Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Sunday, November 21, 2010

A Local Book Tour

Commentary By Ron Beasley


The admitted and unapologetic war criminals of the Bush administration my be safe in the United States but they had better not try to use their passports anytime soon.


Travel Warning for Book Tour



London�s Tory mayor, Boris Johnson, has some strong words of caution for former president George W. Bush: if you come to Europe to promote your book, pack heavily and be prepared for a long stay. In fact, you may �never see Texas again.� As he sees it, Bush�s book and statements he has made in efforts to market it constitute admissions of serious crimes.


Initial reports about Bush�s autobiography did not go over well in Europe, and Britain�s new Conservative government was particularly eager to push back against suggestions that their conservatism had any resemblance to the Bush variety. Bush insisted this his decision to use waterboarding and other torture techniques kept Britain safe. But British Conservatives are having none of it:


In the case of the three men waterboarded on Bush�s orders, British ministers are not aware of any valuable information they gave about plots against Heathrow, Canary Wharf or anywhere else. All the policy has achieved is to degrade America in the eyes of the world, and to allow America�s enemies to utter great whoops of vindication. It is not good enough for Dubya now to claim that what he did was OK, because �the lawyers said it was legal�.



The Bush administration destroyed the credibility of the United States and this country is no longer in a position to criticize any other country for human rights violations.  The Obama Justice Department could have repaired some of the damage but they didn't and so they are now part of the problem. 



1 comment:

  1. Is it just part of the problem or has the Obama gang's refusal to investigate potential war crimes committed its own war crime. Ah to be a lawyer but I suspect Mr. Obama has joined the ranks of those famous few hung or imprisoned after WWII. I suspect no one will try the SOB - apologize to his mum who seems from what I know not at all like Mr. Obama.

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