Who Is to Blame for the Next Attack?

Op-Ed Columnist: Who Is to Blame for the Next Attack?: "Republicans in Congress have no plausible economic, health care or energy policies to counter the president’s. The only card left to play is 9/11."

(Via NYT > Opinion.)

United Nations: U.S. Human Rights Record “Deplorable” — Including the Continuing Failure to Investigate Torture By the Obama Administration

United Nations: U.S. Human Rights Record “Deplorable” — Including the Continuing Failure to Investigate Torture By the Obama Administration: "

The United Nations has released a new report on human rights that has found the record of the United states to be ‘deplorable.’ With the continuing refusal of the Obama Administration to investigate war crimes and to support the Bush policies in court, we have lost an opportunity to show the country has committed itself to change these policies and demand accountability for those who implemented them.

The May 26, 2009, report by Australian law professor Philip Alston, the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, states that ‘there have been chronic and deplorable accountability failures with respect to policies, practice and conduct that resulted in alleged unlawful killings — including possible war crimes — in the United States’ international operations.’

‘credible reports’ of at least five deaths caused by torture at the hands of the CIA. Yet, Attorney General Eric Holder continues to block any investigation into such cases or the torture program as a whole. This was not missed by the United Nation report, which states ‘U.S. prosecutors have failed to use the laws on the books to investigate and prosecute (contractors) and civilian agents for wrongful deaths, including, in some cases, deaths credibly alleged to have resulted from torture and abuse.’

For the story, click here."

(Via JONATHAN TURLEY.)

Educating Ourselves to Oblivion

Educating Ourselves to Oblivion: "

This story first appeared on the Tom Dispatch website.'

The Tyranny of Being Practical

By William Astore

Hardly a week goes by without dire headlines about the failure of the American education system. Our students don't perform well in math and science. The high-school dropout rate is too high. Minority students are falling behind. Teachers are depicted as either overpaid drones protected by tenure or underpaid saints at the mercy of deskbound administrators and pushy parents.

Unfortunately, all such headlines collectively fail to address a fundamental question: What is education for? At so many of today's so-called institutions of higher learning, students are offered a straightforward answer: For a better job, higher salary, more marketable skills, and more impressive credentials. All the more so in today's collapsing job market."

(Via MotherJones.com.)

Did Obama Just Use the Sotomayor Nomination To Lock in Florida?

Did Obama Just Use the Sotomayor Nomination To Lock in Florida?: "

President Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor -- born to a Puerto Rican family in the South Bronx -- to be the next associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States may be the kind of political master stroke that puts Obama on the glidepath to reelection.

How?
By locking in Florida, a state without which any hopes of a GOP comeback in 2012 dwindle virtually to nothing.

In the 15 presidential elections going back to 1952 -- of which Republicans have won nine, and Democrats six -- Florida was part of the winning GOP coalition in each of the party's nine national victories."

(Via In the Right.)

Les Leopold: Fear and Looting in America: Are We Really Out of Money?

Les Leopold: Fear and Looting in America: Are We Really Out of Money?: "Here's a dangerous thought. What if we had a very steeply progressive wealth/income tax that reduced the net worth of the super-rich to 'only' about $100 million each? You wouldn't be suffering if you had $100 million kicking around. Now do the math: The 400 richest x $100 million each would equal $40 billion. That would leave about $1.52 trillion to help pay back the country for the Wall Street meltdown that we, our children and their children will be subsidizing."

(Via Huffington Blog.)

In the shadow of Cheney

In the shadow of Cheney: "A few fanatical jihadis hiding in caves cannot fatally damage the United States: Only the United States can fatally damage the United States. Under the fearful reign of Bush and Cheney, America went a long way toward becoming a country its own citizens would not recognize. As his May 21 speech showed, Obama clearly realizes that many of the policies pursued by his predecessors are irrational, inhumane, unjust and self-defeating. But he has not repudiated their fundamental error, their misapprehension of the actual threat posed by Islamist terrorists."

(Via Salon.)

Obama in Netanyahu’s Web

Op-Ed Columnist: Obama in Netanyahu’s Web: "If the Israeli agenda on Iran becomes America’s, Obama’s strategy fails. The U.S. president must replace the make-nice noises of a former community organizer with strategic backbone."

(Via NYT > Opinion.)

Deal With The Debt!

