Malcolm Nance and Torture...A Sane Voice in the Crowd Flies in the Face of the Utter Bullshit Being Tossed Around Out There!

Ive been driving around for a week in a state of some sort of dejection about the idea that we are torturing people, and worse, but who knows for sure until all the horror stories come out from reliable sources. I fear that the information that is culled from these horrific acts is not reliable and so actually is dangerous in that our forces might waste time chasing down false leads while other real threats are growing...and then theres the ethical and moral dilemma that I am feeling in that as
a citizen of this country I don't want any part of what this administration has done. I don't consider most of it to be anywhere near the American way,and I feel like alot of what is wrong with this picture wont be fixed in my lifetime. I've always been proud to be American. I've always questioned authority, and worked for candidates that were liberal, like my family is. I even went to protests and all that as a kid.
I felt that I could bring change about by using my little voice, and that the balance of powers were an important part of how this thing works. Maybe thats something like hope....can't remember much about hope.
After so many years of this Bush crap...after seeing people stand on 12 hour lines to vote and insane voting machines that tallied wrongly...after watching the diplomacy and aide that America represented, be it truthful or not, it was at least a facade, be crushed to death by these horrible neocons, I just don't know how much fight there is left in me.
I feel incredible empathy for those who have been lied to and hurt. And I know that history will look upon people like Malcolm Nance as heroes, in that they stood up and told the truth. This is a truth that the Bush administration will not listen to, and information that flies in the face of all of the lies that have been propagated carefully for public consumption.

The subject is torture, and the expert is Malcolm Nance. There is no one better to tell us about what exactly is being done in our names than this guy. He is not a radical lefty, he has no stake in this besides his feeling that this information must get out there. He was charged with teaching soldiers who might find themselves in danger of torture what to expect. In that position of responsibility and in that the training of these soldiers sometimes requires that they experience the torture procedures, he has had personal experience with different forms, and in particular waterboarding. So please listen to and watch what he has to say...or not say...in that this guy knows when to step back and let the wingnuts dig their own hole.


CLICK HERE to play Streaming Audio of Malcolm Nance and Rachel Maddow from November 20th, 2007.

Then, of course, here is the full Dan Abrams throw-down...which is just incredible in that Pat Buchanan is talking out of his ass, like so many of these pundits do, and he has no idea of the law and that what they are talking about is, in fact, illegal. This is all too common among these guys. They are not used to being questioned sharply by the usual suspects like Russert, Matthews, and...er, sorry Dan, but Abrams...so when someone as sharp as Rachel Maddow gets on the case, (and bless Abrams and Olbermann and the whole gang at MSNBC for having her on so often, even if she challenges them to actually THINK and tell the truth,) we are shown just how out of our depth we are on issues of law and what is being done illegally in our names. This is a huge problem, and if not for ethical and moral reasons, then for the protection of our own soldiers, we have to change who is making these decisions. All too many people still get their information solely from Faux News, and this is an example of the disinformation floating around that crowd. If the constituents of republicans don't have the information with which to make their decisions, then how can they make decisions or even tell their representatives what they want to see their government doing?



And here is a clip from the senate testimony of Nance and Interrogator/Air force Reserve Colonel, Steve Kleinman,before the House Judiciary Subcommittee about waterboarding and torture on November 8, 2007...This is fantastic, and there should be no American out there who doesn't see this and understand what is involved in getting information from suspects:



AND this is why its so reprehensible to have to hear the nominee for the Attorney General job act like he has been living on a desert island with his head in the sand, regarding this stuff. He is just being a lawyer, in that he doesn't want to admit to knowing OF something because then he might have to take on some culpability and/or point the finger at those who he is really being sworn to protect: i.e. Bush/Cheney and their minions.
The fact that this guy is acting like a shifty lawyer is good in the sense that maybe he has tried a case or acted as a lawyer in his life, as opposed to Gonzo, who had very little real experience for the job. So, maybe we can hope that somewhere the root of the love of the law that these old shriveled farts once had, will still be active enough to make him balk at the insanity....that is, once he learns what waterboarding is and how its done.
Its hard to believe that he has never heard of waterboarding, and I take it as an insult to my intelligence and the intelligence of everyone in that room, and of the American people that he thinks we're gonna buy that line.
Ladies and gentlemen, meet your new Attorney General:




Good Luck folks...Good Luck to us all....

Bunnies!! Baby Birds!! Oh Yeah, and Those Silly Plamegate Hearings!!

Karl Rove!! Go Directly to Jail! Do not pass GO, do not collect anything...just get the hell out of our oval office!


