Marriage Equality in the U.S.

The LA Times has a nice interactive map of gay marriage rights by state that shows the many changes that have taken place over the past decade or so. Here's how things stood in 2000:



And here's where things stand today:



The scale represents the range of rights denied or afforded to gay couples, from "constitutional amendment ban[ning] gay marriage and other legal rights for gay couples" (dark red) to "domestic partnership legal" (pale green) to "gay marriage legal" (dark green). You can mouse ove states for details. They also have a timeline depicting the various votes, judicial rulings, and other events that have produced the civil rights hodgepodge depicted on this map.

On the face of it, it looks like there's been a lot of movement both for and against legal recognition for gay marriage; while some states have extended full marriage rights, others have retrenched with constitutional amendments banning the same. But I think it makes sense to see these as two sorts of steps that are actually fundamentally moving in the same direction. After all, prior to 2000 or so, marriage equality wasn't really seen as conceivable - not in the foreseeable future, at any rate. But then - possibly because of a genuine sense of a shifting ground in public sentiment - a bunch of states amended their constitutions. This was a defensive move which anticipated the possibility that gay people might be allowed to marry which, like most changes in social institutions, tended to freak out people with more traditionalist orientations. But even though the effect was that a bunch of anti-equality measures got written into law, this was a symptom of a general progressive movement on the issue of gay marriage.

In retrospect, I think you might even say that the big movement earlier this decade to amend state constitutions to explicitly ban gay marriage actually spurred further progressive movement. Those votes - many of which were orchestrated in an effort to get more people to come out and vote Republican in 2004 and 2006 - raised the profile of the issue, certainly, and perhaps placed a veneer of plausibility on the concept of gay marriage. After all, if it was a concept that had to be fought at the ballot box, it must have been a concept that needed to be taken seriously, right? And with several states approving gay marriage this year, following the high-profile loss of gay marriage rights in California last November, I wonder if all the efforts at thwarting gay marriage have just had the net effect of telescoping the timeline of the spread of marriage equality.

Ventura on The View: If waterboarding is fine, why don’t cops do it?

Ventura on The View: If waterboarding is fine, why don’t cops do it?

Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, making a guest appearance on ABC’s The View, gave co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck a lesson or two about the torture technique known as waterboarding.

Ventura, who underwent a barrage of torture techniques at the military Survival, Evade, Resist and Escape (SERE) school, confirmed for Hasselbeck that waterboarding is torture and not just an “enhanced interrogation technique.”

“If waterboarding is okay, why don’t we let our police do it to suspects to learn what they know?” he asked to a chorus of applause.

“That’s an interesting question,” Hasselbeck said. “I understand that question.”

“If waterboarding is okay, why didn’t we waterboard [Timothy] McVeigh and [Terry] Nichols, the Oklahoma City bombers, to find out if there were more people involved? What’s your answer to that?” he asked. “We only seem to waterboard Muslims.”

“That’s an extremist statement,” said Hasselbeck.

“Aha!” cheered Ventura. “Have we waterboarded anybody else? Name me someone else we’ve waterboarded.”

She could not, instead shifting focus to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) who has been criticized by Republicans for a seeming contradiction in disclosing what she knew about then-President Bush’s torture program, and when.

“They want her out because she lied?” asked Ventura. “Why didn’t they ask for Bush and Cheney to go out when they lied about why we went into Iraq?”

This video is from MSNBC’s News Live, broadcast May 18, 2009.

Download video via RawReplay.com

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John Dean:Rice may have admitted to conspiracy,

Rice may have admitted to conspiracy, former Nixon counsel says

In little-noticed comments Thursday, the former White House counsel for President Richard Nixon John Dean said Thursday that former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice may have unwittingly admitted to a criminal conspiracy when questioned about torture by a group of student videographers at Stanford.

Rice told students at Stanford that she didn’t authorize torture, she merely forwarded the authorization for it. Dean, who became a poster child for whistleblowing after aiding the prosecution of the Watergate affair, told MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann that Rice may have admitted to a criminal conspiracy.

In a video that surfaced Thursday, Rice said, “The president instructed us that nothing we would do would be outside of our obligation, legal obligations under the convention against torture… I conveyed the authorization of the administration to the agency. And so by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture.” (Video of Rice’s comments appears at the bottom of this article.)

Her comments raised eyebrows from online observers, who compared Rice’s answer to that of Richard Nixon’s infamous quip: “When the President does it, that means that it’s not illegal.”

Dean said he found Rice’s comments “surprising” and put her in a legal mire of possible conspiracy.

