Monday Morning WTFs

It isn't the President who termed it "torture", it was society.  And the law.  Many years before the Bush administration started using it on people they deemed less than human we had prosecuted and executed people for using those same procedures.

Panetta was reportedly upset over plans by Attorney General Eric Holder to open a criminal investigation of allegations that CIA officers broke the law in carrying out certain interrogation techniques that President Obama has termed "torture."

Oh good grief!  No wonder America is becoming dumber by the minute.  Name a holiday that isn't about selling or buying.  If it isn't sheets, furniture or clothes, it's candy and/or diamonds.  While Roman holidays seemed to be about debauchery, American holidays are about money and shopping.  December 7th is barely remembered and April 19th quickly became a mote in the dustbin of history so why should September 11th be any different?

As most sane people know, a good majority of Freepers are off their rocker.  Well, the Freepers are not only rocking to a different beat, they are rocking on a whole different planet.  The "birther" fringe is now preoccupied with whether or not Obama has been circumcised.  The General found this so you don't have to.

hoosiermama:
The only other thing that hit me was that Sinclair said BO was not circumcised. When my son was born in a hospital that was done as a matter of routine without even consulting us. Would the same be for Hawaii? OTOH People born at home or in some other cultures are not circumcised.

Okay, they aren't on another planet, they are occupying a whole different universe. Bizarroland.

I accidentally got bit a few years ago when Shai was playing with another pug.  They were between the couch and the coffee table and got under my legs while they were play nipping at each other and Jack caught me in the back of the knee.  He didn't break the skin but I had a four inch wide bruise for more than two weeks.  And it hurt.

The CDC says adults with two or more dogs at home are five times more likely to get bitten than people with dog-free households.

Please tell me that they didn't spend money to figure that out.

BBB

Guns, Cuts, Tax Credits And War Crimes

Okay, I'm breaking down and buying myself a pistol.  Three of them to be exact, all strategically placed within the house.  And unlike the people from the right wing fringe who strut around using their Second Amendment "right" to intimidate people into not using their First Amendment right to free speech to express an opposing viewpoint (Arthur Frommer is trying to decide if he should recommend a travel boycott of Arizona but he personally has canceled all his trips), I'm going to be using mine to try and stop Shadow from barking at everything that happens outside in the parking lot.  Of course I will be using water instead of bullets and neither the President nor innocent bystanders can be affected by my actions.

And so it begins.  The closing of for profit nursing homes due to budget cuts.  88 elderly people, many who don't have families and all who are on Medi-Cal,  are being forced from their nursing facility into whatever dump can be found for them.  And the seniors have to hope that their new home doesn't end up closing due to the asinine budget cuts the Governator has determined must be done in his ongoing effort to balance the budget on the backs of the poor and the elderly.  While the rest of the country worries about end-of-life counseling nonexistent death panels, these defenseless members of society have become pawns in the California budget power game.  Isn't that just great?  The generation that lived through the Great Depression and the Second World War get to end their lives in urine scented dormitories with the same sad eyed compatriots.  Until they are moved to different facilities that can warehouse them for ten cents less a person.

The 47 million uninsured and the 30 million underinsured in this country don't need and can't use tax credits.  When making rent is an issue, when feeding the kids and keeping the lights on consumes your budget then money later on is not going to help.  Simply put, what people need is to be able to access medical, dental and eye care when they need them, not when their budget says they can afford to.  If you don't have $50 for a doctor's visit you either hope the problem goes away on its own, that you don't have to go to the emergency room or that you learn to live with the issue.  None of those are optimal health care options and not only do they directly affect the quality of life, they also affect the quantity of life.  Maybe if we were a healthier country we wouldn't be so angry.

I almost feel sorry for him but then I remember I have two Article 15s for disobeying a lawful order and know he had a choice and he took the coward's way out.  And now, many more years later than it should have taken, he's sorry about it.  Interesting how he served three years under house arrest for the deaths of 500 people and Charles Graner got ten years in Leavenworth for abuse, conspiracy and assault.  From a government that condoned torture.

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No Wonder Obama Won't Release The Photos

I'd want to hide them too.  While most Americans seem willing and able to justify torture by way of waterboarding, sleep deprivation and confined spaces, methinks that rape is a whole different ball of wax.  Especially the rape of Iraqi women long before we pissed them off and they became suicide bombers.  How sick do you have to be to take, and then keep, photos of a man raping a woman, forcibly removing a female prisoner's clothing or raping a teenage boy? And in what world could you ever justify raping someone as part of your job? These are war crimes and should be punished as such. Immediately. I seriously doubt that the perpetrators have been dealt with.

At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.

Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.

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Among the graphic statements, which were later released under US freedom of information laws, is that of Kasim Mehaddi Hilas in which he says: “I saw [name of a translator] ******* a kid, his age would be about 15 to 18 years. The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets. Then when I heard screaming I climbed the door because on top it wasn’t covered and I saw [name] who was wearing the military uniform, putting his **** in the little kid’s ***…. and the female soldier was taking pictures.” 

No wonder Stephen Green thought he could get away with raping and killing fourteen year old Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi.  If she had been American he would have gotten the death penalty.  And deservedly so even though I don't normally believe in it.

There's no point in hiding the photos now that the story is out. I don't particularly want to see them but America deserves to see how far we have fallen and why the violence against our troops escalated for so long.  It's the only way to try and make sure that it doesn't happen again. And we need to raise the standards of who we will accept in the military, no more bottom of the barrel recruits. I refuse to believe that the people I served with would have ever committed these crimes.

I am so ashamed for my country, how will we ever live this down?

