Last Call

Either you choose to give into firebagging the Democrats and hand the country over to the Republicans...

If Democratic candidates are counting on long-standing support from gay voters to help stave off big losses on Nov. 2, they could be in for a surprise.

Across the country, activists say gay voters are angry — at the lack of progress on issues from eliminating employment discrimination to uncertainty over serving in the military to the economy — and some are choosing to sit out this election or look for other candidates.

President Barack Obama's hometown of Chicago, with its large, politically and socially active gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community, offers a snapshot of what some are calling the "enthusiasm gap" between voters who came out strong for Obama and other Democrats in 2008 and re-energized Republican base voters, including tea party enthusiasts who say they are primed to storm the polls.

...or you choose to realize that forfeiting your vote is pointless cynicism that plays into the hands of the GOP.

The message behind a short-lived but highly publicized ad was clear: Latinos, stay home.

Voter suppression isn’t usually marketed as voter empowerment. But in the ad by Latinos for Reform, an independent campaigning group led by career conservative Robert de Posada, the paradox was presented as plain sense: Because the Democrats haven’t delivered on immigration, exercise your right to vote by not doing so.

It’s advice that, if followed in Nevada, would all but assuredly play to the benefit of the GOP, which has seen Hispanics move away from the Republican Party as they grow in the state electorate.

But the fever-pitch backlash to this advertisement suggests the message could bring about just the opposite effect, by energizing a Hispanic voting bloc that may have been lethargic with a new and compelling reason to get out and vote — by and large, for Democrats.

If you don't vote, if you refuse to participate in order to punish one party, then you have no right to complain when the other party takes control and works to eliminate your rights even more.

Fragments Of Credibility

It's called "Fragmentary Order 242" and you're going to be hearing a lot about it over the next few weeks and months.  "Frago 242" is what the US Military in Iraq issued to look the other way on torture and possible war crimes, done in our name.

This is the impact of Frago 242. A frago is a "fragmentary order" which summarises a complex requirement. This one, issued in June 2004, about a year after the invasion of Iraq, orders coalition troops not to investigate any breach of the laws of armed conflict, such as the abuse of detainees, unless it directly involves members of the coalition. Where the alleged abuse is committed by Iraqi on Iraqi, "only an initial report will be made … No further investigation will be required unless directed by HQ".

Frago 242 appears to have been issued as part of the wider political effort to pass the management of security from the coalition to Iraqi hands. In effect, it means that the regime has been forced to change its political constitution but allowed to retain its use of torture.

The systematic viciousness of the old dictatorship when Saddam Hussein's security agencies enforced order without any regard for law continues, reinforced by the chaotic savagery of the new criminal, political and sectarian groups which have emerged since the invasion in 2003 and which have infiltrated some police and army units, using Iraq's detention cells for their private vendettas.

Hundreds of the leaked war logs reflect the fertile imagination of the torturer faced with the entirely helpless victim – bound, gagged, blindfolded and isolated – who is whipped by men in uniforms using wire cables, metal rods, rubber hoses, wooden stakes, TV antennae, plastic water pipes, engine fan belts or chains. At the torturer's whim, the logs reveal, the victim can be hung by his wrists or by his ankles; knotted up in stress positions; sexually molested or raped; tormented with hot peppers, cigarettes, acid, pliers or boiling water – and always with little fear of retribution since, far more often than not, if the Iraqi official is assaulting an Iraqi civilian, no further investigation will be required.

Most of the victims are young men, but there are also logs which record serious and sexual assaults on women; on young people, including a boy of 16 who was hung from the ceiling and beaten; the old and vulnerable, including a disabled man whose damaged leg was deliberately attacked. The logs identify perpetrators from every corner of the Iraqi security apparatus – soldiers, police officers, prison guards, border enforcement patrols.

There is no question of the coalition forces not knowing that their Iraqi comrades are doing this: the leaked war logs are the internal records of those forces.

If anything, WikiLeaks and Frago 242 have made very public what critics of the war and whose who demanded that the Obama administration investigate these Bush-era abuses were saying all along, that we turned a blind eye to torture in order to keep the country together as a whole...and the reason the country was flying apart was because we invaded them in the first damn place over non-existent ties to 9/11 and decades-old mustard gas artillery shells.

