Questions about Waterboarding

The question being mulled over right now by the U.S.A.G. is not whether waterboarding is torture, but whether it was so obviously illegal that those attorneys who wrote memoranda opining that it was not illegal should be prosecuted for a crime.

1. I don't care how off base I think another lawyer may be, I disagree with prosecuting a colleague who happens to arrive at a different conclusion than someone else on a question of law.

2. "The law" is not usually amenable to black-and-white answers.

3. Because the law is not usually fixed, attorneys who render opinions on the law will put qualifiers in their memos like "probably" or "highly likely," kind of like the IPCC put throughout its 2007 climate change report (yup, I've been reading). My guess is that qualifications on the opinions will be found in the memos.

4. The decision to waterboard was essentially a political one, that came with political consequences. Morality is involved with every decision, and there are moral consequences as well.

5. The only circumstance where I could go along with a prosecution for a legal opinion would be where there was a specific law on the books (The "Anti-Waterboarding Act," complete with definitions), that outlawed the practice, and the attorney writing the opinion is aware of the law and denies that it exists or claims that it says something different than it actually says.

Which raises a question: Since Mrs. Speaker Pelosi and others were aware that the practice was being talked about, if they felt it was illegal, why didn't they just pass a law specifically prohibiting waterboarding? Maybe if they did pass that law, it would highlight the fact that absent a statute prohibiting waterboarding, "the law" on waterboarding is unclear.

Oops! in September 2006 Sen. Kennedy tried to get waterboarding defined as a war crime. Didn't pass. Double oops!! in February of 2008, with Mrs. Speaker Pelosi front and center in the House, Congress passed a bill restricting interrogations to Army-field-manual techniques, prohibiting waterboarding by exclusion. Pres. Bush vetoed the bill.

Last question: Now that there are enough votes in Congress and a President who would sign the bill, why don't the Democrats finish the job and make waterboarding illegal?

This post isn't about the morality of waterboarding, torture, the trade-offs, benefits, burdens, etc. It is about the short-sighted cheapening of our system that occurs when a new administration acts like a new regime looking for payback, when Pres. Obama is ready to feed government lawyers to the wolves (actually having Mr. Holder do the feeding based on Mr. Holder's legal opinion?!!?), so long as the wolves agree with him and the government lawyers gave opinions to his predecessor.

On this one, I can honestly say that if the shoe were on the other foot, I would not be tempted to prosecute. I think the Chrysler bailout is unconstitutional (and an obvious waste of $10.5 billion in taxpayer money). But on a change of administration, I would not be for prosecuting the attorneys who said it was constitutional, no matter how ruinous the pursuit of the policy turned (is turning!) out to be.

Sorry for the long post.

Food For Thought on Global Warming

Just throwing these out here. I've found a couple of interesting videos online that show both sides of the debate:
Here's Al Gore in a trailer for his movie, An Inconvenient Truth



Now, here are a couple from the Heartland Institute on the skeptical side:



And finally, here's one more:



So which side are we to believe? I really don't have a clue, but either way, I think this last movie raises a pretty good point when it said that "science is not the language of politicians nor the profession of celebrities." I wonder if the politics (the trillions of dollars at stake) are driving the science instead of the other way around. Who knows!

Ignorance ISN'T Bliss

Ignorance: The condition of being uninformed or uneducated. Lacking knowledge or information. This is a word derived from the Latin word, īgnōrō, which is also the root word of ignore.

Ignore: To deliberately pay no attention to.

So why the English lesson?

Yesterday, as I was driving from Logan to Pocatello, I was listening to a conservative talk radio program, I don't even know what it was called. (Don't worry guys this actually isn't about conservatives.) But they were talking about a comment I had heard Jeff talk about, a comment from Janeane Garofalo speaking on Countdown with Keith Oberman. Here's what she said,

"Let's be very honest about what this is about. This is not about bashing Democrats. It's not about taxes. They have no idea what the Boston Tea party was about. They don't know their history at all. It's about hating a black man in the White House."

I hope that because an ignorant person from the left side said that the tea parties are racist in nature you don't think we really believe that. If it was, they should have called them Lynching Parties or KKK rallies. This is an example of sheer ignorance, ignoring the fact that the tea parties had nothing to do with Barack Obama being black. That was just her way of expressing hate against someone who believed differently than her, which ironically makes her more guilty of stereotyping than conservatives. I believe conservatives would have had these parties had John McCain passed similar legislation of enormous spending and expanding government. I don't blame anyone for holding and supporting these parties and am proud to live in a country where we can do something like this.

