Catfish Wallow

03-25-09

Why the survival of our Constitutional Democracy may hinge on factually justified criminal prosecutions of the Bush/Cheney cabal (bradblog) ""It will remain one of democracy's best jokes that it provided its deadly enemies with the means by which it was destroyed." - Joseph Goebbels" -- "existing treaties, which the president is obligated to enforce, mandate the commencement of 'an investigation of Bush's torture practices' . . . Unless the rule of law is restored and applied to the Bush/Cheney cabal, the next time around our constitutional democracy could be lost, forever. The survival of the republic mandates nothing less than criminal investigations and prosecutions not only of war crimes and financial crimes but 'crimes against democracy,' an apt phrase that should be applied to voter suppression, illegal manipulation of election results and the attempted misuse of the Justice Department to gain partisan advantage."

Hellhole: Solitary Confinement as Torture (newyorker) "The United States holds tens of thousands of inmates in long-term solitary confinement. Is this torture?"

Another Broken Promise: Combat Brigades Will Stay in Iraq Beyond June 2010, Just Under a New Name (commondreams/ips) "That report suggests that Obama was well aware that giving the Petraeus and Odierno a free hand to determine the composition of a 'transition force' of 35,000 to 50,000 troops meant that most combat brigades would remain in Iraq rather than being withdrawn, as he ostensibly promised the U.S. public on Feb. 27." -- Just can't help wondering whether Obama's hold-over Secretary of War and generals WANT Obama booted out of office in 2012, so are doing everything they can to be sure the public is completely disgusted with him over his Bush-Lite neocon policies and broken promises about getting out of Iraq. Such a big mistake to keep any Bush loyalists around after his inauguration. He certainly has taken a page out of the Bill Clinton playbook: tell them anything they want to hear, then do what you want -- and don't piss off the big guys.

More than two million acres of some of the nation's most important wilderness has finally received protection (congressmatters)

The Geithner Plan’s Unpleasant Consequences (firedoglake) "The end effect will likely be little different than what happened in Japan, with the exceptions that the US may see significant inflation, and that as net importer rather than a net exporter, the US probably can't keep this up for 20 years. Which means that at some point in the future it will either have to default on the debts, inflate them away or have a financial collapse."
Geithner's Bank Plan: Only a Partial Solution (time) "All told, the three plans address about $420 billion in toxic loans and assets that the government hopes to get off the balance sheets of banks. Will that be enough to nurse our nation's biggest banks and financial markets back to health? It's not clear. The plan leaves out tens of billions of dollars in bonds that were never AAA-rated and were hard to sell even in good times. The plan triggered a strongly positive stock-market reaction on Monday, when the Dow Jones industrials soared nearly 500 points. On Tuesday the market slipped 1.5%, as doubts about a speedy bank recovery began to take shape."

Ex-Communicated: Enclosure Landscapes in Palestine (alternatefocus video) -- Good documentary. Stark images of domination. Easy to understand the problem. Israelis have become it's Nazi abusers. As Israel's financial and military benefactor, the U.S. shares culpability for Israeli crimes against Palestinians. It is certainly time to boycott all Israeli goods and divest from investments in all Israeli companies.
Israel Accused of Indiscriminate Phosphorus Use in Gaza (guardian/uk) "Human Rights Watch report claims Israel committed war crimes in its use of air-burst white phosphorus artillery shells"
Lendman: Incriminating Evidence of Israeli War Crimes in Gaza (sjlendman) "Throughout its history, Israel has willfully and repeatedly committed crimes of war and against humanity, always with impunity. Yet under customary legal standards and norms (including Geneva, Hague, the UN Charter, S.C. and G.A. resolutions), it's lawless, a serial abuser, a threat to the region and humanity, mostly as an oppressive occupier. Attacking Gaza is the latest episode in its six-decade reign of terror satisfying the definition of genocide against defenseless Palestinian civilians. This article covers more evidence from some disturbing but unsurprising newly published information."

Obama Channeling Bush on State Secrets Claim (washingtonpost) "Civil liberties advocates are accusing the Obama administration of forsaking campaign rhetoric and adopting the same expansive arguments that his predecessor used to cloak some of the most sensitive intelligence-gathering programs of the Bush White House."

Wednesday, March 25, 2009