So Very BassAckward

House-Senate negotiators reached agreement late Thursday on a $105.9 billion wartime spending bill after last-minute assurances from President Barack Obama that he will use all his powers to prevent the disclosure of controversial photographs depicting the treatment of detainees held by the U.S. military.

  Politico

I have read that one of the reasons they are so keen to keep these photos from coming out is that they depict abuses at places other than Abu Ghraib and therefore show just how systematic our torture policy has been, and not, as officials want to portray, the aberration of a few soldiers at Abu Ghraib who have already been punished.

Meanwhile, I repeat…

A crucial CIA Inspector General’s report from May 2004 is expected to reveal some long-hidden truths about the Bush administration’s use of torture.

According to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, “This report is sort of the big kahuna in terms of what we have been waiting to see from the government’s own files on torture. That report, which is long and has been described by people who have seen it as ’sickening,’ apparently stopped the torture program in its tracks.”

[...]

“There are three key questions to look for,” [Newsweek’s Michael] Isikoff explained. “Were there harsh interrogations that began before the … legal authorizations? … Did they go beyond what was authorized? … Did it go beyond just finding out about possible plots against the United States to provide other information, such as supplying possible evidence that could be used to justify the war in Iraq?”

[...]

Isikoff emphasized, however, that almost none of this information is being released voluntarily. It’s being slowly pried out through Freedom of Information Act requests, most of them filed by the ACLU, and “it’s become trench warfare — document by document.”

  Raw Story

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

I Bet You Didn't Know

The murder at the Holocaust Museum was committed by a leftie!

Oh, yeah.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Speaking of Joe the Plumber

Of the unforgiveable things Crusty McCain has done, I rate as #1 the foisting of Sarah Palin on us. Otherwise we might never have known anything about her and been the better for it. Or at least the happier.

Hooray for the ACLU

Please check out their website: Accountability for Torture

Meanwhile…

A crucial CIA Inspector General’s report from May 2004 is expected to reveal some long-hidden truths about the Bush administration’s use of torture.

According to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, “This report is sort of the big kahuna in terms of what we have been waiting to see from the government’s own files on torture. That report, which is long and has been described by people who have seen it as ’sickening,’ apparently stopped the torture program in its tracks.”

[...]

“There are three key questions to look for,” [Newsweek’s Michael] Isikoff explained. “Were there harsh interrogations that began before the … legal authorizations? … Did they go beyond what was authorized? … Did it go beyond just finding out about possible plots against the United States to provide other information, such as supplying possible evidence that could be used to justify the war in Iraq?”

[...]

Isikoff emphasized, however, that almost none of this information is being released voluntarily. It’s being slowly pried out through Freedom of Information Act requests, most of them filed by the ACLU, and “it’s become trench warfare — document by document.”

  Raw Story

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Glenn Greenwald Nails It

The predominant mentality in right-wing political rhetoric finds expression in this form: "I am part of/was born into Group X, and Group X -- my group -- is both better and treated so very unfairly." This claim persists -- indeed, is often intensified -- even when Group X is clearly the strongest, most privileged and most favored group. So intense is their need for self-victimiziation -- so inebriating is their self-absorption and so lacking are they in any capacity for empathy -- that, for all the noise and rhetoric, the argumets they make virtually always have this tribalistic self-absorption at its core.

[...]

It's a defining attribute of early adolescence to be incapable of seeing the world through any lens other than total self-centeredness, self-absorption and empathy-free self-obsession. If you watch for it (principally though not only in) right-wing discourse, you will see that this is really the central theme animating most of what they write: My group is superior. My group (political, national, religious, ethic, gender) is victimized and treated unfairly. The misery and suffering my group inflicts on far less powerful groups is irrelevant and always justifiable. They never advanced beyond the adolescent stage of tribalistic self-absorption and it's amazing how completely that lies at the core of most of what they believe and argue.

  Glenn Greenwald

And I think many of them don't actually admit inflicting any misery and suffering. They see it as taking care of business – doing what needs to be done to survive in a world that’s always persecuting them.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Ike Recovery

I wasn't in Galveston for the hurricanes before Ike, but there were a couple of others that were pretty bad in the recent past. I don't think any of them ate Murdoch's the way Ike did... ...but they tell me that Murdoch's has been seriously damaged before and always returns. I'm so glad.

They're working on it now with signs that say it will be open in the spring of 2010. I hope they have different contractors/subcontractors/laborers than we've got where I work. But, I'm going to be optimistic for them. Yippee. Murdoch's is rising from the ashes.

Sadly, the historic Balinese Room will not be resurrected. All that's left of it is the stubs of some support posts way out in the water. They've put up a plaque in its place on the street.