Frago 242 meant pretending none of this was happening.  But it did happen, and the documents are there to record the incidents.  This went on all over the country...no wonder the Bush administration had no issues with doing much the same to our own captured "suspects" in order to "win" Bush's bloody mess of a war.

It is monstrous.  And now, the UN wants Obama's DoJ to investigate the human rights violations...and possible war crimes.

The United Nations' point man on torture is calling on the Obama administration to open a full investigation into newly-released documents that suggest the US may have turned a blind eye to torture in Iraq.

Manfred Nowak, the UN's special rapporteur on torture, told the BBC Saturday that the US has an "obligation" to look into reports of torture within the nearly 400,000 war documents released by WikiLeaks on Friday.

The documents chronicle numerous allegations of torture by Iraqi forces against their own citizens, as well as what appears to have been a standing order in the US military to ignore the allegations -- potentially a violation of international conventions on torture.

"There is an obligation to investigate whenever there are credible allegations torture has happened – and these allegations are more than credible – and then it is up to the courts," Nowak, an Austrian human rights lawyer, said, as quoted at the Telegraph.

I don't see how Obama has much of a choice here.   What's left of our credibility as a country is at stake here.  If we do nothing, then we're no better than all the rogue states we complain about. 

Probably why I expect him to do nothing.  No President would.

Oiled Up, Bend Over...Again

Don't look now, but the oil's still in the Gulf of Mexico, folks.

The oil was sighted in West Bay, which covers approximately 35 square miles of open water between Southwest Pass, the main shipping channel of the river, and Tiger Pass near Venice. Boat captains working the BP clean-up effort said they have been reporting large areas of surface oil off the delta for more than a week but have seen little response from BP or the Coast Guard, which is in charge of the clean-up. The captains said most of their sightings have occurred during stretches of calm weather, similar to what the area has experienced most of this week.

On Friday reports included accounts of strips of the heavily weathered orange oil that became a signature image of the spill during the summer. One captain said some strips were as much as 400 feet wide and a mile long.

The captains did not want to be named for fear of losing their clean-up jobs with BP.

Coast Guard officials Friday said a boat had been dispatched to investigate the sightings, but that a report would not be available until Saturday morning.

However, Times-Picayune photojournalist Matt Hinton confirmed the sightings in an over-flight of West Bay.

Robert Barham, secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, said if the sightings are confirmed by his agency, the area will be reclosed to fishing until it is confirmed oil-free again.

It never went anywhere, except out of sight and out of mind.  And we're going to be slogging through this mess for decades.  We can fish when it's oil-free?  Good luck on that.

Finding Old Ghosts

Arguably the largest news from Friday's WikiLeaks docu-dump is what qualified as WMDs in Iraq:  decades-old chemical weapons from the 80's and 90's discovered and filed away as the Bush administration made sure the military scoured the country for nuclear or biological weapons.  Danger Room has the details:

An initial glance at the WikiLeaks war logs doesn’t reveal evidence of some massive WMD program by the Saddam Hussein regime — the Bush administration’s most (in)famous rationale for invading Iraq. But chemical weapons, especially, did not vanish from the Iraqi battlefield. Remnants of Saddam’s toxic arsenal, largely destroyed after the Gulf War, remained. Jihadists, insurgents and foreign (possibly Iranian) agitators turned to these stockpiles during the Iraq conflict — and may have brewed up their own deadly agents.

In August 2004, for instance, American forces surreptitiously purchased what they believed to be containers of liquid sulfur mustard, a toxic “blister agent” used as a chemical weapon since World War I. The troops tested the liquid, and “reported two positive results for blister.” The chemical was then “triple-sealed and transported to a secure site” outside their base.

Three months later, in northern Iraq, U.S. scouts went to look in on a “chemical weapons” complex. “One of the bunkers has been tampered with,” they write. “The integrity of the seal [around the complex] appears intact, but it seems someone is interesting in trying to get into the bunkers.”

