Swine Flu
Had a good dinner tonite with two very wise friends. One is a veteran journo and author who did a good stint in Vietnam (as a reporter and wrote a fab book about it). And the other is a former CIA agent turned author and reporter. The meal was great (as one would expect at the Hollywood classic, Musso's).
The conversation was even better.
Bottom line: We all agreed that the torture issue is NOT going away anytime soon. We had some minor disagreements over how it is currently being handled. I have the suspicion that Obama has, as I said last week, fortunately lost control of this issue which he considers a possible destructive distraction. My two compadres, however, are convinced that Obama is playing this like a virtuoso, that he remains two steps ahead of the rest of us, and that he is masterfully engineering this to wind up in the hands of a klieg-lit congressional drama (I hope they're right).
We also agreed that this would be the best solution and that the worst way to go would be appointing a special counsel from DOJ. Such an investigation would actually be the best way to keep much of this atrocity shrouded in secrecy as the investigation itself would take precedence over public disclosure.
Much better to see Cheney and Company under oath on national TV sweating like he's got a bad case of the Swine Flu (pun intended).
Also agreeing on the inevitability of this scenario is my colleague at the Annenberg School, Jonathan Taplin writing on TPM Cafe.
Taplin argues that Cheney, forged in the heat of Watergate, is taking such an aggressive current position defending his torture policies because he's convinced the best defene is a strong offense:
What Dick Cheney is truly afraid of is that he might find himself in front of a Congressional committee raising his right hand and swearing to tell "the truth, the whole truth" about America's descent into the torture chamber. Because if Pat Leahy is this era's Sam Ervin, Cheney won't arrive in the dock until Jay Bybee and John Yoo have shown that David Addington (Cheney's Counsel) was calling the tune (you know the secret email chain requesting revisions in the torture memos is devastating). And then Addington will have to put the responsibility at the foot of the Vice President. Even though Cheney is out of office, he still has the lesson of Watergate in his head. If Nixon had pushed back harder at the outset, he never would have had to leave office... So Dick Cheney is on a mission to cut the investigations off before they ever get started. But it's a mission that will fail and within a year we will see Mr. Cheney reluctantly raising his right hand and swearing to tell "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth." That will be healthy for our democracy.Something to live for.
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April 29th, 2009 at 1:20 am
Congressional hearings. That’s what I think—and that’s what it has to be. Also, I think your pals are right, that Obama’s taking the only possible path. Otherwise he can only look as if he’s politicizing the whole mess. He’s playing his hand perfectly.
April 29th, 2009 at 4:50 am
Brilliant! This seems to explain why President Obama is trying to stay out of the political jet stream.
Question: To get this thing to manifest as hearings before Congress, one needs to root for Sen. Leahy (is it his committee that is the lead here?) to do what (parliamentarily speaking)?
April 29th, 2009 at 4:59 am
From your friends’ lips to god’s ear.
April 29th, 2009 at 5:07 am
More schwein:
“Many experts have warned that the only way to expand flu-vaccine manufacturing capacity is to get governments to pay for it. In its 2004 “Consultation on priority public health interventions before and during an influenza pandemic,” the WHO cautioned: “Industry has little incentive to build additional manufacturing capacity, which requires very large long-term investments for an event that occurs only rarely and unpredictably.” (See Bibliography: WHO 2004) Last year, Britain’s Royal Society added bluntly: “It is not commercially viable for the vaccine industry to commit the necessary resources to scale up production in advance of a pandemic when there is no existing market, the threat of a pandemic may be years away and the risk in any single year may be considered to be low” (see Bibliography: Royal Society 2006).
Creating enough vaccine-manufacturing capacity to protect the world’s population is not cheap. The price tag is likely to be at least $2 billion and could rise to $9 billion, according to a WHO estimate (see Bibliography: WHO 2006: Global pandemic influenza action plan). Experts within the vaccine industry say that expecting manufacturers to make the investment asks companies to spend against their own best interest. “In the US market alone by the year 2010 there could be a surplus capacity resulting from ‘building for demand’ for pandemic preparedness but ‘suboptimal utilization’ based on significantly lesser demand for seasonal vaccines,” an engineer and two strategists from the Danish biotech firm NNE PharmaPlan wrote in the industry journal BioPharm International. “In Europe, Asia and the rest of the world, planned future capacities for ‘pandemic preparedness’ would have to address how potential surplus capacities can be effectively used in markets where there is little or no demand for seasonal vaccines” (see Bibliography: Thomas 2007).
The United States has already experienced the aftermath of vaccine companies’ feeling overextended. Between 1998 and 2002, two of the four companies that then supplied seasonal flu vaccine left the market, citing losses on investment and increased regulatory demands. In the 2000-01 and 2003-04 flu seasons, the country experienced significant shortages of flu vaccine, with long lines, panic buying, price-gouging, and subsequent congressional investigations (see Bibliography: GAO 2001, 2004; Grady 2004).
The same scenario could happen again. “The U.S. will have a serious problem if the pandemic doesn’t strike in the next couple of years, because interest will decline and demand will go down again,” said Hedwig Kresse, an associate analyst for infectious diseases with the British-based market analysts Datamonitor. “Governments will have to guarantee a certain sales volume to keep [manufacturers] in the market and to keep these capacities up” (see Bibliography: Kresse 2007).”
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/biz-plan/news
April 29th, 2009 at 5:16 am
oops. I meant to put that in the other thread. Sorry, marc.
April 29th, 2009 at 5:17 am
Mussos….sigh. Last time there a million years ago. I sat at the counter and had a Caesar and a steak. mein gott.
