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A federal judge has ruled that John Yoo, a former Bush administration lawyer who wrote crucial memorandums justifying harsh interrogation techniques, will have to answer in court to accusations that his work led to a prisoner’s being tortured and deprived of his constitutional rights. [em in orig]
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This makes everything even more complicated. You have in power an Israeli hard liner with an itchy trigger finger and an Iranian nutball without any legitimacy. It's a recipe for serious misjudgment.
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Ein Norsk humoristisk sang som omhandlar John Deere
Emmylou Harris: Blackhawk: 3 Girls and Their Buddy: Toronto, June 5, 2009
There is, however, one important thing that the D.H.S. report didn’t say: Today, as in the early years of the Clinton administration but to an even greater extent, right-wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment.
And at this point, whatever dividing line there was between mainstream conservatism and the black-helicopter crowd seems to have been virtually erased.
What will the consequences be? Nobody knows, of course, although the analysts at Homeland Security fretted that things may turn out even worse than in the 1990s — that thanks, in part, to the election of an African-American president, “the threat posed by lone wolves and small terrorist cells is more pronounced than in past years.”
And that’s a threat to take seriously. Yes, the worst terrorist attack in our history was perpetrated by a foreign conspiracy. But the second worst, the Oklahoma City bombing, was perpetrated by an all-American lunatic. Politicians and media organizations wind up such people at their, and our, peril.
By a 3 to 1 margin, the House of Representatives today approved a bill passed by the Senate yesterday that gives the federal government sweeping new powers to regulate tobacco.
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For smokers, the law will mean confronting graphic warnings of the risks of their habit every time they pick up a pack, and possible changes to the formulations of cigarettes and cigars. The law bans most cigarette flavorings and orders the FDA to study the issue of whether menthol should also be banned, on the theory that the flavorings mask the harsh taste of tobacco and make it easier for first-time smokers to get hooked. [my em]
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They still don't seem to have any shame
In addition to possessing no guilt
Like arsonists who complain about how
The house they torched is being rebuilt.
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The Republican Energy plan
Put hamsters on steroids and put them in larger wheels
The Republican Health plan
Don’t get sick
The Republican Global Warming plan
No, it’s not
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As the sun sank in Albany, the senators were fighting about which side had the key to the door. Lawsuits were threatened. Nobody was happy except the reporters, who had not seen anything this interesting since Gov. Eliot Spitzer was driven out of office in that sex scandal and Paterson marked his succession by calling a press conference to confess that he had cheated on his wife.
This is why New Yorkers believe they have the worst state government in the nation.
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... The study say that 120 million Americans will choose to leave their private insurance coverage and take the public plan instead, because it's cheaper.
In other words, a GOP-style study admits that, if given the choice, Americans would flock to a public plan.
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Socialized health care is not the right path for this country - Every other major Western country (and even non-major ones) has a single payer universal care system. And many of them have healthier populations who live longer lives. The real reason politicians (Republican that is) are against socialized medicine has nothing to do with principal - and everything to do with the huge drop in profits by the insurance companies. Folks in the general population who are against socialized medicine would be for socialized medicine in a New York minute if it meant affordable care for their kids. It is hard to believe most people (even the gun loving, anti abortion, hate the gays crowd) are against reform and change because of a word. It is also hard to believe people actually feel good about the current system. Well they feel good about it until they get sick. Idiots.
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1. Damn, James W. von Brunn hit the nutzoid racist trifecta: he killed a black security guard at a museum about the slaughter of Jews run by the federal government. Somewhere in southern Idaho, they're already building a statue to that motherfucker.
Let the insanity flow from this amazing video. Feel the insanity. Feel it deep within your bowels.
This is an interpretation of the shooting that occurred in D.C. at the Holocaust museum. It is the most important piece of video ever to come from Fox News.
The end.
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Writing on Michelle Malkin's blog Hot Air today, war-supporting tough guy Ed Morrissey is petrified about this development and, as a result, he has announced that he is now too fearful to consider visiting that island [Palau]:
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It's hard to put into words how inebriated with irrational fear someone has to be in order to be so scared of 17 Uighurs -- who were never guilty of anything -- that they would avoid traveling to whatever place this handful of persecuted individuals is located. But this is the right-wing movement at its core: its leaders cynically ratchet up fear levels as high as possible to justify whatever they want to do (invade Iraq, torture people, spy on Americans with no warrants) and their adherents (along with plenty of others) become more and more paralyzed by their fears of anything Muslim. This, after all, is the same faction that continues to shake with terror at the very idea that accused Terrorists will be brought to the U.S. -- in handcuffs, imprisoned, and disappeared into super-max facilities. And it is the same faction that made accepting the Uighurs into the U.S. politically unpalatable by threatening legislation -- The Keep Terrorists Out of America Act -- that would bar their entrance.
