"Obama's blueprint", as the NYT calls the baucus plan,  is a plan to shift the cost of medical insurance from the government and corporations to individuals. Covering (at their own expense) two-thirds of those who lack insurance is secondary and even incidental. What we will have with this proposal is a *free-market* basket of choices from which individuals choose the coverage they can afford, but with no guarantee that they will be covered in the case of some unforeseen catastrophe. This is not compromise. This is a republican wet-dream-come-true bill. 

And as a senior citizen with a limited fixed income, I am extremely concerned about the Medicare cuts Obama has instituted. The cuts may save the government money, but will either shift the cost to me, or degrade the care I get. I have heard nothing to assure me that what we, young or old, get will be an improvement over what we have now. On the contrary, I believe what we get from this so-called reform will significantly lower the quality of care for most of us in this country.

I supported Obama like I have never supported another candidate in my almost 50 years of voting. I am disheartened and angry to find that I have elected a republican wrapped in democratic party platitudes. I never thought I would see a day when I agreed with the recent conservative demonstrators, but that day is here. To this government I say - Keep your hands off my health insurance!

Iowa Democrat Tom Fiegen will run against Grassley next year.  He sounds like a true Dem, too. More about him here.  Personally, I plan to support him with my $ from afar.

Do you Iowans have an opinion about him?

AP headline: 

• GOP unifies against any more stimulus spending (AP)

I was sure you would want to know. 

Is anyone else having a problem viewing blogs and comments.  A few blogs end above the advertisement and there is no way to rec or comment.  The entire right side is white - no avatar, no profile no nothing.  Today I found this problems on Rowan's blog and DD's Wabbit blog, but not DD's fish blog.  These are the only ones so far.  I sent a note to Al a while back but haven't heard anything back.  Just wondering if anyone knows what is going on.

Thanks.

Dan Froomkin, who is deputy editor and a blogger at the Nieman Watchdog  web site, has assembled a nine-part series  there about all the things we still don't know concerning torture and abuses during the Bush years. (One of the reasons we need a commission, IMO)  One of the most interesting  commentaries  to me is: Would a better prepared U.S. have used torture?  By William J. Astore.

 Astore, who is a retired Lt. Colonel in the USAF,  taught at the Air Force Academy and served as Dean of Students/Provost at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC).  He suggests that torture and abuse were not undertaken by the Bush/Cheney administration for pure Machiavellian,  ends-justify-the means reasons.  He argues instead that the U.S. did not have the personnel to elicit information in a humane (or legal) manner.  Aside from the fact that it takes months to properly train interrogators , we did not have translators who were proficient in the languages needed for these wars, i.e., Arabic, Pashto, or Dari.

 "Because we lacked the language and cultural skills to play good cop, we played bad cop as a short cut", says the author. 

 And he asks: "Is torture the last refuge of the impatient and the incompetent?  If so, how do we instill patience and competence?"

 I don't think impatience  and incompetency are the only reasons people  turn to torture, but they were present in the  Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld administration and probably contributed in their decisions, including the decision to invade Iraq and subsequently to torture.   Field agents can be steeped in culture and language so that they become competent in certain fields, and perhaps with enough training an impatient person can learn to be patient.  In other words, we can train, or instill if you prefer,  "good cops".  

 The real onus lies with the leaders, though, and they are what they are.  Their characters are formed and they are the ones who do the instilling once they are in power.  Impatience and incompetence in the leaders inevitably leads to the same in corporate body.  Although it is possible to "grow in office", there are times when a solid bedrock of character is required and nothing else will do.  The decisions about  whether  to wage war or not and  to abide by the law or not and to treat fellow humans humanely or not  are not things you grow into  nor can they be instilled in a person already in power.  These decisions are part of the foundation and if the foundation is crumbling,  the corporate body collapses with it.

So - my answer to Astore's first question is a qualified yes and for the second, a yes and no, depending. I invite you to put in your 2 cents.  Do you think it was incompetence and impatiences that led them to torture?

Quick quiz:  Who said this?

 1.  "I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country." *

 Or this?

 2. "Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."*

 Hint:  The speakers were not Dennis Kucinich and Michael Moore.

