More hidden State Police pay surfaces. This time: millions in perks
At bottom, the Globe expose is a self-serving attempt to get jurisdiction over the Seaport District turned over to the Boston police. That doesn't excuse the decades-long, open secret of corruption and looting at the State Police.
Barbara Bush, matriarch in a political dynasty, dies at 92
I'm sure some are saying ding-dong, the witch is dead, and she won't be getting any new body parts.
Maybe I'm being callous and cruel, but I don't think so. I don't think the procreator and wife of war criminals deserve reverence. The elite pre$$ does, of course, and I'll see you on the flip side.
UPDATE: Barbara Bush In 2003: "Why should we hear about body bags and death? I mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?"
The Globe seems to have missed that one, and she was joking to the end (W hopes you don't feel sorry for him).
George H.W. Bush says to ‘cross the Bushes off your worry list’ following Barbara’s death
They were never on my "worry" list, and did he say that before or after he decided to Dave a Cop and Feel?
"This year Massachusetts becomes ground zero in the latest round of the nation’s culture wars. A November ballot question asking voters whether to keep or repeal the state’s 2016 antidiscrimination law is expected to be the first statewide referendum on transgender rights, taking the national temperature on a fiery hot social issue. If bluer-than-blue Massachusetts votes to repeal transgender rights, said Andrew Beckwith, one of those pushing for repeal, “it will send a real message to the rest of the country that this is just too much. It’s pushed beyond what common sense will allow.”
And common decency, for that matter.
As for bluer than blue, doesn't the state have a Republican governor?
(flip)
1,200 artworks were stuffed into a 3-story Quincy home. Now a collection is unveiled
At least it's a happy ending.
"Trump CIA pick faces rocky confirmation over torture role" by Liz Goodwin Globe Staff April 17, 2018
WASHINGTON — The CIA, which generally prefers to stay out of the public eye, is now in the midst of a highly public campaign to defend President Trump’s choice of longtime operative Gina Haspel as the agency’s first female director.
That must be a switch for the Deep State scum, huh?
This unusual mission is more overt than covert, and it is pulling the CIA into risky political waters. Haspel and her backers in the intelligence community must overcome deep skepticism among many senators about her record, in particular concerns about her role in Bush-era torture policies that threaten to torpedo her nomination. And in trying to do so, the CIA’s public relations efforts are further highlighting just how much the public will probably never know about the nominee’s track record from Africa to Asia.
Yup, we will never know the horrors of the black site torture chambers and the praise for Bar seems a little misplaced.
After Trump selected Haspel in March, the CIA praised Haspel, currently its deputy director, as a pathbreaker for women in a lengthy thread on Twitter that also described her 33-year career in oddly vague terms. Haspel had led a small station in “an exotic and tumultuous capital” that goes unnamed by the agency, after a stint in an unspecified African country in the waning days of the Cold War. She survived a coup, but the CIA doesn’t say where.
Are you sure she is not a ballbreaker?
The fact that such a position is considered pathbreaking for a woman shows how absurd is all this equality feminism. Rather than look to emulate the worst of men, why don't they celebrate their superiority in the giving of life? That's why they are eulogizing Barbara Bush.
The agency also credits her with catching two terrorists linked to an embassy bombing, and (in her official biography) notes she keeps a 5-foot-tall poster of Johnny Cash behind her desk. Former CIA directors under both Barack Obama and George W. Bush praise her as an apolitical professional and a capable leader.
A professional torturer, great, and didn't Obama say he was going to close down Gitmo?
Nowhere in the agency’s PR blitz, however, is it mentioned that Haspel played a key role in a controversial interrogation program after 9/11 — a fact that will likely dominate her confirmation hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The hearing has not yet been scheduled.
The committee’s Democrats are pushing the CIA to peel back the curtain and let the public know more about Haspel’s past, slamming the agency’s spin as “superficial” and insulting.
“Under the title ‘Get to Know our Deputy Director,’ the CIA issued a press release that included a superficial narrative about Ms. Haspel without providing the public any meaningful information about her 33-year career at the CIA and what it demonstrates about her suitability to serve as director,” Senators Dianne Feinstein, Ron Wyden, and Martin Heinrich wrote to CIA Director Mike Pompeo this week.
Then the problems must be serious because the CIA never addresses such matters in the press or anywhere else (don't really have to, if you know what I mean).
