After-Christmas Instahoglets

Merry Christmas from Newshog to all of you. Sure, we pagans celebrate Christmas. The kids aren't old enough to decide what faith or lack of it they will have and anyway, when have pagans ever turned down a feast and a party?

Meanwhile, here's your present. Some hastily wrapped newsposts for day-after-Christmas (Boxing Day if you're a Brit) discussion.

The Polish government, after promising their enquiry into CIA secret prisons would be made public, are now refusing to talk about their findings. But don't worry, they say the matter is closed and they are satisfied nothing was wrong. You believe them don't you? Don't you?

Bush doublespeak. Last year in Buffalo, Bush promised that all domestic spying actions executed were constitutional and required a court order. This week, a White House spokesman had to explain that the actions Bush was talking about are authorised by the Patriot Act and are completely different from the intercepts the president authorized the National Security Agency to make without court permission of conversations between American citizens and suspected terrorists overseas. Or as Blah3 blog put it 'Oh, you're thinking of the LEGAL spying...'

In Iraq, bombs and protests are the order of the day as things become more tense after the election. That's even before Sunnis heard that 90 of their candidates who were allowed to stand in the election are to be struck off the ballot and not allowed to become members of parliament following a decision by the Supreme Judicial Court in favor of the Shia-dominated de-Ba'athification committee.

Remember the news a couple of days ago that the US forces in Iraq had released "Dr Germ", "Ms Anthrax" and a bunch of other detainees they felt weren't useful anymore? Well it seems they didn't ask the right government Iraqis if it was OK, because the National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubbaie says warrants have been issued for their re-arrest. Oops.

The House of Representatives has voted for only a one month extension to the Patriot Act instead of the six months the Senate voted for and has also dropped a provision that would have opened Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling from the defense bill. Go House! Looks like Hastert has even less of a hold on his fiefdom than Frist does. DeLay must be spitting nails, hee hee.

The Republican talking point that Clinton's surplus was a "mirage" gets soundly debunked over at the UnCapitalist Journal - with graphs even. The inescapable conclusion is that whatever else Clinton was, he was also a sound economic steward beyond the dreams of Reagan, Bush 1st or Bush 2nd. Which proves the Secretary of the Treasury, John Snow, is a blithering idiot happy to mouth party propaganda instead of the truth about the nation's finances. Which is about par for one of George's appointees.

It took them long enough, but finally the MSM are beginning to notice that America is happily selling advanced weapons to both sides of a probable future war between nuclear powers, India and Pakistan. I covered this just over a month ago, only deeper.

Its being reported that King George has been summoning editors of national newspapers into his presence in an effort to prevent publication of stories he considers damaging to his image...sorry, to national security. The two directly being mentioned are Snoopgate and CIA secret prisons.