Earlier Today

From KWCH in Wichita, Kansas:

Eyewitness News has confirmed that abortion provider Dr. George Tiller has been shot and killed at his Wichita church.

Snip-

Police have a suspect description. The suspect is described as a white male in his 50's or 60's with grey hair that is balding in the middle. He is about 6'1" and about 220 pounds and was wearing a white shirt and dark pants.

The suspect was last seen in a light blue Ford Taurus, possibly an early 1990's model. It has a K-State vanity plate and a Kansas license plate number 225 BAB.

Not the first time he was shot:

...Dr. Tiller was shot outside his clinic the evening of August 19, 1993. His wounds were not life threatening. Abortion opponent Shelly Shannon was convicted of that shooting and sentenced to prison.

Earlier today, they shot a man at church.

Yo. This One's For All The Young Conservatives

Fear not movement conservatives, Stiltz and Serious C are here for you.

From their website:

Stiltz & Serious C are a duo from Dartmouth College and co-founders of the thriving Young Conservatives Facebook group. In a day where conservatives are seen as close-minded and archaic, these fresh hip hop artists bring a new perspective to a long-standing philosophy. They are a bastion of progress in the liberal recesses of the northeast, throwing down their message amidst much adversity. Instead of sinking into the assemblage of the self satisfied, Stiltz & Serious C challenge our hearts and minds with lyrics that makes us think about the current evolution of our American society. The mile-high beats of Josh Riddle collide with the eastern flow of David Rufful to produce a dynamic fusion of hip-hop and a real, profound conservative message.

I am not kidding. Here is their facebook page.

And here is their Anthem:


Where they Serious C raps:

Phase me, make me, into something that ain’t me
Serious c... can’t nobody shake me
great like the Gatsby, poppin posers like acne
Don't matter if your gay, straight, Christian or Muslim
There's one thing we all hate, called socialism.
It's loathsome, and America ain’t the outcome,
Raise taxes on the people,
And you’re gonna feel symptoms, problems
I gotta message for a young con:
superman that socialism,
waterboard that terrorism

Uh, wasn't Jay Gatsby (Serious C's reference above) a criminal who was obsessed with another man's wife? How many commandments has Gatsby broken before he is killed at the end of Fitzgerald's great novel?

How is that a good role model for young conservatives?

In any event, waterboarding is still torture and it's still illegal.

Stiltz has this to say:

Three things taught me conservative love:
Jesus, Ronald Reagan, plus Atlas Shrugged

Atlas Shrugged? But elsewhere Serious C raps:

I hate when,
government dictatin, makin, statements, bout how to be a merchant,
How to run a restaurant, how to lay the pavement
Bailout a business, but can't protect an infant

But doesn't the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights declare that abortion is an "absolute" right?

Why yes, it does:

Roe v. Wade is correct in its conclusion that a fetus has no rights and that a woman has the right to determine whether or not to abort her pregnancy.

And didn't Rand herself write:

Abortion is a moral right—which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered. Who can conceivably have the right to dictate to her what disposition she is to make of the functions of her own body?

I'm just asking.

Maybe the Young Cons should reread their Ayn Rand as well as their F. Scott Fitzgerald.

(H/T to HuffingtonPost)

PA Sen. Jane Orie aide Alan David Berlin jailed for soliciting furry sex with teen boy

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

An aide to a McCandless state senator known for her tough stance on sex crimes was arrested late Thursday on accusations he propositioned a 15-year-old over the Internet.

In a series of instant messages and online chats, Alan David Berlin, 40, of Carlisle, discussed dressing up in animal costumes and engaging in various sex acts with the boy, the state attorney general's office said yesterday.

[snip]

Investigators believe Mr. Berlin and the boy met on an Internet site for "furries," an online community of people who adopt half-animal, half-human personas.

In one message, according to the complaint, Mr. Berlin requested pictures of the boy and wrote, "When will your folks be out?"

Other messages describe various sex acts in explicit detail and refer to "yiffing," which is a "furry" term for having sex.

