Governor Jack Markell Delivers a Double Dose of Reality to Casino Owners

I love it when politicians introduce reality into public discourse. During his address to the state legislature, Gov. Jack Markell did precisely that:

Let me be clear: the exclusive franchise for video lottery and sports lottery belongs to the taxpayers of this state, not the casino owners. The owners are the taxpayers' partners in this venture and they need to act like partners.

That's right. The franchise belongs to the taxpayers and Markell has asked the legislature to up the state's share from video-lottery by 8%. That's hardly onerous and the casino owners have no rights to assert in the matter. That was Gov. Markell's first dose of reality.

Apparently, the casino owners issued their own report about Gov. Markell's proposal and their own report didn't support their predictions of pestilence if they anted up an extra 8%:

Looking at the report the casino owners themselves commissioned, the question is not whether they will lose money under this proposal, but rather how much more revenue will they reap.

Hear that? They will still make a profit if Markell's proposal is adopted. In other words, the casino owners are just being greedy. That's what I call a double dose of reality.

New Castle County Council: Cowards

In keeping with Delaware's tradition of closed government, New Castle County Council voted to make obtaining audio recordings of their council meetings difficult:

New Castle County Council votes no to recorded audio during meetings.

The resolution, introduced by Councilman David Tackett, allows audio recordings of Council's meetings for download or streaming on the Internet.

Council cited possible alteration or defamation as the motive for voting down such a piece of legislation but Tackett says he's looking out for government and the public's wallets.

Tackett says in a technological world, he feels County Council's decision takes a huge step backwards but he will not reintroduce the bill.

If someone wants to obtain an audio copy of their meetings, they have to appear in person at the county building to get a copy. The idiots seem to think that if anyone was really interested in defaming them, they will be put off by obtaining a CD copy of their meetings in person.

No one should be deceived by this ruse. The council members aren't really afraid of defaming and altered use of the recordings. They are afraid of the publicity of unaltered segments of their meetings. Some council members are quite adept at defaming themselves. That is what they find as potentially embarrassing.

If access to recordings of these meetings is a public right, then utilizing the most expeditious means possible flows naturally from that right. Internet recordings are the most expeditious and affordable means possible.

What a bunch of weenies.

Specter Deserves A Democratic Primary Opponent

by Stephen Crockett

Most Pennsylvania Democrats are Democrats for good reasons. It is not because they like the letter “D’ more than the letter “R”. They are Democrats because they support the Democratic approach on a wide array of issues more than they support the Republican policy positions on those issues.

While I welcome Specter to the Democratic Party, I am not convinced that he holds mainstream Democratic values. His record and stated policy positions remain largely Republican.

Specter has made himself a major obstacle to passing the Employee Free Choice Act. He supported almost all the Bush agenda for 8 years. Without Specter, we probably would not have Alito and Roberts on the Supreme Court.

Specter has not protected American jobs leaving the country because of unfair "free" trade deals. He has done almost nothing to help get us out of Iraq. He has opposed government provided universal healthcare. He has opposed the vast majority of Democratic policy positions during his long political career.

Pennsylvania Democrats should have a real Democrat running as the 2010 Democratic Senate candidate. Specter is an honorable man but hardly the best choice to represent mainstream Pennsylvania Democratic values in the 2010 Senate race.

It is highly unlikely that the winner of the 2010 Pennsylvania Democratic Senate Primary will lose the general election. Pennsylvania Democrats do not have to compromise their values to take this Senate seat and should not be pressured into making such a bad choice.

Pennsylvania politics has shifted dramatically in a Democratic direction. Fielding a Democratic candidate holding a majority of policy positions that are Republican Right in nature would in my opinion be a betrayal of all those Pennsylvania Democrats yearning for real change. Specter with his current policy positions cannot deliver the change those voters desire.

Organized labor and the progressive community in Pennsylvania are very strong and growing. Specter offers almost nothing to either group. Local Democratic activists are not fans of Arlen Specter. The core of the Democratic coalition in Pennsylvania deserves to have a mainstream Democratic Senate candidate who reflects their values and supports their policy positions on at least 80 to 90% of the issues. Complete political purity is not required but Specter currently fails the minimum test.

Specter needs to change his positions on a wide array of issues before he is given a clear field in the Democratic Primary. He needs to move toward the center in a major way. No candidate opposing the Employee Free Choice Act, supporting right-wing federal judges or job-destroying “free trade” deals and the like should go unopposed in any Democratic primary election.

Pennsylvania largely reflects the general values of America. While a candidate with Specter’s policy positions would be a big improvement over Senators like Corker and Alexander of Tennessee, Shelby and Sessions of Alabama or Vitter of Louisiana, he is not really at the center of the American political spectrum on a vast majority of issues. Specter is close enough to the center to shift his positions on enough issues to win a Democratic primary but has not indicated any willingness to do so!

