They’re not just economic royalists and Yacht Tax Loophole lovers anymore, they have graduated to out and out eliminationist status:
Sacramento County Republican leaders Tuesday took down offensive material on their official party Web site that sought to link Sen. Barack Obama to Osama bin Laden and encouraged people to “Waterboard Barack Obama” – material that offended even state GOP leaders.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has pushed the party to try to broaden its appeal, took issue with the site. “In the governor’s view, it’s completely and totally inappropriate,” said Julie Soderlund, a Schwarzenegger spokeswoman […]
Taking credit for the site (sacramentorepublicans.org) and its content was county party chairman Craig MacGlashan – husband of Sacramento County Supervisor Roberta MacGlashan.
The Bee asked MacGlashan about the content after seeking his reaction to hate-filled graffiti that was spray-painted over an Obama display on a fence at Fair Oaks Boulevard and Garfield Avenue.
In recent weeks, MacGlashan, an attorney, joined local Democratic party officials in condemning vandalism to political displays.
The vandalism to the Obama display appeared to have been done overnight Monday. A racial epithet, profanity, “KKK” and the words “white power” were clearly visible from the roadway. Six of the nine fence panels were defaced.
“What you are describing to me is not free speech, it’s vandalism. We don’t condone it,” MacGlashan said.
But he defended his Web site. “I’m aware of the content,” he said. “Some people find it offensive, others do not. I cannot comment on how people interpret things.”
Republicans have been taught for 30 years that the Presidency is their divine right and any Democrat who accedes to the office must be illegitimate. Compounding this is the fact that this next President is a black man. The hatred is welling up from everywhere and the resultant anger will make the Clinton Years look like the Era of Good Feeling.
Dana Rohrabacher’s been saying stuff like this for years, only now he has an opponent who’s going to call him on it.
Today, the House Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight held a hearing on detainee treatment at Guantanamo Bay, focusing on a recent FBI inspector general (IG) report documenting abusive practices at the facility. The report describes, among other things, a “war crimes file” created by FBI agents concerned about the interrogation tactics they witnessed at Guantanamo.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), however, sees nothing wrong with the accounts of abuse. While questioning IG Glenn Fine today, Rohrabacher insisted the report documented nothing more than “fraternity boy pranks and hazing pranks,” and hardly constituted torture:
ROHRABACHER: They seem like more like pranks, hazing pranks from some fraternity than some well-thought-out policy of how do you torture someone and get information from them. […]
I will have to tell you, when most people hear the word “torture,” which has been bandied around here, I don’t believe that they think of it as holding a growling dog near somebody but not the growling dog – you know, it’s one thing to have the growling dog eating someone’s leg or arm versus – which is absolute torture. It’s another thing to have a growling dog around, or putting panties on someone’s head, or discussing – telling him he had repressed homosexual tendencies in his presence. I mean, I’m sorry, these are acts of humiliation.
He apparently used the phrase “panties on someone’s head” 13 times in 8 minutes.
I could go on and on about how interrogation practices at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo violate Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which ban “outrages upon personal dignity,” or the UN Convention Against Torture, or sundry torture statutes in this country, and how (as DoJ Inspector Glenn Fine said today) such tactics are not only criminal but incredibly ineffective in gathering intelligence, and how as the world’s most powerful nation we have an obligation to uphold the highest standards of human rights lest the world sink to our level, but fortunately, I don’t have to say all that this year, because Democratic nominee Debbie Cook is on the case. Here’s the statement her campaign emailed me:
“At a time when we need a serious discussion and thorough review of the allegations of torture coming out of Guantanamo Bay, Congressman Rohrabacher has used his position of trust to make jokes and liken the interrogations to nothing more than a frat party.
We need a representative in Congress who will approach the serious issues facing our country with decorum and common sense, instead of cracking jokes. Torture is not to be taken lightly especially when the prestige and moral authority of the United States government is at stake.
The voters of the 46th district deserve a Member of Congress who works hard, has a good grasp of the issues before them and who is taken seriously by their colleagues. That’s how you get things done in Congress.”
Rohrabacher is an embarrassment, and Debbie Cook is going to give the people of the 46th District a real alternative this year.
As I wrote earlier today, the revelation that top-level officials in the White House actually debated what interrogation techniques to use on high-value targets, including torture, just sickens the stomach. In this context, it’s clear that torture lawyer John Yoo was writing a document that was already written – a justification for the most heinous of crimes. That the Administration had to dip all the way down into the mid-level of the Justice Department, bypassing even the Attorney General, shows how difficult it was to find a cad willing to cover up their misdeeds, someone willing to disgrace the office and disgrace himself.
