December 2009 archive

Just in case you had any cancerous unpatriotic anti democratic poisonous lingering doubts about Holder and Obama’s honesty and integrity and willingness to buck the tide of public opinion and be rule of LAW kind of guys instead of your standard disingenuous political calculators, here’s just what you need to get your head straightened out and get yourself back into GoBama mode again.

AP via TPM Monday…

The Supreme Court has thrown out an appeals court ruling ordering the disclosure of photographs of detainees being abused by their U.S. captors.

In doing so Monday, the high court cited a recent change in federal law that allows the pictures to be withheld.

The justices issued a brief, and expected, order Monday directing the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York to take another look at a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union to obtain the photos of detainee abuse. President Barack Obama at first didn’t oppose the release, but he changed his mind, saying they could whip up anti-American sentiment overseas and endanger U.S. troops.

The administration appealed the matter to the Supreme Court, but also worked with Congress to give Defense Secretary Robert Gates the power to keep from the public all pictures of foreign detainees being abused.

Gates invoked his new authority in mid-November, saying widespread distribution of the pictures would endanger American soldiers.

The ACLU has said it will continue fighting for the photos’ release.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who served on the 2nd Circuit until August, did not take part in the court’s consideration of the case, Department of Defense v. ACLU, 09-160.

That would be the SC top heavy with Bush appointees, btw. Like Sonia (it wasn’t me) Sotomayor (I didn’t do it and you shouldn’t think about it). Rah. Rah.

Besides that, this follows on the heels of, back in October, the Obama White House “ordering” Congress to amend the FOIA to give SecDef Gates the authority to withhold “protected documents”, so we can clearly see from all of these actions that we have all badly misjudged Obama and that he really is intent, nay, determined at all costs, to uphold and follow the rule of law, even if he has to do Congress’s job and make the law he intends to follow.

And that’s the way it is.

Even if you feel a little tortured about it.

Open Thread

This will be short and sweet, and nobody’s posted at at Dailykos yet, so someone here might actually respond and find this interesting.

Release of secret reports delayed

WASHINGTON – President Obama will maintain a lid of secrecy on millions of pages of military and intelligence documents that were scheduled to be declassified by the end of the year, according to administration officials.

The missed deadline spells trouble for the White House’s promises to introduce an era of government openness, say advocates, who believe that releasing historical information enforces a key check on government behavior. They cite as an example the abuses by the Central Intelligence Agency during the Cold War, including domestic spying and assassinations of foreign officials, that were publicly outlined in a set of agency documents known as the “family jewels.”

The documents in question – all more than 25 years old – were scheduled to be declassified on Dec. 31 under an order originally signed by President Bill Clinton and amended by President George W. Bush.

But gosh, it’s not Obama’s fault, you see, nothing is ever his fault.  This time it’s the fault of the intelligence agencies who are, well, apparently more powerful than he is.  

It seems EVERYBODY is more powerful than Obama.   At least in “Obama’s World”.

It’s hard work being President, isn’t it Barry?

You fucking liar.

I’ve always loved the little-known Maurice Hinchey, from New York State.

Back in 2005, I wrote about him in one of my very first Dailykos essays.     Here’s what he said then:

New York congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) delivered a fiery critique of the Bush Administration’s drive to war in Iraq, labeling the push part of a “conspiracy” to deceive Congress and occupy the country.

(snip)

Speaking of the four protesters who spilled their own blood at a military recruiting center, Hinchey said “what they were protesting was the conspiracy of the Administration of George W. Bush to bring about an attack and then an occupation of the country of Iraq, and as a result making the world a much more dangerous and difficult place than it was prior to those actions.”

“It is that conspiracy,” he added, “that conspiracy which has now been documented by among other things official British documents called the Downing Street Memo which are communications between the highest ranking officials of the British government – the head of the British Intelligence, the foreign officer, the prime minister himself.”

Hinchley’s remarks break ranks with most Democrats in Congress, who have been critical of the leadup and operations surrounding the Iraq war, but who have been loath to deliver stinging perorations. The New York Democrat said he saw the trial as somewhat Orwellian — a move towards curtailing speech.

“We do not want to see an end to this democratic republic,” Hinchey quipped. “We want it to be strengthened. We want it to go on forever. We don’t want it to be ended by people who are telling us, or who would like to tell us, what we can do and say and even think. But that’s what this Administration is engaged in.”

No wonder this guy doesn’t get any press.

But check out what he said today:

Rep. Hinchey: Bush ‘intentionally let Bin Laden get away’

Maybe the Internet is the only way to get the ear of a banking corporation so deaf and so greedy that it cannot hear my screaming and thinks it can do whatever it wants with my money.  Maybe even this diary won’t work to open their ears and pierce their conscience and cause them to release the money.  Maybe Bank of America pwns all of us.  I hope it doesn’t, but I suspect it does.

This diary is about my interaction today with B of A.  And it’s about why my son cannot get my hands on $4,019 of his own money until after 5 pm on December 7.  This diary is being written because, guess what, he needs the $$ before then.  It’s his, isn’t it?  Well, maybe not. Not until after 5 pm on 12/7.

Join me in the drive through.