"Bloodthirsty Bitches and Pious Pimps of Power" Gerry's New Book

In case you haven't heard, Gerry has a new book out with a great title: "Bloodthirsty Bitches and Pious Pimps of Power." (The Amazon link is here.)

From a New York blogger named Mickey Z here is a quote from the book....

"I’ve come to believe that the members of Team Hate are what and who they are because of what and who we are. The mirror is always at work. None of our bloodthirsty women and none of our pious pontificators could survive one segment on the tube but for the fact that they are speaking to us, the real us, that is, that part of us that resonates to the rantings of hate ... As we, they are angry because they, too, must have been forgotten, misled, lied to; because they are disappointed and have felt pain; and because their expectations have not been met. They are as trapped as we ... But they have learned to profit from it. We and they were born in the same culture, one that was not of their choosing, nor ours. They, as we, are like children who have grown up in a slaughterhouse and have forgotten the soft touch of a lamb. Might there one day be remembrance."

A wise man once told me it feels today in this country what it must have felt like in Berlin, in 1936, with so much hate in the air. I can't wait to read Gerry's take on the current state of our "union."

Easier to Declare Martial Law?

From the listserve comes this link to an article by the San Francisco Independent Media Center describing a provision in the "John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007." According to the article this provision...

"allows the President to declare a "public emergency" and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to "suppress public disorder."

I haven't had the time to examine the allegations in the article including a claim that:

"Section 1076 of the massive Authorization Act, which grants the Pentagon another $500-plus-billion for its ill-advised adventures, is entitled, "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies." Section 333, "Major public emergencies; interference with State and Federal law" states that "the President may employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in Federal service, to restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition in any State or possession of the United States, the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of ("refuse" or "fail" in) maintaining public order, "in order to suppress, in any State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy."

But, could it be that this bill, which passed unanimously in the Senate, is an another instance of the Bush Cabal attaching a provision to a defense appropriation bill, knowing that a vote against it would open the door to charges, like O'Reilly made on Letterman or like Lynne Cheney made against Wolf Blitzer, that if you're not with us, you must be with the terrorists?

Brings to mind the scene in Fahrenheit 9-11 when Rep. John Conyers admits that many votes are conducted without representatives truly knowing what's contained in them?

Here is a link to Sen. Patrick Leahy's Senate website, which includes this statement:

"Also expected to be included in the conference report is a widely opposed provision to allow the President more control over the National Guard. The conference committee has made changes the Insurrection Act, which governs when the President can call to action the National Guard without the consent of state governors to restore public order. Under the changes, the President would now be able to invoke the Act during such regular occurring events as a natural disaster. Because posse comitatus restrictions that prevent the military’s involvement in law enforcement do not apply when the Insurrection Act is invoked, the changes would nullify these long-standing laws."

As I said, I haven't had time to examine the actual bill that was signed, significantly, the same day the Military Commissions Act was signed.

But if the article's allegations can be verified, the ramifications are chillling, aren't they?

Brings to mind Bush's remarks, made during Katrina's aftermath, (see this CNN link with the headline "Bush Eyes Bigger Role for Military in Disasters") that Posse Comitatus hindered his ability to respond to a natural disaster. I wondered then, as I do now, that Katrina would be used to tear down these restrictions, opening the door not to natural disaster relief, but to the horrifying disaster of a "Unitary Chief Executive" given the power to label "enemy combatants" and to conscript the National Guard to round up "undesirable" protesters, even over the objections of the nation's governors.

Let's hope this story gets investigated and reported outside of the blogosphere. It's like I always say to my friends who question why I like to work as a public defender: "One day you'll realize why you need those rights and it'll be too late to realize you've surrendered them all in the name of cracking down on criminals."

More on this story later...

Waterboarding is like dunking, isn't it?

Dick Cheney submitted to an "interview" (h/t Glenn Greenwald) with a right-wing talk show host and was hit with hard-hitting questions such as

""Would you agree a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?" In reply to the latter question, Cheney replied: "It's a no-brainer for me""

Who's opposed to a little dunking if it can save lives, really? The "dunking" they're referring though isn't of the same type Foley tried to perform on the pages. They're talking about waterboarding, which can be seen clearly in this video, created by a former U.S. serviceman so we could see what all the fuss was about. Be warned; it's disturbing.

I bring this up because I left this comment at Greenwald's post.

"[x] says waterboarding is "stress but more intense than leaving the lights on."
If you have the stomach for it, here is a link to a video of a former member of the U.S. military who paid to have himself waterboarded (or "dunked" as dick might call it)so we could see what all the fuss was about.

Be warned though. It's difficult to watch, but equally disturbing to realize this is what's being done in our names, and now sanctioned by our representatives."

Apparently this sounded phony as another commenter noted...

"This is sooo phony - like that Michael Fox Democrapic commercial."

He is of course referring to Rush Limbaugh's assertion that Michael J. Fox, who displayed symptoms of his well-documented Parkinson's disease in an ad for the Democratic Senate candidate in Missouri, was putting on an act.

Here's what I wrote back, since it seems a little phony of me to accuse someone who dares act out the symptoms of their debilitating disease in public is faking it.

"[Y]accuses me of being phony for pointing out what waterboarding actually looks like and for commenting that watching it happen, knowing that it was approved by Congress, is sickening.

Then [Y] parrots Rush, saying that Michael J. Fox is being phony, apparently just like me.

On Countdown, discussing Rush's contention that Fox is acting, Sam Seder pointed out that Rush's real role is to insulate his listeners from reality. Thus, in Rush, [X] and [Y]'s world acts that send Japanese soldiers to prison at hard labor become simply "dunking" and waterboarding is just a little more "intense" than leaving the lights on.

Watch the video, and see if you still think it’s funny, or phony.

What's truly phony is describing what's on it as "dunking,” or declaring "we don't torture" while you ask for U.S. law to change to avoid future war crimes prosecutions, or believing that people who display the symptoms of Parkinsons, and who desperately need the medical advances of stem cell research to overcome them, are putting on an act.

Why don't you and Dick go "dunk" each other and see if people who are concerned about still seem phony?"

The Rule of Six

From a suggestion by Alan on the listserve, comes this article by Judy Sorum Brown about a way to think about something perplexing. Since the article says it better than I can...

"When we are trying to figure out something perplexing (for which we often use the term, "a problem"), or when we are facing into uncertainty, it seems natural to our western way of thinking to find the right answer through questions like this: "Exactly what is the cause of this? What's going on here? How are things going to unfold? What is likely to happen? What should be our plan?

Many of the most heated arguments, whether within our own heads, or among colleagues or with family members, are about who has the right answer to the question before us.

The "rule of six," a Native American thinking process or discipline, requires that instead of coming up with the one best answer to the question, we instead come up with at least six possible, or good, answers. And then having done that, we hold all six in our head and do not choose among them.

This is very hard for the Western mind. Even when we think of two possibilities, it is for the implicit purpose of having those two possibilities fight it our, until one wins. Thinking about more than one cause of an event or more than one possibility of an outcome is, in our mind, simply an invitation for us to quickly choose the right one.

