Yet another reason to oppose Chimpy’s torture fetish, besides the fact that it is immoral, illegal, and inneffective, is that they oftentortured innocent men. Canadian intelligence officials passed false warnings and bad information to American agents about a Muslim Canadian citizen, after which U.S. authorities secretly whisked him to Syria, where he was tortured, a judicial report found Monday. The report, released in Ottawa, was the result of a 2 1/2-year inquiry that represented one of the first public investigations into mistakes made as part of the United States’ “extraordinary rendition” program, which has secretly spirited suspects to foreign countries … Continue reading Yet Another Reason

There’s a newZogby Poll out that pegs Chimpy’s job approval rating at 39%. And there is also a newHarris Poll out today. Job Approval Bush Approve: 38% Disapprove: 61% Cheney Approve: 30% Disapprove: 64% Rove Approve: 29% Disapprove: 53% Rumsfeld Approve: 38% Disapprove: 60% Frist Approve: 25% Disapprove: 52% Hastert Approve: 27% Disapprove: 56% Boehner Approve: 24% Disapprove: 47% And on the Congressional mid-terms Harris found… Among registered voters, 35 percent say they are going to vote for the Republican candidate, while 45 percent say they will vote for the Democratic candidate. The race is similar if we look at … Continue reading Can You Take Me To… Pony Town?

TheDouchebag of Liberty seems to think thatKatherine Harris is in deep shit. Jim Dornan, one of the former managers of Rep. Katherine Harris’s beleaguered Republican Senate candidacy in Florida, has told associates he was startled by how aggressively the FBI questioned him Sept. 6. Dornan was interrogated for an hour and a half by federal agents as part of their inquiry into Harris’s political contributions from defense contractor Mitchell Wade, who has pleaded guilty to bribery in another case. Dornan described the FBI as pressing him hard about Harris. Jail time for Harris, a laDuke Cunningham andBob Ney, would be … Continue reading Your Monday Afternoon Republican Juggernaut Update

Marjorie Cohn, professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild, and the U.S. representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists, hits on a topicI discussed a bit last week: Bush Fears War Crimes Prosecution Congress enacted the War Crimes Act in 1996. That act defines violations of Geneva’s Common Article 3 as war crimes. Those convicted face life imprisonment or even the death penalty if the victim dies. The President is undoubtedly familiar with the doctrine of command responsibility, where commanders, all the way up the chain of command to the … Continue reading War Crimes, Bitches!

REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque “He’s so cute when he tortures.” AP Photo/Gerald Herbert REUTERS/Keith Bedford Continue reading Your Manly President

Sounds like Dick Armitage’s tear-stained Plamemea culpa may have been nothing but a thinly veiled attempt to helphis good buddy Karl Rove. A well-placed conservative source has added an important clue to the mystery of the Bush administration’s “outing” of CIA officer Valerie Plame after her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, became one of the first Establishment figures to accuse George W. Bush of having “twisted” intelligence to justify the Iraq War. The source, who knows both White House political adviser Karl Rove and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, told me that the two men are much closer … Continue reading Armitage And Rove Are BFFs

“What does that mean, ‘outrages upon human dignity’?” REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst Continue reading Vague

The Bush Assasination filmDeath of a Presidentwins big. The video which outraged America by depicting the assassination of President George W Bush has won an award at the Toronto film festival. British director Gabriel Range’s “Death of a President” stirred up a strong reaction even before it premiered at the festival, but it won the Prize of the International Critics. The jury of film critics cited the film “for the audacity with which it distorts reality to reveal a larger truth.” Continue reading Critically Acclaimed

Privatize the CIA? Brilliant. At the National Counterterrorism Center — the agency created two years ago to prevent another attack like Sept. 11 — more than half of the employees are not U.S. government analysts or terrorism experts. Instead, they are outside contractors. At CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., senior officials say it is routine for career officers to look around the table during meetings on secret operations and be surrounded by so-called green-badgers — nonagency employees who carry special-colored IDs. Some of the work being outsourced is extremely sensitive. Abraxas Corp., a private company in McLean, Va., founded by … Continue reading Feeling Safer?

