Torture's Opponent

The best person on TV right now telling the truth about torture is, of all people, Jesse Ventura, former professional wrestler, former governor of Minnesota. Watch him take on torture and the loathesome Sean Hannity:

Evil

Let’s say this slowly: the Bush administration wanted to use 9/11 as a pretext to invade Iraq, even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. So it tortured people to make them confess to the nonexistent link.

There’s a word for this: it’s evil.

Paul Krugman

Hillary!

Eff Dick Cheney.

Inauguration Poster

 

My cousin put this awesome poster up at the end of her driveway to celebrate the End of the Error.

I Read The News Today, Oh Boy: November 19, 2008

Life: Yr. End Issue-Sculpture Garden
"Monumental Head," bronze sculpture by Alberto Giacometti photographed in garden of Hirshhorn estate in Greenwich, Ct., 1973, Photographer Gjon Mili

The morning news shows are leading with today's message from Al Qaida threatening and insulting President-Elect Barack Obama. I am greatly amused to see the corporate media identify "house negro" as a racial insult, as Rush Limbaugh has been calling Obama "Barack the Magic Negro" for over a year and they have ignored his blatant racism.

Obama will appoint Eric Holder as his Attorney General, the first black AG in history. Pros: Holder has come out strongly in favor of the Geneva Conventions and against torture and Guantanamo. Cons: His corporate work, with Scooter Libby to get Marc Rich a pardon, and getting Chiquita Brands a slap on the wrist for hiring death squads to kill union organizers in Columbia. As I always say of defense lawyers, he's the best lawyer money can buy, so hopefully he will bring his prodigious skills over to the light for Obama. Here's a dailykos diary on the value of corporate lawyers.

Much gnashing of teeth from the corporate media about Hillary Clinton as SOS. Must be a good appointment then, if David Broder and David Ignatious and Thomas Friedman and Maureen Dowd are all wailing "Not Hillary!" They might get their way anyway, as Hillary is said to be unsure whether or not to accept the appointment.

Headline of the day: Texas grand Jury indicts Cheney, Gonzales

Rich, heartless bastard Mittwit Romney says: Let the auto companies go bankrupt. Yeah, let hundreds of thousands of workers eat cake. The progressive policy must be precisely the opposite. Here's a more responsible solution: The Right Way to Bail Out the Auto Industry

The Minnesota Senate recount starts today, with Norm Coleman holding a 215 vote, .008% lead. As Franken's spokesperson said, the score is 0-0 with 2.9 million votes to be counted. And as an aside, Traitor Joe Lieberman wrote an editorial for a Minnesota paper defending his pal Norm Coleman. The Senate Democrats should be ashamed of letting Judas Joe keep his committee chairmanship.

Looks like Missouri is no longer the nation's election bellwether, as McCain will take the Missouri electoral votes with a 4355 vote margin.

New Obama Ad

Two of a Kind

Bush = McCain, Palin = Cheney

Heckuva Job Sarah

It's clear from the front page articles in the New York Times and the Washington Post today that Sarah Palin will be way over her head in any high national office. If McCain = Bush, Palin = Cheney. Loyalty oaths, hiring from a tiny pool of sycophants and idealogues, a radical authoritarian. Scary.

If your high school is your major talent pool to run your state, you're going to have a lot of incompetents in high office. These people probably make Heckuva Job Brownie look good.

And she will happily assume FourthBranch Cheney's mantle of secrecy and overreaching. Rules, schmules: she makes it up as she goes along.

NYTimes: Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes

WASILLA, Alaska — Gov. Sarah Palin lives by the maxim that all politics is local, not to mention personal.

So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency.

Ms. Havemeister was one of at least five schoolmates Ms. Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages.

[]

But an examination of her swift rise and record as mayor of Wasilla and then governor finds that her visceral style and penchant for attacking critics — she sometimes calls local opponents "haters" — contrasts with her carefully crafted public image.

