ch.annel2-i.s-n.ow-a.ngry

SEN. CARL LEVIN: On October 2, 2002, a week after John Rizzo, the acting CIA general counsel, visited Gitmo, a second senior CIA lawyer, Jonathan Fredman, who was chief counsel to the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, went to Guantanamo, attended a meeting of Gitmo staff and discussed a memo proposing the use of aggressive interrogation techniques. That memo had been drafted by a psychologist and psychiatrist from Gitmo, who a couple of weeks earlier had attended that training given at Fort Bragg by instructors by the SERE school.

While the training—excuse me, while the memo remains classified, minutes from the meeting where it was discussed are not. Those minutes clearly show that the focus of the discussion was aggressive techniques for use against detainees.When the Gitmo chief of staff suggested at the meeting that Gitmo “can’t do sleep deprivation,” Lieutenant Colonel Beaver, Gitmo’s senior lawyer, responded, “Yes, we can—with approval.” Lieutenant Beaver added that Gitmo, quote, “may need to curb the harsher operations while the International Committee of the Red Cross is around.”

Mr. Fredman, the senior CIA lawyer, suggested that it’s, quote, “very effective to identify detainee phobias and to use them” and described for the group the so-called “wet towel” technique, which we know as waterboarding. Mr. Fredman said, quote, “It can feel like you’re drowning. The lymphatic system will react as if you’re suffocating, but your body will not cease to function,” close-quote.

And Mr. Fredman presented the following disturbing perspective of our legal obligations under our anti-torture laws, saying, quote, “It is basically subject to perception. If the detainee dies, you’re doing it wrong.”

“If the detainee dies, you’re doing it wrong.” How on earth did we get to the point where a senior US government lawyer would say that whether or not an interrogation technique is torture is, quote, “subject to perception” and that if, quote, “the detainee dies, you’re doing it wrong”? The Gitmo senior JAG officer Lieutenant Colonel Beaver’s response was: “We will need documentation to protect us.”

Once again the DemocracyNow!  bitches have scooped Western Civilization’s media on this subject.

On another note I like to harp about, Barak Hussein Obama Yomamadroid has done something weird (an my spellcheck only likes the Hussein part of his name. hmm.) with his presidential campaign - observe:

…by showing that he could raise large sums from small donors — 47 percent of the $263 million Mr. Obama received has come in amounts of $200 or less — Mr. Obama has made the argument that he has achieved online what the public finance system has been unable to do. And he has been freed from the necessity of spending countless hours fund-raising.

…the use of the Internet to raise campaign money at least plays into the spirit of campaign finance reform, some analysts said, and possibly does more to rein in the influence of big donors and special interests than 30 years of restrictions imposed by federal law.

If you look at the graphic on that NYT article, you’ll see that if you put the bar at $500 donation the percent jumps to 55%. McCain on the other hand only has 31% donating $500 or less - which candidate is more likely to support YOU, majority America who has less than $200 to spare for anything right now? Of course, back on DemNow!, you’ll find Nader talking trash on Obama AND McCain - and unlike both of them, he doesn’t take a penny of corporate or PAC money.  Obama is so crazy-sauce popular, he could probably dump all the PAC and Corp money and still win for President - however, that would be a bad idea - look where it gets Nader. I’m not saying it’s not honorable and the actual right thing to do, however he should do it after he wins office. Think about this for a second - sure, that’s a lot of money he wouldn’t have to campaign with, but those PACs and Corps currently supporting or at least hedging their bets with some support for Obama in hopes for future kindness might take the return of the money as a signal that he will be ‘against’ him and take that money to McCain or otherwise turn it against Obama. What would really be great is taking the Corp/PAC sums and giving them to African aids charities or support for orphan Iraqi children etc.

Nader is probably the only candidate I’ve heard in any of my readings both mentioning and quoting the US Constitution [and isn’t that a word fraught with meanings]:

Doesn’t the Constitution start with “We the people”? 

Nader criticizes Obama yet praises two possible VP picks for the Obaminator.