The senators said that through their own review of the classified facts about her career, they’ve grown “more disturbed” by Haspel’s past.
“I’m concerned because through our torture report her name is all the way through it and that’s a problem for the signal it sends,” Feinstein said Tuesday.
The “torture report” is a 6,000-page classified document crafted by the Senate Intelligence Committee more than six years ago that details the abuses of the CIA’s interrogation program after 9/11, including the use of waterboarding, sleep deprivation, rectal feeding, and forced nudity.
See: Senate Torture Report
It's a good thing you can't see the sites because then you would hear the screams.
Wyden told the Globe he believes the administration is trying to “cover up” Haspel’s past and is making a mockery of the confirmation process by not declassifying more.
“I think it’s odd that they’re out spinning about how she’s a terrific nominee without giving the Senate the information to make the evaluation,” Wyden said.
CIA spokesman Ryan Trapani said the agency will share Haspel’s classified record with all senators during the confirmation process. “Prior to last year, Deputy Director Haspel’s entire career at CIA was classified, including the fact she worked at CIA,” Trapani said. “Through the confirmation process, the American public will get to know her for the first time.”
They may not want to.
At issue is Haspel’s alleged role, reported in the media, of overseeing a “black site” in Thailand while a terror suspect was waterboarded there. Haspel also advocated for and wrote a cable ordering the shredding of 92 tapes showing waterboarding and other harsh interrogations, according to a memoir written by the former general counsel for the CIA. CIA officials have said she was acting on orders from her boss in directing the destruction of the tapes.
She said the VCR ate them, and the Nuremberg defense has already been discredited (thanks for implicating W, though).
The math looks tough for her. Republicans, who hold 51 seats in the Senate, almost surely would need Democratic votes to confirm her. Republican Senator Rand Paul came out against Haspel last month, with another Republican, John McCain, expressing grave concerns.
McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, sent a letter to Haspel asking her to provide details about, and a rationale for, the destruction of the tapes, along with other pointed questions that suggest he’s leaning against her nomination.
“There’s an intense level of concern,” even among some Republican senators, about her involvement in the interrogation program, said Chris Anders, the deputy director of the ACLU’s legislative office in Washington. “If I were in the Trump White House, I would look at this and say, ‘Wow, this [nomination] is in trouble.’ ”
Time to withdraw her name and begin a grand jury investigation to indict.
A litany of CIA officials, including former directors Michael Hayden, Leon Panetta, and John Brennan, endorsed her, along with dozens of other intelligence officials, in a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee last week.
“Haspel did nothing more and nothing less than what the nation and the agency asked her to do, and she did it well,” wrote Hayden, who led the CIA between 2006 and 2009.
The ruling and political cla$$ in this country are monsters!!!
“The CIA likes having directors who come from the family — it makes them more comfortable,” said Mark Lowenthal, a former assistant director of Central Intelligence and now a professor at John Hopkins University.
And H.W. BUSH served a year!
I was told "presidents were expected to set a national example, and what a sad commentary that is about our country," huh?
But Haspel’s opponents are hoping the Senate won’t be cowed by the intelligence community.
The last time they were not, the CIA spied on them.
Anders of the ACLU is using the vote count for the 2015 McCain-Feinstein amendment banning torture as his lobbying road map, theorizing that at least some of the 78 senators who voted to outlaw waterboarding are potential “no” votes on Haspel. That includes two Republican members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Susan Collins from Maine and Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina. Burr supports Haspel’s nomination, but Collins has not yet made a determination.
“I wouldn’t know what kind of call to make on whether or not she makes it through,” said Lowenthal.
It’s unclear if there’s appetite among all Senate Democrats for this particular fight. Senator Chuck Schumer said last month that he’s not urging the caucus to vote against Haspel, and a handful of Democrats — including Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Senator Bill Nelson of Florida — have sounded open to her nomination. Haspel has been meeting with senators on the committee and attempting to assuage their concerns about her role in the destruction of the interrogation tapes in particular.
What good are Democrats if they aren't going to take a stand here?
If nothing else, the hearing will drag back into the spotlight a painful chapter of US history, rehashing the Bush administration’s decision to green light torture in the aftermath of 9/11. Obama decided not to launch an investigation into that period when he took office, saying he wanted to “look forward.”
Yeah, "if nothing else" it will make the CIA look bad -- never mind the painful chapters endured by their victims.
The green light means the red light needs to go on for the eulogies for Bar, and Obama proved his cowardly cravenness early on.
