Great Line

Just watching Jon Stewart's coverage of Glen Beck's interview with Rep.-elect Keith Ellison (D-MN) the nations first muslim american in congress...Stewart had a great line after showing the video. "Finally someone who says what people who aren't thinking are thinking"

Fox News: Fair and Balanced

Here is an internal fox news memo , that shows how fair and balanced they are. You get that feeling that things are slanted when you watch, and here is just evidence your feelings are justified.


Update- Last night on Count Down, Keith Olberman first disected the memo and then disscussed the memo with Robert Greenwald (Out Foxed).

Remembering the PET

It was a solid computer.

Bush + Pelosi = political harmony?

I was just remembering how Bush is partial to surrounding himself with/taking advice from strong-minded women. Maybe he'll actually get along famously with Pelosi? That would be an interesting turn of events.

Crazy times

You know we live in unique political times when the always reliably red state of New Hampshire is suddenly fairly blue. Really, this is quite an historic reversal.

GOP's have thrown in the towel. What do the dems do?

How 'bout that. The GOP quit. There's not really anything they can do now to push their agenda--and note the lack of screaming from Virginia and Montana (well, maybe a little--but NOTHING like I was expecting). Since I'm not in the States, I'm not seeing all of this first hand, but they're going out with a whimper. The GOP, for the moment, is completely wrecked--abandoned by the old-school conservatives like Buckley and Will as well as the NeoCons and the crazy right-wingers. There really ISN'T a Republican party right now--look at the right wing pundits. They can't even define themselves--look at their blogs. They're trying to pillory anyone and everyone they can.

This is a --Potentially-- good backdrop. It doesn't mean, however, that the Democrats have a well-oiled machine going (yet), or that they won this thing based on the sheer brilliance of their party. They have a ton of work to do--both in terms of running the damn congressional show as well as trying to define their own values and agendas.

If those values are aimed entirely at demolishing and humiliating W and the GOP, however warranted it might be, things won't go well for them, 2008 will be a wash, and 2006 will be a fluke. The country is in crisis on nearly all fronts, and they have to go and show 300 million people that they're going to do something about it. Depending on how an Iraq war investigation is run, and to what extent it drains the resources and attention of congress, I could support it. Bush's seeming reconciliation is nothing more than a ploy to cover his own ass--we all know that. The last 6 years shouldn't go unpunished. But, that said, what I want to see is the Dems get shit done. I want to seem them demonstrate that they are a strong, functional political party, and one that is representative of the general will of the US. No games. If they can get W to crawl out of the Oval Office in shame, great. But don't let it get in the way of getting stuff FIXED.

That's the point of this whole diatribe--my issue isn't really whether the dems try to be progressive, or bi-partisan, angry or conciliatory. I want to see a powerful, principled party out of this--a goddamn juggernaut that will inspire people to vote for them even if they don't agree with everything on the agenda du jour--because they get things DONE. If that happens, there really wouldn't be much of a danger of them being too much like the GOP, OR of being so far to one side that they're out of touch.

Just some thoughts...

This is F***'d up

I first read about this on Jesus General's website, it is from Editors & Publishers. One of the things that I hope Democratic control of the legislative branch(Yeah, I wrote Branch...AP just called Virginia for Webb (51-49)) will bring is more oversight and investigation into the toll war takes on the soldiers and the country. I hope the truth comes about what happened to Army specialist Alyssa Peterson. Some blogs comment on the potential for foul play. I guess that is a possibly a small part of the issues, but really I feel it is about her and other soldiers, what they told do during interogations, and the mental well being of soldiers who serve.



Revealed: U.S. Soldier Killed Herself After Objecting to Interrogation Techniques
The true stories of how American troops, killed in Iraq, actually died keep spilling out this week. Now we learn, thanks to a reporter's FOIA request, that one of the first women to die in Iraq shot and killed herself after objecting to harsh "interrogation techniques."

By Greg Mitchell

(November 01, 2006) -- The true stories of how American troops, killed in Iraq, actually died keep spilling out this week. On Tuesday, we explored the case of Kenny Stanton Jr., murdered last month by our allies, the Iraqi police, though the military didn’t make that known at the time. Now we learn that one of the first female soldiers killed in Iraq died by her own hand after objecting to interrogation methods used on prisoners.

She was Army specialist Alyssa Peterson, 27, a Flagstaff, Ariz., native serving with C Company, 311th Military Intelligence BN, 101st Airborne. Peterson was an Arabic-speaking interrogator assigned to the prison at our air base in troubled Tal-Afar in northwestern Iraq. According to official records, she died on Sept. 15, 2003, from a “non-hostile weapons discharge.”


She was only the third American woman killed in Iraq, so her death drew wide press attention. A “non-hostile weapons discharge” leading to death is not unusual in Iraq, often quite accidental, so this one apparently raised few eyebrows. The Arizona Republic, three days after her death, reported that Army officials “said that a number of possible scenarios are being considered, including Peterson's own weapon discharging, the weapon of another soldier discharging, or the accidental shooting of Peterson by an Iraqi civilian.” (Her parents now say they were never told about her objections to interrogation techniques.)

