World News Korner

Courtesy of The Independent:

The Newsroom has been accused of having a “women problem” before, but now Aaron Sorkin has come under fire for a rape storyline that implies male perpetrators are to be believed over female victims.

The latest episode has been criticised for its portrayal of female rape victims after TV news producer Don Keefer said he felt morally obligated to believe the man’s side of the story because he had not yet been convicted of rape.

The episode’ storyline followed a Princeton student who starts a website allowing women on campus to out their rapists after the city justice system failed to prosecute two fraternity members who she claimed raped her.

The student is tracked down by the fictional news network ACN for a debate with her alleged attacker live on air. Don had also interviewed the man she claims raped her and when she asks him who he believes, the producer says he felt obliged to take the man’s side over hers.

This received quite a lot of backlash from all corners.

Including from a writer on the show who claims her misgivings about the segment were ignored, and that she was "kicked out" of the writer's room.

Sorkin himself responds here.

Actress Olivia Munn, who plays the character Sloan Sabbith on the show, also weighed in:

“…The reality is that Sorkin writes things so that they can be talked about, and so we show both sides of it,” she said. “I think it was important to show what it’s like for women to be a rape victim, want to speak out, and then have somebody come in and say, ‘Hey don’t do that. That’s going to be bad for you.’

“Sorkin wasn’t saying ‘Don’t do that,'” Munn said. “He was saying ‘This is what happens.'”

Personally I liked the episode. Partly because it left me conflicted, and not sure whose side I should take in the exchange between the Don Keefer character and the college student.

But that to me is the mark of great television.

I don't often watch shows that make me feel all warm and cuddly inside. I watch shows that make me think, piss me off, or make me grieve for the loss of a character that I have, against my better judgement, grown attached to. (Still miss you Beth.)

I think the show did everything that I would expect it would do with such a controversial subject.

And in the light of the Rolling Stone campus rape scandal, it could not have been more timely.

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In case image does not expand click here.

Oh well, now it all makes sense.

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I have been listening to reporting on this all morning, from essentially every cable news outlet, and I have to say that I think I am going to have some trouble sleeping tonight.

I knew some of this, but to have it all laid out like this...well it's like being punched in the stomach.

Here are the most horrific revelations according to TPM:

Torture didn't work, though the CIA told everyone it did.

I knew this, but still........

The CIA used brutal and gruesome methods like 'rectal feeding' and 'rectal hydration'

Coercive interrogation methods included waterboarding, sleep deprivation for up to 180 hours, nudity, slaps, slamming detainees against a wall. At least three detainees were threatened with harm to their families, including the threat of raping a detainee's mother. And it gets worse.

"At least five CIA detainees were subjected to 'rectal rehydration' or rectal feeding without documented medical necessity," the report reads, documenting in gruesome detail one such example involving detainee Majid Khan.

The CIA once used harsh interrogation tactics on two of its own informants.

Seriously?

The CIA was extremely secretive and fought congressional oversight.

This part should not surprise anybody.

Potential congressional oversight scared the CIA into destroying its interrogation tapes.

In late 2005, Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) proposed an independent commission to investigate U.S. interrogation policies, which prompted interest within the CIA in destroying videotapes of its interrogations. Although Levin's amendment failed on Nov. 8 of that year and the committee was not yet aware that the tapes existed, the CIA went ahead and destroyed them one day later anyway.

Yeah they clearly broke the law here. Gee I wonder if anybody will be punished for it?

The LA Times has more:

One detainee in CIA custody was “chained to a wall in the standing position for 17 days” and another looked like “a dog who had been kenneled,” according to a CIA description cited in the report.

Some detainees were kept awake for nearly 180 hours, “usually standing or in stress positions, at times with their hands shackled above their heads.” Some were placed in ice water baths.

At least five captives were subjected to painful rectal rehydration or rectal feeding, without documented medical necessity. In one case, the CIA put a captive’s lunch — hummus, raisins, pasta and nuts — into a blender and inserted the food into his colon through a tube.

The CIA applied its methods “in near nonstop fashion for days or weeks at a time,” the document states. If you torture someone long enough, they'll confess to being Santa Claus. All people eventually break under torture, and the victims will do whatever the interrogators want in order to end the pain.

