Spotted: Aspen Trees, Turning on Roots
Nico Pitney put this YouTube up as a preface to Shep Smith losing it in a later segment. (If you want to see Shep say "We are America, we do not fucking torture" click through.)
But I’m at least as fascinated by Judy Miller admitting she had a tough time getting all the way through the torture memos. "You know it when you see it," she said, referring to torture. Waterboarding someone 183 times, she repeated.
But as Shep points out, "if there was torture, that’s a crime. If there was crime, there were criminals. Who ordered the torture?"
So now, two years after Judy’s dubious testimony got Dick Cheney off scot free after he ordered the outing of CIA spy, she’s demanding information about "Who Why When What, this system came about."
Let’s start with "Who," Judy…
Maybe she hasn’t thought through how this one ends. She claims she doesn’t know who ordered the torture, so that’s possible.
But we’re headed dangerously close to Judy turning on her roots, rather than turning in clusters. Not that I’m complaining, mind you–if Shep Smith and Judy Miller want to make it cool for Republicans to oppose torture, I’m all in favor.
But it is a bit of a biological oddity, this aspen tree turning on its roots.
Heh heh, I figured this might be too tasty for you to pass up.
Though since I’ve put it up I’m wondering whether it’s COndi against Dick and it’s just a big catfight.
But if Judy’s going to turn on Dick, can she please reveal what was said to her, really?
But if Judy’s going to turn on Dick, can she please reveal what was said to her, really?
the conversation would probably go something like this scene in Cape Fear
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..&NR=1
A Dr. Rice v. Dick catfight would be great fun. Let em piss on each other; bring it on!
Simple answers to your last question…..
Looks like Judy’s had a little work done. I didn’t realize there was surgery for the soul, though.
She does look 15 years younger. Maybe it’s just freedom and Oil of Olay.
Yeah, she’s giving Greta Van Sustern a run for the “Worst Plastic Surgery on a Fox” trophy.
And here’s this:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200…..mos_senate
http://tinyurl.com/c2jge4
Having grown up in SW Colorado, I’ve always had a soft spot for quakies. Too bad they have to be associated with the likes of Judy and Libby, et al.
I think there will be lots of rats looking for someway off the sinking ships.
And I think they must be more to come out on renditions and the black sites.
Another thing that I keep expecting is to learn who was operating those black sites; that’s where it seems that Whitehouse is trying to warn us. If those black sites are in Bulgaria, or Angola, or some other place known associated with cruelty, it’s going to be quite a psychic quake.
It’s difficult to tell when we hear Karpinski mention “contractors” just who she means. A few years ago, the Economist had a small blurb about ‘contractors’ hired by Blackwater, who were actually vets of 1980s and 1990s African wars. Now, those were not noted for gentility…
Not to imply that Americans never behave in cruel ways; however, it’s been very hazy trying to figure out who was being paid, in what countries, to conduct torture. So I agree the black sites are probably going to involve some… ‘revelations’.
And I assume that these were off-books, black ops budgets. Which I presume involves money laundering or other financial shenanigans. So maybe some of the ‘rats’ will turn out to be accountants who know how this was all funded.
Per FrankProbst: the Shepherd Smith is jaw-dropping.
go easy on the old broad. she doesn’t have your guns or speed-reading ability.
Wow. Shep Smith sounds like one of us. Just wow.
Agreed. Hearing Judy is one thing…but maybe all that time in jail and the aftermath did have the same effect on her soul as the plastic surgery on her face, who knows. But Shep Smith going off is a real revelation. Speaking of black sites, if Shep Smith turns on Faux News, well that would be some scoop.
I agree. I kept wondering whether Shep Smith had asked permission of his bosses to speak so candidly. I finally concluded that he did, because he kept using the weasel phrase, ‘I am not saying what torture is’ but …
Whoa, that is damning. No wonder Zelikow is showing up everywhere; Condi has to try and cover her butt. I doubt it will work, but she can try.
And the trees all became equal
by hatchet, ax, and saw
Neil Peart
Well said.
It certainly does look like someone’s trying to make Condi take the fall for some of this. The Senate Intelligence Committee talked about Rice, Tenet, Ashcroft, and Gonzales. But Condi was the only one to make the headline.
EW I have a complaint…..
I’m going to have to burn up some of my vacation time just to keep up with this place.
I just don’t have time to read all this stuff; I have to go to “Previous Entries” every night when I come home (1:30am) just to catch up. Then there are the posts with “read 151 Responses” (I can’t just read the post since the responses are every bit as important as the posts).