The Native tradition, by contrast, holds that there is a generous and open space after we notice something. And that is the space within which to hold many possible interpretations, or causes, or developments.

The ability to hold six possibilities in our mind accomplishes several things. It keeps our perceptions open to a wider range of data; it allows us to be 'systems thinkers' seeking multiple roots of causality in multiple dimensions of a situation; it keeps folks from having to fight with each other about who is right at a time when they should be listening with curiosity to why each other sees things differently.

And since we are not forcing ourselves to invest our ego in a single "best" idea, we naturally become more flexible in our thinking, and if our "favorite" of the possibilities doesn't turn out to be born out by the unfolding of data, we can more easily shift out emotional commitment to another idea which in the course of time has proved stronger; and we can make that shift earlier and more easily.

So in a sense, the rule of six allows us to remain aware and realistic, more flexible in our thinking, present to the world and to the thoughts and perceptions of others, and perhaps even more compassionate with ourselves when we are "of two minds" or more about something."

Why You Need to Read Blogs

This Newsweek Online article, entitled "Are the Faithful Losing Faith?", details the results of the latest Newsweek poll on voting patterns. It describes bad news for the GOP, including a finding that "fifty-five percent of likely voters ... would vote for the Democrat in their district if the election were held today."

Sounds like great news for Democrats, right? However, on the issue of impeachment, the article continues:

"Other parts of a potential Democratic agenda receive less support, especially calls to impeach Bush: 47 percent of Democrats say that should be a “top priority,” but only 28 percent of all Americans say it should be, 23 percent say it should be a lower priority and nearly half, 44 percent, say it should not be done. (Five percent of Republicans say it should be a top priority and 15 percent of Republicans say it should be a lower priority; 78 percent oppose impeachment.)"

So, if you read this article, doesn't it sound as if the "Impeachment Part" of the Democrat's agenda is receiving low support? After all, the polling data regarding impeachment is described in negative terms, such as "receiv[ing] less support," concluding, once again in negative terms, that less than half of Democrats say impeachment should be a "top priority."

In short, the tone of the Newsweek article is that potential calls for impeachment are not being well received.

But, as Glenn Greenwald points out, if we break Newsweek's code, we can easily see that the other side of their conclusion that "44% of all Americans" say impeachment "should not be done" is that a minority of those polled believe this President should not be impeached.

So why isn't this the headline and why do we have to "parse the statement" to get to this finding? After all, this public call to impeach the Bush far exceeds the public call to impeach Clinton. But, like the proper conclusions to draw from the polling data, we have to figure this out on our own.

Looked at another way, the results of this poll are even more astounding. If "28 percent of all Americans" say impeachment should be top priority and , 23 percent "say it should be a lower priority," why doesn't Newsweek point out that a majority of those polled believe this President should be impeached. After all they agree on impeachment, but differ only on how much of a priority it should be.

But we have to break their code to figure this out!

Tragically, most readers of Newsweek's "Online Exclusive" poll would have missed this analysis and would likely have walked away thinking, as the article implied, that impeachment wasn't playing well in Palookaville.

To get to what wasn't stated, but what was clearly true, you had to read between the lines, or go to a blog that had already done so. That's why I go straight to blogs, like Greenwald's or Digby's, rather than trying to read between the lines of the corporate media sites.

What makes finding the right blogs, amongst a sea of bad ones, is that it gives you a look inside the "filter" that the news is pushed through, before it reaches you and me.

"Emotion Detection Technology" Anger Alerts

This article describes a new technology being tested at telephone-based customer service call centers to alert supervisors when a customer's anger level reaches a certain point. In short, a computer measures 200 elements of voice tone, word choice, etc., and the new article describes a "major attraction of [the] emotion-detection technology is its promised ability to help identify customer frustration." The article continues...

"The software conducts a flow analysis of each call, examining 200 elements to give a holistic picture of the customer experience. Besides emotion detection, Perform uses two other methods to analyze customer experiences with call centers. The software allows users to create lexicons of words and phrases a caller may say that could raise red flags: cancellation, frustration, or a competitor's name."

While the new technology may be promising for companies seeking a better way to identify customers who are upset, what about the technology's potential for corruption? In other words, in an age when the President willingly violates the Fourth Amendment and allows agencies to eavesdrop on purely domestic phone calls between citizens, wouldn't this new technology make Dick Cheney's dark eyes light up?

We are told that the new "Military Commissions Act,"- which allows the President to determine who is an "unlawful enemy combatant" and who is thus able to retain their ability to be tried in U.S courts, to contest their detentions via writs of habeas corpus, and their ability to retain rights to counsel, to speedy trial and to confront their accusers- will not be used to punish his political enemies. "Don't you worry your pretty little heads," we're assured. "This power will only be used against terrorists."

But try to fathom now that (1) we don't know how much eavesdropping is being conducted, and that (2) soon this new "emotion detection technology" will allow computers to search speech for phrases which may be deemed to "purposefully and materially support[] hostilities against the United States" as is criminalized under the new MCA.

The implications are terrifying for anyone who believes the Fourth Amendment should be anything but a "quaint" reminder of an earlier, pre-9/11 mindset, to paraphrase the Attorney General's assessment of the Geneva Conventions application to the GWOT.

While the implications of this new technology and our lack of knowledge about the scope of eavesdropping is truly terrifying, it is even more shocking to read this description of the "enemy at home" by the Rishwain Research Scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, Disesh D'Souza.

"In this book I make a claim that will seem startling at the outset. The cultural left in this country is responsible for causing 9/11. … In faulting the cultural left, I am not making the absurd accusation that this group blew up the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I am saying that the cultural left and its allies in Congress, the media, Hollywood, the nonprofit sector, and the universities are the primary cause of the volcano of anger toward America that is erupting from the Islamic world.

I realize that this is a strong charge, one that no one has made before. But it is a neglected aspect of the 9/11 debate, and it is critical to understanding the current controversy over the ‘war against terrorism.’ … I intend to show that the left has actively fostered the intense hatred of America that has led to numerous attacks such as 9/11. If I am right, then no war against terrorism can be effectively fought using the left-wing premises that are now accepted doctrine among mainstream liberals and Democrats.”

In other words, (1) you can be made to disappear at the Decider's whim, without access to a court or a lawyer if he concludes that you "purposefully and materially support[] hostilities against the United States," (2) phone calls between citizens are being eavesdropped upon at unknown levels and the ability of search these calls for phrases is now available, and (3) many mainstream, right-wing "intellectuals" believe, as D'Souza does, that "the left [in America] has actively fostered the intense hatred of America that has led to numerous attacks."

Is it too far of a stretch to believe the MCA will be "stretched" soon to allow the those they believe "caused" 9/11 to be described as "purposefully and materially supporting hostilities" against the U.S. to be deemed "unlawful enemy combatants" and removed to those new detention facilities being constructed inside the U.S. by a Halliburton subsidiary?

