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Count your blessings
We use to have more open government and more accountability, but...
today, we just have an open thread-- for now.
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ralpheh Author Profile Page said:
I AM WRONG ABOUT THE CIA TAPES:
1) Moussaoui's lawyers did NOT know about the tapes but had requested all transcripts of interrogations of Al Qaeda suspects.
2) The 9-11 Commission did NOT know about the tapes but asked for information - classified information from interrogations - from the CIA about Al Qaeda suspects and -9-11 suspects.
BTW - so far I have DCIA Hayden lying on two counts:
1) why the tapes were destroyed (supposedly to protect CIA agents' identities (this could have easily been done with camera angles, agents wearing masks, blacking out faces etc..etc..etc..)
2) Hayden says that Congressmembers were told about the destruction of the tapes. NPR has repeatedly reported that C-members deny this completely - some say they weren't even aware of the existence of the tapes, let alone their destruction...
December 10, 2007 7:34 PM
"But the truth of the matter is, we're an open society, we want to remain an open society, and there will continue to be vulnerability. That's why we have to meet the threats when they are not yet taking place on our territory and on our soil." - Condoleezza Rice
Thanks Ralpheh
I've been kind of doing the same type of investigation yesterday, holding things up to scrutiny, but had slacked off some today.
HAYDEN UNDER THE GUN.... TOMORROW
By PAMELA HESS, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 7 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Congress summoned CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden to Capitol Hill to explain his agency's destruction of interrogation videotapes, as multiple investigations began into who knew about and approved the decision.
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Hayden is to testify in a closed session Tuesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee, and on Wednesday before the House Intelligence Committee.
Among the questions he'll face is whether Congress was notified about the tapes' destruction. The chairman of the House panel, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, said Hayden's assertion last week that lawmakers were informed "does not appear to be true."
Hayden told CIA employees on Thursday that the CIA had taped the interrogations of two terrorist suspects in 2002. He said Congress was notified in 2003 both of the tapes' existence and the CIA's intent to destroy them.
The tapes were destroyed in 2005 but Congress was not told until 2006 at the earliest. The House Intelligence Committee did not learn of the tapes' destruction until March 2007, and then indirectly during a general briefing about the CIA's interrogation program, Reyes said.
Monkey
Condi is still looking for Commies in Closets.
An open society is a society which allows its members the greatest possible degree of freedom in pursuing their interests compatible with the interests of others.
George Soros
Female worshipper who shot gunman credits God
Jeanne Assam, the female congregant who shot a gunman who entered New Life church Sunday, said she felt weak as she approached him because she had been fasting. "I prayed for the Holy Spirit to guide me, for the Holy Spirit to be with me," she said. "My hands weren't even shaking. I knew what I had to do."
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/12/10/colorado.shootings/index.html
Thou shalt not what?
Deadly rampages at two Colorado religious centers are believed to have been carried out by one person, a 24-year-old who “hated Christians,” a source said.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/
Bet me O'Reilly doesn't jump all over this and make it out that Christians are the most persecuted religion on the planet.... just bet me.
EXCUSE # 2 FOR C.I.A. VIDEO TAPING:
- to show that one wounded suspect (gun shot) was being well-treated, medically, while in custody:
QUOTE:
The tapes spanned hundreds of hours but "only a small fraction" showed the actual interrogation of the two men, a counterterrorism official said Monday.
Most of the tapes of one suspect, Abu Zubaydah, were to document his medical treatment, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the tapes are classified. Zubaydah came into CIA custody with a gunshot wound and the CIA wanted to prove it gave him proper medical care in the event he died, the official said.
The gunman in the Colorado killings came from a very religious family:
updated 1 hour, 7 minutes ago
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - The gunman believed to have killed four people at a megachurch and a missionary training school had been thrown out of the school a few years ago and had been sending it hate mail, police said in court papers Monday.
The gunman was identified as Matthew Murray, 24, who was home-schooled in what a friend said was a deeply religious Christian household. Murray’s father is a neurologist and a leading multiple-sclerosis researcher.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Efforts to pass a massive compromise federal spending bill collapsed Monday as a top House Democrat abandoned the measure, accusing the White House and congressional Republicans of failing to bargain in good faith.
Rep. David Obey says he will draft a new spending bill using President Bush's spending limits.
Instead, Obey said, he would rip up the compromise bill and devise a new one using the strict spending ceiling set by Bush -- but would reach it by whacking GOP priorities and stripping the measure of billions of dollars in pet projects for lawmakers in both parties.
The Senate had been anticipated to take up the bill later in the week, add funding for Iraq and make some final trims to Democrats' spending plans.
White House budget director Jim Nussle said Saturday that Bush would veto the omnibus spending bill sight unseen for exceeding Bush's budget by $18 billion.
"It is extraordinary that the president would request an 11 percent increase for the Department of Defense, a 12 percent increase for foreign aid, and $195 billion of emergency funding for the war, while asserting that a 4.7 percent increase for domestic programs is fiscally irresponsible," said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd, D-West Virginia.
Nussle had accused Democrats of "trying to leverage troop-funding for more pork-barrel spending," but Obey said the opposite is true -- that the White House was willing to relent just slightly on domestic spending in order to obtain up to $70 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"I don't see any purpose in stringing things out for table scraps," Obey said, threatening to cut off negotiations and produce a bill -- at Bush's strict budget number -- without any GOP help.
"Short of having somebody in authority sit down and say, 'OK, we will work out a reasonable compromise,' I don't see any point in prolonging the agony," Obey said. "I don't see how we have any choice but to go to the president's numbers on appropriations to make clear that we aren't going to link the war with token funding on the domestic side."
Obey's sentiments weren't universally shared among Democrats. Senate Appropriations Chairman Byrd still hoped to work out an agreement, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, met Monday afternoon with GOP counterpart Mitch McConnell of Kentucky in hopes of putting the omnibus measure back on track.
The omnibus plan had been under discussion for more than three weeks and would have represented the best hope for avoiding a budget train wreck like the stalemate last year under GOP rule.
The measure under development would roll together 11 unfinished spending bills funding every domestic Cabinet agency, as well as a foreign aid budget that's trimmed back from Bush's request.
The bill contained about $30 billion for U.S. efforts in Afghanistan, but Democratic leaders anticipate that Senate Republicans would have added to the measure up to $40 billion more for military operations in Iraq.
"They keep raising the ante," Obey said. "Now they're up to $70 billion (for Iraq and Afghanistan). I don't want to be part of any deal like that."
more...
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/10/budget.battle.ap/index.html
Hi all!
It's been many moons since I actually posted a comment over here. :) I'm a long-time fan and devotee of DCP (and I still wear my DCP t-shirt all the time!). Some of you may remember me...I'm the one who put together the scrapbook project as a gift for Senator Kerry and Teresa back in 2005. I was also very honored to have a couple of my op/ed pieces featured here on DCP back in 2005 ("Where the Walls Are" and "Everyday Warriors").
Anyway...
