Speaking of the Bush family, you probably need to take the fifteen minutes minutes to watch Jon Oliver's take on torture. And hey, it also features Helen Mirren.

(Yes I know fifteen minutes is a long time in internet terms, but trust me it is worth your time.)

Here is more courtesy of Raw Story:  

With a CBS poll showing the 69 percent of Americans believing that waterboarding is torture and 57 percent believing “aggressive” interrogation techniques help stop terrorist attacks, Oliver set out to point out that not only doesn’t torture work — it may make a comeback since it is only restricted by executive order, which can be tossed out by the next president. 

With the help of British actress Helen Mirren, Oliver compared the reality of torture to the version most American’s believe from television shows like “24.” 

With Mirren reading from the report about “rectal rehydration” — in the case of one detainee who was force fed a meal of hummus, pasta, nuts, and raisins pureed and introduced rectally — an aghast Oliver challenged his viewers to “try not to think about that the next time you eat hummus.”

Oliver's point that the only thing that is keeping us from torturing people right now is an executive order, that the next President can repeal on a whim, is yet ANOTHER reason to make damn sure that our next Commander-in-Chief is not a Republicans. And certainly NOT another Bush!

P.S. To end this post let me just trot out one of my own personal conspiracy theories, which is that the program "24" (Which is cited several times in this video.) was purposefully broadcast into our homes to help Americans become comfortable with the idea of torture. After all we saw it saving American lives every week on our television sets.

I don't actually have any proof of that, but it's one of those things that just seems a little too coincidental to actually be a coincidence.

And just to screw with you further the creator, Joel Surnow, is a Republican who is good friends with Rush Limbaugh. He filmed the pilot for the show in March of 2001, and aired the first episode on November 6th less than two months after the attacks on 9-11.

Surnow now owns the actual American flag that was flown over Baghdad during the 2003 invasion. 

Not saying you should read too much into this, just saying these facts exist.

Just a reminder that Nicolle Wallace is still just a Bush Administration apologist.

Courtesy of The Washington Free Beacon: 

“I think months after 9/11 there were three people who we thought knew about imminent attacks, and we did whatever we had to do, and I pray to God that until the end of time we do whatever we have to do to find out what’s happening,” Wallace said on Tuesday’s Morning Joe. “And the notion that this somehow makes America less great is asinine and dangerous.” 

Wallace also slammed White House Spokesman Josh Earnest for failing to admit that the CIA’s interrogation techniques did not yield information instrumental in finding and killing Osama bin Laden. 

“I have never felt more frustrated with this White House’s inability to speak clearly than I was yesterday when Jon Karl was pushing Josh Earnest to say whether Obama found the information gleaned helpful in killing bin Laden,” Wallace said. 

“That’s what this is about… The notion that what we do affects the behavior of terrorists is a lie. It’s a lie perpetrated by political correctness and by liberals and it’s dangerous.”

I know that when dealing with Sarah Palin we often embrace the adage "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," but in the case of Wallace we need to remember who she is and where she came from.

By the way the Senate torture report says that there were more than three detainees waterboarded and that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times. And the "intelligence" he gave up was absolutely worthless.

What I find most damning is that Wallace's opinion is in direct conflict with her old boss John McCain's position.

The Bush Administration is guilty of war crimes and of lying to the American people. Period.

And nothing that Nicolle Wallace, Dick Cheney, or any other conservative pundit has to say will change that.

Blast from the past: Christopher Hitchens subjects himself to waterboarding in order to prove it is not torture. Instead proves the opposite.

There is a never ending stream of criticism that is leveled at Hitch, some of it even from me back in the days when he was a cheerleader for the Iraq war and I was angrily speaking out against it with every post. However what can NEVER be said about Hitchens is that he is a coward.

Even before he accepted his terminal cancer diagnosis and continued debating against religious faith in spite of his own impending demise, Hitchens decided to call the bluff of his detractors by proving that he could withstand waterboarding just as well as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who, it was reported, had been subjected to the torture 183 times.

Instead Hitch learned two things.

One, that he would gladly have given up state secrets in a heartbeat in order to avoid the process again.

And two, that despite his earlier protestations waterboarding was indeed torture.

Afterward he immediately wrote a compelling article admitting his ignorance, and telling the world that the process did not simulate the feeling of drowning, but in fact those subjected to it were actually being drowned.

You may remember that Hitchens was not alone in expressing his willingness to prove his point by allowing himself to be waterboarded.