“She tried to say she didn’t authorize anything, then proceeded to say she did pass orders along to the CIA to engage in torture if it was legal by the standard of the Department of Justice,” Dean said. “This really puts her right in the middle of a common plan, as it’s known in international law, or a conspiracy, as it’s known in American law, and this indeed is a crime. If it indeed happened the way we think it did happen.”

Asked if the comparison between her comments and Nixon’s were fair, Dean said it was “fuzzy.”

“She was obviously trying to extricate herself and keep herself in a safe distance, that she was only operating under some general guidance of the president making things legal,” he said. “So it’s not clear whether this is a full-throated Nixonian-type defense or whether it’s a lot of confusion of the facts and throwing things up there to try to protect herself.”

“These kinds of statements are going to come back and be interesting to any investigator,” he added.

Olbermann asked Dean whether Obama was violating the Geneva Conventions prohibiting torture himself by refusing to prosecute those responsible.

“He is indeed is in violation if the United States does not undertake investigation of this, or ultimately prosecution, if that’s necessary,” Dean asserted. “It’s not only the Geneva Convention, the Convention Against Torture also requires this. There are no exceptions with torture. There are no real things like “torture light.” The world community I think is going to hold the United States responsible, and if we don’t proceed, somebody is going to proceed.”

This video is from MSNBC’s Countdown, broadcast Apr. 30, 2009.

Download video via RawReplay.com

This video is from The Young Turks via YouTube, broadcast Apr. 30, 2009.

Download video via RawReplay.com

Several typographical errors have been corrected in this version.

Anglo American Vaccine Industry Behind Flu

Dr. Horowitz: Anglo-American Vaccine Industry Behind Swine Flu Outbreak

YouTube
April 29, 2009

This unprecedented H1N1-H5N1 flu outbreak implicates the Ango-American Vaccine Pipeline, says world leading consumer health protector, Dr. Leonard Horowitz

Consider the skyrocketing stock values of Novavax, Inc., precipitated by dozens of alleged flu deaths in Mexico. Then investigate the leading Anglo-American network of genetic engineers manipulating, mutating, and distributing these viruses. The evidence compels you, for the benefit of public health and safety to seriously consider, even decree, a conspiracy to commit genocide, according to this Harvard trained expert in emerging diseases.

Here, Dr. Horowitz urges an investigation of Dr. James S. Robertson, Englands leading bioengineer of flu viruses for the vaccine industry, and avid promoter of U.S. Government funding for lucrative biodefense contracts, along with collaborators at the US Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC). These suspects helped Novavax, Inc., in Bethesda, Maryland, produce genetically-modified recombinants of the avian, swine, and Spanish flu viruses, H5N1 and H1N1, nearly identical to the unprecedented Mexican virus that is allegedly spreading to the United States at the time of this posting. The outbreak was precisely timed to promote the companys new research and huge vaccine stockpiling contracts.

Scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) are implicated through collaborations and publications involving private contracts with Novavax, a company that obtains its biosimulars through CDC Influenza Branch director, Ruben O. Donis, and Dr. Rick Bright, previously working with Donis at the CDC, now Novavaxs Vice President of Global Influenza Programs.

Descriptions of this virus is pathognomonic, or diagnostic, of a virus that came from Robertsons circle of friends, Dr. Horowitz charges. No other group in the world takes H5N1 Asian flu infected chickens, brings them to Europe, extracts their DNA, combines their proteins with H1N1 viruses from the 1918 Spanish flu isolate, additionally mixes in swine flu genes from pigs, then reverse engineers them to infect humans. The end product could only have ended up in Mexico via the United States from Britain in care of the CDC. The CDC had to have sent them to Novavax, where Rick Brights team is now implicated in a conspiracy to commit genocide—the mass killing of people for profit.

Walt Whitman H.S. students shout down anti-gay protesters

Walt Whitman H.S. students shout down anti-gay protesters

Muriel Kane Published: Friday April 24, 2009

The Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, KS is notorious for its tasteless and frequently nonsensical anti-gay protests. Not only do they picket the funerals of victims of anti-gay hate crimes, but they have been known to protest concerts, football games, and even a hardware store selling Swedish vacuum cleaners. Most recently, they have been busy picketing the funerals of soldiers killed in the Iraq War, believing their deaths to be a judgment on America.

However, the Westboro protesters may have overreached when they attempted to picket Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, MD, named after the nineteenth century poet who many biographers believe to have been either homosexual or bisexual.