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Debating The Issues. Not.

So, the political discourse in this country has devolved into equating the Speaker of the House with the second most disgusting term for a woman's anatomy.  While I thought Sarah Palin was a moron, I would never have referred to her using nasty nicknames because there were too many other terms that were appropriate.  Idiot, clueless and inciter of hatred being among them, the mini me version of Limbaugh.  Palin was picked as a VP candidate only because she was a woman not because she was competent or had skills and knowledge that the position needed.  The woman, and I use that term loosely, I would describe using the "C" word would be Ann Coulter and only because she invites vulgarity as she drips vitriol and reeks of self importance when she attacks the 9/11 families.  Coulter isn't an elected official, she is a tacky pundit and a fear monger in her own right.

But when you see Nancy Pelosi, the Republican National Committee wants you to think “Pussy Galore.”

At least that’s the takeaway from a video released by the committee this week – a video that puts Pelosi side-by-side with the aforementioned villainess from the 1964 James Bond film “Goldfinger.”

The RNC video, which begins with the speaker’s head in the iconic spy-series gun sight, implies that Pelosi has used her feminine wiles to dodge the truth about whether or not she was briefed by the CIA on the use of waterboarding in 2002. While the P-word is never mentioned directly, in one section the speaker appears in a split screen alongside the Bond nemesis – and the video’s tagline is “Democrats Galore.”

The wisdom of equating the first woman speaker of the House with a character whose first name also happens to be among the most vulgar terms for a part of the female anatomy might be debated – if the RNC were willing to do so, which it was not. An RNC spokesperson refused repeated requests by POLITICO to explain the point of the video, or the intended connection between Pelosi and Galore.

I don't like Pelosi because I feel she is ineffectual, she protested too much and then folded, giving the Bush administration more than they wanted. Every time.  Yet Republicans maintain that she's incompetent when it should be the Democrats who should be yelling at the top of their lungs. Do I think she lied? You betcha! But probably not about the briefing since the Bush administration wasn't well known for openness. Besides, the important question here is whether or not torture occurred, not when she knew about it.

The Republicans are trying to have it both ways, they want to have their cake and eat it too. If Ms. Pelosi was briefed in 2002 then that means the Bush administration was torturing people and all those involved should be punished. Then, and only then, Ms. Pelosi should be investigated and censured, not the other way around. The Republicans want Pelosi penalized for a crime they swear was never committed and if it was then it was justified but she should be punished for not letting anyone know about it. That only makes sense to anyone who isn't capable of stringing two related thoughts together. Or hasn't taken a logic class.

And what do Ms. Pelosi's looks have to do with job performance, such as it is? Tip O'Neill wasn't that great looking and that was never an issue while he was Speaker. And don't even get me started on Dennis Hastert. Besides, Honor Blackman was quite attractive. In true Republican fashion they really wanted to equate Pelosi's looks with Irma Bunt or Rosa Klebb but their names weren't offensive enough.

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Never Thought I'd Say Something Like This

I know I'm past the age of reproduction (unlike some other crazy people) but can I have his babies?

"If you look at the big picture, the terrorists are winning. Not on the battlefield, but in the sense that they are changing us and who we are. The way to make them not successful is not to change. We've changed in so many ways -- the majority have no problem that we are torturing people... I've been water-boarded and I speak from experience and it's torture."

"They've changed us in that we have a paranoia that there's a crazy Arab around every tree... We're walking on eggshells now. When in reality, you have as much chance of running into a terrorist as winning the Powerball."

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Ventura also blames the Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. "They condoned it. Nobody stepped forward and said this is torture. Democrats are so spineless, so afraid to go against the tide... but dissension is the greatest form of patriotism."

If only our current politicians had cojones and weren't afraid to admit it.

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Like A Bad Penny

If I was Colin Powell and knew where the bodies were buried I would seriously think about whether or not I owed any loyalty to the Bush/Cheney administration and then report immediately to the Hague, Spain or our most useless Justice department and clear my conscience.  Let the chips fall where they may but I wouldn't for one second more think about how I had compromised everything I held dear just to keep those bozos out of jail.  Neither the administration nor the Republican party deserves my loyalty since they haven't shown me any.

And what in the world makes Cheney think that he is a Republican, he's not.  What he is though, is a five time draft evader, a torturer, a traitor, a hate monger, a liar of the first order and a criminal for the war crimes he authorized and idolizes.  He is even slimier than Limpballs, and that is saying something. Why hasn't he faded into obscurity like every other vice president?  He doesn't deserve to be a Jeopardy question but he continues babbling his bushit on Sunday morning talk shows.  How to "Shoot Friends and Interrogate People".  Indeed.

Good grief, the twerp just can't shut up.  The person that is hurting this country the most is the same one who was hell bent on destroying it in the first place.  And his name isn't Osama or Obama, it is Cheney.  In my life there have been very few people that I have actively hated, they can be counted on one hand and don't include my thumb, but Cheney leads the pack.  I would rather be forced to live with my ex mother-in-law for the rest of my life than to have Cheney continue to...it wouldn't be prudent for me to put into print.  Good God I hate that sorry ass excuse for a man.

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Sunday Morning Diversions

Well, the WaPo is at it again, trying to create a crisis where none exists.  Yes the H1N1 flu virus has made people sick, the flu usually does that but it is not a pandemic and it is already dying down.  But did that stop the intrepid reporters from the Post?  No way Jose.  A two page article in the Sunday edition, still calling it swine flu and a whole section devoted to stoking the fire.  Approximately 36,000 people a year die from the flu and that number could be overstated but the news ignores that and hypes the death toll from this new version as a coming pandemic.  Since when are 19 deaths in a poor country a pandemic?  If they had paid this much attention to SARS when it first started it might not have spread as much as it did.  One thing the flu did accomplish, it knocked torture right off the front page.  How convenient.

