Month: December 2014

If we don’t defend the torturers, the terrorists will have won?

by digby

They never stop whining:

[Torture architect, psychologist] Mitchell told Kelly that this ordeal “is like being caught in a bad spy novel.”

He said that those who released the CIA report knew the results they wanted beforehand.

“They didn’t give us a chance to explain anything,” he said.

Now, Mitchell said that interrogators are getting death threats, and he fears for his life.

“I do not mind giving my life for my country, but I do mind giving my life for a food fight for political reasons between two groups of people who should be able to work it out like adults.”

Mitchell alleged that no one from the Senate committee has ever asked him a single thing about the interrogations.

“Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has the opportunity to address the charges against him, but I don’t,” he said.

Mitchell told Kelly that he feels horrible because this report puts Americans at risk.

“It shows al Qaeda and the al Qaeda 2.0 folks, ISIL, that we’re divided and that we’re easy targets, that we don’t have the will to defeat them because that’s what they know. In fact, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told me personally, ‘Your country will turn on you, the liberal media will turn on you, the people will grow tired of this, they will turn on you, and when they do, you are going to be abandoned.’”

If KSM actually said this (which I highly doubt) he was just saying, “we’re going to hell together pal. Welcome aboard.” And he was right.

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QOTD: St Ronnie

by digby

Message to the Senate Transmitting the Convention Against Torture and Inhuman Treatment or Punishment

May 20, 1988

With a view to receiving the advice and consent of the Senate to ratification, subject to certain reservations, understandings, and declarations, I transmit herewith the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The Convention was adopted by unanimous agreement of the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1984, and entered into force on June 26, 1987. The United States signed it on April 18, 1988. I also transmit, for the information of the Senate, the report of the Department of State on the Convention.

The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention. It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today.

The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called “universal jurisdiction.” Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution…

By giving its advice and consent to ratification of this Convention, the Senate of the United States will demonstrate unequivocally our desire to bring an end to the abhorrent practice of torture.

RONALD REAGAN
The White House,
May 20, 1988.

Clearly, he didn’t know how to protect America.

My take on Jebbie

by digby

In Salon this morning:

So the suspense is almost over. Jeb Bush has finally announced that he is officially thinking that he might explore the possibility of maybe running for president. Feel the magic, the Bush is back. I confess that I’m still skeptical. There’s just something missing from Jeb’s demeanor, a certain fire, that one usually sees in serious presidential candidates. But one can certainly see why he’d do it anyway.

First, there seems to have been a full-court family press and in his family that’s got to feel like facing a firing squad. After all, somebody has to rescue the family legacy and he’s all they’ve got left. Poppy was pretty much driven out of office by his own party for raising taxes at a time when Newt Gingrich and his revolutionaries were turning over the Beltway barricades. Junior tried to reverse Poppy’s legacy by making gigantic tax cuts for the rich his immediate priority but then he mucked up the family legacy in Iraq and left office with the lowest approval ratings on record. And, needless to say, there is the unfinished business of putting the Clintons in their places once and for all. No matter how much they all embrace each other as “family” today, the Bushes bear grudges. Beating Hillary would finally even that score.

On the practical side, the family also understands something else: The only way that Jeb can possibly finesse the dynasty issue is if there is another dynastic scion on the other side.

read on for the reason I think he might be this year’s Fred Thompson…

He seems to be taking the high road on the Cuba policy in stark contrast to Rubio. The polls are certainly with Bush on that. But one wonders what will happen with wingnut media. Republicans are easily led…

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Cuba libre

by digby

I’m pretty sure that this is all most people know about Cuba:

Good for President Obama for finally taking some steps to normalize relations.  It takes some cojones. Not because it’s a big deal.  America’s Cuba policy is absurd — it pretty much hasn’t changed since the period depicted in that famous scene. And nothing can substantively change until the US congress joins the 21st century on this issue. But it’s guaranteed to make the right wing completely lose its shit.  This proves in their minds, if they didn’t believe it already, that Barack Obama is a full blown communist. I have to believe with this one that he’s completely given up on even pretending to give a damn.

All Cuba policy for at least 40 years has really been about Florida presidential politics so it will be interesting to watch how it plays out politically. From the looks of  FOX news, most Republicans still think it’s 1961 so I wouldn’t assume they’re going to grow up.

Update: Polling on Florida:

— 68 percent of respondents favor restoring diplomatic relations with Cuba.

— Among younger respondents, 90 percent of respondents favor restoring diplomatic ties.

— When you include only registered voters, 51 percent of them support continuing the embargo.

— 69 percent of all respondents favor the lifting of travel restrictions impeding all Americans from traveling to Cuba.

— 53 percent of respondents said they would be likely to vote for a “candidate for political office who supported the re-establishment of diplomatic relations.”

