Spoke with a good friend tonight, huge Hillary supporter

Very successful guy, gave lots of money to her, big, big fan of Bill, etc. This has been a point of (good natured) contention between us for years.

He now expects if Hillary runs, she'll lose, because she can't backtrack on her many years of triangulated right-wing stances without looking like a phoney. Thinks Warren can win.

Totally. Blew. Me. Away.

Wow.

The winds are shifting, shifting.

I did.

Seems like a fair bit of stuff.

Glenn Greenwald reveals Torture Queen's identity

Once again, Glenn Greenwald @#$&s up all that is holy and pure in this exceptional country of ours. Forgive me if this has already been posted, but Greenwald's treachary is so epic that it should be posted a bunch of times, anyway.

Just curious: when was the last time so many wanted to draft a Presidential candidate?

MoveOn, DFA, ... I don't recall this kind of excitement around a candidate in the past. And that excitement should not be poo-pooed.

Poll: Improving our relations with Cuba: good or bad?

Thanks, Obama

I'm as critical of the current White House as anyone, but kudos to President Obama for improving relations with Cuba. It's still not clear to me how much of an improvement it will be - for example, we'll be reviewing whether they are still a state sponsor of terrorism, etc.

But an improvement, it seems.

Thanks, Obama.

(Hopefully Cuba can now export its health care system to us!)

It fascinates me to no end that some people get so upset

because other people think Elizabeth Warren should run, and/or might run, for President of these United States of America.

Chill out.

It's not like today's Democratic Party is moving things forward - well, except for Jamie and Lloyd and that crowd, of course. And Wasserman Schultz's dogs, who are now nationally known thanks to those staggeringly-idiotic fundraising emails.

Look, the worst that can happen is that some Vichy Democrats will get a little nervous and behave a bit. Is that so awful? Perhaps for some folks, it is.

If Elizabeth Warren announced she was running for President,

would she be your first choice?

Suppose Elizabeth Warren posted on DU under an assumed name

If she posted some of the things she says - say, about the White House being in bed with bankers, that the CPP was cruel and disgusting - how would DUers react?

The LEFT needs to realize that TORTURE is OVER

Look people, we get it: you don't want people, even foreign people, to participate in certain activities that may make it difficult to drive, operate heavy machinery, breathe, or support a normal cardiac rhythm. Truth be told, while I get that our brave and patriotic Activity Directors have very stressful jobs, even I think they sometimes do go a smidge too far. But unlike you moonbats, I don't get all sanctimonious about it.

In any case, our President has ended some of these "enhanced interrogation" techniques so most of us can relax. Deep breath now, folks! It's all good!

But some on the Left are harshing our buzz: they keep raising the whole "extraordinary rendition" thingy, claiming that it's outsourced torture, the Trans-Torture Partnership if you will. Nothing could be further from the truth. Let me say this in a one-sentence paragraph so it looks like I'm being direct and honest:

The people we kidnap for extraordinary rendition are not tortured. Period.

Yes, back in the old days, when extraordinary rendition was invented by Bill Clinton and Al Gore, there may have been a little rough play. But that's a thing of the past: when our President ended torture by ending some enhanced interrogation techniques, he also made a profound change in the "rules" around extraordinary rendition which ensures that all prisoners are treated humanely and with dignity, from the moment they're snatched off the street and drugged into submission, until the last of their body parts are released by the partner country that agrees to serve as their host.

Now, this is all a little technical for the Lumpenproletariat that frequent DU, so rather than bore your with legalese, I'll demonstrate this critical change in the rules as a pretend conversation between the US and the host country. It could be any participating host country, such as Egypt, Jordan, Afghanistan and Morocco or the others that are proud to work alongside us on the War on Terra!

US: "Hey host country! We grabbed this guy off the street because we suspect he has a lot of Terra! in him. We think he wants to overthrow your government, too. Could you give him food and shelter for a few years?"

Host country: "No problem!"

US: "And while you're at it, can you torture the @#$% out of him?"

Host country: "Hell yeah!"

That was then; this is now:

US: "Hey host country! We grabbed this guy off the street because we suspect he has a lot of Terra! in him. We think he wants to overthrow your government, too. Could you give him food and shelter for a few years?"

Host country: "No problem!"

US: "And could you not torture the @#$% out of him? We won't actually check to see if you're not, because we trust you!"

Host country: "LOL. Sure. "

And there you have it! Unlike the torture-filled extraordinary rendition of yesterday, today's detainee-guest cannot be tortured, thanks to unverifiable assurances from our partners.

"But Manny!", some on the Left protest, "shouldn't we have some way of verifying that the people we snatch off the street aren't being subjected to unspeakable abuse?" LOL! That's why you people don't get paid the big bucks! Insisting on verification would send a signal to these countries that we don't trust them, which could make them angry, and you definitely don't want to get on the bad side of these countries - let's just say that the word vivisection was not in my vocabulary until I started researching these places.

So, in conclusion: it's all the Left's fault.

Regards,

Third-Way Manny