On the other side was a comment I heard from a Mr. Sean Hannity about a month ago. I actually like Sean Hannity sometimes in small doses. He makes some crazy accusations occasionally but I find him entertaining. But Sean Hannity dropped out of college and has no background in science. A month ago I heard him say global warming is fake, made up by the left side, and that the earth is just going through cycles like it always has.

This is another example of ignorance. Why anyone would listen to someone who dropped out of college over thousands of experts all over the world is beyond me. Had he actually taken chemistry and some basic science classes he could learn that the enormous greenhouse gases we emit everyday will eventually heat up the planet. Luckily I know not all conservatives feel this way, at least I hope they don't. Basically the main reason for this post is to get you (and I) to think before we make a comment, "am I making this comment in ignorance?"

Rightwing Extremism and the Vet Threat

This post is not about how Obama is messing everything up. It is about respecting the brave men and women who have selflessly sacrificed so much, including their lives, to keep our country safe. Last week, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a report titled, "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment." I've strived for objectivity here, forming my opinion after reading the report itself, not after listening to or reading conservatives' opinions about it. For those so inclined, click here to read the entire report.

Here are some quotes from the report: "The DHS has no specific information that rightwing terrorists are currently planning any acts of violence, but [they] may be gaining new recruits by playing on their fears about several emergent issues. The economic downturn and the election of the first African American president present unique drivers for rightwing radicalization and recruitment." Hmmmmmm, no specific information. They may be gaining new recruits. This speculative theme continues throughout the report (I'll quickly admit this is definitely not the first time our government has produced speculative "intelligence." Republican administrations are guilty as well).

So who are these potential recruits DHS is so concerned about? None other than our returning military vets. "The possible passage of new restrictions on firearms and the return of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks." Here's another one under the "Disgruntled Military Vets" section. "A prominent civil rights organization reported in 2006 that 'large numbers of potentially violent neo-Nazis, skinheads, and white supremacists are now learning the art of warfare in the [U.S.] armed forces." Apparently, the organization was so prominent that DHS forgot to mention its name, the numbers so great that DHS omitted the count. How about a citation for this report? Why not name it? Why accept this bigoted hearsay? Where's the proof? Where's the data?

Just ONE 14 yr. old statistic is cited in the entire report - Tim McVeigh, the 1995 OKC bomber who quickly washed out of the Special Forces program. But to make the link that all returning vets are disgruntled, violent, anti-semitic, racist (our president is half black), can't handle the economic recession, and can't be trusted with firearms, and therefore likely recruits for Rightwing extremist groups, is laughable based on merely ONE example that happened 14 years ago. That's just as absurd as assuming that every bearded, turban-wearing man is likely to become a jihadi warrior, hijack a plane, or blow himself up.

I'm not a military vet, but I have family members who are, and I find this shoddy report downright offensive. If they don't come home in flag-draped caskets, our vets will now be suspiciously monitored thanks to the baseless, politically-biased propaganda produced by their own government. Veterans deserve, at minimum, to be thanked, respected, and honored by people of EVERY political persuasion. They don't deserve to be monitored, feared, and labeled as possible recruits for Rightwing extremist groups. I think an apology would be appropriate.

To her credit, Janet Napolitano, Sec. of DHS, offered an "apology" last Thursday: "To the extent that veterans read it as an accusation, an apology is owed. This was an assessment, not an accusation." Hey, it's better than nothing, right? But wouldn't it have been much better if she apologized for the report's actual contents, and not for how the veterans reacted to them?

Not Very Fair or Balanced

Pres. Obama's speech to European leaders that included the reference to arrogant Americans was really bothering me. At least I thought it was. I wondered whether Pres. Obama had referred to Americans in the third-person plural instead of the first-person plural. So I went looking for his actual speech. What I found surprised me.

In the same paragraph that arrogance was mentioned, Pres. Obama took the Europeans to task for being too anti-American! I don't think Pres. Bush ever went that far. It took Pres. Obama some political courage to spend some of his international popularity to deliver a reality check to the Europeans. I respect him for that.

What surprised me most, however, was how easily I had climbed aboard the bash-Obama bandwagon, without bothering to check out what the conservative show-hosts were saying. Maybe Hannity and Limbaugh had mentioned the other half of the arrogance coin, and I just missed it. But these commentators were pouncing and pounding on the arrogance theme like a jackhammer. And I just went along.

I still have strong feelings about capitalism and freedom that will probably clash with Pres. Obama's views with frequency. This experience, though, reminds me that I will be more effective in persuading others if I remain objective and decline to take liberties with the facts. Publius' comment on the last post is very much appreciated.

Be careful who you trust, especially to help you form opinions. There are two commentators who write well and I have found are trustworthy in not overstating their positions. They are keen observers rather than ideologues. Both tend to be conservative.

