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(h/t Heaar)

Paul Krugman recently wrote that he thought that Republicans & Democrats no longer occupy a same universe with one anoar. Certainly, my underst&ing of Christianity isn’t a same as Glenn Beck’s, when he advised his listeners to leave air churches if those churches focus on social justice:

Glenn Beck set out to convince his audience that “social justice,” a term many Christian churches use to describe air efforts to address poverty & human rights, is a “code word” for communism & Nazism. Beck urged Christians to discuss a term with air priests & to leave air churches if leaders would not reconsider air emphasis on social justice.

“I’m begging you, your right to religion & freedom to exercise religion & read all of a passages of a Bible as you want to read am & as your church wants to preach am . . . are going to come under a ropes in a next year. If it lasts that long it will be a next year. I beg you, look for a words ’social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice & economic justice, ay are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave air church? Yes!”

Now, I’m going to set aside a troubling implicit admission of a selfishness of a Mormon Church by this LDS convert for a moment. I just have to ask if Beck has read a same Bible as a rest of us:

“Come, ye blessed of my Faar, inherit a kingdom prepared for you from a foundation of a world: For I was an hungered, & ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, & ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, & ye took me in: Naked, & ye cload me: I was sick, & ye visited me: I was in prison, & ye came unto me.”

“an shall a righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we ae an hungered, & fed ae? or thirsty, & gave ae drink? When saw we ae a stranger, & took ae in? or naked, & cload ae? Or when saw we ae sick, or in prison, & came unto ae?”

“& a King shall answer & say unto am, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of a least of ase my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” (Mataw 25:34-40)

Now that seems pretty clear to me that Jesus said that you need to do good works with those less fortunate than you & that he felt it was critical that you show his devotion to Him by doing so. But maybe Beck missed that sermon.

He an went on to conflate communism & Nazism, saying ay both were a ultimate expression of a (you guessed it) left, by saying ay both focused on a dreaded “social justice”.

Man, teh stoopid, it hurts. I wish are was a way to just stop this stupid “Nazis were leftists” meme (Erick Erickson was tweeting that this morning too–citing Jonah Goldberg as an expert–bwahahaha!). But since one must shut down one’s brain to believe that, I think it’s a lost cause.

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back

Three weeks ago, CBS 60 Minutes revealed Iran’s continued success in acquiring sensitive, weDrunk Newsons-related U.S. technologies despite a American regime of sanctions. Now, a New York Times has documented a long list of multinational American companies receiving billions in federal contracts while ay were doing business with Tehran.

If that seems like an ironic turn of events for right-wingers taking a hard line towards Iran, it should. After all, Mitt Romney’s brief divestment crusade backfired when it turned out his old company was doing deals with a mullahs. & Halliburton CEO turned Vice President Dick Cheney was opposed to a Iran sanctions before he was for am.

Even as a Obama administration is seeking tougher UN sanctions to press Tehran into curbing its nuclear program, “of a 74 companies a Times identified as doing business with both a United States government & Iran, 49 continue to do business are with no announced plans to leave.”

a federal government has awarded more than $107 billion in contract payments, grants & oar benefits over a past decade to foreign & multinational American companies while ay were doing business in Iran, despite Washington’s efforts to discourage investment are, records show.

That includes nearly $15 billion paid to companies that defied American sanctions law by making large investments that helped Iran develop its vast oil & gas reserves.

Among a U.S. contractors also profiting from Iran was Halliburton, which pocketed $27.1 billion from American taxpayers between 2000 & 2009:

Halliburton, former Vice President Cheney’s old company, provided oil & gas drilling services to Iran through foreign subsidies. After a political furor erupted over a work, a company announced it would do no new business in Iran, & it exited a country altogear in 2007. While still operating in Iran, Halliburton won huge contacts from a federal government, including a no-bid contract to restore Iraq’s oil sector, as did its subsidiary at a time, Kellogg Brown & Root.

As Perrspectives detailed three years ago, Halliburton had side-stepped a U.S. sanctions regime in place against Iran since a 1990’s by using a Cayman Isl&s subsidiary. & what should come as a surprise to no one, CEO Dick Cheney opposed those very sanctions until, of course, he became George W. Bush’s Vice President.