Yoo was a pawn bit none of this absolves him from blame. House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers would like a word with him. Attorneys for Ali al-Marri, a so-called “enemy combatant” at Guantanamo, are using the memo to make the legal argument that his detention was actually illegal, since the memo was eventually withdrawn after al-Marri was captured and detained based on its legal theories. The “footnote” contained in the memo, that a previous memo waived the Fourth Amendment with respect to “domestic military operations,” is causing Administration officials all sorts of grief on Capitol Hill. (That worm Mukasey, by the way, wouldn’t say whether or not the Fourth Amendment waiver memo has been withdrawn.)
In a memorandum written the same month George W. Bush invaded Iraq, Boalt Hall law professor John Yoo said the Department of Justice would construe US criminal laws not to apply to the President’s detention and interrogation of enemy combatants. According to Yoo, the federal statutes against torture, assault, maiming and stalking do not apply to the military in the conduct of the war.
“John Yoo’s complicity in establishing the policy that led to the torture of prisoners constitutes a war crime under the US War Crimes Act,” said National Lawyers Guild President Marjorie Cohn.
Congress should repeal the provision of the Military Commissions Act that would give Yoo immunity from prosecution for torture committed from September 11, 2001 to December 30, 2005. John Yoo should be disbarred and he should not be retained as a professor of law at one of the country’s premier law schools. John Yoo should be dismissed from Boalt Hall and tried as a war criminal.
For those who want a “variety of views” to be expressed in the academic sphere, I think the National Lawyers Guild has a broader perspective about the First Amendment and freedom of expression.
There are things we can do at home as well. First, Mark Ridley-Thomas’ resolution on torture must be passed, and used as a means to discover more about how medical professionals served this lawbreaking and who was involved all the way to the top of the chain of command.
As we recently commemorated the non-violent life and legacy of Dr. King, we cannot ignore the immorality of war that, he said, ravages our economy and “mutilates our conscience.”
Nowhere is that “mutilated conscience” more evident than in the alarming issue of health professionals involved in torture in the Iraq War […]
Reports from the International Red Cross, The New England Journal of Medicine, the British Medical Journal, military records, and first-person accounts, provide overwhelming evidence that military physicians and psychologists have directly participated in the development and cover-up of torture and abuse of detainees in U.S. custody.
Medical professionals are reported to have advised interrogators as to whether particular prisoners were fit enough to survive physical maltreatment, informed interrogators about prisoners’ phobias and other psychological vulnerabilities that could be exploited during questioning, failed to report incidents of alleged torture, force-fed prisoners who were on hunger strikes, and altered the death certificates of prisoners who died […]
As professional licensure and codes of ethics are regulated by states, California has the obligation to notify members of laws concerning torture that may result in their prosecution.
This week, I will put to a vote Senate Joint Resolution 19 on the floor of the Senate that states that the U.S. Department of Defense has “failed to oversee the ethical conduct of California-licensed health professionals related to torture.” […]
Torture is much more than a political issue. It is an ethical, moral and spiritual issue that has not only become a shame, but it is an evil in our midst.
Dr. King would not remain silent on an issue of such moral importance. Nor will I. Dr. King repeatedly warned us that, “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.”
And perhaps most important, on April 14 at the Bancroft Hotel, Yoo will make a public appearance in an event with Georgetown Law Professor David Cole and others. Perhaps citizens who stand against the torture and murder of human beings in service to a failed theory of extreme executive power ought to stop by and let him know how you feel.
State Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas is forcing a vote on a bill that ought to be named after a certain Berkeley professor:
The California Senate is preparing to weigh in on the hot-button topic of torture, with a twist that combines elements of the Hippocratic oath and the military oath.
Under a resolution that state Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas plans to put to a vote Thursday, California regulators would notify physicians and other health professionals that they could lose their license and be prosecuted by the state if they are involved in the torture of suspected terrorists […]
During a committee hearing in January, Ridley-Thomas said there is evidence that physicians, psychologists and nurses licensed by the state “have participated in torture or its coverup against detainees in U.S. custody.”
He cited “confirmed reports from the International Red Cross, New England Journal of Medicine, military records and first-person accounts.”
