Report: CIA planned to 'rendition' suspects in Germany

By GottaLaff

Report: I'm reporting a report, it's been reported. My sources are confidential because of the sensitive nature of the sensitivity of the as of yet unreported report that I'm reporting.

Reportedly--now I'm not saying this for certain, but it's out there-- this happened, according to unnamed sources, or so it's been reported:

The CIA had 25 agents in Germany after the September 11 attacks and planned to "rendition" illegally al-Qaeda suspects without informing the German government, Spiegel magazine reported Sunday.

"It was about grabbing people without the Germans knowing about it," the German weekly magazine cited an unnamed former CIA agent as saying. "We were planning stuff that was totally illegal."

The plan went so far that other parts of the Central Intelligence Agency were in the loop, but in the end it was scrapped because of objections by the agency's German section, Spiegel cited its source as saying.

As soon as they report more in another report, I'll report it to you, sources say.

New Report: Triggered Public Option Preferable

By GottaLaff

I don't have much of a head for this, so I'll leave it to you to opine in Comments:

The report says that the Senate and House’s public option provisions (which require the public plan to independently negotiate rates with providers) hold little hope of lowering costs in areas of the country with high provider concentration. In areas where hospitals have “too strong a market presence to be excluded from insurer networks,” hospitals could dictate prices, stripping the public plan of its ability to negotiate cheaper rates, the report warns. [...]

[P]olicymakers should consider basing the trigger on “overall growth in national health spending.” “An advantage of using growth in national health expenditures (NHE) is that the data are regularly and consistently reported and are directly related to the purpose of a public option — to create competition with private insurers to reduce health spending growth,” the report notes.

Please go here for more details.

Defense Department Conceals Data on Detainee Deaths

By GottaLaff

One might expect this from BushCo... but not-- well, read all the way to the end:

Last year, as Dr. Steven Miles, professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School and faculty member of its Center for Bioethics, was researching the deaths of detainees in U.S. custody, he noticed something strange. Although the Department of Defense had in the past issued press releases when detainees died at U.S.-run prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan, at some point in 2006, he says, the “entire prisoner death reporting system was turned off in Afghanistan.” Although at that time deaths in Iraq were still being reported, he says, that system was “turned off” at the beginning of 2008.

Miles, a member of the board of the Center for Victims of Torture and author of “Oath Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity and America’s War on Terror,” published in 2006 by Random House, was working on an updated edition of the book, which documents how physicians and psychologists working for the U.S. military violated the Hippocratic oath and American Medical Association rules by helping the government design and monitor abusive interrogations. [...]

Instead, Miles documented, first in the British medical journal the Lancet and then more expansively in his book, physicians actually helped facilitate torture. [...]

Death certificates were falsified and military health officers were either reporting instances of torture late, or not reporting them at all, he found. And, he observes in the Appendix to the book’s second edition, titled Oath Betrayed: America’s Torture Doctors, published by University of California Press this year, the military appeared to be using physicians and psychologists to test the reactions of detainees to particular interrogation techniques, which may well violate ethical bans on experimentation on human subjects. Physicians for Human Rights recently released a report documenting similar concerns.

As Miles was working on his book, he realized there were huge gaps in the military’s reporting about the torture, injury and death of detainees in its custody. [...]

[O]ne day, the press releases stopped. “They just stopped reporting it,” said Miles last week. It couldn’t be that no one died, he said, because “you have a certain expected death rate based on the size of the population. I’ve been able to trace all public death reports and can show when they turned them off.”

Last week,TWI first reported that the Department of Defense appears to have stopped releasing information about the deaths of detainees in its custody in Afghanistan and Iraq. (It has continued to release them concerning detainees at Guantanamo, most of whom are represented by lawyers.) [...]

In his paper, Miles writes:

In May 2004, shortly after media published photographs of lethal abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, DoD disclosed 22 prisoner deaths; of which 12 (54%) were attributed to natural causes. DOD did not disclose another 67 deaths that occurred during that same period. Only 13 (15%) of the total 89 deaths were due to natural causes. By the end of 2008, 93 of 165 known decedents (56%) are unnamed. Death certificates are available for 37 (22%). Homicides and shelling of prisons are the leading causes of death. DoD has completely suppressed prisoner death reports from Afghanistan since 2004 and adopted a similar policy for Iraq in 2008.

