Destor on Ordering a Pizza Conservatively in Texas
Ramona: Hatred in a Lovely Church
Gallup: Obama 46, Romney 46
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Destor on Ordering a Pizza Conservatively in Texas Ramona: Hatred in a Lovely Church Gallup: Obama 46, Romney 46 |
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Picture it - 24 hour news coverage of the Attorney General's decision to launch a full scale investigation into the Cheney torture policies and warrantless wiretapping programs. He has decided that if laws were broken, there will be prosecutions - and there are NONE who are above the law. Not even Cheney.
Holder would be asked what prompted what appeared to be an about face with respect to the reports coming out that there would be no investigation, no truth commission and certainly no prosecutions. And wouldn't it be nice if the thing that finally made his mind up was the threats he received from the GOP about investigating the Clinton Administration and himself about whether he knew about any torture or renditions that lead to torture.
You see, the Republicans hearts have been blackened now for so long, that they can't imagine anyone having the honor or integrity to stand up and say "NO - ABSOLUTELY NOT" to a President or Vice President or anyone who would dare to stain all that is good about America and authorize or look the other way when the scourge of torture exists. Not one of them had the intestinal fortitude to stand up to Cheney. But Eric Holder knew his own conscience was clear. The threat made to him simply affirmed that there are two America's. One that respects and honors the rule of law, and an evil, dark America where torture is repackaged as "Enhanced Interrogation" and fed to to the slobbering brain dead mob of neo-cons, conservatives and evangelicals like the milk of a cracked out meth-whore to her baby. And in this case, the left teat of that mother was fox news, the right teat was the right wing ministers like John Hagee and Rod Parsley.
This whole torture thing could have been avoided. If even a handful of the members of Congress who knew (I'm speaking to you now Nancy) had said "Absolutely Not - I WILL NOT allow this!!!" and realized that the Constitution hadn't relegated them to some lower branch of Government - but that it was equal to Bush and Lord Cheney's - what do you think would have happened? Just a handful of people.
They may have kept quiet because they were afraid Lord Cheney might decide to pay them a visit in the middle of the night, the acrid stench of a freshly devoured baby deer still lingering on his breath. They may have kept quiet because they were not given the truly gruesome details of what happened or of the fact that we paid street thugs to rat out their competition. If I'm an Afghani and some soldier offers me $5k to tell him if I know anyone who might not think too highly of the US - I'm not only ratting - I'm asking them to come back tomorrow with more money and I'll have more names. But one thing is certain about the motives of the members of Congress - and it puts our whole system of Government on trial. The simple reason that no one said anything is because their goal is not to serve their constituency. Their goal is no longer to write good law. Their only goal is to stay in power for as long as possible. Fundraise and survive elections. That's why Nancy Pelosi took impeachment off the table from day 1. It was safer for her.
So when Eric Holder is asked the question whether he would prosecute members of Congress who knew but did nothing to act - he would have to say yes. We prosecute people every day in this Country who just watched the door while a robbery is being committed. And if someone is killed during the robbery, the person watching the door gets the needle too.
The Bush Administration made it very clear that their white powerful and well connected friends do not get punished for their crimes. Good 'ol Scooter was given a 2 1/2 year sentence for obstruction of justice and perjury - and Captain Douchebag commuted it because he said it was "excessive" and that he felt a guilty verdict was punishment enough. Bush had already elevated the executive branch over the legislative - now he gave a virtual golden shower to the judiciary. His commutation was an abuse of power, and John Conyers threatened to look into it. But he knew that even if he sent out subpoenas, they would have claimed "executive privilege" and no one in Congress had the courage to do anything about it. Since Scooter got off with just the "shame" of a guilty verdict - can we really prosecute anyone for obstruction of justice or perjury anymore with a threat of jail time? Isn't lady justice supposed to be blind with respect to the socioeconomic status of defendants?
Bush & Cheney effectively abused lady justice into silence. Every time even think about standing tall and regaining some of the power and dignity the founders of this Country bestowed upon her, Cheney would whistle a tune and put on his rape shoes. Time to show lady justice that rich white men don't live by the same laws as the rest of America.
