Category: Barack Obama

cross posted from The Dream Antilles

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 this week that Louisiana’s statute permitting the death penalty for child rape was unconstitutional.  The decision was a step against extending the barbarianism of the death penalty to crimes in which the victim was not killed.  

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote the opinion, saying, in essence, that the crime, awful as it is, does not merit capital punishment.

“The incongruity between the crime of child rape and the harshness of the death penalty poses risks of over-punishment and counsels against a constitutional ruling that the death penalty can be expanded to include this offense,” Kennedy wrote.

He was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

source

Put simply, a majority of the Supreme felt that as a substantive matter, the death penalty for child rape was cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment and could not be permitted.

Something is missing beyond the spine of some Democrats in the rush to legalize warrantless wiretaps, end privacy, and reward corporations for betraying the public trust. Let’s call it the beef (or nicely textured soy protein for the vegetarians among us).

I am an empiricist at heart. I want proof in the form of sound evidence before I am willing to believe something is true. I am also deeply cynical and suspicious of politicians because too few decisions favor the common good. That cynicism has grown after our elected officials ‘misrepresented’ the threat posed by Iraq. In the uproar over the FISA revisions, now is a good time to point out there are some glaring gaps in the evidence at hand.  

By Nikolas Kozlff via Counterpunch.com: http://counterpunch.com/kozlof…

In April 2008, Attytood asked Senator Obama if he as President would hold former Bush administration officials accountable by seeking prosecution for crimes committed.  Obama promised that he would review the information to determine whether an investigation was required; and, if officials knowingly violated existing laws, Obama indicated that he would pursue prosecution.  

Based upon Obama’s standard, there should be an investigation and potential criminal prosecution of Bush and other officials for knowingly violating FISA. Bush has admitted publicly that he did not comply with FISA, which is a criminal offense.  

However, the FISA bill pending before the Senate may take this putative prosecution off the table by providing immunity to Bush while codifying his unitary executive theory.  In order for President Obama to keep his word that he would hold Bush officials accountable for clear, knowing criminal violations, Senator Obama needs to stop this FISA bill, or at least provide amendments which clearly eliminate any colorable argument of immunity for Bush.  

So I spend a fantastic, lost weekend at a semi-Illuminati wedding in West Goopersville, California (just north of where Tricky Dick is buried but apparently not forgotten), and while I’m gone, all hell breaks loose.

I actually think ol’ Steno Steny surprised even himself at just how many Dems he was able to sign up for his cunning plan to delete the Fourth Amendment.  The count was so big the Majority DINO must have felt like running right out and having ‘111’ inscribed on his gavel – an idea Bob Novak (of all people) floated a couple weeks ago.

The same source said Pelosi indicated that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer would be her eventual successor as speaker, even though she opposed his election to the second-ranking leadership position.

God help us.

And speaking of bad numbers, how about that 1st Madame Speaker of ours huh?  Identity politics my ass.  Woman, man, or hermaphrodite, Pelosi will still go down in United States Congressional History as one of the most craven hacks ever to bang a gavel.  That is, if there still even is a United States after the 110th Congress is finished with it.

Welcome to the new and improved United-States-In-Name-Only, where privacy is in the toilet, your USINO biometric identity card is in the mail, and your ballot is in the black box.

Meanwhile Barack Obama is looking increasingly comfortable in his new role as presumptive Unitary Executive. (‘President’ is just so 9/10.)  

“Under this compromise legislation, an important tool in the fight against terrorism will continue, but the President’s illegal program of warrantless surveillance will be over.”

Stellar legal analysis there, Barack.  The illegal program to spy on Americans will be over because the new legislation now makes that same program legal.   Thanks for nothing.

And to think that this guy once taught Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago.  Who hired him?  John Yoo?

I’m also now really looking forward to more Obama compromises.  Like with the TELCOS on Net Neutrality, and the oil companies on Global Warming, and the HMO’s on Health Care?  

Something tells me Change is about to become a four letter word.

The bride looked lovely, BTW.

Update: Thanks for the bump Buhdy.

Crossposted from Daily Kos

It had to happen sooner or later.

In spite of John McCain being a technological Luddite with no apparent computer skills, the McCain Camp had to prove conclusively that their guy is hip and fully in tune with the American mainstream and pop culture.