Nobel Peace Laureatesblast Bush Assministration foreign policy. Ten Nobel Peace Prize laureates called for world peace and took aim at U.S. policy makers, asking an enthusiastic crowd of 7,000 youth to demand that the United States pull back its military, spread its wealth and offer aid to developing countries. [snip] “After the painful events of September 11, I wish that America would have built a school in Afghanistan in the name of every victim,” said Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian judge and 2003 Peace Prize recipient. “When someone claims he has a vision from God to bring war to Iraq, this … Continue reading All We Are Saying

No law at all inDeadwood Iraq. The U.S. military in Iraq has imprisoned an Associated Press photographer for five months, accusing him of being a security threat but never filing charges or permitting a public hearing. Military officials said Bilal Hussein, an Iraqi citizen, was being held for “imperative reasons of security” under United Nations resolutions. AP executives said the news cooperative’s review of Hussein’s work did not find anything to indicate inappropriate contact with insurgents, and any evidence against him should be brought to the Iraqi criminal justice system. Hussein, 35, is a native of Fallujah who began work … Continue reading Rule of Law

Link: Bush has allies in the House of Representatives — but what appears to be a unified and stalwart resistance in the Republican-controlled Senate. It turns out that the US does have a functioning opposition party after all. It’s called the authentically conservative wing of the Republicans. Let me put this as succinctly as I possibly can. BULLSHIT. This entire “ooh, conservatives have finally had enough of the Bush administration” line is just about the phoniest thing on the Internet, and that’s an Internet that contains way more than its fair share of info on Jessica Simpson. Say it with … Continue reading Conservative ‘Revolt’

Really pretty jewelry. Unfortunately, I don’t have the Edwardian ball gown or, let’s face it, Edwardian ball, that would go with the Merlot Lace and Pearl Choker. A. Continue reading Another Girly Shopping Post

Come on out and visittomorrow if you’re in the DC area. A. Continue reading A Reminder

Susan Enan, Bring On the Wonder A. Continue reading Friday Night Music

Chimpy gained a bit of ground in the latestAP-Ipsos Poll (registered voters) but his party is in deep shit. Bush Job Approval 39% Approve (33% last month) 60% Disapprove (57% last month) If congressional elections were held today would you vote for a Democrat or a Republican? Dem: 51% Rep: 39% No matter how you will vote in November, if the election for Congress were held today, would you want to see the Republicans or Democrats win control of Congress? Dem: 52% Rep: 38% Who do you trust to do a better job of …? Protecting the Country: [The first … Continue reading New AP-Ipsos Poll Spells Trouble for the GOP

“Ah want mah torchure!” REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque Continue reading One More Press Conference Photo

At this morning’sangry presser. Must Not Have Been Briefed This Morning Right here in the Oval Office, I get briefed nearly every morning about the nature of this world, and I get briefed about the desire of an enemy to hurt America.And it’s a sobering experience, as I’m sure you can imagine. Neither Does The President Now, the Court said that you’ve got to live under Article III of the Geneva Convention, and the standards are so vague that our professionals won’t be able to carry forward the program, because they don’t want to be tried as war criminals. Compare … Continue reading Your President Speaks!

Not thatChimpy cares about moral authority. The European Union condemned on Friday the detention of terrorism suspects by the United States in secret overseas prisons, whose existence U.S. President George Bush first acknowledged last week. European nations had held back from criticizing Washington over the matter after it first emerged in media reports last year, and said last December they were satisfied with U.S. statements denying any wrongdoing. [snip] “Secret prisons are illegal, immoral, and counter-productive in any strategy to win hearts and minds,” EU counter-terrorism coordinator Gijs de Vries said in a statement on Friday. Continue reading What Powell Warned Us About

Larry Downing/Reuters REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst REUTERS/Larry Downing Continue reading That Sure Was An Angry Presser This Morning

Joey had a little bout of the flu this past week, nothing nearly as bad as Stripe, but enough to put him under the weather for a bit. So he gets his food warmed up and mashed up to help him bulk back up, and he likes that, a lot. A. Continue reading Friday Ferretblogging: Comfort Food Edition

My guess is he is going to emphasize the importance ofre-writing clarifying Common Article III today. Why? Because he hasauthorized the torture of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and in the CIA’s secret gulags around the world. Bush may not fear The Hague, but he is afraid of being prosecuted underWar Crimes Act of 1996 (which he isalso desperately trying to amend) because by ordering the torture of detainees, many of whom havedied as a result of their treatment) in violation of Common Article III Bush has laid himself open to the death penalty. Here’sthe statute with my … Continue reading Chimpy To Hold Surprise Press Conference This Morning

Our Kathy has beenslacking off lately. Republican Rep. Katherine Harris missed 13 of the 14 votes cast in the House of Representatives between her victory in Florida’s Sept. 5 primary and Wednesday evening. Her opponent in the November general election, Sen. Bill Nelson, hasn’t missed a single vote in that chamber, including votes cast the day of the primary. [snip] “She’s a retiring member of Congress running for U.S. Senate – she’s got to balance numerous things,” said Jennifer Marks, a spokeswoman for Harris’ campaign. [snip] “Bill’s doing the job Floridians elected him to do,” said Bryan Gulley, a Nelson … Continue reading Your Friday Morning Republican Juggernaut Update