Tuesday Morning Male Beauty

CIA Torturers Running Scared - Karma Can Be a Bitch

Funny how perspectives change when one ceases being the torturer and suddenly realizes that the day of reckoning for past crimes may be just around the corner. Oh, and don't try to say one was just following orders.  Nazi officials tried that one and it rightfully did not work.  Each of us at times has to decide whether we will commit moral wrongs or not.  Sometimes, the easier course is to "follow orders," but that doesn't make what you do morally right.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at CIA operative who now fear the day of reckoning may be at hand.  Here are excerpts:

The CIA has offered to perform security assessments for former intelligence officers that may be identified in the so-called Senate torture report, expected to be released Tuesday.

Most of these officers are not identified by their real names in the report, which was drawn up by the Democrats of the Senate Intelligence Committee. But the CIA remains concerned that close readers will be able to figure out, based on cross-referencing and context clues, who the anonymous officers are. (Some very senior and well-known officials will be mentioned by name in the report.)

Current and former CIA personnel say they are fearful for their personal safety, and that of their families, should they be identified after the report is released and become targets for harassment or retribution. So the agency has agreed to determine their degree of exposure to any risk of identification, according to one senior intelligence official who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to speak publicly. “They will help people assess their individual situations, assessing their homes, and helping them keep a low profile,” the official told The Daily Beast.

Roughly 15 agency employees were directly involved in running the program, . . . 

Separately, a lawmaker said the CIA had briefed him on the possible need for “personnel moves” related to the security fallout from the interrogation report. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the security preparations publicly.

The CIA has long been concerned that if any of its personnel were identified following the release of the report, which details interrogation techniques President Obama has called torture, it could jeopardize employees’ physical safety and make it impossible for them to work overseas. 

There's more, so read the entire piece. The hypocrisy of many now worried about the report's release had no qualms about engaging in torture and ignoring the Geneva Conventions at the time.  Perhaps they should have thought more about the crimes they were committing at the time. 

The Torture Report: What is the GOP Really Afraid of?

Not that Congressional Republicans need much of anything for them to totally come out disagreeing with Barack Obama, but the controversy about the soon to be released executive summary of the Senate report on the use of torture by the United States government makes one wonder about the real motives of the GOP.  They claim that their concern is over that the report's release could endanger the U.S. diplomatic corps and set the stage for future Benghazi like attacks.  But is the real worry that the report will show the lawlessness of the Bush/Cheney regime and underscore that Bush, Cheney and a number of subordinates are war criminals that ought to stand trial  as Nazis did at Nuremberg?  The New York Times looks at the controversy.  Here are highlights (NOTE: for me, listening to Dick Cheney on this issue is like giving Hitler and Himmler input on whether Nazis should have stood trial - WTF is wrong with the media?):

On the eve of a long-awaited Senate report on the use of torture by the United States government — a detailed account that will shed an unsparing light on the Central Intelligence Agency’s darkest practices after the September 2001 terrorist attacks — the Obama administration and its Republican critics clashed on Monday over the wisdom of making it public, and the risk that it will set off a backlash overseas.

While the United States has put diplomatic facilities and military bases on alert for heightened security risks, administration officials said they do not expect the report — or rather the declassified executive summary of it that will be released Tuesday — to ignite the kind of violence that killed four Americans at a diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012. 

But some leading Republican lawmakers have warned against releasing the report, saying that domestic and foreign intelligence reports indicate that a detailed account of the brutal interrogation methods used by the C.I.A. during the George W. Bush administration could incite unrest and violence, even resulting in the deaths of Americans.

Former [and war criminal] Vice President Dick Cheney added his voice to those of other Bush administration officials defending the C.I.A., declaring in an interview Monday that its harsh interrogations a decade ago were “absolutely, totally justified,” and dismissing allegations that the agency withheld information from the White House or inflated the value of its methods.

“When would be a good time to release this report?” the White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, asked. “It’s difficult to imagine one, particularly given the painful details that will be included.”

But he added, “The president believes it is important for us to be as transparent as we possibly can about what exactly transpired, so we can just be clear to the American public and people around the world that something like this should not happen again.”

In addition to tightening security at embassies, the Pentagon will bolster the protection of its forces in Afghanistan, officials said. Intelligence agencies will ramp up their monitoring of the communications of terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.

Among the administration’s concerns is that terrorist groups will exploit the disclosures in the report for propaganda value. The Islamic State already clads its American hostages in orange jumpsuits, like those worn by prisoners in C.I.A. interrogations. Hostages held by the Islamic State in Syria were subjected to waterboarding, one of the practices used by the C.I.A. to extract information from suspected terrorists.

