Socialists oust Spain’s ruling party

The opposition Socialists scored a dramatic upset win in Spain’s general election Sunday, unseating conservatives stung by charges they provoked the Madrid terror bombings by supporting the U.S.-led war in Iraq and making Spain a target for al-Qaida.

Plus, the ruling party compounded their mistakes by insisting the bombing was done by Basque separatists long past the time was obvious that it hadn’t been.

This is a major loss for Bush and those backing the Iraq invasion.

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The Godfather of Los Angeles

His minions have been indicted or jailed, yet he continues in his years-old efforts to derail investigations by lying, stonewalling, and with sleazy, questionable legal maneuvers. Multiple felonies have occurred, yet his coverups continue.

His name? Roger Mahoney, Cardinal of Los Angeles.

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Jargon Alert

ABBie, a voter who supports Anyone But Bush

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Traits of a liberal!

Foreign adventurism
Deficit spending
Bigger government

Therefore, only one conclusion can be reached- George Bush is a liberal!

And the last time the US had one of those balanced budgets that Republicans favor so much was when Bill Clinton was President.

I trust this clears things up.

(Thanks to DJ Mitchell for the idea!)

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Welcome To Bushworld

From CBSNews.com

What’s different is that the Bush administration stands accused of politicizing and bullying processes of the government that are designed to be above the fray of partisanship and ideology, such as intelligence gathering and science policy-making. Put bluntly: they don’t much care about facts, science and truth.

But wait, there’s more!

The nation’s top Medicare cost analyst confirmed Friday that his former boss, Thomas Scully, ordered him to withhold from lawmakers unfavorable cost estimates about the Medicare prescription drug bill.

Both links via Kukui, a moderate right of center blog, and I reflect that when CBS News and a Republican blog are getting skeptical of Bush, that winds of change are starting to blow.

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Torture in Guantanamo

Those three Brits who were held for two years in Guantanamo by the US,  released only after extreme pressure from Britain, then freed by police immediately upon returning to Britain, are talking about what they endured. 

They were tortured, there’s no other word for it.

Yet all witnessed or experienced brutality, especially from Guantanamo’s own riot squad, the Extreme Reaction Force. Its acronym has led to a new verb peculiar to Guantanamo detainees: ‘ERF-ing.’ To be ERFed, says Rasul, means to be slammed on the floor by a soldier wielding a riot shield, pinned to the ground and assaulted.

There’s lots more than just this too… Colin Powell harumphed they couldn’t have been treated badly because the US doesn’t do that. I wonder if anyone still believes much of anything he says any more.

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Word

From Sam Smith of Progressive Review, comes this eloquent explanation why our foreign policy is ignorant and counter-productive.

Regardless of who did it, the recent events in Spain show once again the futility and stupidity of the war on terror. You simply can not suppress anger by military and law enforcement means. The more you try, the more anger you create and the greater your problem becomes.

The media has committed a sin far greater than those of Jayson Blair: it has repeatedly misled and lied to the American people concerning the practicality of the war on terror and has kept from its pages and airwaves doubts on this score. In this it has behaved with a reckless negligence which, if committed behind the wheel of a car, would be considered criminal.

The only way out of our crisis is to reduce the anger of the most rational, thus also reducing the constituency of the least rational. Yet we have done nothing since September 11 to improve relations with the Arab and Muslim world, and we have done nothing to make Israel do likewise. Instead we have persisted in constructing an illusion of security and a fantasy of strength and alienating aggressiveness that can be penetrated at any moment by a sufficiently determined though not particularly skilled adversary.

We do not have homeland security, only a homeland hubris that may prove, in the end, to have been our real enemy

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