April 29th, 2009 at 8:01 am
I don’t think it’s as easy as congressional hearings. Cheney will either refuse to speak at all or will refuse to speak on key issues citing executive privilege. So then there’s a protracted legal battle and assuming Cheney loses and still refuses to cooperate, Congress’ only real recourse is to cite him for contempt and let him rot in jail until he’s willing to be forthcoming. And while I’d sleep better with Cheney in the dock, putting the former vice president in jail for refusing to publicly discuss what he and his allies will characterize as national security secrets is a serious political loser. As in totally not-gonna-happen political loser.
I can envision Bybee and even Addington paying somewhat for their crimes. Dick Cheney, however, will never tell the truth or go to jail.
April 29th, 2009 at 8:45 am
Yeah, MB – but I think calling him before a congressional hearing just might, prosecutions aside, have some of the qualities of that final Nicholson scene from A Few Good Men. For a guy like Cheney, the very notion that he is subject to any public accountability is a form of punishment. There’s also something to be said for putting him in the position, starting with Libby, of those who served him going down – like Nixon. There’s a special place in hell for guys like that.
April 29th, 2009 at 9:36 am
“There’s a special place in hell for guys like that.”
With a whole host of elaborate tor- harsh interrogation techniques, I’m sure.
April 29th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Eyes Wide Shut
Imagine the X-VP being dragged before a congressional committee and compelled to testify under sworn oath.
Cheney would be compelled to tell the truth, the truth about a device that was smuggled into Washington DC, the truth about the terrorists who planned to kill millions of men women and children including the senate and all of congress.
Imagine the look on the committee members faces as they are told the truth about how their lives were saved from incineration or deadly pathogen along with a million other Americans thru covert rendition and harsh interrogation methods which many call torture.
Just as many Christians believe that an innocent un-born child should NEVER be killed, even if the case of rape, incest or the health of the mother. You may choose that we should NEVER torture, we should NEVER use rendition, and we should ALWAYS respect the rights of a human being no matter what the consequences.
If you can honestly say that you would risk the death of thousands on principal, if only in your imagination, then I honestly applaud your determination and courage to stand for what you believe in.
But if you can’t
……… if you say that couldn’t happen
…… if you deny the possibility
………. if refuse to face the moral dilemma
…. your eyes are wide shut
April 29th, 2009 at 10:33 am
I’m for the hearings. The investigators will have access to all the US v Libby transcripts, and one would hope Fitzgerald’s people would cooperate fully and share investigative files. Perhaps a joint House/Senate hearing is called for…I know John Conyers’ office has a massive file on the misrepresentations that led us to war.
April 29th, 2009 at 10:38 am
I hate having to keep repeating this, but in fairness to the above commenter, there’s a Depends sale at Walgreens…
It’s hard to keep continent when one is contemplating the fact that the only thing that stood between humankind and the Apocalypse was Darth Cheney. It also can’t be said too often…wait for it….”You Can’t Handle The Truth!!!” (Our Hero exits, red-faced and blustering, stage Right with assistance from weak-kneed, lilly-livered Men in Uniform.)
April 29th, 2009 at 10:39 am
That was for “10:27″
April 29th, 2009 at 10:52 am
Um, Pokey, why would Cheney & Co. wait until being dragged in front of Congress to explain all that? They certainly didn’t hesitate to explain how waterboarding a guy 183 (?) times got him to reveal a plot that had folded a year before. If torture had produced information like that, wouldn’t they be screaming it to every anchor on Fox News? It’s not like they have a problem leaking classified information. (See: Plame, Valerie.)
Actually, Pokey, looking at your post, that’s some awfully specific information you have about a terrorist threat. You know, I’m not sure we’re safe until we all know what you know; we should start thinking about how to get you to reveal that information. . .
April 29th, 2009 at 10:56 am
an alarm in the White House went off. Chillingly, the warning signal wasn’t a simple fire alarm triggered by the detection of smoke. It was a sensitive, specialized sensor, designed to alert anyone in the vicinity that the air they were breathing had been contaminated by potentially lethal radioactive, chemical, or biological agents. Everyone who had entered the Situation Room that day was believed to have been exposed, and that included Cheney. “They thought there had been a nerve attack,” a former administration official, who was sworn to secrecy about it, later confided. “It was really, really scary. They thought that Cheney was already lethally infected.” Facing the possibility of his own death, the Vice President nonetheless calmly reported the emergency to the rest of the National Security Council.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92528583
April 29th, 2009 at 10:59 am
During the ten days after the Vice President’s scare, threats of mortal attack were nonetheless so frequent, and so terrifying, that on October 29 Cheney quietly insisted upon absenting himself from the White House to what was described as “a secure, undisclosed location”— one of several Cold War–era nuclear-hardened subterranean bunkers built during the Truman and Eisenhower Administrations, the nearest of which were located hundreds of feet below bedrock in places such as Mount Weather, in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, and along the Maryland-Pennsylvania border not far from Camp David.
In a subterranean bunker crammed with communications equipment and government-issue metal desks, Cheney and other rotating cabinet members took turns occupying what was archly referred to as “The Commander in Chief’s Suite.”
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92528583
April 29th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Cheney saw the terrorist threat in such catastrophic terms that his end, saving America from possible extinction, justified virtually any means.
