Re: Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.
 

I agree with this. Unfortunately, including the last few words.

Re: Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.
 

3.

One of the more tragic victims of the tea party was McCain's honor, which he pandered away to the loonies as fast as he could during the Presidential race. It's nice to see him recovering some of it.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Unfortunately, that is not going to happen. Given that?

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Courts have recognized that torture violates customary international law. The US not prosecuting admitted torture undermines the argument that torture is recognized universally as illegal.

A pardon says this president thought what you did was illegal. Doing nothing says perhaps this president does not, which is affirmatively what the prior president and his advisers asserted.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Or, you know, just interrogated without the torture, which is where they gave up all of the useful information they provided anyway.

Or is torture just punishment for being "enemies? If so, how do you justify all the completely innocent people who were tortured?

Re: Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.
 

This is not true. I'm with Ty. The right seems to only find its compassionate side when they have some sort of personal connection.

Fuck John McCain. The only issue on which he's ever avoided taking both sides is the one he personally suffered through. He's a fucking clown who wanted to be President so bad that he completely sold out all of his principles and foisted fucking Sarah Palin on us for all of eternity. And to this day he refuses to admit what a craven, desperate move that was and talks about her like she actually has any value at all.

You must be completely kidding. You're giving this asshole credit because on the one issue that is extremely personal and important to him because he was actually fucking tortured, he is willing to say that he's against torture? That's a joke right? You're impressed because you've been so programmed that you think that not falling completely in line with the GOP's strategy of shitting all over Obama no matter what the issue makes speaking out against torture somehow an act of bravery?

I suppose if he said cops shouldn't kill unarmed people he should win the Congressional Medal of Freedom?

What a patriot.

This is the only sensible thing you've said in this post.

TM

[eta: Just to be clear, it was Not Bob who said all of this (except the first line)]

Re: Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.
 

I cannot believe I am going to defend John McCain, since he's someone who willingly chose, eyes wide open, to pander to some of the vilest scum in politics today, but I'd also give him McCain-Feingold as a place where he took a position that wasn't wholly self-interested and showed some spine. Even if he later self-eviscerated the spine and bronzed it to put on Sarah Palin's mantle.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

You know my dream? That the US would willingly turn the torturers over to the Hague and make an example to show that international law can work. If Obama did that, he'd have more than earned that nobel prize sitting on his mantle.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

You're going to give the Uber thugs a NYC taxi medallion? Is this some sort of meta-thing?

Torture them.

Re: Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.
 

Yes. That law's ban on soft money with the giant, gaping goatse-shaped hole sure changed campaign contributions for the better.

TM

Re: Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.
 

The point wasn't proffered to support the idea that McCain is capable. Frankly, he doesn't seem all that bright to me.

Re: Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.
 

I understand. Your post just reminded me that I find nothing about the man impressive.

TM

Re: Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.
 

I don't mean to do McCain a disservice -- I am really just appalled by all of the Republicans who made this a partisan issue by staying silent. I can't believe none of them agree with McCain, and yet they don't have the principles to speak up. This is so obviously not an issue where Democrats have political upside, but the same is not true on the GOP side. It's just revolting.

Re: Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.
 

The authoritarian mindset is OK with what you describe, because it's necessary in the perpetual war in which we find ourselves. Anyone who gets on the wrong side of the state and find themselves a victim must have done something wrong. It's important to keep believing that one can control one's own fate, preferably by open carry, and facts which might suggest otherwise must be dealt with harshly.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Issuing a pardon says that the president thinks what you did might be illegal. It also says that president thinks you deserve a pardon despite torturing people. The latter message will be far more resounding.

I don't advocate doing nothing. I would rather we prosecute. If not, then state a good reason why we are not prosecuting. But to pardon people for torturing, when they do not admit it was a crime? That would horrify me.



Query: What happens if some true believer says "I decline the President's pardon, as I did not commit a crime."? That would be awfully interesting, in a bad way, and I suspect he'd have right-wingers lining up to provide his defense.

Re: Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.
 

When you say it this way, it suggests that our standards with respect to Republicans have fallen awfully, awfully low.

Re: Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.
 

Leaving your disdain for McCain aside, I'll respond to you first point.

In my experience, people of all classes and ideologies have their views change as a result of what happens to them or their family members/friends. The old saw I repeated about neocons being liberals who have been mugged is based on this. Norman Podhoretz, Midge Decter, and the Commentary crowd went from liberal to conservative in part because of how the decline of NYC (crime, taxes, and social issues) (Podhoretz wrote a book on race in the mid-sixties that can generously be described as offensive) in the 1960s affected them and their families.

