"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
- Benjamin Franklin

Part of Thanksgiving this year is giving thanks to Senator Russ Feingold

Daily Kos: PATRIOT ACT UPDATE

I'm pleased to announce that early this afternoon, Senate leaders threw in the towel on their plan to jam a Patriot Act reauthorization bill through the Senate before Thanksgiving. Bipartisan resistance to the tentative agreement reached by conference committee Republicans stopped them in their tracks. We will come back in December and have a real debate on the Patriot Act...

- rob 3:57 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Cause I gotta have faith...
Mmm, I gotta have faith
'Cause I gotta have faith, faith,
Mm 'cause I gotta have faith-a-faith-a-faith
- Faith by George Michael

Pentagon agrees to probe Feith's role in Iraq intel

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon's inspector general has agreed to review the prewar intelligence activities of former U.S. defense undersecretary Douglas Feith, a main architect of the Iraq war, congressional officials said on Thursday.

- rob 3:14 PM - [PermaLink] -

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"In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish; that they will control the usual current of the passions, or prevent our nation from running the course, which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But, if I may even flatter myself, that they may be productive of some partial benefit, some occasional good; that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism; this hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare, by which they have been dictated."
- George Washington

Americans are beginning to listen

Major new poll shows sharp rise in belief U.S. should mind its own business

Americans’ appetite for world leadership has waned significantly since before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, with more than two-fifths saying the United States should mind its own business, according to a major new survey released Thursday.

American shouldn't be isolationist - but it really needs to stop meddling. Meddling always leads back to trouble for us years or decades later (like former friends the Shah of Iran, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and Manuel Noriega).

- rob 1:27 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Wow

Former CIA director accuses Cheney of overseeing torture

Admiral Stansfield Turner, a former CIA director, accused US Vice President Dick Cheney of overseeing policies of torturing terrorist suspects and damaging the nation's reputation, in a television interview.

"We have crossed the line into dangerous territory," Turner, who headed the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1970s, said on ITV news.

"I am embarrassed that the USA has a vice president for torture. I think it is just reprehensible.

I'll take Turner's head and compress it to this size.
Trust me - its for America's safety that I do that

Update: Just saw Edoc's post below - looks like I owe hime a coke.

- rob 1:18 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Former CIA Director: Cheney's Torture Stance is an Embarrassment
Former CIA director Admiral Stansfield Turner states that torture is condoned and approved by the Bush government.

"The American Senate says torture should be banned - whatever the justification. But President Bush has threatened to veto their ruling.

The former spymaster claims President Bush is not telling the truth when he says that torture is not a method used by the US.

Speaking of Bush's claims that the US does not use torture, Admiral Turner, who ran the CIA from 1977 to 1981, said: 'I do not believe him'.

On Dick Cheney he said 'I'm embarrassed the United States has a vice president for torture.'"

Hmmm... Bush and Rice state that torture is not condoned, and yet Cheney actively pushes for it. This White House is a textbook example of plausible deniability in action.

- Edoc 10:15 AM - [PermaLink] -

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HuffingtonPost: Sign-Up for Bill O'Reilly's Blacklist
Arianna Huffington leads the call:

... being on O'Reilly's enemy list is an honor. Join Bill O'Reilly's blacklist by entering your name below. I'll collect the names and hand deliver them to Mr. O'Reilly the next time I'm on the Factor (and if he won't have me back, I'll bring them to his studio anyway).

Be the first kid on your block to show support for San Francisco by registering on this biased, hateful, war-mongering douchebag's blacklist!

- Edoc 10:04 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Letterman on Bush last night (and there was more):

* President Bush is on an eight day tour of Asia. He’s visiting American jobs.

* He’s spending eight days in the Orient. After all he’s spent the past four years in disorient.

* Jeb Bush says he wants to be president. Well that’s a good idea – someone will have to pardon his brother.

- rob 6:16 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Let's face it - Woodward was cool 30 years ago and has been coasting ever since then. But he isn't the young Robert Redford any more. He's an insider who's been making crazy money saying crazy things (or did he really somehow get past security guards to talk with Casey as he was dying in the hospital for an interview)

Arianna Huffington: 15 Questions for Bob Woodward

- rob 6:10 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Excellent post: AMERICAblog: Dick Cheney, who outright lied to justify invading Iraq, now attacks Demcrats for calling him on his lies

- rob 6:02 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Meet the New boss
Same as the Old boss

Iraq official defends 'torture' facility

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraq's interior minister has defended a government facility that was found to be holding dozens of prisoners, including some showing signs of torture, saying it held "the most criminal terrorists."

