michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Jun 22, 2007 16:52:57 GMT 4
....continued from previous page:If Reid Were Rove Part 2 of 2What if Democrats did the same? What if they practiced the take-no-prisoner school of politics, same as the GOP? What if their only interest was in winning – ethics, the Constitution, the public interest be damned? What if, in short, Harry Reid (or Howard Dean or Nancy Pelosi) played the game of politics just like Karl Rove does? What if they played for keeps?Have you heard about the two American soldiers captured and gone missing in Iraq? Maybe, maybe not. Well, if Reid were Rove, you’d never hear the end of it. It would be a national obsession, just like OJ and Natalee Holloway and Paris Hilton and god-help-us-whoever-is-the-personal-story-blown-completely-out-of-proportion-du-jour – and, indeed, just like the American hostages in Iran were, all the way back in the hopelessly naive days before Reagan. It would be all hostage, all the time. ‘News’casts, especially some lefty equivalent of Fox that knew where its corporate bread was buttered, would keep a relentless clock running, and you’d never hear the end of “America Held Hostage, Day 43!”, as if two soldiers were an entire country of 300 million. The president would be increasingly portrayed as weak and ineffective as he was unable to rescue these two heroes. Of course, that would mean that he would lash out with some act of semi-random violence in order to be seen to be doing something, anything, probably the only result of which would be a boatload of senseless violence and death, likely to include the two soldiers themselves. But when practicing cynical politics, one doesn’t worry about such trivialities. If Reid were Rove, the only consideration would be winning, and American hostages make lovely tools for that purpose. Did you hear the one about how Al Hurra television, the US government’s $63 million propaganda organ in the Middle East, unwittingly allowed terrorists to broadcast their violent message on its airwaves, because none of the Americans running the thing, er, spoke Arabic? No? You haven’t? Well, if Reid were Rove you’d never hear the end of that one, a screw-up so egregious that even the obsequious mainstream media ran a headline saying, “U.S. Government Gave Airtime to Terrorists, Official Admits”. (Of course, if this had happened seven years earlier the headline would not have been “U.S. Government...”, but rather “Clinton Administration Gave Airtime to Terrorists” – but that’s another story.) If Reid were Rove, George Bush, who is so inept that he has actually managed to gain a reputation for idiocy even from a sympathetic press and a do-nothing and say-nothing ‘opposition’ (why don’t we just get it over with already and call it the Democratic Pastry instead of the Democratic Party?), would be made to appear even more the buffoon for allowing this to happen on his watch. If Reid were Rove, the David Lettermans of this country would have a hold on this story like a pit bull chomping on a pair of jeans marinated in chicken grease. With a juicy leg inside. If Reid were Rove, we’d see constant examples of Bush making a fool of himself on national security issues, and we would have seen them in 2004, when they counted. We’d see Bush promising to get bin Laden “dead or alive”, then we’d see clips of bin Laden mocking Bush, six years later. We’d see Bush in 2002 saying “You know, I just don’t spend that much time on him... I truly am not that concerned about him.” Then we’d see Bush this year at the Coast Guard graduation ceremony talking about all the bad things bin Laden has been cooking up. You know, about how he was only two or three weeks away from blowing up some passenger airplanes bound for America in what Bush described as “the most ambitious known al Qaeda threat to the homeland since 9/11". About how bin Laden is, according to Bush in this same speech, sending his best generals to Iraq to kill the American troops Bush put in harm’s way there. If Reid were Rove, Democrats would make sure we saw endless loops of the president looking under his desk for the missing WMD and turning their absence into a joke. Then we’d be reminded that over 3500 Americans have gone to Iraq, supposedly to protect us from those WMD, and have since returned in body bags. While the president who sent them there clowns. Maybe it’s just me, but somehow, I don’t think the White House attempt at humor would appear quite so funny in 2007. If Reid were Rove, Americans would know that the very same government that claims to be fighting a war against terrorism is now harboring a terrorist who has bragged about blowing up an airliner and killing the 73 people on board, and who has similarly touted his accomplishments in bombing busy nightclubs and hotels. If Reid were Rove, you’d never hear the end of how Bush’s wondrous Department of Homeland Security (which, we’d be reminded, doesn’t include the CIA or the FBI) allowed a guy to enter the country carrying a deadly strain of tuberculosis, even though he was on the no-fly list. We’d be asked over and over again how we could expect to be safe from terrorism with a government that can’t even deal with a known medical threat crossing our borders. In fact, if Reid were Rove, we’d be reminded that today is Day 2098 of the unsolved anthrax attack from 2001. And that tomorrow is Day 2099. And that the next day is... If Reid were Rove, stories about small communities across America holding bake sales in order to buy armor for their kids going off to the war in Iraq would be seared into our collective consciousness. And then we’d be reminded of the no-bid contracts Halliburton got for Iraq, how the Vice President arranged those, how he still has financial interests in the company, and all the sordid details of the corruption and failure to perform in which it has indulged. If Reid were Rove, you’d know Jack Abramoff so well by now that you’d feel like he was a (very unwanted) member of your family. If Reid were Rove, we’d see images of Bush with a guitar in hand as New Orleans drowned, morphing into visions of Nero fiddling while Rome burns. We’d watch jumpy repeat cuts of Bush saying “Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job” over and over again, like some sort of video scratch track. If Reid were Rove, every American taxpayer would know that their share of the national debt was now up to $60,000 and rapidly rising, and that Bush inherited the country’s largest surplus ever and immediately turned it into the largest deficit ever. We’d see images of working Americans buried under their tax bills. We’d be constantly told what portion of those cuts went to the rich, and how much they made from them. We’d see the nationalist and xenophobia cards played shamelessly as Americans were reminded how much of the country is now owned by China and Japan (to the accompaniment of ominous chords on a soundtrack). Then we’d be snidely informed that, “Bureaucrats in the government think our record-setting debt of $9 trillion is okay because it is not a historically high ratio against GDP. Whatever that means.” And if Reid were Rove, every American would know the roll call of dishonor, being reminded of how Bush’s daddy got him into the safe Texas Air National Guard, how Ashcroft took seven draft deferments, how Cheney took five and how Wolfowitz and almost all the rest never served. We’d see Cheney – or an actor playing him – repeat over and over “I had better things to do in the Sixties than fight in Vietnam”. Like Michael Dukakis’s little soiree in a tank, or John Kerry’s oblivious I-voted-for-it-before-I-voted-against-it line, this would be made to haunt Cheney from here to oblivion. And so on, and so forth, if Reid were Rove. But Reid is not Rove, and so you don’t see any of this, and you’re not likely to. Is it because Democrats are morally superior to the GOP and to conservatives when it comes to the game of politics? To their credit, yes. Who could not be, when compared to these human horror movies of the right? But there’s more to the story, as well. Democrats are also embarrassing wimps, afraid to throw a punch, and often even to block one. And, they are complicit in far too many ways in the depravities of the right, even if they mostly just go along for the ride. Would we want them to act as the GOP has, destroying the fabric of American democracy in a relentless pursuit of power at any cost? Yes and no. Unfortunately, this is not a question with simple black and white answers. It is, in fact, another variation of the age-old ends-versus-means conundrum. My general answer to the question is an emphatic no – American democracy, such as it is, is tattered enough from the regressive movement’s assaults of the last quarter-century, and even if that weren’t the case, anything that further diminishes it is almost assuredly a bad thing. That said, we need to be cognizant of the clear fact that if these guys aren’t stopped, there won’t be anything left to defend. And stopped soon, for that matter. For the four years after 9/11, I had the sick feeling that this country was about one terrorist attack – one burning of the Reichstag – away from a full-on fascist regime lasting from here to eternity. That may still be the case, though it is also clear that the American public has wised up, at least somewhat. But, the thing is, the situation is analogous to Europe in the late 30s, I’d say (and if we can thank the Nazis for anything, we can certainly thank them for the wealth of historical metaphors they bequeathed us, although we of course manage to misapply them as often as not). That is to say, you may hate war, and you may even be a subscriber to pacifism, but once Hitler puts his Wehrmacht on a roll, you have only two choices, war or fascism. And, for that matter, often even the former was a long-odds crap shoot – meaning that you could wind up with both: (a losing) war, only to be followed by the further joys of occupation and fascism. Ask the French or the Poles. Bush is no Hitler, though Cheney fairly salivates in that direction. There may be a difference in scale between invading all of Europe and invading Iraq, and between the Gestapo and Guantánamo, but it is not a difference of kind. And, of course, we’re not done yet. Which means that, no, as a matter of fact, in this scenario I don’t want the Democrats to continue doing their very best Neville Chamberlain impressions. We’ve all seen that movie, and we know how it ends. Even worse than the abject failure of the Democrats in Congress to protect us from these monsters is that, truthfully, they really wouldn’t have to resort to being Roves or Cheneys to go up against Rove and Cheney. At this point, I wouldn’t mind a bit seeing them take some of the shots suggested above. (Especially because, unlike the GOP transgressions, these jabs are based in factual and moral truth. There’s a world of difference between pointing out Cheney’s Vietnam record and repeating back his own words about that, on the one hand, and turning Max Cleland into Osama bin Laden, on the other.) But if squeamishness is an issue, that sort of skirmishing isn’t even particularly necessary. Even if the Democrats don’t have the stomach for hardball politics, how about just using the institutional powers given to them for just this purpose by an angry public in the last election? Watching the party fold a powerfully winning hand on the war appropriations bill last month was a sickening visage. Bush needed that money for his dramatically unpopular war – why not continue sending him the same bill (which gave him the money, after all, along with Congressional strings attached) and let him keep vetoing it? This despised and mistrusted president couldn’t plausibly claim Democrats were withholding funding for the troops as he kept vetoing that very thing.
