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"In that regard, the furor over Obama's complete inaction on gay issues vividly illustrates the same elements that shape political controversies in virtually every other area -- from war to civil liberties to health care and beyond: "

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politics obama civil liberties

It really is that simple.

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ToBlog rumilinks politics torture glenn greenwald

He didn't get the attention he deserved for it, but President Obama was very cleverly fusing liberal principles with an appeal to the basic conservative values of "Old Europe" when, in his 100th-day press conference, he used Winston Churchill to justify his opposition to water-boarding and other "enhanced methods." He told his audience that, even at a time when London was being "bombed to smithereens" and the British government held hundreds of Nazi agents in an internment center, there was a prime-ministerial view that torture was never permissible.

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politics torture barack obama

For years, media stars ignored the fact that our Government was chronically breaking the law and systematically torturing detainees (look at this extremely detailed exposé by The Washington Post's Dana Priest and Barton Gellman from December, 2002 to get a sense for how much we've known about all of this and for how long we've known it). Now that the sheer criminality of this conduct, really for the first time, has exploded into mainstream political debates as a result of the OLC memos, media stars are forced to address it. Exactly as one would expect, they are closing ranks, demanding (as always) that their big powerful political-official-friends and their elite institutions not be subject to the dirty instruments that are meant only for the masses -- things like the rule of law, investigations, prosecutions, and accountability when they abuse their power.

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pollinks politics justice

Amen. "It is becoming increasingly difficult for honest Obama supporters to dismiss away or even minimize these criticisms and, especially, to malign the motives of critics. After all, the Obama DOJ's embrace of many (though by no means all) of the most radical and extremist Bush/Cheney positions -- and the contradictions between Obama's campaign claims and his actions as President -- are now so glaring and severe that the harshest denunciations of Obama's actions are coming from those who, during the Bush years, were held up by liberals and by Obama supporters as the most trustworthy and praiseworthy authorities on these matters"

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pollinks politics barack obama

Last night, Keith Olbermann -- who has undoubtedly been one of the most swooning and often-uncritical admirers of Barack Obama of anyone in the country [...] devoted the first two segments of his show to emphatically lambasting Obama and Eric Holder's DOJ for the story I wrote about on Monday: namely, the Obama administration's use of the radical Bush/Cheney state secrets doctrine and -- worse still -- a brand new claim of "sovereign immunity"

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politics pollinks barack obama keith olbermann doj justice spying

I understand you believe one of the Sun-Times misdemeanors was dropping your syndicated column. My editor informs me that "very few" readers complained about the disappearance of your column, adding, "many more complained about Nancy." I know I did. That was the famous Ernie Bushmiller comic strip in which Sluggo explained that "wow" was "mom" spelled upside-down.

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pollinks politics roger ebert bill o'reilly

The irony now on display among Republicans on the Senate judiciary committee is staggering.

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pollinks politics

Yoo's corrupt opinions are a black mark on the history of American law. They are certain to take their place with the rulings generally considered to be the worst in U.S. history: Dred Scott v. Sandford (which found slavery constitutional), Plessy v. Ferguson (which upheld racial segregation and the "separate but equal" doctrine), Korematsu v. United States (which upheld the incarceration of 110,000 innocent Japanese-Americans during WWII) and Bush v. Gore (in which right-wing justices used an absurd equal-protection argument to hand the presidency to their favored candidate).

In the end, what condemns Yoo most is his arrogant and dismissive attitude toward the law itself -- its logic, its precedents, its purpose. For Yoo, the law is simply a tool to be used to hand power to an omnipotent executive branch, and we must trust in the good faith of that executive branch to use its extra-legal powers properly. This view is the antithesis of both jurisprudence and the American system of government. The law is the last majestic bulwark against the tyranny of men. But in the hands of debased functionaries like Yoo, that great bulwark was eroded.

