Deep Throat Revealed

I wonder what it's like to be W. Mark Felt.

For years the question remained - the amount of people that tried to get a definite answer as to this secret identity. And now it out in the open.

Seems rather anti-climactic, actually.

With his health failing, Mr. Felt decided to go public before he passed away. Woodward and Bernstein swore they would never reveal his identity until after he died, but since he's come out publically himself they have confirmed the information.

The best quote? Ben Bradlee saying

"The thing that stuns me is that the goddamn secret has lasted this long."

He's right! In this day and age, when most secrets can be bought, it's amazing this information has never been revealed. Woodward, Bernstein and Bradlee all swore the secret would not be prematurely revealed and they KEPT THEIR WORD.

Anyone ever see All The President's Men? You can tell it's an extremely abridged version of what really happened. The thousands and thousands of hours those reporters worked to get at the truth. I love that movie because it, like other movies such as Erin Brochovich, show ordinary people uncovering truths to help bring about justice. What can I say, I'm a romantic.

And it all started with one botched break-in.

Stay Tuned - New Look Approaching!

I am currently undergoing some massive changes with the blog. I intend to ditch Blogger for WordPress, and will be getting a new look as well. I still plan on posting until I go live, but I'm really excited and I hope everyone likes it :)

Happy Memorial Day everyone.

MTV Officially Sucks

I remember when MTV was fucking awesome. They actually aired these things called 'music videos' and reveled in the controversy they stirred up. Remember when they banished Cher to late night because she showed too much of her finely toned ass during that video with the Navy guys in it? Or how about when they refused to air Madonna's 'Justify My Love'? Just made us want to watch it even more. They were so Gen X... like an older brother showing us the trouble he was getting into.

Then, they started sucking. The Real World became The Scripted World Where Wanna-Be Models and Actors Fuck Anything That Walks In Front Of The Screen To Get Noticed. I don't recall the last time I surfed by the channel and actually saw a video. It's all on VH1 now.

If everything MTV is now simply looks to me as though it were desperately struggling to maintain some sort of hipness, this has finally put it out to pasture...

The rock band Nine Inch Nails said Friday it canceled plans to appear on next week’s MTV Movie Awards after the network questioned the band’s plans to perform in front of an image of President Bush...

A Los Angeles Times review called the song “a warning against blind acceptance of authority, including that of a president leading his nation to war.”

“We were set to perform ‘The Hand That Feeds’ with an unmolested, straightforward image of George W. Bush as the backdrop. Apparently, the image of our president is as offensive to MTV as it is to me,” Nine Inch Nails’ leader Trent Reznor said in a statement posted on the band’s Web site.

For MTV to wet their pants over a photo of GWB behind NIN is LAME.

Still True

NO WAY! I Never Would Have Thought...

RAF bombing raids tried to goad Saddam into war
Michael Smith

THE RAF and US aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war, new evidence has shown.

The attacks were intensified from May, six months before the United Nations resolution that Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, argued gave the coalition the legal basis for war. By the end of August the raids had become a full air offensive.

The details follow the leak to The Sunday Times of minutes of a key meeting in July 2002 at which Blair and his war cabinet discussed how to make “regime change” in Iraq legal.

Oh, and for those who are interested, here's a copy of the Downing Street Memo...

Excerpt:

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

WHY ARE SO MANY PEOPLE IGNORING THIS? Why are so many people hanging on to the GOP bullshit buzzphrases? How can they tolerate such deception from their party? WHY ARE THEY SHIELDING THEIR EYES FROM THIS???

Oh Yeah, THAT Makes Sense

Analysts behind faulty Iraq intel rewarded
Army staffers who bolstered tube claim received bonuses

Two Army analysts whose work has been cited as part of a key intelligence failure on Iraq — the claim that aluminum tubes sought by the Baghdad government were probably meant for a nuclear weapons program rather than for rockets — have received job performance awards in each of the past three years, officials said.

The civilian analysts, former military men considered experts on foreign and U.S. weaponry, work at the Army's National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC), one of three U.S. agencies singled out for particular criticism by President Bush's commission that investigated U.S. intelligence...

Pentagon spokesmen said the awards for the analysts were to recognize their overall contributions on the job over the course of each year. But some current and former officials, including those who called attention to the awards, said the episode shows how the administration has failed to hold people accountable for mistakes on prewar intelligence.

Despite sharp critiques from the president's commission and the Senate intelligence committee, no major reprimand or penalty has been announced publicly in connection with the intelligence failures, though investigations are still underway at the CIA. George J. Tenet resigned as CIA director but was later awarded the Medal of Freedom by Bush.

The president's commission urged the Bush administration to consider taking action against the agencies, and perhaps the individuals, responsible for the most serious errors in assessing Iraq's weapons program.

Bush's OWN COMMISSION finds the sources of faulty intelligence, yet Bush does nothing to reprimand or penalize these people. In fact, they get bonuses. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

I am going to set aside for a moment my belief that Bush intended to invade Iraq from the beginning and was simply looking for any reason to get us in there. I am going to pretend that Bush is a totally innocent soul, trying to do the best for us citizens...

Don't you think the president would make heads roll for getting us involved in WAR where thousands of people have lost their lives because of faulty intel? Don't you think he'd want to see harsh penalties for that? I dunno, maybe that's just how I would react if I was prez, but I'd be pissed as hell if my people came to be with bad info and it cost lives.

Instead, they get a pat on the head and extra cash in their pockets?

Fuck that. That's bullshit and I declare shenanigans.

Brace Yourselves...

Judge: Public Has Right to See Abuse Photos

A federal judge has told the government it will have to release additional pictures of detainee abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, civil rights lawyers said.

Judge Alvin Hellerstein, finding the public has a right to see the pictures, told the government Thursday he will sign an order requiring it to release them to the American Civil Liberties Union, the lawyers said...

I shall reserve my comments for when they are released, but I can almost guarantee my comments will not be too kind.

Are You An Onion Fan?

