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Posts Tagged ‘CNN’

And Bogartin’ It, Too!

Posted in History, Philosophy, Politics, Quotes, tagged #47:DonTheIncompetent, #47:DonTheLiar, #47DonTheFelon, American Politics, Brigadier General Steve Anderson, Bush II Administration, CNN, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Donald Rumsfeld, General Richard Myers, History, Iran War, Iraq, Philosophy, POTUS, Quotes, Secretary of Defense, Smoking Something, Truth, War on March 4, 2026| 2 Comments »

…Asked if Secretary of Defense / War Pete Hegseth’s claim that the U.S. can outlast Iran was accurate:

“That’s not how I see it at all. I mean, you know, it’s going to take an awful lot to dig these people out. I mean, what we saw today was essentially the same briefing that was given in 2003 by Donald Rumsfeld and General Richard Myers.“

Gen. Anderson recalled that when a former Administration [Bush II] announced the attack on Iraq, there was also no clear definition of the objectives:

“But what we saw was the Secretary of Defense was a tough, macho guy talking about killing and shamelessly sucking up to the POTUS, but he really wasn’t giving any specifics on what the long-term objectives are. ,” Anderson continued. “And I would say that we’re going to be in the same situation we were in Iraq. We’re going to be able to knock out their defensive capabilities, their offensive capabilities, establish air superiority, but they’re going to go underground. These are tough, resilient people. They’re going to be able to outlast us.“

Gen. Anderson cautioned that if anyone thinks the U.S. can “bomb them [Iran] into submission from the air, somebody’s smoking something.“

— Brigadier General Steve Anderson
Being interviewed by: CNN

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Click here (4 March) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

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God Help Us…

Posted in Politics, Quotes, tagged #45 - The Loser, #45TrumpTheLoser, A Few Good Men, American Politics, CNN, Former President Donald Trump, General John Francis Kelly, Gold Star Families, Jake Tapper, Lt. Col. Nathan Jessep, MAGA Republicans, Military Heroes, POWs, Quotes on October 2, 2023| 2 Comments »

“You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!“

— Lt. Col. Nathan Jessep (fictional character)
From the movie: “A Few Good Men“

[The quote above is what all MAGA Republicans need to think about when they read the excerpt below… — kmab]

Kelly set the record straight with on-the-record confirmation of a number of damning stories about statements Trump made behind closed doors attacking US service members and veterans, listing a number of objectionable comments Kelly witnessed Trump make firsthand.

“What can I add that has not already been said?” Kelly said, when asked if he wanted to weigh in on his former boss in light of recent comments made by other former Trump officials. “A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’ A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family – for all Gold Star families – on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.

“A person who is not truthful regarding his position on the protection of unborn life, on women, on minorities, on evangelical Christians, on Jews, on working men and women,” Kelly continued. “A person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about. A person who cavalierly suggests that a selfless warrior who has served his country for 40 years in peacetime and war should lose his life for treason – in expectation that someone will take action. A person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.

“There is nothing more that can be said,” Kelly concluded. “God help us.”

— Jake Tapper
CNN Anchor and Chief Washington Correspondent
From a post on the CNN website: “Exclusive: John Kelly goes on the record to confirm several disturbing stories about Trump“
The specific link to the full CNN page is: https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/02/politics/john-kelly-donald-trump-us-service-members-veterans/index.html

[General John Francis Kelly (Retired) is a former U.S. Marine Corps four star general who served as White House Chief of Staff for (then) President Donald Trump from 2017 to 2019. Gen. Kelly was former President Trump’s longest serving White House Chief of Staff. — kmab]

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Click here (2 October) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

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On CNN Interviewing #45DonaldTheLiar

Posted in Philosophy, Politics, Quotes, tagged #45DonaldTheLiar, #LyingDonald, American Politics, CNN, Free Speech, Hate-Speech, Lies, Philosophy, Quotes on May 11, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.

― George Bernard Shaw

[Former President Donald Trump is a loser, a habitual liar, and a con-artist. He will never stop lying and his hard-core followers will never give up on him. It is a waste of time, energy and optimism to believe otherwise. It is time the networks let Trump speak, but broadcast it in tape delay mode AND rebut his lies as soon as they happen. It does little to no good to point them (the lies) out after a town hall broadcast has finished and you are left a list with more than one rebuttal for each moment the speaker lies. “Free Speech” means that even liars and fear (hate)-mongers cannot be banned from spreading lies / hate. It should not mean liars are rewarded by being allowed to continually / sequentially state lies in “real time,” particularly when statements are demonstrably untrue (a provable lie). ― kmab]

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Click here (11 May) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

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Choice

Posted in Economics, Included Video, Philosophy, Politics, Quotes, Videos, tagged Care, Carl Sagan, Charity, Choice, CNN, Economics, Government, Homeless People, Included Video, Philosophy, Politics, Quotes, Responsibility, Self-Reliance, Socialism, Socialist, Ted Turner, United States, YouTube on October 9, 2020| 2 Comments »

“Are you a socialist?” Ted Turner asked Carl Sagan. “I’m not sure what a socialist is,” Sagan replied.

