Author's posts

Punting the Pundits: Sunday Preview Edition

Punting the Punditsis an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

The Sunday Talking Heads:

This Week with Christiane Amanpour: This week a special rountable discussion about the Constitution with George Will, Michael Eric Dyson, a professor at Georgetown University, Jill Lepore, a professor of history at Harvard University and Time magazine editor-in-chief Richard Stengel.

Immigration will be the topic of the second rountable with former D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, a first-generation American, former Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., who immigrated from Cuba as a boy, and Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning former reporter for the Washington Post.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: This week’s guests are Governor Deval Patrick (D-MA), Governor John Kasich (R-OH), Governor Scott Walker (R-WI) and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa who will disuss their views of what’s wrong with Washington.

The Chris Matthews Show: This week’s guests are Dan Rather HDNet Global Correspondent, Katy Kay, BBC Washington Correspondent, Gloria Borger, CNN Senior Political Analyst and John Harris, Politico Editor-in-Chief who will discuss: How new media have affected modern politics and new media’s upsides

Meet the Press with David Gregory: We are spared Mr. Gregory this week. Instead you can watch the Men’s Final at Wimbledon

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Guests Steve Case, AOL co-founder and Chair of the White House Startup America Partnership, Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan, Harlem Children’s Zone CEO Geoffrey Canada, personal finance expert Suze Orman and entrepreneur Russell Simmons to discuss making it in America.

Fareed Zakaris: GPS: Fareed will have an exclusive interview with National Security Advisor, Tom Donilon.

New York Times Editorial: Unfinished Business: The Defense of Marriage Act

Last month, with almost no fanfare, the federal government did a very decent thing: It canceled the deportation of a Venezuelan man after he married an American man in Connecticut and claimed legal residency as a spouse. But the government did not say that it was formally recognizing their marriage, because it cannot. The Defense of Marriage Act, which ranks with the most overtly discriminatory laws in the nation’s history, remains on the books, prohibiting federal recognition of legal same-sex marriages.

The deportation dismissal was an isolated act of kindness by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. It is heavily outweighed by the continuing inequality imposed on thousands of same-sex couples who have been legally married in the five states – plus the District of Columbia – where it is already allowed. Likewise, the many couples who will take advantage of New York’s new marriage equality law will not be married in the eyes of Washington.

Maureen Dowd: When a Predator Collides With a Fabricator

SO what’s the moral of this Manhattan immorality tale?

That the French are always right, even when their hauteur is irritating?

They were right about Iraq and America’s rush to war. And they may be right about Dominique Strauss-Kahn and America’s rush to judgment.

In both cases, French credibility was undermined, so we resisted seeing things from their point of view.

John Nichols: What Michele Bachmann and Her Teapot ‘Patriots’ Do Not Know About America

The unsettling thing about Michele Bachmann’s failed discussion of the founders and slavery is not that the Tea Party “Patriot” knew so little about the birth of the American experiment that she made John Quincy Adams-the son of a somewhat disappointing founder (John) and the cousin of one of the true revolutionaries (Sam)-into something he was not.

Bachmann has for some time peddled the notion that the nation’s founding fathers worked “tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States.” She is simply wrong about this. The last of the revolutionaries generally recognized by historians as the founders-signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and their chief political and military comrades-passed in 1836, with the death of James Madison. That was twenty-seven years before the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, and twenty-nine years before the finish of the Civil War.

But Bachmann has never bothered by the facts. Until now.

Robert Parry: Neocons Want War and More War

The neoconservatives remain powerful in Washington in large part because of their continued influence inside leading opinion-setting journals like the New York Times and the Washington Post, two prestige newspapers that have pressed ahead with the neocon agenda despite serious blows to their credibility in recent years

Sometimes the New York Times and the Washington Post behave like two vintage ocean-liners competing to see which will edge out the other in a competition to become the flagship for American neoconservatism. Think of a cross-Atlantic race between the Titanic and the Lusitania.

The Times was pouring on the coal in Friday’s editions, pushing the Obama administration and NATO to finish off the war in Libya. The Times editors seemed most concerned at the prospect of negotiations to resolve the conflict without a clear-cut military victory over Col. Muammar Gaddafi.

