Cindy McCain plagiarizes, the youth vote and Obama’s immediate review

Just a small non-issue because I found it funny. According to the LA Times blog, Cindy McCain’s family recipes on her husband’s campaign website were plagiarized from the Food Network website and Rachel Ray. This is pathetic, but again not a major issue or a reason to vote. Personally it’s hard to see Cindy McCain on TV without getting this overwhelming feeling of privilege. She’s actually a teacher, which is very respectable. The problem is that she doesn’t feel the same hard times as most teachers. Most teachers don’t get labeled an heiress by any newspaper article. The more absurd notion of this whole plagiarism fiasco is that she’s actually a cook, with her own recipes. As the heiress to the Budweiser empire in Arizona, she’s probably never tasted Ramen noodles or eaten dog biscuits for sustenance. Just a guess.

On the contrary and about her husband, I just watched John McCain on the Hardball College Tour from Villanova University and I was very impressed. I still question his sharpness and bearing with the economy, but he’s more human and personable than he has appeared in other venues. Is it just me or are candidates much more sincere and human when speaking to college campuses and other gatherings of youth? Barack Obama communicated well during his Hardball College Tour visit, but to see Senator McCain come to life was a surprise to say the least. His evasion of the “typical white person” question was truly noble, as well as his rambling response to the question about having a shot. He revealed more of himself without taking easy opportunities to take jabs at his opponents.

Finally, the Huffington Post reports that Barack Obama would carefully, but immediately review evidence to decide if any further inquiry should be launched into possible Bush administration war crimes. Personally the jury is still out on this issue. I realize that many within the administration are certainly worth an inquiry, but the overall process may prove counter-productive. I agree with the caveat that it runs the risk of creating a partisan witch hunt. The last thing this country needs is for both sides to continue swinging the pendulum back-and-forth.

I also wanted to make one comment about a video I saw on MSNBC of Michelle Obama speaking before some crowd, emphasizing that she herself worked hard for everything. She also sees herself as a testament to the value of investment in public education. I couldn’t agree more. I constantly hear one rebuttal when I begin to make an argument for funding education and paying teachers more: simply throwing money at the problem doesn’t work. The problem is, we’ve never tried. We’ve tried throwing money at the problem of needing a strong democratic ally in the Middle East, but not at better preparing our children for the future. Does that make any sense?

A collection of links and video on waterboarding

This will be sporadically updated and possibly organized better in the future. I want to have a good place to go for all of the information I constantly find myself sharing with people in chunks.

• http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7185648.stm

US national intelligence chief Mike McConnell says it would definitely be torture if HE were subjected to it.

• http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Highlevel_members_of_Administration_pressured_underlings_0402.html

There are some accusations of top level administration orders and pressure on underlings to follow-through with the torture. This is starting to have ‘war crimes’ written all over it.

• http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/03/our-torturous-vice-president/

Our Vice President and his chief of staff, David Addington were where the buck stopped for torture. At least until a memo surfaced with the president’s signature.

• http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/13/mccain-waterboarding-fail/

McCain was against waterboarding before he was for it!

• http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/004931.php

Torture gave them nothing but ‘crap’. If the information is useless, and you are still ‘ok’ with the torture, you’re just a sadist.

• http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=4631535

ABC News reporting that Dick Cheney had to OK the harsh interrogations.

• http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/07/opinion/meyer/main1981479.shtml

President Bush says we don’t torture. We’ve said we don’t, so we don’t.

• http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Waterboarding_drowning_water_torture_expert_testimony_1110.html

“This is not a simulation.”

• http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Romney_Ticking_time_bomb_justifies_torture_0113.html

Mitt Romney believes we must leave waterboarding open for the ticking time bomb. I wonder how effective drowning someone is in getting them to give up actionable intelligence? Making them go brain dead, temporary or no, will hinder any suspect’s ability to give credible information in the “ticking time bomb” scenario.

