"It was unknowable then, but so much of the progress that would define the 20th century, on both sides of the Atlantic, came down to the battle for a slice of beach only six miles long and two miles wide."
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SANCHEZ: Bill O’Reilly says he only saw it once. And since he only saw it once, well then, that must be the truth. It doesn’t matter what really happened, it doesn’t matter what the record shows. All that matters is what Bill thinks he saw.Will Bill O be sending a stalker to get back at Sanchez?
"One of the best speeches I've ever heard" -- MatthewsAnd if we are going to have any lasting effect in that region, that is the way we need to lead. We need partners. The heavy lifting has begun.
"Obama didn't sound like a US President, at all, but more like an enlightened regional leader" -- Jim Maceda, NBC News - London
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Researchers in Australia have come up with an outwardly simple but incredibly ingenious way of curing blindness caused by corneal damage: Take everyday contact lenses, already used by millions, and infuse them with a patient's own stem cells. After wearing them for about 2 weeks, test subjects reported a seemingly miraculous restoration of sight.Slap a price tag on it and away we go. It's the
Just as America is stepping forward, the UK is stepping backwards."The Conservative Party is on course for sweeping gains across England as the local election results point towards meltdown for Labour.All those Labour Ministers resigning amid scandals right before elections did not help. PM Gordon Brown must be feeling quite lonely about now.
Although most of the county councils have yet to declare, early results show the Conservatives taking dozens of seats from Labour and seizing control of two county councils in the Liberal Democrats’ stronghold in the South West."
"The reason I don’t want to go back any more than we have already done is because I know what happened. Out of fear, we overreacted. … They took a view of the law that I think was aggressive, and I would not have approached it that way. Right after 9/11, we all thought we were going to be hit again. So as we go back and try to hold people criminally liable. I think we’re doing a lot of damage to the country, because their mistakes were not criminal mistakes. They were mistakes made out of fear,"Apparently for Graham, if you approve something that is “clearly illegal,” it’s not “a criminal mistake” — so long as you are acting out of fear. And since most crimes are done out of fear, he really has narrowed it down.
- Lindsey Graham.
We did not torture; waterboarding is not torture; even if it is torture, it was legal; even if it was illegal, it was necessary; even if it was unnecessary, it was not our fault.Click on the image to see his large chart detailing all the excuses thrown out to justify what is at its core, a known illegal act.
The biggest problem President Obama has with Republicans and Conservatives is their constant misinterpretation and distortion of his humility.
"There is a serious discussion to be had here, and I think Jon Henke is having it: Socialism, like farenheit, comes in degrees. Sure, a government that nationalizes GM is "more socialist" than one that does not, even if it doesn't mean we're living "under socialism." But differences of degree shouldn't obscure differences of kind, and as Tim Fernholz says, "it's clear that putting the government in charge of private production is not the Obama administration's guiding philosophy."Source: Oliver Willis
If it were, 99.79% of the American corporate assets that existed at the start of the Obama administration would not remain in private hands. The differences of degree are so small that they aren't worth mentioning. And yet, somehow, they keep getting mentioned."
"That’s a good one, Mr. Cheney!” Stewart chortled, mocking the Nation Press Club audience’s response. “I guess you never read the memos either … and then we went to war in Iraq because of bad intelligence distributed in your behest … and then we started torturing people. Good times!”
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"The number of people on the unemployment insurance rolls fell slightly last week for the first time in 20 weeks, while the tally of new jobless claims also dipped, the government said Thursday."But still, the residue from Bush and his "spend and borrow, two Wars-at-a-time, cut taxes for the rich and deregulate and not investigate economic prowess" is still huge.
"The total jobless benefit rolls fell by 15,000 to 6.7 million" and unemployment, a lagging indicator, "will rise to 9.2 percent".A very small step in the right direction after 8 years in the wrong direction.
"I am aware that some question or justify the events of 9/11. But let us be clear: al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people on that day. The victims were innocent men, women and children from America and many other nations who had done nothing to harm anybody. And yet Al Qaeda chose to ruthlessly murder these people, claimed credit for the attack, and even now states their determination to kill on a massive scale. They have affiliates in many countries and are trying to expand their reach. These are not opinions to be debated; these are facts to be dealt with."Not shying away from the tough topics.
"… waterboarding is not torture. Waterboarding has been routinely used to train American pilots in the military to understand what interrogation techniques they might encounter."So if a government does it to it's own elite, highly-specialized, handpicked military, it is not illegal torture across the board.
How Stupid Do They Think We Are?Equating SERE training with drowning civilians. Keep digging that hole, Newt.
Pretty stupid, apparently. I’m sure that this line of “thought” has been picked apart plenty of times in the anti-torture blogosphere, but Newt deserves a fisking of his own:
Newt tweeted: "… waterboarding is not torture. Waterboarding has been routinely used to train American pilots in the military to understand what interrogation techniques they might encounter."