Some of the agency officers responsible had “documented personal and professional problems of a serious nature — including histories of violence and abusive treatment of others — that should have called into question their employment,” let alone their suitability to run a sensitive CIA program, the report states.

The most gruesome conditions described occurred at a site in a former brick factory north of Kabul, Afghanistan, that was used by the CIA for interrogations starting in November 2002.

In the facility, referred to as “COBALT” in the Senate report but code-named Salt Pit by the CIA, conditions were so dungeon-like that interrogators wore headlamps to navigate pitch-dark passageways.

“At times, detainees there were walked around naked and shackled with their hands above their head,” the report states. “At other times, naked detainees were hooded and dragged up and down corridors while being slapped and punched.”

An Afghan militant named Gul Rahman died in the Salt Pit of suspected hypothermia in November 2002 after he was beaten, stripped naked from the waist down and left chained to a concrete floor in near-freezing temperatures.

This thing reads like a Stephen King horror novel.

Make no mistake we did this. This is us.

Perhaps we were not the ones slapping the detainees, depriving them of sleep, or leaving them to die in the cold, but this is now how America is defined. And we are, after all, Americans.

We can shrug off the blame and claim we did not know what was going on, but we knew for quite some time that the US was using "enhanced interrogation techniques," what exactly did we think those were?

And though some of us spoke out back then we simply did not yell loudly enough, and others simply pretended that we were justified in doing ANYTHING so long as it made us safe at home.

Well it didn't. If anything it prolonged the risk, and has done much to help create terrorist groups that will continue to frighten the American people for many, many years to come.

Simply put the Bush Administration is an organized crime syndicate, who broke multiple laws, sent thousands to an early grave based on lies, and destroyed the very fabric of what makes us America by doing to these suspected terrorists what we have condemned others for doing for decades.

If this is not enough to keep Americans from electing another Bush in 2016, or ever again for that matter, I cannot imagine what will.

By the way as to the idea that the release of this report will inspire attacks against Americans, there was one analyst today who said "We are currently actively bombing ISIS. They already have plenty of reasons to want to attack us. It is unlikely that the release of this report will give them any more."

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I am simply not in the mood to attempt a transcript today so you will have to go to the link to hear the whole thing, but here is some of what Palin said courtesy of EXTRA TV:

Palin explained, "2016 is a long time away… that's a big darn deal when it comes to family."

This was in response to the invariable question about whether Palin is running in 2016 or not. (Spoiler alert: She's not!)

Thompson asked, "Hillary Clinton's name has been floating out there for a long time as the Democratic nominee. Are we ready for that?" Sarah responded, "I would love to see a woman on both sides of the aisle shooting for that top spot."

"Shooting for that top spot?" Oh look more gun metaphors.

As for the second season of "Amazing America with Sarah Palin," Palin said, "There's so much to show… we're going to focus a lot on those who are reaching out and helping others. We're going to showcase a lot of these people who can inspire others to get out there and live vibrantly. It's about work ethic, but still keeping that connection between faith, family, and love of freedom. That's America!"

Some day, some reporter is going to have the balls to ask Palin just what in the hell she means by "living vibrantly." Because unless it means "living drunkenly" I don't think it relates to her family's way of life.

Palin also shared that her family is doing well. "My family is awesome. Perhaps they have some kind of target on their back because the liberal media types, they do not like constitutional conservatives who are going to call it like they see it and speak truth. So they'll do whatever they can to get you to sit down and shut up, but I'm not wired to sit down and shut up."

That may be but according to those police audio tapes from the brawl the family is programmed to fall down and drink up.

And just to be clear the family does not "have a target on their backs" because they are "constitutional conservatives," which by the way I don't think any of them really are.

They attract attention for doing crazy disruptive things, or because Palin herself draws attention to them in order to hide behind, make them promote one of her pet issues, or, in Bristol's case, use their blog to attack the President.

Essentially this interview was just the same old crap as usual.

I did however notice that the wind was making Palin's wig super obvious. At one point she reaches up to fix her hair, and then stops right above the bangs so as not to knock the wig loose.

If it had taken flight this might have been the most entertaining Palin video yet. Perhaps even better than the Thanksgiving turkey slaughter video.

Well, maybe.

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Courtesy of CNN:

Republican Sen. John McCain broke with members of his party Tuesday, lauding the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on torture and decrying the use of torture as having "stained our national honor" and doing "much harm and little practical good."

