Five senior Taliban leaders in exchange for President Pivot’s feel-good moment when he desperately needs one and one soldier who walked away from base.
People have already LOST THEIR LIVES trying to save this little turd.
Now more may get to, thanks to the “No Man Left Behind Unless They’re Ambassadors and/or Navy Seals” Man of Action.
ths update: More from More from CBS News just this March:
Is Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl a hero or a deserter?
…A transcript of radio intercepts, publicly released through Wikileaks, indicates that Bergdahl, then 23, was captured while sitting in a makeshift latrine.
“We were attacking the post he was sitting,” according to a radio intercept of a conversation among insurgents. “He had no gun with him. … They have all (the) Americans, ANA (Afghan National Army), helicopters, the planes are looking for him. Can you guys make a video of him and announce it all over Afghanistan that we have one of the Americans?”
Rolling Stone magazine quoted emails Bergdahl is said to have sent to his parents that suggest he was disillusioned with America’s mission in Afghanistan, had lost faith in the U.S. Army’s mission there and was considering desertion.
Bergdahl told his parents he was “ashamed to even be American.”
Bergdahl, who mailed home boxes containing his uniform and books, also wrote: “The future is too good to waste on lies. And life is way too short to care for the damnation of others, as well as to spend it helping fools with their ideas that are wrong.“
MAILED HOME HIS UNIFORMS?
Remember that?
Ah.
Good times, good times.
US soldier held captive by Taliban in Afghanistan for nearly five years freed
Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the only American soldier held captive in Afghanistan, has been released by the Taliban in exchange for five Afghan detainees, U.S. officials said Saturday.
From GUANTANAMO, no less.
…A Defense Department official gave Fox News the names of the detainees: Mohammad Fazl, Mullah Norullah Noori, Mohammed Nabi, Khairullah Khairkhwa, and Abdul Haq Wasiq. They are believed to be the top five Taliban leaders at the prison and were selected in 2012 by Taliban leaders as part of initial negotiations.
I am thankful Bergdahl is safe. I KNOW we ALL are.
But, OH DEAR GOD.
This is a horrible precedent, especially with how he’s hamstringing the kids we have left in that hell-hole as he runs away.
Or ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD the US military serves, for that matter.
Open season, baby.
…but I have a good idea who’s driving this scooter, if you get my drift…
Good lord, the story from the other day gets even worse, if such a thing is possible
Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) — The husband of Farzana Parveen, the Pakistani woman stoned to death for refusing to participate in an arranged marriage, told CNN he killed his first wife so he could marry Parveen.
Authorities said the first wife was killed six years ago.
“I wanted to send a proposal to Farzana so I killed my wife,” Mohammad Iqbal said Thursday in an interview with CNN.
Zulfiqar Hameed, district inspector general for the Punjab police, said Iqbal’s son from the first marriage alerted police to the slaying six years ago.
Iqbal was arrested but later released on bail because his son forgave him, Hameed said.
What.
The.
Hell.
I mean, seriously.
Sometimes a little cultural imperialism might be a pretty damned good thing, m’kay?
…from the WaPo.
Wait. What?
Edit pages pan Obama speech
The New York Times editorial board, often supportive of the White House, wrote that his “address did not match the hype, was largely uninspiring, lacked strategic sweep and is unlikely to quiet his detractors, on the right or the left.”
…The Wall Street Journal, far more accustomed to criticizing the president on foreign policy, said Obama’s speech was marked less by what he said and more by what he left out —…
…The Washington Post editorial said the president’s “binding of U.S. power places Mr. Obama at odds with every U.S. president since World War II.”
“President Obama has retrenched U.S. global engagement in a way that has shaken the confidence of many U.S. allies and encouraged some adversaries,” the board said, attacking the president for resorting to rhetoric instead of adjusting policy.
Q1 GDP -1.0%
Of course, instead of President Pivot, they’re blaming the frigid winter of our discontent.
Frigid winter takes toll as US GDP contracts for first time in 3 years
The U.S. economy contracted in the first quarter for the first time in three years as it buckled under the weight of a severe winter, but there are signs activity has since rebounded.
The Commerce Department on Thursday revised down its growth estimate to show gross domestic product shrinking at a 1.0 annual rate.
It was the worst performance since the first quarter of 2011 and reflected a far slower pace of inventory accumulation and a bigger than previously estimated trade deficit.
“Rebounded”. yeah. Okay. O_o
Oddly enough no Rethuglicans were involved
Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) — Relatives of a pregnant woman beat her to death with bricks near a court building in eastern Pakistan after she married a man against their will, authorities said.
Farzana Parveen, 25, was attacked Tuesday close to the high court in Lahore by a group of about 20 people, including her brothers, father and cousin, police said.
One family member made a noose of rough cloth around her neck while her brothers smashed bricks into her skull, said Mushtaq Ahmed, a police official, citing the preliminary report into the killing. She was three months pregnant, he said.
…Police officials said she had refused to wed the cousin whom her family had selected for her, choosing instead to elope with a widower named Mohammad Iqbal.
The cousin her family wanted her to marry was among the people who attacked her, police said.
Sandra Fluke was unavailable for comment.
And by “The Highlands” I mean, of course Highlands which is either 300′ above sea level or 3 feet, and not much in between.