The number of confirmed dead in Mexico stood at 19 on Saturday, unchanged from the day before, Córdova said at a news conference in Mexico City. Confirmed swine flu cases, including the deaths, rose from 397 to 473.

Why is it that people are willing to risk serious injury or death to lose weight but they aren't willing to cut calories and get exercise?  The only way to successfully lose weight and to keep it off are to change bad eating and exercise habits.  That's it, there is no other way.  No matter what diet you are on if you don't change your approach towards food on a permanent basis then you will put the weight back on.  It may take a few months or it may take a couple of years but most likely at the end of five years you will be back to your original weight, plus a few extra pounds. Park at the rear of the lot, take the stairs, cut back on the sodas and alcohol, eat more colors (otherwise known as vegetables) and not only will you lose weight you will feel better and your cholesterol will decrease.  Now that is a win, win.

I deeply resent it when people assume that because someone is liberal they want revenge on the Bush administration for authorizing torture and that those who are conservative approve or condone torture and believe that we should let bygones be bygones.  Neither of those assumptions is completely true and only serve to continue to polarize the country.  Do I believe that torture is wrong?  Yes.  Do I believe that those who authorized it should be punished?  Yes.  Does it matter that it was the Bush administration?  No.  I would feel the same way if it had happened under Carter, Clinton or the current fox guarding the henhouse, Obama.  Torture is wrong, it will always be wrong, nothing is going to change that and the perpetrators should be punished.  Not even a ticking clock is a valid excuse.  Better to die with my head held high than to live under a cloud of shame and hypocrisy.  Most Americans used to feel the same way before they were fed the pablum that passes as news.

Given a choice between putting convicted criminals to death or finding the criminals who committed murders and haven't been found, I opt to find the criminals running free.  Hopefully Colorado will decide that the money used to try and kill those already convicted will be better used to hunt down and prosecute those who think they have gotten away with murder.  Not all cases will be solved but there are many parents, brothers, sisters, wives, husbands and children who would like to know who killed their loved ones.

Dipshit.  I'm sorry I ever believed in you.

A little humor to lighten the morning.  These classifieds actually ran in newspapers - a smile for your day.

FREE YORKSHIRE TERRIER.
8-years old. Hateful little bastard. Bites!

FREE PUPPIES:
1/2 Cocker Spaniel, 1/2 sneaky neighbor's dog.

FREE PUPPIES..
Mother, AKC German Shepherd.
Father, Super Dog...able to leap tall fences in a single bound.

FOUND DIRTY WHITE DOG.
Looks like a rat. Been out a while. Better be a big reward.

COWS, CALVES: NEVER BRED.
Also 1 gay bull for sale.

NORDIC TRACK
$300 Hardly used, call Chubby.

GEORGIA PEACHES
California grown - 89 cents/lb.

JOINING NUDIST COLONY!
Must sell washer and dryer $300.

WEDDING DRESS FOR SALE.
Worn once by mistake. Call Stephanie.

And the best one?:

FOR SALE BY OWNER:
Complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica, 45 volumes Excellent condition.
$1,000 or best offer. No longer needed. Got married last month. Wife knows everything.

Big Brass Blog

Will The Democrats Screw Up?

Wow, how clueless do you have to be?  Of course the Dumocrats are going to screw up.  Unfortunately for the Repubs it won't be as bad as they themselves have done in the last eight years.  William Jacobson. a law professor from Cornell (I thought you had to be smart to attend there much less teach) sets out his reasons why the Specter defection will turn out to have a silver lining for the GOP.

So I'm not depressed about the long-term future of the country, although the next few years will be tough politically. The Democrats will screw up big time, as they did during the Carter years, and the damage they cause will be generational. But the clean-up is worth looking forward to, even if the mess is not.

How...kind of him.  As if the problems created by the last eight years aren't going to be generational.

His first argument is no surprise because I've been saying the same thing for years. The first duty of a politician is to get themselves reelected, preferably to higher office but staying in the Senate is a no brainer if you can't be President.  And just like any other party, if your date gets obnoxiously drunk it is better to go home with someone else.  Especially if you plan on getting there in one piece.

Now, in regard to the torture hearings, if America sits on its ass and does nothing to rectify or show shame about the situation, it will give those who hate us even more ammunition, not less.  As my father pointed out to me in 1967, the people in America have short memories and the people in the Middle East have extremely long ones.  The Turkish-Armenian situation is but one sad example.  Plus, and this is a big one, they are willing to die for their beliefs.  The majority of Americans aren't and our recent behavior more than makes this clear.

To accuse the Democrats of being the isolationist party is one of the most laughable arguments I've heard in years.  I was a Republican because I was an isolationist and a fiscal conservative until they lost their freaking minds.  Republicans ran up the national debt, like they always do, and went nuts on immigration.  If you were born brown and out of town you became the reason that everything went wrong in America.  Sheesh, get a grip.

Last time I checked we were a Republic, not a dynasty.  As history (there's that word again) has shown many times, the balance of power shifts across the globe pretty frequently.  Maybe if we hadn't spent all our resources, wasted our good will and destroyed our military in two useless wars we wouldn't be in the position of having to watch other countries pick up where we left off before we had our mental breakdown.  America is no longer a free society.  Our phones are tapped, there are surveillance cameras in almost every town, the police become more like the military every day and while the Second Amendment is in no danger, the First, Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth definitely are.

