Talk About Torture

The notion that there will be so much love and reconciliation in Washington (as evidenced by the Lieberman vote recently, and other nauseating trends) that nothing will be done to address the criminal activities of the Bush administration makes me ill.

Glenn Greenwald cuts through the bullshit:

All of this underscores a crucial fact: a major reason why the Bush administration was able to break numerous laws in general, and subject detainees to illegal torture specifically, is because the media immediately mimicked the Orwellian methods adopted by the administration to speak about and obfuscate these matters. Objective propositions that were never in dispute and cannot be reasonably disputed were denied by the Bush administration, and -- for that reason alone (one side says it's true) -- the media immediately depicted these objective facts as subject to reasonable dispute.

Hence: "war crimes" were transformed into "policy disputes" between hawkish defenders of the country and shrill, soft-on-terror liberals. "Torture" became "enhanced interrogation techniques which critics call torture." And, most of all, flagrant lawbreaking -- doing X when the law says: "X is a felony" -- became acting "pursuant to robust theories of executive power" or "expansive interpretations of statutes and treaties" or, at worst, "in circumvention of legal frameworks."

* * * * *

All of that is what has created the warped Beltway consensus that Bush officials who broke the law, committed war crimes and other felonies, should be absolutely immunized from the consequences of their crimes. That's because when government officials commit "crimes," they're not actually crimes -- they're mere "policy disputes among people in good faith." Only "incendiary" liberals believe that government officials who break the law should be subject to accusations as shrill and extreme as: "they committed crimes."

A further interesting point is this one, made by Jonathan Turley on the Rachel Maddow show. Turley points out that the Bush administrations murmurs that pardons are unnecessary because the Justice Department torture memos sufficiently cover anyone who then participated in such actions from legal liability in fact calls the Democrats bluff on this issue:

TURLEY: What the administration is doing is they know that the people that want him to pardon our torture program is primarily the Democrats, not the Republicans. The Democratic leadership would love to have a pardon so they could go to their supporters and say, “Look, there’s really nothing we could do.”
Well, the Bush administration is calling their bluff. They know that the Democratic leadership will not allow criminal investigations or indictments.

I think this is about accurate. Those in power are predisposed to aid one another when it comes to questions of legality and liability. In this case, it is pathetic that the alleged beacon of democracy is less inclined then a third world country recently out from under the boot of brutal dictatorship to prosecute its own leaders for actions that are clearly, without question, war crimes.

Intelligible

It is mind blowing that I find it such an enormous relief that the new president is intelligent, articulate, curious and answers questions directly. The fact that he understands the questions asked instead of responding to an unasked query with a non sequitur talking point is also noted.

Pretty sad commentary on the current resident that these qualities come across as extraordinary in the leader of our country, rather than a prerequisite for the job.

Watch the Obama 60 Minutes interview:


Watch CBS Videos Online

Creative Destruction?

Whiskey.

Tango.

Foxtrot.

Read this now.

The guy writing it makes some of the players out to be more heroic than they really are. Shorting a market you find reprehensible is full participation in reprehensible activity.

Still, a fascinating peek into what happened. This also explains some of what these financial instruments actually are. Which is a terrifying realization.

Regulation cannot come too soon, but I suspect nothing will actually happen.

How Soon They Forget

Epic fail on the part of CNN last night. Threatening us all with the "one party rule" cudgel, they fail to name the last president who had control of both house of Congress.

Campbell Brown: For those people who have been worried about the possibility of one party controlling Congress and the White House, the last president to do that, of course, was....?

John King: Ah, that was Bill Clinton, and...

Brown: Jimmy Carter! Jimmy Carter had... Bill Clinton had Democrats in the House and in the Senate?

King: Very briefly.

Brown: Very briefly. [Crinkles her nose] Didn't go so well.

King: No it didn't.

Hint: he is still in office for a few more weeks.

Fucking idiots. Watch them run as hard as they can from an eight year legacy of sucking up to the Bush administration. Gotta coddle your only source of fucking news...

Keeping Track

Cool widget that will allow you to follow the results as they come in.

Fired up, Ready To Go!

Great video of Barack Obama speaking in Manasass, VA last night.

Back

Just got back.

Mostly old folks at our polling place. About a ten minute wait - no biggie at all. Rachel waited for almost 30 minutes early this morning.

Heard lots of people saying that it was busier than they could remember ever seeing it - and the election volunteers, some of whom have been doing this a long time said they had more turnout already today at this polling place than in all of 2004. When you consider there was a gay marriage ban amendment on the ballot then, plus the fact that it is just after 2pm here, that is pretty amazing.

Off To Vote

It is a beautiful day here in Green Country - 74 degrees, sunny, with a good 25mph wind. My polling place is a church at the end of my street (about 5 blocks away), and since Rachel voted early this morning and has late meetings tonight, Rufus and I will be walking through the sunshine and drifts of leaves to cast my vote. Despite the fact this is some of the reddest territory in the US and my votes will have little to no impact at all on outcomes, I'm happy to cast them anyway. My way of making sure the door hits those bastards in the behind on the way out.

