And, Today, Representing the "Clueless-They-Don't-Get-It" Team ... Senator Joe Lieberman!

It, kind of, makes you long for the old GE College Bowl, or some other game show, just to hear that introduction.

"And. Today. Representing the "Clueless-They-Don't-Get-It" Team ... Senator Joe Lieberman! ..."

Senator Joe Lieberman (R-I/CT) continued his relentless march towards total idiocy, commenting, as one of the 45 Senators that wanted to authorize torture, after the Senate defeated the bill, and hold our government to a standard for interrogations, sans the torture.

"We are at war," Lieberman said. "I know enough from public statements made by Osama bin Laden and others as well as classified information I see to know the terrorists are actively planning, plotting to attack us again. I want our government to be able to gather information again within both the law and Geneva Convention."

In the worst case scenario — when there is an imminent threat of a nuclear attack on American soil — Lieberman said that the president should be able to certify the use of waterboarding on a detainee suspected of knowing vital details of the plot.

"You want to be able to use emergency tech to try to get the information out of that person," Lieberman said. Of course, Lieberman believes such authority has limits. He does not believe the president could authorize having hot coals pressed on someone's flesh to obtain that information."

Emergency Tech?

Boy, the Rightwing Freakshow has certainly been busy, melting down the torture of prisoners into another Orwellian turn-of-phrase, sounding so noble, like you were moving heaven-and-earth to save someone!

Jeesh!

Hot Coals?

Perhaps he's still feeling grouchy, openly fantasizing what he could do to those in the DNC that that stripped away his Superdelegate status (you know, for abandoning the Democratic Party - Did you, Torturin' Joe, really expect to sit in Denver and vote for Obama or Clinton, after you come out and endorse Here's Johnny Boy McCain?)


Bonus Lieberman Lunacy

Attaturk, from Firedoglake: Thanks Connecticut

ThinkProgress: Lieberman Defends Waterboarding: It’s ‘Not Like Putting Burning Coals On People’s Bodies’

Marty Lederman from Balkinization: Lowering the Bar: Well, At Least We're Not as Barbaric as the Spanish Inquisition

Breaking News! Lieberman Pledges To Support “Whichever Party Elects Me”; Post-Debate Bombshell - Lieberman Announces Plan C – Will Run In All 50 States; Hires Nader For ‘Underdog” Experience; Pledges To Support “Whichever Party Elects Me”

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

Somewhat ironic, or, apropos, that this article hits today, on the eve of the SOTU.

For, it highlights one of the Bush Grindhouse's legacy accomplishments - turning the United States of America into a nation that tortures prisoners.

Spencer Ackerman, former stalwart of TPMmuckracker, writing now for The Washington Independent, has penned a beauty, detailing the sorry, sad road the Central Intelligence Agency (oxymoron?) - at the direction and order of The Commander Guy - has taken us down;

CIA Largely in the Dark on Interrogation Tactics; Bush Tasked Agency To Build a Robust System, Despite Its Limited History;

But 9/11 changed all that. Despite having nearly no off-the-shelf experience, the CIA was tasked by President Bush to come up with a robust interrogation program for the most important al-Qaeda captives. So the agency turned to its partners for assistance in designing its interrogation regimen: Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia—all countries cited by the State Department for using torture—among others. Additionally, as Mark Benjamin has reported for Salon, two psychologists named Bruce Jessen and James Mitchell, who worked as contractors for CIA, helped the agency "reverse-engineer" the military and CIA training on resisting torture for use on detainees. Suddenly, waterboarding, an illegal practice of simulating or in some cases inducing drowning, became an American-administered practice.

So much for the "CEO" presidency... Be it launching unneeded wars, to reacting to natural disasters (versus the ones they created), to running the Injustice Department, to protecting its' own intelligence agents, It's been DIY all the way, and bad DIY at that ...

Read Spencer Ackerman's "CIA Largely in the Dark on Interrogation Tactics; Bush Tasked Agency To Build a Robust System, Despite Its Limited History" ... It's a good one!