The national debt was way out of control before the Democrats were elected to power.  It got that way while the Republicans held sway and decided that the rich needed to be richer at the expense of everyone else.  Young people aren't stupid and since recent studies show that math scores are increasing they will be able to do the arithmetic.  A simple math problem might consist of something like this.  In 2000 there was a surplus and in 2008 there wasn't.  By a wide margin.  Yes, the deficit is going to be bigger for the next couple of years but that wouldn't have happened if the GOP hadn't engaged in a reverse Robin Hood scheme for the last eight years while at the same time increasing the size of government with duplicate agencies that contained their unqualified cronies.

Human rights, that's rich.  And who says it's only three members of al-Qaeda that were tortured?  It's much more widespread than that and everyone knows it.   Pregnant women wouldn't have joined the cause to blow themselves up if they and their baby had something to live for.  They don't.  We have turned their homes, fields and farms into one gigantic war zone in an effort to get revenge on people who are already dead.  Human rights belong to everyone, even if you're brown from out of town.  Other countries, who are much smaller than us geographically, have survived terrorism for years.  We have one instance of terrorism and now the nation wears diapers and cries for mommy.  They aren't destroying us, we are doing it ourselves.

I've been buying foreign cars for years and Detroit has been the reason.  As a woman I require that my car be dependable and affordable.  As an example in 1987 my brother and I got new cars at the same time.  I got a Honda CRX and my brother got a Pontiac Fiero.  He sold his car at the end of six months because it had spent three of those months in the shop and still didn't run right.  I drove the Honda for fourteen years and was grateful every day that I got over 40 mpg.  Detroit's solution was to build bigger and more unstable gas guzzlers.  And now there's no more Pontiac.  The government certainly can't do any worse than the auto execs did.  Unless it's run by people who say their goal is to drown it in a bathtub.

Health care.  Don't make me puke.  I grew up on Air Force bases using military healthcare.  It was nowhere near as bad as going to the doctor today.  Oops, I don't go to the doctor, I can't afford it and I don't qualify for health insurance because I have a preexisting condition called asthma.  The emergency room is my fallback for when it gets out of control and I think I'm going to suffocate.  We won't even go into that dental and vision thing, they don't seem to be on the radar of the entitled so why bring up another problem that those who have everything they need would like to ignore.  Oh yeah, that argument about waiting months for a surgical procedure?  Maybe you should talk to all the people who have health insurance and been denied procedures so the insurance companies can give their executives and shareholders enormous bonuses and dividends.

I'm black, there is racism, get over it.  When you have black communities in states where local governments have built services around them and they didn't have running water like their neighbors did for the last fifty years, that's racism.  When things like education and skills are equal and blacks and Latinos are earning less (provided they got hired) than their melanin impaired compatriots, that's racism.  When you cut essential school programs in poorer districts that are predominately black and politically mrginalized, that's racism.  When prisons are filled to the brim with people of color who have committed petty crimes against themselves while rich melanin impaired executives who destroyed the lives of millions go free, that's racism.  Those are facts and they aren't going away.

The GOP is in trouble for a reason and the reason is this.  They are out of touch with the average American.  Their base consists of angry people who vote on single issues by claiming that the Bible disapproves of certain behaviors they deem immoral while ignoring the rest of the Bible teachings that encourage them to take care of their fellow man and to have compassion and pity for those who are suffering.  The elite of the party are just that.  Elite and as far removed from their base as they can get in their personal lives as they can manage and not get outed.

The party of Lincoln is falling apart and the more they scream about how unfair it is and the more rabid they are to return to a time that only exists in their imaginations, the further from the mainstream they will be.  As so many other Republicans have said before me, I didn't leave the party the party left me.

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Into The Breach One More Time

I am so tired of hearing that Bush kept us safe for seven years and four months after 9/11.  If you look at the statement logically, the US was safe for 225 years and one month from terrorism (unless you count the actions of those dudes McVeigh, Nichols, and Rudolph) before Bush ignored warnings of an imminent attack on the United States by a known terrorist and 2,572 people lost their lives while he held a book upside down and the "Vice President" hid in an undisclosed bunker for several hours.  And since when do two wrongs make a right?

Keeney in 1962 covertly set up a CIA front called MK-ULTRA, which used the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies to conduct tests on unwitting federal inmates, the overwhelming majority of whom were black, to chart the effect of hallucinogenic drugs.

All of this is reprehensible, horrible stuff. But it was generated by well-meaning American officers from what has been called “The Greatest Generation” to keep America safe.

I doubt that it was to keep America safe but if it makes you feel better to believe that, then you are no better than Josef Mengele  and have no business having contact with normal people. And equating the release of the torture memos to the possibility of another attack on the US shows that one has trivialized and ignored the reasons why the terrorists hate us.

They don't hate us because of our freedoms, they hate us because we interfere in their beliefs, have no respect for their religion and willfully ignore their requests to remove ourselves from areas they consider to be consecrate. Oh, and that torture thing?  Not helping our reputation but reinforcing the terrorists will to punish the oppressors.

Torture is wrong, it will always be wrong and saying that the end justifies the means is short-sighted and foolish.  That's like saying that lying about a blowjob is worse than ordering people to be treated like animals and have their basic human rights removed.  And Americans aren't really like that, are we?  Because last time I heard, torturing animals was one of the early signs of antisocial personality disorder and maybe the people who wrote the memos, followed the memos or defend the memos should be evaluated and treated before they harm their own families.