I sure hope so.

Olbermann: "Beginning of the End of America"

Keith Olbermann, who moved from ESPN to MSNBC, from sports to news, is telling things like they truly are. Sadly, when someone sent him some harmless powder, with a warning that he stop his criticism of the Bush Administration, the New York Post thought it was funny. IN fact, when Olbermann asked for additional tests at the hospital to see if powder was indeed harmless soap powder, as preliminary tests indicated, the Post's Richard Johnson mockingly wrote "[w]hether they gave him a lollipop on the way out isn't known."

I was afraid he'd back off, but he hasn't. Here is a link to his latest comment on the Military Commissions Act, which Bush signed this week. A few excerpts if you don't have time to read the whole comment...

"This President now has his blank check.

He lied to get it.

He lied as he received it.

Is there any reason to even hope, he has not lied about how he intends to use it, nor who he intends to use it against?

"These military commissions will provide a fair trial," you told us yesterday, Mr. Bush. "In which the accused are presumed innocent, have access to an attorney, and can hear all the evidence against them."

'Presumed innocent,' Mr. Bush?

The very piece of paper you signed as you said that, allows for the detainees to be abused up to the point just before they sustain "serious mental and physical trauma" in the hope of getting them to incriminate themselves, and may no longer even invoke The Geneva Conventions in their own defense.

'Access to an attorney,' Mr. Bush?

Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift said on this program, Sir, and to the Supreme Court, that he was only granted access to his detainee defendant, on the promise that the detainee would plead guilty.

'Hearing all the evidence,' Mr. Bush?

The Military Commissions act specifically permits the introduction of classified evidence not made available to the defense.

Your words are lies, Sir. They are lies, that imperil us all.

"One of the terrorists believed to have planned the 9/11 attacks," …you told us yesterday… "said he hoped the attacks would be the beginning of the end of America."

That terrorist, sir, could only hope.

Not his actions, nor the actions of a ceaseless line of terrorists (real or imagined), could measure up to what you have wrought.

Habeas Corpus? Gone.

The Geneva Conventions? Optional.

The Moral Force we shined outwards to the world as an eternal beacon, and inwards at ourselves as an eternal protection? Snuffed out.

These things you have done, Mr. Bush… they would be "the beginning of the end of America.""

Sadly, since the MCA provides the president with the authority to decide who is an "enemy combatant" and precludes even habeas review for U.S. citizens classified this way, the next warning Olbermann receives could be a trip to Gitmo.

Seriously.

The MCA allows even a U.S. citizen to be classified as an "unlawful enemy combatant" if they "purposefully and materially support[] hostilities against the United States."

It's not a stretch to conclude that an administration which reads the Constitution to allow the "unitary chief executive" to disobey both U.S. law and disregard the Constitution in times of "war" would also read this act to include prosecution of people like Olbermann.

Or you. Or me.

Is it?

Federal Judge's View of "Detainee Treatment"

Here is the comment a federal bankruptcy judge wrote into NPR after hearing John Yoo's remarks on Morning Edition. (Notice, in bold, the way he refutes the conventional wisdom" expressed in the press, that American citizens still enjoy the right to habeas corpus!).

"Listening to John Yoo talk about this new legislation was chilling. I'm a federal judge, and have taught constitutional law for 16 years. The very idea of holding anyone without trial, without the right to see the evidence that was used to justify naming them an "enemy combatant," and depriving them of the ability to challenge why they are even there is so repugnant to a constitutional democracy that I am shocked that this man actually claims to be defending American values. These are the tactics of the old Soviet Union, not of a country that stands for freedom and the rule of law.
I also quibble with his contention that U.S. citizens still have the right to habeas review. I've read the law. The president can form his own tribunal, which can determine who is an "enemy combatant" (not just an alien enemy combatant), and the decision of that tribunal would not be subject to habeas review. Moreover, persons targeted by this tribunal would not even have access to the military tribunal trial created under this law.
How easy it would be for a president to use such a law to make his political enemies simply disappear. Can this be America? -- Leif Clark, San Antonio, Texas"


Keith Olberman also comments, somewhat tongue in cheek, on his Tuesday Countdown, on the "murder of habeas corpus" that occurred under the so-called Detainee Treatment Bill.

"... COUNTDOWN has learned that habeas corpus actually predates the Constitution, meaning it‘s not just pre-September 11 thinking, it‘s also July 4th thinking.
In this those days, no one could have imagined that enemy combatants might one day attack Americans on native soil. In fact, COUNTDOWN has obtained a partially redacted copy of a colonial “declaration,” indicating that back then, depriving us of trial by jury was actually considered sufficient cause to start a war of independence based on the, then fashionable idea that “liberty” was an inalienable right.
But too today, thanks to modern post-9/11 thinking, those rights are now fully alienable—for your protection.


OLBERMANN: The reality is without habeas corpus, a lot of other rights lose their meaning. But if you look at the actual Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments of that pesky Constitution, you‘ll see just how many remain for your protection.

• OK, No. 1 is gone. I mean, if you‘re detained without trial, you lose your freedom of religion and speech, press, assembly, all the rest of that. So, you don‘t need that any more. And you know, you can‘t petition the government for anything.
• No. 2, While you are in prison, your right to keep and bear arms just might be infringed upon even if you‘re in the NRA, so that‘s gone.
• Three, well OK, no forced sleepovers at your house by soldiers. Three‘s all right.
• Four, you‘re definitely not secure against searches and seizures, as it says here, with or without probable cause. And, in prison that‘s not limited to just the guards, so forget the fourth.
• Five, grand juries and due process, obviously out, so forget five and the little trailer up here.
• Six, well trials are gone too, let alone the right to counsel. Speedy trials? You want it when?
• Seven, well this is about—I thought we just covered trials and juries earlier so forget the seventh.
• Eight, well, bail‘s kind of a moot point isn‘t it?
• And nine, other rights retained by the people. Well, you know, if you can name them during your water boarding, we‘ll consider them.
• Ten, powers not delegated to the United States federal government. Well, they seem to have ended up there anyway.

So as you can see, even without habeas corpus, at least one tenth of the Bill of Rights, I guess that‘s the Bill of Right, now—remains virtually intact. No. 3 is still safe.
We can rest easy knowing that we will never, ever have to quarter soldiers in our homes as long as the third amendment still stands strong.
The president can just take care of that with a signing statement."

Well stated. Let's hope it's well listened to.