According to the Potomac Almanac, "When Whitman sophomore Ryan Hauck first heard about the scheduled protest at Whitman from a friend he thought it was a joke. Then he went online ... and saw just how serious the church is. 'I was just shocked just from the second I heard it and I knew I had to do something,' Hauck said. '[It was] the hatred of the whole thing that shocked me.'"

Hauck was aided by his fellow-sophomore Amar Mukunda, who "set up a Facebook group to generate support for the counter-protest through which more than 600 students have committed to attend. Mukunda said he doesn’t expect that many to show up on Friday, but that he does expect a healthy turnout."

As it happened, the turnout far exceeded Mukunda's expection of "a couple of hundred." The Washington Post reports that "faculty had spun the event into an interdisciplinary lesson. English teachers spent the day teaching Whitman's verse. Social studies teachers led a unit on tolerance. Math teachers fanned through the crowd, attempting a head count."

Although the handful of picketers initially had the street to themselves, that changed dramatically when school was dismissed at 2:10 and five hundred students marched out, chanting the school name alternating with "Go home!"

LGBT group Driving Equality had even set up a "Phelps-a-Thon" webpage, promising, "For every minute the 'God Hates Fags' clan is protesting, we will be collecting donations for the Walt Whitman High School gay/straight alliance. ... You can pledge any amount you chose, whether it be $0.25, $0.50, $1, or even $2 for every minute they protest. ... After the event, we will send Phelps a thank you card, telling him how much money he raised for LGBT equality."

Many of the students in the counter-protest were wearing T-shirts bearing a picture of Whitman and the line, "Let your soul stand cool and composed." However, far more sarcastic commentary on the day's events was provided by blogger Oliver Willis, who had taken note of the upcoming protest when it was first announced in March.

"I gotta say," Willis wrote, "if they’re devoting time and resources to protesting Walt Whitman they must have an insane amount of time on their hands. Leaves of grass, indeed."

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Incredible Shrinking Audience

youtube.com

Clearly, several dozen delegates at the United Nations anti-racism conference in Geneva, Switzerland, disagreed with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s assessment of Israel as a “racist government” on Monday, and they let their feet do the talking by walking out as Ahmadinejad was still speaking.

CNN via YouTube:

When Fascism Came to America

By William Pfaff

In 1935, Sinclair Lewis, author of “Babbitt” and the first American writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize, published a novel entitled “It Can’t Happen Here.”

It was written to influence the 1936 presidential election. The enormously popular ex-governor of Louisiana, Sen. Huey Long, “the Kingfish,” who campaigned to “Share the Wealth” with the people, was widely thought to be a threat to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his bid for a second term.

The Lewis novel envisioned someone like Long winning the presidency and installing an American counterpart to the fascist dictatorships already in power in Italy and Germany. Lewis was much influenced by his second wife, Dorothy Thompson, who was one of the most important syndicated political columnists of the 1930s and was greatly concerned about the possibility of populist dictatorship crossing the Atlantic.

Long was not a fascist, although he could have become a dictator. His support was from the poor. Rightist and white-supremacist forces actually formed an armed militia to oppose him, but Long was killed by an assassin, presumably with a family grievance against him, in 1935.

The man who actually opposed Roosevelt in 1936 was Republican Alf Landon of Kansas, a moderate who was defeated by Roosevelt in the greatest presidential landslide in American history. That year, FDR carried all but eight electoral votes. Sinclair Lewis’ fears had been misplaced; “It” didn’t happen here.

In 2004, Philip Roth wrote another novel on the topic. This one was about the arrival of an anti-Semitic and fascist president in the United States in 1940, in the supposed person of the aviator, American anti-war nationalist and isolationist Charles A. Lindbergh. Roosevelt’s actual opponent in 1940 was the businessman Wendell Willkie, whom he comfortably defeated with 54.7 percent of the popular vote.

Lindbergh never retracted his opposition to U.S. entry into the European war, and following Pearl Harbor President Roosevelt refused ex-Col. Lindbergh’s effort to rejoin the military. Lindbergh found experimental and consultant work in the aviation industry, helped develop the Vought Corsair, the only American fighter in the Pacific war superior to the Japanese Zero, and despite remaining a civilian flew 36 combat missions in the Pacific. Once again, “It” had not happened in the United States.

When “It” did happen was in 2001-2008, in the George W. Bush administration. There was a takeover of the government by a self-willed executive power, unprecedented in American history. The president and vice president acted on a novel and legally unsupported claim to unlimited “wartime” presidential and executive-branch power. The justification was an illegal, undeclared war.