Working class and middle class Pennsylvanians deserve a Senate candidate with values and policy positions that fully embrace the changes promised by the Obama Presidency. Nobody including the Senate Democratic leadership, the Democratic National Committee or even President Obama should attempt to keep Pennsylvania Democrats from having a choice in the 2010 Democratic Senate Primary that fully reflects Democratic values. Senator Specter should have the opportunity to compete but the field should not be cleared of major league Democratic competitors.

The Pennsylvania Democratic Party would be seriously harmed by any attempt to limit the field of Democratic Senate competitors in 2010. Union activists and progressives deserve an opportunity to field serious candidates who fully reflect their views. Specter does not currently fill that need although he can do so if he so desires by merely changing his policy positions.

Specter was definitely going to lose the Republican Senate Primary in 2010. It was in his interest to switch to the Democratic Party. However, adding a “D” after your name on a ballot does not make you a mainstream Democrat.

If Specter wants to win a Senate seat from Pennsylvania as a Democrat, he needs to become a mainstream Democrat. He is highly unlikely to do so without a strong Democratic Primary opponent. Certainly, Specter can be beaten in the 2010 Democratic Senate Primary by any serious challenger holding “real” mainstream Democratic values.

* * *

Written by Stephen Crockett (host of Democratic Talk Radio and Editor of Mid-Atlantic Labor.com). He can be reached by email at demlabor@aol.com or by phone at 443-907-2367.

Democratic Talk Radio airs Thursday mornings on WGPA SUNNY 1100AM in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The mailing address for Democratic Talk Radio is: 698 Old Baltimore Pike, Newark, Delaware 19702

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Where Is Gov. Jack Markell’s Openness?

The News Journal's Ginger Gibson has written an excellent article about Delaware Governor Jack Markell. I highly recommend that you read it.

Within the article is an ominous statement for state employees:

Flanked by advisers and staff who largely fit his self-professed outsider status, Markell fields questions about his decision to hold firm on his plan to cut state salaries by 8 percent while appearing willing to negotiate with the state's casinos.

Where is Governor Markell's vaunted openness to alternate suggestions? It's not as though he hasn't been presented with a variety of options. In fact, Rep. John Kowalko has provided a menu of options, including some that don't involve either a tax increase or slashing the pay of state employees (Kowalko's preference).

Instead Gov. Markell would rather be open and flexible with casino owners than with the employees of the state of Delaware. Go figure.

On Gov. Markell’s Logic about State Employees Health Care Premiums

Gov. Jack Markell's plan to slash compensation for state employees is now underway:

Nearly 43,000 state government workers and pensioners will see their health care premiums rise by 50 percent starting July 1 in the first step of Gov. Jack Markell's effort to control employee costs and balance the budget….

The increase in health care costs, along with some changes to the state's prescription program, are projected to save the state $22.5 million next year. The hikes were approved by the State Employee Benefits Committee, and do not need legislative approval.

The average state employee or pensioner not covered by Medicare now pays about $54 a month in medical premiums, state officials said, and the maximum for the most comprehensive family plan is $129 monthly. Medicare-eligible pensioners do not pay health care premiums, and that provision will not change.

Now for the predictable downward economic comparison:

The average monthly premium for employees nationwide is $280, according to state records and the Kaiser Family Foundation, which studies health care costs and issues. With the change, the average state employee in Delaware will pay $81 a month, and the maximum will be $193 -- still well below average.

Overall, state taxpayers will spend about $395 million next year for employees' and retirees' health care. For the most expensive state plan, the state pays $1,197 monthly per employee.

Downward is the appropriate standard according to Gov. Markell:

"What employees pay for health care is really a small fraction of what people on the outside pay,'' Markell said Friday. Markell said he realizes the increase might pose a hardship for lower-paid employees, but that with the state facing a projected $778 million revenue shortfall for next year, "we thought it was appropriate for them to pay an amount closer to the market rate.''

A $778 million revenue shortfall is an intractable reality, but what bothers me about Gov. Markell's logic is the implication that the average monthly premium for employees nationwide is an appropriate standard. When average, coupled with low wages, is too low, why justify increasing the health care premiums for state employees on a bad standard? Fairness does not equal average when average is inadequate. Fairness would be making average better.

It would be far more honest to simply say "We can't afford it" (assuming that is true) without appealing to an inadequate standard. Once average is set as the standard it will be difficult to decrease the health care premiums of state employees in the future.

Tonight of Progressive Voices: Bryan H. Abramson and Pat McDowell

Listen to "Progressive Voices" every Monday evening on WVUD, 91.3 FM from the University of Delaware in Newark, DE.

Tonight's hosts: Marion Peleski & Dana Garrett.

