Author's posts
Jan 28 2009
“Press, public need to keep Obama open”
from Ari Melber at Politico this morning, January 28, 2009, 4:31 AM EST
After running a campaign with Bush-like discipline in press relations, President Barack Obama promised a “new standard of openness” on his first day in office. His administration is rolling out regulations to ensure a more transparent government. His aides have been addressing citizens online, bypassing reporters to reach the public directly. All this makes the Washington press corps, already struggling with low approval ratings and low profits, potentially less relevant.
If Obama’s administration operates anything like his campaign, it will both sideline and compete with the media as a news source.
The transition team provided a great range of video, official documents, e-mail bulletins and other content for interested citizens. Then, last week, Obama’s aides clearly entered the White House with disintermediation on their minds. Scrapping the traditional wire photo shoot of the new president at his desk, Obama’s aides simply published their own.
Ditto for Round Two of the swearing-in, which was largely closed to the press. “The same day that the president is talking about transparency, we were not let in,” reporter Ed Henry declared on CNN.
Several news agencies, to their credit, refused to circulate those government photos. As one AP official explained, their duty is to document news about the administration – not regurgitate “visual press releases” produced by the administration.
It is great, of course, for the White House to release photos or documents or any other material. Obama’s openness is a welcome change from his predecessor, who went all the way to the Supreme Court to hide the RSVP list for a single policy meeting. And transparency is intrinsically good, since in a democracy, very little government activity is legitimately secret.
Transparency reform and government information, however, are no substitutes for journalistic access and original reporting.
In fact, the administration’s new openness might even function as little more than another unfiltered route to disseminate its view. If the information is offered to supplant independent reporting – as in the photo disputes – and only flows in one direction, then the government simply amplifies its already sizable megaphone. A louder government with less journalism does not enrich our democratic process.
Jan 27 2009
War Crimes Prosecution In The Media Now In A Way Impeachment Never Was
Progressive Democrats of America board member David Swanson and Yellow Dog Democrat and Chair of The National Congress of Black Women Dr. Fay Williams, who worked for two years to help get Obama elected, talk to Real News CEO Paul Jay about prosecuting George Bush and Dick Cheney for war crimes, and about how Obama is pretty much backed into a corner now and will have a very difficult time avoiding doing so.
Real News: January 27, 2009 – 10 min 51 sec
Should Obama prosecute Bush and Cheney
Pt.1
Swanson: Reversing the policies does not provide a deterrent
Dr. Fay Williams: “People have to make him do it“.
Jan 27 2009
The Honeymoon & The Reality: The Cult Of the Presidency
Matt Welch is a journalist, blogger, pundit, and libertarian. Since 2008, he has served as the Editor-in-Chief of the online magazine, Reason. From 2006 to 2007, he was the Editorial Page Editor for the Los Angeles Times.
In a so far two part discussion with more to come, Welch talks with Real News CEO Paul Jay with an analysis of President Barack Obama’s campaign statements on various topics, including Foreign Policy, his speech to AIPAC, Iraq, Afghanistan, and others, and Obama’s inaugural address, in an attempt to get a handle on what can be expected from an Obama presidency.
Welch says in Part 1 that, “Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were the first “progressive” reformers who started the process of bringing monarchial symbols to the presidency. George W. Bush famously came up with the idea of the unitary executive, whereby the president is somehow constitutionally above the law. What is interesting about Barack Obama is that he started his campaign as someone who attacked that aspect of the presidency, but then stopped talking about it.
During the inauguration speech Obama said “we reject the false choice between security and our ideals,” but supported Bush in his overriding of the rejected bailout to the auto industry, and in Part 2 below Welch concludes that Obama is going to maintain much of Bush’s second term politics, which saw him more willing to talk to regimes that were “unfavorable” to the United States.
Real News: January 26, 2009 – 9 min 54 sec
The cult of the Presidency
Pt.1/2
How will George W. Bush’s concept of the “unitary executive” play out under Barack Obama?
Jan 25 2009
Too Disgusting To Avert Your Eyes From
They may take awhile to load… The Real News servers are experiencing heavy demand this morning…
Real News: January 25, 2009
White phosphorus in Gaza: the victims
Guardian: A look at the severity of injuries caused by the use of white phosphorus
Jan 24 2009
Real News: Michael Ratner (CCR) On Obama’s Executive Orders
On Thursday January 22, 2009 President Barack Obama issued one of the first Executive Orders of his presidency, ordering the establishment of a Special Interagency Task Force to be composed of the Attorney General and the Secretary of Defense as co-chairs, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other federal employees as determined by the co-chairs.
