I liked camellias before I ever saw them. Then one spring, in a botanical garden,in a botanical garden, I saw acres of blooming bushes. I then forgot about them till recently, when I saw them in the local nursery. Even without flowers, the dark green foliage (when not sunburnt) is luscious. So I have one planted in the deep shade in my backyard, where it is surviving, if not thriving, and have one in a pot, waiting to be planted. I want maybe two more, max., finding room for more than that is going to be difficult. Plus planting shrubs is hard labor.
So I decide to wait for a sale, and sure enough, a couple of weeks ago, they're offering "buy three, get one free". And of course, in good American tradition, I go for the "savings", and now this is what I have:
Five places to find, clear, dig pits, plant, ... Not as though I have nothing else to do. And these don't even yield chocolate :)
PS: the camellia in the pot had really lovely blooms this spring and I thought I had some photographs. Despite Lightroom and all, I cannot find them. So next year, maybe.
PPS: the green net is my quick fencing to save roses and petunias from marauding deer. Now that all the empty lots on the road have been built up, deer have become a problem.
And today, the word of the day in the corporate press is... presumptuous. Used in a sentence: Senator Obama is being presumptuous during his trip -- acting all presidential and dignified. How dare he be presidential while running for, you know, president. Presumptuous. During the live CNN web feed of the Berlin address, an anchor used it to describe the event. Joe Klein used it in a blog post today. Of course Joe attributed it to racist voters rather than very serious reporters -- racist because it's presumably a synonym for 'uppity' and we can't accuse the press of such awfulness. And Candy Crowley used it in her post-address analysis on CNN. That's a lot of coincidences. "Presumptuous" must really be a popular word. ......
AP: "In a speech that risked being seen as presumptuous..."
TIME Magazine: "capable to become the Commander in Chief of a superpower -- without seeming presumptuous..."
The National Journal: "He is well aware voters here at home might see that as presumptuous..."
Washington Post: "Whether by the end of this week he will be seen as presumptuous or overly cocky..."
Chicago Tribune: "That means walking the fine line between looking presidential and appearing arrogant and presumptuous..."
Boston Globe: "plus the growing sense in some quarters that the presumptive Democratic nominee is getting a little presumptuous..."
Saw this at the nearby nursery and could not resist. The problem as always is to find a spot with adequate sunlight. Since it put out fresh flowers after I planted it, perhaps the place I found it is OK. Time will tell.
Ruutel, as per the web, was bred in Estonia, blooms all summer and is tolerant of poor conditions.
Here's a portrait Representative Rush Holt, NJ 12th district (Democrat) at a townhall meeting in Oceanport on July 21st. The townhall was about global warming and energy, and in the two hours, 7-9PM, amazingly, remained on topic. Holt believes that the American people have crossed the thresholds of understanding that the global climate is changing and that human activities have something to do with it; that there is something we can do about it is not yet realized. Vice Admiral Paul G. Gaffney (Ret.), President of Monmouth University made the actual presentation of scientific knowledge about climate change; a rather conservative presentation which made the points that climate change is happening, there are many potentially bad things (and some good things) that could happen; we should throw all the government resources including ocean data from the Navy and nuclear labs' supercomputers to monitor, predict and plan for the consequences; and that we should try to at least slow down the rate of change so we have time to adapt.
Glenn Greenwald rates Holt as one of the best persons in Congress; I follow politics less but would agree; the only thing one could ask for more of is seniority.
Photography note: cropped and resized, ISO 1600, 105 mm f/4, 1/125 seconds, without flash (which was photographically a mistake, but was not intrusive on the meeting; some otherwise good shots were ruined by motion blur at 1/40 second shutter speed).
PPS: Holt and Gaffney discussed climate change in a totally non-partisan manner, which was another good thing.
PPPS: I was carrying the 70-200mm f/2.8 but once the meeting started I didn't think I could inobtrusively change lenses. I think a good photographer needs a thicker hide than mine.
There is a malaise in this country that I experience every day. I have so called freedom of speech. I am a world recognized scientist. Yet if I dare open my mouth to criticise the American system with respect to science or health care I am quickly marginalized by the anti-intellectual countrymen I encounter every day.
From a dkos diary on the sorry state of the US as measured by the human development index and health care.
Summer Thursdays evenings on the Long Branch boardwalk, there's music. Today's started with a teenage band, The Punks.
In between there were distractions, like the Parrot Man.
Parrots are cute, but their claws aren't!
The main attraction was The Nerds. Spaz: Biff: Stretch: Mongo: One of the songs they played. And i can see you your brown skin shining in the sun you got your hair combed back sunglasses on baby
and i can tell you my love for you will still be strong after the boys of summer have gone.
Tom Engelhardt documents four wedding parties - and a possible fifth - blown away by US air power since 2001, and notes:
We Americans have only had one experience of death delivered from the air since World War II – the attacks of September 11, 2001. As no one is likely to forget, they shocked us to our core. And you know how those deaths were covered, right down to the special pages filled with bios of civilians who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the repeated invocations of the barbarism of al-Qaeda's killers (and barbarism it truly was).
These wedding parties, however, get no such treatment. Initially, they are automatically assumed to be malevolent – until the reports begin to filter in from the hospitals, the ruined villages, and the graveyards, and, by then, it's usually too late for much press attention. When that does happen, their deaths are chalked up to an "errant bomb," or that celebratory gunfire, or no explanation is even offered.
Nothing barbaric lurks here, even though we can be sure that these civilians were hardly less surprised by the arrival of the attacking planes than were the victims of 9/11. For their deaths, no word portraits are ever painted. No one in our world thinks to memorialize them, nor is there any cumulative record of their deaths. Whole extended families have been wiped out, while the dead and wounded run into the hundreds, and yet who remembers?
Here's the truth of it: In Bush's wars, the wedding singer dies, the bride does not get a chance to run away, and the event might be relabeled my big, fat, collateral damage wedding.
In the process, we have become a nation of wedding crashers, the uninvited guests who arrived under false pretenses, tore up the place, offered nary an apology, and refused to go home. It's a remarkable record, really, and catches the nature of the Bush administration's air war not on, but of and for terror in a particularly raw way. And yet, in this country, when the latest wedding party went down, no reporter seems even to have recalled our past history of wedding-party obliteration. So it goes.
My husband is among the small army of criminal defense lawyers representing the "enemy combatants" held at Guantanamo Bay. One of his clients, a poor, illiterate Afghani farmer whose first contact with electricity and plumbing occurred in Cuba, served five years before being released last year. His crime? The man's sister refused to marry a neighboring farmer, who then denounced her brother to the U.S.
