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I'm on a business trip to the nation's capital. Be back in a week or so. Check out some of the lesser-known, but worthwhile, links over at the right.
New York Republican Rep. Peter King thinks his party needs to go nuke if Bush era officials are prosecuted on torture charges.
King, the outspoken ranking member of the House homeland security committee, said Republicans should “shut down [legislative] activity across the board” if any Bush-era officials are hauled into court.
“We would need to have a scorched-earth policy and use procedural means to bring the place to a halt — go to war,” he told POLITICO.
He added:
“If we have another 2,000 people killed, I want Nancy Pelosi and [liberal philanthropist] George Soros, John Conyers and Pat Leahy to go to the funeral and say, ‘Your son was vaporized because we didn’t want to dump some guy’s head under water for 30 seconds.’”
A new Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll finds that Rick Perry's suggestion at the Tea Party last week, that Texas might have to secede from the Union, actually has significant support from his home state's Republican voters.
One question: "Do you think Texas would be better off as an independent nation or as part of the United States of America?" The top-line number is United States 61%, independent nation 35%. Among Republicans, it's a dead-even tie at 48%-48%.
And then there's this one: "Do you approve or disapprove of Governor Rick Perry's suggestion that Texas may need to leave the United States?" The top-line is only 37% approval to 58% disapproval -- but among Texas Republicans, it's 51% approval to 44% disapproval.
One of the distinguishing characteristics of a "Banana Republic" is an accountable chief executive who ignores the rule of law when it suits his/her purposes. The ruling junta in a "Banana Republic" eschews accountability, commits heinous acts in secret, tolerates widespread corruption, and generally embraces a totalitarian attitude in which the leader can break laws whenever he/she feels it's justified to protect the state.
Does any of this sound familiar?
Rove, McCain, Bond, Hannity, Beck, et al are so caught up in their partisan rage, they've failed to realize they have the story backwards. They're so far gone, they're so blinded by their rigid ideology, they have no idea that they're projecting. It's genuinely pathetic.
If our goal is to avoid looking like a "Banana Republic," then we would investigate those responsible for torture, which is, not incidentally, illegal. The accused would enjoy the presumption of innocence and due process rights. The process would be transparent, and those who act (and have acted) in our name would be held accountable.
A conservative faction of the Republican National Committee is urging the GOP to take a harder line against both Democrats and wayward Republicans, drafting a resolution to rename the opposition the “Democrat Socialist Party” and moving to rebuke the three Republican senators who supported the stimulus package.
In an e-mail sent Wednesday to the 168 voting members of the committee, RNC member James Bopp, Jr. accused President Obama of wanting “to restructure American society along socialist ideals.”
“The proposed resolution acknowledges that and calls upon the Democrats to be truthful and honest with the American people by renaming themselves the Democrat Socialist Party,” wrote Bopp, the Republican committeeman from Indiana. “Just as President Reagan’s identification of the Soviet Union as the ‘evil empire’ galvanized opposition to communism, we hope that the accurate depiction of the Democrats as a Socialist Party will galvanize opposition to their march to socialism.”
“Rhetorically, Republicans are having a very hard time finding something that raises the consciousness of the average voter,” said Saul Anuzis, a former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party who recently lost a bid to became national party chairman.
Workaday labels like “big spender” and “liberal” have lost their punch, and last fall, Senator John McCain of Arizona and Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska gained little traction during the presidential campaign by linking Mr. Obama’s agenda to socialism.
So Mr. Anuzis has turned to provocation with a purpose. He calls the president’s domestic agenda “economic fascism.”
“We’ve so overused the word ‘socialism’ that it no longer has the negative connotation it had 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago,” Mr. Anuzis said. “Fascism — everybody still thinks that’s a bad thing.”
In everything -- from defending torture to eschewing diplomacy to regularly engaging in Orwellian contradiction to its unctuous servility to radical religion to its blatant corporate cronyism to its obvious disdain for intellect -- the Republican Party shows few signs of being a viable political organization and every sign of being a condition, one which causes creeping, mean-spirited dementia; a virus which attacks the conscience and renders it inert; an infection which causes even the most sensible persons to engage in such behavior that, as though trapped within a robotically compliant body, they must watch in mute horror as they utter sentiments similar to those spoken by superstitious inn keepers from the year 1738.
On the House floor on Earth Day, April 22, 2009, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) argued that threat of manmade global warming doesn't make any sense because "carbon dioxide is a natural byproduct of nature":
Carbon dioxide, Mister Speaker, is a natural byproduct of nature. Carbon dioxide is natural. It occurs in Earth. It is a part of the regular lifecycle of Earth. In fact, life on planet Earth can't even exist without carbon dioxide. So necessary is it to human life, to animal life, to plant life, to the oceans, to the vegetation that's on the Earth, to the, to the fowl that -- that flies in the air, we need to have carbon dioxide as part of the fundamental lifecycle of Earth.
