Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Jon Kyl, runs with such a sweet crowd of clowns ...

Lobbying their business-friendly allies in Congress to take up their cause, the bankers discovered that most of their reliable friends didn't want to be seen in public shilling for the credit card industry. Only four Senate Republicans -- Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Robert Bennett of Utah, John Kyl of Arizona and John Thune of South Dakota -- opposed the bill. One Democrat, Tim Johnson of South Dakota -- where the credit card industry accounts for thousands of jobs -- joined them in drinking the industry Kool-Aid (and taken its campaign contributions) that making the industry responsible would somehow kill jobs. Even Senator Richard Shelby, conservative Alabama Republican, supported the bill.

[emphasis added]


Today's QUOTES:




So, let's "interrogate" the lot of them -- Cheney, Pelosi, Graham, Goss, Shelby, Kit Bond, the CIA briefers, anyone on the Senate and House staffs who may have been privy to these classified hearings. In my view, to fail to use these techniques is a slap in the face to all the fine American military personnel who ever went through the SERE program. As far as I'm concerned, we might as well be spitting on the troops if we don't agree to start using torture on members of the US Government.

As Dick Cheney said, "it's a no-brainer."

--A Modest Proposal by digby, Hullabaloo

What kind of a country commits brutal crimes and then insists that they can't be burdened with disclosure and accountability because they're too busy or because it's too burdensome?
--Distorting public opinion on torture investigations by Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com

The successful hijacking of the torture debate by its proponents obscures the underlying facts, as Kagro makes abundantly clear:

1. Private contractors were conducting torture
2. It was torture for political gain
3. Pollsters should be asking if Americans support using torture to extract false confessions for political purposes, because that's what happened
--I Oppose Torture, and Kagro X Is My Hero by Jane Hamsher quoting Kagro X (David Waldman of CongressMatters), firedoglake.com


No comments: