It’s a little over the top, but Chris Chase is appropriately gleeful at the failure of the Russian men’s hockey team to win an Olympic medal at Sochi, let alone a gold one. Losing to Finland probably makes it harder to stomach.
Remember that Olympic ring that didn’t open at the Opening Ceremony? The hockey team losing in the quarters is like if four rings didn’t light up, then the one that did crashed to the ground, exploded and resulted in those cuddly mascots catching on fire. Russia’s collapse is the most disappointing Olympic result for a host nation in decades (if not ever).
I am not an overly nationalistic person, so I don’t invest much in the results of the Olympics. I do like it when Americans win, but I don’t spend any energy actively rooting against athletes just because I don’t approve of the government in the country they are representing. Still, this year, I am rooting against Russian medals. You can blame Vladimir Putin and his Cossacks.
But you don’t blame Obama and his?
Why not, Booman?
Outta sight, outta mind?
Precisely.
Nice, Booman.
Very nice.
AG
Fuck off, Arthur.
To choose Guantanamo, whose closing has been completely blocked by our cowards in congress, strikes me as completely disingenuous.
I was so pissed when I saw that comment from Arthur that I left the site; I couldn’t think of a single response that was polite. Yours strikes me as just about right.
From the SOTU:
We will never know how many civilians have been killed, maimed or otherwise harmed by the armed forces…overt and covert…of the United States during Obama’s reign. We will never know. Do you actually think that “Guantanamo” is the only egregiously criminal enterprise that has been supported by the so-called Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. militaries?
C’mon…
As far the statement you quoted above, I say again: “Talk is cheap.”
And often full of shit as well.
Yeah.
Right.
Ask Bradley/Chelsea Manning about our “constitutional ideals.”Ask James Clapper and the rest of the intelligence liars. And while you’re at it…ask Barack Obama. Our “constitutional ideals” have been trashed as thoroughly…perhaps more thoroughly and certainly more subtly…by Obama than they ever were by the Bush II gang.
“Setting an example for the rest of the world?” What bullshit!!! I guess that’s why the U.S. is now the most feared power extant all over the globe. And we ourselves are living in a state of abject fear as well.
Bill QuigleyLegal Director for the Center for Constitutional Rights; Professor, Loyola New Orleans:
I am sorry, Booman…Obama’s record in terms of the security state and the war state is as indefensible as was Bush II’s. He’s just got a better line of bullshit. I wish it were otherwise. I really do.
You should too.
Get real.
AG
Let us not forget our CIA backing the jihadists in Syria and the Nazi residua in Ukraine. If you want to overlook Guantanamo, Boo, that’s your choice, but a lot of bad things are happening in that corner of the world and America’s hands aren’t clean.
Do you remember how the Bush administration spent so much energy trying to make us all afraid? Terror color-coded charts and fake plots busted up and duct tape and mushroom clouds…all…the…time.
Obama NEVER does that.
He spends zero time trying to make us afraid. His schtick is that HE”S GOT THIS.
We can leave Iraq. We’ll be fine.
He’ll kill the guy we were supposed to kill.
Pirates? Don’t worry about it.
Afghanistan? Harder slog, but we’re leaving. In any case, don’t worry about it.
Bush terrorized the American people at least as much as al-Qaeda did. And that made us worse people.
Your problem is much less with Obama than it is with America.
My point exactly. I wrote:
“…certainly more subtly…” being the defining phrase there as far as what you just wrote.
Right…the Bush II gang used color-coded charts and other media-distributed bullshit.
The Obama gang uses so-called secret…at least until busted by Snowden and his allies (although many of us were already scared shitless of who and what was watching us)… surveillance techniques They use the awful conditions at Guantanamo and what happened to Bradley/Chelsea Manning, what was threatened to happen to Julian Assange and Edwards Snowden to cow us into submission. They use the daily use of brutal force by big city police against not only the failed “Occupy” insurrection but the equally brutal police tactics used across the board against poverty-line people as defined by their race. “”You’ll be next if you fuck with us ” is the tacit message behind every act of police brutality. After so many people have been beaten, arrested and jailed over simple phone-recorded attempts at documenting police actions, would you take out your phone in the presence of an amped-up cop, even to call your wife about when you’ll be meeting her? I wouldn’t.
I didn’t.
I recently watched an obviously totally stoned plainclothesman…coulda been alcohol but it looked to me to be something more pharmaceutical or perhaps heroin…terrorize an entire NYC subway car with his fucked-up speech, gait and actions. Implicit in his glare at everyone in the car were the words “Whatchoo gonna do about it, bunky?” No color-coded charts necessary. Naked fear about many previous examples of unalterable consequences was the weapon of choice. As above, so below. Bet on it.
