No More Friedmans

post from Eschaton on 25 September 2007 09:43:00 AM. © Eschaton

While Little Tommy Friedman, age 9, is out, it's worth remembering how many thousands of US troops have been killed or maimed while kept urging them to find the ponies.

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No more ‘Friedmans’ for Friedman.

post from Think Progress on 25 September 2007 09:41:00 AM. © Think Progress

In May 2006, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) released a study demonstrating how New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman continually “boiled down the intricacies of the Iraq situation into a make-or-break deadline” lasting “six months.” Atrios soon adopted the “Friedman Unit” to describe perpetual “six monthers.” But on The Colbert Report last night, Friedman himself refused to call for another Friedman, saying “I’m afraid we’ve run out of six months. It’s really time to set a deadline.” Watch it:

In August 2006, Friedman wrote that “staying the course is pointless” and urged the U.S. to “disengage” from Iraq.

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Two Presidents Make Fools of Themselves at
Columbia

post from TPMCafe - The Coffee House feed on 25 September 2007 09:40:22 AM. © TPMCafe - The Coffee House feed

I never understood why Columbia invited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak in the first place. I am all for the free exchange of ideas and all that but come on. There was never going...

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Countdown: Bush Used Bogus Terror Threat To Scare
Votes For FISA Bill

post from Crooks and Liars on 25 September 2007 09:38:36 AM. © Crooks and Liars

Keith Olbermann has been tracking the Bush Administration’s use of trumped up terror alerts to manipulate the American people for the past two years, but in this latest Nexus of Politics & Terror report on Countdown, it appears the president stooped to a new low by using a bogus terror threat that specifically [...]

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Terror Charges Reinstated Against Omar Khadr

post from TalkLeft on 25 September 2007 09:37:00 AM. © TalkLeft

Omar Khadr turned 21 in Guantanamo this week. He's been detained there since he was 15.

A military judge threw out the charges against him on jurisdictional grounds in June. Another judge later upheld that decision.

Today, the U.S. Court of Military Commission Review issued its first opinion. It reinstated the charges against Omar.

The ruling reverses a military judge's June 4 ruling that the tribunal system created by Congress did not have authority to try detainees unless they were first determined to be unlawful enemy combatants.

The New York Times has this more in-depth report on the ruling.

My all-time favorite quote on Omar Khadr is by Jeanne D'Arc at her now defunct Body and Soul blog:

He's eighteen years old. When he was captured in Afghanistan, he was fifteen -- a child turned into a soldier by parents from hell. And our government's response to this victim of child abuse was to abuse him further.

His lawyers have alleged he was tortured.

More...

Omar Khadr was 15 when he was shot three times and captured at a suspected Al Qaeda compound in Afghanistan in July 2002, following a gun battle with U.S. troops.

In February, his U.S. lawyer told reporters the teenager had been used as a human mop to clean urine on the floor and had been beaten, threatened with rape and tied up for hours in painful positions at Guantanamo Bay.

One of the bullets hit Omar in the eye. For more on his story, check out Omar Khadr: At 15, an 'Unprivileged Belligerant' and A Child of Jihad.

From a Rolling Stone article on Omar:

....An hour or two later they came back, checked the tautness of his chains and pushed him over on his stomach. Transfixed in his bonds, Omar toppled like a figurine. Again they left. Many hours had passed since Omar had been taken from his cell. He urinated on himself and on the floor. The MPs returned, mocked him for a while and then poured pine-oil solvent all over his body. Without altering his chains, they began dragging him by his feet through the mixture of urine and pine oil. Because his body had been so tightened, the new motion racked it.

The MPs swung him around and around, the piss and solvent washing up into his face. The idea was to use him as a human mop. When the MPs felt they'd successfully pretended to soak up the liquid with his body, they uncuffed him and carried him back to his cell. He was not allowed a change of clothes for two days.

Today's ruling is just another day in, as Rolling Stone puts it, The Unending Torture of Omar Khadr.

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The Beginning

post from Eschaton on 25 September 2007 09:18:00 AM. © Eschaton

CNN:

Diyala province -- which sprawls north and east of Baghdad -- has been a major front in the Iraq war since the U.S. troop escalation called the "surge" began earlier this month. U.S. and Iraqi forces in recent months have embarked on offensives targeting al Qaeda in Iraq.

So the surge began in September! It all makes sense now.

(ht dc)

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Bitter Vitter

post from Daily Kos on 25 September 2007 09:15:42 AM. © Daily Kos

Perhaps Republican Congressman and Call Girl Aficionado David Vitter confused sexual selection and sexual satisfaction:

Ed Brayton -- When he's not busy having trysts with prostitutes, David Vitter apparently spends his time making sure creationist groups get Federal tax dollars. The New Orleans Times Picayune reports that he recently placed an earmark in a spending bill that gave $100,000 to a creationist group in Louisiana to push creationism in public schools...

The Louisiana Family Forum, the recipient of Vitter’s earmarked one-hundred thousand tax payer dollars, believes among other core values that:

...life-long, faithful marriage is the first Human institution ordained by God and therefore, the basic, irreducible building block of society. We believe the value of marriage in a community will determine that community’s health, happiness, productivity and safety.

Oh, Irony and hypocrisy thy name is Republican ...

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Wanker of the Day

Andrew Rosenthal for continuing to publish this crap.

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ThinkFast: September 25, 2007

Defying a Bush veto threat, the House will vote today on a significant expansion of the popular State Children’s Health Insurance Program. It is “the first skirmish in the new battle for universal health coverage. It is also the first confrontation between the president and Congress fought out almost entirely on terms set by the new Democratic majority.”

Violent crime rose nearly 2 percent last year, slightly more than expected, the F.B.I. reported on Monday. “The number of big-city murders also increased, by 1.8 percent, the same rate as homicides nationwide.”

In a victory for the Bush administration, a special military appeals court ruling “removed a legal hurdle that has derailed” trials for detainees at Guantanámo Bay. The ruling allows prosecutors to introduce new evidence that defendents labeled “enemy combatants” are actually “alien unlawful enemy combatants,” as the law requires for them to be tried in military tribunals.

Following large protests last week supporting six African-American teenagers in Jena, LA, white supremacists have begun calling for retaliatory violence. The threats include the posting on a neo-Nazi website of the names, addresses and phone numbers of some of the six teenagers and their families. In an interview, the Mayor of Jena, Murphy McMillin, “praised efforts by pro-white groups to organize counter-demonstrations.”

At a gala in Little Rock last night, former President Bill Clinton and other dignitaries honored the nine black students who integrated Little Rock Central High school fifty years ago while stressing “the country’s continuing need for better race relations.”

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Rescue Recommendations and Open Thread

You know what to do. The Rescue Diary goes live tomorrow morning. Tags: Diary Rescue, Open Thread (all tags) [...]

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