Sarah Palin Educates the Public on When it is Okay to Call Someone a "Retard"

Rahm Emanuel recently made news when it was publicized that he had called liberals "fucking retarded" during a private conversation.

This sparked outrage from Fox News Contributor Sarah Palin (who has a child with disabilities) who called for Emanuel to resign.

On his radio show, Rush Limbaugh jumped on Emanuel's comments and proceeded to call liberals "retarded" as well. Take a listen:



This set the stage for Sarah Palin to be questioned about Limabaugh's use of the slur versus its use by Rahm Emanuel. Palin was asked about this on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace this past Sunday:



So if you are keeping score at home, in Sarah Palin's mind it is wrong for Rahm Emanuel to call liberals "fucking retarded", but it is okay for Rush Limbaugh to call liberals "retards" because of some perceived level of satire. I, for one, would be interested to hear Palin's analysis of how Limbaugh's so-called "satire" was artfully used on his radio show.

In the meantime, we have the witty and on-point Stephen Colbert to analyze the situation for us:

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Xe, formerly Blackwater, in the Running for $1 Billion Government Contract

Just after the turn of the year, it was reported that two men who work for the private contracting firm "Xe" (pronounced "zee" and formerly known as "Blackwater") would be charged with murder in the death of two Afghan civilians:

Christopher Drotleff and Justin Cannon are charged with two counts of second-degree murder and one count of attempted murder each in connection with the May shootings in Kabul. The 12-count, 19-page indictment returned by a federal grand jury in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia also includes weapons charges against the two men.

[...]

The incident spotlights the issue of the role and conduct of U.S. security contractors in Afghanistan. A similar issue arose in Iraq after a September 2007 confrontation involving then-Blackwater contractors that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead.

Blackwater lost its contract there after Iraq's government refused to renew its operating license. The company then changed its name to Xe, and it continues to receive multimillion-dollar contracts in Afghanistan.

This was not the first incident that has drawn attention to this troubled mercenary firm. You may remember the infamous Nissour Square Massacre in Iraq in 2007 during which it was reported that 17 Iraqi civilians were shot and killed by Blackwater guards. From a 2008 New York Times:

The Sept. 16 shooting in Nisour Square is considered by the F.B.I., the Pentagon and the Iraqi government to be among the most egregious examples of unprovoked violence by private security contractors. It ignited such outrage that the Iraqi government threatened to ban Blackwater from the country.

Since this massacre, former employees of the organization have come forward to tell tales of weapons smuggling by the firm into Iraq and allegations that implicate the founder of the organization, in murder. From an August 2009 piece by Jeremy Scahill:

A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company's owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company.

[...]

In their testimony, both men also allege that Blackwater was smuggling weapons into Iraq. One of the men alleges that Prince turned a profit by transporting "illegal" or "unlawful" weapons into the country on Prince's private planes. They also charge that Prince and other Blackwater executives destroyed incriminating videos, emails and other documents and have intentionally deceived the US State Department and other federal agencies. The identities o

f the two individuals were sealed out of concerns for their safety.

In the midst of all of these serious allegations that surround this organization, one would think that it may make the United States Government a little wary of continuing to hire Xe to operate within war-stricken countries, but then there comes this news highlighted by the Huffington Post (emphasis mine):

Now called Xe Services, the company is in the running for a Pentagon contract potentially worth $1 billion to train Afghanistan's troubled national police force. Xe has been shifting to training, aviation and logistics work after its security guards were accused of killing unarmed Iraqi civilians more than two years ago.

Here is a video that was created by ReThink Afghanistan that also outlines how this security firm is still in the running for lucrative government contracts even as there continue to be unsolved questions that surround various legal and moral issues:

Palin's Primitive Palm Pilot

From the "almost too weird to be true" file, we have the latest from Sarah Palin.

Last night the former Govornor and now Fox News Contributor gave her much anticipated keynote address at the National Tea Party convention in Nashville. Palin called for a new populist "revolution" and stated that "We're at war and to win that war we need a commander-in-chief, not a professor of law standing at the lectern".

During her speech Palin also renewed criticisms of President Obama's for his use of teleprompter in delivering his speeches. This point of criticism would quickly become almost too ironic to be believed. Take a look at Palin during a question and answer session after the convention, most noticeably during the :48 mark in the video:



It sure looks like she checks her hand for reference doesn't it? That would mean of course that she knew the questions ahead of time and still felt that she needed some additional help. I guess this isn't surprising considering that Glenn Beck revealed how paranoid Palin has become with people trying to "trip her up". Regardless, I wasn't completely sold on this despite the suspect video. That was...until this picture turned up (h/t Huffington Post):

and zooming in on the hand:

Sure enough, she has notes scribbled on her hand. It looks like "Energy", "Budget" (crossed out), "Cuts", "Tax", and "Lift American Spirits".

