Say it ain't so ..

Was Binyam Mohamed brutalized at Guantanamo in the last month?

There's no reason to believe this report is not true. The US has no credibility left in these matters. Obama has to do more than tweak the edges of the US's illegal and immoral behavior.

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Today's QUOTES:

Out with the Bush World, In with the Obama World. "Anonymous sources, secret meetings, and zero tranparency. Change we can believe in?" --Comment by JClausen to post 'Social Security: White House Triangulates Against Pete Peterson' by Jane Hamsher, firedoglake.com "If we're embarking on a new effort to convince the public that government can work, you don't start by bragging about starving it of resources. You can't win a fight with Republicans about cutting taxes. It's a race to the bottom and the losers are the least of society." --Giving Away The Tax Argument by dday, Hullabaloo

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Biotechnology companies don't want independent studies of their products ...

Who could have expected that the private gene manipulating companies would insist on prohibiting any study of their products not controlled by themselves? Couldn't be that they are afraid of the results and want to be in a position to censor any results they don't like?

Crop Scientists Say Biotechnology Seed Companies Are Thwarting Research.

"The growers’ agreement from Syngenta not only prohibits research in general but specifically says a seed buyer cannot compare Syngenta’s product with any rival crop. ...
[ ... ]
"Dr. Shields of Cornell said financing for agricultural research had gradually shifted from the public sector to the private sector. That makes many scientists at universities dependent on financing or technical cooperation from the big seed companies. “People are afraid of being blacklisted,” he said. “If your sole job is to work on corn insects and you need the latest corn varieties and the companies decide not to give it to you, you can’t do your job".”

In other words, just eat our genetically modified foodstuffs and be quiet while our experiment on the world works itself out.

I can see why some could start thinking that 'private sector' business is a problem when these private sector entities exert such potentially pernicious control over our food supply (not to mention private sector control of 'health care' that focuses on extreme profits rather than actual health issues and private sector manufacturing of toys and kitchen products that leach harmful chemicals and, and, and ...)

Of course, regulations and oversight, did at one time alleviate some private sector excesses. It would be encouraging to see a move in a direction of balance between the welfare of the many and the profit of the few.

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Added: A genetic engineering company prohibiting the study of its gene manipulated seeds is like a car manufacturer prohibiting anyone or any organization (eg Consumer Reports) testing vehicles which they purchase and reporting the results to the public on the characteristics of these vehicles. When you buy a vehicle, you don't sign a contract that prohibits you from learning about the product you just bought! Not that the manufacturers wouldn't like such an environment (one of the Japanese manufacturers did try to stop CR's reporting negative information about their products).

Congress needs to step in. Companies that effect the food supply must not be able to make up the rules to suit their own selfish interests.

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Today's QUOTES:

What the Daddy party, remember that Republican self assigned moniker, has turned into: If this is “daddy,” it’s the dad on the billboard who owes 10 years’ worth of child support and who bears facial scars from the misfortune of being hunched over the meth lab when it exploded. --ROLE REVERSAL by Ed, ginandtacos.com Banksters are indignant that they actually have to be accountable to anyone. They'd rather have to lay off entire floors of office workers than have to give back their precious penthouses. It's a very elite perspective. --How Dare You Hand Me $25 Billion Dollars! by dday, Hullabaloo ... One of the things that creeps me out about the political system’s response to the crisis so far – the insolvency of the banking system in particular – are the increasingly desperate attempts to maintain a phony façade of free markets and private enterprise, in an economy now utterly dependent on the federal safety net. I totally expected that from Hank Paulson and the Cheney Administration, but is Obama’s financial team really pressed from exactly the same Wall Street mold? [...] It’s not a good sign when societies routinely lie to themselves about such big, fundamental truths, which in turn suggests that toxic assets may not be the poison we most need to worry about ... --Chocolate Covered Cotton by billmon, dailykos.com

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Worth listening to ...

Phone conference call with some real information about SS, as opposed to most media idiots' and even most of Obama administration idiots' gibberish:

Economists, Hickey Discuss Fiscal Responsibility Summit

Participants: "Roger Hickey, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future, was James Galbraith, economist and professor at the University of Texas at Austin; Nancy Altman, former top assistant to Alan Greenspan on the 1983 Social Security Commission; and Dean Baker, co- director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research."

The point is: We don't have an entitlement crisis, we have a health care crisis. It does not appear that Obama's administration, or even Obama, understands this. Or they are deliberately misleading us!

