USA

Make Love, Not Terror! WaPo reports the CIA is winning over support from local leaders in Afghanistan by offering them free Viagra:

The Afghan chieftain looked older than his 60-odd years, and his bearded face bore the creases of a man burdened with duties as tribal patriarch and husband to four younger women. His visitor, a CIA officer, saw an opportunity, and reached into his bag for a small gift.

Four blue pills. Viagra.

"Take one of these. You'll love it," the officer said. Compliments of Uncle Sam.

The enticement worked. The officer, who described the encounter, returned four days later to an enthusiastic reception. The grinning chief offered up a bonanza of information about Taliban movements and supply routes -- followed by a request for more pills.

Torture is AWESOME! Just ignore those crazy WW2 vets. They only had to contend with Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire. These guys have BOX KNIVES! They live in CAVES! They're way more hardcore.

Dick Cheney admits on camera to ordering the torture of prisoners in U.S. custody on multiple occasions - in violation of international law, national law, and the U.S. constitution. According to United States Federal law, each instance is a felony offense punishable by decades in prison.

Dick Cheney just stated on national TV - boldly, unapologetically, directly to our faces - that the Vice President is above the law.

Holy shit.

"But where says some is the king of America? I'll tell you friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the royal brute of Britain. ... so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is king."

- Thomas Paine

... so much for that. The rule of law in America is dead.

Barack Obama is going to do his weekly Presidential Addresses over radio, as has been done in the past, but he's putting a new spin on it: He's going to also post these addresses on YouTube.

I think, while a tiny bit campy, it's a great idea.

update: 1st address up

The national debt clock isn't big enough to keep up with the growing national debt. They're having to add more digit places to it.

Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen, has been illegally held by the U.S. government at a prison in Guantanamo Bay for six years. He was captured by American forces at the age of 15 following a four-hour firefight with militants in the village of Ayub Kheyl, Afghanistan. Omar stands accused of war crimes - specifically, throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier. The evidence against him is the fact that he was present at the firefight. However, no evidence exists that he threw the grenade. In fact, the military's original report concluded that another person had thrown the grenade shortly before being killed.

Omar says that he is innocent, and claims that he has been tortured by government officials. After a long legal battle, his defense lawyers have finally secured the release of video of an interrogation in 2003, taken by a camera hidden in a vent:

In a video released Tuesday, a 16-year-old captured in Afghanistan cries out for his mother and says he needs treatment for his battle wounds during questioning by Canadian officials at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay. "Oh Mommy," he cries in despair in Arabic when he is alone in the room, watched only by hidden cameras.

The 10 minutes of video -- selected by Omar Khadr's Canadian lawyers from more than seven hours of footage recorded by a camera hidden in a vent -- provides the first glimpse of interrogations at the U.S. military prison. It shows Khadr weeping, his face buried in his hands, as he is questioned by Canadian intelligence agents over four days in 2003. The lawyers hope to pressure Canada into seeking Khadr's return, but the government said its position was unchanged.

"I've been tortured. I'm a human being. I have not violated any law," Afghan prisoner Mohammed Jawad said in his first hearing on charges of attempted murder and causing great bodily injury.

"I've been brought here illegally . I am innocent. It's an injustice to me," he said through a Pashto translator.

Meanwhile, John Yoo - the man who authored legal opinions for the Bush Administration arguing that the executive has the right to torture children, regardless of any laws or treaties outlawing torture - is teaching International Civil Litigation at the University of California, Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law. In case you have any questions or comments for Professor Yoo, you can contact him by e-mail: yoo@law.berkeley.edu, yooj@law.berkeley.edu, jyoo@law.berkeley.edu (I'm not sure which is current - for some reason, the address keeps getting changed...)

Barack Obama campaign's official stance on filibustering telecom immunity, before he won the nomination:

"To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies."

Today, Barack Obama voted with the Republicans against filibustering a bill containing telecom immunity.

Looks like the yoonitary executive is here to stay.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

But where says some is the King of America? I’ll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve as monarchy, that in America the law is King. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other. But lest any ill use should afterwards arise, let the crown at the conclusion of the ceremony be demolished, and scattered among the people whose right it is.

"When the president does it that means that it is not illegal."

Sorry McCain, secular Deists and theocratic Christians aren't the same thing.

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Well, looks like it's finally going to happen. Hillary is going to say Obama has the delegates, but she's not ready to concede yet.

Well, she's almost going to admit defeat.

"A senior Clinton campaign official confirms to CBS News that Hillary Clinton will 'acknowledge but not concede' the race tonight. The official says 'she has no plans to concede the race tonight.'"

Still... big news.

Oh god that makes me happy:

The Republican defeat in a special Congressional contest in Mississippi sent waves of apprehension across an already troubled party Wednesday, with some senior Republicans urging Congressional candidates to distance themselves from President Bush to head off what could be heavy losses in the fall.

[...]

“They are canaries in the coal mine, warning of far greater losses in the fall, if steps are not taken to remedy the current climate,” Mr. Davis said in a memorandum. “The political atmosphere facing House Republicans this November is the worst since Watergate and is far more toxic than it was in 2006.”

Maybe there is hope after all? I hope the Republicans get totally smashed this cycle, they change their ways (a.k.a. lose the "police state & war machine" platform planks), Democrats continue to grow a spine, and just maybe we can get our country back.

More and more parents are suing schools for their children's failures.

Doesn't that seem a little absurd?

A British Columbia father has sued his son's Grade 2 Montessori teacher claiming that she "purposely and maliciously worked to damage the self-esteem" of his son over such things as failing to encourage the child's spelling, not sending home a daily homework list and, in one case, displaying an unfinished poem in the school hallway.
- from the article

The paranoia of this country is absolutely astounding. I personally have never sued for my own (or my parents') fuck ups, but maybe I should have. When was it that we stopped parenting our kids and started blaming? Don't get me wrong, I've had some teachers that plain out sucked at teaching. I've had teachers that I absolutely couldn't pay attention to. Who hasn't?