Note: Monday's show starts at 6:30 p.m. and ends at 7:00. Listen from anywhere in the world you at http://www.wvud.org/listen_online.htm

* *

Tonight's guests are Bryan H. Abramson, Director of Development NAMI-DE, and his associate, Pat McDowell.

NAMI-DE is a statewide organization of families, mental health consumers, friends, and professionals dedicated to improving the quality of life for those affected by life-changing brain diseases such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression.    NAMI DE started in 1983.

Rep. John Kowalko on WDEL This Morning

Rep. John Kowlalko will appear on WDEL (1150 AM) at 11:00 this morning on the Al Mascitti show to present his plan raising revenue for Delaware's state budget. His plan is offered as a possible alternative to Gov. Jack Markell's plan.

His plan doesn't put so much of a burden on cutting the pay of state workers. Be sure to tune in.

More on Torture-Gate

At first the military called the proposed harsh interrogation techniques "torture" and declared that torture produces unreliable information:

The military agency that provided advice on harsh interrogation techniques for use against terrorism suspects referred to the application of extreme duress as "torture" in a July 2002 document sent to the Pentagon's chief lawyer and warned that it would produce "unreliable information."

"The unintended consequence of a U.S. policy that provides for the torture of prisoners is that it could be used by our adversaries as justification for the torture of captured U.S. personnel," says the document, an unsigned two-page attachment to a memo by the military's Joint Personnel Recovery Agency. Parts of the attachment, obtained in full by The Washington Post, were quoted in a Senate report on harsh interrogation released this week.

It's not clear how far up the chain of command the attachment went:

It remains unclear whether the attachment reached high-ranking officials in the Bush administration. But the document offers the clearest evidence that has come to light so far that technical advisers on the harsh interrogation methods voiced early concerns about the effectiveness of applying severe physical or psychological pressure.

It might not have been the kind of information that high-ranking officials wanted to hear:

Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said he thinks the attachment was deliberately ignored and perhaps suppressed. Excerpts from the document appeared in a report on the treatment of detainees released this month by Levin's committee. The report says the attachment echoes JPRA warnings issued in late 2001.

"It's part of a pattern of squelching dissent," said Levin, who added that there were other instances in which internal reviews of detainee treatment were halted or undercut. "They didn't want to hear the downside."

Interestingly, the memo questioned the validity of the so-called "ticking time bomb" argument:

But the JPRA's two-page attachment, titled "Operational Issues Pertaining to the Use of Physical/Psychological Coercion in Interrogation," questioned the effectiveness of employing extreme duress to gain intelligence.

"The requirement to obtain information from an uncooperative source as quickly as possible — in time to prevent, for example, an impending terrorist attack that could result in loss of life —has been forwarded as a compelling argument for the use of torture," the document said. "In essence, physical and/or psychological duress are viewed as an alternative to the more time-consuming conventional interrogation process. The error inherent in this line of thinking is the assumption that, through torture, the interrogator can extract reliable and accurate information. History and a consideration of human behavior would appear to refute this assumption."

As an interesting historical tidbit, when the USA decided that it would use waterboarding as an interrogation technique, it ignored part of the origins of this torture and how it has been used as the basis for prosecuting people who employed it in the past:

There was no consideration within the National Security Council that the planned techniques stemmed from Chinese communist practices and had been deemed torture when employed against American personnel, the former administration official said. The U.S. military prosecuted its own troops for using waterboarding in the Philippines and tried Japanese officers on war crimes charges for its use against Americans and other allied nationals during World War II.

But, then, hypocrisy has rarely been an impediment to what people want to do.

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• Bush officials didn't look into history of interrogation methods before approving their use. (slate.com)
• Mark Thiessen: It Was Torture (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)
• Senate Investigation: Coercive methods prepared before OK (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• When America Executed Waterboarders For War Crimes (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)

State Workers Rally Against Proposed 8% Wage Cut

Rally at Legislative Mall

May 6, 2009

This is for ALL 33,000 state employees!*

Together, we can convince legislators to find fairer and more responsible ways to balance the budget.

Come to this rally to show your outrage, joining in solidarity with other state union members! This will be an historic moment, one that has never happened before, one that you will remember.

WHEN: Begin gathering at 4:30 pm. Speeches begin at 5pm. Get there when you can.

WHERE: Legislative Mall, west side of Legislative Hall, Dover.

WHY: To protest unfair and irresponsible salary cuts for state workers

Families, neighbors and friends are welcome. Bring your protest signs! See you there!