And while we’re talking here about simple institutional remedies to the current nightmare, how about just passing some good old fashioned legislation? That is what Congress is for, isn’t it? Why can’t the Democrats just keep sending the White House bill after bill of popular legislation – stripped of all earmarks and other distractions – and let Bush cast veto after veto of laws and programs the public wants? Healthcare, environmental protection, reform of government corruption, progressive tax reform, workplace protections, college funding, stem cell research, et cetera, et cetera, and yet cetera. If you can’t get these into law, at the very least the public should know just which party is blocking the legislation they favor. Make these guys own their unpopular ideas, and make them pay for them!Ah, but you’re no doubt thinking, there’s the prospect of the dreaded filibuster to worry about (careful, now – you’re channeling Harry Reid here). And it’s true – since the Democrats took control of Congress in January, the GOP has repeatedly used the threat of a filibuster to block consideration of important legislation. But, hey Harry, why do you keep playing that game? Why not revert to the old system, in which a minority had to actually filibuster – rather than just threaten to do so – in order to block business in the Senate? Make them pay for their obstinance. Make them own their regressive and unpopular ideas. Do Republicans really want to be seen fighting bravely for days on end to ensure that the Senate does not actually discuss what to do about an unpopular war? Do they think blocking even the discussion of potential solutions would make them look good? Do they really want to stand in the well of the Senate like Jimmy Stewart, disheveled and covered in ten o’clock shadows, defending the principle that there cannot be any discussion of a no-confidence motion on Alberto Gonzales? Well then, for goodness sake, let them! Heck, it’d be worth it just to see Trent Lott’s plasto-hair get mussed! And while we’re talking about the lovely Alberto here, what in the world does the guy have to do for Democrats to impeach him?! That’s done in the house, anyhow, where there’s no filibuster, where the Democrats have a healthy majority, and where majorities do what ever they want to minorities. Does Gonzales need to get caught with a congressional page in his office, pants down at his ankles? And would it have to be a male page, at that, for Pelosi to find sufficient grounds to allow impeachment proceedings to go forward? How many administration officials have to appear before Congress and lie before Democrats use this power in a case screaming out for it as if it were a stadium full of Beatles fans, circa 1964? How many have to come and demonstrate their contempt of Congress with displays of their suddenly porous memories? How many of Karl Rove’s email messages have to get deleted before something actually happens?And what about the Congressional power of the purse? Hey, Dingbat Dems – yeah, you guys over there by that bag of hammers – wake up! First of all, you shouldn’t be funding GOP pet projects anyhow, because they suck. But even if you can’t find it within yourselves to pull the trigger for that reason, how about at least exercising a little leverage to get what you want in return? Maybe if you spiked an absurdly jive ‘missile defense’ boondoggle or two every once in a while, Rove’s missing emails would suddenly and miraculously reappear, eh? You getting my meaning here?Probably not. What’s most astonishing about the Democrats is that they are so beaten down, so practiced in the art of capitulation, so used to identifying with their tormentors in some sort of twisted political version of the Stockholm syndrome, that they can’t even manage to serve their core personal interests anymore. You gotta figure that the Joe Bidens and the Steny Hoyers of this world could at least pull off the one thing politicians are best known for, at the expense of all else. You’d think that they could minimally protect their jobs, whatever that took. And yet they stand by watching, mouths agape, like passengers on a train that just passed their intended station, as the GOP rigs elections, and when that isn’t enough then uses the Justice Department to steal them even more efficiently still. Good one, fellas! Maybe a brief chat with Tom Daschle would be instructive here. Sure, he’s a nice guy. But he’s also a former senator, too. Get it? If Reid were Rove, this shit would never happen. If Reid were Rove, Republicans would tremble at the prospect of indulging their worst tendencies, however tempting, knowing that a mountain of woe would be dumped on their heads were they to trash the institutions of American democracy, knowing that they would be ridiculed mercilessly if they tried hawking their unpatriotic and hypocritical lies, knowing that they would be pummeled into ER cases with do not resuscitate orders if they advocated politics which were in fact detrimental to most voters, in order to benefit elites. If Reid were Rove, the Republican Party would either change its politics, or it would have representation in Congress truly proportional to the one-half of one percent of Americans whose interests it actually represents. If Reid were Rove, there’d be some Republican clown – maybe Joe Lieberman – from Greenich, Connecticut in the House, and that’d be the entirety of the national GOP congressional delegation. If Reid were Rove, life would have been a lot happier this last quarter century, and there’d be a lot of people alive today who aren’t otherwise. But, then again, if Reid had been Rove all these years, there would never have been any Rove in the first place. Source: www.regressiveantidote.net/Articles/If_Reid_Were_Rove.html
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michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Sept 4, 2007 12:42:02 GMT 4
Tue 09/04/07 4:30AM In Favor of a New Type of Politician
The title of this thread is "Broken Government." I've got a spotlight here on a candidate who is the very type of person we need to be supporting in order to "Fix Our Government."
Today, Sept. 4, is Election day in the special Congressional election in Massachusetts CD 5.
State Representative Jamie Eldridge is progressive on issues from Iraq to fair trade to H.R. 676 “Enhanced Medicare for All.” I love his issues on the environment and that Americans will need to make sacrifices. He’s running a campaign for Congress that we can all be proud of – taking his principled message door-to-door across the district.
Eldridge is challenging the Democratic Party to embrace a full progressive agenda. And he’s backed by grassroots supporters from every progressive social movement in the area. He's running against other better-funded Democrats who rely on expensive soundbite advertising.
Here are a few reasons to support Jamie Eldridge:
- He's the only candidate that has 21 labor endorsements.
- He’s endorsed for Congress by 40 of his colleagues in the State House.
- He’s the only “clean money” candidate ever elected in Massachusetts.
