Much has been said about the young black man outside of an Arizona health care reform town hall. The one who had an AR-15 semi-automatic assault weapon strapped to his back.

Some rather imaginative conservatives have suggested that the assault weapon toter was an Obama plant. The man was black and Obama is black, so, you know, blacks stick together, I guess. See….according to this conspiracy theory…..this black Obama plant was strategically placed so that the media would cover what appeared to be a gun nut willing to endanger a town hall crowd by carrying a weapon that could easily slaughter hundreds of people, not to mention the toter's proximity, and threat, to the President.

In this conspiracy theory, a black Obama plant openly carrying a loaded assault weapon at a crowded political function, a story quickly memed around the country by "liberal" corporate media, was all for the purpose of making Republican opponents of health care reform appear to be insane.

Other conservatives, thankfully, recognized the foolishness, the potential danger, of so many people carrying loaded weapons to a heated political gathering, and in particular, a gathering which featured the POTUS.

The black man who carried the assault weapon was a plant alright. A plant straight out of the Tim McVeigh school of peacemaking. A plant strategically placed in a town hall crowd for the specific purpose of being interviewed by yet another extremist. An extremist who actually has, you know, palled around with terrorists.

Notice the light-heartedness, the funnies shared by these advocates for open assault weapon carrying at crowded political gatherings in America where the President is appearing…

The kicker about this story is the fact that this was a staged event to advance the violent-minded doctrine of armed overthrow of a "tyrannical" government. And the interviewer, who staged the whole thing and who was also armed, has a history of siding with domestic terrorists. If you think I'm just going all Palin on ya'….go read this.

In another video interview with the assault weapon toter, a man only known as Chris, explains he is totally against health care and wants to remind people that we must resist and fight back against the majority imposing it's will on the minority. Though elected Republicans don't strap on AR-15's (at least not yet), they do agree wholeheartedly with Chris' sentiment. Responsible stuff like this….

"We will forcefully resist people imposing their will on us through the strength of the majority with a vote."

"Just because you sic the government on people doesn't make it morally OK to steal money from people. Taxation is theft."

"Chris" says he is "absolutely, totally against" health care reform, saying such a plan would amount to "stealing it from people."

He also said more people should carry guns openly in states where it's legal.

"People need to get out there and do it more," he said.

These gun toters, though not representative of the entire conservative movement in America, alarmingly, do indeed represent the current strategic philosophy of the conservative movement and the Republican Party. American conservatives only accept majority rule when the GOP is in the majority, and corporate whore media agrees with that thinking,…..once again, if you think I'm kidding, read the Beacon's opinion page today.

Makes what I wrote on January 28th of this year seem, I don't know,…..prophetic….

Obama won the election….Democrats increased their majorities in the Congress….so minority Republicans should get their way on all new policy decisions.

Chris, the assault weapon toter, agrees. And if people like Chris, or Mitch McConnell, or John Boehner…don't get their way…..well then, there's always the assault weapon work of "watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants."

Violent authoritarism is a serious threat to America. The reason we most often see it during Democratic majorities or Democratic presidencies is because when Republicans are in control, they channel that violent authoritarianism through international acts of aggression, torture, wars of choice, etc. During GOP majorities, these violent authoritarians know that their "rights" to own assault weapons, weapons designed only to kill large numbers of humans, will be fully protected.

Our nation, though much calmer than back in the 60's, is going through a very challenging time. If our current differences are settled without bloodshed and violence this time around, I'll be pleasantly surprised.

The Obama speech from Cairo, Egypt…

The relationship between Islam and the West includes centuries of co-existence and cooperation, but also conflict and religious wars. More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations.

Addressing seemingly intractable problems requires honesty. Facts and truth must not be avoided for the sake of national pride or revisionistic history. The West, as well as Islam, cannot move forward peacefully without recognition of historic truth. Obama boldly addressed historic truth. Finding common ground requires honesty.

But I am convinced that in order to move forward, we must say openly the things we hold in our hearts, and that too often are said only behind closed doors. There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground.

Stereotyping of either side is dishonest…

I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.

Just as Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire. The United States has been one of the greatest sources of progress that the world has ever known.

The dream of opportunity for all people has not come true for everyone in America, but its promise exists for all who come to our shores……..So let there be no doubt: Islam is a part of America.

Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail.

There is no room in Obama's thinking for blind American exceptionalistic dogma. Just as al-Qaeda's extremist doctrines, which elevate Islam to uniquely superior world status, is incongruous with peaceful coexistence……so too, American exceptionalistic doctrines.

Obama addresses 9-11…

In Ankara, I made clear that America is not – and never will be – at war with Islam. We will, however, relentlessly confront violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our security.

We did not go by choice (to Afghanistan), we went because of necessity. I am aware that some question or justify the events of 9/11. But let us be clear: al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people on that day…..These are not opinions to be debated; these are facts to be dealt with.

Make no mistake: we do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan. We seek no military bases there.

Driving a wedge between Islam and the radical version of Islam represented by Bin Laden….

They have killed people of different faiths – more than any other, they have killed Muslims. Their actions are irreconcilable with the rights of human beings, the progress of nations, and with Islam. The Holy Koran teaches that whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind; and whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind.

President Obama struck at the heart of the Islamic extremist problem. Bim Laden's theology is not the theology of Islam, it is a perversion, an aberration. Using the essence of the Koran as evidence, Obama stripped away the faux-justifications relied upon by Bin Laden to justify his barbaric violence.

Iraq….

Unlike Afghanistan, Iraq was a war of choice that provoked strong differences in my country and around the world……America has a dual responsibility: to help Iraq forge a better future – and to leave Iraq to Iraqis. I have made it clear to the Iraqi people that we pursue no bases, and no claim on their territory or resources. Iraq's sovereignty is its own.

Some American neo-conservatives still insist that Iraq was not a war of choice, but instead, a war of necessity. Obama, rightfully, dismissed this neo-conservative dishonesty out of hand, while assuring Iraqis and Muslims that goals of American imperialism in Iraq are out of the question.

American torture….

9/11 was an enormous trauma to our country. The fear and anger that it provoked was understandable, but in some cases, it led us to act contrary to our ideals. We are taking concrete actions to change course. I have unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States, and I have ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by early next year.

Even though I disagree with the reasons Obama gave for the previous administration's torture regime ("fear and anger")….especially in light of the evidence that torture was conducted in order to extract false confessions later to be used to lead America into a "war of choice",……Obama's clear denunciation of Gitmo and torture drew applause from his Muslim audience, and rightfully so.

I will continue tomorrow with Part 2.

Without any qualification….President Obama's Cairo speech should make all Americans proud. Obama was brilliant.

When Republicans first declared their National War Against Empathy From the Court (NWAEFC), I found it amazingly out of touch with basic common sense. But it's Republicans we're dealing with here.

Bitter conservatives instantly attacked Obama's mention of empathy as a quality he would be looking for in a new Supreme Court Justice. Of all things to attack, movement conservatives chose empathy. Now that Obama has selected Sonia Sotomayor as his Supreme Court nominee, the unhinged wingnut chorus will no doubt escalate it's national war against the to-be-dreaded human quality….empathy.

Who knew that empathy could be so dangerous?

Empathy….."the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another."

Conservatives do not want to see ANY of that quality on the Supremes bench, as RNC Chairman, Michael Steele said, "Crazy nonsense empathetic! I'll give you empathy. Empathize right on your behind!" Steele is leading the Republican Party comeback.

From a piece by Dahlia Lithwick at Slate.com…..

Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, speaking on This Week, warned that if a jurist were to show empathy, "politics, preferences, personal preferences and feelings might take the place of being impartial and deciding cases based upon the law, not upon politics." In an opinion piece in the Washington Times warning that Obama is poised to be the "first president to make lawlessness an explicit standard for Supreme Court Justices," Wendy Long of the Judicial Confirmation Network saw empathy as a kind of temporary insanity that so distorts a jurist's vision as to make it difficult "to uphold the federal judicial oath to dispense justice impartially." Over on Fox News, Sean Hannity warned that empathy is the first step toward "social engineering." And in a delicious Freudian slip, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama snorted: "I don't know what empathy means."

Obviously, then, conservatives and Republicans have found something else besides "terror" to be deathly afraid of. Empathy from a judge is the new Islamic extremism.

Consider. The Constitution, as written by the Framers, did not include freedom or equality for slaves in America. Nowhere in the original text were slaves recognized as equals. Slavery, had it been left exclusively to textual, yet empathy averse, Constitutional jurists, would have never ended.

