You really have to dig this morning to find the Washington Post story by Paul Kane which reports that Nancy Pelosi’s top aide, Michael Sheehy, was told by the CIA that Enhanced Interogation Techniques were being used on certain detainees;
Pelosi has insisted that she was not directly briefed by Bush administration officials that the practice was being actively employed. But Michael Sheehy, a top Pelosi aide, was present for a classified briefing that included Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), then the ranking minority member of the House intelligence committee, at which agency officials discussed the use of waterboarding on terrorism suspect Abu Zubaida.
Previously, Pelosi claimed that the legal ramifications of techniques, but that she hadn’t been told the EITs were actually in use. In yesterday’s post, I wrote that the techinques were used before the briefing, and that it was unlikely she wasn’t told at that point. now we have a record that her top aide was told directly. Think he forgot to tell her?
A Democratic source acknowledged yesterday that it is almost certain that Pelosi would have learned about the use of waterboarding from Sheehy.
Yeah, me neither. of course, Pelosi use the language that she wasn’t told directly – but then why send aides to briefings? Pete Hoekstra is seeking any notes the CIA may have in regards to those briefings;
In a letter to Hoekstra, CIA Director Leon Panetta said the classified memos describing what was said at each briefing would be available at CIA headquarters for review by congressional staff, according to an agency official.
I’m pretty sure Hoekstra won’t find anything after the Panetta CIA gets done doing a Sandy Berger on those notes. CNN quotes Pelosi statement released to the press yesterday;
“As reported in the press, a cover letter from CIA Director Panetta accompanying the briefings memo released this week concedes that the descriptions provided by the CIA may not be accurate.”
Sneaky damn spies, taking inaccurate notes knowing that they’d need to beat up Pelosi four years before she became the Speaker.
I chased a link from our stat counter today over to Vote Vets, you know those ass clowns who worship at the altar of Jon Soltz, the master truck dispatcher. It was a link from a Richard Smith (dicksmith?) article in which Mr. Smith quotes an obviously insane sports writer at CBS;
CBS Sports golf analyst David Feherty has gone off the deep end, or at least he thinks American Soldiers have. Check out this quote from Feherty in the April issue of D Magazine:
[I]f you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it, and he found himself in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Osama bin Laden, there’s a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death.
Somehow, the semi-literate Mr. Smith finds this an opportunity to call This Ain’t Hell “the right-wing attack machine” and wonders why we don’t get our dander up at Mr. Feherty. Well, here’s his explanation;
Where were the Legion and the right-wing spin consortium on a prominent sportscaster slandering American Soldiers. The answer: AWOL. Why? Because the conservative smear establishment doesn’t actually care about Soldiers and Veterans. They use Veterans and Soldiers (including the Legion) as a prop, along side their lapel pins and car magnets, to protect their own desires, which is the destruction, by any means necessary, of those who have truly supported us in the past eight years. This is the modus operandi of the right-wing, radical, anti-troop, anti-veteran agenda.
Here’s my explanation for the tone-deaf Mr. Smith; who the Hell cares what a golf analyst writes? Who the Hell reads D Magazine or Media Matters? Hell, I didn’t even know he wrote that article until you linked to our blog with your drivel (Dick didn’t have the guts to name the blog to which he was linking). I can’t even find the original article, so how do I know what the context was of Ferehty’s article?
And last I checked, a CBS golf analyst doesn’t write policy which affects the troops and veterans – as opposed to a president and a DHS secretary. Numbnuts.
If you had stopped for a moment before you hit “publish” and thought about it for a moment, you’d have noticed how ridiculous you sound. Smith drones on;
Rumor has it, Feherty’s comments may make an appearance on tonight’s episode of Countdown with Keith Olbermann (MSNBC, 8PM EST).
Rumor has it, my ass. Vote Vets have their collective head so far up Olbermann’s ass you probably know what’s scheduled for next year (since that’s where he pulls his programming from anyway).
If Feherty still has a job by the time that show airs, after slandering the professionalism and mental capacity of American Soldiers and Veterans, he will have gone too long without being fired. Feherty needs to go. And every second he continues to be employed by CBS Sports is a second too long.
It’d be nice if you got this upset about someone who is dealing dirt to the troops who isn’t a CBS golf editor – someone like John Murtha or Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid or Rahm Emanuel. Someone who matters.
I’m waiting for one of your dorks over at the Jon Soltz Hate Machine Motor Pool to prove me wrong on anything that I’ve “attacked” the President on, by the way.