We chose 3′
sitting on the dock at the Inlet Cafe with several pitchers of Blue Moon.
Exceedingly pleasant.
We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.
~“Excerpts of a Speech by Governor Ronald Reagan, Republican National Convention, Platform Committee Meeting, Miami, Florida,” July 31, 1968
Of course this is who he would blame
Martinez’s father, Richard, said some politicians and the National Rifle Association are also to blame for his son’s death.
“Chris died because of craven, irresponsible politicians and the NRA,” he said. “They talk about gun rights, what about Chris’ right to live? When will this insanity stop?”
Rodger suffered from an undisclosed mental health issue, and was under the care of a variety of health care professionals, Brown said.
But there was no indication he had been committed to a mental health facility.
Rodger passed the background check needed to buy the firearm used in the shooting, a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation told CNN. The official said nothing had been found in the gun trace to indicate Rodger shouldn’t have qualified to buy a gun.
No, CNN, he said that politicians and the NRA were solely to blame.
What about parents taking some responsibility for actually raising their children? What about making sure that your son, who you knew, knew, to be very mentally disturbed was put in an institution or at the very least was officially placed under some type of care so that the laws might actually have a chance to work?
What about the rights of the six people YOUR CHILD slaughtered? What about the insanity of denying them the right to defend themselves?
What about looking in the mirror?
Since Carbs are now almost as Evul as Booooooooooooooosh I decided last weekend that I needed to keep baking. And what better than some focaccia?
Rise, my torpid yeasty friends! Awaken from your slumber to a world of sugary oiled bliss!
Looks doubled to me, Boss! Burst forth that alcohol-laced carbon dioxide spew of yours that I love so well!
Punched down, spread out onto a pan covered with even more Extra Virgin goodness, sprinkled with fresh rosemary and salt…
Nomnom.
The leftovers froze quite well for later consumability, I might add.
France spends $20 billion dollars on new trains…that don’t fit into the stations
French officials admitted this week that they may not have taken the most thorough measurements before writing a $20 billion check.
France’s national train operator, SNCF, admitted this week that it ordered the fleet of new trains without double-checking the measurements. Now, officials say, the new trains are just too big to fit through many of France’s regional train stations.
The All-Wise, All-Knowing government strikes again.
Well, to be fair it’s directed at the whiners in the graduating class and on the faculty
I hear Condoleezza Rice stood you up. You may think it was because about 50 students—.09 percent of your student body—held a “sit-in” at the university president’s office to protest the selection of Secretary Rice as commencement speaker. You may think it was because a few of your faculty—stale flakes from the crust of the turkey pot pie that was the New Left—threatened a “teach-in” to protest the selection of Secretary Rice.
“Sit-in”? “Teach-in”? What century is this?
I think Secretary Rice forgot she had a yoga session scheduled for today.
It’s shame she was busy. You might have heard something useful from a person who grew up poor in Jim Crow Alabama. Who lost a friend and playmate in 1963 when white supremacists bombed Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Who became an accomplished concert pianist before she tuned her ear to the more dissonant chords of international relations.
Secretary Rice was Phi Beta Kappa at the University of Denver and received a B.A. cum laude in political science—back before the worst grade a student had ever heard of was a B-.
The professor who influenced her most was Josef Korbel, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s father.
Secretary Albright and Secretary Rice don’t agree on much about international relations. But they don’t sit-in or teach-in at each other’s public appearances.
Secretary Rice got a master’s in political science from Notre Dame, a Ph.D. in political science from Denver and, in the meantime, was an intern at the Carter administration State Department and the Rand Corporation and studied Russian at Moscow State University.
Read the whole thing. He cites some absolutely brutal statistics near the end about the prospects facing these kids, thanks in large part to the Hope and Change they voted for.
Sobering stuff.
I’m saying Volkswagon owes the White House…
…some ka-ching.
Doesn’t it just look loverly?
…Vietnamese workers are rioting and killing Chinese workers
Hong Kong (CNN) — Two Chinese ships arrived at the coast of Vietnam on Monday to begin efforts to collect thousands of Chinese citizens who are fleeing the country after deadly attacks last week.
…Along with two other ships that are still en route, the vessels are being used to bring back almost 4,000 Chinese citizens who are leaving because of the recent unrest, Xinhua said.
Chinese authorities said Sunday that more than 3,000 Chinese had already been evacuated from Vietnam after protests over China’s decision to move an oil rig into disputed waters of the South China Sea spiraled into riots last week in which foreign-owned factories were burned and looted.
Two Chinese citizens were killed in the violence and more than 100 were injured, authorities said.
The crisis has frayed ties between the two Communist-run Asian nations, and there is little sign of either side backing down over the increasingly bitter territorial dispute.
This will end well.
…to influence our dinner plans after all these years. We were watching the newest show Lidia has on our poor local station and WHAMMO.
No question what we were doing for dinner (Of course, she used swordfish ~ we’ve had this grouper in a block of ice in the freezer since…well…let’s just say pour water over all the fresh fish you want to freeze. Little fishie blocks of ice. Holds indefinitely.)
Oh, hot DAWG. Was it dee-vine.
And ONE pan.
Damn.
All the Bush White House scotties are gone. 🙁
Makes Ya Barf, Military Thingies, Politics | tree hugging sister | 
May 31, 2014 7:21 pm | 
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