Mike Lux: Back to Where We Started

Two hundred thirty-five years ago, the Continental Congress in Philadelphia voted to declare independence from Britain. From our very earliest days, this country has been involved in a heated debate about our collective soul, a foundational debate about what we stand for and what kind of people we want to be. Our founding fathers had a dream, but there were people who were afraid to change and wanted to rely on the traditions and rulers that were in place. Then as now, the debate raged over equality and democracy and the nature of tyranny, over whether we were indeed one people with equal opportunities and rights or whether the elites should be able to do whatever they want.

From those terribly risky early days, when the odds were so steeped against us winning the revolution and then forming a new kind of democratic government that would last, we have had a hell of a run. We’ve survived and prospered as a country through some very shaky early days, through a horrendous civil war just barely won, through a Great Depression, through the terrible threat of Hitler and Japan in WWII, to become the most wealthy and powerful country in the world over the last seven decades. But we have come to a juncture serious enough to raise those old foundational questions again.

OUr first week’s features

Welcome to Stars Hollow by TheMomCat

Why Blog? by ek hornbeck

“A Paddle for Your Boat” by TheMomCat

On Patriotism by ek hornbeck

Evening Edition bu ek hornbeck

The World Cup: A Brief, Gringo’s Guide to Futbol by davidseth

Stuff by TheMomCat

Pique the Geek 20100704: The Science of Fireworks | by Translator, aka Dr. David W. Smith

BP’s Well May Leak For 55 Years Or More Into The Gulf Of Mexico? by Edger

Monday July 5

Monday Business Edition by ek hornbeck

George Orwell and Howard Zinn on Nationalism

by JekyllnHyde

Punting the Pundits: Up Dated with Videos by: TheMomCat

Evening Edition by: ek hornbeck

[Prime Time http://www.thestarshollowgazet… by: ek hornbeck

Gringo’s Guide To The World Cup, Part 2, With Poll by davidseth

Tuesday July 6

Crank it up by ek hornbeck

Le Tour: Stage 3 by ek hornbeck

Punting the Pundits: Morning Edition by TheMomCat

New Shrill- by ek hornbeck

Iraq War Ended But Nobody Told You by Edger

It’s Not Torture by TheMomCat

Angry Women Dominate the Tea Party by TheMomCat

Evening Edition by: ek hornbeck

Prime Time by ek hornbeck

Wednesday July 7

On This Day in History: July 7 by TheMomCat

Le Tour: Stage 4 by ek hornbeck

Punting the Pundits: Morning Edition by TheMomCat

Heat Alert for the East Coast by TheMomCat

Prime Time by ek hornbeck

Thursday July 8

Crank it up by ek hornbeck

On This Day in History: July 8 by TheMomCat

Le Tour: Stage 5 by ek hornbeck

Thursday Tech Support by ek hornbeck

Punting the Pundits: Not Your Usual Suspects

by TheMomCat

Evening Edition by: ek hornbeck

Prime Time by ek hornbeck

Thursday Night Humor 20100708: Warning Labels

by Translator, aka Dr. David W. Smith

Friday July 9

On This Day in History: July 9 by TheMomCat

Le Tour: Stage 6 by ek hornbeck

Lebron by ek hornbeck

Punting the Pundits by TheMomCat

Evening Edition by ek hornbeck

Prime Time by ek hornbeck

My Fifth Blogaversary by davidseth

Saturday July 10

On This Day in History: July 10 by TheMomCat

Le Tour: Stage 7 by ek hornbeck

Punting the Pundits: Saturday Round Up by TheMomCat

Gringo’s Guide To The World Cup, Final Final, Part 3, With Poll by davidseth

Health and Fitness News by TheMomCat

Evening Edition by ek hornbeck

Prime Time by ek hornbeck

Chalchiuhtlicue’s Wrath by davidseth  

Health and Fitness News

Welcome to the Stars Hollow Health and Fitness weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

Pâtés, Minus the Geese

Photobucket

A great way to work more beans into your diet, this week’s pâtés work as spreads on whole-grain bread or crackers. They slice up nicely, too, so you can serve them alongside a salad or vegetable dish. Unmold them from the tureens, if you wish, and reshape them on plates or in bowls with garnishes.