Barack Obama really now has to be examined very carefully. He has worn out the word “change.” We now want to know what change is involved. And it’s quite clear that he is a corporate candidate from A to Z. In his voting record, he voted against reform of the Mining Act of 1872, which gives away our hard rock minerals. He voted for a terrible class-action restriction law that the corporations wanted him to vote for. He, in many ways, has disappointed people who had greater hopes for him. He’s voted for reauthorizing the PATRIOT Act. He refuses to even discuss—he’s vigorously against impeachment of Bush and Cheney. He won’t even support his colleague Senator Russ Feingold motion to censure the Bush administration for systemic repeated illegal wiretaps. He—you know, he’s letting the corporate-dominated city of Washington, the corporations who actually rule us now in Washington, determine his agenda. And that does not augur well.

AMY GOODMAN: What do think of Chuck Hagel as a vice-presidential running mate—yes, the Republican senator—for Barack Obama, one of the names that’s being bandied about?

RALPH NADER: Well, he thinks for himself. And that’s about the best you can expect of a politician these days. Senator Jim Webb, Senator Chuck Hagel, they think for themselves. They’re not robotic minds. They’re not completely monetized minds. And they’re Vietnam veterans. So, in today’s politics, that puts them forward.

Nader is also the only one talking sense on Iran that I’ve seen.

Iran has not invaded anybody in 250 years. Yet it’s obviously frightened. It’s surrounded by the US military west, south, east. It’s been labeled “Axis of Evil” by Bush, who invaded Iraq after he labeled them “Axis of Evil.” We have Special Forces, according to Sy Hersh, that go in and out of Iran. What are they going to do? They talk very belligerently nationally, but they’re really scared. I mean, we supported Saddam Hussein, logistically and with materiel, in invading Iran, which took a half a million Iranian lives. They remember the shooting down of their civilian airliner years ago.

I guess if your choice is still Giant Douche or Shit Sandwich, you might as well reach for a cookie even if you fail. Good stuff. After reading his positions, I’ll vote Nader.

The Bush administration is likely to move its research on one of the most contagious animal diseases from an isolated island laboratory to the U.S. mainland near herds of livestock, raising concerns about a catastrophic outbreak.

Skeptical Democrats in Congress are demanding to see internal documents they believe highlight the risks and consequences of the decision. An epidemic of the disease, foot and mouth, which only affects animals, could devastate the livestock industry.

Because the UK totally didn’t have just this very same thing happen, a leak of hoof and mouth disease from a lab that triggered an outbreak. Oh well, the Democrats oppose it, but they’ll roll over for Bush again. Why not. I mean, if he can’t force them to he’ll get his way through reverse psychology no doubt.

Had that been the rule in place last month, consumers would not have been told if their supermarkets sold meat from a Southern California slaughterhouse that triggered the biggest beef recall in U.S. history.

This meat is dangerous - so dangerous we have to not sell it anymore - but if you already bought it, that’s cool. At least, that’s what the food industry wants the government to tell you. I’m sick of people being able to buy their way out of not living up to their mistakes.

“This is an untenable position that runs counter to the party’s intent in establishing superdelegates in 1984,” the letter from the wealthy Clinton backers said.

“Superdelegates, like all delegates, have an obligation to make an informed, individual decision about whom to support and who would be the party’s strongest nominee,” said the letter signed by some of Clinton’s biggest fund raisers.

Actually, I do believe the regular delegates are supposed to vote the way the popular vote was split in their state, hence the ‘pledged delegates’ count we’re keeping. Superdelegates, however, were created for just this instance - where a popular candidate was desired by the people but not the power elite. They were created in response to McGovern and Carter, to keep a populist from being nominated for the Democratic ticket again, and instead keep the candidate that the money and power brokers of the ‘Democratic’ party in the running.

Some Democrats they’re turning out to be.  I’m still writing in Al Gore for President this November.

The problem is the layers of abstraction and obfuscation and secrecy between our government ‘of the people’ and the actual people.