Meatstick Timeout: Back to School

If you are wondering why Off The Meatstick hasn't been updated lately it is because I am now in graduate school.

I want to thank everyone who checked my site and helped contribute to the discussion around here.

One thing I learned about having a blog is that it is hard work to keep people coming back. It takes time to build a following. The only way to get people (besides family) coming back is by doing a lot of research and offering opinions and news that isn't easily obtainable somewhere else. I had to invest quite a bit of time and energy, neither of which I currently possess very much of thanks to school.

I will try to post occasionally so please check back once in a while. In the meantime, just check my godmother's site...she's always entertaining:
www.outinleftfield.com

Meatstick Opinion: President's Speech

The President's speech was exactly what we thought it was going to be. I have no comments about it. However, here is an interesting article on the whole testimony this week from the Seattle Times. Representative Sestak (D-PA, former 3 star Admiral) makes an excellent point in the article:

"By not having a bipartisan approach, Congress has defaulted and let the whole tone of this debate be set by a military man's report," said Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., a former three-star admiral and adviser in the Clinton administration. "Regardless of one's position on the war, it's profoundly dangerous to have the military make decisions on war and peace, and to some extent, that's what we've done."

I chose to watch MSNBC's coverage of the speech. Shortly after the speech was over MSNBC interviewed Republican candidate for President, Mike Huckabee. Of course, Huckabee thought the speech was really good. At one point he said something along the lines of, "this is about whether or not WE have the will to fight the extremists."

I really can't stand when I hear people like Huckabee (Republican or Democrat) refer to 'we' and fighting in Iraq. Mike Huckabee is not fighting anyone in Iraq. He is just another politician using our service members to help himself politically.

Meatstick Opinion: What To Do When You Hear Someone 'Quote' Iran's President

I will start this thread by saying that I am in no way defending Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The guy is a complete ass.

What I will say is that I do not believe in taking advantage of language gaps by misquoting and spinning quotes from Ahmadinejad. This is what Republicans love to do.

For example, I had the chance to sit down for a bit and watch the Patreaus debacle from the live stream on cspan.com. For the first time in my life I was looking at my computer hoping that Comcast's shitty service would knock out my internet. Senator/Comedian James Inhofe (R-OK) started off his ten minutes of questioning by droning on and on about the influence of Iran in Iraq. He was all proud of himself for finding a recent quote by Ahmadinejad. Inhofe said,

"Ahmadinejad recently stated, 'Soon, we will see a huge power vacuum in the region. Of course, we are prepared to fill the gap.'"

Yes, Mr. Inhofe. Ahmadinejad did, in fact, make that statement. However, it was part of a longer quote. A quote that you decided cut in half because you didn't like the rest of the quote. Here is the entire quote from Ahmadinejad:

“Soon, we will see a huge power vacuum in the region. Of course, we are prepared to fill the gap, with the help of neighbors and regional friends like Saudi Arabia, and with the help of the Iraqi nation.”

Mr. Inhofe left off the entire last part of the quote because it allowed him to spin the quote to make him look like a hotshot in front of GEN Petreaus. In reality, it sounds like Ahmadinejad wants to bring in the various parties in the region to help his own cause. Sounds a bit like what we have been trying to do the last 4 years.

You will also hear the misinformed claim that Ahmadinejad proclaimed, "We need to wipe Israel off the face of the map." This is one of their favorite quotes to sing while beating the drums of war with Iran. When you hear someone make this claim can you please instruct them that "face of the map" is an English phrase. This is what he actually said in Farsi:

Imam (Khomeini) ghoft (said) een (this) rezhim-e (regime) ishghalgar-e (occupying) qods (Jerusalem) bayad (must) az safheh-ye ruzgar (from page of time) mahv shavad (vanish from).

Basically, he said, "Khomeini said this occupying regime in Israel must be vanished from the page of time." This quote takes on much different meaning than the version we so often hear. The misquote is used to scare people into thinking that Iran is developing nuclear weapons so that they can bomb Israel off the face of the map.

I realize that not everyone has the benefit of being surrounded by fluent Persian speakers, like I do (commence wiretapping), but this information can be found other places. For those of you that don't believe my Persian sources...figure out the shit for yourself here.

We've already been persuaded into one war based on misinformation and false pretenses. Please don't let it happen again.

Death of a Friend

My friend Drew passed away this Friday.

Drew was on his second tour of duty in Iraq when he was shot in the neck in May. From The Tacoma News Tribune:

Capt. Drew N. Jensen, 27, died at the Veterans Administration hospital in Seattle after his doctors and family followed his wishes and turned off life support, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported. Jensen was shot in the neck May 7 in Baqouba as he tried to help a fellow soldier who was pinned behind a vehicle after a bomb blast, according to the P-I. Despite a 10-hour operation in Germany to stabilize his spine and fuse his vertebrae, Jensen was left a quadriplegic and dependent on a breathing tube. He was transferred to Walter Reed in Washington, D.C., and to the VA in Seattle on June 1.

Drew was always thinking about others before himself. In the days before he decided to be taken off life support he set up a $10,000 fund to be left in his name to help families afford housing near their injured soldier, who are often being cared for in hospitals far from home.

