The ATF denies targeting mentally disabled people to use in sting operations. It was totally random that they just happened across them in 6 different cities.

Makes me wonder if they also recruited these folks to design operation Fast & Furious.

Speaking of out-of-control federal agencies, somebody's about to get audited.

In case you were wondering, Bob Costas is still a jagoff.

“Let’s make a bet, you and me. Let’s say over the next five years — we’ll do a Google search, we’ll have an independent party monitor it — you keep track of how many good and constructive things are associated with athletes having a gun, and I’ll keep track of all the tragedies and criminality and folly. And let’s see who comes out ahead or behind as the case may be. These things are directly connected.”

So he's just saying athletes shouldn't have guns? Because as I recall his diatribes, they were directed at "America's gun culture", including people foolish enough to want a fighting chance against an armed assailant by carrying a concealed firearm. Let's bet on that.

Posted by: andy at 04:09 AM | Comments (221)
Post contains 202 words, total size 2 kb.

Another Random Act of Bill Murray-ness

In recent years a whole genre of stories of Bill Murray's random acts of friendliness has sprung up on the internet. Apparently Bill just enjoys making people's days and giving them a thrill as well as a good story to tell others. Assuming anyone will ever believe it.

Some of these stories go back to the 70s and 80s so this seems to be part of his nature rather than anything new. Because you never know when Bill might show up and join your kickball game, serve drinks at a random bar, do your dishes after a party, or sing karaoke with you for four hours.

And this weekend he helped give a wounded Marine a night he won't forget:

Over the weekend, we traveled to St. Augustine, Florida, for Bill's annual Murray Bros. Caddyshack Charity Golf Tournament when I noticed a Random Act of Murray happen right in front of me.

Earlier in the evening, Bill and his brothers had honored Brandon Long, a wounded veteran from our home town of Ft. Wayne, Indiana. The Marine lost both his legs above the knee in an IED accident in Afghanistan. I met Brandon and he was beyond nice. The young hero is always smiling. The Murray event is so whimsical your cheeks hurt from the laughter.

Later in the evening, the tables cleared as the band started. The crowd hit the dance floor. I saw Brandon sitting by himself at a table watching everybody dance when, out of nowhere, appears Bill Murray. "Looks like you could use some company?" And just like that, Bill disappeared again. A minute later Bill returns with a beautiful girl and introduced her to Brandon. But Bill didn't stop there, "I'll be right back."

Once again Bill vanished into the crowd and returned with another gorgeous woman. and another. and another. and another.. until Brandon was surrounded by beautiful girls. Bill took photos with everybody and cracked jokes, everybody enjoyed the moment.

Oh and here are some more interesting facts about Bill Murray.

He never had an agent or manager, and he still doesn't today. You track down Bill on the phone, or his friend's answering machine, and forge a type of 'gentleman's agreement'. Then you cross your fingers that he shows up. In the case of Meatballs, nobody knew if he'd show up or not. Bill arrived on the first day of filming with an entire wardrobe of Hawaiian shirts (all of which he owned). These shirts would become his wardrobe for the entire movie.

Bill Murray paid for the helicopter scene in Rushmore. How the helicopter scene in Max's Vietnam War-themed play cost $25,000, I have no idea, but it did and Disney didn't want to front the cost for it. Bill knew it was important to the script. Being the awesome human being that he is, Murray wrote Anderson a check to cover the costs. This story gets even more awesome when you find out Bill Murray was only paid $9,000 for doing the entire film. Bill basically paid $16,000 to be in the film.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:28 PM | Comments (660)
Post contains 1309 words, total size 15 kb.

• Charles Koch Fights Back
  
• Actual Headline "Dems Don't Spike Ball On Obamacare."
  
• Another Shooting At Fort Hood
  
• The Weapons Of The Leland Yee Scandal
  
• The GM Scandal Is Worse Than You Think
  
• Obamacare And How The Democrats Lost The Senior Citizen Vote
  
• Why The GOP Could Control Congress For A Long Time
  
• Police Confront Rising Number Of Mentally Ill Suspects
  
• Obama To Refocus On The Important Issues
  
• Obamacare's Mission Accomplished Moment
  
• It's Time To Reclaim Classical Liberalism
  
• Scott Brown To Make NH Senate Bid Official
  
• Let's Face It, If You Are A Newspaper Political Cartoonist Then You've Failed At Life
  
• The Chocolate Rations Are Being Increased From 30mg to 20mg
  
• Something To Keep In Mind As Liberals Freak Out Over The SCOTUS Decision
  
• We Should Invite This Man As A Guest Of Honor To The Next Moron Meetup
  

Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:00 AM | Comments (615)
Post contains 150 words, total size 3 kb.