The White House will also have to deal with diplomatic fallout from the report in countries that aided the United States in transporting prisoners or playing host to so-called black sites, where the interrogations occurred. One such country is Poland.

While the names of these countries are redacted in the declassified report, their identity is scarcely a mystery. Poland, for example, has been cited by a court for its involvement in the program, which has been highly controversial among both opponents inside Poland and international human rights activists for more than a decade.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled in July that Poland was complicit in the interrogation program and awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages to two men: Abu Zubaydah, suspected of running a Qaeda facility in Pakistan, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, believed to have planned the attack on the U.S.S. Cole.

“Poland, for all practical purposes, facilitated the whole process, created the conditions for it to happen, and made no attempt to prevent it from occurring,” the court ruled. Polish officials have steadfastly denied the country was involved in the secret prison program.

No matter how ugly the truth may be, Americans need to know the horrors that were done in their name.  It's the only way to try to keep this from ever happening again - and to hopefully someday see those who authorized it held accountable.

More Monday Male Beauty

The Koch Brothers - More Powerful (and Frightening) Than the GOP

Back at the height of the Gilded Age, the immensely wealthy routinely bought politicians.  It's a time period that the Koch brothers want to bring back even as they strive to (i) make most Americans little more than serfs who survive hand to mouth and (ii) buy themselves a license to pollute and despoil the planet.  What is truly frightening is the fact that the Koch brothers with their billions of dollars are in some ways more powerful than the Republican Party which they seek to control.  A piece in Politico looks at the frightening power of the Koch brothers and their corporate empires.  Her are excerpts:

The Koch brothers and their allies are pumping tens of millions of dollars into a data company that’s developing detailed, state-of-the-art profiles of 250 million Americans, giving the brothers’ political operation all the earmarks of a national party.

The move comes as mainstream Republicans, led by Mitch McConnell, are trying to reclaim control of the conservative movement from outside groups. The Kochs, however, are continuing to amass all of the campaign tools the Republican National Committee and other party arms use to elect a president.

The Koch network also has developed in-house expertise in polling, message-testing, fact-checking, advertising, media buying, dial groups and donor maintenance. Add mastery of election law, a corporate-minded aggressiveness and years of patient experimentation — plus seemingly limitless cash — and the Koch operation actually exceeds the RNC’s data operation in many important respects.

“The Koch operations are the most important nonparty political players in the U.S. today, and no one else is even close,” said a top Republican who has been involved in the last eight presidential campaigns.

Spending more than $50 million in cash over the past four years, i360 links voter information with consumer data purchased from credit bureaus and other vendors. Information from social networks is blended in, along with any interaction the voter may have had with affiliated campaigns and advocacy groups. Then come estimated income, recent addresses, how often a person has voted, and even the brand of car they drive. Another i360 service slices and dices information about TV viewing to help campaigns target ads more precisely and cost efficiently.

GOP campaigns can get less-expensive data through the RNC, but happily pay i360 for its superior profiles. Midterm clients included several of the GOP’s marquee Senate and gubernatorial victors, including Sens.-elect Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Joni Ernst of Iowa, and Gov.-elect Larry Hogan in Maryland.

Heading into 2016, the Koch network — under the auspices of Freedom Partners — has in many ways surpassed the reach and resources of the RNC. And, unlike the party, it isn’t bound by rules requiring it to maintain neutrality in primaries. Though the network has yet to engage in primaries, that could be the next logical step in its progression from apolitical think tank consortium to aggressive privatized political machine.

The Kochs and their donors and operatives have been sought out by most of the leading 2016 GOP prospects – from Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky to Govs. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Rick Perry of Texas. Their allies are acutely aware of the potential for the Koch groups and their donors to sway the primaries — even if they don’t formally back a candidate.

A key adviser to one of the top GOP presidential prospects said: “If I could have Karl Rove or Marc Short to run a presidential campaign today, I’d take Marc Short. He understands all the technical tools available to a modern campaign and how to apply them to the nominating process. He also has a deep understanding of the political dynamics of the GOP base vote.”

Short’s connection to another potential GOP presidential candidate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, is among the biggest reasons that the Kochs are considering whether going all-in on a presidential campaign would be a good investment. Short was chief of staff to the House Republican Conference when then-Rep. Pence was the chairman, and Short remains a close adviser to Pence.