** Sponsored by "State Workers United for a Better Delaware:"
Delaware State Troopers Assoc., AFSCME Council 81, DSEA and DSEA-Retired (public education employees), Teamsters Local 326 (security guards at the Port of Wilmington), Correctional Officers Association, Communications Workers of America Local 13101 (Dept. of Safety and Homeland Security), State Lodge of the FOP, FOP Lodge 3 (DENREC officers, Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms officers, state fire marshals), Lodge #10 (probation and parole officers), Lodge #11 (Capital police officers), Delaware Attorney General Investigation Association, and United Food and Commercial Workers Local 27 (Delaware Family Court employees).

Al Mascitti & I Discuss the Torture Mongers

I called in to the WDEL Al Mascitti show and we discussed those who support the use of torture on detainees.

Israel-Palestine: A Land in Fragments

This film sums up the problem nicely.

GOP Labeling Obama “Socialist” Part of Deliberate Strategy

Some Republicans are having a war again with their party's chairman. In particular, his refusal to use the word "socialist" when describing President Barack Obama:

Republican state party leaders are rebelling against new Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele for failing to dub President Obama and the Democrats as "socialists." And the rebels insist that the label matters.

Even though Mr. Steele has called his Democratic adversaries "collectivists," at least 16 state leaders say the term lacks the pejorative punch needed to sway public opinion and want all 168 members of the Republican National Committee to debate and vote on it….

"Just as President Reagan's identification of the Soviet Union as the 'evil empire' galvanized opposition to communism, we hope that the accurate depiction of the Democrats as a Socialist Party will galvanize opposition to their march to socialism," Mr. Bopp wrote in his e-mail. (link)

You see, the purpose of using them term is not to be descriptive but to deliberately create a false impression that can be sold to the public and can be used to regain political power. Don't think for one second that people who know what socialism really is don't know what they are doing when they use the pejorative term, even in the Delaware blogosphere. It's a deliberate attempt to mold public perception. That it works was evidenced by the many "tea parties" where signs about socialism were in great abundance.

It Can Now Be Called Torture-Gate

The declassification and public release of the US Senate Armed Services Committee's report Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in US Custody (part 1, part 2) has confirmed the following, some of which has long been suspected:

1. The torture used against detainees held in USA custody was culled from the interrogation practices of regimes notorious for its abuse of detainees.
   
2. The same policies provided the framework for the torture and abuse of detainees held in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq (e.g. Abu Ghraib), Afghanistan, and secret sites throughout the world.
   
3. Harsh interrogation practices were planned and probably used before there was (dubious) legal approval to engage in them.
   
4. Torture and abuse was used to both extract intelligence and confirm claims made by the Bush administration about the justification for the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
   

The Origin of the Torture

We used torture methods that our past enemies used on us:

According to the report, the road to the abuses began in December 2001, just three months after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The Pentagon's general counsel office reached out that month to a military agency that trains American personnel in how to endure enemy interrogations.

The legal office wanted information about how the training unit, the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency, conducted mock interrogations and detention operations. The agency trains U.S. armed forces personnel to endure abusive treatment similar to methods used by North Korean, Communist Chinese and Vietcong interrogators. (emphasis mine) (link)

It should be noted that the North Korean, Communist Chinese and Vietcong interrogators used torture to extract intelligence and to "confirm" false information in the form of confessions. Readers will see the US analogue below.

The torture involved "sleep deprivation, physical violence and waterboarding."

Systemic Policies

Contrary to the spin of the Bush administration, the torture and abuse wasn't isolated, episodic and unofficial. It was pervasive, frequent, and sanctioned:

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the committee's chairman, said the report shows that abuse of prisoners was sweeping and not, as former Bush administration defense official Paul Wolfowitz once said, the result of "a few bad apples." As the No. 2 defense official, Wolfowitz was a major architect of the Iraq war.

"Authorizations of aggressive interrogation techniques by senior officials resulted in abuse and conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment," Levin said. (link)

_____________

Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the committee, said the new findings show a direct link between the early policy decisions and the highly publicized abuses of detainees at prisons such as Abu Ghraib in Iraq. (emphasis mine) (link)

_____________

Once [the harsh interrogation methods] were accepted, the methods became the basis for harsh interrogations not only in CIA secret prisons, but also in Defense Department internment camps at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan and Iraq, the report said. (link)

Think of the "underlings" who went to jail over the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse when they were acting within the context of extant policy. Of course, their actions were still illegal and they deserved consequences for them. "Just following orders" is no legal or moral defense. Nevertheless, these individuals were scapegoated for those above them who either directly ordered or created the policy context for their actions.

Harsh Interrogation Plans before Approval

As if "legal" approval for the harsh interrogation techniques was forthcoming as a matter of course, plans were made to use them before there was official approval to do so:

Intelligence and military officials under the Bush administration began preparing to conduct harsh interrogations long before they were granted legal approval to use such methods -- and weeks before the CIA captured its first high-ranking terrorism suspect, Senate investigators have concluded.

