Youseff wrote:

WASHINGTON (CBSDC) — Former Vice President Dick Cheney has no regrets about the Iraq War.

In a new Showtime documentary about the vice president under President George W. Bush, Cheney said that he would make the same decision to invade Iraq.

“I did what I did. It’s all on the public record and I feel very good about it,” Cheney said in “The World According To Dick Cheney.” “If I had to do it over again, I’d do it in a minute.”

I would not shed a tear if someone murdered this slug.

Roger Dorn wrote:

Youseff wrote:

WASHINGTON (CBSDC) — Former Vice President Dick Cheney has no regrets about the Iraq War.

In a new Showtime documentary about the vice president under President George W. Bush, Cheney said that he would make the same decision to invade Iraq.

“I did what I did. It’s all on the public record and I feel very good about it,” Cheney said in “The World According To Dick Cheney.” “If I had to do it over again, I’d do it in a minute.”

I would not shed a tear if someone murdered this slug.

Glad to know Cheney has no regrets over the thousands of needless American casualties, not to mention the thousands of Iraqi civilians that have lost their lives as well. It's disgusting that he's so arrogant in defending the Bush Administrations actions, what a vile person.

After an intense night of street clashes that represented the worst violence in nearly three weeks of protests, Mr. Erdogan rallied hundreds of thousands of his supporters on Sunday — many of them traveling on city buses and ferries that the government had mobilized for the event — at an outdoor arena on the shores of the Sea of Marmara. In some of his toughest language yet, he called his opponents terrorists and made clear that any hope of a compromise to end the crisis was gone.

“It is nothing more than the minority’s attempt to dominate the majority,” he said of the protesters. “We will not allow it.”

The escalating tensions have raised the risk of an extended period of civil unrest that could undermine Turkey’s image as a rising global power and a model of Islamic democracy, which Mr. Erdogan has cultivated over a decade in power.

As he spoke, the police fired tear gas and water cannons at demonstrators in Istanbul and in several other cities. In at least two strongholds of support for Mr. Erdogan, the nature of the confrontation seemed to take a more dangerous turn, as antigovernment protesters clashed with his civilian backers. In Mr. Erdogan’s childhood neighborhood in Istanbul, a group of government supporters joined the police with sticks and fought against protesters, according to one witness. In Konya, a conservative town in the Anatolian heartland, government supporters also clashed with protesters, according to a local news report.

Even before Mr. Erdogan took the stage to deliver his nearly two-hour-long speech, the master of ceremonies had bashed the foreign news media, which the prime minister has suggested is part of a foreign plot, along with financial speculators and terrorists, to topple his government.

“CNN International, are you ready for this?” shouted the announcer to the sea of people waving flags bearing Mr. Erdogan’s face and the yellow and white logo of his Justice and Development Party, known by its Turkish initials as A.K.P.

Mr. Erdogan then singled out BBC, CNN and Reuters, saying, “for days, you fabricated news.”

“You portrayed Turkey differently to the world,” he continued. “You are left alone with your lies. This nation is not the one that you misrepresented to the world.”

At least 400 people were detained on Sunday, according to the Istanbul Bar Association, with local news reports saying that some journalists had been among them. One foreign photographer documenting the clashes Saturday night said a police officer had torn his gas mask off him while in a cloud of tear gas, and forced him to clear his memory card of photographs.

Some doctors and nurses who treated protesters were detained by security forces on Sunday, according to the legal offices of the Istanbul Chamber of Doctors. Lawyers have been held by the authorities in recent days. Mr. Erdogan said Sunday that even the owners of luxury hotels near Taksim Square who had provided refuge to protesters fleeing the chaos of the police raid were linked to terrorism.

Mr. Erdogan’s decision on Saturday to order a decisive police raid on protesters camped out in a part of Taksim known as Gezi Park, the last significant green space in the center of Istanbul that protesters mobilized to save from being turned into a mall, marked a turn in the crisis and set off clashes in Istanbul, Ankara and other cities that continued to Sunday night. Days after he appeared ready to compromise by offering the protesters a referendum in which residents of Istanbul would decide the park’s fate, Mr. Erdogan seemed to have run out of patience.