Read this article from the local press to see the kind of campaign Jamie is waging.....MichelleEldridge challenges his partyBy Robert Burgess GateHouse News Service Thu Aug 09, 2007, 06:44 AM EDT Acton, Mass. - If there’s one word the Jamie Eldridge campaign wants voters to remember about his candidacy, it is: progressive.It’s a word used five times in a campaign flier mailed to homes in the 5th Congressional District this week, and Eldridge, 33, emphasized it in a recent meeting with reporters and editors of Community Newspaper Company. What does it mean to be a progressive? The state representative from Acton wants an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. He wants hearings on Capitol Hill on the Bush administration’s conduct of the war in Iraq and the war on terror. Congress should consider impeachment proceedings for the president, Eldridge said. The lawmaker supports a single-payer universal health care proposal. He wants to see dramatic increases in automobile fuel efficiency and consumer energy conservation efforts. He believes the federal education plan called No Child Left Behind needs to be fixed and funded. Eldridge said he’s running for the seat to replace U.S. Rep. Marty Meehan — whom Eldridge worked for as an intern in Washington, D.C., while in college — because Democrats are not standing up for progressive values. “We need more progressive Democrats to help change government,” Eldridge said. “People throughout this district are looking for leadership.” Eldridge acknowledges that not every voter is going to agree with every stance he takes. But he believes that residents will respect him for being straightforward and following his beliefs. As proof that he is willing to go against the pressures of politics, Eldridge points to his decision to run as a Clean Elections candidate his first term, which some considered career suicide. Instead, he became the only Clean Elections candidate ever elected in Massachusetts. While Democrats on Capitol Hill have been hesitant to immediately bring U.S. troops home from Iraq, Eldridge said he would push to end the war now and to hold the Bush administration accountable for taking the country to war in the first place. Eldridge wants the troops to start withdrawing in 90 days and be completely out of Iraq in about six months. As an occupying force, Eldridge said the United States is causing a lot of the violence in that country. The state representative, who supports cutting off funding for the war, acknowledged chaos will ensue when troops leave, but he said it will be a quicker path to stability than keeping American soldiers there. He added that he supports sending monetary aid to help rebuild the nation for years to come. Eldridge said President George W. Bush has abused his power, and the legislator is afraid future presidents might do the same if Congress doesn’t stand up to the administration. On the campaign trail, Eldridge has also talked a lot about a plan for single-payer universal healthcare, which would cover all Americans and make healthcare a right. He called the fact that 47 million Americans don’t have health insurance a “moral outrage.” “It’s a public good,” he said of health insurance. “It’s the same as public education.” If the universal healthcare bill, currently supported by 69 U.S. representatives, becomes law, the healthcare system would be publicly financed and privately delivered. Users would be fully reimbursed and there would be no co-pays or premiums. Eldridge said the plan could be paid for by repealing the Bush tax cuts and raising the employer and employee payroll tax 3 percent. When it comes to energy and the environment, Eldridge said the government and Americans aren’t doing enough. He supports the idea that there are about 10 years left to stop the global warming trend before it’s too late. He supports investing in alternative sources of energy, such as wind, solar and hydroelectric. But he opposes options such as nuclear, saying it uses fossil fuels to make and creates waste issues, and ethanol, noting that it takes too much energy to produce it. Eldridge would also support a moratorium on building additional coal-fired power plants. Even greater strides could be attained by convincing Americans to conserve more energy, according to Eldridge. To do this, he would support measures to raise fuel efficiency standards across the automobile industry to 40 miles per gallon by 2012 and to 55 mpg by 2020. He also supports energy efficiency standards for buildings and corporate and consumer carbon taxes. “We need to sacrifice,” he said, adding that the increasing sales of hybrid automobiles show Americans are willing to embrace alternatives. “I think we need dramatic action to stop global warming.” When asked about recent polls showing him toward to bottom of the field of candidates competing in the Tuesday, Sept. 4, primary election, Eldridge remained optimistic. He said perceived frontrunner, Niki Tsongas, a dean at Middlesex Community College, has fallen in polling data. Eldridge considers himself in the pack with Eileen Donoghue, the former Lowell mayor, and Barry Finegold, a state representative from Andover. Jim Miceli, a state representative from Wilmington is also in the race on the Democratic side. Eldridge also believes that primary voters will gravitate toward his progressive message and that the high voter turnout in the southern portion of the district will offset major city areas like Lowell and Lawrence, where he said the other candidates will split the Merrimack Valley votes. “There are a lot of votes out there,” he said. Robert Burgess can be reached at 978-371-5732 or at rburgess@cnc.com.Source:www.townonline.com/acton/homepage/x1663150622
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michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Sept 14, 2007 10:25:50 GMT 4
I Was Thinking About Becoming A Republican...09/13/07 2:38:04 PM Eastern Daylight Time David Michael Green I was thinking about becoming a Republican the other day.No, really, I was! Ya know, the money’s good. And you don’t have to share. And you don’t really have to care about the impact of what you do, or what people think of you. Rich, selfish, carefree. That’s not such a bad life, is it? Yeah, I was really considering it. But then I realized that in so many ways, I’m not really cut out for it. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that people would know that I thought George W. Bush was cool. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I really don’t feel comfortable demanding that my underclass ‘volunteer’ military fight wars that I myself would refuse to fight. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I just don’t need another expensive car as much as poor kids need healthcare. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I actually believe in the ideas of the Constitution, like limited presidential power. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I actually believe in the ideas of the Constitution, like separation of church and state. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I actually believe in the ideas of the Constitution, like freedom from government search and seizure without probable cause and a judicial warrant. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I actually believe in the ideas of the Constitution, like Congress being the lawmaking and oversight branch. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I don’t really think it’s such a great idea to bungle everything in sight, like Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, Katrina, and more. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I’m not comfortable with just about the entire world hating me. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I’m not sexually twisted enough. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I’m not completely freaked out about how sexually twisted I am, if I was sexually twisted (which I’m not). I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I’m not so freaked out about how sexually twisted I am, if I was sexually twisted (which I’m not), that I need to wreck the lives of other people by politically demonizing them for their ‘deviant’ sexual preferences and practices. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I’m not frightened of women. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I don’t hate Hillary Clinton. Okay, well, actually I do kinda hate her, but it’s not a foam-at-the-mouth kind of hate, and it’s because of her embarrassingly lame policy positions, not because she happens to combine having power with having a vagina. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I’m not insecure enough about myself that I need to stomp on brown people. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that Pat Tillman’s family would probably kill me for it, and how could I blame them? I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that my own children would probably kill me for it, when they get the tax bill our generation is leaving them. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I’m not comfortable with the idea that my country and my government have become giant cash cows to be milked dry by plutocrats. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I’m not nearly corrupt enough. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I have a word to describe people like Bush, Cheney, DeLay, Scalia, Libby, Rove, Wolfowitz, Gonzales and the rest, and it isn’t ‘admiration’. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I don’t really want to wake up in the middle of the night with the screams of mangled Iraqi children ringing in my ears. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I actually believe in making decisions on the basis of scientific evidence, not on the basis of some televangelist scam-artist’s interpretation of texts written by unknown authors and cobbled together thousands of years ago by equally unknown text cobblers. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I find incessant, blatant and pathological lying really depressing. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized I’d have to spend most of the rest of my life apologizing to Terri Schiavo’s family. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I don’t subscribe to the notion that the planet we live on is just one big coal seam to be strip-mined and left like an open scar once its monetary value has been depleted. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I don’t think it’s a real good idea to refer to our centuries-long allies as “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” just because they refuse to follow us over a cliff into a war they’re smart enough to see is insane folly. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that, ridiculously enough, I actually do think the Vice Presidency is part of the executive branch. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that war-avoiding chicken-hawks who mock and degrade actual war heroes in order to win elections are disgusting beyond the words available in my unabridged dictionary. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that hiding behind national security to cover-up corruption and Constitution slashing is not something I particularly admire. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that using the Justice Department to prosecute political opponents and deny suffrage to people on the basis of race isn’t my definition of ‘justice’. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I don’t like the idea of people like Dick Cheney telling me which sexual orientation is okay, but applying different rules to their own daughters (and, of course, themselves). I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that arrogance is not very pretty. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that stupidity is even less pretty. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that arrogant stupidity is the least pretty of all. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that polarizing the country in order to win elections, especially after a major national crisis, is a shameful thing to do. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I actually believe in the rule of law, and that it should be applied to all, not just us working stiffs. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I don’t want to be even remotely associated with the guy who is without doubt the absolute worst president in over 200 years of American history. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I’d have to explain to rightfully enraged future generations how my party blocked any solution to the global warming that is wrecking the planet. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that, forty years later, I’m not running around still angry about the Sixties. In fact, I rather liked the Sixties. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I want to hurl when I think about Halliburton raking in over $20 billion from no-bid (and apparently also no-work) contracts, while American troops still don’t have sufficient armor, all while my would-be party constantly hides its broken policies behind the welfare of the troops. As if they actually gave a damn. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I don’t want anything to do with a political party that stood by watching while a major American city drowned. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that Brownie really didn’t do a heckuva job, after all. And neither did Bushie, Dickey, Rummy, Ashcrofty, Albertoey, Powelly or Ricey. I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then – above all – I realized how much I utterly despise hypocrisy. So, uh, now that I think about it, I guess you guys can keep your Grand Old Party, after all. The truth is, I don’t see anything particularly Grand about it, anyhow. Just Old. Like Caligula, Genghis Khan and Torquemada. Source: www.regressiveantidote.net/Articles/I_Was_Thinking_About_Becoming_A_Republican.html
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michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Oct 18, 2007 17:41:57 GMT 4
Attorney-Gate Probe to Continue Without Domenici By Jason Leopold and Matt Renner t r u t h o u t | Report Wednesday 17 October 2007 The Senate Ethics Committee will likely not conduct a formal investigation into the conduct of New Mexico Republican Sen. Pete Domenici. The Ethics Committee had been investigating a telephone call the senator made to David Iglesias, the state's former US attorney, in which Domenici inquired a few weeks before last November's midterm election about the timing of an indictment against a popular Democratic official in the state who was the target of a corruption investigation, according to two people who work closely with the Senate Ethics Committee. In interviews conducted last week by Truthout, these people said that Domenici's recent announcement that he would not seek reelection next year due to a medical condition was a deciding factor in keeping the probe from becoming a full-blown public investigation. These individuals requested anonymity because Ethics Committee rules prohibit them from commenting publicly about the status of its investigations. "It's unlikely the preliminary investigation of Senator Domenici will move to the next stage," said one person who works closely with the committee. "The reason? His mental state." These individuals added that the Ethics Committee and its legal counsel had been in discussions with Domenici and his high-powered Washington, DC attorney, Lee Blalack, just a few days before Domenici announced he would not seek reelection, to quietly end the ethics probe into the senator's behavior. Blalack did not return calls for comment on Tuesday. In late September, Truthout reported the Ethics Committee had stepped up its investigation of Domenici's phone call to Iglesias. At that time, the Ethics Committee had conducted additional interviews with individuals who were present when the phone call took place and appeared to be close to entering into a formal probe of the senator. However, just two weeks later, Domenici said he would not seek reelection next year. In addition, Domenici disclosed he was suffering from a brain disease known as frontotemporal lobar degeneration, or FTLD, a deterioration of brain tissue that can lead to personality changes, difficulty with speech and dementia. It is unclear whether the Ethics Committee will release a report, which its rules state it is required to do, if it does in fact bring an end to its investigation into Domenici's call to Iglesias. Separately, the White House's Office of Special Counsel (OSC), which has been conducting its own investigation into the firing of at least eight US attorneys last year, has been unable to obtain documents from the Justice Department (DOJ) to advance its probe into the matter, three people with knowledge of the issue said on Tuesday. The OSC sent a request to the DOJ several months ago seeking a wide-range of documents, including email correspondence between DOJ and White House officials who had discussed which US attorneys should be selected for dismissal. The OSC set a deadline for turning over the documents. However, the deadline has since passed and the DOJ has not formally responded to the OSC's request, nor has the agency stated a reason it would not turn over documents. The OSC appears to have been particularly interested in obtaining documents from the DOJ surrounding the circumstances that led to Iglesias's ouster, said individuals knowledgeable about the inner workings of the OSC probe. A spokesperson for the DOJ did not return telephone calls or reply to emails seeking comment. In April, Iglesias filed a Hatch Act complaint with the OSC, alleging former White House political adviser Karl Rove and other Bush administration officials may have broken the law by orchestrating his firing for partisan political reasons. Kyle Sampson, the one-time chief of staff to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee this year that Iglesias was added to the list of prosecutors to be replaced after the midterm elections, and that Rove had complained Iglesias had not pursued voter fraud cases aggressively enough. In an interview with Truthout in May, Iglesias said he had investigated the voter fraud allegations tirelessly and did not uncover evidence to back up the charges. He added that, based on evidence that has surfaced thus far and "Karl Rove's obsession with voter fraud issues throughout the country," that GOP operatives wanted him to go after Democratic-funded organizations in an attempt to swing the 2006 midterm elections to Republicans. Seven US attorneys were fired on a single day in December 2006. The DOJ told the US attorneys President Bush wanted to give others the opportunity to serve in that capacity. But documents released earlier this year showed partisan politics were behind the firings. Since the scandal erupted at the beginning of the year, 12 DOJ officials who played a role in the firings have resigned. Over at the House and Senate, Erica Chabot, a spokeswoman for Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told Truthout last week that the committee's investigation into the circumstances behind the US attorney firings is ongoing, despite the resignations of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and former White House political adviser Karl Rove. The House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Rove and former White House counsel Harriet Miers in contempt for refusing to answer a subpoena and testify about their role in the attorney firings. The White House, asserting executive privilege, instructed Rove and Miers, as well as other officials, not to testify about the US attorney firings. The House Judiciary Committee is currently working to schedule the full Congress to vote on the contempt charges. Chabot said that the committee's silence regarding the matter should not be interpreted as a sign a deal was struck or that the Gonzales's and Rove's resignations amounted to a quid pro quo. "There was no deal made, Senator Leahy is not in the business of wheeling and dealing for resignations ... We would like to come to some kind of conclusion on this," Chabot said, adding, "The confirmation hearing for the new attorney general has become the focus for the Senate Judiciary Committee. The attorney firing investigation will come up in the confirmation hearings." Iglesias told Truthout Wednesday that he has "faith" that "Congress will not let this matter rest until we know the true reasons behind the firings."
