The Truth Suit
by digby
Stewart does Beck:
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c Beck The Constitutional Scholar
by digby
Constitutional scholar and civil liberties advocate Glenn Beck says the military must stage a coup at some point because of Fourth Amendment violations by the government:
Here’s Glenn the great civil libertarian back when a Republicans was routinely violating the constitution:
GLENN: Here’s what I’m asking. There’s no — there is absolutely no institution, there’s nothing that is perfect that will never make a mistake. And are you telling me that — I mean, the mistake that you just — I asked you for an example. The one you just gave me was corrected and he received damages. That doesn’t make it right by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s not an abuse that just was swept under the rug and nothing ever happened and he died in prison. What I’m asking you is, if it makes us safer, isn’t there some — isn’t there some way to make the PATRIOT Act have the sunsets that we need, make sure there are some checks and balances? There is no system — people who are against the PATRIOT Act to me, it always makes me feel like, well, okay, there are people on death row that shouldn’t be on death row. “Well, then we should just stop the court system.” No, we should refine it. We should do everything we can to make sure it works the best it can knowing that it will never be perfect. But make it the best we can.
Here’s the constitutional scholar on torture:
First let’s all acknowledge that even the “evil” Bush administration’s notion of “torture” is a far cry from what most of us think when we hear that word. There are no beheadings — like terrorists did to Nicholas Berg and Daniel Pearl — no shooting people in kneecaps, and no cutting off fingers one-by-one by with rusty garden shears.
What we’re really talking about here is waterboarding and, whether you are morally in favor of it or not, it’s far from clear whether that technique qualifies under the law as “torture.”
And that’s the whole problem: What exactly is “torture”?
What if we make a terrorist stay up a wink past their bedtime: Is that torture? What about playing loud music or feeding someone only bread and water: Is that torture?
Well, if you’re rational, you might say, “Glenn, it all comes down to the law. Whatever it says, goes.”
Great, we agree. But in this case the law is the problem.
Back in September 2002, the CIA demonstrated waterboarding and some other harsh techniques to a bipartisan group of politicians, including current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. We didn’t see a single one of those lawmakers (or anyone else in Congress) go on the record after 9/11 and say “I don’t care if we’re vaporized, I am morally opposed to torture and we will not do it under any circumstance.”
In fact, some of the most outspoken people on the issue — like John McCain — didn’t make a peep about waterboarding until 2004 and 2005. Even worse, none of the lawmakers bothered to clarify the torture statute by, oh I don’t know, writing complicated legalese like “waterboarding is torture.”
But now, because these people were too spineless to define it, they want to go back in time and punish the Bush administration for making agonizing decisions and complex legal interpretations in a time of war?
And, let’s not forget that even after deciding that waterboarding was legal, they only did it to three high value suspects — one of whose information actually helped stop a massive airliner attack on the Library Tower.
I’m sick and tired of the spineless weasels who’ve never fought a war or run a business but keep trying to tell people how to fight wars and run businesses.
Let’s be clear: The president has to make decisions that most people don’t even want to think about. Do you know if waterboarding is torture? The president must. He has to make the tough calls and then the people who actually fight wars need to be left alone to do their job and stand by what they’ve done, no matter what the consequences.
We need Jack Bauer. Here’s what he said when he was asked if he tortured a suspect:
(BEGIN ’24’ VIDEO CLIP)
ACTOR KIEFER SUTHERLAND AS JACK BAUER: Senator, why don’t I save you some time: It’s obvious that your agenda is to discredit CTU and generate a series of…
ACTOR KURTWOOD SMITH AS SENATOR BLAINE MAYER: My only agenda is to get to the truth.
BAUER: I don’t think it is, sir.
SEN. MAYER: Excuse me?
BAUER: Ibrahim Haddad had targeted a bus train of 45 people, 10 of which were children. The truth, Senator, is I stopped that attack from happening.
SEN. MAYER: By torturing Mr. Haddad.
BAUER: By doing what I deemed necessary to protect innocent lives.
SEN. MAYER: So basically what you’re saying, Mr. Bauer, is that the ends justify the means and that you are above the law.
BAUER: When I am activated, when I am brought into a situation, there is a reason and that reason is to complete the objectives of my mission at all costs.
Why wouldn’t he think military coups were in the constitution?
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Norms!
by digby
There’s a lot of justifiable outrage about this hideous tweet from Michael Golfarb saying that we should just summarily execute terrorist suspects while in custody. It’s the kind of thing only stupid drunk idiots slumped over the end of the bar used to say.
Think Progress pithily notes:
It seems execution without trial is fairly popular in conservative circles.
Chris Hayes tweeted:
“Norms are really important. Think about how degraded our norms are that someone could say this.”
