It is all politics to these clowns:
New York Republican Rep. Peter King thinks his party needs to go nuke if Bush era officials are prosecuted on torture charges.
King, the outspoken ranking member of the House homeland security committee, said Republicans should “shut down [legislative] activity across the board” if any Bush-era officials are hauled into court.
“We would need to have a scorched-earth policy and use procedural means to bring the place to a halt — go to war,” he told POLITICO.
He added:
“If we have another 2,000 people killed, I want Nancy Pelosi and [liberal philanthropist] George Soros, John Conyers and Pat Leahy to go to the funeral and say, ‘Your son was vaporized because we didn’t want to dump some guy’s head under water for 30 seconds.'”
What the hell does Soros have to do with this? And did Peter King and company have to go apologize for the thousands killed on 9/11?
These people are insane.
Colette
You keep repeating yourself. But then, so do they.
Mr. Stuck
They are mixing their metaphorical enemies now. There are so many, there’s bound to be some drift/
nhoj
Soros only came to power because of ACORN.
KG
maybe it’s just the (g)libertarian in me, but I’m not really seeing a down side to this: we get to punish war criminals and Congress can’t pass any new laws?
This is not insanity. This is the oligarchy doing what oligarchies do: trying to protect the powerful from the influence of the law. It is, from a certain perspective, entirely rational, in that it is exactly what one would expect from the establishment when the establishment is threatened.
r€nato
they keep repeating that as if it were a wish…
GambitRF
He was in office in 2001. Shouldn’t he be making the rounds to the families of 9/11 victims for not “dunking a guy’s head underwater for 30 seconds” before the 9/11 attacks?
SGEW
I don’t know about that actually . . .
I’m starting to believe that they are not stupid nor insane. Just evil.
What’s a post-modern relativist to do?!
Michael D.
The right is paranoid and it is getting frightening. They are seeing enemies everywhere. I, for one, welcome Homeland Security’s concern about right-wing extremists.
When the far right feels victimized, they bomb things.
Dreggas
Renato, it is a wish.
As for Kings comments, he sounds like my freaking father.
PaminBB
Tantrums. He’s going to hold his breath until he turns blue.
Treating Repubs as reasonable adults has clearly been unproductive. It’s time to start treating them like toddlers. I believe that Obama is already taking this approach.
chuck
Yeah yeah yeah, didn’t you guys also threaten to “go nuclear” if the memos were released? We’re still waiting for Defcon 1, fellas.
And might I add, saying how you’re going to “go nuclear” then bring up the specter of a nuclear strike … ya might not be doing your message a favor. Plus, you forgot to pre-emptively blame ACORN.
Mr. Stuck
@r€nato:
It’s now in their party platform, a sub-plank written in tiny letters with invisible ink.
Lola
So depressing. The torture memos has revealed the complete moral bankruptcy of the Republicans. There is not one that has stood up and showed any decency on this issue.
robertdsc
You do that, Mr. King. Then when you’re voted out of office, we can laugh at you as we get on restoring our dignity that you and your fuckwad President stole.
TenguPhule
I would like to remind the respectable Republican from freeperville that the punishment for treason during a time of war is *death*.
Bulworth
So, waterboarding, which we have called “torture” when other countries do it, is now just dunking “some guy’s head under water for 30 seconds”? The Republicans are outing themselves as moral relativists. Who knew?
Comrade Kevin
I’d like to see him answer the question:
“Do you think it would be legitimate for our enemies to waterboard captured American soldiers to extract information from them?”
RememberNovember
@nhoj:
No, try again.
Just Some Fuckhead
Fixt.
RememberNovember
@robertdsc:
not so easy- there is an entrenched constituency in his Distrikt that likes him.
