Concern Troll, Joe Scarborough of morning joe in the tank for protecting terror tactics (Video)

Joe Scarborough has been outspoken about the terror tactics used, in fact he for the illegal terror tactics this country has used during the Bush regime and he really don't give a shit because he approves all that has been done. Now much more is coming out and morning joke is on the GOP talking points. All this happened under the Bush Administration's watch and Republicans are scared, that the investigation will expand and you know what, it should. The Justice Department should not just single out lower level personnel who did what they were told to do, we all know this will go straight back to the BUSH WHITE HOUSE and this is where the Republicans get worried.



Read more from Ministry of Truth over @ Daily Kos.
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Attorney General Eric Holder appointing a special prosecutor to investigate CIA/torture

Now this is Change I Can Believe In...

Attorney General Eric Holder has directed a federal prosecutor to look into possible violations of U.S. law in the CIA's treatment of terrorism detainees overseas, NBC News reported Monday.

Administration officials say he'll give the assignment to a career federal prosecutor in Connecticut, John Durham.

For more than a year, since January 2008, Durham has been investigating whether any laws were broken when CIA officials destroyed audio and video tapes of the interrogations of several terrorism detainees. His work on the tapes issue is not yet completed, though there are indictions that Durham is nearly done with that part of his work.

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Washington Post

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Are the torture pictures a figment of the imagination? Or are the pictures real?

The UK Daily Telegraph has reported pictures DO EXIST showing raping of Iraqi women and graphic prisoner abuse, by American hands.

Now I am hoping this is not true and that this UK paper is just blowing smoke out of its "you know what", but criminal and horrendous things happen during the time of war.

We will see.

A former U.S. general said graphic images of rape and torture are among the photos of Iraqi prisoner abuse that President Obama's administration does not want released.

Retired Major Gen. Antonio Taguba, who oversaw the U.S. investigation into the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, told Britain's Daily Telegraph in an article published Wednesday that he agreed with Obama's decision not to release the pictures.

"I am not sure what purpose their release would serve other than a legal one and the consequence would be to imperil our troops, the only protectors of our foreign policy, when we most need them," Taguba was quoted by the Daily Telegraph. "The mere description of these pictures is horrendous enough, take my word for it."

Two Obama administration officials didn't immediately respond to e-mail requests for comment Wednesday night.

Took the White House more than 24 hours to respond:

The Pentagon on Thursday denied a British newspaper report that photographs of Iraqi prisoner abuse, whose release U.S. President Barack Obama wants to block, include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the Daily Telegraph newspaper had shown "an inability to get the facts right".

"That news organization has completely mischaracterized the images," Whitman told reporters. "None of the photos in question depict the images that are described in that article."

Thursday's Telegraph quoted retired U.S. Army Major General Antonio Taguba, who conducted a 2004 investigation into abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, as saying the pictures showed "torture, abuse, rape and every indecency."

The newspaper said at least one picture showed an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.

Now there is a reason for not releasing these "suspect photos" and I understand why Obama changed his mind on it. If these photos exist and this happened, it kills us overseas further as Obama is attempting to make inroads after the Bush Administration destroyed our international standing.

Again, things happen during war. For anyone to believe this possibly could not happen, take your rose colored glasses off. These things do happen and don't think we, the United States of America is above it all. After all, we waterboard, we did torture. This possiblity is not outside of the relm.

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MEDIA: Stop enabling Liz Cheney. She is not an authority on torture.

I am doing a piggyback off of Al Rodgers diary which includes the confrontation between Liz Cheney and Lawrence O'Donnell.

Liz Cheney has been doing her media tour to help clean up her father's image, but from now on waterboarding is equivalent to DROWNING and if it is drowning someone, intentionally, it is TORTURE.

It is time for shows like morning joe or morning joke, to stop enabling the likes of Liz Cheney by allowing her to come on their shows with LIES, TALKING POINTS FROM DADDY and utter BULLSHIT. Enough. What happened to the truth?

I am damn angry and mad right now. After watching Liz Cheney in Al's diary, I am too over WTF, but at get these lying sacks of shits off the airwaves and I mean, yesterday!!