I'm sorry if I'm crashing the party here, but I'm desperately trying to get the word out about a movement I've initiated here, in the US, to support Benazir Bhutto and democracy in Pakistan. I've started a petition calling for a Congressional Resolution -- www.SupportBenazir.org
The people - the citizens - of Pakistan are beginning to consider all of us (Americans) as the same as George W. Bush. They say that they're crying out for democracy, yet the United States does nothing but hold hands with Musharraf. They see Bush and Musharraf as one in the same. They've even taken to using the term "Busharraf". And, in addition, they have the false impression that the American people are on the same wavelength as Bush. Well, I don't know about you, but George Bush doesn't speak for me -- and I don't want the people of Pakistan (or any other nation) to think that he does.
I've been in personal contact with Benazir. She's an extraordinary woman and the true essence of everything a leader is and should be. I believe that she and the democracy-seeking people of Pakistan are waiting for the United States to throw its weight behind the democratic movement in Pakistan, rather than behind Musharraf alone.
We have a chance to make a difference. We have a chance to use our freedom of speech and our democratic ideals for positive change.
I know that everyone has their own personal moral compass and their personal opinions on issues such as this -- so I'm not asking people to sign the petition. I'm asking them only to read it - and if they agree, then sign it. (BTW, people can sign so that their name appears as "anonymous" if they don't want their name there on the internet. And it takes less than a minute to sign, as one doesn't have to register in order to sign.) When people do sign, I'm asking them also to please forward a link to the petition to their friends, family, and network of web-activists. And I also appreciate it when folks have the opportunity to mention the petition on any websites or blogs on which they post.
I'm hoping with all my heart that people will flock to this petition and sign... People will sign petitions to keep their favorite television shows on the air, but if they won't sign a petition on behalf of the democratic freedoms of a people and a nation, then we must be a drastically more selfish and self-absorbed nation than I thought or wanted to believe.
I'd love to get some media coverage for the petition, to really get visibility and attract more supporters and signers...but I realize that isn't likely to happen. LOL So I'm just doing the best I can by trying to post it on the internet wherever I can. :)
Things won't change if we don't change them...and I'm just trying to do my little part.
So again - the website is www.SupportBenazir.org - the link for the petition is on there.
I've written an op/ed piece on the situation and it's pasted below.
As I said, I apologize for jumping in here like this -- and I apologize for taking up so much space. But this isn't about me. This is about Benazir Bhutto and the people in Pakistan who are willing to risk their lives and freedom for democracy...well, Benazir is risking her life and freedom as well. I'm desperately trying to get the word out about this and get people to sign the petition.
It's an honor and privilege to get to post here. DCP is a special place and a community of awesome people.
Thanks so very much!
-----------------------
Don't Just Fiddle
By Michelle Lindsey
"Rome is burning - and the fault, the responsibility, lies with those of us who just fiddle."
~ Lions for Lambs ~
Aside from the fact that "Lions for Lambs" is a truly extraordinary film - that statement is a truly extraordinary statement. Extraordinary for the starkness of its truth. Rome is burning. And the fault does lie with those of us who just fiddle.
I've never been a fiddler - or rather I never intended to be one. Perhaps, I have been though, to some extent without really realizing it. I've always said and believed that "the world won't become a better place unless we help make it so" and that "things won't change if we don't change them". But I've recently been examining how often I've truly followed up those words with action - substantial, weighty, worthy action. And I have resolved to never again "just fiddle".
And that is why I'm speaking out to you today. There's a situation right now that has the potential to forever alter the course of history - a situation that we can affect - if we choose to be engaged and involved. If we choose to make a difference...and not "just fiddle".
Sometimes the greatest sin is not what we do - but what we don't.
If we truly are a democracy, then it's time we made our voices heard - and made them heard about something other than Britney, OJ, or American Idol.
Our apathy and lack of action can make the difference between the continuation of a repressive regime and dictatorship in Pakistan - or the resurgence and liberation of justice, human rights, and democracy for a nation. We like to talk about changing the world and about making a difference, but how often do we truly take a step to act upon the beliefs of which we so strongly speak? We are now at a crossroads. We are now at a defining moment when our voice, our action, or our lack thereof can forever change the future course of human events.
The moments that define us - as a nation and as individuals - are the moments when we choose not just to speak, but to stand and act upon our beliefs.
Things won't change if we don't change them.
How can we just sit here in our safety and comfort and let people - courageous people - suffer and even die for the beliefs that we so freely espouse? By not speaking out - by not acting - we would be allowing the rights and freedoms of a people to disintegrate and evaporate because we failed to speak. Because we failed to act. That's not who I am. That's not who any of us should be. That's not what America is.
The human rights and democratic future of a nation are at stake. This is the moment when we prove what we really believe in - who we really are. We have to act now, for in another breath it will be too late, the moment will have passed. And a nation that your voice and action could have helped save is in pile of ash --- and the courageous vision and actions of a woman, Benazir Bhutto, fighting for the democratic rights of her people - human rights - are then but a ghost of what could have been. What could have been had we spoken. What could have been had we acted. What could have been...
The people - the citizens - of Pakistan are beginning to consider all of us (Americans) as the same as George W. Bush. They say that they're crying out for democracy, yet the United States does nothing but hold hands with Musharraf. They see Bush and Musharraf as one in the same. They've even taken to using the term "Busharraf". And, in addition, they have the false impression that the American people are on the same wavelength as Bush. Well, I don't know about you, but George Bush doesn't speak for me -- and I don't want the people of Pakistan (or any other nation) to think that he does.
We, as Americans, are not about tanks, guns, and bombs -- We're about peace, freedom, justice, equality, and human rights. But the people of Pakistan will not know this if we don't stand with them now - if we don't stand with them and support them in their brave and courageous struggle for democracy.
Here, in the United States, we have a thousand opportunities to stand and speak for what we believe in - without fear of imprisonment, abuse, or persecution. With this right and this freedom should also come a responsibility to use this freedom to speak for those whose voices are being silenced; to speak for those whose human rights are being violated; to speak for those who are willing to face imprisonment, abuse, and persecution to make their voices heard as they seek the justice and liberty that we so freely take for granted. Who are we as a nation and as a people if we are not willing to raise our voices when we see injustice being committed? Who are we as a nation and as a people if we are not willing to stand with those who are ready to give up their safety, and even their lives, to attain the freedoms that we take for granted? Who are we as a nation and as a people if we do not stand now with the democracy-seeking people of Pakistan?
Please visit www.SupportBenazir.org to read and sign this petition and then ask everyone you know to sign it. Please post about this petition on the blogs and websites you visit. Please ask the media to pay attention not to Britney or OJ or Barry Bonds, but to the voice of the American people as they stand and speak for justice, freedom, human rights, and democracy for the oppressed people of Pakistan.
Please sign this petition and then forward it to your elected leaders and representatives in Congress. Ask them to initiate and support a Congressional Resolution in support of the democracy-seeking people of Pakistan - and the movement and struggle to restore democracy in Pakistan being courageously led by Benazir Bhutto.
Ours is supposed to be a government of, by, and for the people. WE are the PEOPLE. This is OUR government. But only if we participate. Only if we engage ourselves. Only if we stand and speak.