— A large majority — 71 percent — responded that the U.S. embargo of Cuba has not worked at all or has not worked very well.

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Colbert: Going out on a slab?
by Tom Sullivan

It’s been great fun watching the last episodes of the “Colbert Report.” Stephen Colbert’s interview with Smaug the dragon was a tour de force.

Rumor has it that Colbert has secured another rock-star celebrity for his last show:

For nine years, Stephen Colbert has relentlessly maintained his pompous, deeply ridiculous but consistently appealing conservative blowhard character on his late-night show, “The Colbert Report” — so much so that when he puts the character to rest for good on Thursday night, he may have to resort to comicide. The Grim Reaper is his last guest.

The New York Times wonders whether Colbert plans to go out on a slab. Other late-night hosts give Colbert kudos for staying relentlessly in character for so many years. Jimmy Fallon is one:

Like other competitors, Mr. Fallon professed unabashed awe that Mr. Colbert could sustain this performance at such a high level for so long. “Before he won the Emmy, I had been preaching that people had to recognize what he was doing: He’s faking a person,” Mr. Fallon said. “I was one of those who said, ‘He’ll do it for six months and then he’ll move on.’ Imagine if you were still trying to do the Coneheads on ‘Saturday Night Live.’ It’s gets old. But not this. He’s a genius.”

And former vice-president Dick Cheney is not. He’s been faking a person for decades, but nobody laughs.

Mr. [Conan] O’Brien commended Mr. Colbert for breaking what he called the American tradition. “Our system is, if there’s another nickel to be found in it, you keep playing that character,” he said, “just beat it to death — and then do it another 10 years.”

As we saw just last week, Cheney is still playing his Torquemada character even though his show went off the air in early 2009. But then he’s comfortable with beating things to death. Maybe his act would go over better in The Hague. Ten years would be a start.

Oh mom

by digby

Most of my readers have probably seen but for those who haven’t, just watch:

I’ve often thought that people who go on C-SPAN don’t think anyone they know is watching.  This shows that’s not true …

QOTD: The first president

by digby

It’s not the first time I’ve posted this and it won’t be the last. It seems important to do it right now:

“Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner]. . . I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it will not be disproportional to its guilt at such a time and in such a cause… for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country.” — George Washington, charge to the Northern Expeditionary Force, Sept. 14, 1775

He was nothing but a lily livered coward who didn’t understand the nature of an existential threat. We should blast his face from Mt. Rushmore.

h/t to AG

Panchito’s back and Jebbie’s happy

by digby

Guess who’s writing about the Bushes again? That’s right: Frank Bruni. I wrote about it in Salon today:

Bruni has a long history with the Bush family, having been on the campaign trail with “W” back in 2000 and delivering some of the most glowing coverage any presidential candidate has ever been privileged to receive, and often on the front page of the New York Times. And the affection was mutual. Eric Alterman recounted a story that perfectly illustrates the relationship:

Shortly after the 2000 election, Richard Wolffe, then a reporter for the Financial Times, summed up what went wrong in the coverage. “The Gore press corps is about how they didn’t like Gore, didn’t trust him. … over here, [on the Bush press plane], we were writing only about the trivial stuff because he charmed the pants off us.” The New York Times’s Frank Bruni, however, did not think he or his colleagues were to blame. Rather, the trivial nature of his work was apparently the fault of the voters. “Modern politics wasn’t just superficial because the politicians made it so,” he argued. “It was superficial because the voters let it be.”

[…]

Bush knew a good thing when he saw it. As a candidate, he put his arms around Bruni, whom he nicknamed “Panchito” Bruni, and cooed, “You know we love you.” Later, Bush looked across a crowded room at Bruni and mouthed, “I love you, man.” Bruni did not mention whether he told Bush that he loved him back, but in relationships as in literature, it is always better to show than to tell. Either way, Bush sure knew his man. Bruni went over to the Gore camp one day and found out, to his apparent horror, that Al Gore not only did not love him; he did not even bother to come up with a nonsensical nickname for the writer.

That campaign was notorious for such sophomoric coverage. Bruni wasn’t the only practitioners, but he was among the most enthusiastic. And perhaps one of the reasons he was enthusiastic is best explained by his next job at the Times as a food critic: the Bush team just put on a better spread.

Read on …

A gestation vessel mistakenly thinks it is human

by digby

A life lesson for women:

Wisconsin has a law on the books that allows the authorities to lock up a pregnant person who’s used illegal drugs if she “habitually lacks self-control” and “there is a ‘substantial risk’ that the health of the egg, embryo, fetus, or child upon birth will be ‘seriously affected.’” Here’s what that looked like in practice for one Wisconsin woman.