Mr. Berlin used the screen name "alan_panda_bear" in his messages. He also used that name for an online personal ad that depicts cartoonish panda bears, one wearing a diaper.

...

Hey, who among us hasn't propositioned a teen-aged boy for sex in a panda suit? Pittsburgh, besides hosting the G20 Summit and Netroots Nation in the coming months will also, once again, be host to Anthrocon (the world's largest convention for furries) this July. We're guessing that Berlin had some PTO scheduled for that month. A movie of Berlin's story is said to be already in the works with the part of Berlin being played by Jack Black and Allison Harvard cast as Orie. Seriously, nothing against consenting adults having good clean, furry fun, it's the solicitation of a minor that's the problem -- and it's the fact that it's another Republican with a kink that's funny.

PA State Sen. Orie who is tough on crime
and not a known furry (despite the outfit).


Wolf and cat costumes were found at Berlin's home.
(Take note, Rick Santorum: no doggie suits.)
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The President, Today

The text.

Oops!

We expect this sort of thing from The Washington Times, not the Post.

From The Washington Post:

Correction

Thursday, May 28, 2009

The May 27 editorial "The President's Pick" incorrectly referred to Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor as the daughter of "immigrant" parents. Judge Sotomayor's parents were not immigrants but were born in Puerto Rico after passage of a 1917 law that automatically conferred U.S. citizenship on island-born residents.

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Single-payer Healthcare Rally Today

WHAT: Single-payer Healthcare Rally
WHEN: Friday, May 29, 2009, 11:30 AM - 1:15 PM
WHERE: * 11:30 am - 12:15 pm: Rally in front of Highmark Blue Cross/Blue
Shield headquarters, corner of Liberty and Fifth Aves., downtown Pittsburgh
* 12:15 pm - 12:30 pm: Group Walk to UPMC headquarters, 600 Grant Street Pittsburgh, PA 15219
* 12:30 pm - 1:15 pm: Rally in front of UPMC headquarters, Grant St.

From Western PA Coalition for Single-Payer Healthcare:

Pittsburgh is joining close to 50 other cities across the country this week and next to speak out for single-payer healthcare. A majority of Americans want single-payer; a majority of physicians want single-payer. The only think missing is the political will in Washington for sane and humane healthcare reform.

PUT PATIENTS FIRST:
Support H.R. 676 The National Health Care Act, aka “Expanded and Improved Medicare for All” and S.703 American Health Security Act

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Pittsburgh to host G20 Summit

I've got to stop just skimming the subject lines in my inbox...

From the White House Media Affairs Office:

Fact Sheet: United States to Host Next G20 Summit in Pittsburgh

The United States will host the next G20 Summit September 24-25, 2009, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. At the Pittsburgh Summit, President Obama will meet with leaders representing 85 percent of the world’s economy to take stock of progress made since the Washington and London Summits and discuss further actions to assure a sound and sustainable recovery from the global economic and financial crisis.

About the G20

Invited leaders represent approximately 85% of the world’s GDP and come from all regions of the globe. The United Nations Secretary General and heads of International Financial Institutions and appropriate International Organizations and groupings also participate.

G20 finance ministers have met regularly to coordinate policy since the Asian financial crisis in the 1990’s. At the leaders level, the G20 is not an institutionalized process, but a response to the global economic and financial crisis. The G20 leaders held their first summit in Washington in November 2008 and met again in April in London.

How the Pittsburgh Summit Came About

At the meeting in London in April, leaders decided that, given the nature of the crisis and the importance of a robust response, it would be useful to meet again in September to assess the status of the economy and to discuss further actions. With leaders already scheduled to be in the United States in September to attend the United Nations General Assembly, President Obama offered to host the Summit and leaders of the G20 welcomed the invitation.

About the Summit Location

Pittsburgh has demonstrated a commitment to employing new and green technology to further economic recovery and development. The Summit will be held at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in downtown Pittsburgh, an exemplar of that commitment. The facility is proud to have a LEED Gold Certification from the U.S Green Building Council for leadership in energy and environmental design.

And, don't forget that Pittsburgh will be host to Netroots Nation in August.
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Non-Political Blog Post

From an undisclosed location...