My point is that without empathy, it isn't even possible to fulfill the spirit of our Constitution's letter. How is it possible to identify what's right and wrong in cases concerning human beings if a judge can't make….."the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another."?

Why should women have a right to vote? Why should minorities not be openly discriminated against? Without the ability to empathize, those questions are not even recognized as legitimate questions.

Let's take one John Roberts ruling to illustrate why empathy in a Supreme Court Justice is a good thing and not something to be afraid of. In the Lily Ledbetter case, a case involving pay discrimination by Goodyear, Chief Justice John Roberts could have written his decision based on the original intent of the congressional law under consideration, if empathy would have been allowed to creep into his thinking. The original intent of the law was to protect people like Lily Ledbetter from being discriminated against in the area of pay equality.

Instead, Roberts searched the letter of that law to find a justification for Goodyear's discrimination of Ms. Ledbetter. A loophole. And he found it. Roberts had no empathy. Roberts did not identify vicariously with the true victim in the case. Roberts did not for one second try to put himself in the experiencial shoes of Ms. Ledbetter. Roberts saw the case as a game to be played in order to assist powerful corporate interests.

Because of John Roberts lack of empathy, Congress had to rewrite equal pay legislation so that future empathy-challenged Supreme Court judges could not coldly discover a loophole to bypass the very intent of the law.

I welcome the upcoming war against empathy by conservatives and their corporate media stenographers.

Conservatives might feel guilty in defending the savage torture of powerless detainees if empathy wins this war. Conservatives of the neo-kind might not feel as comfortable pressing for more and larger wars of aggression against countries posing no threat to the U.S., if empathy prevails. Conservatives might not be able to openly and defiantly bash and discriminate against gays if empathy is fully embraced in America. Conservatives might not feel so righteous in attacking women who must make their own difficult reproductive choices….if empathy is left on the national table.

And so to those in the conservative swamp who are girding their loins for battle against this new and horrible enemy….I leave you with this familiar challenge….

Bring it on.

Here is an exceptional piece on John Roberts by lawyer and CNN contributor, Jeffrey Toobin.

First, let me state without reservation or qualification, that having Barack Obama as President is a far superior situation for America than if John McCain, with his full-throated, neo-conservative military and foreign policy ideology, were guiding the ship of state.

That said….not only has Obama followed Bush/Cheney footprints on state secrets, transparency, and, now, indefinite detention……but he's also using the same self-contradicting style of "logic" that Mr. Bush and his lackeys repeatedly used in their numerous dissemblings.

Let's take two statements from Obama's Thursday talk about national security. Full transcript here.

"Some have derided our federal courts as incapable of handling the trials of terrorists. They are wrong. Our courts and our juries, our citizens, are tough enough to convict terrorists."

AND…

"…there remains the question of detainees at Guantanamo who cannot be prosecuted yet who pose a clear danger to the American people."

Our courts are "tough enough" to take on trials of hardened "terrorists", except for those cases which "cannot be prosecuted" because, apparently, they're too tough.

What Obama is trying to do here is have it both ways, politically. In the first statement, the President is backhanding the conservative movement's ridiculous sniping about how dangerous it would be to "release" big bad "terrorists" "into the United States". In the second statement, Obama is backhanding the leftist law-and-order crowd while, simultaneously, offering a sop to the scared right, by saying that American law, as it now stands, is insufficient to deal with some "detainees."

Obama's dissonance is similar to George W. Bush's after he illegally ordered the wholesale vacuuming up of all electronic communications by Americans while telling us "wiretaps required a warrant from a judge." It's maddening.

Obama went on to mention the successful federal trials, convictions and imprisonments of Islamic extremist criminals Ramzi Yousef and Zacarias Moussaoui, saying….

"If we can try those terrorists in our courts and hold them in our prisons, then we can do the same with detainees from Guantanamo."

But then goes on to say this….

"But even when this process is complete, there may be a number of people who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes, in some cases because evidence may be tainted, but who nonetheless pose a threat to the security of the United States."

Many criminals, some dangerous, have been released by our judicial system because of various legal violations by law enforcement and/or legal professionals. That's the risk of having a democracy based on the rule of law rather than the rule of men.

