Archive for heroes
The entire segment can be found here.
Rep. Peter King (R-NY):
The Boston police department is an outstanding police department, the FBI, homeland security, ATF, they're all working on this, the president is leading it, No, this is not a time for Democrat or Republican politics. I think the president is putting in place, putting in motion the counter-terrorism and anti-terrorism units we have in our country that have been developed over the last 11 1/2 years and they're going to do an outstanding job. I have no doubt of that whatsoever.
1. "Democrat" is not an adjective. "Democratic" is.
2. If the Boston Police Department did such a great job, then why does the GOP want to keep cutting budgets that would provide for more "outstanding police departments"? Oh, that's right. They're "union thugs." And King is a hypocrite.
3. ATF? ATF? They're "working on this"? Anyone seen the director?
4. Wait. Did he actually admit that President Obama *gasp!* leads?
5. This is no time for politics, says King. Oh really? Then what's up with this? Rep. Peter King (R-NY) implied what now? “Pressure cooker bombs described in Al Qaeda magazine.” Nothing prejudiced or premature about that at all. Appealing to your base, are you? Some-body is looking for more do-na-tions! Have dark skin or a "funny" name? You're guilty. Next!
Oh, and if you really don't want to play politics, rehire all those police officers you and your party fired.
VIDEO: “We have never cut government jobs when we were trying to save the economy. Until this time.”
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Rachel Maddow poignantly addresses who exactly the people are who Republicans insist on firing, on laying off, on eliminating sources of steady work, on denying employment, income, and therefore health care and education opportunities. Those people for whom many on the right show such obvious disdain are public sector workers who have (or had) jobs as real as any private sector workers have (or had).
Yet the GOP has reveled in slashing “government workers” as if they are something less than, as if their jobs aren’t really jobs at all, as if there is something inherently inferior about what they do to get by.
And by get by I mean feel secure, and by feel secure I mean also offer the rest of us a degree of security by way of the services they provide to this country.
But busting unions and privatizing America is the goal of those on the right. Their priority? Profits over people. Power. Livelihoods and economic “certainty” be damned. Oh, and of course, denying President Obama any victories ever at the risk of assuring him a legacy of *gasp!* success (too late).
An appreciation by Rachel Maddow:
“We have never cut government jobs when we were trying to save the economy. Until this time.”
“Good luck, officer, see you around!”
“We lionize and celebrate the people who teach us our multiplication tables and fix our streets and keep us safe at night and rescue us from fires. We lionize and celebrate them justly as we should, and then in record numbers, we can them, [!] hurting them and hurting us as a country. Not every public sector worker’s gonna win the Medal of Valor like those eighteen heroes did at the White House today.
“But there is reason to appreciate them, both in the heroic individual specific, and in the aggregate, for what they do for us every day.“
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Foot soldiers, indeed.
Which brings us to today’s L.A. Times letter to the editor, because our voices matter:
Taking risks for us all
Re “Journalists’ deaths bring new outrage,” Feb. 23
Journalists and the media in general are often targets of contempt by the public and particularly politicians. Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich frequently refers to journalists facetiously as the “elite media.”
Quite often we fail to recognize how wonderful it is to live in a country where the news is not suppressed, and to be thankful to those individuals who perpetuate this endowment. It is a vital ingredient of democracy, civil liberties and freedom.
God bless Marie Colvin, Remi Ochlik and the other war correspondents who risk their lives — and sometimes lose them — to provide us this gift in dangerous places. These people are truly the elite media.
Paul Shubunka
Santa Clarita
Let’s see now, who has the moral high ground here… the married gay couple or the abusive homophobe who is afraid of The Gay, even though the married gay couple didn’t think twice about saving the life of someone who has an irrational hatred of them?
But they were later subjected to three years of abuse at their home in Shirley by their next door neighbour, Baljit Koonar.
Koonar, 29, was handed an 18 month supervision order when he appeared in court last week and was also ordered to pay £150 compensation to his victims.
Yet just weeks earlier he and his family were rescued from a terrifying blaze by the big-hearted couple he had abused. [...]
“Hopefully, if the family move back we can all get along,’’ said James.
‘‘Maybe becoming friends is a bit too strong, but we could be proper neighbours.” [...]
“We had put up with his verbal abuse for years – it affects you every day.”
If the situation were reversed, would the abusive neighbor do the same? Would most Tea Baggers, California’s Prop 8ers, David Vitter, Pastor Rick Warren, Senator James Inhofe? I could go on.
The point is, while we tear up over the selfless actions of two men who put aside any differences and saved the life of their abuser, others most likely tear up because the same two men found love and got married… and maybe even because the gay heroes weren’t the ones in the burning house.
And that makes me tear up.
By GottaLaff
It’s L.A. Times letters to the editor time:
Roosevelt then, Obama now
Re “Roosevelt was right — we need more Americans ‘in the arena,’ ” Opinion, April 23
Bob and Elizabeth Dole remind us of the words of Theodore Roosevelt: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena … who does actually strive to do the deeds.”
As I read this, I could think only of our president, who is striving so valiantly to solve our problems. And the critics: the Rush Limbaughs, the Glenn Becks and, yes, many in Congress — the small men who, for power and money, do nothing but criticize, tear down and attempt to destroy him.
Sadly, too many Americans admire the critics, whose negativity serves only to destroy, rather than the doer, “whose place shall never be with those cold and timid souls” but who “spends himself in a worthy cause” because that is what brave men do.
It is time we rethink our heroes.
And our priorities. And our approach to “news”. And the way we communicate. Feel free to add other rethinkitudes in Comments.
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