Good Parody ...

This thing has been making the rounds today, from the Onion News Network.

It pretty funny, and remarkably, watching it, brings to mind watching almost any cable news show, (and in particular, Faux News).

Check it out.

Is Using A Minotaur To Gore Detainees A Form Of Torture?


Is Using A Minotaur To Gore Detainees A Form Of Torture?

Oh Yeah ...There'll Be Hard Karma A'Comin' ...

A short follow-up to last night's Yoo's Crossing.

Cheney's Cheney was also before the committee yesterday, and, if you didn't think David Addington was a royal asshole before the day began, you couldn't avoid thinking that by the time the sun set.

Just being labeled "Cheney's Cheney" covers a great deal.

I mean, that is the apex of assholiness!

Bush Policy Authors Defend Their Actions

The testimony from David S. Addington, chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, and John C. Yoo, a former senior Justice Department lawyer, was light on new details but heavy on rhetorical disputes with members of a House Judiciary subcommittee. Both witnesses avoided direct answers to a host of questions about their roles in preparing the legal ground for harsh interrogation tactics while arguing that such methods had been crucial in preventing another terrorist attack on U.S. soil after Sept. 11, 2001.

And Dana Milbank really nailed it, in his "When Anonymity Fails, Be Nasty, Brutish and Short";

He had the grace of Gollum as he quarreled with his questioners. In response to one of the chairman's questions, he neither looked up nor spoke before finishing a note he was writing to himself. When Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) questioned his failure to remember conversations about interrogation techniques, he only looked at her and asked: "Is there a question pending, ma'am?" Finally, at the end of the hearing, Addington was asked whether he would meet privately to discuss classified matters. "You have my number," he said. "If you issue a subpoena, we'll go through this again."

Think of Addington as the id of the Bush White House. Though his hidden hand is often merely suspected -- in signing statements, torture policy and other brazen assertions of executive power -- Addington's unbridled hostility was live and unfiltered yesterday.

This lead Phillip Carter, in his Intel Dump column to notice "Crikey. No wonder they kept Addington in the shadows; public advocacy is clearly not his gig."

No, hardly.

He looked like a small child, refusing to eat his broccoli, and was going to sit there at the table, glowering, being nasty, cleverly, without actually using the language, saying, over-and over "Fuck you, I'm not eating that fucking broccoli ...!" ... For as long as it took, before Mommy and Daddy caved (and if this 110th Congress will be known for one thing, it is caving).

Tim F., over on Balloon Juice, sums that up pretty well, in his "Your Government In A Nutshell";

Fundamentally, the reason why Bush officials like Yoo and Addington show such total contempt for Congress is also the answer to the question that Conyers asked John Yoo: a rule without a penalty is no rule at all. If Congress won’t enforce the law when the President breaks it, then why should he pretend the law is there? For all intents and purposes it isn’t. Yoo’s answer to Conyers, then, is to lean back, smirk and ask what are you going to do about it?

Both sides of that conversation know the answer: nothing. Maybe Conyers will hold another hearing and invite another Bush official to crap on his desk.

When these cretins finally leave office (Yoo's out already, a law professor, if you can believe that!), you probably don't want to be standing next to them, or, even be in the same room with them ...

There's some seriously hard karma coming their way, and it will be absolutely ugly ...


Bonus Addington Assholiness

Think Progress: Addington won’t talk about torture because ‘al Qaeda may watch C-SPAN.’

Mustang Bobby: Torture? What's That?

Dan Froomkin: Contempt of Congress

Kate Klonick: Quote of the Day: Vice President Is a "Barnacle" on the Legislative Branch

John Cole: Priorities are Straight

Yoo's Crossing

I hope, that journalists around the world, are on their toes, tonight, and over the next few days.

Especially those stationed, and working, in Iraq, Guantanamo, Poland, Thailand, and wherever the Bush Grindhouse is keeping detainees, and/or has secret prisons.

More specifically, in the desolate areas, out-of-way locations, forests, etc.

And that they have cameras.

It would be poetically (and, sadly) ironic, if they caught sight of details in U.S. Soldiers, maybe MP's or CIA-types, arriving, with picks, shovels and body bags, and they began unearthing, well ... something ...

Courtesy of TPMMuckraker;

"But then it was Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) turn to ask questions. And he went toe to toe with Yoo, the former DOJ attorney and torture-memo author extraordinaire:

Conyers: Could the President order a suspect buried alive?

Yoo: Uh, Mr. Chairman, I don't think I've ever given advice that the President could order someone buried alive. . .

Conyers: I didn't ask you if you ever gave him advice. I asked you thought the President could order a suspect buried alive.

Yoo: Well Chairman, my view right now is that I don't think a President . . . no American President would ever have to order that or feel it necessary to order that.

Conyers: I think we understand the games that are being played."

Here's the video on it;

Conyers and Yoo: "The Games That Are Being Played"




Considering the track record of these NeoNitwits, why shouldn't we think that they haven't already done this? ... That it was "authorized" and "legal" ... Just another tool in the bag of "Enhanced Interrogation".