International law and American treaty obligations were defied, as were established American law on the conduct of war and the treatment of prisoners, constitutional protections, and the surveillance of citizens.

All of this occurred without meeting serious, or at least successful, congressional or judicial challenge, with little or no objection from the national press, and all but unanimous support from the national audiovisual media. One needn’t go through all that again.

There were unsuccessful efforts by individuals inside and outside the government to overturn this state of affairs, but in two congressional elections, and in the presidential election of 2004, the electorate endorsed all that had been done. “It,” which Sinclair Lewis and Philip Roth had both warned against, proved in fact to be very popular. At least this was so until 2008, when the practical and political consequences of this abandonment of law and history finally alienated the electorate.

All that is familiar. What concerns me in this article is something else. It is the fact that the mass of agents and officials of the government, and the vast majority of the population, passively accepted what was done, and even today disputes whether anyone should be held accountable.

President Obama’s unwillingness to see his first term dominated by the crimes of the Bush administration is comprehensible.

Yet there is a limit. The latest case of the human moral vacuum created and encouraged during the Bush years is so outrageous, perverse, sadistic and nihilistic that it demands attention, for all that it tells us about the rest that has happened. I speak of the ordered, authorized and conscientiously supervised waterboarding of two prisoners 266 times.

The men who authorized, ordered and performed such acts should be hanged. It is as simple as that.

It then would be possible to face the future with a response to the question, “Can It Happen Here?”

Visit William Pfaff’s Web site at www.williampfaff.com.

Suze Orman To Bush: "You Owe The American People Every Penny Of Your Fortune And Your Family's Fortune"

Suze Orman To Bush: "You Owe The American People Every Penny Of Your Fortune And Your Family's Fortune"

In a long profile by WWD's Jacob Bernstein, Suze Orman sounds off on George Bush and blames the ex-president for the financial crisis (near the bottom of the first page):

Sitting in a green room after her TV interviews, she lambasts everyone from Alan Greenspan to Larry Summers to the former president of the United States, who holds an especially dark place in her heart. "Commander in Chief?" she says of George W. Bush, with a mix of disbelief and scorn. "You blew up every single financial vessel we had and if you think you aren't personally responsible, well, the blame starts at the top. There is no higher top than you, SIR! If I were you, I would feel so absolutely horrific that I would take every penny I had and distribute it to anybody and everybody to help them in whatever way I could. You owe the American people every penny of your fortune and your family's fortune."

Orman also calls being impersonated by SNL's Kristen Wiig the “greatest honor of my career" and that often during her show she is forced to stop and think, "Ugh. I’m playing Kristen Wiig."

Read the full profile here at WWD.com.

Watch Kristen Wiig impersonate Suze Orman below:

Republicans in full whine mode because Obama is going to work around their obstructionist tactics

Republicans in full whine mode because Obama is going to work around their obstructionist tactics
Joe Sudbay (DC) ·

The Republican whining about Obama and bipartisanship is getting tiresome. To work, bipartisanship has to be a two-way street. But, the Republicans have a roadblock on their side of the street -- and they bitch every time Obama tries to get around their obstructions:

Senior members of the Obama administration are pressing lawmakers to use a shortcut to drive the president's signature initiatives on health care and energy through Congress without Republican votes, a move that many lawmakers say would fly in the face of President Obama's pledge to restore bipartisanship to Washington.

Republicans are howling about the proposal to expand health coverage and tax greenhouse gas emissions without their input, warning that it could irrevocably damage relations with the new president.

"That would be the Chicago approach to governing: Strong-arm it through," said Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), who briefly considered joining the Obama administration as commerce secretary. "You're talking about the exact opposite of bipartisan. You're talking about running over the minority, putting them in cement and throwing them in the Chicago River."

Obama went to the White House with a vow to change the way things are done. The Republicans are playing the same games. Obama vowed accomplishments for the American people. The Republicans on Capitol Hill are doing every thing they can to stop him. So, when Obama basically, says "Fine, I'll do it without you," the Republicans whine and run to the media. It's pathetic and it's gotten really old already.

NOTE FROM JOHN: "[W]arning that it could irrevocably damage relations with the new president." Right, those would be the relations where Obama bent over backwards, even offered the GOP 3 cabinet posts, and in return 3 of them - a whopping 3 - voted for the stimulus package. What "relations" are the Republicans talking about?


Rush Limbaugh, the leader of the GOP, has said repeatedly he wants Obama to fail. Most of the GOPers on the Hill are lemmings who follow (and fear) Rush. That's what Obama is up against. Republicans want to kill Obama's agenda. It's good that the White House has figured that out. Now, roll the Republicans. Team Obama should "Strong-arm it through." It's the only way to save the country from the economic disaster created by the Republicans.