Deal With The Debt!: "

Or face serious inflation. To my mind, the key test of the Obama administration next year will be a serious move to get long-term deficits under control. Its asinine to expect fiscal improvement in the depths of a deep recession, and dumb to want government to cut back now. But in ten years time? John Taylor sees the scenarios that could take place if we dont get a handle on long-term entitlements and defense soon:

Inflation will do it. But how much? To bring the debt-to-GDP ratio down
to the same level as at the end of 2008 would take a doubling of
prices. That 100 per cent increase would make nominal GDP twice as high
and thus cut the debt-to-GDP ratio in half, back to 41 from 82 per
cent. A 100 per cent increase in the price level means about 10 per
cent inflation for 10 years. But it would not be that smooth – probably
more like the great inflation of the late 1960s and 1970s with boom
followed by bust and recession every three or four years, and a
successively higher inflation rate after each recession."

(Via The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan.)

Mitchell Bard: Why Do So Many Republicans Hate America?

Mitchell Bard: Why Do So Many Republicans Hate America?: "Republicans deify Ronald Reagan for standing in West Berlin and saying, 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.' But Reagan wasn't talking about lousy architecture. Rather, he was saying that on one side of the wall lived the good guys who enjoyed democratic freedoms, and on the other side resided people who had no freedom and lived under the oppression of the bad guys, the Communists. It was the guys in the East that did things, like, say, torturing people and holding them without charging them, while such atrocities would never go on in the West.

But what if the governments on both sides of the wall tortured people and held suspects without trial? What then? Would Reagan's words have meant anything?"

(Via Huffington Blog.)

The Greatest Swindle Ever Sold

The Greatest Swindle Ever Sold: "How the Financial Bailout Scams Taxpayers, Subsidizes Wall Street, and Props Up Our Broken Financial System"

(Via MotherJones.com.)

Op-Ed Columnist: Our Crumbling Foundation

Op-Ed Columnist: Our Crumbling Foundation: "The link between the need to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure and the crucial need to find rich new sources of employment in this economic downturn should be obvious, a no-brainer."

(Via NYT > Opinion.)

The Jihad-O-P and the President's National Security Speech

The Jihad-O-P and the President's National Security Speech: "The monstrosity crouching over the American people in the real world is the Republican party. The rhetoric of the Republican party is the traumatizing force. It is what creates the 'climate of fear' that made the President’s speech on Thursday necessary, and made that speech sound like something out of an asteroid-hits-Earth movie -- the part of the movie where the President appears on national television to read the names of people who get to live in sheltered caves."

(Via Daily Kos.)

Shayana Kadidal: The Myth of Return to the Battlefield from Guantanamo

Shayana Kadidal: The Myth of Return to the Battlefield from Guantanamo: "

The New York Times last night joined the parade of news organizations credulously reporting the utterly undocumented claims of Bush Defense Department holdover officials that large numbers of released former Guantanamo detainees had 'returned to terrorism or militant activity.'

"

(Via Huffington Blog.)

Bogus Terror Plot Strikes Again

Bogus Terror Plot Strikes Again: "Robert Dreyfuss It is outrageous that the FBI is sending provocateurs into mosques. Meanwhile, the press props up Cheney's fear-mongering."

(Via The Nation: Top Stories.)

Detained by the Past

Detained by the Past: "Led by Dick Cheney, many Republicans believe that national security issues are still the Democrats' greatest vulnerability, and they will try to keep this front open even if it means defending torture. Obama is right to pause before releasing those torture photographs, and there may be no alternative but to use military commissions in some of the terror cases. But in making these decisions, the president has looked more reactive than principled."

(Via The Plank.)

War-Addicted U.S. Afflicted With Imperialist Hangover

War-Addicted U.S. Afflicted With Imperialist Hangover: "

War has become part of the national identity, as well as the national economy, which turns out more weapons and more military high technology than all the rest of the world combined."

(Via Truthdig: Drilling Beneath the Headlines.)

Our Loss is BlackRock's Gain

Our Loss is BlackRock's Gain: "Robert Scheer The unregulated hedge fund calls the shots in the trillion-dollar bailout program while some of its execs snap up bad loans they originally marketed."

(Via The Nation: Top Stories.)

Experts Reject Iran Missile Threat

Experts Reject Iran Missile Threat: "The Post reports this morning that a team of US and Russian technical experts want to put the kibosh on US plans for putting a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic:
A planned U.S. missile shield to protect Europe from a possible Iranian attack would be ineffective against the kinds of missiles Iran is likely to deploy, according to a joint analysis by top U.S. and Russian scientists.
The U.S.-Russian team also judged that it would be more than five years before Iran is capable of building both a nuclear warhead and a missile capable of carrying it over long distances. And if Iran attempted such an attack, the experts say, it would ensure its own destruction.
They concluded that the missile system isn't important, in part, because, well, the threat isn't there:
"The missile threat from Iran to Europe is thus not imminent," the 12-member technical panel concludes in a report produced by the EastWest Institute, an independent think tank based in Moscow, New York and Belgium."

