So How Did Obama Do Last Night?

We wouldn’t know, because we didn’t watch. (99.2% of all speeches give your editors the heebee jeebees.) But! Here’s the thing we could take away from the proceedings, without even following them closely: whichever course of action Obama chose for Afghanistan, it would be a loser. Troop escalation doesn’t square with the left; a perceived [...]

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Tonight Your President Will Speak To America And Tell Us Why We Should Stay With Afghanistan, Even Though It Got Fat, Old, Bitter, Has A Drug Problem, Is Just ‘Okay’ In The Sack, And We Never Really Wanted To Date It In the First Place

THIS CHAT SHOULD GO OVER WELL: President Obama will be speaking at the United States Military Academy at West Point (symbolism!), and asking 30,000 troops from…somewhere…CanIHazSpareTroops.com, maybe…to head into Afghanistan, for More War. He will tell them (and us) all about how nice Afghanistan is this time of year, what with its rugged mountain terrain, [...]

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Just Another $50 Billion More, Please

Yesterday, the Pentagon announced that it would soon ask Congress for emergency financing in the next few months, to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although no official figure has been released, rumors of a $50 billion request are circulating. That’s in addition to the $130 billion in financing that Congress authorized for the [...]

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Poor Job Prospects In U.S Lead To Increase In Military Recruiting

Here’s yet another shitty consequence of the economic crisis: young people have decided their chances of not dying in a war are better than getting a job. Awesome. Yesterday, the Pentagon announced that the U.S. military has met all of its annual recruiting goals for the first time in more than 35 years (if you’re [...]

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The U.S Arms The World With Weapons; Probably Not Helping With The ‘Peace On Earth’ Stuff

SELLING A SHIT-TON OF GUNS IS GOOD FOR THE ECONOMY, AND GOOD FOR THE APOCALYPSE: It’s a win-win: “The United States signed weapons agreements valued at $37.8 billion in 2008, or 68.4 percent of all business in the global arms bazaar, up significantly from American sales of $25.4 billion the year before.” Just think of [...]

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Today’s Headlines: New York Senator To Send Military Gays Into Mexico To Fight The Drug Cartels

• The bipartisan Senate Finance Committee is edging closer to a health care compromise, according to the Associated Press. The latest draft of this measure completely omits a government insurance option, proposing a system of non-profit co-operatives in its lieu, and is not expected to require employers to provide insurance for their workers – both [...]

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U.S TO STOP PUBLISHING DEATH TOLLS OF TALIBAN FIGHTERS AND INSURGENTS KILLED IN AFGHANISTAN: It was distracting from the task at hand (was that not the task at hand?), and generally giving everyone the bummer. But how will we know who’s winning if we can’t read about all the kills? [Seattle PI]

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Today’s Headlines: Barack And Hillary Are Being Punked By The Foreigns; Meanwhile, Alaska’s Moose Population To Be Decimated By Sassy, Misguided Ex-Governor

• Hillary Clinton compared North Korea to a bunch of “small children”, and North Korea responded saying she was “by no means intelligent” and looked like a “schoolgirl or a pensioner going shopping”. Yow. Obviously, both sides are now open to talks re: North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. [Guardian UK] • Sarah Palin is no [...]

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Today’s Headlines: FEMA Trailers Make Homelessness Seem … Not So Bad

• Years of state and federal neglect have hobbled the nation’s unemployment system, leaving millions of needy people (roughly 40% of claimants) waiting for months for their checks. The number of jobless Americans seeking aid has doubled during the recession, while state funds have depleted, resulting in 16 states borrowing billions to pay out claims [...]

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Fox News Analyst Thinks Taliban Should Maybe Kill That Kidnapped American Soldier

LT. COL. RALPH PETERS SAID IT COULD SAVE THE U.S “A LOT OF LEGAL HASSLE”: But he went back on the O’Reilly Factor last night and softened from his earlier statements, simply calling the Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl a possibly mentally-disturbed liar and deserter. He claims to have gotten his facts from “a very senior military [...]

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UGH: “A prominent human rights group is calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate why the administration of former President George W. Bush blocked three different probes into war crimes in Afghanistan where as many as 2,000 surrendered Taliban fighters were reportedly suffocated in container trucks and then buried in a mass grave [...]

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Today’s Headlines: The War Report

• The Obama administration has reversed yet another Bush era policy by offering asylum to battered women from foreign countries. There are strict guidelines however, most of them pertaining to whether the woman’s home country tolerates domestic abuse, and whether her abuser is a terrible, terrible dick, or if he’s just eh sort of a [...]

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Headlines: It Was The Explicit Intention Of The Founding Fathers That Every Fat, High School-Educated American Slob Own Five Handguns, Because Of 9/11

• American demand for handguns (SECOND AMENDMENT!) has fueled a 28 percent jump this decade in world exports of small arms, a global report said today. According to the survey, the U.S. alone was responsible for about half of the worldwide increase in legal international gun sales between 2000 and 2006; the United States now [...]

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More Headlines: Trains And Cars Also Racist

• A freight train derailed and exploded in Northern Italy, killing at least 12 and injuring 50. [Talking Points Memo]. Oh and a car bomb hits NATO-supplying trucks in Pakistan, killing four. [NY Times] • As the U.S. begins its troop withdrawal from Iraq, the country is expected to start a much-heralded auction of licenses [...]

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Today’s Headlines: South Carolina Governor Lost In The Woods And Has Apparently Never Seen Deliverance

• Being a 14 year-old hired killer for your local Mexican drug cartel is a pretty cool way to make a living because you get to make some money, score hot chicks, and kill people. Oh and the tattoos you get in jail? Delish… [NY Times] • An untrained idiot (like me, for instance) would [...]

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An Influx of White Supremacists Into The Army Because Why Not?

HERE’S YOUR OPERATIVE STATEMENT: A 2005 Department of Defense report states, “Effectively, the military has a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy pertaining to extremism. If individuals can perform satisfactorily, without making their extremist opinions overt … they are likely to be able to complete their contracts.” Army regulations are alleged to prohibit recruits from being [...]

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Finishing Up Strong

A lawyer for Guantanamo prison detainees says abuse has ramped up since the inauguration of Barack Obama. Ahmed Ghappour (probably a foreign) attributes this rise in arbitrary ass-whoopin’ to frustrated and sadistic guards getting their last “kicks in” before the prison is shut down. The abuses, both alleged and verified, are quite deplorable. Not that [...]

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