TPM notes that Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) told OneNewsNow that the U.S. doesn't need environmental advocates such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) because Jesus saved Earth already:
[Pelosi] is committed to her global warming fanaticism to the point where she has said that she's just trying to save the planet. ... We all know that someone did that over 2,000 years ago, they saved the planet -- we didn't need Nancy Pelosi to do that.
Boreded Ceiling Cat makinkgz Urf n stuffs
1 Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem.
2 Da Urfs no had shapez An haded dark face, An Ceiling Cat rode invisible bike over teh waterz.
3 At start, no has lyte. An Ceiling Cat sayz, i can haz lite? An lite wuz.
4 An Ceiling Cat sawed teh lite, to seez stuffs, An splitted teh lite from dark but taht wuz ok cuz kittehs can see in teh dark An not tripz over nethin.
5 An Ceiling Cat sayed light Day An dark no Day. It were FURST!!!1
6 An Ceiling Cat sayed, im in ur waterz makin a ceiling. But he no yet make a ur. An he maded a hole in teh Ceiling.
7 An Ceiling Cat doed teh skiez with waterz down An waterz up. It happen.
8 An Ceiling Cat sayed, i can has teh firmmint wich iz funny bibel naim 4 ceiling, so wuz teh twoth day.
9 An Ceiling Cat gotted all teh waterz in ur base, An Ceiling Cat hadz dry placez cuz kittehs DO NOT WANT get wet.
10 An Ceiling Cat called no waterz urth and waters oshun. Iz good.
11 An Ceiling Cat sayed, DO WANT grass! so tehr wuz seedz An stufs, An fruitzors An vegbatels. An a Corm. It happen.
12 An Ceiling Cat sawed that weedz ish good, so, letz there be weedz.
13 An so teh threeth day jazzhands.
14 An Ceiling Cat sayed, i can has lightz in the skiez for splittin day An no day.
15 It happen, lights everwear, like christmass, srsly.
16 An Ceiling Cat doeth two grate lightz, teh most big for day, teh other for no day.
17 An Ceiling Cat screw tehm on skiez, with big nails An stuff, to lite teh Urfs.
18 An tehy rulez day An night. Ceiling Cat sawed. Iz good.
19 An so teh furth day w00t.
20 An Ceiling Cat sayed, waterz bring me phishes, An burds, so kittehs can eat dem. But Ceiling Cat no eated dem.
21 An Ceiling Cat maed big fishies An see monstrs, which wuz like big cows, except they no mood, An other stuffs dat mooves, An Ceiling Cat sawed iz good.
22 An Ceiling Cat sed O hai, make bebehs kthx. An dont worry i wont watch u secksy, i not that kynd uf kitteh.
23 An so teh...fith day. Ceiling Cat taek a wile 2 cawnt.
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth and the Zombies sprang forth from the roiling foam of creation, barking in uncontrollable rage, hungry for human flesh to eat and pestork, giving pause to our Lord who shat himself and uttered 'Oh, f**k' amidst the primordial celestial gloom.
Judges 5:6 In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through byways, whereas the zombies sped through using EZPass.
Job 2:2 And the LORD said unto Satan, "Where the HELL did you come from? ha ha ha, that joke never gets old. Two drink minimum."
Psalms 1:1 Blessed is the man that shuffleth not in the gait of the zombies, nor standeth and stareth at nothing in the way of zombies, nor eateth the brains of the scornful.
Matthew 5:5 Blessed are the meek: for their brains shall be eaten first.
Chapter 1 - Creation
In the beginning, as a failed attempt at making humans, God created aliens. However, God was unhappy with because:
1. They outsmarted him.
2. They all looked the same.
3. They don't believe he exists.
For these reasons, he banished them all to Space (hence its dense population). that's why most of Space's population is athiest and will not believe in this page.
Chapter 2, back to the drawing board.
God ,after realizing his mistakes, remade the alien but instead of big eyes he slanted them and made them see through gave them slits,(eyelids) and called them chinese, however after a few months the medical bills and lawsuits started pilling up, guess they were walking and falling into everything, dammit said god ,and not willing to give up sent them to build a great wall to keep them safe inside.
Chapter 3: the dog
after 2 assnumbing failures god decided he needed a spy so he created a four legged friend for his next project , a rere-atempt at the human, guess he didnt trust the slimy f**ks, why do you think your dogs always around , hes droppin the dime on ya homey.
It's not all clear what "formal" request Cheney made to the CIA. He's a civilian with no authority at all, so what did he do, write Leon Panetta a nice letter? For that matter, what's the point of the declassification? Even if Cheney could produce instances in which torture led to reliable acquired intelligence, there's little chance that President Obama is going to say, "You know what? Cheney's right; committing war crimes isn't such a bad idea after all."
But Greg Sargent did a little digging today and found that the CIA apparently hasn't received any "formal" requests from Cheney."The agency has received no request from the former Vice President to release this information," [an intelligence source familiar with the situation] told me a few moments ago.
