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As a Massachusetts resident, I continue to suffer the indignities of being forced to endure the clownish behavior of one of the most hard-left congressional delegations in the country. Every single member of its congressional delegation is cut from the same basic ideological cloth of unrestrained liberalism, as are its two Senators. Representative William Delahunt is a member of this august body of left-wing congressmen. When he is not busy acting as a useful idiot by shilling for Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, or praising the beneficence of Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, he does find the time to castigate those who...

DUBAI, May 1 (Reuters) - A Kuwaiti man released from the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay in 2005 has carried out a suicide bombing in Iraq, his cousin told Al Arabiya television on Thursday. A friend of Abdullah Saleh al-Ajmi in Iraq informed his family that Abdullah carried out the attack in Mosul, his cousin Salem told the Dubai-based television channel. "We were shocked by the painful news we received this afternoon ... through a call from one of the friend's of martyr Abdullah in Iraq," said Salem al-Ajmi in a telephone interview aired by Arabiya. He did not say...

"Why are we talking about this in the White House?" John Ashcroft nervously asked his fellow members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee. (The Principals were Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General Ashcroft.) "History will not judge this kindly," Ashcroft predicted. "This" is torture. Against innocent people. Conducted by CIA agents and American soldiers and marines. Sanctioned by legal opinions issued by Ashcroft's Justice Department. Directly ordered by George W. Bush.

PROVO, Utah — No one really disputes that Chad Hudgens was waterboarded outside a Provo office park last May 29, right before lunch, by his boss. There is also general agreement that Hudgens volunteered for the “team-building exercise,” that he lay on his back with his head downhill, and that co-workers knelt on either side of him, pinning the young sales rep down while their supervisor poured water from a gallon jug over his nose and mouth. And it’s widely acknowledged that the supervisor, Joshua Christopherson, then told the assembled sales team, whose numbers had been lagging: “You saw how...

ABC News has reported that a government official was voluntarily waterboarded (he survived, apparently none the worse for wear). In 2004, Daniel Levin "was the top Department of Justice official in charge of deciding which interrogation techniques could be used in the War on Terror" and "decided to experience" waterboarding "first-hand." "It would be inappropriate for me to comment about that," Daniel Levin said in response to ABC News' questions about his experience while seen...

The Democrats held the vote open after they had lost. They strongarmed three Democrats, apparently, to change their vote to help create an extra layer of bureaucracy. Matt Blunt and other Republicans are yelling "Parliamentary Inquiry!" Republicans are asking why the Democrats changed the rule and then did NOT follow the rule

Since murdering nearly 3,000 Americans on a single day six-and-a-half years ago, al-Qaeda has not ceased plotting new mass-murder attacks against the United States. The terror network’s rigorous training regimen puts a premium on schooling its operatives in counter-interrogation tactics. Defeating those tactics requires keeping jihadists in the dark about the treatment to which they may be subjected if captured. Al-Qaeda’s operational ignorance of our techniques makes our interrogations more effective, leading to intelligence that prevents new atrocities. These uncontroversial facts make it difficult to understand why congressional Democrats want to hand our enemies the playbook — literally, an actual...

(CNN) – Hillary Clinton’s campaign responded Sunday to charges from rival Barack Obama that the New York senator “flip-flopped” on the issue of torture during her presidential campaign, saying she held strong positions against its use by government officials. When President Bush vetoed a bill Saturday that would have prohibited the CIA from using harsh interrogation techniques, Obama used the occasion to criticize his Democratic presidential opponent. "We need a Commander in Chief who has never wavered on whether or not it is acceptable for America to torture, because it is never acceptable,” said Obama. “While I have consistently opposed...

When President Bush vetoed legislation today that would have prohibited the CIA from using physical force in interrogations, he had the support of Sen. John McCain - the most outspoken of any presidential candidate in his opposition to torture. The Arizona Republican has described his own torture by the North Vietnamese who captured him in 1967 after his plane was shot down on a bombing run. He spoke out against the near-drowning technique called waterboarding when it was being defended by other Republican candidates and by Vice President Dick Cheney. And McCain won the signature of a reluctant Bush on...

Should the U.S. continue to use waterboarding on suspected terrorists? Yes 45% 57450 No 55% 70222 Total Votes: 127672

Democrats criticized President Bush's veto yesterday of a bill that would have banned the CIA from using simulated drowning and other coercive interrogation methods on terrorism suspects and promptly promised an effort to override his action. Mr. Bush said such interrogation tactics have helped foil terrorist plots. His critics likened some methods to torture and said they sullied America's reputation around the world. "This president had the chance to end the torture debate for good, yet he chose instead to leave the door open to use torture in the future," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat and a member of...

WASHINGTON - Democrats and human rights advocates criticized President Bush's veto Saturday of a bill that would have banned the CIA from using simulated drowning and other coercive interrogation methods to gain information from suspected terrorists. Bush said such tactics have helped foil terrorist plots. His critics likened some methods to torture and said they sullied America's reputation around the world. "This president had the chance to end the torture debate for good, yet he chose instead to leave the door open to use torture in the future," said Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, a member of the Senate...

War is a dirty business and the people who are the dirtiest in it are the terrorists and their sponsors. Sometimes we are and sometimes they are. That's part of the problem. On any given game day it's hard to figure out the teams on the field much less the players. In the deadly game of war there's no program roster. There's just people you have to talk to and people who have to talk if the game is not to be lost. Sometimes the conversations are easy and sometimes they are hard. Most of the time they are always...

WASHINGTON -- President Bush today blocked an effort by congressional Democrats to end secret torture measures used in the fight against terrorism by vetoing an intelligence authorization bill that would have outlawed waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods. A rare veto in the last year of his two-term presidency, Bush's action was as much a rebuke of Democrats on Capitol Hill as it was a bid to maintain the strong presidential authority to wage war on foreign terrorists that he has asserted since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "Al Qaeda remains determined to attack America again," Bush said, calling...

Bush vetoes interrogation limits Human rights groups say water-boarding is torture US President George Bush says he has vetoed legislation that would stop the CIA using interrogation methods such as simulated drowning or "water-boarding".He said he rejected the intelligence bill, passed by Senate and Congress, as it took "away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror". The president said the CIA needed "specialised interrogation procedures" that the military did not. Water-boarding is condemned as torture by rights groups and many governments. It is an interrogation method that puts the detainee in fear of drowning. Track record...

President Bush on Saturday further cemented his legacy of fighting for strong executive powers, using his veto to shut down a congressional effort to limit the Central Intelligence Agency’s latitude to subject terrorism suspects to harsh interrogation techniques that are prohibited by the military and law enforcement agencies. Mr. Bush vetoed a bill that would have explicitly prohibited the agency from using such interrogation methods, which include waterboarding, a technique in which restrained prisoners are threatened with drowning and that has been the subject of intense criticism at home and abroad. Mr. Bush’s veto deepens his battle with increasingly assertive...

[Snip] President Bush said Saturday he vetoed legislation that would ban the CIA from using harsh interrogation methods such as waterboarding to break suspected terrorists because it would end practices that have prevented attacks. [Snip]

WASHINGTON - President Bush said Saturday he vetoed legislation that would ban the CIA from using harsh interrogation methods such as waterboarding to break suspected terrorists because it would end practices that have prevented attacks. "The bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror," Bush said in his weekly radio address taped for broadcast Saturday. "So today I vetoed it," Bush said. The bill provides guidelines for intelligence activities for the year and includes the interrogation requirement. It passed the House in December and the Senate last month. "This is...

WASHINGTON - President Bush is poised to veto legislation that would bar the CIA from using waterboarding - a technique that simulates drowning - and other harsh interrogation methods on terror suspects.

WASHINGTON (AP) President Bush is poised to veto legislation that would bar the CIA from using waterboarding; a technique that simulates drowning and other harsh interrogation methods on terror suspects. The president planned to talk about the veto in his Saturday radio address. Bush has said the bill would harm the government's ability to prevent future attacks. Supporters of the legislation argue that it preserves the United States' right to collect critical intelligence while boosting the country's moral standing abroad. "The bill would take away one of the most valuable tools on the war on terror, the CIA program to...

The White House says President Bush will veto legislation on Saturday that would have barred the CIA from using waterboarding — a technique that simulates drowning — and other harsh interrogation methods on terror suspects. Bush has said the bill would harm the government's ability to prevent future attacks. Supporters of the legislation argue that it preserves the United States' right to collect critical intelligence while boosting the country's moral standing abroad. "The bill would take away one of the most valuable tools on the war on terror, the CIA program to detain and question key terrorist leaders and operatives,"

A supervisor at a motivational coaching business in Utah allegedly used waterboarding on a member of his sales team to motivate staff, according to a lawsuit filed by an employee, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. Chad Hudgens, a former salesman for Prosper, Inc., in Provo, Utah, alleges his manager, Joshua Christopherson, asked him to lie on a hill before he poured water from a gallon jug into Hudgens' mouth and nostrils as other sales staff held him down, the paper reports. "At the conclusion of his abusive demonstration, Christopherson told the team that he wanted them to work as hard...

