kpete
kpete's JournalFACEPALM: Republicans Had To Explain To GOP Colleagues WHY Torture Is Wrong.
WASHINGTON -- Ahead of the expected release of a massive, damning report on the Central Intelligence Agency's use of torture in the years after 9/11, at least two Republican senators felt the need to explain something to their GOP colleagues: Torture is wrong.
That was the message Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) relayed as Congress recessed until September, anticipating the possible release of a declassified version of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report of 600-plus pages on CIA abuses.
They felt compelled to speak out because several Republican members of the committee are believed to have written a dissenting section of the report that contends that torture helped save American lives.
McCain, a former member of the Intelligence Committee who knows the report's outline, and Graham, a military lawyer, dispute that the torture of terrorism suspects helped prevent attacks. But even if it did, they argue, any benefit was far outweighed by the damage done to America's reputation and the resulting boost to terrorists' ability to recruit new members.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/04/cia-torture_n_5648234.html
NEVER EVER be under the delusion that Willard Romney did NOT run a Southern Strategy campaign.
And guess what?
IT WORKED.
WILLARD ROMNEY WON SIXTY PERCENT OF THE WHITE VOTE IN 2012.
60%
Barack Hussein Obama II still beat his ass like he stole something.
In both the Electoral College and Popular Vote.
Keep on, keeping on that all you need is White votes.
Matters not to me.
Wrap yourself in that delusion.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2014/08/04/im-coming-to-get-ya-im-coming-to-get-ya/#comment-5074322
*****************************************
Im Coming to Get Ya, Im Coming to Get Ya
Spitting out lyrics homie Ill wet ya:
This is a part of the war on whites thats being launched by the Democratic Party. And the way in which theyre launching this war is by claiming that whites hate everybody else, he said during an interview Monday with conservative radio host Laura Ingraham. Its part of the strategy that Barack Obama implemented in 2008, continued in 2012, where he divides us all on race, on sex, greed, envy, class warfare, all those kinds of things. Well thats not true.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2014/08/04/im-coming-to-get-ya-im-coming-to-get-ya/
Republican Dirt Machine - Trolling Hillary From The Left?
Despite--and perhaps, because of-- the unquestioning, lockstep support and complete lack of criticism of Hillary from Democratic sites such as this, the GOP is taking no chances. A Republican SuperPac, "America Rising" has been formed for the purpose of, among other things, inciting the left's progressive base against the Hillary juggernaut:
America Rising, formed by a former Romney Staffer with the aid of the RNC, has already had some measured success at negative Hillary-framing for a gullible U.S. corporate media eager to stoke the meme of "Democrats in disarray:"
MORE:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/08/america-rising-hillary-clinton-trolling
https://www.americarisingpac.org/
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/04/1318968/-The-New-Republican-Pastime-Trolling-Hillary-From-The-Left
The End of Reefer Madness? by Katrina vanden Heuvel
So its more than a little odd that CADCA and the other groups leading the fight against relaxing marijuana laws, including the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids (formerly the Partnership for a Drug-Free America), derive a significant portion of their budget from opioid manufacturers and other pharmaceutical companies.
http://www.thenation.com/article/180493/anti-pot-lobbys-big-bankroll
***********************
The End of Reefer Madness?
Katrina vanden Heuvel
..........................
Last November, of course, The Nation went all-in on marijuana-law reform with our Dope and Change issue, and I wrote, If Congresswith its dismal 8 percent approval ratingwants to enjoy a popularity as high as marijuanas, it might consider revisiting pots federal prohibition. The blanket federal ban is unworkable on many levels, not least of which is the capriciousness of its enforcement: Given the crazy-quilt of state and local medicinal and decriminalization laws, the actual prohibition of marijuana in this country comes down to, as the Times puts it, the whims of whoever happens to be in the White House and chooses to enforce or not enforce the federal law. Needless to say, this type of jurisprudence is neither fair nor just; Harry Levine reported in Dope and Change that since 1997 in New York City, 87 percent of NYPDs 600,000 marijuana-possession arrests were of blacks and Latinos.
The data-driven, nuts-and-bolts reasons for legalization are legion, andto an unbiased eyeoverwhelmingly convincing. But the bias behind prohibition, born out of 1920s- and 30s-era xenophobia and racism, continues to impress itself on the minds of pundits and policymakers across the political spectrum. The problem that prohibition advocates have, writes Paul Waldman at The American Prospect, is that so much of their rhetoric hasnt changed in decades, steeped in culture war resentments and reliant on fear-mongering. A 2008 article on AlterNet illustrates that twentieth-century drug prohibition was born in places where white minorities ruled over non-white majoritiesSouth Africa and Jamaica, for examplebefore becoming a xenophobic tool of law enforcement (against Latinos in California and Texas, Middle Eastern immigrants in New York, Asians on the Pacific Coast) in places with white majorities.
An examination into the whys and wherefores of our broken cannabis policy is well overdue. After all, this story can and should be about more than just marijuana. American pot prohibition ought to be seen as a cautionary tale of what happens when we create policy based not on appropriately reasoned ideas, but rather on fear, racism and the sensational-but-unfounded caterwauling of policymakers and think-tankers who should know better.
If American drug prohibition laws were enacted, as is convincingly argued, in the service of furthering discrimination, then youd have to saybased on the arrest and incarceration numbersthat theyve been a smashing success. But as far as advancing public health goes well, theyre a disaster. This discrepancy is worth noting. At a time when governmental dysfunction is so prevalent and the demand for congressional actionany actionis high, we need to be aware of the real motives were asking our elected officials to promote (For example, how much of our homeland security policy is actually driven by xenophobia and racism? How much resistance to the Affordable Care Act?). With marijuana, bigotry-based policy has delivered a nearly 100-year-long quagmire from which were only now beginning to extricate ourselves with fact-based debate and informed dissent.
http://www.thenation.com/blog/180874/end-reefer-madness
GOP re-Benghazi: No red meat for the base-No ground beef-No flavored broth-Not even a bouillon cube.
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) and his House Intelligence Committee just wrapped up two years of Benghazi!!!. What they found: no red meat for the base. No ground beef. No flavored broth. Not even a bouillon cube.
Among the Intelligence Committees findings, according to Thompson:
Intelligence agencies were warned about an increased threat environment, but did not have specific tactical warning of an attack before it happened.
A mixed group of individuals, including those associated with al Qaeda, (Moammar) Khadafy loyalists and other Libyan militias, participated in the attack.
There was no stand-down order given to American personnel attempting to offer assistance that evening, no illegal activity or illegal arms transfers occurring by U.S. personnel in Benghazi, and no American was left behind.
The administrations process for developing talking points was flawed, but the talking points reflected the conflicting intelligence assessments in the days immediately following the crisis.
http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/House-panel-No-administration-wrongdoing-in-5663509.php
via:
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2014/08/04/batting-next-darrell-issa/
Profile Information
Member since: Fri Sep 17, 2004, 03:59 PMNumber of posts: 72,035