The French Say No to Fat-Cat Bailouts

Vive La France! You have to admire the French. The ordinary people there know how to stick up for themselves instead of meekly bowing down and accepting whatever bitter gruel the elite tries to cram down their throats. ... Thursday, an estimated 2.5 million people came out to tell the government: "We are not going to pay for the greed and corruption of the elite!"

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Daschle Paid $100,000 in Back Taxes During Vetting

Wow...talk about a trend of Obama appointees: Tom Daschle, Obama's pick to lead Health and Human Services, paid around $100,000 in back taxes after his nomination to pay for a car and driver he was supplied but did not report as income.
By JONATHAN WEISMAN
Tom Daschle, President Barack Obama's choice for secretary of Health and Human Services, paid about $140,000 in back taxes and interest after questions surfaced during the vetting of his nomination, according to documents being prepared by the Senate Finance Committee. (See full Senate Finance Committee statement.)
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'A bad first-day hit' for Daschle

By JONATHAN MARTIN & CRAIG GORDON
With President Barack Obama’s talking like the new sheriff of Wall Street this week, it seems like just the kind of thing he’d rail against – a rich political insider who doesn’t pay taxes on his limousine. Except that in this case, it’s Obama’s nominee for health and human services secretary, Tom Daschle. The White House said Saturday that Obama remains committed to Daschle’s nomination. A West Wing official twice stressed that Obama is dedicated to enduring the fallout—now the second politically embarrassing case of a high-level appointee failing to pay taxes. “Every nomination has bumps along the road but they handle it,” said this official. Sources close to Daschle said they’ve gotten reassurances from the White House that Obama was not wavering. “They knew it was coming and they’d have to take a hit”—and in this case, “a bad first-day hit”—said a person familiar with Daschle’s thinking.
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Obama's half brother charged for marijuana possession

It sucks when your little brother gets arrested for marijuana possession and you're the President of the United States...not, it should be a non-issue! Unless of course, Obama gets little CARE packages from Kenyan...

George Obama, the half brother of U.S. President Barack Obama, has been arrested by Kenyan police on a charge of possession of marijuana, police said Saturday. Inspector Augustine Mutembei, the officer in charge, said Obama was arrested on charges of possession of cannabis, known in Kenya as Bhang, and resisting arrest.

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Michael Calderone's Blog: Campbell takes on Rush

If I haven't said this before I detest Rush Limbaugh...but, who doesn't? On the other hand, I'd really like to see what CNN's got! Not Ali Velshi necessarily. Wolf Blitzer? No, boring... Campbell Brown? Hmmmm...isn't she supposed to be impartial on her show or something to that effect? I guess we'll just have to see how this plays out!

Blog: Will Rush go on Campbell's show?





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Great advice for anyone losing their homes to foreclosure: Stay Put

Follow the law

Wall Street and its co-conspirators on Main Street had a great plan.

 

Step 1: Ram predatory loans down the market with fraud and deceptive marketing.

 

Step 2: Some of the loans will blow up, but in the aggregate it will all work out and besides, the loans will be bundled and sold off to investors (spreading the toxic waste), so who cares?

 

Great plan, but it had a few problems.

 

Problem #1: It destroyed the world financial system (minor detail)

Problem #2 (And he's where it get VERY interesting...) For a loan to be valid, the lender needs to be able to produce the paperwork.

Guess what?

In their mad greed to screw the American people and line their own pockets, Wall Street forgot that little detail.

Many of these loans and been sliced and diced and sold and re-sold so many times that not only is the paperwork not easy to lay hands on, in some cases, it's not clear who actually owns the loan.

Here's where property law comes in.

If the bank can't produce the documents and the real owner of the loan can't be identified, the contract is null and void.

You've got to hand it to Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (and Ohio which produces a lot of great Congresspeople.)

By telling a bank to "produce the note," a homeowner can delay foreclosure by forcing the lender to prove the suing institution is actually the same which owns the debt.

Now, the banks own sloth and disorganization (and inherent dishonesty) can be used against it.

Final word: The media (and Wall Street and its criminal partners in Congress and the former Bush White House) love to call these loans sup-prime.

Here's the old fashioned word: predatory.

 

Many of the loans that were made in the past five years that have created so many problems would have been illegal until Bush & Co not only gutted lending laws, but also literally sued states to stop them from enforcing their own lending laws.

 

Former governor Elliott Spitzer was the ring leader of the state movement to enforce local lending laws...and you saw what happened to him.

 

He's no saint (and truth be told, he's kind of a jerk) but if every politician who went to hookers was busted, Washington and all the state capitals would be ghost towns

 

Why Elliot Spitzer was assassinated

 

Stay Put

Technorati Tags: foreclosure,activism,actions,action,foreclosure advice,Congresswoman Marcy Kartur,Ohio

Obama's First Broken Promise

By Angie Drobnic Holan
Barack Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act on Jan. 29, 2009, keeping a longstanding promise to counter a Supreme Court decision that limited workers' ability to sue for pay discrimination. We moved the Obameter and gave him a Promise Kept.

But we also had to give him his first Promise Broken for the same signing. As part of his agenda to bring more transparency to government, Obama said he would institute "sunlight before signing" -- posting laws to the White House Web site for five days of public comment before he signed off on them.

Read details on the Ledbetter Act here and "sunlight before signing" here.

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Riches at the North Pole: Russia Unveils Aggressive Plan

Terrific! A new freakin place to fight over! I'm from the Cold War era and when the Russians act aggressive, the US acts aggressive! Remember when we used to think the world would end because the Russians or the US dropped nukes on each other? Both nations had enough nukes to blow up the world several times over?
Peace?

In a new national directive, Russia has asserted claims on large sections of the Arctic Ocean. The tone of the document is openly aggressive, prompting fears of increasing international tension over who has the right to exploit the mineral-rich territory

It seems that Russia, with almost one-third of its territory lying north of the Arctic Circle, is about to prove that the fears of Western nations bordering the Arctic are not unjustified. The nuclear power will soon begin flexing its muscles along the icy shores of its giant realm.
The interest of nations bordering the Arctic is growing as polar ice recedes. One week before leaving office, outgoing US President George W. Bush unveiled a strategic plan for the Arctic region. Canada, Denmark and Norway have launched their own initiatives. Even the European Union announced a new polar policy in November.
Meanwhile, the government-controlled newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta is preparing Russians for the notion that "the fight for the Arctic will be the initial spark for a new division of the world." Artur Chilingarov, a member of the Russia parliament and Moscow's chief ideologue when it comes to conquering the Arctic, puts it this way: "We are not prepared to give our Arctic to anyone."

