Senate passes anti-torture bill, Bush to veto

I finally got around to seeing Taxi to the Dark Side, and if you haven’t I would definitely suggest you do. Don’t expect the ironic humor and kind of “rallying cry” that a Michael Moore documentary puts in you, this is downright harrowing stuff. No jokes and funny music, cartoons and absurd interviews. Just an uncompromising look at the torture that’s happened on Bush’s watch.

The president himself didn’t show up in the film much, but when he did he just reminded me of how bizarrely callous he can be when it comes to treating people as, y’know, people. So you can imagine my depression, lack of surprise, and then depression due to my lack of surprise at reading that Bush is going to veto a bill passed by the house which would explicitly ban torture, including waterboarding.

In a 51 to 45 vote, the Senate approved an intelligence bill that limits the CIA to using 19 less-aggressive interrogation tactics outlined in a U.S. Army Field Manual. The measure would effectively ban the use of simulated drowning, temperature extremes and other harsh tactics that the CIA used on al-Qaeda prisoners after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

President Bush has vowed to veto the legislation, which the House approved in December, and Congress does not appear to have enough votes to override a veto.

I want you to stop for a moment. Don’t form opinions yet, or collate this with other information, anything like that. Just go over those two paragraphs again, and realize that we are talking about the Congress being unable to overturn a veto on banning torture.

Okay? We’re not talking fucking tax codes here, folks. This isn’t a new Medicare plan or new regulations on the production of sugar substitutes. The question is “should we torture people?” and apparently not enough in Congress can say “why of course not, that would be batshit insane to condone such a thing.”

In 20 years or so, it’s gonna be fun explaining to our children and/or grandchildren what was going on in the early years of the 21st century.

Insight on Iraq, but only when it’s not about us or Iraq.

When people say satire is dead, these are the instances being referred to. President Bush’s trip to Africa took him by way of a museum in Rwanda, where this gem managed to slip out of his mouth.

“A clear lesson I learned in the museum was that outside forces that tend to divide people up inside their country are unbelievably counterproductive.”—after touring a genocide memorial, Kigali, Rwanda, Feb. 19, 2008 (Thanks to Hellyn Sher.)

As cynical as I am, as jaded as I am about this man, I refuse to believe that those words fell out of his mouth without him noticing any problem with them. If this was a television show or a movie, that would be the part when the camera shoots to the good guys watching him on television and one of them grits his teeth and says “the bastard’s mocking us.”

But just in case your balls don’t hurt too much from the irony, I’ve got more. Turkey’s had troops in Northern Iraq for a little while now, due to a rather legitimate quarrel with the Kurdish PKK radicals. Sort of like how Al Qaeda was in Iraq, except if they were actually in Iraq.

Well, Defense Secretary Robert Gates had some words of advice for Turkey concerning their mission:

“It’s very important that the Turks make this operation as short as possible and then leave, and to be mindful of Iraqi sovereignty,” Gates told reporters in New Delhi on Wednesday before leaving for Ankara.

“I measure quick in terms of days, a week or two, something like that. Not months,” he said.

If these people were on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and all the questions were about Iraq, they’d have used up all their lifelines before they broke $2,000.

Ohio, among others, going back to paper ballots

I’m not sure what to do. I’m starting to feel… hopeful. I’ve already discussed Obama and how he may be making political discourse downright civil, now we’ve got states reverting back to paper ballots.

From Florida to California, the nation’s flirtation with electronic voting is on the rocks. More and more states and counties are reverting to paper ballots fed through optical scanners because of problems — some real, some perceived — with machines that didn’t offer the level of security and transparency voters demand.

New Mexico began the about-face in 2006, after a 2004 presidential election in which nearly 20,000 ballots could not be counted. President Bush won the state by 5,988 votes.

Florida, whose punch cards were banished after they kept the nation waiting 36 days for a president in 2000, soon followed. Now secretaries of State in California and Colorado, along with Ohio, are pushing their states back to paper. Maryland and Virginia are phasing out touch screens.

Why is this such a big deal? Remember the wee bit of a flare-up that emerged because of a complete lack of paper trail with computer votes. Not, necessarily, that hacking happened, but rather that if any kind of shenanigans occurred (spoilage, for example, where votes got ‘rejected’), there’s no way to double check.

This is a step in the right direction. Not only might 2008 go without the disgusting negativity, but the election itself might end up being, dare I say it, fair and honest.

Barack the Magic Negro, indeed.