This is exactly why I joined the American Legion last week. David Rehbein, the national commander of the American Legion writes a fiery missive in the Wall Street Journal today in regards to the ACLU’s FOIA filing for photographs of alleged abuse of detainees at the hands of US forces in Iraq. Mr. Rehbein’s piece is titled “Photos that could cost lives“;
Releasing photographs of alleged or actual detainee abuse in the War on Terrorism is not worth the life of a single American. Of course, as some have noted, the incidents at Abu Ghraib have already endangered our troops. So did any orders and policies that may have led to those incidents. But what is to be accomplished by continuing to provide ammunition and provocation to the enemy?
ACLU’s filing is nothing more than a transparent attempt to turn the world against us. That world that riots at the sight of political cartoons and unfounded rumors about Korans flushed down the toilet. Al Qaeda claimed that their beheading of Nick Berg was in retaliation for the last photos that were released in regards to supposed torture. Two American soldiers held captive were also beheaded in retaliation. How many lives is ACLU willing to sacrifice for the next round of scandal?
Mr Rehbein continues;
I was deeply disturbed by the images of Abu Ghraib. The military, however, has investigated the abuses and punished those involved. Moreover, the photographs that are now about to be released are already being used for investigative purposes. Other than self-flagellation by certain Americans, riots and future terrorist acts, what else do people expect will come from the release of these photographs?
At least the American Legion is willing to stand up for troops and says what needs to be said. In fact, the American Legion has led the VSOs in standing up for the troops since the war against terror began, they’ve been especially vigilant over the last few months when we’ve need them most. Mr Rehbein explains why;
As commander of the nation’s largest veterans service organization, I have had the honor to present Blue Star Banners to military families, with the Blue Star signifying the deployment of a service member. It is always a moving experience. But it is the Gold Star Banner, the star that signifies the death of a service member in war, that I never hope to present. I fear that there will be many Gold Stars as a result of this misbegotten policy.
Next month, I proudly join the ranks of Blue Star families as my only son gets deployed to Afghanistan and it’s reassuring to know that the folks at the American Legion are checking his six.
Last month, I got an email from Code Pink calling on Nancy Pelosi to press forward with the investigations of the Bush Administration’s use of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EITs) against terrorists;
The Washington Times and the Washington Post both announced this morning that Speaker Pelosi knew about Enhanced Interrogation Techniques according to records of the briefings to Pelosi and Porter Goss on September 4, 2002. The Times;
The report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times, indicates that a classified CIA briefing of Mrs. Pelosi included specific details of the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques,” or EITs, on terrorism suspect Abu Zubaydah.
“Briefing on EITs included use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah, background on authorities, and a description of the particular EITs that had been employed,” the report said of the Sept. 4, 2002, briefing.
The U.S. government acknowledged in the “torture memos” that President Obama declassified last month that the interrogation of Mr. Zubaydah included waterboarding, a technique that simulates drowning and is widely denounced as torture, 83 times in August 2002, a month before the Pelosi briefing.
The Post reports that Pelosi is still clinging to her previous lie despite the evidence against her;
In a carefully worded statement, Pelosi’s office said today that she had never been briefed about the use of waterboarding, only that it had been approved by Bush administration lawyers as a legal technique to use in interrogations.
“As this document shows, the Speaker was briefed only once, in September 2002. The briefers described these techniques, said they were legal, but said that waterboarding had not yet been used,” said Brendan Daly, Pelosi’s spokesman.
Pelosi’s statement did not address whether she was informed that other harsh techniques were already in use during the Zubaydah interrogations.
So will Code Pink now demand an investigation into Pelosi’s involvement? Not holding my breath.
Oh, how the Left fell hard for Obama – he repeated all of the anti-war slogans they wanted to hear and the protest groups generally sat quietly through the election process last year with their hands folded on their laps. But, as reality has slapped the Obama Administration, it also slaps the anti-war movement. Last year, Code Pink was relegated to DuPont Circle for their annual Mothers Day protest, nine blocks from the White House, when in previous years they’d had the free run of Lafayette Park across the street. This year they’re back in Lafayette Park promising to not raise children that are raised to not kill other mothers’ children;
Yeah, that should be an easy promise to keep since no one wants to procreate with the hags who are all either lesbians or post-menopausal. Now if they could get the Muslim population to promise the same….