McCain sent a strongly worded letter to Haspel with tough questions that preview what she’ll likely face at her hearing. He asked for her to explain whether she ever directed “enhanced interrogation” techniques including waterboarding, forced nudity and humiliation, slapping, stress positions, and sleep deprivation for more than 48 hours.
“We now know that these techniques not only failed to deliver actionable intelligence, but actually produced false and misleading information,” McCain wrote. “Most importantly, the use of torture compromised our values, stained our national honor, and threatened our historical reputation.”
What he is most worried about is the image.
Good thing he will be dying soon, huh?
Maybe the next guy won't be so hard on Haspel.
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She looks like she would cut your balls off as soon as the lights went out without giving it a millisecond of thought.
**********
Passenger dies after being partly sucked out of plane amid engine failure
One person died and seven others were injured after an engine blew apart, sending shrapnel into the plane and forcing a Southwest Airlines flight to make an emergency landing at Philadelphia International Airport on Tuesday. It was the first passenger fatality on a U.S. carrier since 2009, federal officials said, and the first passenger fatality in Southwest’s 51-year history.
Photos and footage posted to social media showed the aftermath of the apparent explosion, which sprayed shrapnel and caused a plane window to be blown out in a chilling episode that one passenger streamed live on Facebook.
I'm surprised they didn't holler terrorism to deflect from the defective equipment.
Neil Gorsuch breaks tie as Supreme Court partially strikes down deportation law
Potential impeachment of Missouri’s governor clouded by legal ambiguities
Related:
"In New England, residents either love their governors or hate them. And they aren’t shy about telling some stranger on the phone exactly how they feel. A recent Morning Consult poll of the approval ratings for all the nation’s governors finds the region’s are unusual standouts: They are among the most popular and the least. Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker (above) is once again the nation’s most popular governor among his constituents, while Connecticut’s Dannel Malloy brings up the rear as the nation’s least popular. Overall, of New England’s six governors, three made the top five as most popular, while the other three ranked in the bottom seven. Overall, of New England’s six governors, three made the top five as most popular, while the other three ranked in the bottom seven. The governor most at-risk is Rhode Island’s first-term Democrat, Gina Raimondo. According to the new poll, only 39 percent of residents approve of Raimondo’s job performance, while 50 percent disapprove. How bad is that number? Missouri Governor Eric Greitens, who was indicted in February on a number of felony charges and faces impeachment, has a 40 percent approval rating. Raimondo faces a Democratic primary in her reelection, and if she makes it to the general election she will face a Republican nominee as well as a strong Democratic-leaning independent challenger....."
That's an indictment of her right there!
Yup, our red governor in bluer-than-blue Ma$$achu$etts is the nation's most popular.
I don't want to ‘‘scare the hell out of you’’ by yelling fire, but:
New York Mice Are Crawling With Dangerous Bacteria and Viruses
The “real message is that these things are everywhere.”
"Large majority supports tougher Russia sanctions, Post-ABC poll finds" by Scott Clement Washington Post April 18, 2018
WASHINGTON — Despite support for penalizing Russia, 52 percent of adults say Trump should invite Vladimir Putin to the White House in an effort to improve US-Russia relations, while 42 percent say Trump should not do so, because it would grant Putin legitimacy.
Look at the naive American people, still believing peace is possible, and whether he comes or not he is a legitimate world leader.
The Post-ABC poll finds uncommonly broad support for tougher sanctions on Russia, with Democrats along with Republicans and independents favoring tougher penalties.
On Monday, Trump pulled the plug on sanctions aimed at Russian companies behind the equipment related to Syrian President Bashar Assad’s alleged chemical weapons attack, after the sanctions were announced Sunday by Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations.
Oh, yeah?
Now why would he do that?
The Post reported that administration officials said Haley made an error and said it was unlikely that Trump would approve any additional sanctions without another triggering event by Russia.
I don't think so. I think they hung the neocon skank out to dry to make her look bad.
Trump is like Caeser right now. He's surrounded by enemies.
Trump’s chief economic adviser said Tuesday that Haley ‘‘got ahead of the curve’’ when she said new sanctions against Russia were imminent.
The director of the National Economic Council, Larry Kudlow, told reporters Tuesday during a briefing in Florida that there ‘‘might have been some momentary confusion’’ about the issue.