“California has the obligation, I believe, to notify its licensees of laws pertaining to torture that may result in prosecution,” Ridley-Thomas said.
The senator said physicians have reportedly advised interrogators whether prisoners were fit enough to survive “physical maltreatment, informed interrogators about prisoners’ phobias and other psychological vulnerabilities that could be exploited.”
Invoking the Hippocratic oath that physicians traditionally take, he said the state can “withdraw its consent to torture by demanding that its health professionals remember their oath to first do no harm.”
This is extremely small-bore, but if the federal government is abusing detainees, the states ought to be able to step in and inform their own residents of the Constitutional and international treaty obligations citizens are required to uphold.
California Republicans will have a choice to make. There is substantial evidence in the public record of health professionals aiding and abetting in the practices at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. For each Yacht Party member, they must understand that their vote could either sanction these abuses, or affirmatively state that some parts of the United States still follow the rule of law.
I can only applaud Sen. Ridley-Thomas for this courageous proposal, which hopefully will spark a movement of revolt amongst state legislatures. This Administration is lawless and reckless, and diminishing what credibility we have left globally with each passing day. California can stand up, and steadfastly shout “We do not agree; we do not consent.”
At my home site I took a look today at John Yoo’s recently declassified memo, which is more responsible for torture and detainee abuse at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and throughout American prison sites abroad than practically any other document.
If you’re interested in weeping, you can read the 81-page memo yourself.
Yoo simply made up a new set of executive powers that trumped the Geneva Conventions, domestic statutes against torture, and virtually the whole system of the law itself.
If a government defendant were to harm an enemy combatant during an interrogation in a manner that might arguably violate a criminal prohibition, he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al Qaeda terrorist network. In that case, we believe that he could argue that the executive branch’s constitutional authority to protect the nation from attack justified his actions.
Kind of a “self-defense before the fact” belief, completely contrary to how the American legal system works […] The closed loop here is self-perpetuating. The DoJ writes a memo saying that the President has virtually unlimited power in wartime. The CIA and the Pentagon then takes the memo and uses it as proof of legality for their crimes. So we have an executive branch validating the rest of the executive branch, essentially a one-branch government that writes, executes and adjudicates the law.
There is no question that John Yoo is a war criminal; he provided the legal theories that the executive branch follows to this day, even though the Defense Department vacated this particular memo in 2003.
That comes out of my hide. Your hide. John Yoo is making his living based on public payments through taxes and other receipts. And he is absolutely a war criminal. (over)
John Yoo’s Memorandum, as intended, directly led to — caused — a whole series of war crimes at both Guantanamo and in Iraq. The reason such a relatively low-level DOJ official was able to issue such influential and extraordinary opinions was because he was working directly with, and at the behest of, the two most important legal officials in the administration: George Bush’s White House counsel, Alberto Gonzales, and Dick Cheney’s counsel (and current Chief of Staff) David Addington. Together, they deliberately created and authorized a regime of torture and other brutal interrogation methods that are, by all measures, very serious war crimes.
If writing memoranda authorizing torture — actions which then directly lead to the systematic commission of torture — doesn’t make one a war criminal in the U.S., what does?
I believe in academic freedom and understand the slippery slope of removing a faculty member with tenure because of their political views. In a best-case scenario The Hague would be making the decision of when John Yoo leaves his cushy law professor job by dragging him off in leg irons. But failing that, there has to be at least some standard of competence and dignity among a public university. The shoddy logic and faulty reasoning in this declassified memo should be a firing offense alone; and the implications of that memo should be more than enough to cement that. Not only is John Yoo teaching your kids about the Constitution and the law, we’re all paying him to do it. And so at the very least the UC Regents need to hear from everyone in California, expressing their disappointment that they are harboring a war criminal at their flagship school, and determining what they will seek to do about that.
UPDATE: The American Freedom Campaign has a petition you can sign to demand this abuse of executive power. It’s astonishing that it took the ACLU to force declassification of this memo rather than oversight from the Congress or the media. As the AFC says, “Prosecutions may be appropriate. Impeachment should not be out of the question. But what is needed immediately is a thorough investigation into the Bush administration’s understanding of the extent of the president’s power as commander-in-chief. “
Just to show that I’m not reflexively opposed to everything Dianne Feinstein does, she is on the floor of the Senate right now leading the fight in getting the entire US government to follow the Army Field Manual for interrogations and intelligence gathering, which would effectively ban waterboarding and any other forms of torture from being used by the CIA. She has worked very hard on this issue, and it looks like she’ll get passage in the Senate on this today. That’s very significant.