By extension:
* Having sex with a woman is not raping her. Sex is routinely had between men and women as an expression of love and a means to pleasure and procreation.
* Punching a man in the face is not assaulting him. Men routinely punch one another in the face in the boxing ring as a test of athletic prowess.
* Driving 75 miles an hour on a residential street is not speeding. Cars routinely drive 75 miles an hour or more on the highway.
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"The story reports that Cheney personally oversaw four or more briefings of members of congress about the torture program as part of an aggressive campaign in 2005 to maintain support for the use of torture.Why the cover-up of Cheney's role? CIA created inaccurate notes? Seeing that Cheney was there for the sole purpose of pushing his [made-up] side of the story, funny to say his attendance was "not available". What else is not available?
But here’s the thing: The CIA documents that Republicans have widely cited as proof that Nancy Pelosi lied about what she knew didn’t mention Cheney’s presence at these briefings. Instead, as WaPo notes, the docs said that the info about who oversaw those particular briefings was “not available.”
Pelosi was broadly pilloried by Republicans and neutral observers for saying the CIA lied. Yet here’s yet more evidence that the CIA’s documents were incomplete at best and willfully misleading at worst."
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“Yes, but the way I would describe them is they have to do with the detainee program, the interrogation program. It’s not just waterboarding. It’s the interrogation program that we used for high-value detainees. There were two reports done that summarize what we learned from that program, and I think they provide a balanced view.”What a general statement. Now anything found that is helpful falls in the same category as the medieval torture he condoned and promoted. One step forward, two steps back.
"Bear with me here, because this is crucial. Cheney is carefully saying that the documents summarize what we learned from the overall interrogation program. Torture, of course, was only a component of that program. So he’s clearly saying that the docs summarize what was learned from a program that included non-torture techniques, too."Obfuscation is Cheney's forte. Just like the meandering justification for the Iraq War, you'll see how much his torture claims change over the coming weeks. Another speech in front of a bunch of GOP rubes, another story.
The facts of Pappas are simple. The plaintiff was a white employee of the New York City Police Department -- working in a clerical position in information management -- when he was fired for having sent blatantly racist and anti-Semitic replies in response to charity requests he received in the mail. Pappas admitted doing it, and said he did it to protest the charity requests. The NYPD fired him for having sent the replies on the ground that it did not want racist employees. He sued the NYPD, alleging that his First Amendment rights were violated by the firing, because he was clearly fired due to the content of the political views he expressed.Will this have any effect on the slurs thrown at her by Newt, Rush, Pat Buchanan and the rest of the aging, scared white GOP?
The district court judge dismissed Pappas' case, finding that the NYPD had a legitimate need to exclude racists from its employ, a need which outweighed Pappas' First Amendment rights. On appeal, two of the three judges on the Second Circuit panel agreed with that ruling and dismissed Pappas' case. But not Sotomayor. She wrote a dissent emphasizing the strong First Amendment interests of Pappas' that were being violated -- however contemptible it was, it was pure political expression -- and she argued that it he was entitled to a jury trial to decide if the NYPD, under Supeme Court precedent, had any right to fire him for it.
“On the question of whether or not Iraq was involved in 9-11, there was never any evidence to prove that. [There was] “some reporting early on … but that was never borne out… [President] George [Bush] … did say and did testify that there was an ongoing relationship between al-Qaeda and Iraq, but no proof that Iraq was involved in 9-11.”It would take around 5 minutes. Cheney has been on TV the last 7 years, and at 2 RNC conventions, completely lying. There is plenty of tape out there. He was always alluding to a "smoking gun" scenario that would vindicate him.
-- Dick Cheney on Fox, June 1, 2009
There are three states in the country that have only one abortion clinic [ND, SD, MS], Rachel Maddow reported on MSNBC last night. Others heavily restrict abortion, ban abortions in clinics or any facility that receives public funds, or ban abortion counseling or clinic recommendations. The effect, she explained, is that in 87% of all U.S. counties it is not possible to get an abortion. "Why bother making it illegal if you can just make it impossible to get?"Dr. Susan Wicklund guests.
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"It's hard not to see GM's bankruptcy as a signal moment in a larger history. If mighty GM can fail, cannot also the United States? And the answer is, absolutely.The company's stark decline is "a rebuff of the notion of exceptionalism," notes Neil.
Any organization that fails to sufficiently safeguard its means of self-correction and reform, that forsakes long-term investment for short-term gain, that piles up debt year after year, will eventually fail, no matter how grand its history or noble its purpose."
"Americans are not the greatest people in the world. Politicians always tell us we are, and that's how you know it's a lie."Being #1 or the best is all relative. Until you have been other places, don't tell me how great things are.
-- Bill Maher
"The Department of Homeland Security is warning law enforcement officials about a rise in "rightwing extremist activity," saying the economic recession, the election of America's first black president and the return of a few disgruntled war veterans could swell the ranks of white-power militias.Remember the Right Wingers were calling on her to resign.