We are what we stand for - both as a nation and as individuals.
My name is Michelle; I'm 26; I'm an American -- and I choose to stand with Benazir Bhutto and the democracy-seeking people of Pakistan. Will you join me? And will you ask our government to do the same?
Thank you.
*** Do you want George Bush and his idea of foreign policy to speak for you? If not, then sign this petition (www.SupportBenazir.org) and show the people of Pakistan, and the international community, that the citizens of the United States have a voice and that we're raising that voice to make a difference. Are we a windsock nation? Do we just blow with the prevailing breeze from the White House? I hope not. And I hope that you will stand with me as I stand with the democracy-seeking people of Pakistan. Please sign this petition and then forward it on to your friends, family, and to your representatives in Congress. ***
www.SupportBenazir.org
Contact Michelle: StandUpBeCounted@gmail.com
Christy, Rossi,
Ed Hornbeck at kos is channelling you
Hi Michelle.
Thanks for dropping by with the petition.
And a comment via Ed:
Commies are EVERYWHERE - the leftist political parties throughout the democratic world, the labor unions, the Islamic extremists, I mean everywhere.
monkey and Ralpheh
I am starting to get the details on the church shootings. The shooter came from a deeply religious family, and was Christian-homeschooled.
Ally
Yes some of the articles are headlining it as "he hated Christians" but he had actually been kicked out of this school and was disgruntled. He definitely had the upbringing. Some of this fanaticism is going to come back to haunt people.
Ally
Condi is still worried about Russia .. for the wrong reasons.
Amazing how she once worked for Gary Hart, but somehow when doing her dissertation she got fixated on the "Evil Empire" Reagan went on about.
What is this "New Life Church"??? It is a "mega-church" with a missionary program etc...?
That isn't the same church that Ted Haggart was in was it??? I'll do some googling around ...
Wow - it is Ted Haggard's old church:
Ted Arthur Haggard (June 27, 1956) is a former American evangelical preacher. Known as Pastor Ted to the congregations he has served, he is the founder and former pastor of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado; a founder of the Association of Life-Giving Churches; and was leader of the National Association of Evangelicals from 2003[1] until November 2006.
In November 2006, he resigned or was removed from all of his leadership positions after allegations of homosexual sex and drug abuse were made by Mike Jones, a former prostitute. Initially Haggard denied even knowing Mike Jones, but as a media investigation proceeded he acknowledged that some allegations, such as his purchase of methamphetamine, were true. He later added "sexual immorality" to his list of confessions.[2]
Hey All,
Enjoy my little adventure last evening, watching the Repub debate:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/10/AR2007121002015.html
ralpheh said:
EXCUSE # 2 FOR C.I.A. VIDEO TAPING:
- to show that one wounded suspect (gun shot) was being well-treated, medically, while in custody:
QUOTE:
The tapes spanned hundreds of hours but "only a small fraction" showed the actual interrogation of the two men, a counterterrorism official said Monday.
Most of the tapes of one suspect, Abu Zubaydah, were to document his medical treatment
----------
HAHAHA! Good one Ralph. Got a moment to hear why that is so funny...?
For 1. In the book The 1% Doctrine little Abu is described as 'mentally ill' and 'a certifiable split personality' who was for years writing in long rambling journals as 3 different people.
I am so sure showing him on tape would only raise more questions than answers. Like 'Why are we torturing the mentally ill?'
But here is the funny part.
For 2, he was shot during capture and his 'treatment' was probably given by those medical doctors we all know were helping to make the torture better, faster, more effective. And we all know the best time to torture someone is when they are already wounded.
Yet we are suppossed to believe that 'See! We were really helping this crazy man after we shot him and BEFORE we tortured him! Awww we are so sweet!"
Ummmmhmmm. Sure we are!
And 3. Why destroy the tapes if it only had a little itty bitty torture clip on it? Why not just a 16 minute gap...?
But I do like that you are TRYING to excuse it, cause me too, I don't want it to be as bad as I think it probably is.
HAHAHA! Got a #3 for backup?
Take your time.
ralpheh said
What? Like John Walker Lindh? So why did they have to be demolished if they were showing such kindness and generosity of the interrogators? What kind of idiots are we?
Karen, don't the WaPo know you are a pinkycommoliberalhippiwheatgerm type? How did they miss it?
I guess the days of only caring what crazy republicans think is over. THANK GOD!
Too bad they did not have yall around to point out Hitler was trained by a hypnotist.
Great Job Karen!
Karen
That is fantastic!!!
Karen
Loved reading the analysis! Good work and thanks!
sparrow said:
Christy, Rossi,
Ed Hornbeck at kos is channelling you
?????
Ally said
Your version of Commies and that of the Communists are completely different things to me Ally. The social conscience and social justice of leftist political parties throughout the democratic world, the labour unions - do NOT communists make. In fact they are always the parties I vote for. The Australian Labour Party. Criticised for many years for being "commies" and even jailed. Because the right wing capitalists were afraid that the unions would make them pay a fair day's pay for a fair day's work.
And even more terrifying was that unions might hold them to account for Workplace Health and Safety. And every time a parent is paid compensation for the death of their 17 year old son or daughter in a workplace totally avoidable accident, I thank the gods and goddesses of all persuasions for the unions that hold them to account. It is only through our unions that we will get a SAFE workplace and maybe other parents won't lose their young children to these mongrel employers who find their employees necessary but expendable.
Sadly the same can't be said of your governments or parties. None of them is holding your government to account. Not even as far as all the military it is responsible for maiming. Where are those "commie" unions that used to fight for the justice of the abused?
Thankfully, in Australia we refused to let the Howard Government wipe them out and we are restoring them daily. The Howard Government actually used your words of fear, Ally - to terrify us into not voting for a party that is akin to unions and has many representatives who are former Union officials. THANKS AUSTRALIANS for getting it right at last!
And guess which party has appointed an openly lesbian woman to one of the most important ministries of our time - that of Climate. Penny Wong, young, intelligent, articulate, acknowledges her sexual orientation and her female life partner. You'd have never got this appointment from the previous right wing government.
And what is happening here right now? Equality and family partnerships and parental rights are changing here as I write. The gay and lesbian community are making gains each day to bring them into alignment with the rights of all other defacto and married couples.
You will only get EQUALITY from the left wing parties of the world. NEVER from the right. The right - that's your Republican Party. You know - those Christian Extremists/bigots. Not regular Christians. Extremist Fundamental Christians.
Has anyone tried to link up to Michells link
www.SupportBenazir.org
I am not able to get through, has anyone tried yet?
No trouble got to link, thanks.
Kangaroo -
I just wanted to thank you, so very much, for signing my petition and for posting about it on your wonderful blog. I truly can't thank you enough. If only everyone I know would do the same. :)
Truly, though, thank you so much.
With a full and grateful heart -
Michelle
rossi - I got it. Ah - so did you I see.
