More prison secrets?

Or is that secret prisons? According to Haaretz, the CIA is running a top-secret prison in Jordan where at least 11 Al Qaeda suspects are purported to be held.

It is not known where precisely in the Hashemite kingdom they are being held, but they are thought to be at a secret facility belonging to Jordanian intelligence or at a secret base.

Here's the line that concerns me:

Their detention outside the U.S. enables CIA interrogators to apply interrogation methods that are banned by U.S. law...

So I guess torturing people in other countries is ok.

Maryland official wants to out HIV positive people

This bit of repugnant news comes to us from a democrat (via Atrios).

The comptroller of Maryland, William Schaefer (D), wants a statewide public registry of HIV-positive people and called them "a danger."

His sickening remarks included:

"They're a danger to spread AIDS. People should be able to know who has AIDS. It costs an awful lot of money to treat them."

So, since it costs a lot of money to treat AIDS patients (as it does with many diseases), the privacy rights of the individuals can just be tossed into the wind. I'm sure cancer patients will be relieved to hear that.

Ahhh, but it's not just the expense of treating them that is the bug up Schaefer's butt - he is apparently of the old school of thought on AIDS. You know the old school - the one which says that the only people who get AIDS are scumbags who deserve it.

To wit:

"They bring it on themselves.. They don't get it by sitting on the toilet seat. ... A person who gives AIDS, who spreads AIDS, they're bad people."

We don't need people like this in the democratic party. Come to think of it, we don't need people like this in any party.

There must be a place for bigoted, homophobic assholes.

I just don't know where.

Selection 2004 in full swing

Earthside and Kos both have frightening information about the ongoing efforts by the republicans to make sure this "election" ends up the way the want. Voter registrations, geographic placement of polling sites, and the handling of absentee ballots are all being used to set this selection up for the repubs.

Very, very scary stuff.

Human microchip FDA approved - today it's voluntary, tomorrow......?

Not to get too sci-fi here, but the news that the FDA has approved the verichip for implantation in people has me a little concerned.

The idea is that medical information can be stored easily and will be readily accessible to medical personnel. The chips can also be used to contain information about security clearances in order to facilitate entry by authorized staff into secure areas.

That all sounds nice and innocent. But we all know that many previously innocent technologies, such as surveillance and spy technology, have been used for nefarious purposes.

I can't help but wonder if insurance companies will someday require these chips in those that want coverage. Or if hospitals will want to eventually start placing them in all admitted patients to "cut down on medical errors." Not to mention the inability of the individual to selectively release information about him/herself. Once the chip is read, it's there for all to see.

There's no doubt that this technology could have many uses for those who want it.

But my fear is that is will be forced on those of us who don't.

Women now have to get felt up to get on planes

That's the latest airport insanity thanks to Bush's idiotic, invasive, and ill-applied air security.

A woman in Denver decided to leave the airport after a screener, having already flagged her for additional security, said that unless her breasts were felt she would not be boarding the plane.

The woman, after having been threatened and surrounded by security, rightfully got the hell out of there and rented a car for her trip home.

Here's the line that really gets me:

"The Transportation Security Administration said its screeners did nothing wrong."

I don't think I can add anything to that.

Bush slips into red zone

We can only hope he stays there.

Bush's approval rating has fallen below that critical 50% mark, down to 47%, the lowest since July.

Anything below 50% is very dangerous for incumbents.

I guess I have to wonder, with jobs, health care, and lives being lost, lies, secrecy, and abuse of power, how is it even staying at 47%?

Iraq war distracted the U.S.

Well, we knew that already. And Kerry has hit Bush hard on that very point. But now it's been validated by a top-notch Israeli think tank:

the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University said that instead of striking a blow against Islamic extremists, the Iraq war "has created momentum for many terrorist elements, but chiefly al-Qaida and its affiliates."

The concentration of U.S. intelligence assets in Iraq "has to be at the expense of being able to follow strategic dangers in other parts of the world," he said.

So Dick wanted a war with Iraq, and that's what he got. But we've been screwed in the process.

And Dick says that we'll be unsafe if KERRY gets into office?

What the hell is Dick's problem?

Did he get effing amnesia? Because after admitting that Iraq had no WMD, Dick is at it again.

