Specter to Switch Parties

This just in:

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter will switch his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat, according to sources informed on the decision.

Specter's decision would give Democrats a 60 seat filibuster proof majority in the Senate assuming Democrat Al Franken is eventually sworn in as the next Senator from Minnesota. (Former Sen. Norm Coleman is appealing Franken's victory in the state Supreme Court.)

Specter as a Democrat would also fundamentally alter the 2010 calculus in Pennsylvania as he was expected to face a difficult primary challenge next year from former Rep. Pat Toomey. The only announced Democrat in the race is former National Constitution Center head Joe Torsella although several other candidates are looking at the race.

Wow.

UPDATE: There's more from the Fix:

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter will switch his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat and announced today that he will run in 2010 as a Democrat, according to a statement he released this morning.

Specter's decision would give Democrats a 60 seat filibuster proof majority in the Senate assuming Democrat Al Franken is eventually sworn in as the next Senator from Minnesota. (Former Sen. Norm Coleman is appealing Franken's victory in the state Supreme Court.)

"I have decided to run for re-election in 2010 in the Democratic primary," said Specter in a statement. "I am ready, willing and anxious to take on all comers and have my candidacy for re-election determined in a general election."

He added: "Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right. Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats. I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans."

Specter as a Democrat would also fundamentally alter the 2010 calculus in Pennsylvania as he was expected to face a difficult primary challenge next year from former Rep. Pat Toomey. The only announced Democrat in the race is former National Constitution Center head Joe Torsella although several other candidates are looking at the race.

Wow.

Equal Pay Day Rally

WHAT: The 2009 Equal Pay Day Rally
WHEN: TODAY! Tuesday, April 28, 2009 at Noon
WHERE: Mellon Square Park in Downtown Pittsburgh map
SPONSOR: The Women and Girls Foundation of Southwest Pennsylvania
RSVP: info@wgfpa.org


County to study gender wage gap:

Studies have consistently shown that women make about 20 percent less than their male peers in the workplace nationally, Ms. Arnet said, and in Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh, they make about 30 percent less.

[snip]

This afternoon's rally will be an important reminder for both proponents of equal pay and for regional elected leaders, said Elizabeth Waickman of the Women & Girls Foundation.

"Ensuring fair wages means ensuring women and girls are equally valued in the work force and our region," said Ms. Waickman, an organizer of the rally. She added that Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and County Council and City Council Presidents Rich Fitzgerald and Doug Shields will be the key speakers, among others.

.

Swine! Edition

First, came Rove:

Rove mocked spending on flu preparedness

Then his lapdogs:

Republican Senators killed funding for flu pandemic control

$870 million in money to improve the Center for Disease Control's ability to handle a possible flu pandemic was removed from the economic stimulus bill Congress passed in February, largely at the behest of Senators Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Susan Collins (R-ME).

[snip]

Collins and Specter, along with Sen. Ben Nelso (D-NE) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), were at the core of a group of "moderate" Senators arguing that the stimulus bill was too large, and sought out to slash funding for various programs before passage of the final bill. Sen. Specter argued that funding pandemic control through the emergency supplemental package would be "inappropriate."

Collins even crowed about it on her web site and all over the media:


Even though Reuters reports it's already having an effect on the economy:

Oil prices fell more than 4 percent to below $50 a barrel as investors feared a new blow to an already fragile global economy if trade flows are curbed and manufacturing is hit.

The MSCI world equity index fell 1 percent, and U.S. stocks were down in choppy trading.

And now, who couldn't see this coming?

Conservative media baselessly blame swine flu outbreak on immigrants

Conservative media personalities have baselessly blamed Mexican immigrants for spreading swine flu across the border, despite the fact that several reports have indicated that U.S. swine flu patients had recently traveled to Mexico.

* Yes, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) described the funding as "little porky things" but, he's always been a bit of an asshole and it was the Republicans who led the charge.
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Something to Ponder...

From McClatchy:

The CIA inspector general in 2004 found that there was no conclusive proof that waterboarding or other harsh interrogation techniques helped the Bush administration thwart any "specific imminent attacks," according to recently declassified Justice Department memos.

That undercuts assertions by former vice president Dick Cheney and other former Bush administration officials that the use of harsh interrogation tactics including waterboarding, which is widely considered torture, was justified because it headed off terrorist attacks.

But...that would mean that Cheney and other former Bush administration officials were...lying??