Previously secret memos and interviews show CIA and Pentagon officials exploring ways to break Taliban and al-Qaeda detainees in early 2002, up to eight months before Justice Department lawyers approved the use of waterboarding and nine other harsh methods, investigators found. (emphasis mine) (link)

_____________

The report also repeats, but does not confirm, long-held suspicions that the interrogation of Abu Zubaida became coercive before the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel issued a memo on Aug. 1, 2002, sanctioning the use of 10 escalating techniques, culminating in waterboarding. (link)

It's reasonable to wonder if the early plans to use harsh interrogations techniques, including torture, weren't instigated by a higher authority. Further investigation is needed in this area.

Torture for Confirmation

Torture was used both to try to extract what the detainees knew but also what the Bush administration wanted to hear:

The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.

Such information would've provided a foundation for one of former President George W. Bush's main arguments for invading Iraq in 2003. In fact, no evidence has ever been found of operational ties between Osama bin Laden's terrorist network and Saddam's regime.…

A former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the interrogation issue said that Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld demanded that the interrogators find evidence of al Qaida-Iraq collaboration.

"There were two reasons why these interrogations were so persistent, and why extreme methods were used," the former senior intelligence official said on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity.

"The main one is that everyone was worried about some kind of follow-up attack (after 9/11). But for most of 2002 and into 2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld, especially, were also demanding proof of the links between al Qaida and Iraq that (former Iraqi exile leader Ahmed) Chalabi and others had told them were there." (link)

Since torture is roundly condemned as a reliable method to get true information, the question naturally arises: why did the Bush administration sanction the use of torture? I believe the administration was counting precisely on what makes torture unreliable as method of garnering the truth: viz., torture victims are inclined to tell you what you want to hear to make the torture stop. If you know that the links between the former Iraqi government and al Qaida are non-existent or tenuous at best (likewise if you know that the presence of WMD in Iraq is a highly dubious claim), then you might want to hedge your bets by torturing detainees into making a false confessions to provide some "evidence" for your claims.

Given that torture tends to produce the kind of evidence the torturer wants to hear, don't be surprised if the reason why former Vice President Dick Cheney wants the content of these interrogation sessions released is because they do contain false confessions that, if accepted uncritically, would lend support for justifying the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

No, There are No Scary Right-Wingers in the USA

Some people have gone to great pains lately to suggest that the US government has little or nothing to fear from right-wing groups. So pretend that this gun-toting right winger who encourages you to form your own militia to protect your country doesn't exist.

Concentrate ONLY on the right of the speaker to speak so you can pretend that words and actions have no significance or implications. That's how you can deceive people into thinking that scary people aren't really scary.

GM Spent $2.8 Million Lobbying the Government During First Quarter

If you think you provided that $2.8 million in taxpayer bailout loans, you are not alone. You arguably subsidized GM's lobbying efforts.

clipped from www.huffingtonpost.com General Motors Corp. spent $2.8 million lobbying the U.S. government in the first three months of 2009, while the company was surviving on $13.4 billion in federal loans, according to a government filing. The Detroit automaker said it spent the money lobbying a range of issues, including the economic stimulus package, environmental, consumer safety and health issues. The automaker's lobbying costs fell 15 percent from the $3.3 million it spent in the fourth quarter of 2008, but are up from the $2.7 million it spent in the third quarter, according to filings. Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director at the Washington-based Public Interest Research Group "If the government has given you billions of dollars, then you can spend that money on lobbying, or you can spend it on something else," he said. "If you spend it on lobbying then you've got money to spend on something else."

DEFAC’s Small Wonderfulness

You know that a recession is bad when forecasters are happy that they can lower the estimate of the revenue shortfall:

It's not easy to see a silver lining in Monday's news that the state budget deficit for next year widened by an additional $28.5 million, but House Speaker Robert F. Gilligan gave it a shot.

"It's less worse," Gilligan, D-Sherwood Park, said of the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council's finding that the precipitous decline in state revenues seems to be slowing.

"It does appear to have stabilized. It's good news as far as I'm concerned," Gilligan said after the panel set its revenue estimates for the current and coming fiscal years. "I think we have a sound foundation on which to start writing the budget."

The good news is that DEFAC was able to raise its revenue estimate for this year by $8.6 million and the not-as-bad-as-feared news is they lowered their estimate for next year to $28.5 million, leaving a "$779 million gap between revenue and the budget proposed by Gov. Jack Markell."

Call it small wonderfulness.

Cheney’s Irony

Talk about ironies. On the one hand, Vice president Dick Cheney claimed that President Obama endangered the nation by revealing the memos showing we had waterboarded alleged terrorists, two terrorists hundreds of times:

Some Bush administration officials, including former Vice President Dick Cheney, accused the administration of endangering the country by disclosing national secrets.