(Via The Nation: Top Stories.)

Standing Up to the Communist Socialist Fascist Regime in Expensive Loafers

Standing Up to the Communist Socialist Fascist Regime in Expensive Loafers: "Made the mistake of turning on CNBC this afternoon, which was like wandering into a dick-measuring contest pitting the overconfident against the self-deluded. One would have thought that after the viral outbreak of the various Peter Schiff Was Right videos, where Schiff's scary-prescient pronouncements on the coming economic meltdown and housing collapse were greeted with mocking disdain by CNBC and Fox News regulars (from Larry Kudlow and Art Laffer to Ben Stein, Stuart Varney, and Charles Payne), that a little humility might be in order, an adjustment in the down volume. But no, the roosters are still atop their matchbox bandstands, flapping and crowing.

The topic was TARP and Goldman Sach's and Morgan Stanley's desire to get out from under it, a development which Larry Kudlow--whose continuing presence on CNBC is a sham of a travesty of a mockery of a sham--compared to the fall of the Berlin Wall and an Old Testament 'arising from bondage.' When not flinging around the words 'socialism' and 'communism' with talk-radio abandon, fellow CNBC regular Dennis Kneale analogized the government's TARP authority to doing business with The Sopranos. And at the end getting out from TARP was hailed as 'the end of communism here at home.' Meanwhile, economist Steve Liesman was put in the milquetoast position of trying to interject reason and perspective as these two showoffs did their trapeze act. There are excellent reasons to be concerned-to-appalled about the direction the Treasury and the Fed have taken with the bank bailouts--as exhaustively detailed in the latest weekly market letter by John P. Hussman of the Hussman Funds ('The Fed has turned its balance sheet into a garbage dump, in order to accommodate all of the additional Treasury issuance required to finance the rescue of bank bondholders')--but the slumming bombast and frat-boy rough-housing of the CNBC guy contingent trivializes the issues and reduces the complexities to Cold War polarities.

It's even worse at Fox Business News, where 'fascism' is the pet word slathered with mustard and Neil Cavuto always seems to be presiding over a lingerie segment, but CNBC is supposed to be the standard-bearer, and it's embarrassing listening to Larry Kudlow bellow as if every day were Festivus while everyone else humors him and tosses him peanuts."

(Via James Wolcott's Blog.)

Boom, Bust, and Inequality

Boom, Bust, and Inequality: "

Over the weekend, Niall Ferguson wrote in The New York Times:

[D]eregulation began quite a while ago (the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act was passed in 1980). If deregulation is to blame for the recession that began in December 2007, presumably it should also get some of the credit for the intervening growth.

Part of what troubles people about this sort of thing, however, is that it’s not clear how much the intervening growth was really worth. Check this out from the CBO:

For the top one percent, that’s a pretty impressive period. For the next 19 percent, there’s something happening. But for the bottom 80 percent, there’s just very little going on in terms of real income growth. There was, however, pretty robust consumption growth fueled by the credit boom and declining savings rates. The current downturn is now threatening that and calling into question the sustainability and worth of the overall growth throughout the period."

(Via Matthew Yglesias.)

Op-Ed Columnist: War’s Psychic Toll

Op-Ed Columnist: War’s Psychic Toll: "The psychic toll of this foolish and apparently endless war in Iraq has been profound since Day 1. And the nation’s willful denial of that toll has been just as profound."

(Via NYT > Opinion.)

Marty Kaplan: It's Tough Love Time for Obama

Marty Kaplan: It's Tough Love Time for Obama: "During the Bush years, I was astonished by the ability of Republicans to walk in lockstep, to justify everything the administration did, to bend themselves into a pretzel in order to claim that night is day and black is white. On the Hill, among the interest groups, in the right-wing echo chamber, there was no lie too blatant or hypocrisy too appalling to be saluted as sweet reason.

Obama doesn't get that kind of treatment, nor should he. There's no reason his supporters on the left should suck it up and defend him when we disagree with him. Tough love for him is a sign of respect. Sure, vocal dissent runs the risk of propagating a media meme: 'Obama's in trouble with his base, but where are they going to go?' But so what if criticism plays into that narrative? After eight years of dissent being demonized as unpatriotic, it's a relief to be mixing it up again."