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Marijuana Legalization: Yes We Can

Submission for the 2009 NORML Ad Contest.
Producer, Writer, Director, Editor- Jason Druss
Director Of Photography- Jon BoalSound- Dan Lehner
First Assistant Director- Greg Lewis
Key Gaffer- Derrick J. Horton
Key Grip- Alex Homan
Grip- Nick Carroll
Music by Loomer
Professional Actors In Order Of Appearance- Paul Weaver, Dirk Keysser, Saad Nassim, Kate Black-Regan, Jan Hines, Phillip Langer, Jason Druss, Yasemin Rodriguez
Special Thanks
Philly Aids Thrift at 5th and Bainbridge (The best thrift store in the entire city)
Derek Rosenzweig
Philly NORML
NORML



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Obama boasts about his ‘Single Ladies’ moves

I think this is cute and funny! Take it as you may.
Peace

President Barack Obama has admitted to being a “Single Ladies” fan. In a behind-the-scenes video from the inauguration festivities, posted on singer John Legend’s Web site, the President told Beyonce that he’d done her dance routine from the “Single Ladies” video for the First Family.

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I found this video on MTV. At about the 6 minute mark the First Lady walked up and said, "Mr. President, you didn't tell Beyoncé about 'Single Ladies'? Your rendition?"

"This is incredible, right?" Legend said looking out into the audience of tens of thousands who crowded around the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial for the all-star show. "It's overwhelming," Beyoncé added, as Legend encouraged her to "break into 'Single Ladies' right now."
Things got better a few minutes later, as Obama was giving warm hugs to B, Blige and Latifah. Michelle Obama walked up and said, "Mr. President, you didn't tell Beyoncé about 'Single Ladies'? Your rendition?"
The Commander in Cool laughed and said, "I'm not like Justin [Timberlake]; I didn't put on the outfit," referring to JT's now-infamous "Single Ladies" turn in a leotard on "Saturday Night Live." "[But] I didn't want my girls thinking that I couldn't, you know ... I got a little something."

The Video...

A video shot by someone in John Legend's crew and posted on the Vibe magazine web site shows a long line of star-struck and emotional stars giddily waiting in the cold to meet Barack Obama, among them: Legend, Sheryl Crow, Queen Latifah, Tom Hanks, Beyoncé and Mary J. Blige.

Amazing Video on Stage of the Obama Inaugural Celebration
by JayZ15

Massachusetts: Help monitor local implementation of Question 2

It seems some anti-pot smoking repubs want to make an additional fine for smoking marijuana in public!  Since passage of the Question 2 law, there hasn’t been a problem with people smoking pot in public! I live in Mass. and I would’ve heard about it! Many feel that it would be asking for $100 fine and who needs another expense?

No more fines Massachusetts!  Let’s make it profitable for the state tax coiffeurs!  Make it legal!  Then you can tax it!  Consumers can buy marijuana knowing that is 100% cannabis and not laced with something they never wanted to try or use! 

Anyway, let’s make it legal and make a profit!  Please try to help by attending a meeting and standing up for what you believe in.  I’m going to try to attend.  I hope you will too!

Peace

Marijuana Policy Project Alert
January 29, 2009

Mass.: Help monitor local implementation of Question 2

Dear Pamela:

Now that Question 2 is law, some localities are considering whether to create an additional penalty for the public use of marijuana. Methuen, Quincy, Everett, Springfield, and Braintree are all expected to discuss and possibly vote on this issue next week.

Question 2 made the penalty for possessing up to an ounce of marijuana in Massachusetts a $100 civil fine, but left it up to localities to decide whether or not to create an additional penalty for smoking marijuana in public. Despite the fact that there haven't been reports of widespread public marijuana smoking, and that Question 2's $100 fine and seizure of marijuana is already an effective deterrent, several localities across the state are scheduling public meetings on the issue of public use.

If you hear about such a meeting where you live, we encourage you take part in the democratic process and attend. Please let us know when you learn of a meeting by sending details (including date and time) to nmiller@mpp.org.

The Attorney General has provided a sample ordinance that localities can use if they decide to spend their time and energy on this non-issue. The Attorney General's sample ordinance clearly states that towns may go the route of "noncriminal disposition pursuant to G.L. c. 40, § 21D." The sample ordinance suggests a $300 fine for using marijuana in a public place, which is significantly higher than most cities' penalties for drinking alcohol in public.

Unlike a criminal disposition, a noncriminal disposition for public marijuana use under Massachusetts law would not require an arrest or any other interaction with the court system unless an individual contests the citation or fails to pay the fine on time. As is, Question 2 means that law enforcement, judicial, and correctional resources will not be wasted on what is essentially a public nuisance offense.

Local and state officials should give Question 2 time to work before jumping the gun and passing more laws on top of a new voter-approved law that a few naysayers have already claimed is too hard for them to understand. This is only an issue in the minds of a few drug warriors who wish to impose their beliefs at the local level after suffering an embarrassing loss at the state level.

Local leaders considering public use ordinances should be reminded that one of the main reasons 65% of Massachusetts voters approved Question 2 is because it is estimated to save taxpayers approximately $29.5 million a year in law enforcement resources alone. If they are considering imposing criminal penalties, they should be told that making the public use of marijuana an arrestable offense would involve every level of the criminal justice system, thereby undermining one of the very purposes of Question 2. Local leaders should also be reminded that nearly 2 million Massachusetts voters supported the general intent of Question 2, which was to keep marijuana users out of jail.

Chances are, you live in a place that voted overwhelmingly in favor of Question 2. To find out what percentage of voters from your district approved Question 2, click here and scroll over the area of the map where you live — you might see a number that should be brought to the attention of your local leaders.

If you attend one of these public meetings, we'd love to hear how it went. Please send us any feedback, comments, or concerns you have regarding how your community is implementing Question 2.

Thank you for supporting the Marijuana Policy Project and all of our allies. Please share this alert with others in your area who may be interested in getting more involved with making sure Question 2 is implemented in a manner consistent with the intent of Question 2 and the will of the voters.

Sincerely,

Nathan Miller
Legislative Analyst
Marijuana Policy Project

 

Technorati Tags: marijuana,marijuana legalization,cannabis,Question 2,Marijuana Policy Project,activism,actions,laws

UN makes $613m appeal for Gaza

The United Nations will launch a 613 million dollar appeal to meet the "massive" needs of those hit by Israel's 22-day war in Gaza, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said Thursday.

The money is needed to provided to provide food, water, shelter, health care and other assistance after the conflict which left at least 1,300 dead and caused widespread destruction in the Palestinian territory, UN officials said.

"These needs are massive and multi-faceted," Ban told a press conference at the World Economic Forum in Davos, adding that the money could "help overcome at least some measures of this hardship."