I doubt that this will affect her popularity among conservatives and I don't really have a big problem with her writing down some notes (isn't Fox paying her enough to afford note cards?), but the hypocrisy can't be defended. The same woman who rails against the President for using a teleprompter is now caught scribbling cliff notes on her hand so that she doesn't get tripped up in a Q&A session. Priceless.

O'Reilly's Unedited Interview With Stewart Released

For the first time in four years, Bill O'Reilly had Jon Stewart on The O'Reilly Factor this past week. I watched the interview as it appeared on the program and found it to be kind of dull. They would both make some uneasy jokes about each other, Stewart would get in some zingers about Bill and Fox, there would be some more funny comments, etc. It was somewhat entertaining, but nothing to write home about.

This was apparently what the producers at the O'Reilly Factor wanted to convey as is evidenced by the full, unedited interview that has since been released (h/t Dave Neiwert). The clips below are compiled by Crooks and Liars to show some extended segments that were edited out of the interview that originally aired on Fox. Stewart really takes it to Fox with some on-point criticisms of the network and it is far better than anything that O'Reilly actually put on the air:



Stewart nails Fox's behavior on several issues and when O'Reilly tries to defend the network, Stewart dismisses him with a "please" and a hand-wave. Fox's behavior as a so-called "news" organization is so obvious and blatant at this point, that it seems ridiculous for O'Reilly to try and put together any kind of defense.

I'll take these unedited clips over what aired any day.

Tom Tancredo: Obama's Election Was Due to a Lack of 'Literacy Tests'

The National Tea Party Convention is underway in Nashville and the event has already sparked some fun coverage from some of the reporters that are covering the event.

Just how many reporters? Well, after initially showing reluctance in issuing press passes, there are now an estimated 150 journalists covering the event. When you take into account that there are 600 paying attendees, that equates to about a 1 to 4 ratio of reporters to attendees.

Needless to say there were plenty of media around for the kickoff event in which former Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo made this statement (emphasis mine):

The opening-night speaker at first ever National Tea Party Convention ripped into President Obama, Sen. John McCain and "the cult of multiculturalism," asserting that Obama was elected because "we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country."

The speaker, former Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., told about 600 delegates in a Nashville, Tenn., ballroom that in the 2008 election, America "put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House ... Barack Hussein Obama."

Zaid Jilani at ThinkProgress states the obvious problem with this:

Given that the convention is being held in Nashville, Tennessee, Tancredo’s remarks are particularly offensive. For years, literacy tests were used across the South to disenfranchise African-American voters, who generally had illiteracy rates 4-5 times as high as whites due to historical discrimination and lack of opportunity. Unfortunately for Tancredo, the 1965 Voting Rights Act makes literacy tests illegal.

Talk about taking the country back to the days of the Founding Fathers.

Something tells me that this won't be the only interesting bit of information that comes out of this convention.

Reparing the Information Infrastructure

There was a fantastic edition of GRIT-tv that aired yesterday and that you can get more information on by clicking here.

In this episode host Laura Flanders spoke with her guests about the ever-changing landscape of the media and how we are at a critical point in the decision about how we will fund the "public good" that is journalism. Panel members include Robert McChesney and John Nichols (co-founders of FreePress.net and authors of The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution that Will Begin the World Again), Tracy Van Slyke (co-author of Beyond the Echo Chamber: How a Networked Progressive Media Can Reshape American Politics) and Kate Giammarise (co-founder of Rustwire.com).

The conversation is really vibrant and focuses on the problems that we are seeing with the quality of journalism since the collapse of the newspapers. Not only is the quality of journalism suffering, but the availability of jobs that compensate (young) journalists for digging into important issues is also a very real concern. Watch the 20 min. segment here:



Naturally this very issue hits close to home as I am one of those who must blog, write, research and interview all in my "spare time" and do so without compensation. I, like many others, am quite passionate about where society is headed and about the kinds of stories that are being covered. I completely agree with John Nichols and Bob McChesney that a strong and independent media is vital to a healthy democracy. After all, this is why I started this blog and contribute to The Cincinnati Beacon. There needs to be a reinvestment in the information infrastructure so that journalism and democracy can flourish in this new digital age.

