Spintested: June 2010

Obama's Patients' Bill of Rights: One Important Right is Missing, Thanks to Corporate Spin and Fear-Mongering

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

2. there wasn't a workable majority in the Senate for a public option neither. Obama longtime thought there was (and rightly so), until Liebermann flip-flopped.

=====================================

I don't know where you got such an idea about lack of support for single payer, a public option, or Joe Lieberman.

Joe Lieberman says, "Obama never pressed me on public option"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/21/lieberman-obama-never-pre_n_399355.html

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/02/22/public-option-dramatically-more-popular-than-senate-bill-so-obama-pushes-senate-bill-without-public-option/

If the Bush years taught us nothing else, it's that anyone can sell anything to Americans, if you're stolid & relentless in your sales pitch & tactics.

Obama insisted that Joe Lieberman caucus with the Democrats & keep the chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security Committee chairmanship over 81 percent of Democratic voters who wanted Lieberman stripped of the job if he joined with Republicans to block health care reform (compared to only 10 percent who thought he should retain it). http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/12/democrats-want-lieberman-stripped-of-chairmanship/31807/

Barack Obama, the first black man to convince more people than ever before in the history of this nation to put him in the White House, went MIA on populist issues as soon as he was elected. He is a corporate t00l.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama's Patients' Bill of Rights: One Important Right is Missing, Thanks to Corporate Spin and Fear-Mongering

For some of the reasons already stated and more, insurance companies will deny patients, because paying fines is cheaper than paying for treatment.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama's Patients' Bill of Rights: One Important Right is Missing, Thanks to Corporate Spin and Fear-Mongering

Having insurance, even Medicaid, doesn't mean getting affordable quality medical treatment.

States must share the costs of Medicaid, and the states are broke. Most states are constitutionally required to balance their budgets, so what that means is that they will cut Medicaid services.

Here are just a few of what was in the news just today:

No Medicaid money may mean more state cuts

http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-politics-elections/no-medicaid-money-may-560035.html

States Struggle As Congress Fails To Come Through With Extra Medicaid Money

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Daily-Reports/2010/June/29/Medicaid-money.aspx

Medicaid extension failure would create $121 million budget hole for Iowa

http://iowaindependent.com/37842/medicaid-extension-failure-would-create-121-million-budget-hole-for-iowa

NY governor says legislature must deal with Medicaid deficit

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65S5H220100629?type=domesticNews
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Planning Major Immigration Reform Push As Arizona Lawsuit Nears

I'm a liberal Democrat, and I don't support Obama's immigration reform, but your charge that illegals are getting back more than they put in is bvllsh!t.

You need to step back and look at the entire picture, not just of the US, but also the entire world. You need to look at your own conspicuous and wasteful consumption, and how that's causing the problems that are visiting us here at home and other people in their countries.

And then look at how your voting for Republicans has been against your own best interests -- Because for the last 35 years, it's been Republican policies that we've all been living under.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Kerry, Lieberman Willing To Scale Back Energy Bill To Get Republican Support

Why isn't Obama and the Democratic leadership threatening Lieberman with loss of his committee chairmanship to support REAL energy reform?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Kerry, Lieberman Willing To Scale Back Energy Bill To Get Republican Support

The Kerry-Lieberman bill is heavy on coal, nuclear, gas and oil, and chump change for green sustainables. Nothing for infrastructure towards green sustainable energy.

Dylan Ratigan and Jon Hofmeister: "Obama Has No Plan To Get U.S. Off Oil"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPivXkamPbQ
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Petraeus Supports July 2011 Timetable, Sends Faint Signal On Strategy Change

Where were you when Obama was running for president.

=======================================

At the time when Afghanistan was relevant with regard to 9/11, when the US military let Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda escape from Tora Bora over the mountains into Pakistan, Candidate Obama talked about his having supported the war in Afghanistan.

Candidate Obama's talk about Afghanistan was always framed in terms of the past. And Candidate Obama was always equivocal about what he would do as president, because "nobody can predict what conditions on the ground and in the world would be like after 1/20/09".

Obama left it up to listeners to infer whatever they wanted, believe whatever they needed to believe about him in order to get their votes.

Now we know that Obama is an agent of the Establishment Elites.
About Afghanistan
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

John Boehner: Raise Retirement Age To 70; Wall Street Reform Is Like 'Killing An Ant With A Nuclear Weapon'

I agree. Especially since the policies that Obama & the DLC are running from are the policies that created a thriving, vibrant middle class and created wealthy educated citizens in ONE GENERATION from immigrants with just the shirts on their backs.
About Video
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Petraeus Supports July 2011 Timetable, Sends Faint Signal On Strategy Change

GENERAL PETRAEUS: It is important that July 2011 be seen for what it is - The date when a process begins, based on conditions. Not the date when the US heads for the exits.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TfSesefM0o”

The real story in Michael Hastings' RollingStone article was that American troops were being called upon to do a counter-intuitive task: Not respond to their training as killing machines, not react as soldiers in a war zone. They're being required to restrain their training & instincts as warriors, & be instead police officers-slash-community organizers. That's not what the USmilitary is trained for.

