Your Very Own Torture Memo

It was a Freedom of Information Act request from the ACLU that showed that Bush was in on the torture from the get go. He has admitted as much himself.

In case you are not a card-carrying member of the ACLU (what?), here is the call to action from the ACLU (It's one of those messages I'm supposed to cut 'n' paste into an e-mail):

Subject: Bush's top-down torture policies

On Friday night, in a national television interview on ABC News, President Bush directly admitted that the White House was deeply involved in decisions about the CIA’s use of torture.

Recent reports indicate that members of the Bush administration including Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and George Tenet met regularly and approved the CIA’s use of “combined” “enhanced” interrogation techniques -- tactics that amount to torture.

I just demanded that my members of Congress support strenuous efforts, including the appointment of an independent prosecutor, to hold President Bush, Vice-President Cheney and other high-ranking officials accountable for their role in crafting torture policy.

I thought you would like to know about this and would also want to do something about it. To take action, just follow the link below.

http://action.aclu.org/topdowntorture

A Must Read by Dr. Zaius

I have wanted to sit down and pound my keyboard over the outrage of Bush knowing that Iran halted its nuclear program four years ago, while still beating the drums of war with the oogey boogey mushroom cloud, but I haven't had the time.

Dr. Zaius raises an excellent point about the whole sad sorry sordid deal. Please go read.

Update: Speaking in Omaha earlier today, Bush called on Iran to better explain its nuclear intentions or face further sanctions. How bizarre can you get? Iran claims to not pursue nukes, turns out that's the truth, Bush is caught lying about it so the only obvious resolution is to continue the call for sanctions? On them?

Bullshit. This is about oil, pure and simple. Iran can easily form a strategic alliance with Russia and then China for the 200 billion barrels of oil in the Caspian region.

Yeah, we already knew

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney, who has a history of heart problems, was found to have an irregular heartbeat during a doctor's visit on Monday morning, his office said.

Cheney visited his doctors because of a lingering cough from a cold and during the examination he was found to have an irregular heartbeat, which on further testing was determined to be "atrial fibrillation, an abnormal rhythm involving the upper chambers of the heart," said Megan Mitchell, spokeswoman for Cheney.

Cheney will undergo further evaluation on Monday and if required he will have an electric impulse to the heart delivered, which is standard treatment for this diagnosis, Mitchell said. He would be put under sedation.

It would be an outpatient procedure and Cheney was expected to return home on Monday night, she said. It had not yet been determined whether he would require the procedure, she said.

Atrial fibrillation is a heart rhythm disorder that is becoming increasingly common. The heart's two small upper chambers quiver instead of beating effectively and blood isn't pumped completely out, so it may pool and clot, putting the person at risk of stroke

Question: How Many Dead Americans is Saddam Worth?

Answer: Not Many.

According to Dick Cheney in 1994. Watch this video. You may not recognize the man being interviewed. He discusses Iraq with clarity and shows an understanding of the factional tensions that would make undertaking regime change there a folly.




What changed between 1994 and 2003 for Mr. Cheney?

In 1995 he became CEO of Halliburton.

In 1997 he helped to found the Project for a New American Century.

In 2001 he became vice president of the United States.

Which led to this:

Why doesn't this surprise me?

From USA Today:

Government auditors discovered something odd last year when they reviewed KBR Inc.'s annual cost estimate to provide support services for U.S. troops in Iraq. The contractor proposed charging $110 million for housing, food, water, laundry and other services on bases that had been shut down.

KBR got a contract extension for $3.7 billion, but it agreed to drop the proposed $110 million spending on closed bases and an additional $50 million of duplicate charges and math errors, according to Defense Department records obtained by USA TODAY under the Freedom of Information Act.

Linda Theis of the Army Sustainment Command, the agency that oversees KBR's troop-support contract, downplayed the errors. They amount to just 4.3% of the contract amount, she said. "This percentage does not indicate a systemic weakness in business systems."

Nice of them to agree to drop the fraudulent charges after they were caught charging them. Gee thanks, guys!

Now can you imagine how the administration would come down on a cheating welfare mother if she got caught with an extra cupla hunnerd bucks?