(via Think Progress)

Rudy Giuliani in 2006: “At the same time, I was in awe of our system,” the former mayor continued. “It does demonstrate that we can give people a fair trial, that we are exactly what we say we are. We are a nation of law. . .I think he’s going to be a symbol of American justice.”

But now that a Democratic administration is going to conduct civilian trials it’s simply “to satisfy left-wing critics,” says Giuliani.

Almost every time you turn on the television, somebody’s carrying on about the projected trillion-dollar cost of Democratic health-insurance reforms — derived by multiplying the $100 billion yearly cost by 10, and often by ignoring the projected $11 billion yearly savings to the U.S. budget deficit.

Pentagon spending this year alone, however, columnist David Sirota points out, is projected at $673 billion, for a 10-year total of $6.73 trillion. That’s assuming costs don’t rise. (Fat chance.) Giving McChrystal the soldiers he wants, along with training and equipping an Afghan army of dubious loyalty, is projected to cost an additional $40 billion to $50 billion each year. Yet nobody’s supposed to ask how anything that happens in that remote land could possibly justify the costs.

Is Afghanistan really a threat?

Are the barbarians at the gates? Hardly. There are no battlefronts, no standing armies, and no immediate military threat to the United States. U.S. intelligence estimates that maybe 100 ragtag al-Qaida fighters remain scattered across the Afghan outback.

But there’s money to be made with war.  Remember that no-bid contract for Iraq?

OWN will have its premiere on cable in January 2011, according to a person with knowledge of Ms. Winfrey’s decision who insisted on anonymity. That timeline will theoretically give Ms. Winfrey about nine months to promote her cable channel on her existing show.

The show began syndication in 1986 and is regarded as the most successful show in syndication, with an audience of 7 million viewers a day.

• FireDogLake Founder Jane Hamsher joins Alan to dissect the details of the Senate’s combined health care reform bill.

• Alan analyzes the increasingly ridiculous rhetoric behind the latest partisan gridlock on Capitol Hill.

“It really doesn’t matter how President Obama divides the Afghan baby, how he splits the difference between McChrystal and Biden. Because the war has been lost,” Thompson said on his radio show today. “I say this because of one sad and simple fact. The president does not have the will and determination to do what’s necessary to win it. His heart’s not in it, and never has been. The Taliban knows it. Al Qaeda knows it. Our allies know it. And the American people know it.

“Our enemies are now emboldened and our friends are discouraged. We cannot prevail if the American people are not willing to make the sacrifices necessary for an extended effort. The case has not been made to them to justify this effort. The case can only be made by the president. This president is unable or unwilling to make that case,” Thompson said.

However, on a show that I’m slightly familiar with, “Hannity and Colmes,” Thompson attacked Senator Harry Reid on May 1, 2007, when Reid said the Iraq war was lost, agreeing with a woman questioning how Reid could say such a thing when there are troops in the field.

THOMPSON: Well, let’s talk about Senator Reid for a moment. Right before I came over here, I was sitting outside, getting a bite to eat, before we did our interview. A young woman [former Army captain] came up and asked if she could sit down and talk to me a minute. . . . I asked her what she thought about this. She said, “How in the world can anyone, any one of our leaders, declare war, declare that the war has been lost when we’ve got troops in the field? My friends are over there in the field. I know what they think about this.”

And, of course, it’s just like all other Americans think. The very idea that they would do this and undercut our efforts over there is unprecedented. And it’s not only unprecedented; it’s awful politics.

Thompson then even used the same language about Harry Reid he’s now using on Obama, accusing Reid of “encouraging our enemies.”

It was not clear what prompted the decision, but the prospect of potentially facing Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, who is quietly planning his own run for governor, may not have appealed to Mr. Giuliani, who suffered a bruising defeat in the 2008 Republican presidential primary. While many political analysts believe Mr. Giuliani would have comfortably beaten Gov. David A. Paterson, he would likely have faced an uphill battle against Mr. Cuomo, one of the most popular politicians in the state.

Giulian’s camp has not confirmed the decision not to run.

Unlike the House bill, which would establish a national public option, Reid would give states the option to “opt out” of the government plan, a concession he made in a bid to win the support of conservative Democrats.

Reid has also been working to defuse concerns about limiting federal funding for abortion and about a new and potentially costly government program to provide insurance for long-term care.

The Senate bill would ban the use of federal funds for abortion services except in cases of rape and incest, requiring insurers that cover elective abortions to segregate money from Americans who get government subsidies.

“The activities in that prison were illegal,” said human rights researcher John Sifton. “They included various forms of torture, including sleep deprivation, forced standing, painful stress positions.”

As Laffy properly notes, the proper word for “harsh interrogations” is “torture.”  And see her links to more on blight in our detainee policies.