When the story became about an insubordinate general, Hastings' more important message got lost. With McChrystal gone, the troops in Afghanistan are rejoicing and that can only be because they believe Petraeus will unleash them to do what they've been trained to be: Killing machines with little or no regard for civilians.

But COIN and "restraint" was Petraeus's invention, so unless Petraeus changes the policy that Obama has instituted, it's just more of the same frustration (& casualties) for the troops.

If Petraeus does change the policy, it means a bloodbath for civilians & every civilian killed means 10 recruits for Al Qaeda.

That means 'Long War', unending, because they know We the People have the power in a democracy to choose our leaders, choose the policies which are affecting their lives. They target us because it is us who is putting these corporate t00Is into power.
About Afghanistan
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

John Boehner: Raise Retirement Age To 70; Wall Street Reform Is Like 'Killing An Ant With A Nuclear Weapon'

We MADE the money.

That doesn't change the fact that you can't get blood from a turnip. If there's no money in the fund, how do you pay people from it?:

Obama Planning Major Immigration Reform Push As Arizona Lawsuit Nears-

http://www.huf fingtonpost.com/2010/06/29/obama-planning-major-immi_n_629568.html
About Video
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

John Boehner: Raise Retirement Age To 70; Wall Street Reform Is Like 'Killing An Ant With A Nuclear Weapon'

In the 2012 election, if Republicans are faced with a choice of Sarah Palin or Barack Obama, who do you think they're going to vote for?

Not the Teabaggers, but Republican voters in general.

While Republican politicians insist that Obama is a socialist, a liberal, what has Obama actually done that fits that bill?

The DLC controls the Democratic Party and it has been busily working to move the party to the right. It uses language as oxym0ronically as Bush did, putting through one of the greatest corporate giveaways in history and calling it "healthcare reform", but in fact it's nothing but corporate welfare.

Whatever voters Obama loses on the left, he hopes to pick up in the mainstream Republican Party.
About Video
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

John Boehner: Raise Retirement Age To 70; Wall Street Reform Is Like 'Killing An Ant With A Nuclear Weapon'

The government is you, me, all of us. In a democracy, we are the government, and we elected people to "borrow" from the social security trust fund, to give tax breaks to the rich, to pay a military that works on behalf of transnational corporations to wage unwinnable wars for resources that they can sell at a profit -- And those profits don't come back to us, they don't come back to replenish the social security trust fund, but instead go into the pockets of the transnational corporations' CEOs and shareholders as bonuses and profits.

When Bush said that he'd be vindicated by history, vindicated as a conservative, he meant for the backdoor way that he went about ending social programs like Social Security and Medicare. That was what his deficit spending was about -- to "Get government so small it can be drowned in a bathtub."
About Video
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Petraeus Supports July 2011 Timetable, Sends Faint Signal On Strategy Change

OK. It's an occupation for oil, and for cementing out dominion over the Middle East, and for perfecting the abasement of a certain failed culture in the clash of civilizations. If it's all of those, what difference does it make?

=====================================

If it means it's for oil, for imperialism, as Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski (retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel whose assignments included a variety of roles for the National Security Agency & who spent her last 4 1/2 years working at the Pentagon with Donald Rumsfeld) said:

"If you map the proposed pipeline route across Afghanistan & you look at our bases? Matches perfectly. Our bases are there to solve a problem that the Taliban couldn't solve. Taliban couldn't provide security in that part of Afghanistan -- Well now that's where our bases are. So, does that have to do with Osama Bin Laden? It has nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden. It has everything to do with the longer plan, in this case a strategy which I wouldn't necessarily call neoconservative, however it fits perfectly in with the neoconservative ideology which says, 'If you have military force and you need something from a weaker country, then you need to deploy that force and take what you need because your country's needs are paramount'. It's the whole idea of unilateralism, of using force to achieve your aims." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUxI3rSLDO8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SltOy_F6ZII

Then who the heII are we?
About Afghanistan
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Petraeus Supports July 2011 Timetable, Sends Faint Signal On Strategy Change

There are 140,000 troops in Iraq (that's not including the private contractors, which may be an equal number, or more), and rather than decreasing their numbers, it seems we're INCREASING them as the violence increases daily.

http://www.armybase.us/2009/04/gen-ray-odierno-iraq-deadline-may-be-pushed-back/
About Afghanistan
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Petraeus Supports July 2011 Timetable, Sends Faint Signal On Strategy Change

GENERAL PETRAEUS: It is important that July 2011 be seen for what it is - The date when a process begins, based on conditions. Not the date when the US heads for the exits.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TfSesefM0o”

I thought the real story in Michael Hastings' Rolling Stone article was that American troops were being called upon to do a counter-intuitive task: Not respond to their training as killing machines, not react as soldiers in a war zone. They are being required to be restrain their training and instincts as warriors, and be instead a police officer-slash-community organizer. That's not what the US military is trained for.