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Our stalwart, tough right-wing play-acting warriors should probably also avoid vacationing in Paris, the locale of recently released (and completely innocent) Guantanamo detainee Lakdhar Boumediene; Australia, where released Guantanamo detainee David Hicks is to be found roaming free; London, where released and tortured Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed currently resides; and, most of all, places like Washington D.C. and Kansas, where our own home-grown, decidedly non-Muslim Terrorists are thriving.
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With the Tiller shooting and now this — the DHS report that caused such an uproar has been vindicated.
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A month before a suspected white supremacist walked into the Holocaust Memorial Museum in downtown Washington and opened fire, the Department of Homeland Security warned that domestic right-wing extremism was the most pressing domestic terrorist threat that the country faced.
Conservatives were outraged that the DHS analysts had singled out antiabortion and antitax radicals for scrutiny. But the report was part of a series that DHS compiles on domestic dangers from all sides of the political spectrum, an area that's taken a back seat to overseas threats.
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We're in a bind here in California, mates, in case you hadn't noticed. The till is tapped, the budget deficit is bigger than the great outdoors, and lately even the sun has disappeared.
What's crystal clear is that the governor can't fix this mess. His mouth still runs, but his muscle has turned to flab.
The answer, Michael Daly told me, is not less suffering, but more. That's the only way out.
"I'm talking about real pain," he said, grimacing as though a dagger was at his throat. "Catastrophic pain."
The problem up to now, we agreed, is that middle- and upper-class people haven't had to feel any pain because budget cuts are always aimed at the poor, elderly and disabled. If Daly were king of California, he would swing such a mean blade that Republican legislators would start calling for higher taxes to pay for the services their constituents demand, and Democrats would have to make hard choices instead of throwing money at every social service imaginable while the state goes broke.
So how would Daly take aim at the middle class?
"If we shut down half the DMV offices in the state, that would cause real pain," he said with an evil grin.
He has got a point.
Take away state support for canes, seeing-eye dogs and wheelchairs and you might spark a small protest rally in Sacramento. But force people to drive past a shuttered DMV office to have a license renewed, only to find that the lines are twice as long as normal, and we'll have a revolution on our hands.
What other ideas does Daly have for wreaking havoc from Shasta to Sherman Oaks?
It was in Orange County that candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger set things on the wrong track when he dropped a wrecking ball to symbolically crush the car tax.
I was there to see it, and now I'm looking at a budget gap which, at more than $20 billion, is roughly what Schwarzenegger's stunt cost the state in revenue.
Here's his last chance to leave a legacy he can be proud of.
Don't be such a girlie man with the budget cuts, Arnold.
Make them hurt in Brentwood and beyond, and bring the partisan hacks to their knees.
Like you used to say when you worked with those other dumbbells:
"No pain, no gain."
[...] U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder called the murder an “abhorrent act of violence,” but he hasn’t used the word “terrorism.” Not once.
Why?
As a bit of context, if you’re new to this website, the FBI labels the animal rights and environmental movements as the “number one domestic terrorism threat” even though those activists have never harmed a human being. [...]
When animal rights activists or environmental activists are arrested, though, the government immediately sends out press releases and holds press conferences trumpeting the arrest of “eco-terrorists” and “domestic terrorists.”
What gives? Why hasn’t the murder of an abortion provider been labeled “terrorism”?
It’s not a threat to profits. Time and again, we’ve seen that a driving force behind the domestic “War on Terrorism” is protecting corporate interests. The ELF, ALF and above-ground, lawful activists all directly target profits. As the Department of Homeland Security said in a memo, “Attacks against corporations by animal rights extremists and eco-terrorists are costly to the targeted company and, over time, can undermine confidence in the economy.” Similarly, the State Department has warned corporations how to protect their profits from “eco-terrorists.”
It’s not threatening the “American way of life.” In my reporting I’ve found that the word “terrorism” is typically applied to two types of crimes. The first are crimes that go up the chain of power (so, for example, the U.S. military bombing civilians is not terrorism, but an Iraqi civilian bombing the military is).
The second are crimes that challenge dominant American values. Let me explain: Attacking African American voters is not terrorism, right-wingers like Chuck Norris calling for armed revolution is not terrorism, Timothy McVeigh bombing the Oklahoma City building is not terrorism. Why? Because the values behind all of those actions– racism, capitalism, and Christian fundamentalism—are business as usual.
