On April 23, 2009, Right-wing Bloviator Sean Hannity volunteered to submit to being waterboarded "for charity".
It has now been
A long damn time
since he made this offer, and his nose is still dry.
It's also brown from kissing Bush's ass for eight years.
We all know he won't do it, because he's a pussy.
The higher of these two numbers below indicates which side of your brain has dominance in your life. Realising your right brain/left brain tendancy will help you interact with and to understand others.
In case you missed it, here’s the text of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s Memorial Day letter, as posted on the Huffington Post:
Today, as we honor America’s fallen soldiers, I ask you to join me in renewing our commitment to the men and women who have served our nation in the Armed Forces.
When I ran for Congress, I was clear about my opposition to the War in Iraq. But while I did not agree with President Bush ’s policies, I worked hard in Congress to provide our servicemembers and returning veterans with the health care and educational opportunities they deserve.
Now I am renewing those efforts in the U.S. Senate. Last week I introduced legislation called PRO-VETS, to require the Veterans Administration to seek out and provide our returning heroes with information on the benefits they have earned. It will eliminate red-tape and bureaucratic bottlenecks, and require timely responses from the VA to all those who inquire about the benefits for which they are eligible.
I was shocked to find out the following statistics from my home state of New York:
While there are 237,302 veterans in New York City , 181,360 are not receiving VA health care benefits.
While there are 121,183 veterans in Western New York , 87,217 are not receiving VA health care benefits.
While there are 85,401 veterans in Central New York , 61,220 are not receiving VA health care benefits.
While there are 54,360 veterans in the Southern Tier , 39,277 are not receiving VA health care benefits.
While there are 92,549 veterans in the Capital Region , 71,571 are not receiving VA health care benefits.
While there are 46,762 veterans in the North Country , 35,085 are not receiving VA health care benefits.
My legislation would close the gap between what our veterans are eligible for and what they are receiving. As I say in the news piece below, this is about shifting the focus of the VA to become pro-active, not reactive.
While the US government provides our veterans with many benefits, I believe there is much more still to be done to fulfill our promise to those who risk their lives for our country.
We need to expand health benefits to include treatment of autism for children of retired and active duty servicemembers.
We need to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell to allow our soldiers to serve openly and honestly, regardless of sexual orientation.
We need to expand access to healthcare for veterans and their families, including universal pre-natal care.
We need to provide incentives to businesses in order to expand the opportunities available to our veterans upon their return to civilian life.
In the meantime, it is my hope that my PRO-VETS bill, once passed and signed into law, will at least help veterans take advantage of the benefits that do exist. For me, this bill is my small way of saying thanks to our brave veterans for their service to our country. I encourage you all to join me in honoring our veterans and service personnel, not just today but every day. They and their families have earned our thanks and our support.
Damn right we have. I’ve been a supporter of Ms. Gillibrand since before the election, and will continue to be one as long as she supports our troops, our veterans, and their families. We need 99 more of her in the Senate. If only the Republicans had half her patriotism.
Until yesterday, the only media personalities who actually had the courage to submit themselves to waterboarding have been mainly from the left. Though some may have been skeptical at first, all were arguably predisposed to believe waterboarding and torture are, at the very least, synonymous. That is, that waterboarding is torture and therefore illegal and immoral. All their experiences did was confirm their own preconceptions.
Until now. Finally, a conservative radio talk show personality has had the integrity to find out, once and for all, for himself what waterboarding feels like. No, unfortunately it’s not Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage or G. Gordon Liddy. Erich “Mancow” Muller volunteered to do what Sean Hannity said he’d do a month ago and has so far been too much of a
to do it. Here’s the video:
The best quote from that video, of course, is “I do not want to say this. Absolutely torture.”
My hat is off to Mancow. He lasted 6 seconds, probably about 4 seconds longer than I would have. If Hannity had done it, that’d be $6,000 to charity from Keith Olbermann.
Every now and then we hear some unvarnished truth from the national embarrassment that the Republican party has become. Take, for example, yesterday’s words from Senator John Ensign (R-NV) regarding the political prisoners detainees currently being held at Guantanamo Bay:
“They get better health care than the average American citizen does.
