A blogger in my local paper, Aubrey Marron, wrote today with some awesome insight tying John McCain's comment against Cindy McCain's makeup wearing habits, her addiction to pain killers, and how it might all tie into John McCain, the tortured "war hero".  

It's an excellent, yet scary read. What initially looks like yet another opinion of McCain's nasty screed against Cindy, it's much better. It is a look at Cindy McCain's drug abuse in a different light.

The meat of the article, below the fold

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Undercover Maryland State Police officers conducted surveillance on war protesters and death penalty opponents, including some in Takoma Park, for more than a year while Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. was governor, documents released yesterday show.

Detailed intelligence reports logged by at least two agents in the police department's Homeland Security and Intelligence Division reveal close monitoring of the movements as the Iraq war and capital punishment were heatedly debated in 2005 and 2006.

Organizational meetings, public forums, prison vigils, rallies outside the State House in Annapolis and e-mail group lists were infiltrated by police posing as peace activists and death penalty opponents, the records show. The surveillance continued even though the logs contained no reports of illegal activity and consistently indicated that the activists were not planning violent protests.

Of course we are all aware of recent abuses of government power in the wake of the Bush Administration's radical right-wing culture of fear and the Patriot Act

The US workplace has become a dangerous place for many American workers, a source of abuse.
Desk Rage Spoils American Workplace

Nearly half of U.S. workers in America report yelling and verbal abuse on the job, with roughly a quarter saying it has driven them to tears, research has shown... Other research showed one-sixth of workers reported anger at work has led to property damage, while a tenth reported physical violence and fear their workplace might not be safe

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Paul Spector, a professor of industrial and organizational psychology at the University of South Florida,  also notes another astounding result:

[H]is research has found 2 percent to 3 percent of people admit to pushing, slapping or hitting someone at work. With roughly 100 million people in the U.S. work force, he said, that's as many as 3 million.

1. Jesus christ, shut the fuck up

2. I can't believe people can be so profoundly stupid...

3. But of course, you bozos can hardly think two hours ahead..

4. Yes, fucking morons like yourself who are willing to throw everything away over telecom immunity.

5. My pals in Iraq thank you for your "principled stand," jackass.

6. I'm just disgusted by self-fellating morons like yourself who would give Bush a third-term because you want to "prove a point."

7. Maybe you self-defeating FISA drama queens should ask yourselves that.

8. Wow, that's incredibly stupid

9. No, fear requires a degree of intelligence

10. Morons like you, who think ceding the election to the Republicans is a great way to "prove a point," are affirming your collective irrelevance.

The unsavory details of torture techniques don't normally come up in polite conversations.  Many people don't want to think about the subject.   The average person devotes even less of their thoughts to the principles of resisting torture.  To clearly understand exactly why the current leaders of our nation are guilty of war crimes the subject needs to be discussed.  Only by examining torture from the perspective of the victim can the subject really be understood with full clarity.

Classified documents regarding torture have been released, with everything blacked out but "waterboarding."  An astute person does not need classified material to learn about torture.  The methods employed by the intelligence community today are not new.  United States citizens suffered from all of these methods in the past, at the hands of other governments.  It happened so regularly our military teaches courses in resistance techniques. The press may crave documents to point to as evidence, but they aren't necessary to learn the truth.  References do follow the diary though.

Caution:  Graphic and disturbing information after the flip.

The "Bible boot camp" and "kiddie gulag" industry have been frequent subjects of writing here in this diary--from reports of abuses in "Bible boot camps" to an expose series on the Assemblies-run "Teen Challenge" chain.

One thing I've been big on is efforts to shut down the "kiddie gulag" industry by requiring federal standards for facilities of this type (many of these facilities are entirely unregulated due to operating as "faith-based" dominionist "parallel economy" alternatives to legit social work and mental health services.  And it turns out that just such a model law--originally entered this Congressional session as HR 5876 (with a new bill number, HR 6358)--has passed its first big hurdle in that the House version is approved.

No, she did not die; although there were times when she wished death would come.  She left the area.  Moved away.  Vamoosed.  Not because it was what she wanted to do, but because it was what she had to do.  You see, she is/was the wife of an abuser.  Oh, he was slick with it.  He was always so oily nice that it was hard for me to believe he was an abuser.  He seemed to take such good care of her.  Always concerned about her, always thinking of her best interest.  Smiling in all the right places.  Holding onto her.  But when you looked at her, she was afraid and a tiny bit sad.  Her eyes were always watching.   Always wary.  Always shifting.  Always careful.  Her speech was always stilted.  Never hopeful.  Never funny.  Just always a bit sad.

Two days ago I posted a diary regarding underage sex slaves in Louisiana.  I spent a good deal of time calling people to get more information about this.  I managed to beg and plead until somebody, who I can't name, gave me some details.  I will not reveal their identity, because they could lose their jobs for providing me with something to go on.  I was told that a lot of the cases involve massage parlors.  Many of the girls who work in this trade have been brought here illegally for that purpose.  Most of them are not underage, but they are all victims of human trafficking.  I took that information and went out to see what I could do to stop this.

By Jamil Dakwar, Director of the ACLU's Human Rights Program. Jamil was in Guantánamo this week for the hearing of Mohammad Jawad.

Last week's Supreme Court rebuke of the Bush administration's attempt to preserve Guantánamo as a lawless place, a place   where human beings are less worthy of protection under U.S. law than iguanas, brought newfound hope that this travesty of justice would finally come to an end. Unfortunately, this was not the case, as this week the military commission hearings resumed in what appears to be a signal from the Pentagon that it is business as usual at Guantánamo. It was during these hearings that we learned more about Guantánamo's frequent flyer program.

