Libertarian Columnist Jon Caldara Needs An Education On Human Rights

The impetuous libertarian gun fanatic and rabble rouser Jon Caldara is at it again in his latest Denver Post op-ed ('Jared Polis and the New Human Rights', Perspective, Oct. 7). Caldara writes:

"Jared Polis insists: 'Health care is a human right'.   Either my understanding of human rights is completely wrong or Polis's understanding of the English language is. I thought human rights were guarantees through natural law that you can do some things even if the society around you wants to stop you. Those activities and beliefs behind them, can't be ripped from you even if you're in the political minority. The government can't take away your speech, and expression, yur ability to assemble, own firearms. Government can't take property without due process, inflict cruel punishment."

Here Caldara demonstrates the typical truncated libertarian view that only negative rights count. In other words,  there are only “negative” rights inherent in the Bill of Rights, and there can be no “positive” ones.   A negative right implies that there are ‘x’ things the government can’t do to you, e.g.  take away your guns or your property without good legal basis ("eminent domain"). . By contrast, positive rights assert there are actual positive rights to which you are entitled under the Bill of Rights, say health care and privacy. Most of those on the Right (as well as libertarians like Caldara) , who have only passing acquaintance with the Federalist papers, assert positive rights don’t exist, but they are wrong. They merely show they fail to grasp the concept of an "unenumerated right", i.e. under the ninth amendment of the Bill of Rights..

The latter has been well explicated, for example, by Prof. Garry Wills (‘A Necessary Evil: A History Of American Distrust of Government’, Simon & Schuster, 1999).   As Prof. Wills has pointed out, the unenumerated rights are all those rights not already specifically declared or described in the existing Bill of Rights.  The Founders thereby realized and understood there could exist rights in the future they hadn’t conceived of at the time of the Constitutional Convention, and so allowed those (then) undefined rights to become realized later. In other words, the rights allotted citizens are not limited to the rights actually and specifically delineated, i.e. in the Bill of Rights.

This opens up the basis for positive rights, not merely negative ones. Hence, Jared Polis - unlike our friend Jon Caldara- simply grasped the concept of the unenumerated right and how it paved the way for rights such a health care and privacy.

And why not? (Apart from the fact the U.S. is a signatory to a 1994 UN Declaration that health care is indeed a right.)  Think about it carefully, from the perspective of Caldara that health care must not be a right, never and no how.   So let us say I have no access to competent health care and in Caldara's view, no right to it.

I then contract Avian flu, Ebola or some other highly virulent disease, but for which I can get no care. (No money to pay for it) I am turned down at place after place and end up circulating amidst large crowds merely spreading the particular  contagion to others. HOW is this helpful to the community I live in, how is it beneficial to our national security? It isn't! 

This is where Caldara's ill-informed logic breaks down, i.e. "The new progressive bill of rights means the people around you owe you stuff".

No, that is Trump think.  What it means is that by conferring positive rights like health care the whole community benefits because that one loose end which could unleash an epidemic is sealed. Closed, not left open.  Rather then thinking in a limited fashion about "grabbing others' stuff" one is led instead to concur that all partake of the protections afforded by the tax commons. That goes for national defense - but also for health care.

It also includes an inherent right to privacy - another positive right. For example, if the presumption is no right to privacy then the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights is meaningless. To restate that Amendment:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

But note, “secure in one’s person, house, papers, effects” implies PRIVACY! These are after all MY private papers, my private effects, my house, etc. If an inherent right to privacy was a myth then by all accounts being secure in one’s person, papers, effects wouldn’t matter. Hell, let the whole freakin’ world see ‘em! This is why in a fascist dictatorship “personal effects” don’t exist. “Personal papers” has no meaning. The state has full monopoly, de facto ownership on whatever the person has, even his own body. Hence, in fascist dictatorships, such as existed in Nazi Germany, all personal effects, papers could be seized by the Nazis on a whim or remote suspicion - under the Reich Laws. A fundamental right to privacy, meanwhile, insists there exist bona fide entities that one can uniquely own, e.g. papers, effects – including photos or what not- that are private. Without this fundamental right, then, “personal papers, effects” has no meaning hence the 4th amendment is meaningless.

Again, this is not exceptional so Caldara's limited view of rights  as only negative breaks down. Caldara is correct that a right (positive or negative) retains that property irrespective of the population affected, as when he writes:

"In a society of only three people it would still be a violation of human rights for two of them to force the third into a religion, or take his arms".

 

True, but this is not the same as a government of three agreeing to a contract that health care for all members is a right - a shared responsibility - to protect each from a terrible disease that may befall one and spread to the others.  In other words, the extension of the positive right is a matter of mutual self-interest.   This is why Caldara's logic also breaks down when he writes:

"If it is a right to demands goods or services at someone else's expense then one person out of our fictional society of three could demand health care...and the other two must provide him that human right."

