Jim Rittenhouse's semidaily journal of news, commentary and reports
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 [...]
…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 [...]
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 [...]
Article about Michael Isikoff of Newsweek’s latest investigative direction: that the internal DOJ oversight office delivered a report to the Attorney General under Bush that said, essentially, that the DOJ’s legal papers from John Yoo and others that backed up torture with a film of legal justification were BS that were way off the line [...]
from Salon: “If the mood and the speeches at the winter meeting are any guide, Republicans are seeking refuge from electoral defeat in an alternate reality, one where the public still loves them — or would if they could only improve their sales pitch. And where going along with President Obama’s agenda just isn’t in [...]
Gitmo: People reviewing the cases of prisoners are finding out that there’s really no solid files as such on anyone, and that a lot of material is suspect or worthless – and scattered, disorganized and fifth-hand. The realization is coming through that people were supposed to get confessions and information first and worry about anything [...]
From Dick Meyer at NPR on Blago and Made-off: As audacious as Blagojevich’s political gluttony is, it is easy to find far worse political corruption, much of it perfectly legal: Distorting intelligence to invade Iraq, torturing prisoners, failure to regulate Wall Street, and systematic pork-barrel boondoggling come quickly to mind. If you’re feeling expansive, how [...]
Hedge Fund founder who lost a serious bundle in the Madoff ponzi scheme commits suicide, and no, he didn’t jump out a window. The radical Israeli settlers in the West Bank are a political nightmare that any government will have serious problems with and neither main party coalition wants to deal with. Of course, government [...]
Details after the cut.
Seems that the lack of vetting that McCain did was the same that Bush did. (starts singing from Fiddler on the Roof here) Next time around, I suggest that they use a divining rod or the Urim and Thummim – especially if it’s Romney.
The name Yoshi Tsurumi is one you probably have never heard of; he was George W. Bush’s macroeconomics professor at Harvard Business School, and he presently teaches at CUNY. He remembers Bush well – as one of his worst students ever: Bush, by contrast, “was totally the opposite of Chris Cox,” Tsurumi said. “He showed [...]
Going back to my response posts, I want to stress that I never assume that anyone voting against Obama is a racist, or that Republicans are racists, or that either on the Republican ticket is a racist. I know better. I’ve lived with serious racists, had racism and sexism used against me and mine (you [...]