Some memos are in and the photos are damning
The torture was clearly and openly shown
They linked all their crimes to a day in September
My daughter was walking the Brooklyn Bridge home

Good bye to George Bush, farewell Richard Cheney
Au revoir to les Autres, eat cake Condoleezza
You won't have a name when they take you to Baghdad
All they will call you will be detainees

We used to remember the kindness of strangers
We used to join hands and make good Union clothes
Then Bushco convinced us our motives were pointless
He spied on us all and shoved fear up our nose

Good bye to George Bush, farewell Richard Cheney
Goodbye to the Others, eat cake Condoleezza
You won't have a name when they take you to Baghdad
All they will call you will be detainees

They never told Orwell that truth was a secret
Or banks weren't too poor for the cynical Fed
We have no more money for our obligations
But people were tortured and people are dead

Good bye to George Bush, farewell Richard Cheney
Au revoir to Les Autres, eat cake Condoleezza
You won't have a name when they leave you in Bagram
All they will call you will be detainees

For some reason, Lingr decided to close down their website, so we lost our beloved TPM-Aholics chat room.

However, thanks to the enterprising and clever California Paige, we have established a new room.  We can play youtube video, share pictures, use emoticons, and we can type in color, wooo!   Please feel free to join us, but be sure to log in with your own name before entering the room, as the nicknames can get confusing otherwise.

Hope to see y'all soon!

More housecleaning ahead! From the Brad Blog, via Politico.com:

President Barack Obama plans to replace a "batch" of U.S. Attorneys in the next few weeks and more prosecutors thereafter, according to Attorney General Eric Holder.

"I expect that we'll have an announcement in the next couple of weeks with regard to our first batch of U.S attorneys," Holder said Thursday during a House Judiciary Committee hearing which stretched out over most of the day due to breaks for members' votes. "One of the things that we didn't want to do was to disrupt the continuity of the offices and pull people out of positions where we thought there might be a danger that that might have on the continuity--the effectiveness of the offices. But...elections matter--it is our intention to have the U.S. Attorneys that are selected by President Obama in place as quickly as they can."
...
Holder's comments Thursday came in response to a question from Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) "Many jurisdictions are waiting desperately to see what is going to be done. As we understand it, the protocol has been that U.S. Attorneys would hand in their resignations and would give the new administration an opportunity to make new appointments, we don't see that happening quite fast enough," she said, pointing to complaints about prosecutors in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama.

In the quest to expand "private enterprise"
and dismantle government
 being waged by some,
 we have allowed a business to develop
 providing torture services.

[Gregor Zap]

I always think it's my last post.  Over and over I've felt that I had nothing more to say.  Then I come across a comment like the one above.  And the totality of  the brutality of the former administration hits me - once again - like a ton of bricks.  And I have to write.

There's this weird debate going on in our country.  And many of our fellow citizens apparently are willing to let human beings be summarily captured and provided with the greatest possible degradation, ill treatment, and shocking abuse that the human mind can devise - without leaving too many visible marks.

We all knew about torture as soon as we saw those Abu Ghraib photos.  And I had my own suspicions as soon as I saw hooded detainees on TV over and over, from the time of the invasion of Afghanistan, carrying over into the invasion of Iraq.  Right away, to me, as a psychologist, aware of the Stanford prison study, those hoods were a tip-off.  They were widespread.  They seemed to be something that had been requisitioned and handed out to soldiers as another piece of equipment, like plastic handcuffs and so on.  I was concerned that detained individuals had been herded into metal containers in Afghanistan.  I was concerned that there were bounties being paid for handing over people to US custody.   And I was concerned when they moved the prisoners to Guantanamo, when I saw them shackled, when I read about 200 of them going on hunger strike there.  I knew something very suspicious was likely going on.  Especially when those Abu Ghraib photos surfaced.  And when we knew the Red Cross was being hampered in assessing the welfare of persons in US custody.  And when we read about those secret renditions to black sites or being turned over to foreign governments - where, despite bushco denials, we had to suspect torture.

But do these same folks, our fellow citizens, who willingly endorse torture, realize how much they are actually paying for this?  Do they realize whole industries have been created, just to service the torture?  Would the polls change if we asked:  Do you want your taxes going to pay for torture services? 

Let's think about the Torture Business for a bit:

It starts with hoods.  Do we manufacture them here at home?  Or get them cheaper from Mexico?  Do we order "torture hoods" or just call them "sacks" on the requisition list?  Is this a no-bid contract?  Or can anybody get in on it?  Do you provide health care for the workers making torture hoods?  Retirement?  I wonder what the business plan looks like.  Maybe there's a lobbying group specific to the torture industry, trying to make sure there's a continual stream of victims, so they don't go out of business any time soon.

Let's move on to plastic handcuffs.  I'm sure that stock has gone up lately!  How about shackles?  The ones that are designed for the floor or the wall or the ceiling.  There's a nice investment opportunity.  Apply the same questions from the paragraph above (health care, retirement).  And consider the taxes you pay.  All for torture.

Moving right along here - in our tour of the torture business.  Let us not forget that some manufacturers are already in it.  Even if they didn't know that till recently.  I mean, of course, the manufacturers of Ensure and Depends.  I wonder if they put out bids for those products or not. Your taxes at work!  How about orange jumpsuits?  There's a business opportunity!   Or maybe not.  Since the forced nudity.   Well, at least that saves the taxpayer money, doesn't it?   Along with money saved in showers.  And toilet facilities.  And beds. 

And we haven't even gotten to much of the torture yet.

Guards:  Surely we can farm that out.  Picture the ads:  "Thugs wanted!"  As Interrogators.  Translators.  Even Psychologists, willing to sacrifice ethics, morality, their good name, and maybe years of prison down the road.  All for the purpose of designing, teaching, and supervising torture and doing experiments to find more ways of torturing.   "War Criminals urgently needed!"  They actually formed businesses to sell torture.

Your tax dollars at work!

Let's not forget Halliburton here.  Through a no-bid contract with the Vice President's former company,  you paid for high tech facilities at Guantanamo Bay.  Cells.  Interrogation Rooms.  Living quarters for those who do the dirty work.  Halliburton had to purchase shackles and all the other accoutrements of torture.  Built in shackles.  Built in torture chambers.  Complete with refrigeration.  Speakers to blast deafening noises.  Harsh lights.  Video cameras for off-site viewing.  All of the fixtures of modern torture.  All paid for by you.

In addition to the homegrown companies in the torture business, this TAX PAYER FUNDED torture program included a Foreign Aid component:  Black Sites in foreign lands and Rendition to foreign prisons, where I'm pretty sure we're paying Tax Dollars to subsidize torture by means we do not even want to contemplate.  And a whole fleet of airplanes, along with pilots, mechanics, and guards to accompany the soon-to-be-disappeared.

All of this supposedly "legalized" by attorneys, working in our own Department of Justice, in the Office of Legal Counsel, where the lawyers are supposed to make sure nothing the executive branch does betrays the Constitution.   And we paid for it.  We paid for time lawyers spent twisting the "law" - perverting our values, betraying oaths to the Constitution in a misbegotten conspiracy to subvert the very Rule of Law, which is supposed to guarantee that no one endures cruel and unusual punishment, that everyone has the right to Habeas Corpus.  And we paid for it!  We paid for Justice Department lawyers to do this.  In our name.

I'm sure I've forgotten some things.  But honestly I can't bear to go on here.  This whole torture business is horrifying.  From A to Z.  It's horrifying that it's being farmed out.  That businesses are profiting.  From torture.  It's horrifying to remember that we are paying for this.  Our taxes are subsidizing torture.

This has been a hard post to write.  Go back and read the links.  Many are blogs of my own.  And I'm going to close with one quote, from the beginning of one of those blogs: 

A few more bad apples? Highly recommended reading in the UK Independent:

A single American Special Forces group was behind at least three of Afghanistan's worst civilian casualty incidents, The Independent has learnt, raising fundamental questions about their ongoing role in the conflict.

Troops from the US Marines Corps' Special Operations Command, or MarSOC, were responsible for calling in air strikes in Bala Boluk, in Farah, last week - believed to have killed more than 140 men, women and children - as well as two other incidents in 2007 and 2008. News of MarSOC's involvement in the three incidents comes just days after a Special Forces expert, Lieutenant-General Stanley McChrystal, was named to take over as the top commander of US and Nato troops in Afghanistan. His surprise appointment has prompted speculation that commando counterinsurgency missions will increase in the battle to beat the Taliban.

MarSOC was created three years ago on the express orders of Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary at the time, despite opposition from within the Marine Corps and the wider Special Forces community. An article in the Marine Corps Times described the MarSOC troops as "cowboys" who brought shame on the corps.

You can read the entire article here:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/rumsfelds-renegade-unit-blamed-for-afghan-deaths-1685704.html

Gerald F. Seib has a highly informative column, Obama's Decision to Keep Gates Looks Even Better up in the Wall Street Journal that details the central role Robert Gates has played in several of the recent policy decisions by the Obama administration. Primary among these are the decisions regarding the release of the torture memos:

The debate over harsh interrogation methods. First, Mr. Gates provided important political cover to the president by endorsing his decision to release the secret memos the Bush administration used to justify waterboarding and other interrogation tactics for terrorism suspects. That decision still was attacked by those who thought the disclosure harmed American intelligence efforts, but Mr. Gates's endorsement went a long way toward muting the criticism.

and the blocking of the release of detainee abuse photos:

Then, just this week, he helped keep the president out of hot water by tipping a second, related decision in the opposite direction. Mr. Gates successfully argued that the administration should try to block the court-ordered release of photos of prisoners under interrogation. He channeled into the White House military commanders' deep worries about a backlash against American soldiers in the Islamic world if the photos were released. That was enough to persuade key White House aides, and ultimately Mr. Obama, who reversed his previous position and decided to go to court to stop the release.

Changing course was politically embarrassing for the president, but that problem likely pales when compared with the attacks from critics and the military itself that likely would have followed unchallenged release of the photos.

Mr. Seib's column also goes into an interesting discussion of the role Gates played in helping Obama manuever through the pitfalls of replacing the commander in Afghanistan:

A change of commanders in Afghanistan. The decision to replace the head of allied forces in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, had the potential to set off fireworks on both the right and left. On the right, there could have been a furor if a relatively new Obama appointee, rather than Mr. Gates, had decided to dump such a senior military officer in the midst of his tour. At the same time, there could have been an uproar on the left because he is being succeeded by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, a commander whose background is in the shadowy world of special operations, including seizing and handling terrorism suspects.

But because the switch was a joint Obama-Gates maneuver, criticism was muted on both sides, and largely drowned out by cheers over a decisive shift in approach in Afghanistan.

There's more, including Gates' deft handling of dealing with the Pentagon budget, and i recommend reading the whole article, but I think the above passages give important insight into how the members of Obama's cabinet are helping Obama navigate through a minefield of political issues.

Then from Tom Rick's Foreign Policy page we learn the following:

I am told that General Odierno's objections to the timing of the release of a new round of photos of detainees being abused in Iraq were decisive to President Obama's decision Wednesday to reverse himself and decide against the release of those photos.

I am surprised by Obama's reversal. I wasn't so taken aback in February when he went along with his generals and abandoned his campaign promise to withdraw a brigade a month from Iraq this year, and instead endorsed a plan that kept troop levels there pretty steady this year. But to get rolled twice -- well, he must think he is running up some pretty big chits with them. I know he is trying to do the right thing but at some point he is going to have to say, My way or the highway.

Considering that Obama is just four months into his administration, it's probably a good thing that Obama is taking advice from the people who have been on the job for a long time, and have valuable insight into what has actually been going on on the ground, as well as in the halls of the Pentagon. Obama appears to be on track in building a broad base of support in the military, something that is absolutley neccessary if he is going to be able to count on these same people to help get us out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Matt Iglesias, on whom's Think Progress page I found this link, makes an insightful comment:

I think you can probably put slow-walking change on Don't Ask Don't Tell in the same box. But is Obama really going to have to say something like that at some point? Realistically, the political damage to a Democratic President of off-the-record grousing by the brass could be large. With major health care and energy reforms live in congress, I think generals will be getting things "their way" for a while yet.

One point that I would like to add, that no else seems to be making, is that President Obama has completely stifled any possible criticism from the GOP that he isn't listening to his generals and working to provide the military with what it needs to function effectively. Some of Obama's most recent public statements on the issue were recorded in the May 13 New York Times article Obama Moves to Bar Release of Detainee Abuse Photos:

"The publication of these photos would not add any additional benefit to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals," Mr. Obama told reporters on the South Lawn. "In fact, the most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in greater danger."

*****

Officials who have seen the photos describe them as falling into two categories: Abu Ghraib-style personal snapshots taken by soldiers; and photos taken by military criminal investigators documenting allegations of abuse, including autopsy photos of prisoners who died in custody.

*****

In his remarks at the White House, Mr. Obama spoke out forcefully against torture and said he had impressed upon military commanders "that the abuse of detainees in our custody is prohibited and will not be tolerated." But as commander in chief, he said, the well-being of American forces carrying out his strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq outweighed the call to release the images.

"Moreover," he said, "I fear the publication of these photos may only have a chilling effect on future investigations of detainee abuse." 

 

 

Palidan and Quinn proceeded toward the wall. Technically, 'The Walls' would be the more appropriate sobriquet.  In 122 A.D. the Emperor Hadrian put forth the order for a 'Wall' to be built separating Scotland from the rest of the civilized world. Emperor Antonine did not think that was enough so he proceeded to have a second wall erected. By 150 A.D.  Agricola, Governor of Britain decided that the third wall would be the charm. Hadrian's Wall was smack dab in the middle of the three walls. Damned Picts.  Tattooed barbarians.

 

The Picts as well as their cohorts the Scots, were responsible for all sorts of mayhem and destruction. They had even worse teeth than the Angles (if that were even possible) and their skirts made them look kind of femmy. AND THE SMELL, my God (blesses himself). I mean usually it was just too damn cold to bathe, but still.

 

About a day's ride to their destination our three heroes came upon a dell covered in a deep fog. The four mammals were overcome with drowsiness and decided to make camp.  They had discovered an old Roman hearth and Quinn immediately left to scrounge for a little dinner while Palidan looked for some wood.  Quinn immediately found two plump geese lying right on the edge of the forest. Dead. But fresh. So without thinking about it, he gutted them right where he found them and brought home the dinner.

He also found some nice morels to complete the feast.

 

Palidan had started the fire and the two feasted whilst the equines grazed.  The fog should be an omen, but with this fine feast and the wine you smuggled in your saddle, this is a fine celebration indeed, remarked Palidan.

 

Sir Palidan, twas a strange find indeed. These two geese were freshly killed and I could fine no wounds. Yet the flesh was free from disease. An omen indeed Sir Knight but no harm and lots of fowl, HA!!!

 

Whether it was the fog or the morels or the geese, the duo quickly fell into a deep sleep. Their dreams were filled with fantasy. Palidan found himself in the dell with the fog almost misty with a yellow tinge from the rays of the early rising sun. The colors were magnificent as if he were in the middle of a grand rainbow.

 

Sir Lancelot appeared in a white toga and sandals. Palidan hailed the hero but received no response.  Strewn across the field were the dead bodies of deer and birds and smaller animals. This is wondrous, Palidan thought.

 

Lancelot seemed to glide over the grasses toward the fauna and as he passed over the bodies he reached down and touched them, softly.  The deer and the birds suddenly came to life and scattered toward the forest. Lancelot turned to Palidan and smiled.

 

You must cease your warlike tendencies, oh valiant Moor. The time for killing is over. The Lord has issued an edict and I am to deliver it to you.  Find a way to peace at The Wall. The Picts and the Scots are your brethren and the way to peace is through acceptance and conversation.  Speak with the leaders and attempt to stop the carnage.  After all, Shiteface is your brother, and he is a Scot.

 

With that Lancelot evaporated into the mist and the fog cleared.

 

Sir Tristan appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. He acknowledged the Moor with a wink and pulled out his lyre and began to sing:

 

You can see clearly now the fog is gone

You could see all the animals spring to life
Gone is the fog that clouded your stormy mind
We're  gonna work for peace, sweet peace
And stop all this war.

I think you can work it now, your anger's gone
All of the bad feelings have disappeared
Here is the rainbow you've been praying for
We're gonna work for peace, sweet peace
And stop all this war.

Look what you've found, here's hopin  for sanity
Look straight ahead, nothing but sanity

You can see clearly now, the fog is gone,
You just saw revived animals spring to life
Gone is the fog  that clouded your stormy mind
You  gonna seek nothing but peace, sweet peace
And stop all this war.

 

Just then a beautiful white dove alit upon Palidan's shoulder.

 

So? Whatya think? Asked the dove of peace.

 

With that Palidan awoke, refreshed.

Meanwhile, Quinn fell into his own deep sleep and dreamt dreams of valor.

 

He seemed to awaken to a great battle between the realm and the barbarians.  The kilted savages had surrounded Lancelot whilst the knight fought with extreme courage and fierceness.

 

Quinn ran with speed he had never felt before, arriving to slay a pict about to lodge a knife into Lancelot's back. Then, back to back with the greatest hero of lore, Quinn fought off the onslaught of the horde. He was armed with his great sword in the right hand and a mace in his left. Swinging the mace and hacking with his sword simultaneously. Quinn had never felt the spirit of battle come into his sinews in such a manner as this. 

 

This really beats the shite out of yelling at a drunken road crew, Quinn thought. The glory of war filled him with awe and wonder.

 

Suddenly a  barbarian came at the dynamic duo on horseback with a great spear. Quinn leaped into the air

avoiding the lance and struck the warrior in the back of his neck with the mace. A wonder to behold.

 

Laughing in the ecstasy of victory, feeling the power in the blood that he had spilt, Quinn continued to wage battle has he had always dreamt.  His manhood was filled with blood, erect in his knighthood. His loins cried out for more blood.

 

The battle continued like it would never stop.  The bodies were dropping all around him. Quinn, for the first time in his life felt no fear. He finally understood what bravery was, what it meant. There could be no greater pursuit. For King, for country, for his God. WHAT A RUSH!!!

 

He and Lancelot smote fifty of the warring savages and finally the battle was over.  Lancelot turned toward Quinn, and began to weep. My God, my god, why has thou forsaken me, he cried.

 

Quinn was totally confused when he heard a cry from a wounded fighter upon field.

 

Mac, Mac, is that you? cried the corpse.

 

Quinn looked down as the corpse writhed and squirmed in pain, bleeding profusely.  This is no pict, Quinn exclaimed.

 

The crying corpse was Quinn's cousin Emmett.

 

Quinn suddenly awoke in a sweat.  He felt the most extreme fear of his life after just experiencing the greatest thrill of battle with the greatest knight of all time. He sat up.

Relief. My God. It was a dream. 

 

Palidan had awoken at the same time. He turned to Quinn. I just had the most miraculous dream Sir Quinn.  I saw the great Lancelot and Sir Tristan.  I was given a great message. We must strive for peace at The Wall.

 

Quinn was amazed.  I was given a message. The same message.  But why are you so refreshed while I am in a deep sweat?

