{"id":183629,"date":"2013-01-08T22:55:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-09T03:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2013\/01\/08\/a-big-f-you-to-torture-opponents\/"},"modified":"2013-01-08T22:55:00","modified_gmt":"2013-01-09T03:55:00","slug":"a-big-f-you-to-torture-opponents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2013\/01\/08\/a-big-f-you-to-torture-opponents\/","title":{"rendered":"A Big F%$# You to Torture Opponents"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After the idea got shot down by opponents of torture in 2009, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/news\/politics\/la-pn-obama-brennan-cia-20130107,0,4544987.story\">Obama is nominating highly vocal torture supporter John Brennan<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">President Obama plans to nominate top counter-terrorism advisor John Brennan to lead the CIA, a senior administration official said today.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Brennan, a 25-year veteran of the agency, would take the helm of the CIA in the wake of the resignation of former Army Gen. David Petraeus.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I will be calling my Senators (both Democrats) and asking that both of them to filibuster him.  (they won&#8217;t, but I am asking)<\/p>\n<p>It is very likely, though it is not certain given the veil of secrecy surrounding this matter that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2013\/01\/does-it-matter-if-john-brennan-was-complicit-in-illegal-torture\/266918\/\">Brennan was an active participant in torture<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The most depressing commentary on this is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/commentisfree\/2013\/jan\/07\/john-brennan-dishonesty-cia-director-nomination\">Glen Greenwald&#8217;s observation that there is Obama has succeeded in making opposition to torture a fringe political position<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">It is a perfect illustration of the Obama legacy that a person who was untouchable as CIA chief in 2008 because of his support for Bush&#8217;s most radical policies is not only Obama&#8217;s choice for the same position now, but will encounter very little resistance. Within this change one finds one of the most significant aspects of the Obama presidency: his conversion of what were once highly contentious right-wing policies into harmonious dogma of the DC bipartisan consensus. Then again, given how the CIA operates, one could fairly argue that Brennan&#8217;s eagerness to deceive and his long record of supporting radical and unaccountable powers make him the perfect person to run that agency. It seems clear that this is Obama&#8217;s calculus.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I can only conclude that Barack Obama, aka the Worst Constitutional Law Professor Ever<sup>\u2122<\/sup>, is objectively pro torture.<\/p>\n<p>And the morons in Sweden gave him a Nobel Peace Prize.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After the idea got shot down by opponents of torture in 2009, Obama is nominating highly vocal torture supporter John Brennan: President Obama plans to nominate top counter-terrorism advisor John Brennan to lead the CIA, a senior administration official said today.Brennan, a 25-year veteran of the agency, would take the helm of the CIA in &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1142,1032,969,1168],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-183629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-barack-obama","category-crimes-against-humanity","category-evil","category-torture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183629"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183629\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}