Multi Medium

The Intersection

The AP tells a depressing-yet-somehow-familiar story:

The Iraqi prisoner had valuable intelligence, U.S. special forces believed, and they desperately wanted it. They demanded that expert American military trainers teach them the same types of abusive interrogation techniques that North Korea and Vietnamese forces once used against U.S. prisoners of war.

The trainers resisted, according to testimony prepared for a Senate hearing Thursday; the methods were intended to elicit confessions for propaganda use, rather than gather intelligence. They were overruled and ordered to demonstrate on the prisoner in September 2003, early in the war.

The interrogation went ahead before a lead trainer stepped in and stopped it. He and his team were sent home shortly thereafter.

(…)

“In far too many cases, we simply erred in pressing interrogation and interrogators beyond the edge of the envelope; as a result, interrogation was no longer an intelligence collection method; rather, it had morphed into a form of punishment for those who wouldn’t cooperate,” Col. Steven Kleinman said in his prepared testimony.

He headed the small team of military trainers from the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency sent to Iraq in September 2003 to help special forces get more information from stubborn and resistant detainees.

“When presented with the choice of getting smarter or getting tougher, we chose the latter,” Kleinman stated.

This is the worst-case intersection of amorality and incompetence.  The Bush administration didn’t care about legality, decency, or even effectiveness - only cruelty and power.

Will we ever wash away the stain?

(h/t dakine)

Add comment September 25th, 2008 at 11:39pm Posted by Eli

Monday Media Blogging - Sudden Realization Edition

First they “reformed” FISA, then they nationalized AIG, Fannie and Freddie Mae.  You know what that means: The Bush administration is now Big Brother and The Holding Company.

Add comment September 22nd, 2008 at 07:05am Posted by Eli

The Resemblance Continues To Be Uncanny

Another day, another page Palin pulls from the Bush/Cheney playbook.

She now subscribes to the subpoenas-are-optional-and-whatcha-gonna-do-about-it? legal doctrine.

Oh yeah, this is just the sort of person we need in charge if something happens to 72-year-old Captain Melanoma.

Add comment September 17th, 2008 at 07:05am Posted by Eli

Sarah Palin’s Real Qualifications

Orange Clouds is correct, but doesn’t go far enough:

When WE think of someone as being qualified for president or VP, we imagine that they must be capable of governing. They need to have relevant experience. They should have proven over time that they understand the issues and the Constitution. They must be capable of diplomacy. But you need to think like a Republican for a moment.

Republicans don’t need to be able to think. They just need to be capable parrots. Can Palin follow in lockstep with the Republican line? Sure. It’s easy. I could even do it if I wanted to, although I’m not old enough to legally be VP so Sarah’s more qualified than me for that reason. Abortion is bad, death penalty is good, war is good, taxes are bad… it’s easy to figure out where you stand on the issues if you’re a Republican.

If Palin ever wonders what her opinion should be on an issue, she can ask Big Business. As a Democrat, you might assume that she would need to research it and think for herself about it, but that’s just a silly liberal idea. Big Business and lobbyists will tell Sarah everything she needs to know. And if they can’t answer a question, she can ask James Dobson or Pat Robertson or something and they’ll tell her.

What about her ability to do the job? Think about Brownie and FEMA. Think about Thomas Frank’s new book The Wrecking Crew. The idea isn’t to do a good job governing. The idea is to destroy government. Again, even I could do that if it were my goal. It can’t be too hard. Start wars, appoint your friends, outsource and privatize everything, take a lot of vacations, and make speeches about loving god and country. And if, as VP, Palin ever accidentally shoots someone in the face on a hunting trip, it’s OK.

Of course Palin isn’t qualified if you imagine that she should be able to govern well - especially if, for some reason, a 72-year-old John McCain doesn’t last 4 more years. Governing well is for Democrats. It’s a crazy, liberal idea. Republican qualifications are totally different, and Sarah Palin is perfectly qualified as a Republican.

Yes, this is all true, but it does Palin a disservice by overlooking her ability to abuse executive power, or to stonewall legislative investigations of said abuse by invoking dubious claims of executive privilege, or by simply saying, “Don’t wanna.  Make me!”  It also overlooks Palin’s much-valued ability to spew ridicule and hate at her political opponents; it would be simply unthinkable to have a Republican president or vice president who doesn’t know how to sneer.

In other words, it’s not enough simply to hold right-wing views; you must be committed enough to repeatedly break the law in service of those views, and brazen enough to accuse your opponents of hating America when they call you on it.

So yes, Sarah Palin is eminently qualified to be a Republican president or vice president, but that’s pretty much the opposite of being qualified to be a good one.

Add comment September 4th, 2008 at 11:38am Posted by Eli

How Not To Get Arrested In Minneapolis

In case you haven’t heard about the massive, insane, and very illegal police state activities going on in preparation for the Republican National Convention, this is probably the only way to keep the cops or the Feds from raiding or arresting you:

(Cartoon - and hover-text - by xkcd)

Add comment September 1st, 2008 at 05:37pm Posted by Eli

Question Of The Day

From MEC at Mercury Rising:

George W. Bush criticized the Chinese government for rounding up dissenters to prevent unseemly displays during the Olympic Games:

“America stands in firm opposition to China’s detention of political dissidents, human rights advocates and religious activists,” Bush will declare in the marquee speech of his three-nation Asia trip. “We speak out for a free press, freedom of assembly and labor rights — not to antagonize China’s leaders, but because trusting its people with greater freedom is the only way for China to develop its full potential.”

Is anybody going to ask him what he thinks about the police doing the exact same kind of pre-emptive strike against possible protesters in Minneapolis and St. Paul?

Well, that depends.  When you say “anybody,” do you mean media, Democrats, or filthy hippie bloggers?  My answers would be, respectively, Hell No, Possibly But Not Probably, and Hell Yes.

The answer will be something along the lines of, “We do not round up activists; the police were just using enhanced making-sure-everything-is-okay techniques.”

Add comment August 31st, 2008 at 10:31pm Posted by Eli

Will It Hurt?

Murray Waas thinks Republicans will pay a stiff electoral price for BushCo’s efforts to stonewall congressional oversight:

So at a minimum, the Justice Department is likely to release two devastating reports on the Bush administration this fall or earlier. Worse, we might also learn that Justice’s Inspector General has sought either a criminal probe of some officials or even a special prosecutor. (The Inspector General does not have prosecutorial powers.)