Anecdote? One of a kind error?
# "A CIA analyst warned the Bush administration in 2002 that up to a third of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay may have been imprisoned by mistake, but White House officials ignored the finding and insisted that all were 'enemy combatants' subject to indefinite incarceration."
# "[A] top aide to Vice President Cheney shrugged off the report and squashed proposals for a quick review of the detainees' cases . . .
'There will be no review,' the book quotes Cheney staff director David Addington as saying. 'The president has determined that they are ALL enemy combatants. We are not going to revisit it.'"
# "[T]he [CIA] analyst estimated that a full third of the camp's detainees were there by mistake. When told of those findings, the top military commander at Guantanamo at the time, Major Gen. Michael Dunlavey, not only agreed with the assessment but suggested that an even higher percentage of detentions -- up to half -- were in error. Later, an academic study by Seton Hall University Law School concluded that 55 percent of detainees had never engaged in hostile acts against the United States, and only 8 percent had any association with al-Qaeda."
Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
I will not simply deport them. I will make their life miserable before I deport them. I will use their ignorance and lack of resources coerce the innocent into admissions of guilt. I will then incarcerate them.
Keep them coming! Bring them on!
After accepting the Plea Agreement and before imposing sentence, the judge gave the defendants the right of allocution. Most of them chose not to say anything, but one who was the more articulate said humbly: "Your honor, you know that we are here because of the need of our families. I beg that you find it in your heart to send us home before too long, because we have a responsibility to our children, to give them an education, clothing, shelter, and food."
The good judge explained that unfortunately he was not free to depart from the sentence provided for by their Plea Agreement.
Technically, what he meant was that this was a binding 11(C)(1)(c) Plea Agreement: he had to accept it or reject it as a whole. But if he rejected it, he would be exposing the defendants to a trial against their will. His hands were tied, but in closing he said onto them very deliberately:
"I appreciate the fact that you are very hard working people, who have come here to do no harm. And I thank you for coming to this country to work hard. Unfortunately, you broke a law in the process, and now I have the obligation to give you this sentence. But I hope that the U.S. government has at least treated you kindly and with respect, and that this time goes by quickly for you, so that soon you may be reunited with your family and friends."
The defendants thanked him, and I saw their faces change from shame to admiration, their dignity restored. I think we were all vindicated at that moment.
Before the judge left that afternoon, I had occasion to talk to him and bring to his attention my concern over what I had learned in the jail interviews.
...... That is also what prompted my brief conversation with the judge: "Your honor, I am concerned from my attorney-client interviews that many of these people are clearly not guilty, and yet they have no choice but to plead out."
He understood immediately and, not surprisingly, the seasoned U.S. District Court Judge spoke as someone who had already wrestled with all the angles. He said: "You know, I don't agree with any of this or with the way it is being done. In fact, I ruled in a previous case that to charge somebody with identity theft, the person had to at least know of the real owner of the Social Security number. But I was reverted in another district and yet upheld in a third."
I understood that the issue was a matter of judicial contention. The charge of identity theft seemed from the beginning incongruous to me as an informed, impartial layperson, but now a U.S. District Court Judge agreed. As we bid each other farewell, I kept thinking of what he said. I soon realized that he had indeed hit the nail on the head; he had given me, as it were, the last piece of the puzzle.
It works like this. By handing down the inflated charge of "aggravated identity theft," which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 2 years in prison, the government forced the defendants into pleading guilty to the lesser charge and accepting 5 months in jail.
Clearly, without the inflated charge, the government had no bargaining leverage, because the lesser charge by itself, using a false Social Security number, carries only a discretionary sentence of 0-6 months. The judges would be free to impose sentence within those guidelines, depending on the circumstances of each case and any prior record.
Virtually all the defendants would have received only probation and been immediately deported.
In fact, the government's offer at the higher end of the guidelines (one month shy of the maximum sentence) was indeed no bargain. What is worse, the inflated charge, via the binding 11(C)(1)(c) Plea Agreement, reduced the judges to mere bureaucrats, pronouncing the same litany over and over for the record in order to legalize the proceedings, but having absolutely no discretion or decision-making power.
As a citizen, I want our judges to administer justice, not a federal agency.
When the executive branch forces the hand of the judiciary, the result is abuse of power and arbitrariness, unworthy of a democracy founded upon the constitutional principle of checks and balances.
Y'know, gay marriage just might ruin hetero marriage! Look, it's already happening to me! Two guys moved in to a delapidated house down the block from us (I think they're "that way") and started fixing it up. Pretty soon all I hear from the little helpmeet is "Why doesn't our lawn look like that" and "Why don't you do that to our deck" Next thing I know, she's over there, consulting with them on house colors. She consults, but I have to paint, of course. Well, last night the axe fell. After we drove past and my wife looked at the progress they have made on their retaining walls and garden, I heard her mutter "Next time, I think I'll marry a man!"
Yesterday - "The Fourth Amendment is going to be eviscerated tomorrow....There is not an ounce of principle, not an ounce of public interest in this legislation....what we will lose tomorrow is something very precious; it's going to be part of the Fourth Amendment and that is beyond measure."
MADDOW: Now, I‘m not privy to, nor do I ever want to be privy to, the wildest dreams of George W. Bush. But I‘m still willing to bet that three years ago, when we learned he was spying on Americans illegally, I‘m betting that his wildest dreams did not include the prospect that Congress, a Democratic-led Congress would help him cover up his crimes.
Today, in our fourth story on the COUNTDOWN: That is exactly what the U.S. Senate is poised to do tomorrow. In the Senate today, Democrats put forward three amendments to the FISA bill, a bill that would not only succumb to Mr. Bush‘s desire for greater legalized wiretapping, it would also block civil lawsuits against the telecoms, perhaps the best chance we will ever have to find out the extend of our own government‘s spying, illegal spying on us.
The bill would give telecoms immunity for any illegal wiretapping they did for the Bush administration, as long as that illegal wiretapping was authorized by the Bush administration. It‘s like letting a get-away car driver off the hook because the bank robber told him that robbing banks was legal.
Today, a handful of Democrats pointed out how the bill gives the one-fingered salute to the rule of law.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. PAT LEAHY, (D) VERMONT: I‘m not out to get the telephone companies. I just want us to know who it was in the administration that said, “Go break the law.” The American people ought to know who in the White House said, “Go break the law.” Who it was that made the decision that somehow this president stands above the law.
SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD, (D) WISCONSIN: And on top of all this, we‘re considering granting immunity when roughly 70 members of the Senate, still have not been briefed on the president‘s wiretapping program. The vast majority of this body still does not even know what we‘re being asked to grant immunity for.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Despite claiming the bill‘s wiretapping powers are essential to the nation‘s safety, President Bush yesterday threatened to veto the bill if Feingold and Leahy succeed in removing immunity for the telecoms.
At the recommendation of Attorney General Michael Mukasey and others, Mr. Bush even said he will veto the bill if it includes a provision that would merely delay immunity and freeze the telecom lawsuits until after Congress had the opportunity to learn what actions by the telecoms and the government they would be immunizing.
The vote on the bill, complete with immunity, is set for tomorrow. Most observers say that Leahy, Feingold and other Democratic holdouts don‘t have a chance. Let‘s bring in Jonathan Turley, professor of constitutional law at George Washington University.
Professor Turley, thanks for your time tonight.
JONATHAN TURLEY, PROF. OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW: Hi, Rachel.
MADDOW: First, refresh us on the perils of this immunity issue. What do you think of the arguments for granting these companies retroactive immunity?
TURLEY: Well, the arguments, unfortunately, are all but too clear. You know, there was a recent judgment just a few days ago in the Al Harriman (ph) case, where the federal judge said, “Obviously, the president committed an illegal act.” That illegal act is defined as a felony, a crime under federal law.
So, what the Democrats are doing here with the White House is they‘re trying to conceal a crime that is hiding in plain view, that everyone can see it. And so, the argument for it is quite sill simple, nobody wants to have a confrontation over the fact that the president committed a felony, not once, but at least 30 times. That‘s a very inconvenient fact right now in Washington.
MADDOW: Jonathan, one option for this bill could have been to do something very small and very simple—just making it clear that the government doesn‘t have to get a warrant for foreign-to-foreign communications that happen to pass through the U.S. technologically. That would fix the technological problems and update FISA when they say it needs updating.
But this bill, instead of taking a small scale approach like that, it takes a very large scale approach and expands the president‘s powers to wiretap us, to wiretap Americans without a warrant. At least that‘s how I understand it. Do I have that right?
TURLEY: Well, you have it right. I think that the founders would have found this incomprehensible. The expanse of power to the point of including what is now defined as a federal crime. And not only that, but the Democrats have learned well from Bush.
Because the telecoms are losing in court, because the administration is losing in court, they‘re just going to change the rules, so that these public interest organizations that have brought these cases will all lose by a vote to fiat by the Democrats. It‘s otherworldly.
MADDOW: Senator Obama says he does not like this bill, but he says he‘s supporting it as a compromise. Is this a compromise? Is that the right term for it? Is he right?
TURLEY: Yes. I got to tell you, I am completely astonished by Senator Obama‘s position and obviously disappointed. You know, all of these senators need to respect us enough, not to call it a compromise. It‘s a cave-in.
I mean, if it was a compromise, why aren‘t civil libertarians supporting it? Because we don‘t like to receive a good deal? Civil libertarians are opposed to this.
And, you know what‘s terrible is like one of those stories where someone is assaulted on a street and a hundred witnesses do nothing. And in this case, the Fourth Amendment is going to be eviscerated tomorrow. And 100 people are going to watch it happen because it‘s just not their problem.
And, you know, the only reason it didn‘t happen today was it was delayed for a funeral. That‘s how much these people put into the Fourth Amendment.
But you talk about expanding the president‘s power, it‘s coming out of the marrow of the Fourth Amendment. It‘s coming out of the bone. And it‘s going to hurt. And it‘s being done for political convenience. There‘s not an ounce of principle, not an ounce of public interest in this legislation.
So, at least show us respect of not calling it a compromise.
MADDOW: One last question for you. The man in whose chair I am sitting, as well as John Dean have put forth the idea that Senator Obama should pledge to criminally investigate the telecoms and the administration, even if the companies get civil immunity in this bill when it passes tomorrow. Could that happen?
TURLEY: It could happen, but I doubt it will happen. And the fact is that the fix is in.
Tomorrow night, there‘s going to be a lot of celebrating among telecom lobbyists that have just poured money into this campaign. And they‘re going to have a great victory, but it‘s a Pyrrhic victory for the rest of us. And what we will lose tomorrow is something very precious. It‘s going to be part of the Fourth Amendment and that is beyond measure.
MADDOW: It‘s just gut wrenching, honestly. It‘s gut wrenching.
Jonathan Turley of George Washington University, thank you.
Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors. - Abraham Lincoln
*** H.R. 6304 Amendment Debate Commences Tuesday, July 8 ***
At approximately 11 a.m. EDT Tuesday, after an hour of morning business, the Senate will formally proceed to H.R. 6304 and debate will begin on the three amendments made in order to the pending bill. All votes have been postponed until Wednesday morning (per a UCA change adopted Monday to the unanimous consent agreement for this bill; the Senate will hold no rollcall votes on Tuesday).
The apparent voting order for the amendments is:
1. The Dodd/Feingold/Leahy amendment to strip telecom immunity. This amendment has been allotted a maximum of two hours for debate. It must receive a 51-vote simple majority to pass.
2. The Arlen Specter amendment to maintain the separation of powers by providing that the determination of the legality of the warrantless spying requests be made by the Judicial Branch. This amendment has been allotted a maximum of two hours for debate. It must receive a 60-vote supermajority to pass.
3. The Jeff Bingaman amendment (which is supported by Specter, among others) to stay the civil suits, pending the outcome of the mandated IG report, plus 90 days. This amendment has been allotted a maximum of one hour for debate. It must receive a 60-vote supermajority to pass.
The order of Tuesday's debate on the three amendments will likely vary throughout the day, as the managers of debate time for each amendment see fit. Presumably general debate on the bill itself will also be in order.
The Senate will stand in recess from 12:30 p.m. until 2:15 p.m. Tuesday (for the weekly Democratic caucus lunch).
Thus, if amendment debate starts at 11 a.m. Tuesday, and continues without interruption before and after the midday recess, the allotted time would expire at about 6 p.m. EDT (general bill debate not included). At which point the action carries over to Wednesday.
The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just. - Abraham Lincoln
*** H.R. 6304 Debate and Voting Concludes on Wednesday, July 9 ***
Starting at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, as soon as the Senate convenes, and despite the fact that amendment votes will still be pending, the pre-cloture debate will begin, and last until about 11:15 a.m., when voting on the three amendments will begin.