Benjamin Netanyahu, the right-winger tipped to become Israel's prime minister in a looming election, was also at Davos and accused the Palestinian militant group Hamas of pursuing "terror efforts" despite a fragile ceasefire.

"We'll deal with it," the Likud party leader told reporters on the sidelines of the forum when asked about the latest Israeli air attacks against Gaza and new rocket attacks into Israel.read more digg story

Civil rights group to Obama: Release secret Bush memos

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is calling on the Justice Department to release Bush administration documentation pertaining to torture, surveillance and other controversial national security policies.

The civil rights watchdog sent a letter today to the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, the same office that provided legal advice to the White House under George W. Bush.

The secret memos were essentially the legal foundation for many of the Bush adminstration's questionable practices, says the ACLU in a news release received by Raw Story.

The Bush White House vigorously fought the release of such revealing (some would say, damning) documentation in the interests, it insisted, of protecting national security and other factors.

The ACLU's filing of the Freedom of Information Act request follows President Obama's recent directive to minimize federal secrecy and "usher in a new era of open government."The request is seen as a test of the freshly inaugurated president's transparency policy. "The ACLU now sees a new opening," writes Marisa Taylor of McClatchy Newspapers.

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Blackwater Banned From Iraq

Iraq said Thursday it will bar Blackwater Worldwide from providing security protection for U.S. diplomats because its contractors used excessive force, sanctioning a company whose image was irrevocably tarnished by the 2007 killings of 17 Iraqi civilians.

The move will deprive American diplomats of their main protection force in Iraq.

The decision not to issue Blackwater an operating license was due to "improper conduct and excessive use of force," said Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf.

Iraqis are bitter over the September 2007 killing of 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad's Nisoor Square. Five former Blackwater guards pleaded not guilty Jan. 6 in federal court in Washington to manslaughter and gun charges in that shooting. A sixth is cooperating with the government.
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Obama Can Issue an Executive Order to End the Wars Tomorrow

By Nora Eisenberg, AlterNet - In a wide-ranging interview, veteran Paul Sullivan discusses Bush, Obama and the legacies of the Gulf War.
Paul Sullivan is a veteran of the 1991 Gulf War, serving in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq as a Cavalry Scout with the Army's 1st Armored Division.
As executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center from 1997 to 2000, he advocated for the passage of the Persian Gulf Veterans Act of 1998, which expanded health care and disability benefits for Gulf War veterans. From 2000 to 2006, he was Veterans Affairs project manager, leading a team that produced reports related to the Gulf War, Iraq war and Afghanistan war.
Sullivan is a life member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Disabled American Veterans and is presently the executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, a Washington nonprofit organization focusing on issues related to national security, veterans' rights and benefits and civil liberties.
Two days after the inauguration, Paul spoke with me about a number of topics, including: the lies, drugs and poisons involved in the Gulf War and its current sequels; the suicide epidemic among Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans; the rash of homicides around military bases; the need for a truth commission; skewed research on Gulf War illness at VA; signs of conspiracy and subterfuge; the legacies of Bush 41 and Bush 43; the first days of Barack Obama; and his hopes for Michelle Obama as a true friend of veterans and veterans' families.
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The Financial Crisis Is Driving Americans to Suicide

By Nick Turse, Tomdispatch.com - Pushed past their breaking points, people are robbing banks to pay the rent, setting homes on fire -- even taking their own lives.
The body count is still rising. For months on end, marked by bankruptcies, foreclosures, evictions, and layoffs, the economic meltdown has taken a heavy toll on Americans. In response, a range of extreme acts including suicide, self-inflicted injury, murder, and arson have hit the local news. By October 2008, an analysis of press reports nationwide indicated that an epidemic of tragedies spurred by the financial crisis had already spread from Pasadena, California, to Taunton, Massachusetts, from Roseville, Minnesota, to Ocala, Florida.
In the three months since, the pain has been migrating upwards. A growing number of the world's rich have garnered headlines for high profile, financially-motivated suicides. Take the New Zealand-born "millionaire financier" who leapt in front of an express train in Great Britain or the "German tycoon" who did much the same in his homeland. These have, with increasing regularity, hit front pages around the world. An example would be New York-based money manager René-Thierry Magnon de la Villehuchet, who slashed his wrists after he "lost more than $1 billion of client money, including much, if not all, of his own family's fortune." In the end, he was yet another victim of financial swindler Bernard Madoff's $50 billion Ponzi scheme.
An unknown but rising number of less wealthy but distinctly well-off workers in the financial field have also killed themselves as a result of the economic crisis -- with less press coverage. Take, for instance, a 51-year-old former analyst at Bear Stearns. Learning that he would be laid off after JPMorgan Chase took over his failed employer, he "threw himself out of the window" of his 29th-floor apartment in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Or consider the 52-year-old commercial real estate broker from suburban Chicago who "took his life in a wildlife preserve" just "a month after he publicly worried over a challenging market," or the 50-year-old "managing partner at Leeward Investments" from San Carlos, California, who got wiped out "in the markets" and "suffocated himself to death."
Beverly Hills clinical psychologist Leslie Seppinni caught something of our moment when she told Forbes magazine that this was "the first time in her 18-year career that businessmen are calling her with suicidal impulses over their financial state." In the last three months, alone, "she has intervened in at least 14 cases of men seriously considering taking their lives." Seppinni offered this observation: "They feel guilt and shame because they think they should have known what was coming with the market or they should have pulled out faster."
Still, it's mostly on Main Street, not Wall Street, that people are being driven to once unthinkable extremes. And while it's always impossible to know the myriad factors, including deeply personal ones, that contribute to drastic acts, violent or otherwise, many of those recently reported are undoubtedly tied, at least in part, to the way the bottom seems to be falling out of the economy.
As a result, reports of people driven to anything from armed robbery to financially-motivated suicide in response to new fiscal realities continue to bubble to the surface. And since only a certain percentage of such acts receive media coverage, the drumbeat of what is being reported definitely qualifies as startling.

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Army to report record number of suicides

The U.S. Army will report Thursday the highest level of suicides among its soldiers since it began tracking the rate 28 years ago.

Statistics obtained by CNN show the Army will report 128 confirmed suicides last year and another 15 suspected suicides in cases under investigation among active-duty soldiers and activated National Guard and reserves.

The confirmed rate of suicides for the Army was 20.2 per 100,000. Army officials were reviewing the suspected suicides Wednesday. If any of them are confirmed, the rate would rise.

Last month, Army officials said the nation's suicide rate was 19.5 people per 100,000, a 2005 figure considered the most recent.

Military officials have long said it is difficult to compare the military suicide rate with that of the private sector because of demographic differences and overall human stress factors. Another factor is that military suicides tend to be committed by young men with access to weapons.

For 2007, the Army reported 115 confirmed suicides, then the highest level since 1980, when it began tracking suicides.

