Longtime readers will know I have a bit o’ a volcano phobia. The one comfort I’ve had living on the Ring of Fire is that volcanoes give plenty of warning before they erupt. Should one of the local peaks go boom, I’ll have gobs of time to pack up the important stuff, chuck the cat into the car, and wave goodbye to the landlord before fleeing south to the parents in Phoenix.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Nine people were ferried to safety after a volcano on the Aleutian island where they live erupted Saturday, sending ash and rocks falling to the ground below.
Okmok Volcano on Unmak Island erupted at about noon Saturday.
[snip]
“This eruption came out of the blue in a lot of ways,” said volcanologist Dave Schneider. “There is only maybe about one and a half hour or so of precursory activity before it went into full born eruption, so it did come as a surprise to us.”
WASHINGTON — Vice President Dick Cheney’s office has acknowledged that he erred when telling an audience this week that China is drilling off the coast of Cuba.
He wants us to think he’s sane, rational, and willing to admit errors. Expect the worst.
The Supreme Court ruled yesterday, in a narrow 5-4 decision, to extend access to the federal courts to detainees at Guantanamo Bay. When reporters asked John McCain for his reaction a few hours later, he struck a disappointed note, but seemed pretty level-headed about the case. “[I]t is a decision that the Supreme Court has made,” McCain said. “Now we need to move forward. As you know I always favored closing Guantanamo Bay and I still think we ought to do that.”
[snip]
Apparently, though, moderation didn’t poll well overnight. Today, McCain quickly embraced the far-right line and denounced the ruling in the strongest of terms.
John McCain weighed in on the U.S. Supreme Court decision on the rights of Guantanamo Bay prisoners to challenge their detention in U.S. courts at a town hall meeting Friday, calling the 5-4 decision “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.”
McCain said he that while he has been a vocal opponent of torture and advocated closing Guantanamo, he does not believe prisoners deserve the same rights as U.S. citizens.
“These are enemy combatants, these are people who are not citizens, they are not and never have been given the rights that the citizens of this country have,” he said. “Our first obligation is the safety and security of this nation and the men and women who defend it.”
Remember the good ol’ days? Before John McCain became a shameless hack? Good times, good times.
Ah, yes, the days before John McCain went completely fucking batshit insane. Is he just jealous of Antonin Scalia? Wants to be a contender for the title of “Most Fucktarded Assclown Evah“? I mean, here we have a former POW, a man who’s permanently damaged from the torture he endured, no less, writing legislation to ensure America gets to torture POWs – oh, they’re just enemy combatants? Well, that’s a-o-kay then – and saying that the Supreme Court’s decision to grant the right of habeas corpus to people who’ve been stuffed down the warped rabbit hole of the Bush administration’s Guantanamo Bay Resort and Torture Bar is “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.”
Oh, really, John? You know which decision I put down as one of the worst? Dred Scott. Yeah. And Bush v. Gore’s right up there. In fact, I think it could be a serious contender for the worst, considering the shit that’s coming to light.
But if you want to think that extending a basic 900 year-old right to the poor bastards who’ve been scooped up and dumped down Bush’s deep black hole is the worst evah, you go right ahead. I wasn’t expecting a firm grasp on reality from you, anyway. Especially not when you’re relying on the most insane fuckers in the country to elect you into office this November.
Following up on an item from earlier this week, it’s bad enough when the Bush administration awards tax dollars to abstinence-only programs that don’t work. It’s worse when our money goes to far-right abstinence groups based on their political connections.
And it’s even worse still when these same abstinence groups get more money than they even asked for. Murray Waas and ABC News have the story.
An organization that promotes sexual abstinence for teens received a federal grant of over a million dollars, twice what it had requested, despite the skepticism Department of Justice staffers had about the group and the fact that it refused to participate in a congressionally mandated study.
[snip]
Wait, it get worse.
[B]ecause of Best Friends’ lower ranking, 53rd out of 104 grant applicants considered, [Flores’] superiors might have overruled him, if they knew of the group’s poor standing, according to Justice Department officials involved in the process.
To make sure that a grant to Best Friends was approved, officials say, Flores simply created an entirely whole new category which the organization’s grant proposal would be considered.
That’s right. New category, whole cloth, so that Bush’s BFF abstinence organization could get twice as much money as it asked for rather than getting laughed out of the running as it deserved. And they didn’t even have to participate in a congressionally-mandated study, because Bush loved them so.
I think it’s time to take some bleach and industrial-strength scrubbers and head on over to the Oval Office for some much-needed spring cleaning.