Remember he’s the one that said “God Bless George Bush”
oh and lets not focus on his connection to one of the most violent terrorist organizations around, the IRA. No, that would be uncouth.
http://www.nysun.com/national/rep-king-and-the-ira-the-end-of-an-extraordinary/15853/
scav
well, clearly, if conservatives are ever held accountable, it is the end times. no wonder he’s freaking out.
We have passed the event horizon. No wonder things look weird.
Lev
I really don’t think these idiots get it. Newt Gingrich shut down the government and the price was becoming the most hated politician in America and Bill Clinton getting re-elected. People don’t like shit like this! There’s no better argument for Barack Obama to use to get more Democrats elected to the Senate. If I were Obama I’d make them go all in. Push health care through with reconciliation, nominate some left-wing judges, set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Make them destroy themselves.
Boy, Newt Gingrich really does have a lot of influence in the GOP, doesn’t he? As for King, he’ll be gone and replaced by a Democrat when he challenges Kirsten Gillibrand next year.
Tonal Crow
We need a constitutional amendment permitting citizens to “dump [sic]…stupid politicians’ head[s] under water for 30 seconds” whenever we feel like it. It’s not torture, right?
Steve V
Well, if that’s how they’re going to be, let’s start prosecutions well ahead of the 2010 midterms so that we can really kill off the GOP for good.
r€nato
@Steve V:
I agree. Call their bluff. Once you threaten to go nuclear, there’s really nowhere else to go, right? Let them try it.
dbrown
I’m lost. I thought that going nuke (senate only since this does not apply in the house) meant that all debate can be cut off by a simple 51 vote (in the senate) so a 51 vote majority always passes laws or bills.
Dennis-SGMM
King and his buddies voted en bloc against the stimulus package. How did that work out for them? Shutting down the government in the 90’s when the economy was doing well didn’t add to Republican luster. Doing so now would would be catastrophic for them. On the other hand, when you have no plan and no ideas beyond tax cuts shutting down the government is probably rather attractive: the GOP would rather the whole country go under than have the Democrats get credit for anything positive.
TenguPhule
Fixed.
r€nato
@Dennis-SGMM:
Well, the real party chief, Rush Limbaugh, wants Obama to fail. What else does one need to know?
SenyorDave
Is this the same Peter King who was a HUGE supporter of the IRA in the 80’s? You knew when they were a bunch of thugs who murdered civilians and helped train PLO terrorists? I guess the only good terrorist is a nice, white terrorist that Mama King would love.
Bill Teefy
Soros, Saruman, Sauron, whats the diff. There all fictional characters.
Nothing’s over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?
Wormer is a dead man! Marmalard: dead! Neidermeyer: Dead.
TenguPhule
Davis X. Machina
You just know that somewhere out there there’s a militia, an extremist group, some stay-behind team of true believers, or even a lone nut in Maine, who are, as we speak, considering how Rep. King might be accommodated in his wish.
None of whom are Moslem. None of whom are foreign. None of whom are funded by George Soros, or ACORN.
And we’re not even supposed to find out anything about them, or pay them any mind. Because they’re patriots.
Jim
I’m stumped. Calling these people loathsome puss sacks no longer can no longer be described as hyperbole, and in fact now constitutes an insult to loathsome puss sacks. I honestly am at a loss to describe just how perniciously despicable the Republicans and their cable news butt boys are.
sparky
Maybe King thinks this is namby-pamby because his buddies in HIS terror org (the IRA) did worse things. That would make sense.
A known one-time associate of terrorists bleating about terrorism? Scraping the bottom of the barrel, the GOP is.
gwangung
@TenguPhule: No, it’s “Your daughter shot herself because she’d rather do that than be ordered to torture Iraqui prisoners.”
Bastards.
HyperIon
@scav:
oh. now i get it.
HyperIon
@Jim:
i think you mean pus sacks.
leave the kitties out of it.
HyperIon
and WTF does THIS post title mean?
LV-426
Any chance he might be considered a ‘Bush era official’ and just doesn’t want to get hauled into court?