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Winelight

Not to minimize anything that has happened, but this week has been sheer agony watching everyone tying themselves into knots either defending, advocating or being ashamed of the recently confirmed revelations of torture performed by US citizens against suspected, but not confirmed, terrorists.  I asked mom, the woman who grew up under Hitler's regime and had her home bombed above her by the Allies when she was a child, if she ever thought that these issues would come up again in her lifetime and she said "NEVER!" quite loudly.  She may have dementia and Alzheimer's may be robbing her of today, but she clearly remembered the travesties of her youth and the bogus arguments (I was just following orders) to justify the immoral behavior of the original Axis of Evil and was quite adamant about that these atrocities were never supposed to happen again.

Comedy isn't going to provide relief at this point but music doth soothe the savage beast.  Or at least it did in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  I love this album and when times were better I listened to it with a glass of champagne, some caviar and a bubble bath to start the new year off with a relaxing and sensual moment.  If only this was all it would take to cleanse our national palate.


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Torturing The Truth

Naughty, naughty. The crew without a clue continues to make the news long after they should have ridden off into the sunset. Condieliesalot gets caught in a biggie and is the first one being thrown under the bus, who could have foreseen that?  Oh well, you lie down with dogs, you're bound to get a few fleas.  Can you shop for shoes when you're in jail?

In written testimony she lied to the Senate Armed Services Committee and stated that she couldn't recall any specific details about the CIA requesting permission to use alternative interrogation techniques when she had already given verbal permission for waterboarding. 

According to the new narrative, which compiles legal advice provided by the Bush administration to the CIA, Rice personally conveyed the administration's approval for waterboarding of Zubaydah, a so-called high-value detainee, to then-CIA Director George Tenet in July 2002.

Last fall, Rice acknowledged to the Senate Armed Services Committee only that she had attended meetings where the CIA interrogation request was discussed and asked for the attorney general to conduct a legal review. She said she did not recall details. Rice omitted her direct role in approving the program in her written statement to the committee.

A spokesman for Rice declined comment when reached Wednesday.

I'll bet they have a comment, it just can't be printed.

It's a good thing we defeated the Taliban when we did.  Otherwise they might have gotten stronger and be on the verge of taking over Pakistan and its nuclear weapons.  Does anybody really think that getting Saddam Hussein and the mythical WMDs was more important than getting Osama bin Forgotten?  Or that it made the world safer for democracy?  I think not and no matter how many times Cheney, who should be waterboarded until he STFU, says that Obama is making the United States less safe it will not change the fact that Bush and Cheney didn't capture bin Laden, they didn't defeat the Taliban, they didn't secure Afghanistan and now Pakistan is tumbling into the abyss.  Good job boys, I feel safer already.  Not.

Excuse me?  Somebody needs to reread the definition of evil.

Releasing the Justice memos opened a door and the contents repulsed many people. But these were not evil men who drafted the memos. These were not evil people who carried out the methods authorized by them. They were our fellow citizens who were trying to protect us from the real evildoers.

And they did a bang up job, didn't they?  Too bad they didn't start working until after the damage was done.  Perhaps if they had paid attention to a briefing memo entitled "Bin Laden determined to strike in US" or followed up on either of the two Clinton plans for al-Qaeda instead of dismissing their concerns as "chicken little" alarmists or ignoring the warnings from intelligence agencies all around the world we wouldn't have traveled to the dark side and compromised everything that America stood for.

I want my country back, with its head held high and our ethics intact.

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Do Unto Others

Yesterday the FX channel showed A Few Good Men and while everyone remembers "you can't handle the truth" very few people remember the pressure exerted on Marines to follow orders no matter what or the ending and the judgment rendered against the two Marines.  It seems that back in 1992 following an illegal order was enough to have you kicked out of the military with a dishonorable discharge for conduct unbecoming a Marine.  Just like it was when I joined the Army in 1974.  It's almost funny that the crime took place at Gitmo.

On the charge of Murder, the Members find the defendants Not Guilty.

It's hard to resist the temptation to scream and shout, but they do.

RANDOLPH
(continuing; reading)
On the charge of Conspiracy to Commit Murder, the Members find the defendants Not Guilty.

RANDOLPH looks up. Then reads from the last slip of paper.

RANDOLPH
(continuing)
On the charge of Conduct Unbecoming a United States Marine, the members find the defendants Guilty as Charged.

A little of the energy drains out of the room.

RANDOLPH
(continuing)
The defendants are hereby sentenced by this court to time already served, and are ordered...

RANDOLPH clears his throat.

RANDOLPH
(continuing)
... And are ordered to be dishonorably discharged from the marine corps.
(pause) This Court-Martial is adjourned.

RANDOLPH raps his gavel.

SERGEANT AT ARMS
Ten hut.

All rise.

RANDOLPH's gone.

SERGEANT AT ARMS
(continuing)
Dismissed.

The M.P.'s move to DAWSON and DOWNEY to unlock their handcuffs. KAFFEE is packing up his things, just another day at the office.

DAWSON
Why?

KAFFEE
Harold, I'm sorry.

DAWSON
Why?!

DOWNEY
I don't understand. Colonel Jessep said he ordered the Code Red.

JO
I know, but--
 
DOWNEY
Colonel Jessep said he ordered the Code Red, what did we do wrong?

JO
It's not as simple as--

DOWNEY
What did we do wrong?

DAWSON
We did nothing wrong.

If it wasn't a viable excuse in 1992, it's even less of an excuse when you have a college degree (required to join the CIA) or a medical degree and are supervising torture. Waterboarding two men 266 times and receiving the same answers shows that torture doesn't work.  Common sense dictates that if they haven't given any more information after the first or second time, they aren't going to cough up anything useful on the hundredth time.  By then they know they aren't going to die from simulated drowning and that their captors are depraved idiots following illegal orders.