The voting order, apparently, is Dodd/Feingold/Leahy (51), Specter (60), Bingaman (60), followed immediately by the vote on the motion to invoke cloture, because cloture's debate time will have elapsed before the amendment voting began (the cloture vote requires a 60-vote supermajority, which, if attained, will result in final passage of the bill shortly thereafter, with no intervening debate). Just 41 No votes will stop cloture and sustain Dodd's filibuster.
We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution. - Abraham Lincoln
More details of the current, pending perversion are spelled out here by a DailyKos diarist:
(3) The Presidential Authority Clause Ratifies Bush's Actions As Lawful, Thus Providing Bush With Immunity.
.
This is the problem. Bush will now have a colorable argument that Congress has ratified or confirmed that Bush had "authority" to issue Executive Orders that directed and managed the domestic spying program(s). As noted by Senator Dodd, if this "misguided FISA legislation" is passed, it "will ratify a domestic spying regime that has already concentrated far too much unaccountable power in the president's hands and will place the telecommunications companies above the law."
When a president does not factually have authority to take actions in 2001-2007, and then Congress subsequently confirms that Bush had "authority" in 2008, this is called Congressional ratification. An inherent element of congressional ratification is to backdate the statement of authority in 2008 to the years 2001-2007 to transform the prior unauthorized actions into now authorized actions.
-snip-
However, the federal preemption section bans retroactive and prospective investigations of telecoms by states and cities, which would include criminal prosecutions. This leaves open the door for a federal criminal prosecution. However, aside from the clearly minimal political will to criminally prosecute Bush after he leaves office, if Congress is now confirming that Bush had "authority" to conduct domestic spying via his EO, then Bush's conduct was lawful, not criminal. - Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse
Calls and faxes (urging support for all the amendments and oppostion to cloture) to the following Democratic Senators will be especially important Tuesday:
I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong. - Abraham Lincoln
Jerome a Paris points out that the mission is actually accomplished - unfortunately, it is Osama bin Laden's mission.
New York Times, 14 October 2001 ''If bin Laden takes over and becomes king of Saudi Arabia, he'd turn off the tap,'' said Roger Diwan, a managing director of the Petroleum Finance Company, a consulting firm in Washington. ''He said at one point that he wants oil to be $144 a barrel'' -- about six times what it sells for now.
Well, that is the price of oil now.
(OBL's target price was based on what he calculated the West had taken in "the great swindle" from the Islamic world.)
The McClatchy group of newspapers has been living up to their motto - Truth to Power. They recently did a series on US detainees in Guantanamo, finding that lots of them were wrongly imprisoned.
Unfortunately, I do not see a McClatchy newspaper in my area.
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
That's it. That's the Fourth Amendment. That is what these folks in Washington, D.C., have violated continuously and in secret for seven long years.
You've committed a felony. The consequences are - the legislature will reassert that the law you've broken is the law of the land, and at the same time give you immunity from prosecution.
That is roughly what the Democrats are doing with regard to illegal wiretapping by the current administration.
We had hoped that that "change you can believe in" guy would at least put up some resistance to this. We didn't expect him to necessarily win, but to put up a fight. After all this is his first opportunity to keep a promise made during the campaign.
Obama instead did an about-turn - a flip-flop - and now is all in favor of what the Democrats are doing.
---- Obama's justification -
Extremely short Obama: I got you by the balls, whatcha gonna do?
A bit longer Obama: I'm giving you a bunch of specious reasons for supporting a FISA bill that I opposed all during the primaries; you know I'm full of crap, and I know you know; but I'll have all the fishes and loaves of office to distribute, and you - you're going to vote for McCain? The full Obama is here, and an excerpt is below.
Democracy cannot exist without strong differences. And going forward, some of you may decide that my FISA position is a deal breaker. That's ok. But I think it is worth pointing out that our agreement on the vast majority of issues that matter outweighs the differences we may have. After all, the choice in this election could not be clearer. Whether it is the economy, foreign policy, or the Supreme Court, my opponent has embraced the failed course of the last eight years, while I want to take this country in a new direction. Make no mistake: if John McCain is elected, the fundamental direction of this country that we love will not change. But if we come together, we have an historic opportunity to chart a new course, a better course.
A Bush-41-appointed Federal District Judge yesterday became the third judge -- out of three who have ruled on the issue -- to reject the Bush administration's claim that Article II entitles the President to override or ignore the provisions of FISA. Yesterday's decision by Judge Vaughn Walker of the Northern District of California also guts the central claims for telecom immunity and gives the lie to the excuses coming from Congress as to why the new FISA bill is some sort of important "concession." More than anything else, this decision is but the most recent demonstration that, with this new FISA bill, our political establishment is doing what it now habitually does: namely, ensuring that the political and corporate elite who break our laws on purpose are immune from consequences.
The many ways how Obama is full of shit is described here.
If Senator John McCain's 5+ years as a prisoner of war somehow qualifies him to be President over someone who did not spend 5 years as a POW, then it explains the mystery of why the US is holding so many likely innocent people in Guantanamo, using Communist Chinese interrogation techniques from 1957.
The Action Wire keeps you up to date on current rumors and smears and equips you with the information to fight back against them. It's up to all of us...(more)
Senator Obama - we are a proud group of your supporters who believe in your call for hope and a new kind of politics. Please reject the politics of fe...(more)
Anyone who visits the children's library knows that this is an adult, mundane version of a very interesting story.
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Amsterdam police say 15 camels, two zebras and an undetermined number of llamas and potbellied swine briefly escaped from a traveling Dutch circus after a giraffe kicked a hole in their cage.
Briefly - high energy prices are in part due to demand outgrowing supply, but also because of the four trillion deficit dollars printed to fund the war in Iraq and because of the fear premium of an impending US-Israeli attack on Iran. House Resolution 362 is a virtual declaration of war.
..no Obama on that list, he was campaigning. But it wouldn't have mattered anyway. He's el foldo on this issue.
"The bill has changed. So I don't think the security threats have changed, I think the security threats are similar. My view on FISA has always been that the issue of the phone companies per se is not one that overrides the security interests of the American people."
A few weasel words from there, but Obama is totally cool with the precedent of the government giving a slip of paper to a corporation allowing them to break the law. He's cool with the premise of "we were just following orders" that was shot down at Nuremberg being revived. He's cool with if the President does it, then it isn't illegal. He's cool with a bunch of the other really dangerous aspects of the bill, including the vacuuming up of every communication that leaves or enters the United States without even the caveat that they be related to terrorism. He's cool with a national surveillance state.
It also reminds me of the perspicacity of a friend of mine, who having endured Cuba's Castro, saw all of this coming, and not wanting to face it twice in a lifetime, left the country.
