Fuck Obama

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Postby nathan28 » Thu May 28, 2009 10:42 pm

Man, I just read some mention of Sustein over on another chlamor thread. This is getting depressing. At least Cheney and Rumsfeld were reasonably upfront about misleading the public; Obama's guys have spotless integrity in that regard: they misled themselves first.
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Postby ninakat » Fri May 29, 2009 1:14 am

Published on Thursday, May 28, 2009 by TedRall.com
An Early Call for Obama's Resignation
With Democrats Like Him, Who Needs Dictators?
by Ted Rall

We expected broken promises. But the gap between the soaring expectations that accompanied Barack Obama's inauguration and his wretched performance is the broadest such chasm in recent historical memory. This guy makes Bill Clinton look like a paragon of integrity and follow-through.

From healthcare to torture to the economy to war, Obama has reneged on pledges real and implied. So timid and so owned is he that he trembles in fear of offending, of all things, the government of Turkey. Obama has officially reneged on his campaign promise to acknowledge the Armenian genocide. When a president doesn't have the 'nads to annoy the Turks, why does he bother to show up for work in the morning?

Obama is useless. Worse than that, he's dangerous. Which is why, if he has any patriotism left after the thousands of meetings he has sat through with corporate contributors, blood-sucking lobbyists and corrupt politicians, he ought to step down now--before he drags us further into the abyss.

I refer here to Obama's plan for "preventive detentions." If a cop or other government official thinks you might want to commit a crime someday, you could be held in "prolonged detention." Reports in U.S. state-controlled media imply that Obama's shocking new policy would only apply to Islamic terrorists (or, in this case, wannabe Islamic terrorists, and also kinda-sorta-maybe-thinking-about-terrorism dudes). As if that made it OK.

In practice, Obama wants to let government goons snatch you, me and anyone else they deem annoying off the street.
Preventive detention is the classic defining characteristic of a military dictatorship. Because dictatorial regimes rely on fear rather than consensus, their priority is self-preservation rather than improving their people's lives. They worry obsessively over the one thing they can't control, what Orwell called "thoughtcrime"--contempt for rulers that might someday translate to direct action.

Locking up people who haven't done anything wrong is worse than un-American and a violent attack on the most basic principles of Western jurisprudence. It is contrary to the most essential notion of human decency. That anyone has ever been subjected to "preventive detention" is an outrage. That the President of the United States, a man who won an election because he promised to elevate our moral and political discourse, would even entertain such a revolting idea offends the idea of civilization itself.

Obama is cute. He is charming. But there is something rotten inside him. Unlike the Republicans who backed Bush, I won't follow a terrible leader just because I voted for him. Obama has revealed himself. He is a monster, and he should remove himself from power.

"Prolonged detention," reported The New York Times, would be inflicted upon "terrorism suspects who cannot be tried."

"Cannot be tried." Interesting choice of words.

Any "terrorism suspect" (can you be a suspect if you haven't been charged with a crime?) can be tried. Anyone can be tried for anything. At this writing, a Somali child is sitting in a prison in New York, charged with piracy in the Indian Ocean, where the U.S. has no jurisdiction. Anyone can be tried. Why is it, exactly, that some prisoners "cannot be tried"?

The Old Grey Lady explains why Obama wants this "entirely new chapter in American law" in a boring little sentence buried a couple past the jump and a couple of hundred words down page A16: "Yet another question is what to do with the most problematic group of Guantánamo detainees: those who pose a national security threat but cannot be prosecuted, either for lack of evidence or because evidence is tainted."

In democracies with functioning legal systems, it is assumed that people against whom there is a "lack of evidence" are innocent. They walk free. In countries where the rule of law prevails, in places blessedly free of fearful leaders whose only concern is staying in power, "tainted evidence" is no evidence at all. If you can't prove that a defendant committed a crime--an actual crime, not a thoughtcrime--in a fair trial, you release him and apologize to the judge and jury for wasting their time.

It is amazing and incredible, after eight years of Bush's lawless behavior, to have to still have to explain these things. For that reason alone, Obama should resign.

© 2009 Ted Rall

Ted Rall is the author of the new book "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?," an in-depth prose and graphic novel analysis of America's next big foreign policy challenge.
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Postby Nordic » Fri May 29, 2009 2:11 am

Damn, I love Ted Rall.

