October 4, 2007 archive

Never Believe What They Say!

The Force Was Not With Him

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, for example, said the proposal was put together without input from Republicans.

The Hell You Say
Except there’s one little problem Johnny!

That isn’t true. Senior Republicans such as Sens. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee and a fiscal conservative, and Orrin Hatch of Utah helped draft the bill, and 18 Republicans in the Senate and 45 in the House of Representatives voted for it.

The Truth Is Out There

Declaring Torture Abhorrent in 2004

Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations
But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.

President Bush speaking in Panama City Panama on November 7, 2005 ‘We do not torture’
Lying straight out of your backside orifice as usual.

Crossposted from Invictus

Scott Shane, David Johnston, and James Risen of the New York Times have written a stinging article on U.S. Justice Department decisions that have — and still do — provide supposed legal justification for harsh interrogation techniques amounting to torture.

In the article, “Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations”, the Shane et al. describe the role of former U.S. attorney general Alberto Gonzales in quashing an internal revolt at the Justice Department over the unprecedented spate of legal alibis for barbaric levels of torture. Some of the department’s “opinions” remain secret to this day.

But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Has there ever been a more disgraceful Attorney General than Alberto Gonzales? Has there ever been a more disgraceful Administration than the Bush Administration? No:

When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.

But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.

Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on “combined effects” over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion’s overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be “ashamed” when the world eventually learned of it.

The nation may never recover from the damage done by these scoundrels.

Live blogging at the corner of 114 and 5 in the Northeast Kingdom of VT:

Men in trucks, couples in sedans and SUVs pull up to the light and cock their heads, Labrador Retriever-like, at the odd man with the laptop and fatigued look in his eyes.  A full day of driving unwinds as the road names creep into the subconscious.  I took a left on a road called Lost Nation.  There was no power, most of the year round homes were solar, large boulders dotted the shoulder of the dirt road, a cascading waterfall ran perpendicular.  There was a presence in those woods that felt both smothering and comforting at once.

An unfortunately named mechanic proudly displayed his moniker: DAVID DETH – MACHINIST.  A smile rolls onto the lips as the tires peak a hill and roll down.  Pulling into town I discover that even here there is a Starbucks.  The snowboarder behind the counter asked for my order three times with a glazed look in his eye and said, sorry man – Brain Like A Sieve.