Never Forget

I'll never forget 9/11 or the lessons of 9/11.

The primary lesson, of course, is that who the President is matters. Whether or not the President was a good student or a C student matters. The person I vote for for President needs to be smart. The President needs to read his memos. If the CIA flies all the way to the President's vacation home to deliver an urgent memo, the President needs to take that seriously.

President Obama is annoying me mightily these days by acting as though he skipped negotiations in law school. His "fight" for healthcare seems a lot more like McClellan and a lot less like Grant. (C students, feel free to look up those Civil War generals.) But I know he's smart. And if the CIA goes to him with an urgent matter -- as they may have already -- he's not going to tell the briefer "You've covered your ass now." He won't go fishing afterwards. Obama will go to work on the problem.

So we as a nation have finally learned the lesson of 9/11. But we must never forget that having a stupid person as President can be deadly.

Republicans Obscenely Show 9/11 Victims Dying as Their Convention Backdrop

Monsters.

The Republican Party has reached its basest nadir. The party of George W. Bush, the man who ignored the CIA's warning "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US", the party that let 3,000 people die on 9/11/01 and then used 9/11 to destroy the constitution, that party has reached a yet another low.

That party has now shown footage of the 9/11 attacks including graphic footage of the Twin Towers burning and collapsing.

During the family hour here on the east coast, 8:40 EST.

They are nothing but a bunch of sickos.

Boston Globe:

[A]t approximately 7:40 CST, when a video aired before delegates at the Republican National Convention included slow-motion footage of a plane striking the World Trade Center, the towers' subsequent collapse, and smoke emerging from the Pentagon.

Here's Keith Olbermann's commentary:


If you have the stomach for it, here's the obscene video the Republicans blew up on the big screen for everyone to see. How must the 9/11 families be reacting to this obscenity?


The Republican Party is a national disgrace. First they kill us; then they put us up on the big screen for entertainment.

President Celebrates 7th Anniversary

commondreams: AUGUST 2001: OFF FOR A MONTH OF JOGGING, FISHING & CUTTING BRUSH
President Bush, right, talks with staff at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, in this Aug. 6, 2001 file photo. That day Bush jogged, fished, and received a memo from the CIA with the title 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US'.
(Photo/The White House, Eric Draper/ File)

ThinkProgress: Flashback: Seven years ago today, Bush received ‘Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.’ memo.»

President Stupid told the CIA briefer who had flown to Crawford to deliver this warning: "All right, you've covered your ass now."

And then he went fishing.

On 9/11, "[e]xcluding the 19 hijackers, 2,974 people died in the attacks. Another 24 were missing and presumed dead."

Unbelievably, those were not even the worst days of Bush's presidency, as on March 20, 2003 he launched the war of lies on Iraq that has resulted in the deaths of millions of innocents.

Murderer.

Apocalypse Bush

12% of the soldiers who have died in Afghanistan died in the past six weeks. In the past six weeks, 64 American soldiers have died in the war George W. Bush has starved for five years to fight his war of lies in Iraq. Why doesn't the New Yorker magazine have a cartoon on the cover showing George W. Bush in burning hell, spending eternity looking under his desk for the weapons of mass destruction? Now that would be funny.

The press corpse continues to stink up the Presidential race. Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has dug up one of the bodies. Ron Fournier (we wrote about him here when he wrote a terribly slanted article calling Obama "arrogant") has been appointed head of AP's Washington Bureau. Apparently he's encouraging more opinion and fewer facts. Great. And since you can judge a man by the company he keeps, guess who Ron Fournier was emailing the day Pat Tillman was killed in Afghanistan and the Bushies were frantically covering up his tragic death? Ron Fournier, "journalist", was emailing with the Prince of Darkness Karl Rove. Here's their exchange, as summarized in a House Oversight Committee report:

Karl Rove exchanged e-mails about Pat Tillman with Associated Press reporter Ron Fournier, under the subject line "H-E-R-O." In response to Mr. Fournier's e-mail, Mr. Rove asked, "How does our country continue to produce men and women like this," to which Mr. Fournier replied, "The Lord creates men and women like this all over the world. But only the great and free countries allow them to flourish. Keep up the fight."

And after those pious niceties and expressions of patriotic solidarity, they lied to the Tillmans about how their son was killed. Reprehensible.

Edited to add: Here's a PDF of the House Oversight Committee report; the Karl Rove-Ron Fournier emails are described on page 23.

A little history is in order. Who was the biggest supporter of the Taliban in Afghanistan before 9/11/01? Why, it was George W. Clusterfuck, of course. This post at dailykos details the Bush Administration's decision to send a $43 million dollar gift to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan in May of 2001.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I don't think the U.S. government was in on the 9/11 attacks. But George Bush, a stupid, arrogant fool, did everything wrong in his first pathetic 9 months in office. He gave the Taliban millions of dollars. He ignored the Clinton administration holdovers like Richard Clarke who were running around the White House with their hair on fire over Osama bin Laden and the threat of terrorism. He spent the entire month of August 2001 on vacation, and when the CIA briefer flew to Crawford to read him the Presidential Daily Brief on August 6, 2001, with the ominous headline "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US", he told that CIA briefer "All right, you've covered your ass now". All President DumbFuckinFratBoy could think to say when the CIA dared to intrude on his brush-cutting vacation was a dumb joke. He didn't hear the urgency. He spent the month playing Solomon and splitting the baby, deciding that the country would allow stem cell research on very few cell lines, most of which are contaminated with mouse DNA. He fiddled while Osama plotted.