But Obama, like Bush before him, want to have it both ways, particularly on this "terrorist" stuff. They want to appeal to the rule of law when convenient, and then appeal to some "extraordinary, everything has changed", circumstances when he wants to rely on his own version of a rule of men.

Finally,…I find this Obama statement breathtakingly identical to something the last administration would say in defense of their lawless plans…..

"But I want to be very clear that our goal is to construct a legitimate legal framework for the remaining Guantanamo detainees that cannot be transferred."

The United States already has "a legitimate legal framework" from which to either build or throw out criminal cases against suspects. Obama had just referred to that "legitimate legal framework" with praise when he pointed out the already successful convictions of "terrorists", Yousef and Moussaoui.

But, just like Bush and Cheney, Obama wants to do what he wants to do…..wants to have his "legal framework" cake and eat it too.

I'm not sure the nation can successfully navigate yet another dissonant presidency.

After refusing to limit the interest banksters can charge credit card holders, the Senate went on to pass a more bankster-friendly credit card bill Tuesday. The bill was a lame effort, barely a wrist slap to an industry who regularly bribes our politicians with campaign cash to do it's bidding. The bill passed 90-5.

The Senate voted Wednesday, by a similar vote count of 90-6, to refuse to fund the closing of the American gulag at Guantanamo. The vote had to be interrupted several times to allow for Senators to go back to their offices and change their clothes, and in some cases, their Depends. Damnest thing. Some kind of co-ordinated outbreak of Senatorial pants pissing. Janitors, equipped with mops, were brought in unexpectedly. Terror color code raised, or lowered, to yellow. Messy.

There's more to those wet pants than meets the eye, however. I don't think those 90-5 and 90-6 votes are a coincidence. The Reverend has uncovered what will most likely become known as The Incontinence Conspiracy.

If you haven't been paying attention….the Republicans have been the party of no ever since Obama's inauguration, and so it's curious to find such total agreement now amongst senators of both parties on these two bills.

First, note that the credit card bill which prevents credit card companies from raising interest rates until a holder is delinquent 30 days past the grace period (I told you the bill was lame) had an amendment attached to it. The Tom Coburn (R-OK) amendment. Coburn's amendment ends the prohibition on carrying loaded weapons in our national parks.

Carrying loaded guns in our national parks has nothing, whatsoever, to do with credit card reform…….and that's why the gun toting amendment was attached to the credit card bill. Think about it.

With the passage of this amendment, I won't have time to worry so much about the dangers of wild animals while I'm visiting our national parks, because I'll be worrying too much about the dangers of the wild, loaded-gun toting, humans visiting our national parks. So there's that.

The plot thickens. As all Americans now know, President Obama wants to close Guantanamo. Our greatest protectors, Republicans, and their stenographers, Big Media, have been shouting from the rooftops recently about how very, very scared we should all be over the closing of Guantanamo. Lately, Harry Reid and his Slinky-backboned Democratic brethren have joined in the scaremongering. Hell, I get scared just writing about it.

Obama, not only our President but our nation's number one enemy, wants to release all the prisoners from Guantanamo "into the United States." At first I had calculated that Obama would probably load up a semi-trailer with the 250 odd Gitmo prisoners, drive them to the heartland of America, provide them with suicide belts, give them each a thousand bucks to buy fertilizer, kerosene, C-4 and a few detonators, and then release them, like, behind a 7-11, or something.

But Obama is a slick one. His plan to harm America by releasing all those prisoners approaches Dr. Evil levels of darkness. Good thing Tom Coburn stands in the light so he could thwart Obama's sinister plan. Coburn, with his gun-toting amendment, has clued us all in on the socialist president's war plans against us.

Obama is planning on releasing the most dangerous people in the world…..those being held in Guantanamo…..into our national parks. He's a sly one, isn't he? Without Coburn's pre-emptive, loaded-guns-in-national-parks amendment to the credit card bill…..American visitors to those parks would have been completely vulnerable to terrorist attack. But, by god, not anymore.

Next time you're visiting Yellowstone and you see a Muslim with a vest approaching you…..don't pause for cordial greetings….just draw and fire. Not only will you be protecting yourself, and others, from yet another crazy Muslim…..but you'll also be striking out in defiance of Barack Obama's War Against America.

Don't forget…..keep your powder….dry.