But I believe the government has a responsibility to care for the people,” Sagan said.

“I’m talking about making people self-reliant, people able to take care of themselves,” he continued. “There are countries which are perfectly able to do that. The United States is an extremely rich country, it’s perfectly able to do that. It chooses not to. It chooses to have homeless people.”



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Click here (9 October) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

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Rising Danger

Posted in Politics, Quotes, tagged #IncompetentTrump, Cesar Sayoc, CNN, Daily Kos, Demagoguery, Gabby Giffords, Hillary Clinton, Jargon Watch, Pipe Bombs, Politics, Quotes, Rolling Stone Magazine, Second Amendment, Stochastic Terrorism (n.), Stochastikos, The Rising Danger of Stochastic Terrorism on April 16, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Stochastic Terrorism
n. Acts of violence by random extremists, triggered by political demagoguery.

When President Trump tweeted a video of himself body-slamming the CNN logo in 2017, most people took it as a stupid joke. For Cesar Sayoc, it may have been a call to arms: Last October the avowed Trump fan allegedly mailed a pipe bomb to CNN headquarters.

No one told Sayoc to do it, but the fact that it happened was really no surprise. In 2011, after the shooting of US representative Gabby Giffords, a Daily Kos blog warned of a new threat the writer called stochastic terrorism: the use of mass media to incite attacks by random nut jobs — acts that are “statistically predictable but individually unpredictable.” The writer had in mind right-wing radio and TV agitators, but in 2016, Rolling Stone accused then-candidate Trump of using the same playbook when he joked that “Second Amendment people” might “do” something if Hillary Clinton won the election.

Of course, Trump’s people later said he meant they might … “vote.” That’s how it works: Stochastic terrorism lets bullies operate in the open with full deniability, since the random element erases any provable causation.

Tellingly, the word stochastic comes from the Greek stochastikos, meaning “proceeding by guesswork” and “skillful in aiming.” Both are apt here. It takes a master demagogue to weaponize unstable individuals and aim them at political enemies.

— Jonathon Keats
From his article: “Jargon Watch: The Rising Danger of Stochastic Terrorism“
Appearing in: Wired Magazine; dtd: Feb. 2019
The article also appears online at: https://www.wired.com/story/jargon-watch-rising-danger-stochastic-terrorism/

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Click here (16 April) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

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He Knew Damned Well…

Posted in History, Other Blogs, Politics, Quotes, tagged CNN, Dick Cheney, History, http://jrbenjamin.com/, Iran, Iraq, Kurds, Other Blogs, Politics, Quotes, Saddam Hussein, Syria, The Bully Pulpit, Turkey on January 17, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Once you got to Iraq and took it over, and took down Saddam Hussein’s government, then what are you going to put in its place?

That’s a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq you can easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off. Part of it the Syrians would like to have to the west. Part of eastern Iraq, the Iranians would like to claim, fought over for eight years. In the north you’ve got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey. It’s a quagmire.

— Dick Cheney
From an interview with CNN on April 15th, 1994.

[This quote was found at a blog I follow: The Bully Pulpit
The original post is located at: https://jrbenjamin.com/2014/09/10/its-a-quagmire/
It is an interesting site to visit if you have some time. Unfortunately, it is not posted to very frequently anymore. — kmab]

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Click here (17 January) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

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A True American Hero

Posted in Leadership, Philosophy, Politics, Videos, tagged 2017 Liberty Medal Ceremony, American Conservative, American Hero, CNN, Included Video, Political Leadership, Profiles In Courage, Republican Philosophy, Senator John McCain, YouTube.com on October 17, 2017| 6 Comments »



[For the full text of the speech, click here. — kmab]

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Click here (17 October) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

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Sea Worthy

Posted in Leadership, Quotes, tagged Accountability - Navy Style, CNN, http://conservativewahoo.blogspot.com/, John Kirby, Military Leadership, Naval Tradition, Quotes, Responsibility, USS Fitzgerald, www.cnn.com on August 24, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Amid questions, here’s what we’re sure of in the USS Fitzgerald collision…

“On the sea there is a tradition older even than the traditions of the country itself and wiser in its age than this new custom. It is the tradition that with responsibility goes authority and with them both goes accountability.”