Alleged arch-terrorist Abu Zubaydah, whom the CIA waterboarded in secret overseas interrogations, has agreed to let two American attorneys challenge his detention. Chicago law professor Joseph Margulies and Washington, D.C. lawyer Brent Mickum said Tuesday that they secured the authority in 12 hours of meetings Friday and Monday at the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. It was the first time a defense attorney has been allowed to see the captive, who once ran a military training camp in Afghanistan, in nearly six years of U.S. detention. He was captured, severely wounded, in a March 2002 firefight at an...

Secret evidence. Denial of habeas corpus. Evidence obtained by waterboarding. Indefinite detention. The litany of complaints about the treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay is long, disturbing and by now familiar. Nonetheless, a new wave of shock and criticism greeted the Pentagon's announcement on February 11 that it was charging six Guantánamo detainees, including alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, with war crimes--and seeking the death penalty for all of them. Now, as the murky, quasi-legal staging of the Bush Administration's military commissions unfolds, a key official has told The Nation that the trials have been rigged from the start....

Remember the little college dimwit who wrongly thought he had a right to speak freely at a John Kerry event last year, screaming “don’t taze me bro! – don’t taze me bro!” as police officers proceeded to taze him to the ground and remove him from the Kerry event? Apparently, Democrats are more offended by a voice of opposition at their campaign stops than by known Islamic terrorists whom they would never allow to be “tazed” or even “waterboarded.” The Democrat controlled congress left and went home for an extended holiday weekend after allowing FISA (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act)...

Yellow Springs, Ohio (AP) -- Republican presidential candidate John McCain said President Bush should veto a measure that would bar the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods on terror suspects. McCain voted against the bill, which would restrict the CIA to using only the 19 interrogation techniques listed in the Army field manual. His vote was controversial because the manual prohibits waterboarding — a simulated drowning technique that McCain also opposes — yet McCain doesn't want the CIA bound by the manual and its prohibitions. McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, is...

From DCRTV: Sunday Afternoon Fireworks On WMAL - 2/17 - A DCRTVer tells us about "a nasty, dragged out, and loud blowout" between WMAL's Jerry Klein (on the political left) and Chris Plante (on the political right) during their program, "The Chris Plante And Jerry Klein Show," on Sunday afternoon. "It got so bad, that Chris walked out of the studio at one point." The topics were waterboarding, wiretapping, and terrorism. "It got very personal and downright nasty." The audio is not yet up at Chris Plante's audio page at wmal.com, but maybe soon.....

"Has there ever been a more repugnant example of political pandering than John McCain’s decision to vote against a bill banning waterboarding, putting hoods on prisoners, forcing them to perform sex acts, subjecting them to mock executions, or depriving them of food, water, and medical treatment? That’s right, John McCain, the former POW who has long been an outspoken critic of the Bush administration’s disturbing embrace of extreme interrogation techniques. But that was before his desperate attempt to win over the lunatic fringe that is running the Grand Old Party. Earlier this week, I showed how outdated the image of...

TWENTY-SEVEN years ago, in the final days of the Iran hostage crisis, the C.I.A.’s Tehran station chief, Tom Ahern, faced his principal interrogator for the last time. The interrogator said the abuse Mr. Ahern had suffered was inconsistent with his own personal values and with the values of Islam and, as if to wipe the slate clean, he offered Mr. Ahern a chance to abuse him just as he had abused the hostages. Mr. Ahern looked the interrogator in the eyes and said, “We don’t do stuff like that.” Today, Tom Ahern might have to say: “We don’t do stuff...

Less than five minutes. That’s the total amount of time the United States has waterboarded terrorist detainees. How many detainees? Three. Who were these detainees? One was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, “the principle architect of the 9/11 attacks” according to the 9/11 Report, and the head of al-Qaeda’s “military committee.” Linked to numerous terror plots, he is believed to have financed the first World Trade Center bombing, helped set up the courier system that resulted in the infamous Bali bombing, and cut off Danny Pearl’s head. A second was Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the head of al-Qaeda operations in the Persian Gulf....

WASHINGTON • US President George W Bush plans to veto legislation passed by the Senate to bar the CIA from using harsh interrogation methods including waterboarding, his spokeswoman said yesterday. "The president will veto that bill," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. "The United States needs the ability to interrogate effectively, within the law, captured Al Qaeda terrorists." The Democratic-led Senate voted 51-45 on Wednesday in favour of a bill calling for the Central Intelligence Agency to adopt the US Army Field Manual, which forbids waterboarding and other types of coercive interrogation methods. However, the vote fell short of the...

