As you know, the vast majority of bills developed through reconciliation were passed by Republican Congresses and signed into law by Republican Presidents – including President Bush’s massive, budget-busting tax breaks for multi-millionaires. Given this history, one might conclude that Republicans believe a majority vote is sufficient to increase the deficit and benefit the super-rich, but not to reduce the deficit and benefit the middle class. Alternatively, perhaps Republicans believe a majority vote is appropriate only when Republicans are in the majority. Either way, we disagree.
– Sen. Harry Reid, in a letter to Sen. Mitch McConnell, regarding the claims by Republicans that reconciliation is somehow anathema.
If you have any doubts that waterboarding is torture, take a look at this article from Salon which summarizes the contents of internal CIA documents recently released.
The documents … lay out, in chilling detail, exactly what should occur in each two-hour waterboarding “session.” Interrogators were instructed to start pouring water right after a detainee exhaled, to ensure he inhaled water, not air, in his next breath. They could use their hands to “dam the runoff” and prevent water from spilling out of a detainee’s mouth. They were allowed six separate 40-second “applications” of liquid in each two-hour session – and could dump water over a detainee’s nose and mouth for a total of 12 minutes a day. Finally, to keep detainees alive even if they inhaled their own vomit during a session – a not-uncommon side effect of waterboarding – the prisoners were kept on a liquid diet. The agency recommended Ensure Plus.
***
One of the more interesting revelations in the documents is the use of a saline solution in waterboarding. Why? Because the CIA forced such massive quantities of water into the mouths and noses of detainees, prisoners inevitably swallowed huge amounts of liquid – enough to conceivably kill them from hyponatremia, a rare but deadly condition in which ingesting enormous quantities of water results in a dangerously low concentration of sodium in the blood. Generally a concern only for marathon runners , who on extremely rare occasions drink that much water, hyponatremia could set in during a prolonged waterboarding session. A waterlogged, sodium-deprived prisoner might become confused and lethargic, slip into convulsions, enter a coma and die.
Therefore, “based on advice of medical personnel,” Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Steven Bradbury wrote in a May 10, 2005, memo authorizing continued use of waterboarding, “the CIA requires that saline solution be used instead of plain water to reduce the possibility of hyponatremia.”
The entire range of techniques used by the CIA and explicated in the article is beyond sickening and horrifying. I cannot comprehend how this country could have allowed this to have happened, and to have planned the torture sessions in a careful and systematic manner to enhance the discomfort and terror of the victim.
How can the Obama administration continue to take the position that a criminal investigation of these activities is not essential to restore our country to the rule of law, both domestic and international?
Anyone who is willing to work and is serious about it will certainly find a job. Only you must not go to the man who tells you this, for he has no job to offer and doesn’t know anyone who knows of a vacancy. This is exactly the reason why he gives you such generous advice, out of brotherly love, and to demonstrate how little he knows the world.
– from movie The Treasure of Sierra Madre, quoted by Paul Krugman in response to Republican claims that the unemployed are intentionally not looking for work.
My first five years of life we spent in Skagway, Alaska, right there by Whitehorse. Believe it or not — this was in the ’60s — we used to hustle on over the border for health care that we would receive in Whitehorse. I remember my brother, he burned his ankle in some little kid accident thing and my parents had to put him on a train and rush him over to Whitehorse and I think, isn’t that kind of ironic now. Zooming over the border, getting health care from Canada.
– Sarah Palin, supposedly opposed to government healthcare, speaking to Canadians. Ironic? That is not the word I would choose to describe it. It seemed to work pretty well for her then, huh?
As the population in Detroit has continued to decline, and as the Michigan economy continues to shrink, many once beautiful buildings in the Detroit have turned into structures that look like ruins. One of the largest and most prominent is Michigan Central Station. The New York Times looks at the efforts of some to save it. By the way, the only productive use of the building recently has been in movies. Here is a shot of Shia LaBeouf as he runs into the train station in a scene from the movie Transformers by Michael Bay.
It seems that a California state senator with a long history of anti-gay rights statements was arrested for drunk driving after leaving a gay bar. Karma is such a bitch.
Sources tell CBS13 a state senator from Southern California was arrested for allegedly driving drunk after leaving Faces, a gay nightclub in midtown Sacramento, early Wednesday morning.
The California Highway Patrol pulled over Senator Roy Ashburn at 2:00 a.m. Wednesday after an officer noticed a black Chevy Tahoe swerving at 13th and L Streets.
Closeted gay people can cause all kinds of damage, usually to themselves. It is really too bad that they do not feel comfortable in their own skin.
Updated: Today, finally, he admits he is gay. It is tragic that it took an incident like this for him to acknowledge the truth. Tragic for his constituents, and more fundamentally, for him. Closeted gay people are dangerous to themselves. This is why openness is the best option for all involved.
This meeting capped off a debate that began with a similar summit nearly one year ago. Since then, every idea has been put on the table. Every argument has been made. Everything there is to say about health care has been said and just about everyone has said it. So now is the time to make a decision about how to finally reform health care so that it works, not just for the insurance companies, but for America’s families and businesses.
* * *
[N]o matter which approach you favor, I believe the United States Congress owes the American people a final vote on health care reform. We have debated this issue thoroughly, not just for a year, but for decades. Reform has already passed the House with a majority. It has already passed the Senate with a supermajority of sixty votes. And now it deserves the same kind of up-or-down vote that was cast on welfare reform, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, COBRA health coverage for the unemployed, and both Bush tax cuts — all of which had to pass Congress with nothing more than a simple majority.
I have therefore asked leaders in both of Houses of Congress to finish their work and schedule a vote in the next few weeks. From now until then, I will do everything in my power to make the case for reform. And I urge every American who wants this reform to make their voice heard as well — every family, every business owner, every patient, every doctor, every nurse.
–President Obama, today, finally speaking with passion about the need for healthcare insurance reform now.
I hate to jinx things, but today seems to have been a sort of breakthrough on healthcare insurance reform. Senator Tom Harkin is stating that reconciliation is a go. It actually, finally, mercifully may happen, folks.
The 1995 Balanced Budget Act was passed in reconciliation. The final vote was 52 to 47. The 2001 Bush Tax Cut was passed in reconciliation. The final vote was 58 to 33. The 2003 Bush Tax Cut was passed in reconciliation. The final vote was 50 to 50, with Dick Cheney casting the tie-breaking vote. The 2005 Deficit Reduction Act was also passed in reconciliation with a 50 to 50 vote and a Cheney intervention. The 2006 Tax Relief Extensions Act was passed in reconciliation. The final vote was 54 to 44. This is as you’d expect: If bills had overwhelming bipartisan majorities, they wouldn’t need to go through reconciliation.
As it happens, Republicans controlled the Senate during each and every one of these bills.
Following the large earthquake in Chili, warnings are up across the Pacific for tsunami. Sirens are going off in Hawaii (right now giving about a 5 hour alert to give people time to head to higher ground) and warnings are given, especially for south facing beaches, in California.
Here is the current warning for Hawaii. Current guess is for wave arrival in Hawaii around 4 pm EST.
Live streaming coverage from Hawaii is available here.
The winner of the $10,000 iTunes gift card (received for downloading the 10 Billions song from iTunes) got a personal call from Steve Jobs. The winner didn’t believe it, at first.
When Steve Jobs personally called Woodstock, Georgia native Louie Sulcer to tell him he’d won Apple’s iTunes Store 10 Billion Song Sold contest, Sulcer first thought was that he was being pranked. “He called me and said, ‘This is Steve Jobs from Apple.’ I said, ‘Yeah right,’ ” Sulcer tells Rolling Stone.
