Joe Barton would like to once again say to his friends at BP, he is sorry for embarrassing them over apologizing and expressing his embarrassment at BP was sorrily treated by Obama. Poor BP had to just sit there yesterday and be apologized to by Joe Barton and for that he is truly sorry.
And especially to his dear, and very sorrowful friend Tony Hayward, who looked all day as if Michael Sheen was playing the role reserved for Frank Langella in Frost/Nixon, he is very sorry for expressing his sorrow in such a sorry way.
Especially since most of Joe Barton’s Republican colleagues are in agreement with his sentiments — for which they should be made quite sorrowful the next five months.
Iceland Passes WikiLeaks Law The Icelandic parliament has approved a package of broad protections for journalists, making the island nation perhaps the safest place in the world to afflict the comfortable and speak truth to power. Icelandic leaders wanted to create a haven for journalists and whistle-blowers and sought assistance from WikiLeaks, the website that recently released video of U.S. forces gunning down civilians and journalists in Iraq. —PZS New York Times: At 4 a.m. on Thursday, Iceland’s Parliament, the Althing, voted unanimously in favor of a package of legislation aimed at making the country a haven for freedom of expression by offering legal protection to whistle-blower Web sites like WikiLeaks, which helped to craft the proposal. As the Web site Ice News reports, “One of the inspirations for the proposal was the dramatic August 2009 gagging of of Iceland’s national broadcaster, RUV by Iceland’s then largest bank, Kaupthing.” One of the sponsors of the proposal in the Althing, Birgitta Jonsdottir, told my colleague Noam Cohen in February that Iceland hoped to become “the inverse of a tax haven,” by offering journalists and publishers some of the most aggressive protections for free speech and investigative journalism in the world. “They are trying to make everything opaque,” she said. “We are trying to make it transparent.” Read more
The Icelandic parliament has approved a package of broad protections for journalists, making the island nation perhaps the safest place in the world to afflict the comfortable and speak truth to power.
Icelandic leaders wanted to create a haven for journalists and whistle-blowers and sought assistance from WikiLeaks, the website that recently released video of U.S. forces gunning down civilians and journalists in Iraq. —PZS
New York Times:
At 4 a.m. on Thursday, Iceland’s Parliament, the Althing, voted unanimously in favor of a package of legislation aimed at making the country a haven for freedom of expression by offering legal protection to whistle-blower Web sites like WikiLeaks, which helped to craft the proposal.
As the Web site Ice News reports, “One of the inspirations for the proposal was the dramatic August 2009 gagging of of Iceland’s national broadcaster, RUV by Iceland’s then largest bank, Kaupthing.”
One of the sponsors of the proposal in the Althing, Birgitta Jonsdottir, told my colleague Noam Cohen in February that Iceland hoped to become “the inverse of a tax haven,” by offering journalists and publishers some of the most aggressive protections for free speech and investigative journalism in the world. “They are trying to make everything opaque,” she said. “We are trying to make it transparent.”
Appearing on Fox News and MSNBC to criticize the Obama administration’s response to the oil spill, Rudy Giuliani attacked President Obama for taking vacations after the oil spill and the Christmas Day bombing attempt, stating that “if it had been President Bush,” the media would have slammed him. In fact, Bush did remain on vacation after the 2001 shoe bomber attempt and was not criticized for doing so; moreover, Bush spent several weekends at the Camp David retreat in the months following Hurricane Katrina.
Attacking Obama’s Christmas bomber response, Giuliani claims Bush would have been slammed by press if he “remain[ed] on vacation” and didn’t “respond for three days”
Giuliani: “[I]f it had been President Bush, the media would have come down on him.” From the June 17 edition of Fox News’ Fox & Friends:
GIULIANI: They caught him on Christmas morning, the president’s on vacation. President remains on vacation for 11 days. Doesn’t respond for three days. This is a dilatory response that I think if it had been President Bush, the media would have come down on him like catch the dogs. And I think you would have learned something from that. You learn from getting criticized. He gets a pass. He doesn’t get criticized.
