Torture Agonistes

The Iraq-torture link is what is going to sink Cheney, whether he is prosecuted here at home or not. Its been bubbling on the internet and with Maddow and Keith for 2 weeks, but it looks like its got legs. If someone of high rank in the Bush admin comes out, or in the military, and confirms that Cheney actually ordered further torture after the military said they think they have all there is to be had, for that purpose of providing cover for the admin’s lies about an Iraq-Al Queada link, he will be prosecuted somewhere, if not here.

The man is evil incarnate. A walking bag of shit.

@Promnight:
It might explain his sudden interest in talking to the press.

Oddity showing up on my amazon link.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00029CVQU?tag=stinque-20&camp=211493&creative=379981&linkCode=op1&creativeASIN=B00029CVQU&adid=06NACN9Z1SSG390FNQPN&

Another oddity from Politico.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22681.html

What is unmentioned is Coale and Horseface’s link to Scientology and their use of access to public figures to gain favor for the Outer Space Wing Nuts.

@ManchuCandidate: The walking shitbag is running scared, and its obvious, and he also seems not to understand that he is nobody now. Ex-VP? There is nothing sadder, yet he acts like he is still running the country. Understandable, because, as a VP, he never should have been running the country to begin with, and so, the fact that he shouldn’t be running it now doesn’t phase him.

He defines hubris, and there is going to be a big fall, if he doesn’t croak first.

@Promnight:

Did Joe Biden give away the location of Cheney’s bunker?
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/05/18/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5022777.shtml

You know its a fact of human life that you get used to anything, we have gotten used to the economic-financial meltdown, its not so urgent and scary anymore simply because its been going on almost a year now.

It is still a devastating event, a once-in-a-century economic crisis, and I think we progressives, liberals, have lost sight of how much it must occupy Obama, consuming the great part of his attention and energy, both the policy side and the political side of dealing with it.

All the angst over not moving fast enough to undo all the Bush wrongs, not pushing for prosecutions, must be put in this context. There is still a five-alarm fire going on.

And here is the deli update:

I am on day 3 of my 10 day vacation I took to put this thing together and open it. Today I spent 13 hours renovating the kitchen, plumbing, cleaning, tortuous shit work repairing and trying to properly fix things that have been patched together for years.

Its done now, physically, we have the premises we want, a fine kitchen, display cases sufficient to show all our wares, we got our weights and measures stamps on our scales today, and got our first delivery, Coca-Cola, Dasani, etc.

The next two days, municipal code inspections, health department inspection, fire code inspection. If all goes well, we get deliveries of all the perishables late Wednesday and Thursday, and that leaves only thursday for prep of all the fancy foods for opening Friday.

I am on a high now, the place is gleaming and ready.

@Jesuswalksinidaho: I wish the dead deer at the Naval Observatory could have summoned their ghosts to pour concrete in front of the steel bunker door so it could become an airless tomb.

@Promnight: Sounds like good progress. I’ve had a day from hell but am still planning to work tonight/tomorrow morning on the media strategy proposal for you and Mrs. Prommie to execute. Unless you can convince bloggie to leave Manhattan to handle the media for you…

@Jesuswalksinidaho: I doubt it, I think Joe’s making assumptions, all the skinny was that Cheney was up in west virginia or maryland at Mount Catoctin, where they built these mega-bunkers back in the 50s and 60s, designed to withstand an all-out Soviet nuclear attack. Colin Powells Chief of Staff, the most outspoken high-up member of the Bush administration, who obviously the whole time hated Bush and Cheney and felt he was just trying to stay there to temper the evil, recently said flat out that Cheney is a scaredy-cat pussy, and it seems more in Cheney’s mold to hide deep underground in a massive bunker, I doubt he would have felt safe in a bank vault in the Naval Observatory.

Someday I hope the story of ther anthrax attacks comes out. It was the anthrax, more than 9-11, that genuinely produced real personal fear on the part of almost everyone in DC, people were genuinely afraid, when I worked on a congressional campaign in 2002, the staffers were all still living it, they had all gone on cipro as a prophylaxis, the people in Congress and the DC bureaucracies, it seemed to me, were more personally afraid as a result of the anthrax than anything else.

I think the role of the anthrax attacks is underplayed in the current history, and the fact that the anthrax attacks were definitely a domestic terror event, with the anthrax clearly coming from the US military, thats all so wierd, and its like something people are afraid to look into.

To me, the anthrax attacks, targeting prominent media and democratic figures, were the most succesful psy-ops campaign in history, did more to stampede congress, especially the democrats, into supporting Bush’s wars, than anything else.

And its kinda forgotten. If the real story of Bush and Cheney evil ever comes out, the anthrax will be a key part of it.

@Promnight:

1) I’m so thrilled for you, and stoked that you’re living your dream. Can’t wait to hear more reports.

2) I’m calling double bullshit on the ‘Obama’s just too busy’ rationalizations.