This is versus those "least misdemeanor terrorists"? Hobby terrorists?

You are
1. Terrorist
2. Someone who doesn't blow up non-combatants (you know civilians)
3. Only blows a few
4. Most criminally blows up a lot

Isn't being a terrorist binary like pregnancy?

You are
a: pregnant
b: not pregnant.

I'm off topic aren't I?

- rob 5:49 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Dick Cheney's Three-Way Fantasy
(via JuanCole) Prof. Cole dismantles Cheney's lame attack on critics yesterday.

"[Cheney] accused the Democrats of 'losing their backbone' for criticizing him. Cheney is increasingly confused. Dick, when the opposing party criticizes the sitting government, that is a sign of backbone."

The closer:

"When they went along with your fantasies about a torrid three-way between Bin Laden, Saddam and Zarqawi on top of an Iraqi nuke in an underground bunker, that was when they were choosing the better part of valor."

- Edoc 12:24 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Both Parties on the Take from Abramoff
I haven't sifted through all the details, but on the surface it doesn't look good.

"Nearly three dozen members of Congress, including leaders from both parties, pressed the government to block a Louisiana Indian tribe from opening a casino while the lawmakers collected large donations from rival tribes and their lobbyist, Jack Abramoff."

Harry Reid is mentioned. Sigh, yet another issue where the GOP will deflect blame by saying "we all made bad decisions."

- Edoc 12:18 PM - [PermaLink] -

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An open letter to Target:

As a consumer who’s family spends hundreds of dollars yearly at your stores I am saddened to read that you allow pharmacists to refuse to fulfill a doctor’s script based on religious grounds.

A rape victim is further victimized by this outrageous policy. Her body violated by the rapist -- a Target employee is now allowed to violate her psyche be questioning her morality at that woman’s most vulnerable time in her life.

How far are you extending this policy of allowing employees to opt-out of their job description based on religious beliefs?

Is a Hindu stock clerk allowed to refuse to stock all meat and dairy products? Will the Cheetos remain in their boxes?

Does the Jewish cashier refuse to allow the sale of pork rinds?

(and don’t get me started about the Amish boy in the electronics department).

Am I being ridiculous? No more so then you. Filling scripts is the pharmacist’s job, if she cannot fulfill her obligations she should not be in that job. That is not harsh; it is a fact of life. You don’t see many Quaker military leaders do you? Would you allow a Christian Scientist pharmacist keep their job with you, after they refuse to fulfill ANY script?

You are allowing a pharmacist override the decision a doctor made for its patient. The fact that that is because of a pharmacist’s religious beliefs is beside the point. The pharmacist chose their profession. The Oath of a Pharmacist includes ”I will consider the welfare of humanity and relief of human suffering my primary concerns.” I see no human suffering relieved by the decision of a pharmacist to deny a script to an emotionally wounded patient.

And I also see no reason to continue spending money at your stores until you change this offensive policy.

- rob 6:10 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Katrina Recovery: What has happened to America?

America under Bush says it wants to bring freedom to the world. Make America the role model.

Under Bush America has become a country where our dollars support slave labor in our own nation. America has been a country where the dead are left lying in homes to rot.

From CNN.com

COOPER: Well, the death toll keeps rising.

You know, it's hard to imagine anything worse than coming back to your home in New Orleans and finding it completely destroyed. But, tonight, as you're about to hear, there is something worse, much worse. Dozens of families have returned to what is left of their homes and found, lying amidst the mold and the wreckage, a body, forgotten, abandoned. Maybe it's their mother or their grandmother, sometimes even their missing child.

The state called off searching house to house in New Orleans well over a month ago. They said they completed the job. Clearly, they have not.
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COOPER: You warned us October 3. When the state stopped house- to-house searching for -- for -- for the deceased, you said, it was a bad idea, that there were more people out there. Now the death toll, it turns out, has jumped by 104. And -- and families are returning to find the bodies of their loved ones still in their homes. How does -- it's got to infuriate you.

