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by Damozel | My colleague Deb Cupples has recently commented trenchantly on Olbermann's reversal of his position on FISA to match Obama's. Now Glenn Greenwald has administered a swift and deadly kick to Olbermann's credibility on the issue and to any lingering hope that Olbermann might recover sufficient detachment to be considered a reliable commenter on any issue relating to his Hero, Barack Obama.
Now that Obama has made his position on FISA crystal clear, Olbermann has apparently decided how he is going to spin the issue: by being as disingenuous as Obama man. When W was fighting for FISA, Olbermann called it '"an ex post facto
law, which would clear the phone giants from
responsibility for their systematic, aggressive and blatant
collaboration with [Bush's] illegal and unjustified spying on Americans
under this flimsy guise of looking for any terrorists who are stupid
enough to make a collect call or send a mass email."' (Salon; emphasis added)
If a campaign strategist can blurt out this nonsense, what does it tell you about how some of these people think? Black, of course, apologized. '"I deeply regret the comments - they were
inappropriate. I recognize that John McCain has devoted his entire
adult life to protecting his country and placing its security before
every other consideration."' (The Swamp)
Joe Biden (via The Swamp), as always, jumped right in and --- in the midst of saying the same thing everyone else did --- firmly nailed down what for me is the sticking point.
by Teh Nutroots | Seven years later, Bush is finally back to chasing Osama bin Laden. Remember him? He's the guy who orchestrated the 911 attacks. Bush got distracted by Saddam Hussein's non-existent 'weapons of mass destruction' and the job of de-stabilizing Iraq, but he's got OBL in his cross-hairs again.
Defence and intelligence sources in Washington and London confirmed that a
renewed hunt was on for the leader of the September 11 attacks. “If he
[Bush] can say he has killed Saddam Hussein and captured Bin Laden, he can
claim to have left the world a safer place,” said a US intelligence source. (Times Online)
"[The hunt] involves the use of Predator and Reaper
unmanned aerial vehicles fitted with Hellfire missiles that can be used to
take out specific terrorist targets...." (Times Online) '“Bush is swinging for the fences in the hope
of scoring a home run,” said an intelligence source.'(Times Online)
by Damozel | Levels of violence in Iraq may be decreasing; in Afghanistan, things aren't going so well. In southeastern Afghanistan, the militants are making a comeback and those who know about these things will tell you that the gravest threat to the US of terrorism is likely to come from Afghanistan and Pakistan rather than Iraq. (VetVoice)
On Friday, Taliban militants blew up a prison in Kandahar, allowing between 870 and 1110 prisoners to escape --- including 'a number of high-ranking Taliban members'(BBC News) --- about 400 of them. (Guardian) Kandahar is 'one of the key battlegrounds in the Taleban's insurgency against President Hamid Karzai and Nato and US troops.' (BBC News) The purpose of the attack? '[D]elegitimatizing the government by highlighting its ineffectiveness
while improving internal cohesion and morale as a demonstrated example
of the Taliban taking care of its own.'(The Newshoggers)
Afghan officials have begun investigations to determine whether any government officials were involved in the blast. (BBC News)
by Damozel | McCain has weighed in on the Supreme Court's decision in Boumediene v. Bush. He doesn't like it.
The United States Supreme Court yesterday rendered a decision which I
think is one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.
Sen. Graham and Sen. Lieberman and I had worked very hard to make sure
that we didn't torture any prisoners, that we didn't mistreat them,
that we abided by the Geneva Conventions, which applies to all
prisoners. But we also made it perfectly clear, and I won't go through
all the legislation we passed, and the prohibition against torture, but
we made it very clear that these are enemy combatants, these are people
who are not citizens, they do not and never have been given the rights
that citizens of this country have. And my friends there are some bad
people down there.
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay have rights under the Constitution to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts.
In
its third rebuke of the Bush administration's treatment of prisoners,
the court ruled 5-4 that the government is violating the rights of
prisoners being held indefinitely and without charges at the U.S. naval
base in Cuba. The court's liberal justices were in the majority.
Justice
Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said, ''The laws and
Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in
extraordinary times.'' (NYT)
It's a step or two in the right direction for those of us who believe that the US has an obligation to set an example in humane treatment even of enemy combatants.
