…and I also find the idea of political murder and terror repugnant.    I understand that you find Dick Cheney a sadistic MF, or a Army recruiter someone who is hurting your co-religionists by supporting the war, or you find Dr. Tiller a baby-killer.

Fine.  Then work constructively to bring people to justice, or to outlaw abortions, or to end the ( Read more... )

Iraqi PM to Obama: If you release those unreleased photos from Abu Ghraib, my electorate will go up in blue flame and demand that the US get out yesterday.

…from Think Progress.   Give it a look for a summary of why it’s major bad news, if you didn’t know that already…unless you think you’re Jack Bauer or something.

As Jesse Ventura said on The View:

“If waterboarding is OK, why don’t we let our police do it to suspects so they can learn what they know?” he asked. “If waterboarding is OK, why didn’t ( Read more... )

I’m beginning to think that Dick Cheney and company can’t tell the difference between repeats of 24 and reality.  Of course, it’s coming to look a lot like he had the idea from the beginning that there had to be a pony at the bottom of that dungpile - er, that there  had to be a link between al-Qaeda and Saddam, and that nothing else made sense ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

Article about Michael Isikoff of Newsweek’s latest investigative direction: that the internal DOJ oversight office delivered a report to the Attorney General under Bush that said, essentially, that the DOJ’s legal papers from John Yoo and others that backed up torture with a film of legal justification were  BS that were way off the line of legal ( Read more... )

from Salon:

“If the mood and the speeches at the winter meeting are any guide, Republicans are seeking refuge from electoral defeat in an alternate reality, one where the public still loves them - or would if they could only improve their sales pitch. And where going along with President Obama’s agenda just isn’t in the cards.” If any further ( Read more... )

Gitmo: People reviewing the cases of prisoners are finding out that there’s really no solid files as such on anyone,  and that a lot of material is suspect or worthless - and scattered, disorganized and fifth-hand.   The realization is coming through that people were supposed to get confessions and information first and worry about anything else ( Read more... )

From Dick Meyer at NPR on Blago and Made-off:

As audacious as Blagojevich’s political gluttony is, it is easy to find far worse political corruption, much of it perfectly legal: Distorting intelligence to invade Iraq, torturing prisoners, failure to regulate Wall Street, and systematic pork-barrel boondoggling come quickly to mind. If you’re ( Read more... )

• Hedge Fund founder who lost a serious bundle in the Madoff ponzi scheme commits suicide, and no, he didn’t jump out a window.
• The radical Israeli settlers in the West Bank are a political nightmare that any government will have serious problems with and neither main party coalition wants to deal with.  Of course, government policies for a LONG time ( Read more... )