Meanwhile, the second battle of Fallujah was raging in Anbar province. In the southeastern corner of the city, American forces came across a “house with a chemical lab … substances found are similar to ones (in lesser quantities located a previous chemical lab.” The following day, there’s a call in another part of the city for explosive experts to dispose of a “chemical cache.”

Nearly three years later, American troops were still finding WMD in the region. An armored Buffalo vehicle unearthed a cache of artillery shells “that was covered by sacks and leaves under an Iraqi Community Watch checkpoint. “The 155mm rounds are filled with an unknown liquid, and several of which are leaking a black tar-like substance.” Initial tests were inconclusive. But later, “the rounds tested positive for mustard.”

Old mustard gas artillery shells are apparently all the justification needed for killing 100,000+ civilians.  As Sully points out:

I know of no incident when these weapons were actually used against US troops. And the irony, of course, is that it was the invasion that gave insurgents and Islamists access to these remnants.

Mission Accomplished!

The Enemy Of My Enemy Is Still My Enemy

Steve M. catches this Peter Baker column in the NY Times this morning.

The reality of presidential politics is that it helps to have an enemy. With Democrats controlling the White House and Congress, they shoulder responsibility for the country’s troubles. No amount of venting about George W. Bush or the filibuster rule has convinced the public otherwise. But if Republicans capture Congress, Mr. Obama will finally have a foil heading toward his own re-election battle in 2012.

“The best possible result for Obama politically is for the Republicans to gain control of both houses,” said Douglas E. Schoen, a Democratic pollster and strategist who helped President Bill Clinton recover from his own midterm Congressional defeat in 1994 to win re-election two years later. “That’s what Obama should want.” 

Ahh yes, here it comes, the Golden Clintonian Path, as espoused by our old friend Doug Schoen again.  Steve M. reminds us that painting the GOP as the enemy did nothing for Obama in the first two years.

Attacks on the Bush presidency, and warnings that Republican successes in the midterms will bring us Bush 2.0, actually make it harder for the public to understand what's going on. Attacking Bush reinforces the impression that Republicans had power then; warning of a possible upcoming era of neo-Bushism suggests that Republicans could misuse power in the future. All of this makes it hard for voters who aren't politics wonks to grasp the fact that Republicans, using the filibuster and relentless party discipline, have a hell of a lot of power right now, and are abusing it.

Steve is correct.   But what Peter Baker's real job here happens to be is playing the Centrist Dalek card.

Mr. Clinton employed a triangulation strategy after Mr. Gingrich’s Republicans took control, trying to play off both his own party as well as the empowered opposition. He declared the era of big government over and cut deals with Mr. Gingrich on welfare reform, while positioning himself as a bulwark against Republican excesses during the budget battle that led to the partial shutdown of the federal government.

“The Republican victory in 1994 saved the Clinton presidency,” said Mr. Gillon, “because it freed him from the liberal wing of his party and allowed him to be more nimble and flexible, which he’s brilliant at. And it forced the Republicans to develop a governing philosophy. A campaign slogan may get you through Election Day but it doesn’t help you solve these very difficult problems.” 

THE OBAMA WILL TRIANGULAAAAATE!  or he will be blamed for all problems.  Assuming the Republicans will even attempt to work with Obama is asinine.  They will want 100% of what they want, if Obama doesn't sign it into law they will impeach him.  It really is that simple.  And as usual, for "Obama to win" he must lurch far to the right as he can...and still get impeached for it by the Republicans.

The Teabaggers will demand it.

The Ol' Sacrifice Play

Over at National Review, Andy McCarthy argues that if Republicans can't end NPR, there's no way you can believe them on ending Obamacare, so to prove they are serious fiscal gangsta badasses they have to kill a media outlet.

So here is the question: Why does a country that is trillions in debt, and in which people have unlimited options for obtaining information, need NPR? More to the point, why do we need to fund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which keeps NPR afloat?  

The whole "we can't X with a deficit this big" argument is so much sophistry,  but that's just an excuse to flog his bigoted ignorance against Muslims to justify it.

