The Democrat Thread

[BigSqwert]

Funny - reading a lot of the above made me wonder....isn't this the Democrat thread?

No

[lostfan]

It's mostly kap, but there are a lot of people going off and arguing in the Republican thread, too. As long as it's not over the top I let it slide, but it goes both ways. I'm not going to tell any non-Dem poster to not post here if non-Republican types want to post in the Republican thread. Generally speaking, cross-posting has worked, but there needs to be a level of mutual respect or it all comes down.

[HuskyCaucasian]

Rush ass kissing continues

Last week in an interview with the Kansas City Star editorial board, Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS) risked alienating thousands of ditto-heads by giving his honest opinion of whether Rush Limbaugh was the "de facto leader of the GOP." "No, no, he's just an entertainer," Tiahrt said.

 

According to the Wichita Eagle (via Kansas Jackass), Tiahrt's office is now also rushing to apologize:

Asked about the episode and resulting Web buzz, Tiahrt spokesman Sam Sackett said Tiahrt was not speaking negatively about Limbaugh but was trying to defend him against the suggestion that Limbaugh could be blamed for the GOP’s woes. "The congressman believes Rush is a great leader of the conservative movement in America -- not a party leader responsible for election losses," Sackett told The Eagle editorial board. "Nothing the congressman said diminished the role Rush has played and continues to play in the conservative movement."

 

LMAO! This is just too funny.

[kapkomet]

Rush ass kissing continues

 

 

LMAO! This is just too funny.

I love the hard on you get every time Rush Limbaugh gets brought up. OOOHHHHH.. HEHEHE LOOKIE! The whole argument about the "de facto" leader is preposterous.

[Rex Kickass]

I love the hard on you get every time Rush Limbaugh gets brought up. OOOHHHHH.. HEHEHE LOOKIE! The whole argument about the "de facto" leader is preposterous.

 

It's even more preposterous that every time a Republican "leader" mentions him as anything less than that, he seems forced to apologize within 24 hours.

[lostfan]

It's even more preposterous that every time a Republican "leader" mentions him as anything less than that, he seems forced to apologize within 24 hours.

Yeah, that's absolutely hilarious to me.

[BigSqwert]

It's even more preposterous that every time a Republican "leader" mentions him as anything less than that, he seems forced to apologize within 24 hours.

In all these years of radio has he ever apologized for a single thing he said about anyone? Highly doubtful.

[chunk23]

In all these years of radio has he ever apologized for a single thing he said about anyone? Highly doubtful.

 

He apologizes occasionally, but it's in the back-handed form of "I'm sorry that these people are thin-skinned and got offended at what I said", regardless of the objective offensiveness of his statement.

[southsider2k5]

He apologizes occasionally, but it's in the back-handed form of "I'm sorry that these people are thin-skinned and got offended at what I said", regardless of the objective offensiveness of his statement.

 

Which is pretty much the standard political "apology" of the 21st century.

[NorthSideSox72]

Which is pretty much the standard political "apology" of the 21st century.

Yeah, that is the truth. I get so tired of that. Politicians now seem to apologize almost exclusively in the format of, "Im' sorry that [insert person/group/nation/race/religion] felt offended by what I said about and misunderstood me." That is not an apology at all.

 

[kapkomet]

Yeah, that is the truth. I get so tired of that. Politicians now seem to apologize almost exclusively in the format of, "Im' sorry that [insert person/group/nation/race/religion] felt offended by what I said about and misunderstood me." That is not an apology at all.

Hmmm...

 

I'm sorry that soxtalk felt offended about what I said in the filibuster and misunderstood me...

 

 

Now conform, you assholes.

[HuskyCaucasian]

Thiefs!

 

With South Africa's elections today, Peter Hamby notes a rather familiar logo on the website of the liberal, reformist opposition party, the Democratic Alliance.

[BigSqwert]

 

Edited April 22, 2009 by BigSqwert

[HuskyCaucasian]

That comment about meeting with communists during the cold war is a flat our b**** slap. Rock on Hillary!

[BigSqwert]

I gotta admit I like her as S.O.S.

[Balta1701]

Seeing what the other thread turned in to, I'm not even sure I want to go here, but what the Hell. Bunch of other torture leaks/reports today, some inspired by last week's disclosures, some working on their own schedule.

First, a report from McClatchy:

A former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the interrogation issue said that Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld demanded that the interrogators find evidence of al Qaida-Iraq collaboration.

 

"There were two reasons why these interrogations were so persistent, and why extreme methods were used," the former senior intelligence official said on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity.

 

"The main one is that everyone was worried about some kind of follow-up attack (after 9/11). But for most of 2002 and into 2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld, especially, were also demanding proof of the links between al Qaida and Iraq that (former Iraqi exile leader Ahmed) Chalabi and others had told them were there."

 

It was during this period that CIA interrogators waterboarded two alleged top al Qaida detainees repeatedly — Abu Zubaydah at least 83 times in August 2002 and Khalid Sheik Muhammed 183 times in March 2003 — according to a newly released Justice Department document.

 

"There was constant pressure on the intelligence agencies and the interrogators to do whatever it took to get that information out of the detainees, especially the few high-value ones we had, and when people kept coming up empty, they were told by Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people to push harder," he continued.