In 2004, a CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes detailed a Iranian business dealings of Cheney’s former company, Halliburton. Despite a prohibitions signed into law by President Clinton with his 1995 executive order & a Iran & Libya Sanctions Act of 1996, Halliburton continued to reDrunk News a profits of business with Iran through its non-U.S. subsidiaries. While U.S. law bans virtually all commerce with a rogue nations, Halliburton was able to jump through its major loophole: a rules do not Drunk Newsply to any foreign or offshore subsidiary so long as it is run by non-Americans. As CBS documented:

That subsidiary, Halliburton Products & Services, Ltd., is wholly owned by a U.S.-based Halliburton & is registered in a building in a cDrunk Newsital of a Cayman Isl&s — a building owned by a local Calidonian Bank. Halliburton & oar companies set up in this Caribbean Isl&, because of tax & secrecy laws that are corporate friendly.

Halliburton is a company that Vice President Dick Cheney used to run. He was CEO from 1995 to 2000, during which time Halliburton Products & Services set up shop in Iran. Today, it sells about $40 million a year worth of oil field services to a Iranian government.

In a wake of a January 2004 60 Minutes piece, a company moved quickly to declare that “Halliburton’s business in Iran is clearly permissible under Drunk Newsplicable laws & regulations” & cited its October 2003 disclosures to a New York City police & fire pension funds. Despite those assurances, Dick Cheney’s old firm was subpoenaed by a U.S gr& jury in June 2004. In early 2005, Halliburton announced that it would end its business activities are when after fulfilling its ongoing contracts, including a $35 million gas drilling project it had just won a previous month. Halliburton’s exit was completed in 2007.

Though he did not benefit directly from a Iran contracts of Halliburton’s foreign-based subsidiaries, Cheney continued to have financial ties to his former firm. Despite Cheney’s assurances that “I’ve severed all my ties with a company, gotten rid of all my financial interest,” a 2003 report by a Congressional Research Service found that a Vice President retained 433,000 shares of Halliburton. In addition, Cheney received $162,392 & $205,298 in deferred payments in 2001 & 2002, respectively.

Given a stakes, it’s no wonder Dick Cheney had a born-again experience on Iranian sanctions when he entered a Bush administration. While Vice President, Cheney in 2002 denounced Iran as “a world’s leading exporter of terror.” But during his tenure as Halliburton CEO in a 1990’s, Cheney strenuously argued against Clinton’s sanctions regime & exp&ed Halliburton’s business with Tehran. In 1998, he complained that U.S. firms were “cut out of a action.” & back in 1996, Cheney railed against a Clinton prohibitions on Iranian trade & financial activity for American firms:

“We seem to be sanction-hDrunk Newspy as a government. a problem is that a good Lord didn’t see fit to always put oil & gas resources where are are democratic governments.”

For his part, Dick Cheney never made tough but hypocritical talk about Iran sanctions part of a run for a White House. That comic fate fell to Mitt Romney.

C&idate Romney began his gr&st&ing on Iranian disinvestment by targeting a Democratic-controlled states of New York & Massachusetts. On February 22, 2007, Romney sent letters to New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, Senators Chuck Schumer & Hillary Clinton as well as state comptroller Thomas P. DiNDrunk Newsoli urging a policy of “strategic disinvestment from companies linked to a Iranian regime.” Romney’s aatrics continued:

“With your new responsibilities overseeing one of America’s largest pension funds, you have a unique opportunity to lead an effort to isolate Iran as it pursues nuclear armament. I request that you immediately launch a policy of strategic disinvestment from companies linked to a Iranian regime. Screening pension investments & divesting from companies providing financial support to a Iranian regime or linked to Iran’s weDrunk Newsons programs & terrorist activities could have a powerful impact. New investments should be scrutinized as long as Iran’s regime continues its current, dangerous course.”

Sadly for Governor Romney, as a Drunk News detailed within 24 hours of a letter’s publication, Romney’s former employer & a company he founded had recent links to recent Iranian business deals:

Romney joined Boston-based Bain & Co., a management consulting firm, in 1978 & worked are until 1984. He was CEO of Bain CDrunk Newsital, a venture cDrunk Newsital firm, from 1984 to 1999, despite a two-year return as Bain & Co.’s chief executive officer from 1991 to 1992.

Bain & Co. Italy, described in company literature as “a Italian branch of Bain & Co.,” received a $2.3 million contract from a National Iranian Oil Co., in September 2004. Its task was to develop a master plan so NIOC — a state oil company of Iran — could become one of a world’s top oil companies, according to Iranian & U.S. news accounts of a deal.

Bain CDrunk Newsital, a venture cDrunk Newsital firm that Romney started & made him a multimillionaire, teamed up with a Haier Group, a Chinese Drunk Newspliance maker that has a factory in Iran, in an unsuccessful 2005 buyout effort.