(I wish we’d hear from all of our challenger candidates more regularly. – promoted by David Dayen)
I am Steve Young, the Democrat challenging John Campbell [R, CA-48] the sixth richest member of congress. My challenge is truly a David vs. Goliath battle — and we know how that one turned out.
I am writing to ask for your help. Two reasons make the House race in California’s 48th district important:
We need a representative with the spine to vote his heart; and
As we have learned from sad experience, we don’t have the votes in Washington to pass necessary legislation.
We need a voice – reflective of our values – in the U.S. House in Washington.
I am Steve Young. I am not a career politician. I have never been on the public payroll. I do not answer to special interests, or PACS. I am definitely different from the traditional member of the House of Representatives who has “moved up” to avoid unemployment under term limits. I have run my own business, and have had to do without to make payroll. I understand the struggles Americans face today.
I will bring a different perspective to the U.S. House. To do that I need your help.
Your help is absolutely critical. I plan to launch ads in the media in February after super Tuesday. That is slightly over a month away. I can purchase 1 ad slot in my district for $25.
I have made advertisements to remind my district of the many examples of John Campbell’s hypocrisy including:
His attack on SCHIP “because it is a publicly funded health care system,” while he took publicly funded health care as a Congressman.
His justification for voting to cut veterans’ benefits because, “Veterans commit fraud.”
His support of waterboarding because it is, “a psychological interrogation technique that does not inflict physical pain or permanent damage.”
His vote to sustain Bush’s veto of the Water Resources Development Act of 2007 belying his many media pronouncements concerning his "dedication to the environment."
If he is reelected to the House, John Campbell will continue under the banner of “unburdening business” to rail against laws that give us clean drinking water, safe work places, and a retirement safety net.
Help me stop him by helping me get my message out next month.
John Campbell is the sixth richest member of Congress. He made millions as a car dealer. I will need to match him and the corporate interests that raised almost $2 million for his election. And that’s why I need your help.
The money battle will be like David and Goliath. We know who won that one.
Earlier I told you there were two reasons I needed to win this race. One was so that Californians will have an unfettered representative.
But the other reason is as important.
You see, House Democrats are struggling to pass necessary legislation. We need additional House votes to make a difference in Washington.
Federal law requires us to use our best efforts to collect and report the following information for each individual whose contributions exceed $200 in an election cycle.
Contributions to Steve Young for Congress are not tax deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes. The maximum allowable contribution is $2,300 per person to each of the primary and general elections. Couples may give up to $9,200 from common funds for the primary and general elections, but both names must be on the account. Contributions from corporations, foreign nationals, labor unions and federal government contractors are prohibited.
In a rare moment of unusual candor, a wanton display of unrestrained recklessness, an attempt to wag his “strong-on-Terra” manhood (or a combination of some or all of the foregoing), the absentee chickenhawk congressman of the 3rd congressional district of California reached into the darkest crevices of his soulless being and bravely declared as follows:
I cannot say, per se, that waterboarding is torture.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, your taxes at work – this is the congressional representative of the people of CA-03. Watch and weep (barf bag highly recommended).
Presented below is the response from Dr. Bill Durston, the Democratic challenger who (with your support and able assistance) will defeat this congress critter in the next election and help restore the needed sanity and prestige to the United States’ Congress.
Please meet Dr. Bill Durston (THE Prescription for Change), in his own words:
Lungren “Cannot Say that Waterboarding is Torture”
By Bill Durston, M.D.
At a town hall meeting in Folsom, California, on November 28, Congressman Dan Lungren was asked, “What’s your position on waterboarding?”
Lungren replied, “I cannot say, per se, that waterboarding is torture.”
Waterboarding, which has been used since the Spanish Inquisition, involves restraining a captive on his back on a board while water is repeatedly poured over the subject’s face. Although waterboarding may leave no lasting physical injury, it can result inhalation of water into the lungs and death. Even when there are no lasting physical effects, waterboarding causes extreme and often prolonged mental distress. Subjects are rarely able to tolerate the agony for more than a few seconds before begging their captors for mercy.
Waterboarding has long been regarded as a form of torture by most military and legal experts. Torture is prohibited by the U.S. constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment, by similar provisions in U.S. military law and the Geneva Conventions, and by the United Nations Convention Against Torture. U.S. soldiers who have been caught waterboarding enemy captives have been prosecuted by the U.S. military as long ago as the Spanish American War and as recently as the Vietnam War.