Juan Williams said things anyone with an ounce of common sense knows to be true: “When I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”

So do I. So do most of us. This is not mindless, noxious prejudice. There is a context: Muslim terrorists used airliners to attack us. And as Williams pointed out, the terrorist convicted of trying to massacre New Yorkers by bombing Times Square just reaffirmed the oft-repeated jihadist promise that there is much blood left to be spilt.

But wait a second, the PC police tut-tut, Williams didn’t just indict terrorists; he smeared everyone who merely dresses like a Muslim. Yeah, right: Save that for the CAIR sensitivity-training class, just down the hall from the FBI’s next Citizens Academy — you’ll be sure to get an A+. To the rest of us benighted slugs, it seems fairly obvious that most Muslims in the West do not appear “in Muslim garb.” To the extent they concern themselves with scripture at all in this area, most American Muslims construe sharia simply to call for sartorial modesty — be dignified, but neither flashy nor slovenly.

For Islamists, on the other hand, clothing oneself is not about achieving modesty but announcing oneself, first and foremost, as a Muslim. To be sure, some such Muslims are just being pious, not exhibitionistic. Still, it is simply a fact that many men who don robes and skull-caps, and many women who shroud themselves in the niqab, abaya, or burqa, are making a very conscious statement that they reject the West. Though living in it, they have no intention of assimilating into it.

Only dangerous, evil, Islamist Muslims dress in "Muslim garb" and they're all baby-eating killers.  So, he's not prejudiced against all Muslims, just the really scary ones who don't wear Old Navy.  Clearly, anyone who actually would dress in "Muslim garb" hate America and want to crash airplanes into buildings, otherwise they'd dress like Americans, dammit!

Oh but he's not done yet.

Williams miscalculated. He figured that because he is a long-standing member of the NPR-certified Society of the Slavishly Right-Thinking, he could safely stroll a few steps off the reservation. Too bad he was wrong, but at least he got the chance to miscalculate. On the political right, we get no chance. In the NPR world Williams helped foster, we’re already condemned. It wouldn’t even occur to us to ask for the can’t-we-talk-about-this-face-to-face meeting that NPR denied to a stunned Williams despite his years of faithful service. Like the NPR news chief told him, there’s nothing we can say that will change their minds.

Yeah, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, and other right-wing commentators get no chance when they clearly say anything racist, bigoted, inflammatory or just plain stupid.  Beck, in particular, gets fired five or six times a day and is flat broke, and El Rushbo lives under a bridge in Milwaukee.  Unlike Juan Williams, who was too stupid to see that African-Americans are kept "on the reservation" by the evil liberal media.  Hahaha, what a doofus!

So we have to get rid of the evil liberal media starting with the mind-altering propaganda machine that is Prairie Home Companion, or the Republicans are fiscal austerity poseurs!  Why, the CPB costs millions!

Oh yes, and while we're at it, their not fiscally serious unless we get those hundreds of billions in tax cuts for the richest 5% we can easily afford because tax cuts don't count.

That's being serious about fiscal restraint.  You know, like ordering ten thousand Chicken McNuggets and a Diet Coke.  Folks, the only thing that needs to be cut around here is Andy McCarthy's paycheck.

Kentucky Hardball

Here in NKY the Louisville Courier-Journal is running a big story on Matt Conway, brother of Democratic Senate candidate Jack Conway, about Matt, a Jefferson County prosecutor, being tipped off by Louisville cops that he was under investigation for narcotics not once, but twice.

Ronald Russ and Scott Wilson, the two detectives accused of the leaks to Matthew Conway, have been placed in administrative jobs pending the outcome of an internal police inquiry into possible policy violations. Wilson told Conway of the first investigation, and Russ told him of the second one. The two investigations were prompted by separate allegations.


After a criminal investigation by police, the Jefferson County Attorney’s Office decided in August that no charges would be filed against Conway, Russ, Wilson or a third narcotics detective, Chauncey Carthan, who was not involved in the leaks but was overheard discussing the second investigation in a restaurant last March.


Carthan’s conversation was reported to Jack Conway, a candidate for the U.S. Senate, by a person supporting him. The brothers subsequently conferred with an attorney about the investigation of Matthew Conway, according to the investigative file.