White Bean Pâté

This vegetarian pate has been a Martha Rose Shulman signature dish for decades.

Black Bean Pâté

This tastes like a very light version of refried beans.

Red Bean and Pepper Pâté

Spiced with paprika and cayenne and added red peppers for a Cajun twist.

Lentil Pâté With Cumin and Turmeric

Lentils and curry flavors go together beautifully.

Edamame Pâté

The addition of Marmite or Savorex, yeast extracts with an intense taste, give this vegetarian pâté a meaty flavor.

Obama’s Economic Fallacies

Nobel Prize winning Economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has nailed Barack Obama’s economic polices and his penchant for feeding the right wing economic fallacies, as “the false government-family equivalence, the myth of expansionary austerity, and the confidence fairy” and, as Dr. Krugman points out, Obama did it in two sentences:

Government has to start living within its means, just like families do. We have to cut the spending we can’t afford so we can put the economy on sounder footing, and give our businesses the confidence they need to grow and create jobs.

Dr. Krugman has already debunked both the myths of government-family equivalence and expansionary austerity. Yet the President still thinks that by caving to the right wing Hoover economic policies the economy will get better. This appears to be a signal that he is about to cave to Republicans once again on spending cuts and no new revenue sources that has led will further slow the economy and may spiral the US into a second recession or worse.  

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Dean Baker Deficit Talk Distracts, Employment Works

How to Make Short Work of Unemployment

Washington always does a superb job of focusing intently on problems that are of little importance. The current, end-of-the-world debt/deficit negotiations is a great case in point. President Obama and the Republican congressional leadership are heatedly negotiating a deal on the deficit that has almost nothing to do with the country’s real economic problem: mass unemployment.

The whole effort is a ridiculous charade that is intended to fix a problem that does not exist. There is no story of runaway spending or deficits, as everyone who has ever looked at the budget numbers knows. The deficit exploded, beginning in 2008, because the economy collapsed: end of story. Anyone who says otherwise either has never looked at the budget or is not being honest.

Charles Davis: Obama Loses His ‘Constitutional Law Professor Hat’

As a candidate for president, Barack Obama was a Distinguished Constitutional Scholar. As a president waging an illegal war, he’s just some guy who, gosh, isn’t really in a position to talk about that complex document he took an oath to uphold and defend.

At a press conference this week, NBC correspondent Chuck Todd — presumably under strict orders not to ask about Newsweek’sPrincess Di cover — questioned the erstwhile legal scholar about whether he felt the War Powers Resolution, which forbids the president from deploying troops without congressional consent except in cases of imminent danger to national security, and even then for only 60 days, passed constitutional muster.

Well, the president replied, “I’m not a Supreme Court justice, so I’m not — I’m not going to put my constitutional law professor hat on here.” And so he didn’t, declaring it irrelevant — “I don’t even have to get to the constitutional question” — as he was already abiding by the law in question, rejecting the claim his actions “in any way violate the War Powers Resolution.”

John Nichols: Medicare’s Still Delivering After 45 Years; The Only Serious Threat to Its Future is Paul Ryan

Forty-five years ago this week, the first Medicare checks were delivered, and the United States made a great leap forward.

Before Medicare was implemented – as a social-welfare program designed not just to deliver care but to poverty — one in five Americans lived below the poverty line.

After the program was implemented, and after related “War on Poverty” initiatives were developed, that number was cut almost in half. Poverty among seniors dropped by two thirds.

Why? Before Medicare, millions of elderly Americans could not afford to buy health care. They did not have access even to basic care. When they needed treatment for the inevitable ailments that are associated with aging, they and their families spent down what meager savings that retained and a stumble into poverty soon followed.

Allison Kilkenney: Budget Nightmares: Government Shutdowns, Slashed Tax Credits

Protesters flooded Minnesota’s Capitol grounds yesterday on the eve of a government shutdown in response to tense budget negotiations. The governor and Republicans must close a $5 billion gap for the next two-year budget cycle, but legislators are torn over how to accomplish that goal.

