Category: White House

Leon Panetta Says that We Intend to Keep Torturing

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So, Barack Obama and His Evil Minions,™ are still arguing in court that there is no crime by Bush Cheney that they will not cover up:

The forced disclosure of such material to the American Civil Liberties Union “could be expected to result in exceptionally grave damage to the national security by informing our enemies of what we knew about them, and when, and in some instances, how we obtained the intelligence we possessed,” Panetta argued.

….

The “disclosure of explicit details of specific interrogations” would provide al-Qaeda “with propaganda it could use to recruit and raise funds,” Panetta said, describing the information at issue as “ready-made ammunition.” He also submitted a classified statement to the court that he said explains why detainees could use the contents to evade questions in the future, even though Obama has promised that the United States will not use the harsh interrogation techniques again.

(emphasis mine)

If you aren’t torturing any more, the information is no longer sensitive.

I cannot see any reason to make this argument unless the Gulags are still in place, and they intend to keep using them, or are still using them.

In Your Face, Barack Obama

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It appears that the Graham Lieberman photo suppression amendment, , which would have suppressed all torture photos from the time of the Bush administration, and only from the time of the Bush administration, has been dropped from the Iraq/Afghanistan supplemental in conference committee.

The liberal members of Congress made it clear that they would not vote for any bill containing this provision, and the conference committee has dropped it.

Background here.

Those people who contacted their Congressmen, including me, are to be commended for killing this abomination.

Obama Comes Out for Public Plan

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This is significant, because he explicitly states that a public

Here is his letter Senators Kennedy and Baucus:

TEXT OF A LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT TO SENATOR EDWARD M. KENNEDY AND SENATOR MAX BAUCUS

June 2, 2009

The Honorable Edward M. Kennedy
The Honorable Max Baucus
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Senator Kennedy and Senator Baucus:

The meeting that we held today was very productive and I want to commend you for your leadership — and the hard work your Committees are doing on health care reform, one of the most urgent and important challenges confronting us as a Nation.

In 2009, health care reform is not a luxury. It’s a necessity we cannot defer. Soaring health care costs make our current course unsustainable. It is unsustainable for our families, whose spiraling premiums and out-of-pocket expenses are pushing them into bankruptcy and forcing them to go without the checkups and prescriptions they need. It is unsustainable for businesses, forcing more and more of them to choose between keeping their doors open or covering their workers. And the ever-increasing cost of Medicare and Medicaid are among the main drivers of enormous budget deficits that are threatening our economic future.

In short, the status quo is broken, and pouring money into a broken system only perpetuates its inefficiencies. Doing nothing would only put our entire health care system at risk. Without meaningful reform, one fifth of our economy is projected to be tied up in our health care system in 10 years; millions more Americans are expected to go without insurance; and outside of what they are receiving for health care, workers are projected to see their take-home pay actually fall over time.

We simply cannot afford to postpone health care reform any longer. This recognition has led an unprecedented coalition to emerge on behalf of reform — hospitals, physicians, and health insurers, labor and business, Democrats and Republicans. These groups, adversaries in past efforts, are now standing as partners on the same side of this debate.

At this historic juncture, we share the goal of quality, affordable health care for all Americans. But I want to stress that reform cannot mean focusing on expanded coverage alone. Indeed, without a serious, sustained effort to reduce the growth rate of health care costs, affordable health care coverage will remain out of reach. So we must attack the root causes of the inflation in health care. That means promoting the best practices, not simply the most expensive. We should ask why places like the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, and other institutions can offer the highest quality care at costs well below the national norm. We need to learn from their successes and replicate those best practices across our country. That’s how we can achieve reform that preserves and strengthens what’s best about our health care system, while fixing what is broken.

The plans you are discussing embody my core belief that Americans should have better choices for health insurance, building on the principle that if they like the coverage they have now, they can keep it, while seeing their costs lowered as our reforms take hold. But for those who don’t have such options, I agree that we should create a health insurance exchange — a market where Americans can one-stop shop for a health care plan, compare benefits and prices, and choose the plan that’s best for them, in the same way that Members of Congress and their families can. None of these plans should deny coverage on the basis of a preexisting condition, and all of these plans should include an affordable basic benefit package that includes prevention, and protection against catastrophic costs. I strongly believe that Americans should have the choice of a public health insurance option operating alongside private plans. This will give them a better range of choices, make the health care market more competitive, and keep insurance companies honest.