As time goes, I’m starting to think that Limbaugh’s attempt at poking fun toward Obama is true, but in a way he didn’t anticipate. As I’m sure many have heard by now, radio personality Bill Cunningham got slapped around by John McCain after repeatedly throwing some rough attacks at Obama at a McCain rally, including repeatedly calling him “Barack Hussein Obama”.

Now the right-wing talking point is that “there’s nothing wrong with using his full name”. Rush Limbaugh, among others, have questioned that. But that’s sort of like saying there’s nothing wrong with pointing out that he’s black every time you refer to him. Yes, he is indeed black, but if you can’t figure out the subtext of repeatedly mentioning it you’re a little thick in the head.

The interesting thing that’s come up from the whole debacle is how far things have shifted. The other day, Karl “Mr Negative Politics” Rove even advised Republicans to avoid “demagoguing” Obama by using his middle name repeatedly. Of course the right-wing blowhards (Coulter, Rush, Savage) have ignored that, but to use the words of a good friend of mine, “fuck those morons.”

Even more incredible, the Republican National Committee denounced/rejected an ad sent around by the Tennessee GOP with the famous photo of Obama in Somalian garb, to the point that the Tennessee organization pulled it and any “Hussein” messages.

Keep in mind who we’re talking about here. People who have no problem calling Hillary a bitch, who said John McCain had an illegitimate black child, Bill Clinton is a murderer, and that John Kerry lied and cheated his way into medals during Vietnam. They’ve all decided that going after Obama’s middle name or his heritage are off-limits.

This is nothing small. This is the elevation of our political discourse that we’ve been looking for. Perhaps because they see him as a genuine threat, perhaps because he’s completely unflappable against attacks, no matter what the reason is, the party heavyweights are telling everyone to lay off the mudslinging. That’s just incredible. They certainly made no such concession for Hillary.

If this keeps up, we may be looking at one of the most tolerable election seasons in some time. It speaks volumes about the man if he can force Rove et al to say “all right everyone, settle down.” This is a guy who practically spoon-fed the right all the attacks they could ever want. His name is as attackable as possible (Iraq, Hussein, Osama). He’s black. He’s quite liberal. He was raised in Indonesia, a quite Muslim country. He handed them all they could ever want in a straw man on a silver goddamn platter, but they’re stepping away from personal attacks.

Oh sure, I doubt it’ll hold, but I’m still naively optimistic about such things. Don’t kill my dream.

The 2002 Iraq vote; yes, 9/11 is applicable

I’m watching Countdown right now, and Keith and Howard Fineman are going on against Hillary and Bill for defense of her 2002 vote authorizing force against Iraq. It’s used a lot and as disappointed as I am with that vote, we need to really sit back for a moment and examine the situation fairly.

I’m no Hillary bumper. I doubt I’ll vote for her and she drives me nuts with the negative ads, but this is going crazy.

Now then, the aftermath of 9/11 certainly had a huge effect on the vote for Iraq. It wasn’t that we necessarily thought they were involved, but rather that they were a threat as well, and indeed a far larger one. The constant conflation of Iraq and Al Qaeda created a seed in many minds not that we had to invade Iraq as revenge for 9/11 (we got Afghanistan for that one), but instead we had to go in to prevent another one.

Keep in mind also that the vote was, purportedly, to authorize force in last resort. It was to show unity and under the pretense that force would only be used if it absolutely had to be. Was it? No, but voting because you think the president is lying about his motives is a poor way of doing things, especially that early in his presidency before we knew he was full of shit.

Imagine you’re in the Senate in 2002. In the past year, a horrific attack was launched on the United States the likes of which we had never seen. The president is telling you that another country, which may have ties to those who attacked us, is an even greater threat than what we’ve seen. You have a bill in front of you to either authorize or deny the use of force.

It’s a prisoner’s dilemma. You have to decide which vote is safer. Could you afford to assume that you’re getting false information, that the president is lying?

I respect Kucinich’s criticism of Clinton, because he voted. Obama didn’t. It’s far easier to make that comment when you in fact did not make that vote. We don’t know what Obama would have done in that situation. For all we know he might have done the same. Playing armchair Senator is easy when you didn’t have to make the decision.

Obama has a lot to take Clinton to task over, but that Iraq vote is difficult to accept. It wasn’t for some time that we learned what the Administration knew was true and what was false, how they lied and how they manipulated emotions and fears. I can’t fault someone for responding in the way they did, even if I’m incredibly disappointed with the lack of inquiry and dissenting voices.

