Too Many Smoking Guns: Another Day Another Memo...

So How Many Of Them Will It Take?

From Crooks and Liars:

A newly-disclosed 2005 memo, authored by then-State Department counselor Philip Zelikow, then-Acting Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England, and then-Deputy Assistant Secretary for Detainee Affairs Matthew Waxman, gave President Bush “clear and unequivocal advice encouraging a detainee interrogation system that followed humane practices that adhered to US and international law.” The memo was authored as the Bush administration was seeking a “fresh approach” handling terror detainee and just weeks after the OLC issued its second round of torture memos.

England, Rumsfeld’s deputy, brought the paper to his boss…Rumsfeld reacted coldy. He had not authorized this. … Rumsfeld directed that all copies be withdrawn from circulation and shredded.

And now we have idiots like Rep. Peter King (R.- NY) who are saying that talking about torture is un-American and that digging into an administration that engendered 2000 photos on torture will be useless. The "few bad apples" defense was a joke and still is a joke.

Methinks the King doth protest too much.

Saddleback and Mysogeny: Go Together Like A Horse and Carriage

"Love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage. I was told by mother, you can't have one without the other."

No, I'm not into 50s doggerel music. But some other people believe in those lyrics - waaaay too much. I had heard stories similar to the one featured here, but I had never heard it applied to the Saddleback church and Rick Warren. Yes, he's a inerrantist and Christofascist, but his framing of marriage is almost as bad as his fake love of gays.

From DoubleX:

Does Rick Warren’s Church Condone Domestic Violence?

Sheri Ferber is a petite strawberry-blonde with a pretty, round-cheeked face, and a voice that sometimes sounds hesitant. Four years ago, she approached a Saddleback pastor for protection against her husband, who’d violently attacked her while they were driving home from church. Instead of protecting her, Ferber says, the pastor [Tom Holladay] called her husband to warn him that Ferber had been “gossiping about their marriage.”

Yeah, the pastor ratted on her. When he was confronted with the situation by the media, his response was typical Saddleback Warrenesque back-peddling:

"It’s not like you can escape the pain,” he said, since the “short-term solution” of divorce leaves the “long-term pain” of a failed marriage. Holladay further qualified that domestic abuse meant regular beatings, not simply a spouse who “grabbed you once.”

So it's O.K. to get a divorce if you could prove that he knocked the crap out of you on a daily basis. Since Saddleback, as most Southern Baptist Churches, does not really allow for divorce on the basis of domestic violence, you wonder just how many women in Pastor Rick's ministry are declaring bruises to be household accidents.

And what about Kay Warren? While she certainly looks like a woman who can defend herself, both physically and emotionally, she too is bound by the strict rule of patriarchal authority. Or is Warren, like so many men bound to Fundamentalist rules worried about his ego, but really, inside, is a wuss? What ever Warren's true stance on the matter of domestic violence, his church has certainly shown exemplary forgiveness:

For four years, Ferber pled her case with various Saddleback staffers. But “every door that would seem to open would slam shut.”. Eventually, she left Orange County, but hears from former church fellows that her ex-husband is now an official worship leader.

Saddleback is now launching a revamped 30-week domestic violence program for victims. Saddleback’s new policy is to advise unilateral legal separation in any unsafe spousal abuse cases and police intervention, so that, Baker says, “victims [are put] in the position where they have to get help.” Marriage counseling is no longer the first option, and a program for abusers is anticipated by year’s end.

Notice the word "revamped". Evidently the first program didn't quite work out. Anyway, it comes too late for Sheri Ferber. I wonder how Warren is backpedaling on this one. "Why, I have many friends who are battered wives. They've had me over to dinner. I've met with their leaders."

Why We Should All Love And Admire Jesse Ventura

Say What You Will About Him,
He's BRUTALLY Honest!

Larry King Live (last week):
[As preparation for Viet Nam and as a Navy Seal, Ventura went through the SERE program and was waterboarded] Here's what he had to say:

VENTURA: It's drowning. It gives you the complete sensation that you are drowning. It is no good, because you -- I'll put it to you this way, you give me a water board, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders.

And his opinion about Bush, Cheney, Limbaugh, Obama and Colin Powell?

Priceless:

Stupid Prison Guards: Which Side Of The Bars Should They Be On?