Add to that a potential prosecution of Bradley Schlozman, or more disclosures about what the federal grand jury probing Schlozman has been uncovering, and the political damage could reach a crescendo.

At that point, even if the motives of the Bush administration in being unyielding in its executive privilege claims are indeed only because of what they view to be a high minded defense of constitutional principles (Judge Bates’ opinion aside), the politics of continuing to do so might prove not only to be harmful to John McCain’s presidency, but devastating to the Repubican House and Senate candidates in the fall.

The continuous claims of executive privilege– whatever the motive for them being invoked– are going to appear more and more to the pubic part and parcel of a cover up. That is inevitable as the U.S. attorney report becomes public, and the report on the politicization of the Civil Rights Division is made public, as well as whatever else is learned about these issues through leaks from the federal grand jury, and whatever else is uncovered by the House Judiciary Committee and folks like Josh Marshall.

(…)

Right now, the executive privilege debate has been relegated to the back pages of newspapers and it might appear to be smart politics to stand tough in the face of congressional subpoenas.

But either in the fall or before, all of that is almost certain to dramatically change.

And claims of executive privilege by the President of the United States to disallow his top aides to testify on Capitol Hill could prove devastating to his own political party. Republican House and Senate candidates are no doubt going to be damaged by the executive privilege claims becoming a front and center issue just prior to the election.

In the end, the President’s continuing claim of executive privilege– whether made for high minded reasons of constitutional law, obstinacy, or for political calculation– could prove to be a last unwanted legacy that George Bush leaves behind for his own political party.

I absolutely agree that BushCo’s desperate clinging to unsupportable claims of executive privilege and absolute immunity is a tacit admission of guilt, but whether or not it affects this year’s elections hinges on at least three things:

1) Will the media report the reports?  And I mean on the front page and on TV, not just on page A22.

2) Have the voters become so jaded to Bush administration scandals that they just shrug and say, “Great, another one.  Just throw it on the pile”?

3) Can/will the Democrats successfully tie the Republican candidates to the Bush administration?  Trashing Dubya’s reputation is all well and good, but it won’t be very helpful if they allow Republican candidates - and the GOP brand in general - to back away from his criminality.

Frankly, I’m not hopeful.  But more than willing to be pleasantly surprised…

Add comment August 8th, 2008 at 11:38am Posted by Eli

And Before I Forget…

I just wanted to make a point that I forgot to make earlier when I quoted “moderate Republican” Chuck Grassley talking about the citizens of New Orleans “on rooftops complaining for helicopters to rescue them”: That this is how Republicans see the relationship between the people and the government, that people are constantly whining for government to bail them out of their petty little problems, like natural disasters, unemployment, grinding poverty, that kind of thing.

Republicans like Grassley remind me of this classic Garry Shandling bit:

I met a new girl at a barbecue, very pretty, a blond I think. I don’t know, her hair was on fire, and all she talked about was herself. You know these kind of girls: ‘I’m hot. I’m on fire. Me, me, me.’ You know. ‘Help me, put me out.’ Come on, could we talk about me just a little bit?

And, of course, when they do take action on a crisis, it’s for their own power and enrichment and nothing to do with actually helping those pesky little people.

People afraid of terrorists?  Waste thousands of lives and trillions of dollars on a pointless invasion and institute a secret regime of unlawful spying, detention, torture and murder.  Then push to make it all legal after it’s been exposed.

People getting hammered by gas prices?  Push for offshore and ANWR giveaways to the oil companies.

And so on.

4 comments August 3rd, 2008 at 11:55am Posted by Eli

Subpoena Shrinkage

The BushCo. rationales for defying subpoenas and blocking oversight just keep getting weaker and weaker.  First they used executive privilege to shield conversations with the president (or vice president, as with the secret energy task force), because he needs to be able to receive “unvarnished” advice.

Next they used executive privilege to shield conversations by anyone who worked for the president, even if the president was not involved in said conversations.

Next they breezily claimed “absolute immunity” on the grounds of, well, no-one seems to be sure what, exactly. (And how’s that working out?)

But now, apparently, BushCo. has been so emboldened by their ability to stonewall congressional subpoenas with no consequences that they don’t even feel obligated to give any reason at all:

Subcommittee Chairman Tierney and Full Committee Chairman Waxman threaten Michael Dominguez, Principal Deputy Undersecretary for Defense, with contempt after he reveals that he has ordered Dr. Kaye Whitley of the DOD Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office to defy a subpoena to appear:

Chairman Waxman: “Do we have to subpoena the Secretary to get people in the Department to come before us? We subpoenaed her, you’ve denied her the opportunity to come and testify and put her in a situation where we have to contemplate putting her in contempt. I don’t even know if we can hold you in contempt because you haven’t been issued a subpoena. Mr. Chairman, the Department of Defense has a history of covering up sexual offense problems….. I don’t know if we need to subpoena the Secretary and then hold him in contempt… Those are better options to me than to hold her in contempt when she’s put in this untenable position when her line of command instructs her not to comply with a subpoena of the United States Congress. I don’t know who you think elected you to defy the Congress of the United States, we’re an independent branch of government…”

Wouldn’t Whitley be required to refuse an unlawful order, which this certainly was?  Or does that obligation only apply to uniformed personnel?

In any case, it’s telling that this Dominguez asshat thinks that a subpoena is some kind of optional thing that you can just order someone to ignore.  Monkey see, monkey do, I guess.

1 comment July 31st, 2008 at 08:55pm Posted by Eli

They Write Letters

Another frothing-at-the-mouth bleeding-heart liberal heard from on Obama’s FISA cave and the media’s coverage of it:

Re “Obama Supporters on the Far Left Cry Foul” (news article, July 13):

I resent the implication in your article that those of us unhappy with Senator Barack Obama’s vote on wiretapping are a bunch of left-wingnuts.

Support of our Constitution is not a radical position, and it is troubling that the media, including The New York Times, have lately been characterizing such support as such.

I was an enthusiastic Obama supporter, but now after his vote to nullify the Fourth Amendment, I am understandably less so. But I am no pinko.

In fact, I consider myself somewhat of a conservative in the former sense of the world. I am opposed to welfare, government bailouts and affirmative action. I’m wary of the military-industrial complex, but I support a strong military. I like the Constitution a lot, and believe in balanced budgets, living within our means and small government, most particularly the kind that doesn’t illegally spy on its citizens.

If these beliefs are “far left,” then I’m George Orwell.

Damn hippies.

2 comments July 20th, 2008 at 07:18pm Posted by Eli

More Credit Where Credit Is Due

Hooray for my representative!