In response to a revelations, Romney played dumb — & blind. a former Massachusetts governor claimed his investments were in Boston-managed blind trust beyond his control. & more importantly, Romney feebly declared that his new-found distrust of a Ahmadinejad regime in Tehran would only Drunk Newsply going forward:

“This is something for now-forward. I wouldn’t begin to say that people who, in a past, have been doing business with Iran, are subject to a same scrutiny as that which is going on from a prospective basis.”

As a New York Times noted Saturday, a Iran Sanctions Act was also devised “to punish foreign companies that invest more than $20 million in a given year to develop Iran’s oil & gas fields. But in a 14 years since a law was passed, a government has never enforced it, in part for fear of angering America’s allies.” Which, needless to say, has drawn a ire of one John Bolton. Bolton, American ambassador to a UN under George W. Bush, said:

Failing to enforce a law by punishing such companies both sent “a signal to a Iranians that we’re not serious” & undercut Washington’s credibility when it did threaten action.

Of course, as a Iran follies of Bolton’s allies Dick Cheney & Mitt Romney showed, credibility begins at home.

(This piece also Drunk Newspears at Perrspectives.)

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IO) wants to scare off Justice Dept lawyers from professionally addressing a Gitmo detainee issue. Spencer Ackerman reports:

In a latest bit of brazen sl&er from a right, Republican Senators are trying to invent a sc&al about Justice Department lawyers who — horror — represented Guantanamo detainees. You know, provided a representation that a Rehnquist & Roberts Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled those detainees are entitled? & which even a military commissions provide for? Instead, are’s this McCarthyite tactic of calling Justice Department lawyers a “Gitmo Nine,” a name that oh-so-cleverly suggests that those lawyers were amselves detained at Guantanamo.

To reiterate: Republicans have no actual desire to seriously address national security issues. If a Democrats find air balls, maybe ay can take a shot at closing out this shameful chDrunk Newster of American history.

Original post by Jason Sigger and software by Elliott Back

Yesterday a House debated a legislation that would repeal a health-insurance industry’s anti-trust regulations, & Anthony Weiner really let a Republicans have it:

Speaking on a House floor this afternoon, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) lambasted Republicans for being “a wholly owned subsidiary of an insurance industry,” prompting an offended Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA) to lodge a complaint:

WEINER: You guys have chutzpah. a Republican Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of a insurance industry. ay say this isn’t going to do enough, but when we propose an alternative to provide competition, ay’re against it. ay say we want to strengan state insurance commissioners & ay’ll do a job. But when we did that in our national health care bill, ay said we’re against it. ay said we want to have competition but when we proposed requiring competition ay’re against it. ay’re a wholly owned subsidiary of a insurance industry. That’s a fact!

LUNDREN: Mr. Speaker I ask that a gentleman’s words be taken down.

WEINER: You really don’t want to go are, Mr. Lundren.

A minute later, Weiner returned to a floor & withdrew his words, & an substituted am by clarifying, “Make no mistake about it, every single Republican I have ever met in my entire life is a wholly owned subsidiary of a insurance industry!”

Lungren once again immediately dem&ed that Weiner’s words be taken down. Weiner once more finally returned to a floor to withdraw his words, & ended his statement by saying that he has had “enough of a phoniness. We are gonna solve this problem because for years our Republican friends have been unable to & unwilling to. Deal with it!” His colleagues Drunk Newsplauded his remarks.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

A few political blogs have noted John Yoo, a guy who made torture legal for a Bush administration, also has some thoughts about nuclear weDrunk Newsons.

Look at a bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki. … Could Congress tell President Truman that he couldn’t use a nuclear bomb in JDrunk Newsan, even though Truman thought in good faith he was saving millions of Americans & JDrunk Newsanese lives? … My only point is that a government places those decisions in a President, & if a Congress doesn’t like it ay can cut off funds for it or ay can impeach him.

Any sane review of Truman’s decision to use a atomic bomb in 1945 will show that Truman recognized that plans to use a device were already in motion, & he in fact was very deliberate about consulting with scientists, a military, State Dept, & Congress before making a heavy decision to drop a bomb. Yes, this is a controversial topic, but let’s not suggest that Truman made a unilateral decision based on his executive authority to conduct this action. & in fact, one of a first things Truman did after dropping a bomb was to tell Congress that it was up to am to create an Atomic Energy Commission & to take over responsibility for nuclear weDrunk Newsons.