Saving the park from a government plan to replace it with a commercial replica of an Ottoman-era army barracks was the first cause of the protesters. But the movement quickly attracted other disillusioned Turks, who have chafed at what they viewed as the government’s rising authoritarianism, and the movement evolved in to a broader challenge to Mr. Erdogan’s government.

In responding to the crisis, Mr. Erdogan sought to divide the protest movement last week by offering concessions on the park. But by then, it was too late: the movement had already become about much more. By Sunday, Mr. Erdogan sought to thoroughly delegitimize any opposition to his governance, linking the effort to save the park to a recent terrorist attack in Reyhanli, in southern Turkey, which was connected to the Syrian civil war and killed dozens.

It seemed like everyone was willing to bet that one of the hardline candidates would easily win Iran’s presidential election. Turns out, conventional wisdom may have been way off. Reformist-backed candidate Hassan Rouhani, the only cleric but the most moderate of the six running for president, had more than 50 percent of the 27.5 million votes counted. That was far ahead of Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf with less than 16 percent, according to the BBC tally. If Rouhani finishes with more than 50 percent he would win in the first round and avoid a run off that was scheduled to be held next Friday. An expert tells the Washington Post that a runoff is highly likely. But even so, if Rouhani manages to win a clear plurality of the vote it would still mark a surprising defeat and repudiation of the conservatives that have ruled Iran for the past eight years.

Rouhani’s early lead suggests there is a high degree of reformist sentiment bubbling underneath the surface in Iran, points out Reuters. The big lead obtained by the former nuclear negotiator, along with early figures that estimate a high turnout of 75 percent, suggests liberals abandoned a planned boycott and backed Rouhani en masse. But even if Rouhani were to win in the first round “it would be more of a limited victory than a deep shake-up,” as the Associated Press puts it. Issues of national security, such as the country’s nuclear program, are controlled by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But it could mark a change from the confrontational style of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and a Rouhani victory may just usher in “an age of moderation in the next four years,” according to the BBC’s Mohsen Asgari.

While careful to say they’d have to wait until the final tally for an assessment, Iran watchers could not hide their surprise at how much support reformers had managed to mobilize despite the government's restrictions on campaigning. “Everyone’s assumption was they would not be able to create a wave of voters in the society,” one expert tells the New York Times. “This outcome was not something planned by Ayatollah Khamenei.” British former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called it “a remarkable and welcome result so far,” adding that he was “keeping my fingers crossed that there will be no jiggery-pokery with the final result.” Months of unrest followed Iran’s 2009 elections amid widespread claims of fraud.

Sixty-one percent of Romney voters prefer dogs to cats compared with 46 percent of Obama voters, according to a Public Policy Polling survey out Monday. Cats, however, are a bigger hit among Obama voters; 27 percent of his supporters prefer cats, compared with only 14 percent of Romney voters.

Trent Steele wrote:bunch of pussies

As the House of Representatives gears up for Tuesday’s debate on HR 1797, a bill that would outlaw virtually all abortions 20 weeks post fertilization, Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) argued in favor of banning abortions even earlier in pregnancy because, he said, male fetuses that age were already, shall we say, spanking the monkey.

“Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful,” said Burgess, a former OB/GYN. “They stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. If they feel pleasure, why is it so hard to believe that they could feel pain?”
That observation led Burgess to say he had argued for the abortion ban to start at a much earlier stage of gestation, 15 or 16 weeks. (This is less than halfway through a pregnancy.) He appeared to liken Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion, to the 1893 Plessy v. Ferguson decision that formally legalized racial segregation, and was not fully reversed until Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The rationale for the Republican bill, which advanced through the House Judiciary last week on a near-total party-line vote, is one scientifically disputed study, touted by Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) in his opening remarks at today’s Rules Committee hearing, that asserts fetuses can feel pain as early as 20 weeks after sperm meets egg.

