Well, slightly different approach than Bush, but end product of tyranny is still the goal ...

... Here, then, is a man who considers torturing a kid barely past his youth for an alleged crime whose principal result to-date has been an acute case of The Embarrassments, more important, more pressing, and more necessary than the public maintenance of his own image as a moderate reformer and as a conciliator. ...

... He does not delight in cruelty like his predecessor, but is grossly indifferent to it. ...

Obama, the hollow man ...

Again: Obama, just like Bush ...

... concerning the Saudis ...

As our other good friends Saudi Arabia and Bahrain collaborate on attacking civilian protesters, there are no calls for U.S. intervention there -- even though that's arguably more serious than what's happening in Libya -- because those governments serve our interests.

link: Various matters: Afghanistan, Libya & Manning

Just like Torturer Bush, Torturer Obama fires truth sayers ...

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley tells the truth (however reluctantly) about the ongoing torture of PFC Manning and Obama and his henchmen show him the door.

Just like Bush, Obama says we don't torture thus establishing himself as a liar in front of the world.

Everyone around Obama must pretend to be as stupid-blind as he is (or as he pretends to be).

State Department spokesman steps down amid flap

Of course, if Hilary Clinton had any integrity she would resign also. But who would expect her to have any more integrity than Obama as she's still working for a man who has step by step established himself as the current Torturer-in-Chief of the United States of America.

Obama is pathetic, pathetic, pathetic ...

... and, as an individual, must be as big a monster as George W. bush.

Obamas is reported as saying:

With respect to Private Manning, I have actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards. They assure me that they are. I can't go into details about some of their concerns, but some of this has to do with Private Manning's safety as well.

Oh gee, Obama asked the Pentagon and they told him everything is just hunky-dory.

Pathetic.

Bush supporters and Obama supporters ...

... just two groups of peas in a pod.

... endorsing civil liberties abuses because one's own Party is in power virtually ensures that those abuses will become permanent, available to future leaders from the other Party as well. That was the argument which fell on deaf ears when made to cheering Bush supporters, and it's barely more effective now.

Today's quote (and a second one for good measure, oh and a third one too) ...

... some beyond galatically confused Nigerian failed to blow up a plane with his freaking underwear, for chrissakes, and that was it, the god damn Republicans and Dick Cheney came instantly hissing out of the woodwork ...

-- Please Get A Life, Republicans by paradox, The Left Coaster
-----------------

... As always, the most Serious and Toughest among us are the most easily frightened, particularly in the American media.

-- Craving terrorist melodrama by Glenn Greenwald, salon.com
-----------------

[this one was just too good to pass up]

Barack Obama, doing his best to make Dick Cheney’s questions about leadership look rational, has assigned John Brennan to conduct the Administration’s ballyhooed investigation into the claimed failure of the terrorist watchlist program in the Christmas Fruit Of The Loom Bomber incident.

-- Obama Appoints Fox To Evaluate Terror Watchlist Henhouse by bmaz, firedoglake.com

Anyone know what happened to the Obama of the campaign trail? Not that I'm a very good judge since I wasn't very taken with him, but he certainly did seem to have his ducks in a row and I was hoping to see a little of that behavior in his endeavor to implement some promised --now what was that he promised?-- oh, yeah, change.

Obama may sound more reasonable than Bush the Lesser, but ...

... Obama's unconstitutional imprisonment and kidnapping policies for anyone his administration doesn't like is the same. Maybe, perhaps they aren't torturing them. But secrecy and injustice lead to lies, so who knows. And any nation that regularly tortures its own citizens with Tasers is hardly to be believed on this issue.