Though government officials and Governor Mark Dayton have kept the details of the negotiations largely secret, Minnesotans were quite vocal in their demands. Activists stated that they’re open to compromise, but don’t think the burden of the state’s budget woes should be dumped exclusively upon the shoulders of the poor.

Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap : Movement to Abolish Corporate Personhood Gaining Traction

In the year and a half since the Citizens United decision, Americans from all walks of life have become concerned about corporate dominance of our government and our society as a whole. In Citizens United v. FEC, the U.S. Supreme Court (in an act of outrageous “judicial activism) gutted existing campaign finance laws by ruling that corporations, wealthy individuals, and other entities can spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns.

Throughout the country people have responded by organizing against “corporate personhood,” a court-created precedent that illegitimately gives corporations rights that were intended for human beings.

The movement is flowering not in the halls of Congress, but at the local level, where all real social movements start. Every day Americans experience the devastation caused by unaccountable corporations. Thanks to the hard work of local organizers, Boulder, CO could become the next community to officially join this growing effort. Councilmember Macon Cowles is proposing to place a measure on the November ballot, giving Boulder voters the opportunity to support an amendment to the U. S. Constitution abolishing corporate personhood and declaring that money is not speech.

Michelle Chen: Pesticides and Farm Labor Yield a Bitter Harvest

Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown’s veto of card check legislation underscores the priorities of the powerful

Shortly after the group of Mexican “guestworkers” arrived at a Tennessee tomato farm, they realized that their job was killing them, literally. In addition to being crowded into filthy trailers with no source of clean water, they and their living quarters were regularly showered with poison. Despite requirements for protective equipment, they had to go into the fields while exposed to pesticides. Risking abuse and retaliation for challenging their boss, some tried to use cellphones to record the spraying. In the end, they got their evidence, but then got fired.

The workers’ struggle, which led to a lawsuit filed earlier this year, illustrates all the paradoxes of America’s natural bounty. No form of labor is more ingrained in humanity than farm work, but the people who grow our food are being eaten alive every day by the toxins of modern industrial farming. Though consumers are more anxious than ever these days about the effects of pesticides on the food we eat, they seldom consider the health hazards facing the workers who feed our consumption. Yet the further you get up the production chain, the greater the danger.

Maura Stephens: Gov. Cuomo: Do Not Lift Fracking Moratorium

Urgent Open Letter to New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo: Do Not Lift Fracking Moratorium

Dear Governor Cuomo,

We just got word that you’re about to lift the fracking moratorium in the New York City and Syracuse watersheds. I’m almost apoplectic from shock, anger, grief, and terror.

A former farmer and trained environmentalist, researcher, and independent journalist, I have spent much of the last three years learning and writing about fracking. I am a cofounder of the Coalition to Protect New York, among other actively engaged organizations working to ban fracking in our state and elsewhere.

We do not trust the Department of Environmental Conservation to get things right on fracking. Even if it were a reliable and trustworthy agency, the DEC’s budget has been cut so drastically and its workforce decimated to the point that it’s virtually hamstrung.

On This Day In History July 2

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

Click on images to enlarge.

July 2 is the 183rd day of the year (184th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 182 days remaining until the end of the year.

It is the midpoint of a common year. This is because there are 182 days before and 182 days after (median of the year) in common years, and 183 before and 182 after in leap years. The exact time in the middle of the year is at noon, or 12:00. In the UK and other countries that use “Summer Time” the actual exact time of the mid point in a common year is at (1.00 pm) 13:00 this is when 182 days and 12 hours have elapsed and there are 182 days and 12 hours remaining. This is due to Summer Time having advanced the time by one hour. It falls on the same day of the week as New Year’s Day in common years.

On this day in 1964, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs into law the historic Civil Rights Act in a nationally televised ceremony at the White House.