McCain, a survivor of torture himself from his Naval service during the Vietnam War, said from the Senate floor that the techniques outlined in the report "not only failed their purpose — to secure actionable intelligence to prevent further attacks on the U.S. and our allies — but actually damaged our security interests, as well as our reputation as a force for good in the world."

McCain said that while "the truth is a hard pill to swallow...the American people are entitled to it." And he acknowledged that violence against the U.S. from the "Muslim world" is "possible..perhaps likely," but argued that America's enemies "hardly need an excuse" to attack the nation, so the good done by the release of the report should trump any security concerns.

"This report strengthens self-government and, ultimately, I believe, America's security and stature in the world," he said.

You know it has been a long time coming, but finally there is something good to report about Senator John McCain.

I have long said, and I still believe, that much of McCain's legacy was wiped out after he snatched Sarah Palin from the wilds of Wasilla, hosed her off, and plopped her on the national stage.

However at least in this case McCain has partially redeemed himself.

And it is particularly striking considering how many other politicians and Right Wing pundits are reacting to this report.

Of course the next question is what do we do next?

For the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the answer is obvious:

“In all countries, if someone commits murder, they are prosecuted and jailed. If they commit rape or armed robbery, they are prosecuted and jailed. If they order, enable or commit torture – recognized as a serious international crime – they cannot simply be granted impunity because of political expediency. When that happens, we undermine this exceptional Convention, and – as a number of U.S. political leaders clearly acknowledged yesterday – we undermine our own claims to be civilized societies rooted in the rule of law.”

Unfortunately I do not believe that is going to happen here, especially with the Republicans about to take back the Senate.

So what other option do we have?

Well Anthony Romero of the American Civil Liberties Union has a novel idea.

Pardon the torturers:

The Obama administration could still take measures to hold accountable the officials who authorized torture. Some of the statutes of limitations have run out, but not all of them have. And the release of the Senate’s report provides a blueprint for criminal investigations, even if that’s not what the intelligence committee set out to do.

But let’s face it: Mr. (President) Obama is not inclined to pursue prosecutions — no matter how great the outrage, at home or abroad, over the disclosures — because of the political fallout. He should therefore take ownership of this decision. He should acknowledge that the country’s most senior officials authorized conduct that violated fundamental laws, and compromised our standing in the world as well as our security. If the choice is between a tacit pardon and a formal one, a formal one is better. An explicit pardon would lay down a marker, signaling to those considering torture in the future that they could be prosecuted.

Mr. (President) Obama could pardon George J. Tenet for authorizing torture at the C.I.A.’s black sites overseas, Donald H. Rumsfeld for authorizing the use of torture at the Guantánamo Bay prison, David S. Addington, John C. Yoo and Jay S. Bybee for crafting the legal cover for torture, and George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for overseeing it all.

While the idea of a pre-emptive pardon may seem novel, there is precedent. Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson pardoned Confederate soldiers as a step toward unity and reconstruction after the Civil War. Gerald R. Ford pardoned Richard M. Nixon for the crimes of Watergate. Jimmy Carter pardoned Vietnam War draft resisters.

The spectacle of the president’s granting pardons to torturers still makes my stomach turn. But doing so may be the only way to ensure that the American government never tortures again. Pardons would make clear that crimes were committed; that the individuals who authorized and committed torture were indeed criminals; and that future architects and perpetrators of torture should beware. Prosecutions would be preferable, but pardons may be the only viable and lasting way to close the Pandora’s box of torture once and for all.

This is something that I admit would never have occurred to me, but it would be quite the spectacle don't you think?

Could you imagine the outrage that would come from the conservatives over this?

Fox News broadcasts would consist simply of one long primal scream.

What do you think?

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Courtesy of the Daily Mail:

They are both devoted mothers: Kate has a one-year-old son and is nearly five months' pregnant, while Hillary has a 34-year-old daughter.

And this evening, the Duchess of Cambridge and US Secretary of State spoke about the benefits of singing to babies at a New York City reception.

During the event at the British Consul General's residence, the pair also chatted about Kate's visit earlier in the day to a children's center in Harlem.

The future leader of the United States hobnobbing with the future King of England, isn't that adorable?

And in other news Sarah Palin met this chick.

So hard not to draw parallels don't you think?