Michelle, I signed it earlier and sent the link to others I know to sign also. Your comments and request will get many signatures, I'm sure. It's an extremely important opportunity for us to let Musharraf know the world is watching him - not that he cares - he's been given legitimacy of his military coup by the democracies of the world and the United nations. With or without a uniform, the military does his bidding. He should be arrested and imprisoned and not permitted to participate as a candidate for election.
Tonight's program on Cheney.
Genre: Current Affairs
That US documentary - available at:
http://www20.sbs.com.au/sbs_front/index.html
Click on Program 4 - Cutting Edge - watch the video. It goes for an hour.
There's the entire case for impeachment against Cheney, if ever I saw one. What is wrong with the people who still won't act?
From the can't make this stuff up department, via the Washington Post:
"Still looking for that last-minute Christmas gift for White House press secretary Dana Perino? May we recommend a gift certificate for the forthcoming book on the Cuban Missile Crisis by our colleague Michael Dobbs, "One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War," due out next summer?
Appearing on National Public Radio's light-hearted quiz show "Wait, Wait . . . Don't Tell Me," which aired over the weekend, Perino got into the spirit of things and told a story about herself that she had previously shared only in private: During a White House briefing, a reporter referred to the Cuban Missile Crisis -- and she didn't know what it was.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/09/AR2007120901336.html
Frontline - isn't that part of your MSM? Excellent program. Damning program. The criminal activity is clearly shown and outlined. Bloody hell. Why isn't impeachment happening?
Waterboarding ‘probably saved lives’
Ex-CIA officer says technique worked, but he now considers it torture
washingtonpost.com
Dec 11, 2007
A former CIA officer who participated in the capture and questioning of the first al-Qaeda terrorist suspect to be waterboarded said yesterday that the harsh technique provided an intelligence breakthrough that "probably saved lives," but that he now regards the tactic as torture.
Zayn Abidin Muhammed Hussein abu Zubaida, the first high-ranking al-Qaeda member captured after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, broke in less than a minute after he was subjected to the technique and began providing interrogators with information that led to the disruption of several planned attacks, said John Kiriakou, who served as a CIA interrogator in Pakistan.
Abu Zubaida was one of two detainees whose interrogation was captured in video recordings that the CIA later destroyed. The recent disclosure of the tapes' destruction ignited a recent furor on Capitol Hill and allegations that the agency tried to hide evidence of illegal torture.
"It was like flipping a switch," said Kiriakou, the first former CIA employee directly involved in the questioning of "high-value" al-Qaeda detainees to speak publicly.
In an interview, Kiriakou said he did not witness Abu Zubaida's waterboarding but was part of the interrogation team that questioned him in a hospital in Pakistan for weeks after his capture in that country in the spring of 2002.
He described Abu Zubaida as ideologically zealous, defiant and uncooperative — until the day in mid-summer when his captors strapped him to a board, wrapped his nose and mouth in cellophane and forced water into his throat in a technique that simulates drowning.
more...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22192375/
McLaughlin: NIE is not as decisive as it may seem
By John McLaughlin
(John McLaughlin is a former deputy director of the CIA and a former acting director of the CIA. He is CNN's national security adviser.)
Now that the furor over the recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iran has died down a bit, it's worth reflecting on the significance of this episode -- what it tells us about the intelligence community, about the arcane world of "national estimates," and about their impact on national policy.
Although the estimate had many things to say, nearly all of the attention has focused on its "high confidence" conclusion that Iran's military had been directed in 2003 to put its nuclear weapons program on hold.
National estimates are a widely misunderstood art form. When they become public, as this one did, they are always heralded as the "most authoritative" documents the intelligence agencies produce. Perhaps because they so rarely appear in public, estimates are treated by critics and proponents alike as though what they say is chiseled in stone - "facts" that can be established like evidence in a courtroom trial.
As the arguments rage, everyone seems to forget that these are not facts but judgments. In the best of cases, they are judgments based on a sizeable body of fact - seemingly the case in the latest Iran estimate - but the facts are never so complete as to remove all uncertainty from the judgment. With that in mind, Sherman Kent -- the legendary CIA analyst who more or less invented this art form in the late 1940s -- once cautioned that "Estimating is what you do when you don't know."
more...
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/10/mclaughlin.commentary/index.html
Karen
Front page it! (the WaPo about the Republicans Dancing!) It's a brilliant oxymoron - everyone knows they can't dance (or rap). LOVE body language analysis - so right brain, which is exciting!
I think I told you the Oliver Sacks anecdote about the old people with left and right brain strokes who were watching Reagan speak and the left brain ones said he was lying and the right brain ones said he had bad prose (the only retained the capacity for the hemisphere opposite the one damaged). It's in "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat."
Neurology is my other hobby.
Woz
Frontline is part of Public Broadcasting, I think, and I don't watch television but in the last 10 years or so, I've watched a few Frontline shows (like right after the Iraq war started - they had a great one with history of Iraq and Gulf war and overhead patrols & WMD speculation since, some context when there was none elsewhere). I have also caught the occasional "60 minutes," such as when someone like Susskind or Clarke were on (kind of whistleblowing but mostly promoting their books) and saw Kerry concede (unfortunately).
I listen to Public Radio too. Alot of people think the government funds those things, but no more than 15-20%. The rest (for the radio) is "listener-supported" and I don't know about public tv - endowments, etc? Anyone know - have to run so can't find out.
Anyway, we have a very broad spectrum of places to get very little information, and it takes "active" searching. If someone were to take the easiest route, go with the flow, they would think everything was rolling along fine.
Someone just wondered what the falling dollar means. I was thinking about it and if it's worth $.50 less than the Euro, that means inflation when it comes to buying petroleum which will be passed on to the consumer. This can eventually increase the price (and is) of anything shipped or that has to be heated or produced. It means it will be hard for us to afford to fly or travel. It means that the Chinese are now following EU standards for electronics, which are stricter than ours, and could pull their loans to us and sell to the larger EU market, and we'd plunge into depression.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/09/AR2007120901336.html
Administration's Phrase of the Week
Bush and his advisers like to say they don't pay attention to the polls. But evidently they do pay attention to the poles. And no, not the ones in Warsaw. The most commonly used line last week after the new intelligence report concluded that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003?
National security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, at a briefing Monday: "As we have said, weapons-grade uranium is the long pole in the tent for a nuclear weapon."
Bush, at Tuesday's news conference: "The most difficult aspect of developing a weapons program, or as some would say, the long pole in the tent, is enriching uranium."
Vice President Cheney, to the Politico on Wednesday: "The long pole in the ten t in terms of developing nuclear weapons, traditionally, historically, has been developing fissile material, either highly enriched uranium or plutonium."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/09/AR2007120901336_2.html
Poll: Huckabee would lose to top Democrats by double digits
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- While presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee is surging in new polls of GOP candidates, a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Tuesday shows he would lose to all three leading Democratic candidates by double digits in hypothetical contests.
In head-to-head matchups -- the first to include Huckabee -- the former Arkansas governor loses to Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York by 10 percentage points (54 percent to 44 percent), to Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois by 15 points (55 percent to 40 percent) and to former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina by 25 points (60 percent to 35 percent).