It's amazing that common sense can sound radical.

That's how fucked up things are now.
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Postby lightningBugout » Fri May 29, 2009 2:26 am

Its a simple and compelling piece - I think it would serve as an antidote to those rabid Obama supporters who have been completely unwilling to look at him more realistically.
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Postby Skunkboy » Fri May 29, 2009 4:42 am

Here's a little rant from James PB over at the Smirking Chimp in response to Joe Bageant's article. Enjoy.


Windmills and Credit Cards
I like Obama. He has done some good things, but nothing that affects me directly.

I like that he is trying to get health care costs under control. That should take about 30 years. I wonder who will be President when they finally get the costs under control in 2039 A.D.

Also, as you know I am a big advocate for free single payer universal health care and need hospitalization for "exhaustion" from typing so much about it. Guess what? "Exhuastion" is not a "hospital admission" criteria (unless you are Jay Leno or Madonna), so if you are suffering from exhaustion and go to the hospital you will be forced to sit 10 hours in a hard plastic chair, and become even more exhuasted, and then be sent home with instructions to see your primary care physician, but when you call him up, his office supervisor will ask what insurance you have and if you say "none", she will tell you your best bet is to go to the hospital and sit in a hard plastic chair for 10 hours.

If we dont get free single payer universal health care like they have in France, Canada, England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Spain, Pananma, Japan, Belgium, Luxemborg, Iceland, Portugal, Brazil, the Senate, Congress, entire White House Staff--------then I'll take the $2500 annual tax credit that is being proposed so that last-quoted insurance premium will be reduced from $18,000 to a mere $15,500 a year.

That will be about as much help as that $150 billion-----$65 per person tax rebate check that was suppose to light the economy on fire.

I do indeed like Obama. I think he is a fine man. And I'm glad that McCain and Palin didnt get elected because no American should have to endure the clarion call for "sexual abstinence" by Bristol for 4 full years. The more I see of Bristol, the more I want to have sex with her. Only someone as good looking as Golda Mier or Elenor Roosevelt should be calling for "sexual abstinence".

I like Obama. I even bought a shovel. So I am "shovel ready". I'm patiently waiting to get a job building a bridge or I'd also like to build some infrastructre.

I even went down to the Interstate the other day with my shovel in hand and started to dig a hole, a big hole, for some bridge pilings. The police came by an asked what I was doing and I told them I was "shovel ready" and that I was getting a head start on a bridge I figured would be good spot for a bridge. They took my shovel and put me in the police cruiser. Now I am out of a good shovel.

I also sent out a hundred resumes with the "Objective" being "Green Technology". I haven't gotten any answers yet.

I actually did indeed go on an interview yesterday and I told them I wanted to do "Green Work" and work in the "green industry". They said what specific department do you want to work in and I said, "the green department". They said "what did you major in" and I said I majored in "Green". That I had a Bachelor of Science degree in "Green". They said to come back in about 25 years and they may need some "green workers" by then but right now they mainly wanted college graduates that they could pay $25,000 a year with no benefits.

Anyway, today I thought I'd concentrate on windmills since Obama said we needed to become less energy dependent on oil. I called every factory in the State and no one is working on windmills. I looked under the W's in the yellow pages. No entry for windmill builders.
I figured I would google the word "windmills" and was redirected to Amazon . com to some children's books on windmills.

Anyway, can someone please tell me where and when the windmills are coming. I'm "green". And "have shovel, will dig".

3 million new green jobs are coming. I heard it on TV. I was on right after that story about "Piper, the teenager, getting cartoon death threats".

I thought I might move to Detroit and work for the "new" American auto industry and work on some hybrid cars but I heard today that GM is filing for bankruptcy because they go so many tens of billions of dolllars in bailout money that they actually went bankrupt from getting so much money. Plus, the way to revive GM apparently is to lay everyone off. This will save a lot of money since they want have to make cars because they wont have any workers to make cars. This is called "increasing productivity".

The theory goes like this: the less workers you have, the less expenses you have. The less expenses you have, the fewer products you need to sell. The fewer products you need to sell, the more profitable you are because you can then hire just a few dozen Mexicans and make a few cars, and you PE ratio will soar to 126 or some high number like that.

