The Malkin/Graeme Frost Battle Heats up

Today the New York Times has a report out over the furor over 12-year-old Greame Frost, the young boy who gave the Democratic Radio address two weeks ago over S-CHIP.

Right wing sites have savagely assailed the use of such a young person to deliver a political message, and then attacked his family for being "too rich" to be eligible for such "lavish" benefits.

But now, that blather has been totally debunked.

As it turns out, the Frosts say, Graeme attends the private school on scholarship. The business that the critics said Mr. Frost owned was dissolved in 1999. The family’s home, in the modest Butchers Hill neighborhood of Baltimore, was bought for $55,000 in 1990 and is now worth about $260,000, according to public records.

So has that stopped the right wing from slandering a 12-year-old and his family? Not even a little.

As I outlined in detail yesterday the wingnuts have shown just how much they care about "poor children" with initial attacks against the Frost's which went this way.

The critics accused Graeme’s father, Halsey, a self-employed woodworker, of choosing not to provide insurance for his family of six, even though he owned his own business. They pointed out that Graeme attends an expensive private school. And they asserted that the family’s home had undergone extensive remodeling, and that its market value could exceed $400,000.

One critic, in an e-mail message to Graeme’s mother, Bonnie, warned: "Lie down with dogs, and expect to get fleas."

Contrary to some critics I found on DU who wished to point the finger back at Democrats and the DNC for using the Frost's in their radio address and not backing them up... the fact is that they have backed them up.

Democrats, including the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, have risen to the Frosts’ defense, saying they earn about $45,000 a year and are precisely the type of working-poor Americans that the program was intended to help.

Ms. Pelosi on Tuesday said, "I think it’s really a sad statement about how bankrupt some of these people are in their arguments against S-chip that they would attack a 12-year-old boy."

Now that it's been published that the Frost's total household income is only $45,000 - which easily meets the state cutoff of $55,220 for a family of six - capital Hill Republicans who had been planning to make considerable hay out of these "welfare scoff-laws" have decided to cool their jets.

Republicans on Capitol Hill, who were gearing up to use Graeme as evidence that Democrats have overexpanded the health program to include families wealthy enough to afford private insurance, have backed off.

An aide to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, expressed relief that his office had not issued a press release criticizing the Frosts.

But cutting and running away from the issue - which Mitch McConnel's office apparently fed to the winger blogs in the first place - when you happen to be completely totally wrong doesn't seem to be Michelle Malkin's style. Instead, she's upped the attack.

A word for all the faux outraged leftists accusing conservative bloggers of waging a "smear campaign:" Asking questions and subjecting political anecdotes to scrutiny are what journalists should be doing.

When a family and Democrat political leaders drag a child down to Washington at 6 in the morning to read a script written by Senate Democrat staffers on a crusade to overturn a presidential veto, someone might have questions about the family’s claims. The newspapers don’t want to do their jobs. The vacuum is being filled.

If you don’t want questions, don’t foist these children onto the public stage.

Fight your battles like adults and stop hiding behind youngsters dragging around red wagons filled with your talking points."

Apparently Malkin never considered that "real" journalists might have already asked these questions and found there was no "there" there. (How long would it have taken to ask and discover this is a family of six living on just $45,000 a year?)

Oh well, not that such a thing as a complete lack of facts would ever stop Malkin.

But Michelle Malkin, one of the bloggers who have strongly criticized the Frosts, insisted Republicans should hold their ground and not pull punches.

"The bottom line here is that this family has considerable assets," Ms. Malkin wrote in an e-mail message. "Maryland’s S-chip program does not means-test. The refusal to do assets tests on federal health insurance programs is why federal entitlements are exploding and government keeps expanding. If Republicans don’t have the guts to hold the line, they deserve to lose their seats."

As for accusations that bloggers were unfairly attacking a 12-year-old, Ms. Malkin wrote on her blog, "If you don’t want questions, don’t foist these children onto the public stage."

Ok, so let me get this straight - Malkin is saying that because the Frost's home has appreciated over the last sixteen years, that when the Frost's applied for S-CHIP after their children suffered traumatic brain injuries in a car crash, that the state should make them appraised their home and if it's worth "too much" they should be denied care and be forced to sell it (which might have netted between $350,000-$400,000 in a depressed housing market) before providing for their children's healthcare?

So instead of receiving S-Chip they should live on the street, or even worse yet Rent - while trying to pay for private health care out of the house money once it finally clears escrow?

Pardon my clear precise English, but are you FUCKING SHITTING ME!?

So the Republican solution for the 47 Million people without heath care many of whom had to go into bankruptcy to pay medical bills is - sell your house and go into bankruptcy?

But then of course, there's always the Mystical Magical Fairy Tax Cuts that Malkin endorsed in her original attack on the Frosts.

So executive vice-presidents’ families are now the new new poor? I support lower taxes for the Frosts, increased child credits for the Frosts, an end to the "death tax" and other encroachments on transgenerational wealth transfer, and even severe catastrophic medical-emergency aid of one form or other. But there is no reason to put more and more middle-class families on the government teat, and doing so is deeply corrosive of liberty.

Yes, there is a reason - they have no other viable option.

At only $45,000 a year you could cut their taxes to zero and still wouldn't help much with family medical expenses which could easily be above $20,000. Subtract from that private school tuition of another $40,000 and were deep into the negative figures. (Graeme and his sister are attending the schools on state sponsored scholarships which currently costs the family $500/year) Also the Frost's aren't eligible for the "Death Tax" unless you want to go completely Oliver Twist and make the Frosts children into Orphans.