Sean Hannity did the same thing, for charity even.

The exception of course is that Hannity is a cowardly POS and has never sacked up and followed through. (Not only that, but if you remind him of his broken vow he throws a tantrum and quickly changes the subject.)

I did not always agree with Christopher Hitchens, but I always respected his intellect and his courage. Something, by the way, that is often in short supply these days. 

MSNBC video of Sarah Palin shows her going after undocumented workers and defending her waterboarding/baptism comments.

You know it is one thing to read Palin's comments as reported by a journalist, or as written on Facebook with or without a ghostwriter, but hearing her say this kind of crap in her own voice really underlines just what a nasty bitch she is.

The other day somebody pointed out that it seemed that she was becoming more hateful with every appearance, and I would agree that it certainly seems that way.

As if she is so angry that she has been marginalized, and that fewer people are reacting to what she says, that she is simply saying more and more horrible things in the desperate hope that somebody will be forced to respond to them in print.

Well they are responding to her alright. In fact a group Christians has even started a petition to make sure that people know she does not speak for them: 

For Christians, torture is not a joke or a political punchline, but a ghastly reminder of the suffering of Jesus upon the cross. By equating it with Holy Baptism -- the act by which we are united with Christ in his death and resurrection -- Sarah Palin is blasphemously twisting our faith into a weapon of hatred and violence. No media outlet should cover her remarks without reporting on how sincere Christians of all theological and political persuasions are appalled.

However she DOES still have supporters, as the American Conservative found out recently after they called her out over her remarks. 

I will restate what I have said before, and that was that the point of maintaining focus on Palin and blogging about her speeches, Fox News interviews, and reality show gigs was to continue to publicize her craziness, until everybody could see for themselves what I, and others, had been accused of making up about her.

I promised back in 2009, that I would stay on her ass until we finally saw her career in its death throes.

Well, now we are seeing just that.

Pretty entertaining isn't it?

Sarah Palin takes to Facebook to double down on her Waterboarding/Baptism remarks.

"I meant what I said, and I say what I meant, I am just an idiot 100%."

Courtesy of the Lunatic from Lake Lucille's Facebook page:  

Actions to stop terrorists who’d utterly annihilate America and delight in massacring our innocent children? Darn right I’d do whatever it takes to foil their murderous jihadist plots – including waterboarding. Whatever one thinks of my one-liner at the NRA rally about treating evil terrorists the way they deserve to be treated to prevent the death of innocent people, it’s utterly absurd for MSNBC to suggest that I could put our beloved troops in harm’s way, but we’ve come to expect the absurd from that failing network. If you want to talk about what really harms our troops, let’s talk about politicians who gut our military’s budgets, or a president whose skewed budgetary priorities slash military benefits, or an administration that puts our vets on endless waiting lists for care that comes too late to help those who’ve paid the price for our freedom, or those who break bread with those who think it makes no difference how our military heroes died in Benghazi or anywhere else trying to protect America. Those actions are a heck of a lot more harmful than declaring an appropriate message our enemies should receive. If some overly sensitive wusses took offense, remember the First Amendment doesn’t give you a right not to be offended. Perhaps hypocritical folks who only want Freedom of Speech to apply to those who agree with their liberal agenda might want to consider that the evil terrorists who were the brunt of my one-liner would be the first to strip away ALL our rights if given the chance. That’s why we do whatever we can to prevent them from killing innocent people. And for that, we should NEVER apologize. Good Lord, critics... buck up or stay in the truck. And if you love freedom, thank our troops! Thank our vets! And thank those who have the brains to support them and the guts to defend what they have earned! 

- Sarah Palin

Well it looks like SOMEBODY'S ghostwriter stepped out for a quick smoke and left the Wasilla Wendigo pounding on her keyboard. "Overly sensitive wusses?" Really?

Of course as everybody outside of the Bush administration will now admit, torture did not keep Americans safe, nor did it help to find Osama Bin Laden.

In fact as this Daily Beast article explains, it actually hurt the U.S.: 

We will never know how much information the U.S. lost because it failed to use time-tested, effective, and humane methods of interrogation. We will never know how many years earlier bin Laden could have been captured and how many lives spared if, instead of whisking them off to a prison outside the law, the U.S. had instead charged Mohammed and al Libi in federal courts and treated them properly and in accordance with due process. We do know that bin Laden’s death does not end the threat terrorists pose to the U.S. and other nations. But we also know that the best way to guard against future attack is by rejecting the use of torture outright and staying faithful to the rule of law and basic tenets of decency. This is true not only because it is the right thing to do, but because it works.