I understand the Committees are moving towards a principle of shared responsibility — making every American responsible for having health insurance coverage, and asking that employers share in the cost. I share the goal of ending lapses and gaps in coverage that make us less healthy and drive up everyone’s costs, and I am open to your ideas on shared responsibility. But I believe if we are going to make people responsible for owning health insurance, we must make health care affordable. If we do end up with a system where people are responsible for their own insurance, we need to provide a hardship waiver to exempt Americans who cannot afford it. In addition, while I believe that employers have a responsibility to support health insurance for their employees, small businesses face a number of special challenges in affording health benefits and should be exempted.

Health care reform must not add to our deficits over the next 10 years — it must be at least deficit neutral and put America on a path to reducing its deficit over time. To fulfill this promise, I have set aside $635 billion in a health reserve fund as a down payment on reform. This reserve fund includes a number of proposals to cut spending by $309 billion over 10 years –reducing overpayments to Medicare Advantage private insurers; strengthening Medicare and Medicaid payment accuracy by cutting waste, fraud and abuse; improving care for Medicare patients after hospitalizations; and encouraging physicians to form “accountable care organizations” to improve the quality of care for Medicare patients. The reserve fund also includes a proposal to limit the tax rate at which high-income taxpayers can take itemized deductions to 28 percent, which, together with other steps to close loopholes, would raise $326 billion over 10 years.

I am committed to working with the Congress to fully offset the cost of health care reform by reducing Medicare and Medicaid spending by another $200 to $300 billion over the next 10 years, and by enacting appropriate proposals to generate additional revenues. These savings will come not only by adopting new technologies and addressing the vastly different costs of care, but from going after the key drivers of skyrocketing health care costs, including unmanaged chronic diseases, duplicated tests, and unnecessary hospital readmissions.

To identify and achieve additional savings, I am also open to your ideas about giving special consideration to the recommendations of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), a commission created by a Republican Congress. Under this approach, MedPAC’s recommendations on cost reductions would be adopted unless opposed by a joint resolution of the Congress. This is similar to a process that has been used effectively by a commission charged with closing military bases, and could be a valuable tool to help achieve health care reform in a fiscally responsible way.
These are some of the issues I look forward to discussing with you in greater detail in the weeks and months ahead. But this year, we must do more than discuss. We must act. The American people and America’s future demand it.

I know that you have reached out to Republican colleagues, as I have, and that you have worked hard to reach a bipartisan consensus about many of these issues. I remain hopeful that many Republicans will join us in enacting this historic legislation that will lower health care costs for families, businesses, and governments, and improve the lives of millions of Americans. So, I appreciate your efforts, and look forward to working with you so that the Congress can complete health care reform by October.

Sincerely,

BARACK OBAMA

# # #

(emphasis mine)

A Distinction Without a Difference

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It appears that Anthony Taguba is now denying that he has any knowledge as to whether or not the photos suppressed by Barack Obama are rape photos.

He’s not denying that he saw photos of rape of women and boys, along with photos rape by instrumentality, he’s just denying any specific knowledge as to whether or not these specific photos are the same.

So there are rape photos, but the 44 photos that the ACLU has filed a freedom of information act about might not be them.

So, Just How Were We Better Than Saddam?

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It’s far far worse than I imagined.

When I wrote about Bush rape rooms, I cited Scott Horton, who detailed only rape by instrumentality, but the reality is that we are talking full genital rape here, including the rape of a boy:

At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.

What’s more the Telegraph‘s source on this is unimpeachable:

Detail of the content emerged from Major General Antonio Taguba, the former army officer who conducted an inquiry into the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq.

Allegations of rape and abuse were included in his 2004 report but the fact there were photographs was never revealed. He has now confirmed their existence in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.

…

Maj Gen Taguba, who retired in January 2007, said he supported the President’s decision, adding: “These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency.

We also know that Barack Obama lied when he talked about this:

Mr Obama seemed to reinforce that view by adding: “I want to emphasise that these photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational, especially when compared to the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib.”

I don’t think that he could say that you have pictures of a boy and a woman being raped, in additional to the forcible stripping of a woman detainee to humiliate her, any honest description would be almost as inflammatory as the pictures themselves, but saying that they are “no big” will make him less credible the next time something like this comes up.

Auto Industry Update, GM Bankruptcy Imminent Edition

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Well, it looks like GM could not get enough of the bond holders to agree to the deal. The deadline passed without the requisite 90% buy-in.

My guess is that a lot of the speculators who purchased this debt at around 10¢ on the dollar had already purchased Credit Default Swaps (CDS) on the face value, so they had no incentive to settle.

This is yet another example of how the complex derivatives and swaps system is broken.

The UAW has been far more accommodating, with the CAW cutting a deal in the great white north, and the UAW cutting a deal down here, which I guess is the great uninsured south.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration apparently already has the bankruptcy “i”s dotted and “t”s crossed, so we may see a filing sooner, rather than later.

