I’ve had enough of the Republicans and their lapdog media yapping about Nancy Pelosi and what and when she was told about torture in 2002. These Republicans and media pals have memories shorter than a worm’s. It was Dennis Hastert (R) that was Speaker of the House in 2002 and he led the actions or better yet, led the inactions of Congress during the Bush/Cheney years. Nancy Pelosi was not in a position of power during the Republican dominated Congress. There was little that she could do at that time. It was the responsibility of Dennis Hastert to speak up against torture. Instead, Hastert and the Republicans in Congress along with their friends in the media turned their backs on the Constitution and the American people and did nothing.
Ultimately, however, the greatest horror of Hastert’s House was not confirmed by its specific failures to serve the American people who most needed a Congress to counter the malignant neglect of the Bush-Cheney administration. Rather, it was defined by the remaking of an essential legislative chamber as nothing more than an extension of the executive branch of the government. The damage to the Congress has been severe, as has been the damage to the Republic.
All this talk about Nancy Pelosi is a diversionary tactic by Republicans that are guilty of negligence.
Hastert’s House was a crude and unworkable place, where members who sought to uphold their oaths to “defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic” were held up to ridicule and forced to hold hearings on issues involving the most extreme abuses of presidential authority — lying to the Congress and the American people about matters of war and peace — in basement rooms.
So what exactly did Dennis Hastert know about torture? When did he know it and why didn’t he do something about it? Nothing more than Republican lies. I’ve had enough of it.
You will be surprised when you find out who made this statement…
Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece?
Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship . . .
[T]he people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.
So I’m torn… What is more imporatant, right and wrong… or health care reform??? Going after the war crimes of the past administration or fixing our economy???
These are some really tough issues to debate… Let me be clear…Torture is what happened and it was wrong and illiegal. But we have an opportunity to do something about these huge issues… If we are baited into going after the crimes of the past I fear that the Republicans will use this is a rallying cry… and Cheney running around on TV, I think he is daring us… Remember Republicans are jerks and misguided but they are not stupid… they like power and will do anything to get back into power… and this is their one chance to get it. If they make us go through this, if they get us off track. We may miss our chances… And they can vilify us for getting nothing done, openening the door for their return to power. Just something to think about.
The right wing has their knickers bunched up tight giving them a wedgie over comments made by a comedian regarding Rush Limbaugh and yet, Cheney’s daughter tells the press that President Obama sides with terrorists.
(CNN) — Liz Cheney is picking up where her father left off when it comes to taking aim at the Obama administration, saying Tuesday the new commander-in-chief appears to be siding with terrorists.
Who is she to speak like this? Her statement is disrespectful of the President. She is probably worried that her father, Dick Cheney, will be tried for “war crimes” so she is trying to direct the focus away from her criminal father by making false accusations against President Obama.
“I have heard from families of service members from families of 9/11 victims this question about when did it become so fashionable for us to side, really, with the terrorists,” she continued. “You know, President Obama has a lot of rhetoric about support for American military families, support for our men and women who are fighting for us overseas. But if he really cares about them, then he wouldn’t be making such an effort to release photos that show them in a negative light.”
Late last month, Pentagon officials said the hundreds of photographs released are from more than 60 criminal investigations from 2001 to 2006, and show military personnel allegedly abusing detainees. But the officials rejected allegations by the American Civil Liberties Union that the photos show a systemic pattern of abuse by the military. (emphasis mine)
Of all people to talk. Draft dodger, Dick Cheney has no respect for members of our service. If he did, he would not have supported sending them off to fight in a war based on lies just so that his oil investments could make more money. It doesn’t get any lower than the Cheneys’.
WASHINGTON (CNN) — The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.
More than half of people who attend services at least once a week — 54 percent — said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. Only 42 percent of people who “seldom or never” go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified — more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did.
No wonder these folks wear crucifixes around their necks. They believe that Jesus had to be tortured to the point of death so that they could be saved.
The religious group most likely to say torture is never justified was Protestant denominations — such as Episcopalians, Lutherans and Presbyterians — categorized as “mainline” Protestants, in contrast to evangelicals. Just over three in 10 of them said torture is never justified. A quarter of the religiously unaffiliated said the same, compared with two in 10 white non-Hispanic Catholics and one in eight evangelicals.
Yes, the Evangelicals are teaching their children to worship former President George W. Bush, the very person whose administration ordered torture.