Internet access may not be as important as water. But it’s now right up there with hot water.

Yet given how important broadband is to the future of our economy, our educational system, even our democracy, there is amazingly little public discussion about it.

For too long, that conversation has been happening behind closed doors among self-appointed experts, deep-pocketed lobbyists and politicians who either believe the Internet is “a series of tubes” or don’t use it at all.

A notable exception is U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Forest Hills, a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, who’s helping to bring the entire Federal Communications Commission to a public hearing tomorrow at Carnegie Mellon University.

He voted the right way on FISA, too.

For those of you who want to attend:

The FCC hearing on the future of the Internet will start Monday, July 21 at 4 p.m. in McConomy Auditorium at Carnegie Mellon University. For more information: www.savetheinternet.com

Add comment July 20th, 2008 at 04:56pm Posted by Eli

Lieberman Looks Back To The Future

Shorter Joe Lieberman:

When the terrorists hit us in 2009, we need to have a president who is willing to seize unprecedented unconstitutional powers for his own and his party’s gain, and John McCain is that man.

That is what “keeping us safe” has become code for, isn’t it?

4 comments June 30th, 2008 at 09:05am Posted by Eli

Too Good To Be True

This has to be parody.  Has to be:

[C]heck out who introduced/sponsored the latest version of the Constitutional Marriage Amendment:

110th CONGRESS
2d Session
S. J. RES. 43

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relating to marriage.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

JUNE 25, 2008

Mr. WICKER (for himself, Mr. VITTER, Mr. CRAIG, Mr. ROBERTS, Mr. INHOFE, Mr. BROWNBACK, Mr. ALLARD, Mr. THUNE, and Mr. SHELBY) introduced the following joint resolution; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

JOINT RESOLUTION

(…)

Section 1. This article may be cited as the Marriage Protection Amendment.

Section 2. Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.

Wow.  Just wow.  I guess I can kind of see the logic, though.  As long as the gays can’t get married, straight marriages will be stronger, and thus better able to withstand the occasional indiscretion.

Like, say, cavorting with hookers while wearing a diaper, or using foot signals to pick up guys in the men’s room.  As long as the gays can’t get married, that stuff is a-okay with the missus, but if gays and lesbians start getting hitched, well… watch your back.

Add comment June 27th, 2008 at 09:23pm Posted by Eli

Reality-Proof Democrats

So I’m reading Chris Dodd’s brilliant statement about why the FISA “compromise” is unacceptable, and how it’s just one of the many symptoms of the Bush administration’s fundamental lawlessness, and I’m having this depressing thought:

Dodd makes a very eloquent, comprehensive, and compelling argument against the FISA bill, and… no-one cares.  I doubt that he convinced even one Democratic senator to join the paltry 15 who voted against cloture, and obviously no Republicans.  The merits of Dodd’s arguments were simply irrelevant in the face of political calculation, party loyalty, and corporate money.  There was literally nothing that he could have said to sway any of them.

And that’s what saddens me: This sense that the merits don’t matter, because hardly anyone in Congress is making decisions based on them.  Dodd is pouring his heart out, and his esteemed colleagues are looking at their watches or playing with their Blackberries, saying, “Yeah, that’s great, Chris - can we get on with servicing our corporate bosses now?”

Most dispiriting of all, that group includes our presidential nominee, who couldn’t be bothered to vote, and who has already said that he will vote for the “compromise” whether immunity has been stripped from it or not (he says he’ll work to strip it, but there’s no way he can succeed).  I don’t know whether Obama’s feeling insecure about his national security credentials as compared to McCain’s, or if he’s beholden to telecom contributions, or if he simply doesn’t want Nominee Obama to mess up President Obama’s chances at extraordinary powers, but it doesn’t really matter.  None of those reasons is an excuse for Obama’s pathetic failure to lead on something this important.

And I’m not going to give one whit of credit to anyone who voted for cloture and then votes against the bill so they can grandstand about how awful it is.  “This bill is a grave threat to our constitutional liberties and the rule of law… but I felt that it deserved an up-or-down vote” is spectacularly bad messaging.

I’m going to be pissed and resentful about this for months, and refuse to give time or money to the Obama campaign.  Way to depress your base in a presidential election year, geniuses.

1 comment June 25th, 2008 at 10:32pm Posted by Eli

Dubya Doesn’t Care About The Constitution Or Terrorism

In case y’all needed any more proof that Dubya’s assertions of unilateral authority have absolutely nothing to do with fighting terrorism:

Ten months after Congress passed a law establishing a White House coordinator for preventing nuclear terrorism, President Bush has no plans to create the high-level post any time soon, according to the National Security Council.

The provision - suggested by leading members of the commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks - was contained in 2007 legislation designed to improve homeland defenses. Congress passed it by a wide margin, with bipartisan support.

Some congressional leaders said Bush’s failure to fill the job nearly a year later marks an outright evasion of the law, and called on the president to fill the position swiftly, even though his administration has only seven months left in office.

(…)

The White House opposed creating the position from the start. In a January 2007 letter to Congress - six months before the law was adopted - the Bush administration wrote that the appointment of a nuclear antiterrorism chief “is unnecessary given extensive coordination and synchronization mechanisms that now exist within the executive branch,” citing a 2006 strategy document that lays out the responsibilities of numerous government departments.

But in the past, Bush has tried to bypass provisions of laws he disagrees with by issuing “signing statements,” documents singling out those parts of statutes that White House lawyers advised would infringe on his constitutional powers as chief of the government’s executive branch. Bush has used this practice more than any prior president.

This time, however, the White House seems to be ignoring the nuclear terrorism coordinator requirement not for constitutional reasons but simply because the administration thinks it is a bad idea. It is a stance some legal scholars called an even more blatant disregard of the checks and balances on presidential power.

(…)

National security analysts have long advocated for a top presidential adviser focused solely on organizing the government to prevent terrorists from acquiring catastrophic weapons, such as a nuclear device, a radioactive “dirty bomb,” or biological agents. They contend that the current arrangement - in which that responsibility is spread across the Departments of Energy, Defense, State, and Homeland Security - is not fully integrated and has gaps in preparedness.

(…)

Advocates say the post is needed now more than ever, pointing to growing evidence - documented by international intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency - that terrorist groups are actively seeking nuclear or radiological weapons and the know-how to make them.

Meanwhile, a government-funded report released this month concluded that some of the current efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation and terrorism are not fully coordinated.