China's last eunuch

China's last eunuch spills sex secrets

Mon Mar 16, 2009 10:01am EDT

By Emma Graham-Harrison

BEIJING (Reuters) - Only two memories brought tears to Sun Yaoting's eyes in old age -- the day his father cut off his genitals, and the day his family threw away the pickled remains that should have made him a whole man again at death.

China's last eunuch was tormented and impoverished in youth, punished in revolutionary China for his role as the "Emperor's slave" but finally feted and valued, largely for outlasting his peers to become a unique relic, a piece of "living history."

He had stories of the tortuous rituals of the Forbidden City, Emperor Pu Yi's last moments there and the troubled puppet court run by the Japanese during the 1930s. He escaped back to the heart of a civil war, became a Communist official and then a target of radical leftists before being finally left in peace.

This turbulent life has been recorded in the "The Last Eunuch of China" by amateur historian Jia Yinghua, who over years of friendship drew out of Sun the secrets that were too painful or intimate to spill to prying journalists or state archivists.

He died in 1996, in an old temple that had become his home, and his biography was finally published in English this year.

It unveils formerly taboo subjects like the sex life of eunuchs and the emperor they served, the agonizing castrations often done at home and also often lethal, and the incontinence and shame that came with the promise of great power.

"He was conflicted over whether to tell the secrets of the emperor," said Jia, adding that Sun preserved a loyalty to the old system because he had dedicated so much of his life to it.

"I was the only person he trusted. He did not even confide in his family, after they threw away his 'treasure,'" Jia added, using traditional eunuchs' slang for their preserved genitals.

They were discarded during the chaotic 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, when having anything from the "old society" could put lives at risk.

"He only cried about two things; when telling me about the castration and about the loss of his 'treasure'," said Jia, who works as an energy bureaucrat, but devotes all his spare time to chronicling the dying days of Imperial China after a childhood enthralled by the eunuchs and princes who were his neighbors.

STERILITY AND POWER

Over years of painstaking research, he has gleaned arcane details about every aspect of palace life, along with secrets about the emperor's sexuality and cruelty that would look at home on the front page of tabloid newspapers.

For centuries in China, the only men from outside the imperial family who were allowed into the Forbidden City's private quarters were castrated ones. They effectively swapped their reproductive organs for a hope of exclusive access to the emperor that made some into rich and influential politicians.

Sun's impoverished family set him on this painful, risky path in hopes that he might one day be able to crush a bullying village landlord who stole their fields and burned their house.

His desperate father performed the castration on the bed of their mud-walled home, with no anesthetic and only oil-soaked paper as a bandage. A goose quill was inserted in Sun's urethra to prevent it getting blocked as the wound healed.

He was unconscious for three days and could barely move for two months. When he finally rose from his bed, history played the first of a series of cruel tricks on him -- he discovered the emperor he hoped to serve had abdicated several weeks earlier.

"He had a very tragic life. He had thought it was worthwhile for his father, but the sacrifice was in vain," Jia said, in a house stacked with old books, newspapers and photos.

"He was very smart and shrewd. If the empire had not fallen there is a high chance he would have become powerful," Jia added.

The young ex-emperor was eventually allowed to stay in the palace and Sun had risen to become an attendant to the empress when the imperial family were unceremoniously booted out of the Forbidden City, ending centuries of tradition and Sun's dreams.

"He was castrated, then the emperor abdicated. He made it into the Forbidden City then Pu Yi was evicted. He followed him north and then the puppet regime collapsed. He felt life had played a joke at his expense," Jia said.

Many eunuchs fled with palace treasures, but Sun took a crop of memories and a nose for political survival that turned out to be better tools for surviving years of civil war and ideological turbulence that followed.

"He never became rich, he never became powerful, but he became very rich in experience and secrets," Jia said.

(Editing by Nick Macfie and Bill Tarrant)

'Truth Commission' critic accuses Leahy of 'whitewash'

'Truth Commission' critic accuses Leahy of 'whitewash'
Rachel Oswald

Passions surrounding various proposals that would investigate Bush administration wrongdoings are extremely high with interested parties not shying away from using harsh rhetoric towards fellow supporters of probes.

Speaking to Raw Story, Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a human rights attorney, says he is opposing Senate Judiciary chairman Patrick Leahy’s proposed 'Truth Commission' because it doesn’t go far enough.