Posted by Damozel | The young man described below was speaking to reporters from The Independent with the encouragement of
Yehuda Shaul, "a founder of Shovrim Shtika, or Breaking the Silence....which will publish tomorrow the disturbing testimonies of 39 Israelis....who served in the army in Hebron between
2005 and 2007. " (The Independent)
Posted by Damozel | Why isn't this story all over the news? Why are we talking about anything else? It's the very same weekend when Bush blandly confirmed that oh yeah, he knew all about it? Why aren't he and Cheney and the whole crew about to be impeached? Have the wheels of justice really rusted to a complete stop? Are we really so cynical that we're past being shocked or thinking there's anything we can do about this?
I thought I was long past the point of being shocked at anything the
Bush administration did. They suspended the constitution after 9/11 and
set forth a series of legal opinions that said the president can do
anything he deems necessary to "protect the country." Once you truly
absorb that fact, it's hard to be emotionally affected by anything else
you learn.
Posted by Damozel | Did anyone ever doubt that certain top administration officials were involved every step of the way in authorizing the interrogation techniques used on al-Qaeda? Most of the people I know certainly thought so.
Everyone, in fact, except my mom. So I am not surprised, though somehow I am quite shocked. There is quite a bit of difference between 'knowing' and knowing. And now the 'highly placed sources' have come out of the woodwork. What took you so long, highly placed sources?
Posted by Damozel | According to the prosecution, the eight men now on trial "planned to detonate bombs aboard flights from London
across the Atlantic to create deaths on an almost unprecedented scale." (BBC News) "Their plan was to smuggle homemade liquid bombs on board several translatlantic passenger flights and to detonate them mid-flight."(BBC News) This is why after August 2006, passengers were banned from taking liquids on board aircraft, says the BBC. Good. Let's keep it that way, I say.
Apparently, the men planned to use a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and other substances disguised as delicious fruit-flavored beverages. (BBC News) "A sugary drink known as Tang would be mixed with the solution to add power to the explosion." (BBC News) Tang! Can you still buy Tang? And who knew that the drink of the astronauts could be subverted to such a dire and evil purpose? The conspirators intended to build detonators that could be concealed in 1.5 volt batteries and ignited by a disposable camera. (BBC News)
Posted by Damozel | The Times Square blast damaged the front of the Armed Services Career Center in Times Square.(NYT) No one was hurt. (NYT) An 'improvised explosive device' did the damage, according to NYC police.(NYT) The area was cordoned off for two hours while police checked for secondary devices.(NYT) The device blew a hole through the front door of the recruitment center. (NYT) Video surveillance recorded the attacks. Authorities are looking into connections with attacks in 2007 on the Mexican consulate and in 2005 on the British consulate. (NYT)
posted by Damozel | A follow-up to an audit by the inspector-general found that "found the FBI demanded [through national security letters] personal data on people from banks, telephone
and Internet providers and credit bureaus without official
authorization and in non-emergency circumstances between 2003 and 2005." (MSNBC; emphasis added). In case you didn't know it, national security letters are "administrative subpoenas that can be
issued under the USA Patriot Act in terror and spy investigations."(MSNBC) Apparently an FBI agent who has one of those can get access to all sorts of records.
by Damozel | Elsewhere in the world, journalists, even journalists in London's quite energetic
tabloid press, had known of the deployment for weeks and kept quiet.
They did so because they did not wish to place Harry in much greater
danger than he was already facing in his deployment, not to mention his fellow soldiers. After all, the man
who is third in line to the British throne certainly might be seen by
the enemy as a rather more valuable hostage than your average Clive,
Trevor, or Nigel.
The decision to send Prince Harry, 23, to Afghanistan under a cloak of secrecy
came after the furore that followed the revelation of his proposed
deployment to Iraq. Much to the Prince's frustration, General Dannatt
announced in May last year that it would be too risky, fearing the Prince and his comrades in the Household Cavalry would become top priority targets
for insurgents. (The Independent)
You'd have thought this might have occurred to Drudge. But either it didn't occur to him or he didn't care.
Posted by Damozel | Yeah, welcome aboard, Prime Minister.
