Excerpt:
On Friday, a federal judge refused to dismiss a civil lawsuit accusing Donald Rumsfeld of responsibility for the alleged torture by U.S. forces of two Americans who worked for an Iraqi contracting firm.
U.S. District Judge Wayne Andersen's ruling did not say the two contractors had proven their claims, including that they were tortured after reporting alleged illegal activities by their company. But it did say they had alleged enough specific mistreatment to warrant hearing evidence of exactly what happened.
Andersen said his decision "represents a recognition that federal officials may not strip citizens of well settled constitutional protections against mistreatment simply because they are located in a tumultuous foreign setting."
Andersen did throw out two of the lawsuit's three counts but gave the torturees the green light to go forward with a third count alleging they were unconstitutionally tortured under procedures personally approved by Rumsfeld..
Are they going to have Rummy's deposition under oath and on TV like they did Clinton?
Oh, that's right - this isn't about sex so we have no right to know the truth.
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This won't end until the Vatican stops forcing the perversity of celibacy on its priests. "Dutch religious leaders have ordered an independent inquiry into alleged sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests. Earlier, the Vatican defended its response to child sex abuse allegations in a number of European states, saying it had reacted rapidly and decisively. In the latest revelations, the head of an Austrian monastery confessed to abusing a boy more than 40 years ago. Separately, Pope Benedict's brother said in an interview he slapped pupils in the face at a German choir school. The Dutch investigation will be opened "as soon as possible", it was announced after Dutch bishops met to discuss abuse claims by about 200 alleged victims, some from several decades ago."
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"Yes because what we have now is basically a Republican health care bill, if it gets through. He's a nice person, but he couldn't sell watermelons if you gave him state troopers to flag down traffic." Dan Rather, asked if Obamacare will become law Link
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Subject: what Arianna said
"The teabaggers and Michael Moore are both angry about the same thing." Arianna
Bartcop says: Uh, no. Michael Moore isn't upset that the president is BLACK. He doesn't want to see Obama's birth certificate. He doesn't think Obama is a communist, a socialist, a fascist, the Joker, the Antichrist, or a Kenyan. He doesn't believe that Obama's singular goal in life is to kill as many unborn babies as he possibly can, or to let the 'terrorist' win.
Michael Moore doesn't empathize with the guy who flew a plane into to a building to bag an IRS agent. He didn't go out and buy a closet full of guns ahead of Obama's confiscation edict. He doesn't believe that concentration camps are being erected out--as we speak-- to detain all conservatives. He doesn't claim that ALL taxes are EVIL.
Arianna, you ignorant slut!
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Oceans are losing oxygen
Inhofe says, "Not a problem."
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How to waste (almost) nothing in the kitchen.
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This fireplace was voted the world's most beautiful object in last year's Pulchra design competition.
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Unemployed? Don't expect the GOP to help you
But it turns out that unemployed people are lazy. They'll stay unemployed for as long as they have benefits. See, unemployed people are unemployed because they deserve it. That's the Republican mindset; people with a lot of money are wonderful people who deserve all that money, while people with just a little or no money are awful people who are purposely poor so they can sponge off the government. This reasoning is so ingrained that, even in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression -- with the vast majority of the jobless unemployed through no fault of their own -- they can't shake the belief that people in need are just lazy.
Take Tom DeLay: http://griperblade.blogspot.com/2010/03/unemployed-don-expect-gop-to-help-you.html
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Funny how no one's talking about the "Arnold Amendment" anymore.
Remember when there was a big push among Republicans to introduce and pass a Constitutional Amendment that would allow non-native-born Americans to be President. It was all because back then, Arnold Schwarzenegger was a big hero to Republicans, so why NOT change the Constitution to allow it? In 2003, none other than Orrin Hatch introduced legislation to amend the Constitution to allow anyone who's lived in the U.S. for twenty years to be president. It seems almost quaint now, in an age when Republicans are joining the "birther" chorus, led by the unhinged Orly Taitz, that somehow Barack Obama is a fearsome "Other" who seized his office unlawfully. What's even more quaint is that in 2004, the Amendment was branded the "Equal Opportunity to Govern Amendment" and the Hatch-led Senate Judiciary Committee hearing into such an amendment was branded "Maximizing Voter Choice: Opening the Presidency to Naturalized Americans."
Keep reading: http://brilliantatbreakfast.blogspot.com/2010/03/funny-how-no-ones-talking-about-arnold.html
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Limbaugh claims he'll flee the horrors of "socialized medicine" by escaping to a country with.... socialized medicine:
Adding details and context to Limbaugh's nonsense is usually a waste of time, but it's probably worth noting that Costa Rica would be an interesting choice for Limbaugh's self-imposed exile. The national health care system in Costa Rica is socialized and generally considered the best in Latin America.
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Capitalists support the free market
Airlines are pressuring the government not to saddle them with the bulk of expenses for the planned multibillion-dollar upgrade of the air traffic system to one relying on satellites rather than ground-based radar.
Loathsome harpy and her retinue of scumbags continue to get slammed by the right.
The "Al Qaeda 7"? Those incompetent McCarthyites in Liz Cheney's private bunker seem to have miscounted:
Michael Chertoff, who served as counsel to a man identified as a leading Al Qaeda fundraiser in North America, went on to head the criminal division at Justice and then to become secretary of Homeland Security.Yeah, a Bush/Cheney AG and "America's Mayor," Rudy "9/11" Giuliani, Liz, you ass.
The list would also include Michael Mukasey, Bush's last attorney general, whose law firm had an active pro bono program writing appeals in support of the Guantánamo inmates on constitutional issues, and Rudy Giuliani, whose firm was and is also engaged in representing Gitmo prisoners.
Even one of the biggest repuke prigs on the planet is pissed:
A group that includes leading conservative lawyers and policy experts, former independent counsel Kenneth Starr and several senior officials of the last Bush [misa]dministration, is denouncing as "shameful" Republican attacks on lawyers who came to the Obama Justice Department after representing suspected terrorists.The best line of the day has to come from Eugene Robinson, though, who basically tells her to cram it up her f**kpipe sideways:
"We consider these attacks both unjust to the individuals in question and destructive of any attempt to build lasting mechanisms for counterterrorism adjudications," wrote the 19 lawyers whose names were attached to the statement as of early Monday.
"She ought to spend the time examining her own principles, if she can find them."
He goes on:
"[M]aligning is apparently the whole point of the exercise. The smear campaign by Cheney, et al., has nothing to do with keeping America safe. It can only be an attempt to inflict political damage on the Obama administration by portraying the Justice Department as somehow "soft" on terrorism. Even by Washington's low standards, this is unbelievably dishonest and dishonorable. [...]Update: Ken Starr speaks out, calls Ms Cheney a stain on the fabric of America.
"This time, obviously, they went too far. Scorched-earth groups like Keep America Safe may just be pretending not to understand our most firmly established and cherished legal principles, but there is one thing they genuinely don't grasp: the concept of shame."
Compassionate conservatism. Wow."I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes."
Actual pic, from here.
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