"We’re talking about a whitewash with Leahy. Are we some Latin American country where we don’t have a democracy robust enough to try people?," Ratner said. “[Leahy’s] essentially diffusing the issue so there’s not as much pressure on prosecution. It’s not really going to go far. [The commission is] going to divert us for a few years and we’re never going to see something come out of it.”

Ratner said he and the Center for Constitutional Rights want to see criminal prosecutions of officials at the highest level of the Bush administration, the so-called “principals” who were the architects of controversial polices and signed off on them.

“Cheney has openly said that he approved the water boarding memo and that he would do it again,” Ratner said, adding, “My view is you absolutely have to have prosecutions to have deterrents [for future executive power abuses].”

Speaking at last Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on the matter, Leahy (D-VT) said, “If criminal conduct occurred, this senator wants to know about it. “I’m trying to get the ability to find out if criminal conduct occurred so it won’t happen again. If crimes occurred, I don’t think they should be swept under the rug.”

Leahy has said he would not rule out criminal prosecutions of high-level Bush appointees as have other senators supportive of his proposal, such as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).

Ratner said he objects to comments made by Leahy critical of people who are “fixated on prosecution.”

“That’s me,” Ratner said, adding, “Those [comments] are all basically saying ‘we’re not prosecuting.’"

Ratner said he has been unexpectedly pleased with the public support for criminal prosecutions in the country.

More than 100 organizations large and small have signed on to calls throughout the years for a special prosecutor to look into Bush administration abuses while at least 18 groups have already affirmed their support of Leahy’s Truth Commission proposal.

Approximately 40 percent of those polled by Gallup at the end of January support criminal investigations while 25 percent to 30 percent support an investigation by an independent panel. 35 percent to 25 percent of those polled don’t want any investigation at all.

Don Juarez on Manhattan Entertainment Spotlight Special

This is a recent clip from my interview with Don Juarez on Manhattan Entertainment Spotlight Special TV.

Don Juarez on Manhattan Entertainment Spotlight Special
Uploaded by happyreturns1

Ex-UN prosecutor: Bush may be next up for International Criminal Court

Ex-UN prosecutor: Bush may be next up for International Criminal Court
Stephen C. Webster

An ex-UN prosecutor has said that following the issuance of an arrest warrant for the president of Sudan, former US President George W. Bush could -- and should -- be next on the International Criminal Court's list.

The former prosecutor's assessment was echoed in some respect by United Nations General Assembly chief Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann of Nicaragua, who said America's military occupation of Iraq has caused over a million deaths and should be probed by the United Nations.

"David Crane, an international law professor at Syracuse University, said the principle of law used to issue an arrest warrant for [Sudanese President] Omar al-Bashir could extend to former US President Bush over claims officials from his Administration may have engaged in torture by using coercive interrogation techniques on terror suspects," reported the New Zealand Herald.

The indictment of Bashir was a landmark, said Crane, because it paved a route for the court at The Hague to pursue heads of states engaged in criminality.

"Crane also said that the [Bashir] indictment may even be extended to the former president George W. Bush, on the grounds that some officials in terms of his administration engaged in harsh interrogation techniques on terror suspects which mostly amounted to torture," said Turkish Weekly.

"All pretended justifications notwithstanding, the aggressions against Iraq and Afghanistan and their occupations constitute atrocities that must be condemned and repudiated by all who believe in the rule of law in international relations," Brockmann told the Human Rights Council. "The illegality of the use of force against Iraq cannot be doubted as it runs contrary to the prohibition of the use of force in Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter. It sets a number of precedents that we cannot allow to stand."

The Bush administration boycotted the Human Rights Council. The day Brockmann made his accusations happened to be the first in which the United States had observers at the council, on orders from President Obama.

According to Iranian news network PressTV, the Iranian government called the Bashir indictment "a blow to International justice" and an "insult directed at Muslims."

Iran's plainly stated sentiment toward the court's legitimacy is similar in spirit to that of the United States. Because the US Government has refused to recognize the court by becoming a signatory in its statute, "the only other way Bush could be investigated is if the [UN] Security Council were to order it, something unlikely to happen with Washington a veto-wielding permanent member," said the Herald.

Due to the International Criminal Court's lack of any real police force, it has traditionally relied upon signatory states for enforcement of its rulings. But when the leader of one such state is indicted, the court's authority and enforcement capability is called into question. Even the arrest of Bashir is a far cry, for now. And without a UN Security Council order, former US President Bush would not go on "trial" before the court any time soon.

However, on January 26, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak insisted that the pursuit of Bush and members of his administration for the torture of terror war prisoners is crucial if justice is to be served.