All Palin has demonstrated with her truly horrific remarks is that she knows NOTHING about fighting terrorism, and nothing about how much American lost when it allowed fear to frighten it into forget who we are, and what we once stood for.

And now she has helped to remind people what a colossal mistake it would have been to let her anywhere NEAR the White House, and the office of the President.

Sarah Palin's remarks during NRA speech receive conservative backlash. About time.

Courtesy of the American Conservative:  

Palin and all those who cheered her sacrilegious jibe ought to be ashamed of themselves. For us Christians, baptism is the entry into new life. Palin invoked it to celebrate torture. Even if you don’t believe that waterboarding is torture, surely you agree that it should not be compared to baptism, and that such a comparison should be laughed at. What does it say about the character of a person that they could make that joking comparison, and that so many people would cheer for it. Nothing good — and nothing that does honor to the cause of Jesus Christ. 

If I thought that kind of hateful declaration and abuse of the Christian religion was what conservatism stood for, I wouldn’t be able to call myself a conservative. Some conservatives do stand for that. They’re wrong, and they should be called out on it — not because some liberal somewhere is going to be offended, but first and foremost because we Christians who identify as conservatives are appalled by it.

Courtesy of The Federalist:

I’ve long defended Palin against the offensive treatment she’s received at the hands of a blatantly biased media, a media that collectively lost its mind the moment she entered the national stage. But that hardly means she must be defended at all times.

Those were conservatives, who once thought Palin was someone to be admired.

Here was how Andrew Sullivan, not a fan of Palin's but still a conservative, and still a very religious man covered it:  

A Christian who can equate the sacrament of baptism with a barbaric form of torture is not a Christian, whatever self-righteous blather she emits. And a former vice-presidential candidate who talks of “baptizing” Muslim terror suspects through waterboarding is handing al Qaeda a propaganda coup on a platter. She disgusts me. And what disgusts me even more is the rank cowardice of so many sane Republicans who for far too long have failed to take her on.

Ouch! That's going to leave a mark.

Here is how Washington Monthly responded:  

I have a theory that Sarah Palin has the intent to humiliate John McCain as often as possible. Maybe it’s because McCain wouldn’t let her give her own concession speech. Maybe it’s some of the things McCain’s advisers have said about her. Or, maybe, it’s just a joke the gods are playing on McCain for being so stupid in his choice of running mate. 

The best part is that McCain won’t allow himself to react to this because he can’t admit the magnitude of his mistake. 

Of course there are still a number of conservative news outlets who are resisting the urge to call Palin out over her remarks, and are undoubtedly waiting for all of this attention to blow over.

But to what end?

After all it is only a matter of time before she says something equally horrifying, that will embarrass her supporters, thrill her detractors, and shame those who once believed she could actually be a politician worth supporting.

I sometimes get attacked for "lying about Sarah," but the most devastating thing I ever did was simply to post videos, and transcribe her speeches, so that everybody could hear for themselves the level of insanity that issued from her frothing maw.

Surrounded by a rabid sea of NRA supporters Sarah Palin lets the crazy fly: "Waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists." Update!

Courtesy of the Washington Times:  

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin fired up a crowd of thousands inside Lucas Oil Stadium Saturday night to kick off the National Rifle Association’s “Stand and Fight Rally,” saying Americans’ constitutional rights as envisioned by the founding fathers are under attack and policies like gun-free zones constitute “stupid on steroids.” 

“They knew that if the Second Amendment goes, the rest of the constitution is not far behind,” she said of the country’s founders. (This is patently untrue, as the emphasis on gun ownership by everyday citizens was NEVER the goal of the Founders. THEY were talking about militias.)

In her approximately 12-minute address, Mrs. Palin also derided what she argued is akin to a ‘blame the messenger’ attitude on gun violence many Americans take today. 

“Gun stores are an accomplice to crime,” she said, “and that fork made me fat.” 

She also derided those who she said place an emphasis on political correctness in handling the country’s adversaries “instead of putting the fear of God in our enemies.” 

She said later in her address that if “I were in charge” — a line that drew applause from the crowd — “they would know that waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists.” 

Jesus what a crazed bitch! Actually waterboarding is how we turn perfectly innocent people into lifelong enemies of America.