Russert was a highly-decorated veteran of the media scrum. He won an Emmy for his coverage of Reagan’s funeral, the Radio and Television Correspondent’s Joan S. Barone Award and the Annenberg Center’s Walter Cronkite Award for his MTP interviews with Bush and Gore, got a share of the 2001 Edward R. Murrow Award for Overall Excellence in Television Journalism, and about a bajillion other awards all stating what a tremendous journalist he was. He ended up a member of the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame. Not a bad career.
Let’s not forget what “excellence in journalism” means in this society. The lionizing has already started – of course it will, the man’s only just died – but it’s important to remember that Tim Russert was a solid establishment member of our political press corps, and just as flawed as the rest of them.
Meet the Press was first choice for Cheney communications director Cathie Martin when a venue was needed for our evil VP to spin the revelations that Bush & Co. lied this country into Iraq. Under the pros she listed for MTP: “Control message.” She later testified during the Libby trial, “I suggested we put the vice president on ‘Meet the Press,’ which was a tactic we often used…. It’s our best format.”
Then there was this exchange with Bill Moyers from “Buying the War:”
BILL MOYERS: Was it just a coincidence in your mind that Cheney came on your show and others went on the other Sunday shows, the very morning that that story appeared?
TIM RUSSERT: I don’t know. The NEW YORK TIMES is a better judge of that than I am.
BILL MOYERS: No one tipped you that it was going to happen?
TIM RUSSERT: No, no. I mean-
BILL MOYERS: The Cheney office didn’t leak to you that there’s gonna be a big story?
TIM RUSSERT: No. No. I mean, I don’t have the– This is, you know– on MEET THE PRESS, people come on and there are no ground rules. We can ask any question we want. I did not know about the aluminum tubes story until I read it in the NEW YORK TIMES.
That “the print press knows better than I” attitude could explain little fuck-ups like this:
On the May 7 broadcast of NBC’s Meet the Press, host Tim Russert cited a flawed Associated Press article published February 9 in order to link Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (NV) to “money from [disgraced former lobbyist] Jack Abramoff.” After quoting the article, Russert said to House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (CA): “You get your money — both parties get their money from lobbyists.” The AP article Russert cited, however, omitted key facts that undermined its suggested connection between Reid and Abramoff.
I could go on, but the man just died, and I think you already have enough to caution you: remember that for all their pretty awards, high-tech studios, and enormous advertising budgets, the supposed “journalists” babbling on your talk shows aren’t journalists at all. They’re personalities. Tim Russert was one of our bigger personalities, and I have to admit, I’m going to miss having the bugger around. He was always so refreshingly annoying. And he truly does seem to have done his best to be what he thought he should be. Maybe in an era where “journalism” meant more than repeating Administration talking points and playing gotcha with inane bullshit, he could have been a real journalist.
Just back from a two-week vacation, my friend Kevin Drum can’t help but notice what reporters consider the big news from the campaign trail: “[A]pparently the real news from the past couple of weeks is that Barack and Michelle Obama bumped their fists together at a campaign event. That’s news that produces video you can use! And use. And use. But I’ve only seen it three or four times since I turned the TV back on, so I hope we get another week or two of coverage of this momentous event.”
Yep, following up on an item from Thursday, the fist bump heard ’round the world is still a subject of considerable interest. If you’re just joining us, at their rally in Minnesota on Tuesday night, Barack and Michelle Obama shared a brief fist-pound (or “dap,” as the kids call it) in the midst of their celebration. It was a cute, affectionate exchange — which the media seems utterly fascinated by.
For some, the moment offers some insight into the closeness between the would-be First Couple. For others, it’s a generational moment (we probably shouldn’t expect John and Cindy to exchange a similar greeting any time soon), which speaks to the Obamas’ youth and vitality.
And for some, it’s reminiscent of terrorists: “Teasing a segment on the ‘gesture everyone seems to interpret differently,’ Fox News’ E.D. Hill said: ‘A fist bump? A pound? A terrorist fist jab?’”
Oh my fucking god. Seriously? Seriously? Two Americans bump fists after a campaign victory and it’s suddenly a “terrorist fist jab?” I mean, Faux News is completely fucking ridiculous, yes, but this is beyond batshit insane even by their standards.
You know what? I’m going to go to work tomorrow wearing a black-and-white paisley scarf – and I fucking hate wearing scarves, but I’m going to wear one – and I’m going to terrorist-fist-jab every fucking person in my building. We are going to revel in the fact that according to Faux News, we are fucking terrorists. Bring me my explosives vest, baby, yeah! Send me into the Faux News studio with those reality bombs!