In the landmark 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional. The 10 years that followed saw great strides for the African-American civil rights movement, as non-violent demonstrations won thousands of supporters to the cause. Memorable landmarks in the struggle included the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955–sparked by the refusal of Alabama resident Rosa Parks to give up her seat on a city bus to a white woman–and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “I have a dream” speech at a rally of hundreds of thousands in Washington, D.C., in 1963.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Pub.L. 88-352, 78 Stat. 241, enacted July 2, 1964) was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed major forms of discrimination against blacks and women, including racial segregation. It ended unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and by facilities that served the general public (“public accommodations”). Powers given to enforce the act were initially weak, but were supplemented during later years. Congress asserted its authority to legislate under several different parts of the United States Constitution, principally its power to regulate interstate commerce under Article One (section 8), its duty to guarantee all citizens equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment and its duty to protect voting rights under the Fifteenth Amendment.

Countdown with Keith Olbermann

If you do not get Current TV you can watch Keith here:

Watch live video from CURRENT TV LIVE Countdown Olbermann on www.justin.tv

New Deadline For Debt Ceiling Bill: July 22

The White House is now saying that Congress must pass a bill by July 22 in order for the government not to default on its debt.

The Obama administration believes congressional leaders must agree to a deficit-reduction deal by July 22 in order to raise the government’s borrowing limit in time to avoid a default in early August, according to Democratic officials with knowledge of the negotiations.

The government needs a week or two to write and pass the necessary legislation and take the steps necessary to avoid missing a payment. “We’re down to the wire,” one official said.

Brain Beutler of Talking Points Memo reports Sen. Charles Schhumer (D-NY), in an telephone interview with reporters, said that while the Constitutional option is worth exploring, he thinks “it needs a little more exploration and study. It’s probably not right to pursue at this point and you wouldn’t want to go ahead and issue the debt and then have the courts reverse it.”

Legal scholars and other Democratic Senators have been taking a very close look at the 14th Amendment clause that forbids Congress from defaulting on US debt.

Republican economist Bruce Bartlett, who believes that the Republicans are playing with “the financial equivalent of nuclear weapons”, argues that Section 4 renders the debt ceiling unconstitutional, and obligates the President to consider the debt ceiling null and void.

If the Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling and the government stops paying its obligations, the first people who should not get paid is Congress.

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Paul Krugman: To the Limit

In about a month, if nothing is done, the federal government will hit its legal debt limit. There will be dire consequences if this limit isn’t raised. At best, we’ll suffer an economic slowdown; at worst we’ll plunge back into the depths of the 2008-9 financial crisis.

So is a failure to raise the debt ceiling unthinkable? Not at all.

Many commentators remain complacent about the debt ceiling; the very gravity of the consequences if the ceiling isn’t raised, they say, ensures that in the end politicians will do what must be done. But this complacency misses two important facts about the situation: the extremism of the modern G.O.P., and the urgent need for President Obama to draw a line in the sand against further extortion.

Eugene Robinson: Our Robotic Assassins

The skies over at least six countries are patrolled by robotic aircraft, operated by the U.S. military or the CIA, that fire missiles to carry out targeted assassinations. I am convinced that this method of waging war is cost-effective but not that it is moral.

There has been virtually no public debate about the expanding use of unmanned drone aircraft as killing machines-not domestically, at least. In the places where drone attacks are taking place, there has understandably been great uproar. And in the rest of the world, questions are being raised about the legal and ethical basis for these antiseptic missile strikes.

New York Times EDitorial: Ethics, Politics and the Law

The ethical judgments of the Supreme Court justices became an important issue in the just completed term. The court cannot maintain its legitimacy as guardian of the rule of law when justices behave like politicians. Yet, in several instances, justices acted in ways that weakened the court’s reputation for being independent and impartial.

Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito Jr., for example, appeared at political events. That kind of activity makes it less likely that the court’s decisions will be accepted as nonpartisan judgments. Part of the problem is that the justices are not bound by an ethics code. At the very least, the court should make itself subject to the code of conduct that applies to the rest of the federal judiciary.

E. J. Dionne, Jr.: Defending the Supremely Powerful

The United States Supreme Court now sees its central task as comforting the already comfortable and afflicting those already afflicted.

If you are a large corporation or a political candidate backed by lots of private money, be assured that the court’s conservative majority will be there for you, solicitous of your needs and ready to swat away those pesky little people who dare to contest your power.