JACK STEPHENS, SAINT BERNARD PARISH SHERIFF: Well, you know, you just wonder what provoked that decision.

A month ago, we were still very much in the midst of a -- of a crisis. And the National Guard was conducting the house-to-house searches. And if you go through, Anderson, the neighborhoods right now that were searched then, a lot of them bear the mark of "N.E.," which means no entry.

I was always under the impression that there would be a hard- target search at some point following that to determine whether or not there were any casualties left in those dwellings. As of right now -- in fact, the day before yesterday, in my own jurisdiction, a family came home to discover a family member who had been reported missing.

COOPER: Oh, my God.

Via Pandagon:

Martinez, 16, speaks no English; his mother tongue is Zapotec. He had left the cornfields of Oaxaca, Mexico, four weeks earlier for the promise that he would make $8 an hour, plus room and board, while working for a subcontractor of KBR, a wholly owned subsidiary of Halliburton that was awarded a major contract by the Bush administration for disaster relief work. The job was helping to clean up a Gulf Coast naval base in the region devastated by Hurricane Katrina. "I was cleaning up the base, picking up branches and doing other work," Martinez said, speaking to me in broken Spanish.

Even if the Oaxacan teenager had understood Bush when he urged Americans that day to "help somebody find shelter or help somebody find food," he couldn't have known that he'd soon need similar help himself. But three weeks after arriving at the naval base from Texas, Martinez's boss, Karen Tovar, a job broker from North Carolina who hired workers for a KBR subcontractor called United Disaster Relief, booted him from the base and left him homeless, hungry and without money.

Why is KBR doing the work in the first place, why not local agencies, people who were effected by the crisis. The economy of the area is just as devastated. If you repair the building but leave the people with no jobs or money you're just building a ghost town and laughing all the way to a bank... a bank located far from New Orleans... in fact probably located off shore.

- rob 5:45 PM - [PermaLink] -

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U.S. Has Detained 83,000 in War on Terror
To put it in some perspective, Giants Stadium can hold a maximum of 80,242 people. This is a large number of people, but I'm further disturbed by the fact that I have zero confidence in the truthfulness or accuracy of these numbers. According to the report, roughly 14,500 detainees remain in U.S. custody, "primarily in Iraq."

- Edoc 4:56 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Memo Touts New Terror Attack as Way to Reverse GOP Decline
Ok, so this may fall into the "tinfoil-beenie" file, but I'll put it in play and let you decide:

"A confidential memo circulating among senior Republican leaders suggests that a new attack by terrorists on U.S. soil could reverse the sagging fortunes of President George W. Bush as well as the GOP and "restore his image as a leader of the American people."

I hope this is a fraud that will be debunked on snopes.com.

- Edoc 3:22 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Complete Non-Surprise: Oil Chiefs Met With Cheney Task Force
Now that the current administration is in full implosion mode, we're starting to see surface some of the "missing-link" documents-- evidence for things you always suspected were true, but you couldn't prove. Well, brace yourself for a classic example: The Washington Post reports this morning on a document showing that Cheney's "secret" energy task force met with executives from Big Oil. Let me guess: you were gripped by a severe bout of non-shock, right?

"The document, obtained this week by The Washington Post, shows that officials from Exxon Mobil Corp., Conoco (before its merger with Phillips), Shell Oil Co. and BP America Inc. met in the White House complex with the Cheney aides who were developing a national energy policy, parts of which became law and parts of which are still being debated."

In a moment reminiscent of the famous tobacco CEO lie-fest, the oil execs "couldn't recall" participating in the task force when questioned at the energy-price hearings in the Senate last week.

- Edoc 10:38 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Memorable Quotes:

Cheney: You never say, "I told you so."

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Judy: Think about what protecting sources gets us. Think about what offending Vice loses us.
Scooter: Oh, come on, Judy. You know I don't like to think.
Fitzgerald: Yeah. Well, think about whether you should start.

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Judy: I am awake.
NYT: Your eyes are shut.
Judy: Who you gonna believe?

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Judy's Conscience: Look in your heart! Look in your heart!
Judy: What heart?

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Judy to the Cameras: If I'd known we were gonna cast our journalists into jails, I'd've memorized the Song of Solomon.

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Keller: I didn't ask for that and I don't want it.

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Abramson: You are so goddamn smart. Except you ain't.

