The Democrat Thread

[lostfan]

Senator Judd Gregg, R-N.H.

I wouldn't have expected a Republican to make that statement right now, honestly.

[lostfan]

So I'm at this conference and we are getting a series of presentations/lectures... earlier today we had a retired VA state cop talking about the Virginia Tech shootings (I'm not going to type his name but if you should happen to google it and figure out who I'm talking about he has a funny last name, lol). Each of the presentations is to give us some kind of perspective or a lesson, there is a point to most of them, this one was for some broader perspective on the Fort Hood shootings so the parallels there were pretty obvious. Anyway, today was like "Irrelevant political rant day" all morning and it was obnoxious as hell... I write in it in this thread cuz they were all conservative. The presenter responded to a question with the answer "I'm a strong 2nd Amendment guy and I think any good citizen that follows laws should be able to purchase a gun" and some people randomly broke out into applause even though that barely had anything at all to do with the subject. Then later someone commented "the pendulum is going to swing left to right on this political correctness stuff" and the presenter said again something like "I don't like when our political leadership won't use the word terror or won't say Islam without saying extremism and I don't think we should apologize for it" and there was more random applause. Come on guys... put your f***ing hands back in your laps, STFU and listen... and presenter, you talk about Virginia Tech. So annoying to sit and listen to that. None of us set national policy so none of that discussion was appropriate. We also had a 20 minute sidetracking/soapbox fest earlier that morning regarding prosecution of terrorists. Next time I'm just going to leave to my hotel room and take a nap. I didn't come here to hear people b**** about politics in an official setting.

Edited January 27, 2010 by lostfan

[Balta1701]

You know how I think they got him to defend the program in the first place? Waterboarding.

Well, it's official now: John Kiriakou, the former CIA operative who affirmed claims that waterboarding quickly unloosed the tongues of hard-core terrorists, says he didn't know what he was talking about.

 

Kiriakou, a 15-year veteran of the agency's intelligence analysis and operations directorates, electrified the hand-wringing national debate over torture in December 2007 when he told ABC's Brian Ross and Richard Esposito in a much ballyhooed, exclusive interview that senior al Qaeda commando Abu Zubaydah cracked after only one application of the face cloth and water.

 

"From that day on, he answered every question," Kiriakou said. "The threat information he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks."

 

"It works, is the bottom line," conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh exclaimed on his radio show the day after Kiriakou's ABC interview. "Thirty to 35 seconds, and it works."

 

A cascade of similar acclamations followed, muffling -- to this day -- the later revelation that Zubaydah had in fact been waterboarded at least 83 times.

 

Had Kiriakou left out something the first time?

 

Now comes John Kiriakou, again, with a wholly different story. On the next-to-last page of a new memoir, The Reluctant Spy: My Secret Life in the CIA's War on Terror (written with Michael Ruby), Kiriakou now rather off handedly admits that he basically made it all up.

 

"What I told Brian Ross in late 2007 was wrong on a couple counts," he writes. "I suggested that Abu Zubaydah had lasted only thirty or thirty-five seconds during his waterboarding before he begged his interrogators to stop; after that, I said he opened up and gave the agency actionable intelligence."

 

But never mind, he says now.

 

"I wasn't there when the interrogation took place; instead, I relied on what I'd heard and read inside the agency at the time."

 

In a word, it was hearsay, water-cooler talk.

 

"Now we know," Kiriakou goes on, "that Zubaydah was waterboarded eighty-three times in a single month, raising questions about how much useful information he actually supplied."

 

Indeed. But after his one-paragraph confession, Kiriakou adds that he didn't have any first hand knowledge of anything relating to CIA torture routines, and still doesn't. And he claims that the disinformation he helped spread was a CIA dirty trick: "In retrospect, it was a valuable lesson in how the CIA uses the fine arts of deception even among its own."