So The Kids Are Acting Up?!

Have Them Take A Tour of This Place!

(Pastors: you might be able to incorporate this in a Halloween Hell House)

HT: Pam's House Blend

Sunshine State sadism: 43 children tased during prison tour

What is this world coming to? Oh, and the prison officer offered up this reason for 43 kids getting blasted with the stun gun -- "it wasn't intended to be malicious, but educational." And this can also go under the tag "Parents Behaving Badly":According to information released Saturday by the Florida Department of Corrections: During "Take Our Children to Work Day" events at three prison facilities, 43 children were hit with stun guns while others were exposed to tear gas.

I guess that it's small consolation that three prison guards were fired, two resigned and 16 more employees were disciplined. An investigation is still going on.

Notice the glaring discrepancy between the prison report and the report by an online news service:

"None of the children in any of the incidents required medical attention or was notably harmed, McNeil [prison official] said. He said the children, who ranged in age from 5 to 17, were all children of prison officials." "The jolt sent at least two of them sprawling to the floor, crying out in pain and clutching at agonizing burns on their arms. One child ended up in hospital," reported the Mail Online.

It wasn't intended to be malicious, but educational," said Schmidt. "The big shock came when I got fired."

Duh! FIVE YEARS OLD?!! He claims he got permission from the parents. Now, this is Tallahassee, FLA country. I explained in a comment to the parallel (in thought) website:

I noticed one of the posting sites is Daily Mail UK. Oh great! Now we have MORE people who will be banned from Britain! I just got finished writing about the shock jock Michael Savage who was banned from Britain along with Fred Phelps and his daughter. That piece was picked up by OpEdNews within several hours. We are now Bush's yearned-for legacy: looked upon as a nation of witless scumbags. Our bodies are armed and dangerous while our brains are unarmed and clueless.

One explanation about the affair: look at the location. Jacksonville Flori-duh! is not attuned with the rest of the world, let alone the rest of Florida. I.E: it's not the most sophisticated place in the universe. To most people in the area, the definition of a double-wide trailer is: mansion. To it's credit, Jacksonville, Fla. contains the largest number of clowns on black velvet as well as Elvises...on black velvet and Jesus' Agony In The Garden...on black velvet. When television burst onto their scene in the early 50s, thousands of antennae could be seen cropping up from the worst hovels. The problem: no electricity.

A guard who cannot understand why he was fired for zapping children with mega-voltage and tear-gassing them as well, merely demonstrates that unschooled (or home schooled) children can grow up to be prison guards.

They are sad, ignorant, but above all, FRUSTRATED people.

Just a thought.

Another Crisis! Informed American Minds EXPLODE!

WTF! WTF!! WTF!!!

And Fox News Is There To Entertain The Remaining Pieces

"Why, my lil' ole brain would bust if I tried to think of things like that." When Scarlett O'Hara said that in Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind, it was supposed to give men the impression that she was a pretty, charming and addle- brained twit in need of male protection. Of course, nobody thinks that the brain will explode with too much information, do they?

Ah, do they?

I sat down today and tried to think of the pressing subjects of the day and the list seemed to develope a mind of its own and just kept going on and on and on. The result was the (admittedly amateur) graphic below. News analyst Rachel Maddow underscored just the political input today by saying that the political picture was developing too rapidly for the news to keep up. I subscribe to seven rss news feeds for my homepage and today I realized that there was no way I was going to be able to take them all in.

And it's not a great day for the media either, if you think about it: all of the subjects seem equally important and choosing what to lead with for front pages, news hours, and talk shows must be maddening.

And then there's Fox News.

The "Dijongate" brouhaha cemented their place in the media spectrum at the very bottom: insipid non-news that fails to justify its existence. Hannity, Van Sustern, O'Reilly, Wallace, Hume, "Fox and Friends" continue to take up valuable airtime and public attention with witless rants and utterly skewed, opinionated "news." The "top videos" on the Fox News website:

• Beck sounds off on GE-Obama connection
• Can Americans stop government intrusion?
• Cavuto: Congress shouldn't rush
• 'Hannity' investigates the Illuminati

For fun, I went to the Hannity piece, part of a segment called "Beyond Belief." (A poor man's Ripley's Believe It Or Not with Hannity playing Dean Caine - quite badly). Hannity was supposed to present a piece on the secret society for our (sorry) illumination, but all he managed to do was to demonstrate how true blue he was to the Roman Catholic Church.