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Judy: So you wanna kill him...
Libby: For starters.

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Dick: It's gettin' so a businessman can't expect no return from a fixed war. Now, if you can't trust a fix, what can you trust? For a good return, you gotta go bettin' on chance - and then you're back with anarchy, right back in Fallujah.

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Vice: Shouldn't you be doing your job?
Libby: Intimidating helpless women is my job.
Vice: Then go find one, and intimidate her.

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Cheney: What you doing?
Scooter: Talking...
Cheney: Don't let on any more than you have to.
Scooter: ...in the rain.

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Judy to the Newsroom: Close your eyes ladies! I'm comin' in!

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Miller: Chalabi's got the right idea. I like him, he's honest and he's got a heart.
Dowd: Then it's true what they say. Opposites attract.

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Big Time: I am gonna send you to a deep, dark place and I am gonna have fun doing it!

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Addington: You understand that if we don't find a stiff out here, we leave a fresh one.

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Abramson: C'mon, Judy. Boss wants to see ya. He didn't have time to engrave nothin' formal.

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Judy: Tell Valerie no hard feelings.
Joseph Wilson: Jesus Judy, she knows.

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George W. Bush: Up is down, black is white.

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Dick: I told you to put one in his brain, not in his stinkn' face!

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Troops: I thought you said you didn't care about facts no more.
Judy Miller: I said we're through. There's a difference.

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Arthur Jr.: Hello, Judy. Still fighting the good fight?
Judy: Hello, Arthur! Neither rain nor wind nor snow...
Arthur Jr.: That's the mailman!

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NYT Readers: I'm talkin' about friendship. I'm talkin' about character. I'm talkin' about – hell. Judy, I ain't embarrassed to use the word - I'm talkin' about ethics.

Here's
the Public Editor and here's Judy's Response.

Judith Miller is going out kicking and screaming, she's like the Alien trying to claw her way back into the ship after Ripley blows her out into space with rockets. What disturbs me the most about her self-righteous protestations here and elsewhere (see my post below) is that there isn't one ounce of remorse coming from her. Can you imagine? People are getting blown to pieces and all she can do is crow about her Pulitzer prize and the injustice being done to her and what a great track record she has as a responsible, ethical reporter. How about a little "OMIGOD WHAT HAVE I DONE???"

- Michael 6:19 PM - [PermaLink] -

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The current Republican party is a pro-big business, anti-environment, religious extremist mishmash.

And they hate "deviant" sex

And yet the policies they support (less environmental oversight of corporations) has created a mishmash of a sexual nature. True sexual deviants.

'Intersex' Fish Found Off Calif. Coast

LOS ANGELES - Scientists have discovered sexually altered fish off the Southern California coast, raising concerns that treated sewage discharged into the ocean contains chemicals that can affect an animal's reproductive system.

So-called intersex animals are not new, but most previous instances were in freshwater. Environmentalists say this is among the first studies to document the effects in a marine environment.

Last year, federal scientists reported finding egg-growing male fish in Maryland's Potomac River. They think the abnormality may be caused by pollutants from sewage plants, feedlots and factories.
...
Nearly a billion gallons of treated sewage are released into the Pacific Ocean every day through three underwater pipelines off Huntington Beach, Playa del Rey and Palos Verdes Peninsula.
...
Two related studies found that two-thirds of male fish near the Orange County pipeline had egg-producing qualities. In a laboratory experiment, male fish exposed to sediment collected from the pipelines also developed egg-producing traits.

- rob 4:35 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Ohio continues is valiant effort to out Florida Florida

Has American Democracy died an electronic death in Ohio 2005's referenda defeats?

The Dispatch's Sunday headline showed "3 issues on way to passage." The headline referred to Issues One, Two and Three. As mentioned, the poll was dead-on accurate for Issue One.
...
The November 6 Dispatch poll showed Issue Two passing by a vote of 59% to 33%, with about 8% undecided, an even broader margin than that predicted for Issue One.

But on November 8, the official vote count showed Issue Two going down to defeat by the astonishing margin of 63.5% against, with just 36.5% in favor. To say the outcome is a virtual statistical impossibility is to understate the case. For the official vote count to square with the pre-vote Dispatch poll, support for the Issue had to drop more than 22 points, with virtually all the undecideds apparently going into the "no" column.