[]

Throughout her political career, she has pursued vendettas, fired officials who crossed her and sometimes blurred the line between government and personal grievance, according to a review of public records and interviews with 60 Republican and Democratic legislators and local officials.

[]

Interviews show that Ms. Palin runs an administration that puts a premium on loyalty and secrecy. The governor and her top officials sometimes use personal e-mail accounts for state business; dozens of e-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that her staff members studied whether that could allow them to circumvent subpoenas seeking public records.

WaPo: As Mayor of Wasilla, Palin Cut Own Duties, Left Trail of Bad Blood

Palin took office as mayor in October 1996 with a show of force. She fired the museum director and demanded that the other department heads submit resignation letters, saying she would decide whether to accept them based on their loyalty, according to news reports at the time. She clashed with Police Chief Irl Stambaugh over his push for moving bar closing time from 5 a.m. to 2 a.m. and for his opposition to state legislation to allow people to carry guns in banks and bars.

In notes that he took during a meeting in Palin's first week on the job, Stambaugh wrote that the new mayor told him "that the NRA didn't like me and that they wanted change," according to the Seattle Times, which reviewed the notes at a federal archive in Seattle. Stambaugh was fired on Jan. 30, 1997, partly, the mayor said, because he had not taken seriously her request for a weekly progress report "on at least two positive examples of work that was started, how we helped the public, how we saved the City money, how we helped the state, how we helped Uncle Sam." Stambaugh filed a wrongful-termination suit, which he lost.

I Want A New Drug

Funny:

See more Adam "Ghost Panther" McKay videos at Funny or Die

Republicans Obscenely Show 9/11 Victims Dying as Their Convention Backdrop

Monsters.

The Republican Party has reached its basest nadir. The party of George W. Bush, the man who ignored the CIA's warning "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US", the party that let 3,000 people die on 9/11/01 and then used 9/11 to destroy the constitution, that party has reached a yet another low.

That party has now shown footage of the 9/11 attacks including graphic footage of the Twin Towers burning and collapsing.

During the family hour here on the east coast, 8:40 EST.

They are nothing but a bunch of sickos.

Boston Globe:

[A]t approximately 7:40 CST, when a video aired before delegates at the Republican National Convention included slow-motion footage of a plane striking the World Trade Center, the towers' subsequent collapse, and smoke emerging from the Pentagon.

Here's Keith Olbermann's commentary:


If you have the stomach for it, here's the obscene video the Republicans blew up on the big screen for everyone to see. How must the 9/11 families be reacting to this obscenity?


The Republican Party is a national disgrace. First they kill us; then they put us up on the big screen for entertainment.

168 More Days of Bushit

Smithsonian: Easter Island

Blogging is for people who have time, and I'm busy this week getting ready to go on vacation! So here are some links to news of the world:

That government scientist involved in the anthrax probe who committed suicide last week left lots of questions behind. The omnibus post on the subject is from the redoubtable Glenn Greenwald. A more abbreviated discussion here from Jay Rosen at HuffPo. The most interesting questions are these: Who were ABC's four off-the-record sources in 2001 who lied to ABC, telling the network's reporters that the anthrax came from Iraq? And why did John McCain go on the Letterman show on October 11, 2001 and say the anthrax may have come from Iraq? All of which will lead us to someone high up in the Bush Administration who was pushing for war with Iraq, no doubt. I put my money on Cheney. John McCain, Cheney's lapdog.

David Gergen went on ABC's This Morning with George StephaFlagPinHypocritanopoulos and informed the panel that yes, McCain's ads are dog whistles to racists, that McCain is calling Obama "uppity". You can watch the video at TPM, or here's the quote:

When McCain's camp calls Obama "The Messiah" and "The One", he's really calling him "uppity." I'm from the South, and we understand what that means. That's code.

When John McCain was asked why he has accused Barack Obama of playing the race card, and what he has ever done to advance the cause of civil rights, he couldn't think of anything to say for a quite a while (watch video here). Then he lied about his dismal record.