 

The two commisurated  for awhile, sharing their visions.

 

The two knights swore to each other and to Our Lord and Savior, Jesu Christe to fight for a peace. (Blesses himself).

 

WE HEREBY EMBARK UPON A NEW QUEST. THE QUEST FOR PEACE IN OUR TIME!!!

 

I had the most wonderful dream. Of my one and only true love. Thought Eduardo.  A real night mare!!!

The Gallup and Pew surveys on pro-life identification show that more Americans see themselves as pro-life than last year, and fewer see themselves as pro-choice. Those disputing the legality of abortion under any and all circumstances rose slightly. The Gallup poll found 51 percent identifying with pro-life, up 7 points from last year while pro-choice ID dropped 8 points. Some observers speculate that this means Obama's  all-things-abortive-are-rights mentality has caused counter-momentum in the popular thinking about the propriety of abortion.

A few weeks back, discussing torture and the memos which tried to explain why the government could employ particular methods of extracting information from those in its custody, it seemed important to remind readers of our national mood in the immediate wake of 9/11, particularly, I suppose, here in the east coast. On one of the sites where these doodles get posted, one of our "colleagues" lectured me to

Speak for yourself. My first thought [after the attacks of 9/11] was 'What horrible shit are we now gonna unleash on the world?'

I'm against the idea of a 'War on Terra' and have been since day one. To have a war you have to be fighting a country, not a ragtag bunch of outlaws. Not to mention that for a war to be legitimate, you have to have first been attacked by said country... 9/11/2001 was always a law enforcement issue and should have been treated as such. Raining bombs down on peoples' weddings is neither a moral nor an effective response.

Read more »

 

We need to talk.

In Today's Washington Post there is a debate thread about the torture photos and the military commissions, entitled "Is Obama Betraying the Left?"

In my opinion, the question shouldn't be, "is Obama betraying the left?", it should be, "is Obama betraying himself?" and if the answer is "no", than the question should be, "who is Obama?".

The VP's recent's statements suggest a lack of contrition. Yesturday's hearing before the Senate Judiciary hearing shows the world there were proven, lawful methods.

These methods are consistent with the Geneva Conventions, which the Vice President appears to have deliberately, knowingly, and recklessly ignored or not enforced. With apparent collusion by his friends in the American legal community, DOJ OLC, and the OVP.

Read more »

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=abXWfVxx_e8w&refer=home

Obama is right that the current debt load is unsustainable - so why is he proposing a $2 trillion deficit which will stay in the trillions for as long as one can project?

How will he pay for it?  Even getting rid of the Bush tax cuts will only produce a few hundred billion a year, which isn't nearly enough.  They project much lower medical costs because they assume they are going to figure out a way to cut costs and make things more efficient.  I guess no one has tried that before.

The only way to really cut costs is to ration health care, especially health care in the last year of life, which I've seen estimated as 30% of health-care expenses.  That will be a tough choice but I don't see what other choice Obama has. 

You cannot propose massive spending without either creating crushing debt that the markets will simply not allow, pushing interest rates much higher and really slowing growth and hurting the economy.  You cannot increase the debt-to-GDP ratio without limit.

We found the limit on personal and corporate debt this year.  We pushed the limits until the system crashed.  And now the government wants to do the same thing.  They are planning to see where the limits on government debt-to-GDP will be.  Unless cooler heads prevail, this is not going to be pretty.  Somewhere in the middle of the next decade we will hit the wall, and it will make the current crisis pale in comparison.

The only way to solve the problem is to grow GDP more rapidly than debt, and for that to happen you have to have policies that are shaped for the growth of the economy or massive savings by consumers.  And right now we have neither.  Cap and trade is hugely anti-growth. So are higher corporate tax rates that will be created by closing loopholes for income earned outside the US.  Much better would be to lower the overall corporate level to a competitive world rate and then require the offshore income to be taxed. 

Obama is right that the current situation is unsustainable.  Let's hope he will do more than just talk and show some budget restraint.

Three is a nice long article in the New York Times by David Leonhardt, in which we learn, among other things, that Tim Geithner is actually an old China hand.  Which should come in handy as he tries to right the bilateral imbalance between the two countries that has clearly become unsustainable.

Most writing on this subject, the Leonhardt piece included, concludes that the Chinese end of the solution lies in stimulating consumption demand in China, and reducing that country's ridiculously high saving rate.  But the discussion typically ignores an important issue: the secret of China's growth is that it has made a rapid transition into producing tradables (mainly manufactures). 

Read more »

 

Isothiazolinone, ever heard of it?

Isothiazolinones are antimicrobials used to control bacteria, fungi, and algae in cooling water systems, fuel storage tanks, pulp and paper mill water systems, oil extraction systems, wood preservation and antifouling agents.

Together with their wanted function, controlling or killing microorganisms, isothiazolinones also have undesirable effects: They have a high aquatic toxicity and some derivatives (namly CMIT) can cause hypersensitivity by direct contact or via the air.

Some of the most common flavors are Methylisothiazolinone (MIT) and its cousin Methylchloroisothiazolinone(CMIT) (and when combined known as Kathlon CG), and are powerful biocides. 

Because biocides are intended to kill living organisms, many biocidal products pose significant risk to human health and welfare. Great care is required when handling biocides and appropriate protective clothing and equipment should be used. The use of biocides can also have significant adverse effects on the natural environment.

In fact Kathlon CG and isothiazolinones generally have been found to be mutagenic (cause mutations in genetic material):

This mixture [Kathlon CG] and the related biocide, Kathon 886, have been shown to be potent sensitizers and bacterial mutagens

And toxic to neurons to boot!  You know, those things that are the core components of the brain, the vertebrate spinal cord, the invertebrate ventral nerve cord, the enteric nervous system, and the peripheral nerves:

Neurodegenerative disorders in humans may be triggered or exacerbated by exposure to occupational or environmental agents. Here, we show that a brief exposure to methylisothiazolinone, a widely used industrial and household biocide, is highly toxic to cultured neurons

Here's the tech-speak:

The physiopathological effects of MIT and its closely related analog, chloromethylisothiazolinone or CMIT, reside in affecting the ability of young or developing neurons to grow processes (axons and dendrites) in tissue culture. The specific protein that is affected by MIT is called focal adhesion kinase, or FAK. Normal FAK function is required for the growth of axons and dendrites.  The toxic actions of MIT on developing neurons occurs at much lower concentrations than those inducing lethal injury (1-3 micromolar). CMIT is even more potent, working at concentrations as low as 0.1 micromolar. One micromolar is approximately 0.115 parts per million.

So what do you think is the most common consumer use of isothizolinones, especially compounds like Kathlon CG?  Well, besides paint, shampoo and personal care products, of course!  Oh, and baby-wipes.

The point here is we are putting on our heads, our faces, our hands and body (and unlikey to have completely washed off) a biocide with neuro-toxicity.  Not only that, but when we're done with the shampoo, the soaps, the creams, we essentially pour these things down the drain.  What happens once it goes down the drain?

Why would we smear these things all over ourselves and then wash them down the drain? Because the Cosmetic Industry says its safe?

A CFTA (Cosmetic, Toiletry, and Fragrance Association) response is as follows: "The abstract on Methylisothiazolinone (MI), presented at the Cell Biology 2004 meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) lacks a credible scientific basis in suggesting that MI could be a safety issue for consumers using personal care products. In determining the safety of any ingredient, a major factor is exposure. Cosmetic exposure is so much lower than what is presented in this abstract as to make the study meaningless for safety evaluation purposes regarding cosmetic products...Clinical and functional effects on the nervous system have reportedly not been observed in relevant safety tests."

It is noteworthy, however, that the results of these safety tests have never been published in the peer-reviewed literature, nor are they easily available to the average consumer. Furthermore, the results from the abstract presented at the ASCB meeting were later published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.^[2]

The fact is we have no clue what the ramifications of all the anti-microbials, anti-bacterials, petsticides, anti-fungals etc have on this living super-organism.  Yes, synthetic chemicals surround us.  In the modern world its impossible to avoid a daily cocktail of synthetic chemicals; they're in our food, our beauty aids, our cleaners, our houses, our clothes, literally everywhere.   For all I know, MIT could be completely safe.  But we should be wary of using it and the rest of them so casually and in such large quantities.  I've posted a number of times already, just killing random bacteria, is not necessarily helpful.  In fact its likely harmful.   That, and read what's in the products you use; and try and reduce the number of synthetic compounds in your everyday products.

Stay Tuned... 

Red Cross

Cheney is going down.  I just know it!  He going to go down because of the tradition we have in this country of forgiving the criminals their crimes, but extracting blood from those who try to cover them up once they have been exposed.  It happens time and again.  I won't even give examples because I am sure a couple have already crossed your mind without any coaching.  So, here we are looking at the latest torture, question, who did what when and how, and then coming to find out the information they were seeking from the victim was an admission that Saddam Hussein had links with Al-quaeda.  Torture was supposed to get people to say anything one wishes their victim to say, and the guy never said it!!!   So how does that support the notion torture works?  I guess, if it brings you pleasure when you watch the videos, it works.  I will grant Cheney that!

Let's get back to the topi.  The cover-up is what will doom Cheney.  If only we could get him for his war crimes, for simply authorizing torture, but we're struggling to get there.  If only we could get people to share the rage we feel about being misled into the war.  If only we could have gotten past Scooter Libby and brought Cheney himself up on charges for treason.  But, no, those are simply crimes.  People will let that go.  Though to this author that makes no sense, it happens time and again.  But now it is revealed that they were trying to cover-up the war of false pretexts with false intel.  Now is when the generosity ends. 

It's kind of like the athletes in basketball or football.  One player commits a foul that goes unseen.  The second responds with more energy to let their opponent know they do not tolerate being fouled, only to be called for their own retaliatory foul.  The only difference is that Cheney committed both fouls!  But the result is the same, no penalty for the first, but a whistle for the second.  Cheney will go down because his intention for torture was to cover-up his previous crime of going to war with neither a noble or just cause.  It's just a matter of time.  The next question is, will the Left lose Pelosi to get Cheney?  Is this a horse trade in the making?  Something stinks about that, but that's another post. 

There are many who applaud Obama for his decision to block the release of Iraqi abuse photographs. I am not one. I know people have loved ones in the line of fire, I can't judge any opinion, partly because I too was very afraid when the first Abu Ghraib photos were published and someone I loved was deployed.  But I still strongly disagree with Obama's decision.

These are not normal times.  We are in the shadow of great betrayal. Many of those who betrayed us are still very much walking the corridors of power, often in positions of high authority.  This is true in finance as well as the military. It is the double-edged sword of Obama's bipartisan gamble. It's pointless to debate if the strategy was worth it, it's the course we are on. So it is not a foregone conclusion that everyone holding a position of authority in Obama's administration buys into, or is even necessarily working toward, his objectives.

Many people have created strawmen of media fetish and torture-porn that disrespect the strength of conviction in those who feel it is important to disclose the photos for the purposes of justice. The official explanation of torture employed by our military in Iraq is unsustainable in face of the facts already exposed. There are holes in the explanations and obvious gaps in accountability. The belief this issue is being addressed by the democratic leadership is largely defined by speculation over what has not been ruled out completely, or simple blind faith.

Congress responds based on public questions and popular demand for accountability - usually shouted to get over the din of special interest lobbyists. The only reason anybody has been held accountable to date is because Americans have fought to expose the abuses and officials have been forced to acknowledge and respond. If the questions had not been forced, those who now argue "we know it happened ... isn't that enough?" wouldn't even know it happened.  A handful of low-ranking foot soldiers have been convicted, and no officer has officially been acknowledged as having participated. The official statement from Obama is that the Iraqi abuses were carried out by a mere few individuals.  A couple of scapegoats rotting in a military prison is not justice in this instance.

Soldiers have risked everything to come forward - and some paid a high price of ostracization and fear of violence.  FBI and CIA agents faced legal sanction and the disdain of their peers, often effectively ending their careers to come forward. Still others have risked exposure providing crucial details to organizations like Human Rights Watch and even the oft maligned New York Times. The ACLU has fought tirelessly to free crucial memos and reports through FOIA requests - and they will burn countless additional resources seeing through the process that Obama had promised them, just last week, would be curtailed.

Through the entire journey there has been an endless drumbeat: "By exposing the wrongdoing you are putting the troops in danger.  You are putting fellow Americans at risk".

The people who put themselves on the line to expose what little we know so far weren't democrats.  They weren't republicans.  They didn't stand up, speak out, dig deeper, for partisan gain.  They did it for America. They took the accusations of working against America and putting their colleagues at risk and did the right thing. Despite the drumbeat. Many have no more reason to trust a democratic administration than the democrats had to trust the republicans.  Now everyone is supposed to just toss up their hands and say "Oh well ... the democratic faithful have someone they trust. Battle won!".

Why didn't we stop when the generals said the troops would be in danger back in 2004?  Why did we push forward when the press secretary said exposing more information would just stir up anger and put the troops in harm's way in 2006?  Why were we pushing, in the face of the military saying yet again we were putting the troops at risk, right up to the inauguration to get the torture memos released?  What makes this time so different from all the other times we have been willing face that fear in the quest to correct the horrible detour from justice that still has America in a ditch arguing "if torture works, is it really wrong?". 

It makes me want to scream "How can you watch the torture debate going on today and even question if the American public needs to again confront the reality of abuse at their own hand?"

I guess my point is, don't forget there are two sides to every story.  I genuinely believe having the photos released is of importance to justice and the American soul.  Obama may have very sound policy reasons - be it wanting his big "Islamic World" speech to go unmarred, not wanting to politically defend going against his generals, genuine concern for the troops, or a combination of reasons.  But he needs to know that the American people are unwavering in our demand for accountability.

And apparently I'm not the only one who has thought so.

"The US Treasury's effort to stabilise the
banking system through the TARP programme is a
hopelessly ill-conceived policy that enriches
speculators at public expense, according to
the buy-out firm supposed to be pioneering the
joint public-private bank rescues.

"The taxpayers ought to know that we are in
effect receiving a subsidy. They put in 40pc
of the money but get little of the equity
upside," said Mark Patterson, chairman of
MatlinPatterson Advisers.

The comments are likely to infuriate Tim
Geithner, the US Treasury Secretary, because
MatlinPatterson took advantage of the TARP's
matching funds to buy Flagstar Bancorp in
Michigan. His confession appears to validate
concerns that the bail-out strategy is geared
towards Wall Street.

Ya think ???

Under the convoluted deal agreed earlier this
year, MatlinPatterson has come to own 80pc of
the shares while the US government has ended
up with under 10pc.

Mr Patterson said the US Treasury is out of
its depth and seems to be trying to put off
drastic action by pretending that the banking
system is still viable.

"It's a sham. The banks are insolvent. The US
government is trying to sedate the public
because they are down to the last $100bn
(£66bn) of the $700bn TARP funds. They think
they're doing this for the greater good of
society," he said, speaking at the Qatar
Global Investment Forum.

Of course now Mark Patterson denies he ever said this
and the Telegraph has pulled the story. Wonder who
put the pressure on. Treasury maybe ?? Or the FED ?
Or both ??

C

Ms. Warren, how in good conscience can you appear on Bill Maher's talk show and discredit TARP efforts to this point?  regardless of your personal views, the american public does not need the committee overseer appearing on enterntainment programs and undercutting efforts to restore the economy. i am employed in the financial services industry and while certainly acknowledge that there is very much wrong the current system, i also get most aggrevated by the portrayal of this process by the media.  you have a responsibility to act as your duty commands, not try to get a laugh on a media platform that very unfortunately a significant portion of the public uses as their primary source of information.  you are not helping a broken communication system between our public sector and our public.

Ms. Warren, how in good conscience can you appear on Bill Maher's talk show and discredit TARP efforts to this point?  regardless of your personal views, the american public does not need the committee overseer appearing on enterntainment programs and undercutting efforts to restore the economy. i am employed in the financial services industry and while certainly acknowledge that there is very much wrong the current system, i also get most aggrevated by the portrayal of this process by the media.  you have a responsibility to act as your duty commands, not try to get a laugh on a media platform that very unfortunately a significant portion of the public uses as their primary source of information.  you are not helping a broken communication system between our public sector and our public.

Yes, ashamedly I was a devoted, sign-toting, hornswaggling, carpetbagging, hoot-snooted Republican from 2001-2007. 

Why?  Don't ask me; I actually voted for Gore.

But in the midst of the terrorist attacks on September 11th, I somehow mistook my patriotic support for my country for what I term as "Bushlove." 

Bushlove then became a fuzzy area people call being a republican.  I use a small r for my affiliation at that point.

Then, as often happens, small r's become big R's, as if some fast growing chia-pet, or STD.  As a result of spending time around other R's, you find yourself embarrased and perplexed--like the guy who almost marries the pretty woman at the bar, only to find out that your friends were right--she is a whore.

Many of life's wondrous mysteries enticed me to leave the "pretty whore"--IE-Republican Party-- near the end of a long, monotonous, sickening experience, sort of like spending an afternoon in the Department of Revenue.  (Please note the repetitious metaphors.) The chief reason for leaving is simple; it is of course known that Barack Obama is NOT a Republican, thus, he made me switch teams.  So did the legacy of RFK, and JFK, (even though he seems to have been a pretty bad womanizer.)  But anyway, anyway--I discovered as I pondered leaving, that there were some lingering side effects that bothered me as well.

It all started back in 19??  I can almost see the time when:

1.  OK.  The first clue I was going to leave is rather lame, but may be a crude metaphor; 2004--they sent RNC calls to my home repeatedly asking for money.  I informed them that, at the time, I supported Bush in defeating Terrorism and that I had no money to give since I was out of work.  Then they attempted to ask for slightly less, and I again explained that though I supported the President, I had children that needed every penny I had.  This did not deterr them from asking again for another amount, $25 dollars.  I told him to go to hell for not caring enough to "get it."  I then received approx. 6 more calls until the election.  How lame.

2.  I, as an informed citizen, watched almost every Bush press briefing/press conference.  They were kind of interchangeable; the words, the vagueness, the "I look forward to working with..." answers to questions on what are you doing about BLANK questions.  Very obvious that they were losing any argument.

3.  When people are caught in lies, or in making mistakes, it is usually helpful and honorable to A) admit it, B) try to explain how it happened, C) understand how people have probably lost faith in them and try to make it right, D) correct it.  This memo evidently never got past the guard shack at 1600 Penn Ave. during 2001-08.

4.  I don't care how patriotic you say you are, how much you salute, how many flags you have behind you, how many catchphrases such as "Victory" "resolve" "Prevail" "Freedom" "Peace" and of course "God Bless America"--those words have to actually mean something beyond rhetoric.  In America there is a Constitution that a President and his administration is bound by.  If not, then it's all just televangelist hogwash.

5.  Katrina.  The response, the indifference, the lack of leadership, the failure to recognize poor planning and poor oversight, implementation, etc. etc. etc.