Don’t you people have real jobs? geeeze
/s
Naww, keep up the great work, everybody here. Lately, with the torture stuff gaining traction, I am starting to have hope for my country again.
next he’s gonna want us to get hair cuts n stuff
technically, that’s a response ABOUT JohnJ, but there ain’t a button for that …
(duckin & runnin)
Naw, then I’d have to cut mine. *g*
Full disclosure:
I am one of them long hairs.
EW and I were having this discussion earlier. I am a lawyer and have been for almost 20 years. I graduated from a good law school, where I was on one of the law reviews. I’ve spent my career primarily in civil litigation. I’ve tried dozens of cases – addressing all sorts of issues – to juries and judges over the years and won the majority, maybe even vast majority, of them. I can write – anyone who hangs here knows that. I live and work in a major metropolitan area (which I will leave unnamed for sake of my own pseudonymity). I am a sole practitioner. I am a good lawyer.
Right now, I have not had appreciable work in about 8 months. I have made gross receipts (before expenses) of under $5,000 – well under $5,000 – so far this year. I have missed seven consecutive mortgage payments. Within the week I have to file an answer to the foreclosure lawsuit seeking to put me out in the street. Happily, I own my car, so if need be I can live there. I have had my credit card turned off for over three months. I had the cable TV turned off before Christmas. What money that came in over the winter went to keeping the heat, light, phone and internet up and running and the dog fed (lest she start eating the furniture).
I answer the want ads. I chase after non-existent job openings. And (just the latest iteration) I watch walking turds like Bill Kristol get piles of money – $250k this time – dumped on their rancid asses so they can spew more of the same kind of propaganda they have in the past. I won’t even compliment his work by calling it a blowjob telling the rich and powerful how wonderful they are – blowjobs are supposed to be enjoyable and reading Kristol is anything but.
Don’t tell me to get a real job – tearing apart the Rethuglican chicanery is about as real as it gets. It just doesn’t pay the bills.
So, if you’re getting paid to work, be glad for it. And don’t make light of it or of those of us who spend too much time on the blogs, because we aren’t getting paid.
Some years ago, I went to Valley Forge. Valley Creek, which runs through the National Park there, is actually a trout stream, though an obscure one. And I love to flyfish. By the way – I have not been able to go fishing at all this year. I cannot afford a license.
Anyway, Valley Creek and Valley Forge are beautiful in that inimitable way that the rolling hills, deciduous trees and old stone buildings of Eastern Pennsylvania are. It’s a real study in green. And then, while standing contemplating both the fishing and the scenery, one remembers that scene was at one time the crucible in which were smelted and refined the values and virtues EW, Bmaz, the commenters, you and I are all trying to defend and express against the thugs who would take this country and the world back to a time of demented absolute monarchs, unalloyed might-makes-right, and fraud as the currency of the realm. And we are trying to raise up the society in which we live and work to better express those values of individual rights being superior to the government, objective justice reigning, honesty over chicanery, and equal protection of fair laws applying to everyone equally.
I won’t take up the mantle or title of being in the same room as the soldiers and families who wintered at Valley Forge – even if one could do that for themselves it would not be the kind of thing I would do for myself because that’s the way I am. But I can say, in some dim way, I can empathize and understand them better. I haven’t had to wrap rags around my feet against the snow. My little dwelling was proof against the winter storms in ways theirs were not. But I can, like they did, look at the cozy cossetting of the forces arrayed against them in support of injustice – the wingnut welfare and lush think-tank jobs of today the rough equivalent of the warm taverns and houses of Philadelphia then – and, in a way, be glad I’m out here in the cold. Because that warmth has a price I’m not willing to pay.
Why dontcha throw some coin from that full-time real job of yours to support the fund Jane’s set up so Marcy can do this full-time?
Please copy and make your 24 an Oxdown. A beautiful piece of writing. Thank you.
Oh, scribe. What about unemployment money? Take your share of the stimulus plan. You’ve certainly earned it.
The self-employed do not get unemployment compensation. AFAIK.
Unless you’ve been paying unemployment taxes for yourself through a corporation…
I started laughing while Shep was still making intros in that video. “Conservative-leaning think tank” — LEANING??? Please!!
Are they rehabbing Judy Blew-lies because she’s the backup for what didn’t happen during March 2003 with KSM, I wonder? I speculated that days ago, that Judy was the Plan B to make sure there was intel from Iraq on WMD if they couldn’t get it out of KSM.