FPD's Move to Dismiss Padilla's Case due to "Outrageous Conduct"

The Federal Public Defender's Office in the Southern District of Florida, who represents Jose Padilla, has filed a motion to dismiss his criminal case because of "Outrageous Governemntal Conduct." The motion itself is not available online but I read about it at this blog, which has extensive excerpts, including:

• "In an effort to gain Mr. Padilla’s "dependency and trust," he was tortured for nearly the entire three years and eight months of his unlawful detention. The torture took myriad forms, each designed to cause pain, anguish, depression and, ultimately, the loss of will to live. The base ingredient in Mr. Padilla’s torture was stark isolation for a substantial portion of his captivity.
• For nearly two years – from June 9, 2002 until March 2, 2004, when the Department of Defense permitted Mr. Padilla to have contact with his lawyers – Mr. Padilla was in complete isolation.
• Mr. Padilla’s dehumanization at the hands of his captors also took more sinister forms. Mr. Padilla was often put in stress positions for hours at a time. He would be shackled and manacled, with a belly chain, for hours in his cell. Noxious fumes would be introduced to his room causing his eyes and nose to run. The temperature of his cell would be manipulated, making his cell extremely cold for long stretches of time. Mr. Padilla was denied even the smallest, and most personal shreds of human dignity by being deprived of showering for weeks at a time, yet having to endure forced grooming at the whim of his captors.A substantial quantum of torture endured by Mr. Padilla came at the hands of his interrogators.
• In an effort to disorient Mr. Padilla, his captors would deceive him about his location and who his interrogators actually were. Mr. Padilla was threatened with being forcibly removed from the United States to another country, including U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he was threatened his fate would be even worse than in the Naval Brig. He was threatened with being cut with a knife and having alcohol poured on the wounds. He was also threatened with imminent execution. He was hooded and forced to stand in stress positions for long durations of time. He was forced to endure exceedingly long interrogation sessions, without adequate sleep, wherein he would be confronted with false information, scenarios, and documents to further disorient him.
• Additionally, Mr. Padilla was given drugs against his will, believed to be some form of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) or phencyclidine (PCP), to act as a sort of truth serum during his interrogations.
• For most of one thousand three hundred and seven days, Mr. Padilla was tortured by the United States government without cause or justification. Mr. Padilla’s treatment at the hands of the United States government is shocking to even the most hardened conscience, and such outrageous conduct on the part of the government divests it of jurisdiction, under the Due Process clause of the Fifth Amendment, to prosecute Mr. Padilla in the instant matter."

A news article with further details is here, but why isn't there more press coverage of this?

In other news, the Navy JAG who, along with Neil Kaytal, defended Osama bin Laden's driver, Hamdan, was denied a promotion and will leave the Navy. A news article is here. Big surprise, but what great legal work at great personal sacrifice. Makes me proud to be a lawyer but ashamed of what my government will do in my name. The NPR story which described the $40,000 of his own money that Kaytal spent on the Hamdan case and the way that Lt. Cmdr. Swift was described as a guaranteed loser of a case and turned it into one of the most important Supreme Court cases of our times. From the NPR story...

"Katyal [with Swift] went to Guantanamo to meet his client for the first time. Hamdan, who comes from a culture of gifts, gave the lawyer what Katyal calls "literally theonly possessions he had," a few prized sweets -- a date and some raisins.
He had just one question for the lawyer: "Why are you doing this?" As Katyal recounts the meeting, he told Hamdan: "I am doing this for you because my parents came from India to America" for one simple reason, "America doesn't treat people differently because of where they come from. We fought a civil war in part about the idea that all people are guaranteed certain rights, and chief among those is a right to a fair trial."

America may indeed try to not treat people differently because of "where they came from" but when you make the government look bad, you pay the price.

Garrison Keillor's Amazing Article

Garrison Keillor has summarized the "Detainee" Treatment Act beautifully (as pointed out by Amme). My favorite part...

"None of the men and women who voted for this bill has any right to speak in public about the rule of law anymore, or to take a high moral view of the Third Reich, or to wax poetic about the American Ideal.

Mark their names. Any institution of higher learning that grants honorary degrees to these people forfeits its honor.

Alexander, Allard, Allen, Bennett, Bond, Brownback, Bunning, Burns, Burr, Carper, Chambliss, Coburn, Cochran, Coleman, Collins, Cornyn, Craig, Crapo, DeMint, DeWine, Dole, Domenici, Ensign, Enzi, Frist, Graham, Grassley, Gregg, Hagel, Hatch, Hutchison, Inhofe, Isakson, Johnson, Kyl, Landrieu, Lautenberg, Lieberman, Lott, Lugar, Martinez, McCain, McConnell, Menendez, Murkowski, Nelson of Florida, Nelson of Nebraska, Pryor, Roberts, Rockefeller, Salazar, Santorum, Sessions, Shelby, Smith, Specter, Stabenow, Stevens, Sununu, Talent, Thomas, Thune, Vitter, Voinovich, Warner.

To paraphrase Sir Walter Scott:
Mark their names and mark them well.
For them, no minstrel raptures swell.
High though their titles, proud their name,
boundless their wealth as wish can claim,
these wretched figures shall go down to the vile dust from whence they sprung,
unwept, unhonored and unsung."

He then goes on to describe going to the Bush's Methodist Church in Dallas, on tour to promote his book "Homegrown Democrat"...

"I got some insight last week into who supports torture when I went down to Dallas to speak at Highland Park Methodist Church. It was spooky. I walked in, was met by two burly security men with walkie-talkies, and within 10 minutes was told by three people that this was the Bushes' church and that it would be better if I didn't talk about politics. I was there on a book tour for "Homegrown Democrat," but they thought it better if I didn't mention it. So I tried to make light of it: I told the audience, "I don't need to talk politics. I have no need even to be interested in politics--I'm a citizen, I have plenty of money and my grandsons are at least 12 years away from being eligible for military service."

And the audience applauded!

Those were their sentiments exactly. We've got ours, and who cares?The Methodists of Dallas can be fairly sure that none of them will be snatched off the streets, flown to Guantanamo Bay, stripped naked, forced to stand for 48 hours in a freezing room with deafening noise. So why should they worry? It's only the Jews who are in danger, and the homosexuals and gypsies. The Christians are doing fine. If you can't trust a Methodist with absolute power to arrest people and not have to say why, then whom can you trust?"

The man can write.

Hold Your Tongue Around Cheney or "Feel the Steel"

From a New York Times article describing what happened to Steven Howards, a Golden, CO environmental consultant who happened to see Dick Cheney on a public street while Howards was walking his 8-year old son to a piano lesson. According to the article, Howards said to Cheney, "I think your policies in Iraq are reprehensible."

"A Colorado man who was arrested in June on harassment charges after he approached Vice President Dick Cheney to denounce the war in Iraq filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday accusing a Secret Service agent of civil rights violations.
"In his suit, filed in Federal District Court in Denver, the man, Steven Howards, an environmental consultant who lives in Golden, Colo., says he stepped up to the vice president to speak his mind in a public place and found himself in handcuffs -- in violation, the suit says, of the Constitution's language about free speech and illegal search and seizure. . . .
"The suit joins two others -- in West Virginia and another in Denver -- charging that Secret Service agents or White House staff members violated the law in keeping people with opposing political views away from President Bush or Mr. Cheney....