Tamara Loerstcher was suffering from an untreated thyroid condition and depression and had begun to self medicate with drugs when, in late July 2014, she suspected she might also be pregnant. Loerstcher, uninsured at the time, went to an Eau Claire, Wisconsin, hospital for medical treatment and to confirm her pregnancy.

After submitting to a urinalysis, Loerstcher disclosed her past drug use to hospital workers. But instead of caring for Loerstcher, who as it turns out was 14 weeks pregnant, hospital workers had her jailed.

Loerstcher’s medical records were handed over to the state without her knowledge. She was accused of “abuse of an unborn child” and had to sit through a hearing in which her 14-week-old fetus was appointed a lawyer. She was ordered to go to in-patient drug treatment — despite the fact that she had not used any drugs recently — and when she refused, she was held in contempt of court and sent to jail for 17 days.

One would think that when the state incarcerates a pregnant woman in order to “protect” her fetus, they’d at least do everything they can to ensure a healthy pregnancy — that is literally the only supposed purpose of such a law, after all. You’d be wrong. During her time in jail, Loerstcher didn’t have access to prenatal care and when she was experiencing cramping, she wasn’t allowed to see her regular doctor. She was told she’d need to see a jail-appointed doctor who demanded she take a test to confirm the pregnancy — even though the only reason she was in jail in the first place was because she was pregnant. When she refused, she was thrown in solitary confinement and threatened with a taser.

A gestation vessel has no rights. It has no agency. One would have to be human for that.  Oh, and not just during pregnancy. She will be on the child abuse registry for life.

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President Obama’s greatest torture mistake

by digby

Here’s something I didn’t know, from Jane Mayer’s piece this week in the New Yorker:

There was a way to address the matter that might have avoided much of the partisan trivialization. In a White House meeting in early 2009, Greg Craig, President Obama’s White House Counsel, recommended the formation of an independent commission. Nearly every adviser in the room endorsed the idea, including such national-security hawks as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, and the President’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel. Leon Panetta, the C.I.A. director at the time, also supported it. Obama, however, said that he didn’t want to seem to be taking punitive measures against his predecessor, apparently because he still hoped to reach bipartisan agreement on issues such as closing Guantánamo.

Well that certainly worked out well.

There are a few different ways to look at this. First, it’s yet another example of Obama believing his own hype back at the beginning of the administration. And you can’t entirely blame him. The delirious belief in his supernatural power to accomplish things that no mere mortal could dream of accomplishing was thick in our culture at the time. We’ve seen this impulse at play throughout the first term. If this was what motivated him, it took him a long time to figure out that it wasn’t going to work. He was still quixotically angling for bipartisan agreement years later with the budget deals.

But look at that group of people on the other side of that decision. But they would not have the responsibility of protecting the presidency would they? That’s also what could have been at work here: presidents cover each others’ asses out of fear of future retribution from their rivals’ successors. The presidential protection racket. And considering that’s what he’s reported to have been concerned about one has to assume that at least played into his thinking.

And there’s always the possibility that he didn’t want anything tying his hands. Presidents are protective of their prerogatives and it’s entirely possible that as much as he might have personally thought torture was wrong, he hoped to make the issue fade away before he got into a battle over presidential authority.

We can’t know what was going through his mind. But if this is true, it was one of his biggest errors in judgement. We are now living in a country that endorses torture and, at best, sees it as a political issue. And the world knows that if the US Government continues to use it, the people will back it. That has made us far more vulnerable and far less safe. We are an extremely powerful rogue nation that openly says we don’t care about the rule of law or international norms of behavior.

Mayer writes:

Obama has made plain in his public statements and in his executive orders that torture, which is how he forthrightly labelled the program, was unacceptable. But, in leaving matters to the Senate, he left the truth open to debate. He further complicated things by appointing John Brennan to run the C.I.A., even though Brennan, as a top officer in the agency, had worked closely with George Tenet, the director during the worst excesses of the program. Last Thursday, in a rare press conference, Brennan called the C.I.A.’s past practices “abhorrent” but declined to say that they amounted to torture, undercutting Obama. Democrats called for Brennan and other C.I.A. personnel to be “purged.” Senator Mark Udall, who sits on the Intelligence Committee, said, “If there is no moral leadership from the White House, what’s to stop the next White House and C.I.A. director from supporting torture?

Back in the day people used to rhetorically ask: “Why do they hate us?” and people would either shrug their shoulders or sputter about how we are misunderstood. Today if someone asks the question, the ready answer is: Because the US is a barbaric superpower that will stop at nothing, not even torture. I can’t argue against that.

Hillary Clinton thinks our problem as a culture is that we don’t tell the good stories about ourselves anymore. Since more than half the people in this country are torture advocates, I’m not sure how you make any case for our “goodness” anymore. Good luck with trying to paper this over.

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