Well, they could also refuse - and die themselves- say if he contracts cholera.  Caldara's claim is that "it's not a freedom" i.e.  for the recipient of the care (say oral rehydration with salts in the case of cholera) but rather a "liability for the other two to provide".   My argument is that it is not a liability but a very wise form of self protection to take proactive care of the 3rd member of the fictional society.  Hence, it is beneficial to this mini society to deem health care a right, just as it would be for any larger society.

The whole problem, as I see it, is a failure of vision (and political moxie and will) to see positive rights as beneficial to whole communities or nations, not as liabilities to be avoided.   Caldara is right about one thing, all human rights are unconditional - and that includes health care and privacy.

Avoid Trump Rallies IF You Believe In Free Speech

Protester Rekeem Jones shows the battered cheek he got after a hee-haw cornpone goon sucker -punched him for exercising his free speech rights at a Trump rally in NC.  (Right, the dumb hick who did it, John McGraw , who now is in jail)

The parade of violent events at Trump rallies reached a crescendo yesterday as news feeds showed a wild-eyed North Carolina hick in a cowboy hat sucker punching a black protester exercising his free speech rights. Not only did this cornpone maggot make  a mess of Rekeem Jones' face he also blabbered, like a true domestic terrorist,  “Next time we see him, we might have to kill him!”

The video images evoked scenes shown to me in 1978 by my now deceased German friend, Kurt Braun, from newsreels he compiled of the Nazi rampages in the 1930s.  E.g.

Some of the most violent scenes showed Hitler's Brownshirts, the S.A., wading into political demonstrations with sticks - beating Jews, socialists (real ones, not the faux national "socialists"), labor union members and communists. All targeted in assorted protests and beaten to a pulp by the Hitler thugs. As former Hitler Youth Kurt put it, "Germany must never descend to such depths again".  Maybe, but if he saw what was happening in America today he'd be retching his guts out.

The latest incident, with terror hick McGraw acting out his Id,  is only the latest of a string of vile assaults captured on video, including of Michelle Fields - a conservative reporter from Breitbart.com. So it appears Trump's goons are an indiscriminate bunch of tormentors.

But this latest broadcast mugging shows some Trumpies really have S.A. creds. The sickening spectacle,  caught-on-camera, was yet another example of free speech protesters and media members being manhandled at Trump rallies. The most egregious aspect is that it went down as cops were actually ejecting the 26-year-old Jones from the event. So, get this, Jones was being frog marched out and barely gets to the top of the stairs and the exits when he's coldcocked by the 78- year old wannabe tough guy, Trumpie loyalist.

What we have beheld - in these assorted violent beatings by the Trumpies,- encouraged by Trump himself ("Get him outta here! Punch him in the face! Kick him! Step on her head!") is their total intolerance for the free speech they supposedly hold dear (in every other situation where it suits them).  But this opposition should not surprise us because Trump himself has gone on the record vowing to shut down the presses - if he's elected- and they write anything "bad" about him.

As reported in a recent TIME article on him by David von Drehle (March 14, p. 36) Trump has no patience or tolerance for what he deems "dishonest" or "inaccurate" statements.  What is his solution?

"He would like to open up the laws on libel to protect people like himself"

Similar ideas percolated in Adolf Hitler's head after becoming Chancellor in 1932 and this led to the establishment of the Reich laws which permitted the arrest and detention of journalists and news reporters in Germany - including being sent to the camps- if they so much as wrote a single sentence critical of the Fuhrer.

Would Trump do this if President? We don't know but the current signs and portents are not encouraging. And even if he himself didn't pass specific anti-free speech laws, who is to say what his insane, unhinged supporters might do?  Form gangs and smash the windows of  local  TV stations and newspaper offices, a la Kristillnacht?

The most disturbing aspect of this latest attack is the way videos showed  the ponytailed McGraw, clad in a cowboy hat and black leather vest, sitting back down after cold-cocking the peaceful young black protester. This,  as his knuckle-dragging  seatmates congratulated him on the dirty blow.

Then, to add insult to injury, McGraw - later confronted over his action - spitting out that the guy "might need to be killed next time" and besides "he wasn't even an American".  HUH?

In fact, Jones was one of the few REAL Americans at the Crown Coliseum in Fayetteville NC  given he was actually invoking his first amendment rights. The anti-Americans, the faux Americans, were the yahoos like McGraw who felt it their bounden duty to shut a real citizen up and even waylay him

Welcome to the new Nazis, and if Trump is elected President, look for many more to come out of the wood work.