Scribe – Couple of thoughts. I think you probably got the wrong impression from JohnJ. As i recall, he was laid off from a very good job a while back and was in pretty dark straits for a while; finally landing a job at which he is severely underemployed and has to work long hours into the night. It is, as you say, better than not working, but I think JohnJ might be a lot closer to your point of view than you realize. It may not have come across in that one comment like that; but I don’t think he meant it as you took it.
Secondly, I can relate to your situation some. It is very hard out here as well. I have probably done over a hundred jury trials as lead or sole counsel. Inexplicably good success rate (it ain’t all me, lotta sheer luck I think). Probably I have a few more because I did a fair amount of criminal. At any rate I now practice on my own (having gotten prematurely cocky as to how well i was off financially and walked away from my firm) and while not in any danger of sinking, the fear of being one thin step away from such disaster is pretty disconcerting. I know a lot of very good lawyers in the same position. For what it is worth, it is not just you. You have my sincerest positive thoughts and best wishes.
Thanks bmaz.
Our posts crossed. I was very upset to have offended a great contributor like scribe when I was actually trying to give a snarky compliment to all the people who can make the time to write here.
Scribe, keep up the good work. We really appreciate what you do here.
Wow, that’s interesting. A friend’s friend was talking about how jazzed the Washington State ABA Annual dinner was last year. Business is down, and evidently more people are going solo — but this person happened to sit at the table with John McKay (former USAG, fired by Rove/Bush/Gonzo). And from what I could gather, the attorneys were more energized than this person — who has attended these dinners for over 20 years — can ever recall. Because after all the hassles and draining management issues, yadda, yadda, they were all feeling like their work has a purpose that in the past was taken for granted. But now, they’ve really seen how important it is — and although they always knew how important judicial and prosecuting attorney appointments are, now that more people catch on to why the justice system is so important in American life they were feeling energized.
JohnJ – always a delight to ’see’ you! FWIW, it sure is looking like the FBI is going to come out of this with integrity; I hope that’s how it will turn out. As for the hair… pfffftttt: I think a lot of software engineers and lefty bloggers probably have the same coif as Ben Franklin, Thos Jefferson, and some of those other Founders ;-))
Well, there are some positives. With the staff and associate freezes and cutbacks at the big firms, I have noticed senior level partners actually having to work a little more instead of just sitting back like rainmakers.
Wait wait wait
That was all snark folks!
I am very lucky to have a job right now at half my original pay moving down from engineering to a production job.
I have been stuck living with 4 of us in a motel room for almost a year since I can’t get up enough cash to move out, I know what it’s like.
I am sorry if I struck a nerve; it was actually meant to be a compliment to those who can write all this stuff like all you do. You all here give me hope that we may get our country back.
And scribe, I consider you and Mary and everyone else to be every bit as important here as EW and bmaz.
Again, sorry if I offended you. That was not my intention.
Thanks for that. Wow.
You’re an inspiration.
I was just kicking myself for spending too much time here this week, but that put why I’m here in perspective.
And since it’s ‘true confessions’ thread, I once had an accident that required extensive convalescence, including having to learn to sit up, learning to reach, and learning to walk again. If my personal experience is any barometer, it’s not realistic to expect that putting someone into a state of pain where coherent thought is nearly impossible will produce good information. It produces confusion; it is like entering a state of incoherence. I had to (mentally) completely re-assemble the chronology of specific events because they’d shattered, almost in the same way that a window glass is smashed into shards, or a 1,000 puzzle pieces are strewn and you have to figure out how they go back together again. (That’s why I personally view information from a torture session to be highly suspect and unreliable.)
So I’ll keep chewing freep’s ass to stay in shape, along with everyone here. Because if I hadn’t been in excellent condition, I would not have survived my ordeal.
There are bad people who are angry with ‘America’ and ‘Americans’, but turning ourselves into them is not any sort of sane path to take.
Healing takes time, but I also know that with perseverence, persistence, and faith it is possible. But the other thing about it is that you lose all patience for bullshit — unless it’s on a Trash Talk thread or in one of Neil’s video links ;-))
I have to admit that I didn’t recognize Judith Miller —- appearance or attitude. She was all ‘freshened up’ and conciliatory. It is, I have to admit, kind of fun to watch these punks go all over each other. I just hope some real truth and justice comes out of all the CYA nonsense.