Nowak added that he believes enough evidence exists currently to proceed with the prosecution of Donald Rumsfeld, the former Secretary of Defense who was credited as being highly influential in the crafting and push for America's invasion of Iraq and the prior administration's abusive interrogation tactics.

The following video was published to YouTube on March 6 by the non-profit, Web-based news service LinkTV.




Download video via RawReplay.com

Harpers editor: America had a dictator for eight yearsDavid Edwards and Stephen C. Webster

Harpers editor: America had a dictator for eight years David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster Published: Friday March 6, 2009

It was a casual refrain near the dawning of former President George W. Bush's political career on the national stage. Most took as a joke.

"If this was a dictatorship it'd be a heck of a lot easier," he so memorably said. "Just so long as I'm the dictator."

His presidency now a smoldering memory, Harper's contributing editor Scott Horton thinks that perhaps he wasn't kidding after all. In a March 3 column, Horton extrapolated on "George W. Bush's Disposable Constitution," expanding on his thoughts during a Thursday broadcast of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

Since the Monday release of nine previously-secret Bush administration legal memos claiming that the president has the power to ignore the Constitution when fighting terrorism, experts have almost unanimously denounced both their legal reasoning and their conclusions.

"These memos provide the very definition of tyranny," Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Tuesday. "These memos include everything that a petty despot would want."

Olbermann's Thursday guest was just as strident as Turley in his view of the prior administration.

"We may not have realized it at the time, but in the period from late 2001-January 19, 2009, this country was a dictatorship," wrote Horton in his Harper's article.

"Bush did not order, at any point, the military seizure of part of Cleveland," said Olbermann. "He did not imprison [DailyKos.com founder] Markos Moulitsas. This was certainly not an active military dictatorship, or a dictatorship of any kind in anybody's tangible perception.

"So, what do you say to the idea that these [memos] were just outer parameters, in the event of true internal chaos?"

"These memoranda were crafted with specific programs and projects in mind," said Horton. "The question is, exactly what? ... There's a clear focus on the use of the commander in chief powers. On the use of the military domestically in the United States.

"John Yoo says the Fourth Amendment presents no impediment. The Fourth Amendment is of course a limitation of surveillance. It creates a requirement of warrants for listening in to people's telephone conversations, for instance.

"In this case, I think it's pretty clear that this was designed to authorize the military and military agencies to engage in a sweeping program of surveillance in the United States."

In his March 3 column, Horton remarked, "These memos suggest that John Yoo found a way to treat the Posse Comitatus Act as suspended."

Further on in his MSNBC interview, he elaborated: "The president, if he wants, can have you squirreled away in the brig in Charleston, South Carolina, and he can have you tortured there. You have no appeal from that in these OLC [Office of Legal Counsel] opinions.

"Of course, that's not the law. It's a ridiculous portrayal of the law. But it's what the OLC told the president he could do."

The memos were repealed with a mere five days remaining in President Bush's term. An internal Justice Department investigation by the Office of Professional Responsibility has some forecasting potentially "serious consequences" for the authors, including Yoo.

Effectively, said Horton, these controversial memos saw President Bush "freed from the constraints of the Bill of Rights" during wartime "with respect to anything he chose to label as counter-terrorism operations inside the United States."

This video is from MSNBC's Countdown, broadcast Mar. 5, 2009.




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John Dean: Bush almost became an 'unconstitutional dictator'

John Dean: Bush almost became an 'unconstitutional dictator' David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster Published: Tuesday March 3, 2009

It was during the Civil War that President Abraham Lincoln became known as a "constitutional dictator," said former Nixon White House counsel John Dean during a Monday broadcast of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

Responding to the recent release of several legal justifications for President Bush's most criticized policies, Dean summarized, "Reading these memos, you've gotta almost conclude we had an unconstitutional dictator. It's pretty deadly and pretty serious, what's in these materials."

The memos, released by Obama's Justice Department on Monday, outline possible methods for the president to ignore treaties and International laws, kidnap and torture American citizens and overrule the First Amendment to the Constitution which ensures freedom of speech and of the press.

All of these things and more could be done exclusively by the president in the name of fighting terrorism.

"Who in this formula was supposed to decide that these were terrorists?" asked Olbermann.

"Well, according to these memos, that was rather limited to the President of the United States and there are no guidelines as to how he might describe who was or was not a terrorist," said Dean.

Dean also said that the repeal of several of these memos just days before the Bush administration left power, was "definitely a bit of C-Y-A," though he did not ascribe "evil intent" to anyone.