Waterboarding came to public attention in 2005 when ABC News reported that terrorism suspects in U.S. custody were being subjected to waterboarding during interrogations. Congress reacted by passing an amendment to the 2006 Defense Authorization Act prohibiting torture of detainees. Republican Senator, John McCain, who was himself subjected to torture while a prisoner of war in Vietnam, authored the amendment. McCain described waterboarding as “very exquisite torture.”
The November 28 Folsom Town Hall Meeting was not the first time that Lungren has faced questions about torture. Lungren voted against the prohibition on torture in the 2006 Defense Authorization Act. During his re-election campaign in 2006, Lungren was asked in a debate in Elk Grove about his position on torture. Lungren replied, “Some people confuse the question of torture and aggressive means of interrogation.”
The same night that the question on waterboarding was posed to Lungren in Folsom, the question was posed to Republican presidential hopefuls on a nationally televised debate. Senator McCain re-emphasized his position that waterboarding is torture and expressed astonishment when Mitt Romney, like Lungren, equivocated. During Senate confirmation hearings earlier this month, Attorney General Michael Mukasey also refused to characterize waterboarding as torture.
Senator McCain knows what torture is. As he has repeatedly stated, waterboarding is torture, plain and simple. Like other forms of torture, it is illegal, immoral, and unconstitutional. It is also an ineffective method of gathering reliable intelligence. Most tortured subjects will tell their captors whatever they believe their tormentors wish to hear. In an extensive report published in December 2006, the Intelligence Science Board concluded that the information gathered by the torture of subjects held in U.S. custody in the 21st century was just as unreliable as the information gathered by torture during medieval times.
The fact that candidates for high level government positions in the United States of America are being asked in 2007 about their positions on torture, and that some of them do not condemn it, is an indication of how traumatized our country remains following the September 11 terrorist attacks, and how far we have strayed from the principles upon which our country was founded.
These are frightening times, and the threat of terrorism is real. But torture is both morally reprehensible and forensically unreliable. A ban on cruel and unusual punishment is one of the key principles upon which our country was founded. In difficult times, we should return to these principles, not abandon them.
As you can see, there is no doubt that Bill Durston’s position contrasts vividly against the pernicious and glib response given by his opponent in the referenced video. There is no doubt that a majority of humanity agrees with Bill Durston on this and that a change is warranted, given what we know about his opponent. We are working assiduously to make this change happen in the next election cycle and we implore you to please help draw the needed attention to this race by contributing, volunteering or just talking about it. We are not merely looking to make this a “competitive” race this time around – we are determined to (and confident that we will) WIN it outright. But we cannot do so without your support.
Bill Richardson is goal-oriented, assertive and confident. He has served as a Congressman, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Secretary of Energy and is in his second term as Governor of New Mexico after a landslide re-election victory in November 2006.
Here are five of many reasons why I believe Richardson possesses the experience, vision and leadership skills to be a great President:
1. A Bright Vision for America
2. An Ironclad Promise to Promptly End the U.S. Occupation of Iraq
3. A Bold Agenda To Address The Pressing Challenges Facing Our Nation and Planet
4. The White House and A Landslide Victory for Democrats Nationwide in 2008
5. Comprehensive Immigration Reform In Accordance With the Values Upon Which Our Country Was Founded
This was originally posted on MyDD as part of its candidate series. I am not part of the Richardson campaign.
1. A Bright Vision for America
Richardson believes in using government to improve the lives of people and affect change in a positive way. He takes a practical approach to governing, focusing on solutions to problems rather than ideology. His vision for America is to be “a nation of opportunity and prosperity for all and guaranteeing real security for all our people.”
Earlier this year, in a speech to the Arab American Institute in April 2007, Richardson stated:
Here at home, we must adhere and protect the words, spirit and life of our Constitution for America is not just a country, it is a belief. A belief in a right to freedom of speech and freedom of religion. A belief that every man and woman has the right to elect their government and a belief in freedom, justice and equality. America is the land of opportunity, but we have much to do to ensure that America is the land of equality of opportunity.
