Latino Blogger

Bush’s nominee for Attorney General John Mukasey does not believe that “waterboarding” is either illegal or actual torture.

Let’s see, this is one form of “waterboarding”, better known around the world as Chinese water torture:

And this is another representation of the same form of torture depicted in a painting at the Tuol Sleng Prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The prison currently serves as a torture museum in memory of the thousands of victims of genocide in that country.

The goal is simple: fill the lungs of the victim with water to cause suffocation and the feeling of imminent death by drowning until the victim answers the interrogator’s questions. It leaves no scars or marks, and it can be repeated as many times as the torturers like.

Mukasey does not believe that this act is immoral, inhumane, illegal or even a form of torture.

If after knowing Mukasey’s position on waterboarding the Senate democrats still go ahead and approve his nomination, then we would have undoubtedly, both as a country and as a society, crossed a line into a very dark place where it will not matter anymore whether the next Attorney General is Mukasey or Pol Pot himself.

Can you guess where Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho) got the script for his press conference?

Nothing like Republican “family values”.

As usual, E. J. Dionne has it right, this time on the reasons for the Democrats’ capitulation to Bush on warrantless surveillance.

“Even some very liberal Democrats worried about the political costs of blocking action (on the FISA bill) before the summer recess. That Saturday night, the House sent the president a bill that, as a disgusted Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.) put it, with just a touch of exaggeration, ‘makes Alberto Gonzalez the sheriff, the judge and the jury.’ “

If this is how the Democrats plan to act to “preserve and defend the Constitution of the United States of America” we are all doomed.

“The episode was the culmination of a shameful era in which serious issues related to national security and civil liberties were debated in a climate of fear and intimidation, saturated by political calculation and the quest for short-term electoral advantage.”

Dionne also says that Pelosi received more than 200,000 e-mails of protest for letting the bill go forward.

“The entire display was disgraceful because an issue of such import should not be debated in a political pressure cooker. It’s not even clear that new legislation was required; Rep. Rush D. Holt (D-N.J.), for one, believes many of the problems with handling interceptions involving foreign nationals are administrative in nature and that beefing up and reorganizing the staff around the FISA court might solve the outstanding problems.

But if legislation was needed, there were many ways to grant necessary authority while preserving real oversight. The Democrats got trapped, and they punted. The Republicans have never met a national security issue they’re not willing to politicize. This is no way to run a superpower.”

Thanks to Congress.

Here is Colbert’s perspective:

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A report in TNR says that the republicans are so desperate to hold on to a majority in the House that “the White House and Rove gang” intervened to pressure Foley to run for re-election and stay one more term.

Foley had decided in early 2006 to retire from Congress and become a K Street lobbyist.

But as things started to get ugly for the republicans and their majority status became threatened

“Rove and the GOP congressional leadership eager for every safe incumbent in the House to run for re-election, looked the other way as evidence accumulated that Mark Foley had a thing for pages. Holding onto his seat became more important than confronting him over his extracurricular activities.”

Karl Rove

Later in the year, Foley changed his mind and decided to run for re-election. When asked by a friend, What happened? Foley answered “he was being pressured by ‘the White House and Rove gang,’ who insisted that Foley run. If he didn’t, Foley was told, it might impact his lobbying career”.

Foley said

“The White House made it very clear I have to run”

According to Foley’s friend the White House told Foley that if he served for two more years it would “enhance his success” as a lobbyist.

Foley wanted out of Congress but he said that the GOP congressional leadership and the White House were scared of losing the House and the thought of two years of Congressional hearings, so he had two more years of duty.

Once again, another piece of evidence of the coverup of a sexual predator by the Gang Of Perverts only that this time the coverup reaches all the way up to the “the White House and Rove gang”.

After months of campaigning and barely acknowledging the existence of a Hispanic constituency in Virginia, Jim Webb, democratic candidate for Senate has finally reached out to the Hispanic community four weeks before the November election.

In an email circulated today to registered supporters, the Webb campaign asks:

“Hola! fellow Webb for Senate volunteers…are you interested in Latino voter outreach?”

My answers would be “Are you?, “What took you so long?”, ” and “Why now when we are only four weeks before election day?”.