What will we tell the children?

Jack Kelly Sunday

It was inevitable. In this week's column, Jack Kelly spins torture.

He starts, in all places, with the posthumous decapitation of Oliver Cromwell and the "bill of attainder" that led to it. Then he points out:

For obvious reasons, the American colonists were not fond of this aspect of the British legal system. Article 1, section 9, clause 3 of the Constitution declares: "No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed."

Do you know what else it says in Article 1, section 9 of the US Constitution? This is the sentence immediately above the one Jack patriotically parrots:

The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

Funny how Jack Kelly never got around to writing a column defending Habeas Corpus when George W. Bush named Yaser Esam Hamdi an enemy combatant and effectively suspended his Habeas Corpus rights.

But I digress.

Back to Jack the flack and hack:

U.S. law forbids "torture," which is defined as "an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain and suffering."

First let me say kudos to Jack Kelly for recognizing that US Law forbids torture. Though it is somewhat unsettling to see that word in the quotation marks. Is there an issue to be resolved before he removes the ironical puncuation marks? His next paragraph explains things:

But what constitutes "severe physical or mental pain and suffering?" Most of us recognize as torture actions which maim or kill, such as the breaking of bones, pulling of fingernails, electrodes to the genitals, etc. But some on the left want to define as "torture" anything that makes a terror suspect temporarily uncomfortable, such as sleep deprivation, having to listen to heavy metal rock, exposure to cold or simulated drowning.

I like this part:

But some on the left want to define as "torture" anything that makes a terror suspect temporarily uncomfortable...

Who? Jack conveniently doesn't say. It could be someone famous or it could be someone babbling at Jack on the bus. He doesn't do us the courtesy of filling us in on who "some" are. He does, though, list some things he considers "temprarily uncomfortable" and obviously not "torture":

...sleep deprivation, having to listen to heavy metal rock, exposure to cold or simulated drowning.

Let's start with this from the BBC:

Sleep deprivation is not like torture - it is a form of torture, a tactic favoured by the KGB and the Japanese in PoW camps in World War Two.

So both the KGB and the Japanese in WWII? Huh.

There's more - to that list we can add Saddam Hussein.

Take a look: In this CRS report from 2004, we learn that The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found that U.S. POWs during the First Gulf War were tortured in Iraq:

The torture inflicted included severe beatings, mock executions, threatened castration, and threatened dismemberment. The POWs were systematically starved, denied sleep, and exposed to freezing cold. [emphasis added.]

This is how we protect democracy, Jack? By emulating the KGB, Imperial Japan and Saddam Hussein's Iraq? What great company to be in.

And Jack's spinning a bit more by including the part about listening to "heavy metal rock." It's used in conjunction with sleep deprivation. From the BBC:

The US's Psychological Operations Company (Psy Ops) said the aim was to break a prisoner's resistance through sleep deprivation and playing music that was culturally offensive to them.

So it's not just popping in a Metallica CD. It's using Metallica to keep the detainees awake. And since we already know that sleep deprivation is torture, most anything can be utilized during that process:

Heavy metal music and popular American children's songs are being used by US interrogators to break the will of their captives in Iraq.

Uncooperative prisoners are being exposed for prolonged periods to tracks by rock group Metallica and music from children's TV programmes Sesame Street and Barney in the hope of making them talk.

Now that's just sad - Barney and Elmo being a part of torture. Sheesh, is NOTHING sacred?

What's left is the waterboarding. Here's John McCain from a campaign stop in 2007:

[F]ollowing World War II war crime trials were convened. The Japanese were tried and convicted and hung for war crimes committed against American POWs. Among those charges for which they were convicted was waterboarding.

From Politifact, McCain continues:

"If the United States is in another conflict ... and we have allowed that kind of torture to be inflicted upon people we hold captive, then there is nothing to prevent that enemy from also torturing American prisoners."

McCain is referencing the Tokyo Trials, officially known as the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. After World War II, an international coalition convened to prosecute Japanese soldiers charged with torture. At the top of the list of techniques was water-based interrogation, known variously then as "water cure," "water torture" and "waterboarding," according to the charging documents. It simulates drowning.

R. John Pritchard, a historian and lawyer who is a top scholar on the trials, said the Japanese felt the ends justified the means. "The rapid and effective collection of intelligence then, as now, was seen as vital to a successful struggle, and in addition, those who were engaged in torture often felt that whatever pain and anguish was suffered by the victims of torture was nothing less than the just deserts of the victims or people close to them," he said.