Yesterday my lovely wife and I got to sample some pizza from Lombardi's in Little Italy. I'd heard for frickin years ovuh hee about how oo fuhgeddaboudit Lombardi's was the greatest frickin pizza in the whole frickin woild, hands down, end of discussion.

But I grew up in the pizza-shadow of Pepe's Pizza and the rest of the Southern Connecticut Abeetz crowd; Sally's and Modern Apizza (both in New Haven), Bimonte's and Sorrento's, (both in Hamden), Angelo's and Grand Apizza, (both in North Haven).

So how does Lombardi's stack up to my hometown favorite?

It's pretty awesome pizza and I can understand how it's supporters could rate it best but it's also a very very close second in my humble opinion.

And trust me, it's far far better than Pittsburgh pizza.

It's just not quite as good as New Haven pizza. Close but no cigar.

There are two things you take from this blog: "Never get involved in a land war in Asia." and "Never go in against a Neapolitan when pizza is on the line!"

Capice?

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the legendary, the one and only Vast Hypocrisy of the Right Wing!

On Empathy:

President George H.W. Bush on Clarence Thomas in July 1991:

"I have followed this man's career for some time. He is a delightful and warm, intelligent person who has great empathy and a wonderful sense of humor."

On Empathy & Identity Politics:

Judge Samuel Alito's during his U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing for the Supreme Court:

And that's why I went into that in my opening statement. Because when a case comes before me involving, let's say, someone who is an immigrant -- and we get an awful lot of immigration cases and naturalization cases -- I can't help but think of my own ancestors, because it wasn't that long ago when they were in that position.

And so it's my job to apply the law. It's not my job to change the law or to bend the law to achieve any result.

But when I look at those cases, I have to say to myself, and I do say to myself, "You know, this could be your grandfather, this could be your grandmother. They were not citizens at one time, and they were people who came to this country."

When I have cases involving children, I can't help but think of my own children and think about my children being treated in the way that children may be treated in the case that's before me.

And that goes down the line. When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account. When I have a case involving someone who's been subjected to discrimination because of disability, I have to think of people who I've known and admire very greatly who've had disabilities, and I've watched them struggle to overcome the barriers that society puts up often just because it doesn't think of what it's doing -- the barriers that it puts up to them.

So those are some of the experiences that have shaped me as a person.

Your Mission:

Find a single Wingnut who screamed bloody murder about the above statements at the time that they were made.

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Rep. Tim Murphy Needs A Fact Checker

Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA-18) has an opinion piece in today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on "cap and trade" legislation. In it, Murphy makes the following claim:

Estimates show such a plan would increase taxes. According to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study, cap and trade could add $3,100 in costs to each family's annual energy bill by 2016.

Wow! That's a pretty frightening number.

It's also FALSE.

From M.I.T.'s April 1, 2009 letter to Rep. John Boehner (R-OH):

“It has come to my attention that an analysis we conducted examining proposals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Report No., 146, Assessment of U.S. Cap-and-Trade Proposals, has been misrepresented in recent press releases distributed by the National Republican Congressional Committee. The press release claims our report estimates an average cost per family of a carbon cap and trade program that would meet targets now being discussed in Congress to be over $3,000, but that is nearly 10 times the correct estimate which is approximately $340. Since the issue of legislation to control greenhouse gases is now under consideration, I wanted to take an opportunity to clear up any misunderstanding created by this press release and to avoid further confusion.

Yes, Murphy's very scary number is off by a factor of almost 10.

And, just in case Boehner didn't pass that along to Murphy, Timmy could have found the same information at this very blog at the beginning of this month (see here).

If you click on that link, you'll see that David didn't just blog about this issue. He actually wrote to Murphy about it.

Guess Murphy's just been too busy to keep up with the FACTS...or something.
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Acklin Pulling Out the Big Guns

From Acklin for Pittsburgh:

KEVIN ACKLIN ANNOUNCES THE APPOINTMENT OF VETERAN REPORTER ANDY GASTMEYER AS PRESS SECRETARY

PITTSBURGH – Independent Mayoral Candidate Kevin Acklin announced today that veteran news reporter Andy Gastmeyer will join his mayoral campaign and serve in the position of Press Secretary.

