In March 2002, detainee Abu Zubaydah, described as a “first test subject for harsh interrogation techniques,” underwent waterboarding while in U.S. custody. In a hearing today, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) noted that Zubaydah’s interrogation occurred months before the August 2002 “Bybee memo” approved the interrogation tactics. Salon reports:

But during questioning, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., pointed out that the abuse of Zubaydah had reportedly begun weeks, if not months, earlier. “Did you offer legal approval of interrogation methods used at that time … prior to August 2002?”

“I have no recollection of doing that at all,” Ashcroft responded. He added that he did not remember anyone else at the Justice Department doing so either. He said later in the hearing that Zubaydah’s interrogation “was done without the opinion that was issued on the first of August.”

“Ashcroft’s testimony at least raises the possibility that the CIA had started abusing Zubaydah before the agency received any legal cover. This might explain why the Bush administration pushed so hard for the torture memos — the torture had already begun,” Alex Koppelman notes.

Today on MSNBC, David Schuster challenged Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) policy adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer’s claim that “we withstood hurricanes Rita and Katrina and did not spill a drop” of oil.

Schuster pointed out that “the U.S. Mineral Management Service said that Katrina and Rita caused 124 offshore spills for a total of more than 743,000 gallons of oil and refined products spilled” and asked Pfotenhauer if she wanted to “take back” what she said:

SCHUSTER: So Nancy, do you want to take back what you said?

PFOTENHAUER: Well, I actually do. I was misinformed…the point is still that we had a remarkable performance, that you had about 16,000 barrels that were lost during two of the worst storms that have ever…keep in mind David that 1,700 barrels per day naturally seeps into the ocean floor, so 365 days a year you’re at about 620,000 barrels per day, pardon me per year, that naturally seep into the ocean floor. So this is a really remarkable performance of technology.

Watch It:

But Pfotenhauer, a right-wing energy lobbyist, is misinformed still. According to a report from the County of Santa Barbara, CA, “the effects of seeps and spills differ hugely.” As one planner put it, “if seeps and spills are the same, why aren’t all the beaches covered with mounds of fresh tar and dead birds?”:

The key difference has to do with release rates and spatial concentration of the oil. Seeps release large amounts of oil over large areas of the ocean gradually throughout the year. Spills release large amounts of oil from a point source in a short time.

In fact the real “remarkable performance” has been the parade of conservatives repeating false claims to justify expanding offshore drilling.

During a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee today, former Attorney General John Ashcroft falsely claimed that waterboarding has “consistently” been defined as “not torture” and refused to agree that the use of enhanced interrogation techniques — including waterboarding — on captured U.S. soldiers is “unacceptable” or “criminal.”

REP. MAXINE WATERS: Do you think that if these techniques were used on American soldiers that they would be totally unacceptable and even criminal? [...]

ASHCROFT: My job, as Attorney General, was to try and elicit from the experts and the best people in the Department definitions that comported with the statues enacted by the Congress and the Constitution of the United States. And those statutes have consistently been interpreted so as to say, by the definitions that, waterboarding, as described in the CIA’s request, is not torture.

Watch it:

In fact, waterboarding “has been prosecuted in U.S. courts since the late 1800s and was regarded by every U.S. administration before this one as torture.”

Further, Ashcroft’s non-answer with regard to the torture of captured American service men and women is reminiscent of State Department Legal Adviser John Bellinger’s refusal to condemn “the use of water boarding on an American national by a foreign intelligence service.” His comments are also in line with the sentiments of Guantanamo Bay’s legal adviser, Brigadier General Thomas W. Hartmann, who refused to answer whether or not the use of waterboarding by Iranians on U.S. service men and women would constitute torture.

In the words of former JAG officer Lt. Cmdr. Andrew Williams, Ashcroft and his fellow travelers have “sold all the soldiers and sailors at risk of capture and subsequent torture down the river.”

Transcript: Read more

Yesterday on his radio show, right wing talker Michael Savage said that autism is “a fraud” and “a racket” and that “in 99 percent of the cases, it’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out.” Savage then asserted that all these “brat[s]” need as a father to tell them to “stop acting like a putz“:

That’s what autism is. What do you mean they scream and they’re silent? They don’t have a father around to tell them, ‘Don’t act like a moron. You’ll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don’t sit there crying and screaming, idiot.’” Savage concluded, “[I]f I behaved like a fool, my father called me a fool. And he said to me, ‘Don’t behave like a fool.’ The worst thing he said — ‘Don’t behave like a fool. Don’t be anybody’s dummy. Don’t sound like an idiot. Don’t act like a girl. Don’t cry.’ That’s what I was raised with. That’s what you should raise your children with. Stop with the sensitivity training. You’re turning your son into a girl, and you’re turning your nation into a nation of losers and beaten men. That’s why we have the politicians we have.”

Savage later claimed that there was “an asthma epidemic amongst minority children” because “the children got extra welfare if they were disabled.” Media Matters has the audio.