UK aid funds Iraqi torture units

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1520186,00.html

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2005/07/100_interesting.html

Damn, I'm having Watergate flashbacks this weekend!

"Now perjury and obstruction of justice are both perfectly good crimes -- not as good as treason, maybe, but still worth a couple of felony convictions. And if that's where Fitzgerald is going with this then I say bon voyage."

http://billmon.org/archives/001970.html

Most e-mailed article from WaPo is a condemnation of torture

The Stain of Torture

by the former physician to the president to George H.W. Bush and a board member of Physicians for Human Rights.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/30/AR2005063001680.html

Please read it and send it to others.

Lawrence O'Donnell says the Plame leaker was ROVE!

Lawrence O'Donnell: Rove Blew CIA Agent's Cover

"I revealed in yesterday's taping of the McLaughlin Group that Time magazine's emails will reveal that Karl Rove was Matt Cooper's source.....
It should break wide open this week. I know Newsweek is working on an 'It's Rove!' story and will probably break it tomorrow."

Lawrence O'Donnell: Rove Blew CIA Agent's Cover

Oh, please, please, please, let this be true and documented and one more impeachable offense!

Torture becomes an issue

I got my paycheck today and I ran right to the bookstore and bought The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib, edited by Karen Greenberg and Joshua Dratel. The good people at Cambridge University Press took it upon themselves to collect all of the documentary evidence of U.S. war crimes in one simple, hefty (1249 pages) volume.

Here's an abridged version in the Nation:
Torture and Accountability
http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20050718&s=holtzman

"I know Iraq is not Vietnam. But Tuesday night it sure sounded like it."

Echoes of Vietnam

That's from David Cohen in the WaPo, a (former?) supporter of our Iraqi adventure.

We watched the "Fog of War" in my American Presidency class. If you haven't seen it, it's an Errol Morris biography of Robert Strange McNamara, the Secretary of Defense in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. He 85 years old now and he shares some of the lessons he learned in McNamara's War and his lessons would have come in real handy if anybody in the corrupt and incompetent Bush administration had bothered to pay attention to them before invading Iraq. Alas, now they simply serve as a stark reminder of what is ahead if we "stay the course."

Anybody out there up for a little road trip?

OPERATION YELLOW ELEPHANT --
Special Op: "Army of Jeff"
Date/Time: 14:30 ZULU; July 7, 2005
Location: South Seas G, Mandalay Bay Convention Center.

The YRNC 2005 Convention is taking place in the NEW Convention Center located at the far end of the convention complex (near the entrance to the Shark Reef). You will need to take two escalators to the third-floor, turn left and you'll see the YRNC 2005 Registration counter.

Jesus's General has a plan

And here come the American secret police!

Bush Approves Spy Agency Changes

"Civil liberties advocates immediately criticized the changes at the FBI, arguing that they represent a radical step toward the creation of a secret police force in the United States."

42% of Americans support impeachment! Get those impeachment party hats ready to roll, my bitches!

Holy shit Bobby! that includes 25% of Republicans! Whoo-hoo! Happy fourth of July!

"Among those living in the Western states, a 52% majority favors Congress using the impeachment mechanism while just 41% are opposed; in Eastern states, 49% are in favor and 45% opposed. In the South, meanwhile, impeachment is opposed by three-in-five voters (60%) and supported by just one-in-three (34%); in the Central/Great Lakes region, 52% are opposed and 38% in favor.

Impeachment is overwhelmingly rejected in the Red States—just 36% say they agree Congress should use it if the President is found to have lied on Iraq, while 55% reject this view; in the “Blue States” that voted for Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry in 2004, meanwhile, a plurality of 48% favors such proceedings while 45% are opposed.

A large majority of Democrats (59%) say they agree that the President should be impeached if he lied about Iraq, while just three-in-ten (30%) disagree. Among President Bush’s fellow Republicans, a full one-in-four (25%) indicate they would favor impeaching the President under these circumstances, while seven-in-ten (70%) do not. Independents are more closely divided, with 43% favoring impeachment and 49% opposed."

Zogby poll

Generation Chickenhawk

College Republicans on why they aren't fighting the good fight in Iraq

"In interviews, more than a dozen conventiongoers explained why it is important that they stay on campus while other, less fortunate people their age wage a bloody war in Iraq. They strongly support the war, they told me, but they also want to enjoy college life and pursue interesting careers. Being a College Republican allows them to do both. It is warfare by other, much safer means. "

Generation Chickenhawk, indeed

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050711&s=blumenthal

More news you won't see in American media

"Contrary to what many Europeans believe, you can fool some of the Americans all of the time, and all of the Americans some of the time, but you can't fool most Americans most of the time - even with the help of Fox News. Reality gets through. Hence the new sobriety."

The sobering of America
US foreign policy is getting better - and that's partly because Iraq has got worse
Timothy Garton Ash
Thursday June 30, 2005
The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1517879,00.html

15 Things Learned About Bush And Co.: An Impeachment List

http://www.democraticunderground.com/crisis/05/017_bw.html


"I've learned that the Democrats in the Senate and House too often are complicit in helping Bush & Co. implement their plans and programs by rolling over in the face of the Republicans' smash-mouth politics. The Dems are a bit better now than they were in Bush's first term, but they still haven't figured out that being an Opposition Party means acting like one, not trying to play patty-cake with the Republicans, who mainly want to politically slash their throats and eliminate them as an obstacle to seizing full control over everything."

I don't agree that we need a third party....we just need a Democratic party with some spine!

