Tag: Obama

I’m with Rachel here. Maddow NAILS it, when she uses the unrequited love analogy to describe the mindboggling “bi-partisan” courtship that ultimately betrays President Obama’s base.

The Republican’ts (y,gctt) are alternately amused by, and annoyed by Obama’s apparent infatuation with them, and his utter abject heartbreak at not being able to evoke the same feelings in kind.

“They’re just not that into you…”

The full segment is here but msnbc changed their embed code and I just couldn’t tweak it enough to make it work. This 3 minute YouTube covers most of it, but the full 5 minutes is greatly suggested.

RawStory this afternoon:

The United States Senate has confirmed Eric Holder, President Obama’s nominee for attorney general, by a vote of 75-21, making him the first African-American to hold the office.

His Republican opponents in the Senate said they felt Holder is hostile to the rights of gun owners and questioned his support of President Bush’s terror war.

Reportedly, among the no votes were Senators Barrasso, Brownback, Burr, Coburn, Cochran, Cornyn, Crapo, Ensign, Kaybee, Hutchison, Inhofe, Johanns, McConnell, Risch, Shelby, Thune and Wicker.

During the confirmation hearing, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) scolded Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) after several Republicans demanded Holder pledge he would not prosecute US interrogators who followed the Bush administration’s orders to torture prisoners.

“No one should be seeking to trade a vote for such a pledge,” said the Vermont Democrat.

“When Cornyn rose to announce his vote against Holder, he did not make such a demand,” reports the AP. “However, he accused the nominee of changing his once-supportive position – on the need to detain terrorism suspects without all the rights of the Geneva Convention – to one of harshly criticizing Bush administration’s counterterrorism policies.”

During the hearing, Holder stated directly, “Waterboarding is torture.”

Now that he has been confirmed, it is within his authority to reverse President Bush’s order granting his former advisers blanket immunity against testimony before Congress. Three of President Bush’s close advisers — Karl Rove, Harriet Miers and Josh Bolton — are facing congressional contempt citations.

“The confirmation of Eric Holder as our new Attorney General is a momentous day for the rule of law,” said Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI). “During his confirmation hearings, Eric Holder clearly and unequivocally stated that no one, including the president, is above the law. Those were welcome words after eight years of Bush Administration policies that undermined our Constitution and damaged the integrity of the Department of Justice.”

Will prayers help?

Obama and the Democrats campaigned on jobs, buy American, taxing companies that ship jobs overseas, supporting unions and renegotiating trade.  

So far, Obama and the Democrats are flip-flopping on all of it; and I can’t help but ask, WTF are they doing?  

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“.

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…

Decades ago – long before I became gray and respectable – I was a big fan of the punk rock band Devo. I found myself remembering their second album just now; specifically, the title of the album: “Duty Now For The Future.” Today, that phrase seems to carry an unexpected weight; it seems pregnant with meaning and promise.

As I write these words, President Obama has just finished his inaugural address. It was an address for the ages, and yet one that was desperately needed at this particular time in our history. It pointed the way forward with resonant themes from a simpler and more honest time. The themes of duty, sacrifice, responsibility, obligation, and service.

To which I can only respond: it’s about time. Long past time, in fact. Long past time for Americans across the entire political spectrum (as well as those who consider themselves apolitical)  to embody these ideas — ideas that have recently been misappropriated by the hard-right fringe of the body politic and used as blunt instruments of political demagoguery.

It’s a funny thing about America: almost no one talked about duties anymore. All we hear from Americans is the endless din about “rights.” The idea that our rights  can exist in a social vacuum, without  a corresponding  set of duties, is a toxic idea that is poisoning America. We have come to believe that we are  nothing more than individuals, and that as such all we need concern ourselves with is rights, and never with obligations.

Let’s talk about obligations for a change, and about duties. A philosophy that proclaims the idea that rights do not have their basis in duty and obligation must inevitably result in  a sick,  narcissistic citizenry, a citizenry from whom the endless, birds-nest cheeps of “Me! Me! Me! Me!” has reached deafening volume. It is time for less talk about our rights as citizens, and more talk about our duties as citizens.

Obama is not calling America to service because such service is “needed” in any practical sense.  He is calling for service, and sacrifice, and a sense of obligation because these are the  rhetorical clarion calls by which one inculcates a sense of shared duties and national solidarity, without which no healthy, committed society can be built or surv

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?…