As the country was being deceptively propagandized by the Bush administration during 2002 and early 2003, the focus of the propaganda boiled down to Saddam Hussein's alleged possession of dangerous weapons. WMD. The Bush administration pushed the WMD message repeatedly. Chemical and biological weapons……mobile weapons labs….smoking gun mushroom clouds…..nuclear program….it was a constant drumbeat.

But that wasn't the question our governmental leaders should have been asking….and then answering. Saddam's possession of dangerous weapons was not the basis upon which to decide whether or not to attack Iraq, a nation that posed no threat to the U.S., nor had ever attacked the U.S.

The nation should never have been focused on answering the question of whether Saddam possessed weaponry. The focus of the nation should have been targeted on answering the question: Does Iraq pose a threat to the United States? The answer to that question was an unequivocal, no. And that is why that question was never the focus of the Bushies propaganda.

If the question of whether Iraq posed a threat to the U.S. ever came up….the Bush propagandists would resort to their cockamamie pre-emptive war ramblings.

I bring this up because the same thing is now happening again. Bush's ex-officials, working in a coordinated fashion with Republican propagandists and their media stenographers, are attempting to focus the nation's attention on the wrong question.

The question before us is not: Who was briefed, or not briefed, or when they were briefed or not briefed, or what was in the briefing or non-briefing concerning torture? The question before us is: Who ordered the torture?

When the media gets their high on from a knowingly distractive story, they don't stop until the entire 8-ball has been snorted. So it is with their unexplainable obsession with when and what Nancy Pelosi was briefed on concerning Bush torture.

The Nancy Pelosi-was-briefed-about-torture focus has the same distractive quality to it that the Saddam-has-weapons focus had to it. Both were/are attempts to avoid the authentic question that needs exploring, i.e. Does Saddam pose a threat to the U.S.? or, in our present case, Who ordered the torture?

Obama has told us that the time for "old politics" is over. I couldn't disagree more. The old politics are alive and well and still controling the narrative in Washington D.C. Karl Rove proudly explained awhile back how the conservatives "created reality", and how the media stenographers would simply record that new "reality" while they, in turn, would go about "creating" more.

And so it is, mid-May, 2009. Clear and unassailable evidence, much of it by eyewitnesses, has surfaced recently implicating the Bush administration in a pre-meditative conspiracy to obtain knowingly false confessions from tortured prisoners, false confessions tying al-Qaeda and 9-11 with Iraq. False confessions that were then used to deceive Congress and the American people about the need to attack and occupy Iraq.

In light of this evidence, most of the main media Villagers simply refuse to ask the pertinent and obvious question: Who ordered this to be done? Instead, dog-whistled by Republicans, the Villagers have all rushed to the new shiny-object-question-orgy of distraction: Did Nancy Pelosi know about torture?

By asking the questions Bush wanted the media to ask in the fraud-up to Iraq, Congress and the American people were not well served, to put it mildly. That willingness to focus on a distraction led to 4200 dead American soldiers and an ongoing clusterf*ck of a mess 6 years later.

By focusing on what the Bushies want us to focus on now: Did Nancy Pelosi know about torture?…… our nation is being led into an even deeper, darker hellhole….the permanent acceptance of savage torture.

I wonder how many Americans will have to die this time.

Here's a quick video compilation of the Villagers snorting thick lines of mass distraction….

Today's Akron Beacon Journal editorial has it wrong. That comes as no surprise to me. Those who write the editorials for the Beacon have been way behind the Bush curve for years. There would be no reason to expect a change now.

The editorial calls the Bush-Cheney torture regime "a failure of imagination". Sorry…. it's a bit more than that. Unbelievably, the Beacon editorial, reflecting on the torture revelations of the last few days, concludes by saying this about George W. Bush….

The decision to use torture was deplorable and damaging. It also reflected a state of fear, President Bush having made clear his determination to take all necessary steps to prevent another such attack. The motives were genuine. The methods were unsound, in large part, because the president and his aides failed to imagine the full consequences.

Here's just one brief glimpse into Bush's "genuine" motives in ordering illegal and barbaric torture to be practiced on detainees at Gitmo…..

A former U.S. Army psychiatrist, Maj. Charles Burney, told Army investigators in 2006 that interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility were under "pressure" to produce evidence of ties between al Qaida and Iraq.