And if that don’t say it all, nothing does. We are an international disgrace.
Jesse “The Body” Ventura brings the pain to Sean “The Pussy” Hannity, on Hannity’s own show:
It’s a beautiful thing. I was waiting for Jesse to ask when Hannity is planning on living up to his offer to be waterboarded for charity, but no such luck.
Just when you thought the misguided, ill-conceived, bastard policy known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” couldn’t get any stupider, we have this:
Lieutenant Colonel Victor J. Fehrenbach, a fighter weapons systems officer, has been flying the F-15E Strike Eagle since 1998. He has flown numerous missions against Taliban and al-Qaida targets, including the longest combat mission in his squadron’s history. On that infamous September 11, 2001, Lt. Col. Fehrenbach was handpicked to fly sorties above the nation’s capital. Later he flew combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has received at least 30 awards and decorations including nine air medals, one of them for heroism, as well as campaign medals for Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. He is now a flight instructor in Idaho, where he has passed on his skills to more than 300 future Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force weapons systems officers.
Since 1987, when Fehrenbach entered Notre Dame on a full Air Force ROTC scholarship, the government has invested twenty-five million dollars in training and equipping him to serve his country, which he has done with what anyone would agree was great distinction. He comes from a military family. His father was a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, his mother an Air Force nurse and captain. Lt. Col. Fehrenbach has honored that tradition.
Now, I know you’d think the Air Force would want to keep this guy for the rest of his natural life. He’s the poster child for military heroism, honor, duty and integrity. But no; the military has been taken over at the highest levels by proselytes and religious fanatics who think that homosexuality is just too darn evil to be tolerated, even if the soldier, sailor, airman or marine exhibiting such sexuality has served honorably and bravely for nearly 20 years.
No, that sort of thing has no place in America’s military. We just serve and protect the country, we don’t accurately represent it.
Folks, this is stupid. There is no logical reason to discharge this man, nor was there any reason to discharge Lieutenant Choi last month. Lt. Choi, you will recall, was until recently an Arabic linguist whose horrible crime against decency and public order was, well, being gay. Again, a highly trained soldier filling a role in a critical field was kicked out for nothing more serious than violating 19th century standards of conduct. You’d think the Army would want to keep as many Arabic linguists as possible. Apparently ideology trumps operational needs.
This is madness, and it must stop. Unfortunately, the one man who now has the power to make it stop, has shown little inclination to do so. I’m talking about President Barack “Yes we can, but we probably won’t” Obama. His latest solution to the problem appears to be to ignore it for now.
Maybe changing the law isn’t possible at the moment. He can still issue an Executive Order directing the service chiefs to stop implementing it, in light of the critical need for specialist personnel. Whatever. He really needs to grow a pair and end this fiasco once and for all.
For his part, LtCol Fehrenbach has made his case tonight, live on the Rachel Maddow show. Watch it on MSNBC.
It’s been a busy time lately, but I still like to keep up with the news. So, in a nutshell, here’s my take on … fuck it. Here’s some shit to read:
Dick “Torquemada” Cheney: I used to wish he’d go away and die slowly, but I’ve changed my mind. Who needs waterboarding when you’ve got a paranoid motormouth for an ex-Veep? Every time he opens his fat yap he reveals more secrets he probably didn’t want anyone to know. Keep it up, Dick. The cameras are still rolling, and everything you say WILL be used against you. Traitor.
Miss California: Nice tits. You, however, may shut up already. We’re not interested in your mind, only your body.
Rush “Fat Bastard” Limbaugh: Just shut the fuck up. We’re not even interested in YOUR tits, even though they are bigger than Miss California’s.
The (non)release of Torture pictures: For God’s sake, Mr. President, grow some balls already. It’s not the fucking pictures that people are upset about, it’s the fact that we tortured people. The sooner we prosecute and the perpetrators, the sooner we can put this behind us. Throw Dick in the dock and Bush behind bars and move on. Or face this issue for the next four to eight years.
Sean “Waterboard Me” Hannity: It’s been three weeks, asshole. Even Keith Olberman called you a pussy. Or did you miss the “here, kitty” comment just before “Oddball” last night? Come on, are you a man or a mouse? Oh, wait. You’ve never served on active duty. I guess we know the answer to that.
