Psyche, Science, and Society

Keep America Afraid: The Cheneys

Human Right First has two videos on the Cheney & Cheney campaign to Keep America Afraid (TMT):

Add comment March 8th, 2010

Scoundrel Time: Rachel Maddow on the Al Qaeda Everyone

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And then this followup:

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March 6th, 2010

Justice Department protects the torture lawyers, persecutes the ethical

February 24th, 2010

Why Obama dropped the “public option”

Miles Mogulescu in Huffington Post explains The Real Reason Obama’s Plan Doesn’t Include a Public Option:

The real reason is that Obama made a backroom deal last summer with the for-profit hospital industry that there would be no meaningful public option….

s is one of the great under-reported stories of the health reform saga. Much has been written about the Obama administration’s deal with big Pharma to continue to block Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices or to allow consumers to buy cheaper drugs from Canada, in exchange for Pharma running pro-Democratic ads and giving campaign contributions to Democratic candidates. That’s the reason, under pressure from the White House, that Senate Democrats voted down an amendment that would have allowed consumers to buy cheaper drugs from overseas.But Obama’s deal with the for-profit hospital lobby to insure there would be no public option has, as best I can tell, only been reported in two articles in The New York Times. On August 13, The Times reported that while President Obama had presented himself as “aloof from the legislative fray,” particularly in connection with the public option, “Behind the scenes, however, Mr. Obama and advisors have been…negotiating deals with a degree of cold-eyed political realism potentially at odds with the president’s rhetoric.” One the deals reported in The Times article was the Pharma deal. The other was a deal with the for-profit hospital lobby to limit its cost reductions to $155 billion over 10 years in exchange for a White House promise that there would be no meaningful public option.

According to The Times:

“Several hospital lobbyists involved in the White House deals said it was understood as a condition of their support that the final legislation would not include a government-run health plan paying-Medicare rates…or controlled by the secretary of health and human services. ‘We have an agreement with the White House that I’m very confident will be seen all the way through conference’, one of the industry lobbyists, Chip Kahn, director of the Federation of American Hospitals, told a Capitol Hill newsletter…Industry lobbyists say they are not worried [about a public option.] ‘We trust the White House,’ Mr. Kahn said.”

Mr. Kahn’s lobbying group, with whom the White House made the deal, represents America’s investor-owned, hospitals whose profits could be diminished by a public option with the negotiating clout to negotiate lower prices. To say that the deal included ensuring that any public option would not be “controlled by the secretary of health and human services” is code for saying it would not be national in scope and would lack negotiating clout–In other words, the Obama administration made a deal that a national public option on day one comparable to Medicare was off the table.

On September 9, a few weeks after The Times reported Obama’s deal to gut the public option, President Obama gave his big health care speech to a Joint Session of Congress. In the speech, Obama said one of the programs he was considering was a “not-for-profit public option available in the insurance exchange.” Supporters of the public option took this as a sign that Obama was on their side.

But Washington insiders noticed that Obama parsed his words very carefully. The New York Times noted that:

“Mr. Obama’s call for a public plan, however, omitted any discussion of what rates it might pay or who might control it…’He worded it really carefully, because he said ‘not for profit’ and he didn’t say it had to be controlled by the government,’ Mr. Kahn [the hospital lobbyist] added. ‘The way he described it, we could support that!”

In other words, Obama signaled the private health care industry that his deal that there would be no meaningful public option still stood.

February 23rd, 2010

Simon Johnson of Obama defending bank bonuses

UPDATED: After the Democratic loss in the Massachusetts Senate race, President Obama played faux populist for a few hours [OK, days]. But that was so two weeks ago. Wall Street threatened to give their campaign contributions to the party that has more reliably served their interests, the Republicans. Obama got the message and is now defensive outrageous [taxpayer-funded] bonuses for executives of banks deemed “too big to fail.”

Paul Krugman’s response:

Oh. My. God.