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pollinks politics justice history

"Our political discourse is so stratified that politicians and pundits can get all the exposure they want while confining themselves to hospitable venues and only speaking to sympathetic journalists. That, as but one example, is what fuels "access journalism" -- the willingness of politicians to speak only to deferential reporters, who stay deferential in order to ensure that those politicians continue to speak with them, a process that perpetuates itself ad infnitum. That has created a virtually complete -- and quite destructive -- accountability-free zone where politicians and pundits alike can simply avoid any form of adversarial questioning or challenges to their claims..."

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pollinks politics journalism msm

Part of the problem is that over the past eight years, Johnsen (whom I know a little and admire a lot) has burnished her academic and professional credentials with punditry, bloggery, and advocacy. This makes her an easy target for criticism. She has spoken out clearly! She has criticized openly! She has used language like "outrage" and "torture" to describe outrages and torture. Curiously enough, nobody on the committee disagrees with these legal conclusions today. They're just mainly bothered that she said them aloud.

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blogging politics techlinks pollinks

Pakistan's military remains more concerned about a conflict with India than about Islamist terror at home. As a result, it accepts Talibanization as a necessary evil, allowing, for example, such changes as women no longer being accepted as customers in restaurants or tailors' shops -- even in Lahore, a liberal major city home to many intellectuals. "The influence of the extremists is being ignored and it's spreading like a virus," observes Gregor Enste, director of the Heinrich Boell Foundation in Lahore.

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pollinks politics pakistan taliban

The political establishment has never come to terms with, and the media establishment just refuses to acknowledge, how deeply unpopular and discredited the GOP is among most Americans in the wake of the eight-year Bush disaster. Political and media elites don't want to acknowledge that because they lent their continuous support for eight years to Republican power, yet -- even with Bush gone -- it's scarcely possible to imagine how a major political party could be held in lower esteem among voters. By huge margins (63-29%), Americans believe the GOP opposed Obama's stimulus package for political reasons, not because they genuinely believed it would be bad for the economy; they overwhelmingly disapprove of Congressional Republicans (38-56%) while approving of Obama (68-25%) and even Congressional Democrats (50-44%); trust Obama over Congressional Republicans to handle the economy (61-26%); and trust Democrats over Republicans "to do a better job in coping with the main problems the nation faces over the next few years" (56-30%). Those are enormous margins.

The punditry's claims that Americans want Democrats to dilute their policies in order to attract and include Republican support is entirely misleading. The endless media stories that Eric Cantor, Michael Steele and Rick Santelli are now riding some resurgent, anti-stimulus GOP wave are pure fiction. And the incessant calls for "bipartisanship" are anti-democratic in the extreme.

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politics pollinks

"Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg."

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pollinks artlinks haruki murakami writers israel politics

"...people like Goldberg are becoming extra rancid and reckless in their rhetoric precisely because they know that these rhetorical devices have ceased working. There is a definite sea change when it comes to American policy debates toward Israel. They no longer possess the ability to stifle dissent through thuggish intimidation tactics and they know that, which is why they can now do nothing but turn up the volume on their name-calling attacks."

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politics pollinks israel rhetoric journalism

"This may be our first epistemologically-driven depression. (Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature and limits of knowledge, with how we know what we think we know.) That is, a large role was played by the failure of the private and corporate actors to understand what they were doing."

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economics politics epistemology artlinks

"There's just no denying that there are substantial and disturbing steps which have been taken. And critically, the primary excuse offered by Obama supporters for all of these actions -- he just needs more time; it's only been three weeks -- is a complete straw man." Amen.

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politics obama civil liberties justice

"What makes this journalistic servitude to the Washington establishment most repellent is that these same pundits generally -- and David Brooks in particular -- endlessly hold themselves out as the Spokespeople of the Ordinary American, even as they work tirelessly to protect the Washington political class from their beliefs, interests and sentiments. That's how people like David Brooks pile media deceit ("we speak for ordinary Americans") on top of political deceit (we view campaign commitments as "blather" to keep the masses satiated and quiet)."

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politics journalism rhetoric msm

Scary... the Left has their own problems, but where is the even remotely mainstream Lefty equivalent of this kind of horror show?

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politics rhetoric language

I completely agree: "A truth commission is a good idea. But unlikely. Instead Obama should grant immunity to those who publicly testify about torture and spying."

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politics barack obama george w bush