I now realize Kudlow was brought in because he is someone Trump trusts, plus he is outside of the neocon, Israeli-first crowd subverting this president and trying to push him into an invasion of Syria.
Related: "President Trump’s top economist blasted the Congressional Budget Office on Tuesday, dismissing the scorekeeper’s recent projections that the Republican tax law would push America’s annual deficit over $1 trillion. ‘‘Never believe the CBO. Very important: Never believe them,’’ Larry Kudlow, director of Trump’s National Economic Council, said during an interview on ‘‘Fox & Friends.’’ ‘‘They’re always wrong, especially with regard to tax cuts.’’ Kudlow’s remarks reflect the widespread belief in the Republican Party that the CBO has failed to adequately account for higher economic growth when estimating the tax law’s impact on the deficit. Several other nonpartisan studies, as well as Wall Street analysts, have also disputed Republicans’ contention that the tax law will pay for itself....."
Also see: "The invitation-only, official White House event — billed as a town hall — is part of the White House’s larger effort to talk up what it says are benefits in the new tax law. “Town halls are a catch-22 for this administration. If they have a real town hall, they will undoubtedly face questions about scandals that have nothing to do with taxes . . . about Russia, Mueller, Michael Cohen, Sean Hannity, Stormy Daniels, et cetera” said Joshua Dyck, codirector of the Center for Public Opinion at UMass Lowell. “However, the optics of doing a partisan event in a state so reputed for its independent thinking are not good.” When the event turned to the audience, a Dover, N.H., hair salon owner declined to pose an inquiry about the law, instead thanking the duo for the tax overhaul and asking Ivanka Trump for a hug. (She obliged and mentioned that she needed to stop by the salon sometime.)"
More on the tax plan and its effects later.
On Tuesday, Haley fired back at the White House, denying that she had been confused when she announced Sunday that the Trump administration would impose new sanctions on Russia.
“With all due respect, I don’t get confused,” she told Dana Perino of Fox News.
OMFG!
The insubordination to a president that she serves at his pleasure is a fireable offense in my book.
The White House has been struggling to explain Haley’s comments, amid reports that Trump put the brakes on the new sanctions. Several administration officials are disputing that characterization, saying Haley was out of the loop.
GOOD, and we know the REAL REASON WHY!
Maybe he should replace Pence, too.
A senior administration official said that under a plan conceived last week the sanctions would have been announced Friday night, at the same time US, French, and British forces launched a missile strike on Syrian President Bashar Assad’s chemical weapons facilities. But the sanctions were not ready in time for Trump’s 9 p.m. Friday statement.
The official said the sanctions were reevaluated over the weekend as the administration watched the Russian government’s response to the strikes, and they were put on hold once Russia’s response was deemed less robust than anticipated. The official was not authorized to discuss private administration deliberations publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Sort of like a reward for not sinking the fleet or exposing AmeriKa's weakness.
Russia analysts said the whipsaw policy shift once again highlighted an administration struggling to find a coherent and consistent voice in dealing with Russia, which in the past four years has annexed Crimea, intervened in eastern Ukraine, sought to influence the US election in 2016, allegedly poisoned a former Russian spy living in Britain, and propped up the murderous government of President Bashar Assad in Syria.
Okay, they didn't annex Crimea so that is a WAComPo lie. Given that, it is a safe to assume that the other three floggings are just as fake -- or at best, distorted.
Trump has mostly spoken hopefully of his efforts to forge a friendship with President Vladimir Putin of Russia, including congratulating him on a reelection widely denounced as a sham and even suggesting a White House meeting. At the same time, the Trump administration has imposed two rounds of sanctions against Russia in the last month, expelled 60 of Moscow’s diplomats, and closed a consulate in retaliation for the poisoning attack in Britain.
Well, the AmeriKan pre$$ should know all about sham elections since we have them every two years over here.
“Trump seems to think that if he accepts what his advisers recommend on even days of the month and rejects their recommendations on odd days, the result will be a strategy,” said Stephen Sestanovich, a scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations and Columbia University who served as ambassador to former Soviet states in the 1990s.
Look who they turn to for "expert" analysis.
“By and large, other governments don’t know whether to laugh or cry at all this,” Sestanovich said. “But in Russia, laughter is getting the upper hand.”
Yup, Russia is laughing at us so let's what, nuke 'em?
Trump was annoyed with Haley for getting out in front of the policy, the administration official said, and his decision to reject sanctions left her hanging in public, with her credibility on the line.