The Army is expected to announce a new effort to study the problem and determine why its suicide-prevention programs appear not to be working, and the extent to which post-combat stress may be a contributing factor.

Many of the suicides occur after troops return home. The death of Army Spc. Tim Bowman was such a case. The 23-year-old killed himself in 2005 after returning from Iraq.

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Iceland to appoint gay woman minister to PM post

By DAVID STRINGER -REYKJAVIK, Iceland – The woman expected to become Iceland's interim prime minister is an openly gay former flight attendant who rose through the political ranks to lead a new leftist government.

Johanna Sigurdardottir, the island nation's 66-year-old social affairs minister, is the pick of the Social Democratic Alliance Party to lead an interm government.

Iceland's conservative-led government failed Monday, after the country's banks collapsed in the fall under the weight of huge debts amassed during years of rapid economic growth. The country's currency has plummeted, while inflation and unemployment are soaring.

Sigurdardottir's appointment is expected to be confirmed within days by the new ruling coalition of the Alliance party and the Left-Green movement. She would lead Iceland until general elections, expected in May.

'She is a senior parliamentarian, she is respected and loved by all of Iceland,' said Environment Minister Thorunn Sveinbjarnardottir, a fellow Alliance party member.

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So Why Are Obama's Drug Cops Already Making Marijuana Raids?

Pot-reform activists have swarmed Obama's Change.gov, and huge majorities voted for pot reform in election '08, but no change yet from Obama. In the past few months, the public has expressed its support for marijuana law reform in unprecedented numbers. The election of former pot smoker, Barack "I inhaled frequently; that was the point" Obama...
By Paul Armentano, AlterNet.
This past August, House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., during a live interview with CNN, did something quite remarkable. She spoke candidly and openly about her support for marijuana-law reform. But rather than demanding her colleagues in Washington take the necessary steps to end the federal government's seven-decade war on weed, she instead called on the public to act.
"We have important work to do outside the Congress in order for us to have success inside the Congress." Pelosi said. "[W]e need peoples' help to be in touch with their members of Congress to say why this (marijuana law reform) should be the case."
As the saying goes, "Ask and ye shall receive."
In the past few months, the public has expressed its support for marijuana law reform in unprecedented numbers. The election of former pot smoker, Barack "I inhaled frequently; that was the point" Obama, coupled with a sagging economy, has stimulated tens of thousands of Americans to demand their government stop spending its limited state and federal law enforcement resources on efforts targeting, arresting and prosecuting marijuana smokers.
For example, in December the question: "Will (President Obama) consider legalizing marijuana so that the government can regulate it, tax it, put age limits on it and create millions of new jobs and create a billion dollar-industry right here in the U.S.?" beat over 7,300 public-policy issues to claim the top spot in Change.gov's inaugural "Open for Questions" poll. (Change.gov, now WhiteHouse.gov, was the official Web site of President Obama's transition team.)
The first-place finish was hardly a fluke. The public's demand to "legalize the medicinal and recreational use of marijuana" also finished first in a two-month-long Web poll hosted by the liberal-leaning social-networking Web site Change.org and Washington's Case Foundation -- finishing some 5,000 votes ahead of the next most popular idea.
More recently, 26,000 visitors cast their vote in a CNBC online poll asking, "Do you favor the decriminalization of marijuana use?" More than 97 percent of those who voted said yes.
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I Survived the Bush Administration . . . the T-Shirt

A T-Shirt that will define a generation
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Controversial Bestseller Shakes the Foundation of the Israel

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet.

What if the entire tale of the Jewish Diaspora is historically wrong?

What if the Palestinian Arabs who have lived for decades under the heel of the modern Israeli state are in fact descended from the very same "children of Israel" described in the Old Testament?

And what if most modern Israelis aren't descended from the ancient Israelites at all, but are actually a mix of Europeans, North Africans and others who didn't "return" to the scrap of land we now call Israel and establish a new state following the attempt to exterminate them during World War II, but came in and forcefully displaced people whose ancestors had lived there for millennia?

What if the entire tale of the Jewish Diaspora -- the story recounted at Passover tables by Jews around the world every year detailing the ancient Jews' exile from Judea, the years spent wandering through the desert, their escape from the Pharaoh's clutches -- is all wrong?

That's the explosive thesis of When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?, a book by Tel Aviv University scholar Shlomo Zand (or Sand) that sent shockwaves across Israeli society when it was published last year. After 19 weeks on the Israeli best-seller list, the book is being translated into a dozen languages and will be published in the United States this year by Verso.

Its thesis has ramifications that go far beyond some antediluvian academic debate. Few modern conflicts are as attached to ancient history as that decades-long cycle of bloodletting between Israelis and Palestinians. Each group lays claim to the same scrap of land -- holy in all three of the world's major Abrahamic religions -- based on long-standing ties to that chunk of earth and national identities formed over long periods of time. There's probably no other place on Earth where the present is as intimately tied to the ancient.

Central to the ideology of Zionism is the tale -- familiar to all Jewish families -- of exile, oppression, redemption and return. Booted from their kingdom, the "Jewish people" -- sons and daughters of ancient Judea -- wandered the earth, rootless, where they faced cruel suppression from all corners -- from being forced to toil in slavery under the Egyptians, to the Spanish massacres of the 14th century and Russian pogroms of the 19th, through to the horrors of the Third Reich.

This view of history animates all Zionists, but none more so than the influential but reactionary minority -- in the United States as well as Israel -- who believe that God bestowed a "Greater Israel" -- one that encompasses the modern state as well as the Occupied Territories -- on the Jewish people, and who resist any effort to create a Palestinian state on biblical grounds
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Rights Group Launches Series of Blueprints for the Obama Administration

A friend sent this to me.  I think it’s a good start to repairing the US human rights record and regain our image as a country that follows the edicts of The Geneva Conventions!