"Shelter in place," residents are advised.

An early description just came over the transom: White male armed with a .45, gray Toyota. As you know, these early reports are almost always wrong.

I have no idea if this is connected at all, but authorities have been searching for an ex-army recruit who revealed a desire to commit a Fort Hood-style attack against US servicemen.

It could be that he chose to do so at Fort Hood.

But there is no evidence, apart from the coincidence in timing, to link these stories.

Update: Commenters are telling me the Booker guy, who was wanted in connection with a possible plot to stage a Fort Hood style shooting, was caught yesterday and is in a mental health facility.

One quotes this report:

John Thomas Booker, 19, of Topeka, Kan. enlisted in the Army in February and was due to report for basic training on April 7. But the FBI interviewed him in March and alerted the Army, which formally discharged him last week. He is now in an undisclosed mental health facility, sources told FoxNews.com.

My Pet Jawa links a similar report.

However, on the live feed from KCEN below, they keep saying that guy is still wanted.

More details about Booker here.

“On 20 March 2014, the Kansas City Division FBI became aware of an individual named BOOKER aka Muhammad Abdullah Hassan who had publicly stated his intention to commit jihad, bidding farewell to his friends and making comments indicating his jihad was imminent. BOOKER had been recruited by the US Army in Kansas City, Mo., in February 2014 and was scheduled to report for Basic Training on 7 April 2014. Kansas City Division Agents interviewed BOOKER on 20 March 2014.”

Again, while KCEN is also noting the coincidence of timing, they too are saying there is no reason, apart from timing, to connect Booker to this shooting.

I don't know if he's in the mental hospital or not.

Maybe the KCEN people are talking about another guy that hasn't been named yet. I got the sense they meant Booker/Hassan, but I don't know that.

There are a couple of late reports:

CNN says there are two shooters. One is in custody. At least one person is dead.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 02:20 PM | Comments (1016)
Post contains 395 words, total size 3 kb.

I'm bored of superhero movies myself -- I still watch 'em, mind you, but not with any particular excitement about it -- but the new Captain America is getting 88% "fresh" ratings at Rotten Tomatoes, and quite a few reviewers claiming it's the best Marvel movie either since Iron Man 1, or the Avengers. Or maybe it's the best Marvel movie ever. Or the best superhero movie ever.

Eh, I doubt that. But still, it sounds like it's not awful (like Man of Steel) or competent-but-forgettable (like Thor: The Dark World).

It's done boffo box office in its early overseas opening. ("Boffo" is an industry term meaning "20% above expectations.")

I'll probably see it. I didn't bother with Iron Man 3 or Thor 2, but this one interests me. I'll let you know.

I've had this link open all week and it's time to close it. Not a big thing, but in this Washington Post blog entry on France's so-called Tea Party, the writer claims this:

Steeped in conservative rage and tasting of grass roots, a political backlash has traditional politicians and the news media asking the once-unthinkable: Is le tea party brewing in France?

If it were, it would be populated by the likes of Catherine Mas-Mezeran, a Parisian mother of three who wrinkles her nose at the mention of President François Hollande. She calls him “the Socialist,” which, technically, he is. But if President Obama had the birthers, Hollande now has the baptismists.

The head of the Parti Socialist, and a lifelong socialist (when he wasn't a communist), is technically a socialist?

What would be required for him to be a genuine one?

The left is just so used to dishonestly denying that socialists are socialists that they even do so when a guy actually has the title, "Head of the Socialist Party of France."

Those welfare cheats are reportedly in jail.

I don't really want to link this -- I hate giving Politico what it wants -- but they recently did a story on Sharyl Attkisson entitled Media Career Path: Cry Liberal bias. Yes, it suggests what that headline implies it does: That liberal bias is just something people "cry" to get attention. Completely fictitious, you know.

I wouldn't bother clicking on it. The headline is enough.

Oh you'll love this: Tom Friedman interviewing Hillary Clinton. No but seriously, enjoy Hillary kill two minutes with nonsensical babbling when she's asked to identify anything she's proud of from her term at SecState.

Great explainer on the left's lies on the Hobby Lobby case. Similar to the one Gabe did, but better, because this guy isn't a Turncoat when he posts at the Federalist.