And now, even more bad news, news that I hate posting:

The Obama administration does not appear to have changed the reporting policy, although at least some officials in the administration have declared the “war on terror” over. Still, the Pentagon under President Obama has not resumed regular reporting on the deaths of prisoners in custody, says Miles. The system is “still shut down,” he said. “Obama hasn’t opened it up. It’s just mysterious to me.” [...]

Late yesterday, a Pentagon spokesman confirmed that the DoD issues press releases when detainees die at Guantanamo Bay; TWI still has not received an answer with regard to the deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes one specific to only Fayiz al-Kandari's story here. Here are audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.

Republican Peter King calls Holder investigation of BushCo/CIA 'bulls**t'

By GottaLaff

See, Rep. Peter King, when crimes are committed, investigations are necessary. People were tortured and murdered. That cannot be ignored. That demands scrutiny. If it's inconvenient, too bad. If they were committed by members of your own party, too freakin' bad.

"It's bullsh*t. It's disgraceful. You wonder which side they're on," the Long Island Republican told Politico Tuesday.

They're on the side of justice, Pete.

On Monday, Attorney Gen. Eric Holder asked federal prosecutor John Durham to examine whether CIA interrogations of suspected terrorists were illegal in the months and years after the September 11 attacks. [...]

The White House said Tuesday that President Obama supported Holder's decision.

"It's a total breach of faith, and either the president is intentionally caving to the left wing of his party or he's lost control of his administration," King said Tuesday.

No, Petey, it's the Rushpublics who have lost control... all control. Need proof? Attend any town hall meeting. The assault weapons are a dead giveaway.

Then read what I've referenced below the ********* line. Then read Jane Mayer's The Dark Side. Then re-read (if indeed, you've ever read it to begin with) the U.S. Constitution and the Geneva Conventions.

Then remember-- if you're one of those who feels it necessary to look forward and not back-- that all crimes took place in the past. That's how we know they happened.

And if anyone says otherwise, it's bulls**t.

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All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes one specific to only Fayiz al-Kandari's story here. Here are audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.

CIA Inspector General Report Implicates DOJ Lawyers Again

By GottaLaff

This is why I'm hoping that pulling on that one tiny legal thread will eventually unravel much more:

As the report explains, CIA interrogators had to sign an acknowledgment that they’d read the Department of Central Intelligence guidelines.

Although the DCI Guidelines are an improvement over the absence of such DCI Guidelines in the past, they still leave substantial room for misinterpretation and do not cover all Agency detention and interrogation activities.

If the Justice Department lawyers who approved those guidelines knew they left substantial room for misinterpretation but approved them anyway, they could be implicated in encouraging the interrogators’ transgressions. Whether that’s a criminal offense, an ethics violation or just sloppy lawyering, it directly implicates the Justice Department in the CIA’s actions. [...]

[T]he Justice Department played a key role in the development and approval of policies that led to the torture and abuse of detainees. And one way or another, any real probe into what happened and how to keep it from happening again will have to address that.

BushCo and their legal minions must be held accountable. Whether that will happen or not is debatable, even doubtful. But it would be a sad day for the United States if they weren't.

Why?

Try this for starters:

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All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes one specific to only Fayiz al-Kandari's story here. Here are audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.

Report: CIA threatened to kill detainee's children, rape mother

By GottaLaff

So much to report, so little time. Earlier I posted about President Obama's new "interrogation" team. Now check this out:

A newly declassified CIA report says interrogators threatened to kill the children of a Sept. 11 suspect.

The document, released Monday by the Justice Department, says one interrogator said a colleague had told Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that if any other attacks happened in the United States, "We're going to kill your children."

Anyone still wondering why some of us are pushing so hard for a criminal investigation?

Another interrogator allegedly tried to convince a different terror suspect detainee that his mother would be sexually assaulted in front of him — though the interrogator in question denied making such a threat.