At best, Obama has been a total failure in terms of ramping down the domestic terror.
At worst…he cooperated in ramping it up.
You don’t see this yet?
Eyes wide shut, Booman.
Eyes wide shut, glued there by hope of some sort of recompense if the DemRats win again.
Money talks, very few walk.
Why?
Too scared of the physical, social and economic consequences.
But when does it get too late, Booman?
When are you and other lefties clones going to suffer the same fate as Rev. Niemöller?
When?
Do you never ask yourself that question?
If not…start asking.
Before it’s too late.
WTFU.
AG
sure I do, but its as dust before the pathetic mountain of dung that is our congress.
I’ve been rooting against the Russians pretty much my whole life. Don’t mind rooting against any athlete, especially ones from Russia. That they didn’t make it to the medal round in men’s or women’s hockey gives me special pleasure.
I’m against the government, not the athletes. Any Olympic athlete has worked very very hard and sacrificed much of normal life. No, I don’t think they reflect their system, except those poor East German athletes forced to undergo transgender operations to compete as women. DNA evidence found them out, remember?
Had to check on that claim — From The 10 Most Shocking Olympic Gender Scandals, one East German woman that was pumped up with steroids and won a gold medal in shotput later, after her competitive athletic career, transitioned to a man. Plenty of doping of East German athletes, but nothing on forced sex reassignment.
Maybe Obama should have done a Carter and led a boycott of the Sochi Winter Olympic games. Carter’s rationale was completely disingenuous, but at least he was honest enough to lead the pack of those that wanted the games to fail.
I remember this claim in the newspapers when I worked at International Harvester. That was 1979 to 1982. Maybe it was bogus, but it was in the newspapers.
’79 to ’82 would have been an interesting period of time to work at any of the big ag related companies. Carter was such a bozo wrt the USSR and it played right into the oligarchs hands to elect Reagan. Whatever ordinary Americans absorbed of the events in real time during those years was likely about as real as Saddam’s WMD.
Yes, years of wage freeze followed by a propsed 10% wage cut. I bailed out then.
More info: When I left in February, our department had 60 engineers and six managers. By September it only had the six managers. Most had left on their own. The rest got chopped in September.
In the bad old days, a performance like this would have resulted in the team’s loss of privileges at least and possibly a one-way trip to Krasnoyarsk. So, progress has been made.
When I was 14, I got really really excited when the American hockey team beat the Soviets and went on to win gold. One of their defensemen, Ken Morrow, later played for my team at the time, the New York Islanders, who won 4 straight Stanley Cups while he was there.
Today, at age 50, I didn’t much notice when the USA team beat Russia and I take no joy to the Russians losing in the quarter finals. It’s just a game.
I will admit to a fair amount schadenfreude. The Russians have been the Dallas cowboys of international hockey since the mid 70s when they played with “Amateurs”
Hockey is big in my house and I can be a beautiful game.
But we are Devils fans and their best player “defected” back to Russia after the draft last spring and left them high and dry. He had a pretty mediocre Olympics.
Glad to see Canada pull one out if the fire today.
I am pretty strongly nationalist at these types of sporting events. Plus the Russian system is scummier than our own and Finland… God thats awesome. Being someone who is big into world history I always find it more entertaining when it can tie into centuries of competition and conflict.
I don’t quite get this Russia bashing. The gay rights in southern states don’t lead by example. How about all our friends around the Persian Gulf? Iran, Arab states, Uganda and Nigeria are worse than Russia with death sentences for homosexuals. Is the US media using nasty propaganda for revolution and regime change in Ukraine. Victoria Nyland caught on tape remaking the Ukraine government. The opposition forces in Ukraine aren’t that democratic whatsoever: neo-nazis, anti-semites, nationalists and $1bn USAID money to buy opposition leaders. The Ukraine is on the verge of a civil war.
Wasn’t it under JFK that the US led an initiative for cultural exchange with the Soviet Union. Even Nixon had his ping-pong diplomacy moment. The US has become a bully with imposing sanctions, revoking visa, economic boycotts, etc. The US is no longer a uni-polar world power, get over it.
On the Winter Olympics, the Orange Wave of speed skaters are doing great. An historic haul of gold-silver and bronze. The Russian hockey team wasn’t great at all, had difficulty scoring goals against any opponent. The US beat the Russians on shoot-outs, great to watch.
What Oui said.
AG
Glad to see someone mention Ukraine. Something about the opposition stinks to high heaven. Doesn’t Svoboda have links to such nefarious folks like France’s National Front? And yet our media have been portraying their leaders and rank and file as heroes.