This court has created rules that will have the effect of declaring some corporations too big to be challenged through class actions, as AT&T consumers and female employees at Wal-Mart discovered.

David Sirota: Shining the Spotlight on the Corporate Pay Gap

We’ve long known that executive pay has skyrocketed during the last 40 years-and especially during the last 20. As the Economic Policy Institute has reported, the average CEO makes roughly 300 times the average worker-up from 100 times the average in the early 1990s and 40 times the average in the 1970s. In this new Gilded Age, we are inundated with stories about how executives-even in taxpayer-subsidized industries like banking-are paying themselves record salaries. This is nothing new-in fact, it’s lately been a bragging point for firms in their efforts to attract talent.

So, then, why is Corporate America suddenly so shy about compensation rates?

Joe Conason: Four Trillion for War-and Rising

Anyone paying attention to the costs of U.S. military action in Iraq and Afghanistan must have known that the president badly underestimated those numbers on June 22, when he told the nation that we have spent “a trillion dollars” waging war over the past decade. For well over two years, we have known that the total monetary cost of those wars will eventually amount to well over $2 trillion, and might well rise higher, according to Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz and his associate Linda Bilmes.

What we didn’t know until this week is that the expense in constant dollars-leaving aside the horrific price paid by the dead, wounded, displaced and ruined in every country-will likely reach well over $4.4 trillion.

Obama’s DOJ Still Covering Up War Crimes

Last week during his confirmation hearings before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Gen. David Petraeus held that the US should keep the door open for torture. This week the Obama Justice Department determined that only two detainee deaths under investigation by specially appointed prosecutor, John H. Durham would warrant any further action:

The Justice Department announced Thursday that it was opening a full criminal investigation into the deaths of two terrorism suspects in C.I.A. custody overseas, but it was closing inquiries into the treatment of nearly 100 other detainees over the last decade.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said that a two-year review by a specially appointed prosecutor, John H. Durham, had determined that any further investigation into that large group of cases “is not warranted.” The inquiry into the two deaths, though, could result in criminal charges against Central Intelligence Agency officers or contractors.

Intelligence officials saw the announcement as a vindication of sorts.

The stench of hypocrisy of President Obama is hard to ignore. His “looking forward” stand does not wash in the International courts nor does making flowery statements on International Torture Day when he is covering up the Bush regime and CIA war crimes:

As we mark the anniversary of the United Nations’ Convention Against Torture, I join people around the world in honoring the victims of torture, paying tribute to all those who are courageously working to eradicate these inhuman practices from our world, and reaffirming the commitment of the United States to achieving this important goal. . . . .

As a nation that played a leading role in the effort to bring this treaty into force, the United States will remain a leader in the effort to end torture around the world and to address the needs of torture victims.

That’s not just hypocrisy, it an outrageous lie. Since his election, Obama has made it clear that he would cover any and all crimes committed by the previous administration and since his inauguration has embraced and expanded some of those very same policies.

From Glenn Greenwald, it is now official, “torture crimes are now officially covered up”:

In August, 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder — under continuous, aggressive prodding by the Obama White House —announced that three categories of individuals responsible for Bush-era torture crimes would be fully immunized from any form of criminal investigation and prosecution:  (1) Bush officials who ordered the torture (Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld); (2) Bush lawyers who legally approved it (Yoo, Bybee, Levin), and (3) those in the CIA and the military who tortured within the confines of the permission slips they were given by those officials and lawyers (i.e., “good-faith” torturers).  The one exception to this sweeping immunity was that low-level CIA agents and servicemembers who went so far beyond the torture permission slips as to basically commit brutal, unauthorized murder would be subject to a “preliminary review” to determine if a full investigation was warranted — in other words, the Abu Ghraib model of justice was being applied, where only low-ranking scapegoats would be subject to possible punishment while high-level officials would be protected.

It is very clear that those who ordered the use of torture will not be held accountable and with the appointment of Gen. Petraeus as director of the CIA, it will most likely continue under the Obama administration. Under the Nuremberg Principles and the UN Convention Against Torture, Mr. Obama could be prosecuted for war crimes and crmes against humanity.

Load more