Jim Rittenhouse's semidaily journal of news, commentary and reports
“When we think of Islam we think of a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world. Billions of people find comfort and solace and peace. And that’s made brothers and sisters out of every race — out of every race. America counts millions of Muslims amongst our citizens, and Muslims make [...]
My favorite conservative columnist, Daniel Larison, is hitting it on the head and out of the ballpark this morning about the mindless OMG’ing in the Beltway press and elsewhere about political dishonesty on national security issues. He brings up two main directions on this: if Group A is out of office, then Group B (who [...]
Big jump in the rates of teen cases of STDs and syphilis and teen pregnancies during the Bush administration, according to the CDC. A different sort of ‘don’t ask, and we won’t tell you’.
Daniel Larison thinks that the Republican leadership in Congress is rotted out and has to go:
Daniel Larison on the state of the Republican Party and why (read the whole thing): One the reasons why the GOP has so little credibility left is that its members and its spokesmen spent the better part of the fall concocting exaggerated, if not absolutely ridiculous, narratives that put all of the blame for the [...]
…and I also find the idea of political murder and terror repugnant. I understand that you find Dick Cheney a sadistic MF, or a Army recruiter someone who is hurting your co-religionists by supporting the war, or you find Dr. Tiller a baby-killer. Fine. Then work constructively to bring people to justice, or to outlaw [...]
Iraqi PM to Obama: If you release those unreleased photos from Abu Ghraib, my electorate will go up in blue flame and demand that the US get out yesterday.
…from Think Progress. Give it a look for a summary of why it’s major bad news, if you didn’t know that already…unless you think you’re Jack Bauer or something. As Jesse Ventura said on The View: “If waterboarding is OK, why don’t we let our police do it to suspects so they can learn what [...]
I’m beginning to think that Dick Cheney and company can’t tell the difference between repeats of 24 and reality. Of course, it’s coming to look a lot like he had the idea from the beginning that there had to be a pony at the bottom of that dungpile – er, that there had to be [...]
Daniel Larison, the thinking man’s conservative pundit: So, ironically, some of the defenders of the torture regime are making the best argument for the prosecution of past administration officials by their own invocations of past government illegalities. They are unwittingly reminding us that crimes unpunished today can easily become tomorrow’s conventionally accepted “correct” decisions. Every [...]
Another note on torture issues. This post seems to put it all together that the prime people who got good, reliable information in World War 2 were people who followed the same gold standard we followed before George W Bush changed things around; that torture is only good for causing people to suffer and say [...]
…which is the Organization of American States’ irregular meeting of the leadership of the OAS states (34) countries). Interesting news coming out of it, of course. Discussions between Obama and the US delegation on the one side, and some people Bush would never deal with on the other…discussions with the Cubans and Venezuelans and so [...]
The problem is that if Obama’s people are looking at a vast mess, what about the Republicans who allowed it to get out of hand in a big way? Well, frankly, they don’t have a clue as to what to do, because they really didn’t have a clue about the whole affair in the first [...]
Senator Schumer is saying that if a state government doesn’t want any of the stimulus money, they shouldn’t be forced to take it; however, you can’t pick what parts you will or won’t take. Sounds good to me. And Governor Sanford of South Carolina says that he’ll pray for you if you’re down and out, [...]
I’d forgotten about this: The American Service Members Protection Act of 2002, courtesy of Messrs Bush and Helms. It authorizes the US President to use any and all means to yank US citizens and soldiers out of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, including invading the Netherlands on a rescue mission. It also [...]