It looks like the new GM will be 70% government owned, though there are many sources saying that they will take no role in how the company is run.

This is bullsh#@….Not the government ownership, but the constant assertion that when the taxpayer buys a company, that they should have no voice whatsoever in how that company is run.

Government ownership should have 2 goals:

  • An unwinding of this ownership sooner, rather than later with terms favorable to the taxpayer.
  • An active involvement in the operation of the concern, to ensure that it is run for the long term benefit of the taxpayer.

The idea that the government should have no say in things like, location of manufacture, executive compensation, etc. when the taxpayer owns the firm is simply stupid ideological crap.

Meanwhile, there are a number of bids for GM’s Opel division, and Fiat is by no means the front-runner there.

Sotomayor for Scotus

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Obama has chosen Sonia Sotomayor to replace David Souter on the Supreme Court.

I don’t have enough legal knowledge to know her qualities as a jurist, but from what I’ve read, notwithstanding some “what about some white guys whining” from TNR, is that she is a first rate legal mind and is qualified for the court.

I have some concerns:

  • I believe that some of the members of the supreme court should come from some other walk of life than federal judge. Until 20-30 years ago, that was the case, with justices being governors (Earl Warren), William O. Douglas (SEC Chairman), Felix Frankfurter (Academic and Solicitor General), Hugo Black (Senator), Robert H. Jackson (Attorney General), Thurgood Marshall (Chief Council of the NAACP), etc.
  • Her age and health. At 54, she is a bit older than Republican nominees, and she is a type I diabetic, which likely shaves a decade off her life expectancy.

I think that getting some non-judges on the court, and getting some younger appointees, would be a very good thing for the Dems.

Additionally, I think that the Ivys are overrepresented on the court, but Barack Obama, Harvard Law, is not likely to be the guy who does this.

Obama’s Guantánamo Show Trials

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It just gets better and better.

So, the details of the plan are dribbling out and it’s a distinction without a difference as was made clear when the New York Times obtained a filing made to the judges running the military commissions.

Remember the statement that, “The accused will have greater latitude in selecting their counsel?”

Not so much, Bush and His Evil Minions™ required that the defendants’ lawyers be appointed by the Pentagon, and, “assigned to a special office of military defense lawyers for Guantánamo, which meant, among other things, that they had to be uniformed military, and in the filing to the judges, Obama and His Evil Minions™ say that a detainee would be allowed to select a lawyer of their “own choosing”, but that the, “requested lawyer must be assigned to the Pentagon’s office of military defense lawyers for Guantánamo.“

“Any color you want, so long as it’s black,” quoth Henry Ford.

Furthermore, the right to confront witnesses against them will be ignored by using a very broad hearsay rule, because, according to “senior administration officials” said that although federal courts bar many kinds of hearsay evidence, “the hearsay rule is not one of those things that is rooted in American values.”

The right to confront witnesses in court is one of the most basic of legal rights in our system since the excesses of the Star Chamber in England.

Note that while coerced testimony will not be allowed, that the defendant will not be allowed to question the primary source of the testimony, only their interrogator, or possibly just someone who reads the interrogator’s report, will confirm this.

Another Day, Another Obama Backdown on a Campaign Promise

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So now Barack Obama is saying that they just don’t have the votes to pass the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA):

President Barack Obama said there aren’t enough votes in the Senate to pass “card-check” legislation sought by labor unions and only a revamped measure would have a chance getting through Congress.

“There may be areas of compromise to get this bill done,” Obama said today a town hall meeting in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, outside Albuquerque.

Suck it up man!

You are the President of the United States of America! Your job is to find the votes for this.

He thinks that by not pushing this, he’ll get cooperation from the ‘Phants healthcare or his other initiatives. He’s wrong.

And, BTW, I am sick and tired of all these people claiming that he’s playing some sort of ten dimensional chess, he’s not.

He figures that labor has no where else to go, so he will not work for them.

Elections Have Consequences: Who Hoo!!!!!!!!

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Barack Obama’s new budget eliminates abstinence-only funding and a kick back program to churches.

From Page 491 of the budget (PDF):

The 2010 Budget proposes a new Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative to support community-based and faith-based efforts to reduce teen pregnancy using evidence-based and promising models. In addition, a new Strengthening Communities Fund will help build the capacity of non-profit organizations and State, Local and Tribal entities to better serve low-income and disadvantaged populations. This Budget also proposes funding for (1) a new child welfare initiative, and (2) a human services case management system for Federally-declared disasters. This Budget eliminates funding for Community-Based Abstinence Education, the mandatory Title V Abstinence Education program, the Compassion Capital Fund, and Rural Community Facilities.