Beginning almost immediately after September 11, 2001, Cheney saw to it that some of the sharpest and best-trained lawyers in the country, working in secret in the White House and the United States Department of Justice, came up with legal justifications for a vast expansion of the government’s power in waging war on terror.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92528583
April 29th, 2009 at 11:59 am
Gosh, Pokey, you seem awfully interested in details about the security system of the federal government–what kinds of sensors are there, the specific locations of bunkers, so forth. In fact, because of you, anyone who wishes harm to America now knows where those “secure locations” are. (We can’t call them “undisclosed” anymore, thanks to you.)
Of course, there are those who would say that there’s no harm in releasing information that’s already been known (such as information available to victims of torture or those who read a Red Cross report), but you and me and Peggy Noonan know better.
April 29th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
“the Situation Room alarm turned out to be false”
Scary Stuff !!!!
April 29th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Cheney went and sequestered himself in a cave…because he was so brave, so smart and so serious.
Presumably there was a large supply of Depends available for this SuperMensch…
(I can’t believe Dick Cheney is being held up as the Hero of post-911. No wonder Arlen decided to get the hell out of GoperTown. Run, Olympia, run – while there’s still time. Or you’ll be babbling like Michele Bachman…
April 29th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
“his end, saving America from possible extinction, justified virtually any means.”
Even post-911, this is the thinking of a crazy person. Al Qaeda is not an “existential threat” in the sense that we faced in WWII or in conflict with Stalin, et. al. We were far, far more in danger of “extinction” during previous conflicts, yet even Reagan re-affirmed the Geneva Convention. This crackpot discussion also does an end run around the torture regime in place at Abu Grahib where prisoners died under duress, which was directly connected to the irresponsibility and wanton disregard for military codes of conduct coming from the Chickenhawk Brigade in the Executive Branch.
April 29th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
If there’s a money quote in Pokey’s link to Jane Mayer (which is rich with irony as a “defense” of Deadwood Dick), it’s this:
“Having underestimated Al Qaeda before the attacks, Bush and Cheney took aggressive steps to ensure that they would never get similarly blindsided again…”
Thanks for ignoring that August Memo, BushCo !!!! ‘Cuz, you know, “missile defense” was the key to protecting America and Richard Clarke was some kind of crank, with his warnings to Rice, et. al. about bin Laden. Bush and Company are at least partially responsible for us being unprepared and vulnerable to the 911 al Qaeda conspiracy. They didn’t take it seriously. Further evidence of this is their opportunistic invasion of Iraq, after bungling the initial Afghan war and allowing bin Laden to escape from Tora Bora. One wonders which side these incompetents and neo-con crazies are on…
April 29th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
You did see that Gallup Poll I had to write about, right?
April 29th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
I’m not particularly surprised by that poll – partly because I think that a lot of people who think they’ve been “following the news closely” have been following soundbites on FOX etc. that are wildly misleading and inaccurate. A congressional investigation would yield a much more measured evaluation. Frankly, I’m more than happy to “bring it on.” Let’s have an evaluation of what was done, what measures yielded the best intelligence post-911, and what the views of military and intelligence professionals are on this. I don’t think this can be resolved by emotion, nor do I think that the anti-torture argument rests on some naive moral argument disconnected from reality. I believe its ultimately the pragmatic view. And “ticking bomb” hypotheticals are ridiculous as a way of establishing standards – that’s false argument.
April 29th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
What L.A. was 17 years ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-LB94Kwlws
Small steps of progress, since.
Cheers to the big O. 100 days.
April 30th, 2009 at 6:02 am
NYT and the Washington Press Corp have an enchanted evening. In tribute to the magic of it all:
“Some enchanted evening
You may see him enter,
you may see him enter
Across that crowded room
And somehow you know,
You know for sure then
That somewhere, anywhere, you want to see him
To see him again and again.
Some enchanted evening
Someone will be laughin’,
You will hear them laughin’
Across a crowded land
And night after night,
As strange as it seems
The sound of their laughter
Will ruin your dream.
Who can explain it?
Who can tell you why?
Fools give you reasons,
Wise men? Why try.
Some enchanted evening
When you find your new love,
When you feel him call on you
Across that crowded room,
Then fly to ‘his side’,
And make it your own
Or all through your career
Your dream may be gone.
Once you have found him,
Never let him go.
Once you have found him,
Never let him go!”
Pathetic example of our media in its death-thros.
April 30th, 2009 at 6:36 am
What the hell was that ?
Oh, yeah. A pathetic example of a “conservative” in those nasty old death throes…
April 30th, 2009 at 7:03 am
Oh I get it…it’s because President Obama offered a tribute to those who are serving their country in response to a New York Times reporter’s use of the word “enchanted.” I’ll bet this lampooning of the President’s quite excellent response to an obviously softball – but revealing – question is making the rounds of the people who pretend to love their country and pretend to love our young people in uniform so dearly.
Because it’s important for people stained by their ass-kissing the last admininistration to grab any opportunity to distract from the fact that we’ve got a mature, thoughtful, respectful man as Commander-in-Chief, as opposed to a mugging, incompetent frat-rat who could barely finish a sentence – and who thought that “respecting” our military meant dressing up like them, no matter how ridiculous, delusional and humiliating that photo-op turned out to be.
(Obama’s invocation of Churchill was a kick in the teeth to these phony “patriots.”)
April 30th, 2009 at 8:50 am
Okay, there was the Great Palin Family Scare, and Senators like Kyl and Cornyn, and Michele Bachmann’s steady stream of aggressive ignorance, and that evil little GOPer Congresswoman who claimed Mathew Shepard was shot because he was a robber, while Shepard’s mother was in the House balcony looking on, and Glenn Beck, of course, and Hammity with his guests who constantly give stupid a bad name, and now more hilarity from this guy:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/04/steele-i-wear-my-gop-hat-backwards-thats-how-we-roll-in-the-northeast.php?ref=fp3
Is it me, or has conservatism descended into some absolute abyss of stupid people ? Help me here. Were we just afraid, even in the throes of our “Bush Derangement Syndrome” to acknowledge just how debased and ridiculous these folks were when they were in power ? Because they seem even more asinine now than they did two years ago – and that’s a remarkably low bar.