Can't be any plainer than that, Jack. Waterboarding (or "simulated drowning" as you euphemistically call it) is torture. The US executed Japanese war criminals for waterboarding and yet Jack wants us to think that it's just meant to be nothing more than something that's "temporarily uncomfortable."

Jack's next part is simply incredible:

The "enhanced interrogation techniques" used on a handful of al-Qaida bigwigs were derived from what U.S. pilots and special forces personnel undergo in SERE training (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape). Few in their right minds would describe the SERE course -- through which thousands have passed without ill effect -- as "torture." But in this country, everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. Many on the left, however, wish to criminalize policy differences.

The SERE training, once you actually look at it, was set up to aid servicemen and women in the event that they're tortured by waterboarding. Inherent in the idea is that waterboarding is torture. To use the training used to resist the torture as evidence that waterboarding isn't torture is truly tortured logic.

John Adams said, "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."

Let's be clear. Torture is immoral. Advocating it is immoral. Covering it up is immoral. Giving it a pass is immoral.

These are not "policy differences." It's also illegal (as Jack rightly points out) and so these are criminal acts.

Prosecute the war crimes.

"green coal"

Gingrich adds new term to coal industry’s propaganda lexicon: ‘green coal.’

Hahahahahahahahahaha

[sob]

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The JPRA: It's Torture and It's UNRELIABLE

The JPRA is the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency and its job, according to its Mission Statement is to:

Shape Personnel Recovery for the Department of Defense and enable commanders, forces, and individuals to effectively accomplish their Personnel Recovery responsibilities.

And as defined by the US Military:

Personnel recovery is the term for military, civil, and diplomatic efforts to obtain the release or recovery of captured, missing, or isolated personnel from uncertain or hostile environments and denied areas.

So these folks are the experts.

The Washington Post is reporting:

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.

The WaPost goes on to say that:

[T]he 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.

The 2-pager is here.

From the intro:

This discussion is not intended to address the myriad legal, ethical, or moral implications of torture; rather, this document will seeks to describe the key operational considerations relative to the use of physical and psychological pressures.

And the the essense of the memo:

The primary objective of interrogation within the context of intelligence is the collecting of timely, accurate, and reliable information. The question that should immediately come to mind is whether the application of physical and/or psychological duress will enhance the interrogator's ability to achieve this objective. 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. Conceptually, proponents envision the application of torture as a means to expedite the exploitation process. 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 intelligence. History and a consideration of human behavior would appear to refute this assumption. [Emphasis added.]

This would seem to put the kibosh on the old, "If the only way to get the info quickly on a terror plot that's sure to kill your wife is to torture a terrorist, would you allow it?" canard, doesn't it?

But there's another downside to torture:

Another important aspect ofthe debate over the use oftorture is the consideration of its potential impact on the safety ofU.S. personnel captured by current and future adversaries. The unintended consequence ofa 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. While this would have little impact on those regimes or organizations that already employ torture as a standard means of operating, it could serve as the critical impetus for those that are currently weighing the potential gains and risks associated with the torture ofU.S. persons to accept torture as an acceptable option.

This was sent up the chain of command in July of 2002. They knew torture didn't work back then.

Investigate and prosecute the torture.

The President Today

The text can be found here.

Saturday Morning Animation

From my friend AllenMez:

Al Gore, Today.

Via Thinkprogress:


The transcript can be found here. Gore finishes with:

It is on the front page of the New York Times today, by Andrew Revkin. They themselves conducted review and found a science about it's valid. And to the point you made a moment ago: they verified in their own studies that man-made global warming is raising temperatures and causing this crisis. Like Bernie Madoff, and they lied about it in order to make money. And they themselves profited. The ceo of the largest got a onetime payment of $400 million. Now, again, those who have trusted them and believed them are due an apology. These corporations ought to apologize to the American people for conducting a massive fraud for the last 14 years.

The article Gore's talking about is here. Here's how it begins:

For more than a decade the Global Climate Coalition, a group representing industries with profits tied to fossil fuels, led an aggressive lobbying and public relations campaign against the idea that emissions of heat-trapping gases could lead to global warming.