Then you should enjoy (or have nightmares about) this...

A satirical article entitled "Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'" was posted in The Onion on January 17, 2001.

GodlessGeeks has reissued that article, with hyperlinks to all the "oh my, how sad would it be if that were true!" statements that have now come to pass.

Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'

WASHINGTON, DC—Mere days from assuming the presidency and closing the door on eight years of Bill Clinton, president-elect George W. Bush assured the nation in a televised address Tuesday that "our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over."

"My fellow Americans," Bush said, "at long last, we have reached the end of the dark period in American history that will come to be known as the Clinton Era, eight long years characterized by unprecedented economic expansion, a sharp decrease in crime, and sustained peace overseas. The time has come to put all of that behind us."

Bush swore to do "everything in [his] power" to undo the damage wrought by Clinton's two terms in office, including selling off the national parks to developers, going into massive debt to develop expensive and impractical weapons technologies, and passing sweeping budget cuts that drive the mentally ill out of hospitals and onto the street.

During the 40-minute speech, Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years.

"You better believe we're going to mix it up with somebody at some point during my administration," said Bush, who plans a 250 percent boost in military spending. "Unlike my predecessor, I am fully committed to putting soldiers in battle situations. Otherwise, what is the point of even having a military?"

On the economic side, Bush vowed to bring back economic stagnationby implementing substantial tax cuts, which would lead to a recession, which would necessitate a tax hike, which would lead to a drop in consumer spending, which would lead to layoffs, which would deepen the recession even further.

Wall Street responded strongly to the Bush speech, with the Dow Jones industrial fluctuating wildly before closing at an 18-month low. The NASDAQ composite index, rattled by a gloomy outlook for tech stocks in 2001, also fell sharply, losing 4.4 percent of its total value between 3 p.m. and the closing bell.

Asked for comment about the cooling technology sector, Bush said: "That's hardly my area of expertise."

Turning to the subject of the environment, Bush said he will do whatever it takes to undo the tremendous damage not done by the Clinton Administration to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He assured citizens that he will follow through on his campaign promise to open the 1.5 million acre refuge's coastal plain to oil drilling. As a sign of his commitment to bringing about a change in the environment, he pointed to his choice of Gale Norton for Secretary of the Interior. Norton, Bush noted, has "extensive experience" fighting environmental causes, working as a lobbyist for lead-paint manufacturers and as an attorney for loggers and miners, in addition to suing the EPA to overturn clean-air standards.

Bush had equally high praise for Attorney General nominee John Ashcroft, whom he praised as "a tireless champion in the battle to protect a woman's right to give birth."

"Soon, with John Ashcroft's help, we will move out of the Dark Ages and into a more enlightened time when a woman will be free to think long and hard before trying to fight her way past throngs of protesters blocking her entrance to an abortion clinic," Bush said. "We as a nation can look forward to lots and lots of babies."

Continued Bush: "John Ashcroft will be invaluable in healing the terrible wedge President Clinton drove between church and state."

The speech was met with overwhelming approval from Republican leaders.

"Finally, the horrific misrule of the Democrats has been brought to a close," House Majority Leader Dennis Hastert (R-IL) told reporters. "Under Bush, we can all look forward to military aggression, deregulation of dangerous, greedy industries, and the defunding of vital domestic social-service programs upon which millions depend. Mercifully, we can now say goodbye to the awful nightmare that was Clinton's America."

"For years, I tirelessly preached the message that Clinton must be stopped," conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh said. "And yet, in 1996, the American public failed to heed my urgent warnings, re-electing Clinton despite the fact that the nation was prosperous and at peace under his regime. But now, thank God, that's all done with. Once again, we will enjoy mounting debt, jingoism, nuclear paranoia, mass deficit, and a massive military build-up."

An overwhelming 49.9 percent of Americans responded enthusiastically to the Bush speech.

"After eight years of relatively sane fiscal policy under the Democrats, we have reached a point where, just a few weeks ago, President Clinton said that the national debt could be paid off by as early as 2012," Rahway, NJ, machinist and father of three Bud Crandall said. "That's not the kind of world I want my children to grow up in."

"You have no idea what it's like to be black and enfranchised," said Marlon Hastings, one of thousands of Miami-Dade County residents whose votes were not counted in the 2000 presidential election. "George W. Bush understands the pain of enfranchisement, and ever since Election Day, he has fought tirelessly to make sure it never happens to my people again."

Bush concluded his speech on a note of healing and redemption.

"We as a people must stand united, banding together to tear this nation in two," Bush said. "Much work lies ahead of us: The gap between the rich and the poor may be wide, be there's much more widening left to do. We must squander our nation's hard-won budget surplus on tax breaks for the wealthiest 15 percent. And, on the foreign front, we must find an enemy and defeat it."

"The insanity is over," Bush said. "After a long, dark night of peace and stability, the sun is finally rising again over America. We look forward to a bright new dawn not seen since the glory days of my dad."

There, there. The nightmare will be over soon.

Friends, Sign John Conyers' Letter!

John Conyers posted to DailyKos about a letter he wrote to Bush and asks that if you want to get answers to the questions he poses, please sign the letter.

Won't take but a minute or two. The letter is good - straightforward, without sounding snarky (glad they didn't ask ME to write the letter ;p).

Please go to Mr. Conyers' website.

The Gropinator Draws Protests

Proposals Draw Crowd To Governor's Los Angeles Office

Thousands of people crowded onto downtown Los Angeles streets Wednesday, with some protesting proposed cuts in state home care programs and others marching to support proposed changes in high school curriculum.

Protesters flocked to the streets outside Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Los Angeles office at 300 N. Spring St. around 4 p.m. to decry home care cuts that organizers called "an assault on California families."

"Nothing is more important to Californians than their families," said Tyrone Freeman, president of Service Employees International Union Local 434B, which represents 120,000 home care providers in Los Angeles County. "The proposed cuts to the home care program tear our families apart and place our loved ones at risk. Additionally, forcing people out of their homes and into nursing institutions will cost taxpayers up to seven times more than what home care costs. It simply doesn't make sense." Not far away, a sign-carrying crowd marched through downtown and rallied in front of Los Angeles Unified School District headquarters to demand that the board adopt the A-G course sequence, aimed at better preparing high school students for college.