To get an insight into Richardson the person, I suggest you watch the following videos. The first features the person who knows him best, Barbara Richardson, his wife of thirty-five years:
The second is a profile of Richardson by Charles Gibson of ABC News:
2. An Ironclad Promise to Promptly End the U.S. Occupation of Iraq
Rocky Anderson, human rights activist and the mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah, has endorsed Richardson. In an essay in the Nation, Anderson states:
If ending the tragic, self-destructive occupation of Iraq is indeed a line-in-the-sand issue, only Bill Richardson stands out among the leading candidates as the choice for President.
While Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards refuse to pledge an end to the occupation, even by 2013, Bill Richardson commits clearly to pulling out all US troops. He recognizes that the occupation is widely despised, aiding in the recruitment of terrorists beyond Osama bin Laden’s wildest dreams.
Richardson’s consistent message on the necessity for a prompt and complete withdrawal from Iraq is resonating with Iowa voters. This week STAR*PAC (Stop the Arms Race Political Action Committee of Iowa) endorsed Richardson. Harold Wells, Chair of STAR*PAC, explained why:
Governor Richardson has consistently promised to get all the troops out of Iraq within one year and probably as soon as six months. He promises he will leave no residual troops behind. And his message is the same wherever he speaks — to a military audience in Georgetown, a New Hampshire town meeting, in a rural Iowa community or at STAR*PAC’s candidate forum with the Governor in August. Three generals — General Volney Warner, General William Odom and Lt. General Robert Gard — support Richardson’s plans to get the troops out of Iraq.
Richardson observes that a complete withdrawal gives us the leverage we now lack to get the warring factions to compromise, while our presence fuels the insurgency. In an Op Ed published in the Washington Post entitled “Why We Should Exit Iraq Now,” Richardson wrote:
So long as American troops are in Iraq, reconciliation among Iraqi factions is postponed. Leaving forces there enables the Iraqis to delay taking the necessary steps to end the violence. And it prevents us from using diplomacy to bring in other nations to help stabilize and rebuild the country.
The presence of American forces in Iraq weakens us in the war against al-Qaeda. It endows the anti-American propaganda of those who portray us as occupiers plundering Iraq’s oil and repressing Muslims. The day we leave, this myth collapses, and the Iraqis will drive foreign jihadists out of their country.
To hear Richardson explain his plan for Iraq, the imperative for all of our troops to leave Iraq as well as discussing the approach the U.S. should take on Iran through seeking common ground, listen to the following interview on News Hour with Jim Lehrer:
3. A Bold Agenda To Address The Pressing Challenges Facing Our Nation and Planet
Being the sole Democratic candidate for President with executive branch experience, voters can evaluate Richardson from the unique stand point of an actual record of implementing policy on key issues, not merely the speeches he has given. Each year, the Conservation Voters of New Mexico releases a Legislative Scorecard breaking down the votes on key bills impacting the environment. The CVNM also rates the Governor. This year, the CVNM gave Richardson an “A”.
Richardson recognizes that the threats to our environment extend beyond our borders:
A hungry world will also hunger for scapegoats. A thirsty world will thirst for revenge. A world in crisis will be a world of anger and violence and terrorism.
He has set forth a global agenda to address the welfare of the human race, linking climate change, poverty, international disease and war.
On the critical issue of climate change, Richardson has offered the most aggressive plan of any candidate, proposing to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2050. In a book published this week, entitled In LEADING BY EXAMPLE: How We Can Inspire an Energy and Security Revolution, Richardson argues that the U.S. should start a ten-year program immediately to eliminate its dependence on overseas oil and address global warming.
Can you believe this? Bill Richardson has written a truly exciting book. This is the book we’ve been waiting for – the one that takes us from the stage of awareness that Al Gore produced two years ago to the society that takes control of destiny and begins to live in global wealth, health and security.
Richardson begins by describing the existing current lag in leadership. America needs to reposition its image in the spirit that it has long held. Sacrifice and inspiration are essential to that image. With the image and presence of a compassionate America, nations will succeed in lifting themselves from tyranny, depression, illness and tragedy. We cannot afford to confuse our image as a people – that image that produces inspiration through compassion – with one that will overrun other nations to satisfy an addiction for oil.
4. The White House and A Landslide Victory for Democrats Nationwide in 2008
I written previously that Richardson will be Karl Rove’s worst nightmare. With Richardson at the head of the Democratic ticket, no longer would the fate of the Democratic candidate rise or fall on the outcome of one state.
We would start with the same states carried by Senator Kerry in 2004. Add in Richardson’s Latino heritage and Western values as well as economic policies and stance on 2nd Amendment issues, Richardson becomes the ideal Democratic candidate to convert Red states to Blue.