What really has catapulted this debate, in my opinion, is the revelations by Mancow on waterboarding is drowning. This comparison hit me, personally that Mancow almost drowned when he was a kid and said that is how waterboarding feels. Well, I almost drowned at 12 on a trip to Orlando, FL to Disneyworld. Playing rough and the other kids not knowing, I got into the deep part of the pool. They were playing while I was DROWNING. I had to be revived and I have been DEATHLY afraid of water until I decided to learn how to swim in my 30's. The main reason I learned how to swim is that I love to fish and we go out on the boat all the time. I am not the strongest swimmer, but I can save myself. So, I know EXACTLY how that waterboarding feels.

It is time for these so called, "talk show hosts, analysts" to do their fucking jobs and challenge Liz "I know everything about torture" Cheney and stop enabling her.

This country deserves to have the story told to us right and honestly. The media needs to get this right, not wrong like they did during the Bush Administration. The media FAILED us during that time, by not doing their jobs and investigating the obvious. Instead, they wrote what was given to them from the Bush White House as fact, they allowed themselves to be used by planted stories, they failed the American Public.

Don't do this again, media. Allowing Liz Cheney on these talk shows as an "authority" of torture is not only insulting it is ridiculous. She is spewing propped up talking points fed to her by her daddy. Does anyone in their right mind think Liz is an authority in this? When was the last time she was in torture camp? Or waterboarding school? She has never been near anything like this and the media needs to do their jobs and quit enabling her.

Every single expert who has been waterboarded or had experience in it has said it is torture. Why is Liz Cheney all over the television saying this technique is not?

Finally, everything written from now on in regards to waterboarding should be equated to drowning. See this issue has been muddled because it has not been explained properly, but thanks to the honesty of Mancow, we all can relate to what waterboarding is, drowning and if done intentional, again, torture. Just about everyone knows what too much water in your mouth and nose feels like, it feels like drowning. That is how this argument needs to be presented moving forward.

If it is intentional drowning, that means it is TORTURE.

Cross-posted @ Daily Kos

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Conservative Talk Show Host "Mancow" got waterboarded and he said it is torture

One thing I know, for me, is that I don't need to get drowned to realize it is torture, but for those who are running around here saying it is not, do what Mancow did, get waterboarded. From Think Progress:

Via John Chait, it seems that conservative talk radio host Eric “Mancow” Muller decided it would be a fun stunt to have himself waterboarded in order to prove that it’s not really torture. Didn’t work so well:

“It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that’s no joke,”Mancow said, likening it to a time when he nearly drowned as a child. “It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back…It was instantaneous…and I don’t want to say this: absolutely torture.”

“I wanted to prove it wasn’t torture,” Mancow said. “They cut off our heads, we put water on their face…I got voted to do this but I really thought ‘I’m going to laugh this off.’”

Seems like Mancow could not even last 10 seconds. From Daily Kos:

"The average person can take this for 14 seconds," Marine Sergeant Clay South answered, adding, "He's going to wiggle, he's going to scream, he's going to wish he never did this."

With a Chicago Fire Department paramedic on hand, Mancow was placed on a 7-foot long table, his legs were elevated, and his feet were tied up.

Turns out the stunt wasn't so funny. Witnesses said Muller thrashed on the table, and even instantly threw the toy cow he was holding as his emergency tool to signify when he wanted the experiment to stop. He only lasted 6 or 7 seconds.

Well, again, you don't have to waterboard me to tell me it is torture. I am like Mancow, I almost drowned when I was 12 and it took me YEARS to attempt to learn how to swim. To this day, I am not a strong swimmer, but I learned for my own safety sake because you just never know. Why don't Cheney, morning joke, and all these blogviated noise makers out there running around saying, "it's not torture....we only waterboarded 3 people...", why don't they take the test since they are so FOR THE BUSH/CHENEY WE DID NOT TORTURE PROGRAM????

Yep. Silence is a bitch.

Want to see the video? Here it is.

Oh, since Mancow is from Chicago, here is the NBC-5 take on Mancow's admission.

Lastly, rememeber Christopher Hitchens who also ran around here for a bit and said it was not torture? Well, here is his waterboarding experience and he too, did an about face on the waterboarding is not torture, meme.



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Alberto Gonzales, former Attorney General, Approved Torture Months Before Memos Written

When it rains, it pours.

When you lie, it eventually comes out.

Here it comes....from Daily Kos, via NPR....GOP explain this one...

NPR is reporting that Alberto Gonzales while the White House Atty, not the Atty Gen, was approving the Torture of Abu Zubaydah months before the Aug. Torture Memos were even written. It appears the ACLU has the proof from a ongoing court case.