The numbers on Issue Three are even less likely.

Issue Three involved campaign finance reform. In a lame duck session at the end of 2004, Ohio's Republican legislature raised the limits for individual donations to $10,000 per candidate per person for anyone over the age of six. Thus a family of four could donate $40,000 to a single candidate. The law also opened the door for direct campaign donations from corporations, something banned by federal law since the administration of Theodore Roosevelt.

The GOP measure sparked howls of public outrage. Though again opposed by the Christian Right, Issue Three drew an extremely broad range of support from moderate bi-partisan citizen groups and newspapers throughout the state. The Sunday Dispatch poll showed it winning in a landslide, with 61% in favor and just 25% opposed.

Tuesday's official results showed Issue Three going down to defeat in perhaps the most astonishing reversal in Ohio history, claiming just 33% of the vote, with 67% opposed. For this to have happened, Issue Three's polled support had to drop 28 points, again with an apparent 100% opposition from the previously undecideds.

Okay so Ohio has even out done Florida's voting shenanigans, but Florida is still Florida:

State of Florida Studied 'Supernatural' Water to Protect Citrus Trees

Katherine Harris, then Florida's Secretary of State, and now a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, ordered a study in which, according to an article by Jim Stratton in the Orlando Sentinel, "Researchers worked with a rabbi and a cardiologist to test 'Celestial Drops,' promoted as a canker inhibitor because of its 'improved fractal design,' 'infinite levels of order,' and 'high energy and low entropy.'"

The study determined that the product tested was, basically, water that had apparently been blessed according to the principles of Kabbalic mysticism, "chang[ing] its molecular structure and imbu[ing] it with supernatural healing powers."

Class did we learn why science is important today?

- rob 4:15 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Here's something I'm letting Santa know I don't want for Christmas.

The reviews are the best part.

- rob 3:49 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Alas TCS is probably too small time to make Mr. O'Reilly's cute little "Hit List." But it would be such an honor if we were.

Think Progress: O'Reilly Resorts To McCarthyism, Plans To Publish Online Enemies List

Last Tuesday, Bill O’Reilly encouraged terrorists to target San Francisco because he was upset that the city voted to ban military recruiters from high-school and college campuses. O’Reilly said “if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we’re not going to do anything about it. We’re going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco.”

At first, O’Reilly defended his comments as “not controversial.” That didn’t seem to work, so tonight he claimed the whole thing was a “satirical riff.”

In O’Reilly’s view the only real problem is the “internet smear sites” drawing attention to his comments:

Some far left internet smear sites have launched a campaign to get me fired over my point of view. I believe they do this on a daily basis. This time the theme is O’Reilly is encouraging terrorist attacks. Unbelievably stupid. Not unusual with these guttersnipes.

...
O’Reilly promised to publish the names of everyone who supported these “internet smear sites” on his website:

I’m glad the smear sites made a big deal out of it. Now we can all know who was with the anti-military internet crowd. We’ll post the names of all who support the smear merchants on billoreilly.com. So check with us.

He talks like an AM talk show host who's paid to insense listeners who tune in the next day to be insensed again. Alas he's the most viewed anchor on the most viewed news network.

Fox News viewers have also been proven to be the least educated and informed about current events when compared to all other forms of news media. Just something I thought I'd add to this post.

- rob 3:23 PM - [PermaLink] -

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I've added a new site to the blogroll on the right side of this fair site.

Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch

It will probably a good idea to check in on them every now and then... if you don't mind the likely result of throwing the computer out the window in anger.

Post-hurricane contracts are still marked by secrecy and lack of oversight. And what happened to the re-bidding?
...
It's one of many questions shadowing the government's contracting priorities in the 11 weeks since Katrina-and later Hurricane Rita-turned the Gulf Coast into one of the most lucrative fix-it projects in the nation's history. By early this month, federal agencies had handed out almost $7.6 billion in relief-related contracts -- an average of $113 million a day, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog organization.
...
Of some $3.1 billion in business awarded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency alone, only 12 percent has gone to contractors based in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, recent figures show.
...
Apart from skeleton summaries, bureaucrats will furnish virtually no up-front information on contract terms or explain how no-bid agreements were negotiated. Anyone wanting those kinds of crucial details has to file a written Freedom of Information request-a process that can take months for an answer and still allows the government to withhold big chunks of information. Already, FEMA has signaled that internal evaluations of contractor performance are off-limits to the public. The reason, according to a spokesman: release might "discourage open and candid" discussion among government officials.