Excerpts:
Of all the things I despise about the Bush administration, the one I will forever loathe most is how they made morality a minority position. It was the standard operating procedure of the Bush years that ethics was considered quaint, that pride in government was considered hopelessly idealistic, and that morality was the stuff of starry eyed fools.
...I will remember the Bush administration not for any bold speeches, but for an unending sequence of snide, guttural croaks in front of podiums, in which the latest blasphemy against mankind or God is uttered with perfect assurance, or with a dismissive sneer, or with ominous opines on the motivations of those that think differently.
[On torture]
The concept, after all, is simple: one should not torture potentially innocent people. Forget the more unambiguous version, one should not torture anyone -- we are not even halfway there. We can base the premise simply on the notion that one should not torture innocent people to find out whether they "know" something, and you would still find that central element of morality, of basic human principle, of Christianity or any other religion you can name, to be, in America, in 2008, a controversial statement likely to get you condemned as a fool or worse. If you are opposed to the torture of the innocent, you will face the wrath of fat, hateful radio blowhards. You will face condescending, patronizing, entirely amoral lectures on newly discovered legality of the acts from administration lawyers speaking from the editorial pages of our newspapers. You will be told that what you consider torture, what every other society including our own has considered torture up until this very moment of time, is not in fact torture, and that you have affection for terrorists if you think otherwise.
...
There were those that considered "preemptive" war an abomination; they were considered naive, and dismissed as artifacts of an earlier time with shamefully rigid thinking. There were those that thought bombing the cities of Iraq, regardless of the viciousness and corruption of their leader, under the confused banner of maybe al Qaeda or something was too high a price for an uninvolved civilian population to pay, regardless of the actions of that leader. An opinion like that was taken as evidence of secret sympathies for that leader.
There were those that thought the Geneva Conventions should apply; they were dismissed as rubes. There were those who thought those that were turned in to United States forces as terrorists should have, at some point, a trial: the larger voice howled of the danger of giving any voice to those people, whether innocent or not.
There were those that thought that, even casting aside evidence that torture does not work, even casting aside laws against it, even casting aside the impossibility of separating guilty from innocent in front of the teeth of a barking dog or using water and a rag, torture is immoral; for speaking such thoughts, the speakers become hated.
At the same time, we were lectured on the will of God from those that see hurricanes as divine judgement against tolerance; we were told that intolerance is the moral position. We were told that if there is even "a one percent" chance that someone is a terrorist, granting them doubt or mercy was a fool's game.
We were told, in short, that calculated brutality was a requirement of government. In the end, the greatest condemnation of the Bush administration is not that they believe that, but that they have almost managed to get us to believe it.
---- Lastly:
If it were merely the war on terrorism, that would be something different, though not necessarily better, but in every aspect of governance we continually have been told that the ethical position is the stupid, foolish one, or that being offended at corruption is the childish position. No news outlets demanded answers, when the Justice Department was staffed with those loyal to party, not country; it was considered expected. The outing of a CIA agent as payback was politics as normal; the urgings to prosecutors to prosecute Americans differently according to party affiliation was for a long while presumed merely one of the perks of power. The task of rebuilding Iraq was considered secondary to staffing it with die-hard conservatives, even if they had not even the slightest bit of expertise towards the job. Scientific reports by the government were either quashed or the findings changed in order to fit The Approved Version Of Reality; it barely resulted in whimpers. Forget the difficult or controversial decisions, even the most basic ones were reduced to simple equations of party advantage and ideological loyalty.
House Resolution 362/Senate Resolution 580 demand that the President of the United States
initiate an international effort to immediately and dramatically increase the economic, political, and diplomatic pressure on Iran to verifiably suspend its nuclear enrichment activities by, inter alia, prohibiting the export to Iran of all refined petroleum products; imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran; and prohibiting the international movement of all Iranian officials not involved in negotiating the suspension of Iran's nuclear program;
This resolution demands that President Bush "initiate an international effort" to impose a land, sea, and air blockade on Iran to prevent it from importing gasoline and to inspect all cargo entering or leaving Iran. Such a blockade imposed without United Nations authority (which the resolution does not call for) would be seen as an act of war.
Congress is set to vote on this resolution next week. The resolution has 169 co-sponsors.
We are told that our favorite friends, the Israeli lobby, AIPAC, is pushing this resolution.
The Bush administration has been wretchedly mistaken in its conception of executive power, deceitful in its push for war with Iraq and appalling in its scheming to make torture an instrument of state power. But a healthy democracy punishes policy mistakes, however egregious, and seeks redress for its societal wounds, however deep, at the ballot box and not in the prisoner's dock.
I think this attitude is widespread in the political class today, maybe even shared by Obama. Bush's breaking of the laws is a "policy error". That is why everything from impeachment to enforcement of subpoenas and holding even minor officials guilty of contempt of Congress is off the table.
We ordinary Americans are guilty of thinking that our government officials could have committed crimes; quite out of sync with our Democratic Party elders.
The Democrats are not caving in, compromising, capitulating to the Republicans, they are simply following the premise that all the last seven years are simply policy errors.
All Obama is going to do, if he is successful in his bid for the Presidency, is redistribute the bread-and-circuses. He is not going to (and never was going to, we bad, our mistake for thinking otherwise) change the notion that government officials only commit policy errors, and not criminal actions.
The idea that the United States Government can possibly be complicit in criminal acts is an idea Obama explicitly discarded along with his one-time pastor Rev. Wright.
If you understand this then there is nothing to be disappointed in about Obama. There are only a handful of politicians, Kucinich among them, who know that the government can be criminal, and then it needs to be held to account by impeachment or by trials.
What you will get with Obama is a change in policy. What you will never get with Obama is any accountability for the Bush Administration's crimes.
i.e., this will go unattended
Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba – forced out of the service in 2006 for trying to honestly investigate the atrocities at Abu Ghraib – was unequivocal in his statement in a new report by Physicians for Human Rights:
"After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account...The commander-in-chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture."
Chris Floyd explained. He quoted the words of a liberal journalist, who after systematically making the case that the Bush Administration is guilty of war crmes, comes to the conclusion:
The Bush administration has been wretchedly mistaken in its conception of executive power, deceitful in its push for war with Iraq and appalling in its scheming to make torture an instrument of state power. But a healthy democracy punishes policy mistakes, however egregious, and seeks redress for its societal wounds, however deep, at the ballot box and not in the prisoner's dock.
Criminal behavior by government officials is to be dealt with only at the ballot box? It is an amazing notion, but it seems to be one shared alike by Democrats and Republicans in Washington, D.C.; it makes comprehensible their behavior. That is why everything from impeachment to holding officials to be in contempt of Congress is off the table.