I’m amazed that President Strong Terrorist Fighter can’t even be bothered to appoint someone to guard against the very kind of attack that he spent his entire presidency scaremongering about.  Not only did he not appoint a Nukular Terror Czar of his own volition, he has ignored Congress’s legal directive to do so.

Does anyone still believe that he’s insisting on the need for carte blanche wiretapping to prevent terrorist attacks?  I wonder how many Arabic/Daro/Pashto translators he has working on all those wiretaps of supposed Muslim terrorists…

(h/t dakine)

Add comment June 22nd, 2008 at 02:35pm Posted by Eli

Don’t Hold Your Breath, Russ.

I love Russ Feingold.  He’s one of the few congresscritters out there that I have any faith in to consistently do the right thing, and he’s not afraid to call out politicians of either party when they thumb their noses at the Constitution.  Alas, I don’t think he’s going to get much satisfaction here:

Many Americans rightly expect that the new president will abide by the law. But we can’t take that for granted. Americans deserve a guarantee from the next president that the abuses we’ve witnessed over the past eight years won’t happen again. The 44th president of the United States, whoever he is, must renounce the Bush administration’s abuses of executive power and make clear that his administration will uphold the rule of law.

It’s possible that they might say it, but there doesn’t seem to be much evidence that either McCain or Obama will mean it.  McCain has consistently supported the Bush administration’s stance on both carte blanche wiretapping and the abolition of habeas corpus, while Obama just came out in favor of the latest FISA “compromise” which gives the telecoms retroactive immunity if they can jump over a matchbox, offering only a vague assurance that he will “work” to remove it from the Senate version.

It appears that President Bush has pulled off the unthinkable: By portraying the Constitution as the terrorist’s best friend, he has turned it into just as much of an enemy as al Qaeda - for both parties.  I guess the Constitution hates us for our freedoms.

Add comment June 22nd, 2008 at 12:32pm Posted by Eli

Where’s Waldobama?

I’ll just link to Glennzilla’s post, since all the relevant info is there.  Basically, the Democratic “compromise” FISA bill is every bit as bad as we thought it would be, and probably even worse.  The “judicial review” over telecom complicity basically amounts to, “Did the Bush administration tell you it was legal?”  No determination of whether it actually was.

This is like those slasher movies (think Halloween and Friday The 13th) where every time it looks like the baddie is dead, he keeps coming back to life again and again again.  Only in this horror movie, the monster keeps coming back to life because the people who are supposed to be the good guys keep giving him CPR.

Glenn has the best argument yet that the “compromise” is, as Russ Feingold calls it, actually a capitulation:

And isn’t it so odd how this “compromise” — just like the Military Commissions Act, the Protect America Act and all the other great “compromises” from the Bush era which precede this one — is producing extreme indignation only from those who believe in civil liberties and the rule of law, while GOP Bush followers seem perfectly content and happy with it? I wonder if that suggests that what the Democratic leadership is supporting isn’t really a “compromise” at all.

Yes, funny how whenever the Democrats enter into a bipartisan “compromise,” that conservatives are pleased and progressives are pissed.  Perhaps conservatives just have a milder, more accommodating temperament than we do, and aren’t as accustomed to always getting their way…

But here is the $500 million question: Where’s Obama?  Isn’t he the standard-bearer and de facto leader of the Democratic party now?  Shouldn’t he have something to say about the FISA compromise?  Does he really expect anyone to buy his lame excuse that he hasn’t had a chance to read the whole thing yet?

The fact that the Democratic leadership is trying to push this abomination through with only 24 hours for review is a disgrace in itself, but it didn’t take individual liberal bloggers very much reading time to spot the problems with the bill… but I digress.

My fear is that this may be the dark side of the strong-on-national-security pitch that Wes Clark was making on Obama’s behalf - that this is Obama’s way of showing that he’s not afraid to… give telecoms immunity and let Dubya spy on people whenever he feels like it in order to fight terrorism effectively.

Either that, or he’s another corporate sellout, hiding behind a mask of changiness while doing the telecoms’ bidding.

If Obama has a good reason for playing Moody Prince Hamlet and being unable to make up his mind or lead on this, I would sure love to hear it.

Also, oh-by-the-way, Nancy Pelosi continues to be completely worthless.

4 comments June 19th, 2008 at 09:29pm Posted by Eli

Right-Wing Doublespeak Euphemism Of The Day

From a right-wing gun nut in S.W.A.T. Magazine, complaining that the Bush administration and GOP have totally betrayed the gun movement(!):

The [Justice Dept.] brief should have simply expressed the clear intent of the Founders that the right to keep and bear arms protected the Second Amendment should be treated with as much respect as the right to free speech protected by the First Amendment. As the gun grabbing Brady Campaign acknowledges, such a finding by the Supreme Court could open the door to striking down as unconstitutional most, if not all, of the victim disarmament laws on the books.

“Victim disarmament laws.”  Awesome.  Maybe even better than “death tax.”

1 comment June 3rd, 2008 at 10:14pm Posted by Eli

Take That, Propaganda!

Woohoo!  House passes amendment to investigate the DoD’s use of generals to spout administration talking points on teevee in the guise of “analysis”:

Tonight, the House passed an amendment introduced by Reps. Hodes, DeFazio, and DeLauro to the Defense Authorization Act for FY2009 requiring that “not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Inspector General of the Department of Defense and the Comptroller General of the United States shall each conduct a study of, and submit to the Congress a report on, the extent to which the Department of Defense has violated the prohibition on propaganda” and defines propaganda as “any form of communication in support of national objectives designed to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, or behavior of the people of the United States in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly.”

On passage of the amendment, Speaker Pelosi said:

In his farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower stated that “only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.” The Pentagon media influence program reported by the New York Times struck at the heart of this principle – not only denying citizens the knowledge they deserve but also using the media to manipulate public opinion, and as a consequence, damaging our democracy.

The President and members of his Administration led the country to war on the basis of unproven assertions, later confirmed to be false, and have continued to misrepresent the truth on the ground. The Hodes-DeFazio-DeLauro Amendment which prohibits the Department of Defense from using funds for propaganda purposes and initiates a GAO and IG investigative report into past use of propaganda, is a vital step toward restoring the public’s faith in information stemming from the Pentagon.

