, too. They kept saying they wanted to 'go big.' But their actions never matched their rhetoric," the insider said.

Now, Mr. Boehner and the real leaders in Congress have taken back the process. He'll write the bill and pass it along to the president, with this directive, which he reportedly said to Mr. Obama's face in a short White House meeting Saturday: "Congress writes the laws and you get to decide what you want to sign."

Watching the one-third-of-a-term-senator-turned-president negotiate brings to mind a child spinning yarns about just how the living room lamp got broken. Now, though, the grown-ups are in charge; the kids have been put to bed. Ten days ago, the president warned the speaker: "Dont call my bluff."

Well, Mr. Boehner has. He's holding all the cards — and he's not bluffing.

 
 
 
 
 

 

 
 
 
liar

Obama: Majority of his travel was political

A president who is not partisan.  Amazing.  What would apresident look like who was?  More than 90%. 


Ninety Percent of Obama Travel at Least Partly Politics



by Keith Koffler
July 9, 2011, 2:15 pm



Nearly 90 percent of President Obama’s domestic travel in the first six months of this year has been either partially or entirely political, and almost all the costs are borne by taxpayers, according to a White House Dossier Analysis.

Since returning from vacation in Hawaii Jan. 4, Obama has embarked on 25 domestic trips involving use of Air Force One. Of the total, 22 have involved either a fundraiser, travel to a presidential battleground state, or both.

Only three times has the president traveled for purely non-political purposes: a trip to visit flooding victims in Tennessee; a visit to New York City to meet with 9/11 families and lay a wreath; and a trip to Albany, New York to speak about the economy.

Obama has traveled to 2012 campaign battleground states 16 times, hitting key states like Indiana, Iowa, North Carolina, Michgan and Wisconsin and landing multiple times in Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio, electoral vote-rich states he needs to win.

Of the 11 excursions Obama has made that included a fundraiser, nine have also featured an “official” event, which helps the Obama campaign stick more of the bill to taxpayers. While it is impossible to prove that the official events were solely created to defray campaign travel costs, it is widely assumed that this White House and those that preceded it map official travel at least in part to mitigate the cost of jetting around the country to raise money and campaign.

The most egregious of these kinds of voyages appears to have occurred on April 27, when Obama and the first lady jetted to Chicago to tape the Oprah Winfrey show, and then the president flew on to New York for fundraisers. Mrs. Obama flew directly back to Washington, creating an expense for taxpayers instead of for Mrs. Winfrey, who presumably could have flown to the White House to tape the interview.

Six of Obama’s trips included both a fundraiser and a stop in a political battleground state.

These practices are not unique to Obama. George W. Bush also scheduled heavy travel for political purposes at taxpayer expense in the first half of 2003, as he prepared to run for reelection.

But Bush traveled a handful of times less frequently than Obama and only held four fundraisers outside Washington. He also made more purely non-political journeys than Obama, including trips to then-relatively safe GOP states like Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia and flight to Illinois, a state he could not have hoped to win.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
obama

Obama: Depends Upon the Meaning of the Word 'Is'

We did hear a little about these nasty things called SIGNING STATEMENTS back in 2008 when Democrats attacked Bush senselessly over his use of signing statements -

According to Wikipedia, which I am not a fan of - A signing statement is a written pronouncement issued by the President of the United States upon the signing of a bill into law.

Wikipedia continues with an explanation of the controversy surrounding SIGNING STATEMENTS during "the administration of President George W. Bush, there was a controversy over the President's use of signing statements, which critics charged was unusually extensive and modified the meaning of statutes."

The esteemed American Bar Association stated in 2006, that the use of signing statements to modify the meaning of duly enacted laws serves to "undermine the rule of law and our constitutional system of separation of powers".

Mr. Obama made much of this, as did liberals nearly everyday during the last two years of the Bush administration when Democrats took control of Congress.

During the 2008 campaign, Mr. Obama informed the American people that he had taught Constitutional law for ten years and he knew the law and Signing Statements were NOT Constitutional.
In Obama's own words -  "That's not part of his power, but this is part of the whole theory of George Bush that he can make laws as he goes along. I disagree with that. I taught the Constitution for 10 years. I believe in the Constitution and I will obey the Constitution of the United States. We're not going to use signing statements as a way of doing an end-run around Congress."