But in this case, a longtime radio and newspaper reporter named Kevin Elston, unsatisfied with the public story, decided to probe deeper in 2005, "just on a hunch," he told E&P today. He made "hundreds of phone calls" to the military and couldn't get anywhere, so he filed a Freedom of Information Act request. When the documents of the official investigation of her death arrived, they contained bombshell revelations. Here’s what the Flagstaff public radio station, KNAU, where Elston now works, reported yesterday:

“Peterson objected to the interrogation techniques used on prisoners. She refused to participate after only two nights working in the unit known as the cage. Army spokespersons for her unit have refused to describe the interrogation techniques Alyssa objected to. They say all records of those techniques have now been destroyed."

She was was then assigned to the base gate, where she monitored Iraqi guards, and sent to suicide prevention training. “But on the night of September 15th, 2003, Army investigators concluded she shot and killed herself with her service rifle,” the documents disclose.

The Army talked to some of Peterson's colleagues. Asked to summarize their comments, Elston told E&P: "The reactions to the suicide were that she was having a difficult time separating her personal feelings from her professional duties. That was the consistent point in the testimonies, that she objected to the interrogation techniques, without describing what those techniques were."

Elston said that the documents also refer to a suicide note found on her body, which suggested that she found it ironic that suicide prevention training had taught her how to commit suicide. He has now filed another FOIA request for a copy of the actual note.

Peterson's father, Rich Peterson, has said: “Alyssa volunteered to change assignments with someone who did not want to go to Iraq.”

Peterson, a devout Mormon, had graduated from Flagstaff High School and earned a psychology degree from Northern Arizona University on a military scholarship. She was trained in interrogation techniques at Fort Huachuca in Arizona, and was sent to the Middle East in 2003.

The Arizona Republic article had opened: “Friends say Army Spc. Alyssa R. Peterson of Flagstaff always had an amazing ability to learn foreign languages.

“Peterson became fluent in Dutch even before she went on an 18-month Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints mission to the Netherlands in the late 1990s. Then, she cruised through her Arabic courses at the military's Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif., shortly after enlisting in July 2001.

“With that under her belt, she was off to Iraq to conduct interrogations and translate enemy documents.”

On a “fallen heroes” message board on the Web, Mary W. Black of Flagstaff wrote, "The very day Alyssa died, her Father was talking to me at the Post Office where we both work, in Flagstaff, Ariz., telling me he had a premonition and was very worried about his daughter who was in the military on the other side of the world. The next day he was notified while on the job by two army officers. Never has a daughter been so missed or so loved than she was and has been by her Father since that fateful September day in 2003. He has been the most broken man I have ever seen.”

An A.W. from Los Angeles wrote: "I met Alyssa only once during a weekend surfing trip while she was at DLI. Although our encounter was brief, she made a lasting impression. We did not know each other well, but I was blown away by her genuine, sincere, sweet nature. I don’t know how else to put it-- she was just nice. ... I was devastated to here of her death. I couldn’t understand why it had to happen to such a wonderful person.”

Finally, Daryl K. Tabor of Ashland City, Tenn., who had met her as a journalist in Iraq for the Kentucky New Era paper in Hopkinsville: "Since learning of her death, I cannot get the image of the last time I saw her out of my mind. We were walking out of the tent in Kuwait to be briefed on our flights into Iraq as I stepped aside to let her out first. Her smile was brighter than the hot desert sun. Peterson was the only soldier I interacted with that I know died in Iraq. I am truly sorry I had to know any."

***
UPDATE: A Friday report in The Arizona Daily Sun of Flagstaff reveals that Spc. Peterson's mother, Bobbi Peterson, reached at her home in northern Arizona, said that neither she nor her husband Richard has received any official documents that contained information outlined in the KNAU report. "Until she and Richard have had an opportunity to read the documents, she said she is unable to comment," the newspaper reported.

Democrats have the house back

I think when the house went rebublican during the 1993 elections the democrats had held the house for 40 some old years. I hope the next couple of years are more productive then the last 13 years.

So far...

It has been ok...Looks like the senate with stay republican the house will likely go democratic...A bitter sweet half an hour...Just saw Rick "man on dog" Santorum give his concession speech...but as I type Ted Lamont just gave his.

One of the bests ads this season

I don't remember political ads and the political atmosphere being this combative and negative.(here is a story about negative ads backfiring against Bernie Sanders) I hope that the change in the house and possibly the senate does not result in more of the same nonsense. My hope is that the democrats do not seek retribution for the last couple of years, but actually try and make things better as most democratic contenders have promised across the country. Anyway, the reason I started this post was becuase of an ad I just saw from the Septemberfund. It really made me laugh, even though the subject is so sad.