Today is Barack Obama's 47th birthday. He'll always be younger than John McCain. And smarter. And more honest.

Surprise, Surprise

I am shocked, shocked, to find out that Darth Cheney is running U.S. energy policy into the dark, oily ground.

truthout: Report Links Cheney Office, Oil Giant [ExxonMovil] to Global Warming Policy Shift

[P]ressure from Vice President Dick Cheney's office, ExxonMobil and others in the oil industry led the Bush administration to change course [and decide not to use the Clean Air Act to limit greenhouse gas emissions].

Apocalypse Bush

12% of the soldiers who have died in Afghanistan died in the past six weeks. In the past six weeks, 64 American soldiers have died in the war George W. Bush has starved for five years to fight his war of lies in Iraq. Why doesn't the New Yorker magazine have a cartoon on the cover showing George W. Bush in burning hell, spending eternity looking under his desk for the weapons of mass destruction? Now that would be funny.

The press corpse continues to stink up the Presidential race. Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has dug up one of the bodies. Ron Fournier (we wrote about him here when he wrote a terribly slanted article calling Obama "arrogant") has been appointed head of AP's Washington Bureau. Apparently he's encouraging more opinion and fewer facts. Great. And since you can judge a man by the company he keeps, guess who Ron Fournier was emailing the day Pat Tillman was killed in Afghanistan and the Bushies were frantically covering up his tragic death? Ron Fournier, "journalist", was emailing with the Prince of Darkness Karl Rove. Here's their exchange, as summarized in a House Oversight Committee report:

Karl Rove exchanged e-mails about Pat Tillman with Associated Press reporter Ron Fournier, under the subject line "H-E-R-O." In response to Mr. Fournier's e-mail, Mr. Rove asked, "How does our country continue to produce men and women like this," to which Mr. Fournier replied, "The Lord creates men and women like this all over the world. But only the great and free countries allow them to flourish. Keep up the fight."

And after those pious niceties and expressions of patriotic solidarity, they lied to the Tillmans about how their son was killed. Reprehensible.

Edited to add: Here's a PDF of the House Oversight Committee report; the Karl Rove-Ron Fournier emails are described on page 23.

A little history is in order. Who was the biggest supporter of the Taliban in Afghanistan before 9/11/01? Why, it was George W. Clusterfuck, of course. This post at dailykos details the Bush Administration's decision to send a $43 million dollar gift to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan in May of 2001.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I don't think the U.S. government was in on the 9/11 attacks. But George Bush, a stupid, arrogant fool, did everything wrong in his first pathetic 9 months in office. He gave the Taliban millions of dollars. He ignored the Clinton administration holdovers like Richard Clarke who were running around the White House with their hair on fire over Osama bin Laden and the threat of terrorism. He spent the entire month of August 2001 on vacation, and when the CIA briefer flew to Crawford to read him the Presidential Daily Brief on August 6, 2001, with the ominous headline "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US", he told that CIA briefer "All right, you've covered your ass now". All President DumbFuckinFratBoy could think to say when the CIA dared to intrude on his brush-cutting vacation was a dumb joke. He didn't hear the urgency. He spent the month playing Solomon and splitting the baby, deciding that the country would allow stem cell research on very few cell lines, most of which are contaminated with mouse DNA. He fiddled while Osama plotted.

Worst. President. Ever.

We can't elect another stupid, out of touch, arrogant fool again. (cough, cough, John McCain)
.

Dick For Sale

wikipedia: Askar Akayev
Yes, Mr. Payne, I would like access to Mr. Dick. Mr. Cheney, I mean.

Bush Pioneer Stephen Payne is caught on tape by the Times of London selling access to Dick Cheney and other Bush Administration officials for contributions to the Bush Library. And not just to anyone. He's selling access to the exiled former president, Adkar Akayev, of Kyrgyzstan, the former Soviet republic. A guy with a human rights record much like the Cheney Administration.