The poll comes on the heels of a CNN/Opinion Research poll released Monday that showed Huckabee doubled his support nationally among likely Republican voters in the last month and is in a statistical dead heat with former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. View complete poll results
But Huckabee's double-digit deficits with the leading Democrats likely suggest that the Arkansas Republican still lacks widespread name recognition nationally, according to Keating Holland, CNN's polling director.
"Americans tend not to support candidates they're not familiar with, and it's possible Huckabee's numbers are low in these hypothetical matchups because he is still not very well known nationally," Holland said.
The poll also shows that Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona would do best against leading Democrats. He beats Clinton by 2 percentage points (50 percent to 48 percent), ties Obama (48 percent to 48 percent) and loses to Edwards by a smaller margin (8 points) than the other Republican candidates do.
more...
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/10/poll.head.to.head/index.html
Ahem... didja notice the Edwards numbers???
SOLDIER IN IRAQ RESPONDING TO MCCAIN'S CLAIM THAT GEN. PETRAEUS RIDES AROUND IN AN UNARMORED HUMVEE:
Woz
Of course, when I talked about Commies being everywhere, I was quoting, verbatim, the neoliberals of Koreatown and Little Saigon.
The very ones who have turned the US into a sorry carbon copy of their primitive homelands.
I fully know what you're trying to point out. Of course, that makes me a North Korean sympathizer in Koreatown - regardless of how I actually feel about North Korea.
Woz et al
On NMP's blog, I mentioned neoliberalism as the worst thing to hit mankind since communism.
Let's scratch that. Neoliberalism is the worst thing EVER, period.
Ahem... didja notice the Edwards numbers???
Certainly did, very interesting, wonder if Faux so called news is taking notice
monkey
I did.
I still think Huckabee will give the Democratic nominee a huge run for the money.
A huge run of money...
I did.
I still think Huckabee will give the Democratic nominee a huge run for the money.
======
Should have remembered those words when he let a rapist go free, to commit rape and murder on innocent women, don't you think?
Huckabee Flashback: "Take This Nation Back For Christ"
Historical Quote of the Day
"I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ."
Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R),
quoted by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette on June 8, 1998, on "why he left pastoring for politics."
New Documents In Huckabee's Case For Freeing Rapist
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/12/10/new-documents-revealed-in_n_76186.html
"He described Abu Zubaida as ideologically zealous, defiant and uncooperative — until the day in mid-summer when his captors strapped him to a board, wrapped his nose and mouth in cellophane and forced water into his throat in a technique that simulates drowning."
Funny how he DID NOT describe how little Abu is 'mentally ill' and a 'certifiable split personality'.
But I guess he would have to leave that part out or else it would make him look like a..well.. A MONSTER.
By the way, this man was no 'high level planner' for bin laden. He was the go to guy when their wives wanted to travel. He had NOTHING TO DO with planning any attacks.
So, basicly, they tortured a low level, mentally ill travel agent and called it some great victory, simply because georgie needed news of some great victory.
Saved lives MY ARSE.
Huckabee AIDS comment alarms victim's mom
Ryan White's mother seeks meeting with GOP presidential candidate
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - The mother of Ryan White, an Indiana teenager whose life-ending battle with AIDS in the 1980s engrossed the nation, wants to meet with Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee to discuss his comments 15 years ago that AIDS patients should have been isolated.
The former Arkansas governor and GOP front-runner in the important Iowa caucuses said Sunday that he stood by the comments.
That has infuriated Jeanne White-Ginder, who said: "It's so alarming to me."
In a telephone interview Monday with The Associated Press from her home in Leesburg, Fla., she said: "It's very important to me that we don't live in the darkness" when people thought AIDS was transmitted through casual contact, such as by "kissing, tears, sweat and saliva."
"We have to treat this disease like a disease, and like Ryan always said, not like a dirty word," she said.
White was 13 when he was diagnosed with AIDS in December 1984, having contracted the disease from the blood-clotting agent used to treat his hemophilia. He was barred from school the following year out of fear the disease was spread casually. He died in 1990 at age 18.
more...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22197928/
Look at Think Progress.org today.
It is amazing to me how much they catch, and today they are hitting it right and left.
I love Think Progress. They rock!
Don't tell me you missed this one NMP
"THE WANKER"
Wingnuts Can't Dance: Karen Bradley Analyzes the Candidates
(Apologies..I actually can't find any of them dancing)
http://www.silencedmajority.blogs.com/
At Think Progress, scroll down to the part where Perino says she is 'not allowed to characterize bushs reaction to the tapes'
e more I think about that, the more mad I get.
Repubs dancing...
Look what Jane Harman D-Ca. said about why she can't recall what all she was briefed on.
"I can't really reconstruct the meeting -- again, which was highly classified -- because I took no notes. It was five years ago and this feeble grandma just ain't that good," Harman told NPR's Robert Siegel Monday. "
Well GRANDMA... If you are so damn feeble, it is time for you to RESIGN and get your WEAK ASS OUT OF MY GOVERNMENT.
Christy
That's Southern California politics for you - at least be thankful that it's not an outright REPUBLICAN district.
Kangaroo
According to the twisted Christian theology in this country, women are second-class citizens. That's why the Equal Rights Amendment to the US Constitution was never ratified.
Of course, if you don't support that nationalistic neoliberal version of Christianity, you are a Commie.
RESIGN and get your WEAK ASS OUT OF MY GOVERNMENT.
======
I think their are quite a few who should be resigning and getting their weak asses out of your Govt.
...or get out of our weak ass government.
Same diff.
Repubs dancing...
Good one Monkey
Somedays, I just get so freaking mad I really do not know how to deal with it.
Today is one of those days. I think the ENTIRE US Congress and Senate should be WATERBOARDED until we finally get to the truth.
After all, if it works on the terra-wrists it will work on them!
Bastards.
Hey Ally, what is the use anymore of calling a distinction between dems and repellicans?
There are no difference between them at that level anymore, they have turned the whole country into the cesspool political reality of Louisiana.
There is only US...and THEM.
And I am getting damn sick of THEM!
The entire federal government has been turned on US a certainly as our guns are aimed at Iraqis.
Hey Rossi,
As an Aussie, I need to know something... What do you tell your kids and grandkids and other loved ones about what is happening here?
Do they understand what is happening to Us..?
Fed cuts key interest rate a quarter-point
Central bank reacts to widening mortgage crisis with third drop of the year
Faced with a widening mortgage crisis, the Federal Reserve Tuesday cut a key interest rate for the third time in three months.
"Incoming information suggests that economic growth is slowing, reflecting the intensification of the housing correction and some softening in business and consumer spending. Moreover, strains in financial markets have increased in recent weeks. Today’s action, combined with the policy actions taken earlier, should help promote moderate growth over time," the central bank said in a statement released with the announcement.
more...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22202624/
Everything Bush touches turns to shiite...
DANA PERINO - AVOIDING TALKING ABOUT LIBBY/ PLAME LEAK;
STONEWALLING (the press does a good job of trying to pry a comment out of her but she is not talking, this question will have to be put to Mr. Bush in his next photo opp/public appearance where he can't dodge it)
Hey Ladies, hucky has something to tell you...
