Feingold: You're Getting Nothing for Xmas

Keeping with my theme of This Week in Zombie News, Russ Feingold has prognosticated:

Feingold: 'We're headed in the direction of absolutely nothing'

Russ Feingold tells a Wisconsin crowd of the prospects for health care legislation:

"Nobody is going to bring a bill before Christmas, and maybe not even then, if this ever happens," Feingold said. "The divisions are so deep. I never seen anything like that."

Feingold reiterated his appraisal a bit later.

"We're headed in the direction of doing absolutely nothing, and I think that's unfortunate," he said when asked about the plight of uninsured Americans.

Shorter version:

Secret prisons by any other name...

The NYT reports that the ICRC will now be given the names of so-called terrorist suspects in Obama's secret prisons "temporary screening sites" in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But, wait a minute, you're thinking - didn't Obama close the secret prisons?

Well, no.

The executive order he signed last January only included secret CIA prisons. (And we'll never really know if that has actually happened, will we?) Meanwhile, the US military is still more than free to have its own little private gulags.

The New York Times reported in 2006 that some soldiers at the temporary detention site in Iraq, then located at Baghdad International Airport and called Camp Nama, beat prisoners with rifle butts, yelled and spit in their faces, and used detainees for target practice in a game of jailer paintball.

Military officials say conditions at the camps have improved significantly since then, but virtually all details of the sites remain shrouded in secrecy.

There's more of that promised transparency Obama campaigned on.

How often do we need to be reminded that people taken prisoner during these wars have been continuously denied their basic human rights while our governments pretend otherwise?
 

Breaking News That Isn't Breaking or News

So, I turn on the teevee to check out CNN and the Breaking News! banner tells me that Tom Ridge, in his new book, reveals that the Bush administration used the terror alert level for political purposes.

Well guess what?

Ridge revealed that so-called Breaking News! back in 2005.

WASHINGTON (2005)— The Bush administration periodically put the USA on high alert for terrorist attacks even though then-Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge argued there was only flimsy evidence to justify raising the threat level, Ridge now says.

Ridge, who resigned Feb. 1, said Tuesday that he often disagreed with administration officials who wanted to elevate the threat level to orange, or "high" risk of terrorist attack, but was overruled.

His comments at a Washington forum describe spirited debates over terrorist intelligence and provide rare insight into the inner workings of the nation's homeland security apparatus.

Ridge said he wanted to "debunk the myth" that his agency was responsible for repeatedly raising the alert under a color-coded system he unveiled in 2002.


"More often than not we were the least inclined to raise it," Ridge told reporters. "Sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment. Sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good, you don't necessarily put the country on (alert). ... There were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said, 'For that?'"

CNN - "The most trusted name in news"

Pffft.

The CNN/MSM/Tom Ridge needs to sell books Bullshit Alert level currently sits at Elmo:



Update:

Amnesia-plagued boneheads and lying liars in action.



Hello? Google, anyone?
 

And now, the really important news...

Having passed universal health care decades ago, we Canadians have moved on to much more important scientific debates which don't involve semi-automatic-packing wingnuts showing up at town halls.

Science ponders 'zombie attack'

If zombies actually existed, an attack by them would lead to the collapse of civilisation unless dealt with quickly and aggressively.

That is the conclusion of a mathematical exercise carried out by researchers in Canada.

They say only frequent counter-attacks with increasing force would eradicate the fictional creatures.

Zombiegeddon - coming soon to a town hall near you.

Oh, wait...
 

Harper and the unwiped bums...

No, they didn't. Really?

Oh yes, they di-id:

OTTAWA — An unfortunate blunder by the Prime Minister's Office has residents of Nunavut alternately chuckling and cringing.

A news release sent out Monday outlined Prime Minister Stephen Harper's itinerary as he began a five-day tour of the North. The release repeatedly spelled the capital of Nunavut as Iqualuit - rather than Iqaluit.

The extra "u" makes a world of difference in the Inuktitut language.

Iqaluit, properly spelled, means "many fish."

Spelled with an extra "u," the Nunavut language commissioner's office says the word translates as a derogatory reference to "people with unwiped bums."