Bonus CIA Riffs

Bob Vila Home Improvement

Top Ten Cloves: Problems Created With President Bush Admitting To CIA Black Site Prisons

Leak of CIA Covert Prison System May Affect IPO, Franchising Rights; Early Heavy Investment Cools In Wake of Story; North Korea May Trade Nuke Program For Multiple Prisons

Top Ten Cloves: Ways White House Aides Got President Bush To Claim "We Do Not Torture"

Top Ten Cloves: Ways CIA Will Cut Back On Using Contractors

Top Ten Cloves: Things About The New CIA Personality Test

Rummy On The Run? ... Let's Give Him Some Chase Music!

It's unlikely he would have been hunted down, panting, exhausted, with fear-filled eyes, a chalk-marked "M" stamped on his shoulder, like Peter Lorre in the Fritz Lang classic "M" (Sorry, won't daydream again while posting).

More the style of Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense, would be to stroll out of the breakfast he was attending in Paris, angrily barking to his aides "Arrest me! ... What planet do they think they are on", or some such Rummyesque verbiage.

Charges were filed in France against Dick Cheney's little weekend-warrior buddy, for torture, by the the International Federation for Human Rights along with the Center for Constitutional Rights, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights and the French League for Human Rights, criminal charges for "ordering and authorizing torture."

And since he was in Paris, for some type of meeting with Foreign Policy Magazine, they wanted to catch and arrest the little bugger.

So, as we have done so often for the Bush Grindhouse, we provide a song, some chase music for Rumsfeld to skulk out-of-town with.

Stepping out of our element (Jazz), we turn to a proverbial American Hero, Bruce Springsteen, and his classic anthem, "Born To Run" to provide the right vibe.

Anyone that was a teenager in the 1970's, or older, you sing especially loud.

Born the One's

In the day we sweat it out in the streets of a runaway American government
At night we ride through Middle East with suicide machines
Secure in cages out in Abu Ghraib
Chrome wheeled, fuel injected and steppin' all over the law
Bushie this town rips the bones from their back
Its a death trap, its a stuff happens rap
We gotta torture'em while were young
`cause Neocons like us, Bushie we were born the One's

Bushie let me in I wanna be your friend
I want to guard your dreams and visions
Just wrap your legs round these velvet rims
And strap your hands across my engines
Together we could break this rap
Well torture till we drop, Bushie well never go back
Will you torture with me out on the wire
`cause Bushie I'm just a scared and lonely Rummy
But I gotta find out how it feels
I want to know if torture is wild, Bushie, I want to know if torture is real

Beyond Saddam's palace hemi-powered Humvees scream down the boulevard
The Iraqis comb their hair in rear-view mirrors
And the guards try to beat them so hard
Our amusement park rises bold and stark
Prisoners are huddled on the beach, they're not missed
I wanna die with you Bushie on Baghdad streets tonight
In an everlasting kiss

The highways jammed with broken Neocons on a last chance power drive
All the Neocons out on the run tonight
but theres no place left to hide
Together Bushie we'll live with the sadness
I'll love you with all the madness in my soul
Someday Bushie I don't know when
were gonna get to that place
Where we really want to torture
and we'll walk in the sun
But till then Neocons like us
Bushie, we were born the One's

Bonus Rummy Riffs

Listen To A Clip of "Born To Run"

Top Ten Cloves: What Would Be Different If Rumsfeld Was A Dog, But Still Secretary of Defense

Rumsfeld Declares End to Memo 'Blizzard'

Seymour Hersh - The General’s Report: How Antonio Taguba, who investigated the Abu Ghraib scandal, became one of its casualties.


"Hey, I can daydream, can't I?"

Developing Story: White House, CIA Start Selling ‘Defeat The Threat’

With New Detainee Bill Signed, White House Fires Out RFP’s For Secret Prison Franchises

Program, Once Stalled, Primed To Flourish Legally; Renditions Downgraded From “Extraordinary” To “Standard”

The White House, sources tell The Garlic, has wasted little time to ramp up it’s Secret Prison Program, busily, since mid-afternoon yesterday, after President Bush signed into law the Military Commissions Act of 2006, firing by fax and email, Request For Proposals to dozen of countries - including some on the Terror Watch and Axis of Evil Lists - to buy into franchises for the President’s most valuable tool in fighting terror.