This is why I am a liberal: we get odd sometimes, but at least most of us have our feet firmly planted in reality. I at least don’t have to worry about our side running with a story on how John McCain has a lucky feather, and Osama bin Laden has a lucky charm, too, and OMG JOHN McCAIN’S A TERRORIST SYMPATHIZER!!!
I think we could, however, get some fact-based mileage out of the fact that George W. Bush kisses Saudi princes, Osama bin Laden’s a Saudi connected to the royal family, therefore Bush lurrrvvveees Terrorists!!1!!11! Of course he loves them. They enabled him to get away with a shitload of fuckery these past eight years. They’re the reason he gets to use the United States Constitution to wipe his ass after his morning fiber. Were I a power-mad born-again limp-brained psychopath, I’d be loving the terrorists, too.
Yesterday, the New York Times’ Charlie Savage reported that in a recent letter, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, top aide to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), said McCain believes that the Constitution gave President Bush the authority to wiretap Americans without warrants. The actions “were Constitutional and appropriate in the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001,” Holtz-Eakin said.
At a news conference yesterday, a reporter asked McCain whether Bush’s warrantless National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance program, exposed in December 2005, was illegal. McCain said it’s unclear whether Bush broke the law by spying on Americans without court approval. The Times reports:
“It’s ambiguous as to whether the president acted within his authority of not,’’ he said, saying courts had ruled different says on the matter. “I’m not interested in going back. I’m interested in addressing the challenge we face to day of trying to do everything we can to counter organizations and individuals that want to destroy this country. So there’s ambiguity about it. Let’s move forward.’’
Yes, by all means, let’s move forward – without you, you assclown. I don’t even have epithets enough for people as awesomely stupid as you.
I mean, how the fuck does anyone take these fucktards seriously? They’re beyond pathetic – they’re even beyond pathological at this point. Just take a look at this:
Herman Melville’s Captain Ahab became obsessed with searching for a great white whale. These days, some right-wingers are obsessing over the “great whitey tape.” Ahab’s search led him to a bad end, and I suspect the right wingers’ will as well. If you’re just joining us, the “great whitey tape” (GWT) is an alleged recording of Michelle Obama at a conference in Chicago ranting about how “whitey” has done a lot of bad things to African Americans. As the legend goes, she was standing alongside Louis Farrakhan when she said this. Or maybe his wife. Or his sister. Or maybe his third cousin twice removed from Hoboken.
[snip]
A few people claim to have heard the tape. They describ
e it as “explosive” or “jaw-dropping.” But no one ever seems able to lay hands on it. That’s a good sign that it doesn’t exist. This is an age where just about everything everybody does ends up on You Tube, yet something this shocking remains in the same class as the Loch Ness Monster — lots of claimed sightings but no corpse.
Isn’t that always how it is with these people? No wonder they want to destroy science education – anyone with even the most rudimentary critical thinking skills can tear their batshit insane claims apart like wet tissue paper. And, believe it or not, their idiocy gets worse when we consider the origins of this supposed bombshell tape:
Given the evidence, the non-existent tape appears to be a work of fiction. In this case, I mean that literally — the rumors appear to have originated in a novel, published two years ago, about an African-American presidential candidate seeking the Democratic nomination. In the fictional story, the candidate’s enemies find a video of the presidential hopeful telling a radical black minister how he will “f**k whitey” if elected.
Greg Sargent and Eric Kleefeld concluded, “If this was the basis for the rumor, Obama was forced to respond not just to a rumor, but to one that was consciously based on a published work of fiction. Welcome to General Election 2008, everyone!”
Somebody needs to bring me a bucket. These reality-challenged assholes make me want to vomit. When the fuck are we going to rid ourselves of these psychos?
Shit, that’s a relief. I was thinking you know, how will I manage to really get that last dig into my asshole family members when I got hauled off into Glory Glory Hallelujah and they’re stuck around still trying to make mortgage payments on their sub-prime loans? That’s right, a nice post-Rapture e-mail to really send those sinners off in style. Take that you godless bastards. I’m up here in Heaven, and you’re still stay paying four dollars a gallon in gas!
Okay, let’s be honest. If the rapture hits, it’ll likely be when I’m getting a haircut. Picture my barber, finishing up my trim and razoring my sideburns. Flash, he’ll be gone and in a spurt of blood and muffled screams of agony, I’ll flail about trying to pick the top half of my ear from the floor. There goes my day.