"While we were there a large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between al-Qaida and Iraq and we were not successful in establishing a link between al-Qaida and Iraq," Burney told staff of the Army Inspector General. "The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish that link . . . there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results."

If, in fact, Bush's motives in ordering torture were "genuine", why did the interrogators carrying out the torture spend most of their time "focusing on trying to establish a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq"? Why would Bush and his senior officials, in contact with Gitmo torturers daily, place extreme pressure on those torturers to spend "a large part" of their time, "most of 2002 and into 2003", "demanding proof of links between al-Qaeda and Iraq"?

2002 and the first 2 months of 2003 found the Bush administration blanketing the nation with propaganda about Iraq…..a country without a history of any working relationship with terrorist organizations, a nation posing no threat to America.

Does the Beacon think that this is a "genuine" coincidence…..

"Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people were told repeatedly, by CIA . . . and by others, that there wasn't any reliable intelligence that pointed to operational ties between bin Laden and Saddam, and that no such ties were likely because the two were fundamentally enemies, not allies."

Senior administration officials, however, "blew that off and kept insisting that we'd overlooked something, that the interrogators weren't pushing hard enough, that there had to be something more we could do to get that information," he said.

What's "genuine" about that exchange is the genuine and concerted effort to pre-justify attacking and occupying Iraq through the means of torturing false confessions out of Gitmo detainees. The very purpose of the detailed and gruesome Chinese-Korean-Communist torture program, from which the Bush administration took it's torture tactics virtually word for word, was to illicit false confessions.

Bush and Cheney ordered Khalid Sheik Mohammed to be waterboarded 183 times in 30 days in order to produce something, anything, connecting al-Qaeda to Iraq….even if it was false.

How fu*king "genuine" is that motive?

I challenge the Beacon editorial writer to brush up on Bush-era, you know, reality, by taking the time to watch this excellent piece from last night's Rachel Maddow show…..if you're in a hurry, start at the 6 minute mark, and pay close attention to what Ron Susskind says……

Bush and Cheney's plan before taking office was to invade and occupy the country of Iraq. That's the "genuine" truth about the Bush presidency. That had been the neo-conservatives long-desired objective as outlined by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). Invading Iraq was the Bush/Cheney plan before 9-11, as well as after 9-11.

The neo-cons knew that, barring provocation, or a "new Pearl Harbor" event, American consent to attack Iraq would be difficult, if not impossible, to obtain. Even with the 9-11 event, the Bushies still had to fabricate and manipulate information, and lie, to build a consensus in favor of attacking a non-threatening, sovereign country.

But even that wasn't enough for the Bushies, the most wicked of all American administrations. These worthless fu*kers instituted a fully illegal program of savage torture for the purpose of sqeezing false confessions out of Gitmo detainees, in the hopes that those confessions would connect al-Qaeda to Iraq. That explains why Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in 30 days, 6 times a day on average. The Bushies wanted a false confession from KSM connecting al-Qaeda with Iraq…and if they had to kill KSM's brain to get it….so be it.

That was Bush's "genuine motive". Only, unlike the Beacon, I would describe it as a "genuine" crime.

Update: It's very important to read the account from the man who first interrogated Abu Zubaida. A must read.

Update #2: Today's NY Times…

"the memorandum then lists among Abu Zubaydah’s revelations the identification of Mr. Mohammed and of an alleged radiological bomb plot by Jose Padilla, the American Qaeda associate. Both those disclosures were made long before Abu Zubaydah was subjected to harsh treatment, according to multiple accounts."

Update #3: Listen to Fox's Shep Smith use the F-word about the torture subject….

Jeebus. "We are America. We do not f*cking torture," says Shep.

GOP Senate Committee?

Nothing really new in the New York Times article today entitled, "Report Outlines Medical Workers' Role in Torture"…..

Medical personnel were deeply involved in the abusive interrogation of terrorist suspects held overseas by the Central Intelligence Agency, including torture, and their participation was a “gross breach of medical ethics,” a long-secret report by the International Committee of the Red Cross concluded.
…..

Facilitating such practices, which the Red Cross described as torture, was a violation of medical ethics even if the medical workers’ intentions had been to prevent death or permanent injury, the report said. But it found that the medical professionals’ role was primarily to support the interrogators, not to protect the prisoners, and that the professionals had “condoned and participated in ill treatment.”

