Trayvon Martin was a 17-year-old black teenager who was shot to death by a reputed Neighborhood Watch captain named George Zimmerman. The shooting, which happened about a month ago, has now reached the stage of "Blame the Victim." Trayvon's mother has said that her son's life has been destroyed and now the attempt is being made to destroy his reputation. About the only thing of any substance that has been brought out is that traces of marijuana were found in his backpack in school but that holds no relevance to a claim that Trayvon Martin may have attacked George Zimmerman. Very recently, the charge has been made that Trayvon swung at a bus driver. That charge seems to rest entirely on an email from a cousin who is apparently responding to an email from Trayvon in which he may have said something about taking a swing at a bus driver. There is apparently no report of such an incident by a bus driver, nor is there any police report. Trayvon and his cousin may have been acting out a psychodrama of no real substance.
The other attempt to blacken the image of Trayvon Martin and justify the shooting is the circulation of a picture of a black teenager in baggy pants, "showing the finger." The circulated picture has been identified as that of another teenager. The only aspect of Trayvon Martin's history that might be relevant to the shooting is if he had a record of violence against others and thus may have initiated a physical conflict with Zimmerman. No such record has surfaced.
The story surfacing in the past week or so is that Trayvon Martin jumped George Zimmerman from the back, toppled him and repeatedly drove his face into the pavement, breaking his nose and bloodying his face. Allegedly, Trayvon attempted to get Zimmerman's gun.
The story raises some questions. I don't recall an initial report of a bloody-faced Zimmerman with a broken nose.* Does Zimmerman have a broken nose? Does his face show signs of bruising? Two eyewitnesses who saw and heard the shooting, went outside and saw George Zimmerman with his hands on the back of the prone Trayvon Martin. One of the eyewitnesses said they were within about 10 feet of Trayvon. Neither one noticed anything unusual about Zimmerman's face but one eyewitness said it was getting dark and the lighting was not good.
It is hard to believe that George Zimmerman would have allowed Trayvon Martin to get the jump on him. Zimmerman said in his call to the police that the guy he had observed seemed to be "up to no good." One probably would not totally turn his/her back on someone who was "up to no good." without turning the head around to make sure that this potentially dangerous person did not attack from the back. Even if Zimmerman was attacked and then somehow got the upper hand, was it still necessary to shoot to kill his attacker? He had his gun out and Trayvon Martin was unarmed. With the huge advantage George Zimmerman had, would the teenager have still presented such a threat to him that it was necessary to shoot to kill?
Racial stereotyping entered this tragic story when Geraldo Rivera raised the issue of Trayvon wearing a hoodie and the hoodie made him appear to be more dangerous: to many people a hoodie conveys an image of black teenagers filled with menacing violence. A number of years ago, fear was inflamed by reports of a new generation of super-predator young people posing a threat of violence to communities across the nation.
So, besides the racial element, why might there be such a major effort being made to blame Trayvon Martin for initiating his own death and exonerating his killer? A motivation that comes to mind is the fear that "Stand Your Ground" laws might be overturned because of the Martin case. The National Rifle Association was a major driving force behind the Florida law and other similar laws in other states; therefore, the more it can promote the idea that the use of a firearm is a legitimate way to end what is perceived as a potentially dangerous situation, the better it will be for gun sales. Fear is a great generator of gun sales and if people feel not only feel safer carrying a gun, but also rationalize that they can successfully claim self-defense if they falsely perceive a threat to them, they will be more inclined to arm themselves.
I have heard that the number of claimed self-defense shootings has tripled since "Stand Your Ground" was enacted but have not seen any law enforcement statistics. It would seem that making it easier to claim self-dense in a fatal shooting imposes a big burden on a prosecutor when someone is able to make an intended killing look like self-defense.
In regard to the Sanford Police Department, standard police procedure is to interview everyone who may have seen or heard anything in a case of apparent murder. The Sanford police did not interview the many people who apparently had visual or auditory information about the interaction between Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman, nor did they do a toxicology test on Zimmerman, although they did one on Martin.
It is a part of the deteriorated state of U.S. society that when firearms are such a major component of the high level of violence in the nation that we should be promoting the greater availability of firearms.
* It has been mystifying to me why there were no local police reports of taking into custody a badly bruised and battered George Zimmerman. And if Zimmerman was in such bad shape because of assault by Trayvon Martin, why didn't the media pick up on that condition weeks ago? Is this a case of major media malfeasance?
I raised questions earlier in this blog about whether or not George Zimmerman has a broken nose and does his face show signs of bruising. Now it appears I have my answer. On this morning's 5 a.m. (Mountain time) CNN newscast, the report was that police videos don't show any apparent damage to George Zimmerman's face, including the nose. The same newscast said that a New York Police Department person -- I assume for credibility reasons it was a person with medical credentials -- had carefully examined photos of Zimmerman taken after he was taken into custody. The examiner could find no abrasions or contusions on the face.
The 6 a.m. CNN newscast said that ABC News has published pictures of George Zimmerman getting out of a police cruiser at the police station. There is no visible damage to the face and no discoloration of his clothing indicating the presence of blood.
CNN newscasts also reported this morning that George Zimmerman's father is alleging that Trayvon Martin launched a vicious attack on his son and threatened to kill him. The threat to kill claim could only have come from George Zimmerman and cannot be corroborated.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Future Nuclear Weapons Spending Contradicts Obama's World View
During the Asian summit meeting ending today, one of the subjects was how to secure loose nuclear materials. Although securing such materials is a very laudable undertaking, it will not take us to the nuclear weapons-free world that President Obama envisioned in a Middle East speech early in his presidency. I am indebted to the Peace Action New York State's fact sheets on nuclear weapons spending to show how far we are diverging from the vision that Obama presented.
CMRR
The Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement (CMRR) Project at Los Alamos National Laboratory is designed to replace the existing CMR building, which is designed to perform technical analyses on materials, particularly the plutonium used in U.S. nuclear weapons. President Obama zeroed it out of the FY 2013 budget.
CMRR will not help with warhead maintenance: seven of the eight warhead types in the stockpile are in or will soon undergo major Life Extension Programs (LEPs).
Not building the CMRR nuclear facility could save $3-5 billion. Not expanding pit production could save tens of billions more over the long term. Pits are the triggers to ignite the plutonium in a nuclear bomb.
The Project will not create any new jobs, because employees will be shifted over from the old facility.
MOX Fuel
The Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MOX plant) was originally designed to reduce quantities of excess U.S. and Russian weapons-grade plutonium. The centerpiece is the Savannah River site near Aiken, South Carolina.
The Department of Energy has stated that the current projected life-cycle costs of the program have increased to $7.1 billion.
There is currently no U.S. customer for MOX fuel. MOX increases proliferation dangers and is a more expensive option for disposing of plutonium than dry cask storage. The Global Threat Reduction Initiative is a more effective non-proliferation program.
LRPB
The U.S. currently has a fleet of nuclear-capable strategic bombers that will last well into the 2030s. Delaying the Long Range Penetrating Bomber (LRPB) for ten years would save at least $3.7 billion in research and development costs.Canceling it would save $50 billion in procurement costs alone. The five-year cost is $6.3 billion. The LRPB was not in the 2012 Aircraft Procurement Plan projecting ten years ahead. Its mission would be dropping nuclear gravity bombs.
There are now 76 B-52 Hs and 18 B-2s.Through 2016 the plan is to spend an additional $1.1 billion for the B-52s and $2.9 billion for the B-2s, and eventually purchase 80-100 LRPBs. $30 billion in procurement costs could be saved if the 30-year LRPB program was canceled.
SSBNCX
The Navy's nuclear-capable ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) fleet is currently comprised of 14 Ohio class submarines, of which 12 are operational and two are in refueling overhaul at any given time. The Ohio class submarines will be retired between 2027 and 2040.
The Navy has plans to build 12 new nuclear-capable submarines (SSBNCX) over the next 30 years as replacements. They are intended to be operational through 2070. There is $565 million in the FY2013 budget for the SSBNCX. According to the Ploughshares Fund, cutting procurement to eight subs would save $27 billion over ten years, or $123 billion over the 50-year life of the program. The SSBNCX will cost $347 billion over its lifetime.
Eight subs of the Ohio class can carry 192 Trident II D-5 missiles with 1,536 warheads; and eight of the new subs, with 16 tubes, could carry 128 missiles with 1,024 warheads.
The SSBNCX and the other future nuclear weapons spending contradicts President Obama's pledge to work toward a nuclear weapons-free world; also, the building programs violate the provision in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which requires signatory states to work toward the elimination of nuclear weapons.
CMRR
The Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement (CMRR) Project at Los Alamos National Laboratory is designed to replace the existing CMR building, which is designed to perform technical analyses on materials, particularly the plutonium used in U.S. nuclear weapons. President Obama zeroed it out of the FY 2013 budget.
CMRR will not help with warhead maintenance: seven of the eight warhead types in the stockpile are in or will soon undergo major Life Extension Programs (LEPs).
Not building the CMRR nuclear facility could save $3-5 billion. Not expanding pit production could save tens of billions more over the long term. Pits are the triggers to ignite the plutonium in a nuclear bomb.
The Project will not create any new jobs, because employees will be shifted over from the old facility.
MOX Fuel
The Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MOX plant) was originally designed to reduce quantities of excess U.S. and Russian weapons-grade plutonium. The centerpiece is the Savannah River site near Aiken, South Carolina.
The Department of Energy has stated that the current projected life-cycle costs of the program have increased to $7.1 billion.
There is currently no U.S. customer for MOX fuel. MOX increases proliferation dangers and is a more expensive option for disposing of plutonium than dry cask storage. The Global Threat Reduction Initiative is a more effective non-proliferation program.
LRPB
The U.S. currently has a fleet of nuclear-capable strategic bombers that will last well into the 2030s. Delaying the Long Range Penetrating Bomber (LRPB) for ten years would save at least $3.7 billion in research and development costs.Canceling it would save $50 billion in procurement costs alone. The five-year cost is $6.3 billion. The LRPB was not in the 2012 Aircraft Procurement Plan projecting ten years ahead. Its mission would be dropping nuclear gravity bombs.