What I’m wondering is, since the e-mails are set to send six days after the Rapture hits, and the way it works is when 3 out of 5 of the members fail to log in after a 3 day period, what happens if God, in his sick ways, decides to off four of them in random accidents in a two-day period? Seriously, can you imagine thousands of “Hey, I’m in Heaven Fuckers!” e-mails going out to friends, relatives and neighborhood heathens? Oops, premature transubstantiation.
Not to mention, how fucking judgemental is it to set up a post-Rapture e-mail list. “To all you filthy heathens, Jews, heretics, fags, democrats, heavy metal fans, FYI, you’re fucked.” In their own words “WHY” is one last chance to bring them to Christ and snatch them from the flames!”
Well, thanks for that mate. Think I’ll just have my way with your sister while you’re out and help myself to the Twinkies in the pantry.
Well, it seems that I’m not such an incompetent blogger as I thought! It seems that one of our host’s friends, George, took notice of my “Candidates and Classrooms” post – it was mentioned over at Decrepit Old Fool. I am flattered for the mention, and my thanks go out to the author!
One minor point, though…
I am very much male.
*checks trousers*
Yep. Definitely.
A simple mistake, especially given that I popped up out of the blue without any real introduction or description of myself. So here’s a quick moment for me to hog the spotlight and tell you what kind of human I am!
As mentioned, I am a guy. An 18 year old guy, about 6’2 with hazel eyes and brown air. My heritage is an eclectic mix of various European countries, nothing particularly strong enough to influence me more than the others. English is, allegedly, among the stronger of my ancestors – though my father was adopted, so this information is questionable. I have Native American on my maternal grandfather’s side, and Dutch Irish on my grandmother’s. I live in the beautiful pacific northwest, and I spend most of my time writing, reading, exploring the bright centers of the internet, and video gaming. I write for myself, in the form of a science fiction novel, and for others, as is the case with my game design projects, in which I work under an independent designer working on his debut project. I might decide to actually use my own Blogger blog (Musings Of A Teenage Mind) to discuss those projects. The blog is, currently, empty as I have found no good use for it, and my time has been spent here. I suppose if there was enough interest in it, I’d share my stuff there.
In any case, that’s most of the vital stats. Thank you for allowing me to talk about myself, it’s not something I’m in the habit of doing. So now, please go on to enjoy the better parts of the blog! I have posted the second part of my education-based blog series below, be sure to stop by if you are interested.
And everything changes And nothing is truly lost -Neil Gaiman
Good morning, afternoon, evening, or night, depending on when you catch this. This is my debut post as Kaden Darez, the Official Senior Teen Correspondent here at En Tequila Es Verdad. I had some great scene worked up where my first blog post here as co-blogger (really a sub-blogger; Verdad is Dana’s home, I’m just the freeloader friend who insists he’ll only be here for a few days, until he can get back on his feet, and that he’ll happily take the couch, and before you know it he’s been there for six months, lives in the guest room, takes all the hot water in the shower and ate the last cookie in the cupboard) would be this great, epic post full of wit and wisdom. Though even as I type this, it’s already becoming longer than I intended it to be, and I shall cut off my verbosity while it is still in manageable restraints, and move on to my point:
The previous post to this one commented on the idea of making English America’s official national language. To which, I have this to say:
XKCD is amazing, just in case you didn’t know.
I’ll post here every so often; I aspire to contribute something meaningful (or at least snarky) once a week, but we’ll see how that goes.
Kaden, out.
Comic and characters (c) www.xkcd.com and its creator(s).
The sun rose, Seattle was cloudy, and another Bush official was revealed as an incompetent fuckwit:
The former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq took aim at Bernard Kerik in an exclusive interview with the Daily News Sunday, calling his efforts to train Iraqi police in 2003 “a waste of time and effort.”
Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top military leader in Iraq from June 2003 to June 2004, blasted the former police commissioner for failing to produce results while Kerik was the interim minister of interior in 2003. “I would be hard-pressed to identify a major national-level success that his organization accomplished in that time,” Sanchez told The News a day before his new memoir, “Wiser in Battle” hits bookstores nationwide.
“He is a very energetic guy. He is very confident – overconfident to an extent – and he is very superficial in his understanding of the requirements of his job,” Sanchez said. “His whole contribution was a waste of time and effort.”
[snip]
“They’d get tips and they’d go and actually raid a whorehouse,” Sanchez told The News. “Their focus becomes trying to do tactical police operations in the city of Baghdad, when in fact there is a much greater mission that they should be doing, which is training the police.”