The board was scheduled to discuss the issue at Wednesday's meeting. The 5 p.m. march included students, parents and teachers.

"The LAUSD school board has made an art form out of stalling the vote on the A-G resolution," said Genoveba Padilla, parent of two students at Stevenson Middle School in East Los Angeles.

Picture slideshow available through link.

FOX Reporter's Freudian Slip

Just a reminder that FOX News is run by staunch Reps...

Fox Freudian slip: Asman asked Lott why a compromise was needed when "we" had the votes for the nuclear option

Responding to Sen. Trent Lott's (R-MS) suggestion that Senate Republicans had the necessary votes to invoke the so-called nuclear option and that such a step was necessary, Fox News anchor David Asman asked Lott why Republican senators had compromised on the issue. Why compromise, Asman asked, "if we should have done it and if we had the votes to do it." Asman clarified that it was "you guys in the Republican party" who had the votes.

From the May 25 edition of Fox News Live:

ASMAN: You're the chairman of the rules committee. Did Senator [Bill] Frist [R-TN] have the votes to end the filibuster?

LOTT: I believe that he did. It would have been very close. We would have probably gotten a 50-50 tie vote, with the vice president breaking the tie. Perhaps we'd have had 51 before it was over. I do think it's a rule that should be in place because what the Democrats have been doing is not, you know, protecting a rule, they have been causing something different. The filibusters on a serial basis, federal judicial nominees to the appellate courts, was unprecedented for 214 years. So, to put that rule in place saying that it only takes 51 votes to confirm these judges was something I thought we should do. Remember now --

ASMAN: So, Senator, if we should have done it and if we had the votes to do it in the Senate -- if you guys in the Republican Party did -- then why did you need a compromise?

LOTT: Well, you know, I would argue that we probably should have gone forward with the vote, all things considered.

PS: I did a review of "OUTFOXED" a few months ago - read the review, watch the film for yourself and decide if you still want to get your news from those twits.

WHAT YEAR IS THIS?

Have I suddenly woken up in 1947? Are these people even aware of how stupid they are?

Crosses burned in Durham

Three large crosses were burned in separate incidents across Durham Wednesday night, the first time in recent memory that one of the South's most notorious symbols of racial hatred has been seen in the city.

Yellow fliers with Ku Klux Klan sayings were found at one of the cross burnings.

The Durham Police Department is investigating the burnings. After the third one was reported, the department ordered that any suspicious cargo truck or large pickup truck be stopped.

"At this day and time, I thought we'd be beyond that," said Mayor Bill Bell. "People do things for different reasons, and I don't have the slightest idea why anyone would do this."

I Like Dick (Wolf)

I mean it really goes without saying, considering Wolf told Tom DeLay to shove it. The creator and EP of the Law & Order series (ahh the hours and hours I've spent watching...), responded to Tom's whining:

DeLay angered by 'Law & Order' mention

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay reacted angrily Thursday to this week's episode of "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" for what he called a "manipulation of my name" in the show.

The show's executive producer responded by accusing DeLay of trying to change "the spotlight from his own problems to an episode of a TV show."

The controversy centers around Wednesday's episode in which a police officer investigating a murder of a federal judge suggested putting out an all points bulletin for "somebody in a Tom DeLay T-shirt."

"This manipulation of my name and trivialization of the sensitive issue of judicial security represents a reckless disregard for the suffering initiated by recent tragedies and a great disservice to public discourse," DeLay wrote in a letter to NBC President Jeff Zucker.

"I can only assume last night's slur was in response to comments I have made in the past about the need for Congress to closely monitor the federal judiciary, as prescribed in our constitutional system of checks and balances."

DeLay has been an outspoken critic of what he calls "activist judges," recently saying Congress must take steps to rein in an "out-of-control judiciary."

Responding to DeLay's attack on "Law & Order," Dick Wolf, the show's executive producer and creator, made no apologies.

"Every week, approximately 100 million people see an episode of the branded 'Law & Order' series. Up until today, it was my impression that all of our viewers understood that these shows are works of fiction as is stated in each episode.

"But I do congratulate Congressman DeLay for switching the spotlight from his own problems to an episode of a TV show."

You Can Eat That Crow Now.

FBI memo reignites Qur'an furore

Further allegations that US interrogators at Guantánamo Bay flushed copies of the Qur'an down a toilet emerged yesterday, a week after the White House denounced reports of the incidents.

Declassified FBI records showed that as early as April 2002 detainees at the US prison in Cuba had denounced the treatment of the Qur'an by guards.

"Their behaviour is bad," one detainee is quoted as saying in July 2002. "About five months ago the guards beat the detainees. They flushed a Qur'an in the toilet."

The report, written by an FBI agent, continued: "The guards dance around when the detainees are trying to pray. The guards still do these things."

The documents were released to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) under the freedom of information act.

While the Pentagon had no immediate comment on the release of the documents, ACLU lawyer Jameel Jaffer told Reuters: "Unfortunately, one thing we've learned over the last couple of years is that detainee statements about their treatment at Guantánamo and other detention centres sometimes have turned out to be more credible than US government statements."

The documents echoed allegations made in a Newsweek article published on May 9. That article was denounced as inflammatory and blamed for rioting in Afghanistan which resulted in the deaths of 16 people.

Last week the magazine published a retraction, but went on to detail further allegations of desecration of the Qur'an by US military interrogators.

The story was subsequently withdrawn after the magazine found itself under attack from a furious White House. Scott McClellan, White House spokesman, insisted Newsweek had "got the facts wrong".

But yesterday's revelations resurrected charges that US interrogators desecrated the Qur'an and that military authorities were made aware of the allegations as early as the summer of 2002, three months after the camp opened.