02/14/08 by Antenna Wilde On Feb. 13th Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he would try to advance a revision bill (S.2248) that would prohibit the CIA from using interrogation techniques not authorized by the U.S.Army Field Manual. "Agreeing on one standard of interrogation will help restore our moral leadership in the world, and certainly that is needed," said Reid. "In the long run, torture does not help the United States. The information isn't reliable, puts our troops at risk and undermines our counterinsurgency efforts." This echoed the long held opinion of Sen.John McCain, R-Az., who was expected to be...

** EXCERPT ** President George Bush cited the London July 7 bombings in an interview broadcast last night to justify his support for waterboarding, an interrogation technique widely regarded as torture. In an interview with the BBC he said information obtained from alleged terrorists helped save lives, and the families of the July 7 victims would understand that. Bush said waterboarding, which simulates drowning, was not torture and is threatening to veto a congressional bill that would ban it. In a wide-ranging interview, Bush: Defended the existence of Guantánamo Bay where many of those caught up in the US "war...

Cannot post. Here is the link: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CIA_INTERROGATIONS?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

The Senate narrowly passed a ban on waterboarding as part of their intelligence bill, setting up a showdown between Congress and the White House on limitations for interrogation techniques. The bill clearly states approved and disapproved procedures, ending the ambiguity that has created much of the controversy over whether anyone has ever broken the law in interrogating terrorist suspects. And surprisingly, one of the figures at the head of the controversy opposed the bill: The Senate voted yesterday to ban waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics used by the CIA, matching a previous House vote and putting Congress on a...

National Journal sets the stage for today's Senate vote on a bill banning the CIA from using torture: Supporters will need 60 votes to advance the bill, meaning they will need some Republicans to cross party lines. [Harry] Reid said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., could be a major swing vote, given his previous support for legislation against torture. But a spokeswoman for McCain, a Republican presidential candidate who has been trying to bolster support from party conservatives, did not return telephone calls and an e-mail late Tuesday seeking comment. And why was the famously anti-torture and press-friendly senator avoiding phone...

WASHINGTON -- Justice Antonin Scalia said Tuesday that some physical interrogation techniques could be used on a suspect in the event of an imminent threat, like a hidden bomb about to blow up. In such cases, “smacking someone in the face” could be justified, Justice Scalia told the British Broadcasting Corporation. He added, “You can’t come in smugly and with great self-satisfaction and say, ‘Oh, it’s torture, and therefore it’s no good.’ ” His comments come amid a growing debate about the Bush administration’s use of aggressive interrogation methods on terrorism suspects, including the widely condemned waterboarding, soon after the...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate voted Wednesdy to prohibit the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods on terror suspects despite President Bush's threat to veto any measure that limits the agency's interrogation techniques. The prohibition was contained in a bill authorizing intelligence activities for the current year. The bill would restrict the CIA to the 19 interrogation techniques outlined in the Army field manual. That manual prohibits waterboarding, a method that makes an interrogation subject feel he is drowning. The bill passed on a 51-45 vote. -snip-

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Congress on Wednesday moved to prohibit the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods on terror suspects, despite President Bush's threat to veto any measure that limits the agency's interrogation techniques. The prohibition was contained in a bill authorizing intelligence activities for the current year, which the Senate approved on a 51-45 vote. It would restrict the CIA to the 19 interrogation techniques outlined in the Army field manual. That manual prohibits waterboarding, a method that makes an interrogation subject feel he is drowning. The House had approved the measure in December. Wednesday's Senate vote...

This is what the administration's recent pro-waterboarding PR offensive had been leading up to. But the Republican side backed down. Later this afternoon, the Senate will be voting on a bill authorizing the government's intelligence activities. Included in that bill is a measure sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) that would restrict the interrogation methods the CIA could use to the Army Field Manual, which bans waterboarding and other harsh techniques currently used by the CIA. The Republicans had been expected to challenge that provision, forcing a vote. But they didn't. After a vote on the bill in 90 minutes...

Lost in the swirl of the Super Tuesday vote was a very important story about your safety and security. In order to better define the debate on torture, the Senate Intelligence Committee is investigating the interrogation technique known as “waterboarding,” whereby a bound captive is placed upside down underwater. It is not a nice feeling. CIA Director Michael Hayden told committee members that, since 9/11, the agency had used “waterboarding” exactly three times in order to extract information from reluctant captives. The men involved were all al-Qaeda big shots, and according to the CIA, they all gave up information that...