The blueprint series draws on the organization's extensive body of work on a range of issues to address the human rights implications of many of the international and domestic policy challenges the new administration will face:

• "How to Close Guantanamo," released last August, offers a step-by-step strategy that minimizes the risk to America's national security and ensures that detainee suspected of committing crimes against the United States are prosecuted in fair proceedings. It is based on Human Rights First's extensive work on Guantanamo -including over 25 trips to observe the proceedings since 2004 - and its study of the prosecution of terrorism cases in federal court, the findings of which can be read in the comprehensive report, "In Pursuit of Justice: Prosecuting Terrorism Cases in the Federal Courts."
• "How to End Torture and Cruel Treatment," released in October, provides a detailed, multi-phased strategy to end torture and official cruelty and to invest instead in effective and humane intelligence gathering, including offering a single standard of humane treatment across all government agencies. It draws on the organization's extensive work on, and analysis of, U.S. detention and interrogation policies since September 11, 2001, as well as its close collaboration with more than 50 retired generals, admirals and civilian national security officials to advocate against torture and official cruelty.
• "How to End Impunity for Private Security and other Contractors," released in November, offers a practical strategy for putting into place the key components of a comprehensive system of legal accountability for U.S. government contractors abroad, who now number more than 250,000 in Iraq and Afghanistan alone. Many of the findings derive from the group"s comprehensive report, "Private Security Contractors at War: Ending Contractor Impunity" which was released in January.
• "How to Repair the U.S. Asylum System," released in December, puts forward a series of concrete recommendations to restore the U.S. commitment to providing refuge to those who flee persecution and arrive in this country in search of protection. New legal obstacles, restrictions on basic due process, and overly-broad counterterrorism measures have made it increasingly difficult for refugees to gain asylum protection.
• "How to Promote Human Rights in Russia," released in December, is a country specific blueprint that advances a strategy for striking a viable balance between shared strategic concerns and the consistent promotion of human rights. The recommendations focus on two areas that are crucial to enabling Russians to promote the rule of law and secure human rights, supporting independent human rights defenders and increasing efforts to combat racism, xenophobia and violent hate crimes. The latter, a seriously escalating human rights problem, is extensively documented in Human Rights First's 2008 Hate Crime Survey.
• "How to Stop Arms to Sudan," released in December, sets out a three-stage strategy for the incoming administration to lead an effort to ensure that arms-supplying states halt their sales, as well as to use its voice and vote at the U.N. Security Council to enforce and strengthen the U.N. imposed Darfur arms embargo. This blueprint follows a rare NGO briefing of the U.N. Security Council Sanctions Committee on the Darfur arms embargo by Julia Fromholz, Interim Director of the Crimes Against Humanity program earlier this month.
• "How to Confront the Iraqi Refugee Crisis," also released in December, puts forward a strategy for the incoming Obama administration to address the Iraqi refugee crisis as part of its pledge to withdraw from Iraq. The recommendations include the proposal that the President-elect place an Iraqi refugee coordinator in the White House, responsible for ensuring that appropriate policy toward Iraqi refugees is integrated into U.S. strategic and operational plans in Iraq, and for the U.S. government to set "refugee benchmarks" for the Iraqi government and for U.S. assistance to shift from the government to NGOs if those benchmarks are not met.

Rights Group Launches Series of Blueprints for the Obama Administration

Technorati Tags: human rights,US,President Obama,Barack Obama

Watch the video and support our 100 Days campaign Amnesty International USA | Human Rights Action

Show the world that we will not allow human rights to be violated with impunity.

Watch the video of the award-winning documentary Taxi to the Dark Side to see in stark terms why we must demand full accountability for human rights abuses committed in the "war on terror."

Watch the video and support our 100 Days campaign Amnesty International USA | Human Rights Action

Technorati Tags: Amnesty International,human rights,activsm,actions,video,war on terror,torture

Why Are Both Parties Out Of Touch On Marijuana Law Reform?

It is hard to imagine liberal House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and conservative Minority Leader John Boehner as soul mates on any discernible level, however, on the issue of marijuana law reform, for entirely different reasons, they’re two peas in a pod.
Shortly after the conclusion of this summer’s Democratic National Convention in Denver, NORML’s Deputy Director Paul Armentano posted a blog highlighting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) comments exhorting the public to take the lead on communicating with their elected policymakers regarding any desired major marijuana law reforms in the upcoming 111th Congress.
With that call to action in the minds of many, American voters elected Democrats into workable majorities in both chambers and elected Barack ‘Change’ Obama—while voters in both Massachusetts and Michigan voted in strong favor for ‘change’ regarding their states’ antiquated marijuana laws—when given the chance and medium to express their viewpoint regarding what other ‘changes’ are on the American peoples’ minds, since the mid 1990s and despite strong, bias media opposition, marijuana law reform has emerged as a major policy change sought by the American public.
House Speaker Pelosi supports medical access to marijuana. That is not in question. However, it is not known whether she publicly endorses decriminalizing marijuana, but, as a longtime representative in the House from San Francisco, she likely supports California laws regarding marijuana, notably the state’s long time decriminalization laws for personal, adult use.
Does she have the power to move medical marijuana through the Congress? Yes, likely she does. Is she going to expend the kind of political capital needed so early in the 111th Congress and this ‘New Dealish’ presidency to accomplish this? I don’t believe so.
Well now, to make matters worse, we have the Republican Minority Leader, John Boehner (R-OH), appearing last Friday afternoon on CNN’s Newsticker, in a Digg-sponsored ‘Question and Answer’, not surprisingly, the #1 question put forward by CNN/Diggers was of course about…marijuana!
Mr. Boehner’s reply on the marijuana prohibition question (which appears at the 3:15 mark of the 22 minute video) is tortured on two levels:
-Boehner’s deference to law enforcement and medical trade associations rather than to his constituents’ views, the Constitution, science, free market values and personal responsibility is, in a word, unfortunate:
-While rattling off DEA-like talking points against marijuana, Rep. Boehner seems to remember mid-rant against marijuana that he 1) often claims to be a libertarian who favors limited taxation, controlling government spending, and maximizing entrepreneurialism and personal freedoms, 2) supports the 9th and 10th Amendments, which largely articulate states’ rights to make their own constitutional laws.
Too bad Boehner has consistently voted against the Hinchey-Rohrabacher Amendment, a spending amendment in Congress that sought to check federal law enforcement’s ability to spend tax dollars harassing state compliant medical marijuana cooperative and dispensaries, and, in effect, recognizing states’ ability to craft greater legal protections for medical cannabis patients and their providers.
After watching Boehner’s verbal gymnastics and political CYA, I could have used a naturally occurring anti-emetic, if you know what I mean!

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The definition of a "two-tiered justice system"

Great opinion piece about the unfairness of the US justice system. Rich people get away with everything and the poor are incarcerated for petty drug crimes! If it doesn't piss you off then you must be rich!