Why is it considered torture when our troops are subjected to water-boarding but not when we do it to other people?

Interestingly, we weren't nearly as blithe about waterboarding when it happened to our own guys during World War II. Then, we considered it a war crime and a form of torture.

In "Drop by Drop: Forgetting the History of Water Torture in U.S. Courts," Judge Evan Wallach of the U.S. Court of International Trade has documented the trials in which the United States used evidence of water-boarding as a basis for prosecutions. The article, still in draft form, will be published soon by the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law.

Among the numerous examples, Wallach cites one involving four Japanese defendants who were tried before a U.S. military commission at Yokohama, Japan, in 1947 for their treatment of American and Allied prisoners. Wallach writes, in the case of United States of America vs. Hideji Nakamura, Yukio Asano, Seitara Hata and Takeo Kita, "water torture was among the acts alleged in the specifications ... and it loomed large in the evidence presented against them."

Hata, the camp doctor, was charged with war crimes stemming from the brutal mistreatment and torture of Morris Killough "by beating and kicking him (and) by fastening him on a stretcher and pouring water up his nostrils." Other American prisoners, including Thomas Armitage, received similar treatment, according to the allegations.

Armitage described his ordeal: "They would lash me to a stretcher then prop me up against a table with my head down. They would then pour about 2 gallons of water from a pitcher into my nose and mouth until I lost consciousness."

Hata was sentenced to 25 years at hard labor, and the other defendants were convicted and given long stints at hard labor as well.

Wallach also found a 1983 case out of San Jacinto County, Texas, in which James Parker, the county sheriff, and three deputies were criminally charged for handcuffing suspects to chairs, draping towels over their faces and pouring water over the towel until a confession was elicited. One victim described the experience this way: "I thought I was going to be strangled to death. ... I couldn't breath."

The sheriff pleaded guilty and his deputies went to trial where they were convicted of civil rights violations. All received long prison sentences. U.S. District Judge James DeAnda told the former sheriff at sentencing, "The operation down there would embarrass the dictator of a country."

Hmm, so we have prosecuted our own law enforcement agencies for performing water torture but the CIA. the doctors and everyone else involved in these heinous acts against people in their custody are not to be punished?  Right now President Obama is no better than President Nixon was when he had Lt. Calley removed from the stockade after a single weekend after being sentenced to hard labor for the rest of his life for killing innocent women and children at My Lai 4.

I love this country but I am not immune to its faults and lately they have been obvious to everyone but us.  Whenever we feel threatened we feel we can use any means necessary to accomplish our goals but we want others to be punished (Mr. President, I'm sure you saw those documents as you studied for that law degree, they were in your college library) for using those same means.  I guess this means that our motto is no longer "Land of the free, home of the brave" it's more along the line of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you, but do it first."

As John Adams said many years ago, we are a nation of laws.  Mr. Obama it is your job to enforce them.  Otherwise you, and by definition America, are nothing more than an empty suit.

BBB

Stories Sinking Like The Edmund Fitzerald

Bush is still a dickhead.  Espousing stupidity at every opportunity.  Torture is okay in his book, although I admit I haven't read My Pet Goat.  With just a few more weeks left for him to do damage, he still babbles on about the benefits of waterboarding.  Too bad it isn't with him as the number one candidate followed by Cheney and then Rumsfeld.   Of course, that's assuming there is justice in the world and that Americans don't do what they always do.  Forget about it unless it's a Democratic sex scandal or somebody who used to work for a Democratic administration now is running for office.  It's too bad that what I really think would get me investigated more than I already am if I said it out loud or put it in print.  As far as I know, thoughts could be illegal at this point.

Liar, liar, his pants are almost on fire.  Please don't tell me that Obama thinks Gitmo is a spa facility.  Or that the innocent (women, children, families in the way) Gaza dead are going to come back to life.  If you can't do the difficult things, then why the hell did you want to be President?  We've already had eight years of do nothing but harm, the nation can't take much more of this incompetence.  New king, just like the old king.   Or as they used to say in countries with royalty  "the King is dead, long live the King!"  It's obvious that Obama has an addiction.   It's called the Crackberry (I didn't know the President could be bought with fancy swag and cutesy toys) and it isn't even made in the states.  

Once, twice, twelve times in the back.  Yes, the police have established quite a nice record of civil rights for black men since Obama has been elected.   Aren't you glad the race wars are over?  Happy frickin' New Year.

Gee, who didn't see that coming?  The states with the highest unemployment rates also have the highest home foreclosure rates.  By the time we get to hell there won't even be a hand basket will be so burnt we'll have to crawl the rest of the way.

If I can't do it, then neither can you.  But do what you want with Gaza, people with complain but nobody will do anything to stop the destruction.  Besides, it isn't like they are real people like the rest of the world.

Didn't you think that Ponzi schemes were illegal?  I guess, like most of what passes for government and business today, rules don't apply to them.

And just because I hate to the song so much you can hve the link, I refuse to embed it.  The song never ends.

BBB

Stupidity, Torture And Fraud

Geez, I knew these guys were dumb when I wrote about them earlier, I just had no idea how dumb.  And how dumb might that be?  Well, after killing the woman they went to a convenience store and asked the clerk how to get bloodstains out of their clothes.

Sheriff's investigators said they received the initial tip about the killing from a convenience store clerk. Two of the group members went into the store and asked the clerk if he knew how to get bloodstains out of their clothes, Strain said. The clerk told them no, and called the sheriff after they left.