Bonus Yoo Yammering

Marty Lederman: John Yoo Testimony

Steve Benen: It depends on what you mean by, ‘Unitary Theory of the Executive’

Dan Froomkin: 20 Questions for David Addington - A proposed script for the vice president's chief of staff

Glenn Greenwald: John Yoo's ongoing falsehoods in service of limitless government power

Yoo Hooey

We Looked In the DIY Section, But Bob Vila Didn't Have A Handbook On It ...

Yoo Hooey

No, were not trying to get the Bush Grindhouse Chief Torturer's attention.

We're calling him out with the "hooey", as in "nonsense" or "bullshit"

A simple analogy would be to say this is like hiring Willie Sutton as a bank guard.

It's pretty remarkable, with their lies being exposed, with their Neocon policies in shreds, with continually being rebuked by the courts, that people still pay these people to repeat and rehash the same lies.

John "It's Not Torture, It's Enhanced Interrogation" Yoo graces the pages of Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal today

The Supreme Court Goes to War

Last week's Supreme Court decision in Boumediene v. Bush has been painted as a stinging rebuke of the administration's antiterrorism policies. From the celebrations on most U.S. editorial pages, one might think that the court had stopped a dictator from trampling civil liberties. Boumediene did anything but. The 5-4 ruling is judicial imperialism of the highest order.

Ahhh, wrong, right there, in the first paragraph, Johnny Boy.

The Supreme Court decision only slowed down the Dictator, or Emperor, you know, the one you aided and enabled.

This same of long streak of stagnated piss (love that line, from the tremendous Bob Hoskins film, 'The Long Good Friday') that has trampled - and all but destroyed - civil liberties.

The one, who today, deems criticism as "slandering America", while his Mini-Me falls completely in step.

And here's what these Nitwitcons are hanging on to;

The only real hope of returning the Supreme Court to its normal wartime role rests in the November elections. Sometimes it is difficult to tell Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain apart on issues like campaign finance or global warming. But they have real differences on Supreme Court appointments. Mr. Obama had nothing but praise for Boumediene, while Mr. McCain attacked it and promised to choose judges like Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, both dissenters.

Because of the advancing age of several justices (Justice Stevens is 88, and several others are above 70), the next president will be in a position to appoint a new Court that can reverse the damage done to the nation's security.

Here's a couple of other smackdowns of John "It's Not Torture, It's Enhanced Interrogation" Yoo;

Glenn Greenwald: John Yoo's ongoing falsehoods in service of limitless government power

Cernig: The Biggest Lie Yoo Told

Also, a good one from Sadly No: Nightmare on Gitmo Street

Just remember, if you vote for Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain, you are asking to keep this crap going.

A Little Yoo Wop

Something this big needs some music.

It's not every day, we finally get documents released, that detail the war criminality of the Bush Grindhouse, and one of their star players, John "Torture Sounds Good To Me" Yoo.

Just in case, you're still playing the video over-and-over, in slow-motion, trying to find the snipers that Hillary Clinton had to avoid in Bosnia, or, you're scouring through the IMBD site, looking for Hillary Clinton in the credits of any one of the hundreds of Rocky films, blockbuster news dropped yesterday;

The March 2003 Yoo Memo Emerges! (not an April Fool's Joke): The Torture Memo to Top All Torture Memos

Subhead: The Big Kahuna: The Torture Memo that Makes the August 2002 Memo Look Like Objective and Thoughtful Legal Analysis

"On Friday, March 13, 2003, Jay Bybee resigned from his Office as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, to become a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The very next day -- a Saturday, mind you -- John Yoo, merely a Deputy AAG in the Office, issued his notorious memo to the Pentagon, on behalf of OLC, which effectively gave the Pentagon the green light to disregard statutory limits on torture, cruelty and maltreatment in the treatment of detainees. This is the version of the 2002 Torture memo, which was addressed only to the CIA and the torture statute, as applied to the numerous statutes restricting the conduct of the armed forces. None of those statues, you see, limits the conduct of war if the President says so. It is, in effect, the blueprint that led to Abu Ghraib and the other abuses within the armed forces in 2003 and early 2004 ..."

Yoo's memo was, The Green Light, as Phillippe Sands writes in Vanity Fair;

"We talked about the methods of interrogation. “In terms of their effects,” she said, “I suspect that the individual techniques are less important than the fact that they were used over an extended period of time, and that several appear to be used together: in other words, the cumulative effect.” Detainee 063 was subjected to systematic sleep deprivation. He was shackled and cuffed; at times, head restraints were used. He was compelled to listen to threats to his family. The interrogation leveraged his sensitivities as a Muslim: he was shown pictures of scantily clad models, was touched by a female interrogator, was made to stand naked, and was forcibly shaved. He was denied the right to pray. A psychiatrist who witnessed the interrogation of Detainee 063 reported the use of dogs, intended to intimidate “by getting the dogs close to him and then having the dogs bark or act aggressively on command.” The temperature was changed, and 063 was subjected to extreme cold. Intravenous tubes were forced into his body, to provide nourishment when he would not eat or drink."