We know why he is annoyed, and how can something you don't have be on the line?
Haley has been one of the strongest critics in the administration of Russia’s behavior around the world, often speaking far more harshly than Trump would, but she has rarely been reined in publicly this way. She made no comment on Monday.
Didn't Tillerson have to rein her in once already?
Administration officials said new sanctions could be imposed at some point if Russia takes further action justifying them.
But absent such a scenario, the officials could not explain how Trump would make Russia pay a “big price” for enabling Syria’s use of chemical weapons, as he promised to do. The strike against Syria that Trump announced late Friday in Washington was limited to a single night and to three targets......
Look at the Washington ComPost beat the war drums against Russia!
--more--"
I know it is hard to believe, but all that stands between the pre$$ and a “mushroom cloud from an atomic bomb” is Donald Trump!
Also see:
Mitch McConnell sees no need for law to protect Robert Mueller
Trump seeks extension to file his taxes
Here is why:
"The Internal Revenue Service announced late Tuesday that it will let taxpayers submit tax returns without penalty through Wednesday, after a long day of technical problems that fueled confusion about what is already one of Americans’ most frustrating interactions with their government. A computer glitch at the IRS knocked offline the agency’s ability to process many tax returns filed electronically, a breakdown that left agency officials flummoxed and millions of Americans baffled. Senior government officials were at a loss to explain what happened, even as close to 5 million Americans were expected to try to file their taxes before the midnight deadline. IRS officials did not specify exactly what went wrong, saying only that they would undertake a ‘‘hard reboot’’ of their systems. By late Tuesday, the IRS said its systems were back online, and taxpayers could proceed to file returns through the end of Wednesday....."
Yeah, about that software:
"The major practical problem it had identified — that it would be burdensome for out-of-state retailers to calculate and collect taxes for thousands of state and local jurisdictions — has been solved by modern software....."
OMG! In their greedy grab for loot they are ignoring the never-ending instances of software problems in this state and on a national level, from unemployment and the DoR to the Obummercare rollout that crashed the state's health site, etc, etc, etc.
Now about the tax plan:
"Technology companies led US stocks solidly higher Tuesday, giving the market its second straight gain. Consumer-services companies, retailers, and health care stocks accounted for a big slice of the broad rally. Banks declined, and oil prices recovered from an early slide. Strong company earnings and outlooks, as well as some encouraging economic data, helped put investors in a buying mood. While the market has been preoccupied lately with concern over geopolitical and trade tensions, Wall Street has something else to focus on over the next few weeks: company earnings, and expectations that last year’s corporate tax cut will have a positive effect on corporate balance sheets....."
Exhibit A:
"Investment bank Goldman Sachs said Tuesday that its first quarter profits rose by 26 percent, helped by a lower tax bill and a surge in market volatility. The Wall Street bank earned $2.83 billion. The results topped analysts’ forecasts....."
They sure are keeping quiet about the record bank profits, huh?
The drift is join a union.
Detente is off between president, California governor
Trump administration defends Obama’s Atlantic monument
Pruitt upgraded to a larger, customized SUV with bullet-resistant seat covers
His monthly payment on the vehicle is $839.
Controversy shadows Trump’s pick as CDC director
I'm not interested in anything James Comey has to say, sorry, and he should be in jail.
Of course, that is why the Trump-hating pre$$ is loving the guy.
*********
‘Good relationship’ was formed when CIA director met with N.K. leader, Trump says
As China has extended a peace offering to Trump.
Who would have thunk it?
Donald Trump: the world's last, best hope for peace!
Guys like that are as endangered as a magpie.
Myanmar’s president grants amnesty to over 8,500 prisoners
Were any of them caught up in Haspel's dragnet?
"A Pakistani high court convicted a former judge and his wife of torturing a 10-year-old child working as a servant at their home and sentenced them to a year in prison on Tuesday. Justice Aamer Farooq of the Islamabad High Court also fined the couple the sum of 100,000 Pakistani rupees, about $900. The case of the girl, Tayyaba, first made headlines when police rescued her in 2016 from the judge’s residence in Islamabad, following complaints from neighbors. Initially her parents struck a deal to pardon the couple but the Supreme Court, which also acts as a supervisory tribunal, ordered a retrial. Prosecutor Tariq Jahangiri said the verdict was reached after a retrial that lasted one year. Later, the convicted couple was granted bail by the same court....."