“I’m honored that someone of Andy’s impeccable reputation and journalistic integrity has agreed to join our campaign team. Andy has always been committed to making our city a better place, and I’m grateful that he’s joining our effort,” Acklin said.

“Kevin Acklin has what it takes to win this race and be a tremendous mayor for the city of Pittsburgh. I’ve covered Pittsburgh politics for many years, and I’ve seen first-hand how Grant Street runs. I know we can do much better. So I look forward to this new challenge, to working with many of my former colleagues in a new capacity, and to bringing Pittsburgh the kind of leadership it deserves,” said Gastmeyer.
__________________________________________________
Andy Gastmeyer was a reporter for NBC Affiliate WPXI in Pittsburgh for over twenty-four years. He was a member of WPXI’s Investigative Unit and regularly covered Pittsburgh city politics. Andy retired from WPXI in December 2008. Pittsburgh City Council declared December 9, 2008, “Andy Gastmeyer Day,” to honor him for decades of excellence in reporting.

I'm only half kidding about the "big guns" part -- after all Lil Mayor Luke uses out-of-state hired guns for his campaign -- but I do think that Gastmeyer is a good addition to the assumed participation of Matt Merriman-Preston. (Even with Early Return's reminder that DeSantis had former WTAE-TV reporter Meghan Jones Rolla as his spokesperson.)
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Obama's Pick of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court

President Barak Obama announced his nomination of the first ever Latina for the Supreme Court today: Sonia Sotomayor.

Wingnuts started smearing her even before the official announcement.

They've labeled the summa cum laude graduate of Princeton and J.D. grad of Yale Law School (where she was also an editor of the Yale Law Journal) as stupid.

They're saying that Obama had to pick an Hispanic and a woman to further diminish her accomplishments (because it doesn't count that for the first couple of hundred years presidents had to nominate white males).

And, they're saying that as a person of color she can't be trusted to make rulings on race (apparently only white people can be trusted to make those types of rulings).

It would be extremely depressing to listen to if it were not for the fact that she'll likely prevail and sit on the court.

HA!



UPDATE: Mike Huckabee objects to Obama's pick of 'Maria' Sotomayor. (Maria, Rosa, whatever...you know, the Spanish chick...probably an illegal too.)
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The Bestest Argument Ever Against Gay Marriage!

As we await today's California Supreme Court ruling on whether the state's gay marriage ban will stand, the bestest argument ever against teh gay marriage comes from Sam Schilman in the Weekly Standard. It goes like this:

When a gay man becomes a professor or a gay woman becomes a police officer, he or she performs the same job as a heterosexual. But there is a difference between a married couple and a same-sex couple in a long-term relationship. The difference is not in the nature of their relationship, not in the fact that lovemaking between men and women is, as the Catholics say, open to life. The difference is between the duties that marriage imposes on married people--not rights, but rather onerous obligations--which do not apply to same-sex love.

The relationship between a same-sex couple, though it involves the enviable joy of living forever with one's soulmate, loyalty, fidelity, warmth, a happy home, shopping, and parenting, is not the same as marriage between a man and a woman, though they enjoy exactly the same cozy virtues. These qualities are awfully nice, but they are emphatically not what marriage fosters, and, even when they do exist, are only a small part of why marriage evolved and what it does.

[snip]

The fact is that marriage is part of a much larger institution, which defines the particular shape and character of marriage: the kinship system.

[snip]

Consider four of the most profound effects of marriage within the kinship system.

The first is the most important: It is that marriage is concerned above all with female sexuality. The very existence of kinship depends on the protection of females from rape, degradation, and concubinage.

[snip]

This most profound aspect of marriage--protecting and controlling the sexuality of the child-bearing sex--is its only true reason for being, and it has no equivalent in same-sex marriage.

[snip]

Few men would ever bother to enter into a romantic heterosexual marriage--much less three, as I have done--were it not for the iron grip of necessity that falls upon us when we are unwise enough to fall in love with a woman other than our mom.

