During President Obama's third press conference tonight he was once again asked if waterboarding was torture or not?

Obama did not directly say whether he believed the Bush administration "sanctioned torture," but he came close to endorsing that viewpoint.

"What I've said, and what I will repeat, is waterboarding violates our ideals," he said. "I do believe waterboarding is torture."

Stopping such practices, he said, "will makes us stronger and will make us safer over the long term."

Obama said he is "very comfortable" with his decision to ban interrogation techniques like waterboarding, which he called torture.

The president called the practice a recruiting tool for terrorist groups like al Qaeda, citing World War II-era British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who also rejected such "enhanced interrogation" techniques.

"Churchill understood that if you start taking shortcuts, over time that corrodes what's best in a people," Obama said. "It corrodes the character of a country."

Asked about the previous administration, he said, "I think that whatever legal rationale were used, it was a mistake."

Political pundits are saying that the President is once again refusing to say whether or not war crimes have been committed, that he's trying to "move on" and hopes the subject will fade away.

I couldn't disagree more.  After hearing his words tonight (I've been skeptical in the recent past) I've decided what the president is actually doing is leaving the door open to what ever happens -- he's 'staying out of it', sort of speak. 

He's decided not to give the GOP and other Bush supporters the ability to say that President Barack Obama started a 'witch hunt' from the moment he took office against the Bush administration and the Republican Party to find anything and everything he could to 'get' former President George W. Bush and VP Dick Cheney convicted of war crimes.

As he pointed out once again, he believes waterboarding IS torture.  This in itself is answering the reporter's question -- Bush did indeed, "sanction torture". 

President Obama knows about the Constitution and our rule of laws.  He also knows about the agreement that former President Ronald Reagan signed in 1984 saying that, "Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution."

Therefore, what the president is doing is, he's letting the "chips fall where they may".  He's stepping aside and letting 'others' do the debating of which method of investigating should be done and by whom, to see if war crimes have indeed been committed and if so, how the guilty should be punished.

President Obama is, in his own way, taking the high ground -- until further notice.

If some committee, special prosecutor or the attorney general himself finds that crimes have been committed, you can bet your bottom dollar the President will come out swinging; but at this time he doesn't plan on being the judge and jury as most of use were hoping he would do (including myself).  He'll let others do that.

I feel the  need to repeat this story -- media isn't playing these facts.

I'd like to remind Americans, especially those that are in favor of torturing prisoners, that if former President Ronald Reagan or Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich are heroes of yours, that they both were against torturing and inhuman abusive acts.  Newt was against it before he was for it.

From President Reagan's signing statement ratifying the UN Convention on Torture from 1984:

"The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention. It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today.

The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called 'universal jurisdiction.' Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution."

Looks like the man each and every Republican Candidate that repeatedly quoted their hero, President Ronald Reagan, all during their campaign for the Presidency in 2008, as well as many other Republicans, has just popped up from his grave and kicked them all right smack in the rearend for ignoring the United States 'rule of law' and 'his' signature expressing opposition to torture.

Newt Gingrich was against TORTURE too - ONCE APON A TIME

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: OCTOBER 30, 1997

The Speakers STATEMENT ON VISIT OF PRESIDENT JIANG
Washington, D.C. -- House Speaker Newt Gingrich released the following statement today following his meeting with Chinese President Jiang Zemin.

"As I said in China this spring, there is no place for abuse in what must be considered the family of man. There is no place for torture and arbitrary detention. There is no place for forced confessions. There is no place for intolerance of dissent." "While we walked through the Rotunda. I explained to President Jiang how the roots of American rule of law go back more than 700 years, to the signing of the Magna Carta. The foundation of American values, therefore, is not a passing priority or a temporary trend."

And this is a man considering a run for the Presidency?

Whether or not torture provides information - we signed an agreement, it's time to live up to it and punish those who didn't.