And, while Barack Obama is not my ideal candidate in purely political terms, he is closer than anything we have had at the national level in a very long time. Add in an ability to think clearly and make rational arguments (even for policies I may ultimately disagree with) and an obvious curiosity about the world around him, and you have the makings of what hopefully will be a very good president. Unlike 2004, I cast this vote as an affirmative act, not a purely defensive one.

Y'all have a great day.

Polling addendum

A lot of seizures lately, so my brain is mostly mush. The post below reads like mush. No apologies from me - seizures are part of my milieu, and the brain bruising they cause (and the short circuiting of my already minimal English language skills) is part of this life of mine.

I also forgot to mention that I am shit eating grin happy to vote tomorrow, because the end is nigh for the thugs and criminals who looted the national treasury on behalf of their friends, set environmental policy back 20 years, started two wars on a foundation of intentional lies while ratcheting up the powers of the national security state. So even though my vote will not count but for the local issues questions on my ballot, I am casting it joyfully as my way of saying "fuck you assholes" and seeing them out the door.

Though too far short of impeachment and war crimes trials, I'll take it.

Polling

According to the National Weather Service it is 79 degrees here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, hardly a fall day despite the leaves blanketing lawns up and down my street, which means it doesn't feel much like voting season to me. Yet tomorrow I go to the polls to register my votes for president, senator, congressperson and a few local races and issues. Though I live in the heart of red country (it still makes me chuckle, in this season where Barack Obama is routinely, and wrongly labeled a socialist that the color most often associated with that political persuasion is identical to that color used to code the most conservative states) and my vote will not in any way affect the outcome of the presidential race, I am still very much looking forward to casting my vote tomorrow anyway. Oklahoma may well turn out to have the widest margin of victory for John McCain, but in my own head I am adding my voice to millions of others in saying "enough" to those who have run this country into banana republic territory.

Similarly, the Senate race here is rather pathetic. This is the home of James Inhofe, one of the more rabid right wingnuts to ever occupy a seat in the US Senate. The last polls I could find indicate he is leading Andrew Rice anywhere from 16-22 points, so my vote there will also make no difference, but I'll happily cast it anyway. As for the 1st district, it seems John Sullivan will win re-election rather easily. Again, I'll happily cast a vote against him, even if it seems futile.

I've only been surprised by two things this election season. The first is one I am happy to have been wrong about. Very early on, in conversations with friends, I was asked if Obama could win the Democratic nomination, and if so, the presidency. I said "no", and emphatically on both counts. My reasoning is simple, and now utterly discredited. I felt Clinton had the money, the name recognition, and the organization to handily take the nomination. I also felt that there are plenty of very conservative democrats out there who would find voting for a black man difficult, if impossible to do. I presumed, wrongly, that people would get into the polling booth and say "hell, no, I'm not voting for a black man".

And I am deliriously happy to have been proved a dunderhead about this. Nevertheless, that same reasoning was part of my calculation should Obama manage to swing the nomination. In a general election against McCain, a man many Democrats have come to admire and consider a middle of the road, bipartisan kind of guy (which he certainly is not), those same conservative democrats would be peeled away to vote Republican, and it could comfortably not be about race at all, but rather a better fit with an alleged Republican reformer. Those who did find race to be a show stopper could talk themselves into McCain by buying into the centrist talk.

Again, it would seem, I am going to be wrong as all hell. and again, I am overjoyed that is the case. I am still not sure what any of this proves when it comes to politics and race, given the incredible blunders of the McCain campaign since the general election got underway, but it has altered the extent and depth of my cynicism about America.

The second surprise relates to the rather nasty campaign McCain has run. I fully expected there to be plenty of surrogates to bring back the ghosts of Ayers and Wright, and the inevitable "surrender to terrorists" meme that was so popular in 2004. And those things all materialized, right on cue. The distinction this time that turns this sort of standard issue Republican ugliness into something extraordinary was the extent to which these attacks came directly from the mouths of the Republican candidates for president and vice president. I admit to a bit of shock at how easily McCain and Palin both fell into a comfortable groove with the "palling around with terrorists" charge, the casual pronouncements about the lack of patriotism on the part of Obama, the rabid zeal with which they both attempted to paint the Democratic nominee as not only unfit for office but potentially treasonous. It was pretty revolting and I really was surprised that so much of it originated with the candidates themselves, and not the usual semi-anonymous surrogates, which would at least allow the pretense of disassociation.

So I've been completely wrong about how this campaign would turn out, and I am content to be so. I still have very serious problems with the Democratic party and its behavior in the Bush years. And to those lefties who feel Obama is going to be some sort of hard charging progressive liberal, all I can say is, get right with what he really is, politically, or those of you who remember 1992 will experience all over again that sense of betrayal when it turned out Clinton was not a real friend of the left, but a corporatist centrist. Obama, who is intelligent, thoughtful, and quick on his feet is the far better choice in this election, and I cast my vote for him unequivocally. I do so, however, in recognition that he is very much a Democratic centrist, and not a committed progressive liberal.