Chafee airs Obama, Bloomberg
2 minutes ago
Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman, speaking in Puerto Rico, said there was no need to apologize because "what Karl Rove said is true."Read More......
Medical records compiled by doctors caring for prisoners at the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay are being tapped to design more effective interrogation techniques, says an explosive new report.Read More......
Doctors, nurses and medics caring for the approximately 600 prisoners at the U.S. naval base in Cuba are required to provide health information to military and CIA interrogators, according to the report in the respected New England Journal of Medicine.
"Since late 2003, psychiatrists and psychologists (at Guantanamo) have been part of a strategy that employs extreme stress, combined with behaviour-shaping rewards, to extract actionable intelligence from resistant captives," it states.
Such tactics are considered torture by many authorities, the authors note.
Medical personnel belonging to the U.S. military's Southern Command have also been told to volunteer to interrogators information they believe may be valuable, the report adds....
They suggest that interrogators at the camp, set up in 2001 to detain prisoners captured in Afghanistan and later Iraq, have had access to prisoners' medical records since early 2003.
That contradicts Pentagon statements that there is a separation between intelligence-gathering and patient care.
William Winkenwerder, U.S. assistant secretary of defence for health affairs, said in a memo made public in May that Guantanamo prisoners' medical records are considered private — as are American citizens'.
However, "this claim, our inquiry has determined, is sharply at odds with orders given to military medical personnel and with actual practice at Guantanamo," the authors write.
Using medical records to devise interrogation protocols crosses an ethical line, said Peter Singer, director of the University of Toronto's Joint Centre for Bioethics.
I'm devoting much of today's report to Karl Rove's vile comments denigrating half of the American public. My office overlooks Ground Zero, and I'm looking at the gaping footprint as I write this. My wife and I were in New York that day, on our way to the WTC for a morning meeting. A chance phone call dragged on a few minutes too long and most likely saved our lives. I lost friends in the towers, and when I walk past the site, as I do almost every evening, the pain is as real as it was on September 11th, 2001.Read More......
I spent my youth in Beirut during the height of Lebanon's civil war, and I fought the Syrian presence in Lebanon long before the "Cedar Revolution." I watched young boys give their lives and mothers cradle their dying children in blood-soaked arms. I've seen more bloodshed, war, and violence, and shot more guns than most of the 101st Fighting Keyboardists combined. I wouldn't presume to question the strength or dignity of a stranger, and I pity those who blithely push the right=strong, left=weak rhetoric. It says far more about their inadequacies than it does about the target of their scorn. Today, Karl Rove took that rhetoric to a new, filthy low.
The top American commander in the Persian Gulf told Congress on Thursday that the Iraqi insurgency has not grown weaker over the past six months, despite a claim by Vice President Dick Cheney that it was in its "last throes."When will we hear Karl Rove say: Has there ever been a more revealing moment this year? Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of General Abizaid to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberal generals.
Q So will the President ask Karl Rove to apologize?Read More......
MR. McCLELLAN: Of course not, Jessica. This is simply talking about different philosophies and different approaches. And I think you have to look at it in that context. If people want to try to engage in personal attacks instead of defending their philosophy, that's their business. But it's important to point out the different approaches when it comes to winning the war on terrorism. And that's all he was doing....
Q What I'm talking about is word choice.
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think that they are just trying to engage in partisan attacks. Karl was simply talking about different philosophies, and we should be talking about what we stand for and how we want to move forward. We should be talking about what the different visions are and what the different ideas are, and that's what he was doing....
Q Can I ask it in this way, Scott? Then if this is an issue, is this an expression in some manner that the White House is concerned that with the popularity of the war diminishing, the anti-war liberalism is beginning to take hold so the President and Karl are confronting it directly?
MR. McCLELLAN: No, he was speaking to the New York Conservative Party, and he was talking about different philosophies -- the conservative philosophy and the liberal philosophy and how we're approaching different priorities for the American people. That's all it is.
"Karl Rove's speech was a speech that I think reflected some of the rhetoric that a lot of people feel."Read More......
"Has there ever been a more revealing moment this year?" Mr. Rove asked. "Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals."The MOTIVES of liberals. I.e., liberals aren't just recklessly getting our troops killed, it's apparently OUR MOTIVE to actually GET THEM KILLED. Read More......
