Browsed by
Tag: Joe Lieberman

News that Matters to Me

News that Matters to Me

Comments 0 Comment

The roundup of the news that catches my eye and matters to me is focused around a national theme, as it often is.

We are too easily misled and kept in the dark. When we see a bit of light, it is too easy to cover our eyes. We have been progressively desensitized, but we’re not the first.

I am beginning to have some hope again.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the state can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie.” — Joseph Goebbels, minister of propaganda in Nazi Germany, 1933-1945

Americans are starting to be unable to avoid recognitions of some of the consequences… at last. Don’t forget the lessons of the “Good Germans”.

Our moral trajectory over the Bush years could not be better dramatized than it was by a reunion of an elite group of two dozen World War II veterans in Washington this month. They were participants in a top-secret operation to interrogate some 4,000 Nazi prisoners of war. Until now, they have kept silent, but America’s recent record prompted them to talk to The Washington Post.

“We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture,” said Henry Kolm, 90, an M.I.T. physicist whose interrogation of Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy, took place over a chessboard. George Frenkel, 87, recalled that he “never laid hands on anyone” in his many interrogations, adding, “I’m proud to say I never compromised my humanity.”

Our humanity has been compromised by those who use Gestapo tactics in our war. The longer we stand idly by while they do so, the more we resemble those “good Germans” who professed ignorance of their own Gestapo. It’s up to us to wake up our somnambulant Congress to challenge administration policy every day. Let the war’s last supporters filibuster all night if they want to. There is nothing left to lose except whatever remains of our country’s good name.

In related news, Gen. Michael V. Hayden has ordered an investigation of its own Inspector General John L. Helgerson – for Helgerson’s own investigations into the CIA’s involvement in torture. Got that? Read it again.

This warrants an immediate and aggressive investigation by Congress into a clear case of attempting to suppress dedicated public servants because they may believe the United States should abide by international law and basic human morality. … This story fits the pattern of absolutely everything this Administration does: fail, commit crimes, try to cover up those failures and crimes, and when honest and competent people make honest and competent efforts to keep our government honest and competent, punish them.

On the domestic front lines, it looks as though the NSA approached Qwest before 9/11 to enlist telecommunications firms in surveillance without court oversight. Don’t give me any more fluff about the “post-911 world,” if you please.

Details about the alleged NSA program have been redacted from the documents, but Nacchio’s lawyer said last year that the NSA had approached the company about participating in a warrantless surveillance program to gather information about Americans’ phone records. In the court filings disclosed this week, Nacchio suggests that Qwest’s refusal to take part in that program led the government to cancel a separate, lucrative contract with the NSA in retribution.

From Gary Wood at Hear My Thunder, here’s a commentary worth reading on our 4th largest city, Prison USA:

Based on 2005 population figures for both our prisons and U.S. cities the prison population would rank as the 4th largest city behind New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago while beating Houston out by over 200,000 people.

Check out Amy Branham’s article on how we went shopping while our constitution burned, too.

Be sure to take a look at Jon Stewart’s little video on America’s favorite private mercenary force (Killing People since 1906 … for Money), care of Crooks and Liars.

One nice thing in the news, at least. Hey, Al Gore! You rock! Congrats on the Nobel Peace Prize!

But McCain is such a wanker, making this nasty and absurd statement:

Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain said the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, announced today, should have gone to someone else other than former Vice President Al Gore. “I would have liked to see that prize go to the Buddhist monks who are suffering and dying in Burma,” McCain said after a speech this morning in Davenport.

I sure hope not, but nice try for the heartstrings. There would have been a long line of suffering and dying people who would have been in line before them.

I think Gore’s contribution was to work for the recognition of a worldwide problem that we need to solve together in peace. We can all be warring with one another until there is nothing left to fight for, or we can work together on a larger project, one that is truly a global problem.

…McCain, an Arizona senator, said he hoped Gore would now support nuclear power and a cap and trade proposal made by McCain and Sen. Joseph Lieberman to mandate that all sections of the U.S. economy reduce greenhouse gasses through a market-based system of trading emissions.

Trading guilt – like indulgences?

At this point, the second Lieberman’s name is on it, I have serious reservations. I would be more optimistic about nuclear power in the US if I felt sure about the government’s true ability or inclination to safeguard the public…

The statement from White House spokeman Tony Fratto on the honor to Gore was hilarious (or maybe it’s just me). Not only is Bush fully aware that Gore should have been President… but don’t forget that Bush has vigorously opposed mandatory reductions of greenhouse gas throughout his “reign,” appointed industry cronies to important posts, and even interfered with scientific reports. Bush may be the least environmentally-friendly President in history, and he is no friend to Gore (obviously). So, what can he say?

First there is the humorous suggestion that the President is “happy”:

“Of course he’s happy for (former) vice-president Gore and happy for the international panel on climate change scientists who also shared the peace prize.”

But it gets better!

Obviously, it’s an important recognition and we’re sure the vice president is thrilled.

It almost gushes – we’re SURE the vice president is THRILLED. Mrriooww- hissss.