Chris Floyd further writes:
The cognitive dissonance of this conclusion was so painful and severe that I had to read it several times to fully take in that it meant exactly what it said: Rutten believes with all his heart that the official practice of deliberate, systematic torture – a clear and unambiguous war crime which he himself has just outlined in careful detail – is ultimately nothing more than a “wretched mistake,” a “policy difference” that should not be “criminalized.” And how can this be? The answer is obvious, if unspoken: because it was done by the United States government – and nothing the United States government ever does can possibly be criminal, or evil. It can only be, at most, a mistake, a conceptual error, an ill-considered policy, a botched attempt at carrying out a noble intention.
I'm less sure of this argument; it could simply be that the politicians consider themselves to be a special breed of human being to whom the laws that apply to the rest of the United States do not apply. In favor of Floyd's argument is Senator Kit Bond's statement:
"I'm not here to say that the government is always right, but when the government tells you to do something, I'm sure you would all agree that I think you all recognize that is something you need to do."
i.e., we must believe in the authoritarian government that is not bound by laws, presumably because it is the United States government that can do no evil. Or perhaps because it is controlled by people who can commit no crimes, only make policy mistakes.
UPDATE III: This article from Dow Jones, celebrating that the telecom industry is completely off the hook as a result of this bill, has the full quote from Sen. Bond, which is even better:
"I'm not here to say that the government is always right, but when the government tells you to do something, I'm sure you would all agree that I think you all recognize that is something you need to do," Bond said.
Even when the Government is wrong, even when it orders you to do something illegal, your role is not to question but to obey. That's what he is saying explicitly.
When Democrats took over the Congress, they issued a document vowing to "end the 'dead of night' special interest provisions that turn bills into special-interest giveaways" and proclaimed: "Lawmakers must have the opportunity to read every bill before they vote on it. It’s common sense."
Today, the House leadership has set aside a grand total of one hour to debate the FISA/amnesty bill today, and gave its members less than 24 hours from the time it was released yesterday until they have to vote on it today. That's the same bill which the NYT this morning calls "the most significant revision of surveillance law in 30 years." They're going to enact massive changes to our spying laws without having the slightest idea what they're voting on. All they know is that the President demanded them and, as Kit Bond says: "when the government tells you to do something, I'm sure you would all agree that I think you all recognize that is something you need to do."
....now, slowly, just breathe into the bag a few times... that's it. Few more times... you will be fine. Okay, here is the thing: if Congress passes a law saying something is legal, it’s legal. Got it? He never broke the law. What he did was legal, and now a Democratically controlled Congress agrees. Done deal, get over it. And, every wonder why Bush smiles a lot these days? It’s because his legacy will be huge… Consider: Bush has: (1) Kept the country 100% safe for over 6 years now, (2) defeated Al Qaeda, (3) defeated the Taliban, (4) freed 30 million people, (4) won the war in Iraq, (5) started a democracy right next door to Iran which ultimately will cause the downfall of the Mullahs in Iran... all, while presiding over an economy that has stayed out of recession for almost 7 years. Yes my friends on the left, history works in funny ways…. Okay, here is the bag again… breathe…
I'd like to underscore the fact that in 2006, when the Congress was controlled by Bill Frist and Denny Hastert, the administration tried to get a bill passed legalizing warrantless eavesdropping and telecom amnesty, but was unable. They had to wait until the Congress was controlled by Steny Hoyer, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to accomplish that.
The warrantless wiretapping that the annual Human Rights Report issued by the US Department of State blasts when it occurs in Russia or Zimbabwe has been going on under the Bush Administration, and the Democratic Congress is about to ratify that and retroactively immunize the Bush Administration and the telecom companies from any real examination of their actions.
The fig leaf of judicial review that they're putting in the bill they're trying to pass is as follows - if the Administration made a claim that warrantless wiretapping is legal, then that settles the question; i.e., the only question before the courts would be - had the Administration made such a claim? The courts would not be able to render a judgement as to whether any law was broken by the warrantless wiretapping program.
To add insult to injury - the way they're going to get this bill passed is to not use all the procedural methods that the majority can use to stop such a bill; for instance the Majority Whip will not issue a whip. What the Democratic leadership will do is allow just enough Democrats to join with Republicans to pass the bill; the rest of them will vote against, and then represent to the voters that they opposed the bill. They really think we're stupid!
The attempted antidote is here. Contribute if you can.
For the story in detail, see Glenn Greenwald, here, here and here.
Speaking of which, as Steny Hoyer and Congressional Democrats attempt this week to legalize George Bush's warrantless eavesdropping powers and immunize lawbreaking telecoms, it's worth noting the company we keep in that realm, too. In 2001, the U.S. State Department issued a truly amazing report on Russian human rights abusees, complaining that Russian "authorities continued to infringe on citizens' privacy rights." What was the basis of that complaint? The State Department said that Russian regulations that:
require Internet service providers and telecommunications companies to invest in equipment that enables the [Foreign Security Service] to monitor Internet traffic, telephone calls, and pagers without judicial approval caused serious concern.
"Serious concern." Worse, said our Report, in Russia "there appears to be no mechanism to prevent unauthorized [Government] access to Internet traffic without a warrant"!
In 2006, the State Department's report on Russia contained one of the most amazing passages I've read in all the time I've been writing about political issues. This is really -- honestly -- what the State Department said in condemning Russia. I highly recommend reading this a few times, especially in light of what the Congress is preparing to do this week:
The law states that officials may enter a private residence only in cases prescribed by federal law or on the basis of a judicial decision; however, authorities did not always observe these provisions.
The law permits the government to monitor correspondence, telephone conversations, and other means of communication only with judicial permission and prohibits the collection, storage, utilization, and dissemination of information about a person's private life without his consent. While these provisions were generally followed, problems remained. There were accounts of electronic surveillance by government officials and others without judicial permission, and of entry into residences and other premises by Moscow law enforcement without warrants. There were no reports of government action against officials who violated these safeguards.
What kind of monsters would spy on their own citizens without warrants even when the law requires warrants, and then not even punish those who broke the law? Russian Communist KGB thugs -- that's who would do such a horrible thing, our State Department complained in 2006. Note, too -- as our Congress attempts to legalize warrantless eavesdropping here -- that our State Department complained about Russia's surveillance abuses even though the law there permits such spying "only with judicial permission."