 You may be surprised to hear that the first quote came from Thomas Jefferson and the second from Abraham Lincoln.  The dangers corporations presented to our freedom and democracy were recognized long ago, but instead of crushing the aristocracy of corporations in its birth, we gave birth to the corporate person.  Perhaps, as thepeoplechoose said in his blog, corporations are not citizens, but they are persons under the law and enjoy the protections of the 14th amendment just as people do.

 We have been fretting recently about the corporate influence in the healthcare reform debate.  But hold on to you hats. According to Richard L. Hasen, things are about to get  a whole lot worse. In an article in Slate, Hasen says that the Supreme Court is about to open the spigot on corporate campaign fundraising.  SCOTUS delayed a ruling on the Hillary Movie suit until September, and it is widely** thought that the usual suspects will rule in favor the plaintiffs and against campaign finance reform that curtails corporate funding.  

  I'm not a lawyer, but personhood is the only excuse I can think of that justifies corporations tampering with elections and legislation.  Every election cycle I get boiling mad about this, and then let it go once votes are counted.  If those five justices come down on the corporate side this boiler may explode.  To save myself, I've been exploring with google and  I found an interesting , but puzzling site: Reclaim Democracy.org

 We believe that corporations are not persons and possess only the privileges we willfully grant them. Granting corporations the status of legal "persons" effectively rewrites the Constitution to serve corporate interests as though they were human interests. Ultimately, the doctrine of granting constitutional rights to corporations gives a thing illegitimate privilege and power that undermines our freedom and authority as citizens. While corporations are setting the agenda on issues in our Congress and courts, We the People are not; for we can never speak as loudly with our own voices as corporations can with the unlimited amplification of money.

 Sounds like a proper liberal site, right?  They are working for constitutional change on the personhood question.  But check out the people behind it:

 Our Executive Directors are:

* Steve Spanier, Irvine, CA, and
* Jean-Pierre Swennen, Laguna Niguel, CAOur Board Members are:
* Jean Gore, Boulder, CO -- Past president of Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
* Jeff Milchen, Bozeman, MT -- Founder
* Tim Nickles, Jackson, WY -- Independent business owner and activist
* Steve Spanier, Irvine, CA -- National Executive Director and President of our Orange County, CA Chapter
* Jean-Pierre Swennen, Laguna Niguel, CA -- National Executive Director and Director of our Orange County, CA Chapter

Much of our work is done by volunteers dispersed around the country. All chapter organizers are volunteers.

Bozeman MT?  Irvine, CA?  Orange County, CA? Jackson, WY?  Could these hotbeds of far right political activism really be promoting something as sensible as corporate personhood reform?  If so, I'd say we liberals are behind the times.  The more likely explanation is that  a few liberals have survived in these outposts.  I am encouraged in any case.    I say DOWN WITH CORPORATE PERSONHOOD!   

 *See  How Corporations Became Persons published in 2003 by the Unitarian Universalist Association in UUWorld.

 **Court raises stakes in anti-Hillary movie

 

I followed a link today to the Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) web site. IRE is (in its own words): "...a grassroots nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the quality of investigative reporting."

 Who should be featured in an article about Accountability Reporting and Digging Deep? None other than Leonard Downie, Jr,  Executive Editor of the wapo until September 2008, and Bob Woodward. The irony hit me like a blast of hot desert air and almost took my breath away, or possibly just made me snort.  Here sat these two do-nothings on an Accountability  Reporting discussion panel while the best Accountability journalist at the wapo had just been fired.

Woodward is still riding on his Watergate laurels of course and says his "aggressiveness" failed him on the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, but neither of these men knows exactly why they didn't dig deeper.  (A little fuzzy logic and a few memos from the bushies is my guess.) 

 Woodward said, "Obviously, when you're going to war you want the evidence to be hard." Had Post reporters gotten together with Downie "to figure out what questions aren't answered," though, the editor "would have said, 'Get on that; let's mobilize.' We failed to mobilize on that."

And what did Downie have to say about it? "Downie responded by citing the complexity of the story judgments that were required to weed out all the inaccurate reports emerging in the days following the terrorist attacks."   TRANSLATION:  If we want to keep those WH memos coming, we'll  have to take the neocons' word for it.

 The Post didn't mobilized on the invasion issue, the torture issue, the warrantless spying issue, or the habeas corpus issue or...hmmm.  Anyone remember what issue they did mobilize on?  Ah, they broke the Walter Reed story, I believe.  But too many of the horrors of the last eight years were, apparently, too *complicated* for the paper to tackle. 