My question: Why does Obama keep choosing those who failed, big time, as his advisors. There's something really wrong with Obama's personnel and advisor choices. Unless he believes in almost nothing that he campaigned on so effectively!

Oh, and another question: Why this, more or less, secret summit with secret participants? If it's not intended to be partially hidden until after-the-fact, why is the information about it coming out in dribbles, drabs and leaks?

Idiots, Social Security needs to be raised ...

Social Security needs to be raised, not cut. It has been repeatedly 'cut' by playing games with the cost of living figure the government manipulates into meaninglessness. It's been effectively cut by making sure some of the work history for certain groups do not count in figuring out how much SS time they have accumulated.

I addition, the retirement age should not be increased. Are the idiots in Washington even capable of understanding that those who work at physically strenuous jobs for most of their lives may need to retire earlier, certainly not later.

Instead taking away from the people who do the work in this country what any fair and honest administration would be doing is review all the ways that SS recipients have been cheated over the years and straighten out those inequities.

But go ahead. Transfer the rest of this country's wealth to your Robber Baron friends who work so hard at their long lunches and golf course trysts. No one else matters except for paying taxes and contributing millions of small donations to your coffers. While you're at it, why not start a few more wars --the media's missing all that shock and awe-- to keep the yokels entertained. See how long the country survives; after all Bushie-baby was just so very successful with this approach. He'll be written up in the history books for years for being one of the most successful Presidents in US history --successful, that is, at utter destruction, both here and abroad. Just look around. He did just fine, follow in his footsteps and accomplish what he couldn't by putting one more nail in the SS coffin, and a lot more in the US chances of survival as a respected and effective world leader ...

Keep it up. Whereas bin Laden was probably surprised, pleasantly, that George Bush's reaction to 9/11 was tailored to increasing terrorism around the world, Bush and his evil sidekick have been predicting that Obama would follow in their footsteps. And so far, in some areas they have been right on. How long Obama can get away with turning everything he said into a lie, I don't know. Cocktails for heads of so-called 'progressive' organizations seem a poor substitute for progressive actions. But what do I know.

Party on ...

Bailed-Out Chase CEO Dimon: People Should Pay Mortgages "Even If They're Underwater"

Where were those guillotines stored?

Good question ...

What will it take?

One of the worst of the worst ...

The Definition of Smug

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Today's QUOTES:

On a brighter note, the public seems to be hanging in with Obama, which is very good news: [...] I would imagine this is because, unlike the Republicans, whose personal fortunes are all tied up in the economy failing, the rest of the country is quite anxious that the economy bounce back and they see Obama as being the best hope to lead that effort. And watching the Republicans acting like clowns, I have a feeling that impression is solidifying. --Fortunes by digby, Hullabaloo ... It would be unpatriotic and a sign that you don't support the troops to even ponder why we should keep spending trillions on a war that was fought for no good reason. "Fiscal responsibility" only applies to government programs that directly help Americans. --It's Not Over by digby, Hullabaloo ... thank goodness we have such big hearted and trustworthy people deciding which people are just too dangerous to be allowed their human rights or somebody might get the idea that the rule of law doesn't mean anything more than the paper its written on. --The Day In Torture by digby, Hullabaloo There are people who believe that Barack Obama is kind, just and good, and thus are going to have a hard time believing that he's embracing some of the most abusive Bush/Cheney policies even when he does it right in front of their faces. ... --Charlie Savage on Obama's embrace of Bush/Cheney "terrorism policies" by Glenn Greenwald, salon.com

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Have we?

"That we have fallen so far that decency surprises? That should give us substantial pause. "

This made me cry, literally [emphasis added] ...

Unlike the staff at Abu Ghraib, the brig staff had been trained for the job. Their mission, as they saw it, was to run a safe, professional, and humane prison, regardless of who was held there. It was the political appointees in Washington, at the Pentagon and the Department of Justice, who wanted Marri to be kept in prolonged isolation. In 2005, Savage discovered that the head of security at the brig, Air Force Major Chris Ferry, “would stay all night with Marri. He’d go down to the brig and sit with him, and tell him to hold on. Chris was there at three in the morning, on the darkest nights.”...

An official, doing his job, and still behaving as a human being and not one of the BushCo monsters who were, apparently, so readily available from all professions: soldiers, sailors, marines, CIA, FBI, police, firemen, doctors, lawyers, psychiatrists (and if Obama continues to grasp more and more of the Bush/Cheney policies, soon to be ObamaCo monsters).

Apparently ...

... Obama, after taking his oath to defend the Constitution, pursues a goal of protecting the office of the President from any diminution in the unconstitutional powers grabbed by Bush and Cheney.