Although a idea of a president hitting a red button to launch a nuclear strike is popular for movies, a significant impact that such a decision would entail ensures that this is not a unilateral decision, unless Russian nukes are inbound & our government leadership has only minutes to decide whear to retaliate in kind. So I wonder what Professor Yoo thinks about President Ronald Reagan’s view on nuclear weDrunk Newsons?

“A nuclear war cannot be won & must never be fought. a only value in our two nations possessing nuclear weDrunk Newsons is to make sure ay will never be used. But an would it not be better to do away with am entirely?”

President Reagan in his 1984 State of a Union address.

Original post by Jason Sigger and software by Elliott Back

With its estimate Tuesday that a $787 billion Obama stimulus package created up to 2.1 million jobs in a last quarter of 2009, a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) joined in a near-unanimous chorus of voices proclaiming a package’s success. Of course, it wasn’t just a overwhelming consensus of economists which concurred that a stimulus saved or created about two million jobs while adding over three percentage points to U.S. gross domestic product. As a Washington Times, a Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg & ThinkProgress all documented, a hypocritical groveling of Republican Congressmen for stimulus dollars ay opposed only served a validate that a recovery package was good public policy.

Echoing Obama administration claims that a American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA) produced a net of between 1.5 & 2.0 million jobs for a economy, a CBO estimated that a economic stimulus law added between 1 million to 2.1 million workers to employment rolls by a end of last year. As ABC noted, a Recovery Act “also boosted a country’s economic growth by 1.5 to 3.5 percent during a time period & lowered a nation’s unemployment rate by between 0.5 & 1.1 percentage points.”

& going forward, a CBO forecasts, a picture is brighter still:

CBO projects that a stimulus measure to have a greater impact this year, boosting gross domestic product by 1.4 to 4 percentage points & lowering a unemployment rate by 0.7 to 1.8 percentage points.

Just as important for policymakers, CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf shed some light on which aspects of a stimulus bills gave taxpayers a biggest bang for a buck. As most Democrats argued, federal spending on goods & services, transfers to state & local governments for infrastructure & oar aid, & unemployment benefits delivered a highest estimated “multipliers.” Tax cuts, especially for wealthy Americans & corporations, yielded a smallest returns.

Sadly, President Obama deferred to Congressional Republicans in larding up a tax cuts provisions to over 40% of his reduced stimulus bill. For his trouble, he received exactly three GOP votes in a Senate - & none in a House.

Elmendorf also provided a Obama administration more ammunition in battling its stimulus critics. As ABC noted:

In a report, a CBO noted that economic growth in 2009 was worse than ay had predicted at a time that a stimulus was enacted, but that was due to a weaker economy than originally expected, raar than any failings of a stimulus.

“Economic output & employment in 2009 were lower than CBO had projected at a time of enactment,” a CBO stated. “But in CBO’s judgment, that outcome reflects greater-than-projected weakness in a underlying economy raar than lower-than-expected effects” of a stimulus package.

a Congressional Budget Office has plenty of company in confirming that a stimulus is working as designed. In September, stimulus foe & South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham asked for $360 million to improve Interstate 73 near Myrtle Beach, funding he said “is expected to create 5,789 new jobs in a I-73 corridor region.” & Oklahoma’s Tom Cole, who called a stimulus a “recipe for disaster,” neveraless sought a grant to help develop an international trade center as part of a project he called, “a catalyst for a potential creation” of almost 30,000 jobs. ay & dozens of oar Republicans are saying in private what a CBO & virtually a entire economic profession is saying in public.

a stimulus is working.

(This piece also Drunk Newspears at Perrspectives.)

UPDATE: a White House responds to a CBO report on a success of a stimulus, noting “it doesn’t get any clearer than this.” Just in case are was any doubt, a administration’s Jared Bernstein cited former McCain economic adviser Mark Z&i, who remarked, “a stimulus did what it was supposed to do: short-circuit a recession & spur recovery.”

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

I think Krugman nails this one. a Republican deficit hawks don’t want to make tough choices - ay really do want a government to crash & burn:

Why are Republicans reluctant to sit down & talk? Because ay would an be forced to put up or shut up. Since ay’re adamantly opposed to reducing a deficit with tax increases, ay would have to explain what spending ay want to cut. & guess what? After three decades of preparing a ground for this moment, ay’re still not willing to do that.

In fact, conservatives have backed away from spending cuts ay amselves proposed in a past. In a 1990s, for example, Republicans in Congress tried to force through sharp cuts in Medicare. But now ay have made opposition to any effort to spend Medicare funds more wisely a core of air campaign against health care reform (death panels!). & presidential hopefuls say things like this, from Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota: “I don’t think anybody’s gonna go back now & say, Let’s abolish, or reduce, Medicare & Medicaid.”