"If those reasons are improper then the appropriate consequences should follow," Iglesias said. "Resignations and retirements do not fix the underlying problem." Gonzales resigned as attorney general in September. The nominee to replace him, Judge Michael Mukasey, is scheduled to begin a confirmation hearing before the Senate on Wednesday. In an October 2 letter to Mukasey, Leahy said that Mukasey, in his confirmation hearing, will face numerous questions about the US attorney firings as well as his ability to produce documents related to the issue. Peter Shane, a Separation of Powers legal scholar and law professor, said that if Mukasey is confirmed he will not be able to restore credibility to the DOJ until he resolves the issues surrounding the US attorney firings. "The damage Gonzales did to the Department of Justice by politicizing the Department and allowing the White House policy agenda to completely trump independent legal judgment is damage at an extraordinary level. That department cannot possibly begin to repair its loss of credibility unless the public has full and persuasive account of what actually happened with regard to the US attorney firings. If we do not get an account of what happened to the US attorneys, there is virtually nothing a new attorney general can do to restore the Department's creditability while Bush is president." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Matt Renner is an assistant editor and Washington reporter for Truthout. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jason Leopold is senior editor and reporter for Truthout. He received a Project Censored award in 2007 for his story on Halliburton's work in Iran. Source: www.truthout.org/docs_2006/101707A.shtml
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michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Mar 11, 2008 12:47:14 GMT 4
Video of Wexler's Response to Bush Attorney General Date: 3/9/2008 4:56:48 AM Eastern Daylight Time Two weeks ago, the House took a bold step demanding accountability for the Bush/Cheney Administration by holding former White House Council Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten in Contempt of Congress for blatantly ignoring congressional subpoenas for over 8 months. Though it was not a surprise, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, wrote a letter to the House of Representatives stating that he refuses to call a Grand Jury to enforce those contempt citations. The Attorney General's letter, effectively claiming that members of the executive branch are immune from congressional subpoenas, calls for quick action. Click HERE to watch my latest video discussing Mukasey's outrageous response:wexlerforcongress.com/multimedia.asp?ItemID=239House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Judiciary Chairman Conyers have smartly decided to pursue a civil lawsuit to force Bolton and Miers to appear before Congress. We should pursue a lawsuit – but I think we can do even more. While a court may order – months from now –that Miers and Bolten must appear before Congress, by then George Bush and Dick Cheney will have largely accomplished their goal of running out the clock on the investigation into this Administration's politicization of the Justice Department. Even a successful outcome in federal court might only mandate that they appear, at which time the witnesses are likely simply to continue their obfuscation by claiming executive privilege of the 5th Amendment in person. The House of Representatives must re-establish its legitimate rights as a co-equal branch of government. Congress cannot allow its power to be summarily ignored and justice delayed. The House was correct to hold these renegade White House officials in contempt, and much credit should be given to Speaker Pelosi and Chairman Conyers for pushing for that outcome. Now, we must go further: The House must immediately consider taking the following actions: - Initiating impeachment hearings that would likely break through the reckless claims of executive privilege made by the Bush Administration. - Approve a resolution that calls for an inherent contempt citation which would give the House Sergeant at Arms the power to bring Miers and Bolton before Congress. As you may know, 17 of my colleagues, including four of my fellow members of the Judiciary Committee have joined my call for impeachment hearings. This is not an issue between Democrats and Republicans. As members of Congress, we have an absolute duty to enforce the checks and balances prescribed by our Constitution. We have ceded too much for too long, enabling George W. Bush to assume a unitary imperial Presidency. It is long past time to secure accountability for those who have, by all appearances, committed significant breaches of our laws and trust. Mukasey's claims are simply the latest in a long line of outlandish legal arguments ranging from the idea that we can selectively cherry-pick from torture laws to the concept that the Vice President is no longer part of the Executive Branch (except, of course, when he needs to claim Executive Privilege).Over the past months, I have received tens of thousands of emails and letters from you expressing your great support for my efforts. Your encouragement and activism on these causes are much appreciated. I continue to work hard on your behalf and hope you feel these updates are valuable. With kind regards, Congressman Robert Wexler www.WexlerForCongress.comDONATE: www.wexlerforcongress.com/contribute.asp
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michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Apr 11, 2008 17:13:11 GMT 4
The LIGHT Shines on John Yoo....Let's Direct More LIGHT His Way! Included here, action you can take to remove Yoo's ability to influence the world with his dark agendas. There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to all the people who run it, to the people that own it, that unless you're free, the machines will be prevented from working at all. -Mario Savio, A notable activist among the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley University, December 2nd 1964 Hey folks, I know you get disgusted with the seemingly endless story of As the World Turns According to Bush Co., Inc., but the wheels of [true] justice move slowly. Well, the wheels recently received a major greasing. After tireless effort, the ACLU has performed the function which Congress and the media are intended to perform but do not. On Oct. 7, 2003, the ACLU filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act demanding the release of information about detainees held overseas by the United States. While many documents have been released, many vital records are still being withheld by the government.
On December 12, 2007, the ACLU also filed a motion asking a federal judge to hold the CIA in contempt, charging that the agency flouted a court order when it destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the harsh interrogation of prisoners in its custody.
Documents released can be found here: www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/torturefoia.html
Highlighted within all of this is a secret memo authored by the Department of Justice (DOJ) asserting that President Bush has unlimited power to order brutal interrogations to extract information from detainees. This memo, written by John Yoo, then a deputy at the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), was sent to the Defense Department in March 2003. The memo is 81 pages long; TPM Muckraker posted links to parts 1 and 2 here: tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/todays_must_read_308.php"The Wall St. Journal Editorial Page wanted someone to defend George Bush's serial assertions of "Executive Privilege" to block investigations into his wrongdoing, and it turned, of course, to ex-Bush-DOJ-lawyer John Yoo, who is not only the most authoritarian but also the most partisan and intellectually dishonest lawyer in the country. Yoo is not only willing -- but intensely eager -- to defend literally anything George W. Bush does or would want to do, including -- literally -- torturing people and crushing the testicles of children if the Leader decreed that doing so was necessary to fight Terrorists. Yoo, of course, is a principal author of most of the radical executive power theories which have eroded our constitutional framework over the last six years." www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/07/24/yoo/Note: here's a short audio snip of Yoo's comment to a question asked on crushing the testicles of children: rwor.org/downloads/file_info/download1.php?file=yoo_on_torture.mp3 ]
The legal theory developed by Yoo and a few others and adopted by the Administration has resulted in thousands being abducted from their homes in Afghanistan, Iraq or other parts of the world, mostly at random. People have been raped, electrocuted, nearly drowned and tortured literally to death in U.S.-run torture centers in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantánamo Bay.
How creepy is it that John Yoo is a welcomed expert on our newspaper's Op-Ed pages and television news programs and a full professor at one of the country's most prestigious law schools? John Yoo is a Professor of Law at Berkeley and is treated as a respectable, serious expert....GOOD GOD, Berkeley !!!...When the University of California at Berkeley erupted in 1964 into protests over freedom of speech, it set the stage for campus unrest in the turbulent 1960s. At the center of the Berkeley protest was the eloquent Mario Savio [quoted at the begining of this post], primary orator in the student rebellion that became known as the free speech movement. Ironically, now Young Republicans are now the largest registered student club on that campus. During May, 2003, in an event that topped local newscasts and made the front page of the Los Angeles Times, more than 200 CRs marched to People's Park-home to many an anti-Vietnam War rally-waving American flags and chanting, "Bush! Bush! Bush!" Crazy, huh? What's happened to our universities? [see: findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3827/is_200305/ai_n9299756 ]