Of course he denied it. What did anyone expect them to say? "Yes, yes! I threatened to rape that guy's mom, because he was evil and I'm one of the good guys!"?

Pull one or two threads, things begin to unravel. If the investigations are narrowly focused, we can only hope that one discovery will lead to another, and another, and eventually, more and more truths will be revealed, and more and more of those operating outside the law, including those at the very top, will be held accountable.

US Justice Dept advises pursuing CIA abuses

By GottaLaff

The Big Kahuna Torture Report is due out today, and there's a lot of news breaking. Here's the latest:

The U.S. Justice Department has recommended reopening nearly a dozen prisoner-abuse cases, which could expose CIA employees and contractors to prosecution for their treatment of terrorism suspects, The New York Times said on Monday.

The recommendation, reversing the Bush administration, came from the Justice Department's ethics office and has been presented to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

The department is due to disclose later on Monday details of prisoner abuse that were gathered in 2004 by the CIA's inspector general but have never been released, according to the Times report, which cited an unnamed person officially briefed on matter. [...]

"With the release of the details on Monday and the formal advice that at least some cases be reopened, it now seems all but certain that the appointment of a prosecutor or other concrete steps will follow, posing significant new problems for the CIA," the Times said.

The recommendation to review the cases centres mainly on allegations of detainee abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hear that, Fayiz? We've got our fingers crossed for a real crack at the truth.

******************

All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes one specific to only Fayiz al-Kandari's story here. Here are audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.

Darrel Vandeveld Helped Secure Release of Prisoner Who Confessed Under Torture; Now He's a Pariah

By GottaLaff



I've previously posted about Darrel Vandeveld, most recently here, and also here, here, here, and here.

So. Take a look at what happens to truth-tellers who pose a serious challenge the powers that be:

(CBS) One of the youngest detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison is expected to be returned this weekend to Afghanistan where he was arrested seven years ago for allegedly throwing a grenade at American soldiers.

Mohammed Jawad's break came when a U.S. military lawyer made a choice - to follow his conscience, as CBS News chief foreign affairs correspondent Lara Logan reports.

Reserve Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld could not keep silent. As he put it, "Silence in the face of evil is collaboration with evil."

Vandeveld was a military prosecutor at Guantanamo - until he decided to speak against the corruption of justice he found there.

"Our fighting men and women who've been putting themselves in harms - They're not fighting for rigged, kangaroo trials," Vandeveld said.

Vandeveld had been the lead prosecutor in seven cases.

"I would characterize him as a true believer at that point," said Maj. David Frakt, a military commission defense counsel.

Frakt was the defense attorney in the case that would ultimately compel Vandeveld to risk everything.

[...] [I]mportant evidence in the case had been withheld.

"I saw something that floored me," he said.

In the evidence file of an unrelated trial, Vandeveld discovered that Jawad had made a statement to military investigators - a statement that was backed up by the U.S. guard force at his prison.

"He had been hooded and slapped, that he had been shackled, hooded, and thrown down stairs," Vandeveld said. "I knew nothing about the existence of the statement. … The evidence was in a state of chaos."

By law, Vandeveld had to share his discovery with the defense. He now believed Jawad had been tortured even though he had no intelligence to offer. And he did not believe Jawad could be convicted.

See how fair our so-called legal system (read: military commissions) is to Gitmo prisoners? Just ask Fayiz al-Kandari, he'll tell you... well, he would if he could. He's still stuck in a cell after nearly 8 years.

His lawyer, Lt. Col. Barry Wingard says he's innocent, the only time he's made such a definitive statement about a detainee.

Frakt says that discovery changed Vandeveld forever. He could not ignore the violations of law he discovered - critical evidence that was missing, lost, or withheld. [...]

That led Vandeveld to make the most agonizing decision of his life. In September 2008, he resigned from the military commissions.

But, Vandeveld, said, "My conscience is not clear. I prosecuted Mohmmed Jawad for too long. I participated in the commissions for too long."

The Pentagon, in a statement to CBS News said, "Vandeveld's statements are proven to be unsubstantiated."