 Downie and Woodward and their fellow journalists are the grassroots of the MSM, they claim. The pillars of the press.  The defenders of freedom. But there seems to be trouble brewing in rootsville.  Downie says "We're not talking about the survival of newspapers; we're talking about the survival of news."   

 Downie, who appears to be a drama queen in addition to defender,  is hardly in a position to help the American press save itself since he and his former colleagues  at the wapo and elsewhere are part of the problem.  Frankly, I would call it roots rot.  They're looking everywhere in their root cellar for a cure when it can only be found by dragging their own actions out into the sunlight for some serious scrutiny.  Firing one of their critics is just digging a deeper hole for themselves, not "digging deep"  for the news.

I came across this article about five innovative newsrooms on  the Nieman Journalism Lab site.  TPM is first on the list and includes a video tour of the loft.  The article is dated May 22, so apologies if this has been around the cafe before.  I missed it in that case.

I don't know whether it's my computer or something else, but I can't seem to post a response to Stilli's healthcare blog.  I think there are a lot of people who have something to say so this is to continue it.

A  leaked report  written by the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) and  dated February 2009 provides background on the modern militia movement.  I suspect rank and file militia members are fearful people who do not have any confidence in themselves and who are easily led by people who want to hold power over other.  That being said I'll take my amateur shrink hat off now and let you come to your own conclusions. 

 

I have summarized part of the report below, but recommend you read the entire 7 pages if the subject concerns you. It fleshes out the bulleted information provided here. 

 

The militia movement began in the 1980s and reached its peak in 1996. 

1980s

Factors contributing to the movements:

• Loss of over 11 million jobs
• Loss of 75% of small and medium family farms
• Gains by women and minorities in the 60s and 70s probably hurt white male egos
• Increased immigration and loss of employment
• Sense of defeat in Vietnam
• Rise of paramilitary culture

 

Conspiracy theories arose at the center of which was the fear of a New World Order (NWO), a global government which would exploit working men ; UN troops were thought to be in the U.S. in support of the NWO.  Many of the groups were anti-Semitic believing that Jews controlled the monetary system and the entertainment industry.

 

1990s

Factors contributing to the movements:

• Ruby Ridge standoff
• Branch Davidian standoff
• Brady Bill

 

The movement did not disappear in the 2000s, but apparently it was less active.  The movement is reemerging now because of high unemployment, the cost of living, and the election of the first African American president. (Personally, I suspect President Obama's election is the primary factor)

 

Additional factors feeding the movement:

• Ammunition Accountability Act
• Anticipation of the economic collapse of the U.S. government  (They are disturbed by Igor Panarin's view  of what happens to the U.S.  following the collapse)  Heads up Quinn!  Canada gets a big chunk.
• Possible Constitutional Conventions (Con Con)
• North American Union/NAFTA highway
• Fear of Universal Service program
• Radio Frequency Identification (RFID )

 

Militia member  see themselves as:

• Christian
• White nationalists
•  Sovereign Citizens
• Militantly anti-abortionist
• Tax resistors

 

The Missouri  report continues with notes about their training, organization, and symbols.   Some on the right are claiming the report smears Ron Paul, people who display bumper stickers, own gold... so on and so forth, ad nauseum.

On a recently trip to China, republican Representative Mark Kirk  (IL) told China not to believe the budget numbers put out by the Obama administration. Congress, Kirk told them, is going to be spending a lot more money than has been reported to date.  As we all know, we are heavily indebted to China and keeping China's confidence in our economic system is critical.  We know the republicans are not on the side of America. They've given us ample evidence of that. I believe they have stepped over a line.

Wordnet's definition of treason:
-a crime that undermines the offender's government
-disloyalty by virtue of subversive behavior
-treachery: an act of deliberate betrayal

Cheney undermines the president with his calls to Israel; kirk undermines the economic well-being of the entire country by talking out of school to China; and limbaugh advocates failure of the president and preaches boycott of GM products. Don't these behaviors easily conform to items one and two and combined become item three, treachery?  Who can tell me when dirty politics ends and treason begins? Is there anyone here who believes the republicans have not crossed that line?