(Via Huffington Blog.)

Jon Soltz: It's Official: Bush Admin Saw Iraq As Religious War

Jon Soltz: It's Official: Bush Admin Saw Iraq As Religious War: "We know that the Bush administration launched the war based on flimsy and false intelligence, and used torture to try to falsely link Iraq to 9/11. But, what we now know is that in the opening days of the war in Iraq, even the flimsy intelligence took a backseat to the idea that this was a Biblical fight between the forces of good (those who worship the God of the Old and New Testaments) against those who worship the God that is chronicled in the Koran."

(Via Huffington Blog.)

Robert Kuttner: Profiles in Financial Courage

Robert Kuttner: Profiles in Financial Courage: "

Every year, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library gives a Profile in Courage Award to one or more public officials who took a stand that took a lot of integrity and nerve.

Past winners have included Alberto Mora, then the general counsel of the United States Navy, who blew the whistle on unlawful interrogation practices on detainees at Guantanamo Bay (the 2006 winner); and Doris Voitier, school superintendent in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana (2007) who did whatever it took to reopen public schools in her district in the face of federal and state bureaucratic indifference and hostility after Hurricane Katrina.

You get the idea. Another honoree was Viktor Yushchenko (2005), who narrowly survived a Russian-backed chemical assassination attempt that left him disfigured, to become the democratically elected president of Ukraine.

Two of the three laureates for 2009, who are being honored at a ceremony May 18, are, fittingly enough, Sheila Bair and Brooksley Born, two public servants, one still in office, whose courage has embarrassed three administrations including the incumbent one. The Kennedy Library deserves its own profile in courage award for providing the exclamation point.

Bair, a Republican appointed by George W. Bush, chairs the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. She has been an opponent of many aspects of the Paulson-Geithner financial bail-out program, and a supporter of a more direct approach to rescuing distressed mortgages and failed banks. The FDIC is more independent than most bank regulatory agencies, partly because its own insurance funds are at risk when a bank fails and partly because its appointees serve for fixed terms. Bair's term expires in 2011.

When Timothy Geithner, who had been crossing swords with Bair in his previous job as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, became Obama's Treasury Secretary, Geithner reportedly sought to get Bair fired, according to credible accounts in the financial press.

He described her as not a good team player. But Bair's allies, who include her many fans on Capitol Hill, pointedly asked, exactly which team was that? The team Bair had been challenging was team Bush, including Republican Treasury Hank Paulson, Geithner's predecessor.

Today, Bair sits with President Obama, Geithner, Larry Summers, and the other senior economic officials debating the financial rescue. Obama has invoked Doris Goodwin's Team of Rivals as his model of how to seek a wide range of voices. But on economic matters, Sheila Bair is often the sole voice of dissent at the grown-ups' table. As such, she has had to walk a very delicate line offering different views without seeming disloyal.

How did a Republican come to embrace policies that are less captive to Wall Street and more supportive of public solutions? Bair is a Kansas Republican, who came to Washington with then Senator Bob Dole, and served as his senior staffer on the Senate Finance Committee. In an echo of the populist revolt, Kansas bankers complain that the bailout favors Wall Street over Main Street. On this score, there is nothing at all the matter with Kansas.

Bair's Profile in Courage citation reads:

'Sheila Bair has been called a 'lone voice in the wilderness' for her early warnings about the sub-prime lending crisis and for her dogged criticism of both Wall Street's and the government's management of the subsequent financial meltdown. As early as 2001, Bair was urging sub-prime lenders to agree on a set of best practices to prevent abuses. Since the onset of the current crisis, she, more than any other government official, has pushed for direct assistance to distressed homeowners as part of the overall effort to stabilize the financial system, a move fiercely resisted by many leaders in both the public and the private sectors. Recently, however, the government has begun to implement many of her mortgage-modification proposals in an effort to slow the alarming increase in foreclosures.'

Bair's co-honoree is another lonely voice of early warning in the current financial collapse. As President Clinton's chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Brooksley Born began raising warning that customized derivatives not traded on exchanges were a financial time bomb. Nobody knew how much risk their underwriters were taking, and there was no 'price discovery' as there is on an open financial exchange where traders set prices minute to minute. Born distributed for comment a proposed regulation that would have required greater supervision of these so called over-the-counter derivatives. This was back in 1997, a full decade before the meltdown. She warned in congressional testimony that unmonitored trading in derivatives could 'threaten our regulated markets or, indeed, our economy without any federal agency knowing about it.' This, of course, is precisely what occurred with AIG and its writing of trillions of dollars of credit default swaps backed by no reserves.

