WSJ “Opinion Journal” today:
“Democrats and Cannibals
The Kos kids try but fail to devour party moderates.”
BY KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL Friday, August 17, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
And what else do we know ’bout good ol’ Henry Cuellar?  Read more 

[Welcome, Alternate Brain readers! Welcome Wonkette readers!]

It’s no secret Mitt Romney advocated doubling the size of Guantanamo’s torture camp, nor that he tied his dog to the roof of his car for a twelve hour drive [until a “brown liquid” flowed down the back window—Lambert]. But he’s also tight with Mel Sembler in Florida (Romney press release), and if that name, Mel Sembler, sounds familiar, it’s cause he’s the guy who used to run Straight, Inc., the place teens and addicts were sent for behavior modification, by torture.  Read more 

Today’s report from the Council of Europe’s investigator, former Swiss prosecutor Dick Marty, can be found here, along with a timeline of the investigation, and supporting documentation in the form of flight logs for the “extraordinary renditions” to and from the prisons.

Here are some excerpts from the report, which is long, detailed, and cries out for the kind of analysis we’re doing on Justice Department email:

What was previously just a set of allegations is now proven: large numbers of people have been abducted from various locations across the world and transferred to countries where they have been persecuted and where it is known that torture is common practice. Others have been held in arbitrary detention, without any precise charges levelled against them and without any judicial oversight – denied the possibility of defending themselves. Still others have simply disappeared for indefinite periods and have been held in secret prisons, including in member states of the Council of Europe, the existence and operations of which have been concealed ever since.

Estimates of the numbers held range from 8,000 to 35,000, with Colin Powell’s chief-of-staff Lawrence Wilkerson’s estimate at the high end.

Some individuals were kept in secret detention centres for periods of several years, where they were subjected to degrading treatment and so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” (essentially a euphemism for a kind of torture), in the name of gathering information, however unsound, which the United States claims has protected our common security. Elsewhere, others have been transferred thousands of miles into prisons whose locations they may never know, interrogated ceaselessly, physically and psychologically abused, before being released because they were plainly not the people being sought.

And the European governments are resisting accountability just as much as Bush does, what a surprise:

Some European governments have obstructed the search for the truth and are continuing to do so by invoking the concept of “state secrets”. Secrecy is invoked so as not to provide explanations to parliamentary bodies or to prevent judicial authorities from establishing the facts and prosecuting those guilty of offences [Sound familiar?]. This criticism applies to Germany and Italy, in particular. It is striking to note
that state secrets are invoked on grounds almost identical to those advanced by the authorities in the Russian Federation in its crackdown on scientists, journalists and lawyers, many of whom have been prosecuted and sentenced for alleged acts of espionage.

And now we know for sure the countries where the torture camps were:  Read more 

Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re thinking: “Another one?” But this one really is a Clusterfuck—work with me here. From McClatchy, a little detail about life in the Imperial City:

On May 3, the embassy warned Green Zone residents to keep outdoor travel to a minimum and “remain within a hardened structure to the maximum extent possible and strictly avoid congregating outdoors.” The message ordered individuals “whose place of duty is outside a hardened structure or traveling a substantial distance outdoors” to wear bulletproof vests and helmets “until further notice.”

Congregating in one place? Why would that be a problem?  Read more 

Doctors have diagnosed a blood clot in Vice President Dick Cheney’s lower left leg, AP reports.

“Vice President Dick Cheney made a visit to the hospital today after experiencing what his office called some ’discomfort’ following his recent trip overseas,” the Associated Press reports. “A statement from cheney’s office said an ultrasound revealed a deep venous thrombosis (DVT) or ’blood clot’ in his left lower leg and added his doctors will treat him with blood thinning medication for several months.”  Read more 

[I’m saying “cities” instead of “the country,” because the cities are the part of the country that’s in danger. All the ports are in danger from loose nukes and dirty bombs, and nobody’s going to lob a nuclear weapon into some Republican stronghold like the middle of Wyoming.]

McClatchy:

Although the Bush administration has warned repeatedly about the threat of a terrorist nuclear attack [especially during election campaigns] and spent more than $300 billion to protect the homeland [or, in the original German, Heimat], the government remains ill-prepared to respond to a nuclear catastrophe.

Katrina all over again. Except worse, of course. Whoopsie! This is McClatchy, not Pravda on the Potomac or Izvestia on the Hudson, so I don’t have to ram the obvious conclusion home: the reporter does it all by themselves:

Experts and government documents suggest that, absent a major preparedness push, the U.S. response to a mushroom cloud could be worse than the debacle after Hurricane Katrina, possibly contributing to civil disorder and costing thousands of lives.

Well, shit. Of course there’s going to be civil disorder—that’s why Bush has made it easier to Federalize the National Guard! The Pentagon’s view:  Read more 

If I may take a fraction of your precious attention—consumed as your attention must be by the latest extremely accurate coverage of the late, great Anna Nicole Smith’s hatred of Catholics—I’d like to talk about torture. Vanity Fair:

The whole purpose of setting up Guantánamo Bay is for torture. Why do this? Because you want to escape the rule of law. There is only one thing that you want to escape the rule of law to do, and that is to question people coercively—what some people call torture. Guantánamo and the military commissions are implements for breaking the law. Why build a prison here when there are plenty of prisons in Nebraska? Why is it, when we see photos of Abu Ghraib, we think that it is “exporting Guantánamo”? That it is the “Guantánamo method”? —Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift to the author, January 2007.

Duh.  Read more 

No, wait, this is a new one:

Harassing robocalls from Republicans purporting to be from Democrats. Fucking Republican shape-shifing operatives.

As Josh quotes a Shrill reader, these guys really are evil:  Read more 

[See UPDATE below the fold.]

As the Bush administration in the person of Dick “Dick” Cheney yet again uses its standard technique of conveying, through nods and winks, that torture is A Good Thing, and winger operatives helpfully explain the technique to any “young professionals” who want to follow along at home, the horror—Well, let’s just go ahead and use the right word, even if it sounds Shrill—evil done at Abu Ghraib will live on after us for a long, long time. Greg Mitchell:

[US District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein] ruled today that graphic pictures of detainee abuse at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison must be released over government claims that they could damage America’s image. Last year a Republican senator conceded that they contained scenes of “rape and murder” and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said they included acts that were “blatantly sadistic.”

(And to think George Felix Allen (R-Severed Deer’s Head) is slamming Jim Webb about a Fuck-ing book.)

Gee, I don’t remember any Abu Ghraib prosecutions or convictions for rape and murder. And you’d think, with videotaped evidence, convictions would be pretty easy to get. Readers, am I having a senior moment, or did the rapists and murderers skate?  Read more