There are now 76 B-52 Hs and 18 B-2s.Through 2016 the plan is to spend an additional $1.1 billion for the B-52s and $2.9 billion for the B-2s, and eventually purchase 80-100 LRPBs. $30 billion in procurement costs could be saved if the 30-year LRPB program was canceled.
SSBNCX
The Navy's nuclear-capable ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) fleet is currently comprised of 14 Ohio class submarines, of which 12 are operational and two are in refueling overhaul at any given time. The Ohio class submarines will be retired between 2027 and 2040.
The Navy has plans to build 12 new nuclear-capable submarines (SSBNCX) over the next 30 years as replacements. They are intended to be operational through 2070. There is $565 million in the FY2013 budget for the SSBNCX. According to the Ploughshares Fund, cutting procurement to eight subs would save $27 billion over ten years, or $123 billion over the 50-year life of the program. The SSBNCX will cost $347 billion over its lifetime.
Eight subs of the Ohio class can carry 192 Trident II D-5 missiles with 1,536 warheads; and eight of the new subs, with 16 tubes, could carry 128 missiles with 1,024 warheads.
The SSBNCX and the other future nuclear weapons spending contradicts President Obama's pledge to work toward a nuclear weapons-free world; also, the building programs violate the provision in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which requires signatory states to work toward the elimination of nuclear weapons.
Friday, March 23, 2012
"Murder Is Legal," Says the Attorney General
The title of this blog is the one used by David Swanson, who wrote War Is a Lie and who writes frequently on peace and justice issues. I generally read Swanson in the Oregon Peaceworks newsletter. Swanson takes Attorney General Eric Holder to task for his many questionable and even hard-to-believe assertions made in his March 5 speech at the Chicago branch of the Northwestern Law School.
David Swanson begins his piece by belittling Holder's conception of war: Holder is not talking about a war that looks like a war; he is talking about a war "that is everywhere all the time."
Swanson contrasts Holder's view that military commissions have been successfully reformed with the view of the former chief prosecutor of the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay prison, who has said that the "decision to use both legal settings is a mistake. It will establish a dangerous legal double standard that gives some detainees superior rights and protections, and relegates others to the inferior rights and protections of military commissions. This will only perpetuate the perception that Guantanamo and justice are mutually exclusive."
Holder said that the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) "mandated that a narrow category of al Qaeda terrorist suspects be placed in temporary custody." Swanson counters that President Obama altered the NDAA with an unconstitutional signing statement, having the NDAA apply to the largely non-Al Qaeda prisoners held in Afghanistan.
Holder argues that because the United States is in armed conflict, it is authorized to use force against any enemy belligerents under international law. Swanson's counter-argument is that the 2001 authorization to use force resolution violated the Kellogg-Briand Pact, the UN Charter and the U.S. Constitution. He says: "No international law recognizes secret global war without limitations in time or space."
Another claim made by Eric Holder in his March 5 speech is that the United States is at war "with a stateless enemy prone to shifting operations from country to country." I would say that if this is true, there is no way to identify the enemy and our identifications of the enemy will shift over time.
Eric Holder assured his listeners that the president will only kill someone in a foreign land if that country will not kill someone for him and that constitutes "respect for another country's sovereignty," which is about as ridiculous a way of showing respect as can be imagined. Also, Holder contends that a kill order from Obama does not violate the executive order banning assassinations because Obama would only kill those who constitute an imminent threat and U.S. citizens are not immune from being targeted. In reply, David Swanson wonders who knew the "the president alone can give you due process without explaining it to anyone else." Similarly, Swanson is very skeptical of Holder's claim of "robust oversight," because "informing a handful of Congress members, and no doubt forbidding them to report what they are told, does not create Congressional oversight."
Looking overall at the specious claims made by Attorney General Eric Holder in his March 5 speech to justify the war the Obama administration is waging against Al Qaeda and "associated forces," there are ample grounds to relieve Holder of his position as soon as possible; however, there is no reason to believe that he is not representing the positions of the Obama administration.
David Swanson begins his piece by belittling Holder's conception of war: Holder is not talking about a war that looks like a war; he is talking about a war "that is everywhere all the time."
Swanson contrasts Holder's view that military commissions have been successfully reformed with the view of the former chief prosecutor of the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay prison, who has said that the "decision to use both legal settings is a mistake. It will establish a dangerous legal double standard that gives some detainees superior rights and protections, and relegates others to the inferior rights and protections of military commissions. This will only perpetuate the perception that Guantanamo and justice are mutually exclusive."
Holder said that the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) "mandated that a narrow category of al Qaeda terrorist suspects be placed in temporary custody." Swanson counters that President Obama altered the NDAA with an unconstitutional signing statement, having the NDAA apply to the largely non-Al Qaeda prisoners held in Afghanistan.
Holder argues that because the United States is in armed conflict, it is authorized to use force against any enemy belligerents under international law. Swanson's counter-argument is that the 2001 authorization to use force resolution violated the Kellogg-Briand Pact, the UN Charter and the U.S. Constitution. He says: "No international law recognizes secret global war without limitations in time or space."
Another claim made by Eric Holder in his March 5 speech is that the United States is at war "with a stateless enemy prone to shifting operations from country to country." I would say that if this is true, there is no way to identify the enemy and our identifications of the enemy will shift over time.
Eric Holder assured his listeners that the president will only kill someone in a foreign land if that country will not kill someone for him and that constitutes "respect for another country's sovereignty," which is about as ridiculous a way of showing respect as can be imagined. Also, Holder contends that a kill order from Obama does not violate the executive order banning assassinations because Obama would only kill those who constitute an imminent threat and U.S. citizens are not immune from being targeted. In reply, David Swanson wonders who knew the "the president alone can give you due process without explaining it to anyone else." Similarly, Swanson is very skeptical of Holder's claim of "robust oversight," because "informing a handful of Congress members, and no doubt forbidding them to report what they are told, does not create Congressional oversight."
Looking overall at the specious claims made by Attorney General Eric Holder in his March 5 speech to justify the war the Obama administration is waging against Al Qaeda and "associated forces," there are ample grounds to relieve Holder of his position as soon as possible; however, there is no reason to believe that he is not representing the positions of the Obama administration.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Guantanamo: With Us for the Indefinite Future
When President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), he virtually guaranteed that the Guantanamo Bay prison will be with us for the indefinite future. So the Obama campaign pledge to close Guantanamo within one year of becoming president, which looked so easy to fulfill, because Guantanamo had become such a despised chamber of horrors internationally and an acute embarrassment to the U.S. public, is now a blown opportunity.
Provisions of the NDAA include a ban on any transfer of Guantanamo detainees to a U.S. prison, even for criminal trial, and the NDAA radically restricts the president's authority to transfer detainees to foreign countries. What this means is that more than half of the remaining detainees -- 89 of 171 -- who have been fully cleared by a joint review, will remain in limbo at Guantanamo, forming a continuing witness to the mockery the U.S. has made of the rule of law.
A conspiracy theorist could make a good case that the Congress, the courts and the general public -- with an assist from a blundering president -- have joined in a conspiracy to keep Guantanamo as an ongoing black mark on American jurisprudence. The DC Circuit Court allows indefinite detention based on unreliable intelligence reports, while denying the detainees an opportunity to confront or rebut the reports. The U.S. Supreme Court has squandered the good press it got for reintroducing the rule of law to Guantanamo by declining to intervene to give real force to prior rulings. We now know how badly the Hamdi decision was written, when both sides in the Senate debate over whether U.S. citizens should be excluded from the reach of the NDAA, cited Hamdi as buttressing their respective arguments.
President Obama was earlier depicted in this blog piece as "blundering;" however, his actions in blocking all efforts at accountability for the abuses committed at Guantanamo, border or even reach the level of obstruction of justice.
The final actor in this tabloid of a de facto, though not actual conspiracy, is the general public, which 60 percent in a recent CNN poll favored keeping open, must be attributed in part to the failure of President Obama to make a compelling case either to Congress or the public why it is important to close Guantanamo and what the prison symbolized.
Provisions of the NDAA include a ban on any transfer of Guantanamo detainees to a U.S. prison, even for criminal trial, and the NDAA radically restricts the president's authority to transfer detainees to foreign countries. What this means is that more than half of the remaining detainees -- 89 of 171 -- who have been fully cleared by a joint review, will remain in limbo at Guantanamo, forming a continuing witness to the mockery the U.S. has made of the rule of law.
A conspiracy theorist could make a good case that the Congress, the courts and the general public -- with an assist from a blundering president -- have joined in a conspiracy to keep Guantanamo as an ongoing black mark on American jurisprudence. The DC Circuit Court allows indefinite detention based on unreliable intelligence reports, while denying the detainees an opportunity to confront or rebut the reports. The U.S. Supreme Court has squandered the good press it got for reintroducing the rule of law to Guantanamo by declining to intervene to give real force to prior rulings. We now know how badly the Hamdi decision was written, when both sides in the Senate debate over whether U.S. citizens should be excluded from the reach of the NDAA, cited Hamdi as buttressing their respective arguments.
President Obama was earlier depicted in this blog piece as "blundering;" however, his actions in blocking all efforts at accountability for the abuses committed at Guantanamo, border or even reach the level of obstruction of justice.
The final actor in this tabloid of a de facto, though not actual conspiracy, is the general public, which 60 percent in a recent CNN poll favored keeping open, must be attributed in part to the failure of President Obama to make a compelling case either to Congress or the public why it is important to close Guantanamo and what the prison symbolized.
Monday, March 19, 2012
Constitution-Thrashing, Don't Bank on the Bomb and an Update on Bundling
Thrashing the Constitution
President Barack Obama issued an executive order on February 28, 2012, establishing the Interagency Trade Enforcement Center. The power to regulate commerce is exclusive to Congress. The president's power to see that the "Laws be faithfully executed" does not give him the power to regulate commerce. Creating a bureau to do so is a legislative function .
Frustration with getting desired legislation through a House of Representatives controlled by the Republicans and a grid-locked Senate has induced Obama to try to use executive orders in a "We Can't Wait" campaign to achieve his ends. Much as he has tried to emulate Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush is using signing statements to restrict legislation, the danger is that Obama will play fast and loose with executive orders.
