Progress?

When daughter refuses to
let father see grandaughter
he hires hitman to beat her.

At a little after 3:00 p.m today a U.S. Airways plane with 155 passengers aboard, with an exceptionally skilled and experienced pilot in charge, made a remarkable emergency landing in the Hudson River. One woman suffered two broken legs, all others were rescued safely with either minor or no injuries. It was quite remarkable. If you are blind, deaf, and had no human communication at all today, you probably still know about this. But if by some weird chance you didn’t, I suggest you read the above over at least a thousand times and you will then appreciate the MSM coverage of this event. I was especially disappointed with Keith Olberman, who spent most of his hour on this, and then with Rachel Maddow who also spent way too much time repeating the same story. From the crash until now this constitutes the news of the day. The Israeli/Palestinian bloodbath in Gaza is already being forgotten (covered up?). Where does the MSM get the idea that every plane crash, car chase, or idiotic starlet must have 24/7 coverage until the next one comes along. What do they think, there might be one person somewhere at the bottom of a well in the mountains of Idaho surrounded by grizzly bears and wolves, to say nothing of FBI agents, that might miss out on hearing about it?

Oh, yeah, the Moron-who-was-never-really-in-charge-or-interested-in-being-President made his farewell address. This, thankfully, received very little coverage. He did not mention Gaza. I guess there weren’t too many people interested in listening to his outrageous lies and claims. I never really know whether he knows he is just blatantly lying or if, in fact, he is that out of touch with reality. Soon this fake President, with his fake “ranch,” and his fake compassionate conservatism, and his fake cowboy act, will ride off into the sunset into what future I do not know. Personally, I hope it will contain an orange jump suit or some elegant prison stripes.

Along these lines, there was a very significant development today. Eric Holder, who is to be our new Attorney General, said unequivocally that waterboarding is torture. Now anyone who is even near sane has known that for a very long time. But Bush/Cheney have admitted to condoning it, which means they have admitted to a war crime. Neither Gonzales nor Mukasey were willing to say it was a war crime, thus aiding and abetting war criminals. But if Holder has said it was torture, and if torture is a war crime, and if the Constitution insists that such crimes be prosecuted, well…take it from there. I guess this does not necessarily mean that Obama will go ahead with investigating and prosecuting, but it certainly appears to be a step in the right direction.

A similar positive step (I think and hope) is that the Senate agreed to turn over the next 350 billion of “bailout money” to Obama. Now if Obama uses it wisely, instead of just turning it over with to restrictions to the financial institutions as Bush did, perhaps the beginning of a real turnaround may proceed. I don’t suppose there is any chance we might recover any of the billions upon billions that were given to Bush/Cheney corporate cronies in no-bid contracts and cost-plus scams, but talk of a windfall profits tax on the petrogiants rings a bell with me. Let’s have it. With that, the decriminalization of pot, abandonment of the war on drugs, and drastic reductions in the military budget, we ought to at least begin to recover from the past eight years of unremitting theft, lies, distortions, and stonewalling.

Tanka:

Beautiful stranger
beside me on the train –
what is it about me
that keeps her filing her nails
for nearly fifty miles?

Tom Hartman



TILT:
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals want to rename fish “sea kittens” to discourage people from eating them.