In January 2003 the US military issued guidelines for the handling of the Qur'an which said it should be treated "as if it were a fragile piece of delicate art", and that it should not be placed in "offensive areas such as the floor, near the toilet or sink, near the feet or dirty/wet areas".

Anthony Romero, the ACLU's director, said: "The US government continues to turn a blind eye to mounting evidence of widespread abuse of detainees held in its custody."

So, correct me if I am wrong, but it appears that Newsweek's article was FACTUALLY CORRECT but sited the wrong SOURCE?

LOST and Alias

Is anyone else sitting, mouth agape at the television?

Wow. Brain has fried.

Dork Who Started 'Freedom Fries' Repents

THANK YOU, for realizing what a retarded fucking campaign that was, and how fucking stupid it STILL IS.

Sadly, there are restaurants I know that still call them 'Freedom Fries'. I don't frequent them anymore.

French fries protester regrets war jibe
Jamie Wilson in Washington
Wednesday May 25, 2005

It was a culinary rebuke that echoed around the world, heightening the sense of tension between Washington and Paris in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. But now the US politician who led the campaign to change the name of french fries to "freedom fries" has turned against the war.

Walter Jones, the Republican congressman for North Carolina who was also the brains behind french toast becoming freedom toast in Capitol Hill restaurants, told a local newspaper the US went to war "with no justification".

Mr Jones, who in March 2003 circulated a letter demanding that the three cafeterias in the House of Representatives' office buildings ban the word french from menus, said it was meant as a "light-hearted gesture".

But the name change, still in force, made headlines around the world, both for what it said about US-French relations and its pettiness.

Now Mr Jones appears to agree. Asked by a reporter for the North Carolina News and Observer about the name-change campaign - an idea Mr Jones said at the time came to him by a combination of God's hand and a constituent's request - he replied: "I wish it had never happened."

Although he voted for the war, he has since become one of its most vociferous opponents on Capitol Hill, where the hallway outside his office is lined with photographs of the "faces of the fallen".

"If we were given misinformation intentionally by people in this administration, to commit the authority to send boys, and in some instances girls, to go into Iraq, that is wrong," he told the newspaper. "Congress must be told the truth."

How Proud They Must Be!

Guess what, kids! It's okay to discriminate against homosexuals! Break out the band, let's have an anti-gay parade! Because nothing says AMERICA like discrimination, bigotry and hate! Woo hoo!

Official Says Law Doesn't Cover Gays

Special counsel Scott J. Bloch told a Senate panel yesterday that he lacks the legal authority to enforce the Bush administration's ban on discrimination against federal employees based on sexual orientation.

If a federal manager fires, reassigns or takes some other action against an employee simply because that employee is gay, there is nothing in federal law that would permit the Office of Special Counsel to protect the worker, Bloch testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs subcommittee on oversight of government management, the federal workforce and the District of Columbia.

"We are limited by our enforcement statutes as Congress gives them," Bloch said, responding to a question from Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.). "The courts have specifically rejected sexual orientation as a class protection."

Gay Republicans must be SO DAMN PROUD of their party! Congratulations, folks!

Amnesty Intl. Points Finger At US

Amnesty slams U.S. on human rights

Four years after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, human rights are in retreat worldwide and the United States bears most responsibility, rights watchdog Amnesty International said on Wednesday.

From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe the picture is bleak. Governments are increasingly rolling back the rule of law, taking their cue from the U.S.-led war on terror, it said.

"The USA as the unrivalled political, military and economic hyper-power sets the tone for governmental behavior worldwide," Secretary General Irene Khan said in the foreword to Amnesty International's 2005 annual report.

"When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a licence to others to commit abuse with impunity," she said.

LIKE I SAID BEFORE - Monkey See, Monkey Do.

WaPo Buries Page 1 Article to Page 26

Brought to you by Brad's Blog:

A Washington Post article exposing the specific details of several pre-war doubts by Bush Administration aides and anlaysts in the lead-up to war ran on page A1 in the early Saturday editions of WaPo's Sunday paper. By Sunday morning, however, the story had its headlined softened and was subsequently buried on page A26.

The story, by WaPo staff writer Walter Pincus, details the doubts of the administration's own intelligence analysts concerning WMD, Munitions Plants and Saddam Hussein's Unmanned Aerial Vehicles program, all of which were widely trumpeted as justifications for going to war by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, and others within the administration during the build-up to the War on Iraq.

Pincus' Page 1 item, which originally ran in Saturday afternoon editions of the Sunday paper and on the front page of the WaPo website was headlined "More Evidence of Bush Aide's Doubts on Iraq -- Analysts Questioned Most Intelligence".

By Sunday, however, the article had been pushed back to page 26 with the softer headline, "Prewar Findings Worried Analysts".

The Washington Post has come under fire lately by critics decrying the lack of news coverage critical to the Bush Administraton. It was nearly two weeks before WaPo even mentioned the appearance of the "Downing Street Memo" which some have cited as a "smoking gun" demonstrating that George W. Bush lied to the American People and Congress during the build-up to war in Iraq. Several sources have called the information included in the memo as evidence of "an impeachable offense".

There are no Spider Jerusalems. No Woodward and Bernsteins. Man this just sucks. *sigh*

Too Bad, They're Sad

Look, guys! The right is all kinds of upset and they're even whining now! Some of them are leaving the party, and others just lament the fact that they feel raped in the ass.

Boofuckinghoo.

After all the crap that liberal-minded people like me have had to endure when WE'VE gotten upset about something, I have no guilt in pointing and sniggering now. No, I know I shouldn't take an express elevator down to their level, but I'm not feeling very forgiving right now.