University of Virginia political science professor Larry Sabato recently made the same argument in an interview:
He is unbeatable. It is amazing the Democrats haven’t recognized that. Republicans will tell you privately that if the Democrats nominate Bill Richardson the election is over. They know they will lose to Bill Richardson. He is perfectly positioned.
Now contrast Richardson’s appeal with the current front runner and most well known Democratic politician in America. Even though opinion polls show most Americans believe our country is headed in the wrong direction and prefer a Democrat to succeed Bush, when Clinton is matched up against Giuliani the race is a dead heat. Why? More people rate Clinton negative on the quality of honesty than positive. The Democrats will win in a landslide in 2008, if Richardson is at the top of the ticket.
5. Comprehensive Immigration Reform In Accordance With the Values Upon Which Our Country Was Founded
Before the campaign commenced, Richardson called for comprehensive immigration reform that strengthens our borders while also providing a path to citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.
Last year, Biden, Clinton, Dodd and Obama caved into the anti-immigrant pressure groups in voting for a massive, 700-mile wall along the U.S.-Mexican border. Richardson has repeatedly called the fence ineffective and a terrible symbol for America. In his view, it also creates a disincentive for Mexico to cooperate with the U.S. – which is essential for stopping illegal immigration.
On the current hot issue of the day – drivers’ licenses for illegal immigrants – Dodd and Edwards are now talking like Republicans. Edwards flip on this issue is especially revealing. Here is a candidate that time and time again has proclaimed, “We are past the time for cautious, poll-driven politics.” Yet, Edwards has seen the polls and changed his position to that which serves his short term political advantage.
Richardson doesn’t play the anti-immigrant card. He signed legislation in New Mexico that gave licenses to all persons without proof of citizenship. When this topic was raised in a recent interview, Richardson commented:
MATTHEWS: Governor, what would you have said to that same question? Were you on base with regard to whether we should give, at the state level, driver’s licenses to the people in the country illegally?
RICHARDSON: I would have said yes. You know, four years ago, my legislature sent me a bill to give driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. I signed it, because my law enforcement people asked me to do it. They said it was a matter of public safety, that we want safe drivers on the roads. Insurance-uninsured drivers has gone down in New Mexico, from 33 percent to 11 percent, since I signed that bill. It’s a matter of being safe on the highways and also knowing where they are. I think Senator Clinton should have just said yes. It sounded like she agreed with the governor. She did fumble that.
To hear Richardson discuss his plan on immigration, listen to the above video clip, the interview on News Hour with Jim Lehrer.
————
Finally, I’d like to comment on the issue of the day – the confirmation vote on Michael Mukasey. The vote on Mukasey was a vote the Dems in the Senate could have won if they showed a spine. Mukasey needed 51 votes to be confirmed. Biden, Dodd, Clinton and Obama were all missing in action.
Richardson spoke out first against Mukasey. On October 19th, prior to any statements by the other Presidential candidates, Richardson stepped forward and criticized Mukasey for refusing to say whether waterboarding is torture:
“Waterboarding is torture, and anyone who is unwilling to identify it as such is not qualified to be the chief legal officer of the United States of America. If I were in the U.S. Senate, I would vote against Mukasey unless he denounces such specific forms of torture.
“Torture does not work. Mistreatment backfires and destroys our international leadership, as we saw with Abu Ghraib. Torture also endangers our own troops. The standards we adopt may well be what our own troops are subjected to.
“Anytime one makes a person think he or she is being executed, the very nature of waterboarding, it obviously is a violation of the U.S. Constitution, international law, and basic human decency. . .
“If another nation engaged in waterboarding against American citizens, we would denounce that country and call the practice barbaric, and rightly so.
“We must stand against torture without equivocation, without compromise, and without exception. Torture is a violation of everything we stand for as Americans and as human beings.”
Shame on the Democrats that voted for Mukasey and those that didn’t show up at all. This was not a vote on one person. It was a vote on whether the U.S. government or agents acting for our government may commit torture in the name of national security.
Persons without a moral compass should not hold political power. And no surprise here – people under torture say what they believe their interrogators want them to say. The result is we get false and misleading information when we practice torture.