Don't Bank on the Bomb
On March 5, 2012, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) identified more than 300 banks, pension funds, insurance companies and asset managers in 30 countries with substantial investments in nuclear arms producers. The 180-page study, Don't Bank on the Bomb: The Global Financing of Nuclear Weapons Producers, provides details of financial transactions with 20 companies that are heavily involved in the manufacture, maintenance and modernization of U.S., British, French and Indian nuclear forces.
Desmond Tutu has called for financial institutions to "do the right thing and assist, rather than impede efforts to eliminate the threat of radioactive incineration."
Nuclear-armed nations spend in excess of US $100 billion each year maintaining and modernizing their nuclear forces, according to the report. Of the 322 institutions identified in the report, roughly half are based in the United States.
Obama Administration Jobs for Bundlers
Barack Obama campaigned on "the most sweeping ethics reform in history" in his presidential campaign, yet, more than half of Obama's biggest fundraisers have been appointed to administration jobs. At least 24 of Obama's bundlers* have been given posts as foreign ambassadors, including such plum postings as Finland, Australia and Portugal. In a previous blog I noted that major fundraisers have been posted to Japan, France and Britain.
The Foreign Service Act of 1980 states that "contributions to political campaigns should not be a factor in the appointment of an individual as a chief of mission." Fifty-nine of Obama's ambassadorial appointees are not Foreign Service officers -- 40 percent are bundlers. ( Source is an article titled "The Influence Industry" in the March 7, 2012 Washington Post.)
* Bundlers are fundraisers who gather together large contributions from wealthy donors.
President Barack Obama issued an executive order on February 28, 2012, establishing the Interagency Trade Enforcement Center. The power to regulate commerce is exclusive to Congress. The president's power to see that the "Laws be faithfully executed" does not give him the power to regulate commerce. Creating a bureau to do so is a legislative function .
Frustration with getting desired legislation through a House of Representatives controlled by the Republicans and a grid-locked Senate has induced Obama to try to use executive orders in a "We Can't Wait" campaign to achieve his ends. Much as he has tried to emulate Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush is using signing statements to restrict legislation, the danger is that Obama will play fast and loose with executive orders.
Don't Bank on the Bomb
On March 5, 2012, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) identified more than 300 banks, pension funds, insurance companies and asset managers in 30 countries with substantial investments in nuclear arms producers. The 180-page study, Don't Bank on the Bomb: The Global Financing of Nuclear Weapons Producers, provides details of financial transactions with 20 companies that are heavily involved in the manufacture, maintenance and modernization of U.S., British, French and Indian nuclear forces.
Desmond Tutu has called for financial institutions to "do the right thing and assist, rather than impede efforts to eliminate the threat of radioactive incineration."
Nuclear-armed nations spend in excess of US $100 billion each year maintaining and modernizing their nuclear forces, according to the report. Of the 322 institutions identified in the report, roughly half are based in the United States.
Obama Administration Jobs for Bundlers
Barack Obama campaigned on "the most sweeping ethics reform in history" in his presidential campaign, yet, more than half of Obama's biggest fundraisers have been appointed to administration jobs. At least 24 of Obama's bundlers* have been given posts as foreign ambassadors, including such plum postings as Finland, Australia and Portugal. In a previous blog I noted that major fundraisers have been posted to Japan, France and Britain.
The Foreign Service Act of 1980 states that "contributions to political campaigns should not be a factor in the appointment of an individual as a chief of mission." Fifty-nine of Obama's ambassadorial appointees are not Foreign Service officers -- 40 percent are bundlers. ( Source is an article titled "The Influence Industry" in the March 7, 2012 Washington Post.)
* Bundlers are fundraisers who gather together large contributions from wealthy donors.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Eric Holder's Curious Reading of the Constitution
The common understanding of the due process language in the U.S. Constitution is that the basic elements are a trial, the right to be informed of the charges against you, and the right to face your accuser. Attorney General Eric Holder has a different, even curious interpretation of the Constitution. Speaking at Northwestern Law School on March 5, Holder said: "'Due process' and 'judicial process' are not one and the same, particularly when it comes to national security. The Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process." What Holder seems to be saying is that, at least in regard to terrorism, all that is constitutionally required is a process, no matter how secretive and flimsy in nature.
President Barack Obama has assumed the power to order the assassination of a U.S. citizen, a step-up in power that even the law-adverse George W. Bush did not venture to assume. Reuters has said that the decision to assassinate would be based on a "kill or capture list" drawn up by a "secretive panel of senior government officials." The Justice Department has responded to an ACLU request for information about the assassination program by neither confirming nor denying the existence of any records.
Who is a terrorist? The operative definition is that a terrorist is one "who is a senior operational leader of Al Qaeda or associated forces;" therefore, a terrorist is someone the president has accused and then deemed in secret to be a terrorist without the need to present any evidence. The president and senior underlings are judge, jury and even executioner wrapped up in one.
When Barack Obama was a U.S. senator from Illinois, he denounced the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba with the charge that "a perfectly innocent individual could be held and could not rebut the Government's case and has no way of proving his innocence." Senator Obama even mocked the right-wing claim "that judicial inquiry is an antique, trivial and dispensable luxury."
President Barack Obama has assumed the power to order the assassination of a U.S. citizen, a step-up in power that even the law-adverse George W. Bush did not venture to assume. Reuters has said that the decision to assassinate would be based on a "kill or capture list" drawn up by a "secretive panel of senior government officials." The Justice Department has responded to an ACLU request for information about the assassination program by neither confirming nor denying the existence of any records.
Who is a terrorist? The operative definition is that a terrorist is one "who is a senior operational leader of Al Qaeda or associated forces;" therefore, a terrorist is someone the president has accused and then deemed in secret to be a terrorist without the need to present any evidence. The president and senior underlings are judge, jury and even executioner wrapped up in one.
When Barack Obama was a U.S. senator from Illinois, he denounced the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba with the charge that "a perfectly innocent individual could be held and could not rebut the Government's case and has no way of proving his innocence." Senator Obama even mocked the right-wing claim "that judicial inquiry is an antique, trivial and dispensable luxury."
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
The Lock-'em-up Culture: Part II
The distinguishing characteristic of U.S. supermax prisons is an almost total lack of human contact, which is psychologically devastating for those confined in them. A reporter who visited a supermax prison in California, called the worst of the worst, reported that the impression that has stayed with him is the almost total lack of sound, with about the only sound he heard was clanging doors. A supermax built 100 feet below ground level means that the inmates will never see the sky nor experience any activity on the surface of the earth.
Solitary confinement is by no means confined to supermax prisons: Diane Dimond used one of her Saturday columns in the Albuquerque Journal to focus on what she called "a ground-breaking work" by journalist Susan Greene. In her book titled The Gray Box, Greene estimates that 80,000 Americans -- "many with no record of violence inside or outside prison -- are living in seclusion. They stay there for years, even decades." (15)
Dimond describes these prisoners as "walking in endless circles" in a space "as small as two queen-sized mattresses." There is virtually no contact with another human being and family members stop writing to those in long confinements. (16)
Diane Dimond says "America is supposed to be a compassionate country. This sounds like state-sponsored torture to me." It should be no great surprise that considering the inhumane way many of U.S. prisons are run, that the United States was found to be torturing detainees in the ill-defined Global War on Terror.
Many Americans would like to believe that racism has been eradicated from U.S. society. One area of U.S. life where racism is alive and well is in the criminal justice system. In a New Yorker article provocatively titled "The Caging of America," Adam Gopnick lays out the case about how black men are targeted for prison: 1) more than half of all black men without a high school diploma will go to prison at some point in their lives; 2) there are more black men in the grip of the criminal justice system -- in prison, on probation or on parole -- than were in slavery in 1850; 3) blacks are now incarcerated seven times as often as whites. (17)
The United States is also well out-of-step when it comes to punishing juveniles for serious crimes. A prime example of this unappealing exceptionalism of the United States is that it wasn't until 2005, in the case of Roper v. Simmons, that the U.S. became the last Western country to abolish the death penalty for juveniles. (18)
Texas and Michigan share a dubious distinction of leading the parade for harsh punishment for young wrongdoers. It has already been pointed out that Texas has 400 teenagers now serving life sentences. In Michigan, being tried as an adult for first degree murder carries a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Also in Michigan, as is true in many other states, prosecutors can try defendants older than 14, without a hearing, a statement of reasons, or an investigation of the adolescent's background. (19)
Juvenile courts have become increasingly punitive, and by the late 1990s, nearly half of convicted juveniles were behind bars, rather than in community-supervision or treatment programs, and a quarter of them were locked up because of misdemeanors or probation violations. (20)
Currently, there are some 25 hundred Americans inmates who were given life sentences for killing someone before their eighteenth birthday, with more than half of them committing their first crime. (21)
Katrina Miller, a corrections official turned academic researcher, is owed a debt of gratitude for discovering that a whopping 30 percent of inmates in Texas prisons meet the clinical threshold for "hard of hearing." (22)
The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 mandated that any entity receiving federal money have an effective communications system for the deaf. (23) An illustration of how poorly implemented this law can be is the case of Texas prison inmate Felix Garcia. When Garcia was tried for murder -- it is likely he took the rap for an older family member -- he wasn't able to hear words at his trial, only noise. He gets no hearing assistance in prison. In theory, Garcia could file a civil rights lawsuit but the Clinton-era Prison Litigation Reform Act makes it extraordinarily difficult for individual prisoners to bring a federal case. (24)
The debtors' prison has been illegal in the United States since 1833. Nonetheless, more than a third of the states now allow borrowers to be jailed, even when debtors' prisons have been explicitly banned by state constitutions. The cost of jailing sometimes exceeds the debt owed.