In 2011, the White House Press Secretary told the American people that President Obama was never against signing statements, just when President Bush "abused" them.  The understanding of abuse would be subjective - when Obama said it was abuse or when Liberals said it was abuse, BUT what Obama said was not about abuse of power so much as the fact it was UNCONSTITUTIONAL and as such was an abuse of power.

The Press Secrertary continued - Obama's "concern was with what he saw as an abuse of the signing statement by the previous administration. So that the positions he took in signing statements on the budget bill entirely consistent with that position, you need to retain the right to, as president, to be able to issue those signing statements, but obviously they should not be abused."

Just another of the MANY ways Obama redefines the meaning of the word 'is' yet when Bush made it clear he was for or against something, he was attacked both on the merit of the cause and the method of delivery.  Sometimes more on the method of delivery. 

Makes perfect sense to me.













obama

Republicans = Nazis

Biden Claims a GOP 'Blitzkrieg'





June 30, 2010
By Michael McAuliff



Vice President Biden is out with an alarmed e-mail cash appeal warning that the GOP will mount a “blitzkrieg” against Democrats in the fall.

Comparing GOP tactics to the fast-striking forces of Nazi Germany, Biden warns in a message sent by the DCCC today: “As things heat up, you can expect House Democrats will be hit with a GOP blitzkrieg of vicious Swift-Boat-style attack ads, Karl Rove-inspired knockout tactics, thinly veiled attempts at character assassination and tea party disruptions.”

And while the GOP is mounting a blitzkrieg, Democrats are the allies.

“Our Democratic allies in the House need your help, and the President and I hope we can count on you to come to their defense so we can hold onto our Democratic Majority and continue moving American forward in a new direction,” Biden writes in the appeal.

Subtle? Not so much.

Update: Republicans were not amused by the implications of the e-mail.

Kevin Smith, spokesman for Minority Leader John Boehner, e-mailed a comment that seems sure to get under Democrats’ skins: “When will Democrats learn that invoking the Nazis’ crimes against humanity in a political debate is simply inappropriate?”

*****************************************

What is just as interesting as Biden attacking Republicans - their values, their patriotism, their faith ... is how often this occurs.


If you follow the link, the comments will tell another side to the story - that Democrats argue the Republicans called them names first, and worse.


What should be done, is each party choose a date where they will begin the argument from.  Democrats could select 2001, Republicans would select ... but why not select 1998 as the base year.  Democrats can start off with the vicious attacks on Clinton, the name calling, the undermining of the Constitution and the Presidency, the coup d'etat ... while Republicans can start with the abuse of power, the lies, the political cowardice of many Democrats, the cover-up, the hypocrisy of ignoring lies by a president but latching on to individual Republican Congressmen about their infidelity or sexual transgressions and never letting go ... it can move into criticism of Bill's wife, and the innuendo's of her preferences, and Democrats would have valid arguments.  Republicans would be able to counter that Bill was shredding the military, weakening the United States, tarnishing the image of the presidency around the world, and placing the United States at greater risk of attack by the weakening of our intelligence and political system.  We could move into 2000 and the election of Bush - and Democrats would argue he stole the election, he was chosen Bush had 50,456,002 or 47.87% of the vote and Gore had 50,999,897 or 48.38% of the vote -a difference of less than 550,000 - that Bush was never elected, he lost.  And worse, that he was born with a silver spoon in his nose, he was a drunk and a drug addict.


The Republicans would remind Democrats that in November 1960, Kennedy received 34,220,984 and Nixon received 34,108,157.  The difference was 112,827 ... yet Republicans did not challenge his legitimacy, even though the dead voted many times in Louisiana and Chicago.  Instead, the Republicans quitely stood up and accepted the vote ... in part because they had equally as much corruption going on as the Democrats, although not as many dead voted for the Republicans.