Anyway, all those who are planning on having their next new car be a GM, raise you hands. No takers, huh?

And what's with Mel Gibson. For years he portrayed himself as a devout Roman Catholic, even building his own Catholic Church in Malibu so he could practice the "old Latin Mass". Now here he is, after having seven children, running around cheating on his wife (Mel, remember the Commandment "THOU SHAT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY")and getting his new girlfriend pregnant 6 weeks after his wife files for divorce.

I wonder when the Pope will be excommunicating him for unlawful fornication.

Mel has now committed a mortal sin; worse than eating meat on Friday. He is doomed to Hell. I bet he hasnt even gone to Confession and confessed, otherwise he'd have a lifetime of Roasary's to say. I had one "impure thought" in the 8th grade and I am still saying the Hail Mary's that the priest told me to say. I think my penance was 10 million Hail Mary's because I confessed to thinking about possibly, just maybe, but not really, but only on the off-chance, but only if the situation presented itself, but not in reality, but only maybe----------------touching a female breast.

Yep. I got 10 million Hail Mary's for that lapse of judgement.

So Mel Gibson is pretty much doomed. Plus, his wife is going to take him to the cleaners and probably walk away with about $300 million. Now that is a nice bailout. Also, I will never watch "Braveheart" again. Mel is a scumbag.

Also, the front page of the NY Times had a big article on how the Catholic Church as been molesting and abusing and beating the shit out of children in Ireland since about 1910 or so, all the way up until the present day. They did a 9 year investigation. I was horrifying. Apalling. And not a word on TV about it. Not a single story on TV about this incredible scandal involving the entire Church hieracrchy, from top to bottom, in collusion with the politicians. Does the Catholic Church own American TV or something.

Anyway, back to Obama. I like him. However him and Michelle shouldnt work only one day in a homeless soup kitchen. They should work everyday in a homeless soup kitchen. Until they cant stand it anymore. They should go from one homeless soup kitchen to another to another to another. Then they should wander the streets with no cash in their pockets. Then they should sleep in the ack of their car. Then they should send their kids to the worst public school in Washington DC. Then they should drop their health care policy and the next time they get sick, just go to the local Emergency Room, and see what its like to sit in a hard plastic chair for 10 hours.

I think health care reform will be a big joke. Afterall, the insurance and drug industry are going to be calling all the shots. It will be like a nightmare to end all nightmares. If I see that Medicare Advantage TV ad once more with that guy walking along the beach telling me how great life is because he has an AARP Medicare Advantage card, I am going to puke. If I could get a hold of that guy I throw him in the ocean and hold his head under.

I also hate that Lipitor ad guy. The one named "Frank" or "Steve" who says, "I had a heart attack. But now I take Lipitor. And look at me. I'm not dead". He's probalby made about $10 million doing that ad. He's probably the brother of the CEO of the ad company that handles Lipitor. And Lipitor doesnt do diddl shit anyway. They sell $10 billion a year on Lipitor, and everyone who takes it will eventually die. Everyone. Not a single person will escape. By the time they figure out that Lipitor doesnt work they will have made $110 billion off of it.

I like Obamas credit card reform. We are now going to be required to get 60 days notice before the card companies raise your rates to 29%. Yep. They can no longer do it with 30 days notice. You get 90 days to think about how you are getting royally fucked before you get royally fucked.

I'm worried about North Korea. Why? Because TV told me to be worried. Thats why. They have a missile. They have a nuclear bomb. They are flat broke. North Korea is starving. They look as skinny as hell there. And no one in the world knows any North Koreans because no North Koreans have left North Korea in the last 60 years. Kim Jong Ill is not big on letting his people travel. Basically every North Korean has to stay in their backyard. But we have reason to worry. Why? Because we only have 22,000 nuclear bombs and only a few dozen aircraft carriers, nuclear subs, squadrons of B-1 bombers and F-155 stealth fighter jets, and a $600 billion defense budget, and military bases all over the world.

Its scary. If they attacked us they might just win. We might cave in and surrender. I'm scared.