 

"Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people were told repeatedly, by CIA . . . and by others, that there wasn't any reliable intelligence that pointed to operational ties between bin Laden and Saddam, and that no such ties were likely because the two were fundamentally enemies, not allies."

 

Senior administration officials, however, "blew that off and kept insisting that we'd overlooked something, that the interrogators weren't pushing hard enough, that there had to be something more we could do to get that information," he said.

And a detailed report came out from the Senate Armed Services committee today, explaining why, as was pretty much expected, all those memos looked like they were being written to legally justify things that had already been done; they were written to legally justify things that had already been done.

Previously secret memos and interviews show CIA and Pentagon officials exploring ways to break Taliban and al-Qaeda detainees in early 2002, up to eight months before Justice Department lawyers approved the use of waterboarding and nine other harsh methods, investigators found.

 

The findings are contained in a Senate Armed Services Committee report scheduled for release today that also documents multiple warnings -- from legal and trained interrogation experts -- that the techniques could backfire and might violate U.S. and international law.

 

One Army lieutenant colonel who reviewed the program warned in 2002 that coercion "usually decreases the reliability of the information because the person will say whatever he believes will stop the pain," according to the Senate report. A second official, briefed on plans to use aggressive techniques on detainees, was quoted the same year as asking: "Wouldn't that be illegal?"

Lots of other stuff in that report about how the torture program was developed.

[Rex Kickass]

She looks tired.

[southsider2k5]

 

 

Glad to see all of that Bush administration arrogance is gone now...

[jasonxctf]

well done hill-dog.

[lostfan]

Glad to see all of that Bush administration arrogance is gone now...

How is what she said arrogant though? I mean she gave a long and detailed response to his question, then when she said that the next thing was "he beat me in the primaries."

[kapkomet]

How is what she said arrogant though? I mean she gave a long and detailed response to his question, then when she said that the next thing was "he beat me in the primaries."

(paraphrasing) we won the election, STFU.

[lostfan]

(paraphrasing) we won the election, STFU.

Thereby rendering anything said prior to that irrelevant to certain ears, apparently.

[BigSqwert]

"I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture..." - Official proclamation by President Bush, June 26, 2003.

 

via Andrew Sullivan

[HuskyCaucasian]

via Andrew Sullivan

but it's not torture Bush said so, therefore it isnt. Case closed. It's only torture is we say it's torture. And since we dont torture, clearly everything we did isnt torture.

[Balta1701]

One of the guys who did the legal, pre-torture interrogation of Abu "totally crazy" Zubaydah has an op-ed piece in today's NYT. It seems to give a lot more context to that memo released yesterday, and basically agrees that the torture was useless and shouldn't have been done.

One of the most striking parts of the memos is the false premises on which they are based. The first, dated August 2002, grants authorization to use harsh interrogation techniques on a high-ranking terrorist, Abu Zubaydah, on the grounds that previous methods hadn’t been working. The next three memos cite the successes of those methods as a justification for their continued use.

 

It is inaccurate, however, to say that Abu Zubaydah had been uncooperative. Along with another F.B.I. agent, and with several C.I.A. officers present, I questioned him from March to June 2002, before the harsh techniques were introduced later in August. Under traditional interrogation methods, he provided us with important actionable intelligence.

 

We discovered, for example, that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Abu Zubaydah also told us about Jose Padilla, the so-called dirty bomber. This experience fit what I had found throughout my counterterrorism career: traditional interrogation techniques are successful in identifying operatives, uncovering plots and saving lives.

 

There was no actionable intelligence gained from using enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah that wasn’t, or couldn’t have been, gained from regular tactics. In addition, I saw that using these alternative methods on other terrorists backfired on more than a few occasions — all of which are still classified. The short sightedness behind the use of these techniques ignored the unreliability of the methods, the nature of the threat, the mentality and modus operandi of the terrorists, and due process.

 

Defenders of these techniques have claimed that they got Abu Zubaydah to give up information leading to the capture of Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a top aide to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and Mr. Padilla. This is false. The information that led to Mr. Shibh’s capture came primarily from a different terrorist operative who was interviewed using traditional methods. As for Mr. Padilla, the dates just don’t add up: the harsh techniques were approved in the memo of August 2002, Mr. Padilla had been arrested that May.

 

One of the worst consequences of the use of these harsh techniques was that it reintroduced the so-called Chinese wall between the C.I.A. and F.B.I., similar to the communications obstacles that prevented us from working together to stop the 9/11 attacks. Because the bureau would not employ these problematic techniques, our agents who knew the most about the terrorists could have no part in the investigation. An F.B.I. colleague of mine who knew more about Khalid Shaikh Mohammed than anyone in the government was not allowed to speak to him.

 

It was the right decision to release these memos, as we need the truth to come out. This should not be a partisan matter, because it is in our national security interest to regain our position as the world’s foremost defenders of human rights. Just as important, releasing these memos enables us to begin the tricky process of finally bringing these terrorists to justice.

 

...

Fortunately for me, after I objected to the enhanced techniques, the message came through from Pat D’Amuro, an F.B.I. assistant director, that “we don’t do that,” and I was pulled out of the interrogations by the F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller (this was documented in the report released last year by the Justice Department’s inspector general).