It continues: “It is cruel, this accountability of good and well-intentioned men. But the choice is that or an end of responsibility and finally as the cruel scene has taught, an end to the confidence and trust in the men who lead, for men will not long trust leaders who feel themselves beyond accountability for what they do.”

“And when men lose confidence and trust in those who lead, order disintegrates into chaos and purposeful ships into uncontrollable derelicts.”

— By John Kirby
From the article: “Accountability, Navy Style” Thursday, 31 July 2008
Found at: http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/17/opinions/uss-fitzgerald-this-much-we-know-kirby/index.html
Originally from: http://conservativewahoo.blogspot.com/2008/07/accountability-navy-style.html

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Click here (24 August) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

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Why Don’t You Tell Us What You Really Think?

Posted in Politics, Quotes, tagged #DumbDonald, Anthony Scaramucci, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Boy Scout Jamboree, Claremont McKenna College, CNN, David Chase, Drama Queen, FBI, Gary Cooper, George H.W. Bush, Henry Fonda, Hillary Clinton, http://www.peggynoonan.com/, Inauguration Day, John J. Pitney Jr., John Wayne, Joshua Zeitz, Loyalty, Melania Trump, Michael C. Bender, Ohio, Opinion Pieces, Peggy Noonan, Politico, Politics, President Ronald Reagan, Projection, Quotes, Reince Priebus, Republicans, Sean Hannity, Tony Soprano, Trump Is Weak, Wall Street Journal, West Virginia, Woody Allen, Youngstown on August 7, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Trump Is Woody Allen Without the Humor
Half his tweets show utter weakness. They are plaintive, shrill little cries, usually just after dawn.

By Peggy Noonan
(Former speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan)
July 27, 2017 6:06 p.m. ET
This opinion piece originally appeared in: The Wall Street Journal

The president’s primary problem as a leader is not that he is impetuous, brash or naive. It’s not that he is inexperienced, crude, an outsider. It is that he is weak and sniveling. It is that he undermines himself almost daily by ignoring traditional norms and forms of American masculinity.

He’s not strong and self-controlled, not cool and tough, not low-key and determined; he’s whiny, weepy and self-pitying. He throws himself, sobbing, on the body politic. He’s a drama queen. It was once said, sarcastically, of George H.W. Bush that he reminded everyone of her first husband. Trump must remind people of their first wife. Actually his wife, Melania, is tougher than he is with her stoicism and grace, her self-discipline and desire to show the world respect by presenting herself with dignity.

Half the president’s tweets show utter weakness. They are plaintive, shrill little cries, usually just after dawn. “It’s very sad that Republicans, even some that were carried over the line on my back, do very little to protect their president.” The brutes. Actually they’ve been laboring to be loyal to him since Inauguration Day. “The Republicans never discuss how good their health care bill is.” True, but neither does Mr. Trump, who seems unsure of its content. In just the past two weeks, of the press, he complained: “Every story / opinion, even if should be positive, is bad!” Journalists produce “highly slanted & even fraudulent reporting.” They are “DISTORTING DEMOCRACY.” They “fabricate the facts.”

It’s all whimpering accusation and finger-pointing: Nobody’s nice to me. Why don’t they appreciate me?

His public brutalizing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions isn’t strong, cool and deadly; it’s limp, lame and blubbery. “Sessions has taken a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes,” he tweeted this week. Talk about projection.

He told the Journal’s Michael C. Bender he is disappointed in Mr. Sessions and doesn’t feel any particular loyalty toward him. “He was a senator, he looks at 40,000 people and he probably says, ‘What do I have to lose?’ And he endorsed me. So it’s not like a great loyal thing about the endorsement.” Actually, Mr. Sessions supported him early and put his personal credibility on the line. In Politico, John J. Pitney Jr. of Claremont McKenna College writes: “Loyalty is about strength. It is about sticking with a person, a cause, an idea or a country even when it is costly, difficult or unpopular.” A strong man does that. A weak one would unleash his resentments and derive sadistic pleasure from their unleashing.

The way American men used to like seeing themselves, the template they most admired, was the strong silent type celebrated in classic mid-20th century films — Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Henry Fonda. In time the style shifted, and we wound up with the nervous and chattery. More than a decade ago the producer and writer David Chase had his Tony Soprano mourn the disappearance of the old style: “What they didn’t know is once they got Gary Cooper in touch with his feelings they wouldn’t be able to shut him up!” The new style was more like that of Woody Allen. His characters couldn’t stop talking about their emotions, their resentments and needs. They were self-justifying as they acted out their cowardice and anger.