On the other hand, he wants the classified information garnered from the torture sessions released to the public:

Mr. Cheney went on the Fox News Channel to announce that he had asked the C.I.A. to declassify reports documenting the intelligence gained from the interrogations….

As the debate escalated, Mr. Cheney weighed in, saying that if the country is to judge the methods used in the interrogations, it should have information about what was obtained from the tough tactics.

"I find it a little bit disturbing" that "they didn't put out the memos that showed the success of the effort," Mr. Cheney said on Fox News. "There are reports that show specifically what we gained as a result of this activity."

It's dangerous to verify the fact and extent of the torture, but it's not dangerous to expose the supposed intelligence gained by the torture. In other words, it's dangerous to release information that constitutes a moral indictment of the Bush administration, but it's not dangerous to release information that hypothetically mitigates that indictment. That works out nicely.

The odd thing is that by releasing the memos Obama effectively only confirmed old news:

In the end, aides said, Mr. Obama opted to disclose the memos because his lawyers worried that they had a weak case for withholding them and because much of the information had already been made public in The New York Review of Books, in a memoir by George J. Tenet, the former C.I.A. director, and even in a 2006 speech by President George W. Bush.

So Cheney objects to the known being confirmed even as he advocates that the unknown (the information garnered through torture) be disclosed.

What a self-serving creep.

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Gingrich: US Presidents Never Smiled at the Russians

Temporary Nationalization of Some Banks is on the Table

Nationalization by capitalistic means of the nation's major banks is on the table after all:

President Obama's top economic advisers have determined that they can shore up the nation's banking system without having to ask Congress for more money any time soon, according to administration officials.

In a significant shift, White House and Treasury Department officials now say they can stretch what is left of the $700 billion financial bailout fund further than they had expected a few months ago, simply by converting the government's existing loans to the nation's 19 biggest banks into common stock….

The change to common stock would not require the government to contribute any additional cash, but it could increase the capital of big banks by more than $100 billion.

The move would provide three benefits: one for banks, one for the nation and one which is political:

• Converting those loans to common shares would turn the federal aid into available capital for a bank
  
• and give the government a large ownership stake in return
  
• the option appears to be a quick and easy way to avoid a confrontation with Congressional leaders wary of putting more money into the banks
  

There are two downsides to the move. The hysterical one first:

[S]ome critics would consider it a back door to nationalization, since the government could become the largest shareholder in several banks.

In short, this move would be grist for the mill for man tea partiers who carry homemade signs about socialism. Now for the more substantial concern:

Taxpayers would also be taking on more risk, because there is no way to know what the common shares might be worth when it comes time for the government to sell them.

But I can't imagine that there would be much risk if the economy improves and these banks begin to thrive again. After all, the common shares for these banks—most if not all of them—can be bought for fewer than two dollars a share (and it might even be less than that). The government might actually make money. If I am right, then temporary nationalization sounds like a win-win to me.

Unemployed Workers Seeking Training for Green Collar Jobs

The federal stimulus package is already beginning to work. Workers see that the federal stimulus package will create a market for green collar jobs and they are seeking training to be ahead of the trend. This is how it is supposed to happen.

clipped from news.yahoo.com As the economy sheds jobs, community colleges across the country are reporting a surge of unemployed workers enrolling in courses that offer training for "green-collar" jobs. Students are learning how to install solar panels, repair wind turbines, produce biofuels and do other work related to renewable energy. To meet growing demand, two-year colleges are launching or expanding green job training with money from the federal stimulus package. Students and schools are betting that President Barack Obama's campaign to promote alternative energy and curb global warming will create millions of well-paying green jobs that do not require a four-year degree. The federal stimulus package sets aside tens of billions of dollars to promote renewable energy and energy efficiency. It will also create thousands of jobs retrofitting government buildings and public housing to make them more energy-efficient.

Go Slow on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell?” I Think Not!

Why is it difficult in the USA to recognize that people have rights and plan and act accordingly?

Changing the U.S. military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy for gay troops is "very difficult," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday, indicating that doing so could take years — if it ever happens.

Speaking at the Army War College, Gates said he and President Barack Obama were discussing the policy and whether to change it. Gates said he was not yet taking a position about whether gay troops should be open about their sexuality, which could lead to their discharge under the current rules.

Gates also noted it took five years for the U.S. military to racially integrate during the Truman administration.

"If we do it, it's imperative that we do it right and very carefully," Gates told reporters later on a military jet to Newport, R.I., where he was to speak Friday at the Navy's war college. (link)

What makes this bugbear "very difficult?" Believe it or not, it's the "feelings" people have about the topic:

He added: "It's very difficult. To get peoples' real feelings about it you have to have almost a one-on-one private conversation. I think it's very difficult for people to speak in front of their peers about this issue." (link)

While I do think that feelings should be a paramount consideration on many matters of public policy, I don't think they should be a consideration when it comes to fundamental rights. A person has a natural right to be a homosexual. Being a homosexual is not an impediment to serving in the military. As citizens with natural rights, homosexuals should be entitled to serve in the military. End of story.