For her prescience, Born was excoriated by Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, Alan Greenspan, as well as by the Clinton sub-cabinet official who has been nominated to chair the same CFTC, Gary Gensler, former Treasury Undersecretary. They directed her to stop making noises about regulating derivatives on grounds that this could destabilize markets. But Rubin, Summers and company did not just pressure Born, who eventually left office in 1999. Rubin, Greenspan and then SEC chair Arthur Levitt, Jr. expressly requested Congress to prevent Ms. Born from issuing such regulations. And in 2000, Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas, then the chair of the Senate Banking Committee, pushed through legislation not only shackling the CFTC when it came to derivatives regulation but also exempting energy trades as a favor to Enron.

Born's Profile in Courage citation reads: 

'In 1998, as chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Brooksley Born unsuccessfully tried to bring over-the-counter financial derivatives under the regulatory control of the CFTC. The government's failure to regulate such financial deals has been widely criticized as one of the causes of the current financial crisis. In the booming economic climate of the 1990's, Born battled other regulators in the Clinton Administration, skeptical members of Congress and lobbyists over the regulation of derivatives, warning that unregulated financial contracts such as credit default swaps could pose grave dangers to the economy. Her efforts brought fierce opposition from Wall Street and from Administration officials who believed deregulation was essential to the extraordinary economic growth that was then in full bloom. Her adversaries eventually passed legislation prohibiting the CFTC from any oversight of financial derivatives during her term. She stepped down from the CFTC in 1999 and returned to a distinguished career in public interest law.'

This past week, Treasury Secretary Geithner announced proposed legislation that would impose ground rules on derivatives through private clearing houses.

But Geithner's plan still would not go as far as what Brooksley Born proposed long before the extent of the abuses became a full-blown catastrophe. Well placed sources have told me that Summers and Geithner embraced partial reform largely because two other brave public officials have been asking very tough questions of Treasury nominees at confirmation hearings and have threatened to block Senate action on them. These are Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Maria Cantwell of Washington State. Perhaps they will be next year's Profiles in Courage winners. 

Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect and a Senior Fellow at Demos www.demos.org. His best-selling book is 'Obama's Challenge: America's Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency.'

"

(Via Huffington Blog.)

The Disease of Permanent War

The Disease of Permanent War: "

The embrace by any society of permanent war is a parasite that devours the heart and soul of a nation. Permanent war extinguishes liberal, democratic movements. It turns culture into nationalist cant. It degrades and corrupts education and the media, and wrecks the economy.

READ THE WHOLE ITEM"

(Via Truthdig: Drilling Beneath the Headlines.)

US Defense Spending In Context

US Defense Spending In Context: "

I’ve shown charts before showing how absurd the American defense budget looks in context. Now a new chart making the same point, but with slightly more up-to-date 2007 spending data:

As you can see, not only is the United States spending well over double the combined defense budgets of Russia and China, but America’s close allies constitute the bulk of the other big spenders. Indeed, if you add all the European countries together, they spend about 50 percent more than Russia and China combined."

(Via Matthew Yglesias.)

Matthew Alexander: If We're Going to Reveal More Memos

Matthew Alexander: If We're Going to Reveal More Memos: "Former VP Dick Cheney has requested the release of additional memos showing that torture and abuse saved American lives by preventing terrorist attacks. If the Obama administration decides to release these memos, then I suggest they also release statistics from Iraq showing the number of foreign fighters that were recruited because of our policy of torture and abuse. It was tracked. I know because I saw the slides and because I heard captured foreign fighters state this day in and day out. The government can also release the statistics that show that 90% of suicide bombers in Iraq were these same foreign fighters. These foreign fighters killed hundreds, if not thousands, of American soldiers."

(Via Huffington Blog.)

John Cusack: A Hollow and Horrible Equivocation

John Cusack: A Hollow and Horrible Equivocation: "The situation in which we now find ourselves is so bizarre, it's hard to fathom. New revelations continue to surface -- we learn that Vice President Cheney's office ordered and specified how a man was to be tortured, and mounting evidence suggests the United States tortured to extract false confessions that would justify preemptive war on Iraq. Yet a Democratic president leads a Democratic congress to whitewash institutionalized torture and in effect trash any conceivable notion of the rule of law, all in the name of 'looking forward.'

