This video is from 2001. The Republican party is so worthless these days that Republicans themselves don’t want to be a part of it. Ex-Republican Arlen Specter officially switched parties today (he was a Democrat in the 1960’s) but that doesn’t mean his votes will change. To prove it, he said he is (inexplicably) against the approval of the nomination of Dawn Johnson for OLC too. But Specter has generally been a moderate during his 29 years in the Senate. Now we just need Norm Coleman to wake up to reality and we’ll have 60 Democrats in the Senate. Not that that means they all have the votes that I like, but they are closer than the party of Palin and Bush.
Marjorie Cohn | Torture Used to Link Saddam With 9/11
“It turns out that high Bush officials put heavy pressure on Pentagon interrogators to get Mohammed and Zubaydah to reveal a link between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 hijackers, in order to justify Bush’s illegal and unnecessary invasion of Iraq in 2003. That link was never established.” That’s because it never existed. I can’t decide of members of the Bush administration should be stripped of their citizenship for torture and illegal war based on lies, or just deported to Spain where they can be tried for their crimes, or maybe both.
Swine Flu Could Cause Pandemic, WHO Says
Rob Stein, The Washington Post: “The swine flu virus that is responsible for an outbreak in Mexico and has been detected in the southwestern United States has ‘pandemic potential,’ a top international health official warned today. ‘It has pandemic potential,’ Margaret Chan, the director-general of the World Health Organization, told reporters during a telephone briefing. ‘It is infecting people.’” And… it might not reach that point too. In other words, we don’t know. How many people die from lack of good health care every year? Now that’s a pandemic.
“Plenty of opportunities” from Arctic thaw – Norway.
A thaw of Arctic ice will open “plenty of opportunities” in oil and gas exploration and shipping even though the overall impact of global warming will be damaging for the region, Norway’s Foreign Minister said.
I call that missing the point, along with some major irony apparently lost on Norwegians.
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Events in Pakistan, Afghanistan Overtake Obama’s New Strategy
Nancy A. Youssef and Jonathan S. Landay, McClatchy Newspapers: “Events in Pakistan and Afghanistan are already overtaking the Obama administration’s month-old strategy for the two countries, and it needs to be modified even before it’s been implemented, US officials and experts said this week. As Islamic militants continue their advance in Pakistan and press their attacks on overstretched US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, many US officials fear that the administration is running out of time.”
Sri Lanka War Toll Near 6,500, UN Report Says
David Pallister, Gethin Chamberlain and Agencies, The Guardian UK: “The United Nations says nearly 6,500 civilians have been killed and 14,000 wounded in fighting in Sri Lanka over the last three months, according to a UN document circulated among diplomatic missions. Two UN officials privately confirmed the figures to the Guardian today. At least 2,000 people are understood to have been killed in the last month but the death toll does not include all of those killed in this week’s intense fighting. The UN has declined to publicly release its casualty figures.”
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