That's mighty nice work for a so-called "Party of Life."

Then again, the right-wing does seem have this odd fascination with Street Urchins. I'm sure we could just ask Mark Foley for the 4-1-1 on that.

Another major problem with Malkin's plan, and the reason the Frosts haven't decided to simply sell everything they own and buy private insurance is the fact that Private Insurance Won't Have Them!

In a telephone interview, the Frosts said they had recently been rejected by three private insurance companies because of pre-existing medical conditions. "We stood up in the first place because S-chip really helped our family and we wanted to help other families," Mrs. Frost said.

The dust has begun to fly so fast on this issue that Ezra Klein has challenged Malkin to a Duel Debate on the issue.

Let’s have a good faith argument. I will debate Michelle Malkin anytime, anywhere, in any forum (save HotAir TV, which she controls), on the particulars of S-CHIP. We can set the debate at a think tank, on BloggingHeads, over IM. Hell, we can set up the podiums in the shrubbery outside my house, since that seems to be the sort of venue she naturally seeks out. And then if Malkin wants an argument, she can have one. We’ll talk S-CHIP and nothing but — nothing of the Frosts, or Congress, or her blog.

I'm expecting Malkin will be cutting and running from this challenge any second now - almost as quickly as the sprinted away from Max Blumenthal's questions about her support for internment camps at CPAC.

And isn't that such a courageous tendency for someone who took it upon herself to Publish the Frost's Home Address, so that all her wingnutty fans could give them the same stalkeratzi treatment that Vote Vets and Brian McGough have been receiving?

Classy people these aren't.

Programs like S-CHIP actually provide help to people who genuinely need it. Rather than helping the helpless through the tough times (that Repubs created) to get back on their feet, the right-wing would rather slam on it's "Right to Life" pulpit and attack Democrats for trying to help while they deny care to anyone who can't afford to pay through the nose a Right to Living.

Vyan

Limbaugh and Winger Hate-Sites smear a 12-year-old boy

Well, we've all known for sometime that hardcore Republicans have absolutely no shame. Not after Terri Schiavo. Not after the infamous Sylvia's incident. Not after Mark Foley or Jeff Gannon/Guckert.

But yesterday Rush Limbaugh actually managed to pull out a backhoe and discover a brand new low point. It wasn't bad enough that he implied that any soldier who disagree with him was a "phony" or a some kind of "suicide smear-bomber" or somehow incapable of thinking for himself. Now he's attacked a 12-year-old SCHIP recipient, whose sister has suffered traumatic brain injuries claiming that he's been sent out by the left with a bag of lies.

They filled this kid’s head with lies just as they have some of these soldiers about me.

Did they? Someone around here has a head full of lies, but I don't think it was this particular 12-year-old.

The boy in question is 12-year-old Graeme Frost, who delivered the Democratic radio address a couple weeks ago just prior to the President's veto of S-CHIP.

If it weren’t for SCHIP, I might not be here today. ... We got the help we needed because we had health insurance for us through the CHIP program. But there are millions of kids out there who don’t have CHIP, and they wouldn’t get the care that my sister and I did if they got hurt. ... I just hope the President will listen to my story and help other kids to be as lucky as me.

Republicans were incensed that Democrats would use a child in such a way. How could anyone ever use a child in such a way for crass political purposes?

Anywho - Graeme himself has returned to the Winger gunsights after a Freeper (literally a Free Republic poster named "icwhatudo") claimed that ...

Graeme and his sister Gemma attend wealthy schools that cost "nearly $40,000 per year for tuition" and live in a well-off home.

So now not only did the Democrats commit the sin of sending a child out to do their "dirty work" of saying that taking Health Care away from children is generally a bad idea (so bad it makes "Compassionate" Neo-Cons like Bill Kristol giddy) - now they've supposedly done so with a little health-fare queen?

So far this his prompted attacks on the Frost family from The National Review

The Democrats sign up a sick kid to read their Saturday morning radio address. As Paul Krugman has observed, Bill Kristol, Rush Limbaugh and the rest of us heartless bastards on the right were no doubt too busy laughing to pay attention.

Mr Frost, the "woodworker", owns his own design company and the commercial property it operates from, part of which space he also rents out; they have a 3,000-sq-ft home on a street where a 2,000-sq-ft home recently sold for half a million dollars; he was able to afford to send two children simultaneously to a $20,000-a-year private school; his father and grandfather were successful New York designers and architects; etc.

Bad things happen to good people, and they cause financial problems and tough choices. But, if this is the face of the "needy" in America, then no-one is not needy.

From Michelle Malkin

The Democrats chose to outsource their airtime to a Seventh Grader. If a political party is desperate enough to send a boy to do a man’s job, then the boy is fair game. As it is, the Dems do enough cynical and opportunist hiding behind biography and identity, and it’s incredibly tedious. And anytime I send my seven-year-old out to argue policy you’re welcome to clobber him, too. The alternative is a world in which genuine debate is ended and, as happened with Master Frost, politics dwindles down to professional staffers writing scripts to be mouthed by Equity moppets...

...So executive vice-presidents’ families are now the new new poor? I support lower taxes for the Frosts, increased child credits for the Frosts, an end to the "death tax" and other encroachments on transgenerational wealth transfer, and even severe catastrophic medical-emergency aid of one form or other. But there is no reason to put more and more middle-class families on the government teat, and doing so is deeply corrosive of liberty.

And from Whizbang.

First, Mr. Halsey Frost, Graeme's father, owns his own woodworking design studio, Frostworks, so his claim that he can't get health insurance through work is shockingly deceptive. He chooses not to get health care for his family. Second, Graeme and his sister Gemma attend the very exclusive Park School, which has a tuition of $20,000 a year, per child. Third, they live in a 3,000+ square foot home in a neighborhood with smaller homes that are selling for at least $400,000.

Graeme and his family have also been attacked by Powerline, and the Weekly Standard blog for their partisipation in this gross charade.

I never knew that Republicans hated the "rich" this deeply. It's practically stunning that they would came after one of "their own" so strongly considering how much they love to give tax cuts to the rich. "It's good for the economy" and all that.

There's just one little problem with this outrage parade over the Frost family and their rampant "fleecing of the state."

It's not True.

1) Graeme has a scholarship to a private school. The school costs $15K a year, but the family only pays $500 a year.

2) His sister Gemma attends another private school to help her with the brain injuries that occurred due to her accident. The school costs $23,000 a year, but the state pays the entire cost.

3) They bought their "lavish house" sixteen years ago for $55,000 at a time when the neighborhood was less than safe.

4) Last year, the Frosts made $45,000 combined. Over the past few years they have made no more than $50,000 combined.

5) The state of Maryland has found them eligible to participate in the CHIP program.

So now following in the wake of all this comes Rush Limbaugh playing his favorite tune. "pity the poor Republican victims of the vicious Left-Wing Lies" Yes, that's right those damn dirty liberals have strapped lies onto our solders, and now strapped them onto the poor tiny chidren that the Wingers just want to "save." (By doing the the "compasionate thing" of cutting off their healthcare!)

Boo hoo hooo. Sniff

So the bottom line for me is: They can’t rely on truth to make their case for their cause. They have to lie. Be it about me, be it about their own voters (such as the Frosts) be it about President Bush, they must lie — and anybody who stands in the way of their succeeding with that lie becomes an enemy, becomes a target. That’s where I and my buddies in talk radio come in. We are a thorn in their side because we represent the truth they are trying to hide, the truth that they are lying about, and they have to do something about it — and they have to do that by lying. [...]

They send the kid out to lie. They filled this kid’s head with lies just as they have some of these soldiers about me. Put lies in the kid’s head or put it on the script that he’s reading. He goes out and reads it. He’s 12-years-old! They will use anybody! They’ll corrupt anybody, to get where they’re headed. That’s who they are, folks.

OH Poor Rush, poor poor Rush. He's so maligned and misunderstood. And those libruls are just so EEEEEVil!!!

How could they?

That's right, we lefties will do just about anything to stop the right wing - even tell the fracking truth everyone once in a while if that what it takes.

You should try it Rush, it might ease your poor tortured soul.

Yeah, yeah I know - "fat chance" of that ever happening...

<>Update: Wed Oct-10-07 09:11 AM by Vyan http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/washington/10memo.htm...

Democrats, including the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, have risen to the Frosts’ defense, saying they earn about $45,000 a year and are precisely the type of working-poor Americans that the program was intended to help.

Ms. Pelosi on Tuesday said, “I think it’s really a sad statement about how bankrupt some of these people are in their arguments against S-chip that they would attack a 12-year-old boy.”

The facts of course, haven't slowed down the ring-wing smear machine.

Republicans on Capitol Hill, who were gearing up to use Graeme as evidence that Democrats have overexpanded the health program to include families wealthy enough to afford private insurance, have backed off.

An aide to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, expressed relief that his office had not issued a press release criticizing the Frosts.

But Michelle Malkin, one of the bloggers who have strongly criticized the Frosts, insisted Republicans should hold their ground and not pull punches.

“The bottom line here is that this family has considerable assets,” Ms. Malkin wrote in an e-mail message. “Maryland’s S-chip program does not means-test. The refusal to do assets tests on federal health insurance programs is why federal entitlements are exploding and government keeps expanding. If Republicans don’t have the guts to hold the line, they deserve to lose their seats.”

As for accusations that bloggers were unfairly attacking a 12-year-old, Ms. Malkin wrote on her blog, “If you don’t want questions, don’t foist these children onto the public stage.”

Capitol Hill Republicans have thought wisely and decided to cut and run on this issue, but not Malkin - no sirree! She thinks the family should sell off all their assets, including the home, so that they would (temporarily) have enough money to pay for their own healthcare and school tuition. (Which at $40,000 for school, another $20,000 or so for annual healthcare and about $370,000 in assets - maybe - from a depressed housing market for a family with six children - subtracting RENT would last about 3-4 years.)

Ok, so what happens when the kid turns 17 - ship him off to Iraq where he can find out what really shitty healthcare is truly like?

Vyan

Ending the War Without the Prez

From Kpete

Pelosi says Bush has to end the war
By Mike Soraghan
October 07, 2007

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Sunday that Congress cannot end the war in Iraq without President Bush’s approval.

Voters, she told Fox News Sunday, “want it to end and they had expectations that Congress could end it.”

But, she added, “You know we can’t without a presidential signature.”

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/pelosi...

But Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson challenged Pelosi’s assertion just a little later Sunday.

............................

Madam Speaker that is BULL! No More Excuses-Please Lead Us Out Of This Mess NOW.


Bill Richardson has called Nancy Pelosi and Democratic candidates on their positions on the Iraq war.