But Frakt asserts that "The Pentagon propaganda machine is hard at work to try to discredit Darrel Vandeveld."

He received a poor evaluation report, which effectively ends his military career.

"You do the right thing, you will be forever grateful that you did it no matter what happens to you," Vandeveld said.

Next question: What will happen to Lt. Col. Wingard? Stay tuned...

*********************************

All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes one specific to only Fayiz al-Kandari's story here. Here are audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.

Report Reveals CIA Conducted Mock Executions, Harrowing New Details

By GottaLaff

The CIA's inspector general's report on post-9/11 interrogation tactics is due out Monday. Today I had lunch with Jason Leopold, who told me that in that report, it is made clear that torture does not work. Okay? Clear now? Torture. Does. Not. Work.

All those people--yes, living, breathing people-- like Fayiz al-Kandari (see end of post) who were abused and tortured? It was for nothing. It was ineffective. Even bad people, even the Not-Fayizes, shouldn't be tortured. It yields information that is useless, because the torturees will do anything to make it stop. Wouldn't you?

A long-suppressed report by the Central Intelligence Agency's inspector general to be released next week reveals that CIA interrogators staged mock executions as part of the agency's post-9/11 program to detain and question terror suspects, NEWSWEEK has learned.

According to two sources—one who has read a draft of the paper and one who was briefed on it—the report describes how one detainee, suspected USS Cole bomber Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, was threatened with a gun and a power drill during the course of CIA interrogation. According to the sources, who like others quoted in this article asked not to be named while discussing sensitive information, Nashiri's interrogators brandished the gun in an effort to convince him that he was going to be shot. Interrogators also turned on a power drill and held it near him. "The purpose was to scare him into giving [information] up," said one of the sources. A federal law banning the use of torture expressly forbids threatening a detainee with "imminent death."

According to the sources, the report also says that a mock execution was staged in a room next to a detainee, during which a gunshot was fired in an effort to make the suspect believe that another prisoner had been killed.

Of course, video tapes of waterboarding were destroyed; so much for that evidence.

The purpose of the report was to examine how the CIA program had been conducted, and whether Justice Department guidelines governing the use of harsh "enhanced" interrogation techniques had been followed. According to the sources, the inspector general criticizes some agency interrogators for exceeding official guidelines in the use of extreme tactics on detainees.

Mock executions were not authorized in Justice Department memoranda that outlined the legal parameters that Bush administration lawyers believed should govern the use of "enhanced" interrogations. [...]

The inspector general's report is expected to fuel political debates over whether the tough interrogation methods used during the Bush administration actually worked. According to another source who has seen the document, the report says that the agency's interrogation program did produce usable intelligence.

More here.

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All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes one specific to only Fayiz al-Kandari's story here. Here are audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.

Obama administration delays Guantanamo report

By GottaLaff

I should just copy and past my last post on this, it happens so often:

In a move already drawing fire from liberal activists, aides to President Barack Obama acknowledged the administration will miss its own Tuesday deadline to submit a report detailing its policy on detaining terror suspects.

The report is a key part of laying out the White House's plan for shutting down the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay.

In a briefing for reporters, four senior administration officials confirmed the task force dealing with detention policy has been granted a six-month extension to flesh out its plans, while a separate task force dealing with interrogation policy has been given a two-month extension to submit its own report to the president. The reports had been mandated to be completed this week by executive orders the president signed during his first week in office.

Despite the delays, the four senior officials insisted the Obama administration is making strong progress in resolving the thorny legal issues surrounding the 240 terror suspects that were detained at Guantanamo as of January of this year, and is still on track to shut the prison down next January as spelled out by executive order. [...]

A second senior administration official said it is the administration's "goal" to still shut the prison.[...] [The] official insisted there has been no change and the administration is still planning to comply with the executive order. [...]

But officials at the American Civil Liberties Union criticized the delay in the release of the report on detainee policy in particular, noting Obama officials have also left the door open to holding some Guantanamo detainees indefinitely without charge or trial.

