First let me say that we want Eric Holder confirmed as Attorney General. We want him confirmed because of statements like this...
Washington, D.C. -- Eric H. Holder Jr., Deputy Attorney General during the Clinton administration, asserted in a speech to the American Constitution Society (ACS) that the United States must reverse "the disastrous course" set by the Bush administration in the struggle against terrorism by closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, declaring without qualification that the U.S. does not torture people, ending the practice of transferring individuals involuntarily to countries that engage in torture and ceasing warrantless domestic surveillance.
"Our needlessly abusive and unlawful practices in the 'War on Terror' have diminished our standing in the world community and made us less, rather than more, safe," Holder told a packed room at the ACS 2008 Convention on Friday evening. "For the sake of our safety and security, and because it is the right thing to do, the next president must move immediately to reclaim America's standing in the world as a nation that cherishes and protects individual freedom and basic human rights."
We want the man who said those words to be our next Attorney General. Because in truth and in a logical world the best way, perhaps the only way, to "reclaim America's standing in the world as a nation that cherishes and protects individual freedom and basic human rights".....is to investigate and then prosecute those who have criminally destroyed that standing. They destroyed it by using torture.
Don't expect me to or even ask me to tell you why you should sign the petition.
You already know why you should sign the petition. You don't need me or anyone else to tell you why you should sign the petition.
Click the Badge to read and sign the Formal Petition to Attorney General-Designate Eric Holder to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute any and all government officials who have participated in War Crimes.
Click "Get Badge" to get the html code and post the badge on your blog or website so other people can find and sign the petition too.
There is no more debate on these matters. The only people who want to continue debating these matters are war criminals who want to be let off the hook and supporters of letting war criminals off the hook.
Signing the petition drafted by budhydharma and Docudharma is not in defiance of our President-Elect Obama, but rather a sign of support for the difficult times that he and Holder will face when performing their clear constitutional duties.
As President, Obama will have the constitutional duty to faithfully execute our laws.
The constitutional oath of office will require President Obama to faithfully execute the office of President and preserve, protect and defend our Constitution. Our constitution also requires that our presidents "shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed." The principle of the rule of law is partially based on this Faithfully Execute clause which requires our President to comply with laws, our Constitution and treaties because our Constitution established a government of laws, not of men and women.
The Geneva Convention is one of the laws which must be faithfully executed.
Our constitution mandates that treaties are one of the laws that the President must faithfully execute. Moreover, treaties are recognized as one of our supreme laws of the land alongside our Constitution and federal laws. For over 200 years, the federal courts have reaffirmed that our President is bound by the laws of war, which include conventions. In fact, both Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004) and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006)addressed issues of whether the US government was violating the terms of the 1949 Geneva Convention. Yet, some will whine that it is partisan to not exempt Bush from 200 years of precedent that governed presidents from both parties.
The Geneva Convention imposes a duty to prosecute former presidents who committed war crimes.
You already have your own reasons why you should sign the petition.
All the reasons that built up, piled one on top of the other for that past eight years as these criminals hijacked the country, dismantled the constitution and the rule of law, made their criminal friends fabulously wealthy, were directly responsible for the deaths of more than a million Iraqis in an illegal and immoral invasion and occupation, destroyed the global economy, wrecked America's reputation around the world, and called you a traitor when you cried foul and set up schemes to spy on you and intimidate you into silence.
And tortured people in your name. Tortured people. In your name. Tortured people with the blackest, most heinous and most evil torture methods known to humanity. Tortured people with methods that America has pressed war criminal charges against other countries citizens for using. Tortured people with the most sadistic and evil methods the Spanish Inquisition and more recently the Khmer Rouge made a regular habit of using as an oppression tool. Tortured people with methods that have been universally condemned and outlawed by virtually every country and society on earth.
You already know. You already know all of your own reasons why you should sign the petition.
Twice this week two major media outlets proved themselves mistaken on the Employee Free Choice Act - let's take a look at CNN and USA Today's misrepresentations of this important bill. For those not in the know, the Employee Free Choice Act is a bill supported by virtually every Democrat and some Republicans; it would remove barriers for people who want to join unions at work by embracing the democratic principle of "majority sign-up."
In a blog post and brief TV segment this week, CNN published a "fact check" on a line in John McCain's new stump speech in which he claims Barack Obama wants to "take away your right to vote by secret ballot in labor elections." CNN's "fact check" says that McCain's claim is true. Except they're just as wrong as McCain.
It's halfway through the show and I just checked my RSS feed; no new posts! Why? I can only guess it's because everybody who posts on the political blogs I subscribe to is also watching the Rachel Maddow show instead of posting on their blogs.
So what do y'all think? So far I find it pleasant to get analysis from somebody whose point of view is more like mine, but it's mostly a pleasure driven by simple fellow-feeling. The news value isn't that high--because the information she's providing is a rehash of things I saw on my RSS feed. No surprise there, I guess.
It seems to me the big potential benefit of her show is that it can serve as a conduit for getting "left wing" (i.e., reality-based) discourse out into the MSM newsstream. I think if Rachel can make that happen, she will be doing her nation a great service.
Senate Republicans today blocked a proposal to eliminate tax breaks for the nation's biggest oil companies and tax their windfall profits, rejecting Democratic claims that the measure would help ease consumer anger over $4-a-gallon gasoline.
. . .
The Senate fell nine votes short of the 60 votes required to proceed to debate on the measure, which would have wiped out $17 billion in tax breaks over 10 years and created a new levy on "unreasonable" profits collected by the five largest U.S. oil companies.
The Post didn't use the word "filibuster" once. Not once. Why not?
