KING: Well I don’t know if everyone knows this or not, but you mentioned the fact that we obtained information several years ago, vital information about the courier for Obama [sic]. We obtained that information through waterboarding. So for those who say that waterboarding doesn’t work, who say it should be stopped and never used again, we got vital information which directly led us to bin Laden.
Sounds impressive, no?
But then here comes creepy, evil Donald Rumsfeld with this statement:
“It is true that some information that came from normal interrogation approaches at Guantanamo did lead to information that was beneficial in this instance. But it was not harsh treatment and it was not waterboarding.”
Oh, snap!
And this from a guy who defends torture the way the Pope defends pederasts!
Also, there's this from the NY Times:
Prisoners in American custody told stories of a trusted courier. When the Americans ran the man’s pseudonym past two top-level detainees — the chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed; and Al Qaeda’s operational chief, Abu Faraj al-Libi — the men claimed never to have heard his name. That raised suspicions among interrogators that the two detainees were lying and that the courier probably was an important figure.
So basically, the two guys that we admit to waterboarding continued to lie under torture. So torture not only did not yield actionable intelligence, it really did just the opposite. It was only because interrogators assumed that the guys being tortured were lying that they latched on to this courier.
Not that any of this is going to stop Pete King and the FOXies from spreading the lie that torture worked.
As soon as I heard this morning that Bin Laden was finally dead (ding dong) I wondered how the wingnuts were going to spin this into an Obama did bad by killing Osama story. So far, I haven't seen that particular spin, but there have been some doozies.
Starting with FOX, who went with the "this story is really all about Bush" spin:
1. Display the body. The free world, particularly the United States, has a right to make sure Osama bin Laden is really dead. Every American has a right to walk right up to bin Laden’s corpse and view it. We are entitled to know for a fact that the witch is dead.
For us Doubting Thomases out there – we need to see in order to believe.
Bin Laden may be dead (I’ll believe it when I see it)
Oh, my god, really? We're going with the "bin Laden isn't really dead" spin?
This guy writes for one of Andrew Breitbart's ridiculous websites. And just to give you an idea of how seriously to take him, he also adds this:
I’m going to raise a mug of beer and munch a Hebrew National pork sausage to celebrate the brave CIA men who took bin Laden down.
Yeah. A Hebrew National PORK sausage. Wow!
And this lady is apparently an editor at the Moonie Times:
Mexico is a big country. And they have the same problems as other places--crime, unemployment, drugs, etc. etc. Just like the US. But judging by the commercials for Old El Paso, the only thing they really worry about is tacos:
Yeah, Mexican people are so obsessed with tacos that when a little girl makes a taco-related suggestion, she's hoisted on the community's shoulders and paraded around the public square like she just scored the winning gooooooooooal in the World Cup.
And, if you had never met a Mexican person and just went by the actors in these ads, you'd think that they were a race of people chiefly distinguished by a) their obsession with tacos, and b) their difficulty in finding simple solutions to taco-related problems. My god, how dumb are these characters, that when someone comes up with a "solution" like "why not have both?" they react as though she just figured out a cure for cancer? They even end these horrible ads with the tag line "true genius, Mexican style." What the fuck? How condescending is that? Like a Mexican couldn't be a regular genius like in math or something, but a good taco-based idea? Well, that counts as being a genius for "those people."
And you'd think after making one of these ads, they might take a step back and say, "you know, this feels a little racist, let's come up with a new campaign," but no. They just keep churning 'em out.
Also, I don't think they have crunchy taco shells in Mexico. When we were there, all the tacos were served in soft corn tortillas. I'm pretty sure the crunchy taco shell is an Norte Americano invention.
Foster children would be allowed to get clothing only from second hand stores
Under a new budget proposal from State Sen. Bruce Casswell, children in the state’s foster care system would be allowed to purchase clothing only in used clothing stores.
Under his plan, foster children would receive gift cards that could only be used at places like the Salvation Army, Goodwill and other second hand clothing stores.
This guy's a real prick. These are foster children, not juvenile delinquents. These are kids who haven't done anything wrong. These are kids whose parents have either died or failed them so completely that they have to be taken in and cared for by strangers, but I guess Bruce Casswell feels that they ought to be stigmatized a bit more.
And he doesn't even bother trying to make up some justification about how this is a "cost-saving measure" or something. Here's his rationale:
“I never had anything new,” Caswell says. “I got all the hand-me-downs. And my dad, he did a lot of shopping at the Salvation Army, and his comment was — and quite frankly it’s true — once you’re out of the store and you walk down the street, nobody knows where you bought your clothes.”
Yeah. That's it. This whole proposal is based on spite. I never had new clothes, so why should they get any?Why should they get the chance to feel like they fit in with the other kids? Why should they be spared the pitying glances of their peers?
I also never had new clothes growing up, and I can tell you it's not a good feeling. I still remember when an older kid from our church said to me "hey, you're wearing my shirt!" He wasn't trying to be mean, I don't think, but it stung. It doesn't feel good to think that other kids' parents love them enough to buy them new clothes, while yours dress you in others' castoffs. Sure, it's easy to look back now and realize that they were being fiscally responsible by not buying new clothes, and that probably no one but me cared either way whether my clothes were new, but it still felt kinda crappy. And I had parents. For a kid who already feels stigmatized by being a foster child, this seems like kicking them when they're down.
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