Worst. President. Ever.

We can't elect another stupid, out of touch, arrogant fool again. (cough, cough, John McCain)
.

Republicans Play Limbo

If the question is: How low can you go? Rudy Giuliani wins every time.

He's using actual video footage of 9/11 in a Florida campaign ad. You can watch his sick campaign video at the link, at Talking Points Memo Election Central. I won't link it here. I gasped when I watched it.

Truly despicable.

Time to repeat this sick Rudy Giuliani joke:

Q: What's the difference between a cow and 9/11?

A: Rudy Giuliani doesn't know how to milk a cow.

Giuliani Called Off 9/11 Recovery Efforts After $230 Million in Gold Bullion Recovered

Here's the video the New York City Firefighters put out to debunk the urban legend of Rudy Giuliani, hero of 9/11. I knew he didn't get the firefighters working radios in the 9 years after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and that's why so many -- 343 -- firefighters died, and I knew he put the emergency command center on the 23rd floor of the World Trade Center Bilding 7

But I didn't know that his controversial decision to end the recovery efforts for the bodies of the thousands killed there was made after the Bank of Nova Scotia's $230 in gold bullion was recovered. Then he started sending trucks of debris containing body parts to the Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island. No wonder the firefighters hate him. Rudy is no hero.

Giuliani Bungled Preparation in Years After 1993 Attack on Trade Center.

Critical failures by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani before, during and after the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, raise serious questions about his ability to be commander-in-chief.

In this thirteen minute documentary, fire fighters, fire officers and family members give dramatic testimony about Giuliani's leadership failures. Their dramatic stories tell how Giuliani failed to provide the FDNY with radios that worked, which led to the deaths of 121 fire fighters inside the World Trade Center's North Tower because they were unable to hear orders to evacuate.

Fire fighters also point to Giuliani's poor judgment in placing his emergency command center at 7 World Trade Center, a known terrorist target after the 1993 bombing.

This video documents the mayor's lack of respect for the fallen when he called off the recovery effort at Ground Zero on Nov. 1, 2001, after $200 million in gold bullion was recovered.

"We produced this documentary because we need to make sure our members know Giuliani's real record," said IAFF General President Harold Schaitberger.

"The UFA participated in this video to correct the myth that Rudy Giuliani has perpetrated on the American public," said Steve Cassidy, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York, IAFF Local 94.

The Giuliani campaign defended the former mayor's record by issuing a release that lists items he purchased for FDNY.

"But the campaign, with its response, has neglected to address the charges of failed leadership outlined in our documentary," President Schaitberger said.

"Purchasing equipment for a fire department doesn't qualify any mayor to be president," said Jack McDonnell, president of New York City Local 854, the Uniformed Fire Officers Association.

"If that's the litmus test for president of the United States, then most mayors in this country qualify for the job. Giuliani is running on his 9/11 record, and his 9/11 record is laced with failures in preparedness and response," McDonnell said.

The IAFF has not made an endorsement in the 2008 presidential election. Local 94 supported President George W. Bush in the 2004 election, while the IAFF
and Local 854 endorsed Sen. John Kerry.

The International Association of Fire Fighters, headquartered in Washington, DC, represents more than 280,000 full-time professional fire fighters and paramedics in every state in the United States and in Canada. More information is available at www.iaff.org and at www.rudy-urbanlegend.com.

No Chinese, Please

Smithsonian neg#77-1965 Neon Sign Display in A Nation of Nations at Museum of American History. SI photo by Dane A. Penland
Big Food has been importing cheap food and food "ingredients" from China. There's no FDA in China, and our own FDA barely inspects a fraction of the foodstuffs coming in to this country. The FDA has even been sending tainted products back, rather than destroy them; the producers just send 'em in again. And probably succeed most of the time, as so little is actually inspected, just 0.9% in 2006. I'm writing to my Congressman today in favor of a mandatory label on food products listing country or countries of origin.

litbrit at Shakesville: It's Time For America To Legislate Mandatory Country Of Origin Labels

WaPo: Tainted Chinese Imports Common
In Four Months, FDA Refused 298 Shipments

Dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical.

Frozen catfish laden with banned antibiotics.

Scallops and sardines coated with putrefying bacteria.

Mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides.

These were among the 107 food imports from China that the Food and Drug Administration detained at U.S. ports just last month, agency documents reveal, along with more than 1,000 shipments of tainted Chinese dietary supplements, toxic Chinese cosmetics and counterfeit Chinese medicines.

For years, U.S. inspection records show, China has flooded the United States with foods unfit for human consumption. And for years, FDA inspectors have simply returned to Chinese importers the small portion of those products they caught -- many of which turned up at U.S. borders again, making a second or third attempt at entry.

NYTimes: Poisoned Toothpaste in Panama Is Believed to Be From China

International Herald Tribune (reprinted from the Boston Globe): U.S. proposal to allow chicken imports from China raises health concerns

Chicago Tribune: Big holes frustrate food import safety net
China trade reveals gaps in FDA system

Keith Olbermann to Rudy: You Crossed the Line

Rudy Giuliani, who located New York City's disaster response headquarters in the basement of the World Trade Center, had fire and police departments whose radios could not reach each other, and elevated his corrupt driver, Bernard Kerik, to Police Commissioner of New York, says if a Democrat is elected America will be hit again by terrorists. Shameless. Keith Olberman says it much more elegantly: