.
Looks like I may get my despairing wish — operative status (another 1970s reference) is that Secretary of State Kerry’s Friday call to Feinstein was just touching base with a valued former colleague,“raising the ongoing issues that might be affected”. So, despite siren-loud dogwhistling about ‘blowback’ from all the predictable suspects, reports are that the heavily redacted Executive Summary of the CIA Torture Report will be released tomorrow:
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest confirmed that the Senate Intelligence Committee will release a controversial report on the CIA’s enhanced interrogation methods on Tuesday despite concerns raised by Secretary of State John Kerry, who echoed the sentiments of other critics.
“The administration has been for months preparing for the release of this report,” Earnest told reporters Monday. “There are some indications that this – that the release of the report could lead to a greater risk that is posed to U.S. facilities and individuals all around the world. So the administration has taken the prudent steps to ensure that the proper security precautions are in place at U.S. facilities around the globe.”
He added that the administration “strongly supports” the release of the declassified summary, which runs 480 pages (the report itself is about 6,000)…
No idea whether media “pushback” actually had any effect on this, but I don’t regret what I published on Friday, and I wanted to share Daniel Drezner’s most excellent ridicule of “the insane narrative you are supposed to believe about the torture report“:
… I’m sure that Rogers and Hayden are smart men, and I’m also sure that current intelligence officials have been making the same claims anonymously to reporters. But to suggest that this Senate report will really tip the scales when it comes to the United States’ enemies rallying support, you have to believe that the following exchange is happening somewhere in the Middle East:
ABDUL: Ahmed, why won’t you come with me to attack the infidels? You are not outraged that the United States has invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and caused so much suffering in two Muslim countries?
AHMED: It’s not enough for me to take up arms.
ABDUL: You are not outraged that in the past three years the great Zionist oppressor has waged air campaigns against two Arab countries — Syria and Libya — and accomplished little but to extend the suffering of our Muslim brothers and sisters?
AHMED: It’s not enough for me to take up arms…
ABDUL: You are not outraged about all the stories of infidels torturing our Muslim brothers in Abu Ghraib, in Bagram, in Guantanamo Bay? The stories about infidel soldiers desecrating the Koran?
AHMED: It’s not enough for me to take up arms.
ABDUL: You are not outraged by the just-released Senate report about CIA torture?
AHMED: Wait, did you say ‘Senate report’? Okay, I will take up arms now…
The Nixon administration’s “secret” bombing of sites in Cambodia and Laos was no suprise to Cambodians, Laotians, the rest of Southeast Asia, or any American who’d been paying the most nominal attention to the nightly newscasts. The fact that, thirty years after Vietnam, “we tortured some folks“ is not going to come as a policy-changing surprise to any of America’s enemies, allies, or citizens — not even the ones who watch Fox News, who were rather pleased by the concept.
I still wish Senator Mark Udall would take his last chance to read the whole report into the record, but I’ll settle. As my Nana used to say, Tell the truth and shame the devil.
Corner Stone
Can’t wait!
Gin & Tonic
I know Claire McCaskill isn’t everyone’s favorite Senator around here, but I happened to catch a couple of minutes of her this morning on one of the network news shows that sometimes play as background, and she made a very clear, objective and unapologetic case for releasing the report. Good for her.
Baud
I disagree that it won’t have an effect. How intense and lasting that effect will be is open to debate.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
More evidence that the worst blue dog is better than the best Republican.
Howard Beale IV
There’s an old Sufi saying that says “The secret protects itself.”
How ironic that it also applies to corrupted nation-states as well.
Corner Stone
This report isn’t for our enemies. They all know all of it.
For once we’re going to have to face it. Maybe.
catclub
Yeah, but I bet Nana is just a pseudonym.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
It probably will hurt us with our allies, especially once it’s written down in black and white all of the ways we made them accomplices. But it’s not like we won’t deserve the blowback we get from them
max
@Gin & Tonic: but I happened to catch a couple of minutes of her this morning on one of the network news shows that sometimes play as background, and she made a very clear, objective and unapologetic case for releasing the report. Good for her.
That one was worth the money I gave her.
I still wish Senator Mark Udall would take his last chance to read the whole report into the record, but I’ll settle.
I want the whole goddamn thing, unredacted.
max
[‘I do not know what the CIA is using to yank the President’s chain, but I wish he’d take off the collar.’]
Mandalay
@Gin & Tonic:
Yes, she certainly stuck her neck out and said all the right things. Also, good for Dianne Feinstein, who is also not everyone’s favorite senator either, and certainly not mine. Unlike the spineless Kerry, it looks like she wouldn’t bow to the Administration.
And fuck the White House for constantly telling the press how much they wanted the report to be released, while doing all they could behind the scenes to prevent it.
J
Perfect choice of cartoon strip, Anne Laurie!
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@max:
You’re not going to get the entire thing completely unredacted because there are names of overseas operatives (not all of them Americans) in the report. I’m actually okay with (some) names being redacted as long as the actions are there. Anyone who was hired by the Bush White House — no redaction.
jnfr
That is CLASSIC Doonesbury. Thank you so much for pulling it out. Very much on point.
Mandalay
@Anne Laurie:
Let’s be grateful for what we are getting. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sen. Udall is the one and only reason the report summary is being released at all. It’s entirely plausible that Udall made the Obama Administration and the CIA an offer they couldn’t refuse: “Listen pigfuckers, and listen good: if you shitbag lowlife scumbag traitors do not release that summary report I within 24 hours I will read every last word of the entire fucking report for the whole fucking world to hear“.
Of course Udall probably wasn’t that diplomatic, but he would have made it very clear that he wasn’t bluffing.
KG
@max: some part of me wonders if the chain the CIA is pulling is the “do as we say or we will do to you what we did to JFK”
Schlemazel
There was a very very very simple way to avoid this blowback – don’t fucking torture! It was useless except to provide wank material to Darth Cheney, was always going to be illegal and immoral (HA! mentioning the Boy Blunder admin & morality in the same sentence could cause a black hole to appear & swallow us all) and could only end badly for us as a nation.
do.not.fucking.torture.people.never.ever. That is not hard
Villago Delenda Est
Ahmed has been watching too much Faux Noise, and listening to the bleating of Rethuglican shitstains.
Bobby B.
Udall will follow Kerry’s advice to obey The Corporation. I never came so close to regret and shame when voting as when I voted for Kerry.
schrodinger's cat
Which years does this report cover?
KG
@KG: for the record, I don’t actually believe the CIA killed Kennedy, I don’t even believe there was a conspiracy, Oswald acted alone
Baud
@schrodinger’s cat:
In reality, the Bush years.
In the media, the Obama years.
JPL
MSM still will not call it torture. The push back will be to big and network reporters will cower in shame. They might mention all the good the non torture activity did though.
JPL
@KG: Why was Oswald killed? That’s what didn’t square with me.
schrodinger's cat
@JPL: I find the MSM more loathsome than the Republicans.
Schlemazel
@efgoldman:
true dat (I am sooooo street these days) But the lesson could be learned for the next time. Its why we still need to track down any remaining Nazi’s, why Darth & Boy should be dragged before the world court and why we have to air this dirty laundry. Not because we can undo the past but to prevent the future.
Mandalay
@Bobby B.:
That’s harsh criticism, and badly misplaced. You will be hard pressed to name anyone who has done more than Udall to oppose the Corporation over the past few years.
And there are 99 other senators who could have threatened to follow Udall’s example, and blow the lid off the whole thing. All we heard from most of them about suppressing the report was crickets, yet you’re choosing to shit in Udall’s lap? You are way off target.
Schlemazel
@efgoldman:
I have told the story here before so I won’t detail it again. Oswald fired twice & the second shot severed Kennedy’s spine killing him instantly. It also caused Connally’s wounds (he was in a jumpseat inboard and lower than the President). The third shot came from the chase car’s Secret Service AR-15 & blew up his head but he was already a dead man.
This was all detailed in a book called “Mortal Error” by a ballistics expert who reviewed all of the data available including previously unreleased stuff from the Warren Commission.
Gin & Tonic
@efgoldman: That’s the BiP signal, is it not?
catbirdman
The “reason” for both R’s and D’s to be posturing about this obviously isn’t the reason given. With American Government — and maybe all government, period — IT’S ALL KABUKI ALL THE TIME!!! Republicans get to point at the Blame-America Democrats blaming America again and the Democrats get to tremble and fret and try to explain why it’s important to understand our mistakes so we don’t repeat them. It’s fucking stupid, repetitive, and boring, but it’s the main flavor of political theater we get here in the Land of the Free.
The question is, will mainstream media ever manage move past the point of parsing ridiculous government statements (“the insane narrative you’re supposed to believe”) and actually start analyzing the kabuki itself? Answer: No.
Gin & Tonic
@catbirdman: Democrats get to tremble and fret
As I mentioned upthread, I saw Claire McCaskill this morning on the teevee box, and she was neither trembling nor fretting about the release of the report.
JPL
OT.. For a Falcons fan, it’s difficult to take solace in the fact that when they lose tonight, they will still be in first place at 5-8.
this game is ugly. real ugly
Baud
@JPL:
The NFC South is so sad.
Schlemazel
@JPL:
I’m a bit fuzzy on the details but didn’t people complain about Seattle being division champs with a crappy record one year & then they beat the best team in the playoffs?
Translation, keep your hopes sky high, that way you can be really crushed when the team is.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Indeed, I’m pleasantly surprised by that. Who woulda thunk McCaskill and Dianne Feinstein (who has her own baggage, having been a reliable vote for most of Bush’s excesses) would be leaders for the right side.
JPL
@efgoldman: I still remember watching the Oswald killing on TV.
JPL
@efgoldman: By the end of the game, Gruden will just say that Blank must feel awful throwing away all that money on a sucky team.
The local ABC is airing the game.
Baud
Speaking of torture.
Carson 2016!
catbirdman
@Gin & Tonic: I stand corrected on that part. Kerry, however, seems to be fretting at least.
Schlemazel
@efgoldman:
Putin & I are the same age? Hmmmmm, guess I have not made much of my time here
“It’s sobering to think that, by the time he was my age Mozart had been dead for 10 years!” Tom Lehrer.
Gin & Tonic
@efgoldman: Ah, you seem to be unfamiliar with that artist’s whole ouevre. The JFK assassination conspiracy is foundational to his current work.
KG
@JPL: a citizen saddened and enraged by the assassination had an opportunity to kill the killer. It was Texas, they all still seem to carry guns down there
KG
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: don’t trust DiFi. She’s the poster child for the establishment party
Keith G
We really have to get all of this out. In a better world, our current leaders would know how important it is to shame (at the very least) the transgressors.
A society that doesn’t think it is necessary to confront and punish torture is a society becoming deadened to the inhumanity of violence. It is on it’s way to becoming a society that doesn’t think it is necessary to confront and punish those who gun down (or otherwise kill) unarmed citizens.
If the President does not act as if these two are related, then he is missing a very important moral connection.
joel hanes
@Corner Stone:
For once we’re going to have to face it.
Nah.
Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee came out over forty years ago.
Hardly any Americans have faced even that.
Reagan had us pegged: a nation addicted to its own myth of American exceptionalism, and willing to engage in any amount of magical thinking to sustain that myth.
Baud
@Schlemazel:
It’s not too late to take off your shirt and go horseback riding.
Redshift
@JPL: This is one of the many reasons that the only broadcast news outlet I listen to regularly is the BBC. They call it torture.
Schlemazel
@Baud:
It would be a great weight loss technique – for those witnessing me bare chested. But doctors do not recommend purging like that.
GregB
After watching the Face Book feed today every single lunatic that has been railing on about the tyranny of the Obama Presidency are upset that he is letting our dirty secrets out to be used by our enemies.
Not one ounce of concern about the fact that torture is the number one tool in the kit of actual tyrants.
It sucks tough living in a post-factual post-rational world.
Schlemazel
@GregB:
and yet we never get the meteor we so richly deserve.
burnspbesq
@Baud:
There are probably five teams in the ACC and eight in the SEC that could run the table in the NFC South.
? Martin
I appreciate DiFi’s standing here, but this report wouldn’t exist without her, and she’s been pushing to release it. I’m not sure where this notion that the report is the exclusive credit of Udall, but quite a few Dems needed to back this in order for it to have happened.
Just saying.
Baud
@burnspbesq:
But whose players still can’t form a union.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Schlemazel: I thought it was well known by now that it was, obviously, the Illuminati and John Dillinger.
(sigh)
Cheers,
Scott.
Mandalay
@? Martin:
Link? I haven’t seen anyone claiming that on BJ, or anywhere else for that matter.
cckids
This represents my feelings on the subject pretty well.
A small excerpt:
Heliopause
Fuck the torture report. What I’d really like to see is that inbred pair of cretins from the UK have to spend all night in a basketball arena with LeBron because they can’t get out of the fucking building.
Schlemazel
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
If the bullet came from above the exit wound would have been lower than the entrance wound, it was not. The round that Oswald was shooting was not going to deform much, the 5.56 round does cause a lot of spalling & the inside front of the skull had copper fragments typical of that round & not of the 6.5 FMJ round that Oswald shot.
Deecarda
@KG:
The single bullet theory is the most compelling part of the conspiracy.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Charlie Pierce spoke for me when he said, some months ago, tell me what is being done in my name.
But I’m afraid Peggy Noonan spoke for a majority when she went in to her uniquely spastic mugging to tell George Stephanopolous and George Will “Sometimes you just have to walk on by…”
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Schlemazel: None of us were there. None of us did the autopsy.
I trust the Warren Commission report and the people who did the work behind it. You don’t. That’s fine.
I’ve read Anson’s book and others. Even as a teenager I didn’t find it persuasive.
YMMV.
Cheers,
Scott.
Redshift
@JPL: Rachel just played a clip from NBC News, and Brian Williams was calling it torture. So that’s something.
Gin & Tonic
@Heliopause: If you really wanted to make them suffer in NY, you’d have them go to a Knicks game, not Nets.
mainmati
@J: Wow, I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ethiopia when this was published; I didn’t know Doonesbury was a thing back then. My isolated mountain students thought that Nixon was a King like Emperor Haile Selassie and that we Americans should just overthrow him, which we in fact did Constitutionally in 1974 and the Ethiopians did revolution-wise also in 1974. History sometimes has a strange symmetry (like Charles Darwin, Edgar Allen Poe and Abe Lincoln all being born the same year).
JimV
“Oh, don’t start! A conspiracy like the one which some allege would involve hundreds, if not thousands, of people, not one of whom would spill the beans, even accidentally, over 50 years.”
Not if there are cutouts and severe repercussions. A lot of people know what’s inside the Senate Report on the CIA, but nobody has leaked it. Somewhere I read something like this 20-30 years ago (it was presented as plausible speculation):
Mafia Guy 1: RFK [then Attorney General] is really coming after us. He’s already got Hoffa in jail. Maybe it’s time to do something about it.
MG 2: What, whack the President’s brother? Then they’ll really be after us.
MG 1: No you don ‘t whack RFK, you whack JFK, then LBJ takes over, and he and and RFK hate each other. LBJ calls him “the kid”. RFK won’t last long as AG under LBJ. Maybe later, when the JFK thing has died down …
MG 2: Yeah, but how could you do it?
MG 1: You get a crazy guy to do it. I know just the guy.
I’m not saying I believe it, but it fits all the facts as I know them. Organized Crime does “hit” people and get away with it. Before phone cameras and video cameras a lot of conspiracies (e.g., police vs. citizens) got away with it – speaking of hundreds if not thousands of people.
trollhattan
OT The weatherman:
“I’ve got some good news and some bad news.
“The good news: California is getting a much-needed, drought-busting storm.
“The bad news: California is getting a much-needed, drought-busting storm.”
Gov Jerry aside, it’s probably well known we seldom do things moderately here. Am thrilled to see a big storm on the way, less thrilled about having to endure it. Stuff tends to fall over.
Gin & Tonic
@efgoldman: I, as you know, have unfortunately been a Knickerbockers fan since Jr. High.
Nutella
The Doonesbury cartoon I’ve been thinking of is the one with the congressional hearing about the ‘secret’ bombings. And administration spokesman says the details were disclosed on a need-to-know basis. When asked who exactly needed to know the answer was ‘the pilots, of course’.
PhoenixRising
If I’m going to have to start respecting DiFi, we’re gonna need more and better bourbon.
And possibly other spiritous liquors.
Nov. 27, 1978: Never forget how Dianne Feinstein rose to her present path: http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nightly-news/27913449#27913449
Heliopause
@Gin & Tonic:
I don’t much care if they suffer or not, but I would derive a great deal of satisfaction from the media hysteria.
trollhattan
@efgoldman:
LOVE the illustration. We’re lacking in ostentation of that scale here, but not for lack of desire among the swells.
N-thousand ft^2 behemoths perched atop hills represent a lot of stored energy, just itching to be released. I shall weep.
Suzanne
@trollhattan: Hang in there. Here in Phoenix a couple of months ago, we got hit with a 100-year storm that brought literally the most rainfall in recorded history. Good for the plants, but dangerous in the short-term. Try not to drive anywhere.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
I’m still waiting for the chained CPI obama promised me.
srv
Berkeley kids shut down I-80 for about 5 minutes but have now made it back out there. Very mobile situation.
? Martin
@efgoldman:
If you’re rich enough, you just dispense with insurance. And in the case of Mr. Niami, building permits as well.
max
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): You’re not going to get the entire thing completely unredacted because there are names of overseas operatives (not all of them Americans) in the report. I’m actually okay with (some) names being redacted as long as the actions are there. Anyone who was hired by the Bush White House — no redaction.
I would expect those to be redacted. In practice ‘redactions’ means ‘anything we find embarrassing’. Which is going to be most of it.
max
[‘Swapping out for code names is fine – everything else should be in.’]
trollhattan
@Suzanne:
Thanks. We have a couple days to prepare but other than hauling outdoor furniture inside and tidying, it’s wait and see. The kid, however, is in Yosemite with her school class for the week and I wonder whether they’ll ride it out or head home early. We packed rain gear but not a boat.
trollhattan
@? Martin:
Step 1. Purchase building department.
Step 2. Instruct building department to issue permit. And pony…no, wait, unicorn.
A little like how Rand Paul “became” a board-certified ophthalmologist.
gwangung
@max: Also, Snowden Syndrome: you need to redact information that allows identification of undercover people….and that’s not as easy as you might think.
Omnes Omnibus
@trollhattan: Gawd, I hate to do this, but Paul was certified by the standard board and resigned over something and created his own with some others. It isn’t that he couldn’t get or of lost certification by the regular authority.
srv
And I-80 is kaput.
catclub
@Redshift: NPR still using ‘enhanced interrogation’ or some such crap.
mdblanche
@mainmati: Not only were Darwin and Lincoln born the same year, they were born the exact same day.
Suzanne
@trollhattan: Even if the building department issued the permit, the owner, architect, engineers, and contractors can be sued if the building fails.
trollhattan
@Omnes Omnibus:
They wouldn’t accept his Aqua Buddha(tm) alternative to Lazik?
Omnes Omnibus
@trollhattan: No, it was over grandfathering in older eye docs. Rand, as one would expect, wanted to put them on ice floes. Seriously though,that particular line of criticism against Rand is and should be a nonstarter.
lamh36
OT, but President Obama on The Colbert Show proving that maybe, just maybe, if Democrats had let Obama do what he still does best inspire and motivate young people and minorities, instead of letting the Republicans define them, maybe the elections last month woulda went better for the Dems! Not saying we woulda won everything…naw, but maybe, just maybe we would have had a fighting chance.
drkrick
@KG:
Question to old DC type: “Why are you so sure the CIA had nothing to do with Kennedy’s death?”
Answer: “He’s dead isn’t he?”
Omnes Omnibus
@lamh36: How many times did you say maybe in that comment?
The Other Chuck
@Deecarda: The Single Bullet Theory works quite well when you simply shift Connally and JFK’s positions by a few feet rather than being seated dead center and staring straight forward like crash test dummies — the way the Warren Report insists they were seated, going so far as to invent the magic bullet to support it. It’s almost as if the Warren Report was designed to cast doubt over everything.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-bullet_theory#Theorized_path_of_the_bullet_CE399 — now look at the diagrams to the right.
I believed in the second shooter theory for many years, but now I’ll take Occam’s Razor here. Oswald got a very “lucky” shot. Certainly the circumstances around Oswald’s murder were quite suspicious, so I suppose there’s still a little grist left in the mill.
drkrick
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
All hail Eris!
lamh36
@Omnes Omnibus: too many? besides, you need such qualifiers here at BJ…without them everything is taken soooo absolute here sometimes.
srv
Thanks, Obama.
drkrick
He didn’t appreciate needing to recertify periodically. His board certifies for life.
Omnes Omnibus
@lamh36: Enough that it bothers people who have taken classes in probability. Oh, from last night’s conversation, I have seen Dead Presidents and I wouldn’t be surprised if a shitload of other people here have as well.
Culture of Truth
I agrees with argument from this post, but the converse is also true. Progressive have gotten heavily invested in releasing this report, but if it really shocks anyone, you haven’t been paying attention.
Likely this will quickly move on from “i knew Obama would betray us” to “here’s how Obama is betraying us now..”
Omnes Omnibus
@drkrick: Look, he did it because he was a douchebag, not because he was unqualified. We should be aware of that.
drkrick
@The Other Chuck: Oswald’s shooter had been a Capone soldier in his Chicago youth and, as the owner of a strip club, was pretty likely to still be mobbed up. A heck of a coincidence.
Culture of Truth
So apparently this week Feinstein and McCaskill are heroic liberals, and John Kerry is spineless. Ok.
Omnes Omnibus
@Culture of Truth: There has been a hate-on for Kerry without any consideration that he may be the administration’s designated bad cop – sort of like he was during the Syria chemical weapons crisis.
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’ve seen Dead Presidents and think it’s a good movie. Good score, and Chris Tucker amazing in a serious role. Larenz Tate great in the main role too.
drkrick
@Omnes Omnibus:
Absolutely. An overentitled douchebag. Which for the purposes of evaluating him as a politician is a lot worse than being a bad eye doctor.
Although if he’d had a longer medical career the reduced incentive to stay current might have taken a toll.
GregB
@PhoenixRising:
California had a streak of bravery and tragedy among their political class.
Congressman Leo Ryan was murdered on the tarmac by Jim Jones’s goons.
His seat was filled by Tom Lantos who was a Holocaust survivor who was put in labor camps and escaped twice and went on to join the anti-Nazi resistance.
After Lantos died his seat was won by Jackie Speier who was an aide to Leo Ryan and was seriously wounded at the airport where Leo Ryan died.
Then there is Harvey Mil and George Moscone and their murders which then thrust Dianne Fienstein forward. Though I have some reservations about her record, I still admire her stoicism during that tragedy.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: Lamh36 made an uncharacteristically snide comment about the likelihood of BJers being aware of the movie last night. I was referencing it. I probably should have let it slide.
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
I saw her comment, but was very late in reading that thread, so I didn’t comment. I didn’t think her comment was snide, just a little benevolently dismissive, if that’s a thing.
ETA: And that movie is better than at least two-thirds of the Matrix trilogy.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: In any case, it bothered me a bit, but it probably should not have. Oh so sensitive me.
ETA: All three.
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’ve been third-degree testy ever since Election Day. Every time I think I’m ready to ease back into the flow here I see something that inflames me again. Baby steps.
lamh36
ICYMI: President Obama on Colbert Report…”The Decree”
mai naem mobile
I would like to see oil go down to $40/barrel just to see Rick Perry deal with the consequences in his sexy librarian glasses. His Texas miracle will be more like Great Depression Texas Part Deux.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: I am trying. See my comments above. I have offered this before, but It is useful now.
SoupCatcher
@efgoldman:
At least Los Angeles dodged the biggest bullet 85 years ago. If it hadn’t been for the stock market crash of 1929, Mack Sennett would’ve put a huge mansion right on top of the Hollywoodland sign.
lamh36
@lamh36: full clip no up just yet.
But here’s another interview President Obama did today on BET.
I’m off to bed. Good night BJ.
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
A little too astringent for me right now. I got nowhere with this song the other night, but I’m running with it again.
As for Judy Collins, I had to cleanse my palate with this. Can’t go wrong with steel guitar.
trollhattan
@GregB:
Great list. Jackie Speier is seven kinds of awesome, and has had to shoulder a vast amount of tragedy in her life. Her first husband was killed in a car crash, IIRC while she was pregnant. Tough lady.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: Lovely thing from Judy.
mai naem mobile
@efgoldman: what does somebody do in a 90000 sq ft house? Its just so obscenely obscene. People live in 100 sq ft hovels and these people think they have to have a house the size of a big box store? Just wow.
Tree With Water
Rarely has the adage ‘information is power’ been more starkly illustrated. The torturers among us fear an accounting of their crimes and for good reason. The fact we once hanged Japanese war criminals/torturers (and not all that long ago) meant nothing to them after 9/11, and it means nothing to them now. They are wicked people and domestic enemies of every decent American on the planet. For the good of the country, it is vital they suffer full exposure for crimes they committed in our names.
Apparently the ACLU is now advocating a blanket pardon for the whole rotten lot of them. I’m OK with that, but if and only if they testify to their crimes as a condition of the pardon, with said testimony to be published in its entirety. I would even allow the use of pseudonyms, that the pardoned might retain their anonymity. I say take a page from the South African experiment, clear the decks, and move on to better times. That said and come what may, any democrat now in favor of suppressing the report should be disowned by the party leadership ha-ha-ha.
different-church-lady
Oh. So you mean “…the large community of nongovernmental organizations and human rights groups that have been fighting for the release…” were just OVERREACTING to a hyped news report? And you were just innocently relaying that overreaction? And you don’t regret that overreaction? Whocouldanowed?
I’m beginning to think the only reason Balloon Juice exists is to bark every time the media rattles the cage.
lamh36
OK, here is the full segment of Colbert Show when Obama “takes over”…
Barack Obama Took Over “The Colbert Report” and Crushed It
It’s followed by a “formal” Colbert interview with POTUS.
different-church-lady
@Culture of Truth:
With a quick stop at “I’m not sorry I predicted that Obama would betray us when he didn’t.”
TheMightyTrowel
@lamh36: Thank you for this. I’m in tears.
Ruckus
@mai naem mobile:
You’ve seen my room?
Anne Laurie
@different-church-lady:
What, am I making your job harder, nanny?
Sucks to be you, then.
A Humble Lurker
@Anne Laurie:
Looks like it sucks to be you, considering you seem to be a little Miss Crankypants today. It’s not like they haven’t got a point about your chicken little-ing.
wilfred
What good is the report without prosecutions or, at the very least, a grand jury to see if there’s enough evidence to warrant a prosecution? We tortured, maimed and killed many, many people.
Where are the prosecutions? Where’s the outrage?
Major Major Major Major
@wilfred: Ooh, yeah, we can convene a Grand Jury! And the GOP Congress and/or the Obama admin can decide who should prosecute it!
That won’t end predictably at all.
ETA: Sorry for being a dick. Point stands, no ad hominem intended
wilfred
My point was that the citizens of a country that are willing to ignore the crimes committed in their name deserve whatever they get. Similarly, an act of true political consciousness would be to demand that there be accountability for these crimes, with the awareness that the militarization, intimidation, aggression and murder displayed by municipal police are a faint reflection of the same tactics used to far worse effect against a lot of brown people in other parts of the world.
As above, below.
different-church-lady
@Anne Laurie: Sucks to read this blog nowadays is what it does. But nonetheless, thanks for your interest in my health.
(ETA: the logical follow up question to my comment is “Then why keep reading it?” The answer is, “I’m working on just that.”)
Sherparick
From TPM, a excerpt of Nicole Wallace, a so called “moderate Republican,” basically articulating the new mainstream Republican Doctrine that torture is now part of their platform and people who object are just American hating weaklings. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/nicole-wallace-asinine-to-think-waterboarding-made-america-less-great
J R in WV
@Omnes Omnibus:
I disagree. It shows the immaturity and narcissism that Dr Paul suffers from / enjoys so much.
I’ll take my football and go home if that isn’t a first down!!!
I’ll form my own ophthalmic organization to board certify me if you don’t do it my way!!! Nyah, Nyah, Nyahhh!!!
Like a self-centered pre-teen. In the Senate. Imagine that in the White House! Worse than Bush the W. probably.
But YMMV, and all that.