The items in bold are two abstinence only education programs, aka the Bristol Palin teen parent plan, and the Compassion Capital Fund is a slush fund for churches set up by Bush and His Evil Minions™.

Wicked cool!

I Hope that They Are Lying

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the Chrysler creditors, the ones who pushed the automaker into Chapter 11, are claiming that the White House threatened the reputations of the firms involved in order to get them to accede to their demands

In an interview with a Detroit radio host, Frank Beckmann, Mr. Lauria said that Perella Weinberg “was directly threatened by the White House and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under threat that the full force of the White House press corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight.”

I hope that the WH was threatening to destroy the reputations of the firms involved.

Shame is a legitimate tactic to coerce cooperation, though the idea that Obama would use the, “full force of the White House press corps,” is absurd on its face.

Now to start playing hardball with Goldman Sachs.

Now Winston Churchill is a Commie and a DFH*

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Because, as Obama noted in his presser, Churchill opposed torture

Obama responded by pointing to the example from the Blitz: ‘I was struck by an article that I was reading the other day talking about the fact that the British, during world war two, when London was being bombed to smithereens, had 200 or so detainees. And Churchill said ‘we don’t torture’, when all of the British people were being subjected to unimaginable risk and threat. And the reason was that Churchill understood you start taking shortcuts, and over time, that corrodes what’s best in a people. It corrodes the character of a country.’

Hoocoodanode?

*Dirty f%$#ing hippie.

9th Circuit Deals Blow to Obama Secrecy Stance

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The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has just told the Obama administration that its assertion of a state secret privilege is full of crap.

Binyam Mohamed, a British national who was rendered, and tortured by the CIA, is to be allowed to pursue his lawsuit against Jeppesen, a private transportation company that flew him to their secret gulags:

The court said the government could ask judges to conduct a case-by-case review of whether the disclosure of specific documents would jeopardize national security. But allowing the executive branch to shut down an entire lawsuit whenever an official says its subject is classified would be a “concentration of unchecked power” and lead to abuses, it said.

“According to the government’s theory, the judiciary should effectively cordon off all secret government actions from judicial scrutiny, immunizing the C.I.A. and its partners from the demands and limits of the law,” wrote Judge Michael Daly Hawkins.

I would also note (again) that as a matter of fact, though not of law, that the precedent here, US v. Reynolds, is in fact based on a lie. There were no state secrets involved, the B-29 which crashed was not, as was claimed, on a secret mission or testing secret equipment, as the government implied, but that the the aircraft was in poor condition because of inadequate maintenance.

This is a good decision, and I rather hope that it won’t make it to the Supreme Court, because 4 of those justices will rubber stamp the Bush, and now Obama, policy.

Obama Now Comes Out Against Truth Commission

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What the hell is wrong with everyone in Washington?

Meeting with the Democratic leadership on Wednesday night, Mr. Obama said a special inquiry would steal time and energy from his policy agenda, and could mushroom into a wider distraction looking back at the Bush years, people briefed on the discussion said. Mr. Obama, they said, repeated much the same message on Thursday at a bipartisan meeting with Congressional leaders.

The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, and other top Senate Democrats endorsed Mr. Obama’s view on Thursday, telling reporters at a news conference at the Capitol that they preferred to wait for the results of an investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee expected late this year.

It should be noted that senior Senators on the Intel Committee have already been described as having signed off on torture, and as such Rockefeller, Feinstein*, Roberts, etc. have a vested interest in burying this.

The fact is that the American public wants this, the Republicans are going to fight you every step of the way on your agenda anyway, but still, you are determined to kick the can down the road long enough that people will forget.

This is not partisan politics, it is, as Krugman says, a battle for America’s soul, and it appears that the folks inside the Beltway just don’t give a damn

And the only way we can regain our moral compass, not just for the sake of our position in the world, but for the sake of our own national conscience, is to investigate how that happened, and, if necessary, to prosecute those responsible.

What about the argument that investigating the Bush administration’s abuses will impede efforts to deal with the crises of today? Even if that were true — even if truth and justice came at a high price — that would arguably be a price we must pay: laws aren’t supposed to be enforced only when convenient. But is there any real reason to believe that the nation would pay a high price for accountability?

Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, wouldn’t be called away from his efforts to rescue the economy. Peter Orszag, the budget director, wouldn’t be called away from his efforts to reform health care. Steven Chu, the energy secretary, wouldn’t be called away from his efforts to limit climate change. Even the president needn’t, and indeed shouldn’t, be involved. All he would have to do is let the Justice Department do its job — which he’s supposed to do in any case — and not get in the way of any Congressional investigations.