After Downing Street, the far Left anti-Bush anti-war group founded by members of the Revolutionary Communist Party quotes the Al Jazeera article I wrote about the other day as proof that our troops are engaged in a war against Islam.
Torture, religion, democracy, God. They’re all part of the mixed-up, horrific business that George Bush unleashed in the Middle East and Central Asia, and that Barack Obama is struggling to control and rationalize. As the words above demonstrate, the 12th century is striving mightily to join hands with the 20th in the U.S. military: Unbridled religious arrogance is forging a link with high-tech weaponry and an unlimited defense budget.
The possibility that we are — not officially, of course, but in the minds of many American soldiers and officers — waging a religious war that parallels the secular one, an Ann Coulter war, if you will (“We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity,” Coulter wrote on Sept. 12, 2001), is both deeply disturbing and utterly appropriate. The arrogance required for both efforts is so similar, I can understand if the line blurs for many of the participants.
The Zionist Anti-Communist notices that the anti-war barking heads are coming together against Obama;
It seems that Infowars.com is taking a page from the hard Leftist groups such as PuppetGov.com, literally taking a page from CodePink that Obama’s the obvious warmonger and war criminal if he doesn’t not only end the war in Iraq, but also the war in Afghanistan. Apparently, it seems 9/11 “Truthers” could agree with Code Pink that the USA should have no right to be in Afghanistan to go after a certain Osama bin Laden which the Taliban failed to hand over.
Nice Deb notices the same trend and reminds us of the Obama quote about our troops “air raiding villages” and yet he continues air raiding villages himself, according to After Downing Street;
And indeed, U.S. airstrikes this week in a densely populated area in western Afghanistan’s Farah Province, during a battle between Afghan soldiers and the Taliban, may have killed as many as 100 civilians, according to the New York Times. The Red Cross, the United Nations and the Afghan government are all expressing shock at the death toll, but our government will only acknowledge that it is “investigating the reports of civilian deaths,” which is the standard, meaningless comment that reporters work into such stories, seemingly with no obligation to follow up. This lets us forget about it and move on.
It must be nice to just pontificate about peace without offering real, substantial solutions – solutions other than putting daisies in rifle barrels.
Sometimes, I just can’t get past some of the crap I have to read. Today is one of those days. Last night, I ran across a missive in the Albany Times Union written by some guy named Matt Funiciello who has a pretty high opinion of himself for some indiscernible reason. Which is fine, in itself, but he’s unable to recognize the truth when it’s in front of his face because his big, fat ego gets in the way. But, he speaks from experience because, in the typical Leftist mold;
…I come from a family of vets and I am very pro-soldier….
Which means his neighbor’s nephew met a veteran once. That’s the Leftist response to every accusation that they don’tknow what they’re talking about because they don’t have the gumption to raise their hand and be part of something bigger than them. Oh, did I mention he’s also a truther?
He’s writing about the “bravery” of “a warrior” – that brave warrior being IVAW’s Matthis Chiroux. Funiciello, reading from Matthis Chiroux’s press release, claims that Chiroux was facing a possible death penalty conviction or jail time but that the Army backed off because Chiroux faced off with them, the “military-industrial complex” – whatever that means.
The truth is; Chiroux faced a general discharge under honorable conditions – the worst discharge that board could recommend. I knew that the day before the board when I talked to Army Public Affairs Officer LTC Maria Quon who works in St Louis. And that’s exactly what he got – the harshest penalty that particular board could issue. In fact, that’s the same discharge Chiroux would have received if he’d just sat in his plush, IVAW-subsidized apartment in New York City and not set foot in the hearing.
But somehow, Chiroux, and therefore, Funiciello, who accepts press releases from Matthis Chiroux as gospel, claims it’s some sort of victory. In order to arrive at that conclusion, Chiroux and Funiciello ignore all of the facts, Funiciello also ignores all of the testimony I’ve recorded here from eye witnesses to the Chiroux legacy as hearsay. I guess that means everything he reads in his daily paper is hearsay, too. Or maybe it means that Funiciello is just tone deaf to everything that rattles his facade that he’s tenuously propped up to appear as some sort of journalist. In truth, Funiciello is just another of Chiroux’s tools.
And the print media can’t understand why no one reads them anymore.
In another glaring example of Leftist hyperbole, the blog, “History In The Making” writes a post “Big Protest Shuts Down Army Experience“. Notice the URL is hippiecommiemarine.blogspot.