Veterans of GOP presidential campaigns say that while the Kochs could not, by themselves, provide the credibility necessary to create a candidate for president, their weapons could make a decisive difference for someone who was already running a viable campaign for the nomination — someone like Pence, whose record could make him a bridge between the GOP’s evangelical and establishment wings.

The LIBRE Initiative, a network-backed group aimed at Hispanics, has 40 staff at its Arlington, Virginia, headquarters and 40 field staff (25 of them part-time) in seven states. Generation Opportunity, the Kochs’ outreach arm for 18- to 34-year-olds, has 30 full-time, paid grass-roots staffers running boots-on-the-ground activism in 10 states. Concerned Veterans for America, another Koch-backed group based in Arlington, has 60 paid staff in 14 states.

What I find most insidious is that the Koch brothers are working diligently to convince voters to vote against the voters own best interests through propaganda and out right lies.   Meanwhile, the Kochs don't give a rat's ass about the people they are deceiving and screwing over.  They are horrible megalomaniacs driven first and foremost by greed.  If there is such a thing as the sin of greed, the Kochs embody it in America today.  They are truly foul individuals. 

Is Sarah Palin Gearing Up for a 2016 Race or Just a Narcissistic Lunatic?

Just when you think the Republican Party cannot possibly get any insane and detached from objective reality, rumors start that Sarah Palin - queen of the crazies - is headed to Iowa to test the waters for a 2016 presidential run.  Personally, I suspect that what's really going on is that Palin - a narcissist of the highest order - merely wants to keep her name in the news and try to keep a base willing to pay to hear her demented screeds.  The woman is shameless and the personification of white trash to use my New Orleans belle maternal grandmother's term for people like Palin.   CNN looks at Palins plans to be in Iowa as well as the other certifiable loons potential GOP candidates.  Here are excerpts:

Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and vice presidential pick, is headed to Iowa next month for a conservative gathering that will showcase no fewer than nine potential 2016 presidential contenders.

She's one of the confirmed speakers at the inaugural Iowa Freedom Summit, an event organized by Iowa Rep. Steve King and conservative group Citizens United to "bring grassroots activists from across Iowa to hear directly from national conservative leaders," per its website. The event is scheduled for Jan. 24.

Palin raised eyebrows last Spring when she said she'd "never say never" to a 2016 presidential run, and remains a star within the conservative wing of the GOP, but there's little indication she's moving forward with preparations for a bid.

If she ran, she'd face stiff competition for conservative support from a wide array of Republicans, many of whom will join her at the Iowa Freedom Summit.

Confirmed speakers for the event include Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, physician Ben Carson, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Republican National Committee fundraiser Carly Fiorina — all of whom are openly contemplating a presidential run or haven't ruled it out.

The event will give the potential contenders the opportunity to test the waters with Iowa grassroots Republicans, which are key to any conservative presidential contender's chances. A strong showing in the Iowa caucuses, the first contest of the presidential primary, signals to major donors and conservatives in other states that a candidate is a viable option for the nomination.

One would almost think the event was a contest to see who is the craziest favorite of the Christofascist, ignorance embracing element of the GOP.  To use the word "conservative" to describe the nutcase wing of the GOP shows how afraid the mainstream media is to call these lunatics out for what they really are.  The belong in an asylum, not holding political office.

Did the IOC Just Ban Anti-Gay Countries from Hosting the Olympics?

This time last year we were constantly hearing of anti-gay abuses in Russia in the lead up to the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi.  We were likewise hearing a drumbeat of criticism for the International Olympic Committee's ("IOC") lack of sufficient balls to lay down the law to Vladimir Putin - just as was the case with the IOC in the lead up to Hitler's Olympic extravaganza in Berlin in 1936.  And sadly, anti-gay persecution continues in Russia.  But, now, the IOC has voted to Principle 6 to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.  On its face, the wording of the newly adopted Principle would bar a country with anti-gay laws from hosting the Olympics. With a number of states in America still maintaining anti-gay sodomy statutes in their codes, perhaps this action will be a wake up call to these anti-gay states.  Here are details from Gay Star News:

The Olympics has taken a huge step forward in protecting gay rights.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) approved Proposal 14 of the Olympic Agenda 2020 to include non-discrimination with regard to sexual orientation in Principle 6 at a vote in Monaco today (8 December).

Principle 6 originally read: 'Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement.'

With sexual orientation included, it implies that countries with laws that actively discriminate against gay people will not be able to apply to host. It must be noted the IOC remains unclear whether this decision will affect any future bids.

It comes after several people were arrested during the Sochi Olympics earlier this year, held in the shadow of Russia's 'gay propaganda' laws.