Among the reforms proposed to make the U.S. criminal justice system more rational and fair is to try to reduce the prevalence of plea bargains and consequently increase the percentage of jury trials. By one estimate, more than 95 percent of felony convictions in metropolitan areas are the result of guilty pleas. (25) With the ability to threaten long sentences for sometimes minor crimes, prosecutors become something like extortion artists. (26)
One cannot talk intelligently about the tremendous increase in the U.S. prison population without bringing illegal drugs into the conversation, In 1980 there were 10,449 drug offenders behind bars and in 2003 that number had increased to 493,772. (27) The percentage of drug arrests targeting possession was 82.5 percent as of last report, and 17.5 percent targeted distribution. (28) The share of possession arrests was as follows: prescription drugs and inhalants - 19 percent; heroin/cocaine - 26 percent; meth and other synthetic drugs - 4 percent; and marijuana - 51 percent. (29)
A great deal of money could have been saved in court and imprisonment costs by adoption of the 1972 report recommendation of the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse, urging that possession of marijuana for personal use be decriminalized.
How does President Barack Obama fit into what has been written above? Given the immense cost of imprisoning much a large segment of the U.S.population; the level of dehumanizing practices in so many prisons, especially the supermaxes; and the racial component of our criminal justice apparatus, Obama could use and have used the presidential pulpit to call attention to the issue and maybe present some alternative solutions in the federal prison system. About the only mitigation of harsh punishment that Obama has been involved in was the reduction in the wide sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine -- still quite wide.
* Timothy Cole, convicted of a rape, to which another man confessed, died in prison before any action could be taken on the confession. As previously indicated, Texas has no formal procedure for dealing with a post-conviction confession by someone else.
Footnotes (continued)
(15) Diane Dimond, "Solitary Confinement a Stain on U. S. Prison Systems," The Albuquerque Journal, February 25, 2012.
(16) Ibid.
(17) Gopnick.
(18) Schwartzapbel.
(19) Rachel Aviv, "No Remorse," The New Yorker, January 2, 2012.
(20) Ibid.
(21) Ibid.
(22) James Ridgeway, "The Silent Treatment," Mother Jones, March/April 2012.
(23) Ibid.
(24) Ibid.
(25) O'Donnell.
(26) Ibid.
(27) Kevin Drum, "The Patriot's Guide to Legalization," Mother Jones, July/August 2009.
(28) Ibid.
(29) Ibid.
Solitary confinement is by no means confined to supermax prisons: Diane Dimond used one of her Saturday columns in the Albuquerque Journal to focus on what she called "a ground-breaking work" by journalist Susan Greene. In her book titled The Gray Box, Greene estimates that 80,000 Americans -- "many with no record of violence inside or outside prison -- are living in seclusion. They stay there for years, even decades." (15)
Dimond describes these prisoners as "walking in endless circles" in a space "as small as two queen-sized mattresses." There is virtually no contact with another human being and family members stop writing to those in long confinements. (16)
Diane Dimond says "America is supposed to be a compassionate country. This sounds like state-sponsored torture to me." It should be no great surprise that considering the inhumane way many of U.S. prisons are run, that the United States was found to be torturing detainees in the ill-defined Global War on Terror.
Many Americans would like to believe that racism has been eradicated from U.S. society. One area of U.S. life where racism is alive and well is in the criminal justice system. In a New Yorker article provocatively titled "The Caging of America," Adam Gopnick lays out the case about how black men are targeted for prison: 1) more than half of all black men without a high school diploma will go to prison at some point in their lives; 2) there are more black men in the grip of the criminal justice system -- in prison, on probation or on parole -- than were in slavery in 1850; 3) blacks are now incarcerated seven times as often as whites. (17)
The United States is also well out-of-step when it comes to punishing juveniles for serious crimes. A prime example of this unappealing exceptionalism of the United States is that it wasn't until 2005, in the case of Roper v. Simmons, that the U.S. became the last Western country to abolish the death penalty for juveniles. (18)
Texas and Michigan share a dubious distinction of leading the parade for harsh punishment for young wrongdoers. It has already been pointed out that Texas has 400 teenagers now serving life sentences. In Michigan, being tried as an adult for first degree murder carries a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Also in Michigan, as is true in many other states, prosecutors can try defendants older than 14, without a hearing, a statement of reasons, or an investigation of the adolescent's background. (19)
Juvenile courts have become increasingly punitive, and by the late 1990s, nearly half of convicted juveniles were behind bars, rather than in community-supervision or treatment programs, and a quarter of them were locked up because of misdemeanors or probation violations. (20)
Currently, there are some 25 hundred Americans inmates who were given life sentences for killing someone before their eighteenth birthday, with more than half of them committing their first crime. (21)
Katrina Miller, a corrections official turned academic researcher, is owed a debt of gratitude for discovering that a whopping 30 percent of inmates in Texas prisons meet the clinical threshold for "hard of hearing." (22)
The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 mandated that any entity receiving federal money have an effective communications system for the deaf. (23) An illustration of how poorly implemented this law can be is the case of Texas prison inmate Felix Garcia. When Garcia was tried for murder -- it is likely he took the rap for an older family member -- he wasn't able to hear words at his trial, only noise. He gets no hearing assistance in prison. In theory, Garcia could file a civil rights lawsuit but the Clinton-era Prison Litigation Reform Act makes it extraordinarily difficult for individual prisoners to bring a federal case. (24)
The debtors' prison has been illegal in the United States since 1833. Nonetheless, more than a third of the states now allow borrowers to be jailed, even when debtors' prisons have been explicitly banned by state constitutions. The cost of jailing sometimes exceeds the debt owed.
Among the reforms proposed to make the U.S. criminal justice system more rational and fair is to try to reduce the prevalence of plea bargains and consequently increase the percentage of jury trials. By one estimate, more than 95 percent of felony convictions in metropolitan areas are the result of guilty pleas. (25) With the ability to threaten long sentences for sometimes minor crimes, prosecutors become something like extortion artists. (26)
One cannot talk intelligently about the tremendous increase in the U.S. prison population without bringing illegal drugs into the conversation, In 1980 there were 10,449 drug offenders behind bars and in 2003 that number had increased to 493,772. (27) The percentage of drug arrests targeting possession was 82.5 percent as of last report, and 17.5 percent targeted distribution. (28) The share of possession arrests was as follows: prescription drugs and inhalants - 19 percent; heroin/cocaine - 26 percent; meth and other synthetic drugs - 4 percent; and marijuana - 51 percent. (29)
A great deal of money could have been saved in court and imprisonment costs by adoption of the 1972 report recommendation of the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse, urging that possession of marijuana for personal use be decriminalized.
How does President Barack Obama fit into what has been written above? Given the immense cost of imprisoning much a large segment of the U.S.population; the level of dehumanizing practices in so many prisons, especially the supermaxes; and the racial component of our criminal justice apparatus, Obama could use and have used the presidential pulpit to call attention to the issue and maybe present some alternative solutions in the federal prison system. About the only mitigation of harsh punishment that Obama has been involved in was the reduction in the wide sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine -- still quite wide.
* Timothy Cole, convicted of a rape, to which another man confessed, died in prison before any action could be taken on the confession. As previously indicated, Texas has no formal procedure for dealing with a post-conviction confession by someone else.
Footnotes (continued)
(15) Diane Dimond, "Solitary Confinement a Stain on U. S. Prison Systems," The Albuquerque Journal, February 25, 2012.
(16) Ibid.
(17) Gopnick.
(18) Schwartzapbel.
(19) Rachel Aviv, "No Remorse," The New Yorker, January 2, 2012.
(20) Ibid.
(21) Ibid.
(22) James Ridgeway, "The Silent Treatment," Mother Jones, March/April 2012.
(23) Ibid.
(24) Ibid.
(25) O'Donnell.
(26) Ibid.
(27) Kevin Drum, "The Patriot's Guide to Legalization," Mother Jones, July/August 2009.
(28) Ibid.
(29) Ibid.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
The Lock-'em-up Culture: Part I
The United States has developed a lock-'em-up culture through which pervasive fear of crime has resulted in a massive prison complex, which is straining the budgets of many states. A few years ago it was announced that California, once the leader nationwide in public education, was spending more on prisons than it was on public schools. Texas was also engaged in a huge expansion of prisons. In the last two years, the money that states spend on prisons has risen at six times the rate of spending on higher education. (1)
Overall, there are now more people under correctional supervision in America -- more than six million -- than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalinism at its height. (2) In 1980, there were about 220 people incarcerated for every 100,000 Americans; by 2010, the number had more than tripled to 731. (3) No other country, except Russia, even approaches the U.S. incarceration rate -- Germany's rate is 74 and France's, 72. (4)
David Fathi, a specialist on the U.S. prison system, had an article reproduced in the editorial pages of the February 20, 2010 Albuquerque Journal, which refers to a six-fold increase in the U.S. prison population in the 30 years ending in 2005.
David Fathi's article referred to above was not focused on the total number of people imprisoned, the focus was on the ten-fold growth in prisoners over the age of 65. Nationally, one in 11 prisoners is serving a life sentence and it is one in six prisoners in some states.
The title of Fathi's article, "U.S. Wasting Big Money on Nursing Houses With Razor Wire," is illustrated most concretely by his citation of a 2008 Pew Center on the State Report, which found that keeping someone over age 65 locked up costs about three times the $24,000 annual cost of the average prisoner.
Diane Dimond, who has a column in the Saturday Albuquerque Journal, writes that the Ohio prison system spends nearly $223 million a year on medical care for about 51,000 prisoners. About $28 million is spent on inmates' prescriptions. The California prison system identified 21 inmates whose annual health care bill is just over $2 million each. There are another 1,300 California inmates who annually require medical attention costing $100,000 or more apiece. (5)
In 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that prisoners were entitled to the same medical and dental treatment as everyone else. (6)
For his book, Convicting the Innocent, University of Virginia law professor Brandon Garrett examined hundreds of DNA exonerations and found that in at least a third of the cases the eyewitness was shown a "stacked lineup," where the actual suspect was highlighted. (7) In the case of Timothy Cole,* convicted of rape in Texas, all but one of the photos were mug shots, with men looking away from the camera and holding their book-in cards. Nationwide, incorrect identification was a factor in the conviction of more than 75 percent of people eventually exonerated by DNA. (8) Cornell law professor Michael Dorf says that "Human beings are not very good at identifying people they only see for a relatively short period of time" and "studies reveal error rates of as high as 50 percent..." (9)
A number of reforms have been suggested to reduce the tragic occurrence of eyewitness false identifications: 1) implement the practice of "blind administration," whereby the officer conducting a lineup is not aware of who the suspect is (thus not revealing identity through gestures, vocal inflections and body language); 2) "non-suggestive" lineups made up of people who generally resemble a witness'es description, so that the suspect does not stand out; 3) allowing eyewitnesses to sign a statement indicating their level of confidence in their choice; and 4) presenting members of a lineup sequentially (to mitigate the pressure to choose someone when presented with a bunch of faces at once).