Lying, that is.

"The situation we faced was Saddam Hussein and Iraq presented the most likely place where there could be a nexus between the terrorists on the one hand and weapons of mass destruction," Cheney said.

The most likely place???? Has the Dark Master not heard of a little place called Iran? Or Pakistan? Or perhaps he forgot about Afghanistan, which has been left in the hands of the warlords and druglords.

The extent of these delusions has now become officially frightening. That Dick can sit there and lie his evil ass off after everything that has gone public in the way of reports and quotes from within his own regime, has me truly worried.

John Edwards said it best: The American people can't take another four years of him.

Kerry's got the big mo - time for another terror alert

This is really getting old.

The latest "threat" comes by way of Iraq. Supposedly, a disk was found in Iraq that contained floor plans and other information about schools in 6 states.

The six states are: California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New Jersey, and Oregon.

Just to refresh, this is how these six states stand in terms of the election:

According to electoral-vote.com,

California is weak Kerry
Florida is weak Bush
Georgia is strong Bush
Michigan is strong Kerry
New Jersey is weak Kerry
Oregon is strong Kerry

At the very least, Florida, Oregon, and Michigan are all still in play.

Sinclair Broadcast group on the attack

They plan to preempt regular programming days before the election to show a film attacking Kerry on Vietnam.

So much for the liberal bias in media.

Bush meltdown

Oliver Willis has the video of the Bush flipping "out of his gourd."

If you missed the debate, catch this clip.

Lies, lies, and videotape

I'll leave the sex and wood jokes to others.

But as to the lies, it looks like Bush stepped on his own tongue again. He thought he'd get big laughs by saying "I own a timber company? That's news to me."'

Several times during the debate, Kerry smiled knowingly. Now we know why.

According to Factcheck.org, Bush did in fact receive income from part ownership of a timber company.

I guess he forgot that small fact while he was doing his stand-up routine.

Live-blogging the debate

Many blogs and message boards will be hopping tonight, but two in particular are worth mentioning.

On Hardblogger, Keith Olbermann will be doing real-time analysis and scoring the debate as he did with the veep debate on Tuesday.

And Kos is going to be busy - he is using a rapid response interactive to track the answers to specific questions, fact check, and post transcripts of the debate for review.

Good thing we got those tax cuts...

or maybe not.

Seems that Bush's big plan for creating jobs hasn't done a helluva lot. These numbers aren't even keeping up, never mind replacing the losses.

I'm sure Bush will smirk at tonight's debate and go on about how great these new jobs are, even though many of them are not at the pay scale or benefit level that previous jobs were at.

He'll probably whine and play the blame game in the most ridulous and transparent display, as he recently did: he had the stones to blame the job losses on Clinton and 9/11.

I guess the 22 million jobs created under Clinton were phantom jobs. And as far as 9/11, there is no doubt that 9/11 had a devastating effect on the economy. But Bush promised jobs after 9/11 as well as before.

But in typical fashion, being perfectly willing to eff everything up and not at all willing to take responsbility for it, Bush is attempting to blame the pitiful job numbers on his very successful predecessor and on a terrorist attack.

It's just a matter of time before he blames Saddam.

Reason du jour: The U.S. invaded Iraq because Saddam was messing with the sanctions

Now that there is no doubt left about the absence of WMD's in Iraq, the regime is coming up with more excuses to try and justify their increasingly unjustifiable position.

Now that Bush and Dick have finally conceded that the weapons, their primary reason for invading, do not exist, they are now trotting out the lamest and most desperate attempt to justify the war post-invasion: because Saddam was abusing the oil-for-food program.

That's right - the U.S. invaded Iraq, thousands of U.S. soldiers are dead and seriously wounded, tens of thousands of Iraqis were killed, and dozens of hostages (including the sad and recent murder of Briton Kenneth Bigley) were executed because -- Saddam was trying to get around the sanctions.

Now that the original reasons for war (imminent threat, WMD, connection to Al Qaeda) have all been destroyed, they are now, in yet another desperate and pathetic deception, going to try and convince Americans that their loved ones' deaths and the world hating us is worth it because Saddam was trying to bypass sanctions. This was not even on the original list of reasons.