April 30th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Hey reg, when’s the last time you were in the South? Recently had to run some errands between Jacksonville and Tallahassee. That I-10 route is one crazy stretch of right wing talk radio that is perfectly in sync with the Glenn Beck’s of the world — if not worse. About half the stations tell you Obama is a beachhead for Chavez and Putin. The other half tell you all is fixed by keeping your powder dry and the dial tuned to Jesus.
April 30th, 2009 at 11:31 am
[...] his blog Marc Cooper shares the thoughts of two friends who believe Obama “is playing this like a virtuoso, that he remains [...]
April 30th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Fox News has nowhere near the viewership to influence the Gallup Poll to that extent. (Most voters don’t watch any of the cable news nets.)
I’m afraid that is the common sense American consensus view. That torture can work at times and has helped.
Of course, the poll can be reframed to make the Cheney POV the minority, which it is. As is the abolitionist POV.
># reg Says:
April 29th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
I’m not particularly surprised by that poll – partly because I think that a lot of people who think they’ve been “following the news closely” have been following soundbites on FOX etc. that are wildly misleading and inaccurate. A congressional investigation would yield a much more measured evaluation. Frankly, I’m more than happy to “bring it on.” Let’s have an evaluation of what was done, what measures yielded the best intelligence post-911, and what the views of military and intelligence professionals are on this. I don’t think this can be resolved by emotion, nor do I think that the anti-torture argument rests on some naive moral argument disconnected from reality. I believe its ultimately the pragmatic view. And “ticking bomb” hypotheticals are ridiculous as a way of establishing standards – that’s false argument.
April 30th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
RG – I rarely travel to the deep south, but I periodically visit SW Missouri, which is close. I guess because I have family there and meet “real people” I get more than the talk radio version (Obama drew a Springfield crowd of 40,000 during the campaign – in a small city of 152,000 – so it’s not like it’s 100% nutcases at all – the place is changing a lot.) I guess I thought the rightwing wasn’t just a white southern thing – which I know has more than its share of knuckledraggers – but that appears to be less and less the case. Spector’s defection – and I reluctantly accept him as a comrade of sorts – points to the isolation and regionalization of the GOP. I’m looking to Olympia Snowe, and possibly her sister Senator, to defect. (Then, of course, we have to figure out how to limit their influence as Blue Dog Dems. I’d hate to see Spector go unchallenged in the Dem primary.)
In any event, I’m constantly amazed at how off-the-wall the anti-Obama hysteria tends to be. And, of course, watching the Press conference last night I was struck again by just how adept he is.
April 30th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Bill – check this out:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/ben_macintyre/article729216.ece
I think that the driving argument against real torture techniques is consistently coming from military and intelligence professionals who (a) know it’s not just a slippery slope but that it leads nowhere and (b) don’t want to implicate their people in what are generally accepted as crimes. The guys who wrote those memos, and those who demanded the directives are, by and large, civilians whose leadership abilities and competence is in question, as well as those dreaded “intellectual elitists” like Yoo – who can make angels dance on the head of a pin if so pressed.
April 30th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Bill – re FOX, there was a question segment in that poll directed toward those who are “following the news closely” or some such.
April 30th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Sure, but the torture story’s been all over the media. Fox News is a small component of the overall media. The highest-rated FNC show would be cancelled if it were a broadcast network show.
April 30th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Well, I think torture is an atrocious thing as a policy, which these various draft dodgers in the day turned latter-day superhawks made into a policy.
But it does work on occasion, and it’s complicated to debate that in politics.
This is why Obama is not anxious to have a big ongoing debate on the torture of the past when he is pushing the most expansive future-oriented agenda in decades.
>reg Says:
April 30th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Bill – check this out:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/ben_macintyre/article729216.ece
I think that the driving argument against real torture techniques is consistently coming from military and intelligence professionals who (a) know it’s not just a slippery slope but that it leads nowhere and (b) don’t want to implicate their people in what are generally accepted as crimes. The guys who wrote those memos, and those who demanded the directives are, by and large, civilians whose leadership abilities and competence is in question, as well as those dreaded “intellectual elitists” like Yoo – who can make angels dance on the head of a pin if so pressed.
April 30th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Jane Mayer says the torture memos by Yoo and Addington were understood to be atrociously sloppy legal work.
In practice, according to Mayer, they were indefensible in that the Cheney team new better than to circulate them through the normal White House and State Department legal channels. Instead, the administration’s top legal minds were sidestepped — never even asked to look at the memos.
This is just another piece of evidence showing that they weren’t looking for legality, but rather for plausible deniability of illegality. Unfortunately for them, their judgment on plausiblity seems to have been wildly off.
May 1st, 2009 at 6:09 am
“Oh I get it…it’s because President Obama offered a tribute to those who are serving their country….”
No you don’t get it reg. Did I say anything about President Obama? My comment was making fun of a useless politically biased press.
It is sad to see so many intelligent people so committed to their preferred ideology they can no longer read straight. It is pitiful to see otherwise smart, educated, and thoughtful people curl up into balls of knee-jerk spasms at the slightest perceived hint of a challenge to their tenaciously embedded political ideology, or its current leader.