Why this scramble not to investigate. It makes no sense.

*Full disclosure, my great grandfather, Harry Goldman, and her grandfather, Sam Goldman were brothers, though we have never met, either in person or electronically.

Now We Know Part of Why Obama Backtracked Over Torture Prosecutions

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It appears that Rahm Emanuel’s and Robert Gibbs statements about not prosecuting people, incensed senior career lawyers at the Department of Justice, who saw this as political meddling in a law enforcement decision.

Interestingly enough, as Scott Horton notes, the net result of this fallout may be to force AG Holder to appoint a special prosecutor in order to defuse those charges, which to my mind is a good thing.

Elections Make a Difference

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Case in point, the EPA has not declared greenhouse gasses a threat to public health, opening the door for regulation of these gasses.

What’s more, it puts a pin in the Congress to put something in legislation, because the EPA can institute regulations that are far more expansive, without the opportunity for bribery campaign contributions.

While I am regularly (OK, constantly) criticizing the Obama administration for their mishandling of the banking crisis and the banking system and their avoidance of any real investigation of crimes against humanity and corruption by Bush and His Evil Minions&trade, this is real change, and beneficial.

We will now be returning to the regularly scheduled broadcast.

Picking Industry Insiders for their “Experience” is Such a Good Idea

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Because the corporate raider that Barack Obama has put in charge of the auto industry bailout has now been tied to a kickback scheme involving the New York state pension fund:

The man leading the Obama administration’s efforts to restructure the auto industry has been described in Securities and Exchange Commission documents as having arranged for his investment firm to pay more than $1 million to obtain New York State pension business.

Although he is not named in the documents, a person with knowledge of the inquiry said the investment executive is Steven Rattner, co-founder of the Quadrangle Group, the prominent private equity firm

Gee….Hoocoodanode that a man who is a corporate chop shop might be ethically challenged.

This is why expertise does not trump ethics and philosophy. Summers, Geithner, Rattner, etc. are all either wrong doers, or were until recently in the pay or wrong doers, and are largely responsible for the problem.

It’s like making an arsonist for hire your fire department chief.

Where Olbermann Gets It Wrong

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I watched Keith Olbermann’s special comment from last night on Youtube, as I was too busy wrapping Passover to watch the show.

While I generally agree with him, I find him powerful even when I disagree with him, or find his conclusions lacking, as was the case last night, and I’m not referring to the Kaiser thing.*

In this case, I believe that KO did not go far enough.

While he is correct that letting people off for “just following orders”, as is implied by the statements that those , “carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice,” will not be subject to prosecution.

This is wrong, and there is a bigger point, made ably by Glenn Greenwald, that there is a real and legally binding obligation obligation under the Convention Against Torture, which was signed in 1988 and ratified in 1994, to actively pursue and prosecute torturers ( roll Article 7 para 7):

The State Party in territory under whose jurisdiction a person alleged to have committed any offence referred to in article 4 is found, shall in the cases contemplated in article 5, if it does not extradite him, submit the case to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution.

This is not to say that refraining from after the little fish to target the big fish is a violation of this.

That is a legitimate prosecution strategy.

However, it increasingly appears that President Obama and Attorney General Holder do not intend to go after anyone, and in so doing, they are, but not going after anyone, with the explanation that this is, “moving forward”.

This is a obstruction of the prosecution of these acts is a war crime, and if this means no prosecution, it is an affirmative act to obstruct the course of justice.

Certainly, there are alternate venues, such as some sort of “Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” but all indications are that the White House are fighting even this weak tea.

I believe that, in the absence for support for some sort of fact official fact finding process, it makes Eric Holder and Barack Obama accessories after the fact to a crime against humanity.

In the short form, people who actively work to subvert any process of judicial or semi-judicial fact finding inquiry, outside of the context of legitimate activities of defense counsel, are war criminals, including the current President and Attorney General of the United States of America if they choose to continue this course.

That being, said, I am an engineer, not a lawyer, dammit,‡ and I would be interested in hearing opinions from people with a deeper knowledge of both US and international law.

*The Kaiser committed no war crimes by the standards of the day, notwithstanding the accusations of amputation Belgian babies hands† made in the early days of the war. The rules had not yet caught up with the technology of war, and if the Kaiser were guilty, than every participant in the war would have been guilty.
†Ironically, the Belgians, during the genocide phase of their rule over what was then the Belgian Congo DID require their native levees to return a human hand for each bullet fired, in order to prevent them from “wasting” bullets hunting game for food, along with holding families hostage, etc.
‡I LOVE IT when I get to go all Doctor McCoy!!!