GregB
If there is another terrorist attack, watch what happens on the political right.
It won’t be a patriotic rallying around the president as happened on 9/11.
-G
Mr. Stuck
@HyperIon:
Only one Shaq and he’s really big.
Davis X. Machina
Thread title’s a Beastie Boys homage.
(Shaq’s been around since, like, forever, hasn’t he…}
Mr. Stuck
The Shaq
Glidwrith
Here’s something that leaves a bad taste in my mouth – if for no other reason than insight (ugh!) into their thinking. Remember the USAG scandal? Remember how utterly politicized the DOJ was and we’re still dealing with honest-to-God political prosecutions (ie Siegelman and Spitzer)? These zealots saw nothing wrong with abusing that power and now firmly believe that in turn this is nothing more than political persecution, the law be damned. (spit – I need some brain bleach)
mcc
So we’re being told if the Democrats use the wrong budget tool to pass health care, the Republicans will go nuclear and shut everything down.
And we’re being told if the Democrats investigate torture, the Republicans will go nuclear and shut everything down.
And meanwhile with neither of these things having happened yet, the Republicans are filibustering literally everything including some fairly basic White House internal nominations– with everything passed being only with the cooperation of the two or three Senators not totally under their control– which looks to me a lot like the Republicans going nuclear and shutting everything down.
Isn’t there a limit to how many times you can use this threat? I mean, the entire point of “going nuclear” as an idiom is that once you’ve gone nuclear, you’ve used the last thing in your toolbox.
Olliander
The Open Society Institute, funded by George “Im having a great crisis” Soros, has formed the “Commission on Accountability”, which is circulating a petition that calls for an “independent” commission to investigate “torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees in the period since September 11, 2001.” In a “bipartisan” matter of course.
That, or it could be that Soros is looking for a return on his $30 million investment to defeat George Bush in 2004.
sloan
I sometimes comment on a conservative website and I’m constantly accused of working for ACORN and George Soros – and they’re serious. They really think they’re catching me in the act of being a paid shill for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. And Soros. Always with the Soros.
It’s like Republicans are trapped in the McCain campaign, and it will always be September 2008.
Mr. Stuck
@Olliander:
You sound bitter Ollie. Are you bitter? Does anybody care?
Olliander
Yes — I’m extremely bitter that the Phillies have only one decent starting pitcher on their staff.
someguy
The side benefit of prosecutions is that all the congressional dems who approved of these crimes against humanity will be wiped out too, including closet hawk Nancy Pelosi, Jay Rockefeller, and others who were briefed and approved. It’ll take out a lot of people who only play progressives on TV. I can’t figure out whether that was a Rove parting gift, or life insurance policy by the intel agencies, but either way, it’s a pretty clever little landmine. Can’t wait to see it go boom.
ellie
So Soros hands out money to liberals and runs everything? Where can I get some of this cold, hard cash? I have a been a liberal my whole life and haven’t seen one thin dime from him!
SpotWeld
Since Bush’s main claim to fame was that anyone could be a terrorist (especially people who don’t like the government) and that information gained from such interrogation can stop 2,000 people from getting killed.
I suggest that Peter King is really volunteering to be waterboarded about a hundred times… just to make sure he doesn’t know something.
I mean, if they’re innocent they have nothing to worry about, right?
Why haven’t the GOP stepped up en mass for the waterboarded for the good of our country.
Why do they hate America.
JWW
John,
I really don’t understand your true point, can you elaborate what your stand is on the interrogation? Look at the date/time groups.
What is it that you really want from the government? A hand out or security?
zoe kentucky from pittsburgh
There are more than a few problems with the GOP’s defense of “enhanced interrogation techniques.”
The one big, glaring one that keeps slapping me in the face is when they argue, as Liz Cheney did this afternoon, that what happened at Abu Grahib is “awful” and “terrible” but what we did “was not torture.” So Abu Grahib was clearly wrong but the exact same shit we did in Guatanamo was totally righteous and justified? WTF. Does not compute.
