USA Today has the article House gets hung up on $1 trillion spending package.

But in a blistering speech on the House floor, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., characterized the package as a “moral hazard” and said she was “enormously disappointed” in the president.

This is a speech you have to hear. C-Span has the video Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on 2015 Federal Spending Bill.

If the President signs this bill, he needs to be impeached.

Comedy Central sent me an email about the video clip from the Colbert Report titled Stephen Talks “Serial”.

Journalist Sarah Koenig talks about “Serial,” her true-crime show that has emerged as the most popular podcast in history.

I found this so interesting that I decided to see whether I could get access to this “podcast”. There is a web site Serial the Podcast.

It’s Baltimore, 1999. Hae Min Lee, a popular high-school senior, disappears after school one day. Six weeks later detectives arrest her classmate and ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed, for her murder. He says he’s innocent – though he can’t exactly remember what he was doing on that January afternoon. But someone can. A classmate at Woodlawn High School says she knows where Adnan was. The trouble is, she’s nowhere to be found.

I listened to the first episode. I think I am hooked. That is the reason I am writing this blog post. I will be returning again and again to the above link as I have the time to listen to the other episodes.

The Daily Kos has a very interesting article The Torture-Free TRUE Story of The Best USMC Interrogator in WWII [Update].

We’ve known for some time that just as career military commanders warned against invading and occupying Iraq, career military interrogators warned against the use of torture or abuse of the Geneva Convention.  Of course that didn’t stop the hysterics from screaming “What about that ticking time bomb scenario?” or “What about our troops in harm’s way?”

People promoting those arguments are betting on hysterical hyperbole to silence their critics.  Ok, let’s play that hand.

I’ll see your “ticking time bomb” and raise you “exploding ordnance in the middle of armed conflict.”

I’ll see your “troops in harm’s way” and raise you “troops in kill zones.”

I’ll see your “contractors posing as troops” raise and call you with “the most effective United States Marine Corps interrogator during the Pacific Campaign of World War II.”

The author of the post then goes on to tell the story of  Maj. Sherwood Moran.  The article even reprints the Major’s instructions to other interrogators about the principles of interrogation even during the heat of the battle.  If more people would listen to the stories of real soldiers rather than the stories of easy chair soldiers, we could put an end  to this issue of using torture.

You have to wonder about the people who know that torture does not work but use it anyway.  There is definitely some deep moral flaw in their character.  We do not want such people interacting with our enemies.  They will do none of us any good.

Elizabeth Warren has posted an item Sen. Warren Calls on House to Strike Repeal of Dodd-Frank Provision in Funding Bill on her Facebook page.

The House is about to vote on a closed-door budget deal that slips in a provision — literally written by Citigroup lobbyists — to let Wall Street derivatives traders once again gamble with our economy. We all need to fight back immediately against this giveaway to the most powerful banks in the country. Share this video with your friends right now to fight back. Congress needs to withhold support of the budget package until this risky giveaway is removed from the legislation.

Here is the video of her comments on the Senate floor.

Is it logical to believe that the working people of this country have given a mandate to the Republicans to give more money to the ultra-wealthy? That is apparently what the Republicans believe. How can voters deliver the real message to the Republicans? They can’t wait for the next election. They need to start hollering now.

You can sign Elizabeth Warren’s petition Stop the risky Wall Street giveaway.

You might be interested in signing the petition of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee – Tell Boehner: Don’t Gut Wall Street Reform!

Republicans are trying to sneak provisions for Wall Street special interests into the budget deal. Don’t let them!

MoveOn and its membership has taken it upon themselves to campaign to get Elizabeth Warren to run for President in 2016. They have a web page for you to sign the petition, and view the video below.

Anyone who talks about Wall Street this way will have huge amounts of money thrown at the attempts to defeat her. Only a strong outcry from the voters long before she is even running can counteract this attack.

MSNBC has the full video of this politician presenting the case in favor of releasing the torture report.

“But in the end, torture’s failure to serve its intended purpose isn’t the main reason to oppose its use. I have often said, and will always maintain, that this question isn’t about our enemies; it’s about us. It’s about who we were, who we are and who we aspire to be. It’s about how we represent ourselves to the world.

This politician has gotten to the most fundamental of issues even better than what Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey have done. Those two did make excellent remarks themselves, but I had to point out that there is no need for a cost/benefit analysis on torture. It is just something we ought not to do for exactly the reasons stated in the above quote from the video.

In a way, I am glad that MSNBC has made it difficult for me to embed their video here. You will have to navigate the link ‘We need not risk our national honor to prevail in this or any war’, to see and hear the presentation and to find out who made these remarks.

CBS News has the article Top hacker-turned FBI mole gives dire warning.

This interview is interesting for its insights into the world of hacking and to the issues of internet security. It is also great for busting up some stereotypes that we might have had.

The Daily Kos has the article Dick Cheney Lied about Torture. This is commentary on the Politico article Dick Cheney Was Lying About Torture: The Senate report confirms it doesn’t work. As those of us on the inside knew..

The Daily Kos article highlights a few points from Politico and makes some comments of its own. However, it is not until you read the author’s bio on Politico that you get an inkling of the authority of the article.

Mark Fallon served as an interrogator for more than 30 years, including as a Naval Criminal Investigative Service special agent and within the Department of Homeland Security, as the assistant director for training of the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center.

Fallon concludes his article with the warning:

Over the coming days, you’ll be hearing numerous torture defenders claim it kept Americans safe. Don’t believe them. Many of us charged with the mission of getting information out of terrorists didn’t resort to using torture. Like many Americans, we didn’t want our government to use torture, and we hope it never does again.

So as an armchair quarterback in this situation, are you going to think you know more about what works and does not work in interrogations than a person who has been a successful negotiator for 30 years and who is making a statement that urges you to be more judicious in your thirst for anything goes style  of interrogation.  Do you think he has an ulterior motive for asking us to be less bloodthirsty than our own natures might incline us to be?  On the other hand, think of what motives Dick Cheney might have for making the claims he does.

The Daily Kos has the article President Obama hosts The Decree on ‘The Colbert Report’.

Here is the video clip that they featured.

The actual interview with Stephen Colbert followed. Here are the two clips that cover that part.

Naked Capitalism has the article NYTimes Dealbook’s Dishonest Salvo at Elizabeth Warren Over Calling Out an Unqualified Nominee for Treasury Post.

The article chose this quote about Warren’s critic from a Gawker story Andrew Ross Sorkin Is Too Credulous For Journalism.

The face of credulity in the media is Andrew Ross Sorkin, hardworking New York Times Wall Street reporter and sometime Wall Street shoeshine boy. You cannot question Sorkin’s work ethic. You cannot question his deep connections on Wall Street. And personally, I don’t even question his sincerity. I do not believe that Andrew Ross Sorkin is a nefarious, scheming, two-faced spy, sent to do the bidding of Wall Street bankers in the halls of the nation’s most important news outlet. I just think he is so dangerously, moronically credulous that his writing constitutes a danger to the public.

The article chose this quote from a Simon Johnson article, Antonio Weiss Is Not Qualified To Be Under Secretary For Domestic Finance.

It’s hard to think of any senior fiscal official from a serious country with qualifications as weak as those of Mr. Weiss.

The conclusion that I draw from this controversy is that Elizabeth Warren must have hit the Wall Street crooks where it really hurts. This is another one of those tests for the American public. Who are you going to believe, your own lying eyes, or the Wall Street propaganda?