Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
This post is in: Republican Stupidity, Clap Louder!
FEAR! The House Republicans have now officially said to hell with it all and are going full metal 9/11:
Has anyone told these guys that we intend to put them in prisons, and not just release them in the wild? Love the music, too. I couldn’t figure out if it was a performance I should know or if it was from Lord of the Rings or one of the Call of Duty soundtracks.
*** Update ***
Memories:
Only the names change.
Still You Aint Ever Gonna Make Me Play the Game of…Post + Comments (126)
by John Cole| 70 Comments
This post is in: Media, War on Terror aka GSAVE®
Creatures crawl in search of blood, to terrorize y’alls neighborhood:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
This was Rachel’s finest segment to date, I think.
Hilzoy, also.
Darkness falls across the land, the midnight hour is close at handPost + Comments (70)
by John Cole| 98 Comments
This post is in: Torture, Assholes, Democratic Stupidity, Republican Crime Syndicate - aka the Bush Admin.
I don’t think it is any giant secret that the Democrats were complicit in the torture of detainees, but it is nice to have some names and dates (I’m assuming you all are not named Rosen, and as such, understand the value of facts mixed in with your assertions):
Intelligence officials released documents this evening saying that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was briefed in September 2002 about the use of harsh interrogation tactics against al-Qaeda prisoners, seemingly contradicting her repeated statements over the past 18 months that she was never told that these techniques were actually being used.
In a 10-page memo outlining an almost seven-year history of classified briefings, intelligence officials said that Pelosi and then-Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.) were the first two members of Congress ever briefed on the interrogation tactics. Then the ranking member and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, respectively, Pelosi and Goss were briefed Sept. 4, 2002, one week before the first anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
According to the Note, Rockefeller and Harman as well as a couple Republicans were also named. So now you know for sure why many Democrats are also unwilling to investigate the torture of the past few years, as their fingerprints are all over it.
Just disgraceful. I guess it is the Washington way- you can get away with anything so long as you have enough conspirators.
*** Update ***
Via the comments, Scott Horton and Marcy Wheeler are both skeptical about the reporting from the Note.
Much more debunking here.
by John Cole| 81 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics
CNN is discussing this right now, and it just sounds odd:
Drew Peterson, the former police sergeant who authorities call the prime suspect in the disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, has been indicted on murder charges related to his third wife, Kathleen Savio, the Illinois state attorney’s office said.
***After Stacy Peterson went missing in October 2007, media frenzy and police scrutiny on Peterson revealed Savio had died mysteriously a few years earlier during a nasty divorce.
Savio died just before the division of the marital assets was finalized, making Drew Peterson the sole beneficiary.
Savio was found in the dry bathtub of her home. At the time, the death was ruled an accidental drowning. But her family continued to insist that Savio died as a result of foul play.
The investigation into Stacy Peterson’s disappearance brought renewed interest in Savio’s death.
Authorities exhumed Savio’s body, further tests were conducted, and her death has now been ruled a “homicide staged to look like an accident.”
Brodsky told King he believes the case has always been about circumstantial evidence and that he will bring a pathologist to trial who will say Savio died from an accidental drowning.
“I think the jury’s going to see that, in fact, this always has been an accidental death and still is an accidental death,” Brodsky told King.
A couple of things. First, I remember a bit of the coverage of Drew Peterson from a couple of years ago, and he is a first class jackass, and it would not surprise me one bit if he is responsible for one or more of the deaths of his former wives. Second, I’m not sure what the odds are on having several of your wives disappear/die mysteriously, but I would be they are in the Powerball range. Third, I’m aware we that people are convicted all the time on circumstantial evidence.
Having said all that, am I the only one who finds it odd that investigators can’t find the evidence they want, so they just went back and had a “do-over” on the autopsy until they had the results they wanted? Does that happen a lot? Am I wrong to thing Drew Peterson is a scumbag, but still be uncomfortable with this?
Sorry to go all missing white woman cable news on this, but I just found that detail about this story to be odd.
by DougJ| 28 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics
Job losses weren’t as bad as predicted:
The pace of layoffs slowed in April, with employers cutting 539,000 jobs, the fewest in six months…..The Labor Department tally wasn’t nearly as deep as the 620,000 job losses that economists were expecting.
And there’s some other positive signs as well:
“It’s a confirmation that we’re in the early stages of a turn,” said Ethan Harris, co-head of United States economic research at Barclays Capital. “We’ve just had a big dose of monetary and fiscal stimulus, and we’re getting further and further removed form the confidence shock of last fall. All these forces are sort of gathering right now.”
The credit markets, where the financial crisis began, have stabilized after a vast support effort from the government and central banks, and some lending is gradually returning to normal. Consumer spending is no longer plunging, and buyers are coming back to some battered housing markets, even as home prices continue to fall nationwide.
Nevertheless…the Pelosi recession continues.
But my biggest fear now is that this recession won’t be deep enough to convince the public of the need to move to the gold standard.
by John Cole| 50 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
Is there anything more annoying than falling asleep, waking up a few hours later, and then staring at the ceiling for three hours? I think not.
Maybe not falling asleep at all.
by DougJ| 95 Comments
The Washington Post has a truly bizarre piece wherein one of its editors attempts to joke about being on the Supreme Court:
First, I’m a woman. That seems to be the (understandably) necessary requirement, and I’ve got that one down. I realize I’m a long shot in a competition loaded with talented and credentialed women, and I wish those women well. The New York Times Web site has an interactive feature, “If You Were President,” that allows people to vote for their favorite candidate for the court, and it is rich with experienced female jurists and lawyers. (Sure, let’s delude ourselves for a while into thinking that we have some clout when it comes to picking justices.) Such distinguished women as Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan are front-runners. (Bill Clinton is on the list of contenders, low down, but there’s no way that’s happening, sisters.)
[….]I’m used to being around a lot of men since I once was a sports journalist, but I have wonderful female friends, too, and if she’d have me, I would love to go to the symphony with Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Over a glass of wine at intermission, we could think up ways to get some of the guys to take early retirement so we could get more women on the court.
Why would this be funny?
I’m new to reading about Supreme Court nominations, but I feel like I’ve dropped in from another planet, one where off-the-cuff smears of potential SCOTUS nominees play an important role in the selection process and where the whole idea that the court might someday be one-third female is either laugh-out-loud funny or a sign that affirmative action will destroy civilization as we know it.
What is going on? All of this makes about as much sense to me as Dijongate at this point.