According to Dick Cheney, ever a welcome, respected and deeply honored guest of Establishment Media, President Obama's closing of Gitmo and his rejection of torture, thus ending any medical worker's complicity in such crimes, will make America "less safe." Sometimes I wonder whether The Dickster contracted a brain-cell eating virus down in his dark undisclosed location all those years.

Americans have learned bits and pieces of the horrors of the Bush-Cheney criminal regime…..thanks to a few courageous writers in the midst of an ocean of co-conspiratorial KneePad Media. But the entire ugly saga…..which I followed microscopically from 2002 until our national reprieve in 2009…..has yet to be laid out in all it's Satanic Majesty.

Maybe it never will be.

Aided by the ever-helpful Rubber Stamp Republicans in Congress, as well as the Knee Padders from Corporate-Whores-R-Us Media, George and Dick were able to carry out their extensive crime wave, mostly in secrecy, while Americans only heard flattering stories about an oh-so-resolute Leader, the "Commander Guy war president", who spoke of "mushroom clouds", "dirty bombs", "with us or against us" and how "freedom was on the march".

The question of whether Americans will ever be permitted to learn how dastardly the last administration really was…..has surfaced in the last couple of days….

Senate Republicans are now privately threatening to derail the confirmation of key Obama administration nominees for top legal positions by linking the votes to suppressing critical torture memos from the Bush era.

Reread that sentence to capture it's essence.

Even though the executive branch criminals have left the White House, it seems that Congressional co-conspirators are still having a hard time kicking the criminal habit. The GOP, the no bullsh*t party, the political party of the clear and decisive "up or down" vote (when they're in power)…..is not only refusing a straight "up or down" vote on a number of Obama nominees……..but also blackmailing the President to prevent it.

In effect, Congressional Republican Senators (all 41 of them), have a gun to the heads of Dawn Johnsen and Harold Koh, both Obama nominees…..and are planning to pull the trigger if Obama dares to release the now-infamous "torture memoes."

Senate Republicans are planning to “go nuclear” over the nominations of Dawn Johnsen as chief of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice and Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh as State Department legal counsel if the torture documents are made public.

A Republican Senate source confirms the strategy. It now appears that Republicans are seeking an Obama commitment to safeguard the Bush administration’s darkest secrets in exchange for letting these nominations go forward.

Here's what still-criminal Senate GOP'ers don't want Americans to find out about……

On April 2, the Justice Department was expected to make public a set of four memoranda prepared by the Office of Legal Counsel, long sought by the American Civil Liberties Union and other advocacy organizations in a pending FOIA litigation. The memos, authored by then-administration officials and now University of California law professor John Yoo, federal appellate judge Jay Bybee and former Justice Department lawyer Stephen Bradbury, apparently grant authority for the brutal treatment of prisoners, including waterboarding, isolated confinement in coffin-like containers, and “head smacking.”

The "coffin-like containers" is especially a nice touch, don't you think? The most creative new torture technique, the one I'm the most fond of, is harnassing your detainee around the neck with a towel and then twirling him around slamming him into walls. Now, that's some torture leadership we can believe in, huh?

It was bad enough, nearly unbearable really, to wade through the criminal sludge of the last administration……but we did it. The last 8 years felt like 20, they moved so slowly. But do we really have to continue to endure the Zombie Dead-ender Republican Gang's ongoing blackmail coverup?

Do we?

Senate Republicans are obstructing justice, as they try to protect the Decider and his Dick from prosecution, and at the same time, they are blackmailing President Obama.

It's painfully obvious…..America needs a Special Prosecutor.

Also…..this is a tremendous read on the subject.

UN headquarters hit in Gaza. John Bolton drew wood.

About-to-be president, Barack Obama, has had no problem communicating with other governmental leaders and the American people about his intentions in dealing with the collapsed economy. Obama has boldly, and repeatedly, told us how he intends to "jump-start" the economy, as well as "save" or "create" up to 4 million new jobs with a large stimulus package…..all in order to prevent the "second Great Depression."

With the domestic financial crisis, Obama has not deferred to outgoing maniac George W. Bush. Obama hasn't stated, when asked about what he will do with the economic disaster, that "we only have one president at a time." Obama has had no problem, whatsoever, demanding, for example, the remaining $350 billion of TARP funding from Congress, warning he would veto any attempt to stall the money.

