Retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson Slams U.S. Empire

If this video doesn't knock you on your ass, I don't know what will. 

Let me rephrase that -- many of the people watching this video already get it. But to see and hear a retired U.S. Army colonel, former National Security Advisor in the Reagan administration, former advisor to Colin Powell, dyed-in-the-wool Republican, saying this stuff, pointing out that the emperor is wearing no clothes, that, as he puts it, "this ship is sinking" -- well, I'd like to say it should make an impression on all the naysayers. But in fact I know it won't. 

They'll find a way to discredit him just as much as they discredit people such as Chris Hedges and Noam Chomsky. I know it won't make a dent. I'm posting it anyway. I hope people will share it.

Whistleblower John Kiriakou Finally Freed (kinda, sorta)

Former CIA employee and torture whistleblower John Kiriakou has been freed after almost two years in prison. He is the only American who has served prison time in the (on-going) U.S. torture scandal. While Dick Cheney, George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, John Yoo, Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, John Rizzo, and other assorted psychopaths walk free -- and, in fact, are sought out and promoted by the so-called news media -- Kiriakou went to jail for exposing the U.S. torture program. 

Psychopath of the Week Redux

I'm reposting what I wrote at the beginning of this year, because this son of a bitch is back in the news again, spewing his garbage, as the news media continue to dance around the word "torture" and weasel out of their responsibility to report what's going on. Instead, they act like PR flacks and mouthpieces for the criminals who run our country.

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Psychopath of the Week

Asshole of the Day

Obushma

Eternal War, or Reason #167 Why Obama is the Second Coming of George W. Bush

Well, as predicted, Obama is once again striving to prove he's just as clueless, blinkered, and warmongering as his predecessor. It's hard to tell anymore who in the stupidity sweepstakes is winning. 

United States of Depravity

In a perfect corollary to the entry I posted earlier today, we have the following story from the Washington Post. It's impossible to imagine the depravity of this country anymore. Reality surpasses the most sick, twisted thing you could ever come up with: 

"Jane Doe" Raped by CBP and Hospital Personnel Settles Part of Lawsuit

The case of a woman who was raped -- repeatedly -- by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers and by medical personnel at the University Medical Center of El Paso has been partially settled.

I first wrote about the case here. Though this kind of thing goes on all the time at borders (and in prisons and detention centers), this particular case was so egregious that even the mainstream media reported on it. 

Dianne Feinstein the Hypocrite, Part Deux

As I wrote on March 12, 2014, Dianne Feinstein is a hypocrite. She was fine with the egregious, relentless spying on us peons by the "intelligence" agencies, but got her knickers in a twist when that spying was suddenly turned on her.

It's the same with hypocrites everywhere: it's always okay when other people take it on the chin; it's just not okay when you or yours do.

Dianne Feinstein the Hypocrite

Ya know what -- fuck Dianne Feinstein. For years she's been one of the worst shills for the NSA, CIA, and the entire national security state apparatus. It was okay when everyone else was being spied on and abused, but now that the shoe is on the other foot, suddenly it's not okay.

Funny how people get religion only when they're personally affected. Similar to Gabby Giffords, I might add, who now is all in favor of gun control. But until she got shot, she didn't give a shit.

Psychopath of the Week

Another in our continuing series, Psychopath of the Week. It's always a tough call, because there are so many of them. This week, however, there's no contest.

Because we have the smarmiest of the smarmy, the personification of a sophist, which is to say someone who twists language and meaning and decency and his own soul beyond limits to justify the unjustifiable:

Mr. Fish on Terrorism and Chickens Coming Home to Roost

Rolling Stone: The A-Team Killings -- Torture and Murder in Afghanistan

Rolling Stone has just published a blockbuster article detailing war crimes by American forces in Afghanistan. It's called The A-Team Killings.

Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez of Democracy Now! interviewed the author of the article, Matthieu Aikins. In this clip, the first clip, he talks about how the article came about.

In this clip, we see Afghans and Westerners who appear to be Americans torturing a bound prisoner. Yes, it's gruesome. No, there are no thumb screws or cattle prods involved. Torture comes in many forms, not all of them involving medieval devices.

There's also a brief clip of Secretary of State John Kerry in convoluted bureaucrat-speak. In fact, I couldn't even understand what he was saying until Gonzalez and Aikins explained it. Kerry was saying that on the one hand the U.S. respected the Afghan system of justice, the loya jirga, but on the other hand it wouldn't subject any of its forces to that system of justice. Why? Because they and he know that U.S. soldiers have committed war crimes. And they want legal immunity for those crimes.

Cops & Docs Force Anal Cavity Searches on Man After Traffic Stop

This country is a police state. This country is a police state. Only in a police state could cops -- colluding with medical doctors, no less -- force 8 -- 8 -- anal cavity searches on a man after a minor traffic stop.

No, I am not making this up, for all you clueless naysayers out there who have your heads in the sand (or somewhere else -- but no worries; the cops will help you find it so you can get it back).

Yet More Evidence That the U.S. Tortures With Impunity

As I've written so many times, most recently in this post on October 30th, the U.S. has embraced torture. The U.S. cannot pretend to stand for the rule of law or continue to spout platitudes about "democracy," "freedom," and, most gag-inducing, "American values."

And today's news bears that out.

Court Rules Once Again that Torture is A-OK in the USA

Because the U.S. has turned into a country that tortures people with impunity -- and brags about it -- the news that a federal appeals court has ruled against a "detainee," an "enemy combatant," comes as no surprise.

Courts are a reflection of the society in which they exist. They're not on Mount Olympus. And the courts since 9/11 especially have repeatedly sided with the government and against civil liberties and plain old ordinary justice.

Justice, you scoff, ha! What does justice have to do with anything?

Stop Putting Kids in Solitary

Solitary confinement is torture. It has been understood to be such for decades. It's torture when you subject an adult to it, but it's beyond barbaric when you subject children to it. Yet that's what this country is doing.

This country is barbaric. We will have no way to change it unless we acknowledge that. You have to recognize and acknowledge something before you can change it.

This post relates to the one I did earlier today. Watch this video. Sign the petition. Pass it on. We are torturing our children:

LUV News Sunday 18 August 2013

Reproducing here, once again, the LUV Newsletter (see tags for other examples). And once again, I can't figure out what's going on with the font:

John Pilger on Bradley Manning

John Pilger and Glenn Greenwald both write for the Guardian, a UK paper that, thank god, doesn't kiss the asses of those in power quite as much as the American press does. That's why we get columns from them on quaint things like . . . oh . . . you know . . .  justice, virtue, human rights, civil liberties. And revelations about war crimes, torture, empire, and the sadism and hypocrisy that make those possible.

LUV News Sunday 21 July 2013

As I wrote here, I do LUV News on the weekends. Here was today's (Sunday's) newsletter (minus the story on Brandon Toy, which I had already done as a separate post here):