Anna asks me why I rarely engage in debate here. Why indeed! I usually state my point of view, which quite often criticizes the nut jobs on the right as well, and let it stand on its own. Debate requires minds that are not yet ossified.
Regarding the ‘torture’ debate, I don’t think those who are ossified to the idea of capital punishment, and believe lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment on the outside chance it may cause some pain to an actual torturer/murder, are in any position to be defining torture.
May 1st, 2009 at 6:25 am
No only are they not in a position to define torture, their nurturing, adolescent, and idealist Mister Rogers grasp of the real world is a danger to themselves and their actual good neighbors, who pay for and deserve protection by common sense adults from actual evil in the ‘real’ world.
May 1st, 2009 at 7:07 am
“I don’t think those who are ossified to the idea of capital punishment… are in any position to be defining torture.”
You mean like the “nurturing, adolescent” Catholic Church hierarchy? That “Mister Rogers” institution that pre-dates your existence by a mere 2 millenia? Yeah, they sure are liberal hippies there in the Vatican.
It goes without saying, but I think you’re probably aware why many of your comments (at least ones like these) are not taken seriously. At least you usually make an effort, though, and I mean that sincerely.
May 1st, 2009 at 7:40 am
Sorry to drift off topic, but how about a little toe-tappin’ ditty for the workers on this fine 1st of May…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQfGTDyjVSE
May 1st, 2009 at 7:52 am
Regarding the ‘torture’ debate, I don’t think those who are ossified to the idea of capital punishment, and believe lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment on the outside chance it may cause some pain to an actual torturer/murder, are in any position to be defining torture.
What a pile of heaping manure and strawman nonsense. There are plenty of arguments to be made under the eighth amendment against capital punishment.
Kyle, good point, but don’t limit it to just the RC Church. These people also have a compelling argument against the dp and I can’t imagine Jim telling them they’re full of crap.
Actually I could, but he would like asinine doing so.
May 1st, 2009 at 10:51 am
Kiss my ass, Jim. The truth is that the pro-torture crowd were a bunch of chickenhawks and Federalist Society punks. You’re slandering John McCain, among many, many others.
May 1st, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Apparently Jim hates beautiful days in the neighborhood . . .
May 1st, 2009 at 1:27 pm
But it does work on occasion, and it’s complicated to debate that in politics.
It’s not complicated to debate it because a) torture is ilegal b) torture is immoral c) torture is the least effective interrogation method for obtaining reliable information – a stopped clock “works” twice a day, far more often than torture.
May 1st, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Jim R., this position that only fans of capital punishment can define torture is beyond facile. Do you really think that people who think capital punishment is wrong can’t know what torture is? Should the nations of Western Europe come to you for their definitions of torture?
Since mental toughness seems to be your standard, maybe you haven’t taken it far enough. Maybe only torturers themselves are tough enough to determine what counts as torture. Or perhaps we need to ask child molesters. Only people with stomach strong enough to molest children can truly know what counts as commission of a crime.
Then again, maybe you were just lashing out and trying to devalue the opinions of those who disagree with you.
May 1st, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Take a break from arguments against torture to fire up the ire. Good new piece by Michael Moore on the real swine that are still snuffling from the trough.
I reserve my torture fantasies for white collar criminals:
The following piece written by Michael Moore appears in this week’s Time magazine (and in full at Time.com) as part of their annual “Time 100″ issue highlighting their choices for “The World’s Most Influential People.”
Elie Wiesel called him a “God.” His investors called him a “genius.” But, proving correct that old adage from the country and western song, you never really know what goes on behind closed doors.
Bernie Madoff, for at least 20 years, ran a Ponzi scheme on thousands of clients, among them the people you and I would consider the best and brightest. Business leaders, celebrities, charities, even some of his own relatives and his defense attorney were taken for a ride (this has to be the first time a lawyer was hosed by the client).
We’re clearly in one of those historic, game changing years: up is down, red is blue and black is President. Aside from Obama himself, no person will provide a more iconic face of this end-of-capitalism-as-we-know-it year than Bernard Lawrence Madoff.
Which is too bad. Yes, he stole $65 billion from some already quite wealthy people. I know that’s upsetting to them because rich guys like Bernie are not supposed to be stealing from their own kind. Crime, thievery, looting — that’s what happens on the other side of town. The rules of the money game on Park Avenue and Wall Street are comprised of things like charging the public 29% credit card interest, tricking people into taking out a second mortgage they can’t afford, and concocting a student loan system that has graduates in hock for the next 20 years. Now that’s smart business! And it’s legal. That’s where Bernie went wrong — his scheming, his trickery was an outrage both because it was illegal and because he preyed on his side of the tracks.
Had Mr. Madoff just followed the example of his fellow top one-percenters, there were many ways he could have legally multiplied his wealth many times over. Here’s how it’s done. First, threaten your workers that you’ll move their jobs offshore if they don’t agree to reduce their pay and benefits. Then move those jobs offshore. Then place that income on the shores of the Cayman Islands and pay no taxes. Don’t put the money back into your company. Put it into your pocket and the pockets of your shareholders. There! Done! Legal!
But Bernie wanted to play X-games Capitalism, run by the mantra that’s at the core of all capitalistic endeavors: Enough Is Never Enough. You have the right to make as much as you can, and if people are too stupid to read the fine print of their health insurance policy or their GM “100,000-mile warranty,” well, tough luck, losers. Buyers beware!