As Glenn Greenwald writes:

Does that remotely sound like a "justice system"? If you're accused of being a Terrorist, there's not one set procedure used to determine your guilt; instead, the Government has a roving bazaar of various processes which it, in its sole discretion, picks for you based on ensuring that it will win. Even worse, Holder repeatedly assured Senators that the administration would continue to imprison 9/11 defendants even in the very unlikely case that they were acquitted, citing what they previously suggested was their Orwellian authority of so-called "post-acquittal detention powers." Is there any better definition of a "show trial" than one in which the defendant has no chance of ever being released even if acquitted, because the Government will simply thereafter assert the power to hold him indefinitely without charges?

and

The administration should have the courage of its convictions and defend jury trials as a linchpin of American justice, which would entail giving them to all Terrorism suspects not captured on any battlefield. But by refusing to do so -- by exhibiting the very cowardice of which Holder accused Republicans, i.e. denying Terrorism suspects a trial -- the administration has no cogent argument to make in its own defense. It's just another case of the administration wanting to bask in the rhetorical glory of "the rule of law" while simultaneously trampling on it for petty political convenience.

That is IF this administration has convictions. This Democratic Administration has become Republican Lite. Now that's really scary ...

The Republicans at least have a goal, a creed. Perpetual war, perpetual dominance of the world, ensuring the 'haves' have all and the 'have-nots' are effectually slaves. It's very direct, very simple minded. What you say today only applies to today. Justice is a word like any other.

Republican Lite, one the other hand, is an attempt to appease. A cowardly approach with no principals behind it that can be defended.

Is Obama trying to be Solomon? Now that the Thugs have demanded that he split the baby, and he's actually tried, what is he going to do next? I think the lesson of Solomon and the baby is one that the Thugs understand and Obama does not. Solomon wished to identify the real mother. Obama's actions are more like negotiating with the fake mother and pushing the real mother out of the way.

Oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens puts it in words ...

"They're opening them (oil fields) up to other companies all over the world ... We're entitled to it," Pickens said of Iraq's oil. "Heck, we even lost 5,000 of our people, 65,000 injured and a trillion, five hundred billion dollars."

...

"We leave there with the Chinese getting the oil," Pickens said.

Just who is this 'we' oil man?

I'm almost speechless. But the thoughts that do come to mind are: another arrogant, contemptible turd and mucus secreting corporate slug.

T. Boone Pickens "takeovers put many independent oil producers out of business. With an estimated current net worth of about $3 billion, he is ranked by Forbes as the 117th-richest person in America and ranked 369th in the world." [Wikipedia]

And to think he didn't get Iraq and after supporting all the warmongers collected in Bush's Corporate regime that sacrificed so much American blood and money for his benefit.

I realize American corporations just don't care, but what about all the non-Americans that were murdered and killed and raped and tortured and starved and abused. What about all their losses in lives and property and hope for a decent life? 'We," oil man, are all smaller because you and your corporate buddies supported and encouraged a mental deficient 'president' and a criminally insane 'vice president' to perpetrate a war of terror on Iraq. And that 'we' includes you, oil man.

---------------------

One little point I don't quite grasp. If Corporatist T. Boone Pickens concludes that the blood and money expended by Americans should result in his personal increase in wealth and power where does the blood and money of others that is destroyed by Americans enter into that accounting? Is it a plus or minus in T. Boone Pickens mind? Or does it just not exist in his mind?

You know, guys, the administration that's doing all these despicable things is the Obama Administration ...

Is it my imagination? It used to be: The Bush Administration. Now that Bush is gone --though Cheney's not-- we appear to have just: The Administration.

Administration's Anti-Trust Chief Gets Pushback From... The Administration.

Isn't it amazing how much the new is really very similar to the old? Isn't it amazing how much the new is catering to the same groups as the old? Isn't it amazing how fast the Dems are losing all moral authority.

Liberals aren't going to hide the problem Obama has turned into by omitting his name.

I was going to just pull out a quote or two ...

... but there's too much in this post: The Persistence of Ideology by batocchio.

... The only "consistency" between widespread deregulation and a bailout is always giving the rich what they want - allowing them high profits for themselves in good times and protecting them from risk at public expense in the bad. ...

[...]

... It's not just economics that seems to mystify [movement conservatism], though, but basic human nature. ...