You know what a democracy requires an open and candid discussion between its citizens and its government. FEMA works for you and me - not Halliburton's Kellogg Brown and Root.

- rob 2:43 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Here's a piece from TCS contributor Michael:

Ms. Miller, 57, said in an interview that she was "very satisfied" with the agreement and described herself as a "free woman," free from what she called the "convent of The New York Times, a convent with its own theology and its own catechism."

Yeah, and here's the catechism: "Thou shalt NOT report what ISN'T TRUE." Sounds like a dangerous theology to me. Good thing she got a multimillion-dollar settlement just to set the record straight. Maybe I can violate every single ethics code of my profession and get a Pulitzer prize for it too? On top of the million-dollar book deal. Let Freedom Wring.

Judith Miller's Farewell

Published: November 10, 2005
To the Editor:

On July 6 I chose to go to jail to defend my right as a journalist to protect a confidential source, the same right that enables lawyers to grant confidentiality to their clients, clergy to their parishioners, and physicians and psychotherapists to their patients. Though 49 states have extended this privilege to journalists as well, for without such protection a free press cannot exist, there is no comparable federal law. I chose to go to jail not only to honor my pledge of confidentiality, but also to dramatize the need for such a federal law.

After 85 days, more than twice as long as any other American journalist has ever spent in jail for this cause, I agreed to testify before the special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald's grand jury about my conversations with my source, I. Lewis Libby Jr. I did so only after my two conditions were met: first, that Mr. Libby voluntarily relieve me in writing and by phone of my promise to protect our conversations; and second, that the special prosecutor limit his questions only to those germane to the Valerie Plame Wilson case. Contrary to inaccurate reports, these two agreements could not have been reached before I went to jail. Without them, I would still be in jail, perhaps, my lawyers warned, charged with obstruction of justice, a felony. Though some colleagues disagreed with my decision to testify, for me to have stayed in jail after achieving my conditions would have seemed self-aggrandizing martyrdom or worse, a deliberate effort to obstruct the prosecutor's inquiry into serious crimes.

Partly because of such objections from some colleagues, I have decided, after 28 years and with mixed feelings, to leave The Times. I am honored to have been part of this extraordinary newspaper and proud of my accomplishments here - a Pulitzer, a DuPont, an Emmy and other awards - but sad to leave my professional home.

- rob 2:20 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Abuse Included Use of Lions, Iraqis Allege
It will be fascinating to see if these allegations are true. It would be even more interesting to hear apologists for the administration concoct explanations about how use of lions does not meet a definition of torture. Wouldn't you have to concede that use of lions represents something far more extreme than attack dogs? What's next, shark tanks?

"That was a terrifying period for me," Khalid said through an interpreter yesterday, slowly recounting being shoved into a lion's cage at one of the presidential palaces in Baghdad three times before soldiers lined him up for a mock execution. "I was wondering if it could be real that the American army would act this way."

Remember what the Shrub said: We do not torture.

- Edoc 12:53 PM - [PermaLink] -

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NYT Strikes at the "Everyone Had the Same Intel" Bogeyman
In today's lead editorial, the NYT drives a stake through the heart of the oft-heard "everyone had the same intelligence" talking point. Every war discussion these days seems to lead through this thicket, usually echoed by a tangle of epileptic monkeys. The NYT editorial sifts through the bluster, and cuts right to the truth:

"Congress had nothing close to the president's access to intelligence."

The notion that Congress has access to the identical intel as the Commander-In-Chimp is just nonesense. Former Clinton advisor Paul Begala states:

"[T]he White House is who provides the intelligence to the Congress and the notion that the Congress sees the same intelligence as the president is nonsense.

I used to work in the White House and I used to work on the Congress. I can tell you, presidents and this president especially, treats Congress like a mushroom factory, keeps them in the dark and feeds them manure."

So let's finally bury this GOP bogeyman, now that we've heard rebuttals from the NYT, the WashingtonPost and numerous other sources.