Now I'm all for Free Speech; but John Yoo needs to be silenced for the sake of the entire world! I've been waiting for the LAWYERS in this country to speak up against the two-bit tyrannies that literally exempt our highest political officials from the rule of law, when low and behold, the following press release came out this week. It may or may not bring the exact justice we're seeking, but it's a good effort to humble Yoo...if that's even possible; you have to have a conscience to be repentant and humble: NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD CALLS ON BOALT HALL TO DISMISS LAW PROFESSOR JOHN YOO, WHOSE TORTURE MEMOS LED TO COMMISSION OF WAR CRIMES Wednesday, April 9, 2008, 08:31 AM FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 9, 2008 Contact: Marjorie Cohn, NLG President, marjorie@tjsl.edu; 619-374-6923 Heidi Boghosian, NLG Executive Director, director@nlg.org; 212-679-5100, x11 NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD CALLS ON BOALT HALL TO DISMISS LAW PROFESSOR JOHN YOO, WHOSE TORTURE MEMOS LED TO COMMISSION OF WAR CRIMESNew York. In a memorandum written the same month George W. Bush invaded Iraq, Boalt Hall law professor John Yoo said the Department of Justice would construe US criminal laws not to apply to the President's detention and interrogation of enemy combatants. According to Yoo, the federal statutes against torture, assault, maiming and stalking do not apply to the military in the conduct of the war. The federal maiming statute, for example, makes it a crime for someone "with the intent to torture, maim, or disfigure" to "cut, bite, or slit the nose, ear or lip, or cut out or disable the tongue, or put out or destroy an eye, or cut off or disable a limb or any member of another person." It further prohibits individuals from "throwing or pouring upon another person any scalding water, corrosive acid, or caustic substance" with like intent. Yoo also narrowed the definition of torture so the victim must experience intense pain or suffering equivalent to pain associated with serious physical injury so severe that death, organ failure or permanent damage resulting in loss of significant body functions will likely result; Yoo's definition contravenes the definition in the Convention Against Torture, a treaty the US has ratified which is thus part of the US law under the Constitution's Supremacy Clause. Yoo said self-defense or necessity could be used as a defense to war crimes prosecutions for torture, notwithstanding the Torture Convention's absolute prohibition against torture in all circumstances, even in wartime. This memo and another Yoo wrote with Jay Bybee in August 2002 provided the basis for the Administration's torture of prisoners. "John Yoo's complicity in establishing the policy that led to the torture of prisoners constitutes a war crime under the US War Crimes Act," said National Lawyers Guild President Marjorie Cohn. Congress should repeal the provision of the Military Commissions Act that would give Yoo immunity from prosecution for torture committed from September 11, 2001 to December 30, 2005. John Yoo should be disbarred and he should not be retained as a professor of law at one of the country's premier law schools. John Yoo should be dismissed from Boalt Hall and tried as a war criminal.The National Lawyers Guild was founded in 1937 as an alternative to the American Bar Association, which did not admit people of color, the National Lawyers Guild is the oldest and largest public interest/human rights bar organization in the United States. Its headquarters are in New York and it has chapters in every state.Source: nlg.org/news/index.php?entry=entry080409-083133As I mentioned here in the title, action you can take to remove Yoo's ability to influence the world with his dark agendas is offered at the following site. I'd like to see readers here at the FH Forum write letters to Berkley; Yoo is employed there to enrich[?] and mould young minds; the future and direction of our youth is at stake!!! Here's what the folks at www.atlargely.com suggest you do:CLIP from: www.atlargely.com/2008/04/torture-america.htmlJohn Yoo is a professor at Berkley, despite seemingly being totally unqualified to practice law, let alone teach it. He is also a war criminal. Please contact Berkley to let them know just how you feel about a war criminal teaching classes to students on international law - which he broke. Now go forth and make me proud girls and boys. Get your pens ready... Here is Yoo's contact information at the school:John Choon Yoo Title: Professor of LawOffice: 890 Simon Hall Tel: 510-643-5089 Fax: 510-642-3728 Email Address: jyoo@law.berkeley.edu Here is the contact information for the whole administrative staff of the law school. Christopher Edley, Jr. Dean; Professor of Lawedley@law.berkeley.edu Stephen McG. Bundy '78 Associate Dean; Professor of Law436 Boalt Hall (North Addition) Tel: 510-642-1970 Fax: 510-643-2673 bundys@law.berkeley.edu Richard M. Buxbaum '53 Associate Dean, J.D. Program; Jackson H. Ralston Professor of International Law888 Simon Hall Tel: 510-642-1771 Fax: 510-642-3728 bux@law.berkeley.edu Howard A. Shelanski '92 Associate Dean, J.D. Program; Professor of Law; Director, Berkeley Center for Law & TechnologyTel: 510-643-2743 Fax: 510-642-3767 334 Boalt Hall (North Addition) shelanski@law.berkeley.edu Jonathon Simon Associate Dean, Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program; Professor of Law510-643-5169, Fax: 510-643-2673 JSP Building jsimon@law.berkeley.edu Stephen Sugarman Associate Dean, J.D. Program; Agnes Roddy Robb Professor of Law510-642-3856 327 Boalt Hall (North Addition) sugarman@law.berkeley.edu Marilyn Byrne Chief of Staff510-643-3519 215 Boalt Hall mbyrne@law.berkeley.edu Elaine Mui Event Coordinator510-642-9919 215D Boalt Hall emui@law.berkeley.edu Syreeta Shepherd Executive Assistant to the Dean510-642-0259 215 Boalt Hall sshepherd@law.berkeley.edu Aimee Tabor Faculty Appointments Coordinator 510-643-3056 215D Boalt Hall atabor@law.berkeley.edu Here's what I thought was an appropriate bio on John Yoo:John Yoo AKA John Choon Yoo Born: 10-Jun-1967 Birthplace: Seoul, South Korea Gender: Male Race or Ethnicity: Asian Sexual orientation: Straight Occupation: Government Party Affiliation: Republican [1] Nationality: United States Executive summary: Thinks Geneva Conventions are obsolete Former clerk for Laurence H. Silberman at the Court of Appeals, and later for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas 1994-95. Served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel at the DOJ 2001-03, where wrote substantial parts of the PATRIOT act with Viet Dinh, and he co-authored a report that basically trashed the Geneva Conventions. He is now a law professor at U.C. Berkeley's Boalt Hall Law School. The forty-two page memo in question, which he authored in January 2002, stipulated that since Afghanistan has no formal government to speak of, neither the Geneva Convention nor any other laws of war apply. This breaks a fifty-year U.S. military tradition of upholding those rules, rules that we adopted because we expect them to be applied to us. When the U.S. state department read Yoo's memo, they were "horrified", their chief legal advisor calling it "seriously flawed." But George W. Bush approved the policies in the memo, ultimately resulting in the Abu Ghraib fiasco and similar atrocities being committed in other Iraqi prisons as well as those in Afghanistan. Other related memos discuss how to avoid prosecution of War Crimes that are expected to be committed by Americans following these policies, though it is not clear whether Yoo had a hand in authoring those. Among his other zingers are quotes like "There is no constitutional right to privacy of records not in your possession" (said at a University of Virginia conference) and another on the PATRIOT Act, "It seems to me a very modest bill. There is no revolutionary change." Yoo occasionally appears on news programs such as Lehrer News Hour as a talking head (at least one time with Scott Horton as foil), largely defending Bush administration policies. With all these wonderful ideas coming out of his head Yoo still feels he has enough credibility to author a book on Constitutional law.Source: www.nndb.com/people/327/000049180/Older article which picked apart Yoo's legal theory way back when:Yoo, UnrepentantJune 11, 2004 Prof. John Yoo published an op-ed in the LA Times today entitled With ‘All Necessary and Appropriate Force’. As Prof. Yoo worked in the Justice Dept. During 2001-03, and by all accounts had a major hand in the drafting of Justice Dept. memos relating to the rules applying to the treatment of al Qaeda and other persons labeled by the administration as non-persons enemy combatants, his comments deserve careful attention. Official Washington has been struck by a paroxysm of leaking. It involves classified memos analyzing how the Geneva Convention, the 1994 Torture Convention and a federal law banning torture apply to captured Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Critics suggest that the Bush administration sought to undermine or evade these laws. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) claimed this week that the analyses appeared “to be an effort to redefine torture and narrow prohibitions against it.” Yes, that’s more or less what it looked like all right. Or, as one pithy letter-writer to the Washington Post put it, “How is it that the Defense Department, the Justice Department, and the White House counsel’s office were all writing lengthy and detailed memos on the laws against torture, how to get around the laws against torture, and the president’s alleged authority to ‘set aside’ the laws against torture, and yet nobody had any intention of torturing anybody?” This is mistaken. As a matter of policy, our nation has established a standard of treatment for captured terrorists. In February 2002, President Bush declared that the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, would be treated “humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, consistent with the principles” of the Geneva Convention. Detainees receive shelter, food, clothing, healthcare and the right to worship. Ok, we’re already at the first disingenuous loophole: “a standard of treatment” tells us nothing about what sort of standard. “Kill them all” is a standard. As for the promise of humane treatment, what is that worth when it’s qualified by “to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity”? This policy is more generous than required. The Geneva Convention does not apply to the war on terrorism. Actually, this statement is dangerously false. The Geneva Convention does not apply to terrorists on our shores–but the Bill of Rights does. As regards foreign nationals in foreign countries where we are conducting military operations, the Geneva Conventions clearly contemplate a dichotomous world: there are foreign uniformed troops, who get POW status if caught, and there are foreign civilians, who do not, but instead benefit from certain limited protections for civilians. Irregulars who take up arms can be treated as criminals, can be tried, can be shot if there is a death penalty. POWs can’t be tried, and are entitled to a set standard of treatment that in many countries exceeds what civilian prisoners would get. Furthermore the Geneva convention system provides for a system by which military captors must hold a hearing to determine the status of a captured combatant before determining that they are not entitled to POW status. We’ve failed to do this in Afghanistan and Iraq, although we did manage somehow to do it in the first Iraq war. It applies only to conflicts between