The Task Force will…
…develop policies for the detention, trial, transfer, release, or other disposition of individuals captured or apprehended in connection with armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations that are consistent with the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States and the interests of justice, I hereby order as follows:
Section 1. Special Interagency Task Force on Detainee Disposition.
(a) Establishment of Special Interagency Task Force. There shall be established a Special Task Force on Detainee Disposition (Special Task Force) to identify lawful options for the disposition of individuals captured or apprehended in connection with armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations.
[snip]
(e) Mission. The mission of the Special Task Force shall be to conduct a comprehensive review of the lawful options available to the Federal Government with respect to the apprehension, detention, trial, transfer, release, or other disposition of individuals captured or apprehended in connection with armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations, and to identify such options as are consistent with the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States and the interests of justice.
Both Attorney General Eric Holder, and Obama in another Executive Order on January 22, 2009, have indicated that the Army Field Manual, which as Valtin explains and Patriot Daily has also written so well about, codifies coercive psychological torture under the name of “Restricted Interrogation Technique – Separation” in Appendix M. will be the Obama administrations baseline guide for detainee interrogation policies, taking us back to pre-Bush days on the question of torture but in no way ending the practice.
This morning Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, talks with The Real News, comments on Obama’s executive orders, loopholes, and says Obama must still take up the prosecution of Bush/Cheney for war crimes, specifically torture of detainees…
Jan 20 2009
The White House Has A New Website
Click the image to visit www.whitehouse.gov
It even has a blog: www.whitehouse.gov/blog
Jan 20 2009
Obama’s Best Move So Far? Marty Lederman Joins OLC
From Armando at Talkleft Monday evening:
 Martin “Marty” S. Lederman Photo: Georgetown Law |
Lederman Joining Obama Administration:
From Ben Smith [at Politico]:
A Georgetown source forwards over an email from that school’s administration, reporting that Professor Marty Lederman’s class will be canceled — because he’s joining the Obama administration.
Lederman, another former Clinton Office of Legal Counsel lawyer, is perhaps the most prominent of several high-profile opponents of the Bush Administration’s executive power claims joining Obama, a mark that he intends not just to change but to aggressively reverse Bush’s moves on subjects like torture. . . . Lederman has been . . . an early and vocal critic of torture, and has suggested Bush Administration officials have committed specific crimes in that regard.
For those unfamiliar with him…
Martin “Marty” S. Lederman [until today was] an Associate Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he teaches various courses in constitutional law, and seminars on separation of powers and executive branch lawyering. He regularly contributes to the weblogs SCOTUSblog and Balkinization, including on matters relating to Executive power, detention, interrogation, civil liberties, and torture. Lederman was an Attorney Advisor in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel from 1994 to 2002
Marty Lederman blogs with Jack Balkin, at Balkinization.
In a Balkanization post July 08, 2007, Lederman grouped all of his, Mark Graber’s, Stephen Griffin’s, Scott Horton’s, Sandy Levinson’s, David Luban’s, Brian Tamanaha’s, Jack Balkin’s and a few others posts “on the complex of issues raised by torture, interrogation, detention, war powers, Executive authority, the Department of Justice, and the Office of Legal Counsel” together under the heading The Anti-Torture Memos: Balkinization Posts on Torture, Interrogation, Detention, War Powers, Executive Authority, DOJ and OLC
There are many, almost six hundred, posts in that Balkinization category, but a quick scan of the titles will give you a good indication of Marty’s feelings and leanings on the subjects of torture and applicable “rule of law”, and his very strong and vocal criticisms of torture by the Bush administration.
Jan 19 2009
Obama Supporters In DC Want Bush Arrested
If you wish to repost this essay you can download a .txt file of the html here (right click and save). Permission granted.
Docudharma Tag: petition for a special prosecutor for background
Hat tip to David Swanson this morning…
Obama Supporters in DC Want Bush Arrested
By David Swanson, January 19, 2009 at 07:33:58
Sunday evening I spoke on a panel in Washington, D.C., about war crimes, and in walked a group of spirited activists led by Laurie Arbeiter wearing “Arrest Bush” sweatshirts and carrying “Arrest Bush” signs and they were absolutely dumfounded by what they had just experienced. They’d spent the day at the train station in D.C. and on the streets of D.C. as excited Obama celebrators poured in by the tens of thousands, and they’d been unable to walk a dozen steps without people stopping them to have their photo taken with an “Arrest Bush” sign.