Educating TIME's Joe Klein On The Nature Of Rights & Privileges

As we move further into the Neoliberal world order, a number of efforts are being made by their elites to gut citizen thought via propaganda and language manipulation. In the past I had already cited the efforts to eviscerate all notions or memes associated with political conspiracy, i.e. by substituting the word 'scandal' for what had formerly been described as conspiracies. For example, the Watergate conspiracy is now the "Watergate scandal" and the Iran-Contra Conspiracy (as defined by then Counsel Lawrence Walsh in his Iran - Contra Report), is now the "Iran-Contra Scandal". (This was recently referenced in a segment on MSNBC by Andrea Mitchell noting how Nancy Reagan had sought to protect Reagan from the blowback from the "Iran-Contra Scandal". ) Thus as more and more hear this misuse they come gradually to accept it.

As the Elites attempt to gut all notions of political conspiracy by such language re-crafting, they are also painfully aware it cannot work completely until all of us with historical facts and memories pass away. Then, all that will be left is a mainly ahistorical, younger population that was never aware of the original terms - and probably doesn't care. In this way the future can be altered to the Elites' advantage based on reframing the events of the past.

Another domain ripe for manipulation, or what I call "mind fucking",  has to do with the nature of rights and privileges. In this case, because so few Americans understand or have been educated on the nuances of rights, and relation to privileges, they are susceptible to having their brains subtly or not so subtly exploited.

I bring this up to reference a recent column (March 14, p. 31)  by TIME's resident Neolib, Joe Klein, who wrote this in reference to Bernie Sanders's proposals:

"There is also the problem of 'rights' that Sanders claims for the people: health care is a right, not a privilege, free college education is a right - but these rights are granted without any reciprocal responsibilities. Surely, if we're going to give middle-class kids a four year college education they owe something in return- some form of service perhaps."

Clearly, like most Neoliberals, Klein regards health care and free public education as privileges not rights. But he is sadly mistaken.  Take health care. It is not a luxury item. . Rather, people are likely to need it most when their health is gravely compromised-say in a serious accident or a heart attack-  exactly the time it's most likely to be punitively expensive, or they're likely to be denied necessary care outright.

The fact that access to health care can determine life or death clearly means it falls within the purview of an unqualified RIGHT, not a privilege. On the other hand, driving a car is a privilege even if one needs a car to get to work. Hence, the recent TIME magazine cover to the effect that robot autos will soon take over and "all you have to do is give up your right to drive" is misplaced, You have no innate human right to drive. It's a myth. Nor do you have any innate rights to fast food, to ATMs, to home ownership or your own yacht.

Let's go back to health care and try to educate Klein and his Neolib cohort. In the first instance, health care can be regarded as a definite positive right under the “unenumerated rights of citizens" declared under the Ninth Amendment of the Bill of Rights. These are referred to as those rights 'not denied or disparaged' by the formally enumerated rights.

Alas, the whole concept of rights that can exist without being actually mentioned is something beyond the Neolibs' ken, or conception! Evidently, then, they never read the Constitution as carefully as they believed! In fact, as Prof. Garry Wills has pointed out  (A Necessary Evil-A History Of American Distrust Of Government, Simon & Schuster, 1999), the unenumerated rights are all those rights not already specifically declared or described in the existing document. The Founders thereby realized and understood there could exist rights in the future they hadn’t conceived of at the time of the Constitutional Convention. They thereby allowed those (then) undefined rights to become realized later under the provision of the Ninth Amendment. In other words, the rights allotted citizens are not limited to the rights actually and specifically delineated, i.e. in the Bill of Rights.

Apart from health care being a right under the 9th amendment, it is also a right by declaration of the U.S. government explicitly when it signed a (1994) UN Declaration mandating that health care is a universal right. (It can't be, clearly, if it is unaffordable or if accessing it in a desperate situation leads to bankruptcy).

Another example of  an unenumerated right is the right to privacy. This is covered under the 4th amendment, but because it's not spelled out in black and white most who read that amendment don't process it. The Fourth Amendment reads:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

So follow me now on this: Being “secure in one’s person, house, papers, effects” implies PRIVACY! These are after all MY private papers, my private effects, my house, etc. If an inherent right to privacy was a myth then by all accounts being secure in one’s person, papers, effects wouldn’t matter. Hell, let the whole freakin’ world see ‘em! This is why in a fascist dictatorship “personal effects” don’t exist. “Personal papers” has no meaning. The state has full monopoly, de facto ownership on whatever the person has, even his own body. Hence, in fascist dictatorships, such as existed in Nazi Germany, all personal effects, papers could be seized by the Nazis on a whim or remote suspicion - under the Reich Laws. A fundamental right to privacy, meanwhile, insists there exist bona fide entities that one can uniquely own, e.g. papers, effects – including photos or what not- that are private. Without this fundamental right, then, “personal papers, effects” has no meaning hence the 4th amendment is meaningless.

