Cheney Throws Down the Gauntlet...again...And a Racist GOP

This last week, Mr. Cheney gave a predictable speech challenging the Obama administration's contention that torture is un-American and doesn't work. Mr. Cheney made all the same bold assertions he's made before: namely, that "enhanced interrogation" works and has provided valuable, life-saving intelligence (Go watch another episode of 24 and make sure to put extra butter on your popcorn, please, Mr. Right Wing Fantasy!).

I've always thought he's calling the Democrats' bluff and setting up a political trap for when America is attacked again. Well, goddamn it! Let's go ahead and open up some investigations and settle this thing once and for all. Those methods are either illegal, or, they're not; they either yield high-value intelligence, or, they don't. Cheney himself called for the CIA declassification of documents that would supposedly prove The Dark Lord's methods worked and yielded valuable intelligence. Of course, Cheney said this because he is certain they will never be made public, and he thinks the Democrats have the balls of a 3rd grader (hard to disagree on this second point) and won't disprove him.

And so now here's the shocker: According to Sen. Carl Levin, who's seen these documents (video here),

Mr. Cheney has also claimed that the release of classified documents would prove his view that the techniques worked. But those classified documents say nothing about numbers of lives saved, nor do the documents connect acquisition of valuable intelligence to the use of the abusive techniques. I hope that the documents are declassified so that people can judge for themselves what is fact and what is fiction.

Matthew Alexander, former interrogator at Gitmo and in Iraq, also responded to the Cheney's speech by noting, among other things like just how much Dark Lordian techniques don't work, that America prosecuted and convicted Japanese waterboarding during WWII. Moreover, General Washington in an existential struggle against The Empire refused to "injure" detainees during a war that was literally fought for our survival as a country-----or rather, any future hope of the sovereign republic it would later become (video of interview).

"Be very afraid" is the message..."The scourge of terrorism is existential"..."Be afraid; be very afraid"..."Be afraid; be very afraid"..."Be tough, and yet be---terrified"...
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On the ridiculous racism exploding out of a GOP that often fancies projecting (like this guy) its racism onto its Democratic opponents: According to the Not So Grand Old Party, these shameful haters of the white, working class, Anglo-Saxon male are using "identity politics" to confirm Sonia Sotomayor, who is essentially the equivalent of a Latina KKK member (See Tom Tancredo). They shouldn't forget that both Alito's and even scummy Gonzales's confirmations were sold on their membership as a minority group. And they both suck; Gonzales most likely even broke the law----on several occasions!

Here's Matt Yglesias' anger and frustration, which really does put a nail into the coffin of this racist, GOP argument about "identity politics":

I am really truly deeply and personally pissed off my the tenor of a lot of the commentary on Sonia Sotomayor. The idea that any time a person with a Spanish last name is tapped for a job, his or her entire lifetime of accomplishments is going to be wiped out in a riptide of bitching and moaning about “identity politics” is not a fun concept for me to contemplated. Qualifications like time at Princeton, Yale Law, and on the Circuit Court that work well for guys with Italian names suddenly don’t work if you have a Spanish name. Heaven forbid someone were to decide that there ought to be at least one Hispanic columnist at a major American newspaper.

Somehow, when George W. Bush affects a Texas accent, that’s not identity politics. When John Edwards gets a VP nomination, that’s not identity politics. But Sonia Sotomayor! Oh my heavens!

And no, Mr. Limbaugh, Sonia Sotomayor is not David Duke, you ignorant asshole!


The This Is TOO Amazing Update
Gingrich on the truly centrist nomination of Sotomayor:

If Civil War, suffrage, and Civil Rights are to mean anything, we cannot accept that conclusion...It is simply un-American. There is no room on the bench of the United States Supreme Court for this worldview.

This really is impressive! Colbert, please get off vacation: The absurdity needs satirical translation. In the meantime, there's this unwittingly satirical, conservative rap song takin' the streets by force.

p.s.---Atlas Shrugged is a hilariously terrible novel.
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Advertising Staff vs Historical Knowledge
Oh damn, this is interesting, maybe even subtly trenchant in its suggestiveness. Not because it is some freak advertising in the newspaper that Obama should be assassinated, but that the "newspaper's advertising staff didn't make the historical connection." I don't know, but "May Obama follow in the steps of Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy!" sounds pretty suspicious if you've passed 8th grade U.S. History. God, it's really fitting that it's advertising staff that wouldn't see this. Absurd, yet real.