Cheney's Secret CIA Program: The Cover Story

The story we've been hearing since yesterday is that the secret and possibly illegal CIA program recently killed by chief Leon Panetta has to do with assassinations attempts on Al Qaeda leaders.

A secret Central Intelligence Agency initiative terminated by Director Leon Panetta was an attempt to carry out a 2001 presidential authorization to capture or kill al Qaeda operatives, according to former intelligence officials familiar with the matter.

Bull. Shit. Or, at least, there is much, much more to this story. But we'll hear this "assassinating Al Qaeda operatives" aspect of it shouted from Right Wing mountain tops, along with choruses of "They're terrorists! We're supposed to kill them! Dems are soft on terror!" in order to distract from the programs alleged illegality, and whatever else it involved.

I wouldn't be surprised, given that “the whole committee was stunned, even Republicans," to find out that the program involved something as gruesome as kidnapping and threatening family members of suspected terrorists.

Deep Thought

There are no such things as war crimes anymore.

Man Gored to Death By Bull In Pamplona

Hundreds of people surround and taunt this bull for minutes, and it's obviously confused. Hemingway can kiss my ass. This is, or has become, an awful ritual.

He's Not Looking at Her Ass

Drudge and probably by now the mass of the Right Wing blogosphere is all over this photo:












But Drudge is too dense to notice that one of the stories he links to says this:

Video evidence has thrown doubt on the fact that Barack Obama was checking her out. But it now doesn't look good for President Sarkozy...

Here's the video.

We're So Sorry Our Son Banged Your Wife: Here's $96,000

But please don't think of it as $96,000. Think of it as $12,000 from each of Senator John Ensign's parents to the woman Ensign had an affair with, her husband, and each of their two kids. That's $48,000 from mom and dad each.

And don't think of it as a tax burden, because $12,000 is the legal limit that someone can give to another person without that person incurring taxes.

And don't think of it as hush money! It's just the kind of people we are. We care about people like you. And we regularly give checks for $12,000 to the families of people like you. Especially when our (married) son (who's a senator) bangs them inappropriately.

I shit you not.

Americans' Mongrel, Disease-Causing Genes

File this with "Things you have to see to believe."

In a discussion about a study done in Finland and Sweden which suggests that people who stay married are less likely to suffer from Alzheimer's disease, Fox News host Brian Kilmeade said this:

"We are -- we keep marrying other species and other ethnics and other ..."

"We" marry "other species." You know, "we" white people marry "other species" like black monkey people. Kilmeade then says this:

"See, the problem is the Swedes have pure genes. Because they marry other Swedes .... Finns marry other Finns, so they have a pure society."

Then all three Fox News hosts laughed. Because racist views that could literally have come from the lips of Adolf Hitler are funny. Really, really funny. Pure genes. Pure society. They lead to health and happiness, and no messy genes that lead to Alzheimer's disease.

I've given up thinking that there's something that could be said on Fox that could actually lead to someone losing their job. I'm now convinced that Kilmeade, Bill O'Reilly, and Glenn Beck could all do a show together in which they advocate - and demonstrate - the proper way to rape cats, and we'd hear next to nothing about it.

Paper: Sen. Tom Coburn Suggested Bribery Payoff [updtd 4]

Doug Hampton, the husband of the woman Sen. John Ensign of Nevada had an affair with, has done his first interview. There's a lot of bad in it, but one tiny item jumped out:

The group, including Coburn, a well-known conservative, confronted Ensign and suggested that the Hamptons needed to be given financial assistance -- in the millions of dollars -- to pay off their $1 million-plus mortgage and move them to a new life away from Ensign.

Um, ain't that illegal? Or at least unethical? (Title revised: I guess it wouldn't technically be bribery for an official to buy someone's silence. But it sure would need answering for. On both Ensign's and Coburn's accounts.)

Update: A bit more detail:

In February, Hampton said, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and others at the Christian fellowship house where Ensign stays when in Washington confronted Ensign. The Nevada senator responded by writing a note of apology to Cynthia Hampton.