I see here the fault lines that are forming within the Republican party. On one side is the pro-torture Jack Bauer fantasizers, who will become the Woolly Mammoths and Saber-tooth Tigers of the Republican Party. On the other side are the conservatives who actually care about the rule of law and the Constitution, like Bruce Fein, Bob Barr, John Dean and others. It is around them that the new Republican Party will form. It will take a while for them to find identifiable leaders who poll well, but they will find them. Maybe John McCain will find what’s left of his soul and become the elder statesman of that branch. This will take a few years to shake out, but the 2010 elections will be the Big Test for the new Republican Moderates. They may find a few who can defeat Blue Dog Democrats, and that may not be a bad thing.
I think Democrats like Sheldon Whitehouse can see this happening, and that is why they are moving cautiously. Sooner or later, the Republican Just Say No caucus is going to start falling apart. I’d say sometime within the next 3-6 months.
Sarah Palin might even try to re-brand herself, if she’s smart enough to see that the shrinking base of angry White Republican zealots is not a good foundation for her aspirations.
Bob in HI
The Rachel Maddow show tonight was fantastic. She connects the dots right back to the White House, with Ron Suskind. And so was Olberman.
Also interesting: Mueller saw what was coming and took the FBI out of the whole thing.
The tide has really turned. And Obama has not yet been in office 100 days.
Bob in HI
Yep, and even better, he provides us ammo for our arguments with the “torture is legal because it works” proclaimers. From this morning’s NYT:
From above linked NYT article:
They are apparently alluding to this vital information. (From KSM’s CSRT — see pp 18-19):
The JFK, RFK and MLK assassinations were probably admitted to, but rejected for the sake of appearences.
Hey! What about the gatorade bombing plan? I happened to be at Heathrow on Aug. 12th, 2006, and had to throw everything (including the frontpack I bought in Florence) in the trash. And not even a mention?
The was at least one redaction in that part of the CSRT transcript — that might have been it.
“They did work. They kept us safe for seven years.”
It depends on who ‘us’ is. They kept Bush & Cheney safe for seven years. Not working nowadays, though. Elections do have consequences.
Every time I see Mueller’s name, I think “hospital showdown”.
Hey, Cliff, can we waterboard your wife and children? Can we throw them up against a wall? Use extended sensory or sleep deprivition? Seriously, people who say this isn’t torture need to sign up their families for whatever activities that they don’t consider to be torture.
Experienced interrogators say that this program was originally designed by the Chinese Communists to obtain FALSE confessions. False confessions is the goal of these procedures.
Loo Hoo @3
Oh, I remember when I bumped into Judy in the hallway of Prettyman. I was struck by how well preserved she is.
“Oh, I remember when I bumped into Judy in the hallway of Prettyman. I was struck by how well preserved she is.”
yes, the devil makes deals like that all the time, as Dr. Faust can tell you.
That said, from what i just watched, Judy didn’t look like a happy camper, and she didn’t seem to have the smug self-satisfaction I’ve come to associate with her [now very face-lifted] face. Perhaps she WILL turn on Deadeye Dick. One can certainly hope.
That connection at the “roots” came out immediately upon Judy opening her mouth. She made it abundantly clear who is behind the strategy both to send Cliff May out in defense of torture (”these are not prisoners of war”), and to distance Israel from the strategy and conversation.
Her very first line was something to the effect of “Israel has as its national policy not to torture.” You want to know whose payroll she’s been on for years, there’s your answer. You want to know where the strategies and techniques for the program originated, look no further than Israel. Ask Karen Kwiatkowski how many Israeli Generals came and went from the Pentagon in the lead up to the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and whether or not it was Israeli strategy driving EVERYTHING.
Remember images of Israeli flags being rubbed in the faces of Muslim prisoners? Who in the hell do you think devised that as a strategy? It sure as well was not anyone in an American uniform.
The Roots of the torture program, just like the Roots of the false intelligence program, the Roots of the fake Niger memo, and quite possibly, the Roots of 9/11 itself, emanate from Israel. Listen carefully as their talking head operatives try to walk Israel back from this torture program. With every denial of their involvement, they dig the hole deeper.
Roots = Israel.
I guess I am with plunger on this. Why did Judy even have to bring Israel into her response?
And the AIPAC case is imploding the same week?
I know, tin foil…
But, but wait: Lieberman is now opposing waterboarding loudly.