The source says nearly every day, Mitchell would sit at his computer and write a top secret cable to the CIA’s counterterrorism center. Each day, Mitchell would request permission to use enhanced interrogation techniques on Zubaydah. The source says the CIA would then forward the request to the White House, where White House counsel Alberto Gonzales would sign off on the technique. That would provide the Administration’s legal blessing for Mitchell to increase the pressure on Zubaydah in the next interrogation.

Late May 19, the CIA sent the ACLU a spreadsheet as part of a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act. The log shows the number of top secret cables that went from Zubaydah’s black site prison to CIA headquarters each day. Through the spring and summer of 2002, the log shows someone sent headquarters several cables a day.

I don't care what the Obama White House wants to do or say, this torture crap and what the Bush Administration did will not go away.

Read more from McJoan of Daily Kos, here.

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In case you missed it, Jesse Ventura lit it up on Hannity (Video)

Yes, Jesse Ventura has been making the rounds talking about torture and slamming the Republicans and also Democrats. He gave Elisabeth Hasselbeck a cup of STFU, he schooled Larry King, now he went into the den with Hannity. Damn, why can't we get a Democrat to stand up and say the very things that former Governor Jesse Ventura has said about torture. Just a pity.



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Karen Hughes, former counselor to Bush, acknowledged torture

From Think Progress:

Last month, Phillip Zelikow disclosed that while serving as a top-aide to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2005, he had written and circulated a memo expressing grave concerns about the Bush administration’s torture regime. Another memo Zelikow co-authored at around the same time even offered a legal alternative to the program. Now, it turns out that strong opposition to President Bush’s interrogation policies came from within his tight-knit inner circle. Karen Hughes, counselor to the president, told the Houston Chronicle this week that she was “very vocal in the internal debate”:

She acknowledged the current uproar over interrogation tactics and allegations of prisoner torture during the Bush years.

“I was very vocal in the internal debate,” she said. “I worried about how that would make us look in the eyes of the world. But I had left the White House when a lot of that was taking place.”
Then she paused, worried for the first time in 90 minutes that she’d made a gaffe. Whatever Sen. John McCain says about interrogation techniques, she added quickly, she has similar views.

It does not get any plainer than that.

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Joe Scarborough, from morning joe, LOST HIS MIND ON TORTURE!!! (Video)

I thought morning joke was about to have a heart attack. for real.



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Elisabeth Hasselbeck from The View, got a cup of STFU from Jesse Ventura in regards to waterboarding (Video)

Ventura is a former Navy Seal, also former Governor of Minnesota. As he blasted Cheney on Larry King, he shuts up the sniping Hasselbeck from ABCs The View.



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Despite Obama blocking torture pictures, the photos are emerging

In the age of 24/7 cable channels, instant news, twitter, the internet, eventually these photos were going to be leaked and the pictures are now emerging. I won't put any torture pics up, but start looking at one here.

The shocking images of inmates in Iraq and Afghanistan were published just a day after the US president announced plans for a legal battle stop them ever being seen.

They risked provoking renewed hostility in the Middle East as Mr Obama attempts to build bridges with the Islamic world.

He is scheduled to make a major speech in Cairo on June 4 when he will launch his version of a plan to bring peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

One picture showed a prisoner hung up upside down while another showed a naked man smeared in excrement standing in a corridor with a guard standing menacingly in front of him. Another prisoner is handcuffed to the window frame of his cell with underpants pulled over his head.

Others yet to be released reportedly show military guards threatening to sexually assault a detainee with a broomstick and hooded prisoners on transport planes with Playboy magazines opened to pictures of nude women on their laps.

The images emerged from Australia yesterday where they were originally obtained by the channel SBS in 2006 in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal. They were not distributed around the world at the time but are now believed to be among those the president is trying to block.

I wrote that though Obama is trying to block these images, they are going to come out. This is the day and age we live in. Yes, these images are despicable and we should be ashamed of our government under the Bush Administration, for putting our international image on the line, as well as breaking the law. In the end, there must be accountability for what happened and the sooner we deal with this, the better it is taken off the table.

Source

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Making Nancy Pelosi the "boogey woman"

Let's be clear here, this is about who said what, who was where when it was said, and who is lying here in regards to who knew what about "torture".

The White House may not like what Pelosi said yesterday, but one thing for sure, she put many on notice in D.C. She pointedly stated, "...release the briefings....", while former Senator Graham of Florida backed up her claims in regards to the CIA and their truthiness.