Cheney Rape Shoe - human skin leather
Maybe, just maybe, Eric Holder can convince Lady Justice to come out of hiding and point out her abusers in open court. As Cheney sits on the stand, smugly drinking from his cup of baby's blood, she can point to the stand and say "There he is. That's the man that did it.. That's the man who tried to kill me".
By Elizabeth Weingarten, ForeignPolicy.com, May 23, 2012
It was 2009 in Peshawar, Pakistan, and Mossarat Qadeem was sitting on the floor of a house with about a dozen young Pakistani men -- some of whom had nearly become suicide bombers. Qadeem's goal: to undo the destructive brainwashing of the al-Qaeda and Taliban teachers who trained them in extremism, in part by asking the students to narrate their life stories.
"We were handling one of the boys, and he just came, put his head here in my lap, and he started crying and weeping," Qadeem recalls. "I was taken aback. It is very unnatural in my country that a man that tall can just sit at your feet and put his head here. [The other men] were all crying with him, and I was looking at him, and thinking, ‘my God.'"
All in a day's work for Qadeem. She's the national coordinator of Aman-o-Nisa, a coalition of Pakistani women that convened in October 2011 to combat violent extremism in Pakistan at the grassroots level. [....]
The issue of sexual assaults on American Indian women has become one of the major sources of discord in the current debate between the White House and the House of Representatives over the latest reauthorization of the landmark Violence Against Women Act of 1994.
.......
“We should never have a woman come into the office saying, ‘I need to learn more about Plan B for when my daughter gets raped,’ ” said Charon Asetoyer, a women’s health advocate on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, referring to the morning-after pill. “That’s what’s so frightening — that it’s more expected than unexpected. It has become a norm for young women.”
The difficulties facing American Indian women who have been raped are myriad, and include a shortage of sexual assault kits at Indian Health Service hospitals, where there is also a lack of access to birth control and sexually transmitted disease testing. There are also too few nurses trained to perform rape examinations, which are generally necessary to bring cases to trial.
By Ismail Kahn, New York Times, May 23/24, 2012
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A Pakistani doctor who helped the Central Intelligence Agency pin down Osama bin Laden's location under cover of a vaccination drive was convicted on Wednesday of treason and sentenced to 33 years in prison, a senior official in Pakistan said.
A tribal court here in northwestern Pakistan found the doctor, Shakil Afridi, guilty of acting against the state, said Mutahir Zeb Khan, the administrator for the Khyber tribal region [....]
By Sergei L. Loiko, Los Angeles Times, May 23, 2012
MOSCOW — Stiff new penalties aimed at opposition protesters were given preliminary approval Tuesday by Russian lawmakers loyal to President Vladimir Putin, the target of mass rallies and demonstrations before his March election victory.
The bill, which opposition parliament members termed draconian and protested by threatening to file out of a legislative session, calls for fines of up to $50,000 and up to 200 hours of community service for organizers of rallies and demonstrations that grow violent or exceed the approved number of participants.
The sanctions were approved on first reading by parliament's lower house, which is controlled by Putin's United Russia party. They mark a return by the Kremlin to a tough stance against critics after concessions during the recent election campaign [...]
Also see:
Russians back Putin, strong leadership
Washington Post, May 22, 2012
A Pew survey of 1,000 Russians found that President Vladimir Putin is well-liked by more than 70 percent of citizens, especially older adults.
Associated Press, May 21, 2012
HAVANA — It was all sunshine, smiles and celebratory speeches as officials marked the arrival of an undersea fiber-optic cable they promised would end Cuba's Internet isolation and boost web capacity 3,000-fold. Even a retired Fidel Castro had hailed the dawn of a new cyber-age on the island.
More than a year after the February 2011 ceremony on Siboney Beach in eastern Cuba, and 10 months after the system was supposed to have gone online, the government never mentions the cable anymore, and Internet here remains the slowest in the hemisphere. People talk quietly about embezzlement torpedoing the project and the arrest of more than a half-dozen senior telecom officials.
Perhaps most maddening, nobody has explained what happened to the much-ballyhooed $70 million project....