Torture-rama and Other Mayhem

*While I was watching Johnny Damon and Vlad Guerrero, my Lakers went down to defeat--and an ignominous one indeed. We may have seen the last of Zen Master Phil Jackson. I not only missed that game but the awesome outpouring of Bush Administration officials, who outnumbered Democrats and Obama officials by 6-to-1 on the Sunday talk shows. Talk about -reframing the debate! So Bush killed bin Laden and it was all the result of torture.

*Dick Cheney and Liz did the talk show rounds insisting that waterboarding wasn't torture and that KSM yielded mountains of intelligence. All you have to do is get the CIA document at the National Archives that says so. This document written while Cheney commuted to Langley to oversee it ddesn't quite agree with Dick Cheney about this. But then who's to know. A few have read the document when he pulled it out almost two years ago to criticize president Obama. Do you get a feeling that Dick Cheney actually watched the waterboarding of KSM. You almost sense a manlove situation there. But a couple of problems--KSM was intimately involved with the courier and he didn't break under torture to reveal either his pseudonym or real name. Likewise, Al Libbi didn't even admit to recognizing the man. It was his defiant denial that the CIA interpreted as a yes.

*Lanny Davis, Mr. PUMA, came out for legalizing torture today. If torture is so great, how did bin Laden live 5-6 years in Abbotabad, start building the complex a year before,and live in Pakistan since 2004 or shortly before without being discovered by such methods? Think about it--the man was living with minimal security in Pakistan for George W's entire second term.

*Or think about it another way, it took Robert Greenwald less than a month to find all the homes of the reclusive Koch Brothers--who had more security than bin Laden. Watch the video on Koch Brothers exposed.

*Little Johnny Yoo, who crushes children's testicles,said that Obama wimped out by not capturing bin Laden alive. You make the choice--Would you rather have 2.7 tetrabytes of intel on Al Qaeda and its allies or bin Laden being interrogated?

*The U.S. Military Officers' Association, a lobbying group for the military, noted with keen interest the failure of House Republicans and Speaker Boehner to pass a resolution praising the operation against bin Laden. While objectively describing the new House rules that preclude such resolutions, they noted the special circumstances in this case and raised the issue with their members. So far, we haven't had a response from Mr. Boehner. This is a group that overwhelmingly votes Republican in the past.

*While President Obama won Virginia in 2008, his current approval rating is directly related to the large military population in the state. Right now he's at 57% and only 40% disapprove.

*Rep. Allen West, Mr. Teabagger, says the real threat to the United States is China--because they control the Panama Canal.

*House Republicans think the real threat is Elizabeth Warren, the Sweetheart of the Rodeo, because she would actually make a Consumer Protection Bureau work for consumers. The House said they would not accept Dr. Warren--although they have no choice in the matter. Senate Republicans have vowed to gut the Consumer agency.

*With President Obama busy elsewhere, the GOP seemed to hide their commitment to destroy Medicare and Medicaid. Speaker Boehner last week lamenting that it was not "politically feasible", meaning it would be suicide for the party. Nervous freshmen representatives, who ran on preserving Medicare, were forced to vote for the Ryan Plan, even though they met with hostile townhall meetings in their district. For at least a week it looked like cooler heads were prevailing. Paul Ryan himself tried to explain away the resistance to his "voucher" plan by blaming AARP, a "left-leaning pressure group". These left-leaning groups seem to be multiplying--NPR, Planned Parenthood, AARP. It's a conspiracy.

* A few days ago Steve Benen wrote at Washington Monthly that without Ryan's Medicare Plan, his budget does absolutely nothing to balance the budget. Ssssh. Today, it looks like John Boehner got the message and went totally right in his speech on Wall Street. He claimed that before he would vote to raise the debt ceiling there would have to be trillions in cuts on the table. He promises to gut Medicare. He said he was laying down a new marker on the table calling for significant cuts and entitlement reforms. Wall Street has warned him about playing games on this issue. Tomorrow Eric Cantor goes up to Manhattan and explains to his corporate masters the real deal.

The Tea Party Express will vote for a hike in the debt ceiling if the administration returns to DADT. They want to fight the "feminization of our military." They should consult with Bryan Fisher of the American Family Association , who says that gays are vicious killers.