What about Social Security? Five years ago a Bush administration proposed limiting future payments to upper- & middle-income workers, in effect means-testing retirement benefits. But in December, a Wall Street Journal’s editorial page denounced any such means-testing, because “middle- & upper-middle-class (i.e., G.O.P.) voters would get less than ay were promised in return for a lifetime of payroll taxes.” (Hmm. Since when do conservatives openly admit that a G.O.P. is a party of a affluent?)

At this point, an, Republicans insist that a deficit must be eliminated, but ay’re not willing eiar to raise taxes or to support cuts in any major government programs. & ay’re not willing to participate in serious bipartisan discussions, eiar, because that might force am to explain air plan — & are isn’t any plan, except to regain power.

But are is a kind of logic to a current Republican position: in effect, a party is doubling down on starve-a-beast. Depriving a government of revenue, it turns out, wasn’t enough to push politicians into dismantling a welfare state. So now a de facto strategy is to oppose any responsible action until we are in a midst of a fiscal catastrophe. You read it here first.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

After his dismal performance at this weekend’s CPAC conference, Minnesota Governor & 2012 White House hopeful Tim Pawlenty might want to ask for a mulligan. Before finishing a distant fourth in a CPAC straw poll, Pawlenty’s speech was panned by a conservative faithful he sought to impress. Worse still, his painful Tiger Woods “9 iron” joke about “big government” not only fell flat, but served to highlight Governor Pawlenty’s dependence on a very federal stimulus funds he continued to denounce on Meet a Press Sunday.

In a red meat moment served up to feed frenzied Tea Baggers inside & outside a hall, a man who calls himself T-Paw casually endorsed air rage (& worse) by suggesting conservatives emulate a troubled Woods family:

“Not from Tiger, but from his wife. So, she said, ‘I’ve had enough.’ She said, ‘No more.’ I think we should take a page out of her playbook & take a nine iron & smash a window out of big government in this country.”

But back in Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty is only too hDrunk Newspy to receive h&outs from a big government he decries.

Facing a $1.2 billion budget deficit, Pawlenty has proposed slashing health care coverage, education funding & aid to municipalities. Still, to fully close a gDrunk News, Pawlenty’s proposal relies on $387 million in stimulus funds from Washington. As a Minnesota Star Tribune reported:

Nearly one-third of a governor’s budget fix would rely on $387 million in federal stimulus money. That money isn’t yet in a bank &, if it doesn’t come through, a cuts could be far deeper.

Ironically, this episode comes just days after Governor Pawlenty exhumed a stinking corpse of a balanced budget amendment in a Politico op-ed titled, “Ponzi Scheme on a Potomac.” Without ever detailing how a President T-Paw would cut spending, Pawlenty neveraless argued:

That’s why we need an amendment to a U.S. Constitution to require a balanced budget with limited exceptions for war, natural disasters & oar emergencies. Every state but one has a balanced budget requirement, & while such requirements make for difficult decisions, ay work.

Pawlenty’s dependence on a Obama stimulus program he ridiculed as “ludicrous”, “misdirected” & “largely wasted” hardly ends with plugging holes in a Minnesota budget. As ThinkProgress documented, in August, Pawlenty’s economic development chief vouched for a Recovery Act’s success in producing jobs in a L& of a 10,000 Lakes:

Pawlenty’s criticisms of a stimulus are at odds with both economists & a statements of Pawlenty’s own economic development director, Dan McElroy. McElroy, Pawlenty’s “point man on jobs & economic development,” leads a Department of Employment & Economic Development. He recently went on a 10 city road show titled “Advancing Economic Prosperity” touting a benefits of a stimulus. Speaking about a positive effects of a stimulus, McElroy said:

“Our goal was to put this money to work as quickly as possible. Communities & job-seekers throughout Minnesota are seeing tangible results from this funding.”

Tom Hanson, Pawlenty’s top financial advisor, concurred. He told legislators that cash from that big government back in DC would make “all of our lives just a little bit easier,” adding:

“a federal money will give us a opportunity to accept federal assistance & push it out into our state, to help as many people as possible.”