This pathetic and ridiculous ploy has not gotten past the Kerry campaign:

"You don't make up or find reasons to go to war after the fact." - John Kerry

The depths to which this administration will go to justify their horrific excursion into Iraq is becoming unbelievable, even for a Kerry supporter like me.

It is clear that their house of cards is crumbling before them, and they are desperately and flailingly reaching for a lifeline. But instead of a lifeline coming, the pins holding up their hopes seem to be dropping one by one. They desperately need one thing, even just one reason, for their war of choice to be true.

But none of it is.

What "wounded" really means

We hear a lot of talk about the number of casualties in Iraq from the regime's self-serving and unnecessary war. Over one thousand killed, thousands more wounded.

But while it is a relief that the wounded were able to survive, the gravity of their injuries is never mentioned by Bush and Dick, with good reason from their point of view. After all, can't have people talking about loss of limbs and brain injuries when you are trying to shove an agenda-driven war down the throats of the American people. No sense wasting time with truth or reality.

Out of the over 8,000 wounded U.S. soldiers from the Iraq war, as many as two-thirds have suffered brain injuries, in many cases TBI's - traumatic brain injuries. Some of these soldiers are having memory problems and mental incapacity. Their recoveries will be long and difficult, and some will never fully recover. Their young lives will never be the same.

I hope the Dark Master and the boy king remember that when they try to go to sleep at night.

Standing up to the pharm industry

Great take by Katrina vanden Heuvel on the steps many are taking to retrieve power from the big pharms, which are being aided by this administration in screwing the American healthcare consumer.

Dick wants us to believe that healthcare costs are high because of so-called frivilous lawsuits, while pharmaceutical execs, in concert with the "administration," work hard to keep affordable drugs out of the hands of citizens.

No WMD's, but Bush would invade anyway

[shudder]

some good reads on the no WMD matter and other related topics:

Eric Alterman

Eric Alterman on when presidents lie

Bush once again trying to scare public into voting for him (WP)

The rise of Al Qaeda while the U.S. is busy making democracy in Iraq

Pat Buchanan

Dick's "avalanche of lies"

Remember the famous "mountain of evidence" in the O.J. case? Well now we have the "avalanche of lies."

Great article by William Rivers Pitt about the many and egregious lies uttered by the uh - "vice president."

The most obvious and most talked about:

Yes, the lies were thick before Cheney took his seat at the desk on Tuesday night. They got thicker. Edwards, in a theme repeated throughout the night, stated that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the attacks of September 11, and that the Bush administration had erred grievously by diverting attention from Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda and into Iraq. Several times, Edwards accused Cheney of rhetorically combining Iraq and 9/11.

"I have not," replied Cheney, "suggested there is a connection between Iraq and 9/11."

Earthside also has a very good listing of Dick's deceptions.

Debate seemed a draw, but not among undecideds

Most of the pundits and polls called the debate a draw. Some leaned towards Cheney, some towards Edwards, but very few thought it was a blowout.

Of course, the only opinion that really matters is that of the voters. So it was nice to see that among undecideds, Edwards appeared to be the winner of the debate.

I'm sure the RNC spinners will have some complaints about the methodology of the poll.

Cheney sacked by his own team

Great read in The Nation by John Nichols about how it wasn't just John Edwards who went hard after the lies of the Dark Master. Dick's own republican brethren have been extremely critical of the war in Iraq and how it has been conducted.

Edwards hit Cheney where it hurts. Just as Cheney warps the truth beyond recognition when he spins his fantasies about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and supposed links between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network, so he also misleads when he claims that debates about Iraq break down along partisan lines.

Seems that even fellow republicans can't buy the load of crap coming from this guy.

Sure is a good thing we didn't divert attention away from Afghanistan to Iraq...

oh, wait a minute ..... - we did.

That explains the ongoing persecution of women who are trying to assert their right to vote.

According to Human Rights Watch, Afghan women are being attacked and threatened by warlords and the Taliban.

The Taliban? I thought we got rid of them.

Oh, that's right - we pulled our resources out of there to go after the guy who had no WMD's.

I keep forgetting that.