It isn't only faulty eyewitness testimony, of course, that results in the shameful number of convictions of innocent people in the United States. Law professor Brandon Garrett puts the number of DNA exonerations at 280 as of the writing of his book -- published in 2011. (10) However, given the extreme difficulty of freeing the falsely convicted and extrapolating from research on eyewitness identification and DNA exonerations, Garrett conservatively estimates that those wrongfully imprisoned in the U.S. ranges from a few thousand to 20,000. (11)
On a personal note, when I attended a conference on the wrongfully convicted in the mid-1990s, held at the Chicago branch of the Northwestern Law School, over a third of the 75 or so freed, nationwide, from Death Row or life sentences, were in attendance. Exonerations have been steadily climbing since that conference in Chicago.
If there is a Pecks bad boy of treatment of those indicted for serious crimes, it is the state of Texas. Not only does Texas lead the nation by a good margin in executions year-after-year, but it has sentenced more that 400 teenagers to life imprisonment as of the beginning of 2012. (12) Texas is also the place where sentences of over a thousand years are known to have occurred.
Most appeals in Texas wind up at the Court of Criminal Appeals, which consists primarily of former prosecutors elected to the bench. The court seldom reverses a case, even in the face of glaring errors or unfairness -- in one case it upheld the conviction of a man cleared by DNA evidence -- and its conduct has prompted the U.S. Supreme Court to rebuke it several times. (13)
The Texas parole board rarely, if ever, meets face-to-face, as it conducts most of its business by phone calls, faxes, emails and regular mail. Parole in very violent crimes is very rarely granted and on aggravated assault cases, the parole board has approved parole in 0.1 percent of the cases. (14)
Texas also stands out by having no legal means for an actual perpetrator of a crime to confess to it when someone else has been convicted for that crime. See the asterisk at the end of Part II of this blog to learn how this omission affected Timothy Cole.
Part II of this blog will cover the topics of supermax prisons, solitary confinement, racism in the nation's courts and prisons, harsh treatment of juveniles, the plight of deaf prisoners, the rise of debtor imprisonment, the role of illegal drugs and what President Obama might do to highlight the criminal justice problems raised in this blog.
Footnotes
(1) Adam Gopnick, "The Caging of America," The New Yorker, January 30, 2012.
(2) Ibid.
(3) Ibid.
(4) Michael O'Donnell, "Crime and Punishment," The Nation, January 30, 2012.
(5) Diane Dimond, "Need Health Care?" Try Going to Prison," The Albuquerque Journal, September 3, 2011.
(6) Ibid.
(7) Beth Schwartzapbel, :No Country for Innocent Men," Mother Jones, January/February 2012.
(8) Ibid.
(9) Ibid.
(10) Ibid.
(11) Ibid.
(12) Gopnick.
(13) Schwartzapbel.
(14) Ibid.
Overall, there are now more people under correctional supervision in America -- more than six million -- than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalinism at its height. (2) In 1980, there were about 220 people incarcerated for every 100,000 Americans; by 2010, the number had more than tripled to 731. (3) No other country, except Russia, even approaches the U.S. incarceration rate -- Germany's rate is 74 and France's, 72. (4)
David Fathi, a specialist on the U.S. prison system, had an article reproduced in the editorial pages of the February 20, 2010 Albuquerque Journal, which refers to a six-fold increase in the U.S. prison population in the 30 years ending in 2005.
David Fathi's article referred to above was not focused on the total number of people imprisoned, the focus was on the ten-fold growth in prisoners over the age of 65. Nationally, one in 11 prisoners is serving a life sentence and it is one in six prisoners in some states.
The title of Fathi's article, "U.S. Wasting Big Money on Nursing Houses With Razor Wire," is illustrated most concretely by his citation of a 2008 Pew Center on the State Report, which found that keeping someone over age 65 locked up costs about three times the $24,000 annual cost of the average prisoner.
Diane Dimond, who has a column in the Saturday Albuquerque Journal, writes that the Ohio prison system spends nearly $223 million a year on medical care for about 51,000 prisoners. About $28 million is spent on inmates' prescriptions. The California prison system identified 21 inmates whose annual health care bill is just over $2 million each. There are another 1,300 California inmates who annually require medical attention costing $100,000 or more apiece. (5)
In 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that prisoners were entitled to the same medical and dental treatment as everyone else. (6)
For his book, Convicting the Innocent, University of Virginia law professor Brandon Garrett examined hundreds of DNA exonerations and found that in at least a third of the cases the eyewitness was shown a "stacked lineup," where the actual suspect was highlighted. (7) In the case of Timothy Cole,* convicted of rape in Texas, all but one of the photos were mug shots, with men looking away from the camera and holding their book-in cards. Nationwide, incorrect identification was a factor in the conviction of more than 75 percent of people eventually exonerated by DNA. (8) Cornell law professor Michael Dorf says that "Human beings are not very good at identifying people they only see for a relatively short period of time" and "studies reveal error rates of as high as 50 percent..." (9)
A number of reforms have been suggested to reduce the tragic occurrence of eyewitness false identifications: 1) implement the practice of "blind administration," whereby the officer conducting a lineup is not aware of who the suspect is (thus not revealing identity through gestures, vocal inflections and body language); 2) "non-suggestive" lineups made up of people who generally resemble a witness'es description, so that the suspect does not stand out; 3) allowing eyewitnesses to sign a statement indicating their level of confidence in their choice; and 4) presenting members of a lineup sequentially (to mitigate the pressure to choose someone when presented with a bunch of faces at once).
It isn't only faulty eyewitness testimony, of course, that results in the shameful number of convictions of innocent people in the United States. Law professor Brandon Garrett puts the number of DNA exonerations at 280 as of the writing of his book -- published in 2011. (10) However, given the extreme difficulty of freeing the falsely convicted and extrapolating from research on eyewitness identification and DNA exonerations, Garrett conservatively estimates that those wrongfully imprisoned in the U.S. ranges from a few thousand to 20,000. (11)
On a personal note, when I attended a conference on the wrongfully convicted in the mid-1990s, held at the Chicago branch of the Northwestern Law School, over a third of the 75 or so freed, nationwide, from Death Row or life sentences, were in attendance. Exonerations have been steadily climbing since that conference in Chicago.
If there is a Pecks bad boy of treatment of those indicted for serious crimes, it is the state of Texas. Not only does Texas lead the nation by a good margin in executions year-after-year, but it has sentenced more that 400 teenagers to life imprisonment as of the beginning of 2012. (12) Texas is also the place where sentences of over a thousand years are known to have occurred.
Most appeals in Texas wind up at the Court of Criminal Appeals, which consists primarily of former prosecutors elected to the bench. The court seldom reverses a case, even in the face of glaring errors or unfairness -- in one case it upheld the conviction of a man cleared by DNA evidence -- and its conduct has prompted the U.S. Supreme Court to rebuke it several times. (13)
The Texas parole board rarely, if ever, meets face-to-face, as it conducts most of its business by phone calls, faxes, emails and regular mail. Parole in very violent crimes is very rarely granted and on aggravated assault cases, the parole board has approved parole in 0.1 percent of the cases. (14)
Texas also stands out by having no legal means for an actual perpetrator of a crime to confess to it when someone else has been convicted for that crime. See the asterisk at the end of Part II of this blog to learn how this omission affected Timothy Cole.
Part II of this blog will cover the topics of supermax prisons, solitary confinement, racism in the nation's courts and prisons, harsh treatment of juveniles, the plight of deaf prisoners, the rise of debtor imprisonment, the role of illegal drugs and what President Obama might do to highlight the criminal justice problems raised in this blog.
Footnotes
(1) Adam Gopnick, "The Caging of America," The New Yorker, January 30, 2012.
(2) Ibid.
(3) Ibid.
(4) Michael O'Donnell, "Crime and Punishment," The Nation, January 30, 2012.
(5) Diane Dimond, "Need Health Care?" Try Going to Prison," The Albuquerque Journal, September 3, 2011.
(6) Ibid.
(7) Beth Schwartzapbel, :No Country for Innocent Men," Mother Jones, January/February 2012.
(8) Ibid.
(9) Ibid.
(10) Ibid.
(11) Ibid.
(12) Gopnick.
(13) Schwartzapbel.
(14) Ibid.
Friday, March 9, 2012
Bombing Iran Is the Worst Option of All
Journalist Dalia Dassa Kave has written a very perceptive article on the bad consequences that could result from bombing Iran. Although the article is directed mainly at Israel, it has relevance for the United States. I've strung together quotes to get the full impact of the message.
Advocacy of bombing Iran "rests on a faulty assumption that a post-attack Middle East would indeed be free of a nuclear-armed Iran. In fact, it may result in the worst of both worlds: a future nuclear-armed Iran more determined than ever to challenge the Jewish state, and with far fewer regional and international impediments to do so."
"The consensus among Western analysts is that a military attack against Iran would at best delay Iran's nuclear development, not stop it. Thus, what the region's future may hold is not an Iran that has or hasn't acquired nuclear weapons, but rather a nuclear-armed Iran that has or hasn't been attacked by Israel."
Therefore, "while a nuclear-armed Iran that hasn't been attacked is dangerous, one that has been attacked may be much more likely to brandish the capabilities to make sure it does not face an attack again."
"A unilateral attack by Israel would also diminish the determination of the international community to challenge Iranian transgressions of its Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty commitments, or to continue to support Israel."
"Regional reactions would also be negative, further inflaming anti-Israel sentiment in Arab nations."
"Israel has not faced a strategic situation in which it is isolated from Arabs and non-Arabs alike, while at the same time facing growing international isolation." *
There have been conflicting reports that Israel would give the United States no warning of a bombing attack on Iran and that it would give only 12 hours of advance warning, so that President Obama could not torpedo the attack. The other rationale advanced is that no warning by Israel would free the Obama White House from having to answer troubling questions about why it did not try to stop the attack.
