Tag: Politics

The torture report

Antonin Scalia believes in the ‘24’ Effect to rationalize torture.

From Tom Tomorrow
From Tom Tomorrow

While I’ve had the intention of writing about the disturbing report that the Senate Democrats recently released about the United States and torture, circumstances have not allowed that. So here’s a bunch of links, with brief observations:

From The Implications of the Torture Report by Mike Lofgren, Truthout:

The present writer will take as a given the veracity of its three main findings: that the United States engaged in practices both legally and commonly definable as torture; that the actionable intelligence these practices produced was negligible; and that the practices tainted the moral prestige of the United States government in a manner that damaged its foreign policy. These assertions may be taken as true both because of the abundant evidence presented in the report itself and because of the flailing and hysterical reaction by our country’s national security elites…

[Secretary of State] Kerry: “Lots of things going on in the world; not a good time for disclosure.” But when is there ever not a lot of things going on in the world?

That would be my general view as well.

Another fair representation of my position: 5 Things to Understand About the Torture Report from the Weekly Sift.

I’m particularly intrigued by the Truth and reconciliation section, which almost certainly will not happen because America is AWESOME! and we’re a “let’s move on” people.

The Rank, Reeking Horror of Torturing Some Folks from Truthout:

“In my name. In your name. In our names.” The narrative was that, in the days after 9/11, the “American people” wanted the government to do “anything” to prevent of another one. Instead, the torture and imprisonment have eventually led to the hate-filled ISIS. That may be true, since a majority of Americans say the CIA tactics were justified, which makes me all sorts of sad.

CIA Lied About Torture, Senate Report Suggests from Newsmax:

All sorts of discomforting items therein.

What torture sounds like from BoingBoing.
ventura
Karl Rove Says Bush Knew About CIA Interrogation Program, Defends Rectal Feeding from the Huffington Post:

“Appearing on ‘Fox News Sunday,’ [former GW Bush adviser] Rove claimed the brutal forced rectal feedings — which the report said were not medically necessary — were used out of medical necessity.”

Physicians: “Anal feeding” of prisoners is sexual assault, has no medical use, from BoingBoing:

“What a sad world we live in, when a coalition of medical professionals has to issue a press release announcing this most obvious of obvious observations…”

Dick Cheney: ‘I Haven’t Read’ CIA Torture Report but It’s ‘Full of Crap’ from Mediaite:

He doth describe himself instead, and rather well.

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Antonin Scalia’s spirited defense of torture from MSNBC:

“We have never held that that’s contrary to the Constitution. And I don’t know what provision of the Constitution that would, that would contravene.

“Listen, I think it is very facile for people to say, ‘Oh, torture is terrible.’ You posit the situation where a person that you know for sure knows the location of a nuclear bomb that has been planted in Los Angeles and will kill millions of people. You think it’s an easy question? You think it’s clear that you cannot use extreme measures to get that information out of that person? I don’t think that’s so clear at all.”

OMG, OMG. (Facepalm) Scalia believes in The ‘24’ Effect: Did the TV drama convince us that torture really worked? from Matt Bai at Yahoo! News. I stopped watching this show regularly after the first episode of the second season because I decided it was torture porn.

But sometimes, you just need a cartoon to break it down for you:
Tortured logic, from Tom Tomorrow in the Daily Kos
An Illustrated A to Z of Torture from Vice.com

Or satire:
Cheney calls for ban on publishing torture reports from the New Yorker

The film PAY 2 PLAY: Democracy’s High Stakes at the Linda 12/4

The Pay 2 Play System is where Politicians reward their donors with even larger sums from the public treasury — through contracts, tax cuts, and deregulation.

play2pay

The movie PAY 2 PLAY: Democracy’s High Stakes will be shown on Thursday, December 4 at 7:00 pm at the The Linda, WAMC’s performing arts studio at 339 Central Avenue, on the corner of Quail Street and Central Avenue in Albany. The showing is FREE, but reservations are required; call 518-463-8256 or e-mail ny4democracy@gmail.com.

The 90-minute documentary will be followed by a panel discussion organized by New York For Democracy, “an ever growing group of New Yorkers who are committed to rescuing our democracy from the devastating influences of money in politics.”

PAY 2 PLAY follows filmmaker John Ennis’ quest to find a way out from under the Pay 2 Play System, where Politicians reward their donors with even larger sums from the public treasury — through contracts, tax cuts, and deregulation. Along the way, he journeys through high drama on the Ohio campaign trail, uncovers the secret history of the game Monopoly, and explores the underworld of L.A. street art on a humorous odyssey that reveals how much of a difference one person can make.