Doug Hampton said Coburn told Ensign he needed to pay off the mortgage on their $1.2 million Las Vegas home and move them to Colorado.

Update II: A Coburn spokesman denies without denying that the senator suggested a payoff.

Update III: Coburn now flatly denying the claims.

Update IV: Josh Marshall is wondering why this isn't a bigger story. That's what I was wondering yesterday.

The Sing Out For Single Payer Road Show

I sang a song ("Tracheotomy") for Ashland's version of the Sing Out For Single Payer Road Show last night. Big fun. Good crowd. Good cause. Good music. Good things. Check out the schedule over at the site, and see if there's a show coming your way. Tonight: Bend, Oregon.

Thanks, Anne Feeney, for the invite, and for organizing this inspired tour. I hope the remainder goes fantastically.

And special thanks to The Citizens Band, out of Olympia, Washington, three wonderful performers and human beings who were also part of the festivities, and who spent the night at my place last night, making for a very warm, thought provoking, and funny evening in the LT and Tin Tin household. Cheers, Citizens, thanks for coming to our home.

Personal Story About Single Payer Health Care [updtd]

My spouse is from Australia. Her sister still lives there. They both recently had similar, quite invasive (use your imagination) diagnostic medical procedures performed on their lovely selves, my spouse here in the U.S., using my work-based insurance, and sis in Australia, using their national, single payer system. Cost to spouse (and me) and sis', out of pocket:

Spouse: Roughly $3,000

Sister: $95.

Just one example, yes. But a real life one, and one that resonates with us big time.

Update: Lest anyone use this post as research (hello!), I should add this personal story, which I think is an even better example.

* * *


Two quick single payer facts:

Single payer health insurance is a system by which the health care expenditures of an entire population are paid for through one source – the Federal government or a subcontracting entity – using tax revenue from individuals and employers.

Distinctly different from socialized medicine, whereby the government owns and operates health care facilities, a “single payer system” is simply a financing mechanism. The government collects and allocates money for health care but has little to no involvement in the actual delivery of services. Care is provided privately at hospitals and clinics but paid for publicly.

Sen. Jim Inhofe Fantasizes About Sex With Clowns

I advise Sen. Al Franken to keep his distance.

What is This "Rant" That You Speak Of?

Weirdness:

Over the weekend, Long Island Congressman Peter King posted what is often called "a rant" on YouTube -- sounding off. In this case, about what he called the media glorification of Michael Jackson.

[...]

The "rant," as such a video posting is called, that Rep. King posted on the popular video sharing site sparked a split of outrage and praise. And Monday, he told us why he did it.

That "reporter," as people who do research and reporting for newspapers are known, needs to get out more.

Oh, Dodo

A previously undiscovered 17th century picture of a dodo, drawn before the bird became extinct, is to be sold at auction by Christie’s. [...]

Dodos were the main predators on Mauritius until settlers introduced bigger animals to Indian Ocean island, including pigs. Many were shipped to Europe as curiosities or had their nesting areas destroyed and the species was extinct by 1700.

The 350-year-old drawing, described by Christie's as “vibrant”, is one of a small number of images of the unfortunate bird whose demise was largely unnoticed until a dodo featured in Lewis Carroll’s popular 1865 book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Extra.

"There is no 'department of law' at the White House"

Sarah "Only Quitters Don't Quit!" Palin thinks that being vice president is easier than being governor because once you're in the White House a "department of law" looks at charges of ethical violations against you and, if they feel like it, "automatically throw[s] them out."

Also.

P.S. Title of post taken straight from article.

P.P.S. Even more also, with a photo:

Immigrants Making U.S. Safer?

Even undocumented immigrants?!? Modern Republican head asplosion in 10, 9, 8, 7...

So how has this city of poor immigrants become such an anomaly? Actually, it may not be an anomaly at all. Many criminologists say El Paso isn't safe despite its high proportion of immigrants, it's safe because of them.

"If you want to find a safe city, first determine the size of the immigrant population," says Jack Levin, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Massachusetts. "If the immigrant community represents a large proportion of the population, you're likely in one of the country's safer cities. San Diego, Laredo, El Paso—these cities are teeming with immigrants, and they're some of the safest places in the country."