Kind of falls right into the theme of this blog, doesn't it?
"In September, a teenager from Delhi was kidnapped and raped. She went to the police, and the alleged perpetrators were caught and put on trial. But now there’s another challenge. The teen says her parents have accepted about $7,600 from the alleged assailants. In exchange, they pressed the victim to change her statement to protect her attackers. The young woman found out during the negotiations and figured out where her parents had tucked the money. The girl reported the bribe to Delhi police, who arrested the girl’s mother. Her father is ‘‘on the run,’’ according to the BBC. The young woman’s story is the latest to draw attention to the issue of rape in India. Just a few days ago, protests broke out over the rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl in northern India....."
What is strange is that happens not only in Bollywood, but in Hollywood.
Skripal Attack Used 'Very Small Amount' of Liquid Poison, U.K. Says
The NYT doesn't identify the BZ while tell us the decontamination of the area could take months.
You know why Skripal will soon go away, right?
Yeah, somebody has some explaining to do, and there is not even an apology forthcoming from the witch of England (who, incidentally, accused the Syrian government and its ally Russia of trying to cover up evidence and obstruct the investigation! Talk about balls!)
"Chemical arms experts in Syria go to site of alleged attack" by Bassem Mroue and Philip Issa Associated Press April 17, 2018
DAMASCUS, Syria —The alleged attack and subsequent military response underscored the challenge that the seven-year conflict in Syria poses for the West. President Trump wants to remove US troops from Syria, where it has been fighting the Islamic State militants.
A new strategy appeared to be crystallizing to let the United States leave Syria without relinquishing its interests to Assad government or his allies, Iran, and Russia.
How they going to do that?
Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said the US-aligned kingdom could deploy forces from a bloc of mostly Sunni Muslim nations that was established to fight terrorism. He said the Obama administration did not agree to such an offer.
The troops are already on there way:
"Britain’s famed Queen Elizabeth 2 cruise ship will finally open as a floating luxury hotel moored off Dubai, nearly a decade after completing its last ocean voyage. It’s been another long trip for the ship known as the QE2 to even open to the public, as Dubai’s financial meltdown and years of slow growth nearly sank the project and left the ship languishing at port. After initially planning to gut the vessel, Dubai’s government ultimately decided to restore the ship at a cost of over $100 million, down to replicating its 1960s carpeting, with work still underway. The luxury ship traveled some 6 million miles in decades of service even as airlines came to dominate trans-Atlantic travel. It carried 2.5 million passengers and crossed the Atlantic more than 800 times. Britain requisitioned the ship as a troop carrier for the Falklands War against Argentina in 1982."
I like the idea because replacing the Americans with Saudi-bought mercenaries, and allowing Trump to claim he got out of Syria, is a very good thing, as full eradication can be applied to the mercenaries.
The kingdom has supported Sunni rebel groups fighting Assad’s forces, which are backed by Shiite-majority Iran. Saudi Arabia is also a member of the US-led coalition battling Islamic State militants.
The OPCW visit to Douma came hours after Syrian media reported airstrikes Tuesday on government military installations in the central Homs region and the suburbs of Damascus, but the military later said a false alarm had set off air defense systems.....
It was a cyber hack attack by USrael!
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I'm told the evidence (or lack thereof) could be useless, and that journalists in Damascus were prevented by government minders from contacting the OPCW inspectors even though they were allowed access to Douma on Monday (putting the lie to yesterday's cow flop).
UPDATE:
"CIA director nominee will explain role in torture program" Associated Press April 05, 2018
WASHINGTON — President Trump’s nominee to be CIA director will fully explain what her role was in the agency’s use of harsh interrogation practices on terror suspects after 9/11, the top US intelligence chief said Wednesday.
Deputy CIA Director Gina Haspel will face tough questions about her activities with the interrogation program, which critics call one of the darkest chapters in the agency’s history.
In the run-up to her confirmation hearing and a full Senate vote on her nomination, lawmakers are asking the CIA to declassify information about her 30-plus-year, mostly undercover career at the CIA.
After Trump chose Haspel to be the next director of the CIA, details were leaked about her time as chief of base of a secret prison in Thailand where terror suspects were waterboarded after 9/11. Haspel also drafted a memo that called for the destruction of 92 videotapes of interrogation sessions. Their destruction, ordered by a CIA official in 2005, prompted a lengthy Justice Department investigation that ended without charges.
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