At one point in the speech Palin said: "If you control oil, you control an economy. If you control money, you control commerce. But if you control arms, you control the people."

Essentially repeating the NRA lie that this administration wants to take away people's guns in order to oppress them, and remove their ability to fend off the police or military when they come to enforce unconstitutional laws.

At another point in her speech she said, "Gals you know that nowadays ammo's expensive. Don't waste a bullet on a warning shot." 

Because you know it always better to shoot first and ask questions later.

Palin was beyond crazy in this speech and if you only listen to a few minutes of that you will see that for yourself. However she was standing in front of a crowd that ate up every word.

The country dodged a bullet in 2008, but if this woman, and the NRA, continue to have any impact on our politics there are bound to be far more flying around in the not too distant future.

Update: Raw Story is on this as well: 

“Do you know why those clownish little Kumbaya-humming fairytale-inhaling liberals want to be tough all of a sudden and control your guns?” she said. “It’s ‘cuz guys like [Sen.] Al Franken (D-MN) and [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid (D-NV), they’re not satisfied with just taking your money and your job, your truck and your property and your rights, your healthcare – they didn’t want to just stop at that.” 

Referring to Attorney General Eric Holder’s suggestion that technology advances, like a bracelet that interacts with a weapon, might help stem the flood of shootings, Palin referenced the many bracelets she wears that commemorate fallen soldiers and various other American causes. 

“You can have these bracelets when you pry them past my cold, dead hands,” she said, echoing a popular NRA bumper sticker from the 70′s.

Damn that is one nasty bitch!

Well that would seem to be an appropriate choice for a fountain.

Once installed it would be the only honest thing about the place.

You know perhaps it would be worth reviewing what al-Qaeda's plan was for destroying America:

1. Provoke the United States and the West into invading a Muslim country by staging a massive attack or string of attacks on U.S. soil that results in massive civilian casualties. 
2. Incite local resistance to occupying forces. 
3. Expand the conflict to neighboring countries, and engage the U.S. and its allies in a long war of attrition. 
4. Convert al-Qaeda into an ideology and set of operating principles that can be loosely franchised in other countries without requiring direct command and control, and via these franchises incite attacks against the U.S. and countries allied with the U.S. until they withdraw from the conflict, as happened with the 2004 Madrid train bombings, but which did not have the same effect with the July 7, 2005 London bombings. 
5. The U.S. economy will finally collapse by the year 2020 under the strain of multiple engagements in numerous places, making the worldwide economic system which is dependent on the U.S. also collapse leading to global political instability, which in turn leads to a global jihad led by al-Qaeda and a Wahhabi Caliphate will then be installed across the world following the collapse of the U.S. and the rest of the Western world countries.

So just to be clear it is not President Obama who is working on behalf of al-Qaeda, in point of fact it was the previous administration that did everything they asked of them. And more.

You may, or may not, be a fan of Christopher Hitchens, but he , unlike other journalists, had the courage to undergo waterboarding to determine if it was indeed torture. It was.

This video is from 2008, when Hitch decided to undergo water-boarding to determine if it was torture.

You may perhaps remember that in 2009, Sean Hannity said that HE was willing to be water-boarded for charity, but despite an offer from Keith Olbermann to pay $1,000.00 a minute to his named charity if he went through with it, Hannity simply did not have the guts.

"For every second you last, a thousand dollars -- live or on tape, provided other networks' cameras are there. A thousand dollars a second, Sean, because this is no game. This is serious stuff. Put your money where your mouth is, and your nose. Oh, and I'll double it when you admit you feared for your life, when you admit the horrible truth -- waterboarding, the symbol of the last administration, is torture."

After seeing how quickly Hitch succumbed to panic during his waterboarding, imagine how it must have felt for the so-called "Mastermind of 9-11," Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, to undergo that same process 183 times.

Somehow I think he would have admitted to just about anything.

Jon Stewart conducts another amazing interview and, once again, shows the MSM how it's done.

Jon interviews author Marc Thiessen and questions his contention that is okay to expose the identity of lawyers who have defended enemy combatants.

Part One

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Exclusive - Marc Thiessen Extended Interview Pt. 1
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Reform

This guy is very whiny and essentially is bitching that Jon Stewart is extremely well versed in the subject matter and is able to call him on his BS.