"Wife blows MI6 chief’s cover on Facebook"

Top that, Twitter!

Lady Sawers posted photographs of the family's holidays and gave details of the location of the family's flat in London and the whereabouts of their three children and of Sir John's parents.

On June 16, the day Sir John's MI6 appointment was announced, she posted 19 pictures of the couple on holiday with their friends in England's West Country earlier that month.

The following day she added a further 26 pictures, including one of Sir John playing on the beach in his swimming trunks, posing with his wife and children and chatting with friends and his mother.

Um, awkward. Just awkward.

News We Already Knew: Beer Belly Not Caused By Beer

A big story this weekend regarded a remarkable new finding:

An eight-year study of more than 20,000 beer drinkers - 7876 men and 12,749 women - found that while heavy drinkers will put on weight, it won't necessarily be around the beer belly region. [...]

The study was published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

An eight-year study? They could have just gone to Wikipedia:

However, there is little scientific evidence that beer drinkers are more prone to abdominal obesity, despite it being known colloquially as "beer belly", "beer gut", or "beer pot". One of the few studies conducted on the subject did not find that beer drinkers are more prone to abdominal obesity than nondrinkers or drinkers of wine or spirits.[32][33]

The second footnote goes to this story, from the BBC. First line:

There is no such thing as a "beer belly", according to scientists.

And where did the BBC get that information? From the same journal providing the information for the recent study:

The study was published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Except it was published...in 2003.

This has been another episode of News We Already Knew.

Dems Win Presidency: Fox News Wants Terrorist Attack

It's the only hope to save America from, you know, the stuff Americans voted for.

"We Didn't Go ALL THE WAY Up the Appalachian Trail"

Mark Sanford pours some more fuel on the Comedy Gold fire.

The Supreme Court's Ricci Decision for Dummies

Myself included. Excerpt:

Like that decision or hate it, cheer Monday’s ruling or deplore it, one thing that is clear from reading the Supreme Court’s 89 pages of opinions in the case is that Judge Sotomayor and her colleagues played by the old rules, and the court changed them. Although “Sotomayor Reversed” was a frequent headline on the posts that spread quickly across the Web, it was actually the Supreme Court itself that shifted course.

Sotomayor is a Racist. And a Child Molester

Say something over and over and over and it magically becomes true.

Truths That Give You Hope

The majority of Americans think Bill O'Reilly is a buffoon, and an idiot to boot.

This has been another episode of Truths That Give You Hope.

"Stoned wallabies make crop circles"

Headlines like that just kinda jump out at you don't they? (Oh crap - I swear that pun was unintentional.) Back to our story:

Australian wallabies are eating opium poppies and creating crop circles as they hop around "as high as a kite", a government official has said.

Lara Giddings, the attorney general for the island state of Tasmania, said the kangaroo-like marsupials were getting into poppy fields grown for medicine.

She was reporting to a parliamentary hearing on security for poppy crops.
Australia supplies about 50% of the world's legally-grown opium used to make morphine and other painkillers.

We have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles. Then they crash
Lara Giddings, government official

"The one interesting bit that I found recently in one of my briefs on the poppy industry was that we have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles," Lara Giddings told the hearing.

"Then they crash," she added. "We see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies that are high."

Photo of stoned wallaby from here.

O'Reilly and Beck Play With Barbie Dolls to Go After ACORN

They're still going on about ACORN? Holy crap.

Republicans: Please keep watching these people. Please. Please keep listening to Limbaugh and all the rest. I'm begging you. Because if you do, in 20 years we'll have Australian-style health care, less nukes in the world than any hippie every dreamed about, decades of peace and a much happier world all around.

Please. Watch O'Reilly. Watch Beck. We'll take care of the country.

If Someone Writes "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina" One More Time...

It's not funny. Really, it's not. If Sanford had disappeared because he had gone to fight for a hapless Argentinian rebel group but had to be rescued by Navy SEALS because he twisted his ankle - then it'd be funny. Really funny. Barring that, it's just dumb.