Webb is a former republican who served as Secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan. He recently switched his allegiance to the Democratic Party and is now facing republican incumbent George Allen for a US Senate seat.
It seems like after turning democrat, Webb learned pretty quickly the widespread and mistaken belief of many in his new party that the Hispanic vote can pretty much be taken for granted. If Webb did not know how mistaken this belief is all he has to do is look a Bush’s Hispanic vote numbers in 2000 and 2004.

While other state leaders such as Mark Warner and Governor Tim Kaine are well known for having cultivated links with the Hispanic community of Virginia for a long time before becoming elected officials, Webb gives the impression that he is jumping on the Hispanic voter bandwagon at the very last minute. After all, this is shaping up to be a very tight race for the Senate and it is possible that this election will be decided by only a few votes. So it may also mean that the Webb campaign has finally realized that even a few Hispanic votes may count and make a difference in this election.

A few days ago Hispanic leaders from Northern VA endorsed Webb and announced the formation of “Adelante con Webb” (Come together with Webb), the Hispanics for Webb action committee.

However, Webb’s positions regarding some issues of interest to most Hispanics, particularly immigration, are not known.

His website lists general statements about education and healthcare, such as “It is vital that we take the crucial next steps to improve academic achievement in American schools” and “Jim believes that all Americans deserve access to some form of quality health care”.

These positions are philosophically nice but I would prefer to learn more about how he plans to deal with specific issues such as high Hispanic drop-out rates in high schools, funding of after-school programs and gang prevention efforts, and student loans for Hispanics to attend college, among many other issues that more directly affect Latinos.

On immigration, Webb seems to duck the more immediate issues of what to do about the 11 million undocumented workers (most of them Hispanics) currently living in our country, and the guest worker program, and prefers to focus on the much less controversial and long term issue of securing our borders saying that “Immediate action is needed to stem the flow of illegal border crossings”.

He continues saying “Once the border is secure we can develop a fair solution to other immigration issues”.

Unfortunately, he seems to ignore that while we wait for the border to be secured (a task that may take decades to attain), millions of Hispanics are being exploited, abused and discriminated, and live under constant fear of deportation.

The jury is still out on Webb, we will have to wait and see.

However, for many Hispanics in Virginia, so far it looks like voting against Allen, a self-declared bigot, may be a better reason to go out and vote in November than staying home, or voting for Webb.

The scoundrels in retreat.

“This freaked me out.”
“Sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick.”

This is what a 16-year-old page wrote after receiving a creepy e-mail asking for a “pic of you” from Mark Foley, a 52-year-old republican ex-congressman from Florida.

This incident happened more than a year ago.

As Time describes it

“Certainly the page understood what the e-mail meant, which is why he forwarded it in August 2005 to the office of Louisiana Congressman Rodney Alexander, who had sponsored him for the page program.”

Republicans Dennis Hastert, majority leader John Boehner and campaign chairman Tom Reynolds admit they heard last fall about the “overfriendly” email. However they did nothing to stop Foley and instead decided to cover it up.

I believe most reasonable people would agree with the 16-year-old in that this was not just an “overfriendly” email. It was “Sick“.

And I also think that most Americans will agree with Cokie Roberts of ABC when she says

“America’s mothers are furious.”
“The silliest response from old men…”
“…have we learned nothing from the catholic Church?”

She continues by saying regarding Hastert and the republicans

“…counting on voters hating the media and Democrats more than sexual predators is a losing hand.”

Yes indeed.

Time has an article today arguing that the end of the Republican revolution that Newt Gingrich started in 1994 has finally come.

The article says

“Every revolution begins with the power of an idea and ends when clinging to power is the only idea left.”

Dennis Hastert, the longest-serving Republican House Speaker in history, was interviewed in a radio show last week and while explaining why he will not resign his post despite covering up for a pedophile in Capitol Hill, he pretty much admitted that it is over and that he is staying mainly for political reasons.

This is what he had to say:

“If I fold up my tent and leave, then where does that leave us? If the Democrats sweep, then we’d have no ability to fight back and get our message out.”

This is absolutely astounding! What we have here is the Speaker of the House flatly admitting that, in the Republican view of America, holding on to power is more important that protecting children and uncovering sexual predators lurking in Capitol Hill.

Let’s all hope the real America finally wakes up and kicks all these bums out of Washington this November.

The Foley events as only Jon Stewart can tell them.