“The role of greenhouse gases in climate change is not well understood,” the coalition said in a scientific “backgrounder” provided to lawmakers and journalists through the early 1990s, adding that “scientists differ” on the issue.

But a document filed in a federal lawsuit demonstrates that even as the coalition worked to sway opinion, its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted.

“The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied,” the experts wrote in an internal report compiled for the coalition in 1995.

How did they do it? Glad you asked:

Environmentalists have long maintained that industry knew early on that the scientific evidence supported a human influence on rising temperatures, but that the evidence was ignored for the sake of companies’ fight against curbs on greenhouse gas emissions. Some environmentalists have compared the tactic to that once used by tobacco companies, which for decades insisted that the science linking cigarette smoking to lung cancer was uncertain. By questioning the science on global warming, these environmentalists say, groups like the Global Climate Coalition were able to sow enough doubt to blunt public concern about a consequential issue and delay government action.

George Monbiot, a British environmental activist and writer, said that by promoting doubt, industry had taken advantage of news media norms requiring neutral coverage of issues, just as the tobacco industry once had.

“They didn’t have to win the argument to succeed,” Mr. Monbiot said, “only to cause as much confusion as possible.”

Of the Global Climate Coalition, the Union of Concerned Scientists had this to say in January, 2007:

A new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists offers the most comprehensive documentation to date of how ExxonMobil has adopted the tobacco industry's disinformation tactics, as well as some of the same organizations and personnel, to cloud the scientific understanding of climate change and delay action on the issue. According to the report, ExxonMobil has funneled nearly $16 million between 1998 and 2005 to a network of 43 advocacy organizations that seek to confuse the public on global warming science

So this is nothing new.

Torture Update

We are going to follow the evidence, follow the law and take that where it leads. No one is above the law. - Attorney General Eric Holder

Yesterday, via CNN.

Later in the piece there's this:

Holder also repeated assurances the Obama administration had given CIA interrogators who employed the controversial techniques that they would not be charged.

"The president's comments were consistent with what we've said all along. Those who, in good faith, followed legal guidance they were given will not be prosecuted or investigated," Holder said.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, who earlier in the day released a newly declassified timeline -- compiled when he was chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee -- of how the approval for the controversial interrogation techniques played out, said he agreed that CIA operatives shouldn't face prosecution.

Now about that timeline (an excerpt is here and the full list is here.)

The AP is reporting:

A new document indicates the CIA first proposed waterboarding alleged al-Qaeda terrorist Abu Zubaydah to top Bush administration officials in mid-May 2002, three months before the Justice Department approved the interrogation technique in a secret legal opinion.

Specifically (from the Washington Post):

July 17, 2002 "Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) met with the National Security Adviser, who advised that the CIA could proceed with its proposed interrogation of Abu Zubaida. This advice, which authorized CIA to proceed as a policy matter, was subject to a determination of legality by OLC."

July 24, 2002 "OLC orally advised the CIA that the Attorney General had concluded that certain proposed interrogation techniques were lawful and, on July 26, that the use of waterboarding was lawful."

Aug. 1, 2002 "OLC issued three documents analyzing U.S. obligations with respect to the treatment of detainees. Two of these three documents were unclassified: an unclassified opinion interpreting the federal criminal prohibition on torture, and a letter concerning U.S. obligations under the Convention Against Torture."

Before hearing from the OLC, then-National Security Director Condolezza Rice approved the waterboarding. A week after that, the OLC "orally advised" the CIA it was OK and then a week and a day after that, it was in writing.

More from the AP:

The new timeline shows that Rice played a greater role than she admitted last fall in written testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The narrative also shows that dissenting legal views about the severe interrogation methods were brushed aside repeatedly.

So she lied? Someone in the Bush Administration lied about the torture they approved?

What a shock.

McClatchy notes:

A newly declassified narrative of the Bush administration's advice to the CIA on harsh interrogations shows that the small group of Justice Department lawyers who wrote memos authorizing harsh interrogation techniques were operating not on their own but with direction from top administration officials, including then-Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.

At the same time, the narrative suggests that then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and then-Secretary of State Colin Powell were largely left out of the decision-making process.

Senator Rockefeller issued a statement with the release of the chronology. From the LATimes:

"The records of the CIA demonstrate that the lawyers at the Office of Legal Counsel did not operate in a vacuum," Rockefeller said in a statement. That office is the Justice Department entity that issued many of the key opinions endorsing the CIA's techniques. "The then-vice president and the national security advisor are at the center of these discussions."