I'm hoping that if they somehow drop a nuclear bomb on us that the first two people who get killed are that guy who does the AARP Medicare Advantage card TV ad and that jerk who keeps telling me that Lipitor saved his life, even though he wasnt taking Lipitor when he had his heart attack. Also, that woman who keeps telling me on TV that "she had a heart attack, and died, but took a Bayer, and now shes alive" and "that her doctor said that the Bayer must have saved her life, and that she has a lot to live for cause she is alive".

God, her doctor must be a jerk or something. Can you imagine going to 8 years of medical school and seeing a patient who had a massive heart attack and who died, and coming to the conclusion that " Bayer saved your life ".

Anyway, I a waitin' for Kim Jong Ill. Bring 'em on.

And I'm a waiting for windmills, and green jobs and GM cars roaring off that assembly line where three shifts are working around the clock to fill the demand. I'm a waitin'

I'm a waitin' for that health care reform that will drop my annual premiums from $18,000 to $17,999 because of all the cost savings.

I'm shovel ready.

Submitted by JamesPB on May 27, 2009

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/22007
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Postby chlamor » Fri May 29, 2009 3:39 pm

At the same time, it is worth noting that Obama has often done more than required to keep the "hidden primary's" masters content. He wasn't absolutely compelled by the U.S. political system: to vote (as a U.S. Senator in 2005) to restrict consumers' ability to successfully sue misbehaving corporations; to vote (as a U.S Senator in 2008) for enhanced federal domestic wiretapping powers under Patriot Act II; to speak (as President now) in hysterical and crackpot terms [8] about the alleged grave and imminent threat posed to world safety by al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan; to file a federal brief (as President this year) supporting George W. Bush' position on the denial of habeas corpus to "enemy combatants" flown to the U.S. prison at Bagram Air Force base in Afghanistan; to endorse the terrible George W. Bush position on "state secrets"; to repeatedly claim that a serious investigation of Bush administration torture practices would amount to a distracting focus on "the past" at the expense of sound policy in the present and future.


- Paul Street

Could it really have ended any other way? As the New York Times reports, Barack Obama and the Democratic Establishment are coming down hard and fast to quell any incipient movement toward accountability for the Bush Regime's torture system.

These "leaders" continue to advance the bizarre and bogus argument that the nation has too many "urgent priorities" to bother with following its own laws. Obama told the Democratic poobahs from Congress that a "full inquiry" into the torture system would "steal time and energy from his policy agenda," the Times reports. But this argument -- indeed the entire issue of some sort of "commission" to investigate the high crimes -- is simply a cynical bait and switch.

It is really very simple. Ample, credible evidence of violations of federal law have been produced by a plethora of reputable sources -- including the United States Senate and even the Pentagon. It is the function of the Justice Department to investigate possible violations of federal law, and, if warranted, prosecute them. Barack Obama would not -- could not -- carry out such a criminal investigation or direct the prosecution. The United States Congress would not carry out such a criminal investigation or direct the prosecution. Not a single government official now involved in dealing with the wars, with foreign policy, with the economy and the bailout, with health care, with employment and housing, with the environment, with the budget, with immigration -- in short, with any single activity of governing whatsoever -- would have their "time and energy" taken up by a straightforward criminal investigation undertaken by the Justice Department. [I see that Paul Krugman is making this same point in the New York Times. So now, even "serious" people can't pretend not to have heard it.]

If anyone -- politician, pundit, pal at the water cooler -- gives you the argument that torture can't be investigated because it would be a "distraction" from other government business, they are either lying to your face, or else ignorantly repeating a lie that's been filtered down from the elite. The argument about "distraction" is ludicrous, and insulting, on its face. It is exactly like saying, "Oh, we can't investigate these murders by Al Capone and his mob, because the mayor and city council have a lot on their plates right now, with this Depression and all. This is a time for looking forward, not retribution."

We don't need a "truth commission." We don't need to "wait for the facts to be gathered," as that walking conglomeration of craven servility and moral corruption, Harry Reid, insists. There are enough clearly established, copiously documented, credibly supported facts already in the public domain to warrant a full-scale criminal investigation by federal law enforcement officials.


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Liberal thy name is hypocrisy. What's new?
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Postby harflimon » Fri May 29, 2009 4:37 pm

.
Last edited by harflimon on Sun Aug 02, 2009 3:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Nordic » Fri May 29, 2009 10:34 pm

It's become clear since the election that Obama doesn't really do much but run around and have his picture taken, and give speeches and photo ops. Sure, that's part of any President's job, but seriously, this guy has done more magazine covers than anyone I've ever seen, more than any Hollywood actor in recent memory.

