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

House to George Bush: kick our nuts harder too, please

In passing legislation to increase already out-of-control powers of spying on Americans, which the administration still feels compelled to lie about, House republican Lamar Smith of Texas remarked “The intelligence community is hampered in gathering essential information about terrorists.”

With a straight face.




House Passes Changes in Eavesdropping Program

How does Keith do it?

Keith Richards is writing his memoir.

Keith Richards is a man who so loved him the smack that he used to have to exchange all the blood in his body for new blood just to detox*.

Keith Richards remembers things well enough to write them down in a manner that people will want to read.**


Alberto Gonzales is the numero uno lawyer in all the land.

Alberto Gonzales has neither admitted nor denied exchanging all of his blood for new blood***

Alberto doesn't seem to be able to remember shit.



*Snopes says that Keith did not exchange all of his blood for new blood. Rather he underwent hemodialysis, a process that separated the toxins from his blood through a membrane.

** Apparently, Mick Jagger has tried to write his memoir but is unable to remember anything interesting. Jerry Hall agrees there are some interesting things Mick has forgotten. Like not getting married.

***Just saying. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

What are you doing tonight?

In case you will be watching the little tv in the kitchen whilst canning 56 lbs of pickles tonight - what a coincidence that's what I'm doing, too - you might want to tune in Bill Moyers on PBS. Check your local listings. (My local listings say 8:30 central time).

Bill will have an hour long discussion on the possibility of impeachment for this maladministration. One of his guests will be my local hero, John Nichols. The other will be some constitutional asshole from the Reagan administration. (Maybe he's not an asshole, but his cred says otherwise so I'm going with it.)

UPDATE: Wow, did I call that guy an asshole? Oh, no I didn't. Oh, yeah, I guess I did. But really, when an AEI/Reagan Admin/Guy who drew up impeachment papers against Bill Clinton makes such a fabulous argument for precedent in this case, well. I guess I have to take it back. There could be hope yet for all of America if this guy's on board. He did look and sound just like Gilbert Gottfried tho. Just sayin'.

John Nichols is the editor of my evening paper, the Capital Times, as well as the national correspondent for the Nation Magazine. We go way back. And if by way back you mean he autographed my book 'Dick' at his local kickoff booksigning gig and said he liked my sweatshirt on which I copied My Left Wing's saying 'rage rage against the lying of the right'; and that time we rubbed elbows at Russ Feingold's victory party. Oh, and when I saw him hanging in the crowd just before that unfuckingbelievably cold peace march on State Street in January. Yeah, way back.

Maybe they'll fill the scrip written by Dr. Zaius. Let's hope.

UPDATE PART DEUX: From the wish I cud rite good two file - Please see Matty Boy's take on the show. Well said! And here is the link to Moyer's show.