Smearing Elena Kagan: Grey Lady Smear-Sandwich Edition

I read the NYT this AM and realized that I was actually reading the National Enquirer.

No, really.

On the front page, to which I shall not link, is a charming piece smearing Kagan with the "A" word -- gentle readers, you must know what that one is, the thing that uppity women must not be -- (whispers) ambitiouss -- ooooooooooooo so scarey --- and on the inside back page, NYT features comments on Kagan's views of executive powers as parsed by --- insert drum roll here --- pro-torturer-in-chief John Yoo.

Oh, my. Who thought that one up? The Heathers? ("Hey, whatcha say we ask John Yoo what he thinks about Kagan's views on executive power?" [Crowd chortles, all dig elbows into one another's ribs.] "Hyuk, hyuk!" "Do it! Do it!")

Really I do get sick of this sh*t.

But -- why am I so alone?

So lucky that early adopter Goldman-Sachs-slayer Obama Afghanistan-surge non-supporter public optionist Martha Coakley didn't win over uber-charmer Scott Brown, isn't it?

Brown? Coakley? [Insert The Big Shrug.]

It really doesn't make any difference, does it? It's all hopeless, so who cares?

And then we have a wonderful blogger to whom I shall not link who's very generally wonderful save for relatively rare spasms of bad madness who's spending his precious time on earth helpfully calling Hillary Clinton a war criminal.


Jeez, people.

Wake the f*ck up.

CIA/US Oympic Waterboard Torture Team Wins Best in Show

Well!

Don't these CIA guys and gals have the very best work ethic in the universe?

They sure were following orders!

Waterboarding people three times a day? Is that what is meant by "three squares"? Or is that a type for three quarts? Probably more like 3 gallons? I dunno. How much water does it take to drown a guy or gal? Not so much really. Plus, it's earth week. No waste water wanted.

But you have to admit the zeal of the US Waterboard Torture Team is/was magnificent.

So. Celebrate their success. Just do it. Instead of getting all bitchy and PMS and hot an bothered about silly pussy things like moral bankrupcty and undermining the rule of law, shouldn't we join Obama and Rahm and just STFU?

Shouldn't we be passing the hat around to support them, taking up a collection so they can afford to develop some mirror neurons?

Waterboarding [E.g. Chinese Water Torture] Used 266 Times on 2 Suspects.

2 suspects, eh?


Would that be -- Cheney? And Rummy?


Technorati Tags: torture, Bybee, CIA, memo, moral bankrupcty

Red China Brown-Noses Dirty Bush!!

Do Not Undo Bubble Boy's Glorious Legacy!!, China begs.

Na na na na, Na na na na, Hey hey hey --- Good-BYE!!

The Original Version. Well worth a listen.

"What's In a Name? A Rose By Any Other Name Would Smell --- " Um, like Torture?

No, Mikey, let's SO not call a spade a spade.

Let's keep throwing obfuscatory Orwellian propaganda-spin-chaff-labels around and see if anyone will notice.

Or if anyone will even mind.

So far so good, after all. The real problem is -- gay marriage! And a horrid failure to fill the universe with more and more unwanted children!

MukaseyCites Risk in Using Term 'Torture'.

(At this, NBFH, in a very unladylike manner, spits.).

No, no risk in torturing.

Truth-telling? Whoa, now that's risky business!


Question from non-media-whore media Foreign Press: Uh, Meester Mukasey, Meester Bush, Meester Rumsfeld, Colonel Geoffrey Meeller, een your Eenglish language, how you say "consciousness of guilt"?

.

.

Bubble Boy: Pissed As A Newt on Pisco Sours in Gay Peru

Yup, it's official: Preznit Toad-Exploder's fallen off the wagon.

Libby Spencer's got it.

FYI: AP story asserts that that which Dirty Bush is drinking might be uh 'alcohol-free' Pisco?

[coughchokecough]

Yuh, they make a lot of that in Lima. Trust me.

My Tax Dollars At Work Torturing Sentient Beings at Gitmo. Swell.

A story that turns one's stomach. And if it doesn't, there's something really wrong with one's stomach.

Trapped at Gitmo.

The only people . . ."he sees [are] the camp guards who bring his meals. He has had no other human contact. The glaring lights in his cell are on 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When we left the cell, we could hear Saber shouting -- brief, truncated cries. We could not understand what he was saying."

Miscellany

Anglachel on the stupidity that is Clinton Derangement Syndrome.

Dirty Bush Stuffs Gov't With Dirty Bushists to Continue Failed Bushist Fascist Policies -- Because Bubble Boy Is Still the Deciderer!

Options for shutting down Gitmo.

Iraq Stands Proud and Tall For Fraud

Bush Admin to Obama: Shutting Down Gitmo "Won't Be Easy"

Not as easy as leading the US into moral and fiscal bankrupcty, anyhow.