Rep. Hodes:

The American people were spun by Bush Administration “message multipliers.” They were fed Administration talking points, believing they were getting independent military analysis. Days after, the Pentagon suspended the program. The news outlets have been remarkably silent. The Department of Defense Inspector General has begun an internal review of the program but given the possibility as well as decision makers in this Congress were misled about the war in Iraq, I believe it is absolutely critical that a public investigation happen that is transparent to this body as well as to the American people. Congress cannot allow an Administration to manipulate the public on false propaganda on matters of war and national security.

Awesome. Be even better if the media were to report on it. I couldn’t find a story about this vote in either NYT or WaPo, so who knows if they’ll bother to write about the investigation’s results either.

2 comments May 23rd, 2008 at 07:30am Posted by Eli

The #1 Reason We Need A Democratic President

Judiciary, Judiciary, Judiciary.

Al Kamen provides some perspective on just how imbalanced the courts are right now, and how much worse SCOTUS could be four years from now if McCain becomes president:

The next president will find the federal bench solidly controlled by the GOP, with about 100 Republicans in appeals court seats, compared with approximately 66 Democrats. Republicans have a 56 percent majority at the trial court level.

At least for the first couple of years, [the next president] would probably find the number of Republican retirees far outnumbering Democrats. Forty-six of the 53 longest-serving appeals judges are GOP appointees. [A Democratic president] would have a golden opportunity to replace them with liberal court-abusers. McCain, at least for a chunk of his first term, would only be treading water.

(…)

But there would be a huge silver lining for President McCain. He might have the chance to solidify GOP control of the big prize, the Supreme Court, for many years to come. The senior liberal, Justice John Paul Stevens, just turned 88, although he’s still golfing and, we hear, maybe playing a little tennis.

A second liberal opening might come from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who is 75. McCain also might be able to replace conservative justices Antonin Scalia, 72, and Anthony Kennedy, 71, with younger Republicans. If everything worked out, McCain could create a court with a seven-member conservative majority whose oldest member would be Clarence Thomas, who turns 60 next month.

Every Democrat and progressive should be scared to death by this possibility.  Even if McCain were held to a single term, followed by the Democrats hammerlocking the White House and the Congress for the next 30 years, they could still be overruled at every turn by an unabashedly right-wing Supreme Court, with absolutely no recourse. Roe v. Wade: gone.  Affirmative action: gone.  Employee protections against discrimination, abuse, injury and death: gone.

Any questions on campaign finance, voting rights, or electronic voting machines would be decided in favor of the GOP.  But torture would be okay, just so long as the victims haven’t been convicted of anything.

And that’s just what IWANAL (I Who Am Not A Lawyer) can think of off the top of my head.  I’m sure I haven’t even scratched the surface of what kind of havoc an all-wingnut Supreme Court could wreak.

But if, God forbid, John McCain does become president, I have two specific requests to make of Senate Democrats that might hopefully reduce the damage a little bit:

1) Please remember that judgeships are lifetime appointments, so don’t worry about comity or deference to presidential prerogative.  If you screw up, we all have to live with it for the next 30 or 40 years.  (I feel obliged to point out that life expectancy is quite a bit longer now than it was when the Constitution was written…)

2) Place more weight on the nominee’s judicial history and less weight on their evasive-at-best-dishonest-at-worst responses to your questions.  If they’ve been a right-wing judge all their life, that’s not going to change when they get a promotion.

Yeah, we’d still have a conservative judiciary, but at least some of those judges would choose the law over ideology every once in a while.

(h/t Peterr & dakine)

1 comment May 9th, 2008 at 08:28pm Posted by Eli

The Power Of Names

Helen Thomas is the latest to lament America’s loss of moral standing now that our president has admitted to authorizing something that looks an awful lot like torture.  But in BushCo’s mind, as long as they never call their enhanced interrogation techniques “torture”… then they aren’t.

No matter that most Americans, the Army’s code of conduct, and pretty much the entire civilized world, considers waterboarding torture - as long as the administration (not to mention John McCain) says it isn’t, it’s perfectly okay.  It’d be interesting to see how well that defense stood up at The Hague, but I don’t guess we’ll ever get a chance to find out.

3 comments May 2nd, 2008 at 08:00am Posted by Eli

Dubya Vs. The Law, Continued…

Well, this is reassuring:

Elana Schor writes for the Guardian: “A legal brief that exempted the US military from criminal laws following the 9/11 attacks was improperly kept classified for years, the former head of the US government agency in charge of document secrecy said today.

“The March 2003 brief, which allowed Pentagon interrogators to claim self-defence in sidestepping laws against torture, was made public earlier this month.

“J William Leonard, who directed George Bush’s information security oversight office until last year, today told Congress that the document never should have been classified in the first place.

“‘To learn that such a document was classified had the same effect on me as waking up one morning and learning that after all these years, there is a “secret” article to the constitution that the American people do not even know about,’ Leonard said.”

And then there’s the matter of Bush’s attitude toward executive orders.

Scott Shane and David Johnston write in the New York Times that at the same hearing, senior Justice Department official John P. Elwood “disclosed a previously unpublicized method to cloak government activities. Mr. Elwood acknowledged that the administration believed that the president could ignore or modify existing executive orders that he or other presidents have issued without disclosing the new interpretation.

“Mr. Elwood, citing a 1980s precedent, said there was nothing new or unusual about such a view.”

I have to ask: Does this 1980s precedent involve the words, “We’re on a mission from God”?

Add comment May 1st, 2008 at 10:16pm Posted by Eli

Uh-Oh, Part II

Democratic geniuses, at it again:

Crikey, this is getting old. You may have seen by now that rumors of a new push on passage of FISA, and, of course, full retroactive immunity, are bubbling to the surface in the last 24 hours. Here is Jane. Here is Digby. Here is McJoan. From Jane at FDL:

According to the ACLU, there is rumor of a backroom deal being brokered by Jay Rockefeller on FISA that will include retroactive immunity. I’ve heard from several sources that Steny Hoyer is doing the dirty work on the House side, and some say it will be attached to the new supplemental.

A few more facts and circumstances are available now than were in the earlier stories. For one, we apparently see the “urgency lever” being pressed this time around (there always seems to be one in these plays, it’s a feature).

Bmaz then points out that:

1) Any surveillance that has been ordered under the Protect America Act has a 12-month lifespan, so no surveillance orders issued prior to the PAA expiration date would remain in place until after the end of Dubya’s term.  So if anything is expiring, the administration is letting it expire deliberately so they can manufacture urgency to use as a club against Democrats.  That’s a very responsible approach to Keeping America Safe, don’t you think?

