Friday afternoon Open Thread...

 

… whatever catches my eye I will pop up on the page…

Rosa Brooks in the LA Times on Hillary’s perfidy on torture.  Somebody should craft a question to Hillary based on Brooks’ close. 

HAS HILLARY CLINTON been watching too many episodes of “24,” or is she just determined to prove that she really is entirely without principles?

Whichever it is, Clinton hit a new low last week, telling the New York Daily News that the president should have “some lawful authority” to use torture or other “severe” interrogation methods in a so-called ticking-bomb scenario. [...]

But … do you really want to see U.S. law outlining exactly how many atrocities can be committed against how many people to — maybe — save a certain number of other people?

Make no mistake — logically, that’s where the ticking-bomb scenario takes you. Clinton insists that she wasn’t really saying that torture should be legal — no, no, of course not. She still thinks that torture is immoral, ineffective and counterproductive. It’s just that for an “improbable but possible eventuality” such as a true ticking-bomb scenario, she thinks that we should make “a very, very narrow exception within very, very limited circumstances.”

And this wouldn’t undermine the Geneva Convention? You’d better believe that countries such as Syria, North Korea and Iran would also just love to carve out some “very, very narrow exceptions” to treaties banning torture. [snip]

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 Oh too funny.  In case you, uh, missed him… catch the exchange between BTD and Gabriel Malor… and the next exchange too…  OG&P.  And recall the antics to come will be happening at a smaller site, by far, than Dkos or Redstate or even Crossed Limp Whatevers…

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UPDATE, 7:30 PM

Another office raided.  Nguyen Tan the OC candidate (challenging Loretta Sanchez) who sent the spurious letter threatening newly registered voters, trying to state that immigrants are not allowed to vote.

From Reuters: 

[C]alifornia state police on Friday arrived at Nguyen’s campaign office with a search warrant shortly before the scheduled news conference. His home was also searched.

“They are looking for items. He is not going to come to the press conference unfortunately because of the intervention of law enforcement,” Nguyen’s lawyer David Wiechert told reporters.

“I have not talked to him about the ramification of today’s events,” Wiechert said.

Scott Baugh, chairman of the Republican Party in Orange County, has urged Nguyen to “do the honorable thing” and withdraw from the race. Baugh said he had information that Nguyen was involved in the letter. [snip]

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UPDATE, 9:45 PM

Well.  This is probably extra hilarious as I went next door and had a glass of champagne. Or two… 

Or, maybe it is just damned funny:

Now, this race is exceptionally strange, because it means that Connecticut is cutting against the national tide pretty aggressively.  Not only is Lieberman doing well, but the three Congressional Democratic challengers aren’t doing as well as they should be considering the national environment.  Is there something in the water here?  Well, no, but there’s a lot of confusion.  There’s something wrong with the conventional wisdom of this race, and that’s impacting voting choices for low information voters.  Right now, the conventional wisdom is that Lieberman’s support is coming from Republicans who support the war and unaffiliated and Democrats who support Joe on other issues.  Lamont carries the strictly antiwar vote, but hasn’t broadened beyond that.  The CW assumes that the war just isn’t that important here.

But does that really make sense?  Is the war is less important in Connecticut than nationally?  I don’t think so.  Could it be Lamont?  Is it because Lamont didn’t successfully paint himself as opposed to the war?  Not likely.  So what is going on, exactly?

I believe the answer is in these two ads.  This is Joe Lieberman’s first ad in the primary. [snip]

It goes on and on and on… and on.

Meanwhile Taegan is running alerts in the Breaking Blue column on the right about every poll showing Lieberman waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay ahead.

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UPDATE,   10:30 am

UK Independent on the seizing of Amara by Moqtada…

[I]n a string of towns in western Iraq, Sunni fighters held “victory parades”.

The US authorities have effectively admitted they have lost the battle for Baghdad despite pouring in 12,000 troops. Major-General William Caldwell said the operation, called Together Forward, “has not met our overall expectations in sustaining a reduction in the level of violence”.  [...]

The Amarah confrontation is especially worrying for Britain because it threatens to jeopardise the exit strategy under which forces have been withdrawn from a several areas with maintenance of security handed over to Iraqi forces. The threat of violence has increased with plans to devolve the country into a federal structure, a move bitterly opposed by Mr Sadr.

Defence sources say this fear of being “sucked back in” was one reasons behind the decision by General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the Army, to speak out about disengagement from Iraq last week. [snip]

 And this at Angry Arab:

So it seems that while US occupation forces are “liberating” Iraq, soldiers of the Mahdi Army are also “liberating”:

“As we have liberated Amara from the British, Basra is next,” he said. “My men are everywhere, can you see the British anywhere? For the people in the street it’s my men who rule the town.”

posted by As’ad @ 8:41 AM link

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