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/…..t-opposed/
As much as I know this is a giant turnaround for the Fixed News network…Shepard Smith is still saying: “I’m not saying what it (torture) is”…and “…as soon as my country does it I want off the train”. I didn’y here him say: “America did torture.”
Why do we have to know who ordered it before we know we did it? If we were a confidant, just and fully democratic nation all of those Administration beaurocrats, CIA people and in country GI Joes and Janes would have repelled against torture orders!
Our enduring nation’s progress toward democracy is a long meandering march.
I suppose the America he wants off of would at this point be Obama’s America rather than Bush’s America. Meaning, might this represent the launch of a new excuse meme for the Teabaggers and far right militias?
judy turning on those roots is like that ol song, the answer is blowin in the wind, it’s hard to figure out
judy is a tool of cheney’s so it is pretty peculiar she is first up turning on those roots
I think that’s going to be a pretty interesting fight, cheney’s torture tour did little to change the metric and he is seething
I saw rove go on d for cheney the other night too
I am wondering how long bush’s “good will” toward the next president is going to last, I don’t think he realizes obama just destroyed any chance at all for a revision of the bush years in that library of his
Can it be that the world is really changing? A Fox News anchor slamming his fist on the desk about torture and cursing it because of what it does to America?
I agree with Bob that a new wing of the former wingers is likely to form around the Constitution-lovers, but I doubt Palin will join them. She gets her own jollies too much from blathering the really outrageous stuff–I just don’t think she can go the serious route and have any credibility or ability.
I second klynn’s suggestion for scribe to move those thoughts to an Oxdown. Thank you, scribe, for what you do. Maybe someday soon your services could be used in drawing up briefs in the many torture trials.
Wouldn’t that be perfect for scribe?
And congrats to you for putting the torture for Iraq/al Queda connection together. That was a forehead-slapper, and you were so RIGHT!
Palin shoots animals from a helicopter…buys necessary silk underware for her husband with someone else’s $…..why would she question torture? or anything else criminal, unethical. immoral?
Not to go off topic here…EW I am a bit perplexed as to what is going on with GM and Chrysler. There have been at least three different offers between them and the government and/or the banksters since Monday and the Cerberus response has been pretty interesting too. All the torture news has been a distraction from another “war” going on right now.
I ”ditto” Loo Hoo.
Thank you JimWhite.
As I recall, Judy thought she had a ‘provisional’ security clearance – granted to her through non-standard means – from her ‘work’ with MET Team Alpha, when she was racing around Iraq to find the WMDs, as the New York Times’ A1 Cut-out reporter for Cheney and Bush.
During the Libby Trial, her testimony seemed circumscribed around the fact that she thought she still retained the ’security clearance’ when she got back from Iraq in early June ‘03. Hence her dealings with Scooter, at least in her mind and probably his, too, had an element of ‘National Security’ secrecy about them.
My guess is that she withheld the information regarding her June 23 Meeting with Libby from Fitzgerald, at first – storing her notebooks at home – because she was told to(?) as a matter of National Security. Even though it seems pretty clear, to me at least, that she was Receiving Classified Information regarding Valerie Plame Wilson from Libby – divulging CIA Employment would only be done on a Need To Know basis – which is unimaginable in this case. She did not use ‘teh google’, like Novak claimed he did, to identify Plame Wilson – she got it directly from Libby.
Therefore, imvho, the purpose of the June Meeting was for Libby to send a message from Cheney to give a ‘heads-up’ to Miller that Plame Wilson was problematic for the smearing of Joe Wilson.
Judy then sat on her information and didn’t publish, which makes me believe she was actually engaged in information passing to her ‘handlers’ – not just the New York Times, but more than likely also Israel.
Imho, nobody went further to discredit the Journalism Profession than Judy “We were fucking right!” Miller whoring-out her pen to advance the BushCo Narrative and Coordinate Information Passing to ‘allies.’
She didn’t go to jail for the sake of Journalistic Integrity, imvho, she went to jail because she was scared silly that she had been caught, and didn’t want to say ‘the wrong thing’ – until she got the ‘all clear’ from Libby in his Aspens Note.
There’s one other little niggling problem with Judy speaking out about torture.
I still can’t find a copy of original Attytood post on this topic, has vaporized in all possible ways making the topic even more suspect than I thought when I first read it years ago.
But Judy has likely SEEN torture, been present during a session. When she says you know it when you see it, one can only wonder why she’s talking about it NOW.
It’s pretty ironic that Judy was Fitzgerald’s “hey, what abusive questioning?” witness in his Saleh case. What with all her crediblity and all.
When you look at her involvement in the charities cases (and so the interviews of people like al-Faruq tied to those cases) and the rest of her background, it’s a pretty big stretch that Judy is so empty-headed valley girlish she just had no clue.
24 -{{{{{{Scribe}}}}}}} I hope things crack loose soon. You write beautifully, even in off the cuff comments.
With all you have on your plate, it’s an amazing thing that you can give a damn about much else that is going on in the world. It’s a very special person who can deal with all you have to deal with and still manage to share here.
Now there is an example of diverse opinions on the “fair and balanced” Faux spin show . Judy “I was fucking right” Miller and Cliff May. Heaven help us
Judy Miller is drowing in the deaths of Americans and Iraqi people…but she is a psychopath so she does not even know or care. Miller should be in prison for life
Christ All Mighty it is “Orweillian” to hear Judy “I was fucking right” Miller call torture Orweillian. This woman is in a very big way responsible for hundreds of thousands of dead. She is insane
Judith Miller is on a list of folks that should be tried for treason and then hung. Shep Smith on the other hand seems really genuine. I watched him during Katrina and he was in tears for the folks left on the bridge. He is from New Orleans. I don’t know about any other stories that he has reported on since I don’t watch Fox news unless forced to do so.
JohnJ, Bmaz, and everyone else:
I wasn’t offended by anything anyone had said, so don’t take it that way. I took it in the sense that I’ve heard and said any number of times, from a rainy mudhole in my Army days, to construction sites, to late-night re-doing the assembly of an appeal’s appendix that the copy guys f’d up (you know, when they hand it over to you in a box sealed with packing tape that there has to be something wrong with it…). Sarcasm, snark, foxhole-sharing cigarette-bumming cold realism.
Rather, I am more befuddled by the definitive, seeming cosmic injustice that allows some hedge fund guy to rake in millions by destroying companies and putting thousands out of work, so they can drop $10k or so on a Saturday brunch (voted “Best Bacchanal” in a survey!). I am upset that people like Kristol get these unmerited dumps of cash for spewing more of their logorrhea into the public square.
And don’t even think about getting me started on the pasty doughboys of the Kagan family of “military experts”.
In the course of my travels, I’ve known some serious, longtime funders of wingnuttery. The ones I had occasion to meet were serious people, responsible people, and sober people. They were wrong in many, if not most of their ideas – blinded by partisanship, most of the time – but they were sincere.
It’s the whole take a crap on your rug and then rub your nose in it school of wingnuttery that really drives me nuts.
That, and trying to scare up enough work to keep the wolf away.
The joke where ever I’ve worked is “when I get a real job….”
Another disgusting thing is when a friend of mine, a Naval Architect that designs luxury yachts, tells me his business actually GOES UP in these bad times. (And the wonderful Fl Gov is giving all those poor buyers a discount on the sales tax on those as we speak.)
That’s the same argument I have made when questioned about it for years.
I hope we are on the cusp of a paradigm shift, but I don’t believe it can happen unless people see clearly what’s underlying so much of the deception and inequitable functions.
But then, I’m fundamentally an environmentalist.
Some things have graphs with sharp peaks, or huge bursts and then die out quickly (like fruit fly populations). They’re inherently bubbles.
If we can figure out what actually happened, it’s fixable.
But the people who have accumulated wealth through ‘finance’ (using money to make money) are going to fight tooth and nail to keep things hidden and out of sight. Because I’m increasingly convinced — watching the ShrillMeter rise — that in their hearts they are genuinely flipped out about losing their status and wealth. They’ve taken it for granted for so long (at least, those that I know) that it honestly hasn’t occurred to them that they didn’t ‘earn’ it through their own brains and labor, and that teaching a child to read, or performing a surgery, or fixing an engine, has tremendous value.
But they’re not at all used to being questioned, so it could be quite a ride.
Relax, no one is going to be prosecuted.
If they are, very high on my list would be the Congressmen and women who heard all the details and let it happen. To me, they authorized the use of the techniques as much as anyone else. They gave it a very important OK and for sure could have stopped it. They could have cut funding or any one of a number of actions. They didn’t.
However, much as I feel Nancy Pelosi deserves to be wearing an orange suit and much as I might like to see it, she and Rockefeller, HOestra, Shelby, Bybee, Yoo, et al, will never see a court room.
if they heard it and allowed it to happen you are right they should be “prosecuted” Bet there are no arguments against that point