2) The telcos aren’t pushing hard for immunity; it’s all coming from BushCo. and the GOP.  So it’s not so much that the telecoms are afraid of getting sued, it’s the Bush administration that’s afraid of the telecoms getting sued… resulting in exposure of all the bullshitting they did to get their illegal wiretaps on.

3) The word “compromise” almost always means “giving the administration everything they want in exchange for a few meaningless concessions… maybe.”  Actual compromises, like judicial determinations of whether telecom immunity is warranted, are completely unacceptable.

This is not encouraging.  Hopefully if all else fails, Dodd can dig in his heels again, but really, it should have to come down to that every single time.

Better Democrats, please.

Add comment May 1st, 2008 at 11:38am Posted by Eli

Key Fact About Indiana Photo IDs

They’re free.

Factually, the state of Indiana had a few good things going for it. The District Court made a number of factual findings that strengthened its case (although, for the reasons set out in Justice Souter’s opinion, still not to the point I would have swallowed it). For example, the District Court “found that petitioners had “not introduced evidence of a single, individual Indiana resident who will be unable to vote as a result of [the Indiana Law] or who will have his or her right to vote unduly burdened by its requirements.” Furthermore, the District Court found that 99% of voting-age public had a driver’s license. So the number of potentially harmed people was low. (While opinions differ as to whether this fact should matter in a facial challenge — 1% of voters is still high — it won’t be an issue in an as-applied challenge.)

And, one key fact of future significance is that the state offers all citizens a free photo ID. That allowed the three Justices in the lead opinion to distinguish this case from a poll tax. Many other states charge for non-driver photo ID — such as Florida for example. I read this decision to suggest pretty strongly that there are six votes for the proposition that any state which charges for photo ID cannot constitutionally require that voters show a photo ID in order to vote, as this would in effect be a poll tax. (I hope this result doesn’t get lost in the lower court shuffle that is sure to follow.)

This is still not an ideal ruling by any stretch of the imagination, as even the hassle of getting even a free photo ID, especially if there aren’t any DMV offices nearby - but at least it sounds like it makes the photo ID requirement dependent on said IDs being free.  Which should dilute their ability to function as a stealth poll tax.

I wonder: Could the same grassroots organizations that give people rides to the polls also give people rides to the DMV to get their photo ID?  It shouldn’t be at all hard to raise gas money, right?

1 comment April 28th, 2008 at 07:06pm Posted by Eli

Gotta Run, My Coalition’s Collapsing

Dang, I sure hope Blumenthal’s right about the right:

Bush’s second term has witnessed the great unraveling of the Republican coalition. After nearly two generations of political dominance, the Republican coalition has rapidly disintegrated under the stress of Bush’s failures and the Republicans’ scandals and disgrace. The Democrats have the greatest possible opening in more than a generation — potentially. They should pay strict attention to how Bush has swiftly undone Republican strengths as an object lesson.

(…)

In 2004, Bush swaggered through his reelection campaign, still swept along on the momentum from September 11. He and Rove did not consider the perverse and unprecedented illogic of Bush v. Gore as anything but a rightful decision. They did not see the means by which he became president as artificial, making his position inherently weak and unstable. Bush took occupying the office itself and September 11 as tantamount to a resounding mandate for his radicalism. Nor did Bush or Rove view Bush’s steady and precipitous decline in popularity as cause to reconsider their preconceptions. After the Afghanistan invasion, Bush’s numbers tumbled until he ramped up the campaign for the invasion of Iraq, after which his standing dived again, only to spike once more after the capture of Saddam Hussein, only to fall again. Nonetheless, Rove drew no lessons from these warnings, except that war and terror served as indispensable political weapons to sustain Bush. On this rock, Rove proposed to build a reigning party.

(…)

The scale of the Bush disaster is larger than any cataclysm since [the Democratic collapse in 1968]. Whether or not there is a powerful geopolitical analogy between Iraq and Vietnam wars, as Bush first insistently denied, then vehemently argued, there is a pertinent domestic political analogy. Vietnam ended a Democratic era as definitively as Iraq is closing a Republican one.

(…)

Every time the conservative Republican period seemed to be exhausted it gained new impetus through openings created by Democratic fractiousness and incompetence in politics and governing. With each cycle conservatism reemerged more radicalized — a steady march further to the right. After Nixon’s disgrace in Watergate came Reagan; after the conservative crackup that engulfed George H.W. Bush came the radical Congress elected in 1994, led by Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay; and then came George W. Bush. Bill Clinton’s presidency served as an interregnum that might have broken the Republican era for good had his vice president Al Gore been permitted to assume the office he won by a popular majority. But the conservative bloc on the Supreme Court ultimately thwarted him. When the court in Bush v. Gore handed the presidency to Bush it gave him an extraordinary and unnatural chance to extend Republican power.

Only through the will to power in the Florida contest, the deus ex machina of the Supreme Court, and the tragedy of September 11, was Bush able to gain and hold the presidency. But he and the Republicans have been living on borrowed if not stolen time.

Karl Rove believed he could engineer a political realignment by recreating his work in Texas where he marshaled money and focused campaign technology in order to destroy the Democrats. But the analogy of the nation as Texas writ large was faulty from the start. In Texas he had the wind at his back, regardless of how elaborate and clever his machinations. The transformation of Texas in the 1980s and 1990s into a Republican state was a delayed version of Southern realignment. Yet Rove came to Washington believing that the example of Texas could be transferred to the national level. With the attacks of September 11, this seasoned architect of realignment believed he possessed the impetus to enact his theory. It apparently never occurred to Rove or Bush that using Iraq to lock in the political impact of September 11 would ever backfire. In his First Inaugural, Bush spoke of an “angel in the whirlwind,” but the whirlwind was of his own making. For all intents and purposes Rove could not have done more damage to the Republican Party than if he had been the control agent for the Manchurian Candidate.

The cataclysm has consumed Rove’s theory, his president, his party, and prospects for a Republican majority. The Republicans may take years if not decades to recreate their party, but that project would have to be on a wholly different basis.

The radicalization of the Republican Party is not at an end, but may only be entering a new phase. Loss of the Congress in 2006 is not accepted as reproach. Quite the opposite, it is understood by the Republican right as the result of lack of will and nerve, failure of ideological purity, errant immorality by members of Congress, betrayal by the media, and by moderates within their own party. They may never recover from the election of 2004, when they believed their agenda received majority support and they ecstatically thought they were the “Right Nation.”