Rand Paul still has a bad habit of repeating cherished-but-false leftwing agitprop talking points about American foreign policy. He should probably stop that.

This kid must be a reader.

Long piece -- but good -- on the need to actually, get this, hire better teachers and, importantly, fire worse ones.

60% of Intel's employees who donated to the gay marriage cause, either pro or anti, donated in favor of Prop 8.

Let's ban Intel.

No, of course we won't do that. As Allah suggests, you don't have to shoot all looters to establish the point that looting won't be tolerated. You just have to hang one of the ringleaders in the town's center plaza. The rest will get the idea.

Mark Pryor: Why sure I'd vote for Obamacare again. Why do you ask?

Most people think NBC is the most biased network. That is debatable -- I think that dishonor might belong to ABCNews, which had really better think about what it is putting at risk (Disney, Marvel, Star Wars) with its relentless and flagrant propaganda.

Nice corporation you have there, Disney. Be a real shame if someone were to boycott your trillions of dollars of non-news products, wouldn't it?

You might want to consider ABCNews' Progressive Politics Animal House operation if you're on the fence about seeing Captain America.

Democrat Representative Jim Moran: Gee Willickers, Congressmen sure do deserve a big pay raise.

Democrat Senate hopeful Bruce Braley: Sitting down with my trial-law clients for dinner is really no different than farm work, if you think about it. Or, preferably, don't.

I don't want to start any scurrilous rumors, but I'm pretty sure Bruce Braley is actually brain damaged.

Oh, and, yeah? That Brazilian poll that said "We're totally into raping scantily dressed women" that everyone linked except me/us? It turns out it's largely wrong, as I imagined it was.

Minor, minor content warning for this. I don't know why this squirrel does this, but this squirrel just keeps effing with and attacking a snake (identified by one of the witnesses as a rattlesnake, but I don't know about that).

The squirrel, for reasons I can't guess, is just determined to pick a fight with this snake. He thinks he's Rikki Tikki Tavi or something.

Just so you know: The squirrel appears to be unharmed at the end. The "content warning" is for the snake attempting to bite the squirrel, which I don't think it actually manages to do.

Then again, this squirrel could have pitched over dead from poison five seconds after the end of this video.

I don't know what this snake did to piss this squirrel off so much.

This is one badass squirrel. It has the soul of a honey badger.

Squirrels, Nemeses of Snakes. Buzzion informs::

Depending on the type of squirrel it could actually be immune to the snake venom.

Adult squirrels are not the snakes' prey, Rundus said in a telephone interview. The adults have a protein in their blood that allows them to survive the snake venom, and they have been known to attack and injure snakes, biting and kicking gravel at them.

Who knew.

Posted by: Ace at 04:31 PM | Comments (301)
Post contains 985 words, total size 8 kb.

The headline refers to the fact that 13 people died due to the ignition-switch defect, which would have cost fifty seven cents per car to fix.

The fix for a faulty ignition switch linked to 13 traffic deaths would have cost just 57 cents, members of Congress said Tuesday as they demanded answers from General Motors' new CEO on why the automaker took 10 years to recall cars with the defect.

...

But as relatives of the crash victims looked on intently, [GM CEO Barra] admitted that she didn't know why it took years for the dangerous defect to be announced. And she deflected many questions about what went wrong, saying an internal investigation is under way.

Since February, GM has recalled 2.6 million cars - mostly Chevrolet Cobalts and Saturn Ions - over the faulty switch, which can cause the engine to cut off in traffic, disabling the power steering, power brakes and air bags and making it difficult to control the vehicle. The automaker said new switches should be available starting April 7.

...

The 57 cents is just the cost of the replacement switch. The figure does not include the labor costs involved in installing the new part.

Barra testified that the fix to the switch, if undertaken in 2007, would have cost GM about $100 million, compared with "substantially" more now.

Obama touted the defective, deadly Chevy Cobalt as a Government Motors success story.

When Ray LaHood investigated Toyota -- a competitor to Government Motors -- he turned the scare-mongering to 11 and told people to stop driving Toyota cars, now. This was in 2010, when Government Motors was/is still shaky after its government bailout.

Of course no Obama official is telling people to stop driving Government Motors vehicles now. After all, Government Motors is officially one of this Obama Success Stories so beloved by the media.

But a Democratic Senator, Connecticut's Dick Blumenthal, is in fact telling people to stop driving Government Motors vehicles immediately.

Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal is among those calling for GM to make a stronger statement and tell owners to stop driving their cars immediately. Blumenthal believes GM made a decision to hide the defect of ignition switches.

I guess he feels the need to distance himself from his previous boosterism of GM (see the link).

David Harsanyi tries, in vain I imagine, to explain to our Democrat Front Group Media why this is a story.

In February 2010, the Obama Administration’s Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told America, without a shred of evidence, that Toyota automobiles were dangerous to drive. LaHood offered the remarks in front of the House Appropriations subcommittee that was investigating reports of unintended-acceleration crashes. “My advice is, if anybody owns one of these vehicles, stop driving it,” he said, sending the company’s stock into a nosedive.

Even at the time, LaHoodÂ’s comments were reckless at best. Assailing the competition reeks of political opportunism and cronyism. It also illustrates one of the unavoidable predicaments of the state owning a corporation in a competitive marketplace. And when we put LaHoodÂ’s comment into perspective today, itÂ’s actually a lot worse. Not only did the Obama administration have the power and ideological motive to damage the largely non-unionized competition, it was busy propping up a company that was causing preventable deaths.

Yes, Harsanyi actually is required the newsworthiness of this to our alleged "news" corporations.

And more from Geraghty, including the media's complete lack of mention of Steve Rattner, Obama's "car czar."

A Google News search reveals Rattner has gone largely unmentioned in the coverage of the GM defective-switch scandal. HeÂ’s not saying much on his own venues, and apparently no one wants to ask him any questions about PresidentÂ’s Auto Industry Task Force, just how thorough their review of GM was, and how they managed to miss so many consequential lurking safety issues.

Posted by: Ace at 01:21 PM | Comments (296)
Post contains 662 words, total size 5 kb.

I agree with atheists that religion is a serious impediment to clear thought.

This is particularly the case when a close-minded, fire-breathing Religious Zealot does not even realize he's in the grips of a Religious Hysteria.

An anonymous writer -- an insider in the tech world, but unwilling to share his or her name (go figure) -- writes about the Moral Panic burning over the tech industry over the elevation of Brendan Eich to the head of Mozilla.

Eich once made a $1,000 donation to Prop 8, in 2006, shortly before the pro-gay-marriage Senate candidate Barack Obama would be persuaded by the righteousness of the traditional marriage cause, and thus announce his conversion to the proposition that marriage must be as it had been eternally, a union between a man and a woman.

For some reason, the rabid Upper Income White Women (and Feminized White Men) of the tech industry don't seem to think Barack Obama deserves criticism for that position, but they're very sure that Eich should either recant or be fired.

One of the most widely-shared and lauded of the countless statements issued in response to the appointment was written by Owen Thomas, managing editor of Valleywag, a self-described “tech gossip rag.” This is such a remarkable document that I can’t help quoting from it extensively:

YouÂ’ve already said that you wonÂ’t bring any personal exclusionary beliefs to the workplace. But your actions in 2008 were not personal or private: They were public acts of speech, for which your constituents are rightly holding you accountable now. You did not merely express a personal view on same-sex marriage; you attempted to persuade others to support your point of view. . . .

Stop saying that this was merely a private matter that wonÂ’t affect your work as MozillaÂ’s CEO. ThatÂ’s disingenuine and beneath a leader of your stature.

Say that whatever chain of logic led you to conclude that your personal views required you to support Proposition 8 was flawed, erroneous, incorrect. You may well maintain those same views—that’s your prerogative—but you don’t have to draw the same conclusions from them today as you did six years ago.

Go further. Say that you support the rights of people to enter into same-sex marriages everywhere. Say that you will not only support employees in the United States who are in same-sex marriages, but that you will also fight for the civil rights of Mozilla employees who work in societies with less progressive views.

Finally, make a donation equal in amount to the money you gave to Proposition 8 and candidates who supported it to the Human Rights Campaign or another organization that fights for the civil rights of LGBT people.” [Emphases in the original]

Grammar and diction unworthy of an editor aside, one of the most striking things about this passage is its tone, or perhaps we should say its genre. The remedies demanded (public recantation, propitiatory sacrifice) are of the sort necessitated by ritual defilement, rather than the giving of offense. It is also clear that Thomas does not merely wish Eich to say that he has changed his views, he truly, sincerely, desperately hopes that Eich be transformed. The key realization is that the howling mob which Thomas has ginned up is only partially an instrument of chastisement. It is also intended to educate. Thomas is in this to save souls.