 

 

The May 14 issue of the New York Review of Books published  an exposition by Arlen Specter on The Need to Roll Back Presidential Power Grabs.   According to Specter,  the  Gang of Eight, were the only members of Congress who were briefed on some of the more nefarious acts committed by the Bush administration.  The rest of the people's representatives found out about the illegal surveillance  and the torture, presumably, only when the New York Times and the Washington Post published expose's . 

 

Specter leaves the impression that he almost single-handedly tried to correct the wrongs once he read about them, but was thwarted at every turn not least by the "disadvantage Congress faces in resisting expansions of executive power".  After eight years of overlooking  abuses he now says it is imperative for  "Congress and the courts to reassert themselves in our system of checks and balances".  "His last sentence: I will continue the fight whatever happens." (Really, Arlen?)

 

If you can overlook the self-serving whiny tone  of the article, you will  find ideas every Democrat can love.  Specter proposes the following:

 

First, I intend to introduce legislation that will mandate Supreme Court review of lower court decisions in suits brought by the ACLU and others that challenge the constitutionality of the warrantless wiretapping program authorized by President Bush after September 11. While the Supreme Court generally exercises discretion on whether it will review a case, there are precedents for Congress to direct Supreme Court review on constitutional issues--including the statutes forbidding flag burning and requiring Congress to abide by federal employment laws--and I will follow those.

Second, I will reintroduce legislation to keep the courts open to suits filed against several major telephone companies that allegedly facilitated the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program. Although Congress granted immunity to the telephone companies in July 2008, this issue may yet be successfully revisited since the courts have not yet ruled on the legality of the immunity provision. My legislation would substitute the government as defendant in place of the telephone companies. This would allow the cases to go forward, with the government footing the bill for any damages awarded.

 

Further, I will reintroduce my legislation from 2006 and 2007 (the "Presidential Signing Statements Act") to prohibit courts from relying on, or deferring to, presidential signing statements when determining the meaning of any Act of Congress. These statements, sometimes issued when the president signs a bill into law, have too often been used to undermine congressional intent. Earlier versions of my legislation went nowhere because of the obvious impossibility of obtaining two-thirds majorities in each house to override an expected veto by President Bush. Nevertheless, in the new Congress, my legislation has a better chance of mustering a majority vote and being signed into law by President Obama.

 

So... is this just 2010 campaign rhetoric, or will he carry through and actually get something done?  Could he be angling for a seat on the judiciary committee with these proposals?  Might he be sincere?  Time will tell, but I propose that Democrats, especially PA Democrats,  make sure he knows we're watching him and will judge him by his actions rather than his words.

 

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?

Take a trip to libertarian paradise.  Enjoy your stay. =)

I happened upon a C-Span BookTV program last night that had first aired in September of 2005.  Jennifer Harbury spoke about the CIA and its role in torturing captives beginning in Viet Nam through Abu Ghraib.   Harbury's very personal interest in torture began after her husband was captured in Guatemala in the 1990s, tortured, and ultimately either dismembered or dropped from a plane into the ocean.  Harbury speaks for a riveting 30 minutes about her experiences and about her research.  She also knocks down one-by-one the arguments torturers use as rationale for torturing.  She documents her research in a book: Truth, Torture, and the American Way. I highly recommend the program.

 

As others have mentioned here and as Harbury describes for us, our history of torture goes back at least to Viet Nam.    Perhaps the Bush administration was the first one that felt guilty enough about doing it that they tried to legalize it, but torture already had been institutionalized on the far side of legal  by our CIA shadow government. 

 

The CIA has been torturing for 40 years or more and will continue the practice unless they are held accountable and brought to justice.  Torture is carried out in our name and we cannot let this stand if we are to lay any claim to moral authority in the world at large or at home.

 

While I believe that DoJ eventually should mount prosecutions, I am among those who urge further investigation by a non/bipartisan independent commission that has the legal authority to carry out its mission and access to all classified material about interrogation methods. 

 

Amnesty International ,  April 23:

"Amnesty International urges President Obama and Congress to quickly establish an independent commission of inquiry that has the force of law, subpoena power and adequate funding to fully examine and report publicly on torture and other ill-treatment of 'war on terror' detainees."

I believe further investigation is required in order to systematically determine who should be prosecuted,  build solid cases for prosecutions,  and to keep the process from degenerating into a partisan civil war to the extent that is possible.  Those who are held responsible and prosecuted in the end must include someone from the CIA leadership at the very least and others if justified.  "Just following orders" is not a legal defense.