Officials tracked down those two members and arrested them. Authorities established telephone contact with other members of the group who were still at the campsite and let them know law enforcement officials were on their way. They surrendered without incident.

Have you ever heard an acoustic version of Michael Jackson's Billie Jean?  Chris Cornell's (Soundgarden) version is...interesting.  The lyrics hold up pretty well.

The truth is slowly dawning on some people.  Waterboarding is torture and the United States has been torturing people for the last seven years and those who authorized it are criminals that need to be held accountable.  Even if you are the current Vice President.  Gee, I had no idea that for this administration vice was being used as noun instead of an adjective.

Blue light special on aisle four.  Why is everybody so shocked?  If billions of dollars were lost in Iraq due to no oversight, why should the 700 billion dollar bailout be any different?  You didn't really think that the bailout was to help anybody except the people at the top did you?  After seven years of looting the Treasury, why in the world would they stop before the last second?

What do Gretzky, Smith and Montana have in common?  Their kids are all playing football at the same high school.  A San Fernando Valley high school hasn't been this famous since Spacey, Winningham and Kilmer graduated from Chatsworth High.

Umm, yeah.  Americans cut back on spending because the few dollars they made have to cover the important things like food and shelter.  A new car?  Not so much.  But keep on cutting that interest rate in the mistake belief that people will borrow more.  Banks don't lend to little people who have service wage jobs, they lend to people who don't need the money.   So those same people can invest in foreclosed properties to rent to little people who can't afford to live in the homes they thought they owned.  It's the American way.

The usual place.

Indict, Impeach, Imprison

Sounds good to me.  Riddle me this.  If you've lied about WMDs, lied about al-Qaeda involvement, lied about outing a CIA officer, why should I believe you when you say that you didn't forge documents to start a war under false pretenses?

From the nucking futz department. The crew without a clue is putting every American outside the country a moving target. For torture.

I've been a poker player for about 18 years and absolutely loved the game until Chris Moneymaker won the World Series of Poker with a 7-2 offsuit.  It was a disaster for the game.  Now everyone and his brother wants to play poker and go all in on almost every hand, even if they're playing $3-$6..  Odds don't matter, logic doesn't matter, position doesn't matter.  A big stack you can bully someone with does.  The San Jose card clubs are in a word, deficient.   From the food to the lack of services.  There are so many rules and regulations, they can't even replace your drink if the floorman knocks it over.  You don't even get a deck of cards when you make a Royal Flush.  Nothing, nada, not even a picture.  If they would let us have jackpots, bring back the masseuse while playing, anything, and if I had money to play I wouldn't mind the proposed tax hike in the card rooms to save city services.  But what do the players get in return?  Higher table fees that don't go into the pot, which will mean less players per hand.  49 tables sounds nice, but shouldn't there be some money in the pot to fight over?  Otherwise, what's the point?

Oh joy, another taser death.  Aided and abetted by police brutality.  I guess he was supposed to yell fire instead.  With the usual cover-up.  The Swissvale police also don't seem to understand the First Amendment.  Specifically the part that deals with peaceful assembly.  I guess they think that since they aren't Congress, the Amendment doesn't apply.  To people without badges.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Oysters get herpes?

At the usual place

Integrity, What's That?

How did we go from being known as the land of the free, home of the brave,  a shining beacon of light and hope to a nation that our staunchest allies believes can't be trusted to tell the truth?

When did it become okay to lie to people and then blame them for the results of listening to the sweet nothings whispered in their ears?

Racism supposedly isn't a problem in this country and anybody that thinks there is, is supposed to get over it.  That sounds all well and good unless you live in a part of the country where it's obvious that racism is alive and well.

Why did iTunes play Lunatic Fringe and Brain Damage while I was writing the above?

Sheesh!  I've always known my opinion was irrelevant, life has made that all too apparent, but thank you Glenn for pointing that nobody else's is either.

It's 10:55 Sunday morning in California as I'm writing this and I haven't decided whether or not to spend the last of my cash on going to see the Dark Knight and they already know the movie made $155.34 million for the weekend.  How is that possible?

No wonder the populace keeps losing elections.  Who knew the Netroots Nation had rules.  One of them being that you had to be nice to Speaker Pelosi, even though she hasn't done a thing that the Democrats elected her to accomplish.  Glad I didn't waste my money.

The Destroyer speaks.  Doesn't he know that everyone is at the convention and will get around to doing his bidding when they get back?

3Bs

Random Thoughts

Who cares? That's not the point. We were promised dead or alive and so far we have neither. Which is typical of the crew without a clue, never finish a job while you can make excuses for why it doesn't need to be done. They must think we are stupid as they are deceitful.

Haloscan is having issues. Or maybe it's Blogger. Methinks it's Haloscan.

No kidding. Military tribunals aren't working? JAG has only been off the air for a few years, but these show trials have never been about justice, they've been about revenge. Against people who have already met their maker so there must be someone who pays.

Like this guy. Poor schmuck might as well be at Gitmo for all the justice he isn't getting. Wow, prosecutors can openly defy the Supreme Court and that bastion of conservatism seems to think he's innocent. The prosecutors are determined to have him die in jail, that way they won't have to find the real killer.

Waterpipe tobacco smoking isn't safer than smoking cigarettes. Are they sure the kids were smoking tobacco? That isn't the usual drug of choice for a bong waterpipe. Or at least it wasn't when I was that age.

Oh boy, another smoking gun. Too bad it isn't on an episode of CSI or Law and Order because someone would be going to jail. A lot of someones. I guess the big house is only for the little people.

Gee, I'm not alone. Being multi-racial is the way of the future, only designer babies will have all the recessive genes. While the almost never right worries about illegal immigrants, the natives are changing the landscape to a more colorful version.