Ron Paul supporters don’t vote.

Hot on the heels of Will’s groundbreaking article, I figured I’d pop this one out. Want to know what the problem is with Paul’s support? Apparently, his fan club is big on rallies, but not so big on actually voting.

Long story short: on the day of a 4,000+ person Ron Paul rally, there were a whopping 54 Republicans who cast early votes. When the place to do so was 150 feet away from the rally. Assuming that all 54 went to Paul, that means the rally has a 1:74 conversion rate.

Now, that means that, if that was a representative rally/voter ratio, in a big primary where he’ll need somewhere around 500,000 votes to win, he’ll need roughly a 37,000,000 person rally.

You’ve got your assignment, folks. Get on it!

On Democratic Flip-flops.

Let me start this out by saying that I don’t necessarily begrudge the Washington Post for these articles. On the contrary, I think it’s good that they’re taking everyone to task for policy decision as opposed to smiling at the wrong time or not wearing a flag pin.

That said, the Post has published not one, but two articles outlining times when the Democratic frontrunners have switched positions on a given issue. The first is a standard writeup, but for those with a shorter attention span they’ve also made a handy-dandy bullet-point list of the top five for each. Amongst them for Obama and Clinton, respectively:

4. Illegal immigration In a March 2004 questionnaire, Obama was asked if the government should “crack down on businesses that hire illegal immigrants.” He replied “Oppose.” In a Jan. 31, 2008, televised debate, he said that “we do have to crack down on those employers that are taking advantage of the situation.”

2. No Child Left Behind Clinton voted in favor of the 2002 education bill that focused on raising student achievement levels, hailing the measure as “a major step forward.” She now attacks the law at campaign rallies and meetings with teachers, describing it as a “test, test, test” approach.

Now, I understand the problem with flip-flops. Someone whose opinion on issues wavers depending on what’s most politically expedient is not someone we should have leading the country.

The flipside is that we’re now saying that unless your positions remain the same during your entire political career, you’re “weak”. If your opinion changes as you learn more, if something makes you change your priorities or otherwise cause you to look at an issue in a different way and alters your perception, you’re apparently unfit for office. Look at those two, Obama’s was four years ago, and Hillary’s was six.

Our current president has attempted to define himself by never changing his mind (on the big things, he’s flip-flopped plenty of times). I’d say, if anything, a president who’s willing to compromise or change stances when convinced to do so is a step forward. Next time maybe we’ll have, as Kucinich said, a president who was right the first time.

Pew LASER: Ron Paul’s supporters his greatest weakness

Ron Paul’s followers might be the biggest obstacle between him and the presidency, according to a Pew Research report. The Pew Research Center’s Logistical Analysis of Statistics, Election Recording division just released a report on the Republican-libertarian candidate’s campaign. The report, affectionately titles “The Rons Must Be Crazy,” claimed that Paul would have a viable presidential campaign if it wasn’t for the people supporting him.

According to the report, 90% of Ron Paul supporters interviewed were determined to be “annoying,” 70% were “politically ignroant,” and 40% were “bug(expletive removed) crazy. “The irritating preachiness levels found in typical Ron Paul supporters have far outpaced in both quality and quantity the standard set by Ralph Nader supporters,” the report stated.

We went out to find a Ron Paul supporter for ourselves and see if these observations were accurate. While anecdotal evidence is essentially useless against statistics, we don’t have the budget to ask people in large numbers. Instead, we picked a random Ron Paul supporter, Chad Levinson, out of a Ron Paul rally. Levinson’s rally consisted of two dozen people carrying Ron Paul signs walking up Broadway and chanting “Ron Paul! Ron Paul! Ron Paul!”

“Ron Paul is just the best candidate for this country,” Levinson said. “He’ll restore the Constitution by keeping to the Constitution and only following exactly what the Constitution says, like it says in the Constitution. He’s the only candidate for this country. Everyone else will have us goose-stepping everywhere and registering our cats with Homeland Security. You think Bush is bad? Clinton, Obama, McCain, Romney, Huckabee, Guiliani, and Nader would all be worse, man!”

When asked about Paul’s extremely low poll numbers and McCain’s extreme lead in the Republican party, Levinson glowered. “Hey, this country had its chance. If they don’t vote for Ron Paul, then they deserve everything they get. He’s the only one who can save America, and if America’s too stupid to get it, then I’m not even going to bother.”

