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Tag Archives: Sean Hannity

Enemy Combatants to be Released in America?

31 Mar

Once again the town crier of conservatism, Sean Hannity, gets it wrong. Crying out on his March 27th television show,  “[t]he director of national intelligence says Gitmo detainees will be released right here in the U.S.,” and later claiming: “…we’re going to release these enemy combatants on American soil, OK?”

Come on Hannity, you know that isn’t true. And yet you are continuing to spin these lies in hopes of spreading fear and panic among your listening and viewing audiences, many of whom get all their news from you, Rush, O’Rielly and Beck.

“Angels and ministers of grace, defend us!”

Hannity also referred to the detainees that “we’re going to release” as “Gitmo combatants.” However, National Intelligence director Dennis Blair has never proposed that the United States release “enemy combatants on American soil”. Blair has only outlined the “process” by which the government would determine whether, and how, to release detainees into the United States who are not “too dangerous to let out” and have not “committed offenses that merit punishment.” Gee Hannity, that would mean that the United States Government is talking about releasing innocent people from GITMO, not terrorist, nor enemy combatants. What’s this mean? It means Sean that you’re a liar!

Oh, and Hannity, I believe if you’d done your homework – ha! Like that’s ever going to happen! – you’d have discovered that it was the Bush Administration which first proposed releasing the indiviuals in question (detainees belonging to the Uighur ethnic group from western China) testifying before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in September 2008 that the 17 Uighur detainees “will be treated as if they are no longer enemy combatants.”

Hannity also claimed – in the same broadcast – his familiar rant that more than 60 former GITMO detainees have returned to battlefied, “…we actually have from the Pentagon 61 people that we released from Gitmo. Sixty-one have gone back to the battlefield.” Once again, if Hannity had bothered to either check his facts, or report the truth, that this is not true.

Wake up America! Hannity is a liar who wouldn’t know the truth about a subject if it walked up and sat next to him. He, Rush, Beck and all the rest are not reporting facts, they’re making stuff up as they go along. They claim that the current administration is trying to govern using fear and gloom regarding our economy, but these guys just can’t let go of the old Bush/Cheney littany that brouhgt us the Patriot Act and Justice Department Memos that gave President Bush the authority to tear up the Bill of Rights all in the name of security.  Remember what Benjamin Franklin once said, “They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Hannity, and his buds, would have us do just that.

 
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Posted by on March 31, 2009 in National Security, Politics

 

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Taxing AIG Bonuses is not Unconstitutional

26 Mar

Recently Rush Limbaugh, and now his echoes, Hannity, Ingraham, Beck, etc. have all taken up this mantra that Congress taxing the AIG bonuses is somehow “unconstitutional”.

Now I understand how such a mistake can happen, given the fact that Rush doesn’t know the difference between the Preamble to the Constitution and the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence, but honestly folks the Constitution is a pretty straight forward document, and it pretty clearly spells out what Congress can and cannot do, particularly with regards to taxes.

Article I, Section 8 states: “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;”

Exactly how is it unconstitutional for the United States Congress to levy a tax on the bonus money given to executives at AIG when Article I, Section 8 makes it pretty clear that Congress has the “power to lay and collect taxes”? Answer is, “it’s not unconstitutional”. But wait, that’s not all.

The 16th Amendment states: “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”

DOH! “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived”? Gee, that sounds like Congress can tax the living daylights out of not only these bonuses, but from whatever income it likes. Again it would appear that Congress has all the “constitutional” authority it needs to tax the AIG bonuses. Maybe Limbaugh and company should occasionally read the Constitution and then they’d know what is and what is not unconstitutional.

 
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Posted by on March 26, 2009 in Economics

 

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Newt is the Hope of the GOP?

26 Mar

So, let me get this straight, Newt Gingrich is the hope of the GOP? If you listen to Sean Hannity on a somewhat regular basis it would seem this would be Hannity’s assessment. At every opportunity Hannity places the idea in front of his listening audience, even repeatedly asking the former speaker when he’s going to run.

Come on Sean; pull your head out of your fourth point of contact. Yes, it is true Gingrich was the co-author of the GOP’s “Contract with America”, but then what? Well, let’s take a look back in time shall we?

It was under then Speaker Gingrich’s leadership that the Republican Party focused on the perjury charges against Clinton as a unifying campaign theme in national Republican advertising during the 1998 mid-term election. While Newt believed this theme would ensure gains in the November elections, the GOP instead lost five seats in the House — the worst performance in 64 years for a party that didn’t hold the presidency. Polls showed that Gingrich and the Republican Party’s attempt to remove President Clinton from office was not as popular a theme as he had thought among the American public.

Gingrich, as the leader of the GOP in the House suffered much of the blame for the election loss. Facing a rebellion in the Republican caucus, he announced on November 6, 1998 that he would not only stand down as Speaker, but would leave the House as well. Even though he had been handily reelected to an 11th term in that election, Speaker Gingrich declined to take his seat, and according to Newsweek, he had lost control over his caucus long before the election, and it was possible that he would not have been reelected as Speaker in any case.

So, the man who led the GOP to the worst mid-term election loss in 64 years for a party not in control of the White House; the man who resigned from the House of Representatives, not only as Speaker, but as a member of that body; the man who also filed for divorce from his wife while she was undergoing cancer treatments, so he could marry a staffer with whom he was having an affair is the man who Republicans should turn to? This is the man who will lead the GOP out of the desert and into the Promised Land? Good Luck with that.