We hope you enjoy this, an f-you to those too squeamish to discuss an incident speaking directly to the temperament and character of a guy who'd like to be President.  

McCain's freaky-mean '92 outburst is a well-sourced story found in Cliff Schecter's book "The Real McCain."  Due to the particularly profane nature of the offense it would probably be useless to wait for the press to give it the full-on, endlessly repeating, 24-7 Reverend Wright treatment.  So we'd love to help.

By Ben Wizner, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project

It's been a riveting month at Guantánamo.  First was the sad spectacle of the "arraignment" of alleged 9/11 conspirators — in a courtroom expressly designed to suppress their statements about brutal torture in CIA custody, and in a system expressly fashioned to permit their execution on the basis of evidence extracted through that torture.  The embarrassing proceedings were rushed forward in a last-ditch Bush administration effort to turn Guantánamo to its political advantage, but, as usual, it was the administration that endured ridicule for the very public collapse of its "full and fair" military commission system.

By Jamil Dakwar, Director, ACLU Human Rights Program. Jamil was in Guantánamo this week for the arraignment of Mohammad Kamin and the pre-trial hearing of Ibrahim al-Qosi.

The events at today's hearing suggest distrust and suspicion from the  handful of Guantánamo detainees who have been charged by the Bush  administration toward the military commissions system. Guantánamo is a place  where basic rights, like the right to effective access to counsel, which in a  normal court is taken for granted, have to be fought for. Meanwhile, the U.S. government  spends an enormous amount of resources constantly reinventing its skewed wheel  of justice.

There is being quite a lot of shock posted on a recent statement that Mike Huckabee made here in Louisville a few hours ago at the NRA conference--namely, Huck made a comment on how a supposed sound was Barack Obama ducking in an attempt to keep from being shot at.

For some of us--especially those of us who have followed Huckabee's extensive links with the highly militaristic "Joel's Army"/"Joshua Generation" neopente dominionist movement--this is but the latest and one of the more blatant of his statements of this type, and probably not even the most extreme of them.

In today's special edition post, we give a bit of history on this.

One question that was frequently asked in my series involving Matt Taibbi's infiltration of John Hagee's church (and the chunderfest resulting)--how could Matt Taibbi start developing what is known in exit-counseling as a cultic personality in just three days?  

Well, one particular tool used in the "toolkit of coercion" of neopente dominionist groups in particular is the use of cell churches--and today, we go into depth into a study that shows the actual process of development of a "cultic personality".

I've written quite a lot on the subject of coercive "behaviour modification" facilities in past--including legislative efforts to stop the industry in its tracks as well as exposes of their heavy usage as a dominionist "parallel economy" alternative to legit mental health and info on gross abuses in these facilities.

Over the past few days, we have focused on a specific chain of these facilities (which have been compared to Abu Ghraib)--Teen Challenge, a chain of Assemblies-run "faith based rehabs" that was the target of a "get out of jail free" deregulation of the "kiddie gulag" industry in Texas by none other than George W. Bush.

In our final installment, we note how Abu Ghraib and Gitmo aren't the only abusive facilities getting tax dollars--both by direct funding and by welfare fraud, Teen Challenge gets quite a bit of your tax money for institutionalised abuse...and Dubya is still to this day bailing them out when they're caught doing something wrong.  

I've written quite a lot on the subject of coercive "behaviour modification" facilities in past--including legislative efforts to stop the industry in its tracks as well as exposes of their heavy usage as a dominionist "parallel economy" alternative to legit mental health and info on gross abuses in these facilities.

Over the next few days, we are going to focus on a specific chain of these facilities (which have been compared to Abu Ghraib)--Teen Challenge, a chain of Assemblies-run "faith based rehabs" that was the target of a "get out of jail free" deregulation of the "kiddie gulag" industry in Texas by none other than George W. Bush.

In the latest installment of this series, we focus on an increasing trend of using Teen Challenge as "alternative sentencing"--and to add insult to injury, the use of "indemnity contracts" by Teen Challenge to prevent lawsuits by survivors who manage to escape.  

I've written quite a lot on the subject of coercive "behaviour modification" facilities in past--including legislative efforts to stop the industry in its tracks as well as exposes of their heavy usage as a dominionist "parallel economy" alternative to legit mental health and info on gross abuses in these facilities.

Over the next few days, we are going to focus on a specific chain of these facilities (which have been compared to Abu Ghraib)--Teen Challenge, a chain of Assemblies-run "faith based rehabs" that was the target of a "get out of jail free" deregulation of the "kiddie gulag" industry in Texas by none other than George W. Bush.

In our latest installment, we now touch on disturbing subjects--sexual abuse (including a known child molester as a Teen Challenge facility manager) both in Teen Challenge and its parent denomination.

I've written quite a lot on the subject of coercive "behaviour modification" facilities in past--including legislative efforts to stop the industry in its tracks as well as exposes of their heavy usage as a dominionist "parallel economy" alternative to legit mental health and info on gross abuses in these facilities.

Over the next few days, we are going to focus on a specific chain of these facilities (which have been compared to Abu Ghraib)--Teen Challenge, a chain of Assemblies-run "faith based rehabs" that was the target of a "get out of jail free" deregulation of the "kiddie gulag" industry in Texas by none other than George W. Bush.

In a continuation of the series, we uncover disturbing revelations at the Florida Teen Challenge boy's camps--which include literal "God Warrior" imagery, right down to the camo and drill patrols.