He then explains:

[N]ot only has the financial industry has been bailed out with taxpayer commitments; it continues to rely on a taxpayer backstop for its stability. Don’t take it from me, take it from the rating agencies:

The planned overhaul of US financial rules prompted Standard & Poor’s to warn on Tuesday it might downgrade the credit ratings of Citigroup and Bank of America on concerns that the shake-up would make it less likely that the banks would be bailed out by US taxpayers if they ran into trouble again.

The point is that these bank executives are not free agents who are earning big bucks in fair competition; they run companies that are essentially wards of the state. There’s good reason to feel outraged at the growing appearance that we’re running a system of lemon socialism, in which losses are public but gains are private. And at the very least, you would think that Obama would understand the importance of acknowledging public anger over what’s happening.

But no. If the Bloomberg story is to be believed, Obama thinks his key to electoral success is to trumpet “the influence corporate leaders have had on his economic policies.”

We’re doomed.

Simon Jenkins at Huffington Post is similarly outraged:

Obama Still Doesn’t Get It

By Simon Johnson

Bloomberg today reports President Obama as commenting on the $17 million bonus for Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase and the $9 million bonus for Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs,

I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen,

and

I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free- market system.

Taken separately, these statements are undeniably true. But put them together in the context of the Bloomberg story – we have to wait until Friday for the full text of the interview – and the White House has a major public relations disaster on its hands. [UPDATE: See the complete exchange below.]

Does the president truly not understand that Dimon and Blankfein run banks that are regarded by policymakers and hence by credit markets as “too big to fail”?

This is the antithesis of a free-market system. Not only were their banks saved by government action in 2008-09 but the overly generous nature of this bailout (details here) means that the playing field is now massively tilted in favor of these banks. (I put this to Gerry Corrigan of Goldman and Barry Zubrow of JP Morgan when we appeared before the Senate Banking Committee last week; there was no effective rejoinder.)

Not only that, but the incentives for the people running these megabanks is now to take on reckless amounts of risk. They get the upside (for example, in these compensation packages) and – when the downside materializes – this belongs to taxpayers and everyone who loses a job. (See my testimony to the Senate Budget Committee yesterday; there was no disagreement among the witnesses or even across the aisle between Senators on this point.)

Being nice to the biggest banks will not save the midterm elections for the Democrats. The banks’ campaign contributions will flow increasingly to the Republicans and against any Democrats (and there are precious few) who have fought for real reform.

The president’s only political chance is to take on the too big to fail banks directly and clearly. He needs to explain where they came from (answer: the Reagan Revolution, gone wrong), how the problem became much worse during the last administration, and how – in credible detail – he will end their reign.

What we have now is not a free market. It is rather one of the most complete (and awful) instances ever of savvy businessmen capturing a state and the minds of the people who run it. Is this really what the president seeks to endorse?

* * * *The transcript of Obama’s exchange on bonuses:

Q Let’s talk bonuses for a minute: Lloyd Blankfein, $9 million; Jamie Dimon, $17 million. Now, granted, those were in stock and less than what some had expected. But are those numbers okay?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, look, first of all, I know both those guys. They’re very savvy businessmen. And I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That’s part of the free market system. I do think that the compensation packages that we’ve seen over the last decade at least have not matched up always to performance. I think that shareholders oftentimes have not had any significant say in the pay structures for CEOs.

Q Seventeen million dollars is a lot for Main Street to stomach.

THE PRESIDENT: Listen, $17 million is an extraordinary amount of money. Of course, there are some baseball players who are making more than that who don’t get to the World Series either. So I’m shocked by that as well. I guess the main principle we want to promote is a simple principle of “say on pay,” that shareholders have a chance to actually scrutinize what CEOs are getting paid. And I think that serves as a restraint and helps align performance with pay. The other thing we do think is the more that pay comes in the form of stock that requires proven performance over a certain period of time as opposed to quarterly earnings is a fairer way of measuring CEOs’ success and ultimately will make the performance of American businesses better.

