What will happen with all the torture evidence? Civvie courts don’t have that mute button.
BTW, it will be interesting to know whether the ruling applies retroactively. We might hear more about those written instructions to destroy torture notes.
Archives for 2008
A Question For the History Buffs
Has any other candidate for President been required to prominently andpublicly display his/her birth certificate to prove they are American (particularly after they have already won the nomination)?
If so, I am unaware of this happening. If not, I guess this is just more proof of Geraldine Ferraro’s thoughtful “black guys have it easy” thesis.
*** Update ***
The verdict from the lunatic fringe- it isn’t good enough! the birth certificate needs additional debunking. A genealogist needs to be summoned to determine whether or not Obama’s father is indeed “African.”
You think I am kidding? Check out the comments at Hot Air.
*** Update #2 **
I am looking at my original birth certificate right now, from WV, and it does not specify what hospital I was born in, or what time I was born. Interestingly enough, it does not ask what “race” I am, it simply asks what color I am (“White”, the birth certificate informs us). Although if we wanted to haggle, sometimes when I have had too much sun I take on a pinkish red. Clearly there is a conspiracy in WV regarding my birth.
SCOTUS Rules on Gitmo
CNN is reporting that SCOTUS has ruled that the detainees in Gitmo have constitutional rights and can challenge their detention in civilian court. That sound you hear is six years of Republican bullshit being flushed down the drain, followed by the inevitable wailing from the Malkin wing of the GOP:
ACTIVIST JUDGES! ACTIVIST JUDGES!
More as this shakes out.
*** Update ***
Beer Talk
Thought this was interesting:
Belgian Brewer InBev is offering a big payday to shareholders of Anheuser-Busch Cos. (BUD) (BUD) Inc., but its bid to create the world’s largest beer company is already facing a major obstacle – U.S. election-year politics.
InBev SA, whose brands include Beck’s and Stella Artois, delivered an unsolicited all-cash bid of $65 a share for Anheuser-Busch, which makes Budweiser, Michelob and Bud Light. That’s well above the St. Louis-based company’s closing share price of $58.35 Wednesday.
But politicians and activists are already lining up against the deal, saying it could cost jobs in the United States and send ownership of an iconic American company overseas. With economic concerns at the front of voters’ minds, the opposition could cause a headache for InBev.
When I lived in Germany, I remember drinking a Czech beer named Budweiser, and I would bet it has been around longer than the “iconic American” beer of the same name.
Just Like the Michigan and Florida Primaries
This:
The men who pulled up in three white pickup trucks were looking for Patson Chipiro, head of the Zimbabwean opposition party in Mhondoro district. His wife, Dadirai, told them he was in Harare but would be back later in the day, and the men departed.
An hour later they were back. They grabbed Mrs Chipiro and chopped off one of her hands and both her feet. Then they threw her into her hut, locked the door and threw a petrol bomb through the window.
The killing last Friday – one of the most grotesque atrocities committed by Robert Mugabe’s regime since independence in 1980 – was carried out on a wave of worsening brutality before the run-off presidential elections in just over two weeks. It echoed the activities of Foday Sankoh, the rebel leader in the Sierra Leone civil war that ended in 2002, whose trade-mark was to chop off hands and feet.
Hillary was right. This is just like the DNC punishing a state for breaking party rules and holding their primary early.
Just Like the Michigan and Florida PrimariesPost + Comments (14)
Just Making Shit Up
As Congress has debated energy policy over the past several days, an unusual argument keeps surfacing in support of drilling off the U.S. coastline and in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Why, ask some Republicans, should the United States be thwarted from drilling in its own territory when just 50 miles off the Florida coastline the Chinese government is drilling for oil under Cuban leases?
Yet no one can prove that the Chinese are drilling anywhere off Cuba’s shoreline. The China-Cuba connection is “akin to urban legend,” said Sen. Mel Martinez, a Republican from Florida who opposes drilling off the coast of his state but who backs exploration in ANWR.
“China is not drilling in Cuba’s Gulf of Mexico waters, period,” said Jorge Pinon, an energy fellow with the Center for Hemispheric Policy at the University of Miami and an expert in oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. Martinez cited Pinon’s research when he took to the Senate floor Wednesday to set the record straight.
Even so, the Chinese-drilling-in-Cuba legend has gained momentum and has been swept up in Republican arguments to open up more U.S. territory to domestic production.
It actually is a clever debating tactic. If you just make shit up, it is very hard for the opposition to refute your arguments. Watch:
Mother: You need to eat your vegetables or you do not get dessert.
Son: Why? Aliens in the backyard are juggling penguins.
See how effective that is? As a side note, it is pretty clear that ANWR is the final prize for the GOP in the 8 year smash and grab, and expect them to keep pressing the issue over the next few months, because they know that neither a President McCain or President Obama support drilling there. Well, McCain doesn’t support it right now, but his positions are negotiable, as always.
*** Update ***
I should probably add that I really am not opposed to drilling in ANWR, or offshore drilling, etc., provided it can be done safely (a big caveat, and along with that the understanding that there are differing definitions of safely). I just don’t think it will be that big of a deal as far as oil prices go, I think it is absurd to pretend that there is all this oil there that will suddenly make us energy independent, and most of all, it is a dodge. We are not going to drill our way out of our energy concerns, and drilling in ANWR is just bullshit thrown into the debate to allow people to avoid the hard decisions we actually have to make about our energy consumption.
Great Moments in Bad Punditry
Last night on CNN, Campbell Brown was filling in for Anderson Cooper on AC360, and had a panel discussing the Jim Johnson bit. What follows actually happened- I am not making it up:
BROWN: Let me get your take on this. And by running a campaign that’s promoting higher ethics, a new kind of politics, does Obama and McCain, who has done this himself to a certain degree, do they set themselves up to be measured to a higher standard?
FARAI CHIDEYA, HOST, NPR’S NEWS & NOTES: I think this is a Americans really are looking for new kinds of leadership, whether it’s Republican, Democrat, independent. And they are holding politicians to incredibly high standards.
I also think that Senator Obama has a very specific issue going on.
Christopher John Farley of “TIME” magazine once wrote an essay about the magical African-American friend, which is the idea in movies often, that there’s this nice black man who’s my black friend, and he’s not like other black people. He’s so nice.
And I think that some people, some supporters have put Senator Obama in the magical African-American friend box. And therefore, for them there’s a double high standard, which is not only that he has to be squeaky clean as it relates to other politicians, but he has to be sort of this super-nice person. Politics is not always nice. We know that.
David Gergen looked like he had been goosed when the camera cut to him after this.
This election is going to be so awesome.