6.  People like El Rushbo, who keeps stupid racist propaganda in skits like "Barack the Magic Negro" alive and well.  Who basically asks his supporters to vote for Hillary Clinton in caucases/primaries so that Obama will be defeated.  Though he himself clings to being a conservative rather than republican, the fact is that he has more influence over mindset and argument than anyone else.  Go to a lodge meeting, a bar, a hockey game, or work--they repeat Rush.  I didn't feel like it anymore.

7.  Living in the past, rather than the future.  That's a biggie.

8.  Lack of ideas of how to solve real domestic problems.

9.  Thinking that they can steal away women voters from the Democrats by simply putting Palin on the ticket, and thinking they can steal away African-American voters from the Democrats by giving Michael Steele a high profile position.  This demonstrates their density.

10.  Letting people like Karl Rove and Dick Cheney inform, influence, or decide the most important matters in our lives.  See where it got us?

11.  Using 9/11.  Abusing 9/11.  Somehow, realizing the size of the country's heartstrings, and taking advantage by inserting or connecting 9/11 or terrorism into every agenda they pushed forth.  Shame on you for exploiting almost 3,000 deaths, not all American either.

12.  Making the world not trust us. 

13.  Taking advantage of honest, caring, compassionate, and patriotic people like me who believed in something until the makeup melted off, the dress dropped, the other shoe dropped, and the canary sang.  As The Who once said, "We wont get fooled again."

Yes, this was enough, wasn't it.  I haven't even listed the details of the numerous devious anti-american blankety-blanks who did blankety-blank on such and such a date.  I could go on and on, but then again--why bother. 

People like me stay informed, and live ordinary hardworking lives, and meet diverse kinds of people.  We can't reconcile that with what the GOP stands for.  Plus, we learn from our mistakes.  If you are a Republican reading this, and any of the above seems to resonate with you, just think, you could become part of the change you want to see.  If you found this personally offensive, then perhaps you should take a shower and a haircut, and get rid of the "dirty whore" before something sticks.  Literally.

  (Prof. Warren demonstrating Adam Davidson's level of understanding of the economy...)

HuffPo's Jason Linkins pointed everyone today to Ryan Chittum's Columbia Journalism Review piece on Planet Money's interview of Professor Warren.  Here's the Full Interview.  (The second half is where they start screaming...) 

Adam Davidson commits Journalism Malpractice in this train wreck interview (i.e., "the middle class is Warren's 'pet' issue" (paraphrased)).  I'm not saying this because she's one of my Top 3 heroes of all-time - right next to Bruce Springsteen and David Ortiz.  No, NPR's Davidson truly exposed himself as a complete and utter failure as an economics & finance reporter.  He's lost all credibility in my book.  She should have just called him "stunningly superficial" and walked out, but she's too smart and classy.

There are too many quotes documenting his superficial knowledge to list here.  Overall, Davidson simply doesn't understand economics.  Specifically, he thinks the banking crisis exists in a vacuum.  Fix it first, then move on to other lesser things.  You know, silly things, like families.

He's wrong, of course.  The very term "economics" means ""household management," from L. oeconomia, from Gk. oikonomia "household management," from oikonomos "manager, steward," from oikos "house".  And in this highly complex world of haute finance that we now all have to obsess over for the next 5-10 years, he doesn't realize that the American family has itself been securitized.  The work of the American family is precisely the underlying asset of all securities -- especially the Residential Mortgage Backed Securities (RMBS) that exploded.

Perhaps he's a self-flagellating liberal journalist that needs to kowtow to the riotous-right to prove he's not a bleeding heart? Or perhaps he's recently read Atlas Shrugged and has decided to hate the middle class.  Either way, this interview should heard by everyone because:

1) It illustrates the deeply entrenched rightwing bias in media and the mainstream "serious" discussions -- they've infiltrated NPR (!) for crying out loud.  (Does anyone remember's Josh's term for this?  Something about the "Pull" or "Gravity" or "Structure" or "Embeddedness" of Washington's Rightwing Insiderism?),

and...

2) Liz Warren  b e a t s  h i m  t o  a  b l o o d y  p u l p . . .

Mark Twain, who was the next speaker, and who, Mr. Peckham said, would view the matter from a different standpoint, took issue with Bishop Potter at once. He said that there was lust for gain and dishonesty, but that it must be admitted that if such a condition was universal this country could not survive. He said that he believed that forty-nine out of every fifty men were honest, and asked if this were true why it was that the forty-nine honest ones could not have their way. The whole matter simplified, he said, was that the wrong man was in authority.

"Now I am here, " said Mr. Clemens, "with the utmost seriousness of manner to tell you what's to be done, and how to do it. I have exercised the trade of unsalaried statesmanship for years. I am a statesman not for reward, but for the peace of mind it brings me. I am too old to learn, but I am not too old to teach.

"Now, to set this whole thing right is very simple. I know all about it. It has been said by somebody, and if it hasn't it will be now, that we must learn wisdom out of the mouths of babes and sucklings or something of that sort. The whole solution of the question rests just there. Fifty-one years ago, when I was fourteen years old, I was a member of a party of a peculiar sort, and it was my belief that if we could have such a party now we would soon clear the political atmosphere. I bring it to you here now for the salvation of this town. The party was called the Cadets of Temperance.

"Its members wore red merino scarfs and walked in church parades and picnics. On entering it a boy had to promise not to smoke," said Mr. Clemens, removing the cigar from his mouth, "never to drink or gamble, to keep the Sabbath, and not to steal watermelons. In fact, you promised to leave behind all the liberties that were of any value, and pursue a career of virtue that was irksome to yourself and a reproach to all other people.

"There were thirty-four members of the party, and they were divided into two factions, the reds and the blues. Five of the members were purchasable, and they had to be purchased every month, when there was an election. Four could be secured on reasonable terms, but the fifth held out for war prices. The bribes were paid in the shape of doughnuts and chewing gum. There were two boys - the most incapable of the lot, but the most enterprising, who were always to the fore. There was Croker Brown on one side and Platt Higgins on the other, and one or the other managed to get himself elected every time. The good boys stood no show at all. They couldn't get elected.

THE ANTI-DOUGHNUT PARTY

"When we had stood this thing a long time, we got an idea. We good boys stepped out when we saw the balance of power with the purchasables, and formed another party. We called ourselves the incorruptibles, but we were not always known by that name. We had obloquy heaped on us, and we got the name of the 'Anti-Doughnut Party' because we couldn't be approached on the usual terms. Well, we started wrong by putting up one of our members for office, and of course he got licked.

But we stuck together, we twelve, and enunciated new principles. They were that none of us would ever accept office of any kind. We are here, we said, to put some virtue into the gang, and we're going to do it. We won't take office, but we warn you - meaning the other two parties - that you've got to put up your best men for office or you won't get our support. We were strong enough to make those terms, and that was the end of the Crokers and the Platts. The good boys were put up, and then we picked the best one and voted for him and he was elected.

There's the problem, gentlemen, solved. What we want today is an 'Anti-Doughnut Party' that won't take office, but will keep the other parties safe. I am sure that it can be done. In a modified form it has been done by the mugwumps, of which body, I am the only living representative. An 'Anti-Doughnut Party' of 60,000 or 80,000 can do the trick. It would spread from the city to the country, and in time it would dictate the nomination of every office holder from constable to President. All it would ask for was the best possible man, and its support would mean the best man's election.

"Not long ago we had two men running for President. There was Mr. McKinley on the one hand and Mr. Bryan on the other. If we'd had an 'Anti-Doughnut Party' neither would have been elected. I didn't know much about finance, but some friend told me that Bryan was all wrong on the money question, so I didn't vote for him. I know enough about the Philippines to have a strong aversion to sending our bright boys out there to fight with a disgraced musket under a polluted flag, so I didn't vote for the other fellow. I've got that vote, and it's clean yet, ready to be used when you form your 'Anti-Doughnut Party' that will want only the best men for the offices, no matter what party they belong to, and which will solve all your political problems.

John Jay Chapman gave what some considered an announcement of the Citizens' Union that they would insist on Controller Coler being nominated for Mayor on the reform ticked. "The Democratic machine wants the emoluments of office, and so does the Republican machine," said Mr. Chapman.

"It seems to me that the most practical way to win a victory for honesty an civic righteousness is by commencing a year ahead. Let us take a man like Coler, for example, and announce our candidate and say to the public, 'Here is our man.' Let us stand together without compromise. Let us say we stand for Coler and no compromise. People may sneer at the Citizens' Union and their efforts at organization, but it is the only way practicable to bring about an end of misrule in municipal government."

Others who spoke to the subject of the evening were St. Clair McKelway, Charles Sprague Smith, and Frank Moss.

A reprint from the New York Times

Come discuss, unless you want to discuss something else. Happy Friday.

Barack Obama has continued to prove that he said things to get votes that he had no intention of actually doing.  He espoused morals and ideals in order to fool voters.

He is a serial deceptionist, a liar, and more dangerous than Bush.  Look how much Bush loves him, that is one tight hug, like I would only give to my dad or brother. 

 

 This is because he has erected a cult-following of Dem-bots that will justify anything he does, no matter what.

I do not know why Barack Obama calls him self a Democrat, other than Bush poisoned the Republican brand so bad that Obama opportunisticly rode a wave of NEED for change, and fooled the country in the most Machiavellian and disgusting way.

I pray that Obama does not get a second term, and an actual Democrat can be elected who is truthful, and has one or two progressive bones in his body.

Obama has vast record of breaking his promises on the primary trail.  Obama lying to your face is his Modus Operendi:

 

1. NAFTA

Hopey-Changey Obama: "I would immediately call the president of Mexico, the president of Canada, to try to amend NAFTA, because I think that we can get labour agreements in that agreement right now," Obama said. "And it should reflect the basic principle that our trade agreements should not just be good for Wall Street; it should also be good for Main Street."

Gotchya Suckers Obama: "Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified,"

bottom line: Obama says slowly and clearly to the 10million auto workers, the whole middle class, unions, and the entire state of Michigan: FUCK YOU! DIE SLOWLY!  Barack Obama has no compunction about lying to voters faces about the issues that effect and affect them the most, it was in fact a deliberate strategy.  How the fuck did his rhetoric get "overheated and amplified"?  What a bunch of bullshit.

 

2. FISA

Hopey-Changey Obama: 

Bill Burton issues a statement, October 24, 2007, reaffirming Obama's position and pledging to support Chris Dodd's filibuster:

"To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies."

 

Gotchya Suckers Obama:  Obama votes for cloture on the FISA bill that included retroactive immunity for telecoms

bottom line: Obama threw his lot in with the criminals in our Government, he is no different than any common crook of the Bush Administration.  Coopting the arguments, language of Bush, Obama shows the country how he will act when he becomes the King. 

 

3. Torture

Hopey-Changey Obama:  Obama says waterboarding is torture, and nobody is above the law.

Gotchya Suckers Obama:  Obama mimmicks the exact words of Bush: "The United States doesn't torture."  Obama then proceeds in Orwellian language to insist that the last thing the head of the executive branch should do is actually enforce laws, or investigate crimes, cuz they are in the past, and distractions.  Except (of course) for the crimes commited by ordinary citizens, who are locked up at the highest rate and totals in all of the Earth. 

 bottom line:  Obama has the gall to pretend like it is his decision alone on who/when/how to prosecute lawbreakers.  He shows the country that he thinks that crimes are acceptable if committed by high-ranking government officials. 

Torture got worse at Gitmo after Obama was elected according to prisoners there:

"Since the election it's got harsher," Mr Mohamed said. [snip] his chest and penis were slashed with razors 

.  Obama has claimed King priveleges to ship Muslim prisoners to Bagram and torture them forever with no trial.  I think Obama takes pleasure in torturing Muslims, because he resents his middle name, and his father that abandoned him like the garbage he turned out to be.

 

4. Covering up Government (War) Crimes

Hopey-Changey Obama:

My view is also that nobody's above the law and, if there are clear instances of wrongdoing, that people should be prosecuted just like any ordinary citizen.

Gotchya Suckers Obama: President Obama insists "we should be looking forward and not backwards."

 bottom line:  Covering up War Crimes is a War Crime.  Obama is no better than Bush on this.  But we are just "ordinary citizens" so why should King Obama care about what he says to us?

 

5. Blackmailing the citizenry of Britain

Hopey-Changey Obama:  OK, there was never any pretense here, but this is so dispicable and thuggish it needs to be pointed out to as wide an audience as possible

Gotchya Suckers Obama:

 bottom line:  Obama is commiting an international War Crime by covering up War Crimes, and he is committing a crime in Brittain by covering up evidence of the torture of one of their citizens.  I hope all you Dems out there are proud of Obama blackmailing a whole country and threatening them with a terrorist attack unless they too illegally cover up for Bush's War Crimes.  Fucking awesome!

 

6. Health Care

Hopey-Changey Obama:

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama, seeking support from labor union members in New Jersey, vowed Monday to make health insurance available to all Americans by the end of his first term in the White House.

''We can have universal health care by the end of the next president's first term, by the end of my first term,'' Obama said, bringing 600 union workers to their feet during a question-and-answer session with members of AFL-CIO affiliated unions.

Gotchya Suckers Obama:

 "Got the little single-payer advocates up here.....The only problem is that we're not starting from scratch. We have historically a tradition of employer-based health care. ....We don't want a huge disruption as we go into health care reform where suddenly we're trying to completely reinvent one-sixth of the economy...... If you don't have health care or you're highly unsatisfied with your health care, then let's give you choices, let's give you options, ....produce a bill before the August recess. And it may not have everything I want in there or everything you want in there, but it will be a vast improvement over what we currently have."

 

bottom line:  I supported Obama in the primary, but I always thought Clinton's healthcare plan was better.  It is still extremely disheartening.  We are looking at at least 8 years of the same shitty for profit abuses and poor health care.  Obama has his public option, why should he care about others?  Additionally, it was those union workers' own faults for believing what Obama said, not Obama's fault for lying yet again.

 

7. Military Commisions

Hopey-Changey Obama: "we need not throw away 200 years of American jurisprudence while we fight terrorism"

Gotchya Suckers Obama: "will permit commissions to prosecute terrorists effectively ... This is the best way to protect our country, while upholding our deeply held values"

bottom line:  I'm glad Obama doesn't even attempt to explain why we can't use our existing courts to try terrorists.  After all, once he is elected King, he is the only person whose opinion matters.  He is so much smarter than us "ordinary citizens", we wouldn't be able to understand anyway.

 

8. DADT (gay bashing)

 Hopey-Changey Obama AND Gotchya Suckers Obama:  http://www.towleroad.com/2009/05/jon-stewart-nails-obama-on-dont-ask-dont-tell.html  link to John Stewart showing Obama's continued hypocrisy and outright dishonesty

 bottom line: way to break the stereo type of the homophobic black guy, you should be proud of yourself Obama!  And the bigger threat to our security is gays translating versus the backlog of wiretaps of suspected terrorists.  FAAAABULOUS!

 

I am done with Obama, he is worse than Clinton.  He lets Al Franken and Dawn Johnsen languish, he lets cramdown fail by not lifting a finger, he plays King and knights Arlen Specter the next Democratic Senator (fuck what the voters of PA think) and makes Gillibrand his annointed dutchess.  I don't think anybody voted for any of this shit!  If we wanted all these disgusting behaviors from a President we would have voted for John McCain.

Face it, Obama is a fraud, additced to the power of lies and deceit.  It appears to me that Obama's top priorities are:

1. (TIE) redistributing wealth from the taxpayers to the banksters AND playing basketball

2. permanent land war in Asia (how did that work out for the Romans, Greeks, and Russians?)

3. the rendition, permanent imprisonment and torture (especially slicing of penises) of Arab Muslims at his personal whim

4. Covering up the crimes of the Bush Admin, supressing evidence, or whole lawsuits by claiming national security

5. Keeping enough Republicans and Blue Dogs (Specter, Coleman, Gates) in power so that he has an excuse to not enact any of the meaningful promises he made

6. Letting EFCA fail, or become so watered down it is no change

 

I fully expect Obama to appoint a Federalist Society member to the supreme court to cap off his DINO performance

Apparently it's happiness.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development says people in Denmark, Finland
and the Netherlands are the most content with
their lives. The three ranked first, second
and third, respectively, in the OECD's
rankings of "life satisfaction," or happiness.

There are myriad reasons, of course, for
happiness: health, welfare, prosperity,
leisure time, strong family, social
connections and so on. But there is another
common denominator among this group of happy
people: taxes.

Northern Europeans pay some of the highest
taxes in the world. Danes pay about two-thirds
of their income in taxes. Why be so happy
about that? It all comes down to what you get
in return.

The Encyclopedia of the Nations notes that
Denmark was one of the first countries in the
world to establish efficient social services
with the introduction of relief for the sick,
unemployed and aged.

It says social welfare programs include health
insurance, health and hospital services,
insurance for occupational injuries,
unemployment insurance and employment exchange
services. There's also old age and disability
pensions, rehabilitation and nursing homes,
family welfare subsidies, general public
welfare and payments for military accidents.
Moreover, maternity benefits are payable up to
52 weeks.

Well there you go. Proof positive that republicans simply a bunch
mean, nasty, grumpy old grouches. Squeezing, wrenching, grasping,
scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinners!

C
 

There are a lot of different kinds of relationships and i kinda want to try and cover a few of them.

  Lets start with love relationships. These can be very complicated sometimes. As many of you know I've been having problems there  and they are starting to work out a little bit at a time. Now these relationships can trick you sometimes  I thought mine was pretty much over.

 Then she offered to take me to visit my family. And with all honesty I can say that the two people that got in the car in kansas were not the same two people who got out of it. I have talked to a couple of you here and made her out to be a bad person. I didnt lie but there are always two sides to every story and after hearing hers on our trip  I could see that at least half the blame was mine. I'm not a very easy person to live with and dont show my emotions very often.

  Now there is also friendship which is a form of relationship that I am also not very good at.I have some friends here that i have made mad here recently.  I guess friends are suppose to work there problems out but instead I blogged about it. In my defense I mentioned no names and tried not to say anything to terrible The problem was that unlike most friends I didnt think before i did. I should have known what would happen when I bought her into the chatroom with me but forgot that I hadn't talked to you for awhile and you didnt know that she wasnt the same person I had talked to you about. She really is a nice person and think we all could be friends if you could forget everything I said about her and start over. She really is not the same person

 Ok those were the serious ones now there is also your work relstionships. Well I have a lot of them most are really friendships but you always have the boss nobody I know is really friends with the boss  some try to be but not for the right reasons and some just wish the boss would go away.

 I hope everybody is having a nice day.

 

Many people remember Lincoln as our greatest President; he saved the union, wrote and spoke beautiful and lasting words, and freed the slaves.  What they forget is that before most of that, he made choices that made his enemies, and even many of his supporters, to curse him, or hate him. 

Early in the war, John C. Fremont was appointed as a Major General, and at one point claimed that all slaves owned by Confederates in Missouri were free. Lincoln was furious when he heard the news, because he feared that this action would force slave-owners in border states to join with the Confederates.  Lincoln asked Fremont to modify his order and free only slaves owned by Missourians actively working for the South. Fremont refused claiming that "it would imply that I myself thought it wrong and that I had acted without reflection which the gravity of the point demanded."

President Lincoln was urged to fire Fremont.  Horace Greeley, who was editor of the New York Tribune, wrote an open letter to Lincoln defending Fremont and criticizing the president for failing to move faster on slavery, and put an ultimate end to it.  Lincoln famously replied:

 "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it."

But what we know now is that Lincoln already had the issue of slavery in his long term sights, and was already manuevering himself and others into a slow progression towards that ultimate goal.  He finished his letter saying,

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free. Yours,

A. LINCOLN

 

We know that Lincoln had an Emancipation later drafted, yet waited and waited until a Union Victory to implement it.  We know that the Emancipation did not free every slave, yet two years later, Slavery was forever abolished.

My belief is that Obama wants to do certain things, and in many cases has claimed or promised to do them.  Indeed the long electoral season was full of them.  However he probably has that short-term/long-term sense of history, and how it is to be made--the same that Lincoln had.  He knows, as Lincoln did, that you cannot please all of the people all of the time, that there is a necessary evolution to any systematic shifts or changes in a society, and that slowly manuevering the opponents of an issue closer and closer to a resolution can be not unlike that of a flea market deal.  The price is 100, you offer 50.  You and he somehow both know that you are going to end up buying it, but that is not the point.  The closer you both move towards an agreed number, the less objection both will have, and thus--a done deal.  Both are satisfied, and the thing is sold.

Obama is not stupid.  Yes, there is basically a filibuster-proof majority in Congress.  Yes, Obama is leaning on extremely high personal and job approval ratings.  Yes, he made promises and now he is President.  But I suspect there are considerations, motives, chess moves, and grand designs lurking behind the so-called "flip-flops" and not-so-fast movements.

Many on the left screamed on high for prosecutions and censures against the last administration and it's minions as soon as Jan. 20th became a jubilee for all of the hopes we put in this young man.  But Obama is President because he knew better than most how to pull it off; how to sell the thing. 

I understand being disappointed in slow movement, reversing course, saying no to the seemingly obvious right moves that we, had we the chance, would make to right the wrongs of the last 8 years. 

But let us remember also that it took Lincoln his entire presidency, almost 5 years, to go from wishing the "negro" free--and actually freeing him.  It took not just election to the office, but persuasion, words, war, compromise, and patience.  I appreciate the fact that, and Lincoln explained as much, that to do what he paersonally wanted to do, could interfere with more important things to the whole.  He looked at moves in relationships the way an artist does.  Moving one way too hard or too fast, even in the right direction--can pull, or drag, or confuse--or ruin the whole design.  Had the slaves been freed not by law in 1865, but in April 1861--he would not have had popular support for it, would not have persuaded some one opposing sides, the war may have led to two separate countries, or a slaughter of race-rioting.  Lincoln may have been assassinated in 1861 if such a course had been followed, and he would be remembered not as a great man with foresight and vision, but as a martyr who had failed. 

I trust that many will respond with the reasoning behind wanting immediate action on certain issues, for wanting to abandon the existing Gitmo trial structure, to release the photos which establish the unamerican methods of the Bush years, or to prosecute those who we can prove deserve prosecuting.  I appreciate this feeling, and share in it.

But I believe that Obama has the lonely, back-breaking task of establishing a more perfect union, not just with our Constitution and it's laws, not just with righting wrong, but with slow, deliberate persuasion, compromise, and action--that can sometimes only arrive with time. And he may not be satisfied with just one side prevailing on an issue--he may want the other side to move closer to reckoning why it's fitting and proper to do so.  Moreover, like Lincoln, he has more than just one consideration:

Answering liberal complaints, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters: "First and foremost, the president does what is in the best security interest of the United States."

 

In a larger sense, not unlike what Lincoln said in his reply to his supporters-turned-critics, there is a larger picture here.  One small piece can affect the whole.  And there is an appointed time to every purpose. 

 

 

Since the President's flip flop on the release of the photos his administration had previously agreed to release, pursuant to an order of a Federal court, there has been tremendous debate about what the President said and why as well as what the merits of his arguments for doing so are.  There's really no getting around the fact that this is a flip flop on the President's part.  Nothing has changed from last month when he approved release of the photos.  Not one thing.  Motivation, however, is up for debate and there has been plenty of speculation on that.  There has also been copious debate on the merits of his reasoning for reversing his decision and instead attempting to appeal the case despite already having lost on appeal with the very same arguments in the 2nd circuit.

Be that as it may, there has been much sincere, heated back and forth about whether or not the President's sudden claims for wanting to conceal these photos from public view are "right" or "wrong", "legitimate" or "politically motivated" and the focus has been on that as opposed to what the law requires.  We are, after all, debating how to respond or deal with a court decision here and not a simple political preference.  Once the President changed his position, however, the focus of much of the debate immediately drifted to whether one supports the President or not in many respects and that, I think most would agree, is not where the focus should be.  The release of the photos is intimately bound up in the much larger question that looms over the nation about whether there will be a return to the rule of law, or not, with respect to the now very well known war crimes committed during the Bush years.  The issues of transparency and open government are criticial elements in that larger issue and the President himself said those two issue along with the rule of law would be the "hallmark" of his Presidency. 

There is a titanic struggle taking place right now between those in officialdom who do not want to deal with the crimes of the Bush years, for a variety of self serving reasons, who advocate "moving forward" and vowing to ourselves that we won't repeat those "mistakes" in the future, versus those who believe that the criminal conduct, that we all know took place, is far worse than anything that happened during the Watergate era or since and that the criminal activity conceived and implemented by President Bush and his closest and most powerful advisors was so heinous and barbaric that to fail to investigate those crimes would be a clear violation of our domestic laws and of a number of our treaty obligations.  The latter group believes that if we fail to pursue these crimes according to the law that the very idea of the rule of law in the USA may be irrevocably damaged.  I certainly am among those in the latter group.  The photo release issue is merely a tactical skirmish in this larger battle for the future of the United States.

Despite being "only" a tactical skirmish, the debate over release of the photos is an important one, but it is first and foremost, like the larger context in which it takes place, a debate about the law and what it requires.  In this case we are talking about the Freedom of Information Act and the release, by the government, of public information requested in a lawsuit initiated, and won decisively, by the ACLU. 

The fact that each and every one of the arguments offered by the President for reversing his stand on the photo release and pursuing an appeal has already been rejected twice by the courts gets little attention from those who now, like the President, are focused on the safety of the troops and the supposed negative reaction release of the photos might spark.  Much of the defense of the President's about face is offered as though the reasons had not been previously given to the court and that somehow the question is unsettled or unclear and so needs to be aired.  Well, obviously, in terms of individual, personal opinions the question may not ever be a settled one.  But just as obviously, in terms of the legal status of the arguments involved, all of them offered by the President---every single one---has been settled.  In fact, the legal questions have been so clearly settled that the administration's opinion up until a couple of days ago was that, legally speaking, it was "hopeless" to appeal the decision.  "Hopeless."  That's a pretty unequivocal term and indicates how weak the government arguments have been for suppressing the photos in question.

As mentioned above, the Bush administration previously made all the arguments President Obama now offers and the arguments were unequivocally rejected.  Anyone can read the entire opinion but it is kind of long at 50 pages.  It's online at: http://www.aclu.org/torturefoia/legaldocuments/aOrder092905.pdf .  The opinion, written by District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein on this matter in 2005 is not ambiguous with respect to the law in the judgment he handed down.  It is the clarity and lack of gray areas in Judge Hellerstein's decision that caused it to be fully sustained on appeal by the Bush government.  It is also why the Obama government until a few days ago concluded appealing the decision was "hopeless."  I would invite everyone to read it and consider the reasoning the judge lays out so cogently.  You don't need to be a lawyer to get through it.  It is very well written and in plain English. 

For those who aren't likely to try and tackle such a lengthy tome, here are some, IMHO, key excerpts from the judges decision relating to the issue at hand, which, let's not forget, is the release (or not) of the photos.  I have eliminated the more complicated legal notations simply to make the text more readable.  I don't think any meaning is lost by doing so.  You can easily find all the detailed notation and citations by going to the pdf I linked to above.  Please forgive any typos as unintentional.

So please, I invite everyone to actually read what the judge said and thus to understand what the appeal the President is going to pursue seeks to overturn. 

I think that many who would otherwise be inclined to side with the Presidents objections to the release might rethink their position when they consider the court's opinion and the issues as a matter of law as opposed to a test of support for the President, for support of the President is simply a political posture.  The questions raised in the lawsuit are not political they are questions of principle generally and legal principle specifically, questions of transparency, open government and the rule of law.  The question this and several other issues before the public raise, is do you support, as a matter of principle, the rule of law, transparency in government and open government? 

I would suppose that few, if any, of those defending the Obama reasoning felt the same way they do now about the issue when the President supported releasing the photos last month (or even three days ago for that matter) and have only discovered their grave concern for troop safety if these photos are released since the President reversed himself on the issue and they now find themselves following his lead.  To those folks I'd say try to roll it back a week when we were all on the same page and see if you don't find Judge Hellerstein, transparency, open government and the rule of law more persuasive than the arguments this and the immediate and loathed past President offer for suppressing the photos.

From Page 40 of the decision:

With the exception of the small number of Darby photographs that I ordered to be withheld, where the risk of exposure is too great and the informational value is minimal, the balancing analysis weighs in favor of disclosure in the present case.  There is a substantial public interest in these pictures, evidence by the active public debate engendered by the versions previously leaked to the press, or otherwise obtained by the media.  See discussion in section (c) of this Opinion, infra.  Moreover, the government concedes that wrongful conduct has occurred.   Defs.' Br., at 70-72.  Plaintiffs assert that they seek release of the Darby photographs to inform the public, and to spark debate about the causes and forces that led to the breakdown of command discipline at Abu Ghraib prison and, possibly, by extension, to other prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo, and perhaps elsewhere.  These are the very purposes that FOIA is intended to advance.  The photographs are sought to "shed light on an agency's performance of its statutory duties" and to "contribut [e] significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of the government."  As I remarked at oral argument:

Photographs present a different level of detail and a different medium, and are the best evidence that the public could have as to what occurred at a particular time, better than testimony, which can be self-serving, better than summaries, which can be misleading, and better even than a full description no matter how complete that description might be.

From page 43-44 of the decision:

Plaintiffs and amici curiae, The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and other prominent news organizations, object to my consideration of the government's eleventh-hour argument in reliance on Exemption 7(F).  See proposed Br. Amici Curiae, filed Aug. 3, 2005.  Amici argue that the exemption now pressed by the government could have been presented much earlier, certainly by the date of oral argument in May, and that its invocation at this late date delays the ultimate resolution of the issues.  Amici contend that the government's supplemental argument is not made in "good faith" and should not be considered by the court.

The issue of the physical safety of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and of the citizens of those countries, has been of paramount concern throughout this case, and it is sensible to address the issue squarely under the framework advanced by the government.  The parties agreed to an expedited briefing schedule in order to minimize delays.

The government contends that publication of the Darby photographs pursuant to court order is likely to incite violence against our troops and Iraqi and Afghan personnel and civilians, and that redactions will not avert the danger.  The government argues that the terrorists will use the re-publication of the photographs as a pretext for further acts of terrorism.  See, Second Amended Decl. of Richard B. Myers, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, dated Aug. 25, 2005.  (stating that the "insurgents will use any means necessary to incite violence and, specifically, will focus on perceived U.S. or Coalition mistreatment of Iraqi civilians and detainees as a propaganda and recruiting tool to aid their cause," and that "redaction of the photographs and videos will not alleviate or lessen this risk,")  Plaintiffs, on the other hand, provide the declaration of a scholar on the Middle East who states that, in his opinion, "there is nothing peculiar about Muslim culture in Iraq or elsewhere that would make people react to these pictures in a way different from other people's reactions elsewhere in the world."  Decl. of Khaled Fahmy, Prof., New York Univ., dated Aug. 4, 2005.  In addition, Professor Fahmy suggests that there is a large group of Iraqis, and of Muslims generally, who respond favorably when we show the openness of our society and the accountability of our government officials, and that we would suppress those values and that favorable response by preventing publication of the Darby photographs.

Our nation does not surrender to blackmail, and fear of blackmail is not a legally sufficient argument to prevent us from performing a statutory command.  Indeed, the freedoms that we champion are as important to our success in Iraq and Afghanistan as the guns and missiles with which our troops are armed.

From Page 45 of the decision:

The terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan do not need pretexts for their barbarism; they have proven to be aggressive and pernicious in their choice of targets and tactics. They have driven exploding trucks into groups of children at play and men seeking work; they have attacked doctors, lawyers, teachers, judges and legislators as easily as soldiers.  Their pretexts for carrying out violence are patent hypocrisies, clearly recognized as such except by those who would blur the clarity of their own vision.  With great respect to the concerns expressed by General Myers, my task is not to defer to our worst fears, but to interpret and apply the law, in this case, the Freedom of Information Act, which advances values important to our society, transparency and accountability in government.

From Page 47-50 of the decision:

With regard to Living Rivers, the inundation maps were compiled by the Bureau of Reclamation to "maintain law and order and protect persons and property within Reclamation project and on Reclamation lands" by protecting and alerting threatened communities, again a nexus to law enforcement in that context.  However, there is no such nexus with respect to the Darby photographs.  The Darby photographs are being withheld, not to protect anyone involved in the courts marital investigations and prosecutions, but for another purpose.  The person who took the photographs, or handed them over to commanding officers, do not ask for protection.  Law enforcement officials charged with investigating the circumstances that surrounded the taking of the Darby photographs do not ask for protection, and there is no allegation that release of the photographs will endanger their lives.   And since the identifying characteristics of the detainees are to be redacted, they too are not endangered.  The sole justification for suppressing the photographs is the DOD's concern about speech---generally, how some might exploit the Darby photographs, in propaganda and in terrorist activities, by arguing, though false extension, that the pictures represent the attitudes of all American soldiers, or indeed of all Americans, toward the Iraqi people.

It is not necessary for me to rule if Larouche and Living Rivers are, or are not, appropriate extensions of Exemption 7 (F).  I reject, however, the government's argument that reasoning must stop once a threat to life or safety is discerned.  Balancing and evaluation are essential aspects of the judicial function, no less in considering the exemptions of FOIA than in other areas of the law.  It is clear to me that the core values that Exemption 7 (F) was designed to protect are not implicated by the release of the Darby photographs, but that the core values of FOIA are very much implicated.

The interest at stake arises from pictures of flagrantly improper conduct by American soldiers---forcing prisoners under their charge to pose in a manner that compromised their humanity and dignity.  As I stated at the time of the original argument, and as I reiterated previously in this decision, the pictures are the best evidence of what happened, better than words, which might fail to describe, or summaries, which might err in their attempt to generalize and abbreviate.  Publication of the photographs is central to the purpose of FOIA because they initiate debate, not only about the improper and unlawful conduct of American soldiers, "rogue" soldiers, as they have been characterized, but also about other important questions as well---for example, the command structure that failed to exercise discipline over the troops, and the person in that command structure whose failures in exercising supervision may make them culpable along with the soldier who were court-martialed for perpetrating the wrongs; the poor training that did not create patterns of proper behavior and that failed to reach or distinguish between conduct that was proper and improper; the regulations and orders that governed the conduct of military forces engaged in guarding prisoners; the treatment of prisoners in other areas and place of detention; and other related questions.

Suppression of information is the surest way to cause its significance to grow and persist.  Clarity and openness are the best antidotes, either to dispel criticism if not merited, or if merited, to correct such errors as may be found.  The fight to extend freedom has never been easy, and we are once again challenged, in Iraq and Afghanistan, by terrorists who engage in violence to intimidate our will and to force us to retreat.  Our struggle to prevail must be without sacrificing the transparency and accountability of government and military officials.  These are the values FOIA was intended to advance, and they are the very heart of the values for which we fight in Afghanistan and Iraq.  There is a risk that the enemy will seize upon the publicity of the photographs and seek to use such publicity as a pretext for enlistments and violent acts.  But the education and debate that such publicity will foster will strengthen our purpose and, by enabling such deficiencies as may be perceived to be debated and corrected, show our strength as a vibrant and functioning democracy to be emulated.

In its most recent discussion of FOIA, the Supreme Court commented that "FOIA is often explained as a means for citizens to know what 'their Government is up to.'  The sentiment is far from a convenient formalism.  It defines a structural necessity in a real democracy."  As President Bush said, we fight to spread freedom so the freedoms of Americans will be made more secure.  It is in compliance with these principles, enunciated by both the President and the highest court in the land, that I order the government to produce the Darby photographs that I have determined are responsible and appropriately redacted.

Yeah, that would make their heads explode.

What's up TPMer old timers?

I have been arguing with cons over at Hot Air.

Good times.

 

 

 

I find it odd that some of the best intel we've been receiving about authorizing torture on detainees is coming from the guy who spent 6-7 years try to hide it from the public.

I found this story, and the proposed legislation, interesting.  I happen to be a strong believer in the right to privacy - yet the public's right to know can sometimes take necessary precedence.  Where is the line?  When does necessity cross over into the realm of sensationalism?

If I call 911, I am not considering the possible ramifications of having my voice and my words broadcast across the airwaves.  After all, I'm no one special.  But if the operator on the other end of the line doesn't do their job and ends up being investigated - should that make my frantic phone call public?  Suppose I think my life is in danger ... I call to report my fears.  Suppose I witness another's life being threatened and call to get them help.  Anonomously.  If the media picks it up as a "hot story", should the transcript/recording of my call be released?  My permission would not be required.

I wonder.  If I considered all the possible scenarios, would I hesitate to call?  Would the person who might save my life by dialing 911 hesitate? 

http://amfix.blogs.cnn.com/2009/05/15/ban-911-calls-from-tv/

 

 

One danger in delaying release of photos depicting American torture is that our "mind's eye" then is free to presume horrors probably far worse than anything human beings possibly could do to each other - proving the old saying that fantasy is whatever in reality would be nightmare.

Read more »

My apologies for putting a blogger's name in the title, but I have to suggest people read her fantastic post.  The writing conveys her experience so clearly and personally.  It is a masterpiece.  Then read the comments.  I was amazed at how people related to her situation, supported her, and each other.  It revealed how this place here, the TPM Cafe, is really something unique.  This is a heartfelt place where people truly come together and meet on so many levels.  This is a real community, a community like one this nation once had that is slowly evaporating right before our eyes. 

Or maybe, that is my own imaginings of times past, told in stories of events selectively described.  But we do all refer to a time past as having been of the greatest generation.  So what was it about that generation we have all somehow come to agree was so great?  If one listens to people, there are many suggestions.  From the Right, it is because we fought in World War II, we were the reason the Axis Powers were defeated, and the US came out on top.  From the Left, one might say we became great as we dug ourselves out of the Great Depression, where we relied on our government to provide work and income, channeling dollars into the pockets of the poor until they were able to support themselves again. 