"What does this say about what we need to do now in terms of investigating this, John?" asked Olbermann. "Is this the scale-tipper for everybody?"

"It could be," said Dean, "because the public is going to be aware of a lot more than they were. There is an investigation that is ongoing that started late in the Bush administration by the Office of Professional Responsibility.

"I think that investigation, which we've heard very little about, is going to be very hard to suppress now. ... I think the Office of Professional Responsibility may make some very strong recommendations that could include prosecution."

Dean has previously warned of "serious consequences" around the world if the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress are not willing to "point fingers" at Bush administration members who may be guilty of war crimes.

This video is from MSNBC's Countdown, broadcast Mar. 2, 2009.




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Married Same-Sex Couples Sue US For Federal Benefits

DENISE LAVOIE | March 3, 2009 12:08 AM EST |

BOSTON — Mary Ritchie, a Massachusetts State Police trooper, has been married for almost five years and has two children. But when she files her federal income tax return, she's not allowed to check the "married filing jointly" box.

That's because Ritchie and her spouse, Kathleen Bush, are a gay couple, and the federal Defense of Marriage Act makes them ineligible to file joint tax returns.

Now Ritchie, Bush and more than a dozen others are suing the federal government, claiming the act discriminates against gay couples and is unconstitutional because it denies them access to federal benefits that other married couples receive, such as pensions and health insurance. Plaintiffs also include Dean Hara, the widower of former U.S. Rep. Gerry Studds, the first openly gay member of the House of Representatives.

In Ritchie's case, she and her spouse say they have paid nearly $15,000 more in taxes than they would have if they had been able to file joint returns.

"It saddens us because we love our country," Ritchie said. "We are taxpayers. We live just like anyone else in our community. We do everything just like every other family, like every other married couple, and we are treated like less than that."

The lawsuit was being filed Tuesday in federal court in Boston by Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, the anti-discrimination group that brought a successful legal challenge leading to Massachusetts becoming the first state in the nation to legalize gay marriage in 2004.

Only Massachusetts and Connecticut allow gay marriage. Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey and New Hampshire allow civil unions.

Californians voted in November to overturn a court ruling that allowed gay marriage, but the state still offers domestic partnerships that guarantee the same rights as marriage. Hawaii is considering a bill that will allow same-sex civil unions.

The Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, was enacted by Congress in 1996 when it appeared Hawaii would soon legalize same-sex marriage and opponents worried that other states would be forced to recognize such marriages. The new lawsuit challenges only the portion of the law that prevents the federal government from affording Social Security and other benefits to same-sex couples.

President Barack Obama has pledged to work to repeal DOMA and reverse the Department of Defense policy that prevents openly gay people from serving in the military.

Mary Bonauto, GLAD's Civil Rights Project director, said the lawsuit is the first major challenge to the section of the law that denies same-sex couples access to more than 1,000 federal programs and legal protections in which marriage is a factor.

All the plaintiffs are from Massachusetts and have marriages that are recognized by the state. They include a U.S. Postal Service employee who wasn't allowed to add her spouse to her health insurance plan; a Social Security Administration retiree who was denied health insurance for his spouse; three widowers who were denied death benefits for funeral expenses; and a man who has been denied a passport bearing his married name.

"This law is an absolute intrusion into an area that states have governed for centuries _ marriage," Bonauto said.

In Hara's case, he was denied any portion of Studds' $114,000 pension after the Democratic congressman died in 2006. The two married in 2004 after being together for 14 years.

"I am not being treated the same as any other surviving spouse of any other federal employee or public servant who has served this country for 27 years, when I have been legally married," Hara said.

Defendants in the lawsuit are the United States of America and several federal agencies, which are being represented by the U.S. Department of Justice.

"Obviously, we are going to take a look at it and make a determination as to how the government would ultimately respond after we review it," DOJ spokesman Charles Miller said.

Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard Law School, said the lawsuit is a "plausible challenge" to DOMA.

"It's a question of whether Congress oversteps its bounds and engages in irrational discrimination when it draws a line in terms of concrete benefits for individuals who are otherwise eligible simply because the marriages they have entered involve same-sex couples rather than opposite-sex couples," he said.

Opponents of same-sex marriage say those who challenge DOMA are trying to impose gay marriage on the rest of the country.

"Massachusetts has made benefits available on a state level, but Massachusetts can't force the federal government's hand or the other states to accept same-sex marriage," said Mathew Staver, founder of the Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit that says it's dedicated to advancing religious freedom and the traditional family.

ULC Minister -theartstemple