Let's now return to free public education. It can be argued this also is a universal right and which is why we have free public schooling in the U.S. The value placed on the education of citizens is implicit, else it would not exist. Extrapolating this, one can argue that granting free higher education is also a right, i.e. for those citizens who can maximize its use and contribute to the nation as a result. Klein mentions "giving something in return" but to me that is only attendant on whether the student is funded for higher elite education and in specific areas - like medicine.  In a public university it should not require anything more than the student performing to a sufficiently high academic standard. (As I pointed out three posts ago).

The "return on investment" will thereby come naturally when the graduate subsequently brings his learned skills to bear in the society, whether via the teaching profession, law, science, medicine, or in business. Hence, we acknowledge by contributing monies to the funding of qualified students' higher public education we as a nation are the ultimate winners- not losers.

Klein also carps about the "right of unwed mothers to food stamps". Again, implying that this is some kind of a privilege granted. But if we as a nation truly value life, new life in the womb  - and wish to make abortion less common - then it is incumbent on us to provide those food stamps to the unwed mother and her unborn. Not to do so is to act bestially and in an uncivilized manner, and to thereby vindicate all those who insist the anti-abortion Right only cares about protecting life in a restricted way.

Klein further asks if such mothers "don't owe us some standard of civic responsibility too"?  Yes, they do - that is to exercise intelligence and use family planning before engaging in sexual relations. Thereby, not placing an undue burden on the state.

Klein's questions and positions also elicit how the Neoliberal state and agenda has gutted job potential in the nation and created a vast unemployed (and underemployed) underclass. Given his position to do with the unwed mothers receiving food stamps with no strings, I am sure he would also demand "service" from those on welfare. (I.e. based on Clinton's wrong headed 'welfare to work') The first line victims of Neoliberal trade policies, including NAFTA. The answer is 'No'.

Charles Reich ('Opposing the System', pp. 125-26) correctly observes:

"The claim that government is free to reduce or cut off welfare and other forms of support for people in economic need is totally mistaken. Welfare is not a gift, nor is it, despite frequent assertions, a transfer from those who earn a living to those who are not.  Welfare is rather an obligation from society – and from those who are working- to those who have been deprived of work and the opportunity to earn a living. If we want to speak of transfers, it would be more accurate to say that those with a secure place in the economic system are enjoying a transfer of wealth from those who have been excluded from the economic system. Welfare then is partial compensation for a deprivation of livelihood that allows others to work"

In other words welfare,  seen in the proper context,  transcends even being a "right" to being an OBLIGATION from a basically rich society.  The latter, embracing  a perverted economic system, owes  a basic economic viability to those who have been deprived of work and are excluded.

Maybe a hard nut to swallow but there it is!

Another Reckless "Free Speech" Episode: GOOPr Compares Obama to Hitler For Not Going to Paris

Where does it end? The crass stupidity and ignorance afoot in this country like a mutant  swine flu virus run amuck. How many brains are already infected we don't know, but on the conservo side it looks like most of them - from the evidence: denying global warming imps, to the subset seeking to make it 100 times worse with the Keystone XL pipeline, to the degenerates who removed a key banking regulation that could bring on another financial crisis. And now, some mutant asshole comparing Obama to Hitler, for god's sakes!

Republican Congressman Randy Weber (R-TX) on Tuesday  took the debate to reprehensibly  offensive levels when he tweeted that "Even Adolph [sic] Hitler thought it more important than Obama to get to Paris. (For all the wrong reasons.) Obama couldn't do it for right reasons."

 

 

Are you kidding me? Turning Obama into Hitler (who had his storm troops INVADE Paris)  because he didn't join the security nightmare mob scene in Paris to selectively mourn the Charlie Hebdo satirists who consistently poked the hornet's nest because they could?  (And let's bear in mind even Pope Francis declared that while using violence in the name of religion is wrong, so is insulting others' religions.)  Aren't people thinking? Haven't they seen the news of problems in the Secret Service - with four major security breaches - and the overhaul just yesterday by Assistant Director Joseph Clancy in replacing four high officials? Imagine the nightmare scene had Obama stood with freakin'  millions in gay Paree with these security vulnerabilities. See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/chris-floyd/60420/the-lash-and-the-sword-hebdo-hypocrisy-and-the-mob-mind

 

 