When the story became about an insubordinate general, Hastings' more important message got lost. With McChrystal gone, the troops in Afghanistan are rejoicing and that can only be because they believe Petraeus will unleash them to do what they've been trained to be: Killing machines with little or no regard for civilians.

Every civilian killed means 10 recruits for Al Qaeda.

That means 'Long War', unending, because they know We the People have the power in a democracy to choose our leaders, choose the policies which are affecting their lives. They target us because it is us who is putting these corporate t00Is into power.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Petraeus Senate Confirmation: General Faces Questions From War-Weary Lawmakers

If you knew that 9/11 was a black flag operation, an inside job set up by the CIA for the purpose of getting oil, & that AlQaeda was fiction, a creation of the CIA, would you support one more moment of these wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, etc.?

OsamaBinLaden isn't in Afghanistan, if OsamaBinLaden is alive at all, or even had anything to do with 9/11. He's not wanted by the FBI for having anything to do with 9/11. He's on their wanted list in connection with the August 7, 1998 bombings of the US embassies in DarEsSalaam, Tanzania & Nairobi, Kenya -- "These attacks killed over 200 people. In addition, BinLaden is a suspect in other terrorist attacks throughout the world." The FBI has no evidence connecting him to 9/11 -- http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/topten/fugitives/laden.htm

Think about that.

CandidateObama's talk about escalating the war in Afghanistan was retrospective, in context of when Afghanistan was relevant with regard to 9/11, when the US military let OsamaBinLaden & AlQaeda escape from ToraBora over the mountains into Pakistan.

CandidateObama always framed Afghanistan in terms of the past, & was always equivocal about what he would do as president, because "nobody can predict what conditions on the ground & in the world would be like after 1/20/09". Obama left it up to listeners to infer whatever they wanted, believe whatever they needed to believe about him in order to get their votes.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Petraeus Senate Confirmation: General Faces Questions From War-Weary Lawmakers

I thought people were angry at Bush/Cheney because they supposedly abandoned Afghanistan?

=======================================

At the time when Afghanistan was relevant with regard to 9/11, when the US military let Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda escape from Tora Bora over the mountains into Pakistan.

Candidate Obama's talk about Afghanistan, his support for war in Afghanistan, was always framed in terms of the past. And Candidate Obama was always equivocal about what he would do as president, because "nobody can predict what conditions on the ground and in the world would be like after 1/20/09".

Obama left it up to listeners to infer whatever they wanted, believe whatever they needed to believe about him in order to get their votes.

Now we know that Obama is an agent of the Establishment Elites.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Pelosi: There Will Be 'A Serious Drawdown' From Afghanistan In July 2011

Osama Bin Laden isn't in Afghanistan, if Osama Bin Laden is alive at all, or even had anything to do with 9/11. You do know, don't you, that he's not wanted by the FBI for having anything to do with 9/11. He's on their wanted list in connection with the August 7, 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya -- "These attacks killed over 200 people. In addition, Bin Laden is a suspect in other terrorist attacks throughout the world."

The FBI has no evidence connecting him to 9/11.

Think about that.
About Afghanistan
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Lara Logan Slams Michael Hastings, Rolling Stone Over McChrystal Article (VIDEO)

Monday, June 28, 2010

"The Rolling Stone writer abided by the rules and had McChrystal read the article over before it was published, and he approved it"

http://www.news-herald.com/articles/2010/06/26/opinion/nh2691020.txt
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama: Afghanistan Deadline An 'Obsession' For Some

Does it matter when, so long as they do?

Citizens can't make informed decisions without information, and chastising them doesn't help; it only gets people defensive, and more likely to dig in their heels.
About Afghanistan
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama: Afghanistan Deadline An 'Obsession' For Some

McChrystal Past, Present and Future?

by Karen Kwiatkowski

http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski251.html
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama: Afghanistan Deadline An 'Obsession' For Some

G-8 'fully believes' Israel will attack Iran, says Italy PM

World leaders meet in Ontario for two days of talks, urge Iran to 'respect rule of law' and 'hold transparent dialogue' over its nuclear program.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/g-8-fully-believes-israel-will-attack-iran-says-italy-pm-1.298597
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama: Afghanistan Deadline An 'Obsession' For Some

Report: US warships stationed off Iranian coast

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0627/report-warships-stationed-iranian-coast/
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama: Afghanistan Deadline An 'Obsession' For Some

He also campaigned on no mandate for health insurance.

Obama did not so much campaign on escalating the Afghanistan war but on a foreign policy focused on expanded diplomacy. Once in office, when MacChrystal lobbied him for another 40,000 troops, Obama spent 3 months allegedly studying and reviewing our Afghan strategy and plans. The impression left was that Obama could go either way -- He could satisfy MacChrystal or he could bring all of the troops out and end the wars.