Finally, in August of 2007, Zimbabwe passed a law allowing its President to eavesdrop on telephone conversations with no warrants -- exactly what our Congress is about to do -- and this is what opposition leaders in that country said about that new law:
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Friday signed into law the controversial Interception of Communications Bill, which gives his government the authority to eavesdrop on phone and Internet communications and read physical mail.
The legislation has drawn outspoken opposition from the political opposition and civil society organizations as trampling on the civil rights of Zimbabweans.
Spokesman Nelson Chamisa of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change faction of Morgan Tsvangirai called it an addition to "the dictator's tool kit" . . .
Secretary General Welshman Ncube of the MDC faction led by Arthur Mutambara called it a "final straw to the curtailment to the liberties of Zimbabweans."
Human rights lawyer Otto Saki told VOA that the law interferes and undermines the enjoyment of rights enshrined in the constitution and is a sign Mr. Mugabe wants to consolidate his power by "any means necessary or unnecessary."
But in reply to that uproar, the Mugabe government had what one must admit was a good response:
But Communications Minister Christopher Mushowe said Zimbabwe is not unique in the world in passing such legislation, citing electronic eavesdropping programs in the United States, the United Kingdom and South Africa, among other countries.
That's the company Steny Hoyer and the Blue Dogs in Congress are working hard this week to ensure we continue to keep, as they devote themselves to legalizing warrantless eavesdropping and immunizing corporations that broke the law. The details of the campaign to stop that will be posted here shortly.
Thanks to skyrocketing oil prices, many oil companies again enjoyed record profits in 2007. Chevron Corporation posted a company-best $18.7 billion in profit, while Royal Dutch Shell PLC reported a near-best $31.3 billion. ExxonMobil Corporation, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, posted a 2007 net income of $40.6 billion, the single largest annual profit in U.S. corporate history.
The long-term future of oil companies may not be so bright, however. ExxonMobil reported a decline in oil and natural gas production in 2007, and many companies are finding it hard to replace their reserves.Not only have the largest oil fields already been developed, most of the promising prospect areas are controlled by state-owned oil companies, which hold 80 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves.
The Constitution is a creation of We the People. It is not something that has been imposed on us from a higher authority. We are that higher authority. We are the sovereign. All three branches of government created under the Constitution have only those powers that we have granted to them and no more. ...
A Constitutional question is never, and can never be, about creating rights. I repeat, the Supreme Court does not, cannot, "create" or "extend" rights. The Court is not God, and it does not have the power to bestow rights on anybody.
To the contrary, and, as we first recognized in our Declaration of Independence, everyone on earth already holds every inalienable right that exists....
...The Supreme Court is vested with the authority to decide what power We the People consented to give. The Court decides what the Constitution means, what the law is. This is the concept of judicial review and the legacy of Marbury v. Madison. It is the Court's unique function to determine whether it, or either of the other branches, has been granted the power, by We the People, to act in a particular circumstance.
...It should be obvious that the Constitution, as the source of all governmental power, must necessarily apply to all governmental action. The crime of Bush's enemy combatant detention program is that Bush claimed the power to act outside the Constitution. Such power simply does not exist.
...How did we get so confused? In part, I blame the Bill of Rights. It should never have been adopted. Beware of lists. Lists can provide useful examples to explain an underlying, abstract concept, but all too often the concept gets lost in the debate over which examples to include and which to exclude from the list. The list becomes exhaustive instead of illustrative. This was the danger Hamilton warned us about when he argued that a Bill of Rights was unnecessary and potentially harmful.
...We have failed to heed Hamilton's warning. The idea that because specific protections exist, the government necessarily holds the power to affect the protected rights took hold. That misconception, in turn, led to the idea that if the Constitution doesn't afford specific protections, the government is free to act. Both are baseless, ignorant conclusions stemming from the fundamental misconception that the Constitution exists to protect individual rights. It does not. The Constitution exists to delineate the power of our government to act.
...
The proper focus on governmental power is also obscured by the analysis we undertake to determine the scope of that power. Where the government does have the power to act, the scope of that power is limited by balancing the competing interests of individual rights vs. the common good. Our rights are not absolute. They may be infringed, or even denied, when necessary to promote the common good through the legitimate exercise of governmental power. Finding the fulcrum point for that balancing act depends on the nature, scope and relative importance of the individual right being affected and the competing societal interest being furthered by the government's action. In short, you can't determine how far the government can go in its exercise of legitimate power until you determine which individual rights are being impacted and to what degree. It is an exercise in labeling and classification, NOT an exercise in creating or denying rights.
Perhaps the most egregious example is Roe v Wade. Everyone understands that Roe created a right to privacy. That's simply wrong. The right to privacy has always existed. Roe decided the extent to which the government can interfere with that right in the course of exercising its legitimate power to regulate abortion. Whether they called it the right to privacy, or the right to dominion over one's body, or the right to expel tissue from one's uterus, is irrelevant. What was important was whether the individual's interest in not being subject to governmental interference outweighed society's interest in regulating the individual's behavior. But that analysis was lost in the debate over whether to include the "right to privacy" on the magic list. It is discussions of this sort that have shifted the focus from the exercise of power to the protection of rights.
Viewed from a frame focused on the existence of power, the Bill of Rights is more accurately a list of specific limitations on the exercise of governmental power. This is not a distinction without a difference. It is a shift in focus, and the different frames can and have lead to dramatically disparate results.
For years, I've been saying that the only way to understand the Iraq war – a war that hurt, rather than advanced, American interests – is to see it as a successful covert action carried out by the Israelis and their American collaborators. The "Clean Break" scenario, launched by American "advisers" to then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, laid it all out in 1996. That was the theory, the practice of which is revealed in second section of the Senate intelligence report. It's no accident that two individuals involved in creating that seminal blueprint for the "transformation" of the Middle East, Doug Feith and David Wurmser, are intimately connected with the activities examined in the Senate report.
My comment: What Obama says about what we would do if we saw Abraham raising his knife on child Isaac, and why we would do it is an argument that is accessible to any fundamentalist. Apart from that Obama says what we've known for years.
Dan Rather, on why the US media spouts government propaganda:
Let me say, by way of answering, that quality news of integrity starts with an owner who has guts. In a news organization with an owner who has guts, there is an incentive to ask the tough questions, and there is an incentive to pull together the facts -- to connect the dots -- in a way that makes coherent sense to the news audience.
But it is rare, now, to find a major news organization owned by an individual, someone who can say, in effect, "The buck stops here." The more likely motto now is: "The news stops... with making bucks."
America's biggest, most important news organizations have, over the past 25 years, fallen prey to merger after merger, acquisition after acquisition... to the point where they are, now, tiny parts of immeasurably larger corporate entities -- entities whose primary business often has nothing to do with news. Entities that may, at any given time, have literally hundreds of regulatory issues before multiple arms of the government concerning a vast array of business interests.