Herbert Hoover did not transform his party but became its avatar through failure. By contrast, Bush has remade the Republican Party, turning it into a minority party as a consequence of his radicalism. Bush’s discredited Republicanism has further provoked the radicalization of its base where religious right and nativist elements are increasingly dominant. The party is in the grip of an intolerant identity politics — white male semi-rural fundamentalist Protestant — that seems only to alienate women, suburbanites, Hispanics, and young people. By the end of his presidency, Bush had achieved the long conservative ambition of remaking the Republican Party without an Eastern moderate wing. Once a national coalition, embracing New York and California, Alabama and Illinois, the Republican Party has retreated into the Deep South and Rocky Mountains.

(…)

But the Democrats have not yet solidified a new coalition. They may be on the eve of becoming a majority national party for the first time in their history without conservative Southerners at their core. But they may still snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, mesmerized by grandiose delusions as if the past were weightless. Just as the Republican collapse under Bush has given the Democrats an unprecedented opening, the Democrats may still find a way to reinvent the Republicans. Even if they win the presidency, the Democrats can only consolidate their future coalition through skillful and successful governing. Only then they will be the sun. In Bush’s final days, a new era has not yet dawned, but an old one is setting.

In other words, Rove managed to suppress America’s gag reflex just enough to keep the Bush and Republican toxins in our system for an extra four years, and now everyone is far more sick of Republicans than they would have if Bush and the Republican majority had gone away like they should have in 2004.

I think there’s something to that, but the question is whether the Democrats can capitalize on it - especially after doing so little to oppose the Bush agenda, even after they assumed the majority in 2006.  I have to admit to being amused by Blumenthal’s worry that the Democrats might blow it by becoming “mesmerized by grand delusions” - if there’s one thing the post-2000 Democrats have not been guilty of, it’s overreach.  It’s underreach that I’m worried about - that even with control of Congress and the White House, the Democrats will be too timid and cautious to effectively roll back and repair all the damage BushCo. has done.

In which case they’ll hand power right back to the Republicans, who will probably have retooled and reinvented themselves by then. I mean, who would have thought that we would have a Republican president just 6 years after Watergate?  The Republicans are more resilient than cockroaches.

2 comments April 24th, 2008 at 07:16am Posted by Eli

Media And Democrats Sleeping Through Wakeup Call

What BooMan said:

Asked whether he was aware that his National Security Council Principals Committee discussed and approved torturing human beings that we’re being held at the U.S. government’s mercy, our President responded:

“Well, we started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people.” Bush told ABC News White House correspondent Martha Raddatz. “And yes, I’m aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved.”

To be more specific about what Bush knew about and approved:

As first reported by ABC News Wednesday, the most senior Bush administration officials repeatedly discussed and approved specific details of exactly how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the CIA. (…)

These top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects — whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding, sources told ABC news.

No one with any credibility on human rights thinks that waterboarding is legal under U.S. or international law. And waterboarding is not the only violation of law committed by our government and approved by the president. A look at the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention Against Torture clearly demonstrates that our country is guilty of numerous violations.

Unfortunately, those with credibility on human rights are not the ones controlling our national narrative.  Instead it’s the shallow corporate-owned Heathers of the media and the cowardly (if not outright complicit) Democrats in Congress.

As recently as March, the president vetoed a bill banning torture. And the international press is covering the news that torture was authorized at the highest levels, even if our domestic press is more concerned with meaningless back and forth arguments in the Democratic primary.

The reputation of our nation has been seriously damaged, and ignoring the damage will only exacerbate the problem. Unfortunately, neither the media nor the Congress appear capable of coming to terms with what was done in our name and doing anything about it. The ACLU is calling for a Special Prosecutor, but it is very unlikely that the Bush administration will willingly authorize someone to investigate them for serious felonies that they have already confessed. Any talk of impeachment must account for the seriously depressing prospect that the Republican Party will act collectively as official apologists for torture and thereby, by failing to convict, establish the unhealthy precedent that the most serious violations of human rights are not worthy of removal from office. Compounding the problem is that a failure to attempt to impeach will establish the same precedent.

It is hard to believe that just ten years ago this nation impeached a president for lying about his sex life in a civil deposition in a case that was eventually tossed for lack of merit. Ten years ago the media could not grant enough coverage to the crimes of the president, but now even confessed felonies are covered over in favor of silly campaign coverage.

(…) We, as a nation, need to do something about this. It is a most difficult thing to come to terms with. There is a strong impulse to set this aside and write it off as an overreaction to the national trauma of 9/11. We see the same instinct in how so many want to grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications carriers that were ‘only doing their patriotic duty’ when they allowed the government to violate our 4th Amendment rights and spy on us without judicial warrants. In this case, government officials were ‘only trying to keep us safe’. That’s their defense, but it is not an adequate defense. And it does nothing to justify Bush’s recent veto of a bill banning torture.

Bush and Cheney will be leaving office in nine months, and the easiest thing to do is to just run out the clock. But that isn’t the right thing to do. And it will not absolve us of our responsibility to punish injustice and vindicate our nation’s commitment to human rights and the rule of law. Just look at how the world views us. Are we to let this stand?

And, yet, what can we do? With Clinton and Obama distracted by the primaries and the domestic press in the bag and with Republican complicity and administration obstruction, there seems to be no leadership and no path to a solution.

That leaves the responsibility on citizen activists…people like you and me. If the media won’t cover it, we will. And we will hope that shame compels the media to recognize our shame and agony, and our commitment to our country and its reputation in the world.

Even with a closely fought primary going on, this should be the story of the year, if not the story of the century: The President Of The United States has admitted to approving war crimes.  Impeachment is the very least that Congress should do; criminal prosecution seems far more appropriate (although perhaps not legally feasible for Dubya until he leaves office).

I doubt that Congress will do anything more than hold ineffectual hearings that get stonewalled, so does anyone (i.e., torture victims or their families) have standing to prosecute the evildoers, including Dubya in 2009? That will probably be the only possible way to obtain justice, and for this country to finally begin redeeming itself.

Add comment April 14th, 2008 at 07:20am Posted by Eli

Principals Without Principles

Does this really surprise anyone?

In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News.

The so-called Principals who participated in the meetings also approved the use of “combined” interrogation techniques — using different techniques during interrogations, instead of using one method at a time — on terrorist suspects who proved difficult to break, sources said.

Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects — whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding.

The high-level discussions about these “enhanced interrogation techniques” were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed — down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

The advisers were members of the National Security Council’s Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy.