"The Obama administration must not slip into the same legal swamp that engulfed the Bush administration with its failed Guantanamo policies," said Anthony Romero, the ACLU's executive director. "Any effort to revamp the failed Guantanamo military commissions or enact a law to give any president the power to hold individuals indefinitely and without charge or trial is sure to be challenged in court and it will take years before justice is served."

Romero added, "The only way to make good on President Obama's promise to shut down Guantanamo and end the military commissions is to charge and try the detainees in established federal criminal courts. Any effort to do otherwise will doom the Obama administration to lengthy litigation. A promise deferred could soon become a promise broken."

But a third senior administration official insisted the White House is making good progress in dealing with all the terror suspects being held at Guantanamo. This third official told reporters the administration is "over halfway through reviewing the detainees at Guantanamo" by either transferring them to other countries or moving toward putting them on trial for prosecution.

This third official said that "substantially more than 50″ of the detainees are prepared for transfer, while a "significant number" are being prepared for prosecution.

A fourth senior administration official said the White House is making "great progress" in getting European countries like Italy to publicly agree to take on some detainees. The official said other European countries have privately agreed to take detainees, but will not publicly discuss it yet.

Lt. Col. Barry Wingard is skeptical, and who can blame him? Others in his position have commented that they see much of this as the usual game with smarter players this time around. Some or all of them have predicted, nearly word for word, parts of what you just read in the post above.

All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.

Read the Entire Unclassified Report on Surveillance Program

By GottaLaff

(click on image to enlarge)

The pdf of the report in its entirety can be found here.

This is who killed Dr. George Tiller

By GottaLaff

To all those who scoffed and belittled the DHS report about right wing extremists, here's a little something about the alleged killer (51-year-old Scott Roeder of Merriam, Kansas):

Via diarist FreeStateDem, Militia Watchdog previously reported of Roeder:

July 7, [1997], Kansas: Scott Roeder is sentenced to sixteen months in state prison for parole violations following a 1996 conviction for having bomb components in his car trunk. Roeder, a sovereign citizen and tax protester, violated his parole by not filing tax returns or providing his social security number to his employer.

He was also an active member of Operation Rescue; in 2007 a "Scott Roeder" posted this on the Operation Rescue website (which has been down throughout the day, probably more as a result of increased traffic than any sense of collective shame):

[May 19th, 2007 at 4:34 pm] Bless everyone for attending and praying in May to bring justice to Tiller and the closing of his death camp. Sometime soon, would it be feasible to organize as many people as possible to attend Tillers church (inside, not just outside) to have much more of a presence and possibly ask questions of the Pastor, Deacons, Elders and members while there? Doesn’t seem like it would hurt anything but bring more attention to Tiller.

The Lawrence Journal-World and News relays that Kansas City station KMBC reported a post-it note with a phone number for Operation Rescue in his car at the time of his arrest.

So a bombmaker, tax protester, member of the "sovereignty" movement, anti-abortion zealot and Operation Rescue member: the arrested suspect manages to fit every stereotype of right-wing militia teabagger.

Just your average guy who "values life" above all else, so much so that he (allegedly) felt compelled to take one.

Once he's convicted, finding a place to imprison him will be a real challenge, since our super-max facilities apparently aren't secure enough to hold, you know, terrorists.

What could Nancy Pelosi have done?

By GottaLaff

Good recap:

While it remains unclear what Pelosi knew and when she knew it, it should not be forgotten that Pelosi did not write the memos authorizing the use of torture or carry that torture out; the Bush administration did. Further, the CIA briefed Pelosi without staff, told her their practices were legal, and forbade her from discussing the meeting with colleagues. As such, Pelosi could not work to “outlaw the practices.” Marc Ambinder notes that the only way Pelosi could have registered her objections at that time was to “walk out of the briefing, telling those CIA officials who came that what she just heard did not constitute a formal briefing.” The result? The CIA would have simply tried to re-brief her at a later date, but the Bush administration would have continued to carry out torture anyways.

Let me say this in short, declarative sentences: BushCo tortured. They did it. BushCo. Did. It. Let's not forget that. Let's not get sidetracked. BushCo is responsible.