DO EXACTLY WHAT WE SAY AND NOBODY WILL GET HURT

Yes, they're holding their gunses to our headses.

They're saying "Do exactly what we say about this financial crisis and nobody will get hurt."

They will pull the trigger on us anyway.

So what's at stake?

The Fate of the Nation


Just. Say. No.


------
Yo, who dunnit? That would be -- Dirty Bush. The Breadcrumb Trail Passes through a SECRET POWER PLACE at The Out of Joint Times.

Playing the Apocalypse Card

Official No Blood for Hubris' prognostication on Dirty Bush's upcoming financial disaster cash for trash speech.

It will say:

Be afraid!

Be verry afraid!

DO EXACTLY WHAT WE SAY AND NO ONE WILL GET HURT.

(Update: one was right! BUSH: Bailout Now or Suffer More Later.)



But I'm thinking -- sure, Preznit Toad-Exploder, that fear-hype worked oh so well after 9/11 when the national psyche had wicked bad PTSD -- numbing and avoidance; hyperarousal (anxiety panic hypervigilance irritability angry outbursts insomnia tantruming aggression); flashbacks and nightmares.

Ergo = Rush to War.

But that was seven years ago.

Now, I'm thinkin' we're ready, and that it's now more like -- fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, you can't get fooled again.

Eh?

------

Here's a great catch via democommie on Mrs. Palin, Head of Skate.

Contemptible Rove Cited For Contempt of Congress

So, does this mean that there is a God?

House Judiciary Committee votes to cite former White House aide Rove for contempt of Congress

A House panel voted Wednesday to cite Karl Rove, formerly President Bush's top aide, for contempt of Congress as its Senate counterpart explored punishment for alleged misdeeds by other administration officials.

But it was not clear that the Democrats controlling a lame-duck Congress will push their case for abuse of power against a lame-duck president beyond televised talk and vague threats just a few weeks shy of final adjournment. As a practical matter, lawmakers have little time and less willingness to follow through on most charges, let alone punishments, before Bush leaves office.

They're finding plenty of time and political purpose, however, for public reviews of what Democrats say is the abuse of power and politicization across the Bush administration. Rove and the Justice Department starred in Wednesday's proceedings.

No, maybe not.

More here.

The Brave New World of Dirty Bush

He's a generous guy, our Preznit Toad-Exploder. He's always working hard to give us all a little bit more of his special way of being.

He's Bubble Boy. He's unique.

He's Dirty Bush.

Among his many special gifts:

Moral bankruptcy.

Fiscal bankruptcy.

Foreclosures.

And now, his drowning of America in Grover Norquist's stinky bathtub results in --death by foreclosure.

OWNER SHOOTS HERSELF AFTER FORECLOSURE

A US woman shot herself shortly after faxing a letter to her mortgage company saying that, by the time it foreclosed on her house, she would be dead.

Police said 53-year-old mother Carlene Balderrama used her husband's high-powered rifle to kill herself shortly after faxing the letter at 2.30pm (4.30am AEST) on Wednesday.

Her husband had petitioned unsuccessfully for bankruptcy three times.

The mortgage company phoned police in Taunton, Massachusetts, who found Mrs Balderrama's body an hour later.

The auction was scheduled to start at 5pm and interested buyers arrived at the property while her body was still inside, Taunton police chief Raymond O'Berg said.

Business -- as usual.

(Oh, and don't miss toe-tapping airport mensroom anon sex solicitor Senator Larry Craig's very special support of Don't Ask Don't Tell. Shhh.)

What Goes Around Comes Around: Rummy, Dirty Bush, Big Dick Recycle Commie Brainwashing at Gitmo

This is a nice story.

It's the kind of actual in-depth journalism that, had the NY Times been so doing all along, one wouldn't still be thinking of the New York Times as belonging to the media whore media.

The cool thing is that Rummy/Dirty Bush's 21st century All-American torture techniques were originally designed by their original designers TO ELICIT FAKE CONFESSIONS.

Haha.

I mean, really, hahaha.

WASHINGTON — The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”

What the trainers did not say . . . was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.

The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Original report, here.

Rummy, Cheney, Bushist Fascists: Torture Gets Them Hard, Says Beaver (no, I'm not making this up)

Why aren't all the members of the pro-torture crowd safely rotting in jail?

On Tuesday, December 2 2002, Donald Rumsfeld signed a piece of paper that changed the course of history. That same day, President Bush signed a bill to put the Pentagon in funds for the next year. The US faced unprecedented challenges, Bush told a large and enthusiastic audience, and terror was one of them. The US would respond to these challenges, and it would do so in the "finest traditions of valour". And then he signed a large increase in the defence budget.

