
April 29, 2009
April 28, 2009
April 27, 2009
Bush’s Torture Memo Lawyers Didn’t Read the Geneva Convention (or Their Oaths of Office)?
Seriously – Jay Bybee, Bush’s former Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, apparently didn’t bother to read the Geneva Convention definitions of torture before giving advice to Bush and Cheney on what constitutes torture? And this guy’s still a federal judge?
“Judge [Jay] Bybee’s résumé tells us that he has four children and is both a Cubmaster for the Boy Scouts and a youth baseball and basketball coach. He currently occupies a tenured seat on the United States Court of Appeals. As an assistant attorney general, he was the author of the Aug. 1, 2002, memo endorsing in lengthy, prurient detail interrogation ‘techniques’ like ‘facial slap (insult slap)’ and ‘insects placed in a confinement box.’
“He proposed using 10 such techniques ‘in some sort of escalating fashion, culminating with the waterboard, though not necessarily ending with this technique.’ Waterboarding, the near-drowning favored by Pol Pot and the Spanish Inquisition, was prosecuted by the United States in war-crimes trials after World War II. But Bybee concluded that it ‘does not, in our view, inflict ‘severe pain or suffering.” ”
– Frank Rich, “The Banality of Bush White House Evil,” NY Times, April 26, 2009.
From the Geneva Convention:
Part II, Section I, Article 13, “General Protection of Prisoners of War”: “Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited, and will be regarded as a serious breach of the present Convention.” [...]
“Likewise, prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity.”
Part III, Section I, Article 17, “Captivity”: “No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.”
– From the “Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War,” adopted August 12, 1949 and signed by the United States on October 21, 1950. Published by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Everything proposed by Bybee and Yoo was illegal under both the Geneva Convention and US torture laws, and they should have known that. So should Bush, Cheney and the others who took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. Read the exact oaths below:
April 26, 2009
April 25, 2009
April 24, 2009
Another of Col. Rove’s Crimes Against America

H/T to Media Matters for the quote.
Also read this at Media Matters:
“Whether or not the federal government should shift education funding to vouchers is a policy disagreement. Nobody is talking about investigating policy disagreements. Torture is a crime. Illegal activity doesn’t become legal simply because the president wants it to happen.”
– Jamison Foser, “Gaps in the Right-Wing’s ‘Banana Republic’ Rhetoric,” Media Matters, April 24, 2009.
April 23, 2009
April 21, 2009
April 19, 2009
April 17, 2009
April 16, 2009
The Tattlesnake – Short Cuts in New Ruts Edition
Double-Dipping Teabag Hag: The Ol’ Tattler’s failing peepers can’t be sure, but I believe I saw the same woman who was sporting the insulting ‘Kerry Band-Aid’ at the GOP convention in NY circa 2004 wearing a hat adorned with hanging teabags yesterday at one of Fox News’ corporately-sponsored tea parties. Just a quick impression: She’s probably the head of the Pig Whistle, Louisiana, chapter of the DAR, the treasurer of the local ‘I Love Sarah’ Fan Club, chairwoman of the county Republican Party, and a good Southern Baptist who, in the name of the Lawd, beats her kids regularly “just to keep the li’l buggers in line.”
BTW, shouldn’t the videos of these astroturf ‘spontaneous events’ be repackaged by some bright young Republican sociopath into a TV reality show called “Just How Stupid Are You?”
Meantime, over at Rachel Maddow last night, a good point was made – I think by Ana Marie Cox — about the anti-tax FNC Teabag Party nonsense. She pointed out that most of these dismal events were held in public parks – in other words, land paid for and maintained by taxpayer funds. If you hate taxes and government so much, go hold your damn teabag party or your own private property and don’t make those who think you’re nuts foot the bill, not only for the land, but the clean-up afterwards. And would all of those tax-haters sprouting gray and white hair at those FNC rallies please return their Social Security checks and refuse medical treatment courtesy of the government?
April 15, 2009
April 14, 2009
Fox News Teabags America
Headline: FOX NEWS TAKES OWNERSHIP OF TEA PARTIES…

April 13, 2009
Glenn Beck’s Strange But True
TRUE NEWS ITEM: The Associated Press reported April 12, 2009, that Fox News host Glenn Beck is going to do a stand-up comedy tour starting June 1 in Denver, Colorado. Here’s the story:
Fox’s Glenn Beck Announces Comedy Tour








Obamaman’s First 100 Days