Hannity was prodded by actor Charles Grodin into agreeing to subject himself to waterboarding to benefit a charity for the families of U.S. soldiers.

Has anybody heard anymore about this OFFER from Sean to be waterboarded?  It would seem awfully CHICKEN of him to offer to go through with it then to back out wouldn't it?

Best be recorded for ALL to see too.

Swine Flu or Encephalitis Epedimic?

I don't want to scare anybody but it sure seems odd that these two stories happen around the same time.

(CNN) - The United States government declared a public health emergency Sunday as the number of identified cases of swine flu in the nation rose to 20...

No one has died in the U.S. from swine flu, officials said Sunday.

In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said eight students at St. Francis Prepatory School in Queens have tested positive for swine flu. More than 100 students at the school were absent with flu-like symptoms last week, he said.

State public health officials in Ohio confirmed one case of swine flu on Sunday. There have been seven confirmed cases in California, two in Kansas, and two in Texas, Besser said.

The World Health Organization advised all countries to be on the lookout for "unusual" outbreaks of flu, after an emergency meeting Saturday as the seriousness of the outbreak became clear.

By Sunday, 81 deaths in Mexico had been deemed "likely linked" to swine flu. Viral testing has confirmed 20 cases, said Dr. Jose A. Cordova Villalobos, Mexico's health secretary...

Symptoms of swine flu include fever, lethargy, lack of appetite, coughing, runny nose, sore throat, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, according to the CDC

April 22, 2009

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Missing vials of a potentially dangerous virus have prompted an Army investigation into the disappearance from a lab in Maryland.

The Army's Criminal Investigation Command agents have been visiting Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland, to investigate the disappearance of the vials. Christopher Grey, spokesman for the command, said this latest investigation has found "no evidence of criminal activity."

The vials contained samples of Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis, a virus that sickens horses and can be spread to humans by mosquitoes. In 97 percent of cases, humans with the virus suffer flu-like symptoms, but it can be deadly in about 1 out of 100 cases, according to Caree Vander Linden, a spokeswoman for the Army's Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. There is an effective vaccine for the disease and there hasn't been an outbreak in the United States since 1971.

Symptoms of Encephalitis are fever, fatigue, sore throat, stiff neck/back, vomiting, headache, confusion, irritability, drowsiness, seizures, muscle loss, memory loss, paralysis.

Swine flu and encephalitis sound an awful lot alike.

Makes one wonder if these two stories are related some how - I pray not; but it sure seems odd that they'd both happen around the same time.

Well, as it turns out, volcano monitoring wasn't the only worthwhile public safety program that was deemed extravagant in the stimulus package, funding for pandemic preparation was axed as well. And playing a critical role was Susan Collins -- for whom the necessity of obtaining her vote is in inverse proportion to the intelligence she shows in policy making:

Famously, Maine Senator Collins, the supposedly moderate Republican who demanded cuts in health care spending in exchange for her support of a watered-down version of the stimulus, fumed about the pandemic funding: "Does it belong in this bill? Should we have $870 million in this bill No, we should not."

Even now, Collins continues to use her official website to highlight the fact that she led the fight to strip the pandemic preparedness money out of the Senate's version of the stimulus measure.

While I understand where my fellow Democrats and Independents are going with this bit of news, I think they are being unfair attacking Senator Collins on this.

Without Senator Collins we wouldn't have had any stimulus bill passed, let alone money for the flu pandemic.  We should be thanking her instead of criticizing her.

If the flu pandemic gets worse I'm sure Congress and the President will come up with emergency funds for the States that need it.

If anybody is to blame for the lack of a safety net for America, it is the Republican Party for not sitting down and agreeing with the stimulus bill along with funding for both the volcano eruptions and now the flu crisis in the first place.

If we survive this whole economic, energy, education, two wars, volcano eruptions and now a flu pandemic mess, President Barack Obama and his administration along with the Democratic Party should all be commended.