I was reminded of a show I watched last night on Geobbels Broadcasting Service about the numerous murders by police that took place after Katrina, many of them precipitated by the media hysteria over the roaming gangs of “animals” who were supposedly taking over the city. I couldn’t help but think of this:
As for the tragic piggism that is taking place on the streets of New Orleans, it is not unbelievable but it is unforgivable, and I hope the looters are shot. A hurricane cannot rob a great city of its spirit, but a vicious citizenry can. A bad time with Mother Nature can leave you digging out for a long time, but a bad turn in human behavior frays and tears all the ties that truly bind human beings–trust, confidence, mutual regard, belief in the essential goodness of one’s fellow citizens.
That, of course, was the lovely lady, Peggy Noonan who went on at great length about how not shooting looters would violate America’s “norms.”
If this part of the story grows–if cities on the gulf come to seem like some combination of Dodge and the Barbarian invasion–it’s going to be bad for our country. One of the things that keeps us together, and that lets this great lumbering nation move forward each day, is the sense that we will be decent and brave in times of crisis, that the fabric holds, that under duress it is American heroism and altruism that take hold and not base instincts born of irresponsibility, immaturity and greed…
If New Orleans damages that sense, it’s going to be painful to face. It’s going to be damaging to the national spirit. More damaging even than a hurricane, even than the worst in decades.
I wonder if the cruel and stupid young people who are doing the looting know the power they have to damage their country. I wonder, if they knew, if they’d stop it.
There you have it. According to Noonan, execution without trial is especially necessary, lest we “damage the national spirit.”
These are the people the founders worried about when they wrote the bill of rights.
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The Bizarroworld Gambit
by digby
Does anyone want to lay odds on whether or not the Republicans will manage to convince a majority of Americans that this makes sense? Greg Sargent reports:
Michael Steel, a spokesman for John Boehner, emails a response to the news that House Dems are planning to hold a vote just on extending the middle class tax cuts:
“The last thing our economy needs right now is a massive tax hike on families and small businesses — and that’s what this plan would mean.”
This is classic up-is-downism, a craft perfected by George W. Bush and one that’s making a big comeback. (I expect to see it put into use on the Tea Partiers as well.)
I think Obama should polish up his “hoodwinked and bamboozled” speech and hit this hard before too many people are convinced that the Democrats are voting to raise taxes and all the allegedly liberal gasbags on TV screw it up by blubbering defensively about what constitutes a small business or whether or not someone who makes 250k a year is middle class. (You know they will.)
Sadly, I haven’t gotten the idea that Obama particularly wants to have this fight. I’m guessing savvy pals like Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein aren’t too keen on it.
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Don’t Make Trouble
by digby
Speaking of NPR Nazis and playing the refs, this PBS ombudsman column about the Sarah Palin bits that PBS edited from the Tina Fey Mark twain awards is instructive. (You can read about the controversy at the link and see the whole segment unedited.)
The PBS execs said they cut the bit for time and because it wasn’t funny and were backed up in that by the fact that critics who saw the awards live reported that there was nervous laughter and then silence from the audience. I’m sure there were. It was a Village audience, after all, which either doesn’t care for such “divisive” satire, doesn’t get the joke or are supporters of Sarah Palin’s Know-Nothing agenda. Why should they be used as gauges of what’s funny in America and moreover, why should such biting satire be required to get big guffaws in the first place? Sometimes political humor isn’t belly laugh material. (Remember the dead response to Stephen Colbert’s White House correspondent’s dinner speech?) The fact that they edited her political commentary as she accepted a “Mark Twain Award” is just too perfect.
But what’s more interesting about this column is this part:
The controversy surrounding this particular bit of editing brings to mind some other recent episodes where internal editing decisions eventually led to public controversy and challenges.
One occurred in July when a PBS special broadcast of an earlier White House concert honoring former Beatle Paul McCartney did not include a comment critical of former President George W. Bush that McCartney made after the music stopped and after President Obama had left the room. But it was heard by everyone else in the room and reported widely elsewhere the next day, although not on PBS.
The other incident he mentions was a sort of ethical quandary about using an exact quote. But I think yo can see the similarity between the McCartney edit and the Fey edit right? Let’s just say the right wingers are very successful at working the refs — and nobody does it better than Roger Ailes.
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Confederate Tea Cozy
by digby
Arkansas has a new “constitutionalist” Tea Party state Representative:
For seven years, Mauch was the commander of James M. Keller Camp 648 of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. He stepped down as commander last year. In 2004, angered by the city of Hot Springs’ refusal to remove a statue of Abraham Lincoln displayed in the Hot Springs Civic and Convention Center, the Keller Camp hosted a conference in Hot Springs called “Seminar on Abraham Lincoln — Truth vs. Myth,” with a keynote address called “Homage to John Wilkes Booth.”
Mauch said that he believes Lincoln didn’t follow the Constitution. Of the statue of Lincoln in the convention center, Mauch said: “I didn’t think it had any place down in Hot Springs, Arkansas. He wasn’t friendly to Arkansas. He didn’t have anything to do with Arkansas. Nobody in Arkansas voted for him.”