And now we hear that the administration will block the release of new evidence in this hideous criminal conspiracy. Now you, the president who came to power with promises of transparency and change, say you don't want to release the photos because they 'will further inflame anti-American sentiment' and endanger U.S. troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan."

(Via Huffington Blog.)

Op-Ed Columnist: Obama Can’t Turn the Page on Bush

Op-Ed Columnist: Obama Can’t Turn the Page on Bush: "Until there is true transparency, revelations of the unresolved eight-year nightmare will keep raining down drip by drip."

(Via NYT > Opinion.)

Cheney's Role Deepens - Page 1 - The Daily Beast

Cheney's Role Deepens - Page 1 - The Daily Beast: "*Two U.S. intelligence officers confirm that Vice President Cheney’s office suggested waterboarding an Iraqi prisoner, a former intelligence official for Saddam Hussein, who was suspected to have knowledge of a Saddam-al Qaeda connection.
*The former chief of the Iraq Survey Group, Charles Duelfer, in charge of interrogations, tells The Daily Beast that he considered the request reprehensible.
*Much of the information in the report of the 9/11 Commission was provided through more than 30 sessions of torture of detainees."

(Via The Daily Beast - Blogs and Stories.)

Op-Ed Columnist: Rogue Diva of Doom

Op-Ed Columnist: Rogue Diva of Doom: "Just as the Republicans are trying to get kinder and gentler, Dick Cheney has popped out of his dungeon to carry on his nasty campaign of fear and loathing."

(Via NYT > Opinion.)

Feingold says Cheney is wrong: ‘Nothing I have seen’ in the CIA memos proves torture was necessary.

Feingold says Cheney is wrong: ‘Nothing I have seen’ in the CIA memos proves torture was necessary.: "

During his weeks-long media tour defending torture, Vice President Dick Cheney has repeatedly pointed to two CIA memos that he says ‘showed the success of the effort.’ During a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing today, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) declared that nothing in those memos suggests that torture was the most effective way to gain information:

Nothing I have seen — including the two documents to which former Vice President Cheney has repeatedly referred — indicates that the torture techniques authorized by the last administration were necessary, or that they were the best way to get information out of detainees. The former vice president is misleading the American people when he says otherwise.

Click here to read ThinkProgress’s extensive report on why Bush’s ‘enhanced interrogation’ program failed."

(Via Think Progress.)

Conservatives Outraged Over Release Of Torture Photos, But Not Over Actual Torture

Conservatives Outraged Over Release Of Torture Photos, But Not Over Actual Torture: "

On April 23, the Obama administration announced it would release hundreds of photos of detainee interrogation, obeying a court order from a lawsuit filed by the ACLU. Predictably, conservatives furious with the Obama administration’s attempt at greater transparency denounced the move. Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) wrote to President Obama asking him not to release the photos because they could inflame potential terrorists:

The release of these old photographs of past behavior that has now clearly been prohibited will serve no public good, but will empower al-Qaeda propaganda operations, hurt our country’s image, and endanger our men and women in uniform. We know that many terrorists captured in Iraq have told American interrogators that one of the reasons they decided to join the violent jihadist war against America was what they saw on Al-Qaeda videos of abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib,’ wrote Graham and Lieberman.

Today, Liz Cheney, daughter of the former Vice President, decried the move as ‘appalling,’ saying in a Fox News interview that the decision was proof Obama was aiming to ‘side with the terrorists’:

CHENEY: Clearly what they are doing is releasing images that show American military men and women in a very negative light. And I have heard from families of service members, from families of 9/11 victims, this question about, you know, when did it become so fashionable for us to side, really,with the terrorists?

Watch a compilation of conservatives complaining about the potential release of torture photos:

The photos of torture aren’t the root of the problem. After all — if you don’t torture, you don’t have torture photos. Notably, many of the figures decrying the release of photos have ardently defended the government’s right to torture people:

SEN. LIEBERMAN: ‘Most people think it’s definitely torture. The truth is, it has mostly a psychological impact on people. … [W]e ought to be able to use something like waterboarding.’

HANNITY: ‘I am having a hard time understanding, though, why dunking somebody’s head in water….just to scare the living daylights out of them… why would you oppose that?’

LIZ CHENEY: ‘[T]he tactics are not torture, we did not torture. The memos lay out the extent of exactly how far we could go before it would become torture because it was very important that we not cross that line into torture.’

LT. COL. BOB MAGINNES: ‘If we take away tools, whether actual tools or implied tools, from [American intelligence officials'] tool chest, and therefore undermine their potential effectiveness, then I think we hurt our whole cause.’