Elsewhere in the Pentagon, an event took place for which there was no comment, no fanfare. With a signature and a few scrawled words, Rumsfeld reneged on the tradition of valour to which Bush had referred. Principles for the conduct of interrogation, dating back more than a century to President Lincoln's famous instruction of 1863 that "military necessity does not admit of cruelty", were discarded. He approved new and aggressive interrogation [torture] techniques that would produce devastating consequences.

I don't know why they're not safely rotting away in jail.

[Staff Judge Advocate Lt. Col. Diane] Beaver recalled that smothering was thought to be particularly effective, and that [Major General Michael E.] Dunlavey, who'd been in Vietnam, was in favour because he knew it worked.

The younger men would get particularly agitated, excited even: "You could almost see their dicks getting hard as they got new ideas." A wan smile crossed Beaver's face. "And I said to myself, you know what, I don't have a dick to get hard. I can stay detached."

Beaver confirmed what Dunlavey had told me, that a delegation of senior lawyers came down to Guantánamo well before the list of techniques was sent up to Washington. They talked to the intelligence people, they even watched some interrogations. The message from the visitors was that they should do "whatever needed to be done", meaning a green light from the very top - from the lawyers for Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the CIA.

I hope they begin rotting away in jail very soon, and for a very very long time.



Full story at the Guardian, here.

Torturz "R" -- US!!

Jimmy Carter tellz it like it iz.

Not that anyone here seems to give a shit. I mean, not that any of the Bushist fascists seem to give a shit.

Oh wait. Right.

That would be because -- they're Bushist fascists!!

Anyhow, God bless you, Jimmy Carter.

God bless you.


.

Casualties of War

A Task

. by Czeslaw Milosz


In fear and trembling, I think I would fulfill my life

Only if I brought myself to make a public confession

Revealing a sham, my own and of my epoch:


We were permitted to shriek in the tongue of dwarfs and demons

But pure and generous words were forbidden

Under so stiff a penalty that whoever dared to pronounce one


Considered himself as a lost man.






.





This photograph says it all.
Osama lives, our young men and women die and suffer, Iraqis die and suffer.

Bushist fascism and the arrogant, Oedipal, sanctimonious hubris that fuels it continue to bring our country to its knees, leaving us fiscally bankrupt and morally bankrupt.


No one pays for these crimes.

So far.







I'm going on retreat for a while.

See you later.

Iraq War
Dirty Bush
Photograph by Nina Berman, from her excellent book, "Purple Hearts." I think this photo will become an emblematic photo of Bubble Boy's horrid Oedipal war. (Another was the Abu Ghraib hooded black figure with wires attached to his hands.)

Fall of Turd Reich As Karl Rove Cuts & Runs

Turdblossom Karl Rove says he's leaving the White House because he wants to spend more time with his family, coming home from work early every day and playing gentle games lying on the floor with his 18-year-old adult son. And his second wife.

So sweet, really.

He wants to spend more time playing with his son, who won't be at even be at home to play with -- because the 18-year-old adult son's going away to college. (Perhaps changing his last name?) Not the second wife, though.

Hm.

No time to think up a less feeble excuse? Ouch.

One wonders why, having weathered many a storm, Turdblossom's finally thrown in the towel.

Whatever could have dislodged him?

Will it be a big shiny new fresh steaming turd that someone just plopped into the Bush WH punchbowl?

A turd that really makes waves.

Big ones. Bad stinky ones.

A turd so big, it says:

EVERYBODY OUTTA THE POOL.






Ee-ew.


Karl Rove
Rove resigns

A Trip Down Memory Lane

Huzzah! Bubble Boy Brings Back Burqas!

Bubble Boy Wastes Blood and Treasure to Install Medievalist Islamic Theocracy: Mainstream Media Mum

No Veteran Not Left Behind

We Can't Care for the Children We Already Have

Child Abuse Prevention Month

America, America: Torture for Fun

Dirty Diaper Fetishist Senator Vitter Caught With His Pampers Down

"I'm not a fan of personal vendetta gotcha-style politics," said Jon Stewart on Tuesday's Daily Show.

"But -- there can be exceptions. Take Louisiana Senator David Vitter . . . .who came to prominence in the 90's demanding President Clinton's impeachment for the Monica Lewinsky affair.

Well, it seems the condom is on the other foot."

read more | digg story

The condom is indeed on the other foot. Seems that prostitute-using Talibangelical Senator Vitter, beyond merely paying big bucks for his hookers, prefers using pro-ho dominatrices to fuel his diaper fetish. And he's the one wearing them. Ee-ew.

Oh, and apparently flat-earth-Republican Mrs. Vitter, who was SO unforgiving of budgetary surplus-creating, Al-Qaeda aware President Clinton's brief consensual fling, has NO problem with her own hubby's illegal kinky professional adultery.

Hey, they're Republicans. They can have contempt for the rule of law. They can get away with murder and adultery. Up is down. Bad is good. Different strokes. "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." (See below)

More on the Sex Senator, here.


Senator Vitter
Vitter and diapers