I posted a squib on the National Review Web site about a robo call I received from John McCain. (Virginia's primary is Tuesday.) The call stressed that he would, if elected, be a down-the-line limited government conservative who would never raise taxes, would defend life, would enforce immigration laws and would win the war on terror. The candidate is trying, I said, to meet conservatives "more than halfway." The response of readers was, shall we say, emphatic. One lady wrote that she would never vote for him as "He is the most disloyal, ill-tempered man and he brings out the...

MEXICO CITY - The United Nations' top human rights official said Friday that waterboarding — a tactic used by the U.S. in its battle against terror — qualifies as torture. The Bush administration acknowledged for the first time this week that it waterboarded al-Qaida detainees. Vice President Dick Cheney said it was "a good thing" that the prisoners had been forced to give up helpful information. The interrogation method involves strapping a person down and pouring water over his cloth-covered face to create the sensation of drowning. "I would have no difficulty describing the practice as falling under" international definitions...

GENEVA, Switzerland (AP) -- The United Nations' torture investigator criticized the White House Wednesday for defending the use of waterboarding and urged the U.S. to give up its defense of "unjustifiable" interrogation methods. The comments from Manfred Nowak, the U.N.'s special rapporteur on torture, came a day after the Bush administration acknowledged publicly for the first time that waterboarding was used by U.S. government questioners on three terror suspects. Testifying before Congress, CIA Director Michael Hayden said the suspects were waterboarded in 2002 and 2003. "This is absolutely unacceptable under international human rights law," Nowak said. "Time has come that...

Senate Democrats demanded a criminal investigation into waterboarding by government interrogators Tuesday after the Bush administration acknowledged for the first time that the tactic was used on three terror suspects. In congressional testimony Tuesday, CIA Director Michael Hayden became the first administration official to publicly acknowledge the agency used waterboarding on detainees following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Waterboarding involves strapping a person down and pouring water over his cloth-covered face to create the sensation of drowning. "We used it against these three detainees because of the circumstances at the time," Hayden told the Senate Intelligence Committee. "There was...

   Heads In The Sand February 7, 2008 Can you imagine the national media firestorm if a story ever broke about President George W Bush having had a teenage affair with a learning disabled girl from Andover Massachusetts? Let’s see, maybe “the affable Eva Braun of the evening news” would lead with...”Today it was disclosed that a predatory teenage future President was sexually involved with a learning challenged girl while he was a student at the exclusive Phillips Academy in Andover Massachusetts.  Stay tuned for our breaking story on whispers of possible rape charges echoing in the hallways of the Bush...

Over the last few months there have been non-stop assaults on the CIA for allegedly torturing captured Al Qaeda members. Questions have arisen if a particular “enhanced interrogation technique,” known as waterboarding, is torture or not. Last week the question surfaced again when Attorney General Michael Mukasey refused to rule on the legality of waterboarding for the Senate Judiciary Committee. In a moment of political grandstanding, the committee’s chairman, Patrick Leahy, insisted the AG rule on the issue despite the CIA and Pentagon having banned it in 2006.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee accused Attorney General Michael Mukasey of ducking questions Wednesday on whether waterboarding is torture despite his promise last year to study whether it is illegal. The issue briefly stalled Mukasey's confirmation last fall until he assured Senate Democrats he would review the legality of the harsh interrogation tactic and report back. Waterboarding involves strapping a person down and pouring water over his cloth-covered face to create the sensation of drowning. Ultimately, however, Mukasey said Wednesday he would not rule on whether waterboarding is a form of illegal torture because it...

Congressional Democrats, trying to have the first word on President Bush's State of the Union speech, challenged him Friday to renounce use of waterboarding in interrogations, close Guantanamo Bay to detainees and outline new policies toward Pakistan and Iran. Domestically, Democrats said they expect Bush to invest more in the development of renewable energy and to support any compromise Republicans and Democrats strike to renew a law governing the president's secretive surveillance program. At the National Press Club, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid launched into a tightly coordinated pair of speeches in which Pelosi...

The first secretary of the Homeland Security Department says waterboarding is torture. "There's just no doubt in my mind — under any set of rules — waterboarding is torture," Tom Ridge said Friday in an interview. Ridge had offered the same opinion earlier in the day to members of the American Bar Association at a homeland security conference. "One of America's greatest strengths is the soft power of our value system and how we treat prisoners of war, and we don't torture," Ridge said in the interview. Ridge was secretary of the Homeland Security Department between 2003 and 2005. "And...