Investigate and prosecute the torture. It's the law.

Earth Day

As we celebrate Earth Day today, it's good to remember our own canaries in the coal mine: The victims of the Donora Smog of 1948.

From Wikipedia:

The Donora Smog of 1948 was an historic air inversion pall of smog that killed 20 and sickened 7,000 people in Donora, Pennsylvania, United States, a mill town on the Monongahela River 24 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

The smog first rolled into Donora on October 27, 1948. By the following day it was causing coughing and other signs of respiratory distress for many residents of the community in the Monongahela River valley. Many of the illnesses and deaths were initially attributed to asthma. The smog continued until it rained on October 31, by which time 20 residents of Donora had died and approximately a third to one half of the town's population of 14,000 residents had been sickened. Sixty years later, the incident was described by The New York Times as "one of the worst air pollution disasters in the nation's history." Even ten years after the incident, mortality rates in Donora were significantly higher than those in other communities nearby.

Sulfur dioxide emissions from U.S. Steel's Donora Zinc Works and its American Steel & Wire plant were frequent occurrences in Donora. What made the 1948 event more severe was a temperature inversion, in which a mass of warm, stagnant air was trapped in the valley, the pollutants in the air mixing with fog to form a thick, yellowish, acrid smog that hung over Donora for five days. The sulfuric acid, nitrogen dioxide, fluorine and other poisonous gases that usually dispersed into the atmosphere were caught in the inversion and accumulated until the rain ended the weather pattern.

Researchers analyzing the event have focused likely blame on pollutants from the zinc plant, whose emissions had killed almost all vegetation within a half-mile radius of the plant. Dr. Devra L. Davis, director of the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, has pointed to autopsy results showing fluorine levels in victims in the lethal range, as much as 20 times higher than normal. Fluorine gas generated in the zinc smelting process became trapped by the stagnant air and was the primary cause of the deaths.

[snip]

Preliminary results of a study performed by Dr. Clarence A. Mills of the University of Cincinnati and released in December 1948 showed that thousands more Donora residents could have been killed if the smog had lasted any longer than it had, in addition to the 20 humans and nearly 800 animals killed during the incident.

[snip]

The Donora Smog marked one of the incidents where Americans recognized that exposure to large amounts of pollution in a short period of time can result in injuries and fatalities. The event is often credited for helping to trigger the clean-air movement in the United States, whose crowning achievement was the Clean Air Act of 1970, which required the United States Environmental Protection Agency to develop and enforce regulations to protect the general public from exposure to hazardous airborne contaminants.

[Emphasis added]

It's fitting that another old steel town is in the news today as the Post-Gazette reports that, "Braddock Mayor John Fetterman, who is part of the ad campaign and is scheduled to testify at a hearing on the cap and trade issue in Washington, D.C., today before the House Energy and Commerce Committee."

Fetterman has been appearing in print and TV ads by the the Environmental Defense Action Fund (EDAF). The theme of these ads is "Carbon Caps=Hard Hats" and "is aimed at promoting a cap on carbon emissions by linking such controls to the creation of new jobs in blue-collar industries, like steel."

The TV spots are running from April 12 through May 8 in Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Missouri, New Hampshire, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

You can view the Fetterman ad here if you haven't viewed it already (I've seen it running on the Sunday morning political shows) :


I also am compelled to add how nice it is that under the Obama Administration the Environmental Protection Agency is actually back to working on protecting the environment.
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The Report

The Senate Armed-Services Committee issued a report today. It's title is "Inquiry to the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody" and it describes what was done in our name.

From the Executive Summary:

The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of "a few bad apples" acting on their own. The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees. Those efforts damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority. This report is a product of the Committee's inquiry into how those unfortunate results came about.

Senator Levin says of the report:

Today we're releasing the declassified report of the Senate Armed Services Committee's investigation into the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. The report was approved by the Armed Services Committee on November 20, 2008 and has, in the intervening period, been under review at the Department of Defense for declassification.

In my judgment, the report represents a condemnation of both the Bush administration's interrogation policies and of senior administration officials who attempted to shift the blame for abuse - such as that seen at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and Afghanistan - to low ranking soldiers. Claims, such as that made by former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz that detainee abuses could be chalked up to the unauthorized acts of a "few bad apples," were simply false.