He told ABC News’s "This Week" that Congress could "de-authorize" the war without Bush’s signature, using a resolution already introduced by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.).

"I believe a national movement could be built to support that," Richardson said. "The president cannot veto that because it would be under Article I of the Constitution. That is the decisive step that the American people want. There is a disconnect between the voters and what’s happening in the Congress."

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/pelosi...

Maybe She Needs A Reminder

Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the United States Constitution, sometimes referred to as the War Powers Clause, vests in the Congress the exclusive power to declare war, in the following wording:

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water...

Carl Bernstein pwns Fox & Friends

First off, anyone like Berstein who goes on Fox News to try and sell his new book on Hillary Clinton has got huevos rancherous in his pants.

Being posed the question of should Chris Matthews moderate the upcoming Republican debate after having stated his opinions on the "Criminality" of the Bush Administration, Pulitzer Prize Winner Carl Bernstein manages to deftly bob weave and jab with the Fox & Friends staff, making them look like the dim-partisan-bulbs that they are.

Bernstein: I think it's very important that journalist put in the front people who are readers and viewers whether or not there are questions of criminality, of unconstitutionality about this President. Certainly the question of lying, mendacity - of the Secretary of State, of the President of the United States, of the Vice-President - these are questions that given the lack of congressional oversight and the lack of answers - this is news. And we ought to be raising the questions (and the former Attorney General). Have their been criminal acts? Let's look at the particular examples and perhaps - now, criminality is to be judged by the courts not by reports.

Fox Guy: That's the problem he seems to be answering his own question. He's not just raising the question of criminality, he's saying there's criminality.

Bernstein: Exactly. I think that - again - I'd have to see some examples. But I've raised the question myself, if people go to CarlBernstein.com, they'll see I've written a couple articles myself for vanity fair.

Yeah, some specifics like the War Crimes Act via Gitmo, abu Ghraib and Haditha, Kidnapping via Renditions, the UN Conventions against Torture via the various detainee treatment memos not to mention the 8th Amendment, Domestic Spying without a Warrant in violation the FISA Act and the Fifth Amendment, politicizing the Justice department in violation of the Hatch Act, using the power of the DOJ to influence elections in violation of the Voting Rights Act, Gross Criminal Negligence for ignoring the victims of Katrina, paying for Fake News Reports, re-writing and ignoring thousands of laws on the back of a paper-napkin via "signing statments", more negligence in ignoring the U.S.S. Cole and dozens of reports warning about a domestic attack by al Qeada, then charging into Iraq without a fracking clue what they were doing, and lastly Treason for revealing the identity of an undercover CIA Operative simply to make political points.

Then of course you have various former members of the White House Staff who've all been convicted of crimes, such as David Safavian, Claude Allen and Scooter Libby.

Could Matthews have been thinking of this kind of "Criminality?"

Let's remember that when the Democrats refused to attend the Fox News debates they were accused of being cowards. "If they can't stand up to Fox News, how are they going to stand up to al Qaeda?"

Which of course tells us that Fox News is a terrorist organization.

Since then we've had the Republicans run with their Cialis powered-tails between their legs from the primarily Black Debate on PBS, the Spanish Language Debate on Univision and the Gay Issues with the Human Rights Campaign and now - Chris Matthews who not only drank the Kool-aid, he pratically pisses it, is now "too polarizing" to moderate the Republican Debates?

Oy vey!

So of course, they Foxublicans have to then resort to their "Victim" card.

Fox Guy: My question is this, do you think that the news media has taken a more serious look at this President than they have at Presidents that might be more towards their viewpoint?

Bernstein: No. I think that your perception, indicated by the question, is that the outrages and lack of truth telling is more grievous in this Presidency, in particularly in graat national and international issues, is much greater in this Presidency than any Presidency in history - perhaps including Nixon. It's just a matter of fact.

Fox Guy: It just seems to me that if an news anchor were to come out and say something like that without giving details there would be more outcry from the Press.

Bernstien: Oh, I don't think so, if the Press was ever all over a Presidency - look what it did during the Clinton Administration.

Here in part two Bernstein lays it out on with the question of whether Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity should be moderating the debate and addresses the rarely mentioned point that our internal ideological/cultural battle is taking a significant amount of energy and attention away from fighting actual terrorists.

And I wonder whose fault is that? Maybe it has something to do with that guy who calls himself a "Culture Warrior?!"

Just wondering.

The amazing thing is that they actually Shut the F-Up for two minutes and let him finish his thought and statment instead of the usual Fox tactic of peppering somebody making a decent point with swarm of questions, like anti-aircraft fire at an incoming bomber.

Rat-tat-tatt-tattt!!! "I'll get you bastards yet!!!"

This time though, not so much. But then again Fox & Friends is the face of friendly facism.

Bernstein: Going back to our culture today, I think we continue to be poliarize in an ideological cultural war. One of the reasons I'm so happy with this book about Hillary is that I've tried to take her out of the context this cultural warfare and say - "Here's who she is, look at her whether your on the left or the right, and make up your mind if you hate her why you hate her, and if you like her why you like her, but don't make it tied to this vicious gridlock that has kept this country from moving anywhere. And these debates that are so ideologically fired - we have put more energy into fighting each other in this ideological war in washington than we have to real terrorism. The candidate that gets beyond ideology is the one that's going to win the general election.

Vyan

Tortured Logic of Dana Perino

Revelations about a new secret series of torture memos have gotten things really hopping at the White House.