[After talking to Cheney] Mr. Howards said he then went on his way. About 10 minutes later, he said, he was walking back through the area when Agent Reichle handcuffed him and said he would be charged with assaulting the vice president. Local police officers, acting on information from the Secret Service, according to the suit, ultimately filed misdemeanor harassment charges that could have resulted in up to a year in jail."

The criminal complaint was later dropped by D.A. Mark Hurlbert (of Kobe Bryant fame) but imagine Mr. Howards' reaction when, according to the Denver Post, the secret service agent...

" came out of the shadows,' Howards said. 'He didn't accuse me but asked me if I had assaulted Cheney. I said no, he grabbed me and handcuffed me behind my back in front of my son. As he led me away, I told him I can't abandon my son. He said he'd call social services.'"

Imagine Howards' horrified reaction, but imagine also the reaction of an 8-year old boy, on the way to his piano lesson, to see a federal agent "come out of the shadows" arrest your dad, and then "call social services" to make sure you were properly taken care of.

This hits home with me since just last year I had to explain to my own 9-year old daughter that I was late picking her up because I'd been arrested. I was only held about ten minutes, and the officers treated me very well, even apologetically, but my crime was refusing to shut my mouth when a judge told me that if I opened my mouth and said one more word to interfere with her speaking directly to my client, in court, pre-arraignment, that she'd bring in the sheriffs.

The worst part was explaining this to my daughter. I thought she was too young to understand that it wasn't only bad people who were arrested. Fortunately for me, she understood and we both learned a lesson.

I can post a transcript of the hearing if anyone's interested. But the lesson of that episode and of Mr. Howards' encounter with Cheney is that we are all about ten seconds away from "feeling the steel" of handcuffs, even when we are just doing our jobs or exercising our First Amendment rights.

In Dick Cheney's America, you shut up and don't talk back or you feel the steel.

But, if you do shut up and don't oppose this mentality, you'll likely feel it eventually anyway, won't you?

O'Reilly Forgets Foley's a Republican

With so many facts emerging in the Mark Foley fiasco, apparently Bill O'Reilly "accidentally" forgot exactly which party Foley hailed from. According to Bradblog...

Just amazing. Fox's O'Reilly Factor just covered the Mark Foley (R-FL) issue in two different segments, one of them with a page who says he received communications from Foley, and another with Ann Coulter.
Never mind the content of either segment for now. Incredibly, during a total of three different cutaways to video footage of Foley, he was labelled at the bottom of the screen eachtime as "(D-FL)" !
Three different times. In two different segements. Each cutaway about 15 seconds or more. Showing Foley as a DEMOCRAT. Amazing.


Here's a comment I left at David Feige's blog, where I found the screenshot.

O'Reilly has been calling himself a "warrior" lately, referring to his belief that he's battling a cultural war against "secular humanists." It looks like anything goes in this war of his, including misleading your viewers with false propaganda. It's shocking but it also tells us what we're up against. These people feel their power draining away and it looks like they'll sacrifice principles like the writ of habeas corpus, which originated in the Magna Carta, as well as anything resembling the truth, as you point out. I shouldn't be surprised but I truly didn't think he would sink this low. We shouldn't misunderestimate how low they'll sink, as this screen shot shows.

Unbelievable.

Ashcroft Quit Flying Commercial in July '01 because of the "threat assessment"

From a CBS News article dated 7-26-01, we hear that Atty. Gen. Ashcroft

Fishing rod in hand, Attorney General John Ashcroft left on a weekend trip to Missouri Thursday afternoon aboard a chartered government jet...

In response to inquiries from CBS News over why Ashcroft was traveling exclusively by leased jet aircraft instead of commercial airlines, the Justice Department cited what it called a "threat assessment" by the FBI, and said Ashcroft has been advised to travel only by private jet for the remainder of his term.

"There was a threat assessment and there are guidelines. He is acting under the guidelines," an FBI spokesman said. Neither the FBI nor the Justice Department, however, would identify what the threat was, when it was detected or who made it. A senior official at the CIA said he was unaware of specific threats against any Cabinet member, and Ashcroft himself, in a speech in California, seemed unsure of the nature of the threat. "I don't do threat assessments myself and I rely on those whose responsibility it is in the law enforcement community, particularly the FBI. And I try to stay within the guidelines that they've suggested I should stay within for those purposes," Ashcroft said.

Asked if he knew anything about the threat or who might have made it, the attorney general replied, "Frankly, I don't. That's the answer." Earlier this week, the Justice Department leased a NASA-owned G-3 Gulfstream for a 6-day trip to Western states. Such aircraft cost the government more than $1,600 an hour to fly. When asked whether Ashcroft was paying for any portion of the trips devoted to personal business, a Justice Department spokeswoman declined to respond. ...

The Justice Department insists that it wasn't Ashcroft who wanted to fly leased aircraft. That idea, they said, came strictly from Ashcroft's FBI security detail. The FBI had no further comment.

By itself, perhaps this is explainable, but what happens when you put it beside this story, things suddenly get a little more conspiratorial, don't they?

"A new book by Bob Woodward of The Washington Post alleges that Rice failed to take the July 2001 warning seriously when it was delivered at a White House meeting by Tenet, Cofer Black, then the agency's chief of top counterterrorism, and a third CIA official whose identity remains rotected... Woodward wrote that Tenet and Black considered the briefing the "starkest warning they had given the White House" on the threat posed by Osama bin Laden's terrorist network. But, he wrote, the pair felt as if Rice gave them "the brush-off."
Ashcroft, who resigned as attorney general on Nov. 9, 2004, told the Associated Press on Monday that it was "disappointing" that he never received the briefing, either.
... Monday evening, Rice's spokesman Sean McCormack issued a statement confirming that she'd received the CIA briefing "on or around July 10" and had asked that it be given to Ashcroft and Rumsfeld.
"The information presented in this meeting was not new, rather it was a good summary from the threat reporting from the previous several weeks," McCormack said. "After this meeting, Dr. Rice asked that this same information be briefed to Secretary Rumsfeld and Attorney General Ashcroft. That briefing took place by July 17."
David Ayres, who was Ashcroft's chief of staff at the Justice Department, said... that Ashcroft could recall only a July 5 briefing on threats to U.S. interests abroad.
He said Ashcroft doesn't remember any briefing that summer that indicated that al-Qaida was planning to attack within the United States.
The CIA briefing didn't provide the exact timing or nature of a possible attack, nor did it predict whether it was likely to take place in the United States or overseas, said three former senior intelligence officials...

In the briefing, Tenet warned in very strong terms that intelligence from a variety of sources indicated that bin Laden's terrorist network was planning an attack on a U.S. target in the near future, said one of the officials.
"The briefing was intended to `connect the dots' contained in other intelligence reports and paint a very clear picture of the threat posed by bin Laden," said the official, who described the tone of the report as "scary."...