In fact, Bush waited six days before mentioning shoe bomber and remained on vacation
Bush waited six days before commenting on 2001 shoe bomber attack. On December 22, 2001, after Richard Reid attempted to light a fuse in his shoes while aboard a U.S.-bound American Airlines international flight, the passengers and flight crew were able to restrain him and foil the plot. Bush first mentioned Reid on December 28, 2001 — six days after Reid’s attempted bombing — during a press conference in Crawford, Texas.
Bush remained on two-week vacation at Camp David and his Texas ranch after shoe bomber attack. According to announcements from the Office of the Press Secretary (accessed via Nexis), Bush arrived at Camp David on December 22, 2001, and then traveled to the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas, on December 26. The New York Timesarticle noted that “it was six days before President George W. Bush, then on vacation, made any public remarks about the so-called shoe bomber, Richard Reid, and there were virtually no complaints from the press or any opposition Democrats that his response was sluggish or inadequate.” Politico added: “That stands in sharp contrast to the withering criticism President Barack Obama has received from Republicans and some in the press for his reaction to Friday’s incident on a Northwest Airlines flight heading for Detroit.” From the article:
Bush did not address reporters about the Reid episode until December 28, after he had traveled from Camp David to his ranch in Texas.
Democrats do not appear to have criticized Bush over the delay. Many were wary of publicly clashing with the commander in chief, who was getting lofty approval ratings after what appeared to be a successful military campaign in Afghanistan. The media also seemed to have little interest in pressing Bush about the bombing, or the fact that the incident had revealed a previously unknown vulnerability in airplane security — that shoes could be used to hide chemicals or explosive devices.
Giuliani attacks Obama for weekend trips during oil spill
Giuliani: Obama “was off on vacation twice” during oil spill. During the June 17 edition of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Giuliani stated that the oil spill was not Obama’s priority “because the president was off on vacation twice during all of this.” He later repeated his claim that “when we had the Christmas bombing, he was on vacation … remained on vacation for 11 days”:
JOE SCARBOROUGH (co-host): Well, the president himself said, though, on April 22 –
MIKA BRZEZINKSI (co-host): Yes, I just pulled up that –
SCARBOROUGH: On April 22 he called all the agency heads in and he said, OK, listen, this is gonna be very bad. It’s before — it’s before the thing blew out of the water, and he said this is the top priority for this government. We have to focus on it. This is job number one.
GIULIANI: Well, then that’s even worse, because if — if this was job number one, look at the horrible — if this is job number one, which I don’t think it was, because the president was off on vacation twice during all of this. If this were job number one –
SCARBOROUGH: Did you go on vacation as the mayor?
GIULIANI: Did I go on vacation as the mayor? No.
SCARBOROUGH: Isn’t that a cheap shot?
GIULIANI: No, it is not a cheap shot.
SCARBOROUGH: You never went on vacation?
GIULIANI: Not in the middle of a crisis, I didn’t.
SCARBOROUGH: Ronald Reagan went on vacation.
GIULIANI: Not in the middle of a crisis, he didn’t.
SCARBOROUGH: George W. Bush went on vacation.
GIULIANI: Not in the middle of a crisis. This is the second time the president has done that, and I resent it. On Christmas Day, when we had the Christmas bombing, he was on vacation –
SCARBOROUGH: It was Christmas.
GIULIANI: — remained on vacation for 11 days.
Obama visited Asheville in April and Chicago in May. The Obamas visited Asheville, North Carolina, the weekend of April 23. During that trip, Obama September 2005 and again during twoweekends in October 2005. Three months after the hurricane, news outlets reported that hundreds of thousands of people were “article, The New York Times reported:
On at least three occasions, in responding to accusations that the city failed to adequately protect the health of workers in the wreckage, he has boasted that he faced comparable risks himself. In one appearance he declared that he had been in the ruins “as often, if not more” than the cleanup workers who logged hundreds of hours in the smoldering pile.