• http://www.newsweek.com/id/131298

Torture, specifically an internationally unacceptable method like waterboarding makes it harder for us to get criminals and terror suspects extradited. This is from an ally like the UK. There are just some times when you have to act as a responsible and moral nation and times you go in both guns blazing. After 9/11 we had the all clear to go into Afghanistan locked and loaded. We don’t have that anymore, and we never really had it with Iraq. Now it’s hurting our international relations and our ability to pursue our own justice against those who plot against us.

• http://arstechnica.com/journals/science.ars/2007/03/05/psychological-torture-as-damaging-as-physical-torture

Psychological torture is reported to be as damaging as physical torture.

• http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/06/07/sensory_deprivation/#

Sensory deprivation – the military’s number one form of ‘torture’.

• http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,22548731-5001028,00.html

Not like we shape national security policy by what others think, but the Australians read that our House Majority Leader calls this torture. This is how our war on terror makes us less safe.

• http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-intel6feb06,1,1477654.story

The US government finally comes out and admits to waterboarding on February 6th, 2008. The memo referred to surfaced 2 months later.

• http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/03/waterboarding-abc-news-levin/

Dan Levin, a former Department of Justice offical was forced out of his job after conducting his own tests on waterboarding and determining it was not legal. He actually underwent the procedure himself, a rare insight in this debate.

• http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/05/AR2008040502099.html

Could the president have a prisoner’s eyes poked out? John Yoo says maybe.

• http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/08/AR2007120801664.html?hpid=topnews

Some issues with the Democrats’ handling of this issue. It’s not like they’ve done anything since 2006 when they took over both houses of Congress. I still think a snake rots from the head, and that this president bred a climate in Washington that made it impossible to get anything done without kick-downs to his buddies at KBR and Halliburton.

• http://www.pensitoreview.com/2007/10/29/mukasey-wont-say-waterboarding-is-torture/

In 1947 the US condemned waterboarding as torture and yet our new Attorney General won’t admit it? That sounds barbaric.

• http://waterboarding.org/water-based_torture_history_with_pictures

A nice time line of the history of waterboarding, from the Spanish Inquisition to Cambodia POW camps circa 1975. I wonder how many other Inquisition torture techniques would work to maim our enemy and bring us more sadistic revenge for 9/11?

• http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/02/AR2007110201170_pf.html

Waterboarding used to be a crime. In 1983 federal prosecutors charged a Texas sheriff and three deputies for violating civil rights by forcing confessions through waterboarding.

• http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/28/romney-torture-black/

Former presidential hopeful and no-doubt future candidate Mitt Romney talks about deferring to a “counterterrorism expert” on the issue. His expert is connected to Blackwater, the independent contractor (see militia) group working in Iraq which is linked to at least 30 deaths of Iraqi civilians. Yeah, I’d say he’s considerate of human rights and the implications of condoning torture at a national level.

• http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/08/bush.torture.ap/index.html

As recently as March 8th, 2008 President Bush vetoed a bill banning waterboarding.

• http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Pres._Carter_US_tortures_prisoners_I_1010.html

President Carter argues he knows for a fact that the US tortures prisoners. Why not believe a former president, who has held that office and knows its inner-workings?

• http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5368360.stm

Then there are the reports that Iraqis feel the torture is worse in their country after Saddam Hussein’s regime has been removed. Who knows how widespread these feelings are, but it’s not a small matter when the administration already patronized us with phrases like “we’ll be greeted as liberators”.

• http://firedoglake.com/2008/02/13/mccain-standing-up-or-standing-down-on-torture/

McCain has talked a big game, but failed to deliver on a torture bill. His claim was that President Bush would inevitably veto the bill. Way to stand up to make sure no one in the military you wish to lead must endure what you went through for five and a half long years.

• http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/77151/

Congress’s priorities are reflected by the will of the public. A recent CNN poll showed tha 68 percent of Americans said waterboarding was torture.

So what does the White House claim? That the Congress is just being influenced by far-left bloggers. Thats hilarious, if 68 percent of Americans were doing what I am right now we’d be a far less productive nation.