The other persistent report of Israeli unhappiness with the U.S. is that Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu wants President Obama to precisely describe what he means by Iran crossing"red lines" and to do the same for all options being on the table. If Obama accedes to these demands, he will be further out on a breaking limb regarding the possibility of a U.S. attack on Iran. Also, those who counsel giving sanctions time to work are on a perilous course of eventually needing to support bombing if it becomes clear that sanctions have failed.
Keeping in mind the kind of possible consequences warned of by the journalist Dalia Dassa Kave, the best policy would be one of "Relax." Let Iran go ahead and develop a nuclear bomb. Iran's leaders know that if they try to nuke any nuclear-armed nation, it will be the end of their nation. The United States lived a long time with a much greater threat of nuclear attack from the Soviet Union; also, dire warnings of an attack by a nuclear-armed and demonic North Korea have not come to pass.
A longer-term and more positive approach is to begin work on a Middle East nuclear weapons-free zone. Achievement of this very difficult task could serve as a template for a similar arrangement in the Asian theater, where the Obama administration is beefing up a military presence. These actions can constitute steps toward a nuclear weapons-free world.
Ray McGovern, a former CIA officer, and Elizabeth Murray, a former intelligence officer, offer other options to help defuse Iran as an issue:
1) Order the negotiation of the kind of the bilateral "incidents-at-sea" agreement concluded with the Soviet Union in May 1972, to head off escalation when ships "go bump in the night;"
2) Issue a formal statement that the United States will not support an Israeli attack on Iran;
3) Have "military-to-military" dialogue with Israel; and
4) Make public a declassified version of the latest National Intelligence Estimate on Iran.
Progressive talk show hosts who continue to support President Barack Obama are trying to distinguish his position on Iran from that of the Republican presidential contenders -- except for Ron Paul. Although I agree that the GOP contenders are using more provocative rhetoric about bombing Iran, Obama is also committed to bombing: he has said that all options, including the use of nuclear weapons, are on the table; he has said he is "not bluffing;" he has said he has Israel's back; and he and his defense secretary have said that bombing will commence if Iran crosses certain "red lines." Thus, if Obama wins a second term and U.S. intelligence concludes that Iran has developed a nuclear bomb(s), he must back up his words by bombing.
* Dalia Dassa Kave, "Attack on Iran May Be Worst Option," The Albuquerque Journal, February 25, 2012.
Advocacy of bombing Iran "rests on a faulty assumption that a post-attack Middle East would indeed be free of a nuclear-armed Iran. In fact, it may result in the worst of both worlds: a future nuclear-armed Iran more determined than ever to challenge the Jewish state, and with far fewer regional and international impediments to do so."
"The consensus among Western analysts is that a military attack against Iran would at best delay Iran's nuclear development, not stop it. Thus, what the region's future may hold is not an Iran that has or hasn't acquired nuclear weapons, but rather a nuclear-armed Iran that has or hasn't been attacked by Israel."
Therefore, "while a nuclear-armed Iran that hasn't been attacked is dangerous, one that has been attacked may be much more likely to brandish the capabilities to make sure it does not face an attack again."
"A unilateral attack by Israel would also diminish the determination of the international community to challenge Iranian transgressions of its Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty commitments, or to continue to support Israel."
"Regional reactions would also be negative, further inflaming anti-Israel sentiment in Arab nations."
"Israel has not faced a strategic situation in which it is isolated from Arabs and non-Arabs alike, while at the same time facing growing international isolation." *
There have been conflicting reports that Israel would give the United States no warning of a bombing attack on Iran and that it would give only 12 hours of advance warning, so that President Obama could not torpedo the attack. The other rationale advanced is that no warning by Israel would free the Obama White House from having to answer troubling questions about why it did not try to stop the attack.
The other persistent report of Israeli unhappiness with the U.S. is that Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu wants President Obama to precisely describe what he means by Iran crossing"red lines" and to do the same for all options being on the table. If Obama accedes to these demands, he will be further out on a breaking limb regarding the possibility of a U.S. attack on Iran. Also, those who counsel giving sanctions time to work are on a perilous course of eventually needing to support bombing if it becomes clear that sanctions have failed.
Keeping in mind the kind of possible consequences warned of by the journalist Dalia Dassa Kave, the best policy would be one of "Relax." Let Iran go ahead and develop a nuclear bomb. Iran's leaders know that if they try to nuke any nuclear-armed nation, it will be the end of their nation. The United States lived a long time with a much greater threat of nuclear attack from the Soviet Union; also, dire warnings of an attack by a nuclear-armed and demonic North Korea have not come to pass.
A longer-term and more positive approach is to begin work on a Middle East nuclear weapons-free zone. Achievement of this very difficult task could serve as a template for a similar arrangement in the Asian theater, where the Obama administration is beefing up a military presence. These actions can constitute steps toward a nuclear weapons-free world.
Ray McGovern, a former CIA officer, and Elizabeth Murray, a former intelligence officer, offer other options to help defuse Iran as an issue:
1) Order the negotiation of the kind of the bilateral "incidents-at-sea" agreement concluded with the Soviet Union in May 1972, to head off escalation when ships "go bump in the night;"
2) Issue a formal statement that the United States will not support an Israeli attack on Iran;
3) Have "military-to-military" dialogue with Israel; and
4) Make public a declassified version of the latest National Intelligence Estimate on Iran.
Progressive talk show hosts who continue to support President Barack Obama are trying to distinguish his position on Iran from that of the Republican presidential contenders -- except for Ron Paul. Although I agree that the GOP contenders are using more provocative rhetoric about bombing Iran, Obama is also committed to bombing: he has said that all options, including the use of nuclear weapons, are on the table; he has said he is "not bluffing;" he has said he has Israel's back; and he and his defense secretary have said that bombing will commence if Iran crosses certain "red lines." Thus, if Obama wins a second term and U.S. intelligence concludes that Iran has developed a nuclear bomb(s), he must back up his words by bombing.
* Dalia Dassa Kave, "Attack on Iran May Be Worst Option," The Albuquerque Journal, February 25, 2012.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
The Diseased Mind of Rush Limbaugh
Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh is in trouble yet again for an ugly verbal assault on Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown University law student. Calling Fluke a "slut" and a "prostitute" was awful enough but he also said of Fluke that she insists on "being paid to have sex," and he said of her that she "was having so much sex" that she "could hardly walk to the hearing room" -- to testify at a congressional hearing.
Since Limbaugh had not yet plumbed the depths of his salacious being, he said that in return for paying for women's birth control he wanted videos made of the sex acts so those paying for the birth control -- including himself, of course -- could get a return on their money.
Rush Limbaugh was not just launching an attack on Sandra Fluke, who is well-informed on the birth control issue, he was attacking all women who use birth control at some time -- an estimated 99 percent of all women -- by creating the impression that all these women are getting contraceptive assistance for free. Women who have birth control in their health insurance policies pay for it in their premiums. Others pay for it directly through Planned Parenthood, drug stores and the like.
Limbaugh also distorted Sandra Fluke's testimony before a congressional committee by implying that she testified about her sexual experiences, whereas Fluke testified specifically about the birth control issue and recounted the experience of someone she knew who suffered severe medical complications for failing to use a contraceptive.
What passes as humor among the Limbaugh dittoheads is his promise to purchase enough aspirin to allow all the females at Georgetown University to hold the tablets between their knees. Limbaugh's pathetic attempt at
satire stems from Rick Santorum's chief financier saying that in the old days women practiced birth control by holding aspirin tablets between their knees.
As the storm of protest mounted against Limbaugh. Bay Buchanan appeared on national television to label Limbaugh "brilliant." Other die hard Limbaugh supporters used the classic defense whenever Limbaugh gets in trouble: they say he is "just an entertainer," and what he says should not be taken seriously; however, millions of dittoheads take him very seriously. It is not known if Miss and Mrs. Dittohead are cleaving quite as closely to his words now.
I had an experience regarding the dittohead mentality as a poll worker in a precinct located in a Republican enclave in Albuquerque, New Mexico. As word filtered down that Barack Obama was defeating John McCain, the GOP poll workers became noticeably glum and depressed. One obvious Limbaugh dittohead told a fellow dittohead standing near me: "We need to find out what Rush says."
Political conservatives have a standard reaction when they or someone sharing their ideology gets in trouble for something said. They desperately search to find a liberal or maybe a moderate Democrat who has said something somewhat similar. This is called equivalence, meaning that the two statements cancel one another out The major problem with this kind of weaseling out is that conservatives, especially of the hard-right variety, charge liberals with not taking personal responsibility for their actions. They, themselves, avoid personal responsibility like it is the plague.
Rush Limbaugh initially apologized on his web site but that apology was limited to "My choice of words was not the best." On March 5, he apologized on his radio show but that apology was limited to the use of the words "slut" and "prostitute." Limbaugh has devoted hours of radio time to the birth control issue, and if using nonfactual anti-women language were a criminal offense, a prosecutor would have a treasure trove of comments on which to draw.
As of today, by one count, a total of 35 advertisers have pulled or suspended their advertising. Besides a more fulsome, contrite apology from Rush Limbaugh, there should be an apology from the advertisers. If I were to write it, it would go something like this: "Ever since we began advertising on Mr. Limbaugh's radio show, our corporation has stood silently by when Mr. Limbaugh made nonfactual comments that were clearly anti-women and other comments that were racist in nature; also, he has routinely skewered his political opponents with language that has gone well beyond the bounds of reasoned discourse.
"We deeply apologize for our silence and our failure to take any action to induce Mr. Limbaugh to radically change his ways as a condition of the continuance of our advertising."
Besides a show of contrition from Limbaugh advertisers, this is a time for Republican leaders to issue a full-bore denunciation of Rush Limbaugh. In the past, whenever anything a Republican leader said was even mildly critical of Limbaugh, his counterattack was so fierce that the offending leader felt no choice but to meekly issue an apology. The Republican presidential contenders have become so tongue-tied in regard to Limbaugh's attack on birth control that words are unable to issue out of their mouths.