I think the talk of subsidies are a great place to start as I recognize the need to initiate, develop, and compensate the work that needs to be done. After all (like others), I am but one person and my coverage of issues is limited to the amount of "spare time" that I am able to devote to my work. I can't take my camera to every public event that I would like, I can't devote the amount of time that is needed to do research on some issues that I think are important, and I must choose to spend my personal funds on continuing this work. We are at a very interesting point in time for the media and I think it is quite obvious how necessary it is for this conversation to continue on how to productively move forward. The media is and should continue to be, a public good; we are just in need of a new commitment to the important principles that will allow for a new age of journalism to thrive.

U.S. Conducting 'Night Raids' in Afghanistan

As President Obama's newly presented budget figures show an increase in war spending, journalist Anand Gopal has a very interesting piece that is posted over at the Nation.

The piece should be read in full and covers some troubling behavior that has become all too familiar to the discussion of the so-called "War on Terror". Gopal tells the story of how U.S. forces have been taking Afghani citizens from their homes during "night raids" and killing innocents in the process:

November 19, 2009, 3:15 am. A loud blast woke the villagers of a leafy neighborhood outside Ghazni, a city of ancient provenance in the country's south. A team of US soldiers burst through the front gate of the home of Majidullah Qarar, the spokesman for Afghanistan's agriculture minister. Qarar was in Kabul at the time, but his relatives were home, four of them sleeping in the family's one-room guesthouse. One of them, Hamidullah, who sold carrots at the local bazaar, ran toward the door of the guesthouse. He was immediately shot but managed to crawl back inside, leaving a trail of blood behind him. Then Azim, a baker, darted toward his injured cousin. He, too, was shot and crumpled to the floor.

[...]

Weeks after the raid, the family remains bitter. "Everyone in the area knew we were a family that worked for the government," Qarar said. "Rahman couldn't even leave the city, because if the Taliban caught him in the countryside they would have killed him."

Beyond the question of Rahman's guilt or innocence, it's how he was taken that has left such a residue of hatred among his family. "Did they have to kill my cousins? Did they have to destroy our house?" Qarar asked. "They knew where Rahman worked. Couldn't they have at least tried to come with a warrant in the daytime? We would have forced Rahman to comply."

"I used to go on TV and argue that people should support this government and the foreigners," he added. "But I was wrong. Why should anyone do so? I don't care if I get fired for saying it, but that's the truth."

In addition to being abducted in the middle of the night, these "night raids" are usually just the beginning of the process:

Suspects are usually sent to one of a series of prisons on US military bases around the country. There are officially nine such jails, called Field Detention Sites in military parlance. They are small holding areas, often just a clutch of cells divided by plywood, and are mainly used for prisoner interrogations.

[...]

Of the twenty-four former detainees interviewed for this article, seventeen claim to have been abused at or en route to these sites. Doctors, government officials and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, an independent Afghan body mandated by the Afghan Constitution to investigate abuse allegations, corroborate twelve of these claims.

One of these former detainees is Noor Agha Sher Khan...

[...]

The interrogators blindfolded him, taped his mouth shut and chained him to the ceiling, he alleges. Occasionally they unleashed a dog, which repeatedly bit him. At one point they removed the blindfold and forced him to kneel on a long wooden bar. "They tied my hands to a pulley [above] and pushed me back and forth as the bar rolled across my shins. I screamed and screamed." They then pushed him to the ground and forced him to swallow twelve bottles of water. "Two people held my mouth open, and they poured water down my throat until my stomach was full and I became unconscious," he said. "It was as if someone had inflated me." After he was roused, he vomited uncontrollably.

Gopal goes on to describe suspicious deaths of Afghanis who were taken in these raids as well as citizens who are still unaccounted for after being abducted from their homes. Gopal states that some are more afraid of these night raids than they are of the Taliban.

The entire article is very interesting and I again urge you to read it in full, but these are the very topics that need to be discussed in full when President Obama continues to talk about pouring more money into this war. While drone attacks often make headlines, it is these covert operations, often carried out by Special Forces, that fly under the radar. When it becomes a viable strategy to scoop up seemingly random villagers in these raids to hold them, torture them, and then potentially release them, some very real questions needs to be asked about the long-term gains from such a policy.

Anand Gopal was also on Democracy Now! earlier in the week. You can watch his discussion on this issue by clicking here.