It was a typically deceptive move on Obama's part. I don't think there was ever any question of his desire and determination to continue where Bush left off, but that's not what his administration told the media.
About Afghanistan
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama: Afghanistan Deadline An 'Obsession' For Some

Sunday, June 27, 2010

If you want to get an interesting perspective on Carter and the last 40 years of US history:

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/062410.html

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/061710.html

http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/xfile.html
About Afghanistan
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama: Afghanistan Deadline An 'Obsession' For Some

If you don't like PressTV, here's the same story in many different venues:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/04/02/earlyshow/main6356438.shtml

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL23104041320080723

http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&orgId=574&topicId=100020970&docId=l:1156560890&start=3
About Afghanistan
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Arianna Says Frustration With Obama Goes Beyond Left And Right On 'Fareed Zakaria GPS' (VIDEO)

No they cannot. The rules by which the Senate operates are adopted at the start of each new Congress. They are voted on first week. The rules cannot be changed mid session. According to the Senate's Official website:

SUSPENSION AND AMENDMENT OF THE RULES

=================================

That's one way to change the rules, but not the only way:

Congressional Research Service Report for Congress

Page 6 - Changing Senate Rules: The “Constitutional” or “Nuclear” Option

Another set of options for altering the requirement for cloture would involve addressing the matter not on the opening day of a new Congress, but in the course of the session.

http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/45448.pdf

If you don't want to get rid of the filibuster, at least get on the bandwagon to get Harry Reid to force Republicans to actually filibuster instead of just threatening to.

The way you're holding on to this, one would think you work for the DLC/DNC.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Arianna Says Frustration With Obama Goes Beyond Left And Right On 'Fareed Zakaria GPS' (VIDEO)

I think some of the things passed by the Democratic congress truly move in the direction of reform, like consumer protection just recently. If the corporations are getting their way, why the howls from them on many pieces of legislation by Democrats.

==================================

Like when they whined about ObamaCare until it passed, and then their stocks shot up?

If you think "some of the things passed by the Democratic congress truly move in the direction of reform, like consumer protection", you should watch this and remember that the Consumer Protection agency is going to be under the Federal Reserve:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/view/
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Leon Panetta: There May Be Less Than 50 Al Qaeda Fighters In Afghanistan

'Hijacking Catastrophe' (a 2004 documentary):

"The war in Iraq was very very clearly about oil, as was the war in Afghanistan. The oil pipeline that was planned (in Afghanistan), the best security for that was an occupation."

"If you map the proposed pipeline route across Afghanistan and you look at our bases? Matches perfectly. Our bases are there to solve a problem that the Taliban couldn't solve. Taliban couldn't provide security in that part of Afghanistan -- Well now that's where our bases are. So, does that have to do with Osama Bin Laden? It has nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden. It has everything to do with the longer plan, in this case a strategy which I wouldn't necessarily call neoconservative, however it fits perfectly in with the neoconservative ideology which says, 'If you have military force and you need something from a weaker country, then you need to deploy that force and take what you need because your country's needs are paramount'. It's the whole idea of unilateralism, of using force to achieve your aims." -Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel whose assignments included a variety of roles for the National Security Agency and who spent her last 4 1/2 years working at the Pentagon with Donald Rumsfeld

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUxI3rSLDO8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SltOy_F6ZII
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Closing Guantanamo Bay Fades As A Priority

Yesterday (9/14/09), the Obama DOJ -- as expected -- filed a legal brief (.pdf) which adopted the arguments originally made by the Bush DOJ to insist that detainees whom they abduct from around the world and then ship to Bagram (rather than Guantanamo) lack any constitutional rights whatsoever, including habeas review. The ObamaAdministration is appealing from a decision by Bush-43-appointed DistrictCourtJudgeJohnBates which, applying Boumediene, held that detainees at Bagram who are originally detained outside of Afghanistan have the right to habeas review (Afghan citizens detained in Afghanistan have none, he found). In other words, after Obama praised Boumediene as "defending the freedom that violent extremists seek to destroy," he's now attempting to make a complete mockery of that decision by insisting that it is inapplicable as long as he decides to ship detainees from, say, Thailand to Bagram rather than Guantanamo. Obama apparently sees "our core values" as nothing more than an absurd shell game, where the U.S. Government can evade the limits of the Constitution by simply moving the locale of its due-process-free detention system.==

Read more @ http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/09/15/bagram
About Guantánamo Bay
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Closing Guantanamo Bay Fades As A Priority

The sham of closing Guantanamo:

==It's now apparent that the biggest sham in American politics is BarackObama's pledge to close Guantanamo and, more generally, to dismantle the Bush/Cheney approach to detaining accused Terrorists. In August, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Boumediene v. Bush that Guantanamo detainees -- people abducted from around the world & shipped to our prison in Cuba -- have the constitutional right to habeas corpus (a court review of their imprisonment). Then-candidate Obama issued a statement lavishly praising that ruling:

"Today's Supreme Court decision ensures that we can protect our nation and bring terrorists to justice, while also protecting our core values. The Court's decision is a rejection of the Bush Administration's attempt to create a legal black hole at Guantanamo - yet another failed policy supported by John McCain. This is an important step toward reestablishing our credibility as a nation committed to the rule of law, and rejecting a false choice between fighting terrorism and respecting habeas corpus. Our courts have employed habeas corpus with rigor and fairness for more than two centuries, and we must continue to do so as we defend the freedom that violent extremists seek to destroy. We cannot afford to lose any more valuable time in the fight against terrorism to a dangerously flawed legal approach."

That was so moving

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Closing Guantanamo Bay Fades As A Priority

Why did Obama feel like he had to go to Congress for these powers? There were resources in the Department of Justice budget, you don't pick a fight if you don't know you can win. You play mother may I, then mother might say no, and then you can't go out and play, and then Congress gets its back up and Obama gets himself backed into a wall.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/radio/2010/01/24/anthony_romero
About Guantánamo Bay
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Leon Panetta: There May Be Less Than 50 Al Qaeda Fighters In Afghanistan

Obama = Bush's 3rd Term

JOE BIDEN: In July 2011, you're going to see a whole lot of people moving out. Bet on it."

GENERAL PETRAEUS: It is important that July 2011 be seen for what it is - The date when a process begins, based on conditions. Not the date when the US heads for the exits.

BARACK OBAMA: We did not say that, "Starting July 2011 suddenly there would be no troops from the United States or allied countries in Afghanistan". We did not say, "We'd be "switchin' off the lights and closin' the door behind us". We said, "As we begin a transition phase in which the Afghan government is taking on more and more responsibility".

WeaseI words.

Watch the entire interview with congressmen Nadler and McGovern - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TfSesefM0o
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Leon Panetta: There May Be Less Than 50 Al Qaeda Fighters In Afghanistan

Historian Robert Dallek has written persuasively of the Kennedy and Johnson presidencies. "In my judgment," says Dallek, "war kills off great reform movements." (1) Thus, the American entrance into WWI killed off the progressive movement. WWII stifled the reforms of FDR and began the development of the "military-industrial complex" that Eisenhower later warned of. The Vietnam War ended much of the reform under Johnson and with money only for guns and not butter, halted the War on Poverty.

President Obama was elected on a platform of change and reform. He announced to the world that he would bring fresh faces to Washington, D.C., and change the way it did business. But nothing much has changed on that front: he even kept on George W. Bush’s man at the second most important post in the government, Secretary of Defense. He also kept on and even promoted most of W’s favorite generals, like Gen. McCrystal.

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/8755

Obama = Bush's 3rd term
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Leon Panetta: There May Be Less Than 50 Al Qaeda Fighters In Afghanistan

"Who are we fighting, what do we hope to achieve, what's your sense of the actual war strategy right now. We have rules of engagement which basically say, 'Don't shoot anybody who isn't shooting at us because that means they're a civilian'".

Watch the entire interview with congressmen Nadler and McGovern - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TfSesefM0o
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Leon Panetta: There May Be Less Than 50 Al Qaeda Fighters In Afghanistan

Congressman Jim McGovern sent a letter to Nancy Pelosi requesting that she hold off on war funding.

McGovern and Gerry Nadler were on Hardball on Friday, asking, "What's the strategy and the goal in Afghanistan?":

CONGRESSMAN GERALD NADLER: We originally went into Afghanistan because we said that Al Qaeda has base camps from which they are planning attacks on the US, we ought to get rid of those base camps, we ought to eliminate them. We did. We said, "All right, the Taliban were helping Al Qaeda, we punish them". But now the mission seems to have morphed into, "We have to remake the government of Afghanistan, we have to put it on a solid footing, we have to get its writ to run in the whole country", which no government in Kabul has ever been able to do, "We have to remake the whole government". That is beyond our capability and, frankly, it's none of our business.

Watch the entire interview with congressmen Nadler and McGovern - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TfSesefM0o
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Leon Panetta: There May Be Less Than 50 Al Qaeda Fighters In Afghanistan

If you knew that 9/11 was a black flag operation, an inside job set up by the CIA for the purpose of getting oil, and that Al Qaeda was fiction, a creation of the CIA, would you support one more moment of these wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, etc, etc., etc., etc.?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Closing Guantanamo Bay Fades As A Priority

Saturday, June 26, 2010

==Obama wins the right to detain people with no habeas review

Few issues highlight Barack Obama's extreme hypocrisy the way that Bagram does. One of George Bush’s most extreme policies was abducting people from all over the world -- far away from any battlefield -- & then detaining them at Guantanamo with no legal rights of any kind, not even the most minimal right to a habeas review in a federal court. Back in the day, this was called "Bush's legal black hole." In 2006, Congress codified that policy by enacting the MilitaryCommissionsAct, but in 2008, the SupremeCourt, in BoumedieneVsBush, ruled that provision unconstitutional, holding that the Constitution grants habeas corpus rights even to foreign nationals held at Guantanamo. Since then, detainees have won 35 out of 48 habeas hearings brought pursuant to Boumediene, on the ground that there was insufficient evidence to justify their detention.