[...]

Unfortunately, Tim Geithner and the Obama gang seem to be too willing to continue the dodgy moves of Paulson and the Bush administration. Maybe it's class solidarity, similar ideologies, or the difficulty of fighting the bankers who own Congress. Maybe they simply aren't working hard enough to protect the country's economy against astonishingly arrogant, reckless and selfish corporate narcissists. Maybe they simply fail to realize the true nature of these oligarchs, and how dangerous they are. Maybe they're just too corrupt themselves. What Jonathan Schwarz wrote back in October about a flabbergasted establishment is as relevant as ever:

Who wouldn't be stunned when the most greedy, venal, vicious, cruel, arrogant, ignorant human beings on earth aren't eager to work in the public interest? Especially when people like them have never been willing to do so in the entire history of mankind, except on the rare occasions when they've been directly threatened with execution? It's stunning!

Somehow, it never occurred to them that human beings would be greedy and selfish.

There's much more.

But we won't ...

If this incoherent, boot-strapping rationale is the best we can come up with for our/Obama's Iraq policy, I'd said its time for us to get out. The issue isn't just the photos; it's the unthinking, unexamined presumptuousness of the occupation. We no longer have any moral claim, any valid justification for being there, if we ever had one.

We need to end that occupation; then apologize, come home and, as General Sanchez said on Countdown, try to confront what we've done to them, and to ourselves, and ask why/how we let it happen. And while we're doing this, it is we who need to be looking at the photos, not just the Iraqis.

[excerpt from McClatchy: Obama Heeded Maliki on Abuse Photos; What That Says for Our Occupation by Scarecrow]

Obama, as a leader of the United States, should think this issue through and attempt to lead us out of the moral morass in which the US is drowning. But he won't. Unlike Bush, Obama has a brain. But like Bush, Obama is not a thinker ...

Once elected, whether Republican or Democrat, the law has no meaning to them ...

... except as a tool of secrecy, wealth transference from the nation to a despotic few and oppression whenever needed to ensure compliance.

As Glenn Greewald writes:

... For decades, we had laws in place authorizing citizens to sue their telecommunication carriers if the telecoms allowed government spying on their communications in violation of the law, but when it was revealed that the telecoms did exactly this, the Congress simply changed the law retroactively so that it no longer applied. For decades, we had laws imposing civil and criminal liability on government officials who engaged in or authorized torture, but when it was revealed that our government did that, the Congress just retroactively changed the law to protect the torturers. And now that courts have ruled that our decades-old transparency law compels disclosure of this torture evidence, the Congress is just going to retroactively change the law -- again -- this time to empower the President to suppress that evidence anyway.

Other than creating an illusion of transparency and accountability, what's the point of having laws that purport to restrict what the Government can do if political officials just retroactively waive those laws whenever they want? ...

Obama makes noises about many things. Nice sounding noises. But his actions belies his pretty words. Where Bush just ignored the law to do his evil, Obama thinks of changing the laws retroactively to accomplish the same evil. And if you don't think hiding war crimes, torture, rape and murder is evil then why do we spend so much effort to capture and convict those who commit such actions who are not government protected?

Barack Obama assumes the anti-Constitutionalist's George W Bush mantle ...

Obama becomes Bush in the really critical matters of disregarding human rights, the US Constitution, justice and the law.

And he seems to think --or at least wants us believe-- that he's thinking "of the long term."

Does he think he can put the Constitution and the Rule of Law back together just prior to when he leaves office?

Did Cheney leave a virus in the White House that is dissolving Obama's brain cells?

Sergeant Schultz and Condoleeza Rice ...

Remember Sergeant Schultz in Hogan's Heroes? Tell me that our former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice doesn't sound just like him: I see n-n-n-nuuuthink. I see n-n-n-nuuuthink. N-n-n-nuuuthink.

Student: Okay. Is waterboarding torture in your opinion?

Rice: I just said, the United States was told, we were told, nothing that violates our obligations under the Convention Against Torture. And so by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture.