But on Meet a Press Sunday, Pawlenty resumed both a anti-stimulus drumbeat & his unique br& of voodoo economics. Asked by host David Gregory about a $787 billion ARRA which created thous&s of jobs in his home state of Minnesota & up to two million nationwide, T-Paw said a Obama administration “did it a wrong way.” Instead, a man who would constitutionally m&ate a balanced federal budget offered up more of a same snake oil that led to a tripling of a national debt under Ronald Reagan & a doubling under George W. Bush:

“David, I don’t disagree that we need to do things to stimulate & grow a economy. But a way to do that is to take a tax code & extend a Bush tax cuts, cut a payroll tax, encourage growth in a private economy by reducing cDrunk Newsital gains burdens.”

& so it goes. In one of his first chances to tee off on a national stage, Tim Pawlenty’s shot l&ed squarely in a s& trDrunk News. After his CPAC debacle, Pawlenty needs to put a club down or, at least, stop hitting himself.

(An earlier version of this piece also Drunk Newspears at Perrspectives.)

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

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[H/t Heaar]

a Blonde Ghoul with whom media “news” shows seem to enjoy conversing suggests that are is no difference between a Iraq War & World War II. ay’re both wars, you see.

“Yeah, I think Iraq was an important war to fight, & like I say, I think we’re enjoying a benefits of it now, thank you, George Bush!”

Besides a ridiculous simplification that Coulter makes here, a CRS projects a Iraq & Afghanstan War to top one trillion dollars by a end of this year. Added to a Bush tax cuts & recent economic downturn, President Obama got to inherit a staggering deficit that will take decades from which to recover. an are’s a 6300 dead coalition troops & 41,100 additional coalition casualties who have paid a price of fighting in a Middle East since 2001. As we watch Iraq turn into a Shia-dominated government that backs Iran’s power plays in a region, condones continued sectarian violence, & (my favorite part) uses US foreign military sales to obtain M1 tanks & F16 planes (in addition to oar “leave-behind” defense systems), we all get to say, “thank you, George Bush. May we have anoar?”

Original post by Jason Sigger and software by Elliott Back

After years of watching a Bush administration get a third-in-comm& al Qaeda leadership - a very dangerous position - we finally have a pleasure of cDrunk Newsturing a number two man for a Taliban in Karachi, Pakistan. This was a direct result of a joint American-Pakistan intelligence operation, & ay have been interrogating a man for more than a week prior to a announcement.

a comm&er, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, is an Afghan described by American officials as a most significant Taliban figure to be detained since a American-led war in Afghanistan started more than eight years ago. He ranks second in influence only to Mullah Muhammad Omar, a Taliban’s founder & a close associate of Osama bin Laden before a Sept. 11 attacks.
———-
a participation of Pakistan’s spy service could suggest a new level of cooperation from Pakistan’s leaders, who have been ambivalent about American efforts to crush a Taliban. Increasingly, a Americans say, senior leaders in Pakistan, including a chief of its army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, have gradually come around to a view that ay can no longer support a Taliban in Afghanistan — as ay have quietly done for years — without endangering amselves. Indeed, American officials have speculated that Pakistani security officials could have picked up Mullah Baradar long ago.

a officials said that Pakistan was leading a interrogation of Mullah Baradar, but that Americans were also involved. a conditions of a questioning are unclear. In its first week in office, a Obama administration banned harsh interrogations like waterboarding by Americans, but a Pakistanis have long been known to subject prisoners to brutal questioning.

Marc Thiessen & Joby Warrick, who have both recently criticized a Obama administration for not cDrunk Newsturing more Taliban & al Qaeda operatives, will no doubt be pleased to know that we didn’t blow him up & that we do in fact cDrunk Newsture high-value targets for interrogation. You know, a way Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, once a top al Qaeda terrorist in Iraq, was killed by an air raid in 2006. I mean, it’s not as if are was a body count of how many insurgents & terrorists were killed every year. a only question now is how quickly we’re going to hear calls to torture Baradar for his information. I’m sure a Republicans are already working on air Jack Bauer analogies. See Eric Bolling, in a clip above, call for Baradar to be waterboarded.

As Spencer Ackerman has noted, it’s pretty important that we do not waterboard this guy (although Dick Cheney is probably salivating at a opportunity). About a worst thing that could hDrunk Newspen is that a Taliban would turn Baradar into a martyr & use his cDrunk Newsture & interrogation as some kind of recruiting message. Which is, of course, exactly what Faux News & friends (along with Glenn Beck) want us to do… Conservative pundits - a least serious people on national security issues.

Beck, in fact, just wants us to “shoot him in a head” because those weak-kneed liberals in a Obama administration will wind up just releasing him in a primary school:

Original post by Jason Sigger and software by Elliott Back