Daily Chew: April 23, 2009
I was looking through my blog archives last night and noticed that I hadn’t done a daily chew post in awhile. I decided I’m going to bring it back every evening with the top three stories from the day.
Pelosi not being entirely honest about waterboarding knowledge
There’s been a lot of press today about torture. First, a private memo circulated by Obama’s national intelligence chief, admitted that “enhanced interrogation methods” actually worked. The other news is that there was a select group of congressmen that were briefed on the subject of torture and what the Bush administration was doing, or going to do, to intimidate inmates.
Apparently Nancy Pelosi was one of those briefed on waterboarding, yet today she denied it.
“In that or any other briefing…we were not, and I repeat, were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation techniques were used. What they did tell us is that they had some legislative counsel … opinions that they could be used,” she told reporters today.
Pelosi is fairly confident that she wasn’t briefed. However, The Washington Post reports a different story:
In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA’s overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.
So Pelosi was part of this briefing. Pelosi has responded basically by saying that she was briefed but didn’t know that the techniques would be used, or didn’t know how they would be used, or something like that.
On one occasion, in the fall of 2002, I was briefed on interrogation techniques the Administration was considering using in the future. The Administration advised that legal counsel for the both the CIA and the Department of Justice had concluded that the techniques were legal.
Either way, Pelosi knew about waterboarding, at the very least that it was being considered, didn’t say anything, despite her complete objection to it now, and then lied about knowing about it when someone questioned her. That’s a great speaker we have.
When Will Meghan McCain go away?
Meghan McCain is like the black plague right now. I say that for two reasons. One, she always wears black, who the hell does she think she is, Ann Coulter? Number two, she’s popping up everywhere and slowly killing her relationship with other republicans.
Here she is on “The View” the other day.
She thinks that Karl Rove following her on Twitter is weird? Does she understand the concept of Twitter? There are plenty of people that I don’t know that follow me, and last I checked Meghan was over 1,000 followers, maybe even 2,000, she obviously doesn’t know them all. She tries to paint her self as the “new face” of the republican party, of course the party’s top strategist would want to follow her.
She then says that Karl Rove and Dick Cheney “had their eight years” and then tells them to “go away.” Hey Meghan McCain, you had your fifteen minutes, I think it’s time to start listening to your own advice. Please, go away.
U.S. is said to be prepping Chrysler for bankruptcy
This story will make you pull your hair out, and then lock your wallet in a safe.
The Treasury Department is directing Chrysler to prepare a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing that could come as soon as next week, people with direct knowledge of the action said Thursday.
Gee, I’m so glad we gave Chrysler and GM billions of dollars back in December so they could get back on their feet and “avoid bankruptcy.” If the government screwing up the auto industry doesn’t drain the rest of your confidence in Washington I don’t know what will.
Of course simply filing for bankruptcy doesn’t solve the problem. Chrysler still needs to negotiate with creditors to wave off some of the company’s debt. The latest offer from Chrysler was 22 cents on the dollar.
The Treasury Department has made an agreement with the UAW that their retirees health care and pension benefits would be protected under bankruptcy, which may or may not be a good thing, after all the legacy costs of employees help put the automakers into a financial blunder, you’d think they would want to renegotiate some of the those benefits to avoid this in the future.
–jb
Blog of Bodnar » When Politics Backfires on April 24th, 2009
[...] political backfiring gets even better though. As I mentioned in yesterday’s daily chew, there was a select group of congressmen that were briefed on these new interrogation methods. Pete [...]