It would be too easy — and the wrong lesson learned — to put Bernie on TIME’s list all by himself. If Ponzi schemes are such a bad thing, then why have we allowed all of our top banks to deal in credit default swaps and other make-believe rackets? Why did we allow those same banks to create the scam of a sub-prime mortgage? And instead of putting the people responsible in the cell block in Lower Manhattan, where Bernie now resides, why did we give them huge sums of our hard-earned tax dollars to bail them out of their self-inflicted troubles? Bernard Madoff is nothing more than the scab on the wound. He’s also a most-needed and convenient distraction. Where’s the photo on this list of the ex-chairmen of AIG, Merrill Lynch and Citigroup? Where’s the mug shot of Phil Gramm, the senator who wrote the bill to strip the system of its regulations, or of the President who signed that bill? And how ’bout those who ran the fake numbers at the ratings agencies, the lobbyists who succeeded in making sleazy accounting a lawful practice, or the stock market itself — an institution that’s treated like the Holy Sepulchre instead of the casino that it is (and, like all other casinos, the house eventually wins).
And what of Madoff’s clients themselves? What did they think was going on to guarantee them incredible returns on their investments every single year — when no one else on planet Earth was getting anything like that? Some have admitted they did have an inkling “something was up,” but no one really wanted to ask what it was that was making their money grow on trees. They were afraid they might find out it had nothing to do with gardening. Many of Madoff’s victims have told investigators that, over the years, they have made much more than the original investment they gave Bernie. If I buy a stolen car from the guy down the street, the police will take that car from me regardless of whether I knew it was stolen. If I knew it was stolen, then I go to jail for receiving stolen property. Will these “victims” give back their gains that were fraudulently obtained? Will the head of Goldman Sachs reveal what he was doing at the meetings with the Fed chairman and the Treasury secretary before the bailout? Will Bank of America please tell us what they’ve spent $45 billion of our TARP money on?
That’s probably going too far. Better that we just put Bernie on this list.
Moore’s new documentary on the wonders of capitalism will be in movie theaters this fall.
May 1st, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Revenge of the swine:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/02/swine-flu-pandemic-mexico-pig-farming
This confirms what I already figured from reading a report on an infectious disease intel site by a company called Veratect. Keep their website in your favorites.
And Relikins and Stratfor. These are all companies that make their dough doing quantitative analysis without political bias to give critical information to bizness, governments, public agencies.
Usually you have to have a subscription.
May 2nd, 2009 at 6:53 am
A letter to the editor of our small local paper had some very complimentary things to say about President Obama’s excellent work in reshaping the military.
The letter writer noted that our media no longer feature reports about how bombing in Afghanistan harms civilians. Somehow the bombs/missiles from drones strike only enemy combatant bodies in homes, not innocent civilians. It seems our soldiers no longer rape, murder and pillage. We are no longer losing two wars. Our Army is no longer stretched to the breaking point. Our returning soldiers are no longer committing crimes as a result of their PTSS. The homeless vets now all seem to have acquired homes. Service by the VA is flawless.
How did he do it? I don’t know, but thank heavens for all this Change realized.
May 2nd, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Marc and others, thought you’d appreciate the link:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/5/2/727258/-Breaking:-Jack-Kemp-Dead
May 2nd, 2009 at 9:17 pm
That letter from Kemp to his grandchildren showed class. Sorry he couldn’t stick around longer.
May 3rd, 2009 at 6:03 am
“How about a little toe-tappin’ ditty for the workers on this fine 1st of May…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQfGTDyjVSE”
I am proud to be a Jack Kemp Conservative and a laborer, Bob G.
For us conservative laborers, here is an article regarding labor movements, this one in more liberal Canada but where US’s unions seem to be headed too, that turn off a large segment of laborers.
http://thetyee.ca/Views/2009/05/01/MayDay/
They are becoming political extensions of the left. With Card Check passed, all laborers will be intimidated into paying into a political organization they have no interest in.
May 3rd, 2009 at 6:12 am
I would add, our children are already forced to go to a public school system largely operated and controlled by a left-wing union organization, where teachers ‘we’ pay are not allowed to work unless they pay homage too it, literally.
May 3rd, 2009 at 7:16 am
Jim R – you know, the liberal/lefties amongst us who chime in here at Cooperstown are quite impressed that you’re now linking citations to Terry Glavin. Glavin was criticizing the unions from the left, i.e. unions having developed a blind spot when it comes to supporting labor struggles internationally. For having lost that international spirit. http://transmontanus.blogspot.com/
Maybe next, we’ll see Woody citing Kevin Drum or Ezra Klein. But in any case, welcome to the popular front, comrade.
Solidarity.
May 3rd, 2009 at 9:14 am
Jack Kemp was a good man.
Unfortunately he didn’t have a clue about economics – actually believed the “tax cuts uber alles” dogma that he was schooled in after Jude Winnniski, Arthur Laffer, Bob Bartley, Irving Kristol and a bunch of other economic elitist twits and nerds saw him as the perfect package for their crackpot – albeit mightily self-serving – notions. Too bad, because as a man he was better than that – heads and shoulders as a human being above that crowd around the WSJ he hung with.
May 3rd, 2009 at 9:23 am
Sorry – that was me. Computer’s still hungover from “joking with Jim R.”
May 3rd, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Nice piece on Kemp:
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2009/05/03/jack-kemp-r-i-p.aspx
May 3rd, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Kiss my ass, Mister Rogers.
May 3rd, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Thank you King Friday.
Eddie Murphy had a better grip on the real-world neighborhood than reg ever will.
May 3rd, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Reg or Fred..
May 3rd, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Jim,
I flush things that have a better grip on reality than you have.
May 3rd, 2009 at 6:26 pm
Jim – I would worry if you thought better of me.