[…]
So, how much time did Mayor Giuliani spend at ground zero?
A complete record of Mr. Giuliani’s exposure to the site is not available for the chaotic six days after the attack, when he was a frequent visitor. But an exhaustively detailed account from his mayoral archive, revised after the events to account for last-minute changes on scheduled stops, does exist for the period of Sept. 17 to Dec. 16, 2001. It shows he was there for a total of 29 hours in those three months, often for short periods or to visit locations adjacent to the rubble. In that same period, many rescue and recovery workers put in daily 12-hour shifts.
Salon: Giuliani spent more time at Yankees games than at ground zero following the 9-11 attacks. In an August 18, 2007, Salon.com article, Alex Koppelman examined Giuliani’s schedule in the 90 days following the World Trade Center attacks and found: “By our count, Giuliani spent about 58 hours at Yankees games or flying to them in the 40 days between Sept. 25 and Nov. 4, roughly twice as long as he spent at ground zero in the 90 days between Sept. 17 and Dec. 16.”
Giuliani has previously revised history of Bush-era terror attacks
Giuliani falsely claimed “[w]e had no domestic attacks under Bush.” On the January 8 edition of ABC’s Good Morning America, Giuliani falsely claimed that “[w]e had no domestic attacks under Bush. We’ve had one under Obama.” Media Matters has documented numerous domestic attacks during the Bush administration following the September 11 World Trade Center attacks.
Giuliani: “I usually say we had no domestic attacks, no major domestic attack under President Bush since September 11.” After falsely claiming on Good Morning America that “[w]e had no domestic attacks under Bush,” Giuliani stated during CNN’s The Situation Room, “I did omit the words ’since September 11.’ I apologize for that. I should have put it in.” However, Giuliani continued to ignore several domestic attacks that took place under Bush after 9-11 — including the 2002 attack at Los Angeles International Airport, the 2002 D.C.-area sniper shootings, and the 2006 SUV attack at the University of North Carolina — and dismissed the 2001 anthrax attacks, which were characterized by John Ashcroft as “a terrorist act,” because, Giuliani said, “as far as we know, that was not done in the name of Islamic terrorism.”
Blago Lawyers Try To Tie Kickbacks To Obama Donation As the Rod Blagojevich trial wears on, defense attorneys are attempting to tie the shady dealings that took place during the former Illinois governor’s tenure to donations made to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.
Angle Breaks Her Silence After refusing to take questions from reporters since her Republican primary victory, Nevada U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle (R) did speak to KLAS-TV about her positions on “transitioning out” of the Social Security program and eliminating the Environmental Protection Agency but then refused to answer other questions about other controversial statements. A video shows she was followed out into the parking lot but wouldn’t talk to the reporter.
But it didn’t end there. A campaign spokesperson later called the reporter “an idiot” and “another term that can’t be repeated.”
Stephen Colbert absolutely destroyed the rationales offered for continuing a military escalation in Afghanistan on last night’s episode of The Colbert Report: “In the search for reasons to stay in Afghanistan, we struck gold.”Colbert was mocking the “news” that Afghanistan has vast, untapped mineral deposits. It wasn’t news — The New York Times’ James Risen got […]
The United States has faced a vacillating dollar, calls to replace the greenback as the global reserve currency, and an international consensus that it should save more.
There are myriad ways packaged food companies mislead consumers through vague, false, meaningless health claims, and difficult to decipher nutritional panels.
The Hollywood Liberal is an anti-war, anti republican, from right here beautiful Hollywood California.
This site was originally started to help get The Worst President Ever G.W. Bush Jr. Out of office. Now that we have accomplished that
the goal is to get Obama to start acting like a Democrat, and not an butt kissing Republican Wannabee. We will continue to fight for that goal
. Thanks H.L.