Last night, Cheney said he'd asked the CIA to release memos he had read containing all the intelligence that had been collected via torture. "I've now formally asked the CIA to take steps to declassify those memos so we can lay them out there and the American people have a chance to see what we obtained and what we learned and how good the intelligence was, as well as to see this debate over the legal opinions," Cheney said.
According to the source, there are several ways this could happen: Cheney could lodge a Freedom of Information Request (which is hard to imagine a former Veep doing); he could contact CIA officials; or he could submit the request via the White House. Cheney said he'd made the request to the CIA.
But at this point, the claim is at least suspect. And given Dick Cheney's record of breathtaking dishonesty, it seems safe to wonder if the former vice president just made this up out of whole cloth to impress the Fox News audience.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), who's been talking up the idea all week, tried to add some caveats yesterday to his secession talk:"This is interesting that this has really kind of bubbled up, to uh... I refer people back to my statement, and I gotta a charge out of it. I was kinda thinking that, maybe the same people who hadn't been reading the Constitution right were reading that article and they got the wrong impression about what I said.
"Clearly, I stated that we have a great union. And Texas is part of a great union. I see no reason for that to change. I think that may not be the exact quote, but that is, in essence what I said."
Well, "essence" aside, what Perry actually said was that he saw "no reason" to "dissolve" the "union." He added, "But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, who knows what may come of that."
Forget "wrong impressions." What the elected chief executive of one of the nation's largest states is supposed to say is secession is ridiculous. That Perry has left it on the table only helps reinforce how completely batty some Republican officials have become. If the GOP wants to rejoin the American mainstream, the party needs to reject these absurdities out of hand. It's radical, fringe politics.
Congressman Mark Kirk is standing by his earlier comments that Illinois residents "are ready to shoot anyone who is going to raise taxes" as much as Gov. Pat Quinn is proposing.
Kirk says the many people facing unemployment don't need a tax increase. Quinn has proposed a graduated income tax increase to help fill an $11.5 billion deficit.
Colbert received more than 230,000 votes out of 1 million, but NASA reserved the right to be the final arbiter.
While it wasn’t the leading vote-getter, Tranquility was one of the top 10 suggestions submitted by respondents to the online poll, which ended March 20, NASA said in a statement. It was selected in part because of a connection to the 1969 first manned lunar landing.
“Apollo 11 landed on the moon at the Sea of Tranquility 40 years ago this July,” said William Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for space operations. “We selected Tranquility because it ties it to the exploration and the moon, and symbolizes the spirit of international cooperation embodied by the space station.”
As a consolation prize to the comedian, Gerstenmaier said NASA is naming “its new space station treadmill the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill, or COLBERT.”
WITH AN EYE ON THE FUTURE.... Over at QandO, McQ wants to help me understand why the Tea Baggers are getting together tomorrow. Since I've been struggling with the point of the Tea Parties, I'm anxious to get some additional insights.Much of the left, Steve Benen serving as a perfect example, are missing an essential point about the tea parties planned around the country. They aren't about the level of taxation now. Instead, those attending them understand that with the massive spending undertaken by the federal government and the massive amounts of currency pumped into the system by the Federal Reserve, taxes aren't going to remain anywhere near where they are now, no matter what politicians promise.
I see. So, at some point in the future (we don't know when), some politicians (we don't know who) might find it necessary to raise taxes. Whose taxes would be raised? It's too soon to say. How much would taxes go up? No one knows.
But the mere prospect of a possible future tax increase has led untold thousands of activists, an entire cable news network, corporate lobbyists, conservative bloggers, conservative talk-radio hosts, and Republican officials to organize a series of national events. With extraordinary foresight, they've organized thousands of rallies to register their outrage, not at existing tax rates, but at tax policies that haven't been proposed, but might exist at some undermined point.
"Spanish prosecutors have decided to press forward with a criminal investigation targeting former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and five top associates over their role in the torture of five Spanish citizens held at Guantanamo, several reliable sources close to the investigation have told The Daily Beast. Their decision is expected to be announced on Tuesday before the Spanish central criminal court, the Audencia Nacional, in Madrid. But the decision is likely to raise concerns with the human-rights community on other points: They will seek to have the case referred to a different judge.
The six defendants -- in addition to Gonzales, Federal Appeals Court Judge and former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, University of California law professor and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, former Defense Department general counsel and current Chevron lawyer William J. Haynes II, Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff David Addington, and former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith -- are accused of having given the green light to the torture and mistreatment of prisoners held in U.S. detention in "the war on terror." The case arises in the context of a pending proceeding before the court involving terrorism charges against five Spaniards formerly held at Guantanamo. A group of human-rights lawyers originally filed a criminal complaint asking the court to look at the possibility of charges against the six American lawyers. Baltasar Garzon Real, the investigating judge, accepted the complaint and referred it to Spanish prosecutors for a view as to whether they would accept the case and press it forward. "The evidence provided was more than sufficient to justify a more comprehensive investigation," one of the lawyers associated with the prosecution stated. (...)”