Yet it is always the Republicans who are bad, corrupt ... I don't recall a Republican Congressman with $90,000 in cash in his freezer, and then to stand up and howl about his right to privacy being violated by the FBI, or the fact he was a sitting Congressman and should be privileged.  It is amazing.  How Harry Reid made so much money off land deals, or Hillary made more than a $100,000 off futures in the commodities market - one she had never played before nor has she ever again.

The Democratic Big Sis Homeland Security informed employees of the TSA that certain websites were off limits ... illegal to visit.  Among these, any which promoted anti-government or angry militant opposition to the government.  Not Republicans, Democrats.  You know, the ones who care about rights and freedoms.

The hypocrisy is drowning in that party.  In the Republican party, it is simply the retardican way.  They couldn't get it right if God Himself gave them the special code to all truth - they'd lose the code and then would look silly trying to explain why they needed it to begin with.






 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Democratsdemocrats

And the Band Played On: Or fiddled while Rome burned

I was at a 'thing' yesterday, or perhaps a better term to describe it would be a birthday party.  The birthday boy was one year old, which tells a lot about the ages of the people in attendance - MOSTLY NOT ONE YEARS OLD. 

I have known the grandparents, the home we were having the party in, for about 20 years.  The grandmother worked for Mervyns for a long time.  She started out one day a week in gift wrap and ended up closing out registers at night.  In any case, when Mervyns closed, she went on unemployment.  She has been on unemployment for over a year, and with the fiasco called Congress, on break, no emergency funding was allocated and 1.3 million people lose benefits.

Unemployment was like social security (go back to Roosevelt's statements on its purpose) - it was not intended as a permanent and sole economic source.  This grandmother I know never had a desire to go back to work.  She only started working at Mervyns for a few extra dollars.  Their mortgage is suspended by Proposition 13 and they remain in the same home.  Their mortgage would be at most a couple hundred dollars a month, and for a home with a pool, it isn't bad.

However, I had to hear about the 'mean old Republicans' ... with one thoughtful comment 'if they have enough money for war they have enough money for unemployment'  - referencing Republicans and war.  I am at a loss.  In less than six months, according to the Wall Street Journal, a host of new taxes will be thrown at us, those who earn very little all the way up the ladder to the super rich, all 12 of them.  Yet these people were more concerned about what ius happening now, unaware of taxes, unaware of virtually everything.  Their son, since I have known him, has spent more time unemployed, or simply not working (which is distinguished from being unemployed by the time not working equal to or greater than one year) - and fails to pay his bills very often or at all, went on and on and on about how the Republicans were cruel and hypocritical.

Perhaps a little reality:




Democrats have been painting Republicans as unsympathetic to the long-term unemployed who will be unable to collect benefits, but Democratic leaders have rejected several offers by the GOP to vote for the bill if at least some of it is paid for.


"My concern is that the Democrats are more interested in having this issue to demagogue for political gamesmanship than they are in simply passing the benefits extension," said Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, who offered a deal that was rejected by Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.


Democratic leaders were quick to attack Republicans for opposing the benefits, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., calling their opposition "just cruel" and "contrary to what our country is about."


Republicans, meanwhile, stood firm in their argument that extending benefits should not add to the deficit.


Voinovich told Reid he would vote for extending benefits if at least half of the extension could be paid for with unused money from the $787 billion stimulus package.


"I came to the table with a fair compromise, and the ball is in their court," said Voinovich, whose state suffers from a 10.7 percent unemployment rate.


The House passed a sixth-month extension on Thursday, but the Senate was long gone by then, having shut down early so that the late Sen. Robert Byrd's body could lie in repose in the chamber. Any future action by the Senate will have to wait until lawmakers return on July 12.















obama and taxes

Ironic - Biden doesn't lie, he simply makes stuff up

Oh what a difference a year makes ...





Biden: We Can't Recover All the Jobs Lost

Stephanie Condon
June 25, 2010
CBSNews.com
 
 
Vice President Joe Biden gave a stark assessment of the economy today, telling an audience of supporters, "there's no possibility to restore 8 million jobs lost in the Great Recession."


Appearing at a fundraiser with Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) in Milwaukee, the vice president remarked that by the time he and President Obama took office in 2008, the gross domestic product had shrunk and hundreds of thousands of jobs had been lost.