If waterboarding isn’t torture then I want to see them all waterboarded– 183 times in one month. Then they can come back and tell me that isn’t torture.
Also, like someone else asked above– there isn’t ONE SINGLE ELECTED REPUBLICAN who is willing to break rank and admit that this any of this shit was wrong? Not even some twisted, self-serving rat who sees this as an opportunity to make a name for themselves while the ship is sinking?
mcd410x
Why don’t we just perform “enhanced interrogation techniques” as punishment for those who authorized it. Since it’s all laughs and jokes.
b-psycho
@John: Soros is a rich Jew that disagrees with the bible-thumpers about the cost/benefit analysis of trying to trigger Armageddon. It’s that simple.
They hate him so bad they had a hissy fit when he wanted in on a friggin’ baseball team, remember?
JWW
1st, why can’t your master answer the ? (That is you John)
2nd, Dennis, why don’t you move to OR?
The rest of you, why do you go to bed wondering if all will be okay when the sun comes up each morning?
JWW
b-psycho,
I see that you are a true man or woman or wanna be both.
I just love the term “Jew”…. Makes me feel like I am in a land called America.
Svensker
@JWW:
Are you talking to someone outside your head?
JWW
Svensker,
No, because when I do that, your mom answers.
cj
When did it start to be okay for elected officials and government officials to openly oppose a new president?
We’ve had presidents that were Democrats before but I don’t ever remember seeing or hearing government officials so openly go on the air waves to oppose a new president, and it’s not only coming from the right some Democrats are doing it too.
Everything they are nitpicking at President Obama for doing previous Presidents have done.
To me it seems like since we have a Black president it’s okay to openly oppose the President now.
Sad, very sad.
ronathan richardson
“Dump Water”…Are the republicans that naive? Do they seriously believe that interrogations are performed 100% within the guidelines allowed? Anyone who’s ever seen a prison or an interrogation room knows that what actual interrogators do is 10,000 times worse than what they’re allowed…
JWW
CJ,
Are you 18 years old? Government officials have always given open views of the opposition. Maybe your Wi has distracted you for the past 8 years and your Nintendo for anything beyond that.
Your statement goes beyond stupid, almost too the point of useless.
Find a good Romance Novel to read.
Toreador Red
Here’s something I’m surprised I haven’t seen discussed more:
Levin: Iraq link goal of torture
According to Sen. Levin, torture was used in an attempt to extract confessions that would establish a link between Iraq and al-Qaida, in order to justify the invasion of Iraq.
This actually makes torture make sense. All the experts say that torture doesn’t work to obtain reliable, truthful information. But if all you want is a false confession, then yeah, it works great.
On the other hand, it doesn’t seem to have worked in this case.
b-psycho
@JWW: If you can’t tell by the wording of that that I disagree with the painting of Soros as the boogeyman, you’ve got reading comprehension issues.
...now I try to be amused
Lemme get this straight. King would shut down the Congress to try and save Bush and his minions? Bush, the GOP’s albatross? I had hoped the Democrats could continue to run against Bush, and it looks like I might get my wish.
someguy
Well, he doesn’t much like you stupid freethinking proletarian and petit bourgeois fuckers very much either. He’s the world’s most successful hedge fund manager, a capitalist maggot of the first order, who gets richer betting that you’ll get poorer. He has made his biggest scores cornering the British pound (for which he was convicted) and shorting the dollar. When people who aren’t paid spokesmen of the guy run around singing his praises, it ought to show up in a special Waylon Smithers typeface. Yeah, I know he’s a hero for funding everything in the world that is anti-Bush, but consider that maybe he didn’t do that out of the kindness of his economy-wrecking little heart.
tc125231
@KG: It is entirely rational, in a depressing Them vs. Us. E.G. Elite vs. General Public. sort of way.