its signatory nations. Al Qaeda is not a nation; it has not signed the convention; it shows no desire to obey the rules. Its very purpose — inflicting civilian casualties through surprise attack — violates the core principle of laws of war to spare innocent civilians and limit fighting to armed forces. Although the convention applies to the Afghanistan conflict, the Taliban militia lost its right to prisoner-of-war status because it did not wear uniforms, did not operate under responsible commanders and systematically violated the laws of war. By joining Al Qaeda or the Taliban, much less by being accused of joining by Mr. Yoo and others, persons forfeit neither their citizenship nor their humanity. Al Qaeda is not a country. It cannot sign the Geneva conventions. But its fighters often are citizens of signatory countries, or are fighting on behalf of signatory countries. The idea that the US can unilaterally say that accused Al Qaeda and Taliban members are, by virtue of the accusation, removed from the Geneva conventions is dangerous nonsense, and an ugly precedent that will surely come back to haunt us. To the extent that particular fighters violated their rights to POW status by, for example, not wearing uniforms, our obligation under those same conventions is to treat them as POWs until we give them a hearing. It is true that the definition of torture in the memos is narrow, but that follows the choice of Congress. When the Senate approved the international Torture Convention, it defined torture as an act “specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering.” It defined mental pain or suffering as “prolonged mental harm” caused by threats of physical harm or death to a detainee or a third person, the administration of mind-altering drugs or other procedures “calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality.” Congress adopted that narrow definition in the 1994 law against torture committed abroad, but it refused to implement another prohibition in the convention — against “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” — because it was thought to be vague and undefined. Physical and mental abuse is clearly illegal. But would limiting a captured terrorist to six hours’ sleep, isolating him, interrogating him for several hours or requiring him to do physical labor constitute “severe physical or mental pain or suffering”? Federal law commands that Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives not be tortured, and the president has ordered that they be treated humanely, but the U.S. is not required to treat captured terrorists as if they were guests at a hotel or suspects held at an American police station. Another disingenuous move. Neither six hours sleep nor “several hours” of interrogation are illegal acts. But that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about scaring people with dogs, about contests to see how many detainees could be so terrified they peed on themselves. We’re talking about 16 hours of continuous interrogation, and suicide attempts. We’re talking about telling people they were about to be killed. We’re talking about simulating telephone conversations in which detainees were told their families were being held on the other end of the line and would be harmed if the detainee didn’t talk. We’re talking about not jjust threatening but abusing kids to make parents talk. We’re talking about raping women and children of both sexes. We’re talking about atrocities. Treating “captured terrorists as if they were guests at a hotel”? The word “offensive” is really too mild for this sort of argumentation. Finally, critics allege that the administration wants to evade these laws by relying on the president’s commander-in-chief power. But the 1994 statute isn’t being evaded, because the president’s policy is to treat the detainees humanely. WHOOPS! What happened to “to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity”? Besides, that statute does not explicitly regulate the president or the military. General criminal laws are usually not interpreted to apply to either, because otherwise they could interfere with the president’s constitutional responsibility to manage wartime operations. If laws against murder or property destruction applied to the military in wartime, for instance, it could not engage in the violence that is a necessary part of war. Non-sequitur. Straw man. No one has suggested that the statute prevents military operations. Just military torture. And since the statute is part of our observance of the Geneva Conventions, it’s hardly odd to read it to apply to the military - since that’s to whom the Geneva Conventions apply. But suppose Congress did specifically intend to restrict the president’s authority to interrogate captured terrorists. Ok, back to reality. As commander in chief, the president still bears the responsibility to wage war. To this day, presidents from both political parties have refused to acknowledge the legality of the War Powers Resolution, which requires congressional approval for hostilities of more than 60 days. (President Clinton ignored it during Kosovo.) And in the war on terrorism, Congress has authorized the president to use “all necessary and appropriate force.” Non-sequitur again. No President has ever previously suggested that the Torture Statute was either unconstitutional or didn’t apply in wartime. By exploring the boundaries of what is lawful, the administration’s analyses identified how a decision maker could act in an extraordinary situation. For example, suppose that the United States captures a high-level Al Qaeda leader who knows the location of a nuclear weapon in an American city. Congress should not prevent the president from taking necessary measures to elicit its location, just as it should not prohibit him from making other strategic or tactical choices in war. In hearings this week, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) recognized that “very few people in this room or in America … would say that torture should never, ever be used, particularly if thousands of lives are at stake.” This is so wrong on two levels. First off, not one of the memos at issue is about the rare hypothetical ‘terrorist known to have an a-bomb in NY’ (TABNY) scenario. Rather, they are about the care and torture of all so-called ‘enemy combatants’. Not a single one of these people has ever been alleged to have WMDs in the US. It may be that many people got tortured for denying knowledge of the existence of WMDs in Iraq, but the evidence points rather strongly in the direction that these weapons never took the trouble to exist. Prof. Yoo’s resolution of the TABNY scenario is wrong on its own terms too, because it legitimates a torture regime that, even judged by its own starkly utilitarian morality, will inevitably err on the side of excessive torture . Explaining why that is is a little complicated, so I’m going to defer that to another posting that I’ll put up no later than Monday. Ultimately, the administration’s policy is consistent with the law. “Consistent with the law” because (although Prof. Yoo has soft-pedaled it in this op-ed) the memo says that the Constitution allows the President to do what he wants if he justifies it by miliary necessity. If the American people disagree with that policy, they have options: Congress can change the law, or the electorate can change the administration. True. But you left one out: the courts can find that your interpretation sounds in Nuremburg. Source: www.discourse.net/archives/2004/06/yoo_unrepentant.htmlHere's your chance to influence our world and take down one of the people whom we never vote for, yet have a huge impact on our country's policies and direction taken; don't let this opportunity slip by..... GO GET 'EM, FOLKS!!!!!!
Yours in the LIGHT, Michelle
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michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Jul 18, 2008 14:06:47 GMT 4
*This post is directly related to the previous on John Yoo.
Summer of Resistance: Adopt-an-Activist SUPPORT THESE YOUNG ADULTS!!!
I'm a bit late on reporting the following news from students at The World Can't Wait movement; I had posted the info at Truth Spring and expected more traffic here. Nonetheless these student's are planning a summer long agenda, doing what their 'elders' haven't accomplished. Before I go to the article from The World Can't Wait folks, let me reiterate some of what I said at TS, which pertains here.....
Every educational system has a moral goal that it tries to attain and that informs its curriculum. It wants to produce a certain kind of human being. In some nations the goal was the pious person, in others the warlike, in others the industrious. Always important is the political regime, which needs citizens who are in accord with its fundamental principle. Aristocracies want gentlemen, oligarchies men who respect and pursue money, and democracies lovers of equality. Democratic education, whether it admits it or not, wants and needs to produce men and women who have the tastes, knowledge, and character supportive of a democratic regime. Over the course of our republic, there have obviously been changes of opinion as to what kind of human is best for our regime.
Which brings me to the last of my points. If education is the training ground for citizens of a regime and the method of selection of our national leaders in politics, business, and education, then what can one say other than Americans are in a spot between a rock and a hard place. What makes it so difficult, if not impossible, to find a new and better direction here is the disheartening expansion of trained ignorance and bad thought. We live in a thought world, and the thinking has gone very bad indeed. Our universities have become a warehouse of often harmful influences. One only has to reflect on John Yoo and Tony Blair at teaching at Berkeley and Yale. Any proposed reforms of liberal education which might bring the university into conflict with the whole of the U.S. of A. are unthinkable. Increasingly, the people inside the university are identical in their appetites and motives with the people outside.
Also, what can one say of a student who states that his goal is to be making 6 figures within 10 years? What ever happened to the vision of making the world a better place?
One shinning moment to leave you with. It appears that contrary to the article above, some of our youth have woken up to the game; they deserve your support. ....if the following is any indication of a new breed of evolving humans, then perhaps the universities will loose their monopoly on the intellectual life. I LOVE these students; they are intelligent, focused, organized beyond belief, and are OUT THERE DOING SOMETHING!
When I first introduced the WORLD CAN’T WAIT youth activists here at the FH Forum, someone doubted the effect of their efforts and called them a children's brigade.....Ummph....hardly!