"We inherited a godawful mess," he said, adding there was "no way to regenerate $3 trillion that was lost. Not misplaced, lost."

Claims for jobless benefits fell by the largest number in two months last week, but were still high enough to signal weak job growth. Meanwhile, the Senate on Thursday failed to pass an extension of unemployment benefits.

Biden said today the economy is improving and noted that in the past four quarters, there has been 4 percent growth in the economy. Over the last five months, more than 500,000 private sector jobs were created.

"We know that's not enough," the vice president said.

Last week the White House put out a Recovery and Reinvestment Act update claiming that between 2.2 million and 2.8 million jobs were either saved or created because of the stimulus as of March 2010. In signing the Recovery Act into law on Feb 17, 2009, Mr. Obama said the measure "will create or save 3-and-a-half million jobs over the next two years."


Let's look back a little, to July 11, 2009:  Obama Says Economic Stimulus Plan Worked as Intended.  His $787 billion stimulus bill has worked as intended.  Interesting given things have gone from bad to worse since July 2009.    The program was enacted in February 2009.


Yet Mr. Obama stated that his program helped state governments save jobs (imagine - probably twenty million imaginary jobs you cannot verify).  February 2009 to February 2010 = 13+ months.  March 2010 to June 2010 = 3+ months.  Total 17 months.  Mr. Obama said that the measure “was not designed to work in four months -- it was designed to work over two years.”  Two years = 24 months.  We have 7 months left to see the magic.


Yet, Obama also told us that his spending plan will “accelerate greatly” through the summer and autumn, creating “thousands more infrastructure projects” that will lead to additional jobs.  In July the spending would accelerate greatly and continue through the summer of 2009 and into the autumn.  Did we see expansive spending - yes, but no positive effect on the economy as yet.


Mr. Biden stepped into the fray, as he so often does and inserted his foot, then his leg ... “Remember, we’re only 140 days into this deal.  It’s supposed to take 18 months.”


Mr. Biden, we are at 17 months now.  You have 1 months.  Most certainly because you were so specific I believe we should hold you to that certainty.

Let's keep pondering the unponderable ...

Valerie Jarrett had the most conservative count, saying “the Recovery Act saved thousands and thousands of jobs,” while David Axelrod gave the bill the most credit, saying it has “created more than – or saved more than 2 million jobs.” Press Secretary Robert Gibbs came in between them, saying the plan had “saved or created 1.5 million jobs.”


* Vice President Joe Biden on Friday: The stimulus "is responsible for over 1 million jobs so far."

* White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett on Oct. 18: The stimulus "really staved off a disaster and we saved millions of jobs around the country."

* White House release June 2, 2009: "Just over 100 days in, over 150,000 jobs have been created or saved."

* White House senior advisor David Axelrod on June 7, 2009: "The stimulus itself has produced hundreds of thousands of jobs."

* Vice President Biden on June 2, 2009: The stimulus is "an initial big jolt to give the economy a real head start."


Amazing.  More than 1.5 million jobs created or saved plus more to follow, except now Biden tells us they can't bring back all the lost jobs.  Except Mr. Biden, 2 million is pretty close to the number lost.












 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Biden

Sestak on Clinton Offer

Sestak statement on Clinton deal

By: Susan Ferrechio
Chief Congressional Correspondent
05/28/10 2:36 PM EDT

The statement from Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., about the White House Counsel’s Office report on his allegations that the Obama administration offered him a “high-up” federal job in exchange for not entering the Democratic Senate primary against Sen. Arlen Specter:


“Last summer, I received a phone call from President Clinton. During the course of the conversation, he expressed concern over my prospects if I were to enter the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate and the value of having me stay in the House of Representatives because of my military background. He said that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had spoken with him about my being on a Presidential Board while remaining in the House of Representatives. I said no. I told President Clinton that my only consideration in getting into the Senate race or not was whether it was the right thing to do for Pennsylvania working families and not any offer. The former President said he knew I’d say that, and the conversation moved on to other subjects.

“There are many important challenges facing Pennsylvania and the rest of the country. I intend to remain focused on those issues and continue my fight on behalf of working families.”