Let's get this clear:  whatever your take is on the Charlie Hebdo incident and attack, the jaw-dropping insult from a sitting member of Congress was unconscionable. Further, it can only really be understood when you realize that the conservative media in America have been wallowing in that kind of mindless garbage for most of Obama's time in office. (UPDATED: Weber has since apologized as he should)

 

 

Freely engaging in the kind of rhetorical bomb-throwing that had previously been seen and heard on the far fringes of American politics, mainstream conservative commentators have embraced the Obama-is-just-like-Hitler narrative and have proudly paraded it around for years, either oblivious to, or unconcerned with, the offensive implications. In previous blog posts I have noted many outbursts of this Hitler - malarkey, including some clueless folks posting repugnant images such as:

 

 

 

As Media Matters noted last year:

Wallowing in self-pity and convinced of the dark forces moving against them, conservatives launch attack after attack, insisting they're fighting forces at home akin to Hitler's Nazi storm troops. They complain louder and louder that America has become like Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler when 6 million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust.

This country's  perception of "free speech" has now been so badly fucked that something as innocuous as a debate over Obama's scheduling is met with a Republican Hitler-based denunciation.  This is a mark of insanity and intemperance - which would be bad enough among the bigot punditry like Limbaugh and Hannity - but is inexcusable coming from a lawmaker. (In Germany such comparisons would earn the guy 3 years at hard labor)

 

 

But sad to say,  this kind of rhetorical bomb throwing  has been a mark of conservative shame throughout the president's tenure.  Let's also recall that Fox News chief Roger Ailes accused the management of National Public Radio of having "a kind of Nazi attitude" when it fired commentator Juan Williams. Then we beheld how the former Fox host Glenn Beck immersed himself in odious Hitler rhetoric during Obama's first years in office, while the then-burgeoning Tea Party movement did the same, and so did Rush Limbaugh. The latter pig obsessed over Obama-Nazi comparisons in 2009:

 

 

"Adolf Hitler, like Barack Obama, also ruled by dictate." Limbaugh thought it was "fabulous and fantastic and hilarious that a women shows up at a Barney Frank town hall meeting with an Obama-as-Hitler poster and the Nazi stuff."
 

Note that none of these assholes have likely ever been to Germany or actually spoken to real Germans that fought in WWII - including in the Wehrmacht under Hitler - as I have. So they don't have a damned clue what  they are yapping about, other than from comic books. See e.g.
 

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/07/want-to-know-about-nazi-germanys-real.html

 

 

Then, last year, billionaire venture capitalist Tom Perkins submitted a Wall Street Journal letter to the editor hyping an alleged "progressive war on the American one percent" and compared it to Nazi Germany's anti-Jewish riots. (WSJeditors, a Fox analyst, and Michelle Malkin all defended Perkins from the criticism he received following the distasteful

 

And I've already bashed this fool elitist for that outburst, e.g

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/01/tom-perkins-another-whiny-rich-asshole.html

Then there was cornpone moron Mike Huckabee who  likened abortion to the methodical extermination of the Jewish population in Germany under Hitler. This jerk not even conscious that one mandate under the Reich laws of Hitler was forced abortions, mainly of Jewish women and forced births demanded of "Aryan" women - or dispatch to the camps.

 

 

More recently, the latter day Fox News contributing numbskull Dr. Ben Carson claimed America is "very much like Nazi Germany" in that it has a government "using its tools to intimidate the population."  Clearly this jerkoff who calls himself a doctor has no clue - not one - of the level of intimidation in Nazi Germany in the late 30s, early 40s, when neighbor regularly spied on neighbor and people's doors were broken down in the middle of the night by Gestapo agents - taken to hidden locations - and forced to endure rectal rehydration, genital mutilation and whipping until they expired. Those that didn't were dispatched to Nazi concentration camps. Don't take my word! DO your own research, including getting hold of the book, 'The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During The Second World War', by Martin Gilbert.

 

 

Carson, who was actually expected to mount a presidential campaign, recently defended his ignorant comments:

 

 

"I know you're not supposed to say 'Nazi Germany.' But I don't care about political correctness," suggesting additional Hitler rhetoric could be a cornerstone of Carson's upcoming campaign.

 

 

But it isn't a case of "political correctness" as this imbecile claims, but of getting historical facts correct. Sadly, assholes like Carson, Beck, Huckabee,  Limbaugh and others get away with their BS because for too many 'Muricans the 2nd World War is like ancient history - and most haven't read one single serious monograph on the Nazis, the Third Reich, Hitler himself -  far less actually gone to Germany and spoken to the people who lived at the time.

 

 

For years, the Anti-Defamation League(ADL) has been grappling with the mainstreaming of Hitler rhetoric especially in the punditry and the political class (namely American conservatives)  - which ought to know better.