Bloggers from Iqaluit were quickly online ridiculing the gaffe - some light-hearted, some angry.

Iqaluit was named capital of Nunavut when the territory was created in 1999.

A news release today from the PMO spells Iqaluit correctly.

(h/t to James Morton who found it only "mildly amusing". Me? I think it's frickin' hilarious and so very expressive of the Cons' so-called 'cultural sensitivity'.)
 

Robert Novak - Gone

The "douchebag of liberty" has passed away.

Alas...he was such a kind and gentle soul...

Khadr - one step closer to coming home

IN yet another blow to the federal government, a federal court has ordered Ottawa to repatriate Omar Khadr from Gitmo hell.

In his 43-page decision, O'Reilly wrote that the federal government's ongoing refusal to request his repatriation to Canada "offends a principle of fundamental justice and violates Mr. Khadr's rights.

"To mitigate the effect of that violation, Canada must present a request to the United States for Mr. Khadr's repatriation as soon as practicable," the judge wrote.

Khadr's lawyers have argued the Canadian government was complicit in the detainee's alleged torture and mistreatment while in U.S. custody and is obliged under international law to demand his return.

Documents show Khadr's U.S. captors threatened him with rape, kept him isolated and deprived him of sleep. In 2003, Canadian Security Intelligence Service officers travelled to Guantanamo to question Khadr and shared the results of their interrogations with the Americans.

The watchdog over CSIS recently found the spy agency ignored concerns about human rights and Khadr's young age in deciding to interview him.

Khadr's situation parallels that of another child soldier allegedly tortured while being jailed at Gitmo as well. Recently (at least ordered to be) released Mohammed Jawad (who is said to have been 12 when he was detained) is just another example of the US ignoring the convention on the rights of child soldiers.

The fact that our governments have to be forced by the courts to release these detainees shows how much of a mockery any claims to protecting human rights of children made by successive Liberal, Conservative, Democrat and Republican parties have been.
 

Up here in Canada...

...we call this just plain crazy talk:

RON REAGAN, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Well, it's fine to get involved, and -- and it is good to show up at a town hall meeting and -- and have a conversation. But you have to have the conversation and you have to have the discussion.

And many of these people -- not all, I'm sure, but many of these people are clearly showing up to shut the conversation down. And they are being inspired by -- by some members of Congress who are floating this rumor, as -- as certain talk show hosts do, that, you know, Obama is all -- is all about killing the elderly, and, you know, there are these death panels, as Sarah Palin put it on her Facebook page.

(LAUGHTER)

REAGAN: And I -- I don't know that it's going to get dangerous out there. I tend to think that a lot of these might calm down a little because they realize this is not good press for them.

LOESCH: Well, yes.

REAGAN: But let me just add that, in Arizona today, a gun dropped out of one of these people's pockets while they were hooting and hollering at one of these town hall meetings.

LOESCH: Maybe they had a concealed-carry license.

[CNN host John ROBERTS]: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

REAGAN: Well, maybe they did, but, you know, you have got to wonder whether you really need to be packing heat to go to a town hall meeting.

LOESCH: Well, you know what? I tell you here, at Russ Carnahan's town hall meeting, as a -- as a young woman looking back at a bunch of really big guys in SEIU shirts who were glaring at me, I was a little bit afraid, I have to tell you. And that's stuff that we're facing.

REAGAN: Really -- really thinking you were going to be coming to harm, Dana?

LOESCH: Well, I...

(CROSSTALK)

REAGAN: I don't think so.

(CROSSTALK)

LOESCH: ... was beaten down in the parking lot afterwards, so, you know?

REAGAN: Well, you know, it is only a matter of time before somebody pulls out a gun and does something with it.

(CROSSTALK)

ROBERTS: Well, I don't know.

(CROSSTALK)

LOESCH: Yes, but the...

ROBERTS: Yes, it could be that this person did have a concealed- carry license.

(CROSSTALK)

REAGAN: I'm not arguing with you that they didn't have the concealed-carry license.

(CROSSTALK)

LOESCH: You can't immediately assign a negative -- you can't immediately assign...

(CROSSTALK)

REAGAN: But that's not the point.