The criminal's criminal:





Ive spent the better part of today watching Valerie Plame testify to Schumer's committee on Plamegate on CSPAN, and she is poised and intelligent, as I knew she was...and after all of the bullshit coming out of the administration about how everyone knew that she was undercover. This story is an unbelievable breach of standards and law ...probably treasonous... and I cant believe that the republicans have been able to stifle this sort of investigation just by their majority vote....AND now the sudden bi-partisan outcry is just head spinning, pea soup puking, bat-crap crazy!
We've already had the likes of Tom Davis telling us how this was a CIA problem because they didn't make it clear enough that she was undercover. Huh?? What part of "covert" and "undercover" do these lifetime politicians and "reporters" not get?
As Ive said before, this touches not only Joe Wilson, in that they were going after his wife to get him, but Ms. Plame, her family, and everyone that she has done covert business with throughout her whole career.
Nit picking this thing to death about who knew and if they in fact knew or didn't know is beside the point. When the puffy guys in the oval office were talking about how they were gonna stick it to Joe Wilson because he disagreed with the "evidence" that they were building in their case for war, they were at the highest pinnacle of information, and it is laughable that anyone in those circles couldn't have found out, and wouldn't take the time to find out what her status was and what exactly that meant.
Then, after Bush got up and said that he would investigate and find out how this was leaked and who did it, NO investigation was done at all. Who are these people?
This is like something out of a movie!
I hate to be overly simplistic about this whole thing, but I feel like its a simple matter, and the fact that this hasn't gotten onto the record sooner is just a crime.
Also, the anger from the right against Plame is just palpable. Why do they hate her? She has been a victim in this...and if you Google her there are too many doctored pictures of her trying to make her out to be sleazy or ...I dont know, maybe a prostitute....and the floating swiftboat type questions, like Malkin asking if maybe it was possible if Kerry shot himself in the leg...like, just don't you wonder things like that?? (To which, even Chris Matthews had to say NO!...but that doesn't excuse having la Malkin on in the first place!)
Is it possible that Plame might not have been covert at the time??? NO!! Didnt everyone on her street know what she did for a living? NO!!
Didnt she send her husband on this fact finding mission? NO!
Did the administration, right up to the very top, throw an undercover agent under the bus to try to smear her husband, and then lie about it?? YES!!
I'm nauseas....and the more that this hearing goes on, I have to say that if this doesn't finish Karl Rove, at the very least, there is no justice left at all in this country.

It is mortifying that anyone, much less the top advisers to the President of the United States, would so flagrantly break the law for their own political reasons. If this is how far they felt they had to go, then we can be sure that they really had no case for war in the first place.

Code Pink was in the hearing room in the form of a transvestite with pink hair, pink pillbox hat, pink jacket, complete with pink IMPEACH BUSH NOW shirt underneath. S/he had originally positioned him/herself right behind the cameras and opened the jacket, thus doing a great job of plastering the message onto just about every image of this thing. Asked to sit down finally s/he changed from hat to pink crown that said PEACE NOW or something....and s/he kept standing up and stretching dramatically opening the jacket, and then sitting down again. I kept thinking that as recently as 6 months ago, that person would have been lifted off the ground by stormtroopers and carried to jail, as Cindy Sheehan was when she wore a T-shirt with the number of soldiers dead on it to the State of the Union....a NUMBER on it!! Yep, the tides are turning....Its a beautiful thing, but even as we can begin to hope for a little sanity again, we have to go through this stomach turning fact finding....and this is just the tip of the iceberg, so brace yourselves!
Just to let you all know that its not all fringe types with the IMPEACH signs, there was also a very conservative looking guy who held up a white piece of paper that said GOT IMPEACHMENT? behind the testimony.

As Tom Davis made clear, the republican line here is gonna be that there is no evidence that the people who tried to smear Joe Wilson by having his wife's name published in the press as a high ranking CIA official who sent him on the mission that ended up not jibing with the official line, KNEW that she was covert....Well, besides my first thought of GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK!...I just have to say, guys, thats NEXT....stay tuned...same bat time-same bat channel!
Since each rat has testified already against the other that one told the other to leak this information, I cant imagine that there isn't fodder there for Fitz to chew through....come on! Do they think we're stupid or something? LIARS!
Thank god for Keith Olbermann...I cant wait till 8PM!!


OK, in other news, I brought home my baby Parrotlets last night. They had flown in (yeah, tired lil' wings) from LA on Wednesday night, and Todd (from Parrots and Co.) went to get them, (he wouldn't let me go with him...jerk!...I try to forgive and get over it, but, but, but...its difficult!) and then left them to rest overnight in the nursery (Thanks Todd!!) They are the cutest little things!

Ive got 2 boys and 2 girls that I planned on, color-wise, to breed later on, once they grow up.
They are so young, 3 just weaned and 1 still being bottle fed, and still a little nippy, but with the Bird Whisperer's pocket trick, I've..um...nipped that in the bud in 3 out of 4. They tend to be nippy at first, like Budgies and Lovebirds, but grow out of it pretty quickly and end up being very compact little parrots that exhibit the best in parrot behavior in a tiny package. They come in great colors, are nice little companions who like to perch on your shoulder while you watch TV or work, and they will talk, though maybe not as much as a bigger bird. They are also not very loud or messy. You wanna buy one?? Only a grand each for the yellow ones!




Also, in the terribly cute Dept, the mommy bunny at Parrots & Co. has finally had her first litter. They are the miniature Lion's Head breed and cute as all get out. I was able to get some pics of the little guys last night. I think they will be out and running round pretty soon. Congratulations Laurie, birdy mom, bunny mom and all around mom!



Spring has sprung and what better to do than play with baby birds and baby bunnies!...oh yeah, and put those fuckers in jail....