However, when it comes to the still ongoing Israeli slaughter of boxed-in Palestinians in the Gaza Strip….Obama becomes a bit…gunshy. Except for this comment early on….

“If somebody was sending rockets into my house, where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that,” he told reporters in Sderot, a small city on the edge of Gaza that has been hit repeatedly by rocket fire. “And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.” Link

Standard issue, even though childish and simplistic, American establishment defense of anything Israeli. I don't buy the kneejerk, stale, bullsh*t attempt at analogy that Obama offered up here.
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The following attempt, admittedly imperfect, seeks to explain why Obama's "reasoning" is hollow:

A band of extremely violent narco-traffickers infiltrate northeast Ohio. Ohio law enforcement, in conjunction with federal officials, decide to lock down the region from I-77 eastward, I-70 northward and the Pennsylvania border westward. National Guard troops set up "border checkpoints and crossings", basically prohibiting any civilian movement in or out of the designated "terror-crime zone". This is all done for "state security" reasons.

National Guard helicopter gunships begin rooting out the narco-traffickers by launching extremely destructive attacks throughout the cordoned off region. Completely innocent Ohioans, as you might imagine, are killed and mutilated in the process. Hospitals, schools, churches, and government buildings are hit in Canton, Akron, Cleveland and Youngstown….officials claiming the traffickers are hiding there.

What was originally deemed a necessary, yet temporary, effort, turns into a months-long, then years-long situation. Hundreds of Ohio women and children are slaughtered, along with a few narco-criminals, yet the effort continues. Conditions in northeast Ohio become grim, desperate.

Some Ohioans decide to fight back. They begin launching primitive-weapons outside the condoned-off sector, foolishly hoping to change the ongoing slaughter dynamic. The attacks by Ohio law enforcement and the National Guard only intensify….many more Ohio civilians are killed. National Guard troops slowly begin occupying the region, rolling in tanks and armored vehicles from which they continue to shell densely populated cities. What at first was announced as a temporary and necessary measure becomes the permanent status quo.

The hypothetical Ohio governor-elect then makes a statewide announcement…

"We only have one state governor at a time, so I'll only say this for now….if northeast Ohio residents are launching dangerous attacks into the non-cordoned off zone where my family resides, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that."

Acceptable? Reasonable? You tell me.

I must say, the brutal and criminal attack by Israeli military forces on Palestinians in Gaza, followed by the despicable responses from the Bush administration and a Democratic Congress to that criminal, savage attack, has been burning my ass in the extreme.

There are no comprehensible justifications for the wicked responses from American leaders. None whatsoever. Unquestioningly supporting, nay…cheering on, Israel's crime, does not, in any non-maniacal way of thinking, serve any legitimate American purposes. It is simply madness.

Setting aside for a moment the open insanity of American leaders…..and their stenographic, pom, pom waving appendages in the corporate media…….the following piece offers up what could be a credible explanation of why Israeli leaders are carrying out their dirty deeds….

The Israelis are a gifted and resourceful people who fully deserve the right to live in peace, but who seem intent on squandering every chance to allow that to happen. It's difficult to avoid the conclusion that this conflict serves the political and economic purposes of Israel so well that they have every interest in maintaining it. While there is fighting they can continue to build illegal settlements. While there is fighting they continue to receive huge quantities of military aid from the United States. And while there is fighting they can avoid looking candidly at themselves and the ruthlessness into which they are descending.

Gaza is now an experiment in provocation. Stuff one and a half million people into a tiny space, stifle their access to water, electricity, food and medical treatment, destroy their livelihoods, and humiliate them regularly…and, surprise, surprise – they turn hostile. Now why would you want to make that experiment?

Because the hostility you provoke is the whole point. Now 'under attack' you can cast yourself as the victim, and call out the helicopter gunships and the F16 attack fighters and the heavy tanks and the guided missiles, and destroy yet more of the pathetic remains of infrastructure that the Palestinian state still has left. And then you can point to it as a hopeless case, unfit to govern itself, a terrorist state, a state with which you couldn't possibly reach an accommodation.

And then you can carry on with business as usual, quietly stealing their homeland. Link

Could be.