Part Two

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Exclusive - Marc Thiessen Extended Interview Pt. 2
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Reform

This moron keeps making the point that the US is governed by the Geneva Convention but in fact America broke those very rules when it used water boarding on so called "enemy combatants".

Part Three

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Exclusive - Marc Thiessen Extended Interview Pt. 3
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Reform

Conservative radio host has "come to Jesus moment" after being waterboarded. "It is torture!" he says.

Apparently this doofus from Chicago, who calls himself "Mancow", has been making remarks on his radio show that waterboarding is not really torture, and decided to prove it by allowing himself to experience it first hand.

Well long story short, the guy turned out to be more "cow" than "man" and he lasted a pathetic 8 seconds even though the average person can last 14 seconds. However the experience seems to have suddenly given him the ability to realize what most of us more intelligent Americans have already come to understand, and that is that waterboarding is indeed torture.



Did you see how quickly he jumped up and ripped the rag off of his face? For the detainees at Gitmo, that was not an option. The only way to stop the torture was to tell their tormentors whatever they wanted to hear. Such as the "fact" that Iraq was involved in 9-11, which was the REAL purpose of their waterboarding.



So my question is "must ALL conservative torture deniers have to be waterboarded to get them to understand that this is indeed torture, or can they figure it out based on the response by this radio host and conservative writer Christopher Hitchens before him?"

I think that it is time to get FOX News to force Sean Hannity to go through this experience and to once and for all put this ridiculous debate behind us. If a man as used to sucking the air out of the room as Sean Hannity is, can withstand having his oxygen cut off and water poured up his nose, than we can all agree that waterboarding is NOT torture.

However I am pretty confident that Sean Hannity will probably start screaming and crying the minute a drop of water slides up one of his flared nostrils. The guy is a bullshit artist, NOT a tough guy by any stretch of the imagination.

(And by the way, good for Mancow to contact Keith Olbermann about his stunt. Olbermann has now donated $10,000 dollars to Veterans of Valor.)

Christopher Hitchens gets waterboarded.

True confession time.

I do not like Christopher Hitchens!

I have watched him many times on "Real Time" with Bill Maher, among others programs, and I simply do not like the pasty, wheezy, arrogant pig.

He was an aggressive supporter of the Iraq war at its start, and an unyielding defender as the bottom started falling out of it. He always seemed either half in the bag, or just coming out of a terrible hangover, and he mumbles his words making it hard to make out just what he is saying so that I can disagree with it.

Even after he wrote a book critical of Christianity ("God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything"), a book that would seem to have been written just for me, I still found him physically repugnant and intellectually crippled.

But I just read the article that is linked above and now I have to say that Hitchens is a pretty damn good writer. And what is more he is a pretty damn good "honest" writer. And now I have to reconsider my former dismissal of his writing and its importance. I may even have to buy his book.

Damn this open mind of mine!

So Hitchens got waterboarded, and even though I should be thrilled that he was tortured, instead I feel that he may have written something that will finally shine a light on this horrible practice and that many who have refused to see it will finally be forced to confront the reality of what we are doing to human beings in the name of our own "safety" as a nation.

I really feel that this quote, the first portion which is attributed to Abraham Lincoln, sums it up best: “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.

Want to watch an American Military adviser shame himself in front of the Senate? I didn't either, but here it is.

This is why we cannot take the military's assessment of our progress in Iraq at face value.

Or trust that they will tell us the truth about ANYTHING that pertains to this war and our conduct in it.

They are listening to the commands of their master. And he is insane.

CIA finally admits it tortured detainees.

"Waterboarding has been used on only three detainees," Hayden told the Senate Intelligence Committee. It was the first time a U.S. official publicly specified the number of people subjected to waterboarding and named them.

Critics call waterboarding a form of illegal torture. Congress is considering banning the technique.

Those subjected to waterboarding were suspected Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and senior al Qaeda leaders Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, Hayden said at the hearing on threats to the United States.

So now that we know this to be a fact there really is no choice. Torture is illegal in this country, the CIA has admitted to torture, so the CIA must be put on trial.

We really have no other possible choice. If we put on trial and imprison a Japanese doctor to 25 years of hard labor for doing this to American servicemen during World War II, then how we can simply excuse this behavior sixty years later?

And not only that but the Congress must launch a criminal investigation to find out who at the top gave the order allowing this technique to be used. No matter who it might ensare.

We may have forgotten who we are in the last eight years, but let me remind you that we are Americans. And Americans DO NOT TORTURE!