The truth is that, early on, it was senior civilian leaders who set the tone. On September 16, 2001, Vice President Dick Cheney suggested that the United States turn to the "dark side" in our response to 9/11. Not long after that, after White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales called parts of the Geneva Conventions "quaint," President Bush determined that provisions of the Geneva Conventions did not apply to certain detainees. Other senior officials followed the President and Vice President's lead, authorizing policies that included harsh and abusive interrogation techniques.

And from McClatchy:

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.

And because there was no link, the interrogations got harsher.

Investigate torture. It's the law.

The Zelikow Memo

Philip Zelikow was Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's policy representative to the NSC Deputies Committee and he had access to the torture memos released this week. According to this article in Foreign Policy magazine, he signed some security agreements that barred him from publicly discussing the memos while they were classified.

He writes:

[I]n 2005, I circulated an opposing view of the legal reasoning. My bureaucratic position, as counselor to the secretary of state, didn't entitle me to offer a legal opinion. But I felt obliged to put an alternative view in front of my colleagues at other agencies, warning them that other lawyers (and judges) might find the OLC views unsustainable. My colleagues were entitled to ignore my views. They did more than that: The White House attempted to collect and destroy all copies of my memo. I expect that one or two are still at least in the State Department's archives. [emphasis added.]

He discussed the memos:

Weakest of all is the May 30 opinion, just because it had to get over the lowest standard -- "cruel, inhuman, or degrading" in Article 16 of the Convention Against Torture. That standard was also being codified in the bill Senator John McCain was fighting to pass. It is also found in Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, a standard that the Supreme Court ruled in 2006 does apply to these prisoners. Violation of Common Article 3 is a war crime under federal law (18 U.S.C. section 2441), a felony punishable by up to life imprisonment. (The OLC opinions do not discuss this law because in 2005 the administration also denied the applicability of Common Article 3.)

The danger of the Bush-era opinions:

The underlying absurdity of the administration's position can be summarized this way. Once you get to a substantive compliance analysis for "cruel, inhuman, and degrading" you get the position that the substantive standard is the same as it is in analogous U.S. constitutional law. So the OLC must argue, in effect, that the methods and the conditions of confinement in the CIA program could constitutionally be inflicted on American citizens in a county jail.

In other words, Americans in any town of this country could constitutionally be hung from the ceiling naked, sleep deprived, water-boarded, and all the rest -- if the alleged national security justification was compelling. I did not believe our federal courts could reasonably be expected to agree with such a reading of the Constitution.

Anyone have any idea why the Bush administration would want to destroy all copies of The Zelikow memo?

Obama "Open" To Torture Investigation

From the AP:

Widening an explosive debate on torture, President Barack Obama on Tuesday opened the possibility of prosecution for Bush-era lawyers who authorized brutal interrogation of terror suspects and suggested Congress might order a full investigation.

Less than a week after declaring it was time for the nation to move on rather than "laying blame for the past," Obama found himself describing what might be done next to investigate what he called the loss of "our moral bearings."

His comments all but ensured that the vexing issue of detainee interrogation during the Bush administration will live on well into the new president's term. Obama, who severely criticized the harsh techniques during the campaign, is feeling pressure from his party's liberal wing to come down hard on the subject. At the same time, Republicans including former Vice President Dick Cheney are insisting the methods helped protect the nation and are assailing Obama for revealing Justice Department memos detailing them.

The players:

The three men facing the most scrutiny are former Justice Department officials Jay Bybee, John Yoo and Steven Bradbury. Bybee is currently a judge on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Yoo is a professor at the University of California-Berkeley.

It might be argued that the officials were simply doing their jobs, providing legal advice for the Bush administration. However, John Strait, a law professor at Seattle University said, "I think there are a slew of potential charges."

Those could include conspiracy to commit felonies, including torture, he suggested.

Bybee also could face impeachment in Congress if lawmakers were so inclined.

While it's not as important as lying about oral sex, conspiracy to commit torture is a big deal.

Torture Update

From the NYTimes:

Pressure mounted on President Obama on Monday for more thorough investigation into harsh interrogations of terrorism suspects under the Bush administration, even as he tried to reassure the Central Intelligence Agency that it would not be blamed for following legal advice.

The pressure?

...human rights activists, Congressional Democrats and international officials pressed for a fuller accounting of what happened. Senator Diane Feinstein, a California Democrat and chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee, wrote Mr. Obama asking him not to rule out prosecutions until her panel completed an investigation over the next six to eight months.