- Edoc 10:53 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Read: MANIPULATING INTELLIGENCE

The case for manipulation is pretty strong. It relies on several things, but I think the most important of them has been the discovery that the administration deliberately suppressed dissenting views on some of the most important pieces of evidence that they used to bolster their case for war. For future reference, here's a list of five key dissents about administration claims, all of which were circulated before the war but kept under wraps until after the war:

Do read the article - here are some examples:

2. The Claim: An Iraqi defector codenamed "Curveball" was the source of reporting that Saddam Hussein had built a fleet of mobile biowarfare labs. Curveball's claims of mobile bio labs were repeated by many administration figures during the runup to war.

What We Know Now: The only American agent to actually meet with Curveball before the war warned that he appeared to be an alcoholic and was unreliable. However, his superior in the CIA told him it was best to keep quiet about this: "Let's keep in mind the fact that this war's going to happen regardless of what Curveball said or didn't say, and the powers that be probably aren't terribly interested in whether Curveball knows what he's talking about." Link. This dissent was not made public until 2004, in a response to the SSCI report that was written by Senator Dianne Feinstein. Link.

Talking Points Memo has a great follow up post.

- rob 5:51 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Libby was part of the neo-con crowd that wanted to remake American into a Roman Empire of the 21st Century.

In that mindset it makes sense he'd fall upon his sword "for the greater good"

Libby May Have Tried to Mask Cheney's Role

Libby, according to Fitzgerald's indictment, gave a false story to agents and, later, to a grand jury, even though he knew investigators had his notes, and presumably knew that several of his White House colleagues had already provided testimony and documentary evidence that would undercut his own story. And his interviews with the FBI in October and two appearances before the grand jury in March 2004 came at a time when there were increasingly clear signs that some of the reporters with whom Libby discussed Plame could soon be freed to testify -- and provide starkly different and damning accounts to the prosecutor.

To critics, the timing suggests an attempt to obscure Cheney's role, and possibly his legal culpability. The vice president is shown by the indictment to be aware of and interested in Plame and her CIA status long before her cover was blown. Even some White House aides privately wonder whether Libby was seeking to protect Cheney from political embarrassment.

- rob 4:53 PM - [PermaLink] -

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O'Reilly urges terrorists to bombing San Francisco

Gotta love this moral family values crowd. Just days after Pat Robertson urges God to destroy Dover, PA - Bill O'Reilly urges Al Qaeda to kill Americans (as long as they live in a liberal city)

O'Reilly to San Francisco: "[I]f Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. ... You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead"

Criticizing a ballot measure passed by 60 percent of San Francisco voters urging public high schools and colleges to prohibit on-campus military recruiting, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly declared on the November 8 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, "[I]f Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off-limits to you, except San Francisco."

San Francisco responds:

Local leaders unleash vitriol at O'Reilly. TV host should be fired for comments about city, Daly says

"For an anchor on a major station, Fox News, to be saying those kinds of things, it's just not OK," Daly said Friday. "It was just over the top."

Agreeing with Daly was San Francisco firefighters union president John Hanley, and not just because the hose-shaped tower is a tribute to firefighters.

"Who is this guy, O'Reilly?" said Hanley, who identified himself as both a third-generation San Franciscan and military veteran. "I've got guys fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm a veteran myself. What's he talking about?"

- rob 4:47 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Bush Loved Torture before he didn't (but he actually still does)

The phrase you're thinking of is Flip-flopping Liar

White House declines to totally rule out torture

WASHINGTON (AFP) - In an important clarification of President George W. Bush's earlier statement, a top White House official refused to unequivocally rule out the use of torture, arguing the US administration was duty-bound to protect Americans from terrorist attack.

Okay, this is stupid. We don't want to be viewed as people who torture - then say we don't torture. Make it a law, and stop doing it. It is not effective and any reward that actually does result from torturing is not worth the fact that it damages our international standing and it makes it easier for al Qaeda to recruit new terrorists. We should not do it.

Now if in the highly unlikely scenario that a nuke is going to blow up a major city (anywhere) and a prisoner knows the location of the bomb and it is about to go off and it is determined torture might work then for goodness sake go break the law and torture the guy. I don't think anyone would feel ill will towards the President for breaking the law at that point (well yes some would, but not in any way to get the President in trouble).