My formerly dope smoking friend is active in opposing medical marihuana laws because his kid went from pot to crack in high school and is now in NA. My cousin the banker who went to school on Pell Grants and federal loans, complains about taxes and when I call him on it, says that not everyone should go to college and "it wouldn't kill these young slackers to work for minimum wage for a few years to save for school." My close friend's wife who went to magnet public schools campaigns to cut the school board budget and for the state to give more money to charters instead.

But maybe I'm wrong.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

I'm still trying to understand the rationale for a pardon. Is it limited to that issuing a pardon says that the current president believes the conduct is illegal?

If that's the rationale, then should Obama also pardon the cop who murdered Garner?



Or do you believe that a pardon is actually justified here? I don't think you do, because you say you think they should be prosecuted.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

As much consideration and dignity as we would expect a democratic nation that respects the dignity of a person qua person. What the CIA did (and is still doing) drags us into the deep pond, where the blackest, oiliest slime resides.

Failing that, we should have given the as good treatment as we want for our soldiers, not to mention civilian hostages.

Re: Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.
 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with having your views change as a result of what happens to you or your family members. I am much more interested in pedestrian safety than I was a few years ago. The problem with McCain and many other Republicans is the complete lack of empathy unless and until they or someone they love has been personally affected by something. Bravo to McCain for opposing torture. Where are other Republicans? And where is he on a host of other issues where people unlike him get screwed?

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Don't pardon them. Appoint a special prosecutor (from the ICJ) and let the cases be filed where the prosecutor can make a case. Including w/r/t the current White House occupant.

I would take the same approach to the drone program.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Sorry I think the CIA methods are appropriate ways of dealing with coworkers who fail to shepardize or who ask me questions before checking google.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

And his performance has established that, even if he thinks it was wrong when his predecessor did it, it's okay when he does it. Because he thinks real hard before he decides to have someone murdered.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Come on, Adder. They did it because it was fun. That's why they kept doing it and doing it. Even after they ran out of suspects.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

2.

Of course, he won't, not the least because he's as guilty as Bush was, and probably still is.

Can it be that it was all so simple then?
 

Shepardize? I miss the old days - bound volume, soft cover, then newsprint.

Oh, and Less replying to a Paigow question with this:

http://justfuckinggoogleit.com/images/bart.gif

Re: Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.
 

"If they had done nothing wrong, they wouldn't be defendants."
- Ed Meese

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

A pardon can say pretty much what the President wants it to say, other than a pardon for acts not yet committed. Ford's pardon of Nixon basically pardoned him for everything he did in the White House or while running in the 1972 campaign. It swept in Cambodia, Laos (you know, other states the US has unlawfully bombed in my lifetime), the IRS audit program he set up, the other illegal surveillance he did against his "enemies."

If rendered on a timely enough basis, it can keep certain facts from coming to light at trial, whether the person being pardoned is convicted or not.

Re: Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.
 

This is completely non-responsive. The fact that personal experiences tend to change people is not in dispute. The fact that Republicans somehow are only capable of feeling empathy for anyone because they or a close family member has experienced something identical, is. Although it shouldn't be because that's the way they are.

Or maybe you just don't understand the original point. If you're telling me that, for example, people are only capable of feeling empathy for gays who suffer second class citizenship if they have a daughter who is gay, then I'll say you are insane. Yet, time after time, this is exactly what happens to GOP congressmen and senators. They do not feel empathy (and worse yet, actively work to keep gays as second class citizens) until they actually have the exact experience at issue. Do you see why your laundry list of examples above does apply to the conversation?

TM

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Oh, shit. I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were talking about minions who don't shepardize. Set their nads aflame to re-heat your lunch.

Re: Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.
 

I guess I am just obtuse. I do think less of McCain since 2008 and his generally unremitting hostility to anything Obama says or does, and that is one of the reasons that I think his speech on the senate floor almost immediately after the report was issued was important. I get your point, and I don't think it makes up for Sarah Palin, but that doesn't mean it wasn't also a principled and brave (for DC and GOP politics) thing for him to do.

I think that people can become more and less empathetic based upon their own experiences. Dick Cheney becomes pro-gay marriage because of his daughter while my formerly liberal cousin leads the push to ban food donations downtown because a homeless person took a dump in the parking garage of the building he works at. I think that is responsive to what you and Ty are saying - it isn't just about conservatives changing to become nice because their kid got cancer. Liberals become less empathetic because their kid didn't get accepted at Princeton.

Does it seem like a disproportionate number of the "compassionate" on a single issue Republicans have a personal connection to the issue they are "compassionate" about? Sure.

