The talking points against the Sochi Olympics were bursting out of the starting gates, speed skating our way well before the Olympic flame in Sochi was lit...
1. The Russians aren't ready.
Mitt's Brits "not ready" kabitz back in 2012:
It's hard to know just how well [London Olympics 2012] will turn out. There are a few things that were disconcerting. The stories about the private security firm not having enough people, the supposed strike of the immigration and customs officials, that obviously is not something which is encouraging.
is back in ABC's "Russia not ready" rant: toities, tap water, and bees, oh, my!
What about the tap water contaminated in the recent Charleston, West Virginia chemical spill and the fact that the Feds Reaffirm West Virginia Water Safe for All, even though The West Virginia Water Contamination Crisis Is Far From Over. What about Fracking Water Contamination? Why did the Obama EPA Shut Down Weatherford, TX Shale Gas Water Contamination Study?
2. Sochi has a stray dog problem.
The MSM is reporting that Russian authorities are culling stray dogs found in the Olympic village. However, stray cats and dogs in America are also put down quietly, out of sight, whether we want to admit this or not. It's not to excuse what is happening to woozles in Sochi.
What is abhorrent here in America is how we treat human beings who are homeless. Homelessness is on the rise in America. Americans walk over homeless people, make fun of them, and leave them to die of exposure on the streets in subzero temperatures.
The US has closed far too many mental health facilities, and the few that remain provide substandard care. To save money on treatment, patients are subjected to group therapy sessions during which their privacy is violated. While in a fragile frame of mind, patients are forced to publicly recount their own issues and listen to fellow patients talk about their drug use and suicide attempts in graphic detail. Instead of being a safe sanctuary in which to heal, these facilities are a mentally scarring punishment. "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" is not a Russian novel. Health Insurance companies strictly ration mental health care in this country, but no one seems to care about "death panels" when it comes to mental health patients in the USA, a country where the mentally ill are an object of ridicule, scorn, and derision in every day discourse.
More teenagers and young adults die from suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, pneumonia, influenza, and chronic lung disease, COMBINED.The US has been culling and ethnically cleansing Arabs in the Middle East, human beings who have never done anything to harm us. Let's not forget that our country is waging wars based on fraud perpetuated by some of the very same PR propagandists maligning the Sochi Olympics. These illegal wars have killed, maimed, terrorized, and dislocated hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians: men, women, and children. We abuse our soldiers by deploying them on mission after mission after mission, many of whom commit suicide in record numbers if they survive these re-deployments once they return home. Our government has used depleted uranium weapons that cause cancer and horrific birth defects.
I live in Massachusetts, and some people here are characterizing the gray seals as "wolves in water," not "woozles in water," and guess what they think we should do about these cute, adorable seals? The Seal Problem: The population of gray seals on the Cape has exploded in recent years. Is it time to cull the herd?
3. Sochi has a terrorism problem.
I'm from the Boston area, the city that experienced terrorism during a major sporting event, the Boston Marathon, despite the Russians warning our country to keep an eye on someone the FBI interviewed and the TSA let travel to Russia, even though he was on a terrorist watch list. The government stopped monitoring him, while they snooped on the rest of us.
Look what happened during the Atlanta Olympics. Homegrown terrorism there, too.
They want us to forget Atlanta and Boston, while they hype dangerous threats against the Sochi Olympics made by Chechen terrorists Neoconsters have been coddling as "rebels."
4. Bob Costas came down with conjunctivitis, aka pink eye, in Sochi.
Face palm.
5. Putin = Hitler.
26.6 million Soviet citizens and soldiers were killed during WWII, and they were on the same side as we were, fighting the Nazis. Comparing Putin to Hitler is way beyond disgusting and ignorant. How much of a demagogue and how insensitive to history do you have to be to say such a thing?
6. Russia snoops on visitors to Sochi.
The NSA spies on all of us. The US no longer has the moral high ground here.
7. Russia is harboring Edward Snowden.
Edward Snowden is an American hero who exposed how traitorous people in government agencies are waging an internal revolt against our US Constitution and the privacy, freedom, and liberty of American citizens by illegally spying on us and recording our every keystroke. Russia is providing asylum to an American hero and whistle blower.
8. Putin spent $51 billion on the Sochi Olympics, and one of the snowflakes didn't turn into a ring like it was supposed to during the opening ceremonies.
The NSA budget in 2012 was $75 billion, and the Boston Bombing happened. Nuff said. The schadenfreude over an errant snowflake is petulantly petty, and sniveling about how the Russians substituted footage of the snowflake opening correctly during rehearsals on their television broadcasts only serves to remind us of all the shenanigans our own wag-the-dog media pulls on us constantly to start the latest war du jour, the ends of which are far more devastating than a seemingly seamless opening ceremony.
9. Putin is a homophobe.
What about Texas, Utah, and Alabama, states which passed laws that illustrate The U.S. hypocrisy over Russia’s anti-gay laws?
Our country has a lot to answer for, too, in terms of prejudice and injustice.