But he was a comic. It was funny. He wasn’t putting it out as a new template for maleness. Donald Trump now is like an unfunny Woody Allen.

Who needs a template for how to be a man? A lot of boys and young men, who’ve grown up in a culture confused about what men are and do. Who teaches them the real dignity and meaning of being a man? Mostly good fathers and teachers. Luckily Mr. Trump this week addressed the Boy Scout Jamboree in West Virginia, where he represented to them masculinity and the moral life.

“Who the hell wants to speak about politics when I’m in front of the Boy Scouts, right?” But he overcame his natural reticence. We should change how we refer to Washington, he said: “We ought to change it from the word ‘swamp’ to perhaps ‘cesspool’ or perhaps to the word ‘sewer.’ ” Washington is not nice to him and is full of bad people. “As the Scout Law says, ‘A Scout is trustworthy, loyal — we could use some more loyalty, I will tell you that.” He then told them the apparently tragic story of a man who was once successful. “And in the end he failed, and he failed badly.”

Why should he inspire them, show personal height, weight and dignity, support our frail institutions? He has needs and wants — he is angry! — which supersede pesky, long-term objectives. Why put the amorphous hopes of the audience ahead of his own, more urgent needs?

His inability — not his refusal, but his inability — to embrace the public and rhetorical role of the presidency consistently and constructively is weak.

“It’s so easy to act presidential but that’s not gonna get it done,” Mr. Trump said the other night at a rally in Youngstown, Ohio. That is the opposite of the truth. The truth, six months in, is that he is not presidential and is not getting it done. His mad, blubbery petulance isn’t working for him but against him. If he were presidential he’d be getting it done — building momentum, gaining support. He’d be over 50%, not under 40%. He’d have health care, and more.

We close with the observation that it’s all nonstop drama and queen-for-a-day inside this hothouse of a White House. Staffers speak in their common yet somehow colorful language of their wants, their complaints. The new communications chief, Anthony Scaramucci, who in his debut came across as affable and in control of himself, went on CNN Thursday to show he’ll fit right in. He’s surrounded by “nefarious, backstabbing” leakers. “The fish stinks from the head down. But I can tell you two fish that don’t stink, and that’s me and the president.” He’s strong and well connected: “I’ve got buddies of mine in the FBI”; “Sean Hannity is one of my closest friends.” He is constantly with the president, at dinner, on the phone, in the sauna snapping towels. I made that up. “The president and I would like to tell everybody we have a very, very good idea of who the leakers are.” Chief of Staff Reince Priebus better watch it. There are people in the White House who “think it is their job to save America from this president, okay?” So they leak. But we know who they are.

He seemed to think this diarrheic diatribe was professional, the kind of thing the big boys do with their media bros. But he came across as just another drama queen for this warring, riven, incontinent White House. As Scaramucci spoke, the historian Joshua Zeitz observed wonderingly, on Twitter: “It’s Team of Rivals but for morons.”

It is. And it stinks from the top.

Meanwhile the whole world is watching, a world that contains predators. How could they not be seeing this weakness, confusion and chaos and thinking it’s a good time to cause some trouble?

[I found this on her site at: http://www.peggynoonan.com/trump-is-woody-allen-without-the-humor/
I apologize to any who are offended by my posting this editorial without prior permission. Hopefully my full attribution to both Ms. Noonan and the WSJ mollifies you somewhat… — kmab]

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Click here (7 August) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

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Are You Confused?

Posted in Leadership, Politics, Quotes, tagged #DumbDonald, Alfred Montapert, CNN, Fareed Zakaria, GPS, Motion Without Progress, News, Opinions, Political Leadership, Politics, Progress, Quotes, Rocking Horse on March 10, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Do not confuse motion with progress. A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress.

— Alfred Montapert
Found on Fareed Zakaria’s “GPS” (a news / opinion show on CNN)

[Zakaria’s description of the first month of the Trump Administration. Literally, all show and noise, but little substance. — kmab]

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Click here (10 March) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

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On The Brink

Posted in Politics, Quotes, tagged CNN, James Carville, On Republican Debates, Politics, Quotes on September 16, 2011| Leave a Comment »

As I watch the Republican debates, I realize that we are on the brink of a crazy person running our nation. I sit in front of the television and shudder at the thought of one of these creationism-loving, global-warming-denying, immigration-bashing, Social-Security-cutting, clean-air-hating, mortality-fascinated, Wall-Street-protecting Republicans running my country.

— James Carville

CNN Opinion piece: “What should the White House do? Panic!”
at: http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/14/opinion/carville-white-house-advice/index.html?&hpt=hp_c2

[Jimmy, I couldn’t have said it better myself… — kmab]

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Click here (16 September) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.