If some heterosexual persons in the military don't have the professionalism and the fundamental respect for human rights to enable them to serve without strain or difficulty with homosexuals, then toss those heterosexuals out of the military. I don't want them in my nation's military. I'd be concerned about other possible prejudices they have operating that could negatively affect their service at home or abroad.

Interesting that the feelings that Gates is least concerned about are homosexuals'.

What I find most troubling about Gates' speech is what it might bode for President Obama's campaign promise to end the policy of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." It's difficult to believe that Gates didn't register his hesitancy and implication of a go slow approach without first clearing it with the White House. I hope I'm wrong because that particular campaign promise is one of the promises that prompted me to support and vote for Obama as President.

Keith Olbermann Slaps Obama on Letting the Torturers Off

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Olbermann does a good job of showing how excusing and overlloking the abuses of government only leads to their repitition.

Obama to Let the Torturing Thugs Off

It's as disgusting as something gets: let the criminals go Scott free.

Obama intends to let off those CIA officials who tortured others during the George Bush regime. The reason? Because these thugs were told their acts were legal by the Bush administration. It's the Nuremberg defense all over again.

Apparently, as long as you believe you are following a lawful order, you have no obligation to check the law for yourself, much less employ your conscience or have one. There has never been a tyrant and his henchmen in the history of humanity that hasn't employed the same rationalization for their brutalities.

clipped from www.huffingtonpost.com The Obama administration is telling CIA officials who used waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics on terror suspects that they won't be prosecuted by the Justice Department. Senior administration officials told The Associated Press that Attorney General Eric Holder will release a statement Thursday giving the first definitive assurance to the CIA officials that they are legally in the clear. The officials spoke about the Holder statement ahead of its release on condition of anonymity, so as not to pre-empt the attorney general. Even before President Barack Obama took office, aides signaled his administration was not likely to bring criminal charges against CIA employees for their roles in the secret, coercive terrorist interrogation program. They noted the program had been deemed legal at the time through opinions issued by the Justice Department under the Bush administration.

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Secede (Maybe) Says Tea Partying GOP Gov. Rick Perry

Nay, that weren't any right-wing extremists in any force at the tea party events that the GOP, which co-opted the tea party movement, felt a need to speak the extremist's language. LOL.

The GOP is so far out of power and unpopular that it is fishing for the bottom feeders now.

clipped from www.huffingtonpost.com Texas Gov. Rick Perry fired up an anti-tax "tea party" Wednesday with his stance against the federal government and for states' rights as some in his U.S. flag-waving audience shouted, "Secede!" An animated Perry told the crowd at Austin City Hall -- one of three tea parties he was attending across the state -- that officials in Washington have abandoned the country's founding principles of limited government. He said the federal government is strangling Americans with taxation, spending and debt. Perry called his supporters patriots. Later, answering news reporters' questions, Perry suggested Texans might at some point get so fed up they would want to secede from the union, though he said he sees no reason why Texas should do that. There's a lot of different scenarios," Perry said. "We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that.

The Wilmington, Delaware “Tea Party”

I have to give it to the organizers of the event. It was well attended. Some estimates put it as high as 850. Although the event was held indoors, nearly everyone I talked to expected it to be held outside in the rain. Imagine how many people might have attended if the weather had been better.

But I am not terribly surprised that the event was well attended. Political enthusiasms and paranoia can draw a crowd. And there were plenty of the paranoid on hand. People afraid that the USA is now being run by socialists, that Obama is a socialist and not a native born citizen, that the government has extant plans to heavily tax everyone.

I talked to people on camera and off camera. Most preferred to talk off camera. On the whole they seemed as people who are very partisan and afraid, although the bases for their fear were often vague or rested on false information. Barack Obama is dangerous people told me; he plans to tax everyone. Few knew that Obama plans to give a tax cut to everyone making less than $250,000. Those who did know discounted it as something he would soon change. Many thought their freedoms were being taken from them, yet no one I talked to could name a specific freedom that was in jeopardy. For answers I got vague statements about the government interfering in people's lives.

There were many Republicans present, a respectable number of Libertarians and those who called themselves independents, and, with the exception of one person I knew, the only Democrats I recognized attending were bloggers who were covering the event.

There were many speakers, most of them Republicans (e.g., Charlie Copeland, Mike Protack) and one self-identified head of the Delaware Libertarian Party. I thought it fascinating how the Republicans and the Libertarians could so easily make common cause and how the Libertarians were willing to let the Republicans dominate the proceedings.