May 3rd, 2009 at 6:38 pm
Here’s a little something for you to contemplate, Jim, in re: “who has had a grip on reality”:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/5267555/Former-MI6-chief-says-Britain-was-dragged-into-Iraq-war.html
May 3rd, 2009 at 6:55 pm
If anyone wants a good laugh, Woody has embraced ZNet as well as “left” sources that critique US links to the Brazilian coup and subsequent torture over at WitnessLA. (Somehow his recycling this stuff gives cover to Bush and Cheney in his view. Go figure.)
And presumably they’re ice skating in hell.
May 3rd, 2009 at 6:59 pm
OMG! I’ve morphed into a woody. Gotta stop drinking, dammit.
May 3rd, 2009 at 8:34 pm
i agree with your friends and celeste. obama has to stay out of it – can’t make this ‘political’ but knows exactly what’s going on. congressional hearings are the best way to go. so what if the country gets caught up in them. it won’t be a major distraction because there are too many issues going on.
finally – a president we can believe in.
May 4th, 2009 at 6:25 am
Socialism moves along as planned.
The current government, after charging billions on the peoples charge cards to support unsupportable union paychecks and benefits that have brought Chrysler to its knees, is trying to force an agreement with preferred stock and bond holder investors, that under standard contract law are the ‘first’ in line to recover any value left in a bankrupted company, that gives the Union the preferred controlling share instead while handing the company management over to a foreign company that will not only benefit from the debt put on American’s charge cards, but will continue to get more charge card debt as needed to support the unsupportable paychecks and benefits of the UAW and the new foreign management.
And why you would logically ask a President would want to do such a thing? Because it is another ideological belief that workers must not lose jobs and Chrysler is to blame for building automobiles the environmentally conscience Americans didn’t want. It is ideological belief that the Americans want smaller Italian cars and Fiat will provide them at American investors and taxpayers expense.
It is an ideological belief that a centralized government knows what the people want, and if they don’t, by god it’s what’s good for them and they cannot be trusted to make important choices for themselves. It is an ideology well known and well tried throughout history. In it’s milder form it is known as Socialism. In it’s extreme form it is known as Communism.
As history has shown, it is an ideology built on an impressive idea, all for one and one for all, with central government enforcing this grand idea. And it is a grand and worthy idea that can and does grip the conscience of our good side. The problem is, as history has shown over and over, it fails miserably favor of another idea that recognizes an even more powerful motivator of human nature. Freedom and self pursuit.
May 4th, 2009 at 6:55 am
Another fallacy that will be proven wrong, if the President is dumb enough to try to prosecute or even investigate the decisions made by the last administration to win a war, is that the America people were against allowing their Commander in Chief, who’s primary Constitutional duty is to protect and defend them against all enemies foreign and domestic, to allow harsh interrogation of selected terrorist leaders who refused to cooperate using any other methods. Selected targets that clearly would have information we needed to protect the American people from future fried-alive atrocities.
I say bring it on…please. I fully trust the common sense of the people to define what is torture, as opposed to self destructive moral extremism. It will be the best event I can think of to guarantee the current party a one term rule.
May 4th, 2009 at 8:14 am
Yeah, bring it on indeed.
Incidentally, when did you take this position ? Oh yeah – backed into a corner….
May 4th, 2009 at 8:16 am
And are you really so stupid you crave the leadership of the GOP right now ???
I can’t imagine a more “self-destructive moral extremism” on the part of Glenn Beck idiots screaming “Socialism!”
You guys are even dumber than I thought you were when you were living in the Bush-Cheney Asshole of Doom…
Enjoy life at the margins of America.
May 4th, 2009 at 9:34 am
The shorter Jim R: If the GOP is trying to win a war, everything is permitted.
I think the founders to specific exception to this notion, but didn’t restrict it to just one party.
Guys like you are the real anti-patriots pal. It’s guys like you, with no allegiance to any principle of any kind, who really threaten the long-term prospects of the republic.
Power is limited for a reason. The last eight years should make that point very obvious.
May 4th, 2009 at 10:29 am
What was really involved in “trying to win the war?” Tell all quote from Christopher Hitchens during his debates on the war: “and if you say “Military Industrial Complex”, I’ll laugh in your face.”
Yep, those were heady days for Jim R. and his undeclared, it’s-war-when-I-say-it-is” war(s). Or John McCain to the lady who asked him, how will we know when the war is over?: It’s over when the President says it is.” And they’re beating up on poor Condi Rice…..
Today’s Daily Howler does a nice job reminding us how the likes of Chris Matthews (born again, praise Jesus!) got us into this mess, while they’re none too swift champions like Marc Cooper cheered them on. How did an idiot like Bush get to be President? Well, there is Cooper’s “it’s all Bill Clinton’s fault” approach.
Alas, they’re is also everything every “equal opportunity offender” like Cooper spent those years writing. Obviously, had Al Gore been elected these torture policies would have never seen the light of day. So the guilt of those like Coop who told us both sides were the same can never be fairly ignored.
May 4th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Jim R Says:
May 4th, 2009 at 6:25 am
Socialism moves along as planned.
The current government, after charging billions on the peoples charge cards to support unsupportable union paychecks and benefits that have brought Chrysler to its knees
Jim. Rather than your sticking your fingers down your throat to regurgitate the Fox News vomit as what got splattered above…I heartily recommend you and those with the same political bulemia undergo a little course of theraputic torture…you know…just enough to make you talk sense and tell the truth.
May 4th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
@ Jim R
Have to second DanO’s point on torture and the Bushies conduct of the war. They blew it.