No surprises on all three counts. If you could find a really dim bookie, you could probably make millions on betting that anyone Bush touts as competent and qualified will be neither.
Speaking of no surprises, I was wondering when we’d get around to reliving Watergate:
MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA – In two states where US attorneys are already under fire for serious allegations of political prosecutions, seven people associated with three federal cases have experienced 10 suspicious incidents including break-ins and arson.
These crimes raise serious questions about possible use of deliberate intimidation tactics not only because of who the victims are and the already wide criticism of the prosecutions to begin with, but also because of the suspicious nature of each incident individually as well as the pattern collectively. Typically burglars do not break-into an office or private residence only to rummage through documents, for example, as is the case with most of the burglaries in these two federal cases.
In Alabama, for instance, the home of former Democratic Governor Don Siegelman was burglarized twice during the period of his first indictment. Nothing of value was taken, however, and according to the Siegelman family, the only items of interest to the burglars were the files in Siegelman’s home office.
Siegelman’s attorney experienced the same type of break-in at her office.
I’m not usually much of a conspiracy theorist, but considering the circumstances, considering the pattern The Raw Story put together, and considering the cavalier disregard of the law the Bush Administration has displayed, I think this one’s worth pursuing.
Fucking depressing, innit? We need a change o’ pace. Up for some fun? You can go sign a petition telling McCain and Clinton exactly what you think of their pandering:
Dear Senator Clinton and Senator McCain,
Please stop insulting the intelligence of the American people with pointless gas tax scams.
Soaring gas prices are not something we can solve with a cheap gimmick. Gas prices are high because people around the world are using lots of gas including rising demand in developing nations like China and India. Prices are high because oil is a limited resource and production is limited, because of speculation on Wall Street, and instability in the Middle East. Gimmicks won’t change any of that.
Oh, and I’d just like to add an addendum: “Dear Clinton and McCain, you can kiss my elite ass.”
Controversy! Evidently the scientific community’s doubts about global warming aren’t as clear cut as the lying fuckwits at the Heartland Institute might like us all to believe. The Heartland Institute published a list of 500, count ’em 500 scientists that they claim were united in disavowing the concept of global warming. Pretty impressive… until the scientists named start to find out and demand their names be removed from the list.
You remember that list of scientists who signed a Discovery Institute declaration against Evolution, the Universe and everything? Well, funny thing, and I know this will shock you, but… they lied about the signatories…
That’s right, my darlings. The Heartland Institute seems to enjoy taking its tactics right from Disco’s playbook, and now, just like the IDiots, the Chicago-based fuckwits are exporting the fuckery:
Of course a group as shoddy and unethical as the Heartland Institute won’t have just one fucking atrocity on the go at a time. Lawd no. They have petrodollars to spend. And petrodollars will buy a lot of bovine feces and a lot of envelopes to mail it out in. The Vancouver Sun reports that our good pals down at the Heartland Institute are trying to inflict their retarded agenda on Canadian kids.
An American think tank has sent out more than 11,000 brochures and DVDs to Canadian schools urging them to teach their students that scientists are exaggerating how human activity is the driving force behind global warming.The Chicago-based group, the Heartland Institute, said its goal is to ensure that students are provided with a “balanced” education about “an important and controversial issue,” but critics, including a leading climate scientist, described it as a campaign of misinformation.
Stop, I’ve heard this one before. Any minute now, they’ll spout the words “Teach the Controversy!” Next you know, they’ll be behind a slew of Academic Freedom bills designed to ensure the anti-global warming nitwits get to spread their disinformation in schools. They could be more pernicious, considering global warming denial doesn’t track back to religion as easily. Why couldn’t the Constitution have required a separation between stupid and State?
A senior United Nations official has accused President George Bush of “doing damage to Africa” by cutting funding for condoms, a move which may jeopardise the successful fight against HIV/Aids in Uganda.
Stephen Lewis, the UN secretary general’s special envoy for HIV/Aids in Africa, said US cuts in funding for condoms and an emphasis on promoting abstinence had contributed to a shortage of condoms in Uganda, one of the few African countries which has succeeded in reducing its infection rate.
“There is no doubt in my mind that the condom crisis in Uganda is being driven by [US policies],” Mr Lewis said yesterday. “To impose a dogma-driven policy that is fundamentally flawed is doing damage to Africa.”
White House officials have undermined their own government scientists’ research into climate change to play down the impact of global warming, an investigation by The Observer can reveal.