The lawyer, Bart Adams of Louisville, then met with Police Chief Robert White to discuss Carthan’s conduct, according to the records.

Jack Conway’s office said in an e-mail to the newspaper Thursday that his only involvement was to advise his brother to obtain legal counsel.

White declined to discuss the case, citing the pending police inquiry.

 

Adams declined to comment in detail, saying: “After the election, I’ll talk to you about anything. I’ve represented Matt from the beginning. The allegations were baseless. I can’t believe police went as far as they did.”


Neither drug investigation resulted in any charges against Matthew Conway. The three officers all were involved in investigations of him when the leaks occurred.


Conway, 34, a graduate of Emory University and the University of Louisville law school, declined to be interviewed by The Courier-Journal.

It's all mildly back-scratchy, but again, Conway was never charged with anything.  There's no "there" there, as they say.  But for this to drop the week before Election Day in a close race is Kentucky politics, folks, pure and simple.

Conway goes after Rand Paul's college years, Rand Paul goes after Jack Conway's brother.  It's cheesy at best, but now we see why Rand Paul suddenly agreed to debate Conway Monday one last time after spending most of last week complaining that he was never going to talk to Conway again for impugning his faith like that.

This last week is going to be warfare, Bluegrass State style.

New Black Panthers, Same Old Baloney

Via BooMan today, we find that the Washington Post is taking a look at FOX News's "New Black Panther Party" idiocy, which is apparently two guys with scary fashion sense and beards.  The Wingers are frothing that this article means that armies of angry black people are trying to beat the crap out of white voters and will be here any second, but the actual article pretty much confirms that the entire deal is nothing but crap.

Asked at a civil rights commission hearing in May whether any of the department's political leadership was "involved in" the decision to dismiss the Panthers case, assistant attorney general for civil rights Thomas E. Perez said no.

"This is a case about career people disagreeing with career people,'' said Perez, who was not in the department at the time. He also said that political appointees are regularly briefed on civil rights cases and, whenever there is a potentially controversial decision, "we obviously communicate that up the chain."

Justice Department records turned over in a lawsuit to the conservative group Judicial Watch show a flurry of e-mails between the Civil Rights Division and the office of Associate Attorney General Thomas Perelli, a political appointee who supervises the division.

"Where are we on the Black Panther case?" read the subject line of a Perelli e-mail to his deputy the day before the case was dropped. Perelli, the department's No. 3 official, wrote that he was enclosing the "current thoughts" of the deputy attorney general's office, the No. 2 official.

Perelli's staff brought the matter to Holder's attention before the department dropped the charges, other documents show. Holder did not make the decision, officials say. 

And why was that?  As BooMan reminds us, the case was brought by the Bush-era justice department originally, and the goal of its civil rights division was to "up the number" of cases filed by white voters against minorities as part of the GOP's political shop.

A joint report filed by the Office of the Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility found that Brad Schlozman, who had been appointed to run the division, along with von Spakovsky and Tanner, regularly considered political affiliation when hiring career attorneys. According to the report, Tanner in particular complained that prior to the Bush appointees removing safeguards against politicized hiring, you had to be a "civil rights person" to work in the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. In 2007, then-Sen. Barack Obama blocked von Spakovsky's nomination to the Federal Election Commission saying von Spakovsky was "directly involved" in efforts to "disenfranchise voters" and "politicize" the Voting Rights Section.

A Government Accountability Office report released in December confirmed what veteran civil-rights lawyers who left the division over the past eight years had feared -- during the Bush administration, enforcement of civil-rights laws in employment discrimination, voting, and hate crimes fell across the board. It wasn't just about the cases: The racial atmosphere in the division was so hostile toward African Americans that by 2007, almost all the black lawyers in the division had left.

The NBPP case was just one of the "mountain out of a molehill" cases that Bush DoJ filed in order to go after minority voters.  Everything in the Bush administration was political.  Everything...including the civil rights and voting rights sections of the DoJ.

Still so much Bush garbage to clean up in this country.  It will take decades.

What's In That Teapot?