February 10th, 2010

Obama’s torture scorecard

North Carolina Stop Torture Now has published a Torture Scorecard for the Obama administration. [Available as a nice pdf here.] Unfortunately, it makes clear how disastrous the Obama administration has been for the cause of human rights and accountability.

BTW, I will be speaking on Psychology of denial and accountability  at the Stop Torture Now conference: Weaving a Net of Accountability: Taking on extraordinary rendition at the state and regional level, April 8-10.]:

Obama’s torture scorecard
A tortured record

President Barack Obama has failed to renounce extraordinary rendition of terrorism suspects—and has yet to hold the Bush and his administration accountable for torturing prisoners.

That’s the message from N.C. Stop Torture Now, which compiled this scorecard to grade the Obama administration on its efforts to curb human rights violations.

The group’s calls for investigations into the role of North Carolina companies in renditions and torture have been stonewalled by state and federal officials, who contend “it’s somebody’s else’s job,” says Christina Cowger, spokesperson for N.C. Stop Torture Now.

It plans to ask the state to create a commission that could call witnesses, compile and request public documents and create an official record of what has transpired in North Carolina.

Positives:

• Banned the use of torture in interrogations. [read report]
• Ordered closure of CIA-administered secret prisons. [read report]
• Ordered release of some torture memos written by previous administration officials. [read report]

Negatives:

• Failed to keep a commitment to close the Guantánamo prison camp by January 23, 2010.
• Is weighing a Department of Justice recommendation to continue holding detainees indefinitely, without charge, and with no opportunity to challenge their detention. [read report]
• Continues to capture and send individuals to a secret prison facility in Afghanistan, refusing the prisoners any right to challenge their detention and blocking the International Committee of the Red Cross from monitoring their condition and treatment. [read report]
• Opposed or blocked legal actions aimed at gaining release of torture evidence, including a public commitment to release photographs of U.S. personnel engaging in torture of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan. [read report]
• Worked to deny restorative justice to victims and survivors of U.S. torture, by arguing that perpetrators are shielded from civil remedies by the state secrets doctrine. [read report]
• Has delayed or is now withholding release of internal investigative reports on potential war crimes by former high U.S. government officials. [read report]
• Ignored Nuremberg precedents regarding the responsibility of policymakers for crimes by lesser officials carrying out their instructions. [read report]
• Threatened to end intelligence cooperation with Britain if an investigation there into torture of British nationals at Guantánamo and other U.S. facilities proceeds. [read report]
• Failed to direct an adequate investigation into the death of Guantánamo detainee Mohammed al-Hanashi, an elected leader among the detainees, whom the U.S. military claims killed himself days after finally winning the right to be represented by legal counsel. [read report] [read report]
• Opposed efforts to establish an independent public commission to investigate charges of torture and war crimes by U.S. officials, intelligence operatives and contractors. [read report]
• Evaded direct inquiries about the effort to quash war crimes investigations by officials in Spain. [read report]
• Decided to continue “extraordinary rendition,” or sending prisoners to be interrogated in countries where torture has been routine. Many of those flights have been conducted by North Carolina-based planes and pilots (Aero Contractors of Smithfield). [read report]
• Covered up suspicious deaths of detainees, apparently involving torture, at a secret CIA black site, “Camp No,” at Guantánamo, and opposed lawsuit (Al-Zahrani v. Rumsfeld) by family members of detainees who died. [read report] [read report]

Source: N.C. Stop Torture Now

February 8th, 2010

Scoundrel time: Susan Collins demagogues and lies about about terrorist interrogation

Susan Collins demagogued about how reading the attempted Christmas day bomber his Miranda rights demolished the ability to get intelligence from him. When caught out, she falls back on nonsense about a supposed “lack of consultation” that Andrea Mitchell demolishes:

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[H/t Crooks & Liars.]