It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single-issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration," the warning says."
"During the entire Bush administration, from 2000-2008 there were no murders.This is what domestic terror looks like. This is what bullying women looks like.
During the Clinton era, between 1994-2000 there were 6 abortion providers and clinic staff murdered, and 17 attempted murders of abortion providers. There were 12 bombings or arsons during the Clinton years.
During the Bush administration, not only were there no murders, there were no attempted murders. There was one clinic bombing during the Bush years.
One can only conclude that like terrorist sleeper cells, these extremists have now been set in motion. Indeed the evidence is already there. The chatter, the threats, the hate-filled rhetoric are abundant.
In the last year of the Bush administration there were 396 harassing calls to abortion clinics. In just the first four months of the Obama administration that number has jumped to 1401."
Newt Gingrich: "White man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw."And then there are some Conservatives approaching puberty:
Rush Limbaugh: "How can a party get behind such a candidate? That's what would be asked if somebody were foolish enough to nominate David Duke or pick somebody even less offensive."
Tom Tancredo: "She’s a member! She’s a member of La Raza!"
Matthew J. Franck: "Is she still, and how much of La Raza's politics does she make her own?"
Michael Goldfarb: "Does anyone dispute that Sotomayor has been the recipient of preferential treatment for most of her life?"
Bill Bennett: "Did she get into Princeton on affirmative action, one wonders."
G. Gordon Liddy: "Let's hope that the key conferences aren't when she's menstruating or something, or just before she's going to menstruate."
Peggy Noonan: "Newt Gingrich twitters that Judge Sotomayor is a racist. Does anyone believe that? He should rest his dancing thumbs, stop trying to position himself as the choice and voice of the base in 2012, and think."Can you say striving for mediocrity? Aiming low as to not disappoint?
Jon Cornyn: "This is not the kind of tone that any of us want to set when it comes to performing our constitutional responsibilities of advise and consent."
Julian Sanchez: "What we’re seeing here is people clinging to the belief that Sotomayor has to be some mediocrity who struck the ethnic jackpot, that whatever benefit she got from affirmative action must be vastly more significant than her own qualities, that she’s got to be a harpy boiling with hatred for whitey, however overwhelming the evidence against all these propositions is. This is really profoundly ugly."
Michael Steele: "I know that a lot of folks want to do the knee jerk you know let's start slammin' and rammin', but I think we really need to take a step back from this."
Charles Krauthammer: "What should a principled conservative do?....Nothing ad hominem. The argument should be elevated, respectful and entirely about judicial philosophy."
"Cheney was so traumatized that he met with his lawyer David Addington that very same day - while the fires raged and while the country was uncertain if the attacks had stopped - to find a way to blame these attacks on Iraq. That is not trauma. That is opportunism of the most cynical kind."Source: Larisa Alexandrovna
"When a case comes before me involving, let's say, someone who is an immigrant -- and we get an awful lot of immigration cases and naturalization cases -- I can't help but think of my own ancestors, because it wasn't that long ago when they were in that position." -- Samuel Alito, at his Senate confirmation hearing, 2006And this one:
"When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account." -- Same Guy, same place, same timeTalking Points Memo has the video that deflates all the GOP hysteria:
"[L]istening to Cheney and Rice, it seems that they want to be excused for the measures they authorized after the attacks on the grounds that 9/11 was traumatic.... I have little sympathy for this argument. Yes, we went for days with little sleep, and we all assumed that more attacks were coming. But the decisions that Bush officials made in the following months and years -- on Iraq, on detentions, on interrogations, on wiretapping -- were not appropriate. Careful analysis could have replaced the impulse to break all the rules, even more so because the Sept. 11 attacks, though horrifying, should not have surprised senior officials. Cheney's admission that 9/11 caused him to reassess the threats to the nation only underscores how, for months, top officials had ignored warnings from the CIA and the NSC staff that urgent action was needed to preempt a major al-Qaeda attack.The Washington Monthly points out:
Thus, when Bush's inner circle first really came to grips with the threat of terrorism, they did so in a state of shock -- a bad state in which to develop a coherent response. Fearful of new attacks, they authorized the most extreme measures available, without assessing whether they were really a good idea. [...]
Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice may have been surprised by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- but it was because they had not listened. And their surprise led them to adopt extreme counterterrorism techniques -- but it was because they rejected, without analysis, the tactics the Clinton administration had used. The measures they uncritically adopted, which they simply assumed were the best available, were in fact unnecessary and counterproductive."
As Clarke noted, folks like Cheney and Rice want to emphasize the "trauma defense" to rationalize wrongdoing. But in the next breath, these same top officials say every decision they made was sound, legal, justified.Maybe you can panic for 48 hours, 72 hours. The notion that the shock and psychological trauma of 9/11 excuses actions taken months or years later is just asinine.