See where the film may be playing in a city near you.

The case against The Case Against Liberal Compassion

This is some hope for you liberals who are feeling a bit… down after November 4.

compassionSomehow, I have received in the (snail) mail the current (October 2014) issue of Imprimis. The article, The Case Against Liberal Compassion by William Voegeli, the Senior Editor of Claremont Review of Books, arrived right after the 2014 midterm elections. He attacks “the five big program areas that make up our welfare state.”

Basically, it’s the same old trope about liberals using other people’s money to do good. He uses the Affordable Care Act, and specifically the disastrous rollout of the Obamacare website as “proof”, ignoring the value of the actual program to the previously unemployed.

Of course, he does not once mention the major “welfare state,” corporate welfare. Even FORBES magazine, no liberal bastion, asked this year, Where Is The Outrage Over Corporate Welfare? Not to mention the cover-up of economic malfeasance.

In fact, I believe that it would be a very good thing to reduce the number of working families who are on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which I knew as Food Stamps. Ultimately, the government is supplementing Wal-Mart and McDonalds and those other businesses providing less than livable wages to their employees, expanding the welfare state.

But rather than creating a blow-by-blow response, for which I haven’t the energy, I recommend to you the Weekly Sift’s Republicans have a story to tell. We’re stuck with facts. It does not actually deal with the Imprimis article, but was, rather, an antidote to it for me.

Everything the Democrats support is on the wrong scale: We want to raise the minimum wage, and subsidize your health insurance, and pay women the same as men, and cut back the war on minor drugs, and create jobs building infrastructure, and put a little less carbon in the air. All good stuff…

What the current Democratic strategy misses is precisely the caring-about-things-that-don’t-directly-affect-you that the Republican story inspires…

It may also provide some hope for you liberals who are feeling a bit… down after November 4.

Ultimately, though, I’m convinced that it’s not just the expenditure of government money that is at issue. That would not explain the increasing number of municipalities that are criminalizing the hungry and the homeless, because it would not “look good.” This made national news. This does not involve government, except as an agent of non-compassion.

Meanwhile, newly-reelected Wisconsin Scott Walker wants jobless and food stamp recipients to face drug testing, an exercise in other states, such as Florida, that is not only demeaning but actually costs more to do than the savings from cutting off drug users; a lousy use of the public dollar.

So, yes, I’ll still accept the liberal mantle. Unlike the straw horse argument by Voegeli, I DO value the implementation of efficiency. Too often, though, those “efficiencies” are implemented to either line the pockets of the connected or obfuscate the real problems.

I’ll opt for compassion.

Politics, Alex Trebek and JEOPARDY!

It could be that I’m STILL ticked off that Alex Trebek ruined my picture with him.

alex-trebek-jeopardyIt’s no great secret that many game show hosts in the United States are politically conservative. Here are articles from the Daily Beast and Salon.

This list of MCs includes Alex Trebek, host of JEOPARDY, a show I’ve been watching in one iteration or other more than half of my life. I’m not suggesting a political litmus test, so the fact that he speaks approvingly of the Tea Party is disappointing to me but doesn’t alter my appreciation of the game.

However, his comments on air are cumulatively starting to irritate. As Salon suggests: “In Trebek’s universe, when a woman wins, a battle of the sexes begins, whereas when a man wins, the universe is in accord.”

The show itself got dinged for its recent sexist “what women want” category. Trebek doesn’t write the questions, but after 30 years, certainly has enough sway that if the category or the questions therein (which you can read HERE) bugged him, they’d likely be altered.

So I took some odd pleasure from this recent gaffe during the interview section, made available by the show’s producers.

Of course, it could be that I’m STILL ticked off that he ruined my picture with him. After I was on the show, taped in September 1998, I received a photo, but it was just of me with no Trebek. I’m sure it was because when I posed for the photo with him, I could see on a monitor that he did the rabbit ears thing behind me like an eight-year-old.

In any case, I imagine the now appropriately mustachioed host will probably retire in a couple of years. And the show still interests me, so that trumps whatever irritation I have with the host for enjoyment, so far.
***
Here’s one of those recent Jeopardy! Hometown Howdies.

Respectful political discussion on Facebook

How does one know if those things – racism, sexism – are getting better or worse?

fightYes, you read that correctly: “respectful”, “political discussion” and “Facebook” in the same headline.

Someone I’ll call Brett posted on Facebook a link to an article titled Check the Race Box or Else . It indicated that, according to the Boston Globe:

“Newly hired [City of Boston] employees fill out forms… that ask them to indicate their gender and to identify their race or ethnicity in one of five categories Continue reading “Respectful political discussion on Facebook”

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