Over at Salon, David Sirota argues that the Wisconsin Senate race as Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold struggles to hold onto his seat against millionaire businessman Ron Johnson is the perfect test if Tea Party puts principle over party.  If there's any Democrat in the Senate that the Tea Party should be firmly behind, it's Feingold.  Alas, that's not the case.

On one side is Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold, who has made his name championing many of the Tea Party’s purported views about the state, the Constitution and national sovereignty. For instance, when it comes to “big government,” Feingold has opposed wasteful pork barrel spending, worked to trim the defense budget and voted against financial bailouts. When it comes to the Constitution, Feingold was the only senator to vote against the Constitution-defying Patriot Act and has boldly questioned both parties’ willingness to let the state trample citizens’ civil liberties. And Feingold has been one of the few senators to consistently oppose NAFTA-style trade deals -- pacts that usurp domestic control over our economy and lay waste to the very industrial heartland the Tea Party claims to cherish.

On the other side is Republican Ron Johnson, the antithesis of everything the Tea Party says it stands for. In business, Johnson built a company propped up by government grants and loans -- otherwise known in Tea Party terms as “bailouts.” As a board member of a local opera house, he lobbied for funds from the same “big government” stimulus bill the Tea Party despises. During the campaign, he has touted NAFTA-style trade policies’ “creative destruction” of Wisconsin’s manufacturing economy. And rather than promoting the freedom the Tea Party says it values, Johnson has praised China’s repressive communist regime for its economic policies.

Candidate contrasts rarely get starker than this. And clearly, if the Tea Party is as nonpartisan as it asserts, then its supporters should be flocking to Feingold.

If that were happening, though, Feingold would be winning. Instead, polls show Feingold trailing Johnson -- and as CNN notes, Johnson “owes much of (that) political success to the Tea Party.” Indeed, despite contradicting most major Tea Party positions, Johnson has been featured at Wisconsin Tea Party events; touted in the local media as a Tea Party favorite; called a “Champion of Freedom” by national Tea Party activists; and promoted by Tea Party opinion leaders like George Will as the epitome of “what the Tea Party looks like.”

• Continue reading

It's no secret that the Tea Party is faking being "independent" in order to gain the vote this fall.   The truth is the Tea Party is nothing more than the most extreme wing of the Republicans, looking to wind the clock back rather than face America's diverse future.  They're scared, they're angry, they see "their" country slipping away and they are fighting like crazy to keep America from going forward.

But the fact is they need the help of independents and yes, even disaffected Democrats to return power to them.  They won't let it go without a fight, and as many times as I've criticised Obama and the Dems this year, I cannot under any circumstances think that giving power back to these elements of the Republican party will improve anything in our country...other than their own bank accounts.

Vote.

Turn On The Lights, Watch The Roaches Scatter, Part 30

And we've hit the 30 post mark on "Roaches Scatter" as Foreclosuregate rolls on and we get caught up on the week's news.  First, the credit ratings agencies are now openly talking about downgrading the major mortgage banks, starting with Fitch saying it could cut its ratings for BofA and Citi.

Fitch said its warning most affected Bank of America and Citigroup, because both companies "have benefited from support provided by the U.S. government."

Each bank took $45 billion in U.S. taxpayer-funded bailouts during the financial crisis, and have spent this year clawing back to sustained profitability. A downgrade from Fitch would make both banks face a new squeeze on their profits, analysts said.

"If you get downgraded, it costs you more to borrow money," said David Knutson, analyst with Legal & General Investment Management America.

Fitch could follow through on its warning within three to six months, but a downgrade would take on far more significance if the other two rating agencies followed suit, Knutson said.

In light of Foreclosuregate, you can count on that happening sooner rather than later.  And speaking of down the road, it's really the complete lockup of the housing market that's going to do the most damage to the economy as home prices will continue to fall.  Here's Gary Shilling on CNBC talking a 20% drop in home prices from where they are now, which would basically double the number of underwater mortgages to some 40% of homeowners.



Pretty grim stuff all around, folks. There will be no recovery.

Dear America:

"Oh yes, getting rid of the 17th Amendment would certainly help the Republicans control the Senate permanently, but changing the Constitution is hard.  It's much easier to just destroy the federal government first and give all the power in the country to the corporations and let's face it, you Teabaggers have a limited political lifespan before America figures out you're full of crap.  We want our money, so get to it.  Eyes on the prize, people.  Eyes on the prize."