 
 
 
 
 
 
corruption

Times they are a changin' and Health Care is Losing Support as is Obama

With his lowest ratings yet and more than 60% wanting his health fiasco to go away, it really does not look good for Mr. Obama.

It helps to explain why Democrats are running away from him,. why James Carville has turned, why MSNBC is not as happy, why ... the media are turning.

If I was Nancy Pelosi, I would not be planning many more trips on her private jets at our expense.

Times, they are a changin'




RASMUSSEN POLLS


Health Care Law


63% Favor Repeal of National Health Care Plan

Monday, May 24, 2010

Support for repeal of the new national health care plan has jumped to its highest level ever. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 63% of U.S. voters now favor repeal of the plan passed by congressional Democrats and signed into law by President Obama in March.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
obama

The Rise of Outrage

US Sen. Bob Bennett ousted at Utah GOP convention


Brock Vergakis, Associated Press Writer
May 8, 2010


.SALT LAKE CITY – Republican Sen. Bob Bennett was thrown out of office Saturday by delegates at the Utah GOP convention in a stunning defeat for a once-popular three-term incumbent who fell victim to a growing conservative movement nationwide.

Bennett's failure to make it into Utah's GOP primary — let alone win his party's nomination — makes him the first congressional incumbent to be ousted this year and demonstrates the difficult challenges candidates are facing from the right in 2010.

"The political atmosphere obviously has been toxic and it's very clear that some of the votes that I have cast have added to the toxic environment," an emotional Bennett told reporters, choking back tears.

"Looking back on them, with one or two very minor exceptions, I wouldn't have cast any of them any differently even if I had known at the time they were going to cost me my career."

Bennett didn't answer questions after his loss but earlier Saturday told The Associated Press he wouldn't rule out a write-in candidacy. State law prohibits him from running as an independent.

"I do think I still have a lot of juice left in me, as I said in the speech, and we'll see what the future may bring," Bennett said following his loss.

Bennett survived a first round of voting Saturday among roughly 3,500 delegates but was eliminated when he finished a distant third in the second round. He garnered just under 27 percent of the vote while businessman Tim Bridgewater had 37 percent and attorney Mike Lee got 36 percent. Lee and Bridgewater will face each other in a June 22 primary after a third round of voting in which neither got the 60 percent necessary to win outright.

"Don't take a chance on a newcomer," Bennett had pleaded in his brief speech to the delegates before the second round of voting began. "There's too much at stake."

Yet that urging, and Bennett's endorsements by the National Rifle Association and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, did little to stave off anger toward the Washington establishment from delegates.

"The bailout bothers me. That in and of itself is unforgivable in my opinion," said delegate Scott White, a 58-year-old general contractor from Taylorsville.

Bennett, 76, initially faced seven Republican opponents who said he wasn't conservative enough for ultraconservative Utah. Lee, 38, and Bridgewater, 49, campaigned largely by saying they're better suited to rein in government spending than Bennett.

"I will fight every day as your U.S. senator for limited government, to end the cradle-to-grave entitlement mentality, for a balanced budget, to protect our flag, our borders and our national security and for bills that can be read before they receive a final vote in congress," Lee said in his convention speech.

Opposition to Bennett couldn't be chalked up solely to general anti-incumbency fervor, however. Neither of Utah's two Republican congressmen were at risk of losing their seats, and Republican Gov. Gary Herbert easily won his party's nomination.

And last week, voters in primaries in North Carolina and Ohio retained their incumbents while those in Indiana turned to a former senator — Republican Dan Coats — despite the nation's frustration with the Washington establishment.

Bennett was under fire for voting to bail out Wall Street, co-sponsoring a bipartisan bill mandating health insurance coverage and for aggressively pursuing earmarks. He tried to reassure delegates Saturday, before any voting, that he is a fiscal conservative.

"You want to get deficits under control. I have authored bills to rein in the entitlement spending that now makes up two-thirds of the federal budget," Bennett said. "I've already voted for a balanced budget amendment three times and I will again while making certain that it won't be turned into a tax increase for Democrats. Our tax burden is already too high."

Some delegates, who tend to be more conservative than other Utah Republicans, were also upset he's still in office after initially promising to only serve two terms when first elected in 1992.