It’s worth remembering that Bush is approved by 22 percent of Americans and a smaller percentage of non-Americans. It’s hard to get under 20 percent in any poll in this country. More people believe in UFOs than approve of Bush. The media meme that prosecuting Bush would cost Obama political capital has not been proven false, but it is absolutely baseless until someone produces something to base it on.
So we had a little strategy meeting Sunday night and produced hard copies of an already running petition asking Eric Holder to appoint a Special Prosecutor. We got clipboards and pens and identified teams. As I write this Monday morning we are preparing to gather at Dupont Circle for a rally at 11 a.m. followed by a march to the White House where we will throw shoes at the outgoing war criminal. On Tuesday we have a permit for the whole sidewalk in front of the FBI Building along the parade, and we’ll let you in if you have a sign that says “Arrest Bush.” No other ticket required. At these and many other events and all over the city in the next two days, we hope to add many thousands of new people to the petition and collect their contact information to integrate them into the movement to get tough on (the biggest) crime.
If you’re not in DC, you can sign the petition yourself or print out a PDF to collect signatures in the real world at http://convictbushcheney.org [reproduced below]
This is not a fantasy, boys and girls. The New York Times’ Scott Shane and Attorney General Mukasey agree with me that prosecution is now going to be hard to avoid. When even Nancy Pelosi has figured out where we’re going, you know the winds of change are blowing strong. That’s the dangerous thing about telling people that anything is possible: they’ll end up insisting on what they really want. And they want lots of new laws, but they very dearly want us to start enforcing the old ones too.
Jan 19 2009
Get Out, George.
There’s one final myth about this President that the Rude Pundit would like to put to rest: George W. Bush is not a man you would want to have a beer with. No, not because if you saw him in a bar, you’d react like you had gone on the sex offender registry in Dallas and discovering that a guy who fucked babies in his basement was now living in the downstairs apartment. It’s that, despite any feints at finding him charming, he is not, in his soul, a kind or decent person.
[snip]
The Rude Pundit doesn’t drink with irredeemable dickheads, with self-righteous balls of fuck who think their very existence demands your respect and attention, with privileged cockmongers who can’t manage even a moment of self-awareness.
[snip]
Yet we can’t just bury this presidency alive in the cold, cold ground and have a picnic on the earth above it, joyously toasting as it screams and claws and tries to get free before it inhales dirt, gags, vomits, and dies horribly, not knowing why it deserved such an awful fate. No, alas, no.
Because the reason I will unreasonably hate this man, these men, these women, as human beings, and not just for ideologies and actions, is because neither I nor most of you will live to see the day that all their hurt is healed.
The snips are worth reading too, at the link above, but they were a little too civil for here, even by my standards… but by all means go read the whole thing.
Jan 18 2009
Torturing His Supporters
Hat tip to Armando this morning, for: AP: Obama Team Debating Violating UN Convention On Torture
The other day, the AP reported:
President-elect Barack Obama is preparing to prohibit the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques by ordering the CIA to follow military rules for questioning prisoners, according to two U.S. officials familiar with drafts of the plans. Still under debate is whether to allow exceptions in extraordinary cases.
. . . Obama’s changes may not be absolute. His advisers are considering adding a classified loophole to the rules that could allow the CIA to use some interrogation methods not specifically authorized by the Pentagon, the officials said. They said the intent is not to use that as an opening for possible use of waterboarding, an interrogation technique that simulates drowning.
As Glenn Greenwald points out, such a “loophole” would constitute a violation of the UN Convention on Torture, codified as a crime under US law:
We all know by now, or we should know by now, that Obama has no problem endlessly torturing people who put him where he is with talk of torture loopholes.
The question is are the loopholes he’s talking about big enough to allow even more bush era torture fanatics like Brennan in, to enable Obama to co-opt far right GOP senators and reps?
This is all about gaining “bipartisan” support, and power. Nothing else.
There is virtually no sunlight between the two when it comes to amassing and retaining power, and when it comes right down to it any suggestion that presidential power be limited appears to justify “exceptions in extraordinary cases”, in Obama’s world.
Barack Obama appears to have the same problem (or fantasy, depending on your POV) that George Bush had, a problem described by Phillip Carter and Dahlia Lithwick at Slate back in October 2007 in
All Wet: Why can’t we renounce waterboarding once and for all?…
Jan 18 2009
Dear World
|