As Lawrence O'Donnell stated this morning, "...Let's not pretend we are dealing with the first accusation from the Congress about the CIA lying in these kinds of briefings...."



It is the CIAs job to be professional liars, sorry but it is. Does anyone think this agency will be honest and straight forward with the public? We are the last to know anything of what happens at "the company". Why do you think many at "the company" were worried when Obama was elected? Because of what is happening right now, because they were right smack dab in the middle of it, period.

Now the credibility of Pelosi is in question and this story moves forward on releasing all information and putting it on the table. The Republicans wanted and needed, anything or anyone, to create a boogey man or woman, with Pelosi they have it. And yes, this makes the White House mad, the same White House that was going to release torture pictures only to do a turn around on the matter. So, no one should be surprised at the Republicans backing the CIA, 100%. They must because they have lost the national security argument thanks to the Bush Administration. But backing what the CIA did from the command of the Bush Administration, in the end, does not make it right. Why? Because when, not if, when all this information is put on the table, no one will walk away with clean hands, especially the Republicans, since they were in charge when all this was going on.

And President Obama? He has a fine web to weave, indeed. Next popcorn moment? What the White House will say in regards to Nancy Pelosi's statement on the CIA, yesterday. Oh, while typing this, former Senator Bob Graham was just on MSNBC, again, backing up Pelosi's argument about the CIA and reiterating the meticulous notes he took while in the senate and the truthiness of the CIA.

Cross-posted @ Daily Kos

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Pelosi, Graham: The CIA is lying (Video from Keith Olbermann: Countdown)

Graham says, "CIA got faulty record keeping." Pelosi says, "....release all the briefings." CIA says, "...we stand by our briefings..." Minority Leader Boehner, "....shocked that the CIA mislead anyone!!" I say, "There is a bunch of lying going on."

RELEASE the briefings, memos, pictures and get an independent counsel to sift through this and get final answers. Too much.

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Former Florida Senator Bob Graham backs Nancy Pelosi up in CIA LYING to congress

Bob Graham just appeared on WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show. In addition to repeating earlier reports that he was never briefed on waterboarding, Graham revealed that the first time he asked the CIA when he was briefed on torture, it claimed it had briefed him on two dates when no briefing took place.

I didn't get Graham's exact quotes (and the quotes below are rough approximations), but when asked to respond to Philip Zelikow's assertion that members of Congress from both parties had been briefed on this program, Graham said that when he asked the CIA when he had been briefed on the program, the CIA gave him the dates of four briefings, two in April 2002 and two in September 2002, when they claimed they had briefed him about the program. But after Graham consulted his own records, he pointed out that on two of those dates, he had not attended any briefing. After Graham pointed this out to the CIA, they conceded their own dates were incorrect.

Graham then went on to repeat his claim that he had no recollection of being told about waterboarding Zubaydah or anything else about extreme interrogation.

In addition to repeating his earlier assertion that he would have remembered something that dramatic, Graham contextualized the briefing the CIA gave him--which occurred right in the middle of Graham's complaints about the inaccuracy of the Iraq NIE (the briefing on September 27, 2002 would have shown up just a few days after the British released a White Paper on September 24, 2002 that publicized for the first time the yellocake claim).

Source

I know Obama don't like this, just as I heard Joe Lieberman state, "Who cares about this, it is the past." Well, many Americans do care about this and it has been this reckless behavior of the Bush Administration that put this country in the predicament it is in.

In the end, whether Obama likes it or not, all memos, cia briefings, tapes, etc., need to be put on the table and an independent counsel put together to flesh through it all. Because there is a whole lot of LYING going on here.

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Speaker Nancy Pelosi, The CIA basically LIED to congress on torture (Video and Transcript)

This torture debate needs an independent counsel, it is getting that nasty. Don't forget, the torture debate is a black eye on the Bush Administration and Republicans, the Republicans argument is so what we tortured!!!! Democrats were in on the torture game, too!!!! This is what it is all about and why an independent counsel is being looked upon moreso, day by day.

Transcript

Republican Statement

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Obama's switcheroo on torture pictures (Video)

It is, what it is.



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President Obama: Release the torture pictures

What point does it make at this juncture? If we are going to show transperency, then it has to be all the way. Grant it, the military have their asses on a plate right now, nothing is going well for them. First the torture memos released (verifying torture), then a soilder killing his comrades while mentally imbalanced, now more photos to be released.