Of course, Rice doesn't project Shultzies bufoonery. And Rice was in a position to make a real difference while Schultz was a guard that tried to avoid all trouble.

Excuse me, but ...

... why should one be "a very loyal Democrat."

Some of the Obama policy stances I disagree with—Afghanistan, Wall Street enabling, torture obfuscation—but on the whole I remain very supportive of President Obama. There is real tension and conflict in deciding how critical and in what style to be, readers may not know it but I am a very loyal Democrat, and there has to be a point where one is too critical, I have no idea where that tipping point is but it’s there. I never mindlessly criticize major Obama initiatives, and there is a real duty to support the Party and President. I do my part—bitching all the way, perhaps—but I do it.

I can see why a politician might think they should at least appear to be a loyal party member (Lieberman excepted). But why should a citizen be a loyal party member?

----------------
And why is it that
1) Republicans keep stepping over the line, then
2) Citizens put more Democrats in office, and then
3) The Democrats go further than the Republicans in turning our country into a renegade and lawless country with serial Kings.

And now we're supposed to accept (believe?) that wanna-be king Bush's successor is only taking on the wanna-be king mantle so he can keep the CIA loyal and working for the US? That would mean the CIA are a bunch of traitors ...

If this is the case then the CIA is threatening the President (and thereby threatening the country and the constitution) directly or indirectly. Add to that the very direct threats from the financial industry traitors to destroy the country if they don't get their way. Apparently President Obama is going to give up on the Constitution in order to keep as much peace with these threats to our democracy as he can. In other words the Democrat who was elected to stop the Republican giveaway of our country is going to continue on course like a good little bought and paid-for politician.

Again, why would a citizen be a loyal party member? Shouldn't that loyalty be going in the other direction?

Are we really just going to let this stuff go? Really? ...

What digby says:

The medical personnel involvement is sick and after all the stuff about force feeding and using prisoners' psychological profiles for interrogation purposes, I guess I'm not as surprised as Horton is. But the fact that the white house consciously and knowingly used anal rape to control, interrogate and punish prisoners and went to some length to protect those who were doing it from scrutiny, still has the power to stun me.

Are we really just going to let this stuff go? Really?

Are we? Are we, Obama? Are you really going to give in to this? Is this the world you choose for your daughters. Because, this WILL happen again if we don't make it clear that there are consequences for the people who did these things, specially for the people who ordered them or ignored or hid them from view. Did we prosecute all those people at Nuremberg only because they were NOT Americans?

The Bankers are coming. The Bankers are coming. Run for your lives ...

The Banks Have Stolen Enough; It's Time to Take Them Over

It's too bad that the Republicans' anger over giving tax breaks to workers who did not pay income taxes does not extend to giving tax dollars to Wall Street banks who have wrecked our economy. Where are the anti-government conservatives when we need them?

The banks have stolen enough? Way beyond enough, I'd say. Anyone else as embarrassed as I am about the state of our society? Talk about values!

When one actually pays attention to what Republicans do, rather than what they say, it is obvious that greed, corruption, pettiness are the values that Republicans stand for. Go figure . . . and we know they are such very good Christians ... we know because they are always telling us so.

For the southwest, it will continue to get worse.

---Update below---

Our region has already begun to heat up, Overpeck said.

"The warming has already been about 2 degrees Fahrenheit . . . That's kinda scary," he told the audience in an opening statement. "It's affecting the Southwest of the United States more than any other area outside of Alaska."
--------------

We will have more fire and insect outbreaks, erosion from wind and water and competition among plants from non-native species, especially grasses, Breshears said.

One key problem is fire combined with non-native grasses, such as buffelgrass. When buffelgrass burns, it kills native plants, leaving more room for more grass. With each burn, more of the desert dies and more grass spreads.

"We're setting up a feedback that is very difficult to get out of," Breshears said.