• http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKN0852061620080208?rpc=401

The United Nations also believes that waterboarding should be prosecuted as torture. I know a lot of Americans are told to hate international governmental organizations, but we actually control the UN more than we have to go along with it. It takes a lot more for them to sanction us than for us to put harsh economic crunches on inter-war Iraq, for example.

Brave New Films on the unsuspecting civilians asked to carry out horrific acts, authorized at the highest level. Very powerful! It’s always interesting to hear the private thoughts of people carrying out these orders.

A Scranton native explains how it was partly John McCain’s father who helped communicate the warning of the military industrial complex to President Eisenhower. He also warns against military-funded think tanks.

Would waterboarding be torture if Iranians did it to our soldiers and civilians?

I doubt anything would actually come of this, but the idea of people being called on their transgressions and possibly even taking responsibilty for them gives me a warm feeling. Ahh…fantasy-land.

Matt Lauer confronts President Bush on waterboarding and torture. The president basically says “don’t look behind the curtain…” I wonder if he knows we’re smarter than this, or if he thinks he’s got us duped? Oliver Stone needs to use the song Big Balls by AC/DC in his docu-drama, maybe as W entrance music during the coke-daze in college.

Below are the declassified documents alleged to be memos authorizing torture, which are signed by President Bush. You be the judge, and we’ll see as people with resources investigate. Originally posted at DKos.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, saying that torture isn’t a violation of the 8th Amendment, not because it isn’t cruel or unusual, but because it isn’t punishment.

Technorati Tags: waterboarding, politics, news, torture

Digg: Could the President have a prisoner’s eye poked out?

Thirty pages into a memorandum discussing the legal boundaries of military interrogations in 2003, senior Justice Department lawyer John C. Yoo tackled a question not often asked by American policymakers: Could the president, if he desired, have a prisoner’s eyes poked out?

Or, for that matter, could he have “scalding water, corrosive acid or caustic substance” thrown on a prisoner? How about slitting an ear, nose or lip, or disabling a tongue or limb? What about biting?

by Dan Eggen, Washington Post, April 6, 2008 pg. A06

I highly recommend reading all of the article, it is a sad mark of where our nation has been and is headed if the people do not take the reigns. Things like this don’t happen “for a reason”, and there’s never anything people did to justify their own suffering, but we have total control over the future. When it comes to government, there are things which will ensure every American doesn’t shoulder the guilt of wars waged against people who tried to kill your daddy. Instead of trusting elected fools with the lives of Americans who wear the uniform, I have two ideas for a better America.

National Initiative for Democracy – This project is working to institute something similar to the initiative, referendum and recall system which implemented in 11 states, including Arizona. The idea is simple, if I can get a certain amount of signatures (say 10% of last elections total turnout), I could get certain legislation introduced to be weighed by the people in the next election. Recall also allows for appointed judges to be recalled, this would eliminate the need to accuse and the existence of “activist judges”. Sometimes the will of the people comes out in odd ways, and sometimes it is a judge with an agenda.

Transparent Government – This concept hasn’t had near enough elaboration, but it’s safe to say that in the Google Age, we can make any information accessible. We just need government cooperation and willingness to take a magnifying glass to their cushy jobs with frivolous fringe benefits. I’ve represented the movement with a great resources site. I’ll admit I’m not as well versed as I need to be, but I’ll continue to bring you my findings, with links to the sources.

Please feel free to comment and add to the discussion/fuel my research. All I want is the truth, and yes, it does hurt.

[UPDATE: I found a video of a reporter saying that as a result of this “torture memo” many top officials may be indicted for war crimes. I’ll believe that when I see it, but it’s nice to know at least someone wasn’t afraid to speak the truth. These men committed war crimes. At the point we realize this war was unnecessary and took our attention off the real target, who was a sworn enemy of Saddam Hussein, we should also realize lies got us into the war and the liars who manifested them are guilty of war crimes. What the public decides to do with that is their collective prerogative. Sources: original story from the Washington Post, video and analysis from the Huffington Post.]