Politics Plus

When the Obama administration is wrong, I say so, and this time they could not be more wrong.  Early on, as part of his futile attempts at bipartisanship,  Obama opted not to pursue Bush and his Republican minions as the war criminals they are.  His reasoning was that he thought moving forward without recrimination would attract Republican support for meeting America’s needs.  What a mistake that was.  When rats perceive weakness, they attack as a ravenous pack, and that’s what the Republicans did.  Technically it’s the job of the Attorney General to argue for government, even when the cases arise out of the misdeeds of an earlier presidency.  But he did not have to defend with State Secrets doctrine.  I think that had the full truth been publicly exposed in a court of law, that might well have forced Obama’s hand to honor our treaty obligations and prosecute.  So using State Secrets to cover up the crime was a bigger mistake.  The verdict is in.

T orn between claims of national security and pleas for redress for torture victims, a federal appeals court reluctantly dismissed a lawsuit Wednesday accusing a Bay Area aviation-planning company of arranging CIA flights of suspected terrorists to overseas dungeons.

Although much of the so-called extraordinary rendition program has been publicly disclosed, including the alleged role of Jeppesen Dataplan of San Jose, allowing the suit to proceed "would present an unacceptable risk of disclosing state secrets," the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said in a 6-5 ruling.

The ruling is a victory for both President George W. Bush’s administration, which directed the rendition program and acknowledged its existence, and the Obama administration, which promised to curb the program’s excesses but argued that it was too sensitive to be litigated in court.

The American Civil Liberties Union said it would appeal to the Supreme Court. The high court has refused to review two rulings by other appeals courts dismissing suits against the government by men who said they were abducted by the CIA and flown to foreign torture chambers.

"Not a single victim of the Bush administration’s torture program has had his day in court," ACLU lawyer Ben Wizner said… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Common Dreams>

Keith Olbermann and Jonathan Turley discuss the ramifications of this case.

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Rather than defending this case, Obama should have admitted that he was was wrong, and Prosecuted, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest for war crimes.

This just in!

The state Supreme Court refused to come to the aid of California’s embattled ban on same-sex marriage Wednesday, denying a conservative group’s request to order Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown to appeal a federal judge’s ruling striking down the voter-approved measure.

The state officials’ decision not to argue in support of Proposition 8 has raised questions about whether anyone is legally qualified to defend it in court. The Pacific Justice Institute filed suit last week, arguing that the California Constitution requires Brown to defend the state’s laws.

A state appeals court dismissed the suit without a hearing, and the state’s high court denied review Wednesday without comment.

It will now be up to a federal appeals court, and possibly the U.S. Supreme Court, to decide whether Prop. 8’s sponsors have legal standing…

Inserted from <San Francisco Chronicle>

Congrats to our LGBT friends.

In a brilliant change of direction, Barack Obama ripped into the Republican party yesterday.  Instead of focusing on one of the obvious loons, he singled out the House Minority Leader and would-be Speaker, John Boehner.  This is way past due!

President Obama laid out a sweeping argument for retaining Democrats and punishing Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections, calling on voters Wednesday to reject economic policies advanced by the GOP that he said favor millionaires at the expense of struggling families.

Obama took the unusual step of describing the financial and medical struggles he, First Lady Michelle Obama and their families have faced, personalizing a deeply political debate as he sought to position himself firmly on the side of middle-class families.

The president proposed $180 billion in new construction and tax credits meant to spur investment and research. But the address, at a community college near Cleveland, also represented an intensifying campaign by Obama to discredit Republicans and craft a road map for Democrats confronting a challenging election cycle that may cost them scores of congressional seats.

Obama singled out an Ohio Republican, House Minority Lseader John A. Boehner, an architect of a GOP strategy that Obama said aims to obstruct his agenda and to restore policies from the George W. Bush era, including tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <LA Times>

In response, Republicans proposed a two point plan to help balance the budget.  Cut domestic spending to 2008 levels and freeze taxes at current levels, a plan they called bipartisan.  Bipartisan my ass!  This translates to cut services to the poor and middle classes, and extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich.  This new plan is same as the old plan and will add $hundreds of billions to the deficit.

Ed Schultz and Sen. Byron Dorgan had a field day with this.

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This is the Obama I feared I might never see again.  I hope, at last, that Obama has seen how utterly foolish he was to pursue a bipartisan approach for so long.