Whether or not Eich keeps his position, this episode is instructive for those who hold out hope for a détente in the culture wars. The flawed analogy between the movement to end discrimination against African-Americans and the movement to allow gays and lesbians to marry is sincerely believed by many. But it is not merely a convenient piece of rhetoric or a skillful legal strategy. The moral force of the civil rights movement did not permit any sort of accommodation or compromise with bigots, and contemporary social conservatives who believe that they can negotiate more favorable terms of surrender have fallen prey to wishful thinking. What Thomas’s statement and others reveal is that the same-sex marriage movement has inherited that same genuine moral outrage, that same crusading zeal. While supporters of traditional marriage would like to convince the world that they are correct, they may soon find it difficult enough just to establish that they are not monsters. What is certain is that this will not be the last time that a public example is made of a dissenter from the new moral order.

For the moment, Eich isn't resigning, but is instead asking for the same level of tolerance that the New Inquisitors demand for themselves and their ideological allies and identity-favorites.

Good luck on that.

Incidentally, it might make for a good question for the media to ask Obama or Carney -- whether or not they favored the pillorying of Eich for agreeing with Obama on the position he allegedly held on gay marriage from 2008-2011.

It would be informative. It would illustrate what the progressives actually think, or rather, what they feel.

Ergo, it will not be asked.

Posted by: Ace at 12:13 PM | Comments (392)
Post contains 859 words, total size 6 kb.

Bryan Preston notes that CNN has the same attitude towards this story as the unabashed, openly partisan Democratic cheerleaders at MSNBC, and that should bother them.

But it doesn't. So much for CNN's pretense of being about news, rather than partisanship.

At Forbes, a contributor writes of the perils of absolute power -- which Democrats possess
in California.

Democrat leaders in California today are so well ensconced in power, so very insulated from scrutiny or criticism, that not only is there corruption in their ranks – they are hardly moved by that corruption.

Indeed, for months California Democrats have had to deal with the fraud conviction of State Senator Roderick Wright. He was caught lying about his address so he could get elected in a certain district. He could face 8 years in prison. A month later, another Democrat Senator, Ronald Calderon, was indicted on serious public corruption charges.

You would think a responsible party would do all they could to distance themselves from such corrupt politicians. Despite Republican attempts to expel them from the Senate, however, on a party line vote Democrats blocked that effort.

Of course, the reason the Democrats did that was to protect their super-majority in the Senate, which allows them to pass tax legislation without a single Republican vote. In other words, having absolute power is more important to them than any semblance of integrity.

Then came along Democrat Senator Leland Yee from San Francisco. He has been indicted on charges that are almost too wild to fathom including attempting to facilitate arms sales to a terrorist group. The allegations read like a bad movie and perhaps some day there will be a movie. In the face of that horrific – and impossible to ignore – publicity, the Democrats finally took some action.

CNN claims (in essence) this is a "local crime story," but conveniently ignores the elephant in the room -- a longstanding Democratic habit of overlooking gross breaches of ethics in order to cling to political power.

CNN apparently thinks that's not a political story, either.

Yee's old press releases on the horrors of Videogame Violence and corruption and guns sure read a little bit different now, don't they?

Remember when David Gregory broke the gun laws of DC because he so wanted to have a grabby, dramatic visual of confronting a gun-rights proponent with an extended magazine (you know, the part of the gun that goes down)?

Well, if David Gregory wants some grabby visuals, he could confront California Democrats with selected weapons from the Yee case. Popular Mechanics has identified some of the guns playing a role in the matter.

Think of all the Buzzfeed listicles Gregory could inspire if he paraded around ugly guns like this:

The Tavor assault rifle is an actual assault rifle,
and not a fakey-fake "assault weapon" implied to be an assault rifle.
It looks scary because it actually is scary.
Lee proposed stealing these rifles from the Philippines,
shipping them to Newark, and then selling them in Africa.

But I doubt David Gregory wants to make for exciting, watercooler-conversation tv on this matter.

Indeed, he doesn't want to cover it all. Like all the other fiercely freeminded mavericks in the Great Grazing Herd of Independent Minds, he's decided this is a local crime story, too.

CNN

Heroically protecting its progressive viewers from dangerous levels of potential cognitive dissonance.

Posted by: Ace at 11:01 AM | Comments (275)
Post contains 593 words, total size 4 kb.