The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.

Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on “combined effects” over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion’s overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be “ashamed” when the world eventually learned of it.

Now:

Bush: 'This government does not torture people'

Then:

After the Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that the Geneva Conventions applied to prisoners who belonged to Al Qaeda, President Bush for the first time acknowledged the C.I.A.’s secret jails and ordered their inmates moved to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The C.I.A. halted its use of waterboarding, or pouring water over a bound prisoner’s cloth-covered face to induce fear of suffocation.

But in July, after a monthlong debate inside the administration, President Bush signed a new executive order authorizing the use of what the administration calls “enhanced” interrogation techniques — the details remain secret — and officials say the C.I.A. again is holding prisoners in “black sites” overseas. The executive order was reviewed and approved by Mr. Bradbury and the Office of Legal Counsel.

Comey had assumed that these people are actually capable of shame, but from watching the Perino Parade of Obfuscation with the White House Press Corp, it appears not.

The following video is from C-SPAN 2, broadcast on October 5, 2007.

Full Transcript

Q I wanted to ask about the President's statement this morning on the interrogation method. He said -- he repeated, obviously, what he did yesterday, that the government doesn't torture -- the U.S. government doesn't torture people. But these memos make it sound like the definition of what's permissible is so expansive that you could say we don't torture and almost anything could be true falling into that. What do you say to that?

MS. PERINO: Well, what I say is the United States' policy and our laws is not to torture. We meet the laws and we also meet our international obligations. There's a public document that interprets the statute that is from the Office of Legal Opinion, from the Justice Department. It's on the website for anybody to read. Any additional documents are classified for a reason, because they have to deal with interrogation techniques.

What the President said today is, yes, we do interrogate al Qaeda terrorists. These are people who intend to harm us. We do not torture them. And the appropriate members of the Congress were briefed, and there has been no changes from that December 2004 opinion that everyone has available to them -- in addition to the briefings that the Hill has had.

Q Any of the briefing -- any of the members of Congress who have been briefed, are those the same ones who are complaining about the --

MS. PERINO: Intelligence Committee members were briefed.

The Intelligence Comittee members were briefed you say? Except that, they weren't.

From Intelligence Comittee Chairman Jay Rockefeller:

The Administration can’t have it both ways. I’m tired of these games. They can’t say that Congress has been fully briefed while refusing to turn over key documents used to justify the legality of the program.

The reality is, the Administration refused to disclose the program to the full Committee for five years, and they have refused to turn over key legal documents since day one. As I have said from the beginning, Congress has a constitutional responsibility to determine whether the program is the best means for obtaining reliable information, whether it is fully supported by the law, and whether it is in the best interest of the United States.

We don't torture, but even "if" we did - so what right?

Q But, Dana, Republicans, like Colin Powell, John McCain, have said that if torture is going on, that could be detrimental to the United States around the world. So why leave any ambiguity out there? Why not let --

MS. PERINO: I think the key word is "if," and I don't think there is ambiguity. We are not torturing.

Q You said there's no shift in policy --

MS. PERINO: Well, what would make it better, what would make it better, that we should tell everybody exactly what we have?

Q Not everybody -- not everybody.

MS. PERINO: You want to know the techniques that we use so we can tell exactly al Qaeda what we're going to do? That's absurd.

Q No, but these members of Congress -- not us, these members of Congress have security clearances; they see classified information all the time.

MS. PERINO: And the intelligence community was fully briefed.

Right, the intelligence community was fully briefed. All of them were told that up until 2006 that Water-Boarding was part of U.S. policy until Gen Hayden removed it from the list of "approved" techniques.

Q They're saying that they did not -- they were not fully briefed. You're saying "fully briefed." That's your definition of fully briefed, just like it's your definition of torture. Jay Rockefeller, the Chairman of the Intelligence Committee, is saying they haven't seen the memos. So how can they be fully briefed if they haven't seen the memos? And why did you keep them secret if there's nothing in there that you're trying to hide?

MS. PERINO: The memos -- they are applications that fall within the law, which is to not torture. It is absolutely important -- it's critically important that we keep this information secret. It is secret for a reason. We don't go around classifying things just for the -- willy-nilly. You do it for a reason. And I would object to anyone saying that this President would not do whatever needs to be done within the law to make sure that people are taken care of. And we have worked with Congress --

Q But you have questions by people in his own administration -- Goldsmith, you're got Jim Comey come forward and raise questions about whether or not it's been legal. It's not just Democrats on the Hill. People in your own Justice Department --

MS. PERINO: And I said that reasonable people can disagree on complex questions. But I will say, also, that we have paid scrupulous attention to the law, and we have made sure that we take the time that it takes in order to debate these issues.

The combiniations memo was signed by Steven Bradbury, who at the time was undergoing pressure as he sought to be confirmed for a promotion and an environment where those who spoke out like Comey were considered "weak".

“On national security matters generally, there was a sense that Comey was a wimp and that Comey was disloyal,” said one Justice Department official who heard the White House talk, expressed with particular force by Mr. Addington.

“We are likely to hear the words: ‘If we don’t do this, people will die,’” Mr. Comey said. But he argued that government lawyers must uphold the principles of their great institutions.

“It takes far more than a sharp legal mind to say ‘no’ when it matters most,” he said. “It takes moral character. It takes an understanding that in the long run, intelligence under law is the only sustainable intelligence in this country.”