He's the "press junket" president thus far.

Which means .... who's really running things while he's doing this?

Yesterday he came to LA. They shut down half the West side of town for him. He was coming to Beverly Hills. Why? A fundraiser. Also probably to talk to all the rich Jews about his plans for ball-cupping Israel some more.
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Postby chlamor » Sat May 30, 2009 4:06 pm

Image

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Postby genericsyncretic » Sat May 30, 2009 4:39 pm

ninakat wrote:Published on Thursday, May 28, 2009 by TedRall.com
An Early Call for Obama's Resignation
With Democrats Like Him, Who Needs Dictators?
by Ted Rall



"Prolonged detention," reported The New York Times, would be inflicted upon "terrorism suspects who cannot be tried."

"Cannot be tried." Interesting choice of words.

Any "terrorism suspect" (can you be a suspect if you haven't been charged with a crime?) can be tried. Anyone can be tried for anything. At this writing, a Somali child is sitting in a prison in New York, charged with piracy in the Indian Ocean, where the U.S. has no jurisdiction. Anyone can be tried. Why is it, exactly, that some prisoners "cannot be tried"?

The Old Grey Lady explains why Obama wants this "entirely new chapter in American law" in a boring little sentence buried a couple past the jump and a couple of hundred words down page A16: "Yet another question is what to do with the most problematic group of Guantánamo detainees: those who pose a national security threat but cannot be prosecuted, either for lack of evidence or because evidence is tainted."



© 2009 Ted Rall

Ted Rall is the author of the new book "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?," an in-depth prose and graphic novel analysis of America's next big foreign policy challenge.


Exactly. In my book there's two types of "cannot be tried" individuals. First we have the torture victims. Imagine the embarrassment of trotting a suspect into court who has suffered a complete and utter mental breakdown because of his treatment in captivity. He's probably only confessed to crimes that were entirely in his interrogators heads to begin with. Even if they were guilty beyond belief though, we can't have anyone seeing the psychoses brought on by "enhanced interrogation."

Then there's the not guilty. Our modern Lee Harvey Oswalds. Imagine how convenient it would be for the FBI if they didn't even have to charge someone formally. They could just say "we've got our man" and wash their hands of the whole "proving beyond a reasonable doubt" business. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy's wet dream if you ask me.

Before the election I was discussing Gitmo with some friends. It's really quite the gift left behind by our previous masters. Even if none of the prisoners we have left were terrorists in their pasts they probably damn well are now. I know if I spent six years being tortured and humiliated because a neighbor sold me to the imperial powers I would want to blow some shit up when I got out. It pains me to sort of agree with Cheney here, but the truth is "we" will be fighting these people on a battlefield someday if they were to be released. I want them released. Hell, I want them released and set up with pensions for life, and parades in their honor, and billboard sized formal apologies. I hate the self fulfilling "hardened terrorist" prophecy. 'Cause this late in the game I don't see any good option for these people, I really don't.

What I do know though is setting into law the foundations to continue doing this to people indefinitely is on par strategically to setting up our own Al-Qaeda training camps and handing every graduate one of those mythical "suitcase nukes" and a vial of anthrax rolled up in their diplomas.
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Postby barracuda » Sat May 30, 2009 4:57 pm

genericsyncretic wrote:Exactly. In my book there's two types of "cannot be tried" individuals. First we have the torture victims. Imagine the embarrassment of trotting a suspect into court who has suffered a complete and utter mental breakdown because of his treatment in captivity. He's probably only confessed to crimes that were entirely in his interrogators heads to begin with. Even if they were guilty beyond belief though, we can't have anyone seeing the psychoses brought on by "enhanced interrogation."

Umm, if you were tortured by the government to extract information, your constitutional rights have abrogated. In the U.S., this (supposedly) transforms you into something commonly referred to as "not guilty". Presto! Besides, they had no problem putting Padilla on trial, did they? The mental damage was plain to see, but off he went.