My point? Think of all the newsworthy pieces jamming themselves into our brains today and how they affect our lives. Think of how responsible media is trying to sort it out so that we can digest it better. We can't just throw up our hands in frustration and retreat to a corner and center ourselves on one subject only, tuning out the rest of what's happening to the world.

No, our brains won't explode. Not if they remain reasonably informed on subjects that matter. Not if they are able to consider a multitude of problems presented to them in a way that is FAIR and BALANCED.

Just a thought.

Inside the informed American's mind:

WTF!?: Michael Savage Asks Hillary Clinton To Interceed In British Ban?

"How could they put me in the same league with mass murderers when I have never avowed violence?"

An Open Letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:

Dear Mrs. Clinton:

The British are our friends. They have been allied with the United States for many years. In times of war, our tragedies and triumphs have been their tragedies and triumphs . So it is with a dire plea for compassion and diplomacy that I write this letter.

Please do not request British Home Secretary, the Hon. Jacqui Smith, to rescind the ban of Michael Savage (KEST-AM radio "Host"). To do so, would be an insult almost as grave as his actually being there! His speech foments hatred across the country. The very idea that he would spread that hatred to other countries is akin to knowingly allow diseased rats to cross borders and infest everyone with Bubonic Plague.

Michael Savage was labeled by the Home Secretary's Office as having "unacceptable behaviour." The British are so prone to understatement and restaint. A more apt description might be: "tasteless boor who hates absolutely everyone and who is diligent about making people hate each other."

We owe it to Britain. It's the Christian thing to do.

Sincerely,

Daniel F. Vojir
San Francisco

The very thought of Michael Savage being insulted by anything is hilarious! Or is it Hillary-ous? (I know, that sounds much too lame, like some Tony Perkins headline. Sorry, my bad). Here is a man who is so insulting that he goes for the jugular at the drop of a hat.

From Think Progress:

“It is demented,” Savage said. “I want my name off of that list and I want a letter of apology from this [British Home Secretary] Jacqui Smith.” Now it appears that Savage is seeking help from an old nemesis: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The San Fransisco Chronicle’s Rich Lieberman reports that “[l]awyers for Savage are formally asking [that] she call on the British Government to withdraw its ban.”

on the sale of babies.

"They are being dissected, sometimes while still alive, and sold piece by piece. Ears for $75 a pair; arms and legs, $150; a brain for $999, tax not included... It's becoming a huge business. And some of this money is being funneled to the Democrat machine."

On gays:

The gay and lesbian mafia wants our children. If it can win their souls and their minds, it knows their bodies will follow. Of course, it wants to homosexualize the whole country, not just the children.

On Muslims:

"They say, "Oh, there's a billion of them." I said, "So, kill 100 million of them, then there'll be 900 million of them." I mean, would you rather die -- would you rather us die than them?"

On students who were fasting in protest of Congress' failure to pass immigration reform legislation:

"I would say, let them fast until they starve to death; then that solves the problem."

AND ... on Hillary Clinton:

“Hillary Clinton, the most Godless woman in the Senate.”

Savage also once suggested that Clinton had something to do with the death of John F. Kennedy Jr. so she could run for U.S. Senate in New York.

And the greatest of insults:

Savage calls his listeners "literate callers with intelligence, wit, and energy." He says that he tries to make a show that has a "...hard edge combined with humor and education...Those who listen to me say they hear a bit of Plato, Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, Moses, Jesus, and Frankenstein."

Esquire Magazine calls Savage The Republican Party's Bigot Hero.

O.K., here's a man who says he does one thing even though it's obvious that he does another. You can watch his "oh-so-vilified-and-misunderstood" defense below. But first, let us give you a taste his effect on hate groups. Does this look like the work of Moses, Jesus or Plato? This was posted on Stormfront.org, the premier white supremicist website:

Michael Savage's Idea Of A "Pin- UP Girl"

coulter_shooting_gun
Originally uploaded by lachicaphoto

At least the heterosexual part of him. It is rumored that he put the make on Allen Ginsberg more than once back in the 50s, but he attributes that to propaganda of the "gay mafia."

Go figure.