[Balta1701]

This is also kinda remarkable. There's been this idea floating around for a "Blue ribbon committee" (Blue ribbon? that's the best kind! all right!) to be created by Congress to come up with ideas on how to deal with the deficit. Yesterday, it came up for a vote in the Senate and lost 53-47 (losing of course meaning it won a majority of the votes).

 

Now, whether you think this is a good idea or not, of particular interest was what happened with 6 of the Republican votes; 6 Republicans were listed as co-sponsors of the bill to create the commission, and then voted against it. Why? Because they realized that the commission might come back and actually produce a plan that would control the deficit; it would probably wind up including a bipartisan mixture of tax increases and spending cuts.

 

These 6 Republicans, the same people who have already complained to no end about spending and the deficit and the stimulus and how it's all evil, realized that they might empower a panel that would in the end recommend revenue increases to balance the budget, and suddenly changed their minds to no. Couldn't even risk appointing experts and having them recommend tax increases.

[kapkomet]

This is also kinda remarkable. There's been this idea floating around for a "Blue ribbon committee" (Blue ribbon? that's the best kind! all right!) to be created by Congress to come up with ideas on how to deal with the deficit. Yesterday, it came up for a vote in the Senate and lost 53-47 (losing of course meaning it won a majority of the votes).

 

Now, whether you think this is a good idea or not, of particular interest was what happened with 6 of the Republican votes; 6 Republicans were listed as co-sponsors of the bill to create the commission, and then voted against it. Why? Because they realized that the commission might come back and actually produce a plan that would control the deficit; it would probably wind up including a bipartisan mixture of tax increases and spending cuts.

 

These 6 Republicans, the same people who have already complained to no end about spending and the deficit and the stimulus and how it's all evil, realized that they might empower a panel that would in the end recommend revenue increases to balance the budget, and suddenly changed their minds to no. Couldn't even risk appointing experts and having them recommend tax increases.

 

 

I heard about this a month ago. The Demycrats were trying to rope these guys in, and then push through those tax increases that well, you know, "read my lips, no new (middle class) taxes" -- Barackus the Great, repeatedly. Then, of course, just like health care, it's those evil republicans that can't do anything right, even though we had the votes and then started to argue to death.

 

It's a blame game time bomb that they were trying to lay on the laps of the other party. It's that simple.

[Balta1701]

I heard about this a month ago. The Demycrats were trying to rope these guys in, and then push through those tax increases that well, you know, "read my lips, no new (middle class) taxes" -- Barackus the Great, repeatedly. Then, of course, just like health care, it's those evil republicans that can't do anything right, even though we had the votes and then started to argue to death.

 

It's a blame game time bomb that they were trying to lay on the laps of the other party. It's that simple.

In other words, we're serious about reducing the deficit as long as the method to reduce the deficit is 100% the Republican plan. Once you agree with everything we say, then we can be bipartisan.

[kapkomet]

In other words, we're serious about reducing the deficit as long as the method to reduce the deficit is 100% the Republican plan. Once you agree with everything we say, then we can be bipartisan.

 

Yep. Just like health care. Only the Demys really don't have the balls.

[bmags]

so all this courting of olympia snowe and grassley was the dems just ramming health care down the throats of republicans! AH!

[kapkomet]

so all this courting of olympia snowe and grassley was the dems just ramming health care down the throats of republicans! AH!

 

 

Smokescreen - it really worked, didn't it?

[Balta1701]

Smokescreen - it really worked, didn't it?

Yup. They watered the bill down so far that the Dem voters stopped caring, and the end result was defeat. Worked darn well for Snowe and Baucus. Especially considering the several million dollars they've gotten from the insurance companies this year.

[DukeNukeEm]

I agree with Judd Gregg, the populism s*** has got to go.

[Rex Kickass]

So PPP did a poll about what news is most trusted.

 

The winner is Fox News. But why? Because Liberals and Moderates trust everyone about equally except for Fox News. And Conservatives only trust Fox News. And its more belief than trust at this point.