*Bobby Jindal decided to get some attention so he released his birth certificate. That doesn't change the fact he was born a Hindu. By the way, no one noticed. The same applies to the Donald trying to comeback by saying he's not a racist. No one noticed that either or believed it.

*Arizona's Jan Brewer is taking SB 1070--the new "Documents Please" law to the Supreme Court.

*Wisconsin's Governor Scott Walker seeing 7 Republican senators being recalled is speeding up passage of his Koch-funded extreme agenda. The recount for the Supreme Court race is nearing an end but the violations of the election law are awesome. Unsealed bags of ballots have materialized and no one seems to be able to account for the chain of custody.

*Michigan's Governor Rick Snyder was hooted and hissed during various state celebrations. The recall drive in Michigan is picking up its pace.

*Flordia's Rick Scott has outlawed baggy pants,passed mandatory drug-testing for welfare recipients and public employees, and passed cuts in Medicaid programs. He also passed laws to drill in areas once environmentally protected.

*Ray LaHood is quietly becoming one of my favorite cabinet members. He took the $2 billion for high-speed rail rejected by Governor Scott and gave it to fifteen other states, including Michigan.

*Newton Leroy and his lovely bride Calista thank you for the overwhelming support of Newt's plans to run for President. Newt Gingrich will announce on Wednesday via Facebook and Twitter showing how media savvy he is. He will follow with an interview with Sean Hannity. The Wall Street Journal printed a piece today about how Gingrich has bought up many on the Christian Right by quietly funding over the last two years their quirky campaigns on abortion and same-sex marriage.

* Mike Huckabee's body language still says no. He gave an interview where he went on at length who Ronald Reagan could not get the nomination of his party this year because he worked with Democrats, raised taxes and declared amnesty for 6 million undocumented workers. His other gripe has been attacks against him by the Club of Greed (Growth) as he calls them.

*After the killing of bin Laden, there is a false trumphalism among Democrats about the prospects of President Obama's re-election. It's true the other side doesn't have much. But consider this--33 states currently are trying to curtail voters' rights, making it mandatory to have government-issued IDs. These are blatant attempts at suppressing minority and young voters. If you cut union funding for Democrats and suppress their base, why does a good candidate matter? We saw this throughout 2010. Money talks, nobody walks.

*While Democrats believe they have dispelled the advantage Republicans traditionally have on national security, sometimes they can go too far. Charles Schumer's proposal for a "No Ride" list for trains is taking this too far. If anything, we would like some of our rights restored--not more taken away.

*Fed Chairman Bernanke is scrambling around to put in mechanisms that the United States can last through August without a new debt bill--if need be. But the capitains of industry are going crazy about any prospects of delay.

*The Republicans are now chugging toward 1,000 bills at both the state and national level to limit reprodutive rights. Rick Scott's latest humdinger is mandatory sonograms for women thinking about an abortion with a written text read by a woman's doctor but prepared by government bureaucrats, even if the doctor disagrees with the contents.

* House Republicans passed a bill that would place a tax on private medical insurance policies that would cover abortions. Now let's see-- an individual mandate is socialism and government control. But this act is not government overreach. I trying to get it.

*Teabag Senator from South Carolina, Jim DeMint, says that Mitt Romney hoodwinked him in 2008 about Romneycare. DeMint had publicly said that Romneycare should be extended to the whole country as an example of allowing freedom to work. Now he's not so sure. Remember he said this was Obama's Waterloo.

*To give you some idea of the mentality of the Republican Party of South Carolina, consider that they voted for Rick Santorum as their presidential candidate over the weekend. Ole Frothy Mix claims that Obama is using socialism to lead us to fascism. What about the reverse? Never mind. When Newt enters the race, he'll set Frothy Mix straight--bad pun.

*Remember how disappointed gays and lesbians are with President Obama? One thing they are not is stupid. They looked across the aisle and have now become the largest donors to the Obama campaign at this early stage. Of course, there are serious reasons for this--repeal of DADT, refusal to defend DOMA,the promotion of gays and lesbians within the government and work on rights for partners as well as the Hate Crime bill. They also know that the Republicans will ramp up the anti-gay rhetoric during the primary season.

*People in Minnesota are pissed at a GOP effort to pass a constitutional amendment in the state to ban same-sex marriage. In typical Midwest fashion, they think it is a wasteful effort, frivolous, redundant and every other word for a waste of time.