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Closing Guantanamo Bay Fades As A Priority

==The Obama administration has refused to release Odaini for the past 16 months, & fought vehemently in this habeas proceeding to keep him imprisoned. As the court put it, the Obama DOJ argued "vehemently" that there was evidence that Odaini was part of AlQaeda. In fact, the ObamaAdministration knew this was false. This WashingtonPost article this weekend quotes an "administration official" as saying: "The bottom line is: We don't have anything on this kid." But after Obama decreed in January that no Yemeni detainees would be released -- even completely innocent ones, and even though the Yemeni government wants their innocent prisoners returned -- Obama DOJ lawyers basically lied to the court by claiming there was substantial evidence to prove that Odaini was part of AlQaeda even though they know that is false. In other words, the ObamaAdministration is knowingly imprisoning a completely innocent human being who has been kept in a cage in an island prison, thousands of miles from his home, for the last 8 years, since he's 18 years old, despite having done absolutely nothing wrong.

It really is hard to imagine many things worse, more criminal, than imprisoning people for years whom you know are innocent, while fighting in court to keep them imprisoned. But that's exactly what the ObamaAdministration is doing. ==

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/06/21/pundits
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Offshore Drilling Companies Sue To Attempt To Get Drilling Ban Lifted

I have thirty years in the industry and know a hell of a lot on the subject

=================================

You have nothing. You're an anonymous person, just like everyone else here.

Apparently you are that ig.no.rant for you believe that if we stopped offshore drilling, there would be no oil. Or that alternative products exist for those we are currently using which are manufactured with oil. Or that we can't conserve.

We're going to have to get off oil sooner or later (they're not making any more dinosaurs); now is a perfect time, as it's the source of just about every one of our problems, and why we're broke. Think of all the money we'd save if we eliminated the only reason that the Pentagon exists (to plunder oil), and why we spend more than the top 20 military spending nations of the world.
About Gulf Oil Spill
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Closing Guantanamo Bay Fades As A Priority

As a side note, isn't it interesting how much energy and zeal Obama exerts in 'judge-shopping' when it's something he wants (the ability to abduct and imprison anyone in the world without charges, evidence judicial review and oversight), as opposed to how he's dragging his feet on challenging the ruling overturning the drilling moratorium?
About Guantánamo Bay
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Closing Guantanamo Bay Fades As A Priority

Apparently, what Obama called "a legal black hole at Guantanamo" is a heinous injustice, but "a legal black hole at Bagram" is the Embodiment of Hope. Evidently, Obama would only feel "terror" if his child were abducted & taken to Guantanamo & imprisoned "without even getting one chance to ask why & prove their innocence." But if the very same child were instead taken to Bagram & treated exactly the same way, that would be called Justice -- or, to use his jargon, Pragmatism. And what kind of person hails a SupremeCourt decision as "protecting our core values" -- as Obama said of Boumediene -- only to then turn around & make a complete mockery of that ruling by insisting that the CherishedSacredRights it recognized are purely a function of where the President orders a detainee-carrying military plane to land?

Independently, what happened to Obama's eloquent insistence that "restricting somebody's right to challenge their imprisonment indefinitely isn't going to make us safer; in fact, recent evidence shows it's probably making us less safe"? How does our policy of invading Afghanistan & then putting people at Bagram with no charges of any kind dispose people in that country, & the broader Muslim world, to the UnitedStates? If a country invaded the US & set up prisons where Americans from around the world were detained indefinitely & denied all rights to have their detention reviewed, how would it dispose you to the country doing that?==

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/05/21/bagram/index.html
About Guantánamo Bay
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Closing Guantanamo Bay Fades As A Priority

Even worse, when Obama went to the Senate floor in September, 2006, to speak against the habeas-denying provisions of the MilitaryCommissionsAct, this is what he melodramatically intoned:

"As a parent, I can also imagine the terror I would feel if one of my family members were rounded up in the middle of the night and sent to Guantanamo without even getting one chance to ask why they were being held and being able to prove their innocence. . . .

By giving suspects a chance -- even one chance -- to challenge the terms of their detention in court, to have a judge confirm that the Government has detained the right person for the right suspicions, we could solve this problem without harming our efforts in the war on terror one bit. . . .

Most of us have been willing to make some sacrifices because we know that, in the end, it helps to make us safer. But restricting somebody's right to challenge their imprisonment indefinitely is not going to make us safer. In fact, recent evidence shows it is probably making us less safe."