20th century McCarthyism seems to have been replaced by 21st century Rove-ism.And Kos:
"Liberals saw what happened to us and said we must understand our enemies."Read More......
He's right. We want to understand.
We want to understand why Osama Bin Laden hasn't been captured? Why did the administration take its eyes off Al Qaida to invade Iraq? I mean, Al Qaida is the enemy Rove himself said we had to defeat. But we haven't.
Instead of defeating our enemies, we went to war against an impotent enemy -- Saddam. And yes, we want to understand. Like, why did they lie to go to war in Iraq? Why is that war still going, unabated? Why are we no closer to victory now, than we were in when Bush declared "mission accomplished"? Why don't our troops have proper ammo? Why aren't there enough boots on the ground in Iraq? Why are we still dying in Afghanistan?
He's right. I want to understand. I don't understand why the administration hasn't called for sacrifice. Why won't war supporters enlist? Why won't they encourage their circle of influence to enlist? Why won't they level with the American people, and give an honest assessment of what's going on in Iraq and Afghanistan?
I don't understand how our nation, always the good guys, is now perceived as the "bad guy" the world over. I don't understand how torture has become a commonplace occurance inside facilities that bear the stars and stripes.
The White House defended Rove's remarks and accused Democrats of engaging in partisan attacks. Rove, said spokesman Scott McClellan, "was talking about the different philosophies and our different approaches when it comes to winning the war on terrorism."That's it, game over. The White House has confirmed what we already knew, that Rove was talking about different philosophies and different approaches to the war on terror. The Democrat approach, according to the White House, is to not consider 9/11 a savage attack, and to be motivated by a desire to kill our own troops. McClellan just stood by the comments and basically explained that Rove was IN FACT talking about the differences between our two parties.
Mr. Rove also said American armed forces overseas were in more jeopardy as a result of remarks last week by Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, who compared American mistreatment of detainees to the acts of "Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others."Get it? Our "motives" are to "put our troops in danger." No other way to read that. Fire this asshole, now. Read More......
"Has there ever been a more revealing moment this year?" Mr. Rove asked. "Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals."
“I am deeply disturbed and disappointed that the Bush White House would continue to use the national tragedy of September 11th to try and divide the country. The lesson our country learned on that terrible morning is that we are strongest when we unite together, that America’s power is in its common spirit of democracy and freedom.Read More......
“Karl Rove should immediately and fully apologize for his remarks or he should resign. The lesson of September 11th is not different for conservatives, liberals or moderates. It is equally shared and was repeatedly demonstrated in the weeks and months following this tragedy as Americans of all backgrounds and their elected representatives rallied behind the victims and their families, united in our common determination to bring to justice those responsible for these terrible attacks.
“It is time to stop using September 11th as a political wedge issue. Dividing our country for political gain is an insult to all Americans and to the common memory we all carry with us from that day. When it comes to standing up to terrorists, there are no Republicans or Democrats, only Americans. The Administration should be focused on uniting Americans behind our troops and providing them a strategy for success in the war on terror and the conflict in Iraq. I hope the president will join me in repudiating these remarks and urge Mr. Rove to take appropriate action to right this terrible wrong.”
"Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers," Rove said. "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war.... Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said we will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said we must understand our enemies.... No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals," Rove said.Read More......
Tara Wall, an RNC official responsible for minority outreach, accused Democrats of exploiting a non-issue for political gain.Actually, this is quite an excellent article from WashingtonPost.com. Read on:
"What I can say is that absolutely we absolutely don't condone lynching," she said.
At least one longtime black Republican activist, who thinks all Republicans should have signed on, is not afraid to put his name on the record.Wow, and this:
Harold Doley Jr., who became the first African American to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange 32 years ago, fired off an angry e-mail to the RNC this week. He told me that Frist personally called him on Wednesday to assure him that support for the resolution was unanimous and that the party was committed to diversity.
"I would have liked it if all of these senators had sponsored the bill," said Doley, from New York, where he runs Doley Securities, one of the nation's oldest black-owned investment banks. "But that's not the case, and I understand it's not the case for various reasons."
Doley said he was already upset that after meeting with House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Leader Tom DeLay a few years ago about increasing black personnel in key RNC and congressional staff positions, little has been done in that regard, even after he personally forwarded top Republican officials dozens of potential candidates at their requests.
