Sen. John McCain was on Face the Nation Sunday morning, and the contortions he went through to let the previous administration off the hook for their illegal torturing was astounding. He tried to claim that it was all just the result of some bad legal advice. Early in the interview McCain makes the claim that he believes no other Administration will ever make the same mistake (of using bad legal advice…I guess), and torture again.
Read moreNo less than former President Richard Nixon’s White House Counsel says that we must consider investigating (and if appropriate) prosecuting members of the Bush 43 Administration for torture and crimes against humanity. If, as Dick Cheney seems to believe, they have done nothing wrong, and he and George acted legally in all respects, then I would think they would welcome a special prosecutor so as to clear their name for history. However, they don’t seem to be interested in confessing what they have done and what orders they have issued.
Read moreI know you can hardly wait for my take on the current economic crisis. I’ll be the first to admit, that like John McCain has said, I’m no expert on the economy. Certainly there are a lot of “financial products” out there I don’t have a clue about, but there are some things about the market and the politics around it I do understand. Any plan needs to come at this current economic problem from at least two directions. One direction must work on the consumer side to reduce the number of defaults and bad loans. This will help the economy and reduce the total cost of any bailout. On the other side, perhaps purchasing some percentage of an institutions bad debt is acceptable, but that institution has to absorb a portion of their bad decisions. This goes to trust and accountability.
Read moreCNet News is reporting that the Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed suit against the NSA, George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Alberto Gonzales on behalf of AT&T customers in order to try to halt what EFF calls “massive illegal” warrant-less surveillance of Americans.
Read moreThe New York Times is reporting that military trainers who came to Guantanamo Bay in December 2002 based an interrogation class on a chart showing various “coercive” techniques for use on prisoners. What the trainers did not reveal, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied an Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain false confessions from American prisoners. Whoohoo, we’re on a roll now.
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