What both sides, (and I know there are many, many sides,) have in common, is that whether it was the Great Depression or the War, the change was brought about because we came together.  We became a community with a common purpose and we let go of our petty differences to achieve a tremendous result.  One might also propose that the GI Bill was a big part of our development.  We educated our soldiers who had been provided a sense of self-discipline in the military and shared struggle from the Great Depression, who then entered the business world with an ethic that understood raising the least of their fellow men (and women) raised the nation.  We all benefitted even if there was a sacrifice by some to do so.  They became willing to sacrifice.

So, why is this related to Rowan's experience?  One more piece to bring this together. We are engaged in a momentous battle for nothing less important then the soul of this country.  I'm not going to bring religion into this, but I would appreciate some latitude in my discussion such that we might acknowlegde soul.  We are in what I would consider an epic struggle with ourselves whether we will allow ourselves to dismiss our involvement with torture.  It is unbelievable the propositions are being made to excuse this horrific practice.  In the quest to expand "private enterprise" and dismantle government being waged by some, we have allowed a business to develop providing torture services.  Where is the outrage for that simple, obvious creation?  Where is the outrage that a security company is not providing defense, but offense in the name of private enterprises?  These companies, offering these kinds of services, should not exist in a civilized society.  Yet here they are.

People are parading their partisan loyalties to the detriment of their own humanity.  Defenders of these deplorable deeds stand up and are given respect for their declarations they did no wrong, it was a national emergency, when it is now clear it was not, still they perpetuate thier defense. 

It was on Rachel Maddow, a Janey-come-lately commentator, that the most critical piece of information has recently emerged.  Cheney was pushing torture to create false intel to support a war we had no good reason to initiate.  Info that never came.  Info that people knew would never come.  Why IS he a free man and why are we not demanding his arrest?  We have been so deluded by the MSM, that the people who held this info decided to make their news on Rachel Maddow, not CNN, none of the Big Three, and of course, not Fox.  For me, this is a sign of how far we have fallen, that our major networks are so distrusted, the newmakers avoid them.

Now we can relate all this to Rowan.  She shares with us so eloquently her experience coming out of a drugged state, the result of mismanged prescriptions.  She shares with us the flippant attitude of the providers, "Oh, we knew that might happen, we have a lot of other options though."  Because the abyssmal results were so horrible was dismissed as it was not unexpected.  But it is unacceptable!  Our present situation related to torture is unacceptable! 

There may come a day as a nation when we can lose the drugged trance we have been in as a people.  I feel that TPM is a place where we have escaped the trance to see how things are and to acknowledge they are unacceptable.  I hope the people of this nation can rise to the occassion and declare the same.  Is this really something we should reduce to a partisan issue, some political gotcha game?  The sooner Republicans admit that people in their party, leaders of their party, had abandoned any pretense of law and committed heinous acts, the sooner we will resume being human and we can recognize we are a community again.  We can disagree, but we will see things clearly and that will feel so amazing.  To know we share a commitment to a society that abhors torture, regardless of the situation, we will not torture, will surely open our hearts to each other.  Oh, yes, that would be a moment near to ecstasy I believe, and right now, we are not managing our pain very well as a people.

Thank you Rowan.  Your sharing your experience really opened up for me my desire for a feeling of freedom and clarity.  I am not encouraged that our politicans from either party will do this for us, but I will say, "Yes we can."  I want that!!! 

Image: Wordle.net

Coming upon a blank page for a writer is either a challenge or an opportunity. These days, at least for me, it presents more challenge than opportunity. The challenges are:

• I ask myself whether I have anything to say to the world today.
• I do not have a good sense of whom is my audience.
• Do I have too much to say, based on taking in too much information.
• I wonder whether I want to join the current buzz or change the subject.
• I sometimes feel as if I am repeating myself.
  
• Am I tired, or fresh enough to think well and avoid errors.
• What if I feel uninspired, dull or worried about boring my readers
  
• Writing is both objective and subjective. Which voice for this?
• Will I write about thoughts or feelings?
• Do I feel funny or serious?

Now to look for the opportunities. Are they possibly the other sides of the challenge coins?

• I often have things to say that are well-received.
• Site Meter can provide much info about who reads and why.
• Less time spent and easier work involves cutting back on news resources.
• Opportunity for better work means cutting out unproductive scanning and reading prep.
• The first efforts of the day could be spent on the most important platform.
• Inspiration always comes serendipitously. Writers cannot mandate it for themselves.
• Honesty and being authentic makes for freshness of ideas and perspective.
• Choosing the best voice means making a good match with the subject and with my mood.
• Writing about something about which I care pays off for me and for my readers.
• The opportunity remains to achieve great satisfaction from creativity.

My new blog is called "Behind the Links."

Carol Gee - Online Universe is the all-in-one home page for my websites.

Technorati tags: writing reading creativity blogging

Well it looks like the Australian and British news outlets are doing what they can to rub Obama's nose in the torture photo scandal. The UK Telegraph is reporting that Australian news channel SBS has published "new" photos  of detainee abuse that it obtained in 2006:

The shocking images of inmates in Iraq and Afghanistan were published just a day after the US president announced plans for a legal battle stop them ever being seen. They risked provoking renewed hostility in the Middle East as Mr Obama attempts to build bridges with the Islamic world. He is scheduled to make a major speech in Cairo on June 4 when he will launch his version of a plan to bring peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

One picture showed a prisoner hung up upside down while another showed a naked man smeared in excrement standing in a corridor with a guard standing menacingly in front of him. Another prisoner is handcuffed to the window frame of his cell with underpants pulled over his head. Others yet to be released reportedly show military guards threatening to sexually assault a detainee with a broomstick and hooded prisoners on transport planes with Playboy magazines opened to pictures of nude women on their laps. The images emerged from Australia yesterday where they were originally obtained by the channel SBS in 2006 in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal. They were not distributed around the world at the time but are now believed to be among those the president is trying to block.

The Telegraph also includes a slideshow of 16 of the images. While the images are billed as "new", I can recall seeing a number of them before. I guess it is not surprising that the conservative Telegraph has titled its slideshow "New outrage over Iraq prison abuse photographs" as part of its attempt to sensationalize this story just as Obama is preparing for his next major appearance in Egypt.

In a stunning revelation, it was revealed that (in)famous Talking Point Memo blogger, Arthurian scholar, and Fabian Socialist, Dickday is responsible for all waterboarding, and all other forms of torture allegedly, assertedly, and supposedly committed by the former Bush administration.

In a secret memo released today by the super-secret Republican Committee on Un-American Activities and Public Drunkenness, it was revealed that the reviled Day had an inclination that the Bush administration, who had kept America safe for eight-years except for a few minutes in September of 2001, may be torturing and causing other anguish, TWO FULL DAYS before the alleged briefing of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi by the alleged CIA. 

A Republican spokesman said that Day's complicity in the "enhanced interrogation" matter proves that the Bush administration did nothing wrong and that it's time to move on to more pressing matters like, gay marriage, abstinence, and does Hillery Clinton color her hair?

The information on Day was obtained by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) by using a wireless version of the Vulcan Mind Meld.  The warrantless meld was allegedly conducted by the, Leonard Nimoy. Nimoy allegedly was not available for comment.

Day is a rumored resident of Virginia Minnesota.  The peaceful townsfolk were purportedly horrified.  Inebriated, town drunk, Richard Day, (no relation) slurred, "Our town motto is, "Virginia Minnesota welcomes you!  The handshake still means something to us!," obviously that means nothing to...?  What did you say his name was?"  

In order to find out the location of Day, Fox News stalking producers kidnapped TPM founder, editor and publisher, Josh Marshall.  After a series of over 100 waterboardings administered by Fox personalities, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Ann Colter, Marshall would not reveal Day's IP address but did confess to the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, being the Zodiac killer, and that he was the actual writer of the movie, "Howard The Duck."  In frustration, Colter flashed Marshall as O'Reilly beat him with a luffa while screaming,  "We'll do it live!"

A young, naive Fox intern politely asked Marshall for the IP address which he readily gave up along with his Social Security and bank PIN number, as well as his dog Simon's favorite treat. 

The intern for their indiscretion will be made to stay up for 18 days watching the Fox Business Channel (FBC) and then subsequently will be fired.
 
 

Just curious.  Why isn't it a big joke the way former VP Cheney is going all over television and radio defending the Bush administration's actions with prisoners (desensitizing potential jurors) like it was when former Governor Blagojevich traveled across the networks defending his administration?  He was accused of trying to influence any potential jurors to his trial - remember?  Isn't that what Cheney and the GOP are doing right now?

I have to admit, I was one of those making fun of Blago.  In his defense however, he was a governor TWICE elected (which Cheney was not - he was nominated by Bush), the most recent being just a couple years ago.  So why was he laughed at when defending himself and Cheney is being taken seriously?

How many recorded interviews are out there showing how Cheney has been wrong nearly 95% of the time with respects to WMD, Iraq, Afghanistan, war, prisoners and even the economy, etc..  Why is he being listened to - when it was under his and Bush's administration that we experienced our worst ever terrorist attack?

Why aren't the media saying NO MORE Mr Cheney -- You don't know what you are talking about?  Anybody know?

While everyone is scoffing at the apparent ineptitude of the rethuglicans remember they are counting on winning by default in the future not on the strength of their lunacy.

While everyone is scoffing at the apparent ineptitude of the rethuglicans remember they are counting on winning by default in the future not on the strength of their lunacy.

On the issue of the latest torture pictures, many, if not most of the people whose opinions I normally value are going against me on this one. (Joan Walsh, Jonathan Turley, Rachel Maddow, Sen. Russ Feingold. . .)

But I believe Obama is doing exactly the right thing in withholding those pictures from public scrutiny. It's hardly "hiding evidence", as so many are suggesting. It's simply keeping them from being broadcast al over the world. The people who need to see those pictures have either already seen them or will see them. That's where "transparency" comes in. Because you and I and the other guy haven't seen them doesn't mean there's anything nefarious or even dishonest going on. Nor does it mean that Obama is going back on a promise.

There are thousands if not millions of items that we may never see because they're classified. As I see it, this is entirely a security issue. I do believe our military will be compromised if they're made public. The clamoring for viewing baffles me. What would it gain? What is it any of us needs to see? Isn't it enough that we know they're out there? Do we really need to see them over and over again, day after day, night after night, for weeks or months on end--knowing that the whole world is seeing them, too--including our enemies?

Jonathan Turley called Obama's decision not to release the new photos "Positively Orwellian".

Joan Walsh said Obama sounded "positively Rumsfeldian" when he announced that he would recommend not releasing the photos.

Janis Karpinski, the retired brigadier general formerly in charge of Abu Ghraib prison, told CNN today, "It is sad and tragic. The reversal will absolutely stir up more controversy than release of the photographs, causing an outpouring of rampant speculation -- What is the government hiding? Who are the people in the photographs? How awful can these new photos be? And worse."

She may be right concerning the speculation. We live in an age of information overload, where "news" is broadcast 24 hours a day, with the chance that the day's stories might be repeated 30 or more times. We could spend mountains of time speculating about what is in those photos, or we can spend days poring over the photos themselves. Or--here's a thought--we could get over the fact that we may not see the actual pictures any time soon and move on to the fact that it was Obama himself who released the OLC torture memos in what some might call a refreshing display of. . .transparency.

The fact that we know that thousands of these photos exist is sickening enough. People have been torturing in our name and have been obscenely, absurdly, photographing the acts. That is horrifying--but it's out there. President Obama hasn't swept that fact under the carpet.

There are many who say that we can't possibly get the same gut feelings--and thus the appropriate rage--from a written account of incidences of torture as we can from actual photographs or film. That's assuming that gut feelings and rage are the bottom line here. They're not. It's justice we're after, not a balm for our anger.

But the larger point is that, whether or not the public has a chance to view the new torture photographs, nothing is going to change.

Obama either will or will not pursue the prosecution of American war criminals. (Something I'm all for.)

His administration either will or will not actually change policy concerning confinement, interrogation and torture. (A necessary step if we're ever to hold our heads up again.)

And culpable members of the Bush Administration may or may not get their comeuppance.

Sam Stein wrote a piece yesterday in The Huffington Post quoting an ACLU lawyer who spoke on Fox News (Really? ACLU? Fox News? Together??) about the president's decision to stop the release of the photos. Jameel Jaffer said, "These photographs are critical to the historical record so it is very disappointing... that the administration is going to try and suppress them."

I haven't heard from anyone that the pictures will never be made available. To use the "historical record" argument as a reason to release such inflammatory pictures during a time of war is disingenuous.

Stein also quotes an "anonymous White House aide":

"The President would be the last to excuse the actions depicted in these photos. That is why the Department of Defense investigated these cases, and why individuals have been punished through prison sentences, discharges, and a range of other punitive measures. But the President strongly believes that the release of these photos, particularly at this time, would only serve the purpose of inflaming the theaters of war, jeopardizing US forces, and making our job more difficult in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. "

There is no real indication that Obama is going to sweep the wartime abuses of the Bush Administration under the carpet. There is no evidence that any of that information, including the photos, will be destroyed. We've already begun to have congressional hearings concerning the use of torture in American military prisons. (What Went Wrong: Torture and the Office of Legal Counsel in the Bush Administration)

Matthew Alexander, leader of the Zarqawi interrogation team in 2006 and author of "How to Break a Terrorist", gave written testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, explaining how useless torture really is. Ali Soufan, a former FBI special agent involved in interrogations, spoke behind a screen at that same hearing, saying basically the same thing.

Get some perspective, please. And be honest. We don't need to see those actual photographs in order to get a good picture of prisoner abuses perpetrated in our name. The evidence is surfacing daily and the word is getting out. New witnesses keep coming forward, new memos keep popping up. So how is that happening? It's happening because we finally have a government in place that understands the need for honesty and transparency.

But there are still responsibilities associated with the release of information regarding our actions. Those photos won't tell us anything we don't already know.

(Cross-posted at Ramona's Voices)

This came out last night and I attached it to my previous post, but I think it bears some discussion in regards to the whole torture photo release issue. David Axelrod was interviewed by Jim Lehrer. Here is a partial transcript:

JIM LEHRER: Now to our interview with David Axelrod. I spoke with him earlier this evening from the White House Briefing Room.

David Axelrod, welcome.

DAVID AXELROD, senior adviser to President Obama: Thanks, Jim. Good to be with you.

JIM LEHRER: Thank you. On the detainee abuse photos, how does the president's opposition to releasing them, to making them public, square with his positions on transparency and public disclosure?

DAVID AXELROD: Well, Jim, his positions on transparency and public disclosure are strong and well known, but they don't -- they're not without limit.

When he believes that the release of materials may jeopardize the national security, then he's going to make that case. In this case, his concern is that the release of the photos from acts that happened years ago will serve to inflame the situation now and endanger our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. And that's something he's not inclined to do.

JIM LEHRER: And on what is that based? Why does he believe that it will inflame these folks in Iraq and Afghanistan?

DAVID AXELROD: Well, obviously, the photos are provocative. We've seen them, photos like them the past. They've had an inflammatory effect. They were used by our opponents and al-Qaida as propaganda tools and recruiting devices. And so we don't want to go back there again.

JIM LEHRER: Have you seen these photographs, as well as the president?

DAVID AXELROD: I've seen some of the photographs.

JIM LEHRER: You agree that they would be inflammatory?

DAVID AXELROD: Well, I think the president has made the right decision. And his first responsibility is to protect the safety of our troops and to protect the country. He's making the decision on that basis.

My fundamental understanding from the president is that he feels strongly that this would have a deleterious effect on our troops, that it would put them in jeopardy, and he wants to pursue all legal avenues to prevent their release at this time...

JIM LEHRER: Did Vice President Cheney's criticism of President Obama and saying that he's jeopardizing the safety of the country have any influence on this decision of President Obama?

DAVID AXELROD: Absolutely not. Believe me, I've been with the president as he speaks about these issues, and he's got one thing on his mind, which is to make the right decision for the troops, for the country, for our national security. I don't think he's worried about comments from the sidelines by anybody.

JIM LEHRER: For the record, there's no concern among the president and his advisers such as you about what Vice President Cheney's been saying about President Obama?

DAVID AXELROD: I don't have any concerns at all. I mean, the vice president has his own motivations, whatever they may be. He is free to offer his opinions.

But the president has responsibilities, and he's going to discharge those responsibilities through his best judgment, regardless of what the vice president has to say.

JIM LEHRER: On the photos, is the president prepared to take this all the way -- it's now in a federal appeals court. If he loses in that case, is he going to go to the Supreme Court with it?

DAVID AXELROD: Well, let's see what happens, Jim. But my fundamental understanding from the president is that he feels strongly that this would have a deleterious effect on our troops, that it would put them in jeopardy, and he wants to pursue all legal avenues to prevent their release at this time, which is a sensitive time in both Iraq and Afghanistan. So, you know, I expect that he will pursue all legal avenues.

One of the key comments made by Axelrod is his qualifier about releasing the photos "at this time", a statement he makes twice in the interview. The second instance being "to prevent their release at this time, which is a sensitive time in both Iraq and Afghanistan."

Considering the rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, and the recent suicide bombings in Irag after what seemed like a period of quiet, is it difficult to imagine that the release of more torture photos right now could contribute to inflaming an already tenuous situation? Is it not Obama's job to take these things into consideration?

I have a hard to believing that the release of more graphic torture images would not be sensationalized by the world media, that they wouldn't be used to ramp up a new wave of Anti-American sentiment, and that our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan wouldn't be the frontline targets for a new backlash.

It seems that there are many here at TPM that just can't imagine the situation, or the anti-American feelings shared by some (or many) in the Muslim world as possibly getting worse. But you know what? It can always get worse.

We are on our way out of Iraq, why add fuel to a fire that has died down. Afghanistan is unraveling, the Taliban is threatening Pakistan, and we are trying to keep the whole the whole thing from disintegrating into complete chaos. Is now the best time to hand out a fresh round of anti-American recruitment posters to the people who are shooting at our troops every day over there right now as you are reading this?

Maybe you're not worried about putting the troops in greater danger, but it is, after all, Obama's job as Comander-in-Chief to be concerned about such things. Is your judgement, based on the information available to you, superior to his, based on the information available to him? 

So what's the problem with not releasing those photos "at this time"? Aren't the photos we've seen enough evidence of widespread corruption and abuse? Aren't 100 photos of torture and a mountain of evidence enough? Does one need to see 1,000 more to really be convinced of the evil and crimes committed under Bush/Cheney?

"But, but, but," you argue, "these photos will be the final push that leads to prosecutions. The others weren't good enough. These are the photos that will really make Americans mad and then they will scream for the heads of Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld. But of course, they won't make anyone else mad, and the notion that this could present a real and present danger to the troops, well, that's just nonsense, the same old cover-up excuse."

Yeah...right.

Update:

Attorney General Eric Holder appeared before Congress yesterday and reiterated the same position:

The United States' attorney general has said he is prepared to go to court to prevent the release of scores of photos reportedly documenting prisoner abuse by US troops. Eric Holder's remarks to US congress on Thursday came a day after Barack Obama, the US president, said he would move to block the court-ordered release of the photos.

Holder told the US house judiciary committee that Obama's reversal of his original decision not to oppose their release was because he feared a backlash against US troops serving in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan. "The president consulted with the generals on the ground and made the determination that the release of those photos would endanger our troops," he said.