[snip]

Can gay men and women be as generous as we straight men are? Will you consider us as men who love, just as you do, and not merely as homophobes or Baptists? Every day thousands of ordinary heterosexual men surrender the dream of gratifying our immediate erotic desires. Instead, heroically, resignedly, we march up the aisle with our new brides, starting out upon what that cad poet Shelley called the longest journey, attired in the chains of the kinship system--a system from which you have been spared.

Got it, gays?

Marriage sucks for hetro men but they take up the old ball and chain because they are selfless beings who know how vital it is to society and life as we know it to control da women folk.

So get with the program!

Mr. Schilman has sacrificed his happiness and well being three times (so far) to keep the world spinning-- the least you can do is not marry once.

Thank you.
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Memorial Day 2009, Pittsburgh

EVENTS:

Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall Memorial Day Celebration
4141 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, 412.621.4253
TODAY, 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM
- 10:30 Special Ceremony in Memory of Pennsylvania’s Soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice in the War on Terrorism
- 11:00 Presentation of new Memorial Garden Project
- 1:00 Miss Soldiers & Sailors Contest (ages 13-17, 18-25)
- More details here

Area Parades
- More details here

"Fallen Not Forgotten" Memorial Benefit Concert for the Fallen Police Officers
Amphitheatre at Station Square, One Station Square West Lot, Pittsburgh, PA 15219
TODAY, 1:00 PM doors, 1:30 PM show
- $10.00
- All Ages
- All proceed's go to the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police 'Fallen Hero's Fund', which benefit's the families of officer's, Paul J. Sciullo, Stephen J. Mayhle, and Eric G. Kelly.
- The event will feature performances from Rusted Root, B.E. Taylor, Joe Grushecky And The House Rockers, Bill Deasy, Chris Higbee Project, Punchline, Wiz Khalifa, Mercury, Good Brother Earl, Granti Brothers, Buzz Poets (Acoustic), and additional performances from Abby Abondanza (formerly of Poverty Neck Hillbillies), TEN (Pearl Jam Tribute Band), The Boogie Hustlers, Gene The Werewolf, Crashing Metropolis, 28 North, Gramsci Melodic, The Spacepimps, LoveBettie, The Delaneys, Triggers, Nomad, Havannah Drive, Pop Rocks, Burning Earth, Tony Lee, & Cathsleigh.
- More details here

National Moment Of Remembrance
TODAY, 3:00 PM
- As beneficiaries of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice and those putting their lives on the line presently, at 3 p.m., local time, on May 25, 2009, pause for one minute to represent national unity.
- More details here

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

And, if you happen to be breakfasting at the White House this morning, you'll be enjoying Pittsburgh's own Pamela's pancakes with President Obama, the Obama family and 80 military veterans. (More details here.)
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Play him off, keyboard cat (Cheney Edition)

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After being waterboarded for 6 seconds wingnut shock jock Mancow admits it's "absolutely torture"

While Sean Hannity continues to punk out on his offer to be waterboarded for charity, Mancow took the plunge today:

Erich "Mancow" Muller, a Chicago-based conservative radio host, recently decided to silence critics of waterboarding once and for all. He would undergo the procedure himself, and then he would be able to confidently convince others that it is not, in fact, torture.

Or so he thought. Instead, Muller came out convinced.

"It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that's no joke," Mancow said. "It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back... It was instantaneous... and I don't want to say this: absolutely torture."

"I wanted to prove it wasn't torture," Mancow said. "They cut off our heads, we put water on their face... I got voted to do this but I really thought 'I'm going to laugh this off.' "

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I had a feeling...

...When I heard Matt Merriman-Preston, political consultant to Natalia Rudiak (& Chelsa Wagner & Bill Peduto), talking up independent mayoral candidate Kevin Acklin in this video interview with Bram that Matt might have more than a passing interest in Acklin.

This evening I received a email invitation from Merriman-Preston to join the Acklin for Pittsburgh Facebook group.

So, I guess we know what Matt will be up to after his vacation.