Add to this the fact that if Bradbury's opinion were to strict it would put government agents at risk of potential prosecution for "cruel, inhumane and degrading" treatment.

“If Justice says some practices are in violation of the C.I.D. standard,” Mr. Zelikow said, referring to cruel, inhuman or degrading, “then they are now saying that officials broke current law.”

So naturally, Bradbury broadened the standard and gave legal carte-blanche to torturing al Qeada suspects. And now Dana Perino is running around trying to justify and excuse it all. How? Cuz Al Qaeda is so mean to us.

Q The American people and the President were horrified when they saw the photographs of really, truly sadistic moments a couple years ago.

MS. PERINO: In Abu Graib? As was the President.

Q And we did torture.

MS. PERINO: The President said that that was abhorrent. He said that it was absolutely inappropriate, and that anyone should be held to account.

Q How do we know that it's over now? How do we know -- there's testimony, there's still testimony, there's secrecy. Do you think that alleged terrorist is not going to know he might be tortured by the U.S.? Our whole methods are so abominable, horrific. And I think we're really a shame

MS. PERINO: What about the people who cut off the heads of American soldiers and put them on the video --

Q That's horrible. We're not --

MS. PERINO: Yes, really bad. We don't torture. We get the terrorists here and we interrogate them.

Q The Iraqis had nothing to do with 9/11, which you keep bringing up.

MS. PERINO: Helen, al Qaeda certainly is in Iraq, and they have murdered our citizens all around the world, and many of the citizens of our allies, as well. And the information that we get from these interrogation programs has not only protected people here, but in --

Q They're about 18 percent, and we brought them in.

MS. PERINO: No, Helen.

Q The Iraqis are fighting for their country.

If they're fighting for their country, just what is it that we're fighting for?

Vyan

Destroying American prestige, one stress position at a time

CNN Report on the Latest Torture Memos from Blitzer's Situation Room.



New documents indicate that under Alberto Gonzales, new harsh interrogation techniques were secretly authorized, such as detainees being placed naked in freezing conditions, stress positions, water-boarding, starvation and beaten in simultaneous combination. The documents also indicate that this was done simultaneous to the effort in Congress passing new restriction on these very same techinques.

During the report they speak with one British citizen who had been held in Gitmo and eventually released who says that he was willing to "say anything to stop the torture." He claims that he was "beaten, shackeled, stripped naked and hog-tied", was never associated with al Qeada and only said so to end the torture.

Wolf Blitzer then talks to WH Homeland Security Advisor Fran Townsend who trots out each and every wingnut talking point on this issue. I swear, this woman is like Baghdad Bob with an 80's flip and pink pants suit.

First there's the obvious old saw...

These programs stop attacks.

This she says while also claiming.

The United States does not torture.

Oh really, then just what are people doing in these programs?

I can't discuss specific techniques

No kidding. And then she naturally goes on to justify the torture that we don't do.

The program is very limited. The interrogators are highly trained. We start with the least harsh measures first, it stops when the subject becomes cooperatives. This program was used on Abu Zubaydah and resulted in actionable intelligence that led to the capture of abu Ben-Alzied.

Frankly Wolf, if Americans are killed because we failed to the hard things, Americans have a right to ask us why?

Abu Zubahdah? That would be the Ghost Detainee who was found to be mentally ill?

One example out of many comes in Ron Suskind's gripping narrative of what the White House has celebrated as one of the war's major victories: the capture of Abu Zubaydah in Pakistan in March 2002. Described as al-Qaeda's chief of operations even after U.S. and Pakistani forces kicked down his door in Faisalabad, the Saudi-born jihadist was the first al-Qaeda detainee to be shipped to a secret prison abroad. Suskind shatters the official story line here.

Abu Zubaydah, his captors discovered, turned out to be mentally ill and nothing like the pivotal figure they supposed him to be. CIA and FBI analysts, poring over a diary he kept for more than a decade, found entries "in the voice of three people: Hani 1, Hani 2, and Hani 3" -- a boy, a young man and a middle-aged alter ego. All three recorded in numbing detail "what people ate, or wore, or trifling things they said." Dan Coleman, then the FBI's top al-Qaeda analyst, told a senior bureau official, "This guy is insane, certifiable, split personality."

This is where we got "actionable intelligence"?

And the "Why" part isn't so hard - it's because it's against the law.

Townsend literally scoffs at the idea that our usage of these techniques might make Americans less safe (never mind what Colin Powell says, it's not like he knows anything about the soldiers after being Chairman of the Joint Chiefs) claiming that "these people don't wear uniforms, they're going to treat our soldiers the same way no matter what we do."

Or don't do, or do and claim we don't do, or something...

She naturally ignores that it doesn't just put American troops at risk, when America is an international leader begins trying to find wiggle room in the Geneva conventions and our own War Crimes Laws it's like a virus that starts to spread to all sorts of other nations like say - Myanmar.

What Ms. Townsend also ably dodges is the fact that these techniques were expressly prohibited under U.S. Law and the Uniform Military Code of Justice during the entire period of their use until the passage of the Military Commissions Act in 2006, which implemented the Bybee Standard. (Torture isn't Torture unless some is about to die or lose a vital organ)

It was only last month that it was revealed that CIA Director Michael Hayden officially removed Water-Boarding from the approved list of "alternative" interrogation techniques which were approved by the President in 2002 - long before passage of the MCA or the McCain Detainee Treatment Act.

It is beyond question that these techniques have often been ineffective and have produce inaccurate information (such as the claims from "Curveball" an Ibn Sheik al-Libi that there were WMD's IN IRAQ!), that they are illegal and immoral.

It's not about whether we do the "hard thing" to protect Americans, it's whether we do the right thing because so far nearly 4,000 Americans have already died in the Iraq War in part, because we used torture - because we did the wrong thing.

This is a question of both character and morality. The question isn't whether America is willing to do the "hard thing", it's whether we're willing and able to do the right thing even when it does risk American lives to do so. Townsend's version of the question speaks to our cowardice, when we should be speaking to our courage.

And in this area it's long past time we we showed some courage and started doing the right thing.

Vyan

4 Million Children Left Behind

Why do Rush, Fox and the Wingers Hate the Troops

When 380 tons of high explosives disappeared from U.S. custody following the fall of Baghdad - they blamed the troops. ("Lazy", "Incompetent"?)
When the Abu Ghraib torture story broke - they blamed the troops. ("Bad apples on the night shift")
When one soldier complained to Donald Rumseld about "Hillbilly Armor" they said he was being manipulated by the media to ask the question.
And now after General Eaton has stated that "Conservatives are the worst thing to ever happen to the military", Gen. Sanchez stated that "This War is Lost", CBS has fired Gen. Batiste for criticizing the Iraq War all of the Right-Wing is racing the Rush Limbaugh's defense now that he's been accused of saying veterans who criticize the Iraq War are "phony soldiers."
It's long past time we put this question to them directly.

Why do Rush, Fox and the Right-Wing Hate our Troops?

It's not like this is news to anyone that's been paying attention, but the blatantness of it has become truly stunning.

Rush Limbaugh is now claiming that he's the victim of a smear campaign, that when he said "Phony Soldiers" (not singular, plural - not soldier - soldierS) he wasn't talking about people like General Eaton, or General Batiste or General Sanchez or General Shinseki or General Zinni - or the 20 retired Generals who've all come out an opposed the surge and our overall strategy in Iraq (not to mention Admiral Fallon the current head of Centcom) - no, he wasn't talking about any of them. Nah. Don't be silly.

When he said this....

CALLER 2: What's really funny is, they never talk to real soldiers. They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media.

LIMBAUGH: The phony soldiers.

He didn't mean, y'know, what he said.

You didn't hear or read what you just thought you heard. It's just an illusion. A phantasm. A poltergeist playing tricks on your mind.

Rush meant something else entirely, and you're a fool if you don't know it. Fox News says so.

Rush originally used this term, "phony soldiers," when he was talking about a guy named Jesse MacBeth. Jesse MacBeth never served in Iraq, says Rush. He claimed to have a Purple Heart; he didn't. This guy was propped up by the left, because he opposes the Iraq war, as some sort of hero, as a talking-points guy, this Jesse MacBeth was, and Rush Limbaugh was making the point that this guy was basically a "phony soldier," and he was trying to say that sometimes people on the left use "phony soldiers" like this to make their points.

So this Jesse MacBeth guy who literally isn't a soldier and has been convited of fraud is what Limbaugh meant. See, no problem.

Some Soldiers do be phony.

So why is it that Limbaugh didn't mention this Jesse guy until almost 2 minutes later?

I guess that caller just knew what Rush was going to be thinking in another 1 minute and 50 seconds. Makes perfect sense.

You see, real soldiers - unlike the "phony ones" like Jesse who've never really worn a uniform - are proud of their service.

CALLER 2: The phony soldiers. If you talk to a real soldier, they are proud to serve. They want to be over in Iraq. They understand their sacrifice, and they're willing to sacrifice for their country.

LIMBAUGH: They joined to be in Iraq. They joined --

So it's not like you might have one of these "phony soldiers" who might have actually served is it? Never happen.

Ummmm.. how about John Murtha?

LIMBAUGH: You shouldn't hold your breath because there's no standard to hold me to, in the sense that you're -- I never said what you think I said, Congressman Pallone, Congresswoman [Jan] Schakowsky [D-IL], Sen. [John] Kerry [D-MA], or any of the rest of you in the drive-by media. I was talking about a genuine phony soldier. And by the way, Jesse MacBeth's not the only one. How about this guy Scott Thomas who was writing fraudulent, phony things in The New Republic about atrocities he saw that never happened? How about Jack Murtha blanketly accepting the notion that Marines at Haditha engaged in wanton murder of innocent children and civilians?

So Murtha's apparently a "phony soldier" because he believes that some of our soldiers in Iraq killed innocent civilians at Haditha? (Mirroring false claims made by MacBeth) But Rush - Everyone Believes That because that's what happened. (via Time)

But one morning last November, some members of Kilo Company apparently didn't attempt to distinguish between enemies and innocents. Instead, they seem to have gone on the worst rampage by U.S. service members in the Iraq war, killing as many as 24 civilians in cold blood.

Blackwater deja vu anyone?

Others who felt that way? How about General Batiste.

I, however, see a direct link between Haditha, the national embarrassment of Abu Ghraib, going on four years now of uncontrollable chaos in Iraq, with the bad judgment, poor decisions of our secretary of defense back in late 2003 and 2004.

Note that Batiste isn't blaming the troops here, he's blaming the leadership, of which he was a member. Just as John Kerry didn't blame the troops either back in 1971, he blamed the leadership and John Murtha didn't blame the troops, he blamed the... oh you get it already.