So much for intelligence and education. What the stupid, petulant bully acquired, Obama wants.

Is there anything Obama has not lied about?

If Obama only works with the enemies of the people ...

... (and friends of the wealthy Robber Barons of the financial world), does that make Obama our enemy?

Social Security, Medicare Reform to Get an “Up or Down” Vote

You tell me! All sign are that Obama plans to allow the people that destroyed the financial world keep their wealth, but plans to come after seniors and the sick.

No national health care. Instead Obama is going to add injury to injury. My parents paid for their parents SS. I paid for my parents SS AND I paid in advance extra for my own SS because of the boomers. But now, this social contract has all of a sudden turned into something called an 'entitlement.' Not an investment. The Robber Barons already eliminated our investments. And as we know the only ones entitled to 'entitlements' are the wealthy Robber Barons. And it appears that Obama likes it that way.

Liar, liar, Obama's pants are on fire. (Hehe. Silly but temporarily satisfying. It's one of those things I never would has said to a person face to face ...)

Warning ...

The Republicans of 'no' are close to destroying California. After all they've been working on this for many years.

digby on the Land Of Fruits And Nuts
"If Cali goes down, it's going to take a lot of the rest of the country with it. This is no joke."

CALITICS:

Media Finally Calls BS On Republicans

by: Robert in Monterey

Mon Feb 16, 2009 at 08:57:07 AM PST

The weekend madness in Sacramento, product of the California Republican Party and its persistent refusal to accept reality, has finally led much of what remains of the media in California to call bullshit on their obstructionism. Even high Broderists like George Skelton, who usually find a way to avoid saying it's all the Republicans' fault, today finally comes around in an excellent column that destroys the Republican notion that we can close the gap without new taxes: ...

What? ...

TPM has the following paragraph up on its front page. (Note: Once you follow the link, the heading and text differ from the lead on the first page. This is a cutesy approach and a particularly annoying format)

Exec Pay Limits Make It In Stimulus -- But Will Obama Enforce Them?

Surmounting a fierce lobbying effort -- led by, among others, Tim Geithner and Larry Summers -- Congressional Dems were able to maintain one executive pay limitation plan in the stimulus. But President Obama could still issue a signing statement essentially nixing the provision -- or simply stall on implementation. [emphasis added]

Notice how casually they are implying that they expect Obama to follow in Bush's footsteps. This is not the only example. On the issue of Karl Rove's testimony Jim White at firedoglake.com writes "the conflict here is between "truth" and the "institution of the presidency", at least in the eyes of Obama's administration. Obama and/or his representatives are confused.

Obama was hired to set things right, not to defend the imperial Presidency.

The more important the issue, the more the media treat it like a teenager's game and thereby enabling the wrong behavior.

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 difference ...

... is the ability to learn when presented with new information. Even more, the difference is an open mindedness to new knowledge and even a seeking out of what might yet be knowable.

The post that set me to write the above convoluted sentence is The Road Goes Ever Onward. The title entices, the post demonstrates an open and enquiring mind. The subject matter (of the post) is also of interest.

An article to read ...

[emphasis added]

Conservatism Is Dead by Sam Tanenhaus
An intellectual autopsy of the movement.

"What conservatives have yet to do is confront the large but inescapable truth that movement conservatism is exhausted and quite possibly dead. And yet they should, because the death of movement politics can only be a boon to the right, since it has been clear for some time the movement is profoundly and defiantly un-conservative--in its ideas, arguments, strategies, and above all its vision."

[ ... ]

"How did this happen? One reason is that the most intellectually sophisticated founders of postwar conservatism were in many instances ex-Marxists, who moved from left to right but remained persuaded that they were living in revolutionary times and so retained their absolutist fervor. In place of the Marxist dialectic they formulated a Manichaean politics of good and evil, still with us today, and their strategy was to build a movement based on organizing cultural antagonisms. Many have observed that movement politics most clearly defines itself not by what it yearns to conserve but by what it longs to destroy ... "

[ ... ]

"How did this happen? One reason is that the most intellectually sophisticated founders of postwar conservatism were in many instances ex-Marxists, who moved from left to right but remained persuaded that they were living in revolutionary times and so retained their absolutist fervor. In place of the Marxist dialectic they formulated a Manichaean politics of good and evil, still with us today, and their strategy was to build a movement based on organizing cultural antagonisms. Many have observed that movement politics most clearly defines itself not by what it yearns to conserve but by what it longs to destroy ... "

Read the entire article here.