Rehab, Conservative Style

They'll be happy to tell you how tough they are in the war on terror. They're all about law and order.

But did you know they're also all about paints and crayons?

Brian Ross of ABC News reports that two of the four men behind the plot to blow up a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day were actually prisoners of the United States and that, under the leadership of President George W. Bush, were released into a Saudi art rehabilitation program.

"The so-called rehabilitation programs are a joke," a U.S. diplomat said in describing the Saudi efforts with released Guantanamo detainees.

Saudi officials concede its program has had its "failures" but insist that, overall, the effort has helped return potential terrorists to a meaningful life.

One program gives the former detainees paints and crayons as part of the rehabilitation regimen.

A similar rehabilitation program in Yemen was stopped because so many of the detainees quickly joined with al Qaeda or its affiliates, the official said.

Thanks to the Bush administration's relationship with the Saudis, we almost had another aviation-related terrorist attack.

Your holiday gift from the party of national security.

Update: ABC News issues a clarification:

One of the two former Guantanamo prisoners who assumed leadership roles in al Qaeda of Yemen turned himself in to the Saudi government in Februrary, 2009 and therefore could not have played a direct role in organizing the attempt to bring down Northwest flight 253, U.S. government officials said Wednesday.

A second former Guantanamo detainee remains in the leadership ranks of the Yemen group, the officials said.

ABCNews.com reported Monday in error that former Guantanamo prisoner #333, Muhamad Attik al-Harbi, was one of four leaders of the al Qaeda group which claimed responsibility for the attempted bombing.

Weekend Video Salon: On Fixing Capitalism

"[The bailout of Wall Street] demonstrates a very specific class skew—extraordinary intervention into the market place just long enough to fix the situation from the point of view of asset-owners while leaving wage-earners holding the bag."

Radical Cleric Issues Healthcare Fatwa

See who the Senators have chosen to take advice from about health care legislation:

The Truth Shall Set You Free

Dear Republicans: I used to be one of you. In fact you'd likely have no "Tea Bag" movement if it hadn't been for my dad and me, and many others who, back in the 1970s and 80s, instigated the rise of the Religious Right. Dad and I were leaders of that movement.

Read on...

Weekend Books

This is one of the best books we've come across in a very long time. We've got a real interest in learning about how it came to pass that so many issues which were not necessarily seen as being political--became so politicized.

What led to the creation of the hyper-politicized world we live in today? Who or what drove its creation?

In Nixonland, Rick Perlstein traces the roots of this trend--to a very interesting individual who managed to exploit to his own political benefit one of the most wrenching periods in our nation's history. The results of his political strategies can be felt everywhere today.

If you're not with us, you're against us. The playbook for total divisiveness.

This book is a great read, and a long one too. We can't recommend it enough. Dig in.

The Free Market Speaketh

According to news reports, it appears that Citadel Broadcasting is about to file for bankruptcy protection. Citadel owns 5 radio stations in Tri-Cities, Tennessee, many of which can be received here in the High Country. One of these stations is WQUT-FM, which for some reason people listen to when they have an overriding need to hear the same old classic rock songs again, and again, and again.

Wow. The Who. Now there's a band that never gets any airtime. Poor guys. Will they ever break through?

Citadel Broadcasting also syndicates right wing talker Mark Levin. Sleaze is the word that comes to mind when one thinks of him:

Mark Levin to Palin: "You're absolutely right about" "death panels"

Levin rants against environmentalism: " 'Oh, we want clean air and clean water.' And what does that mean? Poverty!"

Levin: President Obama "has aggressively undertaken to destroy this society like no president in my lifetime"

And so on. What a shame it would be if Citadel sold off some of their stations and started carrying progressive programming. Like how about Thom Hartmann? He's only the most popular progressive talker in the nation--and has the 10th most popular talk radio show nationwide.

So, it appears that the invisible hand of the free market is about to slap Citadel's backside. They are not alone in getting slapped. The Washington Times, long a bastion of church-subsidized right wing "reporting", is apparently getting ready to layoff 40% of its staff.

And how about Focus on the Family?

What is a right wing free market worshiper to do? Looks like we might just have a trend here.

Wholesome Local Radio

Feeling like shopping for the holidays? Like to listen to the "local" radio stations? Then think about this before you step out and spend your hard earned cash at local businesses who knowingly advertise during this fine show:

LIMBAUGH: I got two more stories in the stack today about how black unemployment is through the roof. Black unemployment is terrible. The black frame of mind is terrible, they're depressed, they're down -- Obama's not doing anything for 'em. How is that hoax and change workin' for ya? They're all livid. I mean, they thought there were gonna be an exact 180-degree economic reversal and it's done nothing but get bad for everybody, but they're especially upset about it because they look at him as one of them, and now they feel abandoned. And I'm sure Tiger Woods' choice of females not helping 'em out with their attitudes there either.

For the defenders of the radio stations airing this garbage, and for the defenders of the show itself--who will undoubtedly declare that this statement was taken out of context, and that this was a totally isolated incident, we have some more:

"We are being told that we have to hope [Obama] succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles ... because his father was black."

"[I]n Obama's America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering."

"Obama's entire economic program is reparations."

"Obama has disowned his white half ... he's decided he's got to go all in on the black side."

Limbaugh on Gates controversy: "Here you have a black president trying to destroy a white policeman."

More here.

Tis the season.

Little Blue Footballs

Fair is fair. C'mon guys. You get to regulate the uterus, then we get to regulate your Viagra.

Support Our Teachers/Mercenaries

Looks like a certain special someone may be looking for a job teaching high school history or economics--maybe even in North Carolina, if our kids are lucky. He's very familiar with the state--he used to be in charge of a 7,000 acre private military training compound here.

He has excellent real-world experience. He's well traveled, straight as an arrow, and is deeply, deeply familiar with how valuable public-private partnerships can be.

Oh, the things he can teach.

Also too, he's a good Christian:

Scahill: Blackwater USA was founded by a man named Eri[k] Prince. And Eri[k] Prince is ... currently in his late 30s, but at the time of founding Blackwater in 1996 he was believed to be the wealthiest person that had ever enlisted in the U.S. Navy SEALs, which is widely considered to be the most elite force within the U.S. military. And Eri[k] Prince came from a very conservative evangelical Christian family in the state of Michigan. His father was a pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps businessman who started a very successful auto parts manufacturing business called Prince Manufacturing. And what the company was best known for was inventing the now ubiquitous lighted sun visor. Any time you’re in your car and you pull down that visor and it lights up, that’s Eri[k] Prince’s family that invented that. So this company was very successful throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and really, young Eri[k] Prince watched as his father used his very successful business as a cash-generating machine to fund the rise of the Republican revolution in 1994 that brought Newt Gingrich and the Contract With America to power. To give the kick-start money to Gary Bauer to start his group, the Family Research Council. They were heavy funders of James Dobson and Focus on the Family. And so young Eri[k] Prince grew up in this family that was very strict Calvinist in their religion and then real free-market-gospel followers. And so he saw this sort of model from his father, and that really has been the model that he has picked up and ran with as he’s built up his Blackwater empire.