Murtha's big issue with Haditha besides the massacre itself was actually the cover-up of that massacre by leaders at the Pentagon.

MURTHA: I can only tell you this, Charles. This is what the Marine Corps told me at the highest level. The Commandant of the Marine Corps was in my office just last week, so you know, I know there was a cover-up someplace. They knew about this a few days afterwards and there’s no question the chain of command tried to stifle the story. I can understand why, but that doesn’t excuse it. Something like this has to be brought out to the public, and the people have to be punished.

GIBSON: The commandant told you that this was a case of murder?

MURTHA: Charlie, don’t mince words here. The commandant said it was a very serious incident. He was not going to tell me it was murder, but everything looked to him just like it looks to me. He didn’t say that in so many words, but he told me exactly what happened.

So yeah, Murtha's deserves to be associated with a liar and petty crook who tried to rip off the VA - but Rush wasn't like calling him a "Phony" or anything. Except like when he was.

And it's not like Rush has ever called other servicemen phonies or anything. It's not like he's ever said that about John Kerr... oops.

(Reading From Washington Post article by Richard Cohen) "...during the campaign, the Republican ticket and its allies in the Swift Boat Veterans movement managed to paint Kerry as a quivering liar. The character attack was so bold, so outrageous, that it of course worked."

Rush: No, it worked because it was true! The guy's a fraud! He's a total phony, and people were able to see it!

Ok, so the only "phonies" are MacBeth, Scott Thomas, John Murtha and John Kerry.

That's not so bad, right? None of them actually served in IRAQ. It's not like anyone has taken up Rush's mantle and used it against troops who've actually served in the current war or anything. Anyone except Melanie Morgan that is.

A number of, of, soldiers who are fake, or who are embellishers, or who are posers. Who go out there, or soldiers like Jon Soltz from VoteVet.org who go out there and use their far left, anti-America agenda. Political agenda to undermine the real mission of our troops, our heros who are out there.

Thanks Melanie, you've really made Rush's point that he was only talking about Jesse MacBeth (and Scott Thomas, and John Murtha and John Kerry - and via proxy - Jon Soltz).

Then there's Tucker Carlson who said in response to an op-ed by 7 members of the 82nd Airborne who criticized the war...

Carlson: How the hell to [they] know, (if the vast majority of Iraqis want the U.S. in their country?)

Well, gee, I don't know maybe they got the hint after a few dozen IED attacks. And maybe that view was somewhat reenforced after two more of them were killed in action.

But nevermind them, let's get back to the real victim here. Poor Rush.

It's all been so unfair to Rush, I mean he's be so taken out of context that's why he's had to re-edit his own transcript to remove the comments just to make sure that's his real (edited) comments are properly understood.

And then when Capt. Jon Soltz of VoteVets got a might bit peeved with Limbaugh and launched an ad campaign against his comments...



Rush of course accused Brian McGough, the wounded soldier featured in the ad, of being used as a suicide bomb-thrower.

This is such a blatant use of a valiant combat veteran, lying to him about what I said and then strapping those lies to his belt, sending him out via the media and a TV ad to walk into as many people as he can walk into.

So tastefully stated, considering that particular vet was wounded by an actual suicide bomber. And who might that person who "armed this valiant soldier with lies" be?

Might it perhaps be Iraq War Vet Capt. Jon Soltz?

Time and time again, people like Rush, Morgan and Tucker demean exactly what it is our troops are fighting for - protecting our freedom. Our freedom to think for ourselves and speak our minds openly while their corporate overloads quiet look the other way, like Clear Channel CEO Mark Mays says he refuses to condemn Rush for his comments although Senator Webb, Senator Reid, Senator Harkin, Rep. Pallone, Rep. Udall and General Wesley Clark have.

After that big MoveOn kerfuffle about not "insulting the troops" not one single Republican Senator has signed on to the Reid Letter to Clear Channel against Limbaugh's comments. NOT ONE. Y'know with Rush being so misunderstood all all...

Since Rudy Guinliani thought it was perfectly fine to attack Hilliary Clinton for Not Attacking Move On, clearly they must think it's perfectly ok to accuse soldiers of being fake and phony liars (especially if they happen to support Democrats or simply oppose Republican positions or gasp - oppose our current war strategy). I mean c'mon, Democrats are "traitors" by definition right? Just ask Ann Coulter.

We can't like, have soldiers who think for themselves! How can we properly implement a Myanmar-styled military junta under the guise of a never-ending state of perpetual emergency and suppress all dissent and opposition to the current regime that way?

In their world the "real soldiers" are the ones willing to used as cannon fodder in a failed war, using a failed strategy with no questions asked. They fight without proper gear, in unarmed vehicles, have to drink contaminated water and then if they happen to be wounded instead of killed - have to live in rat infested squalor while government contractors from KBR to Blackwater cash-in to the tune of Billions.

They're nothing more than Sheeple ready for the slaughter.

In the real world, real soldiers who are certainly willing to fight and die for our rights when required, like those 20 Generals, like Jack Murtha, John Kerry, those seven members of the 82nd Airborne, Jon Soltz, Brian McGough and literally a million others have absolutely every right to question why their being asked to make these sacrifices, and every right - no, a RESPONSIBLITY - to say so when they think that we're going the wrong way.

And that's exactly why the right-wing hates our troops. Because all of them just might not be the unthinking lemming zombie jack-booted neo-facists that they might dream for...

...some of them, those willing to speak Truth to Power, are True American Heroes.

Vyan