Nor is it clear why the 9/11 commission never reported the briefing, which the intelligence officials said Tenet outlined to commission members Ben-Veniste and Zelikow in secret testimony at CIA headquarters. The State Department confirmed that the briefing materials were "made available to the 9/11 Commission, and Director Tenet was asked about this meeting when interviewed by the 9/11 Commission."
The three former senior intelligence officials, however, said Tenet raised the matter with the panel himself, displayed slides from the PowerPoint presentation and offered to testify on the matter in public.
Ben-Veniste confirmed to McClatchy Newspapers that Tenet outlined for the 9/11 commission the July 10 briefing to Rice in secret testimony in January 2004. He referred questions about why the commission omitted any mention of the briefing in its report to Zelikow, the report's main author... Zelikow didn't respond to e-mail and telephone queries from McClatchy Newspapers."

Of course, it's nice to know that Zelikow and Rice wrote a book together in 1996, and that this meeting wasn't detailed in the final draft of the 9-11 commission report.

Also brings to mind an eerie program called Operation Northwoods.

Waterboarding - Pictures and Video (WARNING: Not for the squeamish!)

Bush says unequivocally that "we don't torture" but in last week's Detainee Treatment bill the White House "compromised" with ex-POW John McCain, changing the President's request for allowing U.S. interrogators to inflict "severe pain" to allow the infliction of "serious pain," which is defined as "bodily injury that involves extreme physical pain." Got that; "severe pain" is illegal, but "extreme physical pain" is just fine under American law.

Word games aside, waterboarding is approved under the new measure. But what does it look like?

Here is a link to a video, created by a former member of the U.S. military, who paid $800 to have himself waterboarded by other former U.S. soldiers, so we can see what these word games allow our interrogators to do. (BE WARNED, the video is ugly to watch. I found it much worse than the Baghdad E.R. documentary the Pentagon warned could trigger PTSD)


If you're not yet physically sick and want to read more on the subject, here is a link to an Alternet article called " This Is What Waterboarding Looks Like" by former U.S. News Senior Editor Jonah Blank. Blank says,

The crux of the issue before Congress can be boiled down to a simple question: Is waterboarding torture? Anybody who considers this practice to be "torture lite" or merely a "tough technique" might want to take a trip to Phnom Penh. The Khymer Rouge were adept at torture, and there was nothing "lite" about their methods....
Bottom line: Not only do waterboarding and the other types of torture currently being debated put us in company with the most vile regimes of the past half-century; they're also designed specifically to generate a (usually false) confession, not to obtain genuinely actionable intel. This isn't a matter of sacrificing moral values to keep us safe; it's sacrificing moral values for no purpose whatsoever.

Sen. Patrick Leahy and others virtually assured the press that the new law will be struck down by the Supremes, but that could take years. Even more eerily, there are indications that the Republicans would not abide by the Supreme Court's authority. Former Speaker of the House and author of the Contract on, er, with America said this weekend, as reported at Salon under the headline "Gingrich Urges Overriding Supreme Court":

Supreme Court decisions that are "so clearly at variance with the national will" should be overridden by the other branches of government, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says.
"What I reject, out of hand, is the idea that by five to four, judges can rewrite the Constitution, but it takes two-thirds of the House, two-thirds of the Senate and three-fourths of the states to equal five judges," Gingrich said during a Georgetown University Law Center conference on the judiciary.
It takes approval by two-thirds of Congress and three-fourths of the 50 states to adopt an amendment to the Constitution, the government's bedrock document.
Gingrich, a Republican who represented a district in Georgia, noted that overwhelming majorities in Congress had reaffirmed the Pledge of Allegiance, and most of the public believes in its right to recite it.
As such, he said, "It would be a violation of the social compact of this country for the Supreme Court to decide otherwise and would lead, I hope, the two other branches to correct the court."

What does he mean by "correct" and how far will these people go outside of the Constitution?

A Different Country Today...

Concerned about the Detainee Treatment bill that was just passed in the Senate last night, I turned to a trusted source for some guidance, to hear if the experts think this thing is as bad as it seems to me. Here's Molly Ivins' take on what went down:

The bill also expands the definition of an unlawful enemy combatant to cover anyone who has "has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States." Quick, define "purposefully and materially." One person has already been charged with aiding terrorists because he sold a satellite TV package that includes the Hezbollah network.

The bill simply removes a suspect's right to challenge his detention in court. This is a rule of law that goes back to the Magna Carta in 1215. That pretty much leaves the barn door open.

As Vladimir Bukovsky, the Soviet dissident, wrote, an intelligence service free to torture soon "degenerates into a playground for sadists." But not unbridled sadism -- you will be relieved that the compromise took out the words permitting interrogation involving "severe pain" and substituted "serious pain," which is defined as "bodily injury that involves extreme physical pain."

I wonder what Gerry Spence's take is on this new legislation and where it leaves us as a nation? After all, he's seen the cutting edge of raw government power up close, going up against and defeating a federal prosecutor by the name of Giuliani in the Imelda Marcos case and seen the lengths prosecutors and law enforcement will go to to secure convictions in cases like Randy Weaver's and more recently, Brandon Mayfield's. In short, at times like these, you turn to the experts for solace, but something tells me Mr. Spence's take won't be heartwarming.

Sadly, I think when it's now illegal to "purposefully and materially support[] hostilities against the United States" it's time to start thinking about whether it's worth it to leave comments critical of the current administration on the internet. The truth, it turns out, will not set you free, but might get you locked up.

Now you respond that I'm exagerating, that they won't be coming for you or me soon, but the point is that they could, they now have that power and there's not much we could do about it if they did. No right to challenge our designation as an enemy combatant in court even if we are American citizens, no right to a trial and no right to be free from torture in the interim. Well, actually we'll be free from "serious pain" but still subject to "bodily injury that involves extreme physical pain." How heartwarming. And now it's sanctioned by Congress. Let the games begin, they are thinking today, wondering how far they can truly take this new power that's been handed to them.

That's the point Molly Ivins misses, I think. If Jose Padilla, an American citizen, can be designated as an "enemy combatant," held indefinitely at Gitmo, subjected to "extreme physical pain," without a right to challenge his detention by a writ of habeas corpus, the same thing could happen to you or I. We're just a couple steps away from that, and yesterday we made a giant leap in that direction, with 12 Democratic Senators supporting this retroactive change in the law.

Think the people in power won't to push their new powers to their limits and beyond? Here's today's Washington Post's summary of the GOP spin on the Detainee Treatment Bill's nearly party line votes. (h/t Glenn Greenwald)

Republicans, especially in the House, plan to use the military commission and wiretapping legislation as a one-two punch against Democrats this fall. The legislative action prompted extraordinarily blunt language from House GOP leaders, foreshadowing a major theme for the campaign.Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) issued a written statement on Wednesday declaring [emphasis in original]: "Democrat Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and 159 of her Democrat colleagues voted today in favor of MORE rights for terrorists."GOP leaders continued such attacks after the wiretapping vote. "For the second time in just two days, House Democrats have voted to protect the rights of terrorists," Hastert said last night, while Boehner lashed out at what he called "the Democrats' irrational opposition to strong national security policies."

In other words, supporting the rights guaranteed in the Constitution will be marketed as supporting the rights of "terrorists."