But not all. Before 9/11, W's signature social policy agenda item was No Child Left Behind, a well-intentioned (if misguided) sweeping reform of education he worked on with Ted Kennedy that was supposed to benefit poor students of color. His own white kids were hardly poor and were busy partying at UT and (I think) Yale at the time, and I don't think there was any relative or family member of his that he was helping. He may have been an unthinking lazy frat bro of a president (and governor - recall his mocking of Karla Faye Tucker after her execution), but I think his concern for poor students of color was real and not motivated in the same way Cheney's concern for gay rights is.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Resounding with whom? Establishing that the US tortured and did not treat it as illegal, even asserting it was legal, has potential (if mostly somewhat academic) effects, as reflected by the executive director of the ACLU arguing in the New York Times that a pardon is better than doing nothing.

Me too, but it sure looks like we're not going to do that.

Maybe a detailed explanation of how this really is criminal behavior but we're not going to prosecute it because reasons would have the same effect as the pardons. Don't know.

I do think if the pardon proposal is at all on the table it should come with details and naming names, and explain the reasons for the pardon (i.e., actions taken in good faith our of concern for the national defense against an insidious enemy and in the course of executing official duties).

I don't think you can make any government prosecute you, so I think declining would be irrelevant.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

To have an official statement that the executive believes that this conduct is illegal, so as not to undermine the recognized norm of torture violating international customary law, but stating the reasons for not prosecuting.

Or, as the executive director of the ACLU put it in the NYT:

I don't know what that means. A pardon is entirely within the discretion of the executive. I would prefer prosecution, but I think its an interesting question as to whether a pardon is better than continuing to decline to prosecute. The two things have exactly that same effect on the offenders.

Re: Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.
 

You give Bush too little credit. By 9/11 he was already working on his first recession and had his first round of tax cuts, all part of realigning the budget and economy to serve the wealthy. So it's not just passing a bill that put in place backwards educational policy in exchange for promised funding for poor kids that he subsequently gutted that defined his agenda.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

I don't think there is U.S. legislation that provides for a special prosecutor and I'm even more certain that the U.S. is not a party to the treaty that would be required to give the ICJ jurisdiction.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

We aren't a signatory to the ICJ compact. We agreed to its establishment but refused to submit to its jurisdiction. The President is given great latitude in hiring the people he needs to perform the executive function; he can hire any damn lawyer he pleases, presumably as long as that lawyer is admitted in the US.

My point wasn't the they should be tried in the ICJ. That is a ridiculous notion. What I meant, and this is equally ridiculous, is that at the very least the investigation and prosecution, if any, ought to be conducted by someone who has experience in the area and won't be impressed with the "baby in the elevator" bullshit G always drags out when it gets caught doing bad things.

Re: Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.
 

The member of our household that holds a poli sci grad degree tells me there is research that backs up this observation about conservatives and empathy (also that may suggests a genetic component, I'm told).

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

A pardon can say what the President wants it to say. But it cannot mean what the President wants it to mean.

If Obama pardons torturers, that will be another reason why Muslims can hate the US. Torture a Muslim, get a pardon? It will be a shameful act. It will be an affirmative statement that the US forgives Americans of war crimes.

It will not, however, mean that any future President will, or will be required to, see torture as a crime. Seriously, if Jimmy Carter had pardoned -- or, hell, even prosecuted -- American torturers, would that have changed what Bush and Cheney said about torture? (Come to think of it -- remember that one argument against Bush et al was to show that Americans had prosecuted Japanese for water-boarding? Yeah, that precedent meant a lot to W....)

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

What is your answer to that interesting question?

My answer is that the affirmative statement, that the President forgives Americans who tortured Muslims, is not "better" in any way.

As for "the same effect," yes, if we are operating under the assumption that no future president will have the balls to prosecute. Which is probably a safe assumption, but still -- I don't see a good reason for this President to say "what you did -- it was a crime, but it's okay, and even if my successor wants to prosecute you I intend to prevent that from happening"?

I would rather the President say "it was a crime, but so much time has passed that we cannot realistically prosecute because, um -- hey!!! Is that the Pope?!?!"

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

I had hoped my Nixon example might have made what I was trying to say. I guess I was still unclear. At the time Nixon resigned, the House was set to vote to impeach him. He had not yet been charged with any crimes. Ford basically wrote a get out of jail free card for any existing or future prosecutions of anything he did in office, as well as his activities w/CREEP. When I said a pardon can say what it wants to say, I meant the President can pardon a person for crimes which have been tried and they were found guilty, crimes for which they have been charged but are not yet ready for trial, and for acts that may or may not have come to light and may or may not be crimes.