MichelleAdopt-an-Activist HITTING BERKELEY JULY 15, 2008: WORLD CAN’T WAIT youth activists Rock the Boat!World Can’t Wait youth organizers are heading to Berkeley, CA to make this a summer of resistance by creating such an intense orange uprising that it will reverberate across the nation! Working collectively with other young people committed to repudiating the Bush program, they will contribute to reshaping the political landscape by focusing on making breakthroughs in stopping the military recruiters and working to fire, disbar and prosecute John Yoo, infamous author of the “torture memos”. These summer plans are a crucial part of forging a new generation of leaders that refuse to be bound by “the politics of the possible” and mobilizing others to bring to a halt the whole Bush program that is still setting the terms for official politics today. More on the project and how you can support them:www.worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4775&Itemid=5 ALSO, please see more protests planned by these students [and others] during the August Democratic convention at today's post here: tinyurl.com/57fzbq
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michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Aug 12, 2008 14:48:09 GMT 4
linked to previous posts on the White House's Boy Blunder:
Poetic Injustice John Yoo's still giving his views in the news!
Does John Yoo seriously believe that he has a scrap of credibility left? Apparently, The Philadelphia Inquirer does. Can't Yoo just shut up? I mean there are plenty of folks in this country who wish to see him charged with war crimes for his acts of 'Con Law.' After the Philly piece, there's a fitting rebuttal from emptywheel at firedoglake.com MichelleSupreme Court grabbed more power in recent termPosted on Sun, Aug. 10, 2008 John Yoo is a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise InstituteThe U.S. Supreme Court's 2007-08 term had something for everybody. Liberals came away with a victory on the cases testing the rights of Guantanamo Bay detainees. Conservatives prevailed with the court's first defense of the individual right to own and bear firearms. Liberals applauded the prohibition on the death penalty for the rape of minors; conservatives liked the overturning of a campaign-finance law. But the biggest winner by far was the court itself. Slowly but surely, the justices have expanded their power to make many of our society's fundamental political and moral decisions. Only the court now decides whether schools or the government can resort to race-based preferences when it admits students or doles out contracts. States and the federal government must live by the court's dictates on the regulation of abortion. Whether religious groups can help educate inner-city children or provide welfare services is up to the justices. Use of the death penalty, indeed whether each individual execution will go forward, is ultimately controlled by our unelected judges. The decisions announced this summer only reaffirm the court's power. In Boumediene v. Bush, five justices - the wandering Justice Anthony Kennedy joined by a liberal bloc of Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer - took the unprecedented step of striking down a wartime law enacted by Congress and the president. U.S. history has never seen what the Boumediene majority now demands: Alien enemy prisoners at war with U.S. forces and detained outside the United States have the same right as criminal suspects to challenge their capture in civilian courts. Hundreds of years of practice, and the decided views of the political branches, to which the Constitution gives all of the powers over war, were tossed overboard. The "gun case," as it is referred to by court watchers, District of Columbia v. Heller, performed the same feat, but in the other direction. This time, Justice Kennedy joined four conservatives - Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito - to strike down a D.C. law banning the possession of handguns in the home. This combination of five justices, for the first time in our history, held that the Second Amendment right to bear arms attaches to individuals, not just the militia. There was less precedent and tradition at issue in Heller than in Boumediene - the court had amazingly never issued a basic interpretation of the Second Amendment, even though it is probably the only part of the Constitution most Americans can quote from memory. Nevertheless, the justices brought into question hundreds, if not thousands, of laws regulating firearms throughout the country. While I disagree with the outcome of the Guantanamo Bay case (I was a lawyer in the Bush administration who worked on terrorism policy), I support the result with the Second Amendment. But that is not what is truly important. What really matters is not what was decided, but who gets to decide. In all of these cases, the Supreme Court waved aside a fair amount of history, which represents the views of thousands of citizens and leaders over time, and ignored the decisions of our elected officials on matters of critical national policy. Some might prefer that judges still make these decisions because they hear cases in a formal, rational setting and issue long opinions explaining their reasons. Nonetheless, the courts are far from ideal as policymakers: They have great difficulty trading off competing values in these sensitive areas; they are insulated from the political process; and their only access to information comes to them through the narrow lens of a lawsuit. When the federal judiciary decides national policy on these issues, under the guise of interpreting the Constitution, it prevents the people from making the decisions for themselves. Meanwhile, the numbers of Americans with confidence in the Supreme Court seems to be dropping. Gallup reported in June that only 32 percent of Americans have a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in the Supreme Court. While that approval rating outpaces Congress' (the lowest scorer among all U.S. institutions at 12 percent) and inches out the presidency's (26 percent), it is far behind the military's (71 percent), small business' (60 percent), and the police's (58 percent), and even loses out to the public schools' (33 percent). The court itself realizes that its intervention into controversial areas such as abortion, affirmative action and religion risks its reputation as a nonpolitical actor. Under Chief Justice Roberts, the court has tried to take fewer cases, with this year's 67 opinions the lowest in more than half a century. Roberts has urged his colleagues toward greater unanimity as well - this year, there were only five 5-4 decisions in constitutional cases, in contrast to 13 last year. This is not to deny that there are moments that we need the courts to defend individual liberties against unconstitutional actions by the government. But those moments may not be as ever-present as the federal courts today may think, and the price is not just that the courts may get it wrong, but that the expansion of their powers will sap our energies of republican self-government. "If the policy of the government, upon vital questions, affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court," Abraham Lincoln argued in his first inaugural address, "the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal." E-mail John Yoo at jyoo@law.berkeley.edu.Source: www.philly.com/inquirer/currents/26482104.html------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ John Yoo: “It Sucks to Have Judges Protecting the Constitution”By: emptywheel Monday August 11, 2008 10:26 am 11 John Yoo complains that the Supreme Court's strong rulings last term are an "unprecedented" grab for power. Slowly but surely, the justices have expanded their power to make many of our society's fundamental political and moral decisions. Only the court now decides whether schools or the government can resort to race-based preferences when it admits students or doles out contracts. States and the federal government must live by the court's dictates on the regulation of abortion. Whether religious groups can help educate inner-city children or provide welfare services is up to the justices. Use of the death penalty, indeed whether each individual execution will go forward, is ultimately controlled by our unelected judges.
[snip]
Some might prefer that judges still make these decisions because they hear cases in a formal, rational setting and issue long opinions explaining their reasons. Nonetheless, the courts are far from ideal as policymakers: They have great difficulty trading off competing values in these sensitive areas; they are insulated from the political process; and their only access to information comes to them through the narrow lens of a lawsuit.
When the federal judiciary decides national policy on these issues, under the guise of interpreting the Constitution, it prevents the people from making the decisions for themselves.Not surprisingly, Yoo's argument gets particularly laughable when he complains about Boumediene. The decisions announced this summer only reaffirm the court's power. In Boumediene v. Bush, five justices - the wandering Justice Anthony Kennedy joined by a liberal bloc of Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer - took the unprecedented step of striking down a wartime law enacted by Congress and the president.
U.S. history has never seen what the Boumediene majority now demands: Alien enemy prisoners at war with U.S. forces and detained outside the United States have the same right as criminal suspects to challenge their capture in civilian courts. Hundreds of years of practice, and the decided views of the political branches, to which the Constitution gives all of the powers over war, were tossed overboard.After all, this was a guy who routinely ignored laws passed by Congress--including laws passed during the Vietnam war--to rationalize things like domestic surveillance and torture. But he has found one law--the Military Commissions Act--that he believes should be protected above all else.
Regardless of whether it violates the Constitution or not.
Which is really the argument Yoo is making: how dare the Supreme Court ensure that the political branches don't violate the Constitution. It makes it really difficult, you know, to change the law at will if you're actually bound by the Constitution.
Yoo claims this is unprecedented--I guess because it adds to his histrionics--but what he's really asking is for permission for the "political branches" to legislate away the Constitution. Not that I'm surprised by that. Me, I'm still more surprised that fairly mainstream publications still consider Yoo's opinion or judgment to be worth squat.Source:emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/08/11/john-yoo-it-sucks-to-have-judges-protecting-the-constitution/
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