"The concern was the release of those photos could have a negative impact on the situation both in Iraq and in Afghanistan and I think the president as commander in chief ... thought that the posture he has now put us in was the better one."

 

Krauthammer's skin seems a little thin these days.  He's now called Froomkin out by name on the op-ed page.  Must be fun around the water cooler.

By now, you've seen the statement by Speaker Pelosi regarding the briefings. In it, she leads by referencing her Human Rights work.

Here is what I've told AI and HRW:

Greetings...

During her statement on May 14, 2009, Nancy Pelosi referenced her work on Human Rights and as an opponent of torture.

Her website has this brief blurb:

"Pelosi has long been an advocate for human rights around the world. She has fought to improve China's human rights record, attempting to tie trade to increased human rights standards. She has also been a leader on efforts to free the people of Tibet."

In short, if Nancy Pelosi is a worker on behalf of Human Rights then your organization owes it not just to Speaker Pelosi but to all victims of torture to speak up, loudly and as often as necessary, on her behalf; which, I must remind you, is to speak on behalf of torture victims. If Speaker Pelosi has been their advocate in America, your organization must be her advocate now.

This is something your organization must do if Speaker Pelosi's record is that of a worker for Human Rights.

The insurance industry.  Don't these groups have fiduciary obligations to be prudent?  And what strings are attached?

Lately a few Progressive bloggers have been celebrating resistance to Obama’s flipflop about the Panama Free-Trade Agreement as an example of forcing Obama to honor his campaign promises…

As I noted before, such change moves at a glacial pace, but it is moving.

Although it’s obviously true that Progressive reform is moving “at a glacial pace,” it’s also true that some other very significant entities aren’t…

For example, glaciers aren’t moving “at a glacial pace” any more. Glaciers are melting away like fucking jack-rabbits, while the Progressive Caucus moves its agenda along “at a glacial pace,” and Obama’s ludicrously weak climate legislation likewise.

So maybe it’s time to dream up a new cliché to replace “at a glacial pace,” because glaciers will probably disappear before any effective climate legislation is passed by Obama and the Democratic Congress, and it won’t make much sense to talk about something traveling “at a glacial pace” when there’s no such thing as a glacier!

My suggestion for a replacement would be “at a Progressive pace,” because the Progressive agenda is now the slowest moving thing in the Universe (if it’s moving at all).

It appears Zelikow and others suspect there are secret DOJ OLC memos which authorized abuses against American civilians on American soil.

Zelikow reasons (paraphrasing, text added):

If the CIA program passed legal muster under the DOJ OLC, then a similar program would pass Constitutional muster in the US against American citizens (to possibly include abuse, humiliation, and violation of privacy rights).

Read more »

OBAMA:

After such knowledge, what forgiveness?

 

ACLU:

Virtues

Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.

President Obama's recent decision to try to continue to withhold from public view photographs of detainee abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan was based on the conclusion that the consequences of the release of the photos "would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in greater danger."

This is a classic "national security" rationale.  We can't reveal the truth because it would put Americans in danger.  And that is the same rationale that led the Bush administration to assert the "state secrets" doctrine in civil suits by detainees against officials of the United States for violations of human rights (see, for example, El-Masri v. Tenet, ___ F.3rd ___, No. 06-1667 (4th Cir. 3/2/2007)) and is one the rationales still used by former Bush officials to argue against the disclosure of further details of the "harsh interrogation" methods approved by the Bush administration.

But what is being kept secret?  That detainees were abused has already been admitted, and those directly committing the abuses have been tried and convicted (but not those ordering the abuses).  And the detainees who were abused know that they were abused, and how they were abused.  So why try to keep a secret that everyone already knows?

During the Vietnam War, I remember reading about the "secret bombing" of Cambodia, and remember reading one commentator who asked from whom the bombing was a secret.  The Cambodians obviously knew they were being bombed, and knew who was bombing them.  The bombings were not being kept a "secret" from our enemy, but were being kept a secret from the American public and from world opinion.  As long as our government called it a "secret," they could publicly pretend it wasn't happening.

The detainees obviously know that they were abused, and they are free to speak of their abuse, so they are free to "further inflame anti-American opinion."  Under those circumstances, the only reason to withhold the photos is to deny the detainees some level of credibility.  We can still pretend that it wasn't that bad, or that widespread, and we can still hope that the former detainees won't be believed or won't be listened to.

In short, we don't want anyone else to see the photos because we are still in denial.

It is said that confession is good for the soul of the confessor, and it is also said that victims of crimes can begin to heal and forgive the perpetrator when the victims can hear a confession of guilt and regret.

We abused detainees physically and, judging by the photos I've seen what was done at Abu Ghraib, we humiliated them and took away their dignity.  Now we want to continue to withhold part of their dignity, because we want to deny them a public admission and public proof of what happened to them.  We want to ignore the detainees and we want the world to ignore them as well.

The best way to reduce anti-American passions is through humility, not secrecy.  We need to disclose, we need to be contrite, and we need to punish those who gave the orders.  In other words, we need to show that we are really serious when we say that this will not happen again.

Well rather than drift into fiction, Obey and I had a little discussion and I am delving into the Office of Legal Counsel today. Well after a brief scanning of the material from Wiki to Emptywheel (introduced to me by TheraP and her countless commenters lately) and back to some previous blogs here goes.

There is a Constitutional Amendment relevant here:

Amendment VIII

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Originally this Amendment only applied to Federal Action but per the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause, it now applies to any government action.

Where to begin? According to Emptywheel there were several memos published by the OLC beginning in late 2001:

November 20, 2001: John Yoo to Alberto Gonzales, on "War Crimes Act, Hague Convention, Geneva Conventions, federal criminal code, and detainee treatment"

January 11, 2002: John Yoo to Alberto Gonzales, on the Geneva Conventions

January 14, 2002: John Yoo to William Taft, on prosecution under the War Crimes Act for conduct against al Qaeda

January 22, 2002: Jay Bybee and John Yoo to Alberto Gonzales, concluding the Geneva Conventions do not apply to al Qaeda

January 24, 2002: John Yoo to Alberto Gonzales, on the Geneva Conventions

January 24, 2002: John Yoo to Larry Thompson, on the application of international law to the US.

January 26, 2002: John Yoo to Larry Thompson, on the Geneva Conventions

I found some other memos at http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/documents/memostatusolcopinions01152009.pdf We do not have all the memos yet. Other memos after August 1, 2002 can be had here http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/olc_memos.html. Some are not in the public sphere so to speak. But we do have a fifty-page memo issued by the OLC dated August 1, 2002 entitled: Memorandum for Alberto Gonzales, Counsel to the President Re: Standards of Conduct for Interrogation under 18 U.S.C. Sections  2340-2340A. I would like to center on this epic journey.

Now before I get into this 'Bybee Memo" as they like to describe it, we learn a couple of things right from the get-go. First the OLC is headed by Bybee, and the memo is addressed to the Counsel to the President (Gonzo).  Second, there appears to be a need to recognize that there are standards for interrogation.  Pretty good huh? I mean it is not like we are starting with a blank slate here; I mean we have standards for this type of stuff.

Certain important issues were supposed to be determined by this combined effort by OLC (headed by Bybee) in this great brief. You see, everybody seemed to already know that it was against the law to torture people in the United States. Whew!! Boy that gives one pause to exhale, huh?

So some of our geniuses who were running the country at the time decided it might be a good idea to take detainees elsewhere, outside the United States and maybe they could get away with things in those locations that they could not get away with here. You might be surprised to hear that GTMO is not part of the U.S. I am sure Fidel is relieved. And of course Abu Ghraibi is not either. Another issue might relate to those 'detainees'. (You know language is so important. 'Accused' evidently does not work because OJ and Madoff were accused. 'Defendant' gives you some idea that the individual is a party in some criminal proceeding and since nobody has been charged with a crime, well? What's a mother to do? But 'detainee' has a real ring to it, does it not? I mean, I might be detained by the police if it appears that I was a witness to an accident or a crime.  You know

Stay, just a little bit longer

Oh wont you stayyyyyy,

Just a little bit more, dodododododododo (thanks to Valee)

Detainee. Kind of like a refugee, ya know? It is almost like we are helping a detainee. Do you not think? Giving them housing, and feeding them and asking them to be of help while we sort things out. Oh well.)

The other issue with detainees, is what if we decide to give the detainee a vacation of sorts. Like Turkey or Syria or some other great historic place?  I mean what those governments do with our detainees, who is to say?

But here is the problem. Sections 2340-2340 makes it illegal for Americans to torture people outside of the United States under 'color of law'.  That is, our soldiers, our civilian employees cannot torture people outside of the United States and basically the problem is that if you do violate 2340-2340A you could be fined and sentenced to up to twenty years in prison. So you do not wish to be naughty and get caught screwin' with this statute.

And besides the 2340 problem (kind of like WD40, huh?) there seems to be problems with certain treaties we signed a while back like those known as the Geneva Conventions. Like the Federal Statutes, the Conventions outlaw torture also by our government or 'under color of law'.

Here goes: As we understand it, the question has arisen in the context of the conduct of interrogations outside of the U.S. We conclude that Section 2340 proscribes acts inflicting and that are specifically intended to inflict severe pain and suffering, whether mental or physical.  Thos acts must be of an extreme nature to rise to the level of torture within the meaning of ..(the statute)

We further conclude that certain acts may be cruel, inhumane and degrading but still not produce pain and suffering...as proscribed ...(by statute)

(But physical pain is the same as) pain accompanying serious physical injury such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death. Pure mental pain or suffering must be of a significant duration of months or even years.

 

Finally, OLC concludes that even if the statute is breached the torturer may be exculpated on the basis of necessity or self defense.

So at least the OLC decided that Section 2340 applies. I feel better. Don't you? But you can see, even without going through the fifty pages that we will ultimately be faced with the issue: It depends upon what the meaning of 'is' is.

First it must be determined that the torture inflicted severe pain and suffering whether physical or mental.  But how are we to determine what constitutes severe pain and suffering from a physical standpoint. Well, did the guy lose an organ. I mean that is a good test.

I mean, if the guy ends up losing a lung or a kidney...hey we just went too far.

Or, if there has been an impairment of a bodily function. I mean if the poor guy shits in a bag following his 'detention' something went awry.

Death, now there is a clear boundary.  I mean, if you actually killed the guy, well gees, I mean the statute has been breached.

But wait a gosh darn minute. I mean, if the torturer did not mean to do it. If the torturer had no intent to kill the arab bastard, well, mistakes are made sometimes. And if there has been no intent to do these things, well, I mean 'shit happens'!

The psychological issues are really not addressed. I mean in the main body psychological issues are discussed but its gobbledygook. I mean, TheraP has already laid out problems with the professional whores hired by the government--because the real psychologists quit--and how hired guns tend to defend the turf of the payor.  So the memo addresses only the issue of duration with regard to psychological harm. I aint touchin that. No need. Its ridiculous.

Somehow, during the reading of this memo and the articles, the picture of Senator McCain coming back from Viet Nam keeps haunting me.  Those dirty commies. I wonder if McCain lost an organ? He obviously did not die. And what was the duration of his psychological harm after being held without charges for years upon years?  I know he went through a divorce following his captivity.

Now there is an issue that attorneys should be aware of in this process of creating memos relating to any issue of consequence. Remember in elementary school where the teacher has the student in the front row on the right whisper to his or her classmate some fact. And then the second classmate whispers  the fact to he person to her left and so on and so on. Until the last student is asked to stand and repeat the 'message'. Well the message as delivered by the last student is not the one delivered by the first student.

Empty wheel discusses this by noting Bybee's description of proper waterboarding:

By: emptywheel Tuesday April 21, 2009 8:11 pm

0 diggs  digg it

Finally, you would like to use a technique called the "waterboard" in this procedure, the individual is bound securely to an inclined bench, which is approximately four feet by seven feet. The individual's feet are generally elevated. A cloth is placed over the forehead and eyes. Water is then applied to the cloth in a controlled manner. As this is done, the cloth is lowered until it covers both the nose and mouth. Once the cloth is saturated and completely covers the mouth and nose, air flow is slightly restricted for 20 to 40 seconds due to the presence of the cloth. This causes an increase in carbon dioxide level in the individual's blood. This increase in the carbon dioxide level stimulates increased effort to breathe. This effort plus the cloth produces the perception of"suffocation and incipient panic," i.e., the perception of drowning. The individual does not breathe any water into his lungs. During those 20 to 40 seconds, water is continuously applied from a height of twelve to twenty-four inches. After this period, the cloth is lifted, and the individual is allowed to breathe unimpeded for three or four full breaths. The sensation of drowning is immediately relieved by the removal of the cloth. The procedure may then be repeated. The water is usually applied from a canteen cup or small watering can with a spout.

Now, as SASC describes it, the JPRA document didn't describe waterboarding as it used to be done in Navy training. 

JPRA's description of the waterboarding technique provided in that first attachment was inconsistent in key respects from the U.S. Navy SERE school's description of waterboarding. According to the Navy SERE school's operating instructions, for example, while administering the technique, the Navy limited the amount of water poured on a student's face to two pints. However, the JPRA attachment said that "up to 1.5 gallons of water" may be poured onto a "subject's face." While the Navy's operating instructions dictated that "[n]o effort will be made to direct the stream of water into the student's nostrils or mouth," the description provided by JPRA contained no such limitation for subjects ofthe technique. While the Navy limited the use ofthe cloth on a student's face to twenty seconds, the JPRA's description said only that the cloth should remain in place for a "short period of time." And while the Navy restricted anyone from placing pressure on the chest or stomach during the administration of this technique, JPRA's description included no such limitation for subjects of the technique. [my emphasis]

In other words, JPRA was advising waterboarding to be used in torture to use six times the amount of water as that used in training, and JPRA eliminated the 20 second limit on waterboarding.

I mean, sometimes stuff gets lost in translation.

The next issue relates to the pride that these people at OLC had in their work. Take Addington. He has testified as to his part in these memos. Basically, he is not sure what part he may or may have had in the creation of these memos.

By: emptywheel Saturday May 2, 2009 1:24 pm

When I read the transcript from the House Judiciary Committee's Assholes Who Torture hearing after the torture memos got released, one thing became clear. Addington was hiding his involvement with the Bybee Two memo (about techniques) by answering questions only about Bybee One.

Twice during the hearing, David Addington answered a question about the  Bybee One memo (abstract authorization for torture--which had been declassified long before this hearing), but made sure to clarify in the record that his answer pertained specifically to that memo. This suggests his answers may have been dramatically different had he been asked about the Bybee Two memo (concrete techniques--the one released last month). If I'm right, it suggests that Addington discussed the Bybee Two memo on his September 25, 2002 field trip to Gitmo with John Yoo, Jim Haynes, and John Rizzo (and others). 

And I always thought old Addington was a stand-up guy. Go ahead and read his responses to the committee's inquiries.  Jesus! (Blesses himself)  See, there are so many memos created on so many dates, nobody remembers anything.  Listening to  Addington is like listening to an ANGRY Gonzo:

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. On any of the trips, did you discuss interrogation methods that were directly referenced in the memo that we have been discussing here for this hearing?

Mr. ADDINGTON. I am not sure I remember this memo having methods discussed in it, frankly. [my emphasis]

So Wasserman Schultz asks more generally about whether Addington recommended methods, which puts Addington into full Gonzolesque "I don't recall" mode.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Did you discuss specific types of interrogation methods that interrogators should use while at Guantanamo Bay on the detainees?

Mr. ADDINGTON. I don't recall doing that, no.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. That means you didn't or you don't recall doing it?

Mr. ADDINGTON. It means I don't recall doing it, as I said.

So how eskewed were these attorneys in their approach to their positions at OLC?

Well today at The Daily Beast, Scott Horton has this to say:

The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility has completed a 220-page report looking into possible ethics violations by Jay S. Bybee, John C. Yoo, and Steven G. Bradbury--the three principal authors of the Bush administration's legal memoranda that gave a green light to the use of classic torture techniques such as waterboarding, sleep deprivation of up to 11 days, hypothermia, and "walling," (slamming a prisoner's head against a wall). The completed report was circulated to Bybee, Yoo, and Bradbury for comment, and was also provided to CIA Acting General Counsel John Rizzo, the addressee of some of the memos. According to one Justice source who has read the report, its conclusions are "devastating" and raise grave doubts about the memo writers' claims to have given the issues presented their best legal analysis. The report sharply criticizes the quality of the legal work contained in the memoranda, and suggests that the lawyers who wrote these memos failed to exercise the independent judgment and professionalism that they owed their clients. The report suggests that some of the memos may have been created as part of an after-the-fact attempt to provide legal cover for conduct that was recognized as potentially criminal. The report also recommends that at least two of the memo writers be referred to bar associations for disciplinary measures--which might include a reprimand, suspension, or disbarment. Bar disciplinary panels rarely mete out severe sanctions to lawyers for mistakes made in connection with legal opinions, but they also tend to give deference to conclusions made by the Justice Department when it is reviewing its own personnel.

If the Justice Department's own internal probe concludes that the memos were not created in good faith, then the last roadblock to a criminal investigation would be removed.

The New York Times reports that the OPR report recommends against criminal charges, but Justice sources with whom I spoke disputed the accuracy of the Times' report on this point. They noted that while it might be literally true that the OPR report did not recommend criminal action, that follows from OPR's jurisdiction, which covers only ethics matters and a fairly narrow area of criminal law directly associated with professional ethics. The ethics office would therefore not be expected to make recommendations about criminal charges. They note that the OPR report's factual conclusions and recommendations will be passed to Attorney General Eric Holder and will be weighed by him in connection with pending requests for a criminal investigation. At present, Holder has three options: to assign the matter to a U.S. attorney, to appoint a special counsel (as Congressmen John Conyers and Jerrold Nadler and Senators Patrick Leahy and Carl Levin have requested), or to decide that no criminal probe is appropriate. If Holder elects to open a criminal investigation, then the OPR report and underlying investigative materials would be provided to the prosecutor handling the matter. The prosecutor would be free to pursue the case as appropriate--possibly including the development of criminal charges involving the OLC lawyers. If the factual account is as described, it will add to the pressure on Holder to appoint a special counsel to address the matter.

Well, I think that by now, if the reader is still with me, you can see how this entire matter will be written in 500 page summaries by people of note. I am not a lawyer. I have not been an attorney for ten years. Nor do I wish to be.

But in a previous blog I noted that you could find a decision written by a Federal District Court over the last 200 years that could be used to support any position you would like to defend. On any subject. And if you read the August 1, 2002 memo, you will find FDC's all over the place.

In another blog that I cannot find right now, I also noted that Yoo once declared in a memo that the Eighth Amendment proscriptions did not apply to individuals who have not been charged with a crime. Which is ridiculous on its face and would merit an 'F' in any nationally recognized law school.

I am very interested in reading the OPR report that has been touted for at least two months.

