Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Headlines - Wednesday

The Supreme Court said it's okay to commit treason by outing a CIA operative when they  refused to allow a lawsuit filed by former CIA operative Valerie Plame against onetime Bush administration officials to continue.

The justices offered no explanation for deciding not to hear the case brought by Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson.
 
They also ruled that old people should quit their job, go home and die in Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc. 
 
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The BBC recently interviewed 27 former detainees who were held at the Bagram Airbase detention facility between 2002 and 2008. All but two of the detainees said they had been ill-treated. According to the investigation, the detainees were "beaten, deprived of sleep, hung from the ceiling and threatened with dogs. Four claimed officials had put a gun to their head and threatened to kill them." One inmate said:

'They did things that you would not do against animals let alone to humans.

'They poured cold water on you in winter and hot water in summer. They used dogs against us. They put a pistol or a gun to your head and threatened you with death.

'They put some kind of medicine in the juice or water to make you sleepless and then they would interrogate you.'

All the detainees were ultimately released without charge.

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Bob Herbert: Who Are We?

Policies that were wrong under George W. Bush are no less wrong because Barack Obama is in the White House.

One of the most disappointing aspects of the early months of the Obama administration has been its unwillingness to end many of the mind-numbing abuses linked to the so-called war on terror and to establish a legal and moral framework designed to prevent those abuses from ever occurring again.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/06/23-6

And you wonder why Obama has no plans to investigate Bush administration crimes? He wouldn't be able to take advantage of those 'policies' if their true scope came to light.

Let this be a lesson to all those who ever thought politicians were honorable. Some might be better than others but in the end they're all still politicians. There will be no 'Great Savior' to come along and make everything right and just. If we want real change, it's on us and until we're willing to do what the Iranian people are doing, we'll just get more of the same. Until life becomes hard enough for the majority of Americans (until they have nothing to lose), progressives will suffer many more disappointments and the "American Way" will continue to remain just so much bullshit.

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Winning hearts and minds Obama-style

"An airstrike believed to have been carried out by a United States drone killed at least 60 people at a funeral for a Taliban fighter in South Waziristan on Tuesday, residents of the area and local news reports said." If the details of the attack, which remain sketchy, are verified, "the strike could be the deadliest since the United States began using the aircraft to fire remotely guided missiles" at the tribal areas of Pakistan.

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The state of conservative thought in the US

The Wiki entry for the conservative magazine National Review tells us, "It is usually considered the center of intellectual activity for the American Conservative movement in the twentieth century." Sure, that was probably written by some PR firm that monitors and manages the entry for the magazine, but it's still true enough. Founded in 1955 by conservative icon William F. Buckley, jr., NR rests on the coffeetables of rich guys and Republican ops nationwide. It did represent the mainstream of conservative thought in the 20th century and it probably still does today.

Nothing shows how far their mainstream has drifted from our own so well as NR's blog The Corner. Where National Review was once a place where serious people could turn for serious foreign policy analysis, they now get stuff like this, from former prosecutor, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and one-time attorney for Rudy Giuliani, Andrew C. McCarthy, where we learn that Obama's cool with Iran being totalitarian and nuclear, because the president's a commie:

http://griperblade.blogspot.com/2009/06/state-of-conservative-thought-in-us.html

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Joe the Plumber brings the gift of matches to gun and alcohol bash


Joe the Plumber
Real American

Dear
Mr. Plumber,

It's great to read that you're still in the average guy business. I was getting a bit worried we'd never hear from you again after you dumped the GOP, but thankfully, you're still a big draw with the "get liquored up and shoot things" crowd.

Gosh, I wish I could have been there. I hear those
Independence Institute alcohol, tobacco, and firearms parties are a lot of fun. What more could a real American man want beyond a big ol' shotgun with a long full-choke barrel, a humongous cigar, and all the booze you can drink.


I imagine a lot of lesser Americans might look at such an event and make snide little remarks about compensation and feelings of inadequacy. Screw them. They just don't understand the joy of sucking on a long thick cigar or the power one feels when a hot load explodes from the tip of your Mossberg.

Sounds like your speech was a big hit too, but I think you could have added a little clarity to your statement that America had been a "great nation for over 180 years." That confused a lot of people and opened you up to a little mockery.

You could have avoided all that by simply explaining that the United states did not become a great nation until after the
first friction "strike anywhere" matches became available here, sometime in the late 1820s. I mean, gosh, how would we spend our free time if we didn't have those little flames to look at--so pretty, so hot, so dangerous.

And sure, sometimes the matches speak to us, and tell us to do bad things, and maybe sometimes we do them, but it's all worth the trouble isn't it--the excitement of the firetrucks, the thrill that comes from thinking about the lacy thong you're secretly wearing as you talk to the fireman; you know what I mean.