Get it. "If you're not with 'us,' you're with the terrorists," is now the law of the land.

And those who "purposefully and materially support[] hostilities against the United States," can be indefinitely held as "enemy combatants," tortured, without a right to challenge their detentions and without the right to trials based on the rules of evidence or on the exclusionary rule.

In short, we woke up in a different country today. We've exchanged liberty for perceived security and, forgetting about history, are now doomed to repeat it. The notion that "It Can't Happen Here" is about to be tested by people already corrupted by power and recently handed even more than they imagined.

Please correct me if I'm wrong. I sure hope I am...

First They Came for the Jews...

It's difficult for me to put into words the way I feel about passage in the House, and probable passage in the Senate of the so-called Detainee Treatment Bill. Fortunately, a few good bloggers provide us with some insight into just how bad things are about to get.

First, Glenn Greenwald, author of How Would A Patriot Act? (and the blog Unclaimed Territory), writes in a post entitled "The legalization of torture and permanent detention ,

There really is no other way to put it. Issues of torture to the
side (a grotesque qualification, I know), we are legalizing tyranny in
the United States. Period. Primary responsibility for this fact lies
with the authoritarian Bush administration and its sickeningly submissive
loyalists in Congress. That is true enough. But there is no point in trying
to obscure that fact that it's happening with the cowardly collusion of the
Senate Democratic leadership, which quite likely could have stopped this
travesty via filibuster if it chose to (it certainly could have
tried)....

There is a profound and fundamental difference between an Executive
engaging in shadowy acts of lawlessness and abuses of power
on the one hand, and, on the other, having the American people, through their
Congress, endorse, embrace and legalize that behavior out in the open, with
barely a peep of real protest. Our laws reflect our values and beliefs. And our
laws are about to explicitly codify one of the most dangerous and defining
powers of tyranny -- one of the very powers this country was founded in order to
prevent.

Second, Tristero, who writes at Digby's Hullaballoo writes...

The truth is that the United States government is presently holding,
torturing, and even murdering countless numbers of people who have no chance
in hell of obtaining a lawyer, let alone anything resembling a trial. The
government is doing this under the direct orders of George W. Bush. There is
no law, no bill, and no legislature who can stop him. If Congress were to
pass a law unequivocably banning torture and send it to him, he'd use it for
toilet paper.
If the Supreme Court were to rule against Bush in the harshest and bluntest
language, he'd yawn. The truth is that there is a rogue presidency and there has
been, since January, 2001 (earlier, if you count the stolen election).
Certainly, everyone in Washington knows it, but no one dares to admit it. The
bill legalizing torture merely enables Congress to pretend they still have some
influence over an executive that from day one was governing, not as if they had
a mandate, but as if Bush was a dictator.
If, for some miracle, the bill didn't pass, every congress-critter knows
Bush would keep on torturing. Better to vote to pass and preserve the
appearance of a working American government, the thinking goes. For the very
thought that the US government is seriously broken - that the Executive is
beyond the control of anyone and everyone in the world - is such a truly
awesome and terrifying thought that it can never be publicly acknowledged.
If ever it is, if the American crisis gets outed and Congress and the
Supremes openly assert that the Executive has run completely amok and is
beyond control, the world consequences are staggering. It is the stuff of
doomsday novels. And this brings up the dilemma of a post Nov. 7 world.
Apparently, one if not both houses of Congress may be controlled by
Democrats.
Now what? You think Bush is gonna get impeached? Put on trial for
war crimes? Forget it. You think they're gonna repeal the pro-torture law
they're about to pass? You can almost certainly forget that, too. Remember:
it is crucial to maintain the illusion that Congress still has some say, as
it was in November of 2002 about the Bush/Iraq war.If, for some reason,
Congress does decide to move against Bush in some substantive way, there
will be hell to pay. Those of us who well remember Watergate remember that
while it was genuinely thrilling to have Nixon caught, disgraced, and
removed, it was also a time of extreme tension.
Would Nixon tough the impeachment trial out, causing the country incalculable
harm? It looked for quite a long time that he would. About Bush, there is no
doubt. Since the day after the 2000 election, Bush and his goons have been
playing chicken with the very structure of the United States Government,
double-daring anyone to try and stop them. If Congress does try - and I'm not
talking little things like wrecking Social Security, that'll happen and a
dictator can afford to let things like that wait a while, I'm talking atomic
bang bang and thumbscrews - he will force the private Constitutional crisis into
the open. And there is no guarantee that Bush will lose.And that is the truth.
The Congress has been given an awful choice: Vote to approve torture and the
suspension of habeas or show the world that yes, you really do have no genuine
power to check Bush. Of course, all of Congress should vote against the bill
anyway. But they won't.

When I open the paper today, I read that the Senate is discussing a bill regarding "detainee treatment" of "terrorists" but nothing about the suspension of habeas corpus contained in the bill nor anything about the President willingness to hold American citizens indefinitely as “enemy combatants,” denying them their Constitutionally-guaranteed rights in the process.

The “Decider” assures us that despite his willingness to violate our own laws as part of the war on terror, his powers will never be used against us. Yet Glenn Greenwald described a little-discussed portion of the much-discussed NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) which described Iraq as a “cause celebre” of terrorist groups throughout the world.

The now-declassified summary of the National
Intelligence Estimate (PDF) on "Trends in Global Terrorism" focuses almost
exclusively on Islamic extremists. But inserted at the very end is this one
overlooked, though seemingly quite important, passage that identifies other
terrorist threats:
"Anti-U.S. and anti-globalization sentiment is on the
rise and fueling other radical ideologies. This could prompt some leftist,
nationalist, or separatist groups to adopt terrorist methods to attack US
interests. The radicalization process is occurring more quickly, more widely,
and more anonymously in the Internet age, raising the likelihood of surprise
attacks by unknown groups whose members and supporters may be difficult to
pinpoint." It continues: "We judge that groups of all stripes will increasingly
use the Internet to communicate, propagandize, recruit, train and obtain
logistical and financial support."
Prior to 9/11, the worst terrorist attack
on U.S. soil was in Oklahoma City, where Timothy McVeigh blew up a federal
building in pursuit of his right-wing, anti-federal-government agenda. But there
is nothing in the NIE findings about right-wing or anti-government groups.
Instead, there is a rather stark warning about the danger of "leftist" groups
using the Internet to engage in terrorist attacks against the United States. Is
there any basis at all for that warning?
There have been scattered reports over the last several years that the Bush
administration's anti-terrorism programs have targeted domestic political groups
solely because such groups espouse views contrary to the administration's. That
this claim about "leftist" terrorist groups made it into the NIE summary is
particularly significant in light of the torture and detention bill that is
likely soon to be enacted into law. That bill defines "enemy combatant" very broadly (and the definition may be
even broader by the time it is enacted) and could easily encompass
domestic groups perceived by the administration to be supporting a "terrorist
agenda."

In other words, the power of a President who willingly violates the law and the sanction of this action by the Congress, in this “detainee” treatment bill could easily come back to haunt us very soon.