DHS: Fox Is Wrong — Author Of Right-Wing Extremism Report Has Not Been Fired

By GottaLaff

Looks like somebody on Faux/Fixed News/Noise was full of ... hot air. Imagine that! And John Sidney McCain joined right in? Really? No way! Who'da thunk it? Fox? J Sid? Lying? The very idea! Where's my fainting couch? Why, I oughta....

The author of the report has been attacked as someone who isn't from "real America" and whose "sexual orientation...is in question." Many conservatives have called for Napolitano's resignation.

Today, Kilmeade claimed that Napolitano had "fired" the person responsible for the right-wing extremism report. McCain added that he was "glad" about the move:

KILMEADE: Outrage continues to build this week over Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, the former governor of Arizona, her remarks towards U.S. veterans. Now, the DHS has fired the head of Homeland Security's agency -- that is involved in that decision. Many are wondering if Napolitano next. [...]

MCCAIN: I was glad to see that Secretary Napolitano removed the person who was responsible for this report. She has apologized.

Won't their big fat faces be red now that we know the truth:

Kilmeade and McCain are wrong. The section of DHS that produced the report was the Extremism and Radicalization Branch in the Homeland Environment and Threat Analysis Division. That division is overseen by the Under Secretary for the Office of Intelligence and Analysis. Currently, Roger Mackin -- a Bush appointee -- is serving in that role.

ThinkProgress spoke with DHS spokesperson Amy Kudwa who confirmed that neither Mackin -- nor anyone else at the agency -- has been fired over the report.

More fun facts here. Tsk. What will MegMac think about Daddy Dearest's Faux (Fox) pas?

my Dad is the most amazing person I've ever met and he is the coolest father. I'm lucky were so close!

VIDEO: Dad-gum it, this is why God invented C-SPAN!

By GottaLaff

"Wait a minute! Good lord!"



Gol-durn that dad-gum Napolitano! Fire her socialist Arizonan ass afore the whole dad-gum country goes gayabortionlibrul!

Michael Savage sues Napolitano for right-wing extremism report

By GottaLaff

Look at that! Michael Savage is using lawyers. To sue someone. Aren't those two things that Rushpublics rail against, lawsuits and lawyers? Oh that's right, I forgot. It's only okay if you're a Rushpublic:

Last week, hate radio host Michael Savage, in conjunction with the Thomas More Law Center, filed a lawsuit against Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. They claim DHS has violated the plaintiffs’ First and Fifth Amendment rights by “attempting to chill their free speech, expressive association, and equal protection rights.” GWU Law Professor Orin Kerr responds:

Isn’t the lawsuit frivolous? As I read it, the lawsuit is claiming that the issuance of a government report criticizing certain groups violates the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights. But the Constitution doesn’t provide a constitutional right to have the government not say things that might be considered criticism. Perhaps the plaintiffs want the Constitution to be radically reinterpreted by activist judges to invent some brand-new constitutional rights?

Zing!

GOP member calls for inquiry into DHS report

By GottaLaff

The latest Tea Tantrum (background post here):

A key House Republican Thursday called for a hearing to investigate a Department of Homeland Security report that highlights security risks posed by extremist groups and disgruntled veterans.

Rep. Peter King (N.Y.), the ranking Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, has asked for a hearing into the matter, one day after the committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said he was “dumbfounded” by how the agency could release such a report. [...]

King said the report could have a tumultuous effect on the veteran and military community.

VIDEO: That DHS report about right wing extemists? It started with BushCo

By GottaLaff


Herridge’s report comes in at the end of the video.

Paddy posted earlier about the outrage--the outrage!-- of the Rushpublics over the Department of Homeland Security report that was leaked about the rising radicalization of “rightwing extremists”. How dare the Obama administration! Sputter! Froth! Spitty protest!

But wait! What did a little Think Progress birdie just tell me? Why... this!

[T]his morning, Fox News’s Catherine Herridge revealed that the report, along with an earlier report on radicalized left-wing groups, was actually “requested by the Bush administration” but not completed until recently:

HERRIDGE: Well this is an element of the story which has largely gone unreported. One looks at right-wing groups, as you mentioned. And a second is on left-wing groups. Significantly, both were requested by the Bush administration but not finished until President Bush left office.