In addition, his family has set up a the Drew Jensen Memorial Fund, which will look to provide scholarships to future leaders of America. Please donate through www.ocf1.org.

I'm grateful that Drew got the opportunity to come home and be with his family, friends, and wonderful wife. Many soldiers never get that chance.

Meatstick Event: Green Lake Walk/Run for Obama

By Jayron

I went to the first Seattle for Obama meeting tonight and it was awesome! Since Obama has so much support in this state, I went there thinking they already had a ton of campaign people in Washington but they don't! It's up to all of us, Obama supporters, to get involved.

On a side note, there were 2 people there who attended Oprah's 3 million dollar fundraiser at her mansion this weekend and they told us all about it!

I learned more about the Washington State Primary. Did you know that although there is a Democratic Primary in Washington, those votes don't count but rather the Democratic Caucus held February 9th will choose our states delegates. SAVE THAT DATE! Most people don't know about caucuses. I didn't until 2004 when Washington Democrats didn't have a Primary at all. At the caucus people must show up at their neighborhood precinct for their vote to count. So even if people support Obama and not show up at the caucus, he won't win! It's all kind of confusing because people don't know where to go and what to do. There will be more meetings on learning about this and I'll pass it on to you. I realized at this meeting that if I don't take responsibility for my neighborhood and get people to show up, no one else will!

Another interesting note, only 100,000 people showed up in the 2004 Wash. St. caucuses (an average of 15 people for Washington's roughly 6,000 precincts). Which means that if each neighborhood precinct can get 15 more people to show up on February 9th, Obama could get all the states delegates!

So, I decided to host an event to reach out to other Obama supporters. Below is what I sent out. I really hope you all can come!

Please pass on to anyone who you think would be interested!


While the weather is still nice, let's gather at Green Lake and show our support for Obama! When: Saturday September 22 at 11:00 am

Ideally, we'd love to get a table going as well. So if anyone asks you about Obama during your walk/run, you can direct them to our table where they can get more information. If anyone knows if we need to ask the parks department permission to set up a table, let me know!

First 50 people who reply will get a free official Barack Obama pin to wear on the walk!
Please RSVP:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/4v2dl

Please wear your Barack Obama T-shirt if you have one. I'm going to order one for myself right now! But of course you don't have to have a shirt to show up.

We'd love to see you there!

P.S. For all you Seahawks and Husky Football fans this shouldn't interfere with any games. :)

Meatstick News: Dick Durbin Says No More Funding Without Withdrawal

I hope he puts his money where his mouth is.
From The Swamp:

Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin promised today that he would no longer vote to fund the war in Iraq unless the money is tied to a withdrawal strategy.

Durbin voted in favor of the last round of Iraq funding so his statement is a bit of a change of attitude for him. As the assistant Senate Majority Leader he must be willing to continue to make statements like he did today and pressure his fellow Democrats to take a stand.

Again, from The Swamp:

Durbin’s commitment--and a forceful speech he delivered against new funding for Bush’s war strategy--positions an influential Senate leader in favor of a hard line at a moment when some Democrats are signaling a willingness to compromise on war funding.

Just to clarify Durbin's stance, he is not calling for immediate withdrawal of every troop within a short time frame, like has been called for by Bill Richardson and Dennis Kucinich. Durbin stated:

Durbin said he would no longer support the annual “supplemental” funding packages that the Bush administration has used to pay for the bulk of war costs—unless the legislation includes provisions to change strategy and bring the war to a quick end. “I’m looking for some language in there that gives me some hope that this war is going to end before I will vote for more (funding),” Durbin said in a conversation with reporters.

We need statements like Durbin's to be coming out of the mouths of other 'leaders' of the party. If you remember the last round of funding Hillary and Obama both voted against it. They will surely remind of us that in the next 18 months as they try to convince everyone they are against the war. I do applaud them for voting against it; however, I do not commend them for the way they did it. Instead of spending the day of the vote yelling and screaming to their counterparts about how they should not fund this war (like a good leader of a party would do), the two of them waited in silence until the last minute. They waited until they knew funding would pass and then they ran out and voted against it.

I have to wonder if Durbin's sudden hard line stance has anything to do with the fact that MoveOn.org and other groups are preparing to run third party candidates against Democratic Congressmen and Senators who will be up for reelection next year.

MoveOn has recently told Huffington Post:

"This fall, we face a pivotal series of votes on Iraq--votes that, if we win, could spell the end of the Iraq war. MoveOn members have made phone calls. We've held town meetings. We've run ads and written letters to the editor. But now, given this big moment, we have an important decision to make together. Should we support primary challengers against some Democrats?.... It's a tough question, and one we need everybody's input on."

An anonymous leader of the Democratic party quickly responded:

"What in the world are they thinking? All this is going to do is increase the possibility of electing more Republicans. Instead of going after Democrats, they should be focusing their efforts on pressuring Republicans to break with the president."

Somebody sounds scared...maybe they'll get the hint that the constituents aren't messing around anymore.

Meatstick Video: Keith Olbermann