KEEP READING
About Guantánamo Bay
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Closing Guantanamo Bay Fades As A Priority

But the Obama administration was undeterred by this loss. They quickly appealed JudgeBates' ruling. As the NYT put it about that appeal: "The decision signaled that the administration was not backing down in its effort to maintain the power to imprison terrorism suspects for extended periods without judicial oversight." Today, a three-judge panel of the D.C. CircuitCourt of Appeals adopted the Bush/Obama position, holding that even detainees abducted outside of Afghanistan & then shipped to Bagram have no right to contest the legitimacy of their detention in a US federal court, because Boumediene does not apply to prisons located within war zones (such as Afghanistan).

So congratulations to the UnitedStates & BarackObama for winning the power to abduct people anywhere in the world & then imprison them for as long as they want with no judicial review of any kind. When the Boumediene decision was issued in the middle of the 2008 presidential campaign, JohnMcCain called it "one of the worst decisions in the history of this country." But Obama hailed it as "a rejection of the BushAdministration's attempt to create a legal black hole at Guantanamo," & he praised the Court for "rejecting a false choice between fighting terrorism & respecting habeas corpus."

KEEP READING
About Guantánamo Bay
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Closing Guantanamo Bay Fades As A Priority

Immediately following Boumediene, the BushAdministration argued that the decision was inapplicable to detainees at Bagram -- including even those detained outside of Afghanistan but then flown to Afghanistan to be imprisoned. Amazingly, the Bush DOJ -- in a lawsuit brought by Bagram detainees seeking habeas review of their detention -- contended that if they abduct someone & ship them to Guantanamo, then that person (under Boumediene) has the right to a habeas hearing, but if they instead ship them to Bagram, then the detainee has no rights of any kind. In other words, the detainee's Constitutional rights depends on where the Government decides to drop them off to be encaged. One of the first acts undertaken by the Obama DOJ that actually shocked civil libertarians was when, last February, as TheNewYorkTimes put it, Obama lawyers "told a federal judge that military detainees in Afghanistan have no legal right to challenge their imprisonment there, embracing a key argument of former PresidentBush’s legal team."

But last April, JohnBates, the Bush-43-appointed, rightwing judge overseeing the case, rejected the Bush/Obama position and held that Boumediene applies to detainees picked up outside of Afghanistan & then shipped to Bagram.

JudgeBates explained that the Bagram detainees are "virtually identical to the detainees in Boumediene," & that the Constitutional issue was exactly the same: namely, "the concern that the President could move detainees physically beyond the reach of the Constitution and detain them indefinitely."

KEEP READING
About Guantánamo Bay
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Closing Guantanamo Bay Fades As A Priority

Consider that with this, Virginia Jeff:

==Obama wins the right to detain people with no habeas review

Few issues highlight Barack Obama's extreme hypocrisy the way that Bagram does. One of George Bush’s most extreme policies was abducting people from all over the world -- far away from any battlefield -- & then detaining them at Guantanamo with no legal rights of any kind, not even the most minimal right to a habeas review in a federal court. Back in the day, this was called "Bush's legal black hole." In 2006, Congress codified that policy by enacting the MilitaryCommissionsAct, but in 2008, the SupremeCourt, in BoumedieneVsBush, ruled that provision unconstitutional, holding that the Constitution grants habeas corpus rights even to foreign nationals held at Guantanamo. Since then, detainees have won 35 out of 48 habeas hearings brought pursuant to Boumediene, on the ground that there was insufficient evidence to justify their detention.

KEEP READING
About Guantánamo Bay
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Closing Guantanamo Bay Fades As A Priority

But even to Senator Carl Levin, the real reason Guantanamo won't close:

=="There's a lot of inertia" against closing the prison, "& the administration is not putting a lot of energy behind their position that I can see," said SenatorCarlLevin, the MichiganDemocratic chairman of the SenateArmedServicesCommittee . . . . .

Levin portrayed the administration as unwilling to make a serious effort to exert its influence, contrasting its muted response to legislative hurdles to closing Guantánamo with "very vocal" threats to veto financing for a fighter jet engine it opposes.

Last year, for example, the administration stood aside as lawmakers restricted the transfer of detainees into the UnitedStates except for prosecution. And its response was silence several weeks ago, Levin said, as the House & Senate ArmedServicesCommittees voted to block money for renovating the Illinois prison to accommodate detainees, & to restrict transfers from Guantánamo to other countries -- including, in the Senate version, a bar on Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan & Somalia. About 130 of the 181 detainees are from those countries.

