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« Liberal Outrage: August 2006 | Main | Liberal Outrage: October 2006 »

Liberal Outrage

Spreading Freedom

WaPo:

At the United Nations lectern this week, President Bush hailed the spread of democracy. "From Beirut to Baghdad," he said, "people are making the choice for freedom." Yet even as he spoke, tanks were rolling through the streets of Bangkok as a military coup toppled the elected leader of Thailand, who at that moment was in New York for the U.N. session.

Bush made no mention of the dramatic events on Tuesday and left New York yesterday without ever seeing the deposed prime minister, much less offering any public support for a onetime strong ally of the United States. The president's spokesman later provided a strikingly mild response only after being asked by a reporter, pronouncing the White House "disappointed" by the coup.


By fnord12 | September 25, 2006, 12:45 PM | Liberal Outrage | Link



Let's See How Thin We Can Stretch Them...

...before they break.

Not content with fighting "wars" in Afghanistan and Iraq and threatening to invade Iran, we've now added Pakistan to the list.

Lt Gen. David Richards, who leads the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, has been echoing what President George W. Bush has been saying for some time.

Using the language of a soldier, he claimed to have the mandate to cross into Pakistani territory without informing, leave alone consulting, Islamabad, if he had specific evidence of terrorist whereabouts.

Ofc, if the terrorist is in the U.S. and another sovereign state tried to claim a mandate for coming in without "informing" or "consulting" our government about it, that would be another matter entirely.

I'm no tactician, but if we already don't have enough soldiers, how exactly are we going to manage to invade on yet another front?


By min | September 22, 2006, 9:31 AM | Liberal Outrage | Comments (1)| Link



Who Says They Can't Sink Any Lower?

Injuries civilians incur in combat zones can sometimes qualify them for a medal. Halliburton is offering to help their injured employees get this medal if they sign a release form that indemnifies Halliburton of any responsibility.

This is capitalism at its finest. Talk about ingenuity. Halliburton surely proves that they're not asleep at the wheel. Keep up the good work, guys!


In related muckety muck, the Swift Boaters get sued in Indiana.

The state of Indiana sued the right-wing Economic Freedom Fund today, to stop it from harrassing residents with automated "robo calls" supporting a GOP congressional candidate. The suit, by Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter (R) seeks a preliminary injunction stopping the calls immediately.
...
As we reported last Thursday, Bob Perry, the money man behind the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has put $5 million into a new organization to attack House Democrats. In addition to TV and print ads run in four different districts across the country, the group is behind a slew of robo calls that are in the form of push polls -- phony polls that serve to attack an opponent rather than collect data.

Staci Schneider, Carter's press secretary, said that the group notified the AG last week that they had halted the calls. But it was too late. At least seven Hoosiers filed complaints with the state, according to Schneider. The statute allows for a penalty of up to $5,000 per violation, meaning that the group could be hit with a $35,000 fine, based on the seven complaints, although the AG has not yet decided on the penalty it will seek. A hearing is scheduled for September 27th.


By min | September 19, 2006, 3:33 PM | Liberal Outrage | Link



They Always Take Away The Things I Like

Google's courting the Republicans. That's bad enough considering the Republicans are nothing if not fond of Big Brother tactics and big government. According to TPM, the company they hired is of the extra slimey and shady variety.

This article in Roll Call describes how Google, preeminent search engine and purveyor of fun online gizmos, is courting Republicans in Washington, as part of their efforts to build up a bigger presence in DC.

Fair enough: they can't afford to be completely on the outs with what is at least for now the majority party.

But buried down deep in the article it says they've hired the DCI Group.

If you're a dirty tricks and slimey opps afficionado a chill most certainly just went down your spine.

DCI, if you're not familiar with them, is an interlocking group of companies which is the phony seed bed for most noxious astroturf organizing and general bamboozlement in contemporary politics.

So, who's got a search engine for me? Anyone?


By min | September 14, 2006, 9:23 AM | Liberal Outrage | Link



Hey, Democrats! Are You Even Listening?

Shamelessly stealing from Joshua Micah Marshall:

Every basketball coach will tell you the way to win games is to 'get the other team out of its game, and make them play your game." To a certain extent, even listening to Rove and the Republican Screech Monkeys is a waste of time. Rove & Co. is going to take the lowest of low roads in the next 75 days, accusing every Dem House candidate of being Osama bin Laden's personal valet. The attacks are going to be vile, fraudulent, and personal.