Here's some of the crying going on:

• I just left the GoP. I'm done with them. Cowards.
• We've been snookered again. Picture Lucy whipping the football out from under Charlie Brown for about the millionth time.
• Who would have ever thought that the GOP Senators would have folded to Democratic Demands? I am Shocked! The last time I was this surprised was this morning when the sun came up.
• The GOP is now dead to me. Bill Frist....ah why even bother..
• NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Bill Frist cannot control the RINO's in the Senate. The Democrats win again.
• What the HELL is this???????? We don't need a deal!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am furious. I will NOT SEND ANY MORE MONEY TO THE REPUBS. We didn't NEED a deal and we don't WANT a deal!!!
• I mailed my change of registration in this morning. Welcome to the growing ranks of the unaffiliated.
• This is a sad day for the Republican party, and the conservative movement in this country! The Dems will likely gain in Congress in 2006 because of this kind of cowardice. What's the matter with you folks in Arizona????? Is McCain the best you can do??
• It seems like Frist wouldn't have to votes to stop a potential filibuster on a SCOTUS nominee.
• Underneath the chestnut tree; The Republicans sold you, and the GOP sold me.
• Not another frigging dime or a minute of my time, I stay home in 06' or vote libertarian. Unfreakin believable
• If this is true it is truly an outrage. The only deal is the one the crats got. Everything they wanted. We got nothing. Only thing to do now is support a third party that can hopefully pick up 10-15% of the vote and use it as leverage to bargain.
• If this is true it is truly an outrage. The only deal is the one the crats got. Everything they wanted. We got nothing. Only thing to do now is support a third party that can hopefully pick up 10-15% of the vote and use it as leverage to bargain.
• Republican moderate - horse sugar! What a bunch of stupid little pricks.
• Go to the National Republican Senatorial Committee to voice your outrage. Below is my letter: The “Republican” senators I helped get into the majority have compromised on President Bush’s judicial nominations. I will tell every Republican I know not to contribute one thin dime to the NRSC ever again. We in the grassroots worked our tails off for this majority and McCain et al., have betrayed us, our president and his future Supreme Court nominees. I hope you realize that the NRSC will starve for funds for the foreseeable future. The 55-Senator GOP majority wasn’t worth our effort. The RINOs made a disgusting mistake taking us for granted.
  

I wonder which party they will affiliate themselves with?

Such Comedians!

This is the best headline/opening paragraphs of a news article I've seen in a long time...

Bush probes Saddam's pants

GEORGE Bush yesterday launched a probe into how pictures of Saddam Hussein in his underpants were leaked.

His spokesman said: “He has been briefed. He wants to get to the bottom of it.”

Like I've said before, it's the little things that make me giggle.

Best. CNN poll. EVER.

CNN has an even more special place in my heart for this.

Tillman Family REALLY Pissed Off

I took some key paragraphs from the article.

Former NFL player Pat Tillman's family is lashing out against the Army, saying that the military's investigations into Tillman's friendly-fire death in Afghanistan last year were a sham and that Army efforts to cover up the truth have made it harder for them to deal with their loss.

More than a year after their son was shot several times by his fellow Army Rangers on a craggy hillside near the Pakistani border, Tillman's mother and father said in interviews that they believe the military and the government created a heroic tale about how their son died to foster a patriotic response across the country. They say the Army's "lies" about what happened have made them suspicious, and that they are certain they will never get the full story.

"Pat had high ideals about the country; that's why he did what he did," Mary Tillman said in her first lengthy interview since her son's death. "The military let him down. The administration let him down. It was a sign of disrespect. The fact that he was the ultimate team player and he watched his own men kill him is absolutely heartbreaking and tragic. The fact that they lied about it afterward is disgusting."

Tillman, a popular player for the Arizona Cardinals, gave up stardom in the National Football League after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to join the Army Rangers with his brother. After a tour in Iraq, their unit was sent to Afghanistan in spring 2004, where they were to hunt for the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. Shortly after arriving in the mountains to fight, Tillman was killed in a barrage of gunfire from his own men, mistaken for the enemy as he got into position to defend them...

Patrick Tillman Sr., a San Jose lawyer, said he is furious about what he found in the volumes of witness statements and investigative documents the Army has given to the family. He decried what he calls a "botched homicide investigation" and blames high-ranking Army officers for presenting "outright lies" to the family and to the public.

"After it happened, all the people in positions of authority went out of their way to script this," Patrick Tillman said. "They purposely interfered with the investigation, they covered it up. I think they thought they could control it, and they realized that their recruiting efforts were going to go to hell in a handbasket if the truth about his death got out. They blew up their poster boy."...

Patrick Tillman Sr. believes he will never get the truth, and he says he is resigned to that now. But he wants everyone in the chain of command, from Tillman's direct supervisors to the one-star general who conducted the latest investigation, to face discipline for "dishonorable acts." He also said the soldiers who killed his son have not been adequately punished.

"Maybe lying's not a big deal anymore," he said. "Pat's dead, and this isn't going to bring him back. But these guys should have been held up to scrutiny, right up the chain of command, and no one has."

That their son was famous opened up the situation to problems, the Tillmans say, in part because of the devastating public relations loss his death represented for the military. Mary Tillman says the government used her son for weeks after his death, perpetuating an untrue story to capitalize on his altruism -- just as the Abu Ghraib prison scandal was erupting publicly. She said she was particularly offended when President Bush offered a taped memorial message to Tillman at a Cardinals football game shortly before the presidential election last fall. She again felt as though her son was being used, something he never would have wanted.

"Every day is sort of emotional," Mary Tillman said. "It just keeps slapping me in the face. To find that he was killed in this debacle -- everything that could have gone wrong did -- it's so much harder to take. We should not have been subjected to all of this. This lie was to cover their image. I think there's a lot more yet that we don't even know, or they wouldn't still be covering their tails.

"If this is what happens when someone high profile dies, I can only imagine what happens with everyone else."

LIES LIES LIES AND MORE LIES. But who cares, right? Lying ain't no big deal. Nobody cares about the truth, only what can get you some bonus points in the ratings.

Waking Up and Heckling

Had been rather busy over the weekend - lots of crap I put up on eBay sold, so I was spending time running down payments, packaging everything up and looking around the house for more shit to sell off. Way too much junk in my house. I was up too late last night, and I forgot to get my travel mug filled with 20 oz. of coffee goodness ready so I am all kinds of tired.