 

Conservatives:

FOX NEWS: 75/13

CNN: 22/60

ABC NEWS: 16/67

NBC NEWS: 15/66

CBS NEWS: 14/68

 

Moderates:

CNN: 47/31

NBC NEWS: 44/33

CBS NEWS: 41/33

ABC NEWS: 39/34

FOX NEWS: 33/48

 

Liberals:

NBC NEWS: 64/22

CNN: 63/21

CBS NEWS: 56/29

ABC NEWS: 50/31

FOX NEWS: 26/66

 

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP...ational_126.pdf

[bmags]

Smokescreen - it really worked, didn't it?

 

smokescreen on whose part kap? After 8 mos. of negotiating with snowe she said it was "too rushed" even though it was damn near the same bill as the baucus plan, that she voted for. They weren't negotiating in good faith

[kapkomet]

smokescreen on whose part kap? After 8 mos. of negotiating with snowe she said it was "too rushed" even though it was damn near the same bill as the baucus plan, that she voted for. They weren't negotiating in good faith

 

But it wasn't. Keep believing those liberal blogs telling you how everything was cheer-i-o until those evil Republicans railroaded the process.

[bmags]

I'm not talking about Ben Nelson/lieberman/Landrieu, I'm talking about f***ing GRASSLEy AND SNOWE, who negotiated, got what they wanted and still vote no, if you can't understand this concept and the R under their names then don't talk on it.

[BigSqwert]

R.I.P. Howard Zinn

[GoSox05]

R.I.P. Howard Zinn

 

 

I've read just about everything he wrote. He pretty much shaped the views I have today. Really sad.

 

 

Dissent is the highest form of patriotism. - Howard Zinn

[mr_genius]

I agree with Judd Gregg

 

JUDD GREGG IS AN IDIOT

[kapkomet]

I'm not talking about Ben Nelson/lieberman/Landrieu, I'm talking about f***ing GRASSLEy AND SNOWE, who negotiated, got what they wanted and still vote no, if you can't understand this concept and the R under their names then don't talk on it.

 

 

[Rex Kickass]

Thanks for elevating the discussion.

 

Stay classy, kap.

[DukeNukeEm]

JUDD GREGG IS AN IDIOT

So are you, and there's been rare occasions where I've somewhat agreed with what you've said completely out of context.

[NorthSideSox72]

OK so, its been getting a little bit tetchy in here lately... cool it, please - everyone. No more ad hominem stuff, no insults to other posters. We thank you for your support.

 

Putting this in both threads.

 

[Rex Kickass]

So, remember those ACORN videos? The one where the guy dressed up like a pimp trying to get ACORN to "break the law?" Well the kid who did them got arrested by the FBI this week for tampering and attempting to wiretap Senator Landrieu's phone system. He posted bond to get out of jail... and the judge released the 25 year old under the condition that he goes back and lives with his parents.

 

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/...efe_to_live.php

 

As if James O'Keefe hasn't suffered enough indignity after botching an alleged phone tampering operation at a U.S. senator's office, getting arrested, and being photographed leaving jail, the judge in the case has now ordered that he reside with his parents until the next hearing.

 

Magistrate Judge Louis Moore made the order Tuesday as part of the conditions of release for O'Keefe, 25. (Read them here)

 

The young conservative filmmaker is free on $10,000 bond. A preliminary hearing in the case is set for February 13.

 

There's something so great about someone who consistently behaves like a petulant child to get notoriety getting treated like a petulant child when he breaks the law.

 

 

[Balta1701]

In light of the recent supreme court decision, a progressive PR corporation from Maryland has announced that it is going to run for congress. I think they'll have a constitutional problem in that they're only about 5 years old, but other than that, if corporations are given all the speech rights as people, I'm not sure why they don't get all of the other rights too.

[mr_genius]

So are you, and there's been rare occasions where I've somewhat agreed with what you've said completely out of context.

 

MUTINY IN HEAVEN IS MY NEW RING TONE. DO YOU APPROVE