Torture, Foreclosures, Taxes And Stupidity

The crew without a clue are so proud of themselves. Bush admitted to authorizing torture and contravening the Constitution and isn't worried about being impeached or brought to justice because the ends justify the means.

The Brattleboro (Vt.) Reformer editorial board writes: "That the top officials in the White House were sitting around debating how many times someone should be waterboarded is disgusting, but not surprising. They have held themselves about all laws and legal standards. They have repeatedly claimed that any action performed during the course of our so-called war on terror -- no matter how illegal or barbaric -- is legally and morally justifiable.

"But even as they claim immunity from the legal and moral standards of the civilized world, the reality is that no one in the Bush administration stands above the law. Sooner or later, they must be held accountable.

Yeah, like that's going to happen. And to think all those people were hung at Nuremberg and in Japan for committing those same crimes. Congress is more concerned with people's personal lives and providing corporate welfare than their job of providing checks and balances. It's good to be the king.

Foreclosures were up again last month with no end in sight and the mentally challenged commenters at ABC News are at it again. The housing crisis is all Clinton's fault because he encouraged housing loans to minorities and low income people. I guess if you aren't rich and melanin impaired you are supposed to live in the ghetto or a tent and be grateful to your betters. Heaven forbid that offshoring, downsizing, manufacturing plants closing and predatory lending should have any part of the blame. There is no compassion available for the people whose home values are dropping like a stone and even though they did everything right, are losing their homes because they can't make up the difference between the bank loan and the current value. No bailouts for borrowers but lenders must be protected at all costs. To the taxpayer. All those right wing Christians are really interested in helping their fellow man. Not.

Nope, one of their solutions is to encourage people to stay married. No matter what. Yes, one must put up with an abusive or cheating spouse in order to reduce the financial drain on U.S. taxpayers by enrolling in a government program to strengthen marriage. Or at least that's the idea. Not improving education or encouraging job growth, but forcing people to stay in a bad marriage for the sake of the taxpayer. It's supposedly a legitimate concern of government, policymakers and legislators. Maybe they'll let all those black men out of jail and give them jobs so they can support their families. Not.

They can harass and prosecute Wesley Snipes (Three years and a 5 million dollar fine for a misdemeanors? Obviously he's a black male.) for tax evasion but they can't prosecute Dick Morris or better yet, the former Treasurer of the United States, Catalina Villalpondo. You might recognize her name from some of the currency that was printed under the first President Bush.

Five thousand teenagers a year die in automobile accidents and driver's ed is being eliminated in school. Another case of being pennywise and pound foolish. No need to learn the rules and be held to high standard when you can just wait and get your license at eighteen with no training. Then they can be like the people who come here from overseas and just point their car in the direction they want to go and let the chips fall where they may. If they don't take physics they will have no concept whatsoever that they aren't driving a mobile living room. Yesterday this girl was all over the road, using both lanes while she texted. She spent more time looking at her phone than she did looking ahead and she never looked to the side or used her rear view mirror. Entering college is important but driving poorly can kill you. Or worse, some innocent person.

BBB

Thursday Morning Ramblings

One of the things that people hate most about government is its lack of common sense. Driven by lawyers who glorify the small print over logic, many programs whose sole intent was to help people or prevent injury have been terminated or eliminated. Orac at Respectful Insolence (a site I have more respect for than he does for my profession) has today's blood pressure raising article. It seems that the Office for Human Research Protection closed down an experimental program for preventing infection in intensive care units in hospitals because it involved a checklist that reminded doctors to wash their hands and wear gloves and that by tracking the checklist without informed consent of the patients was scientifically unethical. I guess dying of a preventable infection is better.

California's children aren't doing so well. Health care is the major issue and the increased incidences of morbidly obese children isn't helped by the fact that 7% of kids have no health insurance. But they do have high blood pressure, diabetes, breathing issues and knee and back pain, which used to be the province of the middle aged and elderly. Kids always want to grow up so quickly but I'm pretty sure this isn't what they really meant.

You're no good, or at least your dollars aren't if you want to visit the Taj Mahal. The dollar has dropped so far in relation to the rupee that it isn't worth the hassle to take more than one currency at India's tourist sites. How bad is the drop? Well, instead of $5 per person, it is now $20 per person. Yup, our economy is going gangbusters. Into the toilet.

Texas never really got over being replaced as the largest state in the Union so it decided to be number one in different categories. Unfortunately that would be exonerations of innocent citizens in wrongful conviction cases and the leader in executions. The odds are that there is some overlap. And yes, I do consider the death penalty to be torture.

Covering Up Illegal Activities

Trying to use the lame excuse of a Justice Department that hasn't accomplished anything but political hackery in the last seven years, the Bush administration doesn't want the judge to investigate the flagrant disregard of his orders regarding the destruction of the torture tapes, because it might interfere with the Congressional investigation that they are also trying to muzzle. But with stories like this, of course they want to keep it quiet.

Special Prosecutor, now that's funny. Considering everything that Bush and Cheney have gotten away with since coming into office, something tells me this is probably going to go the way of Fitzmas. Pffft!

The Bush squeeze play in action. Since their plan to Christianize the military isn't working out so well, now they want to control the promotions of military lawyers. They might as well come right out and say that everyone serves at the pleasure of the president, as long as they go along with the pogrom program. Politics, not competency is the hallmark of this administration. And taking care of the country takes a back seat to politics. Isn't that known as a dictatorship in other countries?

After several years of war, why do the troops need emergency funds? Shouldn't the war have been budgeted for or has it not worked out as planned?