Take it away, Glenn:

Monday – Obama administration’s letter to Britian threatening to cut off intelligence-sharing if British courts reveal the details of how we tortured British resident Binyam Mohamed;

Tuesday – Promoted to military commander in Afghanistan Gen. Stanley McChyrstal, who was deeply involved in some of the worst abuses of the Bush era;

Wednesday – Announced he was reversing himself and would try to conceal photographic evidence showing widespread detainee abuse — despite the rulings from two separate courts (four federal judges unanimously) that the law compels their disclosure;

Friday – Unveiled his plan to preserve a modified system of military commissions for trying Guantanamo detainees, rather than using our extant-judicial processes for doing so.

It’s not the fault of civil libertarians that Obama did all of those things, just in this week alone. These are the very policies — along with things like the claimed power to abduct and imprison people indefinitely with no charges of any kind and the use of the “state secrets privilege” to deny torture and spying victims a day in court — that caused such extreme anger and criticisms toward the Bush presidency.

@SanFranLefty: SFL, there is actually plenty of time. Partly from necessity, and partly because of the nature of the “season” here, the memorial day weekend will be a “soft opening,” not publicized, to give us a chance to work out our system without being overwhelmed, to give us a chance to toy with the menu, find out what the people will buy. Its a big weekend, IF the weather is good, but its not really the true start of summer, that comes in late June when schools let out and people really start their summer vacations. Thats when we will have the menu finalized and will be seeking media to publicize what we have tested this coming weekend. From what we hear from the local business community, which by the way is wonderfully supportive, this is the usual pattern for opening.

We have hired 5 people already, all starting this Thursday. We will be trying to train them in our systems and methods as we simultaneously invent our systems and methods. I am glad we will then have two slow weeks before the real summer crunch starts in late June.

And appropo of nothing, I have to ask Nojo a question, Nojo, you have this Hamster motiff and all, do you have a hamster? I got one for Ethan about a month ago, he wanted one, a friend has one, its a childhood tradition kind of thing. But I have to say, I am surprised and delighted to find that the little fucking thing is charming. I had no idea that they were such sociable things, it has a personality, it enjoys contact, it comes to the door when called and climbs on your hand, its really a charming, funny little creature, it does not have paws, it has little hands, it will look you right in the eye, its less intimidated than our dogs by a direct gaze, it looks right back at you. Hamsters are cool, and I am delighted by it, and I like being delighted, its the little things in life that make you happy, a hamster reaching out and taking a celery stalk from you with its little hands, I love the little creature.

Also, with reagrd to being an employer, I am kinda wowed by the experience. We have hired two mexicans and 3 hot college girls. I have to learn to stop cursing so much, for the last few days its me and my nephew-partner, and its a cock party, we ogle the chicks walking by, we express frustration at recalcitrant bolts and plumbing fixtures with inventive, FCS-like string cursing and invective, but now we will have these little girls around, so we are reigning that in. The mexicans, I love already, they seem good people, just looking for work, ready to work hard, sincere. strange, to be the jefe.

@SanFranLefty: Just got back from “Excremento” as you call it. Each hour I spend there, my already-low opinion of politicians declines more.

@Promnight: The avatar hamster is a battery-operated critter that served as our mascot at the UC-Riverside museum where I geeked for a spell. The previous live rodents in my life are Templeton, a rat I had when I was 10-ish, and Desdemona, a rat I had when I was 23-ish.

Desdemona I acquired from a pet store in McMinnville, where the kid behind the counter asked me, “Feeder or pet?” Having rescued her from a destiny inside a snake, I spent a few months trying to locate a soul inside her pea brain. Eventually it emerged, and Desdemona became a lap rat, quite popular among my friends. (Nobody minded the, um, slight moisture she inevitably left behind.)

Desdemona lasted a good two or three years before she was called to the Great Nesting Place in the Sky. I buried her in her favorite box of Milk Bones.

@ManchuCandidate: I think I also have a line of baby clothing or something.

And John Coale, well, I have yet to read any indication of his competence. From scattered reports, sounds like he’s a dude who likes to throw his money around and fuck things up.

@nojo:
He’s not. Plus he’s got a weird fetish for women in authority.

@Promnight: Give a holler if you need a wrangler for the hired help. I speak messican, and could probably learn “hot college girl” in an afternoon.

Srsly, trying to see if Ma Nabisco and the brood want to road trip this weekend out your way. At this point the wind may take us to FLW’s “Fallingwater” in western PA, then up to Lake Erie where I haven’t been since the few fish there had three eyes and tartan slacks instead of scales.

@Nabisco: The mexicans are simply great. I have learned something, a great truth I have never before seen mentioned in public. Immigrants are not coming here to take the jobs americans don’t want to do. Its not that they do what US Americans don’t want to do. I have US American kids applying left and right.

Its that they do it better. Employers prefer them. I love them. Good people.

Come if you can this weekend witness the clusterfuck in motion, this is shakedown week, and if you come Saturday around lunchtime, you will get to meet our playwright in residence, who is stopping for lunch.

If not, I hope that weekend later in the summer will happen.

@Promnight: Expect me there in mid-August.