Did Fox News Try to Cover Up Sen. Ensign's Affair? [updtd: Fox responds]

Or interfere in any way? The Las Vegas Sun asks the right questions in this article:

In a letter dated five days before Sen. John Ensign’s public confession of an extramarital affair, Doug Hampton pleaded to a national Fox News anchorwoman for help in exposing the senator’s “heinous conduct and pursuit” of Hampton’s wife.

[...]

The letter presented for the first time Doug Hampton’s view of what took place. It was addressed to Megyn Kelly at Fox News’ corporate office in New York. Kelly is the co-host of Fox News Channel’s “American Newsroom.” She also appears regularly on the “O’Reilly Factor with Bill O’Reilly,” according to the network’s Web site.

The questions:

— Did Fox News receive the letter, and if the network did, what did it do with the information?

— How did Ensign learn that Hampton had “approached a major television news channel”?

More questions:

• If they did in fact receive the letter, is Fox so entirely in the bag for the Republican Party that they would give Ensign time to come forward with an "apology" rather that break a story this big?

• Again, if Fox received the letter, why didn't they come forward when the charges that Hampton was blackmailing Ensign came out? The letter suggests that the charges aren't true.

• Why didn't they report that they got that letter after all the news came out? (That's perhaps the strangest thing about this.)

• If they got a letter about a Democratic senator having an affair - from the husband of the woman he was having the affair with, who happened to be the senator's aide - would they sit on that story, too?

That last questions too ridiculous to ask, isn't it?

Here's the full text of the letter.

Update: Fox is now saying that they never got the letter, but did get it as an email attachment about 24 hours before Ensign came forward:

"We never received any letter from Mr. Hampton," Lowell told the Huffington Post. "He might have sent it, but we never received it. He did reach out to us about 24 hours before the news conference, and he sent an e-mail to a booker on my staff."

Lowell said that a member of his editorial staff followed up with Hampton that day.

"We followed up with him, but he seemed evasive and not credible, thus we didn't pursue it," he said. "We certainly weren't going to rush to air with accusations against a sitting Senator without doing due diligence on the reputability of the claims.

And:

"I know there are people asking if we alerted the senator," Lowell said. "Definitely no one on our editorial team called anyone in Senator Ensign's office prior to our announcement. We just hadn't gotten to that point of confirming the story yet. Somehow, somebody told the Senator something and I don't know how that happened. But I categorically deny that we ever reached out to the senator in any way shape or form prior to him making his announcement."

Some question remains: Why didn't Fox report that they had talked to Hampton the day before Ensign came forward? And why didn't they report more details about the case (they said they got the letter as an attachment to an email from Hampton) after Ensign admitted the affair? Like the report from Hampton that Senator Tom Coburn knew about the affair? And why especially didn't they come forward about the blackmail charges, which are just about completely quashed with news of this letter out there? (What blackmailer goes to a news organization? Unless he did it to cover his ass...)

...

From Gawker:

Two things should be noted about Hampton's letter: 1) It is riddled with spelling and grammatical errors. These people actually work in the Senate? And 2) it baldly contradicts a statement released by Hampton and his wife's lawyer two days ago, which said "it is unfortunate the senator chose to air this very personal matter, especially after the Hamptons did everything possible to keep this matter private." That's a transparent lie. The Hamptons are probably not blameless in this, but if anyone had the capacity to get to the bottom of it, it was Fox. We wonder why they didn't?

Weirder and weirder.

Cracked.com Reviews Glenn Beck's "Comedy" Show

The review comes with notes taken during the show, like the one pictured. Here's an excerpt:

Now, I’m no historian or anything, but I feel confident in saying that I am Cracked.com’s Senior Authority on Motherfucking Presidents, and I certainly know enough to realize that, when you’ve got your audience booing Theodore Fucking Bullet-taking Fucking judo-mastering Fucking Bull Moose Roosevelt, then there is something profoundly wrong. Wrong with you, your audience and your bastardized perversion of history.

Full review here.