So, for example, if Dr. Tiller had been murdered by Muslim extremists proclaiming jihad against the West, the government would be labeling this “terrorism.” The exact same crime committed by Christian extremists is merely a “wicked deed in Wichita”
... Our current private health insurance system is the most costly, wasteful, complicated and bureaucratic in the world. Its function is not to provide quality health care for all, but to make huge profits for those who own the companies ...
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Barack Obama may have no realistic plan for eliminating the deficit, but neither do Republicans. "Tax cuts" to "create jobs" aren't going to do it. George W. Bush cut taxes for the wealthy time and time again, and unemployment exploded under his tax policies. So can we please stop this "rich people create jobs" nonsense? They had eight years of paying ever less taxes and instead of creating jobs, they created bonuses for themselves. As for spending cuts, let's see Republicans come up with a realistic plan to eliminate the deficit. Elminiate Social Security and Medicare? Go ahead. Propose it. See how far you get, especially among families where one or both breadwinners are unemployed, the savings account they set up for the kids' college has been decimated by the economic crash and their parents have lost most of their retirement savings at the same time. Tell these families that their elderly parents now have to pay all their medical expenses on their own. Then if the other breadwinner loses his or her job, and they start sliding down into poverty, tell them there's no more SCHIP. No more food stamps. No more job retraining. Nothing for them, because "deficit reduction is the only important thing." See how that will fly. [my em]
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WICHITA, Kan. (AP) -- George Tiller's slaying has accomplished what anti-abortion activists had tried to do for decades: The doors to his Kansas clinic will shut forever.
The announcement Tuesday from Tiller's family was a tainted victory for the nation's anti-abortion movement. For years, it had focused on Tiller, making him the target of protests, legislation and legal attacks. His death reignited a public debate over some abortion opponents' tactics and left many wondering how it will transform the abortion battleground.
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In today's post, attracting much warranted attention was the letter from rude reader JC, who is from Wichita. Here it is in a profanity free entry so blogs with delicate sensibilities can link to the fascinating information contained therein:
"For some few years I volunteered as an escort at Dr. Tiller’s and several other clinics. I didn’t know the good doctor well, but met with him on several occasions and was impressed with his kindness and the care he obviously felt for the women who needed his services.
"Of course I have been heartbroken by his assassination, but I’m not so full of hate towards his killer. I’ve seen too many of his kind on the lines; in fact I remember seeing him. We knew Mr. Roeder as 'Prom Queen' from the flowers he usually carried there, and the screaming fits he would throw when approached by escorts. He was one of many not-too-bright mentally ill recruited by various self-appointed fundie leaders who groomed them to scream the threats they themselves were so careful not to utter aloud.
"I’m pretty sure that he has been exploited again to shoot Dr. Tiller. I don’t know who is using him this time- when I saw him, he was in Troy Newman’s stable of nuts, but the fundie leaders are an incestuous bunch who tend to swap followers as needed.
"According to papers Roeder filed today, his possessions amount to a 16yr.-old Taurus and $10, and he only works occasionally at minimum-wage jobs. Yet he managed to finance several 400-mile round trips to Wichita from the KC area in the last month to case the church and know Dr. Tiller by sight, bought a handgun, gas and meals etc. Also, he asked- begged- for bail to be set today, despite his total lack of assets. Obviously, the poor bastard expects someone to post it, all of which leads me to believe that he is not the solitary nutcase the fundies claim he is.
"Somebody had to put him up to it, help him plan it and pay his expenses, and will now feed him to the sharks. Hopefully, and maybe with a bit of psych help, he will realize how he was used and name names."
We’re in London, and trying to do a few human things before the lecture series starts. Since it was D-Day, we visited Bletchley Park.
And that, all you crypto-buffs, is an Enigma machine.
Then Colbert asked if he would make a good soldier, but General Odierno said 'only if you get your haircut like these guys out here'.
As the troops cheered, Colbert stonewalled, telling the bald general: 'With all due respect sir, you're not the best advert.
'Frankly sir, its going to take more than a four-star-general to get me to cut my hair.'
At that moment, President Obama cut in via a satellite link, and told Colbert he had been eavesdropping.
'Are your spy satellites really that good?' Colbert asked.
'No, but my ears are really that big', the president replied.
'As Commander-in-chief, I hereby order you, general, to shave that man's head.'
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Obama Orders Stephen's Haircut - Ray Odierno | ||||
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| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Sign Off - New Haircut | ||||
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Distorting the ideals that define us as a people has become a national pastime for some of our public figures. In addition to obvious face-saving lies, unsubstantiated 'facts' are served up by right-wing politicians and surly Fox News media types. Providing a platform for far-right rants and lending media space to comments like those of Oklahoma's Republican Senator Inhofe, who called the president "un-American," test our patience and the limits of our commitment to "freedom of speech."