"In August of 1998, Huckabee was one of 131 signatories to a full page USA Today Ad which declared: “I affirm the statement on the family issued by the 1998 Southern Baptist Convention.” What was in the family statement from the SBC? “A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ.”
At crooks and liars.
Hey hucky, submit to THIS---- bee-otch!
Christy
It's true that the Dems as a party no longer matter - I've said that so much myself.
I only count on individual leaders (JK, Edwards, maybe Kucinich, Barbara Lee here in California, etc) now. The only thing going for the Dems is that they have a few more of those visionaries than the Republicans.
I can not even read anymore news today. I am furious and want to just throttle something.
Every day that passes only seems to be worse than yesterday.
Christy... it's not you, everyday actually has been worse than yesterday since November 2000... I defy anyone to prove otherwise.
Millionaires need not apply.
monkey
Even small millionaires are feeling the pinch. $1M is NOT all THAT much these days... it won't even buy a house in much of SoCal.
Ally... that's a problem many would like to have, so it's hard to pinch out a tear for that demographic.
Poor, poor pitiful me.
Boehner OKs billions in emergency spending
House Minority leader says 'It all passes the straight-face test'
WASHINGTON - In a break with President Bush, the top Republican in the House endorsed $7.4 billion in new emergency spending, even as he vowed to stick with White House's demands to hew to the president's budget limits for domestic programs.
House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, endorsed adding funding above Bush's budget for border security, foreign aid and State Department operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and other purposes.
"It all passes the straight-face test," Boehner said. Later, a Boehner spokesman said the top House Republican doesn't necessarily support the entire bundle of emergency spending.
The emergency funding drew a protest from White House Budget director Jim Nussle on Saturday as he issued a veto threat on a $522 billion catchall spending bill.
That measure, under negotiation for weeks, would have cut in half, to $11 billion, the spending increases sought by Democrats above President Bush's request for the agency budgets passed each year by Congress. The $7.4 billion in emergency money - most of which has its strongest support from Republicans - would have brought the total above Bush-'s budget to $18 billion.
"Our position has not changed - hold government spending to the president's reasonable and responsible levels and fund our troops in the field," said White House budget office spokesman Sean Kevelighan.
After the White House veto threat, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., threatened to tear up the omnibus bill to bring it to Bush's budget numbers, but by scalping GOP priorities and killing billions of dollars in lawmakers' hometown projects.
Under budget rules, emergency spending comes on top of budget limits set by Congress to deal with unanticipated events such as natural disasters or unexpected shortfalls in federal programs. In practice, the emergency designation has often been used to skirt budget limits.
The emergency spending package partially endorsed by Boehner totals $7.4 billion, including:
$3 billion for border security and a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. The money has virtually unanimous support among Republicans.
$2.4 billion in foreign aid and State Department operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nussle requested the money last month.
$622 million for southeastern farmers requesting drought relief.
$250 million for heating subsidies for the poor.
$400 million to cover a shortfall in food program for women and children.
There's also $146 million for a Bush administration cybersecurity initiative, $195 million to replace the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis, $100 million to provide security for next year's political conventions, and $57 million to provide health care for workers harmed at the World Trade Center.
more...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22202309/
monkey
Actually the small millionaires are the most likely to be scared of the "death tax" and the most likely to be neoliberal.
My parents fall into this demographic.
Go to the main page thread on SBA setasides - my comment explains what's going on with the family business.
Christy said
I tell them that you voted for the wrong president like we voted for the wrong political party. Where our situation has improved, I can't see yours changing really. After that Frontline documentary last night, Bush and Cheney are getting ready for them both to stay in power - with ALL the power - congress is not important to them. All they have to do, is bomb Iran when it's almost time for presidential elections. Without impeachments, America is stuffed. That's what I tell my lot.
Called the White House Comment line about Libby:
I said that Libby should be in prison. I said that Bush should not have "pardoned" Libby. The alert operator said that Libby was not pardoned but that his sentenced was "commuted". I said, in essence, big difference... (I should have added that Bush has not ruled out a complete pardon of Libby.)
Even these low level folks in Washington have the Bushie talking points down!!!!
woz
Don't forget to tell your kids and grandkids that one of the guilty parties in f*cking America up was an Aussie - Rupert Murdoch.
Ally - deport him! Just not to here. Send him to Guantanamo in one of those pointy hoods that Bush and Cheney will be wearing when they are finally charged and sent packing.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/10/AR2007121002015.html
and I'm gonna be on Hardball tomorrow.
woz
Good idea. Moon can be sent there too, while at it.
Karen
Hardball? Great - congrats and best wishes to you!
Ally, will your parents lend me some money?
;-)
Led Zepplin (just Robert Plant) and O2 playing "Stairway to Heaven" 2007 just posted at You Tube
My little version "Hillary's Stairway to Heaven"
and I'm gonna be on Hardball tomorrow.
@@@@@
Hardball or
Crossballs?
Cojones Grandes?
HardBall...? THAT Hardball?
OMG! Karen has singlehandedly broken the MSM blackout!
WhoooHooooo! Fantastic!
I know, I know. But... Al Gore. Internets. If we just say it enough it is true.
Congrats Karen. We are very proud of you.
Woz,
I don't mean to sound...whatever... But this is very important for me, for your people to know about us.
It is how it wound up that matters more, I know, but it is very important that NO ONE forgets that georgie was NEVER LEGALLY ELECTED.
They stole it from We. And the entire world saw it happen, even if it was hidden from Us. They perverted the law itself and bullied the populace to come into power. They have kept us in a literal blackout where the scope of our own actions are never fully examined or explained.
Our people are not as ignorant as the rest of the world assumes, and I know you have seen that here first hand.
We did not vote for him. We did NOT We did NOT We did NOT. Some did, yes. But not the majority.
In many ways, when I see people say how 'We voted for him', it makes me feel like a mugging victim who is being blamed for being robbed. It is a sad rage and so unfair.
I know he who wins will write it down the way they like, but...Please do not let your people believe that anything less than a crime is happening here, and it began with that mugging.
As far as I am concerned, we have been without a true president since that night in 2000. He will NEVER be my president. He never rightfully won it and I will never bow to him.
Notice I NEVER call him 'president'...? georgie is the best thing I will call him.
I don't have a president. Our nation is a dying headless beast. And has been for almost going on 8 years now.
Anyways, I just wanted to point that out. They can manipulate our people, but not yours. Not anymore.
Thanks, everyone. I am going on to give honest analysis of the movement styles of the presidential candidates. I will not be touting one over another. But movement analysis reveals a good deal about the integrity and authenticity of a person's patterns and can help, in an objective way, to see inside these folks at least in part.
I find the analysis keeps me honest anyway. Of course I am attracted to some candidates more than others, and my political sensibility is far more progressive than almost all of the candidates, no matter which party they hail from.
But that does not mean I can't say what I see in their behavior.
I may even get to share some observations with Mr. Matthews himself... who knows?