On the car-marker front: it wasn’t ideology or the UAW that was insisting Chrysler build only big gas guzzlers. Chrysler management was following the short-term profits on trucks and mini vans. Based on the hope of cheap gas forever. Just like GM. (And btw, it wasn’t the UAW that scrapped GM’s EV1 10 years ago – think how much further along the Volt might be today…) Although something should be said for when the housing market tanked it dried up the construction industry. The truck market was a very predictable victim.
But here’s the real point, and it’s got nothing to do with ideology. The bond holders had their chance. They should have read the writing on the wall when Wagoner got axed. A government BK was clearly in view on the horizon. The UAW has been dealing with this mess based on reality and they’re very shrewd at the negotiating table. They’ve shown a willingness to sacrifice and make concessions to stay alive. No doubt because of that, President Obama won’t throw the workers overboard. That’s admirable. Gettelfinger and the UAW have played a weak hand fairly well. That’s more than Chrysler, or GM, can say.
May 4th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
…ah, that should read, “car-maker” …
May 4th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
“It is an ideological belief that a centralized government knows what the people want, and if they don’t, by god it’s what’s good for them and they cannot be trusted to make important choices for themselves.”
In fact the “centralized government” failed miserably to do the right thing when SUVs were exempted from CAFE standards. Democrats are complicit in this near-criminal end-run around environmental standards that were gained during the Carter Era along with Republicans. The “centralized government” gave way to corporate AND self-interested, short-term union power when push came to shove.
All I can say is that on most things JIMMY CARTER WAS RIGHT. With a couple of terrible major exceptions – i.e. giving the nod to Islamic extremists in Afhganistan, who were actually WORSE than the Russians (although nobody gives a shit, I was of the opinion at the time we were throwing in with the greater of two evils), and opening the doors to the era of de-regulation, which over the long run actually corrupted and weakened US business.
May 4th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Also, fuck the bondholders. What “working man” would hold such a debased opinion ? The UAW are much more crucial – AND VESTED by any rational standard – stakeholders than the guys who bought bonds.
May 4th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
I’ve stayed out of this, but I’ll chime in and state that I will NEVER do business with a financial institution taken over and run by the government or any manufacturer which was seized from secured creditors and just handed over to unions to run into the ground. You socialists will just have to make some money on your own and support government companies, because conservatives and “the rich” sure won’t.
- – -
Just for you, reg.
The Latest Democrat Response to FOX News
Obama was tricked!!!!
He did not intend to bow to the Saudi king. Check the photo closely!
(LINK to photo)
May 4th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Obama is going to learn some of the things that FDR learned, mainly that you can’t ignore the Constitution in furthering a radical, socialist agenda.
Senior creditors: Chrysler deal violates 5th Amendment
Next, watch Obama try to pack the Supreme Court.
May 5th, 2009 at 3:27 am
Woody, it’s great to see that you found your copy of the constitution again! I’m surprised that you were able to tape it back together. And just in time for a president you don’t like. What tremendous timing!
May 5th, 2009 at 5:16 am
What a coincidence, Dan! Just as I get mine together you guys decide to stomp on yours, use it as toilet paper, and flush it away.
May 5th, 2009 at 6:56 am
“And are you really so stupid you crave the leadership of the GOP right now ???”
OK. I see it’s time to beat up on the greedy capitalists.
First reg, with my headline “Socialism moves on as planned”, it was unintentionally misleading. I meant it to refer to President Obama’s plan’s for Chrysler, and, likely to follow soon, GM plan for survival. Not some grand plan for Socialism to replace Capitalism.
He, and we, were thrust into very difficult circumstances by out-of-control (regulation) capitalism, not socialism. But I do believe his approach to solving these car company troubles, already there before the economic disaster btw, has socialistic undertones. The bedrock of a free and dynamic economy is law enforcement of contracts between a lender(without lenders we have no capital) and a borrower(without borrowers we have no homeowners or jobs). Preferred lenders are lenders, typically 401k or retirement funds of other companies employees, that have been invested in secured bonds at much lower interest rate and on the laws contract promise if a company fails, they to be the ‘first’ to be paid, not the failing company’s employees for godsake.
I know it was the extremism of the Bush, etc, pro-capitals regimes that handed us this financial disaster, due to their equally faulty ideology of purely free unregulated capitalism craziness. And they got what was coming to them, loss of power. But it is not helping our country, and I reserve the right to criticize what needs critiqued, to use capitalism craziness as an opportunity to increase the damage with some socialism craziness.
This is not the time to hand out money we do not have for more non-job-creating social freebies, further indebting and weaking our ability to restore lenders/investors confidence to risk money for future business/jobs growth. This is not the time to be showing governments willingness to break basic contract law, scaring the hell out of lenders/ investors willingness to invest in our home loans and job creating businesses needed for recovery of this serious economic slump.
My position is we must demoralize with harsh criticism extremists on both sides of the political spectrum in order to restore and maintain sanity for the large majority in the middle. I want President Obama to be holding hearings on why and how the f–king crooks on Wall Street were able to pull off the biggest bank heists in history. I want to see some of these bastards sweating before congressional hearings, trying to get to the bottom of this disaster, so we can pass laws to stop it in the future. I want them investigate by the DOJ and I want to see many of them doing the penguin walk in full chains before Judges. This is were I want President Obama’s DOJ Lawyers spending their time for Christsake!
May 5th, 2009 at 8:31 am
“faulty ideology of purely free unregulated capitalism craziness.”
Socialistic undertones, Jim. Socialistic undertones.
Welcome to the real world…
May 10th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
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