The person who has come shining bright out of the societal mess created by Rush Limbaugh is Sandra Fluke. Her words have been measured but forceful; she has displayed a very good grasp of the birth control issue; and she has refused to knuckle under to Limbaugh's media power by refusing to accept his non-apology apology.
An Afterword: Studies have shown that spacing of pregnancies is a critical factor in preserving women's health. Obstacles thrown up to the use of birth control are a detriment to women's health.
Since Limbaugh had not yet plumbed the depths of his salacious being, he said that in return for paying for women's birth control he wanted videos made of the sex acts so those paying for the birth control -- including himself, of course -- could get a return on their money.
Rush Limbaugh was not just launching an attack on Sandra Fluke, who is well-informed on the birth control issue, he was attacking all women who use birth control at some time -- an estimated 99 percent of all women -- by creating the impression that all these women are getting contraceptive assistance for free. Women who have birth control in their health insurance policies pay for it in their premiums. Others pay for it directly through Planned Parenthood, drug stores and the like.
Limbaugh also distorted Sandra Fluke's testimony before a congressional committee by implying that she testified about her sexual experiences, whereas Fluke testified specifically about the birth control issue and recounted the experience of someone she knew who suffered severe medical complications for failing to use a contraceptive.
What passes as humor among the Limbaugh dittoheads is his promise to purchase enough aspirin to allow all the females at Georgetown University to hold the tablets between their knees. Limbaugh's pathetic attempt at
satire stems from Rick Santorum's chief financier saying that in the old days women practiced birth control by holding aspirin tablets between their knees.
As the storm of protest mounted against Limbaugh. Bay Buchanan appeared on national television to label Limbaugh "brilliant." Other die hard Limbaugh supporters used the classic defense whenever Limbaugh gets in trouble: they say he is "just an entertainer," and what he says should not be taken seriously; however, millions of dittoheads take him very seriously. It is not known if Miss and Mrs. Dittohead are cleaving quite as closely to his words now.
I had an experience regarding the dittohead mentality as a poll worker in a precinct located in a Republican enclave in Albuquerque, New Mexico. As word filtered down that Barack Obama was defeating John McCain, the GOP poll workers became noticeably glum and depressed. One obvious Limbaugh dittohead told a fellow dittohead standing near me: "We need to find out what Rush says."
Political conservatives have a standard reaction when they or someone sharing their ideology gets in trouble for something said. They desperately search to find a liberal or maybe a moderate Democrat who has said something somewhat similar. This is called equivalence, meaning that the two statements cancel one another out The major problem with this kind of weaseling out is that conservatives, especially of the hard-right variety, charge liberals with not taking personal responsibility for their actions. They, themselves, avoid personal responsibility like it is the plague.
Rush Limbaugh initially apologized on his web site but that apology was limited to "My choice of words was not the best." On March 5, he apologized on his radio show but that apology was limited to the use of the words "slut" and "prostitute." Limbaugh has devoted hours of radio time to the birth control issue, and if using nonfactual anti-women language were a criminal offense, a prosecutor would have a treasure trove of comments on which to draw.
As of today, by one count, a total of 35 advertisers have pulled or suspended their advertising. Besides a more fulsome, contrite apology from Rush Limbaugh, there should be an apology from the advertisers. If I were to write it, it would go something like this: "Ever since we began advertising on Mr. Limbaugh's radio show, our corporation has stood silently by when Mr. Limbaugh made nonfactual comments that were clearly anti-women and other comments that were racist in nature; also, he has routinely skewered his political opponents with language that has gone well beyond the bounds of reasoned discourse.
"We deeply apologize for our silence and our failure to take any action to induce Mr. Limbaugh to radically change his ways as a condition of the continuance of our advertising."
Besides a show of contrition from Limbaugh advertisers, this is a time for Republican leaders to issue a full-bore denunciation of Rush Limbaugh. In the past, whenever anything a Republican leader said was even mildly critical of Limbaugh, his counterattack was so fierce that the offending leader felt no choice but to meekly issue an apology. The Republican presidential contenders have become so tongue-tied in regard to Limbaugh's attack on birth control that words are unable to issue out of their mouths.
The person who has come shining bright out of the societal mess created by Rush Limbaugh is Sandra Fluke. Her words have been measured but forceful; she has displayed a very good grasp of the birth control issue; and she has refused to knuckle under to Limbaugh's media power by refusing to accept his non-apology apology.
An Afterword: Studies have shown that spacing of pregnancies is a critical factor in preserving women's health. Obstacles thrown up to the use of birth control are a detriment to women's health.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Myths of Rich People and Thoughts of a Baffled Humanist by Marilynne Robinson
Myths of Rich People Creating ;Jobs
Myth 1 - Lower taxes are the best way to grow the economy.
Bruce Bartlett, an economist in the Reagan administration, compared tax rates in various rich countries in 1979 to each country's growth rate since than and found virtually no correlation. Capital gains rates have bounced up and down from 40 percent to the current 15 percent, with no effect on business investment.
Myth 2 - Excessive regulation stifles business growth.
The National Federation of Independent Businesses reports that lack of sales/demand beats out everything else as a deterrent to business expansion. The claim is made that the Obama administration is killing growth by excessive regulation, but it has not been a whirlwind of regulatory activity.
Myth 3 - If you unshackle the rich, they'll rev up the economy.
After-tax corporate profits are currently at an all-time high and corporations are not expanding nor hiring much.
Zero-Sum Economy: "Night Thoughts of a Baffled Humanist" by Marilynne Robinson
"The ethos that will bear the best fruit is that we respect, educate, inform and trust one another."
"Austerity has been turned against institutions and customs that have been major engines of wealth creation."
"Market economics has shown itself ready to devour what we hold dear: culture, education, the environment and the sciences, as well as the peace and well-being of our fellow citizens."
"The wealth that was once frozen in appreciated value and thawed at the discretion of the owner, in homes notably, is increasingly liquid in the hands of international financial institutions."
"A zero-sum economy can improve wealth only by depressing costs -- wages, safety standards, taxes -- by moving wealth away from the general population."
"Something as valuable as education should not be commodified, parceled up and sold."
"But the new ideology seems to assume that the public as such cannot legitimacy own anything, or obligate the living to anything, for example, to providing the same access to education we have enjoyed."
Myth 1 - Lower taxes are the best way to grow the economy.
Bruce Bartlett, an economist in the Reagan administration, compared tax rates in various rich countries in 1979 to each country's growth rate since than and found virtually no correlation. Capital gains rates have bounced up and down from 40 percent to the current 15 percent, with no effect on business investment.
Myth 2 - Excessive regulation stifles business growth.
The National Federation of Independent Businesses reports that lack of sales/demand beats out everything else as a deterrent to business expansion. The claim is made that the Obama administration is killing growth by excessive regulation, but it has not been a whirlwind of regulatory activity.
Myth 3 - If you unshackle the rich, they'll rev up the economy.
After-tax corporate profits are currently at an all-time high and corporations are not expanding nor hiring much.
Zero-Sum Economy: "Night Thoughts of a Baffled Humanist" by Marilynne Robinson
"The ethos that will bear the best fruit is that we respect, educate, inform and trust one another."
"Austerity has been turned against institutions and customs that have been major engines of wealth creation."
"Market economics has shown itself ready to devour what we hold dear: culture, education, the environment and the sciences, as well as the peace and well-being of our fellow citizens."
"The wealth that was once frozen in appreciated value and thawed at the discretion of the owner, in homes notably, is increasingly liquid in the hands of international financial institutions."
"A zero-sum economy can improve wealth only by depressing costs -- wages, safety standards, taxes -- by moving wealth away from the general population."
"Something as valuable as education should not be commodified, parceled up and sold."
"But the new ideology seems to assume that the public as such cannot legitimacy own anything, or obligate the living to anything, for example, to providing the same access to education we have enjoyed."
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Miscellaneous Policy Snapshots
In a prior blog on campaign finance reform, I made reference to an ad being run in New Mexico by the American Future Fund, contending that President Obama has appointed a listed 27 Wall Street movers and shakers to high-level government positions. I have deleted the reference because FactCheck.org of the Annenberg Public Policy Center has found that more than half of those cases are either flat wrong or greatly exaggerated. The "most laughable" examples are: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner as having worked on Wall Street; two men appointed by former president Bush who left shortly after Obama took office; two men who never worked in the administration; and two men who worked on Wall Street only after leaving their administration job.
Pakistan
Dexter Filkins' article in the September 12, 2011 issue of The New Yorker, points up the challenge faced by the Obama administration in countering the influence of Pakistan's military and intelligence service (the I.S.I.). The Pakistani army is the world's eighth largest and takes up a quarter of the country's budget. Since the late 1970s, the military and the I.S.I. have trained and directed thousands of militants to fight in Indian Kashmir. I.S.I agent Fida Muhammad estimated that the I.S.I. evacuated as many as 1,500 militants from Tora Bora and other camps. Those evacuated included Arabs, Pakistanis, Uzbeks and Chechens.
Pakistan's military faces a major problem of Islamization.
In September 2011, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, directly accused the I.S.I. of being directly involved in the attack on the U.S.Embassy in Kabul.
Bush-Era Memo Details Arguments for Rendition Power
The March 13 memo by Jay S. Bybee, then assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's office of general counsel, said the president has an unfettered right to transfer prisoners captured in the Global War on Terror to governments around the world without regard for whether they would be tortured there.
The March memo went further. It said that prisoners held outside the United States were not protected by U.S. law nor against a separate international treaty banning torture. It also said that an 1998 law making it U.S. policy not to hand over prisoners to a country where they may be tortured was invalid because it unconstitutionally interferes with presidential powers.
The memo said: "To fully shield our personnel from criminal liability, it is important that the United States not enter into an agreement with a foreign country for the purpose of having the individual tortured. So long as the United States does not intend for a detainee to be tortured post-transfer, however, no criminal liability will attach to a transfer, even if the foreign country receiving the detainee does torture him."
Then CIA Director Leon Panetta, an appointee of President Barack Obama, said the United States would continue to engage in extraordinary rendition but would use it rarely and would be more selective about the countries to which prisoners would be sent.