Trent Steele wrote:bunch of pussies

pacino wrote:

Roger Dorn wrote:

Youseff wrote:

WASHINGTON (CBSDC) — Former Vice President Dick Cheney has no regrets about the Iraq War.

In a new Showtime documentary about the vice president under President George W. Bush, Cheney said that he would make the same decision to invade Iraq.

“I did what I did. It’s all on the public record and I feel very good about it,” Cheney said in “The World According To Dick Cheney.” “If I had to do it over again, I’d do it in a minute.”

I would not shed a tear if someone murdered this slug.

Glad to know Cheney has no regrets over the thousands of needless American casualties, not to mention the thousands of Iraqi civilians that have lost their lives as well. It's disgusting that he's so arrogant in defending the Bush Administrations actions, what a vile person.

i really have nothing to add. perhaps the worst person to be in a position of power in our lifetimes.

Rowhani has been at the negotiating table before as Iran's envoy beginning in 2003, just a year after Tehran's revived nuclear efforts were revealed. Rowhani has been highly critical of Iran's leadership for not showing more nimble tactics and allowing the economic squeeze to become so painful, with inflation now galloping at about 30 percent and critical oil exports cut in half.

In some ways, Rowhani's rise may owe a bit to the sanctions and the predictions by Washington that they will embolden dissent. During the street celebrations for Rowhani on Saturday, there were many chants about Iran's sinking economy and international isolation peppered among the calls for greater freedoms and political rights.
Rowhani knew where to strike in the campaign, constantly returning to economic woes. "Which family today doesn't have someone who isn't unemployed?" he asked. "If the administration had a plan, couldn't this be solved?"

The pro-reform Etemad daily carried a front page image of the smiling cleric Rowhani flashing a V-for-victory sign: "A salute to Iran and to the sheik of hope."

"Rowhani may face problems like sanctions, inflation and so," said Mirzababa Motaharinejad, a member of the pro-reform Mardomslari party. "But authorities will cooperate with him."

Up to a point. Iran has been here before and it didn't end well for reformists.

In 2001, reformist Mohammad Khatami steamrolled into his second term as president. The next four years were a stalemate as hard-liners allied with Khamenei blocked attempts at political reforms in parliament. Authorities gave up some ground on social freedoms — letting women's head scarves slide back and permitting more Western films and music — but there also were pinpoint strikes on dissent with arrests and newspaper closures. The establishment eventually

Now, the Revolutionary Guard and its nationwide paramilitary force, the Basij, are far stronger and more deeply integrated into every level of society, including monitoring social media.

It's unlikely Rowhani will push too hard anyway. He is moderate in the mold of his political patron, former President Akbar Heshami Rafsanjani, who wages selective battles against the Islamic establishment but manages to stay an insider with a post within the ruling hierarchy. Rowhani's candidacy was something of a consolation prize after the ruling clerics barred Rafsanjani from running. Rafsanjani will now play the role of shadow president, advising from the wings.

pacino wrote:

pacino wrote:

Roger Dorn wrote:

Youseff wrote:

WASHINGTON (CBSDC) — Former Vice President Dick Cheney has no regrets about the Iraq War.

In a new Showtime documentary about the vice president under President George W. Bush, Cheney said that he would make the same decision to invade Iraq.

“I did what I did. It’s all on the public record and I feel very good about it,” Cheney said in “The World According To Dick Cheney.” “If I had to do it over again, I’d do it in a minute.”

I would not shed a tear if someone murdered this slug.

Glad to know Cheney has no regrets over the thousands of needless American casualties, not to mention the thousands of Iraqi civilians that have lost their lives as well. It's disgusting that he's so arrogant in defending the Bush Administrations actions, what a vile person.

i really have nothing to add. perhaps the worst person to be in a position of power in our lifetimes.

i forgot...he called Snowden a traitor. If only he outed a CIA agent, he'd be a hero.