July 26, 2014

You are mistaken. It did happen. You didn't read my entire post,

including the edit I made on my own, before you posted, or Reply 18.

And you didn't mention 2009 to 2011 at all, though the years I had mentioned were 2007 to 2011.

ETA: Thanks for the great example of the fallacy of the "If Democrats did not do it, it could not have humanly be done in the real world" theory.

July 26, 2014

I call bs. It was totally understood.

Nonetheless, President Obama and the D of J decided not to prosecute anyone whose ass had been covered by "legal advice," even if the advice was not so legal and not even sought until after the acts had begun. The so-called legal advice was that interrogation techniques up to and including death of the person being interrogated did not violate applicable law.

The two Attorneys most involved in the "legal advice," aside from Gonzo, were Yoo and Bybee.

Bybee had called Gonzo about getting a judgeship. Gonzo told him to come to work giving these legal opinions and then people would see about his judgeship. After giving his bullshit cya legal opinions, Bybee was nominated and confirmed for a seat on the US Circuit Court of Appeals, where he now sits for life, unless and until someone prosecutes and/or impeaches him. Guess what? Neither has happened.

Yoo went on to--wait for it--teach law. Also to write books and law review articles, both of which may well get cited in legal opinions (if they have not already been), as well as get credence from students and scholars. Bybee and Yoo are well worth your reading their full wikis and otherwise researching, along with how the Obama administration used their legal opinions to exonerate everyone who supposedly had relied on them.


As to Yoo:

In June 2004, another of Yoo's memos on interrogation techniques was leaked to the press, after which it was repudiated by Goldsmith and the OLC.[18]

Yoo's contribution to these memos has remained a source of controversy following his departure from the Justice Department;[19] he was called to testify before the House Judiciary Committee in 2008 in defense of his role.[20] The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) began investigating Yoo's work in 2004 and in July 2009 completed a report that was sharply critical of his legal justification for waterboarding and other interrogation techniques.[21][22][23][24] The OPR report cites testimony Yoo gave to Justice Department investigators in which he claims that the "president's war-making authority was so broad that he had the constitutional power to order a village to be 'massacred'"[25]

The OPR report concluded that Yoo had "committed 'intentional professional misconduct' when he advised the CIA it could proceed with waterboarding and other aggressive interrogation techniques against Al Qaeda suspects", although the recommendation that he be referred to his state bar association for possible disciplinary proceedings was overruled by David Margolis, another senior Justice department lawyer.[25]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Yoo

No one would even send a letter to the bar associations of Yoo and Bybee suggesting that the bar association might want to look into their actions. And by the way, the degree of evidence necessary to back up such a suggestion is zero.

Now, if legal opinions that were leaked said waterboarding, even death, of the "suspect" was legal, even massacring a village would be legal, what exactly was not previously understood about the degree of brutality of the interrogations by the CIA?

And, while I know Abu Ghraib was not about interrogations or the CIA, wasn't that a fucking clue to everyone in the world, including Congress and the Obama administration, that gambling brutality just might have gone on in Rick's Casino the Bush Administration?

Why do we continue to accept this lame, corrupt bullshit?

When are we going to demand return to the rule of law?

July 24, 2014

No, that would be socialism, period.

Many people have doubts about socialism, in part because of what I mentioned in my prior post--how much time, energy and money we've spend discrediting socialism.

Those doubts are exactly why the RW throws around the word "socialism" when social programs that have nothing to do with ownership of the means of production are at issue.

And exactly why I think the left should not also use the word incorrectly. So doing only hurts the left and helps the right.

I don't know when people began thinking that what they feels a word means is more correct than the dictionary meaning of the word. I think dictionary definitions are important if we are going to actually understand what we and others are saying, instead of only assuming we're communicating on the same page.

so·cial·ism
ˈsōSHəˌlizəm/
noun
noun: socialism

a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. (in Marxist theory) a transitional social state between the overthrow of capitalism and the realization of communism.

July 24, 2014

It means government ownership of the means of production, not just

some government program. That is its meaning and dictonary definition.

If Obamacare were truly socialist, government would be owning the hospitals, hiring doctors, nurses and maintenance staff, etc.

When the word is used loosely, it brings to bear in a program about 70 years and trillions of dollars spent by the USA combating the left and discrediting the left at home and abroad.

July 24, 2014

Why I never call myself a progressive, by merrily

When the DLC first formally organized, Koch Industries donated to it and one of the Koch brothers had a seat on its Executive Council.

http://americablog.com/2010/08/koch-industries-gave-funding-to-the-dlc-and-served-on-its-executive-council.html

(According to Jean Mayer of The New Yorker, this was about the same time as the Koch brothers began planning the Tea Party.)

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/08/30/covert-operations

The first two full-time employees of the DLC were Al From and Will Marshall. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Leadership_Council

Marshall later founded the Progressive Policy Institute. It's web home page used to say something like, "Welcome to the Progressive Policy Institute, the place for pragmatic progressives."

I haven't checked lately, but the last time I checked, it no longer said that. Perhaps Tom Tomorrow got to PPI?



Anyway, PPI was founded in 1989, only a few years after official formation of the DLC. In 2003, Marshall, who is still President of PPI, signed the PNAC letter, urging Bush to invade Iraq.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Marshall

How's that for progressive? How's that for pragmatic?