Before the election I was discussing Gitmo with some friends. It's really quite the gift left behind by our previous masters. Even if none of the prisoners we have left were terrorists in their pasts they probably damn well are now. I know if I spent six years being tortured and humiliated because a neighbor sold me to the imperial powers I would want to blow some shit up when I got out. It pains me to sort of agree with Cheney here, but the truth is "we" will be fighting these people on a battlefield someday if they were to be released. I want them released. Hell, I want them released and set up with pensions for life, and parades in their honor, and billboard sized formal apologies. I hate the self fulfilling "hardened terrorist" prophecy. 'Cause this late in the game I don't see any good option for these people, I really don't.

What I do know though is setting into law the foundations to continue doing this to people indefinitely is on par strategically to setting up our own Al-Qaeda training camps and handing every graduate one of those mythical "suitcase nukes" and a vial of anthrax rolled up in their diplomas.

This is crazytalk. After six years of torture, what you are likely to want to do is crawl under your bed and cry for years on end. This ain't some Rambo movie, in which monthly genital slicing makes you tougher. Maher Arar hasn't gone all Al-Qaida on his community, has he? Here's a standard operating procedure, generic: when you find yourself in agreement with Cheney on anything, stop, look into a mirror and say to yourself, "What the fuck was I thinking?"

Try these people or let them go. End of excuses.
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Postby genericsyncretic » Sat May 30, 2009 5:12 pm

barracuda wrote:This is crazytalk. After six years of torture, what you are likely to want to do is crawl under your bed and cry for years on end. This ain't some Rambo movie, in which monthly genital slicing makes you tougher. Maher Arar hasn't gone all Al-Qaida on his community, has he? Here's a standard operating procedure, generic: when you find yourself in agreement with Cheney on anything, stop, look into a mirror and say to yourself, "What the fuck was I thinking?"

Try these people or let them go. End of excuses.


You're right. I should have said "some" of these people though, because I do think some will be radicalized by the experience. They all probably would crawl under a bed for years, and most would probably become dedicated peace advocates when they finally were able to come out. Others will become recruiters for a justifiable campaign against their torturers though. Which isn't meant at a justification of keeping anyone one more day, as I said I want them tried or released yesterday. Just a rumination on what can only be seen as either abject stupidity or strategically stoking anti-american sentiment in one of the most volatile regions of the world.

Good advice re;the mirror though. Fortunately I think this is the closest I've ever come to agreement with Darth Cheney. Well, other than the fact that I'd probably take a shot at most of his hunting buddies too. I'd just admit it was intentional when I got caught.
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Postby chlamor » Mon Jun 01, 2009 11:56 pm

Monday June 1, 2009 05:02 EDT
Obama's support for the new Graham-Lieberman secrecy law


It was one thing when President Obama reversed himself last month by announcing that he would appeal the Second Circuit's ruling that the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) compelled disclosure of various photographs of detainee abuse sought by the ACLU. Agree or disagree with Obama's decision, at least the basic legal framework of transparency was being respected, since Obama's actions amounted to nothing more than a request that the Supreme Court review whether the mandates of FOIA actually required disclosure in this case. But now -- obviously anticipating that the Government is likely to lose in court again (.pdf) -- Obama wants Congress to change FOIA by retroactively narrowing its disclosure requirements, prevent a legal ruling by the courts, and vest himself with brand new secrecy powers under the law which, just as a factual matter, not even George Bush sought for himself.

The White House is actively supporting a new bill jointly sponsored by Sens. Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman -- called The Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act of 2009 -- that literally has no purpose other than to allow the government to suppress any "photograph taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009 relating to the treatment of individuals engaged, captured, or detained after September 11, 2001, by the Armed Forces of the United States in operations outside of the United States." As long as the Defense Secretary certifies -- with no review possible -- that disclosure would "endanger" American citizens or our troops, then the photographs can be suppressed even if FOIA requires disclosure. The certification lasts 3 years and can be renewed indefinitely. The Senate passed the bill as an amendment last week.

Just imagine if any other country did this. Imagine if a foreign government were accused of systematically torturing and otherwise brutally abusing detainees in its custody for years, and there was ample photographic evidence proving the extent and brutality of the abuse. Further imagine that the country's judiciary -- applying decades-old transparency laws -- ruled that the government was legally required to make that evidence public. But in response, that country's President demanded that those transparency laws be retroactively changed for no reason other than to explicitly empower him to keep the photographic evidence suppressed, and a compliant Congress then immediately passed a new law empowering the President to suppress that evidence. What kind of a country passes a law that has no purpose other than to empower its leader to suppress evidence of the torture it inflicted on people? Read the language of the bill; it doesn't even hide the fact that its only objective is to empower the President to conceal evidence of war crimes.