Climate change even threatens to eradicate our "megaflora" of the Southwest, such as Joshua trees and saguaro cactuses. Buffelgrass kills young saguaros by blocking sun and sucking up the water the budding behemoths need.

"That's a pretty grim forecast for Tucson," Breshears said.

Despite thousands of scientists studying climate change, major questions about the Southwest remain unanswered, Overpeck said.

"One of the things we can't say is whether the monsoon will get stronger or weaker - the models are all over the place," he said.

Quotes from the Tucson Citizen -- UA prof: Global warming hitting Southwest via Arizona Geology -- Southwest to get more droughts, floods, & fires.
--------------------

By the way, the Border Reporter writes that The Tucson Citizen, Arizona’s oldest newspaper
will close unless they find a buyer. March 21 is the date given.
--------------------
Update
Not that Bush didn't speed it along with his special form of environmental abuse, Orwellian named Healthy Forests, but western forests are dying on their own as part of Global Warming's steady march across our planet.

The Bank Robber Barons are just holding onto our money ...

... when they are not paying themselves bonuses (no doubt for being such clever people to get something for nothing while Rome burns)?

“With that capital in hand, not only do we feel comfortable that we can ride out the recession,” he said, “but we also feel that we’ll be in a position to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves once this recession is sorted out.” --(quote from Down With Tyranny)

This is another Bush Consequence. There is no bailout. Just another transfer of public funds to the wealthy and crooked.

Down with Tyranny concludes:

... We haven't seen Obama stand his ground on one contentious issue yet. This would be a good one to start with, although with Republicans playing games with the confirmation of his Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, who knows what kinds of foul compromises at the American peoples' expense will have to be made.

I hadn't thought of it that way, but it's true Obama has not stood his ground on even one contentious issue. He can start with the 'bailout' and torture. If he doesn't stand now he never will. It will be a real shame if Obama just waffles away his popularity being yanked one way and another trying to satisfy the Republican destroyers and the talking-head ignoramuses all the time legitimizing Republican slogans like 'fix' Social Security. Speeches alone will not continue to work without substance. If Obama should decide to do the right think about torture and oversight he has the rhetorical ability to explain and get backing from the citizenry. Will he?

---

---

Today's QUOTES:

Crawford has exposed to bright sunlight the lie that is Barack Obama's, and other politicians', simple minded reliance on the Army Field Manual as cover for their torture reform credentials. Interrogators can stay completely within the Army manual and still be engaging in clear, unequivocal torture under national and international norms, laws and conventions. [...] This is the lie. The Army Field Manual provisions, especially with those pesky footnotes like "Appendix M", leave a wide open path for torture. ... --Obama, The Crawford Torture Admission & The Army Field Manual Lie by bmaz, firedoglake.com It's hard for me to believe that we are going to have this conversation while the government is giving hundreds of billions of dollars to bankers who see it as a handout to be used to enrich their stockholders and themselves. And I am as stunned as I always am that we are going to have this conversation while the government insists that the United States must spend more on its military than all the other countries in the world combined. --Sacrifice by digby, Hullabaloo

---

---

We'll see ...

Glenn Greenwald writes that 'Binding U.S. law requires prosecutions for those who authorize torture.'

It's just as simple as that. Once Eric Holder stated unequivocally that waterboarding is torture, and once a top Bush official used the word "torture" to describe what the U.S. did at Guantanamo using authorized techniques other than waterboarding, the "discretion" to investigate and prosecute disappeared-- at least for people who believe in the most basic precepts of the rule of law and equality under it, Western principles of justice established at Nuremberg, and the notion that the U.S. is bound by the treaties it signs. There simply is no way to argue against investigations and prosecutions (and no way to argue that we should use torture-obtained evidence against Guantanamo detainees) without fully rejecting all of those principles.

We'll see. If Obama's administration follows the law, instead of hiding lawlessnes behind such slogans as looking to the future and not the past (an approach that is offered when powerful law breakers are involved but not the rest of us), then I will let Obama explain to me what he means by 'fixing' Social Security.