These are entities that, as publicly held and traded corporations, have as their overall, reigning mandate: Provide a return on shareholder value. Increase profits. And not over time, not over the long haul, but quarterly.
...I could continue for hours, cataloging journalistic sins of which I know you are all too aware. But, as the time grows late, let me say that almost all of these failings come down to this: In the current model of corporate news ownership, the incentive to produce good and valuable news is simply not there....
Clinton's campaign ripped open a hole in our culture and forced us to look inside. And what we found was a simmering cauldron of crude, sophomoric sexism and ugly misogyny that a lot of us knew existed but didn't realize was still so socially acceptable that it could be broadcast on national television and garner nary a complaint from anybody but a few internet scolds like me. It was eye-opening, to say the least.
Any woman who chooses to behave like a full human being should be warned that the armies of the status quo will treat her as something of a dirty joke...She will need her sisterhood.
Clinton is very much a product of the generation that accepted a certain amount of humiliation as the price of progress. She wrote in her autobiography that when she ran for president of her high-school class against several boys, one of them told her she was “really stupid” if she thought a girl could be elected president. She lost, and later, the winner asked her to head a committee “which as far as I could tell was expected to do most of the work.” She swallowed hard, accepted and, she admitted, really liked organizing all the school parades and dances and pep rallies.
This is one of the things you have to admire about Hillary Clinton. She still enjoys the work.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
From here extract the phrase "a more perfect Union". This forms the framing that any criticism must follow to enter the political mainstream in the US. Any other framing is marginalized, kept off the air, not considered "serious". Doesn't matter what the reality is, doesn't matter whether we're sliding down an abyss. Torture, indefinite detention and suspension of habeas corpus, illegal wiretapping, the gutting of the rule of law - none of these stir any passion in the people at large, because they violate the underlying mode of thought. "We are perfect and can only become more perfect".
The enemy-combatant doctrine constitutes the most direct and dangerous threat to the freedom of the American people in the history of our country. Prior to 9/11, terrorism was considered by almost everyone a federal criminal offense. If anyone, including an American, was accused of terrorism, the government had to secure a grand-jury indictment against him and prosecute him in U.S. district court. In that proceeding, the accused would be entitled to all the rights and guarantees enumerated in the Bill of Rights, such as the right to counsel, right to due process of law, right to trial by jury, right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, right to confront witnesses, and right against self-incrimination.
The fact that terrorism has historically been considered a criminal offense was reflected, for example, in the federal criminal prosecutions of convicted terrorists Ramzi Yousef, one of the architects of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and Timothy McVeigh, the man who bombed the Oklahoma City federal building. Indeed, even in the post–9/11 era, the government has prosecuted one of the 9/11 co-conspirators, Zacarias Moussaoui, in federal district court, as well as other terrorist suspects in Michigan, Florida, and elsewhere.
Another revolutionary aspect of the enemy-combatant doctrine was how the discretionary power to treat suspected terrorists, including Americans, as enemy combatants was acquired by the president and the Pentagon. Despite the assumption of this monumental power by the executive branch, there never was a constitutional amendment authorizing it. Initially, there wasn’t even a law enacted by Congress granting such power to the president. Instead, the president simply announced that as a result of 9/11 and his “war on terrorism,” he and the military now possessed the power to treat anybody suspected of terrorism – American or foreigner – as an enemy combatant.
I came away from the trip with a heightened expectation of a US/Israeli strike on Iran or other associated step to increase tension in the region. People on both sides seem to be openly placing their bets on that basis (Geagea) and fearing it as a serious possibility (Hezbollah and Syria). Jumblatt and Hariri were more cagey on the issue but my impression was that they are hoping for it, possibly expecting it, but politically smart enough not to openly indicate as such. My assessment of the broader situation is that hard-line elements in the West have only a few months to change the domestic and international political map by escalating US involvement in the Middle East. Otherwise there is a strong, and I believe for them unacceptable, danger of an Obama presidency that could reduce US involvement in the Middle East. This in turn could precipitate a collapse of the imperial system they are working so hard to implement, based around networks of individuals and interests binding the US, Britain, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and their more minor pawns in the region. They will surely do everything in their power to avoid this scenario. " Kieran Wanduragala
"'Kick ass!' [Bush] said, echoing Colin Powell's tough talk. 'If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! We must be tougher than hell! This Vietnam stuff, this is not even close. It is a mind-set. We can't send that message. It's an excuse to prepare us for withdrawal.
"There is a series of moments and this is one of them. Our will is being tested, but we are resolute. We have a better way. Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! Prevail! We are going to wipe them out! We are not blinking!'"
The NYT Public Editor weighs in about whether Obama is a Muslim apostate, and what was widely seen as Luttwak's call to Muslim fanatics to attempt an assassination.
The Times Op-Ed page, quite properly, is home to a lot of provocative opinions. But all are supposed to be grounded on the bedrock of fact. Op-Ed writers are entitled to emphasize facts that support their arguments and minimize others that don’t. But they are not entitled to get the facts wrong or to so mangle them that they present a false picture.
Did Luttwak cross the line from fair argument to falsehood? Did Times editors fail to adequately check his facts before publishing his article? Did The Times owe readers a contrasting point of view?
The answers the Public Editor gives are Yes, Yes, and Yes.
Shipley, the Op-Ed editor, said he regretted not urging Luttwak to soften his language about possible assassination, given how sensitive the subject is. But he said he did not think the Op-Ed page was under any obligation to present an alternative view, beyond some letters to the editor.
I do not agree. With a subject this charged, readers would have been far better served with more than a single, extreme point of view. When writers purport to educate readers about complex matters, and they are arguably wrong, I think The Times cannot label it opinion and let it go at that.
I regret this is not enough to save my subscription to The New York Times, because the Op-Ed editor still thinks No, No and No to the questions above.
But of course if I were the editor of an op-ed page, I would think that one of my goals was to publish articles that inform, rather than mislead, my audience. The actual op-ed editors at the NYT and Washington Post have, however, made it abundantly clear over the years that they see misleading their audience as fine -- hence men like Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer get hired as columnists.
It does, however, make you wonder what these institutions are for. As means of acquiring information, they're useless -- the editors are indifferent to whether the author's purpose is to inform or to mislead. As entertainment, they're not very entertaining -- even a terrible movie like Crystal Skull is more fun than an op-ed column. Are they important profit centers for the failing businesses in which they're embedded? That seems unlikely.