The results can be devastating. We went to war with Iraq in part because of intelligence based on the torture. I suggest everyone read Tim Weiner’s Legacy of Ashes. It is a fascinating history of the CIA. At page 487, he states:
[CIA Director George] Tenet provided his own grim warnings in a secret hearing before the Senate intelligence committee on September 17: ‘Iraq provided al Qaeda with various kinds of training – combat, bomb-making, and chemical, biological, radiological and nucler.’ He based that statement on the confessions of a single source – Ibn al-Shakh al-Libi, a fringe player who had been beaten stuffed in a two-foot-square box for seventeen hours, and threatened with prolonged torture. The prisoner had recanted after the threat of torture receded. Tenet did not correct the record.
Serious question here. Dianne Feinstein seems unreachable. No matter how many calls, emails, petitions, letters, smoke signals (well honestly we have not tried that yet) we have sent to her there is no response. She seems unaccountable.
Earlier this week it was Mukasey. Tomorrow will be FISA.
It’s enough to make you throw your hands in the air and give up. But you know what. We have a moral obligation not to.
What I want to know is do you have an idea on how we can get through to her? How do we hold her accountable for her actions?
Those are the questions we posed to Courage Campaign members in an email we sent out earlier today, crowdsourcing ways to hold Senator Feinstein accountable.
Dear Julia,
“You are leaving this country — and all of us — to the waterboards, symbolic and otherwise, of George W. Bush.”
That’s what MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann said to Senator Dianne Feinstein Monday night about her pivotal Judiciary Committee vote to approve Judge Michael Mukasey — the U.S. Attorney General nominee who refuses to admit that “waterboarding” is torture.
Olbermann’s “Special Comment” highlighted the heroic actions of Daniel Levin, President Bush’s former Acting Assistant Attorney General, an astonishingly patriotic man who subjected himself to waterboarding to personally determine if it was, indeed, torture — and then was fired for concluding the obvious.
As Olbermann says, instead of standing up for fundamental human rights and civil liberties that Americans used to take for granted, Dianne Feinstein is allowing George W. Bush to waterboard America and the world.
From waterboarding and wiretapping to Iraq and Iran, we’ve had enough. Enough caving. Enough capitulation. Enough Republican-lite triangulation.
Unfortunately, condoning torture is just the ugly tip of a very dangerous iceberg. Judge Mukasey also is willing to grant George W. Bush executive power carte blanche to ignore the law. And now, with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act up for review by the Judiciary Committee Thursday morning, Senator Feinstein stands at the precipice of history again.
If you care about protecting the Fourth Amendment and stopping warrantless wiretapping, call Senator Feinstein about FISA right now at 202-224-3841.
What was Senator Feinstein’s spin for why she failed to stand up for core American values? “First and foremost, Michael Mukasey is not Alberto Gonzales.”
Well, Senator Feinstein, you are no Daniel Levin. Or Russ Feingold. Or even John McCain, for that matter. As Senator McCain, someone who understands the brutality of torture, has said: Waterboarding is “a horrible torture technique… How can we condone this sort of stuff?”
On some of the most important issues of our lifetime, Senator Feinstein is giving political cover to regressive politicians like Rudolph Giuliani — even though she represents a blue state. A blue state that does not support torture. Or wiretapping Americans without a warrant. Or funding an endless war in Iraq. Or giving aid and comfort to George W. Bush as he seeks to provoke a new war with Iran.
In email after email, we are witnessing the deep disappointment of grassroots and netroots supporters — a rising tide of frustration with Dianne Feinstein, her actions, and her lack of accountability.
If Senator Feinstein cares about nothing else, she cares about her legacy. At this moment, whether she knows it or not, Senator Feinstein’s place in history has been soiled by a decision that she will likely later regret, if only because it is catalyzing a movement to hold her accountable.
You are at ground zero in this movement. While this people-powered project may not create the desired outcome, we won’t know unless we try something new. Something different. Something from you.
As the always eloquent Keith Olbermann says in signing off his broadcast and channeling the ghost of Edward R. Murrow,… “Good night, and good luck.”
Eden James
Managing Director
P.S. With the unprecedented support you just gave us on ActBlue, the Courage Campaign continues to build a movement to stop the Republicans from stealing the White House, block Blackwater’s base on the California border, and hold Senator Feinstein accountable.
Last week, we asked the Courage Campaign community to help us meet a mission-critical goal within one week — 1,000 “No Dirty Tricks” donors on ActBlue — a goal you blew past in less than 48 hours. And now, unbelievably, we’re at 1,243 “No Dirty Tricks” donors on ActBlue and counting.