And sadly, many, if not most, of our old live oaks (I think I heard 60%) are going to have to be cut down. The island will look a lot different without them. Especially Broadway. I'm going to really miss these old beauties.

But, we still have our sunrises.

Sotomayor Nomination

I am quite confidant that after all the hoopla over Sonia Sotomayor's judicial qualifications - excuse me, her character - that she will be confirmed for the Supreme Court. The ridiculous GOP charges center on the fact that they see a female, and a Latina female at that, and freak out. That alone makes them afraid she's a LIBERAL!, but Jonathan Turley explores the accuracy of that assessment and finds it wanting.

It's similar to all the screeching they did about Barack Obama being the MOST LIBERAL! member of Congress, which was far, far from the truth. It sure sucked in all the Joe the Plumbers, though.

Speaking of Joe, Jean says that he's going to be speaking in Columbia, Missouri, tomorrow. Since I will be there, I will....no, no. I won't. Sorry. You'll have to get that news from somebody else. I will be visiting my newlywed son on leave from Iraq and other family. And even if that weren't happening, I would have to be doing something hateful to prefer to listen to Joe blow.

....but hey, if you want to, Joe's in Columbia, Missouri this weekend.

Meanwhile in Iran

John Kerry finally breaks the taboo in Washington to say what everyone already knows. Under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has the right to enrich uranium for peaceful, civilian energy purposes. The Bush administration's lame attempt to unilaterally revise the NPT to forbid Iran from this capability just made the US a laughingstock in the international community.

  Juan Cole

Oh, I think Mr. Bush may have only polished our international reputation to a fine sheen. At any rate, Iran votes today – Ahmadinejad may be out.

The political and commercial morals of the United States are not merely food for laughter, they are an entire banquet. --Mark Twain

Well, Good

In an order issued just a short while ago, the Minnesota election court has now commanded Norm Coleman to pay Al Franken $94,783.15 in itemized costs from the trial.

  TPM

It’s about time all this stalling dog and pony show cost Coleman something. But it’s not enough. Millions of dollars, exploitation of the election process and lack of representation for Minnesota have accrued in this blatant ongoing play to stop the Senate from seating a Democratic candidate. Where are all the Republicans who were screaming for Al Gore to have some integrity and go away and let the government get its business done?

I'm no Democrat, but I'm looking forward to seeing Al Franken at work in the Senate. At this rate, I may be dead by the time it happens.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

A Politician’s Nature

For Democrats, "FOIA is as sacred as Social Security and Medicare." If Democratic members of Congress aren't willing to defend the decades-old transparency law which they long championed -- all because a Democratic President now wants the power to override it and two neoconservative Senators are spewing the rankest fear-mongering in order to compel its abandonment -- then what will they defend? Wasn't one of the main criticisms of the GOP Congress that they abdicated their duties to impose checks on the GOP President and instead capitulated to all of his demands, all because they were members of the same party? Why would the Democratic Congress want to replicate that behavior and allow a Democratic President to constrict their own long-standing transparency law?

  Glenn Greenwald

Uh…because they’re Congress?

For years under Bush, most Democrats in Congress were petrified about voting against war funding bills -- even when they contained unrelated amendments they found offensive -- because they were so scared that they would be accused of "failing to support the troops." Yet Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham are perfectly willing to threaten to vote against the current war spending bill and hold up the whole Senate -- and the entire GOP House leadership (the same people who long equated opposition to war spending bills with a "failure to support the troops") also said they would vote against it due to their opposition to the IMF funding it contains.

Yep. That sounds about right. We surely are not expecting Congressmen to have any principles, are we? Yes, I know, there are a handful of exceptions. Barney Frank and Russ Feingold come to mind. But, they are rare.

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress. --Mark Twain

Topsy Turvey

The Washington Independent's Daphne Eviatar has a good summary of yesterday's Senate hearing on Obama's proposed policy of indefinite, preventive detention. The hearing was shaped by an odd (though quite revealing) spectacle: the most vigorous defenders of Obama's proposal were a far right GOP Senator (Tom Coburn) and two of the most right-wing, Bush/Cheney-loyal lawyers in the country (former Reagan DOJ official David Rivkin and Ken Starr acolyte Richard Klinger). Meanwhile, Obama's proposal was vigorously criticized by the two Democratic Senators in attendence (Russ Feingold and Benjamin Cardin), along with the civil libertian and human rights advocates who testified and a former Bush DOJ federal prosectuor, David Laufman.

  Glenn Greenwald

Here We Go

First the abortion doctor killer. Now this...

An elderly gunman opened fire with a rifle inside the crowded U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on Wednesday, gravely wounding a security guard before being shot. Authorities said they were investigating a white supremacist as the possible shooter.

  Yahoo