 

 

Last year the ADL again tried to raise a red flag, declaring, "The six million Jewish victims and millions of other victims of Hitler deserve better. Their deaths should not be used for political points or sloganeering. This type of comparison diminishes and trivializes the Holocaust."

 

 

But do these toads care? Hell no! They will continue to spout their ignorance and rhetorical bombs against Obama so long as they know their main audience is woefully ignorant of the facts of history. This is why they can exploit it!

 

 

See the Pope's take on the limits to free expression here:

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/19f31342-9cb6-11e4-a730-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3OuY6oOIM



See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/shamus-cooke/60462/the-spectacular-media-failure-on-charlie-hebdo

Obama Must Not Stand In the Way Of An International Court Prosecuting the Torturers!

"CIA personnel tortured detainees to confirm they didn't have intelligence - not because they thought they did. Director Brennan and the CIA today are continuing to provide interactive information and misrepresent the efficacy of torture. The CIA has lied to its overseers in public, destroyed and tried to hold back evidence, spied on the Senate, made false charges against our staff, and lied about torture and the results of torture.

And no one has been held to account.

The President needs to purge his administration of high level officials who were instrumental to the development and running of this program. He needs to force a cultural change at the CIA."

- Sen Mark Udall, Colorado

And the response of the Obama White House according to The Hill? It is "standing by the CIA calling the CIA chief a professional and patriot"

Can we say torture culture enablers? Yes, we can! People who'd toss a whistle blower into the clink (see end of last blog) but allow torturing fiends to roam free - including the asshole Cheney - who called the Senate report "a load of crap". No, asshole! YOU are a walking load of crap! This dickhead also stated flatly  "absolutely the ends justified the means" but as the head of Human Rights Watch observed on Chris Hayes 'All In' that is exactly the line of terrorists. So is Obama willing to protect state terrorists too? If so, we are no longer a nation of laws as is so often parroted by Presidents - liberal, conservative, Neoliberal and in between.

On Chris Hayes' show a segment of an interview (compliments of VICE News network) with one of the torturers (psychologist James Mitchell) was actually aired. This fuckhead actually said, I kid you not, that he saw "no problem" with waterboarding. VICE  News ancillary documents also showed he participated in several such water boardings. Why has no one dug this worm out of his Florida lair and hung him after a tribunal?

Well already yesterday, U.N. Secretary Ban Ki -Moon, has stated flatly that he "hopes the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee Report is the start of a process toward prosecution."

However, Obama and the Obama-ites have vowed to step in - even in the case of an international push to prosecute-   and save these vermin from righteous justice. Thereby - they have shown themselves to be enablers and on the wrong side of history.  Not only that, but they've disclosed themselves as hypocrites - talking about rule of law on the one hand but allowing the worst vermin - next to the Nazi S.S. - to roam free and yap their hearts out. (Like NY congress critter Peter King who said "we're talking about people made to stand in awkward positions, have water put into their nose and mouth...no one suffered any lasting injuries from this." Hmmm....asshole, well maybe you'd like to try the rectal re-hydration some time - by one of those CIA imps- to see if you can handle it!)

Look, I do get that President Barack Obama lacks any yen for conflict, and often likes to politically split differences to try to keep it mellow and issues non-controversial ("No drama Obama"). . All of those genial, non-confrontational character traits are described in perhaps the best Obama autobiography: 'Barack Obama: The Story' by David Maraniss. The author's story allows us to perhaps get the best look ever into Obama's psyche and we learn that the man almost always hates to get embroiled in battles - political or other.

Fair enough, but this is not the time for Milquetoasts, charm offensives, craven  pandering or ....avoidance of conflict. This is the time for serious, courageous men to take a stand on an era in which consummate evil has been perpetrated by verminous elements in our country. It is time to call these reprobates out- not provide cover-  and allow for maximal accountability. Or else our nation will live with this shame in perpetuity.Worse, we will never again be able to take the world's moral stage and call out truly barbaric regimes - lest the H-word be hurled back at us. For we have ourselves flouted every human right in the freaking book and refused to take responsibility by prosecuting the evil doers. (Or even letting others do it!).

Let me be generous then, and grant that for political reasons and calculations Obama doesn't want to stir up a shit storm by prosecuting the Bushie torture fiends, their henchmen, or even firing his own CIA Director. I understand that he doesn't want to end up like Kennedy did, so okay we leave that hornet's nest alone and allow him the leeway not to have to issue an executive order for immediate prosecution.