And:

The Senate Armed Services Committee plans to release its own report after two years of looking at the military’s use of harsh interrogation methods. And the Democratic chairmen of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees are pushing for a commission to look into the matter. At the same time, the administration faces pressure from abroad. Manfred Nowak, the United Nations’ chief official on torture, told an Austrian newspaper that as a party to the international Convention against Torture, the United States was required to investigate credible accusations of torture.

Then there's:

Others pushing for more investigation included Philip D. Zelikow, the former State Department counselor in the Bush administration. On his blog for Foreign Policy magazine and in an interview, Mr. Zelikow said it was not up to a president to rule out an inquiry into possible criminal activity. “If a Republican president tried to do this, people would be apoplectic,” he said.

Frederick A. O. Schwarz Jr., who was chief counsel to the Church Committee, the Senate panel that investigated C.I.A. abuses in the 1970s, said Mr. Obama was “courageous” to rule out prosecutions for those who followed legal advice. But he said “it’s absolutely necessary” to investigate further, “not for the purpose of setting blame but to understand how it happened.”

Here's something else from Zelikow:

I am not eager to see any government officials prosecuted for crimes because of their zeal to protect their country. But crimes committed for worthy motives are still crimes, and we have institutions to sort this out.

So has anyone beside me found it troubling that President Obama is making announcements on who should be prosecuted for possible crimes? Whatever one's view of the matter, didn't the administration ardently announce its dedication to depoliticizing the Department of Justice? So why is it proper for the president to tell Attorney General Eric Holder what he should conclude?

He then posits 5 possibilities:

1. No unlawful conduct
2. Unlawful conduct but with a credible defense
3. Unlawful conduct with an inadequate defense
4. Unlawful conduct, no defense, but Obama pardons
5. No pardon, but Obama tells AG Holder what legal options he has.

His conclusion:

Can you imagine what folks would say if a Republican president exercised option #5? I wish President Obama would just play this straight. He also does no favor to suspects if he politicizes the question of their innocence.

Investigate. Prosecute. Do it publicly and fairly. It's the American way. It's also the law.

Some thoughts on tonight's debate

If we were back a year ago during the Democratic primary presidential debates, my inbox would have been full already with emails from the candidates' campaigns spinning the debate. Luke, what are you spending that million+ on?

Someone: Please tell Ms. Robinson to look into the camera (she did get much better as the debate went on).

Dowd: You had my grandmother at hello (actually, she mentioned something about "children are our future," "teacher," "school board," etc.) .

Joe Arpaio?!? Really, Wendy? From Wikipedia:

- From 2004 through November 2007, Arpaio was the target of 2,150 lawsuits in U.S. District Court and hundreds more in Maricopa County courts; 50 times as many prison-conditions lawsuits as the New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston jail systems combined.

- Family members of inmates who have died or been injured in jail custody have filed lawsuits against the sheriff’s office. Maricopa County has paid more than $43 million in settlement claims during Arpaio's tenure.

- In 2004, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office SWAT team led a raid on an Ahwatukee home in a gated subdivision, looking for illegal weapons. No illegal weapons were found, but during the raid, the house burned down, SWAT officers forced a dog back into the building where it subsequently died, and an armored vehicle rolled into a neighbor's parked car as a result of brake failure.

Wendy if that doesn't grab you, you might want to click on this link and read the part where Arpaio's deputies arrested Village Voice Media executives and Phoenix New Times editors and where a reporter for the Phoenix New Times, was surrounded and intimidated by Arpaio's deputies while trying to examine public records at the City of Phoenix public records counter. But then again, you seem really hopped up on the whole chain gang idea. Bob, please have a talk with Wendy.

Mayo: Nice question about the mayor making his schedule public -- too bad he never answered it.

I agree with Anthony:

7:56 Luke just mentioned O'Connor. God, give me strength.

7:57 Isn't it comforting to know what Luke now admits--that he wasn't ready to be mayor when O'Connor died. So in 3 more years, is he going to admit that he wasn't ready in 2009, either?

UPDATE: Other Burghosphere reactions to the debate:

Pittsburgh Comet
Tunesmith & Anthony
Infinonymous
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More On Mike Turzai

I just wanted to fill out some background on the comments from this blog post.