So all that stuff kept me busier than normal, and I didn't get a chance to post up this tidbit: Pickles the Smokefiend got heckled.

Mrs. Bush's five-day visit to the Middle East was intended partly to help defuse anti-American sentiment in the region. Strains have arisen because of the U.S.-led war in Iraq and allegations that American interrogators have mistreated Muslim prisoners.

Some visitors that Mrs. Bush encountered near the Dome of the Rock, a mosque on a hilltop compound known to Muslims as Haram as-Sharif and to Jews as Temple Mount, shouted at her in Arabic. "None of you belong in here!" one man yelled as Mrs. Bush and her entourage arrived.

Mrs. Bush removed her shoes as she entered the mosque and walked barefoot on the red carpet. She held a black scarf tightly around her head as she gazed up at the gilded dome and the colorful mosaics.

Some of the women studying inside the mosque were clearly annoyed at the intrusion and waved their fingers at the U.S. entourage. Despite the chaos at both sites, Mrs. Bush kept smiling and said little.

Under Rug Swept

Three page story in the NYT. I wonder who the scapegoat will be for this one...

Army Faltered in Investigating Detainee Abuse

By TIM GOLDEN
Published: May 22, 2005

Despite autopsy findings of homicide and statements by soldiers that two prisoners died after being struck by guards at an American military detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, Army investigators initially recommended closing the case without bringing any criminal charges, documents and interviews show.

Within days after the two deaths in December 2002, military coroners determined that both had been caused by "blunt force trauma" to the legs. Soon after, soldiers and others at Bagram told the investigators that military guards had repeatedly struck both men in the thighs while they were shackled and that one had also been mistreated by military interrogators.

Nonetheless, agents of the Army's Criminal Investigation Command reported to their superiors that they could not clearly determine who was responsible for the detainees' injuries, military officials said. Military lawyers at Bagram took the same position, according to confidential documents from the investigation obtained by The New York Times.

"I could never see any criminal intent on the part of the M.P.'s to cause the detainee to die," one of the lawyers, Maj. Jeff A. Bovarnick, later told investigators, referring to one of the deaths. "We believed the M.P.'s story, that this was the most combative detainee ever."

The investigators' move to close the case was among a series of apparent missteps in an Army inquiry that ultimately took almost two years to complete and has so far resulted in criminal charges against seven soldiers. Early on, the documents show, crucial witnesses were not interviewed, documents disappeared, and at least a few pieces of evidence were mishandled.

While senior military intelligence officers at Bagram quickly heard reports of abuse by several interrogators, documents show they also failed to file reports that are mandatory when any intelligence personnel are suspected of misconduct, including mistreatment of detainees. Those reports would have alerted military intelligence officials in the United States to a problem in the unit, military officials said.

Those interrogators and others from Bagram were later sent to Iraq and were assigned to Abu Ghraib prison. A high-level military inquiry last year found that the captain who led interrogation operations at Bagram, Capt. Carolyn A. Wood, applied many of the same harsh methods in Iraq that she had overseen in Afghanistan.

Citing "investigative shortfalls," senior Army investigators took the Bagram inquiry away from agents in Afghanistan in August 2003, assigning it to a task force based at the agency's headquarters in Virginia. In October 2004, the task force found probable cause to charge 27 of the military police guards and military intelligence interrogators with crimes ranging from involuntary manslaughter to lying to investigators. Those 27 included the 7 who have actually been charged.

"I would acknowledge that a lot of these investigations appear to have taken excessively long," the Defense Department's chief spokesman, Larry Di Rita, said in an interview on Friday. "There's no other way to describe an investigation that takes two years. People are being held accountable, but it's taking too long."...

As late as Feb. 7 - nearly two months after the first autopsy reports had classified both deaths as homicides - the American commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. Daniel K. McNeill, said in an interview that he had "no indication" that either man had been injured in custody. General McNeill, who has since been promoted, declined repeated requests to clarify his remarks.

Seymour Hersh Follows Up

The unknown unknowns of the Abu Ghraib scandal
Seymour Hersh: The 10 inquiries into prisoner abuse have let Bush and Co off the hook

It's been over a year since I published a series of articles in the New Yorker outlining the abuses at Abu Ghraib. There have been at least 10 official military investigations since then - none of which has challenged the official Bush administration line that there was no high-level policy condoning or overlooking such abuse. The buck always stops with the handful of enlisted army reservists from the 372nd Military Police Company whose images fill the iconic Abu Ghraib photos with their inappropriate smiles and sadistic posing of the prisoners.

It's a dreary pattern. The reports and the subsequent Senate proceedings are sometimes criticised on editorial pages. There are calls for a truly independent investigation by the Senate or House. Then, as months pass with no official action, the issue withers away, until the next set of revelations revives it.

There is much more to be learned. What do I know? A few things stand out. I know of the continuing practice of American operatives seizing suspected terrorists and taking them, without any meaningful legal review, to interrogation centres in south-east Asia and elsewhere. I know of the young special forces officer whose subordinates were confronted with charges of prisoner abuse and torture at a secret hearing after one of them emailed explicit photos back home. The officer testified that, yes, his men had done what the photos depicted, but they - and everybody in the command - understood such treatment was condoned by higher-ups.

What else do I know? I know that the decision was made inside the Pentagon in the first weeks of the Afghanistan war - which seemed "won" by December 2001 - to indefinitely detain scores of prisoners who were accumulating daily at American staging posts throughout the country. At the time, according to a memo, in my possession, addressed to Donald Rumsfeld, there were "800-900 Pakistani boys 13-15 years of age in custody". I could not learn if some or all of them have been released, or if some are still being held...

Red vs. Blue?

Senator concerned politics played role in base closings; Pentagon denies any outside role

A Democratic senator has raised questions on whether politics played a role in a Pentagon proposal to close and transfer jobs from U.S. military bases in a report analyzing the net job loss/gains, RAW STORY has learned.

In a carefully worded statement, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) questioned why states that supported President Bush's reelection (red states) had a net job gain of 11,000, while states that opposed Bush (blue states) lost nearly 25,000 positions.

"My hope was that [Base Realignment and Closure] decisions were completely removed from politics but the total numbers do raise some questions," Lautenberg said.

The Pentagon denies politics played any role.

GO FRANK!

Jersey rocks sometimes.

WHAT???

Okay, okay... let me get this straight... Allegations of torture are haphazardly looked into, but they get all pissed off about a photo of Saddam in his skivvys?

U.S. military officials are condemning the release of photographs -- published in a popular British tabloid -- showing Saddam Hussein in prison, promising an aggressive investigation and steps to assure the breach never happens again.

The Sun trumpeted the pictures of the former Iraqi leader's life in captivity, with a cover photo that showed the ousted Iraqi leader wearing only his underwear with the headline "The Tyrant's in his pants."

In a statement released Friday by U.S. military officials in Baghdad, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) condemned the release of the images.

"These photos were taken in clear violation of DoD directives and possibly Geneva Convention guidelines for the humane treatment of detained individuals," a Defense Department statement said.

B-wha? This photo of a guy in his underwear is a possible violation of the Geneva Convention, and they CARE? They have the BALLS to talk about a photo like that when they FLEW detainees OUT TO OTHER COUNTRIES WHERE THERE ARE NO REGULATIONS ON TORTURE???

Hypocrits! Liars! Thieves! Sactimonious bastards!

YOU ALL SUCK.

They Fessed Up To Mock Executions

Damn that fucking Freedom of Information Act, eh? If they outlawed it, they wouldn't have to release this shit.

More than 2,500 pages of documents just released by the Army reveal instances of detainee abuse, including mock executions, by U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

The Army released the documents this week as part of a Freedom of Information Act request by the ACLU. The same request resulted in the release of several thousand pages of similar documents earlier this year.

"The Army does not tolerate detainee abuse and will continue to aggressively investigate all allegations of abuse and hold individuals accountable when appropriate," an Army spokesman said.

At least three soldiers were investigated and reprimanded for handling detainees outside of authorized military parameters, according to the documents.

In June 2003 an Army second lieutenant from the 1st Armored Division, identified in the redacted documents by the last name Yancey, and an unidentified sergeant were involved in two incidents in Iraq.

Witness statements from his platoon said Yancey took a boy detainee out of a truck and fired his weapon next to the detainee's head.

Porn Star Eating (With) Bush

Sorry for the lack of updates this morning, my peeps, had a busy busy day... Y'all should enjoy THIS though!

Porn star and former gubernatorial candidate Mary Carey will be joining her boss, Kick Ass Pictures president Mark Kulkis, in attending a dinner with President Bush in Washington, D.C. on June 14.

Kulkis was invited to attend the event by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), which is organizing the event. Over a two-day course of NRCC events preceding the dinner, Carey and Kulkis will be attending a meeting with presidential advisor Karl Rove, giving their recommendations on important national issues.

“I’m hoping to run as Lieutenant Governor of California next year,” Carey said. “Since Arnold {Schwarzenegger} is a Republican, I thought this dinner would be a great networking opportunity for me.”

“I’m honored to be invited to this event,” Kulkis said. “Republicans bill themselves as the pro-business party. Well, you won’t find a group of people more pro-business than pornographers. We contributed over $10 billion to the national economy last year.”

“I’m especially looking forward to meeting Karl Rove,” Carey added. “Smart men like him are so sexy. I know that he’s against gay marriage, but I think I can convince him that a little girl-on-girl action now and then isn’t so bad!”

You go wit yer bad self, sweetie! I'd love to see the looks on the faces of the religious right...

Lost (Not The Show)

Time for some political humor, brought to you by Bartcop.

A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, "You're 30 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude."

She rolled her eyes and said, "You must be a Democrat."

"I am," replied the man. "How did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to do with your information, and I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help to me."

The man smiled and responded, "You must be a Republican."

"I am," replied the balloonist. "How did you know?"

"Well," said the man, "you don't know where you are or where you're going. You've risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise that you have no idea how to keep, then you expect me to solve your problem. You're in exactly the same position you were in before we met but, somehow, now it's my fault."

PIGS... IN... SPAAAAACE!

How fitting that my one of my favorite childhood TV skits would spring to mind when I read this article forwarded to me by Kid Bastard...

Air Force Seeks Bush's Approval for Space Weapons Programs

The Air Force, saying it must secure space to protect the nation from attack, is seeking President Bush's approval of a national-security directive that could move the United States closer to fielding offensive and defensive space weapons, according to White House and Air Force officials.

The proposed change would be a substantial shift in American policy. It would almost certainly be opposed by many American allies and potential enemies, who have said it may create an arms race in space.

A senior administration official said that a new presidential directive would replace a 1996 Clinton administration policy that emphasized a more pacific use of space, including spy satellites' support for military operations, arms control and nonproliferation pacts.

Any deployment of space weapons would face financial, technological, political and diplomatic hurdles, although no treaty or law bans Washington from putting weapons in space, barring weapons of mass destruction.

And now that I think about it, it's actually quite amusing that I thought of Pigs in Space... Mark Hamill guested once. And I would know, I have it on DVD ;)

Galloway Has NONE of Coleman

As found on Americablog, British MP George Galloway BITCHSLAPPED Senator Coleman for making lame accusations. All kind of fun links at AB, but here's a sample of Galloway's testimony yesterday:

"Senator, I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader. and neither has anyone on my behalf. I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one - and neither has anyone on my behalf.

"Now I know that standards have slipped in the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice. I am here today but last week you already found me guilty. You traduced my name around the world without ever having asked me a single question, without ever having contacted me, without ever written to me or telephoned me, without any attempt to contact me whatsoever. And you call that justice.

