This day and every day, thank a veteran

And don’t just say “Thank you” (though every veteran I say it to appreciates it)… Back up your gratitude by helping one of any number of veterans’ causes that help us civilians do our small part to honor the sacrifices they made on our behalf. Here are but a few:

Hire Heroes USA: “To provide job placement services to our disabled veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, Hire Heroes USA relies on the support of individuals and corporations. With one in four veterans returning home with a service-related disability, there has never been a greater need for mentoring and employment programs to help our soldiers lead productive civilian lives, take care of their families and establish new careers.”

SALUTE, Inc.: “dedicated to increasing awareness and support of issues facing active military personnel, veterans and their families and to provide financial support through advocacy and fundraising. … It is truly our mission to “HONOR THE SERVICE AND REMEMBER THE SACRIFICE” of the men, women and families of our U.S. military personnel.“

Wounded Warrior Project: “Your generous, tax deductible donation to the Wounded Warrior Project enables us to help the thousands of wounded warriors returning home from the current conflicts and to provide assistance to their families.  As the number of wounded steadily increases, so do the needs of these brave individuals.”

Honor Flight Network: “Honor Flight Network is a non-profit organization created solely to honor America’s veterans for all their sacrifices. We transport our heroes to Washington, D.C. to visit and reflect at their memorials. Top priority is given to the senior veterans – World War II survivors, along with those other veterans who may be terminally ill.”

Newt Gingrich “damages America’s safety” by ignoring immoral and un-American activities, Updated

Really Newt? You think Speaker Pelosi needs to resign because she said the CIA lied when all the evidence points to … the CIA appears to have lied by ommission?

Pelosi clearly said she was never told directly and specifically about the Bush-approved torture that the CIA was engaging in — specifically simulated drowning (aka, “waterboarding”). The CIA has never said they told her that specifically and cannot produce any evidence that she was ever told of anything more than “enhanced interrogations” (whatever that made-up phrase means). None of your Republican colleagues who were supposed to have been in those meetings have said that they witnessed her being told.

Can’t you just admit, Newt, that all the GOP is doing is talking in circles about the fact that Nancy Pelosi was never actually told what was going on despite the fact she, as the then-Minority Leader, was supposed to have been informed … and you and your fellow pachyderms are trying to spin it to sound like she’s the one lying.

Does your Republican colleague Minority Leader John Boehner need to resign now too? He just admitted the CIA lied to Congress on another matter.

How about Pres. Obama’s new head of the CIA, Leon Panetta? He didn’t lie that we know of but his letter defending the Agency and its people, while strident and defensive, never actually stated outright that the CIA didn’t lie to Nancy Pelosi (she wasn’t Speaker of the House at the time in 2002, and Panetta wasn’t CIA director then either).

In fact, the CIA’s own records from back then are so ambiguous and incomplete that they could’ve been telling Congress about giving the Gitmo detainees some donuts for all we know. Even Newt’s fellow Republicans like Rep. Pete Hoekstra admit the CIA’s documents are incomplete. (Hoekstra, unlike Gingrich, is actually in Congress.)

Does Republican Hoekstra need to resign because his admission that the CIA docs are incomplete has “damaged America’s safety” and “made America less secure by sending a signal to the men and women defending our country that they can’t count on their leaders to defend them.”

And you can’t really demand a resignation from the guy who was head of the CIA at the time because he’s already gone.

Update: Republican Porter Goss, who was in the same CIA briefings as Pelosi back in 2002 and late became CIA chief himself, won’t go on record to unequivocally state what the CIA told Congressional leaders at the time. Sure, he’s been doing what he can to spin the GOP’s talking points and mud over the real crux of the matter — Pres. Bush’s immoral torture policies — but he can’t bring himself to say that the CIA actually told he and Pelosi what the Republicans keep implying they might’ve been told.

Does the disgraced former Republican Speaker think Mr. Goss should double-dog-dare resign from whatever cushy speakers’ circuit gigs he has now, just cuz Gingrich is in a pitchforks and torches kinda mood? (End update.)

So, Newt, what are you yapping about?

Or are you really just trying to avoid talking about the fact that torture is immoral, illegal and un-American? Presidents from George Washington to Ronald Reagan worked to stop torture — Washington as a general in battle overseeing prisoners of war; Reagan as president when his Dept of Justice put a stop to police torture.

So why, Newt Gingrich, while you’re trying to sell your books and get ready for a quixotic 2012 run for the White House … why can’t you bring yourself to talk about the real topic: Bush and Cheney’s illegal and immoral un-American activities?

We as a nation are better than the terrorists but you wouldn’t know it from the way the Republicans are acting now or were acting back then by sanctioning such depravity. Washington and Reagan are both rolling in their tombs at the thought of it.

Update 2: Hilzoy points out that much of what Gingrich is claiming about the Gitmo detainees is flat-out false. So now who’s lying? Maybe Gingrich will demand that his own resignation. He can resign from public appearances so as to avoid further embarrassment when the media does its job and calls him out on his lies… Oh, wait. That ain’t happening anyway so why would he feel embarrassed about lying so much in the first place?