But that's where generosity must end! Because even if one allows no action on active in-state prosecution, the same can't hold for the passive, external form. That means that if any international court does wish to prosecute these vermin Obama and his Justice Dept. doesn't stand in their way. Because if they do, they can then be regarded as courting the favor of the torturers and allowing torture - despite having been a signatory to a (1988) U.N.Torture  Convention against it. This Convention, also signed by Reagan, requires that a government not only refrain from torture, but also that it prosecute torture. There are no ifs, ands or buts.

The news, however, that the DOJ and White House plan to interfere in any international case brought against these torture scum is unsettling in the extreme and carries accommodation to the point of being intolerable, lawless and irresponsible. If the U.S. is too hypocritical and unable to stand by the rule of law, okay, then at least allow outside courts to handle it if it chooses not to dirty its hands. But until it does, don't refer to a "nation of laws". No, because Nazi Germany was also a "nation of laws", the Reich laws, when it prosecuted those who insulted Hitler or even criticized him.  A true nation of laws, as Chris Hayes observed two nights ago, executes the law based on equal justice - no special privilege for the powerful, and also in terms of sentences (weighing each by proportion of wrong) and it also follows the rule of international law - especially when it was a signatory to them.

As Hayes observed:

"The law always depends on context, every lawyer will tell you that, but it cannot depend on whether the person is powerful or powerless....Can you anally rape someone with a tube and threaten his mother with the consequences....well, you see, it depends on whose doing it"

Hayes then pointed out that one of the authors of this currently sick chapter actually serves as a federal judge, rendering verdicts and interpretations on the law. He added:

"Does that sound like a nation of laws? Or does it sound like the evil machinations of one of those regimes we so eagerly and rightly condemn? "

Thus, one might go so far as to assert that if the Obama-ites interfere in an independent outside (international) prosecution they are guilty of condoning the torture the U.S. is supposed to prosecute on its own! Double strike against us. Third strike, confirming in Hayes' determination (and mine too) we can't be regarded as any "nation of laws." A nation of laws upholds the law especially for the most vile crimes to which it was a signatory on the international scene. If it is willing to punk out or punt, because of some imagined right wing reaction, then it can't claim the legal (or moral) high ground. This was exactly the problem with the Reich laws and why it took the Nuremberg Tribunal to rightly declare none of them were legit - including "following orders".

Let us recall again ten of the most revolting findings in the Senate Intelligence Report  in the committee’s summary.

1. The CIA misled executive branch officials, members of Congress, and the public about torture’s effectiveness.

While Bush and Cheney steadfastly defended the CIA as the release of the report approached, the committee found that agency officials — including former directors George Tenet, Porter Goss, and Michael Hayden — misled the White House and lawmakers about the effectiveness of U.S. torture techniques like waterboarding and sleep deprivation.

The committee examined 20 reported “counterterrorism successes” cited by agency officials who claimed that the use of torture was essential to thwarting terror plots. In some of the cases, the report states, there was “no relationship” between the counterterrorism success and the use of torture. Meanwhile, in the remaining cases, the information CIA interrogators obtained from detainees either simply corroborated information the CIA already had or was extracted from detainees prior to the use of torture.

2.  Interrogators would deprive some detainees of sleep for more than a week.

According to the report, detainees at CIA facilities would be deprived of sleep for days on end — in some cases for up to 180 hours. During sleep deprivation, the report says, detainees were usually kept “standing or in stress positions, at times with their hands shackled above their heads.”

The CIA Arsala Khan, an Afghan detainee, to 56 hours of sleep deprivation, the report finds. Khan could barely enunciate words by the end of his deprivation, while he was “visibly shaken by his hallucinations depicting dogs mauling and killing his sons and family.”

3. Detainees underwent waterboarding until they were unresponsive.

Among the most notorious torture techniques employed by the CIA was waterboarding, which simulates drowning. The committee report states that 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times and that the waterboardings eventually turned into “a series of near drownings.”

Abu Zubaydah, the CIA’s first detainee, also underwent waterboarding, once to the point that he became “completely unresponsive, with bubbles rising through his open, full mouth.”

Other detainees experienced “convulsions and vomiting” when waterboarded. According to the report, the CIA used the technique on more than the three prisoners the CIA previously copped to waterboarding.

4. The CIA force-fed detainees through their rectums.

Agency interrogators forced at least five detainees to undergo “rectal rehydration” or “rectal feeding” even in the absence of any “documented medical necessity,” the report finds. Among the most prominent prisoners subjected to rectal feeding was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

5. Interrogators threatened to harm the families and children of detainees.

In at least three cases, CIA interrogators threatened to harm detainees’ families — including threats to harm a detainee’s children, to commit sexual violence against a detainee’s mother, and to slit a detainee’s mother’s throat.