The “big protest” shut down the Army Experience in Franklin Mills Mall for nine minutes, all nine minutes are the YouTube video at my report on the event. So it wasn’t shut down for a month, a day, or even an hour. And since the reports of participation on the Left claim between 120 and 300 participants, it wasn’t even a “big” protest. Especially when you consider that participants included this clown who should be fired;
A middle school teacher brought 4 of his students to the protest.
I hope the parents of those middleschool students’ parents punch that stickboy in his nads.
Please join your fellow Constitution Supporters on May 15th, 2009, for an up-close-and-personal evening with a charismatic, motivated candidate for Congress in New Mexico, Adam Kokesh, a former Marine whose participation with Iraq Veterans Against the War and at the RNC has landed him on numerous “lists.”
Date: Friday, May 15, 2009
Time: 7:00pm – 9:00pm
Location: Home of Nick and Ericka D’Arcy
Street: 416 Allison Drive
City/Town: Dallas, TX
Food and beverages will be served. Donation of $40 goes to TOPIC PAC.
You may donate at the event, but donations in advance are appreciated. (Simply enter 40.00 into the amount field.)
Paid for by Texans Organized to Protect the Integrity of the Constitution Political Committee (TOPIC PAC).
Anyone is Dallas want to pay $40 for some Saltines, orange Kool Aid and conversation with “charismatic” Adam Kokesh? Sheesh, for 2 bucks I’ll let you look at all of my videos of him, but you have to bring your own drinks.
Adam Kokesh of Santa Fe, a registered Republican who backed Libertarian candidate Ron Paul in last year’s GOP presidential primaries, said Friday that he’s not sure what party banner he might run under — Republican, Democrat, third party or independent.
“I represent a wide range of people from parties who are clearly disappointed with the current Democratic Party line,” Kokesh said in an interview.
While he supported Paul, Kokesh, who served in Iraq, also praised U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a liberal Ohio Democrat who, like Paul, was a critic of U.S. military actions during last year’s presidential campaign.
A wide range of people, indeed. From Ron Paul to Dennis Kucinich – actually probably the same people. The people who don’t have a clue. I’m not familiar at all with the demographics of New Mexico, but I’m sure there’s a large number of sane people. But Kokesh knows how to work the media;
Asked for comment about the potential challenge and Kokesh’s statement that Luján just wants to be “part of the club,” Mark Nicastre, a Luján spokesman said in a prepared statement, “Rep. Luján is focused on his work in Congress and throughout New Mexico’s 3rd district. Since January, Rep. Luján has worked with his congressional colleagues to pass legislation that cuts taxes for 95 percent of American workers and puts us on a path to economic recovery, provides health care for millions of children, protects valuable and treasured lands in New Mexico, and moves us toward a clean-energy economy.”
His opponent, Lujan, appears to be a moron – why defend the charge that he’s a “part of the club” by regurgitating the Obama State of the Union Address? But, Adam has a few things to overcome, too.
Kokesh said he doesn’t have a full-time job. Though he said he does graphic design “on the side,” he described himself as a full-time activist.
That’s not a real relatable resume` among working Americans. But, then there’s always Daddy;
Kokesh is the son of venture capitalist Charles Kokesh, a co-owner of the Santa Fe Horse Park southwest of the city, which earlier this year defaulted on its $2.25 million mortgage.
Ooops. Maybe Dad can get a bailout from the feds before Adam pisses off his Congressman.
Last year, the anti-war movement discovered that they can’t stop the war through Congress – mainly because Congress doesn’t want solutions to problems, they only want issues. So the anti-war crowd decided they would attack the troops who are detailed as recruiters. At about the same time, the Army decided to build a $12 million pilot facility called the Army Experience Center at Franklin Mills Mall near Philadelphia which has a variety of video games designed to give potential recruits a taste of the Army. I can’t wait to visit and try the shoe-shining and the latrine-scrubbing video games.
Since it opened last year, the AEC has stuck in the anti-war crowd’s craw. They’ve protested it at least once before that I know on February 16th – it kind of fizzled out, of course. So this past Saturday, they decided to make a concerted effort towards shutting the AEC down.
Our own Raoul was on the scene, of course, and he phoned in a report last night. He met them in the church parking lot where they assembled at St. Luke’s United Church of Christ. In short order, Raoul was able to get the church’s secretary to call him a mother f@#%er twice.