Look, its a fact at this point the Cheney illegally ordered civilians flights to be shot down if there was a question as to who was flying them on 9/11. And you know what - everyone seems to think that is fine and dandy. That decision needed to be made - and at that moment it was - despite the law. It happened. But you don't then say to everyone that we have no problem with VP's staging minor coups - because we do have a problem with it.

Or is this just too hard?

- rob 4:25 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Sad

Rumsfeld and Bush is destroying America. They wanted America to be an empire - they didn't care if the meaning of America was lost along the way.

Doing Unto Others as They Did Unto Us

That was a classified program at Fort Bragg, N.C., known as SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape. Based on studies of North Korean and Vietnamese efforts to break American prisoners, SERE was intended to train American soldiers to resist the abuse they might face in enemy custody.

The Pentagon appears to have flipped SERE's teachings on their head, mining the program not for resistance techniques but for interrogation methods. At a June 2004 briefing, the chief of the United States Southern Command, Gen. James T. Hill, said a team from Guantánamo went "up to our SERE school and developed a list of techniques" for "high-profile, high-value" detainees. General Hill had sent this list - which included prolonged isolation and sleep deprivation, stress positions, physical assault and the exploitation of detainees' phobias - to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who approved most of the tactics in December 2002.
...
Within the SERE program, abuse is carefully controlled, with the goal of teaching trainees to cope. But under combat conditions, brutal tactics can't be dispassionately "dosed." Fear, fury and loyalty to fellow soldiers facing mortal danger make limits almost impossible to sustain.
...
Yet the Pentagon cannot point to any intelligence gains resulting from the techniques that have so tarnished America's image. That's because the techniques designed by communist interrogators were created to control a prisoner's will rather than to extract useful intelligence.

An international reputation that we all held in the hearts - gone for no reason. We believed we were fair (and we often were), we did not torture, we were the good guys. Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney are not good guys and unfortunately they are America's policy makers right now.

- rob 4:01 PM - [PermaLink] -

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NBC Exec Claims Liberals Read and that Conservatives Don't

(sorta)

Wright Says Liberal Net Wouldn't Fly

"Waxing nostalgic for the days when networks played current events 'down the middle,' [NBC Universal President] Wright lamented the over-the-top tone that cable-news channels are increasingly embracing. And, of course, he laid responsibility for it all at the feet of Fox News Channel."

Carlson suggested the creation of a cable channel that caters to liberals. But "going after a lefty audience would be futile, Wright said. 'For some strange, probably genetic, reasons' -- we're pretty sure that was a joke -- 'they don't listen to a lot of radio and they don't watch a lot of television.'"

- rob 3:48 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Remember New Orleans?

I heard on the radio today the total number of missing in New Orleans is 4,000 - this tragedy is being under-reported.

They also mentioned the army is guarding the Yacht Club in New Orleans so we know we have our priorities straight.

Nearly 2,000 Children of Katrina and Rita Still Missing

Where are the nearly 2,000 children still missing after hurricanes Katrina and Rita? Why have their faces disappeared off the radar? Where is the president who in the aftermath debacle promised to "do whatever it takes to reunite separated families"? Where are those glaring post Katrina headlines and CNN cameras that rattled America's collective conscience?

- rob 9:31 AM - [PermaLink] -

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The giant country to the north is getting angry.

We Want Our Money Back!
Yo Yo Yo, give us our dough
No Mc-D on December 3!

The United States owes Canada 5 billion dollars and we want it back!

When we try to sell our trees in the U.S. they steal money from us in extra taxes. We are supposed to be able to sell our lumber (trees) in the U.S. without extra taxes because we have a trade agreement called NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement). But the U.S. broke that agreement and put extra taxes on Canadian lumber. So they have collected an extra 5 Billion Dollars in taxes on lumber that Canada has sold in the U.S. Those extra taxes are illegal and we want our money back.

The U.S. is acting like a big bully. They took our money and are refusing to give it back. This is making it impossible for Canada to sell lumber in the U.S. and many people in Canada have lost their jobs because of this (about 15,000 in British Columbia).

I'll be honest I have no idea what is going on, but I do know we take Canada for granted and our relationship with them is the most important relationship we have with a foreign nation in the entire world. They are our number one supplier of oil, our number one trade partner, and the gave us William Shatner.

Anyway its probably good for everyone to not eat at McDonald's now and then.

- rob 9:26 AM - [PermaLink] -

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