(CROSSTALK)

LOESCH: ... negative simply because they -- they may have had a concealed-carry license.

But you know what? It is interesting that the guy didn't pick up his gun and start shooting everybody with it.

REAGAN: Well, let's hope not.

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

REAGAN: When that becomes the good news story of the day, I think we're in trouble, Dana.

LOESCH: He was demonstrating responsible firearm ownership.

(CROSSTALK)

ROBERTS: I'm sure the gentleman just picked up the gun and put it right back in his pocket, where it was duly licensed to be.

REAGAN: Put it right back in...

If you don't support Obama, you'll kill him

So this is goodbye from me. At least for a while. I wish you all the best and i'll pray for Obama's safety every day, because i've seen first hand how tragic can be the end of a visionary and forward-looking leader, when right wing lunatics decide to eliminate him and the left leaves him all alone.

- Daily Kos diarist, blackwaterdog

[insert heavy sigh here]

It was bad enough when, during the campaign, people who criticized Obamalama were labeled "racists". Now, you are basically the one holding the gun to his head if you voice your opposition to his policies which, contrary to the laundry list of hyped-up crap in that diary, have been anything near "progressive".

But the Leave Obama Alone! crowd can't deal with reality hitting them in the face. Too much "doom and gloom", they say - as if it's all about how their poor feelings are getting hurt. Maybe they should sit down for a face to face with the families of the dead in Iraq and Afghanistan and talk "feelings". Maybe they should have a face to face with those who've been tortured who won't see any justice done by this administration and talk "feelings". Maybe they should have a face to face with people who are dying from a lack of proper health care and talk "feelings".

But, no. If the "left" (whatever is left of the left in the US surely isn't in this Democratic party) abandons the Spelunker-in-Chief (I coined that term) who never met a cave he didn't like - he's as good as dead.

We joke about the insanity of the wingnuts who are showing up, completely misinformed while embarrassing themselves to no end, to the health care town halls. Pelosi and Hoyer have called their rabble-rousing "un-American". (Them's fighting words.) Meanwhile, the so-called "left" on blogs like Daily Kos - who loudly cheered the protests in Iran while posts about US protests for universal health care on the site faded quietly into oblivion - can't even bring themselves to get their asses off their chairs to get out there to fight for their rights in their country. No. Obama told them to write their congresspeople (because that's so effective, isn't it?).

Conservatives typically despise unruliness. Oh how they hated the 60s. And this centrist bunch of self-identified "pragmatic" Dems - who also chided every attempt by groups like Code Pink to bring attention to the horrific wrongs perpetrated by Bushco (and now continued by Obama's administration) - are stuck standing by while the right-wingers ironically claim the radical mantle of very public dissent. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Rahm Emanuel says that "Dems attacking other Dems are 'fucking stupid'". This, in the middle of a seriously muddled attempt to roll out a bill that the Dems have absolutely failed to explain.

Obama kicks the issue back to congress. But, because he believes he is the face of absolutely everything (and haven't you felt like selling your teevee too by now?), he owns this mess. And he owns the fact that the wingnuts are having an absolute field day (death panels, anyone?).

He owns every single bad policy decision his government has enacted since he's been in office. He wants to own it all. How many times have you seen one of his cabinet secretaries in the media explaining his policies? Does anybody even know who they are?

And, as has been noted ad nauseum by people who are actually in touch with reality on the real left and who won't be guilted into backing off from criticizing him because of ridiculous claims like the one made by the above-quoted Daily Kos diarist, Obama has committed a slough of very non-progressive missteps. He's only been in office 7 months!, they proclaim. As if he's going to change his very character and wake up one morning soon to unleash his hidden inner liberal. Or maybe, they hope, Michelle will make him do it. (No, really. Some have actually said that.)

Read my lips: that's not going to happen.

The Hopeyness train has left the station and it took the Changeyness policies with it.

You just can't call the wingnuts crazy while making equally crazy statements yourself.

If you can't stand the much-deserved criticism, refresh, refresh, refresh and leave the rest of us alone.

 

Sunday Food for Thought: Inconspicuous Consumption

 
How much space do we really need?