Torture Defenders: You’re all going to hell, you know. Every last one of you, even the so-called “Christians” among you. Because torture is not just a crime, it’s a mortal sin. And defending it makes you guilty of it. You know what’s the best part about occupying the moral high ground? I’ll never have to change my mind about this. Torture is wrong. Waterboarding is wrong. And anyone who defends it is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.
Sarah Palin’s Book Deal: Oh, please, don’t get me started. This is a comedian’s dream come true. The woman who can’t form complete sentences without a TeLePrompTer is going to write a BOOK? OMFG! YGBSM! LOL! Shit, I think I just wrote her first paragraph for her. Oh, wait – I’ve got the title, too! How’s “The Audacity of Hypocrisy”? Or maybe “Goin’ Rogue”? How about “Throw Alaska Under the Bus”? Or “How to Succeed in Politics Without Really Trying”?
Wow. Just when you thought the extreme right couldn’t get any more idiotic, they go and up the ante on us. Apparently, according to Hannity, Limbaugh, Ingraham et al, we’re to believe that Obama putting spicy Dijon mustard on his cheeseburger is some kind of “un-American” outrage. Here’s Sean “Waterboard Me” Hannity criticizing the President for his choice of ground beef condiment:
What kind of guy puts Dijon mustard on a cheeseburger? Um, how about an ADULT, Sean? Someone who’s not 12 years old any more and has decided ketchup and (bleah) French’s yellow mustard is, well, kids’ stuff?
I put Dijon on my hamburgers, Sean. And A-1 Steak sauce. Got a problem with that? I also put feta cheese and mushrooms on ‘em when I feel like it. Because I’m an American, dammit, and that’s my personal, free choice. I haven’t put ketchup and French’s on my burgers since I discovered good-tasting condiments. Like A-1 and Gulden’s Spicy Brown mustard. I suppose that makes me somehow “elitist” or “unAmerican” in the eyes of such great American heroes as Sean “Towelface” Hannity.
This is what the right wing has been reduced to – criticizing Obama for irrelevant shit because they can’t really say anything of substance about the issues. What a pathetic bunch of pansies.
Just when you thought the torture debate couldn’t get any worse, there comes this report from CNN:
WASHINGTON (CNN) — The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.
More than half of people who attend services at least once a week — 54 percent — said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. Only 42 percent of people who “seldom or never” go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified — more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did.
The analysis is based on a Pew Research Center survey of 742 American adults conducted April 14-21. It did not include analysis of groups other than white evangelicals, white non-Hispanic Catholics, white mainline Protestants and the religiously unaffiliated, because the sample size was too small. …
Now, while the sample size was admittedly very small (742 is hardly a valid statistical representation of American Christians) and limited, the results are still disturbing. For me, it shows that a sizeable majority of people who claim to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, have no idea what those teachings actually are or how they should be applied to daily life or national policy.
It also speaks to a toxic moral relativism that has been creeping through our culture for a long time. It’s the contagion of an “ends justify the means” philosophy, the sort of thinking that allows all manner of legal, ethical and moral abuses as long as the goals are agreeable.
It also shows a shocking level of ignorance on the part of many Christians. How can anyone who claims to follow a faith founded on the teachings of a political prisoner who was tortured and brutally executed, possibly support our nation’s use of torture?
This is wrong. Torture is wrong, it is evil, and there can be no justification for us or any other nation engaging in it. In fact, we have a moral obligation NOT to do it, because we hold ourselves to a higher moral standard. The fact that we’ve done it doesn’t make it right, it makes it doubly wrong because in doing so we have ceded the moral high ground to the animals within our own society. We have willingly sacrificed that which we claimed to hold most precious, on the altar of political expediency.
We will pay for this. We will pay dearly. The torturers, their enablers, and their supporters are all traitors to this great nation. They have led us down the path of destruction and death. It will be years, perhaps decades, before we can regain our standing in the world.
The moral high ground, once lost, is rarely regained.
To commemorate the first seven days of Sean Hannity showing his true colors (yellow), I’m proud to introduce my latest line of bumper stickers. I’m sure you’ll appreciate the clean, simple design and clear message:
(12)