"They are not really putting their shoulder to the wheel on this issue," Levin said of WhiteHouse officials. "It's pretty dormant in terms of their public positions."==

That's at the heart of the critique of the ObamaAdministration which defenders refuse to address, opting instead to beat the same strawman over & over no matter how many times it's pointed out what they're doing.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/06/26/guantanamo/index.html
About Guantánamo Bay
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Closing Guantanamo Bay Fades As A Priority

The primary reason why Congress has acted to impede the closing of Guantanamo is because the Obama has allowed it to, & even encouraged it to do so with his complete silence & inaction. Those who argue that it's not Obama's fault because he can't control Congress, the reality is that Congress is doing what it does because the WhiteHouse is content with or even supportive of that, while pretending in public to lament it. Numerous examples of that truth - http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/06/22/impotence/index.html.

KEEP READING -
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Closing Guantanamo Bay Fades As A Priority

But even if it required legislation, Obama & Democrats would love for their supporters to believe it's all the Republicans' fault.

The fact of the matter is that Democrats don't need Republicans for passing anything. Democrats enjoy a greater majority in both houses of Congress than either party has in decades. Even without 60. But Obama doesn't need 60 to pass legislation. He doesn't need Republicans to pass legislation.

All Democrats need: 50 + Biden

But they won't do that.

Democrats also won't exercise the discretion that Rule 22 allows: Making Republicans actually filibuster, instead of just threatening to do it.

Rule 22 gives the Senate Majority Leader the discretion to actually make the call. Filibustering is hard on those soft, pampered bodies. HarryReid should them do it, over every issue where they threaten to do it -- Americans love reality TV. 'Survivor - Washington, DC'.

But Obama & the DLC-controlled Democratic Party aren't doing that. Because it might actually work to get Democratic voters' legislative agenda made into the law of the land & do good for the People. And that's not what Obama&Company are there for. They are there to do the work of the transnational corporations, and preventing that are the liberals.

So Obama reaches out for Republicans, watering down the legislation that they won't vote for. Because everything that the parties do, both parties, is for the next election campaign.

Democrats could even change the supermajority rule, do it by SIMPLE majority (50 + 1)
About Guantánamo Bay
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Closing Guantanamo Bay Fades As A Priority

Few issues highlight Barack Obama's extreme hypocrisy the way that Bagram does. One of Bush’s most extreme policies was abducting people from all over the world -- far away from any battlefield -- & then detaining them at Guantanamo with no legal rights of any kind, not even the most minimal right to a habeas review in a federal court.

The Bush DOJ -- in a lawsuit brought by Bagram detainees seeking habeas review of their detention -- contended that if they abduct someone & ship them to Guantanamo, then that person has the right to a habeas hearing, but if they instead ship them to Bagram, then the detainee has no rights of any kind. In other words, the detainee's Constitutional rights depends on where the Government decides to drop them off to be encaged.

One of the first acts undertaken by the Obama DOJ that actually shocked civil libertarians was when Obama lawyers told a federal judge that military detainees in Afghanistan have no legal right to challenge their imprisonment there, embracing a key argument of Bush’s legal team.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/05/21/bagram/index.html
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Closing Guantanamo Bay Fades As A Priority

Obama has a nasty habit of conceding that which isn't his to concede. Obama cuts secret deals, out of oversight of the American people (Congress). I've yet to find one issue on which Obama shares the values or beliefs of Democratic voters' interest groups. Not environmentally, not on foreign policy, not domestically, not on healthcare, jobs, nothing -- Obama is a DINO. So for him to be negotiating on behalf of all of these different interest groups is something of a stacked deck. It would be like you playing against yourself in a game of checkers. That's not how fair negotiations take place, or how lasting contracts that all can and do abide by happen.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Closing Guantanamo Bay Fades As A Priority

"If you're someone who believes, or are at least willing to acquiesce to the claim, that the U.S. President has the power to target your fellow citizens for a$$assination without a whiff of due process, what unchecked presidential powers wouldn't you support or acquiesce to? I'd really like to hear an answer to that. That's the question Al G0re asked about GeorgeBush in a 2006 speech condemning Bush's claimed powers merely to eavesdrop on and imprison American citizens without charges, let alone a$$assinate them: "If the answer is yes, then under the theory by which these acts are committed, are there any acts that can on their face be prohibited? . . . If the president has th[is] inherent authority. . . . then what can't he do?" Can anyone defending this Obama policy answer that question?"

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/06/25/assassinations/index.html
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Closing Guantanamo Bay Fades As A Priority

"If you're someone who believes, or are at least willing to acquiesce to the claim, that the U.S. President has the power to target your fellow citizens for assassination without a whiff of due process, what unchecked presidential powers wouldn't you support or acquiesce to? I'd really like to hear an answer to that. That's the question Al Gore asked about George Bush in a 2006 speech condemning Bush's claimed powers merely to eavesdrop on and imprison American citizens without charges, let alone assassinate them: "If the answer is yes, then under the theory by which these acts are committed, are there any acts that can on their face be prohibited? . . . If the president has th[is] inherent authority. . . . then what can't he do?" Can anyone defending this Obama policy answer that question?"

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/06/25/assassinations/index.html
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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