The Rule of Law
mikethemadbiologist | April 26, 2009
(from here)
And I don't mean that in a good way. Washington Post columnist and Compulsive Centrist Disorder sufferer, regarding prosecutions for torture, scribbles:
The memos on torture represented a deliberate, and internally well-debated, policy decision, made in the proper places -- the White House, the intelligence agencies and the Justice Department -- by the proper officials.
One administration later, a different group of individuals occupying the same offices has -- thankfully -- made the opposite decision. Do they now go back and investigate or indict their predecessors?
Let me…
mikethemadbiologist | April 25, 2009http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/23/prosecutions/index.ht…
It's one thing to be a stenographer--and a bad one at that. But, as Glenn Greenwald notes, our celebrity press corps goes beyond that:
...the favorite mantra of media stars and Beltway mavens everywhere -- Look Forward, Not Backwards -- is nothing but a plea that extreme government crimes remain concealed and unexamined.
This remains the single most notable and revealing fact of American political life: that (with some very important exceptions) those most devoted to maintaining and advocating government secrecy is our…
mikethemadbiologist | April 19, 2009ScienceBloglings Greg Laden and John Wilkins have discussed whether or not CIA employees complicit in torture should be exempt from prosecution. The debate has revolved around the 'following orders' issue. But this misses a key point:
CIA personnel are not military personnel.
There is a specific reason the CIA is a civilian agency and not a military command (in fact, there are strict regulations about the percentage of military personnel that can work for the CIA). In a military command, soldiers can disobey orders if those orders are found to be unethical. However, if the orders are…
mikethemadbiologist | April 12, 2009I've been meaning to get to this topic after it came up in Obama's 'online' press conference. For me, the argument in favor of legalization is that it would weaken organized crime and that legalization of other popular activities has done so in the past (more on that in a moment). Of course, for some reason, one can't discuss this without describing one's drug using history and beliefs, so here they are:
I don't smoke pot. I have no interest in doing so--I don't have any interest in smoking cigarettes either. Because I have a very good sense of smell (sadly, this is the sense that has…
mikethemadbiologist | March 30, 2009...and both Helmut and the Mad Biologist told you that would be the case over a year ago. From The Washington Post (italics mine):
When CIA officials subjected their first high-value captive, Abu Zubaida, to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods, they were convinced that they had in their custody an al-Qaeda leader who knew details of operations yet to be unleashed, and they were facing increasing pressure from the White House to get those secrets out of him.
The methods succeeded in breaking him, and the stories he told of al-Qaeda terrorism plots sent CIA officers around the…
mikethemadbiologist | March 9, 2009Currently, I'm working on a post about funding and how it's led to employment problem in science....
Meanwhile, this bit about illegal short selling is jaw dropping. I have no idea of this very long article (pdf) is in tinfoil helmet territory or not, but, if it's at all accurate, it looks like Jim Cramer of CNBC is using his media perch to help friends profit from short selling stocks:
The story begins when a very highly respected journalist and business editor for the Columbia Journalism Review, Mark Mitchell, decides to look into allegations made by the CEO of Overstock.com, that some…
mikethemadbiologist | January 25, 2009I'm becoming more enthusiatic about Eric Holder as Attorney General. It's nice to see some clarity about waterboarding--that is, partial drowning interrogation. From Steve Benen:
The exchange was helpful in learning about both the senator and the nominee. [Republican Senator] Cornyn wanted Holder to admit that he'd torture a terrorist in a "ticking-time-bomb scenario," in order to "save perhaps tens of thousands of lives." Holder responded sensibly, noting that we have interrogation methods that aren't torture, and that torture wouldn't produce reliable intelligence anyway.
Cornyn was…
mikethemadbiologist | November 25, 2008I've written before about the scourge of turkeys that are terrorizing the greater Boston area. One thing I've noticed is that the turkeys have gone missing this year. Apparently, one such turkey named "Sully" (by turkey-loving sympathizers) that established an enclave in South Boston is nowhere to be found:
Sully reportedly arrived in the neighborhood more than six months ago with a half-dozen other turkeys, but they all left and he stayed behind and set up a territory in the area around Dorchester Heights. His fame was immediate - There's a wild turkey! Living in Southie! - but the more he…
mikethemadbiologist | November 8, 2008...Janet Napolitano seems like a good choice for Attorney General:
Janet Napolitano has tackled massive business fraud cases as Arizona AG, including the Arizona Baptist Foundation case, at the time one of the largest mass fraud cases in US history, which she personally shepherded through initial investigation and criminal prosecution. Napolitano has the guile, skill and determination to take on any entity and see that justice is administered, something to keep in mind in light of the economic collapse caused by financial and energy concerns.