One is Peggy Noonan, who has a regular column in the Wall Street Journal (wsj.com). Her last piece, "Lessons from the 2001 Recovery," is an inspiring as well as thought-provoking look at capitalism today, and in the week that followed 9/11.

The other is George F. Will, who regularly contributes to the Washington Post (washingtonpost.com). His latest is "Racing Past the Constitution; Stealing from Casinos" about the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment and how it's being bypassed in Illinois re-distribution of wealth from casinos to racetracks.

The Obama Bow

I'm sure you've all heard about the recent bowing fiasco, but I think it's important to compare it to his visit to the queen:



Though it's obviously in bad taste for a myriad of reasons to bow to this guy, what I'm more upset about is the fact that the White House is all-out LYING ABOUT IT! I know politics is politics and you never want to look bad, but there comes a point when you have to realize that everyone knows what happened and lying about it just makes things worse. What could they possibly have to gain by trying to deny this? Do they REALLY think Americans are that dumb?

Personally I think he's been listening to his own apologetic speeches too long: he's really convinced himself that Americans are just arrogant and stupid...otherwise why even try to deny this? The only difference it's made is that now we all have one more reason not to trust our president. I think Obama should speak for himself in throwing around accusations of arrogance, because that's what's driving this (I think). He thinks that because he's mister charisma with the media bending over backwards for him that he can get away with anything! He needs to wake up (and soon): just because lots of people voted for him last fall doesn't mean he's "too big to fail" like the financial institutions he's been bailing out. I seriously can't see him getting re-elected if he keeps this up much longer, because I think most people will say to themselves "fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me..."

New Development on Stem Cell Debate

so this is just something I heard about on Rush and I thought would make an interesting addition to our earlier discussion about Obama's reversal on stem cell funding. I realize this is just one source, but this guy is a doctor and he said he talked to a bunch of experts, so it's definitely something to think about. I mean, if he's right, then what the heck are we doing if embryonic stem cells are actually more dangerous than this other solution he talked about? Why isn't Obama funding that research?

If I had to guess I'd say it's about his beliefs about when life begins and him trying to prove a point about how life doesn't matter one way or another before birth. I'm sure he wouldn't hesitate to put some sort of spin on this if it did become a big deal, but I think it would be totally transparent, just like the recent bowing fiasco with the Saudi king (I have more to say about that but i'll save it for another post). But then again, what isn't transparent political spin that comes out of the White House?

Government Motors and the Obama Power Grab

Rick Wagoner was axed last week as the CEO of General Motors by our new auto-warranties-guarantor-in-chief. Here is Obama's direct quote from the press conference: "If you buy a car from Chrysler or General Motors, you will be able to get your car serviced and repaired, just like always. Your warranty will be safe. In fact, it will be safer than it's ever been. Because starting today, the United States government will stand behind your warranty."

Why this troubling intervention, you ask? Well, the administration apparently didn't like GM's latest restructuring plan, so Wagoner got the boot as the sacrificial lamb. The clock is now ticking on GM (60 days) and Chrysler (30 days) to get things turned around or they may be looking at a Ch. 11 bankruptcy. To me, this power grab smacks more of mob extortion than of proper governmental action, even in these turbulent times.

So now, the life support cord for these two auto giants is in the President's hands. And because these companies have already eaten from the taxpayer bailout trough and are hungry for more, the man who has less than 3 months of any meaningful executive experience gets to now dictate how these companies are run and how much their execs get paid. This also means that government bureaucrats, NOT free market forces, will be telling GM and Chrysler to supply the kinds of cars they can only hope consumers will demand. Oh boy.

These are the strings - no, the chains - that come attached with bailout money. Businesses beware! Is it any wonder that Ford (wisely) wants to avoid bailout cash like the plague? Are you surprised that the banks who have already received funds are dying to pay them back? These companies learned the hard way that when you get in bed with the government, you'll never have a good night's sleep. Do you guys feel comfortable with this development? Why or why not? Here are 3 more questions to ponder:

1.) Why didn't the under-performing union boss at UAW lose his cushy job along with Wagoner? If Obama is going to be the HR-director-in-chief, then why not axe both sides of the bargaining table to be fair and consistent?

2.) If you were a rising, talented executive with a promising future, would you be less likely or more likely to go work for a company where politicians can fire you?

3.) Do you honestly believe Obama will let these companies fail now, after investing so much in them and stamping his presidential promise on every car's warranty? I have my doubts. His image would take too big a hit, unemployment would balloon, and the populist outrage would explode - i.e. you bail out the bankers on Wall St. but not us blue collar auto workers on Main St.? The question then becomes: When and where does the bailout slippery slope end?