Besides the statistical analysis, the Pew LASER noted specifically the efforts of the Ron Paul Blimp. The blimp, commissioned by Liberty Political Advertising LLC, is a Skyship 600 dirigible with a large logo asking “Who is Ron Paul?” and instructing witnesses to “Google Ron Paul” on one side and an additional logo with “Ron Paul R[EVOL]UTION” on the other side. The blimp was funded by Ron Paul supporters who donated to Liberty Political Advertising instead of Paul’s political campaign, which has no connection with the blimp. Blimp sponsors who donated $5,000 or more were allowed 18 hours of flight time in the blimp.

“They paid for a freaking blimp,” the report stated. “A freaking blimp. That sort of money could have gone directly into the Paul campaign and have been used for non-crazy purposes. Ron Paul supporters spend far more time and money with stunts like these than they do actually working for the Paul campaign and seriously pursuing the goal of getting him nominated and elected.”

After we interviewed Levinson, we decided to get some more input from voters regarding the Ron Paul campaign. We met Voil Tyson in Union Square. Tyson is a 20 year Lyndon LaRouche supporter, who gave us some interesting observations on the unpopularity of Ron Paul’s supporters.

“They’re just too loud, aggressive, and crazy,” Tyson said. “You’re walking around and a Paul guy just jumps at you telling you to vote for him. They never tell you why, just that he’ll save the country single-handedly like some kind of Conan-Jesus. It’s really off-putting. Anyway, would you like to hear about how the Jews have infiltrated our highest levels of power to disable our country’s defenses in preparation for an impending invasion by the British Empire?”

Y’know, lay off O’Reilly, folks.

I’ve avoided writing on this one, and I’m sure a few of you wondered why I didn’t leap at an opportunity to jump on the “kick O’Reilly’s ass” bandwagon. The reason is simple: this one’s unfair. We all love slamming Bill-O, but in this case I think we shot ourselves in the foot. Look at his entire comment:

You know, I have a lot of sympathy for Michelle Obama, for Bill Clinton, for all of these people. Bill Clinton, I have sympathy for him, because they’re thrown into a hopper where everybody is waiting for them to make a mistake, so that they can just go and bludgeon them. And, you know, Bill Clinton and I don’t agree on a lot of things, and I think I’ve made that clear over the years, but he’s trying to stick up for his wife, and every time the guy turns around, there’s another demagogue or another ideologue in his face trying to humiliate him because they’re rooting for Obama.

That’s wrong. And I don’t want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there’s evidence, hard facts, that say this is how the woman really feels. If that’s how she really feels — that America is a bad country or a flawed nation, whatever — then that’s legit. We’ll track it down.

Read it. Then read it again. Notice that William O’Reilly, noted right-wing pundit who goes after anyone for any reason, is coming to Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama’s defense because he sympathizes with their plight. He’s saying “listen, people aren’t always going to phrase things well, they’ll say something a little off, so don’t jump on them over it.”

That was his message. Then, in a case of self-destructive ultra-irony, the left proceeded to pounce on O’Reilly, ignoring his message of “it’s unfair to seek out verbal missteps in order to humiliate people” and instead sought out his verbal misstep and used it to humiliate the guy.

I have no doubt that O’Reilly used the word “lynching” intentionally, probably referring to the right’s crusade against her. Though poorly-contrived, it’s a perfectly legitimate way of phrasing it. It was just stupid to use it. But so many people have so much anti-O’Reilly zeal that they tossed out the one defender on the right that Michelle Obama has in this phony “scandal”. Good work, folks.

How to screw up “analysis”, by MSNBC.

Now that Obama is the Democratic frontrunner it’s time for the mainstream media to start launching against him. That font of liberal goodness, MSNBC, has added to the fray with a bogglingly dumb article attempting to explain how Barack Obama is partisan, by looking at his voting record.

Obama’s roll call votes in 2005, 2006 and 2007 have been analyzed by the non-partisan journal Congressional Quarterly which found him to be a Democratic Party loyalist.

CQ didn’t use every single roll call vote to make this determination, instead it analyzed votes where a majority of Democratic senators opposed a majority of Republican senators.

In 2007, Obama voted with his fellow Democrats 97 percent of the time. In 2006, his score was 96, and in 2005, he again netted a 97 percent rating.

Well… yeah. He’s a Democrat, and got elected because he represents Democratic ideals. It’s a little dumb to think he’d step vote with the Republicans just to “step across the aisle” and show a willingness to work with the other side. Actually that’s an extremely stupid metric because it doesn’t show how partisan he is, just where his political stance is.