Terrorism experience? Janet Napolitano has that…
mikethemadbiologist | August 10, 2008This story should, if you care at all about the rule of law, make your blood boil:
I, Galloglas, went to vote today and encountered difficuly. And, it is important to point out that this was not the first time I've run onto problems this year.
When I voted in Missouri's Presidential primary in February, 2008, I took the proper identification to my precinct and attempted to cast my ballot. The identification requirements are spelled out graphically on our Secretary of State's Web Site which can be found at http://www.sos.mo.gov/... /.
And, as I am of the belief that the "Voter Fraud" question…
mikethemadbiologist | June 29, 2008Outsourced to The Sideshow:
I think I have to disagree with Digby here when she assures me that Obama is lots better than McCain. I mean, yes, I think Obama is lots better than McCain, if only because it's hard to imagine he'd be worse, but: I'm tired of having to make that assumption. I'm tired of just hearing it from his supporters or other Dems who want me to vote for him. Most of all, I'm tired of having to keep saying it to my readers when he keeps doing things that tell me I can't rely on his judgment. He had to be told that voting for Roberts was a bad idea? He actually says out…
mikethemadbiologist | June 25, 2008Too bad he's one of the few senators actually worth a damn, because he wouldn't be a bad VP. Dodd on telecom immunity during his announcement that he would filibuster FISA:
But, we are deceiving ourselves when we talk about the U.S. attorneys issue, the habeas issue, the torture issue, the rendition issue, or the secrecy issue as if each were an isolated case! As if each one were an accident! When we speak of them as isolated, we are keeping our politics cripplingly small; and as long as we keep this small, the rule of men is winning.
There is only one issue here. Only one: the law issue.…
mikethemadbiologist | May 3, 2008This is why you should read local weeklies. From the Back Bay Sun:
GROPE PATROL EFFECTIVE
Sgt. O'Connor of the MBTA Police gave a presentation on transit crime at local subway stops that highlighted the effectiveness of the city's current undercover operation aimed at deterring groping on the subway.
"Many more people are reporting incidents because of the patrol," said O'Connor. This past week, the patrol arrested a man on the Green Line when it was noticed that he did not appear to be going anywhere, simply riding back and forth between Kenmore and Park Street.
The plainclothes officers…
mikethemadbiologist | March 6, 2008...if he weren't a fucking moron. One of the books that has gone missing in all of the criticisms of Jonah Goldberg's ridiculous Democrat-bashing screed Liberal Fascism is Wolfgang's Schivelbusch's Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt's America, Mussolini's Italy, and Hitler's Germany, 1933-1939.
Schivelbusch correctly notes (as does Goldberg) that were similarities among the U.S., Germany, and Italy between 1933-1939: the state did become more involved in the economy, there was state propaganda--which was informed by what people wanted (at least superficially), and each society was…
mikethemadbiologist | March 5, 2008'Minimalist' conservative and Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts apparently believes that one's obligation to pay monetary damages after damaging the environment should be, well, minimal:
...the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on how much money ExxonMobil should be forced to pay as damages for its Exxon Valdez oil spill 19 years ago. The Washington Post's Dana Milbank notes that Chief Justice John Roberts appeared "bothered" that Exxon might have to pay for its destruction:
What bothered the chief justice was that Exxon was being ordered to pay $2.5 billion -- roughly three weeks' worth…
mikethemadbiologist | March 3, 2008In the most recent edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, there is a perspective piece by Sara Rosenbaum that bluntly describes how the Bush Administration's opposition to S-CHIP (the State Children's Health Insurance Program) is based on ideology and not economic cost (italics mine):
Why would the President veto bipartisan legislation that does precisely what he insisted on -- namely, aggressively enroll the poorest children? One might blame the poisonous atmosphere that pervades Washington these days, but other important social policy reforms have managed to get through.
One answer…
mikethemadbiologist | March 2, 2008Stephen Budiansky's The Bloody Shirt: Terror After Appomattox is a powerful and detailed examination of the widely-supported terrorism in the post-Civil War South. Because Budiansky cites a lot of primary literature, such as newspaper editorials, legal testimony, and published memoirs, the horror and the nauseating race hatred of that era are not hidden with euphemisms. Were it up to me, this book would be required reading in every high school history class. And it is relevant to today's politics.
Why?
Because the Southern Strategy is beginning to fail: that is, the bogus notions of…
mikethemadbiologist | February 26, 2008Having just finished Thomas Geoghan's See You in Court: How the Right Made America a Lawsuit Nation, I can't recommend it highly enough. In it, Geoghan makes an interesting claim: the rise of torts--which he admits is not desirable--is the last resort of a society that has abandoned contracts and honest administration. In other words, the only recourse many citizens have is tort law, because institutions no longer are obligated to engage in ethical behavior. For example, Geoghan describes a case where employees were terminated without adequate warning of a plant closing:
I am now in a…