Stop the presses - Iraq had no WMD

Holy cripe - how many more times do we have to hear this before the frightening reality of this invasion of Iraq sinks in to the minds of the American people?

Of course, it doesn't help when the Dark Master lies on national television and insists that there is a connection between Saddam and 9/11 (except last night, when he denied it).

Nobody wants to think that their loved ones died because their government lied to them. And all those who have served and died and still serve deserve our gratitude and prayers.

But the sad reality is that this administration lied its way into war, and as a result, over a thousand soldiers are dead who might not otherwise be.

That's a lot of blood on the hands of this administration.

Can we use the word "lie" now?

Finally? Can we make it official?

Dick is a pathological liar. He actually sat there for nearly two hours last night and lied his evil ass off. The only reason he might have looked somewhat good to an observer is if the observer had no bleeping idea of what the truth actually was.

I am so glad to see bloggers as well as main stream media itemize his deceptions. Edwards tried to do it last night, but they were coming so fast and furious it would be impossible to keep up.

The thing I really find disturbing is the comfort with which the Dark Master sat there and lied, lied, lied. The ease of his presentation was chilling.

Chilling.

Was that two days, or two weeks?

Not blogging for two days seems like forever when the news is happening so fast. Anyway, thanks to everyone who posted and commented.

No surprise, I have a lot to say about the events of late. More to follow.

Do you suppose Big Brother would like the front or back seat?

Under most ridiculous proposal ever has to go the following:

Apparently a group of researchers in Texas has decided that the gas tax based on gallons is passe' and would like to replace it with a per mile tax.

Many others, including Atrios and Off the kuff, have posted on this, but I'd like to add my own two cents, as it were.

Regardless of any unlikely purported economic benefit, here is the only sentence in the article that matters to me:

Fees for miles traveled would be measured by Global Positioning System receivers embedded in vehicles. The system would track which roads a motorist uses so the virtual tolls could be distributed to the appropriate agency.

So this plan would work by way of a GPS positioning system installed in every car which would track their mileage. This information would then go to the government so that it could figure out the amount of taxes to charge.

And I thought I had the heebie-geebies when John McCain proposed a national ID card.

It's the environment, stupid - sort of

It's nice to hear from Howard Dean as this election rolls into the final stretch. In his weekly column posted on Democracy for America, Dean discusses a number of important environmental issues which have taken a serious hit under the Bush administration.

Highlights:

- in 2001 Bush tried to weaken protections keeping arsenic out of drinking water

- the rollback of the Clean Air Act, misleadingly named "Clear Skies," allows for more emissions of mercury into the atmosphere

- the increasingly believable idea that violent weather is a result of increased global warming

- the abandonment of the Kyoto protocol

- the need for alternative fuel

- the critical matter of reducing dependence on Middle East oil

What is a delusion? Just ask Dick

According to the Cambridge online dictionary, someone is under a delusion when they believe something "that is not true."

It would seem that the Dick, aka the evil puppet master, is under the delusion that Iraq and Al Qaeda are connected and that Iraq had to be invaded after 9/11. The Boston Globe has chronicled the continuing attempt by Dick to create a connection that does not exist despite thorough investigation by the 9/11 commission.

If people didn't believe him, it would be bad enough. But polls still show that a significant percentage of the population mistakenly believes that Saddam had something to do with 9/11. And that is, in very large part, because of the repeated lies of the "vice president."

I can't wait until he faces off with Edwards tomorrow night.

So, Dick, what about those deferrments?

Great article in The Nation describing 10 critical debate questions that would be sure to make the evil puppet master squirm in his seat.

Just a couple of my favorites:

Why were maps of Iraqi oil fields and pipelines included in the documents reviewed by the administration's energy task force, the National Energy Policy Development Group, which you headed during the first months of 2001? Did discussions about regime change in Iraq figure in the deliberations of the energy task force?

Speaking of intelligence, were you or any members of your staff involved in any way in revealing the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative who was working on weapons of mass destruction issues, after her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson, angered the administration by revealing that the president made claims about Iraqi WMD programs that he and his aides had been told were unreliable?

I'm thinking that the actual questions, at least from the moderator, will be less stinging. But I wouldn't be too sure about Edwards. He will be going for the knockout.