Twittering From Iran

Via Attackerman, hair-raising twitter reporting from inside Iran. Just one report:

we are going offline to get a phone free for calling out. we are also moving location - too long here - is dangerous.

DHS: Location of Coal Ash Sites "Too Dangerous" To Reveal To Public

Updating this post about the December, 2008, coal ash slurry spill in Tennessee, we get this news today:

Just how bad has the coal ash situation gotten in the United States? So bad that the Department of Homeland Security has told Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) that her committee can't publicly disclose the location of coal ash dumps across the country.

The pollution is so toxic, so dangerous, that an enemy of the United States -- or a storm or some other disrupting event -- could easily cause them to spill out and lay waste to any area nearby.

There are 44 sites deemed by the Environmental Protection Agency to be high hazard, but Boxer said she isn't allowed to talk about them other than to senators in the states affected.

You know what else we shouldn't be told about? What's in cigarettes. It's too dangerous. You know what else? Torture. It's also too dangerous for us commoners to know about. Pandemics, too. And police brutality. And oil spills. And every murder by handgun...

World's Weirdest Internet Comment Found

Found here, in a forum titled "World's Toughest People":

The toughest man to me is Jesus Christ. He lived for 33 years and he still reigns as the King of Kings

Next is 2Pac

that's all!

Snicker.

Le U

I found an interesting Web site with some very cool kids' drawings, like this one.

Translation: "U is a horseshoe on his foot."

Irish Catholic Child Abuse Report In

Nine years in the making, the 2,600 page report on the treatment of children at Roman Catholic residential institutions in Ireland is in. And it's ugly. Thousands of kids were regularly humiliated, beaten - and raped - by priests and nuns.

More than 30,000 children deemed to be petty thieves, truants or from dysfunctional families _ a category that often included unmarried mothers _ were sent to Ireland's austere network of industrial schools, reformatories, orphanages and hostels from the 1930s until the last church-run facilities shut in the 1990s.

The report, unveiled by High Court Justice Sean Ryan, found that molestation and rape were "endemic" in boys' facilities, chiefly run by the Christian Brothers, and supervisors pursued policies that increased the danger. Girls supervised by orders of nuns, chiefly the Sisters of Mercy, suffered much less sexual abuse but frequent assaults and humiliation designed to make them feel worthless.

The Vatican knew about this, and they not only protected the abusers from investigation by police, they let them remain around children. I don't think I can think of anything more horrible than a church hurting children in this horrific way. How the Catholic Church even exists today is beyond my understanding.





[Ignore the "read more."]

Limbaugh: Obama Creating Welfare State as "Reparations" For Blacks

Just when you though he couldn't go lower:

The objective is more food stamp benefits. The objective is more unemployment benefits. The objective is an expanding welfare state. And the objective is to take the nation’s wealth and return to it to the nation’s quote, “rightful owners.” Think reparations. Think forced reparations here if you want to understand what actually is going on.

Blackie Obama is stealing from America (in other words, white people) for his blackie friends - by giving them welfare! Cuz black people are all about welfare!

It's a megaslur.





[Ignore the "read more." Something's gone haywire with the code.]

Former Navy SEAL Jesse Ventura on Torture

I will criticize President Obama on this level; it's a good thing I'm not president because I would prosecute every person that was involved in that torture. I would prosecute the people that did it. I would prosecute the people that ordered it. Because torture is against the law.

"No exceptional circumstances whatsoever..."

No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture... Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law.

The United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, signed by, and championed by, President Ronald Reagan. (h/t)

Google Swine Flu Tracker

Here. Note that not all of these are confirmed; some are suspected cases.

Torture Memo Author "Regrets" Writing Memo

I think this is very big news:

"I've heard him express regret at the contents of the memo," said a fellow legal scholar and longtime friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity while offering remarks that might appear as "piling on." "I've heard him express regret that the memo was misused. I've heard him express regret at the lack of context -- of the enormous pressure and the enormous time pressure that he was under. And anyone would have regrets simply because of the notoriety."