A prolific writer of letters to the editor (Garland County Democratic Party chair George Hozendorf said one of the only things he knew about Mauch was that he recalled a letter to the Hot Springs Sentinel-Record in which Mauch advocated for enlarging the controversial Confederate flag and Confederate soldier statue at the fork of Central and Ouachita Avenues), Mauch took pen in hand in 2008 during the controversy stirred up by Huntsville businessman James Vandiver’s decision to respond to the election of Barack Obama by flying a Confederate battle flag in front of his motel.
“The government has lost its moral authority over God-fearing Americans,” Mauch wrote to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. “I wish more patriots like James Vandiver would take their stand for what the Confederate Battle Flag truly symbolizes.”
When asked what the Confederate flag symbolizes, Mauch said: “It’s a symbol of constitutional government. It’s a symbol of Jesus Christ above all else. It’s a symbol of Biblical government.”
Just how many white supremacists and neo-confederates did the Tea Party elect to office this year, I wonder? The most famous is Russell Pearce in Arizona, who was elevated to the head of the State Senate, but they seem to be cropping up all over the place.
Here’s the good news. Some people are focused on what’s important:
Mauch’s opponent in the race was Terry Bracy, a former Malvern City Council member who owns an ambulance company. When told that Mauch was a member of a group that believes in Southern secession and is a strident defender of the Confederate flag, Bracy said that he didn’t have that information during the campaign.
“Everybody is entitled to their opinion, I guess,” Bracy said. “I was hoping maybe that the electorate would be more in tune with that. I really didn’t want to be negative in the campaign to be honest with you.”
That’s nice.
*It should be noted once again that Mausch’s view of the constitution as a Biblical document is not some oddball quirk. It’s a fundamental belief of Christian Reconstructionism, which is cropping up in rhetoric throughout the Tea Party, from Palin on down.
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NPR Nazis And Beheading Jokes
by digby
Howard Kurtz interviewed the head of FOX News, Roger Ailes. He’s quite a guy. The good news is that it turns out that this very influential media leader is a sober business executive (unlike vituperative bloggers who use the inappropriate, incendiary language that’s ruining our discourse):
Then he turned his sights on NPR executives.
“They are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism. These guys don’t want any other point of view. They don’t even feel guilty using tax dollars to spout their propaganda. They are basically Air America with government funding to keep them alive.”
He also said that Jon Stewart is a crazy socialist who hates conservatives otherwise he wouldn’t make fun of Sarah Palin. And he thinks Bill O’Reilly is becoming a liberal despite his little fantasies about beheading Dana Milbank. (I suppose that’s probably because on FOX it’s a matter of record that liberals and fundamentalist Islamic terrorists are allies in the war against Real America.)
This man is the chief executive of a news network that uses “fair and balanced” as its slogan and everyone in Washington has a hissy fit if Democratic politicians say otherwise.
It’s now thoroughly mainstream for right wing news executives and commentators to accuse liberals and journalists of being Nazis, murderers and terrorist sympathizers — while liberals and journalists who express alarm at such things are marginalized as extremists. Can we see the problem here?
One note: It’s possible that they will succeed in defunding NPR, which would effectively remove any rival to right wing hate radio. (Not that NPR is particularly liberal, it’s just dull mainstream news and talk, which is the preferred format for liberals and moderates alike.) After ACORN, they may feel they can make it happen now and it’s just possible that they can.
But even if they can’t, this is a masterful working the refs move. NPR does not see itself as an ideological organization and (like so many liberals) is embarrassed to be accused of bias, so its people will subconsciously go out of their way to prove that they aren’t. Nobody knows how to manipulate the news environment like Ailes.
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Your Daily Grayson
by digby
What the rich can do with their tax cuts:
Maybe they can make Gray Poupon donations tax deductible!
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It’s Miller Time
by digby
At the end of a long day we all need a little something to wind down. I’ve got just the thing:
Listen closely.
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Snookered and Shellacked
by digby
Greg Sargent discusses an interesting tidbit from Richard Wolfe’s new book about the first year of the Obama administration:
In an interview with Wolffe, the President seemed to acknowledge that in pursuing bipartisan support for health reform, he and Democrats got snookered by a previously-thought-out GOP strategy to delay the process for as long as possible in order to politically damage him and the Democratic Party. Here’s the President on page 75:
“You have to give the Republicans credit, just from a pure political perspective, that they used every instrument available to them in the Senate to prolong the process in such a way that helped drive down support nationally, that gave everybody a sense that somehow Washington was broken,” he told me. “At a time when everybody was worrying about jobs, for us to have to spend six to nine months on this piece of legislation obviously was not helpful.”
In other words, Obama is saying, Republicans were only gaming the process all along.
Well, who could have predicted such a thing? It’s not like they were signaling their intentions or anything.
“If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.”
In fact, they did seem to be aware of it. They just thought they had a secret nuclear weapon:
“They just kept telling us how good it was going to be. The president himself, when that was brought up in one group, said, ‘Well, the big difference here and in ’94 was, you’ve got me.’
That didn’t work out so well …
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