What do you do when you are confronted with a President who willingly breaks the law, a Congress who is afraid of being labeled soft on terror and thus lacks the will to restrain this rogue President, with an electorate who either will gladly give up liberty for the sake of security or lacks the information necessary to make a good decision because of a corporately-dominated news media?

The best answer comes from a poem attributed to a Pastor, and not the kind of Pastor who talks about Jesus while simultaneously condoning torture. Pastor Martin Niemöller wrote a simple, yet terrifying, poem describing the rise of Fascism in Germany.

First They Came for the Jews

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

God Bless the U.S.A.? - Waterboarding, Secret Prisons Would Authorized by Congress Under "Deal"

According to ABC News' Blog, the Blotter, yesterday's "compromise" on CIA interrogations would, if enacted, legalize waterboarding and allow secret CIA "blacksite" prisons to continue to operate. According to Brian Ross ( the man who was told, anonymously in May, that the government was tracking his phone calls ) in this morning's blog entry:

[T]he CIA has used a series of six increasingly harsh interrogation techniques
that begin with a slap to the face and end with ... water boarding, in
which a prisoner is made to feel he is drowning. President Bush and the
CIA have repeatedly maintained the procedures are not torture and have saved
American lives. Human rights groups maintain the procedures constitute
... torture, and the U.S. military has banned its personnel from using
water boarding. Today's congressional deal, if signed into law, would
allow the CIA to continue the six techniques and to continue to run secret
prisons overseas for select terror suspects.

In short, if this "deal" becomes law, the American people, via our representatives in Congress, would be legalizing techniques banned by the U.S. military and considered torture by most of the world. The CIA would get what it wants, assurance that its agents would not one day be prosecuted for war crimes, and the President would get what he wants, Congressional approval to allow "the program" to continue in its current form.

As Glenn Greenwald notes,

the only genuinely important fact one needs to know about the "compromise"
reached by the glorious leaders of our Ruling Party: namely, the President
had only one objective with these "negotiations," which was to ensure that
the CIA's torture program could continue, and that goal has been fulfilled
in its entirety.

Tristero, one of the contributors to Digby's blog, summarized the significance of this "compromise" nicely:

• How does it feel knowing that your government will pass laws permitting the
  violation of the Geneva Conventions against torture?
• How does it feel knowing the taxes you pay from money you earned are going
  towards the salary of legally sanctioned torturers?
• How does it feel knowing that the only political party with an organization
  large enough to stand in opposition to the American fascists in charge of this
  country's legislature and executive were actually boasting that they were not
  going to get involved in one of the most important moral debates of our
  time?
• And how does it feel to have George W. Bush, that paragon of moral probity,
  mental stability, and well-informed intelligence, granted the legal right to
  determine what is and isn't torture?
  
  I'll tell you how I feel. I am outraged and ashamed.

Me too.

The Russian Proverb, which states that "you should choose your enemies carefully for you will become like them," is eerily true today.

F the T-Warrior

I love the name "F Warriors," and the story behind it, but it appears Bill O'Reilly was inspired by the name and has taken to calling himself the "T Warrior", short for Traditional. As this article from ABC News.com states O'Reilly described the inspiration for the new nickname came from a:

war pitting traditional Americans — those who believe the United States is noble
— against those who are secular progressives and believe the country is
fundamentally flawed. "It's the traditionalists who really want to keep
the country pretty much the way it is," O'Reilly said. "Against the secular
progressives who want drastic change. … They control the media."...When "20/20"
pointed out that he had one of the loudest voices in the media, O'Reilly said he
and his fellow traditionalists were outnumbered and had been since the days of
Walter Cronkite.

You got that? It's not the folks who think the obtaining a warrant in accordance with the Fourth Amendment is contrary to the necessities of the War on Terror, or who think that the Geneva Conventions are "quaint," who have had 3 federal judges rule against them, or who think that "the founders intended that wrongheaded or obsolete legislation and judicial decisions would be checked by presidential action" that want drastic change. They, the "traditionalists," "want to keep the country pretty much the way it is."

And the guy whose show, according to the article, draws "cable TV's biggest audience" believes that it's the "secular progressives" who "want drastic change" and "control the media."

On the bright side, at least his network is Fair and Balanced.

"How can you be an American citizen and not be completely outraged, embarrassed, and disgusted by this conduct?"

This quote came from Glenn Greenwald's "Unclaimed Territory" blog today, in an article that summarizes the state we find ourselves in today, with the head of state we elected. He is, of course, commenting on the release of Maher Arar from American custody today. Yesterday, a Canadian justice found "that there is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar has committed any offense or that his activities constituted a threat to the security of Canada." Mr. Arar, a Canadian citizen, was taken into custody by the U.S. at JFK while changing planes and was sent, via an "extraordinary rendition" to Syria where he was beaten repeatedly with a steel cable.

Read Greenwald's entire post for a summary of other instances in which the U.S. government has detained foreign nationals without trial, only to later release them. For example:

" Khalid El-Masri, a German citizen who alleges -- with the support of German
prosecutors -- that the U.S. Government abducted him, drugged him, flew him to
multiple different torture-using countries (and shuttled him at least to Kabul, Baghdad, and Skopje, Macedonia) as part of the administration's "rendition" program, only to then release him after five months when the U.S. realized it had abducted the wrong person."
[and]...
then there is the case of Mustafa Osama Nasr, who was abducted by the CIA off the streets of Milan and flown to Egypt to be tortured, which prompted Italian prosecutors to issue arrest warrants for the 13 CIA officers responsible for this kidnapping within Italy.

Juxtapose these cases with other headlines from this week such as "U.S. Holds AP Photographer in Iraq 5 Mos" and "U.S. war prisons legal vacuum for 14,000.", and it's hard to miss Greenwald's point, isn't it?

NPR: "Why No Death Penalty for Marines?"

On NPR's Morning Edition this morning, Jon McChesney posed the question, "why isn't Pfc. John Jodka facing the death penalty?" referring to the Marine Corps' announcement that the option was "off the table" for Jodka in the case of Marines charged with killing an Iraqi civilian.

The reporter did not have a good answer and stated something about that information not being released at this time. But I had an answer. I knew that it was the hard work and extrem advocacy of criminal defense lawyers like Joey Low whose work behind the scenes persuaded the government to decide against pursuing the ultimate punishment for these young soldiers sent into a quagmire, most of whom before they could legally order a cold one.

Joey Low does not represent Jodka, but represents a co-defendant, Corporal Marshall Magincalda, and this article details how the government declined to seek the death penalty against him on August 30.

It's not often that the government, which is currently in dire need of scapegoats, agrees to such a deal and it's always the result of hard work and strong advocacy. I don't have any idea how these deals came about, but wanted to point out that Mr. Low has had quite a couple of months: being the subject of a Supreme Court case involving the right to counsel and playing a huge role in saving the life of a young Marine facing the death penalty. Truly Amazing.