There are a lots of reasons I would not be able to hold my head high and admit to being a member of the GOP but I will focus on one. Anyone that reads this blog knows I am opposed to the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and regard armed conflict in this respect as a complete and utter failure of our diplomatic corps. Nevertheless, I hail from warriors, my ancestors fought their way up the Iberian peninsula and ultimately settled in France and Ireland enduring many hardships and inciting and surviving many battles on the way. Generally regarded as fearless and hardy I can only wonder what they would make of a panic driven society that willingly lines up to remove their shoes before going on a journey. And now we have to worry about underwear….

Recently, while visiting the DMV I witnessed a diminutive, frail, old woman walking in with a framed marriage certificate. It seems she had recently remarried and wanted to change her last name. After waiting her turn she gathered her bag and picture frame and tottered up to the counter and began rummaging around pulling out bits of paper and ID. Alas, she was turned away by a very sympathetic DMV employee because she had not sufficiently proven she was an American citizen. 1) She needed an original Social Security card not a copy and she couldn’t locate her Medicare card. 2) She needed her marriage license, a certificate signed by her pastor was not proof she was married. 3) She would have to write to California for a copy of her birth certificate in order to prove her statement “but I have lived here all my life”.

Ben Franklin famously said ‘Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.” Not only have we lost security and freedom but we have forfeited our dignity along with it. How shameful Congress sees fit to treat the citizens of this country as potential terrorists over the acts of a few.

The GOP continue to campaign on fear and crow with military machismo, “my SMAW is bigger than your RPG”, and legislate draconian laws initiating embarrassing rituals wherein we remove our shoes before boarding a plane and peeping toms will be provided with x-ray machines to facilitate looking up our skirts. How degrading and shame on the Democrats for playing along.

All I can think is what a bunch of fraidy pants. What colossal pussies. What are they overcompensating for? If they submit to nude x-rays we may find out soon.

My ancestors are rolling over in fits of laughter… I know it.

Investigating prisoner abuse will be a political food fight, and that is messier than torture.

Michael Isikoff says, “…a couple of months ago, just before those interrogation memos were released, I and others had said it was going to be a key test of the Obama presidency‘s commitment to transparency if they disclose those memos.

If they did, it would open the floodgates for a lot of this to come pouring out, and we‘d begin to see the full scope, the full story of the program. But what‘s actually turned out is rather than that – that one disclosure being a big breakthrough, it‘s become trench warfare. Document by document, a fight goes on over it in which the CIA and the intelligence community have pushed back hard.” Read the transcripts here

Senator Carl Levin calls Dick Cheney’s bluff and debunks his claim that memos prove torture worked. Levin has seen the memos and they do not support Cheney’s claims. Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen discusses.

In an effort to prove water boarding is not torture, conservative Chicago radio host Erich “Mancow” Muller lasted only six seconds. When done he said undeniably water boarding is torture.

Keith calls out Cheney as negligent for ignoring signs of the 9/11 attacks and his constant attempts to defend the Bush administration torture policies.

Former wrestler and Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura argues real American values with The View idiot, Hasselbeck.