As you probably have read, pheromones play an important role in determining, on a subconscious level, whether you like someone or not.

Now, the old way of determining compatibility was to go on a few dates with someone, and trust that if the potential coupling had the right amount of "chemistry" -- partly a matter of mutually agreeable pheromonal response -- then that would become apparent in the normal course of talking, sitting next to each other in movie theaters, and so on.

But that's so 100,000 BC to AD 2012. The Guardian reports on a new "dating craze" taking LA by storm-- bringing one of your stinky t-shirts to a bar and letting patrons sniff it to get a quick read on whether they like the smell of your discarded skin flakes and subcutaneous oils.

You should probably know that the media defines a "craze" as "something grabby that's happened twice."

Sleep in a T-shirt for three days, bag it and take it to a bar. Then let people smell it. If they're drawn to your scent, they have their photo taken with your bag, so you can track them down and get chatting.

Oh, for some reason these bags seem to be anonymously submitted, I think.

...

As we all stood politely by the bar, a pile of T-shirt-filled plastic bags gradually appeared on a table, numbered with blue labels for the boys, and pink for the girls, which we all politely ignored for the first 10 minutes. Finally a couple of brave souls sauntered over and started sniffing the bags. The table was quickly swamped.

Oh, another rule is that you're not supposed to wash during the stinking-up-the-t-shirt phase. Apparently women tend to ignore this rule and wind up with barely any smell on their t-shirts, and men embrace it with gusto, and leave, maybe, too much.

I have no idea what to make of this, except to say that if a new way of dating has been invented that avoids spending money on dinner and time watching musical theater, and instead provides a fast, efficient, grungily-primal route to having sex based on nothing but stinkiness, then A Dude Must Have Thought ot It.

Via Instapundit.

Posted by: Ace at 10:21 AM | Comments (315)
Post contains 397 words, total size 2 kb.

The Democrats don't only have the Koch brothers as their 2014 midterm plan.

It appears they may try to recreate 2006 magic by putting the Bush Administration on trial again. They've complied a report on previously-secret CIA interrogation practices -- and they want to vote to make it public.

Interrogation techniques on foreign terror suspects – a practice that has provoked international condemnation – was more widespread than the agency has publicly acknowledged, Senate investigators have learned.

Moreover, the CIA’s own internal documents confirm the agency’s culpability in the hypothermia death of one Afghan captive – an incident that also has never even been publicly discussed, McClatchy was told.

...

Since the inception of the interrogation program shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the CIA has steadfastly refused to completely describe what happened to the estimated 100 detainees believed to be in its custody.

The committee is scheduled to vote Thursday on what is expected to be a damning 6,000-page report on the CIA practices that Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the committee’s chairwoman, has called “un-American and brutal.”

...

Most lawmakers and those familiar with the report agree on this much: “There will be a lot of things in those sections that will be upsetting to people to read,” said the former U.S. official. “But it would make it impossible for the United States to argue that this was defensible.

“There has to be certain levels of sunlight. The CIA and others are still saying these things were necessary and they had good results. But the public needs to know the horrific things that were done. What needs to be known is that these activities did not yield good and actionable and timely intelligence and they’re reprehensible by our own values and they cannot and must not be repeated.”

The report also claims another detainee death, and says that nearly 100 detainees were subject to some level of "enhanced" interrogations, not 30. (Actually the leakers are so vague on this point I strongly suspect the CIA is justified to say that thirty detainees were subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques, with the additional ones falling into the "arguable" or "ticky-tack" categories. Additionally, one leaker confirms that the CIA's claim that only three detainees were waterboarded is actually true.)

The CIA admits the death of the Afghan captive, due to hypothermia, but says it was an accident. One of McClatchy's leakers disputes that, calling it either "willful negligence or even negligent homicide."

For those who say that controlling the Senate means nothing, well, it means something: Democrats (and Democrat-allied Senator King of Maine) will probably vote to pass this on to the President with a recommendation to declassify.

On the other hand, should some kind of inquiry ever be made into Government Motors' cover-ups of malfunctioning cars and resulting deaths, I'm sure these same solid citizens will deem it proper to keep it classified and/or redacted down to the punctuation until 2065.

"The equities" must be protected, you know, as Victoria Nuland said when she deleted any reference to a terrorist attack from the White House talking points on Benghazi.

Posted by: Ace at 09:26 AM | Comments (251)
Post contains 539 words, total size 4 kb.