In addition to the point about the cooperation of the bomber’s family, there is another point I haven’t seen made anywhere. The US was warned by the bomber’s father that his son posed a danger. If the father believed his son would be subjected to the “enhanced interrogation” [torture] tactics so beloved by conservatives, it is extremely unlikely that such a warning would have come. It is even likely that the threat of a military commission would have discouraged the family.

The point is that torture destroys the ability to gather intelligence. Sources will not turn in family or acquaintances to be tortured. But they are likely to turn in enemies, often with false accusations. Thus torture and an absence of due process discourage good intelligence and encourage bad.

Glenn Greenwald demolishes Collins in a piece where he takes on the right wing fiction ["lie"] that Constitutional rights only apply to American citizens:

Collins railed: “Once afforded the protection our Constitution guarantees American citizens, this foreign terrorist ‘lawyered up’ and stopped talking” (h/t). This notion that the protections of the Bill of Rights specifically and the Constitution generally apply only to the Government’s treatment of American citizens is blatantly, undeniably false — for multiple reasons — yet this myth is growing, as a result of being centrally featured in “War on Terror” propaganda.

First, the U.S. Supreme Court, in 2008, issued a highly publicized opinion, in Boumediene v. Bush, which, by itself, makes clear how false is the claim that the Constitution applies only to Americans. The Boumediene Court held that it was unconstitutional for the Military Commissions Act to deny habeas corpus rights to Guantanamo detainees, none of whom was an American citizen (indeed, the detainees were all foreign nationals outside of the U.S.). If the Constitution applied only to U.S. citizens, that decision would obviously be impossible. What’s more, although the decision was 5-4, none of the 9 Justices — and, indeed, not even the Bush administration — argued that the Constitution applies only to American citizens. That is such an inane, false, discredited proposition that no responsible person would ever make that claim.

What divided the Boumediene Court was the question of whether foreigners held by the U.S. military outside of the U.S. (as opposed to inside the U.S.) enjoy Constitutional protections. They debated how Guantanamo should be viewed in that regard (as foreign soil or something else). But not even the 4 dissenting judges believed — as Susan Collins and other claim — that Constitutional rights only extend to Americans. To the contrary, Justice Scalia, in his scathing dissent, approvingly quoted Justice Jackson in conceding that foreigners detained inside the U.S. are protected by the Constitution….

[B]asic common sense by itself should prevent people like Susan Collins from claiming the Constitution applies only to American citizens. There are millions of foreign nationals inside the U.S. at all times — not only illegally but also legally: as tourists, students, workers, Green Card holders, etc. Is there anyone who really believes that the Bill of Rights doesn’t apply to them? If a foreign national is arrested and accused by the U.S. Government of committing a crime, does anyone believe they can be sentenced to prison without a jury trial, denied the right to face their accusers, have their property seized without due process, be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, and be denied access to counsel? Anyone who claims that the Constitution only protects American citizens, but not foreigners, would necessarily have to claim that the U.S. Government could do all of that to foreign nationals. Does anyone believe that? Would it be Constitutionally permissible to own foreigners as slaves on the ground that the protections of the Constitution — including the Thirteenth Amendment — apply only to Americans, not foreigners?

February 4th, 2010

Obama “Justice” Department to clear torture lawyers

In its latest abomination, the Obama-Holder {In]Justice Department has decided to essentially clear the torture lawyers. The Obama administration seems to be making impunity for torture one of its top priorities.

They have now accepted the perfect system created by Bush and Cheney: Torture is illegal.
But torturers can’t be prosecuted because the [In]Justice Department said it was legal.  Saying torture is legal is itself legal and ethical because the lawyers were only trying to interpret the law. Lawyers interpreting the law can’t be punished. Recycle again ne3xt time you want to torture. Thanks President Obama and Attorney General Holder. We understand that getting reelected is much more important than justice. We’ll remember you next time the torturers act:

Justice Official Clears Bush Lawyers in Torture Memo Probe

By Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman

For weeks, the right has heckled Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. for his plans to try the alleged 9/11 conspirators in New York City and his handling of the Christmas bombing plot suspect. Now the left is going to be upset: an upcoming Justice Department report from its ethics-watchdog unit, the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), clears the Bush administration lawyers who authored the “torture” memos of professional-misconduct allegations.

While the probe is sharply critical of the legal reasoning used to justify waterboarding and other “enhanced” interrogation techniques, NEWSWEEK has learned that a senior Justice official who did the final review of the report softened an earlier OPR finding. Previously, the report concluded that two key authors—Jay Bybee, now a federal appellate court judge, and John Yoo, now a law professor—violated their professional obligations as lawyers when they crafted a crucial 2002 memo approving the use of harsh tactics, say two Justice sources who asked for anonymity discussing an internal matter. But the reviewer, career veteran David Margolis, downgraded that assessment to say they showed “poor judgment,” say the sources. (Under department rules, poor judgment does not constitute professional misconduct.) The shift is significant: the original finding would have triggered a referral to state bar associations for potential disciplinary action—which, in Bybee’s case, could have led to an impeachment inquiry.

The report, which is still going through declassification, will provide many new details about how waterboarding was adopted and the role that top White House officials played in the process, say two sources who have read the report but asked for anonymity to describe a sensitive document. Two of the most controversial sections of the 2002 memo—including one contending that the president, as commander in chief, can override a federal law banning torture—were not in the original draft of the memo, say the sources. But when Michael Chertoff, then-chief of Justice’s criminal division, refused the CIA’s request for a blanket pledge not to prosecute its officers for torture, Yoo met at the White House with David Addington, Dick Cheney’s chief counsel, and then–White House counsel Alberto Gonzales. After that, Yoo inserted a section about the commander in chief’s wartime powers and another saying that agency officers accused of torturing Qaeda suspects could claim they were acting in “self-defense” to prevent future terror attacks, the sources say. Both legal claims have long since been rejected by Justice officials as overly broad and unsupported by legal precedent.

A Justice official declined to explain why David Margolis softened the original finding, but noted that he is a highly respected career lawyer who acted without input from Holder. Yoo and Bybee (through his lawyer) declined requests for comment.

1 comment January 30th, 2010

Maddow demolishes Jared Bernstein defense of spending cut

The Obama administration figures we don’t have enough humor in our politics. They have thus decided to focus upon the humor deficit. Here Jared Bernstein, Chief Economist and Economic Policy Adviser to Vice President Biden, a so-called “progressive” tries to explain why a “spending freeze” isn’t a “spending freeze,” even though it freezes spending. Of course, it doesn’t freeze war spending, because that appears to be the only priority Obama cares about. It also doesn’t freeze “entitlements” or “emergency spending.”

I used to think Obama was smart, but this is stupid. It doesn’t even make political sense, as Nate Silver explains. As Bob Herbert explains, Obama has a huge credibility gap. And that was before this recent adoption of another McCain policy.

Fortunately, Rachel Maddow does her job and asks the tough questions and points out how completely ridiculous this turn to the right is. Rahm Emanuel must be laughing at those who started to take heart from Obama’s recent “populist” rhetoric, of so last week.

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January 26th, 2010

Senate candidate Scott Brown suggests Obama born out of wedlock

A new video gives a sense of the personality of Massachusetts Senate candidate Scott Brown, who supports torture just as long as you use a euphemism. In this clip he gratuitously suggests that President Obama’s mother had him out of wedlock. Perhaps that helps explain why I just saw a Tea Party ad endorsing Brown as vicious enough for them.

While I am not enamored of his opponent, Martha Coakley, I am truly shocked that Brown could potentially win the election in Massachusetts. The forces of pro-corporate “populism” are indeed very strong in the country right now:

2 comments January 17th, 2010