Shortly after Barack Obama took the oath of office, the Washington Post reported that Obama had formally ended the Global War on Terror but he retained the right to use renditions; also, the detainees in Bagram air base in Afghanistan and the thousands being held in Iraq wouldn't get the case-by-case review accorded to counterparts being held in Cuba. Non-military agencies, such as the CIA, were told that after a six-month review they might get "additional or different guidance on interrogations."
An article titled "GWOT's End?" in the January 27, 2009 issue of Foreign Affairs in Focus, expressed skepticism about an end to the Global War on Terrorism: "But so far the new president still treats terrorism as a war to be won rather than an endemic problem to be dealt with, patiently and largely by law enforcement agencies. We're still at war in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and for the time being, in Iraq. We're still selling arms to Indonesia, Israel and Colombia as part of an overall counterterrorism approach. The Pentagon's new Africa Command (AFRICOM) still looks at counterterorism through a military lens."
Pakistan
Dexter Filkins' article in the September 12, 2011 issue of The New Yorker, points up the challenge faced by the Obama administration in countering the influence of Pakistan's military and intelligence service (the I.S.I.). The Pakistani army is the world's eighth largest and takes up a quarter of the country's budget. Since the late 1970s, the military and the I.S.I. have trained and directed thousands of militants to fight in Indian Kashmir. I.S.I agent Fida Muhammad estimated that the I.S.I. evacuated as many as 1,500 militants from Tora Bora and other camps. Those evacuated included Arabs, Pakistanis, Uzbeks and Chechens.
Pakistan's military faces a major problem of Islamization.
In September 2011, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, directly accused the I.S.I. of being directly involved in the attack on the U.S.Embassy in Kabul.
Bush-Era Memo Details Arguments for Rendition Power
The March 13 memo by Jay S. Bybee, then assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's office of general counsel, said the president has an unfettered right to transfer prisoners captured in the Global War on Terror to governments around the world without regard for whether they would be tortured there.
The March memo went further. It said that prisoners held outside the United States were not protected by U.S. law nor against a separate international treaty banning torture. It also said that an 1998 law making it U.S. policy not to hand over prisoners to a country where they may be tortured was invalid because it unconstitutionally interferes with presidential powers.
The memo said: "To fully shield our personnel from criminal liability, it is important that the United States not enter into an agreement with a foreign country for the purpose of having the individual tortured. So long as the United States does not intend for a detainee to be tortured post-transfer, however, no criminal liability will attach to a transfer, even if the foreign country receiving the detainee does torture him."
Then CIA Director Leon Panetta, an appointee of President Barack Obama, said the United States would continue to engage in extraordinary rendition but would use it rarely and would be more selective about the countries to which prisoners would be sent.
Shortly after Barack Obama took the oath of office, the Washington Post reported that Obama had formally ended the Global War on Terror but he retained the right to use renditions; also, the detainees in Bagram air base in Afghanistan and the thousands being held in Iraq wouldn't get the case-by-case review accorded to counterparts being held in Cuba. Non-military agencies, such as the CIA, were told that after a six-month review they might get "additional or different guidance on interrogations."
An article titled "GWOT's End?" in the January 27, 2009 issue of Foreign Affairs in Focus, expressed skepticism about an end to the Global War on Terrorism: "But so far the new president still treats terrorism as a war to be won rather than an endemic problem to be dealt with, patiently and largely by law enforcement agencies. We're still at war in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and for the time being, in Iraq. We're still selling arms to Indonesia, Israel and Colombia as part of an overall counterterrorism approach. The Pentagon's new Africa Command (AFRICOM) still looks at counterterorism through a military lens."
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Obama on Campaign Finance Reform and Gun Control
Barack Obama opted out of government financing in his first presidential campaign and is rejecting it in his campaign for a second term -- setting a fundraising goal of $1 billion. He initially rejected involvement with a superpac but has changed his mind, arguing that he can't afford to disarm himself against his political opponents. His surrogates will be allowed to meet with super-funders but cannot solicit money.
The Sunlight Foundation has calculated that President Barack Obama has received more campaign funding from Wall Street than any other prior president. To this point, Obama has received $42 million from Wall Street movers and shakers, according to the Sunlight Foundation..
About six months into Obama's current term in office, a group of Foreign Service officers did a fairly unusual thing: they sent a letter to President Obama raising a concern about him breaking an unwritten rule that no more than 30 percent of ambassadorial appointments should go to major fundraisers or those closely politically connected to the president. Obama then reportedly dialed down such appointments. Yet, plum appointments to Japan, the United Kingdom and France went to major donors.
Way back in November 2009, the Center for Responsive Politics reported that 24 of Obama's high-profile nominees were "bundlers" for him. Bundlers gather together campaign contributions from a number of major donors. Coming up to more recent times, in October 28, 2011, the New York Times' Eric Lichtblau reported that the Obama campaign was working with 15 bundlers who were linked to the lobbying industry. Collectively they had raised more than $5 million. Technically, they were not lobbyists because they were not registered as federal lobbyists with the U.S. Senate. Two of the people, at least, were lobbyists for major corporations: Sally Susuran with Pfiger and David L. Cohen with Comcast.
Given President Obama's track record, those to whom campaign finance reform is a major issue should not expect any action until at least 2017 if Obama wins a second term.
Gun Control
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's chief policy adviser reported that they're still waiting for President Obama to carry out his promise to Rep. Giffords (D-AZ) to do something on gun control. This promise, made shortly after Giffords was severely injured with a gunshot to the head, is extremely unlikely to be fulfilled before November 2012, because Obama doesn't want to incur the wrath of the National Rifle Association.
The other major firearms issue President Obama has faced is the very embarrassing program labeled "Fast and Furious," whereby guns were allowed to be purchased near the Mexican border, with the goal of tracking them to drug cartels. At least three White House officials knew about the operation but a senior official said there was nothing to prove that the White House knew of the "investigative" aspects.
There have been two happenings in the past year that illustrate how intense the desire is to get more guns into the hands of U.S. citizens. The GOP-controlled U.S. House passed a bill requiring states that issue permits allowing residents to carry concealed weapons to recognize the permits issued by every state. Thus, states with stringent training and age requirements would need to recognize permits issued by states with very lax requirements.
The second, more recent happening, was the action of the Virginia legislature in repealing the law limiting gun purchases to one a month. It is hard to imagine why people need an unlimited number of guns in their possession and why there there is no concern about community safety with so many guns around.
There is a fascinating counterpoint in tales of the Wild West, centering on gunfights, as opposed to the open availability of firearms today, even the right to carry concealed firearms. Adam Winklere, in this book, Gun Fight, noted that state and local governments routinely banned concealed weapons in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Even Dodge City and Tombstone required "new arrivals" to turn their guns over to authorities while in town.
Media and general public discussion focuses on a ban on assault rifles and denial of access to guns by unstable or mentally ill individuals. Such a limited perspective on gun control is a misnomer, as the handgun is the major instrument of crimes causing death and serious injury. Gun, or firearms control should be focused on a ban on the manufacture or importation of handguns and handgun parts.
Unless I become too lazy, I will do a major piece on firearms control in the future.
The Sunlight Foundation has calculated that President Barack Obama has received more campaign funding from Wall Street than any other prior president. To this point, Obama has received $42 million from Wall Street movers and shakers, according to the Sunlight Foundation..
About six months into Obama's current term in office, a group of Foreign Service officers did a fairly unusual thing: they sent a letter to President Obama raising a concern about him breaking an unwritten rule that no more than 30 percent of ambassadorial appointments should go to major fundraisers or those closely politically connected to the president. Obama then reportedly dialed down such appointments. Yet, plum appointments to Japan, the United Kingdom and France went to major donors.
Way back in November 2009, the Center for Responsive Politics reported that 24 of Obama's high-profile nominees were "bundlers" for him. Bundlers gather together campaign contributions from a number of major donors. Coming up to more recent times, in October 28, 2011, the New York Times' Eric Lichtblau reported that the Obama campaign was working with 15 bundlers who were linked to the lobbying industry. Collectively they had raised more than $5 million. Technically, they were not lobbyists because they were not registered as federal lobbyists with the U.S. Senate. Two of the people, at least, were lobbyists for major corporations: Sally Susuran with Pfiger and David L. Cohen with Comcast.
Given President Obama's track record, those to whom campaign finance reform is a major issue should not expect any action until at least 2017 if Obama wins a second term.
Gun Control
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's chief policy adviser reported that they're still waiting for President Obama to carry out his promise to Rep. Giffords (D-AZ) to do something on gun control. This promise, made shortly after Giffords was severely injured with a gunshot to the head, is extremely unlikely to be fulfilled before November 2012, because Obama doesn't want to incur the wrath of the National Rifle Association.
The other major firearms issue President Obama has faced is the very embarrassing program labeled "Fast and Furious," whereby guns were allowed to be purchased near the Mexican border, with the goal of tracking them to drug cartels. At least three White House officials knew about the operation but a senior official said there was nothing to prove that the White House knew of the "investigative" aspects.
There have been two happenings in the past year that illustrate how intense the desire is to get more guns into the hands of U.S. citizens. The GOP-controlled U.S. House passed a bill requiring states that issue permits allowing residents to carry concealed weapons to recognize the permits issued by every state. Thus, states with stringent training and age requirements would need to recognize permits issued by states with very lax requirements.
The second, more recent happening, was the action of the Virginia legislature in repealing the law limiting gun purchases to one a month. It is hard to imagine why people need an unlimited number of guns in their possession and why there there is no concern about community safety with so many guns around.
There is a fascinating counterpoint in tales of the Wild West, centering on gunfights, as opposed to the open availability of firearms today, even the right to carry concealed firearms. Adam Winklere, in this book, Gun Fight, noted that state and local governments routinely banned concealed weapons in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Even Dodge City and Tombstone required "new arrivals" to turn their guns over to authorities while in town.
Media and general public discussion focuses on a ban on assault rifles and denial of access to guns by unstable or mentally ill individuals. Such a limited perspective on gun control is a misnomer, as the handgun is the major instrument of crimes causing death and serious injury. Gun, or firearms control should be focused on a ban on the manufacture or importation of handguns and handgun parts.
Unless I become too lazy, I will do a major piece on firearms control in the future.
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