Herridge’s reporting undermines her network’s own “reporting” over the past 24 hours. Since news of the DHS assessment broke yesterday, Fox anchors and guests have been seizing upon the report as evidence that the administration is trying to intimidate tea party goers or “stifle speech”.

Who knew Bush was such a commie pinko socialist fascist traitor? Hands? Hmm, whassat? Oh, okay, let me rephrase: Who knew Bush was such a fascist traitor? Look at that! Everyone's hands went up at the same time!

[T]he Obama administration was apparently following the lead of the Bush Homeland Security Department in assessing the very real threat of violent right-wing extremism. Indeed, Bush appointees such as FBI Director Robert Mueller have acknowledged the threat of right-wing extremism multiple times.

As Emily Litella would say:

TPC Psycho Watch: Homeland Security Report Warns Of Rising Right-Wing Extremism

By GottaLaff

Unfortunately, I wasn't far off in my earlier post. Hence, TPC Psycho Watch, the sequel:

If you think the conservative "Tea Party" movement is daunting then take a look at a new report issued by the Department of Homeland Security that says right-wing extremism is on the rise throughout the country.

Reuters sums up some of the information in the report [...]:

DHS had no specific information about pending violence and said threats had so far been "largely rhetorical."

But it warned that home foreclosures, unemployment and other consequences of the economic recession "could create a fertile recruiting environment for right-wing extremists"...

The report is getting a lot of push back from angry conservative bloggers like Michelle Malkin:

By contrast, the piece of crap report issued on April 7 is a sweeping indictment of conservatives. [...] My b.s. detector went off the chart, and yours will, too, if you read through the entire report -- which asserts with no evidence that an unquantified "resurgence in rightwing extremist recruitment and radicalizations activity" is due to home foreclosures, job losses, and...the historical presidential election.

Moe Lane from RedState.com asks "Are you a Rightwing Extremist, too?":

Why? Well, it's a document that discusses the potential threats that we can expect from "rightwing extremists" (no hyphen, for some reason) in the coming months; there's the usual stuff about guns, illegal immigration, and disgruntled war veterans, plus the new wrinkle of our having elected an African-American President. The report concludes, unsurprisingly, that we have to worry more about "lone wolves and small terrorist cells" than anything else.

American Legion National Commander David K. Rehbein also responded to a segment of the report warning that Iraq and Afghanistan veterans might be ripe recruits because of their combat skills.

The best that I can say about your recent report is that it is incomplete. [...]

The American Legion is well aware and horrified at the pain inflicted during the Oklahoma City bombing, but Timothy McVeigh was only one of more than 42 million veterans who have worn this nation's uniform during wartime. To continue to use McVeigh as an example of the stereotypical "disgruntled military veteran" is as unfair as using Osama bin Laden as the sole example of Islam.

Read the whole report here.

‘Confidential’ Red Cross torture report: ‘Suffocation’ and head-smashing'

By GottaLaff


Reports like these were just a matter of time. Too bad this one comes 3 years later than it should have. A no-longer “confidential” 2006 Red Cross investigation reveals what we already suspected. Hint: It includes phrases like “suffocation by water,” “prolonged stress standing,” “beatings by use of a collar,” and “confinement in a box”:

Danner notes that senior Bush officials were well aware of the techniques being used. Some accounts from detainees:

– “I was taken out of my cell and one of the interrogators wrapped a towel around my neck; they then used it to swing me around and smash me repeatedly against the hard walls of the room.”

– “Both my feet became very swollen after one month of almost continual standing.”

– “A thick flexible plastic collar would also be placed around my neck so that it could then be held at the two ends by a guard who would use it to slam me repeatedly against the wall.

The report’s conclusion reads: “The allegations of ill treatment of the detainees indicate that, in many cases, the ill treatment to which they were subjected while held in the C.I.A. program, either singly or in combination, constituted torture.” Previously, the Bush administration had attempted to conceal harsh treatment from the Red Cross.

I repeat: Bring on the investigations/prosecutions. I will continue to repeat that until I see tangible evidence that it's happening. Department of Justice, hurry up and do your stuff.