Will "Bush Library" come into the corporate media's lexicon as "Lincoln Bedroom" did? Don't hold your breath.


Times (uk): Stephen Payne: a hotshot lobbyist who can get you into White House
A lobbyist offered access to Dick Cheney and other US leaders in return for a donation to the Bush library

Booman Tribune: Askar Akayev Sets Up Bush Administration

Waste Not, Want Not

Library of Congress:
Farm Security Administration, Office of War Information Collection
Display of home-canned food
[between 1941 and 1945]
With the economy imploding (thanks a lot, George & Dick) everyone is looking to save money.

Britain's government is encouraging a return to Victory Gardens.

Towns in Massachusetts are doing all kinds of things to save money, including saving energy by installing solar roofs, closing buildings, and using more fuel-efficient vehicles.

Grocery shopping tips abound: here, here, here, here, here. I learned to grocery shop in Mrs. K's health class so I'm all set! Shop the exterior of the store for veggies, meat & dairy; the more processed & hence more expensive products are in the middle. Make a list using the store circular. Plan menus for the week. Stock up when pantry foods you eat often are on sale. Done!

The Boston Globe has an article today on recycling the ultimate waste: human. Ewwww.

Saturday Reading

Or did I want birth control? I can't remember.
dailykos via laughing squid

Carol Kreck, the librarian kicked out of a McCain event, speaks: McCain = Bush

McCain called the way Social Security has worked for over 70 years to keep American seniors out of poverty "A disgrace. An absolute disgrace." But it's unlikely that the television-watching public knows that, as none of the three networks covered that stunning statement. Make sure to tell your friends, because the media isn't doing their job. BBQ with sprinkles, anyone?

Guinness is becoming less popular in Ireland; the piece has this priceless description of a pub conversation:

At Davy Byrnes [pub], the conversation has moved on to whether John McCain inappropriately placated his Vietnamese captors ("He sang like a canary," Winter declares); the mass suicide and massacre of Jews in York in 1190; Stalin's execution of top army officers in the run-up to World War II; and a song by the Waterboys on a similar subject. Someone tries to remember how it goes. An argument ensues over whether the Waterboys ought to be considered an Irish band, or Scottish, or English.

KBR (the Halliburton subsidiary) electrocuted American soldiers through its grossly negligent profit-seeking behavior. Have a nice day, Dick Cheney.

Former White House Press Secretary and Fox News host Tony Snow and famed heart surgeon Dr. Michael DeBakey have died.

In The News

Kookaburras
Flickr: Powerhouse Museum Collection

Just as the DFHs said, the Bush Administration is building permanent military bases in Iraq. Bush wants to stay in Iraq 4-eva, no matter what platitudes he mouths.

Not only did Bush and Cheney authorize torture, McClatchy reports that the United States hid tortured prisoners from the International Red Cross. Prosecutors will call that "consciousness of guilt" when these murdering psychopaths are finally put on trial for war crimes at the Hague.

You won't hear this on gasbag TV, but polls show Obama leading in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Haven't they been telling us all year that Obama was doomed in Florida because the Dem primary there didn't count? Not. Even pundits who acknowledge Obama's lead see danger up ahead for Obama. Or maybe that song was playing in the background while Jake Tapper was reporting typing.

Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson (another groundbreaking white male addition to the white-male-dominated WaPo opinion pages) calls Al Franken "vulgar" in his column today. You heard that right, the man who dressed up the Psychopath-in-Chief in pretty words, leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents around the world, that man calls Al Franken vulgar. Atrios knocks Gerson's phony argument out with two photos.

Speaking of the Psychopath-In-Chief, that MF who hasn't ever gone to the funeral of one of the men and women he sent to their deaths by lying us into Iraq, he went to the funeral of Saint Timmeh of Punditry. Some deaths count, and some are shoved under the rug.

How old is John McCain? He's older than carbon dating.