WDEL's Rick Jensen spoke. He tried to put a non-partisan spin on the events. Then Jensen took an audible poll and stepped in it. As Mike Matthews wrote who live blogged the event:

513 pm: Jensen just took roll. Asked "Who's an Independent?" Smattering of yeahs. "Who's a Republican?" Deafening yeahs!! Then, Jensen asks, "Who's brave enough to say they're a Democrat?" Crickets chirping. Yup…I got it right.

This event was a very partisan affair.

I talked to a few people who were the exceptions. They were aware that President George Bush ran up record deficits and a record national debt. They were angry at him too and would have protested him last year on tax day if given the opportunity.

Funny that the Delaware Republican and Libertarian Parties didn't think of this event last year but waited to hold their protest against a President who just recently assumed office. They didn't even give Obama a year before they tea partied him, but they let George Bush off for eight years Scott free. Very predictable.

It’s Official: The Wilmington Tea Party is a GOP Sponsored Event

It appears that the Tea Party for Wilmington tonight is a GOP sponsored event. According to Dave Burris at Delaware Politics, this e-mail was sent out from Tom Ross, the Delaware Republican State Chairman:

Tomorrow is tax day, and it's also the day when there are going be hundreds of tax day Tea Party's across the country. The Delaware Republican Party is sponsoring a Tea Party at the Riverfront in Wilmington from 4:00pm-6:30pm. I hope you can join me and taxpayers from around the state who are concerned for our country's future….

Tom Ross

Republican State Chairman

Credit goes to Dave for arguing that the Delaware event should be a non-partisan one. But as one commenter on the Delaware Politics site trenchantly remarks:

Your idealism is misplaced. It's too late. These events were never intended to be anything more than an astroturfed Obama-bashing session. If you really think they were ever about issues, you have been duped.

Note the absence of tea parties last year under the same tax structure and high spending. If you really think it is a non-partisan protest against issues of the last few years - ask the organizers if they support a Truth Commission looking into it. Suddenly it's not so important to go after tyrants.

Really it is a "sore loser" exercise….

Yep & we told you so.

Class Warfare was Declared Long Ago in the USA

Over at Delaware Libertarian, blogger Tyler Nixon is concerned about people being taxed too much, even the rich:

For those who would boil the issue of taxation and its burdens down to inane questions (and speculative questions at that...given Barack Obama's penchant for moving the goal post as convenient) about "whether or not someone makes $250K or more", I simply say : get real and drop such simplistic nonsense.

Aside from the fundamentally childish, self-centered, class-warfare-ish premise behind such a question, namely that no one should care about whether particular groups of citizens ("who are not me") are being made special tax targets, the burden of taxation is not just federal and it is hardly just about how much money Americans eventually have to fork over.

Apparently, it's only an act of class warfare if the rich will be taxed more than they are at present. Where is the Libertarian concern when these acts of class warfare have occurred in our society?

The median income of an average American family, in real dollars, grew by just 13 percent from 1975-2005, but for the wealthiest 0.1 percent the comparable number is 296 percent. (Will Bunch, Tear Down This Myth, p. 66)

I presume that act of class warfare gets glossed over as the "free market" (even though this income inequality was driven in large part by governmental policy). How convenient for the rich: class warfare only exists when they are affected negatively, not when they benefit.

The GOP Tea Party Movement

As if it wasn't predictable, it's now official. The national Republican Party has made the Tea Party movement part of itself:

There has been much disagreement in recent days over whether the tax day tea party movement is grassroots or astroturf, a right-wing crusade or a spontaneous outburst of nonpartisan popular fury over government spending and taxes. However it got started, it's clear where it's headed: to an honored place within the mainstream Republican party.

The Republican National Committee, via its website, GOP.com. has officially endorsed the protest movement with a page where tea partiers can sign up to send a "virtual teabag" (e-bag?) to President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, or Harry Reid.

Here's what your e-bag to the president would say:

I do not believe that it is patriotic to pay more taxes. And I do not approve of the $1.4 trillion in new taxes, $636 billion in higher energy taxes, the staggering redistribution of wealth and wasteful spending you are prescribing as a cure for the economic crisis.

To hold the Democrats in Washington accountable for their record tax, spend and borrow schemes, I am sending a virtual tea bag to protest your plans to raise taxes on every American this Tax Day.

Don't get me wrong. I commend the Republicans for encouraging their votaries for sending virtual tea bags. That is far better than the terror scare tactics already being used by other tea baggers.

My point is that the movement is suspect precisely because it could easily—comfortably—be co-opted by the Republican Party, the party whose President Bush and majority Congress ran up record deficits and a record national debt. Where there is no irony, there is compatibility.