[snip]
Emails and internal government documents obtained by The Observer show that officials have sought to edit or remove research warning that the problem is serious. They have enlisted the help of conservative lobby groups funded by the oil industry to attack US government scientists if they produce work seen as accepting too readily that pollution is an issue.
America’s Right-Wing Fuckwits: making the world safe for neocon stupidity since 2001.
*Rational Americans would like to apologize to Canada, Great Britain, Spain and Uganda, along with every other country in the world that has suffered from the influx of inanity. Please be assured we’re trying very hard to remedy this situation, and will hopefully have good news to report this November.
President Bush says he knew his top national security advisers discussed and approved specific details about how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, according to an exclusive interview with ABC News Friday.
“Well, we started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people.” Bush told ABC News White House correspondent Martha Raddatz. “And yes, I’m aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved.” [emphasis added]
That’s right. We’re discovering that the Administration approved torture from the top-down, not the bottom-up. Now Bush is going out of his way to inform us he approved – gleefully shattering the shield “The Principals” raised in an attempt to keep him from getting splattered with shit. Apparently, he likes to splash about in the sewage.
I thought I was long past the point of being shocked at anything the Bush administration did. They suspended the constitution after 9/11 and set forth a series of legal opinions that said the president can do anything he deems necessary to “protect the country.” Once you truly absorb that fact, it’s hard to be emotionally affected by anything else you learn.
But I was wrong. This shocks me. The president of the United States casually admits on television that he approved of his national security team personally deciding which specific torture techniques should be used against prisoners…
And what is the media doing about it? Emptywheel at Firedoglake answers: Bugger-all:
The President just admitted that he approved torture.
And thus far at least, no one seems to give a damn. As of 9AM, the NYT published no news of Bush’s admission. The WaPo placed a story on A3 stating that they had already reported this, even though they hadn’t reported this). ABC, the outlet that got the damn scoop, places the story fourth on its list of stories, behind Obama and Indiana and Hillary telling Bill to “butt out,” with the main picture on the front page cycling through such critical stories as a dog who invited himself to his owner’s funeral.
Hunter at Daily Kos has a pretty good breakdown of media reaction to such things:
NEWSCASTER BOB: Good evening, and welcome to the news. A disturbing revelation tonight, as reports indicate the abusive treatment of prisoners in United States custody was specifically endorsed at the highest levels of government. Vice President Richard Cheney, then Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Attorney General John Ashcroft and CIA Director George Tenet specifically signed off on torture techniques like “waterboarding” that could be used on prisoners, including specific numbers of times some techniques could be used.
This contradicts frequent statements by the administration that these torture techniques were not used, and may have legal ramifications as —
PUNDIT 1: Bob, I’m going to have to break in here. We have breaking news that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama today turned down a cup of coffee, asking for orange juice instead. Could this be the gaffe that brings down the Obama campaign? Let’s talk to our panel of interchangeable political experts.
Our media watchdogs are too busy watching pretty shiny things to take notice of the crooks in the building. This is exactly how they act.
And what’s going to happen to John Yoo, the man who wrote the torture memo, now a tenured professor? Again, bugger all:
In response to mounting criticisms of its ongoing employment of John Yoo, UC Berkeley School of Law’s Dean Christopher Edley issued a Memorandum — entitled “The Torture Memos and Academic Freedom” — citing the “near absolute” values of academic freedom and tenure to explain why the law school will not dismiss Yoo nor even initiate an inquiry into whether action ought to be taken against him.
And because of this vaunted academic freedom, a man who tortured the spirit, letter and meaning of the law gets to hang around in comfy digs at one of our nation’s most prestigious schools and teach a whole new generation how to break national, international and military law and get off scott-free. Charming.
I have news for Berkeley: there are times when tenure don’t mean jack shit.
This is where the line is crossed. This is where academic freedom ends. I don’t give two shits about tenure: when it comes out that you authored a memo that enabled this kind of outrageous, illegal, despicable and digusting behavior, you’ve lost your right to immunity. Berkeley: investigate his ass. Beat his bottom bloody. After all, I’m sure there’s a way you can twist the law to make it perfectly legal and reasonable, eh? Just ask John Yoo.
Glenn Greenwald, at least, understands:
I think all of those concerns are valid, though ultimately, what matters most is that some important American institution — somewhere — meaningfully demonstrate that perpetrating systematic torture and committing war crimes renders one beyond the pale in the United States. It shouldn’t be up to Berkeley to enforce that precept by itself, but if no other institutions are doing so, then (after a full and careful investigation), Berkeley should.