Symbolic politics is the most powerful. Symbolic politics is about messaging. It's about code words. It's how a politician sends subtle cues about priorities and whose interests he or she is there to protect.And now for the big question: Why does article appear to be only online and not in the "real" Washington Post, i.e., the print edition? A little symbolic lynching going on at the Wash Post as well? Just asking... Read More......
Symbolic politics is Ronald Reagan launching his presidential re-election campaign by extolling the virtues of states rights in Philadelphia, Miss., where Ku Klux Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen killed three civil rights workers in 1964.
Symbolic politics is the "white hands" ad that former senator Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) ran against African American opponent Harvey Gantt in 1990. Symbolic politics is George W. Bush going to speak at Bob Jones University in the 2000 presidential election campaign.
From those symbolic events, black people ask, if you can't respect my history how can you protect my interest in Washington?
Frist has said repeatedly that none of his colleagues asked him to schedule a roll call vote. But in news reports, aides to Landrieu and Allen contradicted him.
The mayor did not understand that his comments gave the right-wing Internet websites, radio and cable shows the opening they were looking for and undermined Durbin. It also did not help Durbin that the criticism came from one of the nation’s leading Democrats who happened to be the mayor of the largest city in Durbin’s state.That any Democratic politician or pundit in 2005 does not understand how the right wing media machine operates is beyond me, but it happens over and over.
In Spain, meanwhile, everyone protesting madly that the world would come to an end if gay marriages were given the same basic rights as other marriages were trumped by an "academic" who said homosexuality is "a disease."The US Church, as made clear in its Tuesday presentation, has been developing its theology in favour of ordinations of homosexuals for 40 years and regards itself as a pioneer.
To the Africans, Asians and other fast-growing churches of the “Global South”, the issue of homosexual rights represents not liberation but the threat of another enslavement, to decadent Western liberalism.
Professor Polaino told the Senate's Justice Committee that homosexuality was caused by "a hostile, distant, alcoholic or violent father ... or an overprotective, cold and demanding mother". Homosexuals, he said, "did not play games as children ... may have suffered sexual abuse within the family ... are more likely to be promiscuous, take drugs and suffer from schizophrenia".(Does going to the beach with Malibu Barbie count as playing games?) The silver lining there? Even the people on the right distanced themselves from this nutjob and said his comments were backwards and "from another age." It says something about the times when even people denouncing gays feel obligated not to completely denounce them. Or am I just being too Doris Day-ish about the whole thing? Read More......
Dear Andrew Sullivan,Read More......
I just read your latest column, the one in the Advocate in which you – former New Republic editor and current right-wing blogger -- extol the virtues of having HIV and the wonders of being positive. I must say: Very effective. It was enough to make any young gay man declare, “I gotta go get some of that hot poz seed!” Maybe we can get Fox to create a reality show in which we follow people around as they try to get themselves infected – you can be the host! -- and then watch their lives transformed for the better, while all of those nasty, negative people who warn gay men against getting HIV are shut out of the most chic nightclubs, as their steroid-free bodies shrivel-up. We can call the show, “Getting Pozzed!”
In the Advocate column, titled, "Still Here, So Sorry," you write: “I’m sorry…It’s been almost 12 years since I became infected with HIV, and I haven’t died yet. I haven’t even had the decency to get sick. I am a walking, talking advertisement for why HIV seems not such a big deal to the younger generation—and indeed, many in my own age bracket… HIV transformed my life, made me a better and braver writer, prompted me to write the first big book pushing marriage rights, got me to take better care of my health, improved my sex life, and deepened my spirituality. I’m sorry. I’ll try to do better… I’ve even enjoyed sex more since I became positive—more depth, more intimacy, more appreciation of life itself. Sorry. I look physically and mentally healthier than ever. Sorry again….”
You then opine, sarcastically, about how, “Young negative men need to see more of us keeling over in the streets, or they won’t be scared enough to avoid a disease that may, in the very distant future, kill them off,” telling positives to do their duty and, “Die, damn it.”
Now honestly, Andrew, what is the purpose of this column - beyond you masturbating on your testosterone-fueled self? There is nothing wrong with building self-esteem, for yourself, for others who are HIV positive, or for people who are challenged by any adversity in life. But this is an angry rant in which you’re speaking not to positives but to negatives, about whom you have enormous contempt for what seems like one simple reason: They are still negative.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
© 2010 - John Aravosis | Design maintenance by Jason Rosenbaum
Send me your tips: americablog AT starpower DOT net