Thanks for your continuing commitment to quality reporting.
I'm curious why the word "filibuster" does not appear in your article "Senate GOP Blocks Oil Tax Proposal," at least as of 3:24 this afternoon. The Republicans hung that word around Democrats' necks for years, but I haven't seen it much during this session.
Quite graciously, Mr. Mufson replied:
Fair question. We've debated this too.
I think that if the Democratic leadership actually forced Republicans to filibuster by talking endlessly on the floor we would use the term more often. What happens lately is that Republicans stop cloture motions and the bills are withdrawn without any long drawn out affair one usually associates with the word filibuster.
Regards,
Steve Mufson
That shocked me, but I can understand where the reporters are coming from. But that begs the question, what the heck are the Democrats doing? Why aren't they keeping the floor? Where is Reid in all of this, and why isn't he pushing the Republicans against the wall? If we want to get to 60 in the Senate this November, it wouldn't hurt Democratic challengers to have some extra mettle when they call the Republicans "obstructionist."
Where the heck is the leadership in the Senate?
And if they can't get it right now, how are they going to get it right when we have the trifecta?
One of the most consistent themes on the internet is the liberal critique of the national press corps (the "MSM"). Supported with the works of people like Eric Alterman, liberals argue that the political press at best superficial and at worst the willing dupes (active supporters?) of Rovian hitjobs on Democratic candidates. Glenn Greenwald and Digby have spoken with particular force on this issue, but they by no means are alone. Last night's travesty of a presidential debate is probably the best example of what liberals are so upset about. It's becoming increasingly clear that either the entire political discussion is debased, or there is a systematic bias against Democratic candidates, or both. Probably both.
But having accepted our unfortunate situation - that the mainstream media has become fundamentally corrupted, that it is not only not doing its job but doing the opposite of its job - it remains unclear what we are supposed to do to rectify the situation.
Having just spent five days in the disaster that is Florida real estate, it makes me wonder: Is it possible that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were the root cause of declining home values? Is it possible that subprime loans and speculative building/buying were no more than tools, the equivalent of hijacked airliners?
If so, the eventual economic cost of those attacks may run in the trillions of dollars. It may also help us find the unity to gird our country against the biggest threat since World War II.
Hmmmm. Who gets the political advantage from this story?
h/t Cunning Realist, who writes, "Get back to me when we find minutes of Federal Reserve meetings and manuals on adjustable-rate mortgages buried in a Tora Bora cave."
With votes finally about to be cast for the 2008 presidential primaries, we can all breathe a sigh of relief that the end of this silliest of seasons is within sight. But before a single vote is tallied, let me make this simple observation: The MAN is going to win. The MAN always wins, and until something earth-shattering happens in American politics, the MAN will always win. Call it the Law of MAN.
Who da MAN? Well this year, that's Hillary Clinton and John McCain, of course. You see, the MAN is the Media's Anointed Nominee.
Two, three, and sometimes even four years before a given presidential election, Washington D.C.'s intelligensia and punditocracy proclaim who the next nominee for each party will be. Because many of these very serious people have a strong voice or influence in the mainstream media, the meme gets repeated throughout the country and a MAN for each party is determined well before anyone throws their hat into the ring. That's what I mean by the Media's Anointed Nominee.
As the media did their best Tuesday to ignore Dennis Kucinich's push to bring the impeachment of Dick Cheney to a vote (CNN didn't even have a story accesible on their website), they opted to go on the offensive yesterday, by attempting to frame it as a marginal and pointless position. As Dave Lindorff wrote:
(To quote Nelson Muntz, "Ha-ha!" - promoted by Chris Bowers)
I'd like to direct your attention to a poll from Oklahoma published at SurveyUSA (possibly elsewhere, too). On a scale of 1-10, where 1 is a habitual liar and 10 is Lincolnesque, the President and members of Congress are not doing too well. But I'd like to take a close up view of the last two questions where they ask respondents their opinions of the MSM and bloggers.
Score
MSM
Bloggers
1
13%
12%
2
11%
8%
3
7%
9%
4
9%
7%
5
24%
25%
6
5%
5%
7
8%
2%
8
9%
2%
9
4%
3%
10
5%
2%
Not Sure
5%
24%
At first blush, it looks like bloggers are lagging behind. Certainly, at the higher end of the scale, bloggers get significantly lower scores. But I think you have to take two things into consideration.
The first is that the percentage of people who aren't sure if they trust bloggers is almost five times as high as those who say they aren't sure if they can trust the MSM. The second thing is that the percentage of people picking the (*perceived) middle choice of 5 is slightly higher for bloggers, but not significantly so. But that position is basically a reflexive pick - it indicates (most likely) that the person is either highly conflicted or that they have no position but don't want to say so. And both instances can be controlled for.
I'm finding the meta-analysis of media failures in the netroots to be lacking in something. We do an excellent job of focusing on the particularly delinquent and malfeasant prominent media repeat offenders like Broder, Brooks, Dowd or Fox News. We have excellent media critics like Digby, Glenn Greenwald and of course Media Matters who are able to incisively tear apart flawed journalism and note the broader storylines the media are adhering to without evidence. But we're not thinking enough at the systemic level of how the media is organized, and how that system itself is contributing to the negative results we see. After all, if we replace the current occupants of Versailles on the Potomac, how will we prevent their replacements from being just as bad eventually? Joe Klein must have been a sincere and well meaning liberal at some point.
Here I will attempt to apply game theory to the media, in hopes of finding a better understanding for how it all went so wrong, and continues to do so.
There is no more debate on these matters. The only people who want to continue debating these matters are war criminals who want to be let off the hook and supporters of letting war criminals off the hook.