If you want to prime your scorecards, you can start adding the names of, well, The Commander Guy, and his distrustful sidekick, Vice President Darth Vader, and his home boy, David Addington.

There's lots more that the "War Criminal" placard should hang on, and there'll be a YooMemoPalooza of links below.

But we gotta get to the music, the fanfare for this occasion

And we turn to the legendary Sam Cooke, to provide us the tune.

You know it, so sing, or hum along ...

Yoo Tortured Me

Dammit, Yoo tortured me
I know Yoo tortured me
Dammit You tortured me
Dishonest John Yoo, dishonest John Yoo
Dishonest John Yoo, whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh

Yoo beat me
I know Yoo, Yoo, Yoo beat me
Dammit Yoo, Yoo, Yoo, beat me
Dishonest John Yoo

At first I thought it was interrogation
But Yoo, it's lasted so long
Now I find myself wanting
To query Yoo and break Yoo alone
Whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh

Yoo beat me
I know Yoo, Yoo, Yoo beat me
Dammit Yoo, Yoo, Yoo, beat me
Dishonest John Yoo

Whoa-oh-oh, whenever I'm with Yoo
I know, I know, I know when I'm near Yoo
Mmm hmm, mmm hmm, dishonest John Yoo, dishonest John Yoo
Whoa-oh-oh, I know-oh-oh-oh

At first I thought it was interrogation
But Yoo, it's lasted so long
Now I find myself wanting
To query Yoo and break Yoo alone
Whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh

I know, I know, I know, Yoo tortured me
I know Yoo tortured me
Whoa-oh-oh-oh, Yoo Yoo Yoo Yoo tortured me
Dishonest John Yoo

Bonus YooMemoPalooza Links

Sam Cooke - You Send Me 1958

Glenn Greenwald: John Yoo's war crimes

emptywheel/Firedoglake: Acting Counsels and Torture

Jack Balkin/Balkinization : The Legality of Evil: The Torture Memos and the Living Constitution

Christy Hardin Smith: Yoo Torture Memo: I’ll Take Addington At Cheney’s Behest For $1,000, Alex…

Space Cowboy/Shakesville: Bush: Legacy of S&M

emptywheel/Firedoglake: The “John Yoo, Let’s Pretend We’re Lawyers” Game

Paul Kiel/TPM: The Timeline Behind Yoo's Memo

It's Monday, And The Cheneypalooza Is Rolling On! ... ' Pushing the Envelope on Presidential Power'

Lots going on today ... Earthquake at 30 Rock, as news anchor Brian Williams takes a big tumble... Michelle Maudlin, and others in the Freak Show, are stirring up trouble (but nothing that can't be handled by a cutting, on-the-money post by Larisa Alexandrovna) ... And CNN flunks geography

Take all that in but don't let our Cheneypalooza pass you by ... Or the new series, started yesterday, by the Washington Post, "Angler - The Cheney Vice Presidency"

Over the next four days, The Washington Post will present an in-depth investigation of the vice presidency of Dick Cheney, the most influential and powerful man ever to hold the office. The stories will examine Cheney's largely hidden and little-understood role in crafting policies for the War on Terror, the economy and the environment.

(Considering all of Cheney's underhandedness in building an Imperial Presidency, it is rather fitting that his Secret Service code name is/was "Angler")

Today's Installment: ''Pushing the Envelope on Presidential Power'

Links

FDL Book Salon Welcomes Glenn Greenwald

They'll Break the Bad News on 9/11

More Cheneypalooza! 'A Different Understanding With the President'

"I Am Spartacus" ... The Bush Grindhouse and Cheneypalooza

Red Rover, Red Rover, Send Dickie Right Over ... Its' A Cheneypalooza!

The Commander Guy and Angler coordinate their watches so they don't miss out on Cheneypalooza

More Cheneypalooza! 'A Different Understanding With the President'

You can go off and watch Larry King fawn all over Paris Hilton, but the fun and festivities continue with our Cheneypalooza, as the Washington Post begins a series today, "Angler - The Cheney Vice Presidency"

Over the next four days, The Washington Post will present an in-depth investigation of the vice presidency of Dick Cheney, the most influential and powerful man ever to hold the office. The stories will examine Cheney's largely hidden and little-understood role in crafting policies for the War on Terror, the economy and the environment.

Today's Installment: 'A Different Understanding With the President'

It appears that contretemps of the Darth Vader man are far from their final throes.

Links

Rahm Emanuel To Cheney: Please Get The Heck Out Of The White House

"I Am Spartacus" ... The Bush Grindhouse and Cheneypalooza

Red Rover, Red Rover, Send Dickie Right Over ... Its' A Cheneypalooza!

Update

A New Cheney-Gonzales Mystery

Update No.2

Yes, well done, indeed, Juan Williams

Kristol Defends Cheney, Williams Says He’s Creating A ‘Secured Undisclosed Bunker Of His Mind’

A Vice President Without Borders, Bordering on Lunacy