Dealing with the country's most troubling challenges requires the diligent efforts of well-intentioned adults not allegiance to partisan absolutism. Fixing one's political star to hard-right propaganda and talking trash about a president who is trying to change the course of a foundering ship of state is about as "un-American" as it gets.
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Blogger says that Sen Grassley has nerve whinging now when he and his fellow repukes sat back with their thumbs up their precious assholes as their codpieced faux-cowboy disastermonkey fucked this country over. With their help. So fuck you, you autofellating shitbag. You have as much cred here as a fucking bowel movement.
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Oh, and fuck you, you pathetic drama-queen.
How Pharma and Insurance Intend to Kill the Public Option, And What Obama and the Rest of Us Must Do
You know why, of course. They don't want a public option that would compete with private insurers and use its bargaining power to negotiate better rates with drug companies. They argue that would be unfair. Unfair? Unfair to give more people better health care at lower cost? To Pharma and Insurance, "unfair" is anything that undermines their profits.
All this will be decided within days or weeks. And once those who want to kill the public option without their fingerprints on the murder weapon begin to agree on a proposal - Snowe's "trigger" or any other - the public option will be very hard to revive. The White House must now insist on a genuine public option. And you, dear reader, must insist as well.
This is it, folks. The concrete is being mixed and about to be poured. And after it's poured and hardens, universal health care will be with us for years to come in whatever form it now takes. Let your representative and senators know you want a public option without conditions or triggers - one that gives the public insurer bargaining leverage over drug companies, and pushes insurers to do what they've promised to do. Don't wait until the concrete hardens and we've lost this battle.
They didn't even wait for the speech in Cairo. According to a report in Courrier International, on June 3rd, over 130 people gathered in front of the American Consulate in Jerusalem to protest against President Obama's Middle East tour. Protesters carried banners that defended the extension of settlements into Palestinian territory. Extreme right wing activist Itamar Ben Gvir stated that 'we have apparently reached a yellow line that the most antisemitic of American presidents has crossed; we will launch a campaign against Barack Hussein Obama. He is bad for the people and the State of Israel and his policies will lead us to disaster'. Sounds a lot like Dick Cheney, doesn't it?
Trouble is that the majority of Americans agree with the president's policies which include a two-state solution for Israel/Palestine, and a complete halt to settlement activity and a return to the conditions of the road map which was re-drawn at Annapolis. Additionally, Sima Kadmon of Yedioth Ahronoth reported on a Dahaf Institute polling of Israelis, following Obama's speech in Cairo:
Q: Should the illegal outposts be evacuated?
Yes - 70%
No - 25%
Minnesota: Coleman Still Holding Out Hope
Hope that meteor hits Franken.
Foolproof plan to get a decent bipartisan health care bill through the Senate.
·All Democratic Senators draw straws.
·Short straw switches parties, becomes a Republican.
·Republican votes for decent health care bill.
·Bill passes with 1 Republican vote.
Hummer Purchased by Firm in China
Where they'll be sold as housing.
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But the real story here is obvious -- these DOJ memos authorizing torture were anything but the by-product of independent, good faith legal analysis. Instead, those memos -- just like the pre-war CIA reports about The Threat of Saddam -- were coerced by White House officials eager for bureaucratic cover for what they had already ordered. This was done precisely so that once this all became public, they could point to those memos and have the political and media establishment excuse what they did ("Oh, they only did what they DOJ told them was legal"'/"Oh, they were only reacting to CIA warnings about Saddam's weapons"). These DOJ memos, like the CIA reports, were all engineered by the White House to give cover to what they wanted to do; they were not the precipitating events that led to and justified those decisions. That is the critical point proven by the Comey emails, and it is completely obscured by the NYT article, which instead trumpets the opposite point ("Unanimity at DOJ that these tactics were legal") because that's the story their leaking sources wanted them to promote. [my ems]
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In 2008, CMT named the video #2 on the 100 Greatest Music Videos.
The AP has a bunch of photos documenting this terrible treatment of visiting Americans. They're lining up on the streets to protest the visitors, surely, because everyone knows that the French are always up to no good and detest all things American. Clearly the sneaky Frenchies don't know that they owe us for saving their bacon. Besides, just because they helped win independence for America doesn't matter because it was too long ago to matter. Brace yourself for horrible scenes below and if you can stand it, here's a video of them protesting as well. They go so far as to comment on the big American automobiles! Oh the humanity!
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