The will.i.am video putting Obama's New Hampshire primary speech to music, "Yes We Can", won an Emmy. (Watch it here)

Today's News

Flickr: Brooklyn Museum
Greek Religion--sculptor, Daniel Chester French

McCain's national security adviser, John Lehman, told the New York Times that he offered to make John McCain a one-star admiral in 1980, but McCain declined. The New York Times put the claim on the front page. Problem? It's probably not true, as McCain never mentioned it before, and the story of his leaving the Navy has been told many times. Hard to check up on McCain's military service, tho, as he has never released his full military records. Read this extensive article by Jeffrey Klein for the details.

The torture regime came from the top of the Bush Administration. We already knew that, but there is proof now.

The senior civilian managing the contract of Halliburton subsidiary KBR in 2004 was fired when he refused to pay bogus billing records for Dick Cheney's favorite special interest. The amount in question that taxpayers ponied up for despite shoddy record-keeping and questionable bills? $1,000,000,000. That's one billion dollars to CheneyFraud. Heckuva job, Dickhead.

Gay marriage is now legal in California as of yesterday. The march of progress continues. It hasn't changed life here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts one iota, except for allowing some of our fellow citizens legal rights, joy and peace of mind. All good things.

Gas prices have sent Prius sales soaring. Even in Billings, Montana, home of the pickup truck. Honda is now making a hydrogen-fuel-cell car. I want one:

The FCX Clarity, which runs on hydrogen and electricity, emits only water and none of the noxious fumes believed to induce global warming. It is also two times more energy efficient than a gas-electric hybrid and three times that of a standard gasoline-powered car, the company says.

Honda expects to lease a few dozen cars this year and 200 within three years. In California, a three-year lease will run $600 a month, which includes maintenance and collision coverage.

The Mets fire Willie Randolph in the middle of the night. Disgraceful end to a class act. The Mets are finding that stocking a team with mid-30s free agents may have worked in the steroid era, but now they're just injury prone. Jill at Brilliant at Breakfast sez, hire Ron Darling.

John McCain Says Obama Needs to Go to Iraq

McCain says Obama can't talk about Iraq until he goes there.

Can we really afford another Shorja Market Moment? 100 armed soldiers, 2 Apache gunships, and 3 Blackhawk helicopters to shepherd Obama through some pre-cleared area for 10 minutes?

Or maybe he can go on the cheap, like George W. Clusterfuck, or Dickhead Cheney, or Condolizard, have Obama make a "surprise" visit to Iraq, land at some American airstrip 20 miles of barbed wire and tanks from any actual Iraqis, review a few lines of dusty troops, and on his way again?

I don't think Obama should do anything McCain dares him to do. When McCain went to Shorja Market and pretended it was safe, 21 Iraqis were abducted from the market and executed the very next day. If Obama does go, he should wait until the nomination is his, and go there with some real soldiers, maybe Wesley Clark and Jim Webb.

Here's the Shorja Market visit, as well as some of McCain's other bald-faced lies:

Go Directly to the Dock at the Hague

ABC reports that war criminals Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, George Tenet and John Ashcroft discussed and approved of specific methods of torturing prisoners during meetings in the White House situation room. And though the reporters do not mention him, I have no doubt that the Master of Disaster himself, the psychopath-in-chief George W. Clusterfuck was right in there with them, gleefully discussing violating the most fundamental of human rights, the right not to be tortured.

Under the rules of their own religions, they will certainly go to hell. Before, that, I hope most sincerely that they are taken to the Hague in shackles and paraded in front of the world as the monstrosities that they are. I think the fact that each of these church-going hypocrites approved of torture proves that there is no God, for if there was a God, surely she would have struck each of them down by now.

ABCNews: Top Bush Advisors Approved 'Enhanced Interrogation'
Detailed Discussions Were Held About Techniques to Use on al Qaeda Suspects

ABC cited a top official as saying that Ashcroft asked aloud after one meeting: "Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly."

Reuters: Top Bush aides approved interrogation tactics: report

"Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding," ABC reported.

In addition to Rice, the principals at the time included Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft, the report said.