The Military Commissions Act of 2006 allows a high level of torture practices and all but ignores the Geneva Convention provisions. The government can also use classified information against suspected terrorists, without having to share that information, and Habaes Corpus has been eliminated, leaving someone designated by the President as a terrorist or enemy combatant without the recourse of a hearing to find out about, or refute, the charges against them.

The title of the RFP is reported to be “Defeat The Threat”, culled from comments the President made during the signing of the bill, when he said “With the distance of history, the questions will be narrowed and few: Did this generation of Americans take the threat seriously, and did we do what it takes to defeat that threat?”

The White House, and the Central Intelligence Agency, according to the RFP, will oversee all franchises, with the CIA taking the responsibility for “advising” the employees of the Secret Prison Franchise. There are provisions for countries with the experience of running Secret Prisons, or with a history of advanced Torture Programs, to seek a waiver from certain trainings by the CIA, as mandated by the Franchise agreement.

RFP Downgrades Renditions, Saving U.S. Millions In Fuel, Transportation Costs

The ‘Defeat The Threat’ RFP is being hailed as one of the more progressive programs the Bush Team has put out to-date.

“They’re not staying the course with this one,”, offered Harold "Ace" Larson, an analyst for the counterintelligence think tank, 'Book'em and Beat'em'

Since the program was first exposed, by The Washington Post’s Dana Priest, back last November, and cooling off that followed, the White House, according to Larson, was recalculating and retooling the program all along, right up to the time, last month, when the President admitted knowledge of the Secret Prison Program.

“With having it all under the cover of the law, being legal, they’ve really put together a good, tight package,” said Larson.

Gone are the “extraordinary renditions”, where a terrorist, or someone deemed an enemy combatant, was swooped off the streets and flown, by private jet, to an undisclosed Secret Prison.

All the extraordinary renditions have been downgraded to “standard”, says Larsen, and the RFP stipulates, in most cases, the Secret Prison Franchisee will pick up the costs of transporting the enemy combatant, or whoever President Bush has placed into the ‘Defeat The Threat’ program.

“With this all legal now,” added Larsen, “Heck, they can fly these guys in coach. The U.S. is going to save millions ... They can funnel that money into anything they want ... Develop new torture practices ... Buy better music systems to blare in their cells ... Whatever they want ...”

Strict Controls, With President Signaling Daily Torture Levels

The “Defeat The Threat” RFP gives absolute and strict control of the program to the White House, and CIA. Secret Prison franchise owners will not be allowed to improvise or freelance any torture practices.

A new ‘Torture Level’, color-coded chart will be implemented, with the determination of what color-level Secret Prison Franchisees can engage in the torture practices of that day, directly from the President. The ‘Torture Level Chart’ will be comparable to the Terror Alert Chart, and the Pandemic Alert Chart.

The colors used with the Torture Level Chart are classified and will be known only between the White House, CIA and Secret Prison Franchisee owners. It may also be that certain franchises will have different levels on different days, according to the laws of their countries they are located in.

“Who’s Who” Of Torturers In Line For Franchises

The White House would not release what countries the “Defeat The Threat” RFP, however sources close to the program say that it’s a “Who’s Who” of infamous torturers.

“A lot of the guys that were involved in the Secret Prison program when it was illegal have first dibs,” offered one source, who is close to the CIA.

“Now that it is legal,” said the source, “some of the all-star torturers will be coming back ... Guys that, maybe, retired due to all the laws piled up against them ... Guys that were on the wrong side of coup attempts ... It will be a pretty unsavory crowd, but then again, they’ve all been in bed with the CIA before ... it will end up being like a class reunion ...”

The Garlic is still attempting to confirm rumors that the Halliburton Corporation may end up as the largest holder of Secret Prison franchises, under their “No Bid Contract” arrangement with the Bush Administration.

More as this story develops

Within minutes, sources say, of President Bush signing the Military Commissions Act of 2006, the White House begain firing out Request For Proposals, for their now-legal Secret Prison Program