THE END

It's time to revisit the issue of Cheney's Energy Task Force Meetings.  Cheney and his associates and relatives are working hard to shape the focus of the debate on the torture issue to one of national security, yet details are slowly coming out which clearly indicate an obsession with tying Saddam Hussein's Iraq to Bin Laden despite all evidence and logic to the contrary at the time.  If in fact our Congress does find that the torture issues come to full-scale special prosecutor recommendations, then any minutes preserved from these meetings must be scrutinized and made an essential part of the investigation into why the administration was so obsessed with Iraq.  This is especially relevant in light of Cheney's association with PNAC and their stated goals with regards to oil and the Middle East.

A new energy-neutral super efficient twenty acre greenhouse (Picture Credit: LA Times/Anne Cusak )

Are Super-Greenhouses the future of farming...?

The LA Times has a nice peice on the new trend in large scale hi-tech greenhouses.

This fledgling movement to grow food crops in closed, sustainable environments could become as revolutionary to farming in the 21st century as California's development of massive farms was in the 20th, agriculture experts say.

The plants, which are fed individually through tubing that looks like intravenous hospital equipment, produce 20 times more fruit per acre than in conventional field production.

Virtually nothing is wasted in this ecosystem. Workers have dug a four-acre pond to store rainwater and runoff. This water, along with condensation, is collected, filtered and recirculated back to each of the 20-acre greenhouses. That has cut water use to less than one-fifth of that required in conventional field cultivation. Fertilizer use has been reduced by half. There are no herbicides and almost no pesticides, and there is no dust.

Five-acres of photovoltaic solar cells supply much of the electricity to run pumps and climate controls. Thermal systems collect solar heat and warehouse refrigeration exhaust to warm the greenhouses on cool evenings. Together, the two systems generate 2.1 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 1,500 homes.

This is going to be the future.  Looks like they're going up in the northeast too.  Greenhouses seem ideal, but left unanswered is, will dropping nutrient values continue to be a problem?

Imagine the surprise of going online and discovering that the vitamin and mineral content of vegetables has drastically dropped.

That's what happened to nutritionist, Alex Jack, when he went to check out the latest US Department of Agriculture food tables. The stunning revelation came after Jack compared recently published nutrient values with an old USDA handbook he had lying around. Some of the differences in vitamin and mineral content were enormous-a 50% drop in the amount of calcium in broccoli, for example. Watercress down 88% in iron content; cauliflower down 40% in vitamin C content-all since 1975.

What is the likely explanation?  You'd think this would be a major area for concern but noone knows for sure.  There are theories of course, and they do make sense:

This information on nutritional decline and selective breeding is nothing new to agricultural researchers and scientists. Science journals began publishing writings on nutritional decline over 20 years ago. A 1981 review in "Advances in Agronomy" discussed the widely cited "dilution effect," in which yield-enhancing methods like fertilization and irrigation may decrease nutrient concentrations, an environmental dilution effect. Recently, evidence has emerged that genetically based increases in yield may have the same result, a genetic dilution effect. An explanation of exactly what happens in genetically engineered dilution effects may be helpful. Over many years of using yield potential as the dominant criterion in developing improved varieties, while average yields have risen, plant root systems have not been able to keep pace in drawing more needed micronutrients from the soil. When breeders selectively breed for one resource, using a selected trait like yield, fewer resources remain for other plant functions as the study explains.

Either way, modern crops that grow larger and faster are not necessarily able to acquire nutrients at the same, faster rate, whether by synthesis or from the soil.

I hope someone is or plans on testing these super-productive greenhouse crops for mineral content.  In the future are we going to get high-yield supercrops with little nutritional value?  And what are the other hidden drawbacks?  Anyone know?

Stay Tuned... 

Red Cross

See Woman Accused in Rendition Case Sues for Immunity,
by Scott Shane for the New York Times, May 14

A former American official charged with kidnapping in Italy in the 2003 seizure of a radical Muslim cleric filed a lawsuit on Wednesday seeking to force the State Department to invoke diplomatic immunity to halt the prosecution.

The Italians say Sabrina De Sousa is CIA, and was involved in the Feb. 2003 rendition of Abu Omar and want to prosecute her for it. She says she's not CIA and wasn't involved, swears she was a diplomat and is willing to sue in U.S. district court over it.  Scott Shane apparently found some "former agency officials" who told him that she had worked for the CIA.

Ms. De Sousa is suing the State Department because

"The government sent me to Italy to represent this country and then basically abandoned me." Ms. De Sousa called it "inexplicable" that the government had not invoked diplomatic immunity. "I'm still at a loss as to why this country is allowing the case to head toward conviction," she said.

Then there's this fishy response Shane got:

State Department officials declined to comment, noting that the case is at a highly sensitive stage. In March, Italy's Constitutional Court ruled that Italian prosecutors had violated state secrecy in gathering evidence in the case, and it is uncertain whether the prosecution will continue.

But the State Department officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, that they had been very active and "are pursuing every avenue to try to bring this case to a satisfactory resolution." They noted that most of the alleged officers charged in the rendition were not under diplomatic cover and would not qualify for immunity.

Legal experts said that intelligence officers serving under diplomatic cover often claim immunity when facing criminal charges overseas. But Curtis A. Bradley, a Duke law professor specializing in international law, cautioned that "consular immunity," the category that presumably would apply to Ms. De Sousa, was limited by treaty to "acts performed in the exercise of consular functions."

If she is CIA, is she angry about being made to take a fall for someone? If she's not, are they using her as a sacrificial lamb? The State Dept. anonymouse statement that the case is "at a highly sensitive stage" certainly suggests something or someone is being protected. I imagine they are not happy at the prospect of the American judicial system now being involved.  Maybe just dirty laundry could be exposed, maybe something much bigger?

I am going to try to follow the news updates in comments on this thread if I have time--participation by others welcome.

 

 

In this video President Obama implies that he does not want to risk the failure of getting a Healthcare Reform Bill at the expense of ideological purity. He states that if we were starting from scratch he understands that the Single Payer Healthcare insurance would be preferable and that given that healthcare is 1/6th of our economy that we probably could not make that drastic transition.

We should stand with the President on this issue under one and only one condition. If the bill includes a public option that any citizen has the ability to join irrespective of preexisting conditions or current employer provided plan. The reason we can accept this compromise is that ultimately the mathematics of the Single Payer Government option (public option) will ultimately effect a transition of most citizens to the public plan simply based on the cost.

Visit: http://SinglePayerHealthcareNow.com

Once again the US Media has gotten the story wrong and missed the point.  It isn't about the 9/11 terrorists -- it is about Abu Ghraib!  I still remember the day I found out about Abu Ghraib, I was in the US Air Force and I wore my uniform with a great deal of shame on that day, and for weeks afterward.  I was surprised by how many of my fellow service members felt pride and joy at the news, it was deeply disturbing.

Think back to how you felt on September 12, 2001.  Anyone in US custody that was involved in planning or carrying out that attack deserves what they got.  These people are not protected by the Geneva Conventions.  Torture is not an effective way to get information from these people, but who really cares if Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was tortured?

The big story here is that this torture was allowed to creep into the US military and undermine respect for the Geneva Conventions.  It led to illegal treatment of innocent civilians in an illegal war.  US Soldiers willingly and enthusiastically promoted a reign of terror and torture over the detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison.  It is a fundamental failing in the US military command structure, yet only a few enlisted people actually served jail time.  The whole story of Abu Ghraib has never been widely told and it was probably much worse than we were led to believe, especially if you believe Seymour Hersh.

The big story here is that Bush and Cheney are directly responsible for the horrific treatment of innocent people in the name of every US Citizen.  I may have missed it, but I have yet to see a single report linking these two concepts.

In the 8/1/2002 memo to then Counsel to the President Alberto Gonzales signed by Jay Bybee, Bybee starts his discussion of "severe pain" (which is part of the definition of "torture" in federal law, 18 U.S.C. 2340), with a brief discussion of the "ordinary or natural meaning" of "severe pain" with reference to several dictionary definitions of "severe."  The discussion concludes with the statement that "the adjective 'severe' conveys that the pain or suffering must be of such a high level of intensity that the pain is difficult for the subject to endure."

If the memorandum had continued with a discussion of what is meant by "difficult for the subject to endure," it might have been a good memorandum.  But instead the memorandum wandered off into a kind of legal sophistry.  Let's not wander off now, but instead look at what kind of pain might be "difficult for the subject to endure."

Read more »

On July 4, 2002, my daughter was born prematurely; premature enough to leave her with severe head bleeds and left her left side to be, to this day, difficient of muscle/motor control.  She wears a leg splint and a hand splint.

When I entered her into a local Catholic school two years ago, I was astounded at how small the class size was, but other than that, it reminded me of the Catholic schools I too had grown up with.  I also was taken aback at just how much a Catholic education costs.  But I wanted the best for her.

After the first year, I became involved in PTO meetings, I attended assemblies, and I joined the local church, as did my family of four.  We made mass every week, attended RCIA education on Sunday mornings, and prepared for my children to be baptized, as I was at their age.

Honestly, it sucked having to get up so early on Sunday mornings to listen to people explain the precepts of the church to the incoming members.  But my wife wanted to become Catholic, so I rolled with it.  I made some nice aquaintences along the way, and felt like I was setting my family on strong solid footing.

We became very close to a nun there, had her over for dinner, went to Catholic Couples outings with the priest, etc.

My wife completed her RCIA training as if she were a young padawan, eager to fight the Empire. 

Her baptism would be on the midnight Easter service, a beautiful event which I had a personal nostalgia for, and I told her how I remembered mine.  We became closer as a family.

Then one week before her baptism, she was nonchalantly informed that the reason her name was not on the list was because, though we had been a couple for ten years, and had a child, and gone through a year of RCIA--we had never actually been married, so she would not be receiving the sacrament of baptism.  We were "living in sin."  I felt guilt, anger, and sympathy for my better half, and knew somehow it had been my fault for not knowing.  It was something I thought we could work out, but it wasn't.  Oh well.

Then, about six months later, we noticed my daughter was having alot of issues at school.

We are both involved parents, and made several visits with her teacher.  She was well aware of the deficits my daughter had due to her prematurity, and so we came up with extra-curricular activities to help her improve.

Then she started coming home with a strange attitude.  Then with unexplainable marks on her arms.

The teacher had also become strangely short-tempered at times.  Our dealings with her became slowly more and more uneasy.

When our daughter told us how her teacher had hit her, and showed us how hard, we acted immediately.  We contacted her principal, who in turn questioned the teacher.  The call back was one of irritation and annoyance from the principal. 

The teacher denied that while the other kids were out at recess, she had hit the hand that my daughter recieves Physical therapy for, a hand she can barely open.  We had to remove her from the situation of course.

No calls from our "friends" at the church.  No calls of concern from our Priest, whom we knew well, hugged every week, and played with my daughter at every church event.

They totally ceased contact from us, and left my children asking why.  Why would they not be concerned with my daughter's well being?

So, I left the church.  She changed schools.  They circled the wagons, the teacher was not disciplined.  They made my daughter's move to another district as slow and uncooperative as possible.  The experience was taxing for my family.  $3900 per year for tuition.  $115 per term for PSR.  RCIA was free, but cost us alot in the end in grief and disappointment.  Our broken hearts couldn't be calculated in cost.  All for my kids asking me why so-and-so doesn't call anymore.  Why no one said to my daughter, "I'm sorry, baby."

Since then I have realized that not all Catholic Scools are bad.  Not all parishes handle such situations so badly.  Not all people come away heartbroken.

But sadly, this is what happened to us.  We have yet to figure out where we will attend now on Sunday, and we had to put my daughter in a sub-par school in our district.  We cannot afford to move.

I have realized that those stories about the Catholic church shrinking, the church I used to perpetually defend, are about people like my family--who needed something, desperately, and more than once didn't recieve it. 

More and more of the Catholic Schools I used to pass by are becoming independantly operated COGIC or Zion churches, or whatever affiliations that buy the properties.  More and more I hear how a priest or bishop refuses to give communion to someone due to a reason the church feels is significant, yet means less to real people, who are imperfect.  More and more I hear their views against some mode of behavior, some lifestyle, some real-life situation or choice.  I wish I knew what and who they were for, if not sinners, poor, the despised, the oppressed. 

I feel sad that the Catholic Church of my youth; the church of mystery and incense and Latin gibberish has become replaced with dark news stories, empty parking lots, and occasionally obscure broken promises.  I long for the day when a dedicated family like mine is consoled by those who rejected it so easily. 

As Archbishop Oscar Romero once taught, if the church is not about the people, then it ceases to be a church.

Yesterday we were by President Barack Obama that he has decided to fight the release of more photos from our war prisons:

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama declared Wednesday he would try to block the court-ordered release of photos showing U.S. troops abusing prisoners, abruptly reversing his position out of concern the pictures would "further inflame anti-American opinion" and endanger U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Today the CIA turns down former Vice President's request to release two memos proving his point that torture saved lived:

The CIA said in a press release that it cannot comply with the request from former Vice President Dick Cheney to declassify and release interrogation documents.

The process for Mandatory Declassification Review is governed by Executive Order 12958, as amended. That Order excludes from review information that is the subject of pending litigation. The two documents that former Vice President Cheney sought contain information that falls into that category."

Am I nuts or is there a connection between these two stories? 

Could it be just coincidental that President Obama completely reverses course by deciding not to release the photos that he promised to release just a month ago, and instead decides to 'litigate' those same prison photos.  The next day we're informed that the CIA has turned down Cheney's request because the memo's he seeks are subject to litigation.

Will these memos of Cheney's be used during the litigation of the prison photos?  Or are the photos and memos just more pieces of the complete puzzle? 

Didn't Speaker of the House Pelosi just come out today claiming that the CIA lied to Congress?  Didn't she say something about the timing of briefings and timing of when waterboarding actually began happening?  Didn't she also demand the release of any and all memos from those briefings.

Didn't former Senator Bob Graham come out today saying that the CIA gave him false information about when he was briefed about interrogations in 2002?  They had their dates completely wrong and Graham was able to prove that -- which leaves to question their so-called facts about any briefings and who said or heard what.

Is my conspiracy mind working in overdrive or could it be that our Attorney General is seriously thinking of indicting somebody (persons) for war crimes and lying to Congress about when those crimes happened and/or began?  Is he accumulating the Vice President's own claims and confessions, the Republican claims, along with any leaks of information and memos already released -- to find reasonable cause to indict?

Come on people with more smarts than me -- what is really going on with these two stories?

This post is a short response to the right wing mockery of empathy in judgment.

In order to judge matters correctly, a person must be capable of independence in judgment.  What follows is a simple proof which demonstrates the necessity of empathy and the consequences of its absence. 

(1) Independence of judgment presupposes freedom of thought.

(2) Freedom of thought presupposes the ability to shift perspectives.

(3) The ability to shift perspectives presupposes empathy. 

Therefore, (4) Independence of judgment presupposes empathy.

(1a) The absence of empathy implies the inability to shift perspectives.

(2a) The inability to shift perspectives implies slavery of thought.

(3a) Slavery of thought implies co-dependent judgment.

Therefore, (4a) The absence of empathy implies co-dependent judgment.

(4) and (4a) have something counter-intuitive to say: only through empathy can one think freely, and so, only through empathy can one escape the prison of herd mentality.  As the right wing makes fun of empathy in judgment, they implicitly champion co-dependent judgment. 

 

From the AP: New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch says he will sign a bill to make his state the sixth to legalize gay marriage ...

Apparently, the ad NOM and its NH allies have been running in the state since March failed to get the job done:

As one fellow former-Mormon friend commented re the failure of "I'm Confused":

Speaking as a parent, I find this commercial completely insane ... By the same logic, you could argue that Hindus need to be segregated from monotheists: "Mommy I heard that some people don't believe that Adam and Eve were real -- and they believe in lots of gods that look funny to me. I'm confused!"

In my view, with this ad, NOM gave up trying to make anything like a political argument. Even though widely and wildly derided, at least NOM's "Gathering Storm" ad concerned itself with objections based on issues of freedom of religion and conscience. "I'm Confused" is little more than straight-up mockery of LGBT family members.

Don't YouTube Community Guidelines prohibit speech which demeans a group based on sexual orientation?

What about this NOM/CPR Action ad is NOT demeaning?

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Thanks to all of you who have posted in favor of prosecuting Bush administration crimes.  I am tired of waiting, but I can't help thinking back to the election last year, and how then-candidate Obama often found the right time to strike the political blow, usually well after most people had started to go crazy.  I am hopeful that the prosecution of War Crimes will continue to gain momentum everywhere.  In an odd way, I think it is the only hope for of the Republican Party.  They desperately need a purge.  

As I've noted before, the torture was used NOT to "gather evidence" about a supposed Iraq/al Queda link, it was used to create the intelligence that would then provide a means of manufacturing consent of Congress and the American people to grant tacit acceptance of their pre-determined plan to attack Iraq. That the information obtained through torture was going to be suspect was not relevant to the consideration of creating "actionable intelligence" (i.e. cover). They knew the evidence would be a lie, but even so, it would serve to open a path for the attack and simultaneously serve to protect the "principles" after the truth emerged. (e.g. the Weapons of Mass Destruction)--killing two birds with one stone, so to speak.

Madam Speaker,

 During the Bush Administration when much concern was being shown regarding the abuse of power by the Executive Branch, you adamantly refused to entertain congressional hearings on many relevant issues, such as torture or even consider impeachment hearings for President Bush.  In fact, you appeared to be too accommodating with the Republican opposition, not because of siding with them, but because you may have feared a conservative backlash. Further, as a ranking democrat member in  the intelligence committee, you  caved in to the deceit by the Bush administration in not protesting many of his policies; for example, the use or potential use of waterboarding.  Now the chickens have come to roost and you cannot fully explain where you were or how robust you stood.  If however, the  Republicans pulled one over on you and misled you, how could you have been so naive and abdicate your oversight responsibility?  You therefore must now step down from your post as Speaker of the House and allow another Democrat who can robustly represent the Democratic agenda.

 

Joseph Chez

 You know I've been blogging here for about 3 months now and have really enjoyed it. But that might be coming to an end.

   As some of you know I have been having problems in my relationship. Well last weekend me and my better half took a trip to Illinois to visit my family. Well I'm here to tell you if two people who care about each other but dont talk about there feelings much have to spend 8 hours in a car together a lot can happen.  We finally talked and worked out a lot of the biggest problems we were having.

  When we got home I had a lot of stuff I had to get done around the house (A big storm had come threw and knocked down our fence and a bunch of tree limbs.) So my better half knowing that I considered a lot of you my friends took it upon herself to sit down and blog here to let you know I was OK and would be back. She actually enjoyed it and decided that it was probably a good thing I started coming here and she thought she might start coming here also.

  Well then I made the mistake of taking her to the chatroom that a lot of us here go to. Things went downhill there. Some of the people that I thought were my friends were not very friendly to her. And we left for awhile, when we started to come back later that night some downright rude and hateful things were being said about her( I have decided I wont be going back to the chatroom anytime soon) I'm not a very educated person but even I know that the description of her blog as Presumptious and Condescending was not very nice and as I said she was doing it for me.