"I think he's lost touch," said delegate Gary Crofts. "I'm excited to get a new person in there and fire things up a little."

Romney introduced Bennett on Saturday — to a mix of cheers and boos.

"Today, he faces an uphill battle at this convention," Romney acknowledged in his speech. "Some may disagree with a handful of his votes or simply want a new face. But with the sweep and arrogance of the liberal onslaught today in Washington, we need Bob Bennett's skill, and intellect and loyalty."

In his 2004 campaign, Bennett didn't run a single television commercial and won a third term in the general election with 69 percent of the vote.

The 2010 campaign was clearly different. He acknowledged he should have spent more time in Utah the past couple of years letting Republican activists get to know him, but didn't imagine Republicans would be angry enough with Washington to target one of their own.

Recently, he has said part of his problem with delegates has been that he doesn't go on conservative cable talk shows and offer angry sound bites. Instead, he said he likes to work on finding practical solutions.

Utah's unique nominating process also played a critical role in his defeat. The 3,500 delegates wield enormous power and can decide the fate of entire elections in a state of nearly 3 million, and winner of the Republican race is all but guaranteed victory in November because Utah is so overwhelmingly GOP.

The system forced Bennett to mount an all-out push for delegates in recent weeks as he went from one small-town political gathering to another to court convention votes. He has a huge campaign bank account but no need to spend much of it because the convention process is geared toward face-to-face encounters with delegates.

Bennett's defeat is the latest in a series of surprising political developments in a year in which the tea party movement has amassed growing power.

In January, then-little-known Republican Scott Brown won the Massachusetts Senate seat long held by the late Edward Kennedy. Several incumbents from both parties have opted not to seek re-election as they face difficult challenges, and GOP Florida Gov. Charlie Crist recently opted to run as an independent in his Senate bid rather than face defeat at the hands of his own party.

Other GOP candidates likely were watching Saturday's results closely to see if it's an indicator of things to come.

In Arizona, Sen. John McCain is in a tough primary fight against former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, a conservative talk-radio host. In Kentucky, Rand Paul, the son of libertarian Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, is gaining momentum in his challenge against the GOP establishment's pick of Secretary of State Trey Grayson to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning.

In New Hampshire, former Attorney General Kelly Ayotte is battling three Republican challengers to fill the seat being vacated by Republican Judd Gregg.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
tea baggers

Donations: Who Gave What and How Much to Mr. Obama?

This table lists the top donors to this candidate in the 2008 election cycle. The organizations themselves did not donate , rather the money came from the organization's PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families.
University of California $1,591,395

Goldman Sachs $994,795

Harvard University $854,747

Microsoft Corp $833,617

Google Inc $803,436

Citigroup Inc $701,290

JPMorgan Chase & Co $695,132

Time Warner $590,084

Sidley Austin LLP $588,598

Stanford University $586,557

National Amusements Inc $551,683

UBS AG $543,219

Wilmerhale Llp $542,618

Skadden, Arps et al $530,839

IBM Corp $528,822

Columbia University $528,302

Morgan Stanley $514,881

General Electric $499,130

US Government $494,820   <-- this one is puzzling?

Latham & Watkins $493,835

Source:  Center for Responsive Politics
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
donations

The English and Political Correctness: Helmand Province

Do you want to win or not?  You WILL NOT win if you play the game this way.  It does not win over converts.  Mohammed Ekhlas laughed at them the entire time, knowing he would always return to killing Marines when he was finished playing their game.  Destroy good men to save evil.

Foolish stupid people.  You make it more likely THEY win.




Yes, this Marine with 18 years’ service hit a Taliban bomber suspect, cutting his lip. But did he REALLY deserve to have his life ruined?




By Nick Craven
11th April 2010



Mark Leader was only six when the Task Force set sail for the Falklands in 1982. The tales of military courage and derring-do which filtered back from that distant conflict would inspire him, as would the dream that one day he might wear the coveted green beret of a Royal Marine Commando.

He did make it into the elite force, having enrolled on the tough Commando selection course even before his 17th birthday.

His service would take him all around the world, from Kosovo to Kuwait, Dungannon to Diego Garcia, but nowhere was more challenging than Helmand province in Afghanistan, where he served two tours.