If he slobbers on you don't be surprised. He gets creepy that way now and then.
On that note, returning to the crappy news...
“Whoever imagined that you would hear from the United States and from Britain the same arguments for detention without trial that were used by the apartheid government,” Archbishop Tutu said.
How. Shameful.
Christy, if you are able to see that Frontline American documentary about Cheney and this administration. When you watch that from end to end - 1 hour - that's what you are seeing the rest of the world being exposed to. My kids and grandkids will always be exposed to those things when they are with me.
I had friends stay with me last week for a couple of days. We talk about world politics - often and have done for 40 years. They know that the US government is the worst kind of organised crime anywhere in the world. Of course they know the elections were not won in the true sense of democracy. Organised Crime does not allow defeat.
Organised Crime handpicks the judiciary to which it may be exposed. Organised Crime infiltrates and selects lackeys to do their bidding all across the world. Israel to get rid of Hamas in Gaza. And then to bomb the daylights out of Iran in order to destabilise the world for his continued governance of the US and, it follows, the world. Maliki to do America's bidding in Iraq.
While the US has brilliant journalists with the integrity and heart to match, the voices of the American people who have been most abused by the current regime, will be heard across the world. And also - while Michael Ware works for CNN you also have a fantastic voice.
Ally - we'll own Michael Ware. But you're welcome to that NewsMediaBaronOganisedCrimeParticipantMurdoch. He's lived with you longer than with us. Possession is 9 points of the law. He's yours. Sorry.
Hey Karen,
What does it mean when georgie starts chuckling and does that smirk thing?
Is he really just dumb? I tend to say no, but... he LOOKS dumb.
Karen,
Congrats on Hardball. Should we TIVO it for you?
Ok. the "We" is the "royal we" but not me. I have tivo but haven't got a clue on how to work it. Never tried. But for you on Hardball, I'm willing to push a few extra buttons.
Hey Christy,
My former Republican brother (who is liking what Obama says) said that he heard Bush on Fox the other day.
He said Bush sounded like he'd already had a few too many drinks and it was still morning.
Now keep in mind, that even after Katrina, he was still stating the line, "You just hate Bush."
Now, he thinks Bush is the worst pResident ever, worse person ever, and probably will go down in infamy. But he's not behind impeachment--"no time. Other work to do..."
Karen,
Excellent! When you go n Hardball will you be discussing both parties, or just the thugs?
I'd love your analysis on Edwards.
Can't wait to watch it. You go girl!
Note to File:
I liked the other topical thread about contractors and the US military, but I can't seem to log on as myself. My position is: we did better when such jobs were conducted by teh government, i.e., the military, i.e. the Army Corps of Engineers.
Just and FYI for any admin types....
Chuck in Houston
On John Lennon dying, this is all I could find:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3k3gwY8LoA&feature=related
I seem to remember a video of a better concert where he had on a USAF SGT shirt or something.
Chuck in Houston
Ralpheh:
I may be wrong, but I think that is the whole Led Zeppelin -- not just Robert Plant -- but with Bonham's son on drums, not him, as he is dead.
Chuck in Houston
Ralpheh:
On the Hillary thing, it doesn't work so good for me. The guitar line is on a piano on that. Maybe that gets around intellectual property issues but it wrecks the effect.
I think these debates have avoided a very major point. Which one of them likes Led Zepellin? I am interested in their views on religion but that is all kind of abstract to me. I want to know where they stand on music.
Chuck in Houston
Hey hey momma said the way you move
Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you move...
(Zep III, I think, Black Dog)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8v_Rqi4B-E
And this, of course, is from back in the day, sort of:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9i2fqxSjTI&feature=related
Chuck in Houston
Spend my money
Take my car
Started telling her friends
She's gonna be a star....
You know, I was in that park one time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4jUy2FJW_w&feature=related
I can't remember the details too well though....
Madame DeFarge, this one goes out to you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhcVDNZO6F0&feature=related
Always one of my faves!
Chuck in Houston
Singing to an ocean
I can hear the ocean's roar
And here is a little Joni Mitchell inspired thing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNj9RkqYLwU&feature=related
By the way, I pasted wrong the other day,so here,in an attempt to mitigate that wrong:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amfo-gTDCgE&feature=related
I'll try one more....
Or this is maybe better:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSg1AxVoG1I&feature=related
No sun will shine, in my day today
The high yellow moon, won't come out to play
Never know
What happiness is
Never know
What sweet caress is
Still
I'll be always laughing
Like a clown
Won't someone help me 'cause
I got to pick myself up
From off the ground....
I say that life
must be somewhere
To be found....
Instead of concrete jungle
Where the living is hard....
You know you got to got to really got to and you know you got to lively up yourself!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2C-3iXZPLE&feature=related
World music is where we need to go. Peace love and understanding. What's so funny 'bout that? It can't hurt anyway. Once in a while. I grew up thinking that anyway though now I have become much more (fashionably) cynical. Or I might have been wrong from the start.
Anyway, on that ambivalent note, good night!
Chuck in Houston
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS5hZCa0DHs&feature=related
With a full and grateful heart -
Michelle
Your most welcome.
Hey Rossi,
As an Aussie, I need to know something
Christy everyone is wide awake now, it has taken them a few years which I will never understand, but they are finally awake at last.
And all of my family and friends know of my goings on, They just mention my name to get a reaction now.
Karen, I have no idea who or what Hardball is - but it sounds to me like you are making your voice heard in more places than one these days. Congratulations! and Thankyou!
I dunno, is everyone REALLY wide awake now, 'roo?
... and if they are, how come it doesn't show.
p.s. If they REALLY are awake now, does that mean the progressives, the left, the ones who have been bitchin up a storm since Nov 2000 were RIGHT all along? Are we not the true visionaries? Do we get zero credit for being able to see through the crap or not?
I can see clearly now the reign is gone... not.
Hayden: Interrogation tapes ‘before my time’
Hearing comes as former CIA agent gives account of suspect waterboarding
WASHINGTON - CIA Director Michael Hayden's explanation Tuesday of how videotapes of terror suspect interrogations were made, then destroyed, left many questions unanswered, said Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller.
The West Virginia Democrat called his panel's 90-minute closed-door session with Hayden "a useful and not yet complete hearing" and vowed the committee would get to the bottom of the matter. Among lingering questions: who authorized destruction of the tapes, and why Congress wasn't told about it.
Hayden told reporters afterwards that because the tapes were made under one of his predecessors, and were destroyed under another, he wasn't able to completely answer all questions.
"The taping was done under Director Tenet. Destroyed under Director Goss--before my time. There are other people in the agency who know about his far better than I, and I committed them to come on down and answer all the questions the committee might have."
more...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22197814/
The buck stops nowhere.
"This isn't something done willy nilly. This isn't something where an agency officer just wakes up in the morning and decides he's going to carry out an enhanced technique on a prisoner," said a former CIA agent Tuesday in a round of television news show appearances. "This was a policy made at the White House, with concurrence from the National Security Council and Justice Department."