 
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Posted by on March 26, 2009 in Politics

 

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Every President Since IKE has used a Teleprompter

23 Mar

Enough with the teleprompter nonsense already. Every United States President since Dwight Eisenhower has used some type of teleprompter device. Reagan was awesome at it, as was Clinton, and so is President Obama. George W Bush was terrible at using one, and that’s why there’s such an even bigger difference between his dreadful public speaking attempts and the current president’s.

Using a teleprompter doesn’t mean President Obama doesn’t understand what he’s saying Rush, or Hannity, or any number of koolaid slurping, mind numbed ditto heads, unless of course you’re willing to make the same claim about Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Dwight Eisenhower, George Bush or his son, as well. Which of course, you’re not.

No one who does a lot of public speaking, not even Hannity or Limbaugh, handles themselves as well speaking off the cuff as they do with a prepared text. I notice Rush uses prepared notes on his radio show. We don’t need to think very hard to remember President Bush’s horrendous off the cuff remarks. Gee, something about OBGYN’s not being able to practice their love with women? Or some such thing. Ring a bell?

Of course if this is the only thing you can find wrong with our current President, then hammer away. Prove yourselves to be as ignorant as you always do. But do us all a favor and find something with substance to fill the nation’s air waves with. Please.

 
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Posted by on March 23, 2009 in Politics

 

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Hannity is a Liar

12 Mar

sean-hannity

How can someone who consistently lies claim to be serving either his country or his party? And yet Sean Hannity is looked up to by millions of listeners each day who call his show and proclaim, “Oh, Sean, you’re a great American”. PLEASE!

Hannity is nothing more than a liar. He doesn’t report news, he doesn’t even comment on it very well, he makes stuff up, and his listeners suck the right-wing koolaid in through their audio IVs.

His biggest lie of late has been repeating over and over again how President Obama lied about cutting ear marks. Earth to Sean. The President never promised that. Your candidate, John McCain did. So, you’re basically saying the President is a liar because he didn’t keep McCain’s promises.

But, hey, don’t take my word for it, here’s what Hannity has been spewing.

The following is from the March 11 edition of Fox News’ Hannity: as reported by Media Matters.

Hannity said, “Barack Obama, in the debate with John McCain, said, “I’m going to go line by line. I’m going to eliminate all the earmarks.” Now, I think politically speaking, Barack Obama had a golden opportunity to stand up to his party and say, “I’m a man of my word, I promised the American people, and I’m going to keep it.” He didn’t do that. Was that a big mistake?

“If you say, “I’m going to go line by line, I’m gonna eliminate bad programs, I’m gonna eliminate all earmarks,” that seems to me like a broken promise.

“But is it petty if Barack Obama says, “I am going to go line by line and eliminate earmarks,” and the first bill he signs — 50 days into his administration — he signs a bill with 9,000 earmarks? That’s a broken pledge.”

Oh Sean, Sean, Sean, Sean. If McCain makes the promise; which he did; then how is it Obama’s promise? He – Obama – never said it. Therefore Mr. Hannity, you’re a bald faced liar.

Oh, and by the way Mr. Hannity, if we’re going to talk about broken promises, when are you going to be water boarded for the families of our fallen soldiers, like you said you would be?

 
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Posted by on March 12, 2009 in Right Wing Radio

 

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Right Wing Radio is Fading

30 Jan

For two, count em two, consecutive election cycles right wing talk radio has attempted to swing the votes of the American public, and failed.

During the 2006 Congressional elections, Limbaugh, Hannity, Boortz, etc, made wild accusations trying to scare people into continuing to support a conservative political agenda responsible for Iraq, Gitmo, the Patriot Act, Abu Ghraib. They failed. In 2006, the Democrats took control of Congress in-spite-of Hannity and company claiming America couldn’t afford Nancy Pelosi, and her “San Francisco Bay area ideals”.

In 2008, the Right Wing tried again to scare America with a non-stop litany of wild accusations against Barrack Obama. They claimed he “palled around with terrorists”, “didn’t support the American Military”, and that he “hated America”. Well. Rush, Sean, Neil, etc., you were all wrong again; and you couldn’t manage to sway anyone into the McCain/Palin camp. In fact the Republican party lost states in the last election.

What does this mean? It means that by-and-large the bulk of the American public aren’t buying it anymore. Your brand of hate, doom and fear simply isn’t popular. You’ve outlasted your usefulness to the Republican party and to Reagan Conservatism.

Hannity continually likes to say things like, “What would Ronald Reagan do?” Well, Sean, for one thing Ronald Reagan would never have invaded Iraq. He would never have allowed the Federal Government to balloon as George W. Bush did. He would never have allowed secret prisons in Europe where basic human rights were forfeited, and he would never have allowed America’s Military to be used to torture prisoners. You claim to be a Reagan conservative, and yet you supported so many Bush/Cheney initiatives that Reagan never would have supported.

Sorry guys, but the only people you have paying any attention any longer are the die-hard, religious, right wing fanatics who actually thought someone like Sarah “I can see Russia from my house” Palin was ready for prime-time. Oh wait, but people who listen to right wing radio generally are the types who share the believes of folks – like Sarah – that man and dinosaurs co-existed together; or that women who are raped, and become pregnant, have no choice but to keep the spawn of a rapist. And people – like Bill O’Reilly – who will attack Jamie Lynn Spears for being a pregnant teen, but will celebrate Bristol Palin’s teen pregnancy.

Time’s up.

 
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Posted by on January 30, 2009 in Politics

 

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