It sends a clear message to future host cities that human rights violations, including those against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, will not be tolerated,' said Andre Banks, co-founder and executive director of All Out.  'These new rules must prevent a replay of Sochi.'

The 2016 Summer Olympics will be held in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, and in Tokyo, Japan in 2020. The 2018 Winter Olympics will be held in Pyeongchang, South Korea. The next host city to be decided will be the 2022 Games, with Almaty, Kazakhstan and Beijing, China as the only two candidates.

All of these host countries need to get on board and scrap any anti-gay laws that they have on their books.  Other international sports associations need to follow suit and any events scheduled in places like Russia need to be relocated to non-discriminatory countries.

 

Quote of the Day: Andrew Sullivan on Apparent UVA Rape Hoax

At a family gathering yesterday - my granddaughter's birthday - with a number of UVA alumni in attendance, not surprisingly the Rolling Stone hit piece on UVA came up.  Equally unsurprising was the anger at Rolling Stone's irresponsible (and apparently false) story and horrific journalism - if one can even call the piece journalism.  The question was how did such a terribly wrong story get published.  Andrew Sullivan perhaps sums it up:

So why did an inflammatory, lurid, and apparently fallacious story get into print – with only one source and no corroboration – breaking most basic journalistic rules in a serious publication? Rich Bradley is surely right: it was a too-good-to-check story that echoed what many truly wanted to hear. It managed to suggest that the “rape culture” we are now told is endemic is even worse than you could possibly imagine, and ignored in plain sight. It implicated individuals in various stigmatized groups (among many journalists and activists) – i.e. the dreaded evil trifecta of “white”, “men” and “Southern”. Its details – from the shattered glass and the beer bottle sodomy – had an irresistible allure. Questioning it was like questioning whether Saddam Hussein actually did have WMDs – it seems as if you are excusing an evil figure, or being terminally naïve, or minimizing the danger. We believe what we want to believe – and, in our public debates, we also keep searching for the perfect anecdote or fact or story to refute our opponents for good and all.

Monday Morning Male Beauty

DC Repeals Anti-LGBT Exemption That Allowed Religious Schools To Discriminate

Brace yourself for shrieks and spittle flecked rants about Christians being persecuted now that the District of Columbia has repealed an exemption that has been used to allow religious schools to engage in discrimination.  It is part of the move to ban so-called "reparative therapy" which has been used by the "godly folk" and charlatans to torment LGBT individuals and keep the myth alive that sexual orientation is a "choice" or something that is changeable.  The big issue now is whether Congress - read the Christofascists' political whores in the GOP - will act to void the legislation.  Here are highlights from The New Civil Rights Movement:

While many were heralding the Washington, D.C. City Council earlier this week for passing an ordinance that bans the practice of anti-LGBT "reparative therapy," also known as "ex-gay therapy," on minors, few noticed that the body also passed another important piece of legislation. The city council repealed a 1989 amendment forced on D.C. by Congress, to the city's Human Rights Act, known as the Armstrong Amendment. That law allowed religious educational institutions, which were loosely defined, to discriminate against LGBT people.

Congress has 30 days to void the repeal of the anti-LGBT provision.

“The time has come for us to get rid of that obnoxious provision,” Rick Rosendall, president of the D.C. Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance, said, according to the Washington Blade.

The anti-gay legal group Liberty Counsel registered extreme opposition to the move.  "The Act's repeal of the religious exemption for religious schools and church schools from D.C. Code provisions regarding homosexual acts, lifestyle, orientation, or belief is of grave concern," Liberty Counsel wrote to the city council. "The First Amendment directly prohibits government from prohibiting the Free Exercise of religion," it reminded them.

“Sexual Orientation” and “Gender Identity or Expression" or "Transgender” are subjective, changeable, behavior-based categories subject to moral choice, and are not immutable characteristics such as race, sex, skin color or ethnicity, nor are they in the category of fundamental rights, such as religious belief.

Of course, that's an opinion being purveyed by Liberty Counsel, an anti-LGBT hate group.

Liberty Counsel did not detail how a religious educational institution would be penalized by the repeal of the ordinance, but claimed, "attempting to impose employment regulations on church schools and religious schools whose doctrines and sincere religious convictions forbid homosexual or cross-dressing affiliation and employment is flatly unconstitutional."  The letter also referred to transgender women as "a man claiming he is a woman on a given day," . . .

For the "godly folk," religious freedom means having a license to mistreat others and to disseminate hate and bigotry towards others.  Just like ISIS in the Middle East.