And it was there that his 18-year career, during which he reached the rank of sergeant, would come to an ignominious end, after a moment’s misjudgment. A hitherto exemplary and unblemished record counted for nothing, it seemed, when set against a regrettable but relatively minor assault on an Afghan prisoner.

Last week, Sgt Leader, 34, along with 45 Commando colleague Captain Jody Wheelhouse, was thrown out of the Royal Marines for hitting a suspected Taliban bomber with a wellington boot. Mohammed Ekhlas had earlier been detained by Marines who spotted four men ‘digging in’ a roadside bomb near a British base in Helmand province.

The court martial heard Leader and Wheelhouse later burst into a tent where 48-year-old Ekhlas was being held and struck him around the head with the rubber boot, causing a cut lip, two loosened teeth and facial bruising.

The court rejected Sgt Leader’s defence (which he still fervently insists is the truth) that he was trying to stop the man from escaping.

Although Capt Wheelhouse admitted a charge of causing actual bodily harm, Sgt Leader denied it, saying he acted in self-defence against a ‘dangerous and violent prisoner’.

But even if the prosecutors were right and the articulate, quietly spoken NCO did let his disciplined professionalism slip for an instant (after three of his colleagues were blown up by roadside IEDs – improvised explosive devices), the stark contrast in the subsequent fortunes of the ‘bootneck’ and the bomber seem wholly unjust.

Ekhlas was handed over to the notoriously corrupt Afghan police and released without charge. Perhaps not surprisingly, he could not be traced when his testimony was sought for Sgt Leader’s court martial. No one can be certain, but few doubt that the Afghan would have returned to the bomb-planting which apparently led to his arrest.

For Sgt Leader, however, the alleged offence meant an immediate return to the UK in the most shaming of circumstances. Before the trip home, he was stripped of his firearm, his uniform and his dignity and returned to these shores wearing the kind of white paper forensic jumpsuit usually associated with murderers and terrorists.

During a stressful year with the case hanging over him, he vacillated between hope and despair, but only in his darkest moments did he imagine he would be cast out of the close-knit military family which had embraced him for more than half his life.

He compared the trauma of his dismissal to a divorce, but yesterday told The Mail on Sunday: ‘I took a split-second judgment and, presented with the same circumstances, I’d do the same again.’

Sitting at home in East Anglia with his podiatrist fiancee Jo Snook, 39, and their six-week-old son William, he must now contemplate the grim realities of life on civvy street with no job and a criminal record. He said: ‘I’ve got to apply for Jobseeker’s Allowance and get my CV together, but all the kind of security jobs which I might have considered are out for the moment because you need to be CRB-checked and I’ve got the assault conviction.’

Although no longer in the Royal Marines, he said that having joined straight from school, he would always be a Marine and remains loyal to them.

He recalled: ‘It was all I ever wanted to do at school from the earliest days. I was in the Scouts, then the Army cadets. Straight out of school, I went for the Corps, and was taken on for the five-day Potential Recruits Course and then the Royal Marine Commando course in Lympstone, Devon, for 30 weeks.

‘It was the toughest thing I ever did, very physically demanding, but it instilled in me the values that have made me a Marine: courage, courtesy, determination and unselfishness. I’m not from a military family, but my parents were very proud.’

His years of training and operational experience, which included two tours in Northern Ireland and even a stint filling in for striking firefighters, were nothing compared to Helmand.

‘Afghanistan was a very hostile environment. My first tour in 2006 to 2007 was as close to modern-day war-fighting as you can get, and we were out on the ground in very basic conditions for nearly the whole six months.

‘We’d create fire positions, occupy buildings, create an all-round defence and there was a lot of contact. Since then, the Taliban’s tactics have changed from trying to hit us head-on to using IEDs, but it’s just as dangerous.’

The fateful incident began at 2pm on March 19 last year near Wishtan base, Sangin, when four men were spotted planting an IED.

A patrol gave chase and two suspects, one of them Ekhlas, were arrested. He put up a fierce struggle, during which he received facial injuries. The other man was shot dead while escaping.

