Raw Story: “VANITY FAIR REVEALS DEEP THROAT: W. MARK FELT, EX-FBI AGENT.” Get the .pdf of the Vanity Fair pressroom advance article. Vanity Fair blurb: “Now, at age 91, W. Mark Felt, number two at the FBI in the early ’70s, is finally admitting to that historic, anonymous role. In an exclusive, John D. O’Connor puts a name and a face to one of American democracy’s heroes…” Brace yourself for a delicious news week comparing Nixon to Bush (entirely deservedly).
Frances Bean and mom Courtney were at the sucky American Idol pre-show. Frances looks a lot like her father.
UPDATE: I just watched the film Last Days which is about the time leading up to his suicide. Has anyone else seen the film? – Brokekid
When Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee last year, he was asked whether he “ordered or approved the use of sleep deprivation, intimidation by guard dogs, excessive noise, and inducing fear as an interrogation method for a prisoner in Abu Ghraib prison.”
Sanchez, who was head of the Pentagon’s Combined Joint Task Force-7 in Iraq, swore the answer was no. Under oath, he told the Senators he “never approved any of those measures to be used.”
But a document the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) obtained from the Pentagon flat out contradicts Sanchez’s testimony. It’s a memorandum entitled “CJTF-7 Interrogation and Counter-Resistance Policy,” dated September 14, 2003. In it, Sanchez approved several methods designed for “significantly increasing the fear level in a detainee.” These included “sleep management”; “yelling, loud music, and light control: used to create fear, disorient detainee, and prolong capture shock”; and “presence of military working dogs: exploits Arab fear of dogs.”
On March 30, the ACLU wrote a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, urging him “to open an investigation into whether General Ricardo A. Sanchez committed perjury in his sworn testimony.”
The problem is, Gonzales may himself have committed perjury in his Congressional testimony this January.
According to a March 6 article in The New York Times, Gonzales submitted written testimony that said: “The policy of the United States is not to transfer individuals to countries where we believe they likely will be tortured, whether those individuals are being transferred from inside or outside the United States.” He added that he was “not aware of anyone in the executive branch authorizing any transfer of a detainee in violation of that policy.”
“That’s a clear, absolute lie,” says Michael Ratner, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, who is suing Administration officials for their involvement in the torture scandal. “The Administration has a policy of sending people to countries where there is a likelihood that they will be tortured.”
(via Americablog.blogspot.com)
Alter, who is apparently a cancer survivor, nails the political potential for the stem-cell issue in this week’s Newsweek. As Alter notes, the innovative science presents a possible cure for a wide range of diseases from “cancer to Parkinson’s to Alzheimer’s…”
From there he notes:
After all, every American who has a relative with one of these diseases—which means nearly every American—is beginning to understand the issue in a new way: it’s “pro-cure” versus “anti-cure,” with the anti-stem-cell folks in danger of being swept into the medical wastebin of history.
But Bush is so beholden to the theocrats, he doesn’t care. Nor do many of the members of the House who voted against the stem-cell bill….and the nuts in the Senate, like Brownback, are going to filibuster. This is going to be a political issue in 2006:
Unless there’s another war [key caveat from Alter given the Bush crowd], stem cells will become one of the defining issues of the 2006 campaign. Look for smart Democrats to run ads with relatives of the afflicted (“My sister has Parkinson’s,” “My father has Alzheimer’s”) pointing out that Congressman X is so extreme, he voted against a bill supported by many Republicans to begin curing these diseases. This will inevitably lead to backpedaling and compromise and the victory of a broad-based “pro-cure movement” that may help save not just my life, but your cousin’s or your mother’s or your own.
I am part of the pro-cure movement. My 5 year old god daughter has been fighting leukemia for over a year now. And, there is so much cancer, diabetes and other diseases in my family and circle of friends — and I know it’s true for almost everyone — that if the issue can be raised high enough, it can be decisive. As Alter says, quoting Tip O’Neill, “all politics is local.”
A Ben and Jerry’s customer requested that the ice-cream come “in stainless steel, bulletproof containers with a little padlock.” The company didn’t go that far, but they did create this lockable pint-lid that fits over your ice-cream and deters casual munchers from helping themselves.
A recent WSJ editorial (via Balloon Juice) criticizes the current senate and house of representatives for not doing anything note worthy. “Americans have learned to expect little from Congress, and by that standard the 109th version, controlled by Republicans, has met expectations. On the other hand, anyone who hoped that the GOP would make something of its historic governing opportunity is bound to be disappointed so far.“
Forget about hacking together your own cordless Skype phone—Chat-Cord is selling a switch that’ll let you use any regular wireline phone to connect to make both VoIP and regular PSTN phone calls. The Chat-Chord PSTN Switch isn’t anything all that special, when it comes down to it, it’s just a couple of RJ11 sockets, some of cables for connecting to your PC’s audio card, and some Skype remote dialler software.
The NYT has an intriguing front-page scoop on a secret new power table of would-be health care reformers: 24 ideologically disparate leaders representing the health care industry, corporations and unions, and conservative and liberal groups have been meeting secretly for months to seek a consensus on proposals to provide coverage for the growing number of people with no health insurance. The article mostly quotes the more conservative players in the group; the designated player advocating for patients’ rights seems to be Families USA (excuse my ignorance, but who?). The group consensus rules out comprehensive, system-wide fixes to our health-care crisis, and they are “not biased in favor of big government solutions.” The best case scenario is that this is a real break-through step in the right direction– big business finally gets serious about health care (as per smugosaurus rex Thomas Friedman’s admonishing column last week). But it’s hard not to wonder: will we really come up with a humane, universal solution through a hundred incremental changes that were pre-approved by the Association of Chambers of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and Pfizer?
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