If the Dems "take the bait" -- defend themselves in the conventional way -- they will lose. Why? Because they'll burn their ad dollars playing Rove's game. They will have "localized" the election.

What to do? Stay focused on one and only message -- "You -- the Voters -- have ONE DAY to hold the Bush Administration accountable for what's happened in Iraq, and here at home. ONE DAY -- election day. If you like the way things are going, vote Republican. If you think things need to change, VOTE DEMOCRATIC. Seize the day. It's your very last chance."

We're talking to you bozos. Hillary, Harry, Howard, Barrack, Nancy, the lot of you. Quit listening to your loser advisors. They haven't won you a goddamn thing in all this time. What makes you think they have any clue? Oh, and as i pointed out yesterday, you all really need to stop being a slave to polls.

I really have no hope for any of you, but i felt it was my duty to at least give it a try.


By min | September 12, 2006, 11:14 AM | Liberal Outrage | Link



Poll Tampering

Not content with rigging electronic voting machines, the Republicans are also manipulating poll data.

The owner of DataUSA Inc., a company that conducted political polls for the campaigns of President Bush, Sen. Joe Lieberman and other candidates, pleaded guilty to fraud for making up survey and poll results.
...
According to a federal indictment, Costin told employees to alter poll data, and managers at the company told employees to "talk to cats and dogs" when instructing them to fabricate the surveys.

FBI Special Agent Jeff Rovelli said 50 percent of information compiled by DataUSA and transmitted to Bush's campaign was falsified, the Connecticut Post reported Thursday.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Edward Chang said on several occasions when the company was running up against a deadline to complete a job, results were falsified. Sometimes, the respondent's gender or political affiliation were changed to meet a quota, other times all survey answers were fabricated.

Couple this with the fact the Democrats can't make a single decision without first seeing the poll results. The Republicans are much better strategists who aren't afraid to fight dirty and the Democrats are too stupid to learn from their mistakes.


By min | September 11, 2006, 3:50 PM | Liberal Outrage | Link



CIA Seeking Buy-In on Torture and Secret Prisons

The newest ploy is to go public with the secret detention centers so that it will become more palatable.

"Finally the burden of this program will not rest only on the shoulders of the CIA," said James Pavitt, who headed CIA covert operations when the program was put in place, with White House approval, after Sept. 11, 2001.

Gee, i'm so sympathetic about the pressures you felt about keeping it a secret that you tortured prisoners in secret locations.

"This was a tough world and we were asked to do some tough things," he said, adding that such efforts were always within the law.

Yeah, that happens when you change the law so that what you do stops being illegal.

In the past year, the CIA has studied more closely the effectiveness of harsh interrogation techniques it and other agencies have used and concluded that some of those were worth discarding.

"Harsh" interrogation techniques.

CIA officials have eliminated some of those techniques and, within the last two months, begun to consult for the first time with the full Senate and House intelligence committees about creating a new list of techniques.
...
The idea, said several administration officials, is to get Congress's political buy-in to a program that is fraught with some of the most difficult questions facing the government: how a country steeped in the rule of law should treat suspected terrorists it believes has valuable information.
...
Administration officials said Wednesday that the need for secret CIA prisons continues, but that they will seek legislation immunizing CIA employees from prosecution for anything they may have been asked to do that might now be considered illegal.

At the same time, the administration will ask the intelligence committees to give it guidance to draw up a separate, shorter list of harsh techniques it might still employee under certain circumstances.

The point, said one senior official, "is to make the program more durable" and not "subject to the pendulum swings" of Congress or the president.

Translation: They get Congress involved in making decisions on what's acceptable and what's not and when the shit hits the fan, Congress is just as dirty as the CIA so nobody is likely to get penalized. Good ass-covering strategy.

Prisoners were subjected to harsh interrogation techniques including feigned drowning, extreme isolation, slapping, sleep deprivation, reduced food intake, and light and sound bombardment -- sometimes in combination with each other.

Human rights groups and many international legal experts have said these techniques amount to torture. The administration insists, as Bush did again Wednesday, that it has never authorized or used torture.

Also, they investigated themselves and determined that everything they've done so far was legal and not torture.


By min | September 7, 2006, 3:25 PM | Liberal Outrage | Link



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