At the White House, press secretary Dana Perino said the CIA interrogation program approved by the president is safe, tough, effective and legal. But she said that Hayden will not "talk about techniques and explain to the enemy what we are doing" during two days of questioning before closed sessions of the Senate and House intelligence panels.
"It's no secret that the president approved a lawful program in order to interrogate hardened terrorists," Perino said. "We do not torture. We also know that this program has saved lives by disrupting terrorist attacks."
Kiriakou said that each time CIA agents wished to use waterboarding or any other harsh interrogation technique, they had to present a "well-laid out, well-thought out reason" to top government officials. In Zubaydah's case, Kiriakou said the waterboarding had immediate effect.
"The next day, he told his interrogator that Allah had visited him in his cell during the night and told him to cooperate," Kiriakou said in an interview first broadcast Monday evening on ABC News' World News. "From that day on, he answered every question. The threat information he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks."
-snip-
As to the CIA videotapes, President Bush said he didn't know about the tapes or their destruction until last week. "My first recollection of whether the tapes existed or whether they were destroyed was when Michael Hayden briefed me," Bush said in an interview Tuesday with ABC News. "There's a preliminary inquiry going on and I think you'll find that a lot more data, facts will be coming out," the president said. "That's good. It will be interesting to know what the true facts are."
more on...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22197814/
Lemme guess, Bush will fire anyone who had anything to do with it, right?
America: Duped by stupid.
This whole tape thing is driving me crazy.
So, lemme pose a hypothetical scenario.
Say one of our troops is captured in Iraq, and since many deem our forces to be "invaders" and have wrought terror upon many, they decide to waterboard or use some other "enhanced technique" to get that person to speak.
Say they videotape it. Say they release it and it hits the airwaves in America.
What would the reaction of the public be?
I'm guessing absolute hysterics, with people calling on the government to bomb the Middle East into oblivion, describing "those people" as animals, barbaric, sub-human, and worse, accusing "their God" of telling them to kill others in the name of religion, when all the while the ones directing these "safety measures" from the American side are also claiming that "they get their direction from a Higher power", one supposedly entrenched in the ideology love & peace.
Why the hell can't people see that what is being done in OUR name, under the thinly velied guise of "keeping us safe" is creating more and more animosity and enemies who will, without a doubt, continue to haunt us for these actions for generations to come?!?!?!
Maybe if George W. Bush is so interested in finding out what the true facts are, and his so-called "lawful enhanced techniques" are so bloody effective, just maybe he should waterboard some folks at the CIA, or in his own Cabinet, or his VP, or even himself.
Perhaps God will come to him at night and convince him to come clean on what he knows, or for that matter, what he doesn't.
Happy Hump Day.
My college Linguistics professor was right.
Patriarchy is bad.
Iraqi Policewomen Are Told to Surrender Their Weapons
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/121107N.shtml
Tina Susman of the Los Angeles Times reports, "The Iraqi government has ordered all policewomen to hand in their guns for redistribution to men or face having their pay withheld, thwarting a US initiative to bring women into the nation's police force."
Now I had heard the new Iraqi and Afghani governments were going to have a high proportion of women in them. This I've got to see. We don't even have that here. We have less than Cuba but more the country under us, which is from Africa. (I heard that in a speech by Carol Mosely Braun)
CNN QuickVote
Are there circumstances in which waterboarding of prisoners is acceptable?
Yes 55% 46074
No 45% 37437
Total Votes: 83511
Still think people are wide awake, kangaroo?
Chuck said:
Ralpheh:
On the Hillary thing, it doesn't work so good for me. The guitar line is on a piano on that. Maybe that gets around intellectual property issues but it wrecks the effect.
I think these debates have avoided a very major point.
@@@@@
Chuck:
1) Yeah, electric pianos suck big-time and electric guitars kick-ass
2) still I love the idea of Hillary buying a stairway to heaven.
3) You make a better video and post it here and we will all cheer you on...
monkey said:
This whole tape thing is driving me crazy.
So, lemme pose a hypothetical scenario.
Say one of our troops is captured in Iraq, and since many deem our forces to be "invaders" and have wro
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On NPR, there was questioning of an Air Force General yesterday on this precision situation by Senator Lindsey Graham. He asked the general if one of our pilots was shot down in, say, Iran and they waterboarding him, wouldn't the United States government and military be screaming "war crime" and "Violation of the Geneva Conventions" etc...
The General flunked the question - he said he was not "equipped" to answer the question. Sen. Graham sat in disbelief - a General/lawyer not "equipped" to answer the question.??
Hate to crash the party Christy, but...
AFAIK, W did win legitimately in '04.
In fact, I don't understand how Kerry carried CA.
This only supports my contention that abnormalities in OH and FL would NOT have been needed for W to win in '04.
Many neoliberals, both within the US and in its puppet states, do believe that the US, as a Christian Nation, is exempt from normal rules by which a government must behave.
So it's NOT ok for China to execute people and harvest their organs, but it's perfectly just for the US to execute its mentally ill.
I will say it again and again - neoliberalism is the WORST plague EVER on mankind.
I must say, I'm not as familiar with "neoliberalism" as I should be... I thought neoconservativism was phucking everything up, does "liberalism" need another strike against it?
I'm gonna do some research on it... but hey, it's not as bad as say, the White House spokesperson not know what the Cuban Missile crisis was, eh?
Duh!
I do know neoliberalism... my mind is just slightly off these daze.
On the bright side, I am now qualified to be the next White House spokesman.
Woohoo!
Still think people are wide awake, kangaroo?
Isn't that poll, basically American People Monkey, what else would you expect from a Country with 300 million citizens, that has left a Phyco Thug, reside in the White House for 8 years without lifting a finger, if you are talking about outside America I think that you are talking about a whole different story.
I don't know about what Wos hears in Tasmania, but let me tell you, The difference now and 8 years ago, is monumental, sad thing is it took them 8 years to wake up and I definitely rub it in their faces continually.
The conversation come up nearly everywhere I go with my car, with my Impeach Bush Save the World stickers, and more.
Ah, gotcha.
Here in Amurka, it's bidness as usual, move along, nothing to see here.
New thread, same old dread
Are there circumstances in which waterboarding of prisoners is acceptable?
Yes 55% 46074
No 45% 37437
That is so shameful Monkey sadly, I think that it will take another 9/11 for America, and the majority of the American People to understand the damage they have committed on the world community, You had the world community with you after 9/11, I think if a thing like that where to happen today, American would be standing very much alone.
New thread...LOOOOOONG NEW THREAD but well worth the read.
Guantanamo is full of detainees who have told nothing at all after 5 years and more of *enhanced wheedling*. Nothing. So? Did they have nothing to tell? When will they be released and compensated for unlawful conduct against them? Oh that's right. If the Supreme Court says that Guantanamo is unlawful. Change the Supreme Court. Or Waterboard those treasonous judges into resigning.
The whole terrorist debacle gains in ridiculousness that the masses swallow, hook, line and stinker. No wonder we need His Stupidness to rule over We the Stupidest.
DiAnne. Your brother is wrong. Until impeachment begins - none of "too much to do" will ever begin. Just more of what can never be undone.