By Glen Greenwald - Ordinary people who commit petty, nonviolent crimes rot for decades in inhumane prisons. High political leaders who commit serious felonies receive full-scale immunity.
Aside from the intrinsic dangers and injustices of arguing for immunity for high-level government officials who commit felonies (such as illegal eavesdropping, obstruction of justice, torture and other war crimes), it's the total selectivity of the rationale underlying that case which makes it so corrupt. Defenders of Bush officials sing in unison: We shouldn't get caught up in the past. We shouldn't be driven by vengeance and retribution. We shouldn't punish people whose motives in committing crimes weren't really that bad.
There are countries in the world which actually embrace those premises for all of their citizens, and whose justice system consequently reflects a lenient approach to crime and punishment. The United States is not one of those countries. In fact, for ordinary citizens (the ones invisible and irrelevant to Ruth Marcus, Stuart Taylor, Jon Barry and David Broder), the exact opposite is true:

Homeless man gets 15 years for stealing $100
A homeless man robbed a Louisiana bank and took a $100 bill. After feeling remorseful, he surrendered to police the next day. The judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison.
Roy Brown, 54, robbed the Capital One bank in Shreveport, Louisiana in December
2007. He approached the teller with one of his hands under his jacket and told
her that it was a robbery.
The teller handed Brown three stacks of bill but he only took a single $100 bill and returned the remaining money back to her. He said that he was homeless and hungry and left the bank.
The next day he surrendered to the police voluntarily and told them that his mother didn’t raise him that way.
Brown told the police he needed the money to stay at the detox center and had no other place to stay and was hungry.
In Caddo District Court, he pleaded guilty. The judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison for first degree robbery.

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Smokin’! U.S. pot industry booms.

Interesting video about the booming marijuana industry in the US.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

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Can Jihadis Be Rehabilitated?

By Bobby Ghosh

It's been described as the Betty Ford Center for terrorists: Saudi Arabian officials boast that the Care Rehabilitation Center, outside Riyadh, has successfully deprogrammed scores of former jihadis, including more than 100 ex-inmates of the U.S.'s Guantánamo Bay military prison. As recently as last fall, Saudi officials claimed the program had a 100% success rate.

That claim was dashed last week, when two alumni of the rehab program proudly announced to the world that they had returned to the jihad. In a video posted online, Saudi nationals Said al-Shihri and Abu al-Hareth al-Oufi — former detainees at Guantánamo Bay — boasted that they had become leaders of al-Qaeda in Yemen. (See pictures of the Care Rehabilitation Center.)

The video could hardly have come at a worse time for the Obama Administration, which has just announced that it will close Gitmo within a year and is already being accused by some Republicans of jeopardizing U.S. security. But it is doubly discomfiting for the Saudi government. Officials in Riyadh now say they have rearrested at least nine other men who had previously been rehabilitated; it's not clear how many of those are ex-Gitmo detainees.

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Silent as the Tomb: Another American-Backed Slaughter Ignored

Speaking of Somalia,"But of course, the true aim of the "regime change" operation was neither to quell a non-existent "terrorist threat" from the Islamic Courts nor to bring peace and stability to Somalia. It was to install, by blood and iron, a compliant government that would serve the American imperial agenda in the strategic Horn of Africa. "

Written by Chris Floyd

Before taking office, Barack Obama was chided -- in certain quarters, at least -- for his long silence on the slaughter in Gaza. Of course, as we noted here the other day, the main reason he stayed mum on the subject before his inauguration was that he was in complete accord with George W. Bush's stance on the American-backed massacre of civilians.

However, there is another horrific, American-backed slaughter that Obama has been silent about for even longer -- throughout his entire presidential campaign, in fact, and continuing into his presidency. We speak, of course, of the ghastly Terror War "regime change" operation in Somalia, where American bombs, American weapons, American training, American money -- and American death squads -- aided the military forces of the Ethiopian dictatorship in its brutal invasion and murderous occupation of the long-shattered land. [For more background, see this, especially the links at the bottom.]

The aim of this savage operation was to overturn the "Islamic Courts" movement -- a coalition of various sectarian factions which had brought Somalia its first semblance of stability and security after 15 years of violence, chaos and abandonment by the outside world. The broad-based movement included a range of groups, from the very moderate to the more extreme, and represented a grass-roots effort by Somalis to rebuild their own nation on their own terms.

But these terms were not those approved by the Potomac poobahs, who had their own hand-picked warlords -- some of them on the CIA payroll -- whom they preferred to see in power. And so the "regime change" was launched in December 2006, with American bombers and missiles targeting fleeing refugees while Washington's proxy forces poured in from Ethiopia.

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PBS: NSA could have prevented 9/11 hijacking

The super-secretive National Security Agency has been quietly monitoring, decrypting, and interpreting foreign communications for decades, starting long before it came under criticism as a result of recent revelations about the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program. Now a forthcoming PBS documentary asks whether the NSA could have prevented 9/11 if it had been more willing to share its data with other agencies.

Author James Bamford looked into the performance of the NSA in his 2008 book, The Shadow Factory, and found that it had been closely monitoring the 9/11 hijackers as they moved freely around the United States and communicated with Osama bin Laden's operations center in Yemen. The NSA had even tapped bin Laden's satellite phone, starting in 1996.

"The NSA never alerted any other agency that the terrorists were in the United States and moving across the country towards Washington," Bamford told PBS.

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US has a 'lot of damage to repair': Clinton

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States has "a lot of damage to repair" to its standing around the world after eight years of President George W. Bush, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday.

"The (new) approach to the world is one that we know is in the interests of our country going forward, and I have had that reinforced time and again with the all phone calls that I've been making," Clinton told reporters.

"There is a great exhalation of breath going on around the world as people express their appreciation for the new direction that is being set and the team that is being put together by the president...," she said.

She recalled that President Barack Obama's administration views defense, diplomacy and development aid as the pillars of the new foreign policy.


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Israeli forces leave behind unexploded landmines

By Julian Rake

ABED RABBO, Gaza Strip, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Standing on the ruins of his family home, 75-year-old Majdi al-Athamna waves an unexploded landmine in the direction of a camera crew.

Alarmed, they urge him to put it down.

"Don't worry -- if I die it would be no more than what has already been destroyed," he shouts before finally relenting and climbing down from the rubble left after this month's Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.

The mine, he says, was one of many placed by Israeli soldiers to demolish the apartment building that once housed dozens of members of his extended family.

"Fifty years I've been building this and it's all gone in the blink of an eye," he said in a quavering voice.


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DEA Must End Raids on Medical Marijuana Providers

By National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws ,

There may be a new president, but in DEA-land, it’s still business as usual — at least for the time being. On Thursday, just two days after President Barack Obama was sworn into office, DEA officials raided the office of a California medical marijuana provider, as well as two medical grow houses in Colorado.

Is this behavior the final gasp of a dying regime, or an unfortunate harbinger of things to come? That could be up to you.

Several marijuana law reform groups, including Americans for Safe Access and MPP — as well as national media outlets — are urging concerned citizens to contact the new administration in opposition to the DEA’s actions.

Call or e-mail the White House and tell Obama’s staff that our new President must honor his campaign pledge not to use Justice Department resources to circumvent state medical marijuana laws.

In the coming months, President Obama and his team will be appointing new DEA administrators. Congress will also be holding additional hearings regarding Obama’s pick for U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder. Let’s make it clear to the President, now, that the DEA’s behavior is unacceptable and must not continue under an Obama administration.