"Now I want to deal with the pages that relate to me in this dossier and I want to point out areas where there are - let's be charitable and say errors. Then I want to put this in the context where I believe it ought to be. On the very first page of your document about me you assert that I have had 'many meetings' with Saddam Hussein. This is false.

"I have had two meetings with Saddam Hussein, once in 1994 and once in August of 2002. By no stretch of the English language can that be described as "many meetings" with Saddam Hussein.

"As a matter of fact, I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns. I met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war....

"You quote Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Well, you have something on me, I've never met Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Your sub-committee apparently has. But I do know that he's your prisoner, I believe he's in Abu Ghraib prison. I believe he is facing war crimes charges, punishable by death. In these circumstances, knowing what the world knows about how you treat prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison, in Bagram Airbase, in Guantanamo Bay, including I may say, British citizens being held in those places.

"I'm not sure how much credibility anyone would put on anything you manage to get from a prisoner in those circumstances. But you quote 13 words from Dahar Yassein Ramadan whom I have never met. If he said what he said, then he is wrong....

"Now, Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave my political life's blood to try to stop the mass killing of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq which killed one million Iraqis, most of them children, most of them died before they even knew that they were Iraqis, but they died for no other reason other than that they were Iraqis with the misfortune to born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq. And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies.

“I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.

If the world had listened to Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded, if the world had listened to President Chirac who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor, if the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we are in today. Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth.

Can this guy come run for office in the US, please?

Does Al Qaeda Have a Sense of Humor?

Because they call Condi Rice "The Crusader's Hag".

I dunno, it made me laugh. I guess it's all about comedic timing.

Newsweek - Just Another Cog?

So Newsweek is backing off their story about abuses, particularly where the Quran was desecrated in order to make prisoners upset and submissive.

Newsweek magazine issued a retraction Monday of a May 9 report on the alleged desecration of the Quran at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The report, which said American interrogators put copies of the Quran on toilets or in one case, flushed one down a toilet, was blamed for anti-American riots in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Muslim world last week.

"Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Quran abuse at Guantanamo Bay," Newsweek Editor Mark Whitaker said in a statement issued Monday afternoon...

Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, and other officials applauded the retraction, but suggested Newsweek must go further.

"I think we should know what it is that caused this and how it happened," McCain said. "But I think we should all be aware, particularly the news media, of how volatile the situation is in some parts of the Middle East."

"I'm sure the story was exploited by religious extremists in the Middle East," McCain said. "But that doesn't change the fact that we have to have reliable and absolutely accurate stories, particularly on such a volatile issue."

First of all: Shut up, John.

Second of all: Why would they do that, when this has already been documented?

Excerpt:

One such incident (during which the Koran was allegedly thrown in a pile and stepped on) prompted a hunger strike among Guantanamo detainees in March 2002. Regarding this, the New York Times in a May 1, 2005, article interviewed a former detainee, Nasser Nijer Naser al-Mutairi, who said the protest ended with a senior officer delivering an apology to the entire camp. And the Times reports: "A former interrogator at Guantanamo, in an interview with the Times, confirmed the accounts of the hunger strikes, including the public expression of regret over the treatment of the Korans." (Neil A. Lewis and Eric Schmitt, "Inquiry Finds Abuses at Guantanamo Bay," New York Times, May 1, 2005.)

The hunger strike and apology story is also confirmed by another former detainee, Shafiq Rasul, interviewed by the UK Guardian in 2003 (James Meek, "The People the Law Forgot," Dec. 3, 2003). It was also confirmed by former prisoner Jamal al-Harith in an interview with the Daily Mirror (Rosa Prince and Gary Jones, "My Hell in Camp X-Ray," Daily Mirror, March 12, 2004).

The toilet incident was reported in the Washington Post in a 2003 interview with a former detainee from Afghanistan:

"Ehsannullah, 29, said American soldiers who initially questioned him in Kandahar before shipping him to Guantanamo hit him and taunted him by dumping the Koran in a toilet. 'It was a very bad situation for us,' said Ehsannullah, who comes from the home region of the Taliban leader, Mohammad Omar. 'We cried so much and shouted, "Please do not do that to the Holy Koran."' (Marc Kaufman and April Witt, "Out of Legal Limbo, Some Tell of Mistreatment," Washington Post, March 26, 2003.)

This isn't new. Did it become new news to Afghanis? Possibly. Anti-US sentiment is growing by leaps and bounds. This may have fanned the flames, but I wonder why this particular news article warranted so much attention from the White House that Newsweek felt the need to retract? Why weren't ALL the other articles that discussed this exact "technique" under such scrutiny?

OH. MY. GOD.

He's not serious, is he? Did he actually say this with a straight face?

Newsweek magazine on Monday retracted a report that U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had desecrated the Koran after the story triggered protests in Afghanistan that killed 16 people and the White House criticized it.

"Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Koran abuse at Guantanamo Bay," Newsweek Editor Mark Whitaker said in a statement, a day after apologizing for the report.

The retraction came as the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department all heavily criticized the report and said it had damaged the U.S. image abroad. White House spokesman Scott McClellan had said it was "puzzling" that Newsweek had not retracted the story a day after apologizing for it.

"A retraction is a good first step," McClellan said after Newsweek issued its statement. "This allegation was unsubstantiated and it was contrary to everything that we value and all that our military works to uphold. We encourage Newsweek to now work diligently to help undo what damage can be undone."

"People lost their lives. the image of the United States abroad has been damaged. It will take work to undo what can be undone," McClellan said.

(INSERT SPIT-TAKE HERE)

My brain hurts.

What's It Like To Be Gagged?

Read this and find out...

Excerpt:

In the past three years, I have been threatened; I have been gagged several times; I have continuously been prevented from pursuing my due process; all reports and investigations looking into my case have been classified; and every governmental or investigative authority dealing with my case has been shut up. According to legal experts familiar with my case, the level of secrecy and classification in my court case and the attitudes and handling of the court system in dealing with my case is unprecedented in the entire U.S. court history. According to other experts I am one of the most, if not the most, gagged woman anybody knows of or has heard of. Why?