That this exact scenario is now happening in the U.S. is all the more remarkable given that the President who is demanding these new suppression powers is the same one who repeatedly vowed "to make his administration the most open and transparent in history." After noting the tentative steps Obama has taken to increase transparency, the generally pro-Obama Washington Post Editorial Page today observed: "what makes the administration's support for the photographic records act so regrettable" is that "Mr. Obama runs the risk of taking two steps back in his quest for more open government."

What makes all of this even worse is that it is part of a broader trend whereby the Government simply retroactively changes the law whenever it decides it does not want to abide by it. For decades, we had laws in place authorizing citizens to sue their telecommunication carriers if the telecoms allowed government spying on their communications in violation of the law, but when it was revealed that the telecoms did exactly this, the Congress simply changed the law retroactively so that it no longer applied. For decades, we had laws imposing civil and criminal liability on government officials who engaged in or authorized torture, but when it was revealed that our government did that, the Congress just retroactively changed the law to protect the torturers. And now that courts have ruled that our decades-old transparency law compels disclosure of this torture evidence, the Congress is just going to retroactively change the law -- again -- this time to empower the President to suppress that evidence anyway.

Other than creating an illusion of transparency and accountability, what's the point of having laws that purport to restrict what the Government can do if political officials just retroactively waive those laws whenever they want? What's the point of having a FOIA law if the Government will simply pass a new law exempting itself from FOIA's mandates any time it loses in court and wants to conceal evidence anyway? And what conceivable rationale is there for limiting the President's new secrecy powers to post-9/11 photographs? Given that anything which reflects poorly on our Government can be said to endanger our troops and American citizens, why stop here? Why not just have a general power of suppression whereby the President can keep any evidence secret as long as his Defense Secretary decrees that its disclosure will "endanger" the troops?

The debate over whether there is value in disclosing these specific photographs is entirely misplaced. That isn't how open government works. The burden isn't on citizens to prove that there is value in disclosure. Everything that government does is supposed to be transparent to the public unless there is a compelling reason for secrecy -- and the whole point of FOIA always has been that mere embarrassment, the mere fact that information reflects poorly on our government, isn't a legitimate ground for concealment. That's a critical principle for open government. This new law explicitly guts that principle. It institutionalizes the pernicious notion that secrecy is justified where disclosure would reflect badly on the Government and thus "endanger" American citizens and/or our troops.

Combine all of this with the increasingly disturbing spectacle taking place in a California federal court in the Al-Haramain case -- where the Obama DOJ is on the verge of being sanctioned by a federal judge for defying the court's order to make available documents relating to Bush's illegal eavesdropping activities -- and the infatuation with excessive presidential secrecy, the linchpin of government abuse, appears alive and well in the new administration. Is there really anyone who wants to argue that defiance of a federal court's order and enacting a new law authorizing suppression of torture evidence -- the disclosure of which is compelled both by courts and FOIA -- are remotely consistent with anything Obama said he would do, or remotely consistent with what a healthy democratic government would do?

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/ ... index.html
Liberal thy name is hypocrisy. What's new?
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Postby Pazdispenser » Tue Jun 02, 2009 9:18 pm

God bless Glenn Greenwald.
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Postby cptmarginal » Tue Jun 02, 2009 10:36 pm

The White House is actively supporting a new bill jointly sponsored by Sens. Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman -- called The Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act of 2009 -- that literally has no purpose other than to allow the government to suppress any "photograph taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009 relating to the treatment of individuals engaged, captured, or detained after September 11, 2001, by the Armed Forces of the United States in operations outside of the United States." As long as the Defense Secretary certifies -- with no review possible -- that disclosure would "endanger" American citizens or our troops, then the photographs can be suppressed even if FOIA requires disclosure. The certification lasts 3 years and can be renewed indefinitely. The Senate passed the bill as an amendment last week.


Yeah, mementos from the kiddy porn dungeon can be pretty dangerous
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