torture

First Monday In October: New Controversial SCOTUS Term Begins

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Supreme Court Justices have spent their break trying to convince Americans that they are not political, that they are ethereal beings who are above it all. Also, trying to convince themselves that their shit doesn’t stink. It has not gone well, because Americans know that they are being lied to and played for fools. In … Read more

Trump Defended The Cruelty And Torture Of His Child Separation Policy

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In one of the most outrageous moments of last night’s debate, Donald Trump tried to defend his zero tolerance child separation policy for migrant children from their parents at the border by falsely claiming they were being trafficked by “coyotes,” and that the children were “well taken care of” in government detention. This was state-sponsored kidnapping … Read more

Support Sen. John McCain’s opposition to Gina Haspel at CIA

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For the past several days the media has been consumed by the story that White House communications special aide Kelly Sadler joked in a staff meeting about Sen. John McCain’s opposition to President Trump’s nominee for the CIA, Gina Haspel: “It doesn’t matter, he’s dying anyway.” White House official mocked ‘dying’ McCain at internal meeting.

While Kelly Sadler has called the McCain family to apologize privately, she has not been terminated nor has she or the White House publicly apologized for her comment. The Trump White House crossed a new threshold for political debasement this week:

U. S. Senator John McCain

The White House probably thinks it cannot punish Kelly Sadler for her awful comment about John McCain because President Trump has also said nasty things about McCain. It may worry that showing her the door would set a troubling precedent for a president who may one day cross a very similar line.

Welcome to the ongoing degradation of our political discourse. Destination: No end in sight.

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What happened this week is worse than most anything we have seen — worse even, I would argue, than Trump questioning McCain’s war hero status. What’s more, the White House is trying to ignore it, which means the bulldozer is pressing forward.

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Either because the White House is afraid of setting a standard Trump cannot meet or because Trump is demanding it hold the line against the media’s outrage cycle, it is serving notice there are more important things than Sadler’s public accountability: things like confidentiality and politics.

Case in point, Trump blasts the White House leakers as ‘traitors and cowards’:

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Bush apologists and 9/11

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jeb-and-george-bush-1One of the most remarkable propaganda campaigns of the modern era are the George W. Bush apologists who would have you believe that “W”‘s presidency did not begin until September 12, 2001 (and that the Bush Great Recession did not begin until Barack Obama was sworn in on January 20, 2009, but that is another story).

On Friday, Tea-Publican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump sat down with Bloomberg Politics and had this exchange:

DONALD TRUMP: When you talk about George Bush, and say what you want, the World Trade Center came down during his time.
STEPHANIE RUHLE, BLOOMBERG: Hold on, you can’t blame George Bush for that.
TRUMP: He was president. Blame him, or don’t blame him, but he was president. The World Trade Center came down during his reign.

In the military this is known as the Officer On Watch. Anything that happens during your watch, you will be held accountable for.  The Donald is not saying anything particularly controversial here. It is an obvious truth.

But note the Bush apologist response from this reporter from Bloomberg, “you can’t blame George Bush for that.” Well yes, you can lady. George W. Bush was president, or as he preferred to call himself, commander-in-chief, on 9/11. He was the Officer On Watch, and he is most assuredly accountable for what happened during his watch.

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