What better way than to invoke the image of a movie character that many Americans are familiar with.  So… they compared Barack Obama to ‘Dr. No’ of the James Bond movies.

Does Obama welcome this comparison?  It isn’t as if Obama doesn’t have the flair for the dramatic, as he demonstrated prior to the Texas Primacaucus.  He’s an ‘Urban Cowboy’ himself!

vs

Dr. No and Barack Obama – coming soon to a theater near you

Niemand sieht mich, wenn er mich sucht;

doch überall bin ich, geborgen dem Blick.

Perhaps the commenter August Adams put it best, following upon a Robert Parry article on the Democratic capitulation on telecom immunity for illegal Bush administration wiretapping:

So we are a Capitalist State

So, fascism is led by a dictator, so how does a “super” capitalistic state, one where the President and the Congress and the Senate are all in lock Step, differ from a Fascist state where the Dictator simply seizes power.

I guess we live in a State where the leaders simply use the Corporate Controlled Capitalist Media to spin propaganda and the “electoral” process is manipulated to select our rulers.

I hate being right about people.  Especially when I’m being less than charitable.  I was always a bit leery about Obama and his flowery bullcrap.

Somehow everyone else would listen to his words and think that this guy could do no wrong.  I’d listen to him and hear weasel words like ‘combat’ troops (I’m going to withdraw ‘combat’ troops). Translation: We’re not leaving Iraq if BHO is president.

He capitulates on FISA. He won’t consider impeachment.  He votes for the Patriot Act reauthorization. Over and over he hands Bush a blank check for Iraq.  He wants to expand the military; in a country that already spends nearly 50-60% of it’s discretionary funds on the military machine this man wants to expand it.

Some of the people over at the Big Orange are waking up.  However they’ll still vote for BHO.  We’re the majority; if we decide to actually vote our consciences then Nader can really be president.  At the very least it’ll scare Barack to move back towards the left as he sees the poll numbers shift.

McJoan has it up at big orange obama all the time.  It’s a doozy:

This is an FYI for everyone.  For those who did not hear Gore’s speech lending his support to Obama, here it is — Gore speaks so strongly, eloquently — a mentor for Obama!  Goose bump speech by Gore!  SPIRIT APLENTY!

Listening to this — you must FEEL BETTER!  🙂

In looking back at the Bush debacle, one thing stands out.  It would never have happened, at least not so blatantly and egregiously, had there been a healthy opposition party in America.  Up until 2000 there was at least the illusion of the Democrats as a party in opposition to the Republicans, however ineffective.  And the Republicans, though always venal, have never been so nakedly predatory, never so in-your-face ‘I’m going to take your shit and you’re going to like it’, never so openly disdainful of the Constitution and the law.  Somewhere along the line, the notion of the Democrats as the voice of sanity counter-balancing Republican lunacy has become just so much political vaporware.  What happened?    

We continue to hear from the strains of Right Wing Hate Radio programming to the musings in conservative rags such as the Washington Times that the media has a Liberal Bias to the stories they cover.  

The Neo-Con’s whine and cry and complain that the New York Times (to a conservative, synonymous with George Soros’ personal newspaper), CNN, The Washington Post, USA Today, BBC News, NPR, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC and on and on, are nothing more than the mouthpieces of the dangerous liberal movement in our country!  The Wingnut set decries these media outlets for only giving us one side, TEH LIBERAL SIDE, of any story.

Still rolling on here in our quest to find the liberal bias in the so-called Liberal Media outlets.  We’ve been to The Peoples Republic of CNN, we have viewed the writings in The George Soros New York Times and lastly we sailed across the great Atlantic divide to take on the DNC-BBC right there in jolly-old-England.

So far, ….nothing!  Not unlike weapons of mass destrcution in Iraq, no liberal bias was found.  How can that be?!?

Today we will go where NO KONSERVATIVE has gone before and have a look at the most hated of Liberal News Outlets, NPR (aka National Public Progressive Radio).

The wingers hate this news outlet more than any other, due to the fact that not only does some of THEIR tax money go into paying for NPR, but NPR to them is the one place on radio that everyone can access talk radio without having to listenen to Right Wing Hate Radio.  It really pisses them off!