(Acklin filed petitions on the 19th to secure his place on the ballot in the November 3rd general election.)
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More More Bad News For The GOP

Yesterday, I wrote about the Gallup poll showing a marked decline in the number of Republicans in this great great country of ours.

There's more from The National Journal. More evidence, I guess, of the GOP becoming a regional party. Take a look:

Founded in the decade before the Civil War as the Northern voice of union, the Republican Party today is more electorally dependent on the South than at any point in its past.

In the House and Senate, nearly half of all Republicans were elected from that region, defined as the 11 states of the Confederacy, plus Kentucky and Oklahoma. In each chamber, Southerners are a larger share of the Republican caucus than ever before. Similarly, beginning with the 1992 presidential election, the South has provided at least 59 percent of the Electoral College votes won by the GOP nominee, including by George W. Bush in his 2000 and 2004 victories. That percentage is nearly double the South's share of all Electoral College votes and by far the most that GOP presidential nominees have relied on the region over any sustained period.

Republican strength in the South has both compensated for and masked the extent of the GOP's decline elsewhere. By several key measures, the party is now weaker outside the South than at any time since the Depression; in some ways, it is weaker than ever before.

And:

Since Bush's re-election in 2004, the GOP has lost ground electorally in the South and the rest of the nation. But the erosion has been much more severe outside the South. That dynamic has threatened Republicans with a spiral of concentration and contraction. Because the party has lost so much ground elsewhere, the South represents an increasing share of what remains -- both in Congress and in its electoral coalition. The party's increasing identification with staunch Southern economic and social conservatism, however, may be accelerating its decline in more-moderate-to-liberal areas of the country, including the Northeast and the West Coast. "Many of the things they have done to become the dominant party in the South have caused them to be less successful in other places," said veteran Democratic strategist Bill Carrick, a South Carolina native.

I take it that the GOP pie is getting smaller everywhere but since it's shrinking slower in the Confederacy (with OK and KY), that region's exerting a greater hold on the party.

There's no way to know how this will play out in the decades ahead but in the short term it's gotta be, at the very least, disheartening to be a Republican these days.

Fact-Checking Cheney's Speech

McClatchy does the honors and it's no surprise what they find:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney's defense Thursday of the Bush administration's policies for interrogating suspected terrorists contained omissions, exaggerations and misstatements.

They're being way too diplomatic. Usually these are called lies.

Here's more:

In his address to the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative policy organization in Washington, Cheney said that the techniques the Bush administration approved, including waterboarding — simulated drowning that's considered a form of torture — forced nakedness and sleep deprivation, were "legal" and produced information that "prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people."

He quoted the Director of National Intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair, as saying that the information gave U.S. officials a "deeper understanding of the al Qaida organization that was attacking this country."

In a statement April 21, however, Blair said the information "was valuable in some instances" but that "there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means. The bottom line is that these techniques hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security."

A top-secret 2004 CIA inspector general's investigation found no conclusive proof that information gained from aggressive interrogations helped thwart any "specific imminent attacks," according to one of four top-secret Bush-era memos that the Justice Department released last month.

FBI Director Robert Mueller told Vanity Fair magazine in December that he didn't think that the techniques disrupted any attacks.

Another omission/exaggeration/misstatement/whatever by Cheney:

_ Cheney said that only "ruthless enemies of this country" were detained by U.S. operatives overseas and taken to secret U.S. prisons.

A 2008 McClatchy investigation, however, found that the vast majority of Guantanamo detainees captured in 2001 and 2002 in Afghanistan and Pakistan were innocent citizens or low-level fighters of little intelligence value who were turned over to American officials for money or because of personal or political rivalries.

Yea, these guys know intelligence.

Your Tax Dollars At Work

From The Nation, May 20:

The Department of Defense paid former Halliburton subsidiary KBR more than $80 million in bonuses for contracts to install electrical wiring in Iraq. The award payments were for the very work that resulted in the electrocution deaths of US soldiers, according to Department of Defense documents revealed today in a Senate hearing. [emphasis added]

Halliburton, of course, was Dick Cheney's old employer.