And other sources, not anonymous:

Tuan Samahon, a former clerk who recalled Bybee's remarks at the reunion dinner, said in an e-mail that the judge defended the legal reasoning behind the memos but not the policy decision. Bybee was disappointed by what was done to prisoners, saying that "the spirit of liberty has left the republic," Samahon said.

"Jay would be the sort of lawyer who would say, 'Look, I'll give you the legal advice, but it's up to someone else to make the policy decision whether you implement it,' " said Randall Guynn, who roomed with Bybee at Brigham Young University and remains close.

This is no accident. Bybee's friends have been sent to get this message out, and it is very bad for Bush officials, possibly including Bybee. He "regrets" writing the memo? I thought everything was perfect and perfectly legal and hunkey-dory with all this. Bybee's telegraphing to the press that it's not. How is that not huge news?

To put this another way: Say Bush and Cheney and the lot of them are accused of murder. They and their supporters keep going on TV and defending them, or distorting the issue, or whatever. Their lawyer, who helped them commit the crime, just said "they're guilty."

This is enormous news.

1,500 Farmers Commit Mass Suicide

No words.

*Not much out about this story yet. Let's hope there are big mistakes in it.

More than 1,500 farmers in central India have reportedly committed mass suicide in the wake of crop failure and increasing debt.

The suicides took place in the agricultural state of Chattisgarh, where people mainly depend on seasonal crops, Earth Magazine reported.

Local residents told the magazine that many of the farmers felt that death was the only option in the face of their insurmountable debt.

[...]

"Farmers' suicides are increasing due to a vicious circle created by money lenders. They lure farmers to take money but when the crops fail, they are left with no option other than death," Prakash said.

At least 10,000 debt-ridden farmers in different parts of the country have committed suicide over the last decade.

Right-Wing Nutcases Upset That Cops Hate Right-Wing Nutcases [updts]

This is just too funny. The Department of Homeland Security (if I could tell you how much I hate that name) has released a report stating that right-wing extremism is rising in recent months. Big surprise, huh?

Malkin and other likeminded nutcases are Free King Out. It really is too funny. Look at the Malkin:

By contrast, the piece of crap report issued on April 7 is a sweeping indictment of conservatives.

Um, Malkin, the report is about violent extremists. Are you identifying with violent extremists? Sure seems like it.

And this really takes the cake. Read this:

DHS/I&A assesses that rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to exploit their skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat.

You know what that is in Malkin and right-wing nutcase land? That's anti-military. Because saying that "right wing extremists will" do yada yada is anti-yada yada. Perfectly logical.

Hey, assholes: The cop killer in Pittsburgh fed off the kind of hate you've been preaching on a daily basis for years. So did the guy trying to build a dirty bomb in Vermont. So did the church shooter in Tennessee. Hell, the worst domestic terrorist in the country's history, Timothy McVeigh, fed on the same stuff. Get used to it being noticed and scrutinized under an administration that doesn't actually pander to that kind of thing.

Update: Even Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs calls the wingers crazy on this one. And notes that the assessment began more than a year ago, so it's hardly an Obama administration effort.

And oh, look: a DHS report on left-wing extremism. Go figure.

Update II: The national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars defends the report:

Glen M. Gardner Jr., national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, disputed claims that Homeland Security analysts were describing veterans as terror threats.

"The report should have been worded differently, but it made no blanket accusation that every soldier was capable of being a traitor like Benedict Arnold, or every veteran could be a lone wolf, homegrown terrorist like Timothy McVeigh," said Gardner, a Marine veteran from Round Rock, Texas. " It was just an assessment about possibilities that could take place."

Note: This post was up before this very good one.

Martin Sexton

I get to go see The Crooner on Saturday.

The Queen Requested the iPod

This has been another addition of "They Can't Get Stupider, Can They? Why Yes, They Can!"

Bottomfeeders Blogging

If you've got a need for a new song for your iPod or similar device, please consider a song from my CD, Bottomfeeders, at iTunes, or any of the several music sites under "Vital Links" to the right. (CDBaby is a nice little company here in Oregon.)

If you have a minute, go give it a listen, see if you find a song that suits you.

* This has been a blog advertising moment. Thanks for the time. *