At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

As the national security adviser, Rice chaired the meetings, which took place in the White House Situation Room and were typically attended by most of the principals or their deputies.

Contacted by ABC News today, spokesmen for Tenet, Rumsfeld and Powell declined to comment about the interrogation program or their private discussions in Principals Meetings. Powell said through an assistant there were “hundreds of [Principals] meetings” on a wide variety of topics and that he was “not at liberty to discuss private meetings.”

Hey, you hear that flushing sound, Colin?  That’s the last remaining scraps of your reputation.  Remember when everyone thought you were a statesmanlike man of integrity?  Pretty awesome, wasn’t it?  And now you’re just another of Dubya’s war criminals.

According to a former CIA official involved in the process, CIA headquarters would receive cables from operatives in the field asking for authorization for specific techniques. Agents, worried about overstepping their boundaries, would await guidance in particularly complicated cases dealing with high-value detainees, two CIA sources said.

Highly placed sources said CIA directors Tenet and later Porter Goss along with agency lawyers briefed senior advisers, including Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld and Powell, about detainees in CIA custody overseas.

“It kept coming up. CIA wanted us to sign off on each one every time,” said one high-ranking official who asked not to be identified. “They’d say, ‘We’ve got so and so. This is the plan.’”

Sources said that at each discussion, all the Principals present approved.

Then-Attorney General Ashcroft was troubled by the discussions. He agreed with the general policy decision to allow aggressive tactics and had repeatedly advised that they were legal. But he argued that senior White House advisers should not be involved in the grim details of interrogations, sources said.

According to a top official, Ashcroft asked aloud after one meeting: “Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly.”

Ashcroft sounds a lot more concerned with optics than ethics.  Powell had a little more of a big-picture concern, but didn’t do squat about it:

Then-National Security Advisor Rice, sources said, was decisive. Despite growing policy concerns — shared by Powell — that the program was harming the image of the United States abroad, sources say she did not back down, telling the CIA: “This is your baby. Go do it.”

So Condi is incompetent and evil!  Maybe she would make a perfect running mate for McTrainwreck.  And did Colin Powell always completely lack balls, or did he hand them over to Dubya when he assumed the Secretary Of State position?  Wasn’t this the point (or one of the points) where a Principled Man Of Conscience  says, “I cannot be party to this,” and resigns?  As opposed to, “Gee, I sure wish you guys wouldn’t do that, but okay.”  Heroic.

3 comments April 10th, 2008 at 07:08am Posted by Eli

Wait… WHAT???

Glenn Greenwald makes a very interesting catch.  Mukasey is either a liar or an accidental whistleblower:

I just received the following statement from the Vice Chairman of the 9/11 Commission, Rep. Lee Hamilton, in response to my inquiries last week (and numerous follow-up inquiries from readers here) about Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s claims about the 9/11 attack and, specifically, about Mukasey’s story that there was a pre-9/11 telephone call from an “Afghan safe house” into the U.S. that the Bush administration failed to intercept or investigate:

I am unfamiliar with the telephone call that Attorney General Mukasey cited in his appearance in San Francisco on March 27. The 9/11 Commission did not receive any information pertaining to its occurrence.

That’s the statement in its entirety, and it’s hard to imagine how it could be any clearer. Hamilton’s statement is consistent with the statement of 9/11 Commission Executive Director Philip Zelikow, as well as the letter sent to Mukasey by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers and two Subcommittee Chairs, none of whom have any idea what Mukasey was talking about. In light of Hamilton’s amazing comment, could journalists possibly now report on this story? One of two things is true about Mukasey’s extraordinary claim about how and why the 9/11 attacks occurred. Either:

(1) The Bush administration concealed this obviously vital episode from the 9/11 Commission and from everyone else, until Mukasey tearfully trotted it out last week; or,

(2) Mukasey, the nation’s highest law enforcement officer, made this story up in order to scare and manipulate Americans into believing that FISA and other surveillance safeguards caused the 9/11 attacks and therefore the Government should be given more unchecked spying powers.

Either way, isn’t it rather self-evidently a huge story? Kudos to Hamilton, who originally refused to comment and obviously changed his mind as a result of the numerous civil though impassioned entreaties he received from readers here. If the Attorney General says that the 9/11 attacks occurred because of Episode X, and the 9/11 Vice Chair, the 9/11 Executive Director and the House Judiciary Committee Chairman all have never heard of any such episode, isn’t it rather urgent that this be resolved?

See, this is why we need real investigative media who ask Republicans tough questions too.

Add comment April 8th, 2008 at 10:51pm Posted by Eli

Question Of The Week

John Yoo, 3/14/03 torture memo:

“…The Eighth Amendment… applies solely to those persons upon whom criminal sanctions have been imposed. As the Supreme Court has explained, the “‘Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause’ was designed to protect those convicted of crimes… The Eight Amendment thus has no application to those individuals who have not been punished as part of a criminal proceeding, irrespective of the fact that they have been detained by the government… The Eighth Amendment therefore cannot extend to the detention of wartime detainees, who have been captured pursuant to the President’s power as Commander in Chief…”

“The detention of enemy combatants can in no sense be deemed ‘punishment’ for purposes of the Eight Amendment… Indeed, it has long been established that captivity in wartime is neither a punishment nor an act of vengeance, but merely a temporary detention which is devoid of all penal character…”

Tony Scalia, 2/12/08 BBC interview:

To begin with, the constitution refers to cruel and unusual punishment, it is referring to… cruel and unusual punishment for a crime. But a court can do that when a witness refuses to answer or commit them to jail until you will answer the question — without any time limit on it, as a means of coercing the witness to answer, as the witness should. And I suppose it’s the same thing about “so-called” torture.

Is it really so easy to determine that smacking someone in the face to find out where he has hidden the bomb that is about to blow up Los Angeles is prohibited under the Constitution? Because smacking someone in the face would violate the 8th amendment in a prison context. You can’t go around smacking people about. Is it obvious that what can’t be done for punishment can’t be done to exact information that is crucial to this society? It’s not at all an easy question, to tell you the truth.

Did Yoo and Scalia come up with this torture-is-okay-as-long-as-they-haven’t-been-convicted-of-anything angle independently, or did someone pass the idea to or between them?

Makes one wonder just what Dick and Tony might have talked about on those hunting trips, eh?

Add comment April 4th, 2008 at 09:55pm Posted by Eli

If McCain Wins….

Can you prove it didn’t happen?

(picture from Married To The Sea)

1 comment March 27th, 2008 at 11:11am Posted by Eli