Thursday, July 03, 2008

Patriot primer

Read Christopher Hitchen's account of getting waterboarded. Watch the video of the "exercise". Spoiler alert: he didn't like it. Thinks it's torture.

Then there's the New York Times' account of how Gitmo interrogators inadvertently adopted Chinese-Korean War-era interrogation methods (once upon a time referred to as "torture" and "brainwashing") that are proven -- like waterboarding -- to produce false confessions. Oops.

Almost as informative: how large GOP donors can influence policy in Texas in a New York minute, or give to both John McCain and to Latin-American death squads. Now that's as All-American as Ollie North and Ronald Reagan.

The tug-of-war going on between my friends and associates in the progressive community revolves around a couple of whip counts worth pondering over the long holiday: how many of us think that things are so bad that the best course of action is to let them get much, much worse so that "things come to a head" and we don't delude ourselves into thinking that our country can get by with incremental changes ...

... and how many of us think things are so bad that the best thing to do is to work as hard as we can to get Barack Obama elected, and likewise elect Democrats in sweeping victories in both houses in Washington, in Austin, and in Harris County so that we can emphatically reject Republican rule and get started ASAP in a better direction.

Or some half-measure of the above (the centrists, in other words).

Personally, I'm still deciding.

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Why don't we celebrate the 4th on the 2nd?

Courtesy LiveScience:

John Adams predicted in a letter to his wife Abigail that Americans would celebrate their Independence Day on July 2. Off by two days -- not too bad for government work.

On July 2, 1776, Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, signed only by Charles Thompson (the secretary of Congress) and John Hancock (the presiding officer). Two days later Congress approved the revised version and ordered it to be printed and distributed to the states and military officers. The other signatures would have to wait.

Many actually viewed the Declaration of Independence as a yawner -- a rehashing of arguments already made against the British government. John Adams would later describe the Declaration as "dress and ornament rather than Body, Soul, or Substance." The exception was the last paragraph that said the united colonies "are and of Right ought to be Free and Independent states" and were "Absolved of all Allegiance to the British Crown."

For Adams, it was the momentum towards achieving American independence initiated on July 2 that future generations would consider worth celebrating, not the approval of this document on July 4.

Interestingly, the pomp and circumstance that many Americans presume took place on July 4, 1776, actually occurred days to weeks afterwards.

The Philadelphia Evening Post published the Declaration's full text in its July 6 newspaper. And the Declaration of Independence was publicly read from the State House in Philadelphia on July 8. Later that day, it was read in Easton, PA, Trenton, NJ, and to the local embryonic militia to provide much-needed inspiration against the formidable British.

The shouting and firing of muskets that followed these first public readings represent America's first celebrations of independence.

As copies spread, the Declaration of Independence would be read at town meetings and religious services. In response, Americans lit bonfires, fired guns, rang bells, and removed symbols of the British monarchy.

The following year, no member of Congress thought about commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence until July 3 -- one day too late. So the first organized elaborate celebration of independence occurred the following day: July 4, 1777, in Philadelphia. Ships in the harbor were decked in the nation's colors. Cannons rained 13-gun salutes in honor of each state. And parades and fireworks spiced up the festivities.

Fireworks did not become staples of July 4 celebrations until after 1816, when Americans began producing their own pyrotechnics and no longer relied on expensive fireworks from across the pond.

Since 1777, the tradition of celebrating America's independence on July 4 has continued.


More of these leading up to Independence Day ...

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Olbermann on Obama/FISA

I snipped a bunch so it's best to just go read the whole thing. Maybe more than once (I had to, in order to fully get it):

The Democratic leadership in the Senate, Republican knuckle-dragging in the same chamber, and the mediocre skills of whoever wrote the final version of the FISA bill, have combined to give Senator Barack Obama a second chance to make a first impression.

And he damned well better take it. ...


Frankly, Senator, this political tight-rope act you’ve tried on FISA the last two weeks, which from the outside seems to have been intended to increase the chances of your election, probably hasn’t helped that chance in the slightest.

There is, fortunately, a possible — a most unexpected — solution.

Your second second chance.

Since the final version of the FISA bill was passed down from on high, John Dean has been reading it, and re-reading it, and cross-referencing it with other relevant law, and thinking.

Something bothered him about it. Or, more correctly, something didn’t bother him about it.

Turns out lawyers at the ACLU have been doing the same thing for the last ten days. John compared notes with them, and will be devoting his column at “Find Law” this week, to this unlikely conclusion:

The Republicans who wrote most of this bill at Mr. Bush’s urging, managed to immunize the telecoms from civil suits.

But not from criminal prosecution. ...


Keep your eye on the wording of the legislation to make sure the Republicans don’t realize its flaws. Then vote for the amendment to strip telecom immunity out of the FISA bill.

Then after that fails, vote for the FISA bill, if that’s your final answer.

Then the minute the president has signed the FISA bill, you announce that you voted for it because it renews FISA and because it permits a bigger prize than just civil suits; that it allows for criminal prosecution of past illegal eavesdropping.

Say, loudly, that your understanding of this bill is such, that if you are elected, your Attorney General will begin a full-scale criminal investigation of the telecom companies who collaborated with President Bush in eavesdropping on Americans.

And mention — oh by the way — that your Attorney General will subpoena such records, notes, e-mail, data, and testimony, from any and all Bush Administration officials, FBI or CIA personnel, or any members of the Executive Branch, who may have as much as breathed in the general direction of these nefarious acts of domestic spying at Mr. Bush’s behest. ...

You’ve already taken the political hit from the Right, for saying you’d seek to strip out, or rescind immunity. You’ve already taken the political hit from the Left, for saying you’d vote for the FISA bill even with the immunity. You’ve paid the political price in advance.

Now buy yourself — and those who have most ardently supported you — something worth more than just class action suits against Verizon.

Explain that you are standing aside on civil immunity, not just for political expediency, but for a greater and more tangible good — the holding to account, of the most-corrupt, the most dangerous, and the most anti-democracy presidential administration in our long history.

Of course, if you disagree with this interpretation — if you think the FISA bill doesn’t have the giant loophole, or if you don’t think you, as president, would be ready to support criminal prosecution of… well, criminals — then your duty is clear.

Vote against the FISA bill, if it still carries that immunity.

The Republicans are going to call you the names any which way, Senator.

They’re going to cry regardless, Senator.

And as the old line goes: give them something to cry about.


Update: via Socratic Gadfly (who is similarly unimpressed), the legal POV from bmaz at emptytwheel is that we are still hosed:

Telcos hire the best, most persistent, and most capable lawyers available. Always. They will not be being represented by some sleepy, understaffed and overworked public defenders; they will have the best criminal defense talent in the world. It will not be necessary; a child could win these proposed Olbermann/Obama master plan prosecutions. So easy that even Alberto Gonzales could carry the day. Bottom line, this is one of the most ridiculous non-starters I have ever heard. If this is the "Master Plan", we are in a world of hurt.