I know the generals, admirals, powers that be of the military has pressed Obama not to release these pictures but really what difference does it make now. This is toothpaste out of the tube. The world knows that the United States tortured and had a full blown torture organization going on. I know there are many, who are incensed about this but it is just too late.

The ACLU lawsuit was filed and the ACLU won. Simple as that. Do I want to look at torture pictures? No, but at this point, what is the difference? I agree with McJoan on this one:

It's just as arguable that Al Qaeda and any other terrorist organization will be able to recruit if President Obama doesn't make a clean break with and repudiation of Bush/Cheney policies as it is that these photos will do further damage. It's not like the rest of the world doesn't know the United States tortured at Abu Ghraib, at Guantanamo, and at every other detention facility. And what "national security implications" there could be at this point should have been well hashed out. Importantly, President Obama has ended the policy of torture, and done so very publicly. Thus, further evidence of these formerly used "methods" should no longer relevant to our national security.

The international community already knows we tortured, what they want to know is are we ending it and can they trust the Obama Administration, after being lied to by the Bush Administration. The anger of the Middle East has been there from day one with our entrance into Iraq, what they demand is that we get out and they wanted us gone, yesterday. And the ACLU is correct here:

"It is inconsistent not only with commitments the Obama administration has made to us and to the courts but inconsistent with the promise of transparency that President Obama has repeated so many times," he said.

Jaffer, who has filed suit for the release of these photographs under concerns over civil liberty violations and possible detainee abuse, noted that the Obama White House still had a steep hill to climb in its efforts to suppress the release of the photos. Jaffer has won his case in the district court in New York as well as a three-judge appeals court. The Bush Administration, towards the end of its term, asked the full Second Circuit Appeals Court to review the matter. They refused to do so.

"At this point," Jaffer said, "the burden is on the government because there is a court order that requires them to release these photos. So they are either going to have to seek Supreme Court review or come up with some creative strategy to get yet another hearing below the lower courts."

"These photographs are critical to the historical record so it is very disappointing... that the administration is going to try and suppress them," he added.

This is about shame. Shame from the Bush Administration and it is history, documented history of what our country did, period. There are alot of moving parts here with this torture stuff, but one thing must happen, transperency.

Obama, you promised transperency. You must deliver.

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Damaging testimony against Bush Administration and torture (Video)

Damaging evidence against the Bush Administration, Damning....refutes all of Dick Cheney's claims.

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This is not the time to be complacent, the GOP is trying to change the torture debate (Video)

Joe Scarborough, morning joke or morning joe, is a total ass. Period.

For Scarborough to state that we were less safe on the second day of Obama's presidency is lunacy. morning joke is totally illogical and I am being nice.



How in the hell were we more safe under Bush when he and Cheney knew that there was a very definitive chance of a terrorist attack on the United States, but they did NOTHING about it until AFTER the fact? Read or see Al Rodgers' diary, "Cheney's Legacy."

Joe Scarborough and his verbal viagra is one of the worst on television, but there is more going on here. He continues to not admit water boarding is torture, no biggie on his watch, but is ratcheting up the rhetoric on the democrats knew, too. Let me state this as plainly as possible, if there were democrats who knew (and I believe there were) on the Bush Administration's torture plan, they should be dragged through the mud, too. This does not, again, does not get any of the Bush officials off the hook for breaking the law, period. It makes many people more cynical of politicians and not trust them, and why should we after being LIED to REPEATEDLY by the Bush-Cheney crowd, but this does not take anything away from the torture debate. Torture is wrong. Water boarding is torture. The United States of America does not torture, but we did and broke the law. For all of that, we have paid a heavy price internationally and with 2 wars, it is breaking the backs of this country economically.

morning joke, water boarding is torture. Don't believe it? Why not try it and see if you can sustain? It was these techniques that have killed our image internationally and have broken all Middle East trust. As we all have learned through this, everything cannot be fixed by the point of a gun, especially when we don't have enough troops to point the guns. It is folks like you on television that makes it harder for the public to listen to anything that Republicans have to say.

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Former Colin Powell Aide, UNLOADS on Dick Cheney from Rachel Maddow Show (Video)

Dick Cheney is still talking. Former Chief of Staff, Lawrence Wilkerson to Colin Powell sets the record straight.

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