Update: By the way there is some buzz around Palin currently because she is scheduled to appear in Iowa next month with about nine potential GOP presidential hopefuls.

Apparently this was enough to get the slow kids on the bus to start conjecturing that she is also considering a run in 2016.

Damn some people just never learn do they?

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Courtesy of Raw Story:

The Ku Klux Klan played an active and enduring role in steering southern white voters away from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party, according to a new study.

The white supremacist group resurged to prominence in the 1960s as a reaction to the civil rights movement, and its violent extremism inflamed racial division and polarized communities for generations, according to the study published by the American Sociological Review.

“It encouraged white voters to prioritize the defense of white supremacy when making voting decisions, upending long-standing Democratic Party allegiances,” wrote the study’s authors.

The researchers — David Cunningham, professor and chair of the Department of Sociology at Brandeis University, Rory McVeigh of the University of Notre Dame and Justin Farrell of Yale University — studied county voting records in 10 southern states where the KKK actively recruited members in the 1960s.

Analysis of voting outcomes of five presidential elections between 1960 and 2000 showed a statistically significant increase in GOP voting compared to counties with no established KKK chapter, even after filtering out a range of other factors that could influence voting preferences.

The study found that counties with a Klan chapter were much more likely to back those two candidates, and adjacent counties without an active KKK chapter of their own were also more likely to support Goldwater and Wallace.

“The Klan played an active role in encouraging white southerners to prioritize white supremacy over party loyalty,” wrote the study’s authors.

KKK leaders urged southerners to “form a voting bloc to defeat any n*gger-loving politician that runs for office,” and the group evaluated and supported candidates based on their “authentic whiteness” rather than party ties.

And we wonder why the Republican party seems so racist.

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Courtesy of Campus Reform:

A tenured professor at Metropolitan State University (MSU) in Denver required students pledge their allegiance to a racist, sexist, homophobic America that targets "blacks," and "women who want abortions," in the name of Jesus.

Dr. Charles Angeletti, a self-proclaimed atheist and socialist professor of American Civilization at the publicly funded Denver university, required students recite the satirical Pledge of Allegiance during the fall 2014 semester according to a class flier obtained by Campus Reform.

"I pledge allegiance to and wrap myself in the flag of the United States Against Anything Un-American and to the Republicans for which it stands, two nations, under Jesus, rich against poor, with curtailed liberty and justice for all except blacks, homosexuals, women who want abortions, Communists, welfare queens, treehuggers, feminazis, illegal immigrants, children of illegal immigrants, and you if you don't watch your step.”

Seems accurate to me.

When asked why he had the students recite this, the professor responded thusly:

“We’re very racist, we’re very repressive, we’re very Christian oriented, we don’t tolerate other kinds of thinking in this country,” Angeletti told Campus Reform.

“I could go on and on—and do in my classes for hours about things that we need to do to make this a better country.”

Angeletti, who has taught at MSU since 1967, has a B+ grade on RateMyProfessor.com, but one former student addressed Dr. Angeletti’s liberal bias.

Dr. Angeletti admits he is “biased” and says that he has distributed the pledge for 20 years because it helps people look differently about what goes on in this country.

“We are scared to death of anything un-American,” Angeletti said.

During the interview, Angeletti repeatedly affirmed his love for America, his disdain for “family values people,” and his course, clarifying that he supports diversity of thought and allows his students to “say and do anything.”

Of course this freaked out those on the Right, including Greta Van Susteren who used this to further the Fox News agenda of attacking "liberal" education in America.

It should be noted that this is a UNIVERSITY class that is offered as an elective and is not mandatory for graduation.

Personally I think educators who challenge student's perception of their country, their religion, and even themselves are helping to create a generation of rational thinkers and that can only be good for the country.

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Courtesy of We Are Anonymous:

Fox “News” host, Jeanine Pirro, closed out her segment of Justice with Judge Jeanine with an ‘Instapoll‘ asking their notoriously ignorant, neoconservative audience about police violence directed at the minority community. While the results of the poll from Fox viewers is not surprising, the utter stupidity of Fox and their out of touch viewers is rarely broadcasted in this raw of a form.

You know occasionally I watch a little of Pirro's show just to remind myself how histrionic these people can be.

She is an incredibly abrasive woman, who may actually hate the President even more intensely than Sarah Palin.

It is no surprise that her viewers are just as arrogantly out of touch as she is.

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