What can one say, when confronted with acts that defy our understanding of what it is to be American? Or, for that matter, simply a human being?  

Can you bear to hear yet one more story, one more offense against the rule of law, against respect for human rights, against all that we hold true and precious?

UPDATE: This film is on Youtube, without a sourcing reference. I am trying to find any info on who made it and when it was filmed. I will update when I have more background.

From the ridiculous, to the even more ridiculous. You almost have to shake your head in disbelief at the preposterous wild jabs and desperate swings Ol' John "Audacity's my middle name" McSame is willing to throw. Until a month ago, Senator McCain was opposed to offshore oil drilling.

Now?  

Not so much.

Duck below the folds, to see his newest ad, just posted on YouTube and slated to run in Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, (northern) Virginia, and Wisconsin.

President Bush has the legal power to order the indefinite military detentions of civilians captured in the United States, the federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., ruled on Tuesday in a fractured 5-to-4 decision.

Link to New York Times story HERE.

UPDATE from comments: See JStrass's excellent earlier diary  for many more of the legal nuances and details. Please, go read his diary and rec it up!

Warning.  Graphic picture of Omar's wounds when he was arrested. The wounds he was denied treatment for while he was being interrogated.

Mandated by a high court ruling, the defense lawyers representing Omar Khadr have been given and will release 7 1/2 hours of videotaped interrogation tomorrow. Khadr was arrested at 15 and held in Gitmo, where he remains today.

 While Khadr's supporters have claimed for years he was tortured in custody, his lawyers say the latest revelations have finally caught the attention of a Canadian public that's growing less willing to sacrifice human rights in the name of national security.

It seems that Canadians are sick of their government participating in America's illegal torture/detention practices, and their courts agree.

It's beginning to look like the wheels are beginning to fall off this tricycle from hell called the Bush administration.

BREAKING 4:02 PM ET // FROM A HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE RELEASE.....

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties Subcommittee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), and Foreign Affairs Chairman of the International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight Subcommittee, Bill Delahunt (D-MA), today called on Attorney General Michael Mukasey to appoint a special counsel to investigate the rendition of a Canadian citizen, Maher Arar, to Syria.

This won't be a jargon filled (or even very informational) economic treatise, like Jerome a Paris writes. He's the undisputed lord of the "oil barrel" price diaries here,(IMHO) and I have no wish nor ability to step into his territory.

However, I just got an email that pretty much gobsmacked me, because if things have gotten to the point where we consumers are being asked to demand regulation from Congress...BY A HUGE CORPORATION, well...things have pretty much jumped the shark, and then some!
~~Follow me over the fold~~

UPDATE x2
Please Unrecommend. This ended up being a fine speech by Senator Dodd, but not the filibuster it was reported to be by Rawstory. My apologies to all, and especially to those that got knocked off the rec'd list.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Not much to say, the good Senators are now standing up and filibustering on the floor of the Senate.

The link to CSPAN ll is here.

Remember Max Cleland? The triple amputee, decorated Viet Nam veteran and Democratic Senator from Georgia? The man the Republican smear machine, and in particular Republican Senatorial candidate Saxby Chambliss ripped, mocked, called unpatriotic and compared in his ads to Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden?

....one TV ad morphed Cleland's face into Saddam Hussein's while suggesting that Cleland was indifferent to the safety of the American people. This ad was so disgusting that Republican Sens. Hagel and McCain both protested it.

In February 2004, "vitriolic right-wing ideologue" Ann Coulter wrote that Cleland should not be referred to as a war hero, as he had lost his limbs in a routine non-combat mission. Regardless of the exact circumstances of the explosion, or its non-relation to the prior battles for which the stars were given, it is worth noting that Cleland was awarded a Silver Star "for gallantry in action" at the battle of Khe Sanh.

OK, this one leaves me pretty much speechless. The Secret Service, whose duty it is to protect:

~ The president,
~the vice president, (or other individuals next in order of succession to the Office of the President),
~the president-elect and vice president-elect
~The immediate families of the above individuals
~Former presidents and their spouses for their lifetimes,

and
~Major presidential and vice presidential candidates, and their spouses within 120 days of a general presidential election

(including of course, Barack Obama)

is being sued by African American SS agents. The reason? Prepare to get your mind blown.

Follow me below the fold....

It would appear that the events that have been hinted at darkly for over a year are beginning to come to fruition. Move over,front paged story about "Arrak". If the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. Michael Mullen is to be believed,

"the Pentagon is planning "potential" military actions against Iran", reports The Washington Post.

Mullen criticized Iran's "'increasingly lethal and malign influence' in Iraq," writes Ann Scott Tyson for the Post.

There has been a flurry of torture items on the Recommended Diary list this week (If you missed them, incredible outpourings in Troutfishing's series, here,here,here, and here, and clammyc's piece, as well) We are all sickened and outraged (see OPOL's great diary) and left feeling shame and horror, and maybe overwhelming helplessness, too.

Here is a chance to do something to shame those who have known about it, allowed it, and still do not stop it. If enough of us care, and raise our voices in outrage, we can make them feel pressured to do something to stop Bush and Cheney from torturing in our names.

UPDATE: Here is a link to an earlier diary posted on this, it didn't show up when I searched tags.

The Congressional Committee on Foreign Affairs has a hearing with General  Petraeus as it's star witness, scheduled for next Wednesday (to be televised on C-Span). So far, the Bush administration and its various spokespersons have managed to "not recall" just about everything they've ever been asked to account for, including their own middle names. The frustration following these hearings is growing, with an ever more present feeling of helplessness  and disbelief at the smug, non-compliant testimony by various Shrub administration shills.  

What if you were selected to have your very pointed question asked of Petraeus?

You have a chance to find out. Follow me beyond the fold...

Vice President Al Gore came out strongly in favor of gay marriage last week on his website.
If this has already been diaried, I'll delete. I'm just so blown away and truly overjoyed that gay marriage has been recognized by a major political leader that I had to diary this.

"Waterboarding is torture - I did it myself"

So declared advisor to Dept of Homeland Security Malcom Nance, publicly repudiating the practice reborn from the middle ages in new and improved form by the Bush Administration. Although the Pentagon has been "banned" from using waterboarding by Congress, the same technique described below has NOT been banned from being used by the CIA.

From The Independent:

or, "How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb".

The Nation. Mother Jones. The Progressive. The Village Voice. The Free Press.

What if they were gone?

"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."
-- Thomas Jefferson, Jan. 16, 1787

Not much detail, but the bureau office in DC is being evacuated just blocks from the White House. An envelope with white powder was found.

BTW, did you know that Karl Rove is being subpoened .... connection?
Naaaaa.

More details when they happen. Buckle your seatbelts.

Yesterday, there was a diary up by Mahler3 about how Billy fucking Kristol thought that the Iraq War, and especially the surge,  was really, "pretty amazing" and "pretty astounding".  I have to admit, I agree with him. Not only amazing and astounding, but because of the "disturbing patterns of behavior by American troops in Iraq" I am also appalled and horrified, saddened, ashamed, angry and brought low.