Five hours later, Ekhlas, in plastic handcuffs, was being held a mile away at Forward Operating Base Jackson, where Sgt Leader and Capt Wheelhouse were based, and the prisoner was put in the custody of their troop, to be held in a tent.

There, Royal Military Police Lance-Corporal Ellen Chun ensured he had food and took photos of his injuries. At some point, the cuffs were removed to allow Ekhlas to pray.

Sgt Leader said he and Capt Wheelhouse went to the tent to check on the guard duty, but upon opening the tent could see no guards, yet found the prisoner, uncuffed and standing up.

Sgt Leader said: ‘I immediately assumed he was making a run for it and I grabbed the nearest weapon available – the boot – and hit him with it and using minimum force put him down on the ground.’

L/Cpl Chun returned to the tent, having found Ekhlas a sleeping bag, and told the court she found the two men assaulting the prisoner, who was streaming with blood.

It turned out that the two Marines guarding Ekhlas had been in the tent, but were not immediately visible when Sgt Leader opened the flap, which led him to assume something was wrong and tackle the prisoner.

He said: ‘It was a split-second judgment call and the whole thing lasted about two or three seconds. I may have drawn the wrong conclusion but, given the same circumstances, seeing what I saw, I’d do the same again without hesitation.’

According to the prosecution, the two assailants fled the tent but Sgt Leader insists he went in search of his sergeant major to explain the situation. When he found him, however, he was ushered to another empty tent and told to wait.

He was then arrested, his clothes taken away for forensic examination and he was given the white jumpsuit, which he wore for the short Chinook helicopter flight to Camp Bastion.

He said: ‘I can still remember sitting on that flight and feeling anger and frustration.

'The other guys in the helicopter didn’t say anything, but you could see in their eyes that they knew what was going on.’

He was held overnight and flown back to the UK. It was not until three days after the incident that he got a chance to explain himself to the Royal Military Police.

He said: ‘In a way, that hurt as much as anything. I’d served 18 years with never a disciplinary problem but now, suddenly, without being given the benefit of the doubt, I was treated like a criminal and for so long never given the chance to explain myself.’

Eventually, he was released on bail and returned to duties in the UK, but for months was left in the dark as to whether the case would go to trial or be dropped.

Throughout the five-day hearing, Sgt Leader remained confident of an acquittal.

His lawyer presented expert medical testimony to the effect that swelling from the injuries sustained during Ekhlas’s initial arrest could have taken some hours to show fully.

Glowing character references from senior colleagues presented to the court spoke of Sgt Leader’s qualities of ‘calm maturity’ and ‘a man of integrity’.

He said: ‘I never expected to be found guilty. It seemed clear to me that the case was not proven. I was telling the truth. I was absolutely devastated when I heard the verdict. I felt anger at the justice system.’

He said the severity of his sentence had surprised his colleagues and that they had expected him to be retained.

‘To have this end my career in the Marines was way out of proportion to the alleged offence. This guy was caught red-handed planting IEDs and soon after the incident he was released by the Afghan police.

‘So he’s free to go back to what he’s doing, and probably claiming the lives of British troops, while the life I’ve known for 18 years has come to an end.

‘I may have been brought back to the UK wearing a paper suit, but on the same plane were the coffins of men who were killed in Afghanistan. Three of my friends were killed in the months leading up to this incident, one of whom had to be identified by his DNA.

‘Other mates have come back with severe injuries. I feel lucky compared with them, but I just want to put across the point that we are asking the troops out there to fight with one arm tied behind their back.

‘People should understand the extreme pressure it puts on young soldiers when they’re fighting an enemy which has no rules, while they have to be accountable for their every action.’

On Capt Wheelhouse’s guilty plea, he said: ‘I’m loyal to the Royal Marines and the chain of command, and he was in that chain.’

As he contemplates life as a civilian – still unsure whether he will receive a military pension and other benefits worth up to £400,000 – he refuses to speculate on whether he has been used as a political scapegoat, adding: ‘That’s not for me to comment on. We’ll never know I suppose.’

Sgt Leader did not seek, and was not offered, payment for this interview, but a donation has been made to the Help For Heroes charity.









 
 
 
 
 
 
England