Down in the bowels of Fox News lurks Ambush Central, the sacred room where the real decisions are made. Here the Fox News brain-trusts gather for their regular 5:30 am meeting. Seated at a large oval table are Steve Doocy, Gretchen Carlson, Brian Kilmeade, Fred Barnes, Brit Hume, Mort Kondracke, Mara Liasson, Bill O’Reilly, Alisyn Camerota, Sean Hannity, Alan Colmes, Juan Williams, James P. Pinkerton, Neil Cavuto, Liz Trotta. Hovering over the table are the Ghosts of Joseph McCarthy, Ronald Reagan, George W Bush (brainless), Karl Rove (heartless), Dick Cheney (soulless), Donald Rumsfeld (gutless), and Christmas Past (joyless). At the head of the table sits Roger Ailes.
For dumb reasons, all of this dumbness enabled by dumb legislators, as well as being fought in a dumb way, resulting in a dumb, stupid civil war which is being further enabled by another bunch of dumb, stupid legislators, creating the biggest and dumbest deficit and indebtedness ever in the whole damned world and history, as well as featuring dumb, stupid and stupidly arrogant torturers, clunks, dumoxes and asses... and it's my birthday and I get to call everyone dumb, every damn, dumb person who ever did anything to create or enable the unending continuation of damn dumb stupidity.
The second in a series of Iraq war studies has been released by the Army's Combined Arms Center. The study concludes that "planning" for post-Saddam Iraq was ". . . not well thought out, planned for, and prepared for before it began."
"Additionally, the assumptions about the nature of post-Saddam Iraq on which the transition was planned proved to be largely incorrect."
Remember: The Republicans are supposed to be the experts in national security and John McSame wants another 100 years of this nonsense.
So why did they bury the story as part of the Friday evening news dump? First off, because SETTLING the case is not the same as SOLVING the case.
The anthrax case they settled was brought by Steven Hatfill. He's the guy Ashcroft identified as a "person of interest" when people were agitating for a real investigation. Turns out Hatfill was innocent. That means the government wasted millions of dollars harrassing him, and now they have to pay millions of dollars more to settle the lawsuit he filed for invading his privacy and ruining his life. Heckuva job Ashcroft!
That is the legacy of this administration when it comes to terrorism. They don't catch the guys. They can't even find the guys. And they blow tons of money pissing people off in the process. That's all bad, but here's something worse. The guy who did this is still out there. And there is a very good case to be made for who the likely suspect really is. If you think that is important, read on ...
Every once in a while, I like to find out what the wingnuts are saying. I used to put on Limbaugh once in a while if I drove to get lunch, or Hannity on the way home for work now and again. It helps because I when I engage a wing-nut (aka visit my dad) I know what the arguements will be before he opens his mouth, and I have my answers already worked out.
According to McClatchy Newspapers and former Defense and Administration officials, abuse of prisoners held without charges was a consequence of a legal firewall constructed by a War Council composed of Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, John Yoo, William Haynes and Timothy Flanigan which met in secret to deliberately and premeditatedly toss out US and International laws specifically designed to assure humane prisoner treatment at Guantanamo and in Afghanistan. This legal framework sought to justify detention in a way that thwarted Federal courts, international treaties and the Military Code of Justice, as well as obscuring accountability and preventing prosecution on all levels for what might be considered war crimes. The War Council was sanctioned following 9-11 by President George W. Bush, Vice-President Richard Bruce Cheney and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
It might be that none of them can (or could) travel outside of their respective countries of national residence for fear of arrest and indictment by foreign (read here European) governments. This, and more, is laid out at the following link:
The Washington Post is reporting that a Senate investigation -- parts of which are expected to be made public Tuesday -- has concluded that high-ranking Pentagon officials researched "harsh interrogation techniques" including "stress positions, sleep deprivation and the hooding of detainees during questioning" and waterboarding, as early as summer 2002. Further, the Pentagon falsely attributed the development of these techniques to requests from "commanders in the field" when in fact the techniques were initially investigated by the top officials themselves.
The Senate Armed Services Committee will be holding hearings into the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. Tomorrow is part one, as Senator Levin's committee looks into the origins of U.S. aggressive interrogation techniques. A new article by AP makes clear that these techniques were approved at the highest levels, and that the resulting torture revelations were not due to the actions of a few "bad apples."
Also, on Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing entitled "From the Department of Justice to Guantanamo Bay", which is the second part of its inquiry into administration lawyers, like John Yoo, and their role in writing and approving torture and guidelines for abusive interrogation.
On June 13, 1967, Thurgood Marshall was appointed to the Supreme Court.
On June 13, 1971, The New York Times began publishing the Pentagon Papers.
When I plotted out the first two weeks' worth of June's diaries, I said to my wife, "Damnit! Why couldn't [these events] have happened on different days?"
Any one of these events would have invited a thorough diary examining the factors involved in the various decisions, the ramifications of those decisions and the impacts of those decisions on our society.
I hope, and trust, that those Front Pagers who remember one or more of today's honored events happening will write something about it, because the significance of each event cannot really be overstated.
And because they cannot be overemphasized, because they are such dramatic, society-changing events, there was no need for me to do my usual opening intellectual strip-tease. (Totally doing it tomorrow, though.)
The Record Has "Been Gathered." We were told that to hold a criminal administration responsible it was first necessary to "build the record," establish certain facts. That has been done: Senate Intelligence Committee Report, Phase II, June 2008. [warning PDF]
"Rebuked." "Hold them accountable." Lame chastisements. Words hurt? I can hear them laughing: "Sticks and stones..."
Senator Whitehouse ::
It rots the very fiber of democracy when our government is put to these uses.
What about A.C.C.O.U.N.T.A.B.I.L.I.T.Y.? It's in such short supply that I believe we have lost track of what it means. Eerily, one might ask, what would Gates do? He seems the only one around capable of firing anyone.
It looks like that long forgotten "Phase 2" of the investigation into pre-war intelligence has finally happened.
Talking points memo has links with PDFs, links to McClatchy and some quotes from Senator Rockefeller's press release.
Statements by President Bush and Vice President Cheney regarding the postwar situation in Iraq, in terms of the political, security, and economic, did not reflect the concerns and uncertainties expressed in the intelligence products.
"This is ... one of the great tragedies of the Bush administration," Gingrich continued. "The more successful they've been at intercepting and stopping bad guys, the less proof there is that we're in danger. And therefore, the better they've done at making sure there isn't an attack, the easier it is to say, 'Well, there never was going to be an attack anyway.' And it's almost like they should every once in a while have allowed an attack to get through just to remind us."
What a patriotic Republican hero this man is! It's a shame he didn't run for President!
To the sound of one hand clapping, the U.S. Department of Defense has given Africa its rightful place in the pantheon of continents. It is now the exclusive domain of its own U.S. military headquarters command--Africom.
Several days ago, the media picked up Scotty McClellan's new tell-all tell-some memoir and began reporting that Scotty was done rolling over FOR Bush, and was starting to roll over ON Bush. Of course, these news reports looked something like this:
As a result, activity has increased significantly at The Karateexlosions Fortress Compound of Doom™. This comes as no surprise to the literally tens of fans of THE SCOTTY SHOW! But difficult as it is to believe, there are people out there who have gone their whole lives without soaking in the majesty of a SCOTTY SHOW!
When Scotty's new book comes out, THE SCOTTY SHOW! will emerge from its retirement as a new mini-series that will pit our hero, Scotty, against his most brilliant and cunning foe -- himself. Watch for it in mid-June.
But until then, it seems only right that those deprived masses who never got to experience THE SCOTTY SHOW finally have that opportunity. So I bring to you now, a very special SCOTTY SHOW clip show.
The anthrax case they settled was brought by Steven Hatfill. He's the guy Ashcroft identified as a "person of interest" when people were agitating for a real investigation. Turns out Hatfill was innocent. That means the government wasted millions of dollars harrassing him, and now they have to pay millions of dollars more to settle the lawsuit he filed for invading his privacy and ruining his life. Heckuva job Ashcroft!