Oh brother.

I want to see, and I think it’s really time for us all to see, a serious unmoderated round-table debate between John Edwards, Dennis Kuchinich, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and maybe even Ron Paul. I’m getting tired of the bull already. I don’t want a performance – I want to see a serious discussion where they have to deal with each other.

What I’ve seen of the Republican debates doesn’t make me want to see any more, but they should do this too.

And – hey – why not have a series of two at a time? Not the stupid dogshows they do later, but real debates. Unmoderated debates, but under standard rules of debate. Sigh. I’ll keep hoping, although everything I see works against it ever happening.

No Senate Consideration of Habeas Corpus

No Senate Consideration of Habeas Corpus

Comments 0 Comment

The US Senate has voted not even to consider upholding habeas corpus those designated an “enemy combatant” by the U.S. government (that could be you or me, folks).

This means that anyone can be held – STILL – for an indefinite amount of time without even being told why they are being detained (“arrested” “held” “imprisoned” “tortured”). They have no right to question or challenge detention, even if such detention is in violation of US and international law.

The draft legislation needed approval by 60 votes in order to be considered in the Senate (a cloture vote to block GOP filibuster).

It received only 56, with 43 voting against.

Of my own senators, Saxby Chambliss didn’t vote (which is a little strange – usually he’s right there doing whatever the Fuhrer wants). Johnny Isakson (who I sometimes have teeny-tiny hopes for) voted NAY.

Oh, yeah, Lieberman voted NAY, too.

Arlen Specter – a prominent Republican and one of the three sponsors of the bill – noted that the right to habeas corpus dates back at least to the English Magna Carta of 1215, and is enshrined in the US Constitution.

Look, habeas corpus is a very basic protection against arbitrary arrest. No country that tries to claim it is an any way democratic should be without it. Even non-democratic countries often honor thabeas corpus.

Habeas Corpus empowers the individual in holding accountable the exercise of the state’s awesome power to restrain liberty.

To put this in the context of the current situation, the aim of the ‘Habeas Corpus Restoration Act’ – in combination with the ‘Restoring the Constitution Act’ – was to restore some sort of credibility to the process of detaining terrorist suspects.

Right now, everything we are doing is – well, the least you can say is that it runs counter to American values and traditions. These would would have put detentions in a more tenable legal framework by restoring the ancient tradition of habeas corpus, narrowing the definition of unlawful enemy combatants, prohibiting evidence obtained under torture, and returning to an affirmation of the Geneva Conventions.


See the official vote tally

I spit in the faces of all the Senators who voted against even seriously considering the issues involved here. You have not upheld your oath, and you do not deserve to be in office.

Joe Lieberman – gee thanks, Connecticut

Joe Lieberman – gee thanks, Connecticut

Comments 2 comments

There are some Senators who drive me nuts, but nobody more so than Joe Lieberman. Some years ago, I used to have a modicum of respect for the guy as a moderate. Now he’s a snake. At least my more-red-than-red Senators here in Georgia, Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson, are predicable in their unthinking Bush loyalist stance. They can always be relied upon to vote exactly the way I don’t want them to vote.

Oh sure, Joe, let’s go into Iran now. And to think that you ran on a platform for bipartisan cooperation to end the war. You’ve lost all credibility with me. That’s it.

I can see why people in Connecticut are finally waking up and regreting re-electing Holy Joe.

David Sirota has a great blog post on Lieberman’s strategery…

During the campaign, we did all that we could to point out how Lieberman was lying about his position on the war through as many venues as possible – blogs, candidate speeches, and television advertising making the point that “a vote for Lieberman means a vote for more war” (an ad that Lieberman actually held a special press conference to attack for supposedly being not true). But in the general election’s stretch run, the independent validators in the race – the local and national media – refused to report on Lieberman’s actual positions and votes continuing to support Bush and the war, and this key slice of Democratic and Independent voters remained confused. They voted for Lieberman because they believed that he perhaps had been pro-war before, but had changed – when in fact the only thing that had changed temporarily was his language, but not his actions.

…

Had Connecticut voters had more information about exactly how Lieberman’s campaign to reinvent himself as an antiwar leader was a complete sham, that key segment of the Democratic and Independent voters might not have been confused, and the election – as the poll now confirms – would have gone the other way.

Meanwhile, some important voices within Lieberman’s own ingroup are calling for him to resign or to be “recalled”.

The chairman of Joseph Lieberman’s minor political party has asked state officials to determine whether the U.S. senator founded it last year under false pretenses and broke election laws.

“I think he took unfair advantage of his many years of incumbency,” said John Orman, a Fairfield University political science professor who took over the party Lieberman formed after losing last year’s Democratic primary to Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont. “He decided to run as a minor party candidate without actually joining that party, knowing there would be protection from the various officials in Hartford he’s been friends with for 30 years or so.”

… More recently, Connecticut for Lieberman asked the senator to resign from office for advocating a military strike against Iran. Orman said Connecticut for Lieberman was the only political party willing to hold the senator accountable.