All of the Leftist reports say they had over 300 people to protest, Raoul tells us it wasn’t even 200 – which is surprising since the Left also says that over 30 groups participated. Even if it was 300, with 30 groups, that’s piss-poor attendance.
But the whole thing is comical. Here’s 200-300 people protesting video games. They had slogans like “If you’re not old enough to drink, you’re not old enough to kill”. So I guess, like me, they think the drinking age should be lowered, too.
IVAW Winter Soldier, Jesse Hamilton was there. His deep intellectual contribution to the discussion was; “You can’t simulate the heat. You can’t you know the cries of people who are getting killed. You can’t simulate the noise when things are exploding around you.” Well, ya know what Jesse, they get an idea of what it’s like during training, don’t they? It’s not like they load the kids on buses outside the AEC and take them straight to Iraq, do they?
Here’s a local TV report;
One blogger from the Left, who certainly thought highly of himself and his actions that Saturday afternoon at the mall wrote;
The complaint was read out loud, which had a profound effect on everyone who was there shopping, and visiting the various eateries.
People stopped to listen, and really couldn’t believe what was happening. I myself, was part of a group of protesters who donned death masks and the names of fallen soldiers and stood directly in front of the AEC, which was at that point surrounded by police.
But that didn’t stop us from demanding that it be closed and they should cease and desist corrupting our youth. Those of us in death masks stood silently by and watched the rest of the group shouting at the recruiters. “Stop stealing our kids” “No wars for empire”, “SHAME ON YOU!” to the endless pounding of drums.
It seemed to me that the recruiters were becoming a bit unnerved….
Yeah, soldiers who had faced an armed enemy on foreign soil were unnerved by a bunch of smelly geezers. I’m sure. And as far as a “profound effect” it had on shoppers, I’m pretty sure they were real impressed by loud-mouthedclowns interrupting their day of shopping to scream intellectually vacant chants like kindergartners.
Someone should probably point out the Army isn’t stealing anyone’s kids. Everyone who joins is an adult in their own right, making their own decisions and the fact that these pathetic cowards think that kids are stupid enough to think war is a video and need rescuing says more about the fantasy land these clowns occupy than it does about America’s youth.
ShotgunDroid sent us this video from GamePolitics;
Seven people were arrested, one was Elaine Brower, who I mentioned in the earlier post, the others bravely wore hoods and masks. The whole confrontation lasted 9 minutes. One of the arrestees wrote;
After only one warning, the police decided to aggressively arrest seven of the protesters who were wearing death masks, peacefully standing in front of the AEC and not blocking the entrance. Taken to a distant precinct, the civil affairs Captain vowed vengeance by trying to charge the seven with a “misdemeanor in the third degree.” After 6 hours in the most deplorable conditions, they were released to return to court in June.
Yeah, in the video, you can see how aggressive the police were. I saw where they even refused to arrest one little old bag who was begging for it. And the captain “vowed vengeance”, huh? Or, maybe he vowed to enforce the peace.
Raoul reported that only people who were angry were the folks trying to get in the AEC. Fox reported that the anti-war protesters have to keep their lawyers employed;
Anti-war protesters are suing. They claim the Army Experience Center is endangering the welfare of children.
What children, you retards?
Most of the pictures I see say “Courtesy of Bill Perry” so I guess I fixed his camera well enough. Hey, Bill, Raoul says he saw you standing safely off to the side.
Raoul also reports that our buddy Pinhead was there and was showing anyone who would pay attention his VFP card to prove that he really is a veteran while Raoul pestered him for the month’s pay Pinhead owes Raoul on their wager. Yeah, we never said you aren’t a veteran, Dennen, we were wondering about the World War Two medals you wore at protests.
I’m sure Raoul will have more to add in the comments.
Raoul adds:
It was a failure for them.
1. They mobilized from NYC to DC, promised 700 people, delivered 200. That’s 29%.
2. They got just one news story. The local Fox affiliate did a 333 word article for the website, no film. Another TV station showed, no story on the news that night.
3. They got better than they gave. Three counter-demonstatrers owned their rally at St Luke’s. Our PA was louder than their’s and they had to listen to our “Teach In”.
4. St Luke’s Church Secretary called me a “Mother F**ker” three times.
5. They pissed off a lot of locals stuck in traffic as the geezers walked a mile in 30 minutes.
6. You couldn’t tell there was a demo just 40 yards down the mall.
7. People coming and going at the mall mainly ignored them
8. They pissed off the teens who let the geezers know it.