Good Roundup of reaction to the Rover at Wolcott

http://jameswolcott.com/archives/2005/06/aroving_we_will.php

"As Karl Rove recently said--well, everyone knows what he oinked. Bush apologists at NRO are falling all over themselves to defend Bush's spongy gray matter, deploying every bit of sophistry they have at their greasy fingertips. From Koufax Country, the counterstrike has been swift and furious. Steve Gilliard, answering John Aravosis' call for action at Americablog, eloquently bugles the battle cry, "Hammer those fuckers with their words". The Rude Pundit rudely pundits, "Karl Rove To America: Suck It," and notes some fine distinctions that seem to have been overlooked. "When Howard Dean speaks, he’s speaking as the chair of the Democratic Party. The Democrats pay him. If Democrats around the nation don’t like what Dean says, then they can cease donating to the party. When Dick Durbin speaks, he’s representing the people of Illinois, to whom he will be answerable when he’s up for re-election. When Karl Rove speaks, he’s talking as an official with the White House. The only person he’s accountable to is the President, who, as Scott McClellan so dismissingly pointed out, won’t ask Rove to apologize. Rove’s paid by each and every tax-paying American. He represents all of us." And DCmediagirl speculates that Karl Rove may discover in his deteriorating years, as Lee Atwater did, that karma is a bitch.....

No, Hanson is doing what Rove is doing what Rush is doing what Coulter is doing what Michelle Malkin is doing what O'Reilly is doing what they're all doing: trying to erase any distinction between suicide feces bombers and liberals who enjoy the occasional latte, smearing everybody with the same slime brush. Well, they've been doing it successfully for years but, as Billmon suggests, their arms are beginning to flail and the spatter effect is a Jackson Pollock of desperation. "

Headlines in Australia

US public opinion turns against Iraq war
Correspondents Report - Sunday, 26 June , 2005
http://www.abc.net.au/correspondents/content/2004/s1400366.htm

A voice of sanity in the wilderness

"No Democrat can win in 2008 unless the American people believe that they can defend them! The American people will trust the Democratic Party to defend America, when they believe that Democrats will defend other Democrats."
Wesley Clark, April 16, 2005

13 CIA indicted in Italy for rendition

"The Egyptian was spirited away in 2003, purportedly as part of the CIA's ''extraordinary rendition'' program in which terror suspects are transferred to third countries without court approval, subjecting them to possible torture."


http://nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Italy-CIA.html

More news you won't hear because of Rove's outburst flap

US acknowledges torture at Guantanamo; in Iraq, Afghanistan
- UN
06.24.2005, 11:37 AM


http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2005/06/24/afx2110388.html

This was probably leaked BY the administration to coincide with the Friday document dump AND el loco Rovo....

Article II of the Proposed Articles of Impeachment for George W. Bush

"There may be a massive cover-up by the CDC and the FDA that has lead to the growth of Autism due to the use of Thimerosal in vaccines "

http://tinyurl.com/ccran

This is why I spend more time reading Atrios and his comments than writing my own blog.

"Envision poking a naked Rovesputin with a cattle prod on a wet concrete floor until he pisses himself and cries like the fucking coward he is, and then doing the same to Duncan Hunter after feeding him chicken for the third time."

Vinnie 06.24.05 - 7:13 pm

http://atrios.blogspot.com/

Didn't Nazis use doctors in their torture chambers?

"Military doctors at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have aided interrogators in conducting and refining coercive interrogations of detainees, including providing advice on how to increase stress levels and exploit fears, according to new, detailed accounts given by former interrogators."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/24/politics/24gitmo.html?ex=1119758400&en=5baae9577ebac35b&ei=5070

The Pentagon also is after your kids

The Defense Department and a private contractor have been building an extensive database of 30 million 16-to-25-year-olds, combining names with Social Security numbers, grade-point averages, e-mail addresses and phone numbers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/24/politics/24recruit.html?ex=1119758400&en=c2982a7767d8190a&ei=5070

Being Republican means never having to say you're sorry

I hope the Dems and Senator Durbin are getting it....Sen. Durbin's tearful apology on the Senate floor was set up to further contrast the "soft" Dems with the "vicious" Repubs. They won't apologize and their redneck constituents (who number about 45% of the sad and sorry U.S. population) will love them for it! Goddam lily-livered Dems!


Froomkin:
"There are at least two reasons why no one should expect any apologies from Karl Rove or the White House for Rove's controversial comments Tuesday night, in which he described the liberal approach to national security as being weak and possibly even treasonous.
1) This White House doesn't apologize.
2) Why apologize when you said exactly what you meant to say?"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/06/24/BL2005062400894.html

We feed 'em BEFORE we torture 'em! What more do you liberals want?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/14/AR2005061400107.html

"Rep. Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, displayed for reporters Guantanamo-like prison entrees of lemon-baked fish and oven-fried chicken with rice, fruit and vegetables _ "purchased for them by American taxpayers" _ to illustrate conditions at the prison and to counter claims of mistreatment.
"They've never eaten better. They've never been treated better," the California Republican said. "We don't beat them. We don't touch them. We've been treating people well."

Now that I live in sunny El Cajon, this is the shitwit who represents me in the United States Congress.

If you live in El Cajon too, you can write to the Honorable Duncan Hunter here:
http://www.house.gov

You might also want to ask him if Karl Rove speaks for him...I'm still waiting for my response.

Carole

Repulican chicken-hawks want your kids to be drafted....

http://tinyurl.com/aqaas

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Most Americans don't want to see the return of the military draft, although men, older Americans and Republicans were most likely to say it's a good idea, an AP-Ipsos poll found.