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Sen John Kerry: Torture weakened America's national security

In a season of transformational changes, the order to close the Guantanamo Bay prison and CIA "black site" prisons, and the order to place interrogation in all American facilities by all U.S. personnel under the guidelines of the Army Field Manual send a powerful message that America's struggle against terrorism will again honor American values.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Thursday was an important day for the rule of law in the United States of America.
With a handful of signatures to executive orders, President Obama ordered the eventual closure of Guantanamo Bay prison and CIA "black site" prisons, and placed interrogation in all American facilities by all U.S. personnel under the guidelines of the Army Field Manual.
In a season of transformational changes, these are among the most meaningful, because they send a powerful message that America's struggle against terrorism will once against honor some of the most cherished ideals of our republic: respect for the rule of law, individual rights, and America's moral leadership.
The president understands all too well that the threat our nation faces from terrorism is all too real. And we should all agree that sometimes, in the name of national security, it is necessary to make difficult ethical decisions to protect the American people.
However, I and many others believe that the use of torture and indefinite detention have not only tarnished our honor but also diminished our security.
In this global counterinsurgency effort against al Qaeda and its allies, too often our means have undercut our efforts by wasting one of our best weapons: the legitimacy that comes from our moral authority.
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US to have 'vigorous' Iran talks

The new US envoy to the United Nations says Barack Obama's administration will make Iran's nuclear plans a diplomatic priority and pursue direct talks.

Susan Rice told reporters she looked forward to "vigorous diplomacy that includes direct diplomacy with Iran".

Under George W Bush, there were no direct US nuclear talks with Iran.

The UN has urged Tehran to halt uranium enrichment, amid fears it could be used for military purposes. Iran says its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful.

In the run-up to his inauguration last week, Mr Obama promised a "new approach" in the dispute.

Last month he called for "tough but direct diplomacy", offering Iran economic incentives to end its nuclear programme or face tougher sanctions.

Iran dismissed the move as "unacceptable".

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Zimbabwe: Over 2000+ Dead But No Mainstream Media Coverage

It's easily the worst humanitarian crisis right now: 5 million people (almost half the population) need food aid. More than 2200 people have died in a cholera outbreak. Unemployment at more than 80%. Central bank introduced Z$100tr note worth about $30 US dollars. But when was the last time that any major American media seriously cover this story?

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Poll: 44 pct. of Dems think BushCo. committed war crimes

Among the general populace, just 25 percent agree with the assessment that the Bush administration is guilty of war crimes. By contrast, 70 percent of Americans believe it would be "bad" should these officials be brought up on charges, including 53 percent of Democrats.
By Stephen C. Webster
A new survey of Democratic voters has found 44 percent believe President Bush and members of his administration committed war crimes during their term, which ended Jan. 20.

On the same day, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak, told CNN that the International governing body already has enough evidence to prosecute former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for specifically ordering war crimes.

Among the general populace, just 25 percent agree with the assessment that the Bush administration is guilty of war crimes. By contrast, 70 percent of Americans believe it would be "bad" should these officials be brought up on charges, including 53 percent of Democrats.

The poll was released Monday through Rasmussen.

Whether Americans believe it or not, the former President and Vice President have both admitted to approving torture -- or, as they call it, "enhanced interrogation tactics" -- in direct contravention to the Geneva Conventions.

"I supported it," said Vice President Cheney, regarding the practice known as "water-boarding," a form of simulated drowning. After World War II, Japanese soldiers were tried and convicted of war crimes for water-boarding, a practice which the outgoing Bush administration attempted to enshrine in policy.

"I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared, as the agency in effect came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn't do," he said during a Dec. 2008 interview. "And they talked to me, as well as others, to explain what they wanted to do. And I supported it."

"My view is the techniques were necessary and are necessary," President Bush told Fox News with little more than a week to go in his administration.Additionally, a secret Red Cross report, delivered to the CIA in 2007, determined the Bush administration's authorized techniques were "categorically" torture, implicating war crimes.

"It is really amazing because Congress -- including the Democrats -- have avoided any type of investigation into torture because they do not want to deal with the fact that the president ordered war crimes," said Constitutional lawyer Jonathan Turley during an April 2008 appearance on MSNBC. "But evidence keeps on coming out .... What you get from this is this was a premeditated and carefully orchestrated torture program. Not torture, but a torture program."

"I'd never thought I would say this, but I think it might in fact be time for the United States to be held internationally to a tribunal," Turley told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann in July. "I never thought in my lifetime I would say that."

"Judicially speaking, the United States has a clear obligation" to bring proceedings against Bush and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, said the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak, in remarks to be broadcast on Germany's ZDF television
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UN official: Enough evidence to prosecute Rumsfeld

"We have clear evidence," he said. "In our report that we sent to the United Nations, we made it clear that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld clearly authorized torture methods and he was told at that time by Alberto Mora, the legal council of the Navy, 'Mr. Secretary, what you are actual ordering here amounts to torture.'

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Halliburton, U.S. Reach Settlement In Bribery Probe

All Things Considered, January 26, 2009 · Halliburton Corp. has announced it will pay out more than $560 million to the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle a probe into bribery and bid-rigging in contracts around the world. Investigative journalist Lowell Bergman talks about the settlement.
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Minnesota Court Tosses Faulty Coleman Evidence

The three-judge panel hearing Norm Coleman's election contest threw out the former senator's faulty photocopies of rejected absentee ballots, ordering him to resubmit originals only. The decision came after a Coleman witness nervously admitted under oath the photocopies differed from the originals by obstructing the legal reasons for rejection.

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Gaza Horror: Updated Large Photo Gallery of Gaza Massacre

Never forget! Hold the perpetrators of these crimes accountable, and do your part to help bring them to justice.




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IDF Rabbis urged soldiers to kill civilians.

A very interesting insight into why there are 1300 dead palestinian civilians and why such massacres will not stop until we put a leash on Israel.
Read the comments, they make American evangelicals and Islamic Jihadists sound tame.

By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent

During the fighting in the Gaza Strip, the religious media - and on two occasions, the Israel Defense Forces weekly journal Bamahane - were full of praise for the army rabbinate. The substantial role of religious officers and soldiers in the front-line units of the IDF was, for the first time, supported also by the significant presence of rabbis there.

The chief army rabbi, Brigadier General Avichai Rontzki, joined the troops in the field on a number of occasions, as did rabbis under his command. Officers and soldiers reported that they felt "spiritually elevated" and "morally empowered" by conversations with rabbis who gave them encouragement before the confrontation with the Palestinians.