  Also the question about will she ever blog again and will anybody even read it if she does isnt very nice either not reading something becouse of who wrote it is just wrong if you read it and find out you dont like it thats different.

 Then there was the statement about her doing some damage to a good and sincere voice at TPM well she would have been a good asset to TPM herself and she would have greatly improved my writing and I strongly believe that.Oh by the way aunt sam if you read this she has taken up your cause of getting me to write a book. We talked about it a little and she read what I had started and told me at first she thought I was writing 2 books at once but she liked it ( at least thats what she told me).

   Im hoping things work out so that I can continue to post but I dont know for sure at this moment but to some that think it will be her fault that I dont. You can be assured that it will be my decision. She says she still wants me to becouse it makes me happy.

I hope everyone is having a nice day.

I am waiting for the next current or former member of that august body of the United States government to step up and tell us what was said to whom and when it was said. Do we really need any more evidence that the Bush Administration fooled the American people while the C.I.A. did a number on Congress?

There's a lot of rally and rhetoric in DeMint's Freedom Alert [shudder] today, but it also contains everything that a conscientious right-wing know-it-all needs to badger his coworkers tomorrow on Casual Friday.  DeMint's actually better at this than a lot of his colleagues.  He frames the situation like this: 

Last month, Senator Ted Kennedy offered a glimpse of what they have in mind when called for the creation an optional, "public health insurance plan, where coverage is provided in the public interest." That may sound nice, but in one sentence, it describes everything that is wrong with a government take-over of American health care. Health care, by definition, can't be provided in the public interest because no doctor has ever seen "the public."  Doctors see patients: one at a time, providing personal care in the patient's interest only.

After trailing off about "public" and "personal" (and frankly sounding a little buzzed), DeMint goes into how much the program will cost--something sure to resonate with a broad range of conservatives, crazy and sane alike:

They talk a lot more about costs than they do about care.  Only . . . the government is the reason that costs are spiraling out of control now.  Government now covers 100 million Americans, and costs are exploding.  Under the proposed takeover, 130 million more will be added to government health programs. 

Finally he gets to what may become the right wing's slogan during the health care debate in the coming months: rationing care.

How can they expect to get costs under control by doubling the government's role in health care?  The answer is by rationing care.  If government wants to cover 230 million Americans and bring down costs, the only way it can possibly do it is denying care to people whose health care is deemed - you guessed it - not in the public interest.

Now that that's taken care of, DeMint goes through a couple of totally unsurprising points.  First, long lines:

Under similar schemes in Canada and Great Britain, people wait weeks to see their doctors, months to see specialists, and years to get routine procedures and treatments.  High-tech tests and breakthrough medicines are off-limits because the government decides - in the public interest - that they are too expensive.  When the late actress Natasha Richardson suffered her skiing accident in Canada this spring, the hospital didn't have an MRI machine.  The doctors never knew her injuries were life-threatening... until it was too late.  That's how a government take-over of your health care will try to get costs under control: cheap, outdated treatments, long waiting lists, and low-tech hospitals.  It won't take long before families realize the true costs of such a plan aren't counted in dollars and sense.

Finally, DeMint warns us not to empower the government with health care:

Instead of the government-controlled "public option," we should move toward a "personal option," where we help individuals and families buy and own their own health insurance plan that no government can ever take-over or take away. [...] Any law that empowers government to provide health care in the public interest implicitly empowers government to deny it for the same reason.

My question to you all: is there any easy retort to any of this?  Are there actually any good points buried in there?  Thoughts? 

Okay, I'm NOT going to talk about The Flu in this blog and will barely mention guns. :-)   It's just that Diamond's title came to mind as I wondered how to phrase the blog title.

Nate Silver has fun with graphs of polling data around the abortion choice issue. Look at all three graphs (small versions included below).  He concludes, fairly I think, that the issue remains incredibly stable over the long term despite a recent poll from Pew which covered Guns and Abortion.  Silver considers this poll might be "off" ("odds are the Pew result is a mild outlier") but he doesn't look into it much. For one thing, his blog doesn't touch the Gun part of the poll which might serve as a kind of reference check on the abortion issue if the poll is somehow skewed.

On both issues Pew finds a sharp recent trend towards the traditional conservative side.   This is highly marked in the abortion issue by a very large shift among Moderate/Liberal Republicans, -24 change in 8 months in the % saying abortion should be legal.  Such a shift cries out for explanation.  Can it be a Palin effect?  Is it data error?  Unfortunately, Pew doesn't break out the Gun part the same way and the time frame is different too, so no simple comparison can be made from what Pew presents in the article.. 

The data also show that older folks (50+) also changed views to the tune of about -10% against abortion rights (change in % saying it should be legal), as did Protestants and [political] Independents, so it is not just that one slice.

But what I notice which also stood out is that the "no answer" fraction grew a lot.  That is, the "pro + con" don't add up to 100, and the sum consistently is different for the two polls (April and Aug) by about 5%.  For example, in the 65+ category, the poll went from 46/48 in August to 36/48 in April.  The entire -10 shift was on one side of the issue as Seniors who thought abortion should be legal became uncertain in droves while those who thought it should be illegal stayed the same. Perhaps general economic uncertainty is making for a temporary conservative blip as moderates and liberals become uncertain in larger proportion.  Since the trend is clear over all the slices, it doesn't seem to be merely ups and downs due to small sample size (but the Aug sample WAS much larger).

I'm taking the liberty of linking to Silver's graphs here, along with the Pew abortion graph.  In the legal/illegal data (top left) you can see that there has been a lot of polling in the past 5 years, and that there is a lot of extreme scatter on the down side of the blue data but not on the upside (red reversed, ditto).  I wonder how the graph would look if the top six and bottom six data points from 2004-2009 were thrown out as outliers.  Are biased erratic poll results throwing off the trend line?  Is the real trend even more favorable to legal abortions?

   

Fillibooster from Pfizer
US Drug manufacturer Pfizer announced today it would be giving away about 70 of it's top prescription medicines for free to people who have found themselves unemployed, bored, and looking to stick it to someone since November. Though there was no comment from Norm Coleman's office nor the RNC, the news was particularly welcome among Internet users suffering from flaccid ad requirements on Craig's list and Miss California pageant fans.

New iPhone App
Are you a flak wondering if Senator Vitter would do better with or without enhanced thoracic attachments in a likely matchup with Stormy Daniels in 2010? Need to know if your constituents think EFCA is a polite way of saying Nebraska is preferable to California, and it's safe to vote "no"? Designed to excite the likes of Nate Silver and others, PoleSoft has just released a new iPhone app into the app store designed for micropolling. The software maker warned that it does requires expertise with twitter, not twits, and suggests data interpretation with a statistical analysis package. Republican operative Faust Einstein praised the new software and dismissed the warnings, noting "we use this like any other scientific data. It's only valid if it matches our conclusions."

Obama pushes the senate for credit card changes
President Obama has reportedly expressed strong disappointment to senate leaders over the pending credit card legislation after pulling the presidential limousine-shaped tank into a gas station and not finding pay at the pump. Obama expressed similar concerns while taking down a taco lunch with bank CEOs regarding his next trip to a nearby ATM, where he was charged $10 for his out-of-network withdrawal. In comments to reporters at the daily briefing, Robert Gibbs casually brushed off questions about the President's  angst, noting President Obama undoubtedly used nice language, wasn't denied for his financial claim at the ATM (unlike the health care industry) and then took away a Fox reporter's Blackberry when it played the Rolling Stones "You can't always get what you want".

Akin registered an account, kept it private for a week or so, and then shut it down. He should be tweeting every single vote he makes, and at least a 140 character reason for every vote he skips. That's not too much to ask of an employee of his caliber and he knows it. This is unacceptable. I didn't vote for Akin because I disagree with virtually everything he says, does, and is, but I can say he's an honest Christian, which means absolutely nothing to me if he won't answer the simple question of "What are you doing?" while he is representing me to my clients with his co-workers.

Today, Rabbi David Saperstein published a piece on the HuffingtonPost about the controversial DC School vouchers pilot program (poetically titled by voucher proponents in Congress, the Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP)) and why the Reform Movement has been actively opposing it. This program has been a hot topic in the District and in the Congress with the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (the committee that oversees the District of Columbia) holding a hearing on it just yesterday. The hearing was unfortunately (though not surprisingly) voucher-biased as both the committee's chairman, Senator Joe Lieberman, and Ranking Member, Senator Susan Collins, are fans of the program. Video from the hearing and transcripts of those who testified is available here.

Earlier this week, the Washington Post ran a piece with short statements from major opinion leaders about the program, on both sides of the issue including DC public schools' Chancellor Michelle Rhee, former DC Mayor Anthony Williams, Senate Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin, former Virginia Congressman and original sponsor of the OSP Tom Davis, and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten. It provides a good overview of this complicated issue (though it seems just a bit heavier with pro-vouchers arguments) so I highly recommend checking it out.

First posted at RACblog.

It's always an exciting moment when the four main streams of American Judaism - not to mention a dozen other national Jewish organizations from the JCC Association to the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education - join together as part a single unified initiative. That is exactly what happened when the RAC's Rabbi David Saperstein, Jesse Paikin of the URJ Camps Department and I represented the URJ this week at a meeting of more than 40 leaders from across the broad spectrum of the organized American Jewish community for the first national Jewish Sustainability Conference.

On May 11 and 12, we gathered at the incredible Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center outside Baltimore for two days of learning, workshops, and discussion on sustainability. This complex and often misunderstood terms has many implications but, at its core, sustainability means creating communities that meet the basic human needs of all of their members by rethinking and often limiting both what we take from the natural world and the by-products that we put into the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the public spaces we enjoy together. We came to understand how the American Jewish community can unite around the goal of building safer, healthier communities for ourselves and our children based on these fundamental principles. The Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL), a program of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, organized and sponsored this historic gathering and is poised to lead the way toward a more sustainable Jewish community following the Conference.

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If you are interested in impeaching Judge Bybee, you might be interested in this video of a forum held by the Alliance for Justice at the National Press Club yesterday.  The three participants are lawyers;  all are academics.

The introduction explains that there are on-going investigations in the DoJ on various aspects of the torture issue and there are likely to be full investigations in the future. They discuss impeachment, actions that might be taken by the DC Bar Association, as well as criminal prosecutions. The video lasts over an hour and covers the entire discussion, including questions.

The moderator begins the discussion with the question Why now?  We've known about these issues for years.  Why are we just now talking about doing something?

Obama is absolutely correct. Releasing these photos would put our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan in terrible danger. There's only one thing left to do.

Leave.

Bring them home. Now. Today. Start your engines. Pack your duffel bags, boys and girls, we're bidding goodbye to 120-degree springtime temperatures and sand fleas and suicide bombers and failed-from-the-start impossible-to-fix missions.

Somebody's got to start the ball rolling. Because in three years, we'll be hearing this message loud and clear--and Obama, if he doesn't lead, will be the next LBJ.

I have been going through a personal trial of late. I have been diagnosed with trigeminal neuralgia. This is a highly painful condition that effects the facial sensory nerves. It has been a challenge on a number of levels.

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The United States has produced the Marshall Plan, but also Hiroshima. It defeated fascism but also had to defeat racism at home, an ongoing project. It has produced both Duke Ellington and Aaron Copland, and if we didn't create the Beatles we sure as heck created ragtime, jazz, and rock and roll.

And we lofted the first Great Observatory into space, Hubble.

This has been our gift to the world's populations, pictures and science for all. Researchers have proprietary privileges for one year, and after that all data is public domain, not needing subscription to journals and so on. Anyone can download the amazing images, print them, and sell them as posters, with only a notice of credit for the image being asked. This may be the most generous gift we have offered to the world, since there are exactly zero strings on it.

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Absolute perfection.

Hey, they control Hollywood, too. This Arkansas asshat sure knows his buzzwords...he'll probably be elected for life from now on.

I'm curious if those of you that support what we did to prisoners during the past 7 years and the keeping of additional photos of abuse and/or torture out of the hands of the media -- would have had the same feelings about the now famous pictures and stories of genocide, experimenting and gassing of innocent men, women and children during the WWII? 

Would you have said no to the people that demanded a record of all the abuse and killings during that time too?  It WAS war after all - war is hell - as some of you say.  I'm betting that there were many in Germany that wished the world hadn't see what happened back then because it's embarrassing or shameful.

Thankfully, somebody made sure those pictures, shoes and stories came to light for those in the future to read and look at.  Hopefully because we've all grown up seeing those famous photos of children naked standing in line to be gassed or starving to death -- that will never be allowed to happen again.

Sometimes we need to report what happens to help stop future people from doing them.  HISTORY is our only true lesson.  Whether that history is two days ago or 50 years ago.

It's a good sign that banks are apparently wanting to rid themselves of the TARPbaby. Maybe there is hope for free enterprise in this country yet.

 Mr. Geithner seems to be enacting a "bailout" of comic implications--the one in which a cartoon character attempts to plug holes and toss water from the bottom of a boat as one gushing leak after another threatens to overwhelm the vessel's seaworthiness. It makes sense in a desperate sort of way.

Give him a gold medal for effort; he means well. On the other hand, maybe we'd all be better off if he'd just relax and let the ship sink. Then the small and mid-range dealers might just pick up the scraps from the big dealers' carnage, without becoming dependent on the pusher-man who's hawking financial crack down on the corner of Wall and Fed.

When we first read that the Treasury Secretary was willing to recycle those returned TARP greenbacks from the too-big-to-fails , and toss them to the too-small-to-mess-withs (those banks who were not rabid with derivative fever) we were favorably impressed. It seemed generous.   But looking a little closer at it, like Brer Fox should have done when assessing the tarbaby, maybe it would be better to just back off from this bailout thing as soon as possible, so's we don't get stuck with sump'n that be downright inescapable.

Regional and Main Street banks--how 'bout you jez keep away from the TARPbaby, so's you don't get stuck with debilitating governmental addiction, and we, the taxpaying public, don't get stuck with irretrievable government junk-shares.

Banks of the United States, get out while you still can! Go out into the marketplace and do your thing like you did back in the day. Our free enterprise is depending on you to do the right thing.

Carey Rowland, author of Glass half-Full

After all the hand-wringing over Roxana Saberi, the Iranian-American "free-lance journalist" jailed in Iran for espionage, can we now finally concede the obvious?

She was indeed a spy. Just not a very good one.

The TPM main page links to a New York Times article that lays out in detail, mostly in her own lawyer's words, the evidence arrayed against her, much of which hadn't been reported till now: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/world/middleeast/14iran.html

Her confession, possession of classified material, secret trips to Israel, recruiting meetings with the CIA, and a debunking of her alibi that she was acting for NPR or the BBC -- the Times does everything but spell out that the initial court verdict (and eight-year sentence) was fair. Saberi is free today simply because Iran has decided to suck up to the Obama administration.

Look, the United States does spy on other countries. Not that there's anything wrong with that, unless you get caught. 

Where, as in Tehran, the United States has no diplomats, it's forced to rely on journalists, businessmen and tourists -- almost always dual citizens -- for intelligence-gathering. It's a fact of life, as is the orchestrated outcry over freedom of the press and politically motivated prosecution when one of these ad-hoc agents gets arrested. Amazingly, much of the public still mindlessly buys into the standard State Department denials.

On Monday, May 18^th, the man who is the new figurehead of AIPAC, Benjamin Netanyahu, will be meeting with President Barack Obama in the White House.  Netanyahu, of course, lives in Israel, but his most powerful constituency is right here in the US,  the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. This unelected body has a claimed membership of 100,000 which is approximately just 0.032% of the overall population yet is said to be the most powerful lobbying organization in America. How can that be?

 

Just a few short months ago, the electorate voted in an administration headed by Barack Obama, a man of unquestioned integrity, who has made a commitment to the establishment of a Palestinian state. However, his visitor, Netanyahu, is on public record as saying the opposite and denying that an autonomous Palestinian state will ever be established.

 

The problem is that Israel confidently believes that through its creature lobby, AIPAC, it can impose its own agenda upon America, which is: no Palestinian state and no peace in the Middle East - but a continuation of the US as Israel's most import market for bilateral trade including military hardware. How does it do that?

 

The US is committed to a closing down of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Israel is committed to the expansion of these illegal settlements. But how is it possible for Israel to act against the wishes of its supplier, customer, mentor and financier?

 

Why is Israel, and its lobby, AIPAC, so supremely confident that they can make the White House do whatever they ask and bow to their every bidding?  Why should our government be running scared of this tiny, Mediterranean state? Anybody know?

 

What does the US get in return? Answer: zilch, other than to make it a laughing-stock as the dog that is wagged by a tail from half way across the world in the Middle East.

 

 

 

 

As the torture story unfolds, and more people come forward with pieces of the whole puzzle,  the evidence is mounting that Cheney pushed the "enhancement" program for one reason; to find or forge a link between Ossama and Saddam.

Josh is all over it right here at TPM, and many others are beginning to see the pattern emerging.

They were desperate to convert our national outrage at 9-11 into a war with Iraq, and it sounds as if they nearly drowned more than one poor soul (for all we know, they probably DID drown more than a few) trying to pry out of them a missing link that never existed.

And for all the times they have told us how effective their torture was, we know now that missing link was never found OR forged. So, while the Cheney/Bush junta apparently torture innocents, they were looking for a fictional event. 

Imagine the terror those people suffered, especially when they realized that their torturers wanted info they couldn't give them. 

So no matter how much truth they choked up, all they got was more drowning.

Cheney's desperation was manifest in other forms around the same time. His outing of Valerie Plame was another chapter.  Considering Haliburton's haul from this war, and the fact Iraq's independent oil supply kept the multi-nationals from jacking up the price of gas to $4 a gallon, it is no wonder he was desperate for war.

When that truth committee of Sheldon's gets underway, it might be worth a trip down Haliburton Lane with old Deadeye before his pacemaker malfunctions.  Stop for a moment and ponder: All those other desperate acts, from torturing innocent people to outing a federal agent,  revolved around Cheney and his Haliburton "non-connections."

If someone wants to look closely into the "why" of it all, Cheney, Haliburton and Torture should all fit into that equation.

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Now, this is truly chilling.  If it turns out that the reason for torturing prisoners was more to extract the Saddam - Bin Laden smoking gun than to find the next attack, we are left with two equally disturbing possibilities.  Either our leaders were truly as ignorant of the players involved as they purported to be (come on, Bin Laden in bed with the secular Baath party?!) or, worse, that the torture was meant not to reveal the truth, but to extract the false confession.
If this story line holds, it may turn out that water boarding is just an updated form of witch dunking.
I didn't think it was possible to feel any worse about Americans torturing prisoners.  Guess I was wrong.

Calling itself a "grassroots plea" - a HUGE one page ad in the New York Times this morning (page 19 in my print edition), by the Conservative "media watchdog" group, Accuracy in Media, seems to be part of a new push by the Torture lovers to shut down Media reports on torture.


Are we making progress in getting media attention?  Apparently so!  These folks must be really running scared to pay for a full page in the Times.  Is this ad in other newspapers?

Here's the ad (as best I can reproduce it) but you have to imagine the word, TORTURE, in two-inch high letters at the top of the page!