HUCKABEE: ‘It was like a carnival ride. … For example, it wasn’t that we were actually going to drown someone, but it was a simulation of it. And for that, there was in fact some information that came forth.’

In fact, Huckabee defended the utility of waterboarding within 30 seconds of agreeing with Hannity that Obama’s release of interrogation photos was ‘hurting our nation’s defenses.’ Fox reporter Catherine Herridge said that ‘these pictures of humiliation’ can be ‘a primary factor of suicide bombers.’

It’s not the pictures that recruits suicide bombers; it’s what the pictures depict. Torture — ordered by Bush and Cheney — damaged America and increased the risk of another terrorist attack, and revealing the truth of what happened doesn’t change that fact."

(Via Think Progress.)

Conservatives Set To Block Dawn Johnsen’s Nomination

Conservatives Set To Block Dawn Johnsen’s Nomination: "

Roll Call reports that conservatives look poised to successfully block the nomination of Dawn Johnsen to head the White House Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) declared that his hands were tied without the assistance of a few Republican votes:

‘Right now we’re finding out when to do that,’ Reid said, responding to a question about the status of Indiana University law professor Dawn Johnsen’s nomination to the Justice post. ‘We need a couple Republican votes until we can get to 60.’

It’s unclear why 60 votes are needed to confirm Johnsen, considering her predecessor, Jay Bybee — who went on to authorize illegal torture — won easy confirmation in 2001 through a simple voice vote. Bybee’s successor, Jack Goldsmith, was also approved by a voice vote. Steven Bradbury served for three years as an acting OLC head, and so did not have to come up for a vote. Having a full — and filibuster-proof — Senate vote on Johnsen would be an unusual break with recent precedent.

Senators opposing Johnsen include new Democrat Arlen Specter (PA), who announced his opposition to Johnsen on the day he decided to switch parties, though he has yet to explain why he opposes her. Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) has said he ‘is concerned about her outspoken pro-choice views on abortion.’ Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) insists that Johnsen ‘has not demonstrated the seriousness and necessary resolve to address the national security challenges we face.’

Johnsen is eminently qualified to head the OLC. She has been an outspoken critic of Bush’s torture and eavesdropping programs, argues persuasively for accountability for wrongdoing, and has written passionately in support of checks and balances and against executive branch power grabs. She is a strong progressive candidate who could restore the tainted OLC to a place of legal professionalism and pride. And, like the majority of Americans, Johnsen thinks abortions should be safe and legal in most cases.

Specter and Nelson can find little in Johnsen’s sterling record to substantively critique, and Reid shouldn’t let them stand in the way. Indeed, their opposition to her breaks their track record for supporting previous OLC heads like Bybee. Remember, when Bush nominated Bybee for a federal judgeship, Specter, Nelson, Cornyn, and Reid all voted to confirm him."

(Via Think Progress.)

Quote For The Day

Quote For The Day: "

'Torture 'works' in that torture victims speak. The information
gained is notoriously unreliable, however, as noted since the time of
Aristotle. Accounts of torture from the Inquisitions exhibit how the
most delirious tales were elicited from the victims. This information
served to confirm the prior beliefs of the torturers. Bad weather, for
instance, was thought at the time to be caused by airborne demons in
consort with human 'witches.' In the delirium of torture, torture
victims - those accused of being witches - confirmed these beliefs
while providing the names of other 'witches' who would reconfirm both
the preposterous prior beliefs and the inquisitors authority. The
information was, of course, not true . Yet, it was meaningful information in that it fit extant prior beliefs in a historical context framed as a medieval version of the state of necessity,' - Professor Thomas C. Hilde, Testimony before the U.S. Helsinki Commission, Field Hearing, University of Maryland , College Park, December 10, 2007."

(Via The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan.)

OLC: Presidential Power at Root of GOP Opposition to Dawn Johnsen

OLC: Presidential Power at Root of GOP Opposition to Dawn Johnsen: "Dawn Johnsen is one of the premiere scholars -- on the left or right -- on the subject of presidential power, constitutionality and the rule of law.

She, along with several other former OLC lawyers from all sides of the political aisle, crafted a document which lays out limitations on presidential power and conduct under our nation's laws shortly after the OLC torture memos started surfacing. And that is at the root of GOP opposition to her nomination."

(Via Firedoglake.)

Democratic Lobbyists Against Obama

Democratic Lobbyists Against Obama: "In his weekly radio address, President Obama called on the Senate to pass the Credit Card Holders Bill of Rights. He is also on record supporting the Employee Free Choice Act and the ability of judges to write down mortgages in bankruptcy.
It's a shame that Democratic lobbyists are working overtime (and getting rich) opposing him."