Heterosexually yours,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot
 
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The national GOP has pumped almost $1 million into Norm Coleman's 'campaign' in just the last month to keep blocking Franken from being sworn in as the 60th democratic senator. 

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http://www.whereistheoutrage.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/spying-on-us.jpg

Good:

The Bush administration plan to use satellites for domestic surveillance is reportedly axed after state and local officials say they have higher priorities.

The senior Homeland Security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the program is classified, said Napolitano had decided to nix it after consulting with state and local law enforcement officials and learning that they had far more pressing priorities than using satellites to collect information and eavesdrop on people.

How about, she decided to nix it after realizing it was an invasion of privacy?

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Ever the environmentalist, Sarah Palin praises the decision by the Romans yesterday which ignores the Clean Water Act and allows for wholesale polluting by mining companies at the expense of the environment.
 
Sarah says it's "great news for Alaska" that a mining company was given the go-ahead by the Supreme Court on Monday to dump waste from an Alaskan gold mine into a nearby 23-acre lake, although the material will kill all of the lake's fish.

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Yesterday, Senator Ensign (big-haired sex lizard, Nevada), the virulently heterosexual hypocrite, apologized to his peers in the Senate during lunch, and then ducked out the back door to avoid the press. And as is their tradition in the Senate (and in Nevada), what happens there, stays there. There are no transcripts.

Not that that has ever stopped us:

"My fellow heterosexuals and you too, Lindsey, I'd like to apologize to you for embarassing the Senate and getting caught boinking the hired help, pimping out her son, and cuckolding her small-dicked husband," Ensign did not say. "But I won't. She was a good piece of ass, and I have no regrets, and neither does she, if you know what I mean," he did not add. "Oh, and let's protect the sanctity of marriage from the queers."

I'm sure it was something like that.

But this is the best part of the story from The Hill:

The apology was followed by a round of applause by all Republicans similar to those delivered to Sen. David Vitter (La.) and former Sens. Larry Craig (Idaho) and Ted Stevens (Alaska) after their controversies.

…followed by a chorus of men asking Ensign for his ex-staffer's phone number.

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We're all uninsured now: http://susiemadrak.com/2009/06/24/07/00/were-all-uninsured-now-2/
 
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Rio, eh?
 
Now that South Carolina Governor Marc Sanford has returned home safe and sound we can go ahead and mock and ridicule the hapless dolt.

I myself have frequently felt like running away to Rio for a week.  Forget the kids and the job and just let it all be about me, me, me, me, me for a few days.  But alas, I never pocketed my passport and booked it out of Dodge for a while because I had responsibilities that had to be tended to, so I sucked it up and plodded on.  That is what grownups do.  

Marc Sanford, on the other hand, the chief executive of a waterfront state during hurricane season, just disappears and can't be reached and no one knows where the hell he is, and when he returns he acts like he is nonplussed by everyone making such a fuss.  What's the big deal?  

Sanford, in an exclusive interview with The State Media Company, said he decided at the last minute to go to the South American country to recharge after a difficult legislative session in which he battled with lawmakers over how to spend federal stimulus money.

Sanford said he had considered hiking on the Appalachian Trail, an activity he said he has enjoyed since he was a high school student.

"But I said 'no' I wanted to do something exotic," Sanford said "... It's a great city."

Sanford, in a brief interview in the nation's busiest airport, said he has been to the city twice before, most recently about a year and half ago during a Commerce Department trip.

Sanford said he was alone on the trip. He declined to give any additional details about what he did other than to say he drove along the coastline.

Isn't that special?  

But there is another hilarious wrinkle.  Yesterday when the governor's office staff fed the media the bullshit line that he was off hiking the Appalachian trail (on Naked Hiking Day, no less!) they reported it as fact.  Now he has returned and been interviewed at the airport by the paper that broke the story that he was missing, they are belatedly cautious.

Sanford can downplay this all he wants, and feign being nonplussed by the attention all he wants, but the fact remains that it was a bizarre incident and not the sort of behavior that inspires confidence among the electorate.  

I can't imagine that we will hear much more about him running for the republican nomination in 2012 after this, but I sorta hope he does, just for the snark-fest it will inspire in Left Blogistan.  

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Texas town turns down socialist blood money but then takes it a day later

Enough of your fruity beverages, Nobama!

The city of Mansfield, Texas took a bold stand against the socialist Kenyan martyr Barack Obama and his free-spending ways on Monday, opting not to take $38,000 in FREE FEDERAL GRANT MONEY that they had applied for. They were going to send Washington a message: a message that said, "Yes, we requested federal assistance to improve our police force, but now we do not want it because … socialism?" http://wonkette.com/409419/texas-town-turns-down-socialist-blood-money-but-then-takes-it-a-day-later#more-409419

 

 

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