Apparently those CIA torture flights---I don't know why I or The Independent put the words 'torture flights' in inverted commas since that's what they were---landed in the British territory of Diego Garcia on their way to the 'harsh interrogation' of suspected terrorists. (The Independent) Since former Prime Minister Tony Blair and prominent Labour minister Jack Straw (who seems to wear a lot of hats, politically speaking) had 'categorically denied' this, it was all rather embarrassing for current Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Foreign Secretary David Mililband.
by Damozel | A Clearwater man tried to get through security at the Tampa Airport with a box-cutter hidden in a hollowed-out book.(TBO.com)
About 7:30 a.m. Sunday, airport security ran Benjamin Baines Jr.'s
backpack through an X-ray machine and saw the image of a box cutter,
according to a report from the Transportation Security Administration.
When searching the backpack, a security officer found a book titled
"Fear Itself." The book was hollowed out, and the box cutter was inside.
by Damozel | BBC journalist Matt Frei interviewed George W. Bush, who defends US
policy in Darfur and his own "seminal decision" (sic) not to commit
troops to Darfur (BBC transcript). I can't upload the 15 minute video here, but you can see it here or read a summary here.
But that didnât last. Grim as most of the subjects the two of them
canvassed were, and are, several of the things he said evoked mocking laughter or incredulous giggling. But other parts just made me shake my head in disbelief. Still others made me feel vaguely ill. Others evoked the usual helpless rage. The worst part is that I can still see, in a way, why people the people who liked him liked him, and why some might like him still. It was kind of an emotional roller coaster.
Posted by Damozel | Here's a development that has genuinely saddened me. I must not be as cynical as I claim. Today, John McCain voted against a bill that did exactly what he himself has advocated doing in the past: adopted the Army Field Manual interrogation standards for the US government. Anti-torture advocates, such as the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, supported this crucial billl.
In a Republican presidential debate on Nov. 28, McCain said that the
Army Field Manual should be the gold standard for interrogations:
Posted by D. Cupples
| As I've said before, it's only natural that President Bush craves retroactive immunity
for telecom companies that violated laws while helping his
Administration tap Americans' phone calls and emails: when telecoms get sued, their records get subpoenaed -- records likely
doubling as evidence of Administration officials' crimes. Three things to remember:
1) Evidence suggests that the domestic spying program was in the works before 9/11;
2) Some telecom lawyers expressed doubts about the legality of the Bush Administration's wiretapping programs (e.g., Qwest Communications refused to participate); and
3) One telecom giant had no problem saying "No" to the government's wiretapping requests when the FBI forgot to pay its bills.
"Who was Mitt Romney?" asks Jon Stewart. "A cipher...devoid of principle...A salt and pepper man-shaped polymer casing for a spiritual vacuum." Fortunately, "Mitt Romney loves America so much that he could not and would not subject it to a Mitt Romney presidency."
After listening to him equate an Obama or Clinton win with a surrender to terrorism, Jon says a very special farewell.
Here's Silent Patriot at Crooks and Liars to administer the final much needed kick to Romney's backside:
by Damozel | My childhood was haunted by the monster known to South Carolinians as "the atom bum." I lay awake nights worrying about a nuclear strike the same way children of earlier generations worried about the monsters under their beds or the crazy man reputedly locked in a neighbor's attic. It was my Boo Radley, but one I would never really come to terms with. We heard---from whispered rumors on the
playground of things overheard on the evening news or from adult
conversations--- that if it fell on our heads it would leave a crater
stretching to the next small town; we heard about shadows on walls in Japan;
we heard about radiation burns and radiation sickness and the poisoning of the air and water.
by Damozel | My colleague Deb Cupples has recently commented trenchantly on Olbermann's reversal of his position on FISA to match Obama's. Now Glenn Greenwald has administered a swift and deadly kick to Olbermann's credibility on the issue and to any lingering hope that Olbermann might recover sufficient detachment to be considered a reliable commenter on any issue relating to his Hero, Barack Obama. 
by Teh Nutroots | Seven years later, Bush is finally back to chasing Osama bin Laden. Remember him? He's the guy who orchestrated the 911 attacks. Bush got distracted by Saddam Hussein's non-existent 'weapons of mass destruction' and the job of de-stabilizing Iraq, but he's got OBL in his cross-hairs again. 
by Damozel | McCain has weighed in on the Supreme Court's decision in Boumediene v. Bush. He doesn't like it.
by Damozel | 
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Posted by Damozel | Yeah, welcome aboard, Prime Minister. 
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