(Via Firedoglake.)

Graham E. Fuller: Global Viewpoint: Obama's Policies Making Situation Worse in Afghanistan and Pakistan

Graham E. Fuller: Global Viewpoint: Obama's Policies Making Situation Worse in Afghanistan and Pakistan: "For all the talk of 'smart power,' President Obama is pressing down the same path of failure in Pakistan marked out by George Bush. The realities suggest need for drastic revision of U.S. strategic thinking."

(Via Huffington Blog.)

A Democrat Calls for Executive Accountability

A Democrat Calls for Executive Accountability: "Bush and Cheney served as monarchs, launching undeclared wars, spying illegally, authorizing torture and attaching signing statements to legislation with the intent of allowing themselves to operate outside the rule of law.
Obama may be somewhat more responsible on some issues. After all, he taught Constitutional law before swearing an oath to defend the document.
But to rely on one man, even a good man, to renew the system of checks and balances is as naive as it is dysfunctional."

(Via The Nation: Top Stories.)

Justice Department Probe Slams Bush Lawyers Over Torture Ethics

Justice Department Probe Slams Bush Lawyers Over Torture Ethics: "A new Justice Department report about Bush lawyers who legitimized torture techniques is 'devastating,' a source tells The Daily Beast's Scott Horton, and contrary to the New York Times, criminal charges aren't off the table-Attorney General Eric..."

(Via The Daily Beast - Blogs and Stories.)

Prosecuting Torture or Growing Gardens?

Prosecuting Torture or Growing Gardens?: "

Those who wish to eradicate America’s participation in torture do not grasp the larger picture-the picture that is even broader than the nation’s history of torture. I’m speaking of civilization itself which leads to empire which leads to every form of abuse imaginable. FULL ARTICLE"

(Via Populist Party .)

Krauthammer vs Reagan

Krauthammer vs Reagan: "

From Charles Krauthammers pro-torture column today:

Some people...believe you never torture. Ever. They are akin to conscientious objectors who will never fight in any war under any circumstances, and for whom we correctly show respect by exempting them from war duty. But we would never make one of them Centcom commander. Private principles are fine, but you dont entrust such a person with the military decisions upon which hinges the safety of the nation. It is similarly imprudent to have a person who would abjure torture in all circumstances making national security decisions upon which depends the protection of 300 million countrymen.

Greenwald fights back:

If you now believe about torture and prosecutions exactly what Ronald Reagan advocated in 1988 -- or what Israel today advocates -- then, according to our establishment narrative, you are, by definition, a member of the Hard Left.

And nobody who believes what Reagan advocated could possibly, in Krauthammers words today, be entrusted with national security decisions.  Weve gone from Reagans 'no exceptional circumstances whatsoever . . . may be invoked as a justification of torture' and 'Each State Party is required [] to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory' to the moral depravity of the Charles Krauthammers explicit endorsement of torture and the virtually unanimous view of political and media elites that advocating criminal prosecutions for those who torture is confined to the vengeful, leftist masses."

(Via The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan.)

Top Senate Democrat: bankers "own" the U.S. Congress - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

Top Senate Democrat: bankers "own" the U.S. Congress - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com: "One might think it would be a big news story for the second most-powerful member of the U.S. Senate to baldly state that the Congress is 'owned' by the bankers who spawned the financial crisis and continue to dictate the government's actions.  But it won't be.  The leading members of the media work for the very corporations that benefit most from this process.  Establishment journalists are integral and well-rewarded members of the same system and thus cannot and will not see it as inherently corrupt (instead, as Newsweek's Evan Thomas said, their role, as 'members of the ruling class,' is to 'prop up the existing order,' 'protect traditional institutions' and 'safeguard the status quo').  
That Congress is fully owned and controlled by a tiny sliver of narrow, oligarchical, deeply corrupted interests is simultaneously so obvious yet so demonized (only Unserious Shrill Fringe radicals, such as the IMF's former chief economist, use that sort of language) that even Durbin's explicit admission will be largely ignored.  Even that extreme of a confession (Durbin elaborated on it with Ed Schultz last night) hardly causes a ripple."

(Via .)

Op-Ed Columnist: An Affordable Salvation

Op-Ed Columnist: An Affordable Salvation: "Gradually implementing an emissions-limitation program now might actually help the economy recover from its current slump."

(Via NYT > Opinion.)