--John Yoo, National Review

Political Cartoon Of The Moment

Because of course, Progressives are just like Teabaggers, and are just as much a fringe burden to the political process, clearly. I don't know which group that idea would offend more, the progressives or the Teabaggers.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• The Texas Rangers have knocked off the Yankees in Game 6 of the ALCS to earn their first ever World Series trip.
• The US Navy has selected four submarines and 24 female officers to be among the first women to serve on submarines.
• Once thought to be an easy win for Republican Nikki Haley, SC's Governor's race has tightened significantly as Democrat Vince Shaheen closes late.
• The Treasury has garnered a 36% return on buying toxic mortgages so far.
• There's plenty of water on the moon according to scientists, but also calcium, magnesium, and mercury.

Last Call

And just because as we get closer and closer to the election, we see just how hate-filled people can be in "moderate purple states" like Missouri...

At the request of sheriff Rick Walter, Scott County homeowner Rick Hoskins removed a Halloween display in front of his home Wednesday that's the subject of much controversy in the Sikeston area.

The display, which featured a Ku Klux Klan figure alongside an effigy of a black man hanging from a noose, could be seen by drivers on Interstate 55. 

Walter said his office had received several complaints about the display, so he contacted the office of prosecuting attorney Paul Boyd to see if it was within the sheriff's department's rights to remove it due to the problems it could cause.

Boyd encouraged Walter to discuss the matter with Hoskins and to ask Hoskins to take it down.  Hoskins complied, but indicated he would contact his attorney with the intent of putting the decorations back up.

"There's been a bunch of people that's stopped by since I put them up," said Hoskins. "Said they want to shake my hand. They said they're glad to see a little white pride is still left in this country."

This man has the right to his hateful, racist bigoted opinion.  This man also has the right to vote despite that opinion and his demonstrated rancor.  His vote counts exactly the same as everyone else's vote.  I cannot imagine him voting for a party that elected a black President, either. 

So keep Rick Hoskins here in mind when someone tells you "Well I'm not going to vote in order to punish the Democrats."  Rick Hoskins will vote.  And if only people like Rick Hoskins vote, we'll get people like Rick Hoskins running the country.

It's that simple.

The Ultimate Friday Night News Dump

WikiLeaks, as promised, has dropped a massive information bomb on the Iraq War.  The UK's Guardian has a first look at the deluge of documents, which apparently shows the US looked the other way as Iraqis tortured prisoners.

A grim picture of the US and Britain's legacy in Iraq has been revealed in a massive leak of American military documents that detail torture, summary executions and war crimes.

Almost 400,000 secret US army field reports have been passed to the Guardian and a number of other international media organisations via the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

The electronic archive is believed to emanate from the same dissident US army intelligence analyst who earlier this year is alleged to have leaked a smaller tranche of 90,000 logs chronicling bloody encounters and civilian killings in the Afghan war.

The new logs detail how:

• US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct appears to be systematic and normally unpunished.

• A US helicopter gunship involved in a notorious Baghdad incident had previously killed Iraqi insurgents after they tried to surrender.

• More than 15,000 civilians died in previously unknown incidents. US and UK officials have insisted that no official record of civilian casualties exists but the logs record 66,081 non-combatant deaths out of a total of 109,000 fatalities.

The numerous reports of detainee abuse, often supported by medical evidence, describe prisoners shackled, blindfolded and hung by wrists or ankles, and subjected to whipping, punching, kicking or electric shocks. Six reports end with a detainee's apparent death.

Awesome.  Good thing we decided not to look backwards on this and investigate so that Republicans wouldn't go after Democrats in witch hunts should they ever return to power, huh.

No wonder the Middle East hates us.  We've extracted a 9-year price in blood from the Muslim world orders of magnitude higher than what we paid in one day on 9/11 in the name of "freedom".  That's justice right there.

Do read the whole thing.  It's disgusting, disturbing, bloody awful and done in our name.

And it continues.