From Roll Call:

By most accounts, Turzai’s 1998 bid for the seat against then-Rep. Ron Klink (D) was a less-than-stellar campaign. He lost to Klink, 36 percent to 64 percent, in a district that two years later gave 50 percent of the vote to Bush.

During that first campaign for the 4th district seat, Turzai was derailed by two major publicity mishaps. Two of his supporters got into an altercation with Klink on the sidewalks of Pittsburgh while trying to videotape him for a negative campaign advertisement. Klink also blasted Turzai for sending a helicopter to take aerial footage of his home as an invasion of his privacy.

Here's the P-G story from 1998. First the helicopter story:

In the past few days, campaign workers for Republican Mike Turzai have flown over U.S. Rep. Ron Klink's Westmoreland County home in a helicopter and have twice attempted to videotape him.

But the bigger story was the stalking:

The second videotaping incident Downtown on Wednesday prompted calls to Pittsburgh police, with each political camp saying its supporters had been accosted by people from the other side.

Turzai said yesterday that his supporters were only trying to force Klink to give them some straight answers to a "series of questions" on legitimate campaign issues when they approached him with a video camera and microphone outside the Duquesne Club, Downtown.

But Klink's chief of staff, Joseph Brimmeier, said sex was the only subject of the only questions asked by the two men from the Turzai camp who came after him and Klink.

"'Ron, tell us about your sexual affairs, Ron, tell us who you're having sex with on your staff ...' that's all they were asking," Brimmeier said.

TO BE COMPLETELY FAIR, Turzai apologized for the conduct of his campaign workers a few days later:

Saying "we were wrong to do what we did," Republican congressional candidate Mike Turzai apologized to his opponent, U.S. Rep. Ron Klink, for allowing his campaign workers to accost Klink at public appearances and attempt to videotape Klink and his home.

In a news conference last night at his Cranberry campaign headquarters, a somber, husky-voiced Turzai read a brief statement in which he apologized to Klink and Klink's family for the conduct of his campaign workers over the past week. He also said he regretted not apologizing sooner.

"In all earnestness, I've wanted to do this since last week, but I didn't. I have no excuses. We were wrong to do what we did," Turzai said, reading from handwritten notes scrawled on a yellow legal pad. "I am fully responsible for the actions of this campaign, and I regret what happened. While I assumed responsibility last week, I didn't apologize and I should have."

This was ten years ago, by the way.

This Just In (Part II), Progress Pittsburgh PAC Endorsments

Progress Pittsburgh PAC (P2PAC) announced their endorsements for the May 19th primary. This is the first time that P2PAC has endorsed candidates.

As they put it:

P2PAC develops, supports, and helps to elect candidates who demonstrate vision, progressive values, and electability. It considers candidates whose districts touch the City of Pittsburgh, and supports candidates that will make good, progressive leaders at higher levels of government.

[snip]

These endorsements represent four races where a group of dedicated citizens can make a MAJOR impact on the race. While there are other candidates that support the progressive ideals of social and economic justice (Amanda Green, Bill Peduto, and Patrick Dowd are three who met with us that come to mind), we are confident that your money and your time will be invested wisely, should you choose to support the candidates below.

Their endorsements:

Natalia Rudiak, City Council District 4, http://www.nataliarudiak.com/

Robert Daniel Lavelle, City Council District 6, http://www.lavelleforcouncil.com/

Susan Banahasky, Magisterial District Judge 5-3-10, http://www.susanformagistrate.com/

Hugh McGough, Court of Common Pleas, http://www.mcgough4judge.com/

P2PAC will have a Happy Hour this Tuesday, April 21, 6-8pm, 900 Cafe & Lounge, 900 Western Ave, North Side to celebrate their endorsed candidates and to talk about how you can make a difference in these races.

You can contribute to P2PAC here.
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Pittsburgh Democratic Candidate Mayoral Debate Tonight!

A reminder that the first Pittsburgh Democratic Candidate Mayoral Debate will be broadcast tonight:

Monday, April 20, from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. on WTAE-TV Channel 4.

All three Democratic primary candidates -- Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, Councilman Patrick Dowd and Carmen Robinson -- will be participating.

WTAE's Andrew Stockey is the moderator and panelists will include WTAE's Wendy Bell, Bob Mayo and Sheldon Ingram and Pittsburgh Tribune-Review police reporter Jill King Greenwood.

More info and question submission @ WTAE.
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