Campbell Brown actually had the nerve to call out Barack Obama on his response to a silly question by a reporter. During a news conference, President Elect Barack Obama was asked about his choice of Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State. This softball question was asked:
(excerpt from Huffington Post)
BAKER: You’ve talked about the importance just now of having different voices and robust debate within your administration. But, again, going back to the campaign, you were asked and talked about the qualifications of the — your now, your nominee for secretary of state. And you belittled her travels around the word, equating it to having teas with foreign leaders. And your new White House counsel said that her resume was grossly exaggerated when it came to foreign policy. I’m wondering whether you can talk about the evolution of your views of her credentials since the spring.
President Elect Barack Obama responded with:
OBAMA: Well, I mean, I think — this is fun for the press to try to stir up whatever quotes were generated during the course of the campaign. No, I understand. And you’re having fun.
The fact that Obama brushed the reporter’s question off his shoulder irritated Campbell Brown to no end. She slammed him stating:
BROWN: There we go again. The pesky media, all we want to do is have a little fun, stir things up for our own amusement.
I mean, really, how silly of that reporter to dare ask you, Mr. President-elect, how it is that you completely mocked Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy experience just a few months ago and yet today you think there is no one more qualified than she to lead your foreign policy team? It’s a clever device, treating a question so dismissively in an attempt to delegitimize it, but it is a legitimate question. As annoying how you may have found it, it is a fair question.
And her complaint went on and on and on. Listen to her at the Huffington Post video.
Really, now! Obama laughs at a silly question about “campaign politics” and Campbell Brown gets bent out of shape. Where the (fill in the expletive) has the media been for the last 8 years? There have been nothing but “fluff” questions asked of the boy Bush during his presidency.
Where were the tough questions about the August 6th 2001 memo? Where were the tough questions about torture? Where were the tough questions about WMDs in Iraq? Where were the tough questions regarding exposing a CIA Agent, an act that jeopardized the safety of all Americans and was akin to treason? Where were the tough questions when it was discovered that the boy Bush had been illegally spying on Americans? Where were the tough questions when billions of American taxpayer dollars were lost in Iraq? Where were the tough questions when the boy Bush trashed the US Constitution? Where? Where? Where?
Could this irresponsible press be accused of treason for NOT doing its job by questioning President George W Bush as he spit on his oath of office and by doing so, 4000+ Americans lost their lives needlessly in a war based on lies? A war that the press never questioned.
The media never complained about George W. Bush’s inability to speak the English language and never complained when instead of answering questions, Bush would make jokes about nonsense. Heh, heh, heh.
Campbell Brown has nothing to say about the negligence of the media when it comes to the incompetence of George W. Bush. Instead, she gets her knickers in a knot over some silly campaign politics question that President Elect Barack Obama found amusing. Campbell Brown is going to have to get used to having an adult in the White House. The boy Bush is set to leave on January 20, 2008. There will be adults in the Executive Office running the business of this nation. This will be a change for the media and something that they will need to adjust to.
Recently, John McCain has been talking up the “crosses in the dirt” incident during his time as a prisoner of war. He then talks about his “long time standing” which was painful. As a prisoner of war, John McCain was beaten, refused medical treatment, forced into “stress positions” and sleep deprived. McCain supporters want us to believe that this is torture.
According to Erik Saar, author of “Inside the Wire”, sleep deprivation, long time standing, beatings and forced stress positions were common techniques used during interrogation of “enemy combatants” at Guantanamo.
Andrew Sullivan, at the Daily Dish, has this to say:
According to the Bush administration’s definition of torture, McCain was therefore not tortured.
Cheney denies that McCain was tortured; as does Bush. So do John Yoo and David Addington and George Tenet. In the one indisputably authentic version of the story of a Vietnamese guard showing compassion, McCain talks of the agony of long-time standing. A quarter century later, Don Rumsfeld was putting his signature to memos lengthening the agony of “long-time standing” that victims of Bush’s torture regime would have to endure. These torture techniques are, according to the president of the United States, merely “enhanced interrogation.”
No war crimes were committed against McCain. And the techniques used are, according to the president, tools to extract accurate information. And so the false confessions that McCain was forced to make were, according to the logic of the Bush administration, as accurate as the “intelligence” we have procured from “interrogating” terror suspects. Feel safer?
(emphasis is mine)
So who are we to believe? McCain? The Bush administration? Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey doesn’t think that waterboarding is torture. The Bush Administration considers all of these forms of torture to be nothing more than forms of “enhanced interrogation”.
(Video of waterboarding)
By using the “new” and “improved” definitions of “enhanced interrogation”, John McCain was NOT tortured by his captors. The Vietnamese were merely using “enhanced interrogation” techniques. I’m sure John McCain would support the definition, after all, he voted “yea” on the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Senator Barach Obama voted “nay”.
Organizing for Change 