But what exactly was the content of these conversations and of the plethora of written material disseminated by the IDF rabbinate during the war? A reservist battalion rabbi told the religious newspaper B'Sheva last week that Rontzki explained to his staff that their role was not "to distribute wine and challah for Shabbat to the troops," but "to fill them with yiddishkeit and a fighting spirit."

An overview of some of the army rabbinate's publications made available during the fighting reflects the tone of nationalist propaganda that steps blatantly into politics, sounds racist and can be interpreted as a call to challenge international law when it comes to dealing with enemy civilians
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Obama reaches out to Muslim world on TV

Fantastic! President Obama is reaching out to the Muslim world, something no other president has been able to do. I'm really happy that the US will no longer be 'dictating' what the middle east should do. The US has no clue what it must be like for the people of the middle eastern countries.

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama gave his first formal television interview as president to an Arabic cable TV network, saying that when it comes to Middle East matters "all too often the United States starts by dictating."

Obama taped the interview with the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya network Monday as his envoy to the Middle East, former Sen. George J. Mitchell, set out for an eight-day trip to the region and elsewhere. The interview complemented the new administration's first efforts to reach out to Arab leaders in the region, who have been wary at best of U.S. efforts to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Noting that he has lived in Muslim countries and has Muslim family members, Obama said: "My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy."

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David Bergman 1,474-Megapixel Pic of Obama's Inauguration

An incredibly detailed panoramic picture of the inauguration, zoom in to the some of the small details.

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Obama and Congress Must Act to Restore the Constitution

by Dave Lindorff

The calls for a reckoning for the criminals of the Bush/Cheney administration are growing by the day, as the final few days of the Bush presidency wound down, and as new evidence of their crimes keep pouring out of the deflating gas bag that was the Bush White House.

For years, the Democrats in Congress, with a few notable exceptions, have sat on their hands, allowing the ongoing destruction of the Constitution, of the US military, of the nation's reputation, and of the rule of law, as well as of the institution of Congress itself, by a cabal of Republicans in the White House, led by Vice President Dick Cheney, who have sought to establish an executive-led government that answered only to itself.

Obama, running for the White House, initially talked of restoring the constitutional order, and of prosecuting crimes where they had occurred, much as he talked of ending the war in Iraq. But now, as he increasingly assumes the role of President, he is backing away from that kind of talk, with plans instead to extend the war and occupation in Iraq for years, while actually expanding the war in Afghanistan, and to give the outgoing administration of criminals and Constitution-wreckers a free pass, in the name of "letting bygones be bygones." Ironically, he is doing this even as some in Congress, including House Judiciary Chair John Conyers, who ducked the issue of impeachment and sat on proposed impeachment articles against Bush and Cheney filed by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) for two critical years when he could have ordered a formal hearing by his committee, are now calling for a special prosecutor.

But broken promises about the war aside, Obama cannot have it both ways. If, as he is still declaring, "no one is above the law" in America, then it is essential that those who have committed grave crimes must be indicted and tried for those crimes. As he takes the oath of office on Jan. 20, Obama will swear to uphold and defend the Constitution. That means not only defending the integrity of the document itself, but enforcing all the laws that have been passed in accordance with that document.

As President, Obama has no more right than did his predecessor to pick and choose which laws to enforce. At a time when the nation's jails are crammed to overflowing with hundreds of thousands of people whose crimes are as minimal as stealing CDs from a convenience store, if President Obama and his Justice Department fail to order an investigation into profound White House crimes like the destruction of evidence in the Valerie Plame spy-outing case, or the investigation into the politicalization of the appointment and firing of US Attorneys, or of the deliberate campaign of lies to justify an unnecessary invasion of Iraq, if they fail to investigate fully what the president's illegal National Security Agency wiretapping program was really all about, if they fail to investigate the rampant fraud and profiteering by White House-connected private contractors in the Iraq War zone, if they fail to investigate the clear evidence of White House efforts to undermine fair elections in 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008, if they fail to prosecute the White House, right up to the offices of Vice President and President, for authorizing, directing and then covering up evidence of systematic torture of captives in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the so-called "war" on terror, if they don't investigate what the administration really knew and what it covered up in the days and weeks before the 9-11 attacks in 2001, it will no longer be possible to say, with a straight face, that in America everyone is equal under the law.

But that is only part of it.
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Democrats Move Closer to Approving Torture Probe

Democrats Move Closer to Approving Torture Probe
By Jason Leopold | The Public Record

As President Barack Obama reverses some of ex-President George W. Bush’s most controversial “war on terror” policies, a consensus seems to be building among Democratic congressional leaders that further investigations are needed into Bush’s use of torture and other potential crimes.

On Wednesday – the first working day of the Obama administration – Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he would support funding and staff for additional fact-finding by the Senate Armed Services Committee, which last month released a report tracing abuse of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib to Bush’s Feb. 7, 2002, decision to exclude terror suspects from Geneva Convention protections.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, who issued that report, echoed Reid’s comments, saying “there needs to be an accounting of torture in this country.” Levin, D-Michigan, also said he intends to encourage the Justice Department and incoming Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate torture practices that took place while Bush was in office.

Two other key Democrats joined in this growing chorus of lawmakers saying that serious investigations should be conducted.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, a former federal prosecutor and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a floor speech, “As the President looks forward and charts a new course, must someone not also look back, to take an accounting of where we are, what was done, and what must now be repaired.”

Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland told reporters: "Looking at what has been done is necessary.”

On Jan. 18, two days before Obama’s inauguration, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi expressed support for House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers’s plan to create a blue-ribbon panel of outside experts to probe the “broad range” of policies pursued by the Bush administration “under claims of unreviewable war powers.”

In an interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace, Pelosi specifically endorsed a probe into the politicization of the Justice Department, but didn’t spell out a position on Conyers's plan to examine the Bush administration’s torture and rendition policies, which could prove embarrassing to Pelosi and other Democratic leaders who were briefed by the CIA about these tactics.

Still, when Wallace cited Obama’s apparent unwillingness to investigate the Bush administration, Pelosi responded: “I think that we have to learn from the past, and we cannot let the politicizing of the — for example, the Justice Department, to go unreviewed. Past is prologue. We learn from it. And my views on the subject — I don't think that Mr. Obama and Mr. Conyers are that far apart.”

The emerging consensus among top congressional Democrats for some form of investigation into Bush’s controversial policies has surprised some progressives who had written off the leadership long ago for blocking impeachment hearings and other proposals for holding Bush and his subordinates accountable.

In 2006, for instance, Pelosi famously declared that “impeachment is off the table,” and prior to Election 2008, the Democratic leadership largely acquiesced to Bush’s demands for legislation that supported his “war on terror” policies, including a compromise bill granting legal immunity to telecommunications companies that assisted in Bush’s warrantless wiretaps.

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