6. An interrogator threatened to sodomize a detainee with a broomstick.

In at least one instance, the CIA chief of interrogation placed a broomstick between the knees of detainee while the detainee was in a stress position — suggesting that the detainee was at risk of being sodomized.

7. The chief of interrogations described one facility as a “dungeon.”

The CIA’s Cobalt facility, one senior officer quoted in the report says, was a so-called enhanced interrogation technique by itself. With detainees often kept in “complete darkness,” loud music blaring, and detainees allowed to use only a bucket to relieve themselves, the chief of interrogations said that Cobalt was a “dungeon.”

8. Agency interrogators forced detainees to stand on broken legs and feet.

At the same facility, some detainees who had sustained either broken legs or feet were made to stand in stress positions, the committee found.

9. Detainees experienced severe psychological problems.

While “[m]ultiple psychologists” warned that by shutting detainees off from human contact, interrogators risked fostering a wide range of mental health problems, the agency often ignored such warnings. Multiple detainees demonstrated severe mental health issues, the report finds, including “hallucinations, paranoia, insomnia, and attempts at self-harm and self-mutilation.”

10.  The CIA lied about how many detainees were in its custody.

Even though the agency publicly maintained that it held 98 prisoners, CIA records indicated that 119 detainees were in its custody. A CIA official flagged this inconsistency in a 2008 email, only to be rebuffed by CIA director Michael Hayden.

Hopefully, Obama will at last find a spine on this issue, as he did with immigration and act. Ditch Brennan first, then stand back if international prosecutions ensue and don't  interfere - thereby showing the world his administration actually condones this crap.  Holding vipers accountable means not only allowing a report of their vile acts to go through but acting to prosecute them - or if you're timid, allowing the international courts do it.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-parry/59988/obama-and-the-truth-agenda

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/john-hamilton/59971/a-brief-history-of-torture

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/thom-hartmann/59981/torture-has-no-place-in-us-society

NSA Troll Clapper Now Admits 4th Amendment Was Violated (Though He Doesn't Put It So!)

"Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for the purpose of a temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

"In every government on earth is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy, which cunning will discover and wickedness insensibly open." - Thomas Jefferson, in 'Notes on Virginia'.

"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves therefore are its only safe depositories. AND TO RENDER THEM SAFE, THEIR MINDS MUST BE IMPROVED." - Thomas Jefferson, 'Notes on Virginia'.

Less than a year ago on this blog I pointed out there were likely "thousands of 4th amendment violations"  thanks to the scurrilous NSA programs PRISM, MUSCULAR, XKeyscore.  See e,g,
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/08/thousands-of-4th-amendment-violations.html

Now, we know there were millions, thanks to NSA troglodyte James Clapper's recent admissions of warrantless wiretaps.  Before examining Clapper's admission (which was cloaked in a pseudo-legalese cover) let us note the 4th amendment is very clear on the limits of warrants and how they are issued. The specific wording is:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Note, “secure in one’s person, house, papers, effects” implies PRIVACY! These are after all MY private papers, my private effects, my house, etc. If an inherent right to privacy was a myth then by all accounts being secure in one’s person, papers, effects wouldn’t matter. Hell, let the whole freakin’ world see ‘em! This is why in a fascist dictatorship “personal effects” don’t exist. “Personal papers” has no meaning. The state has full monopoly, de facto ownership on whatever the person has, even his own body. Hence, in fascist dictatorships, such as existed in Nazi Germany, all personal effects, papers could be seized by the Nazis on a whim or remote suspicion - under the Reich Laws. (The Reich laws, as Konrad Heiden notes, altered Weimar laws to render what had been originally illegal, legal.)

Clapper has finally admitted that the National Security Agency had a secret backdoor into its vast databases under a "legal authority"  enabling it to search for US citizens' email and phone calls without a warrant. This was revealed in top-secret NSA documents provided to the Guardian by Edward Snowden.

The previously undisclosed rule change allows NSA operatives to hunt for individual Americans' communications using their name or other identifying information. Senator Ron Wyden told the Guardian that the law provided the NSA with a "loophole"  potentially allowing "warrantless searches for the phone calls or emails of law-abiding Americans".

Now, we know - thanks to Clapper's admissions in his letter, the searches were indeed warrantless - and hence in violation of the 4th amendment.  This is according to the most recent Guardian report,
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/01/nsa-surveillance-loophole-americans-data

According to Clapper, quoted above, NSA "performed warrantless searches on Americans' emails and phone calls."

We must not only thank Edward Snowden for the original revelations, but also Sen. Ron Wyden for keeping after Clapper to respond to his letters and 'fess up.  (After all, Wyden already knew the little rat lied before a Senate Intelligence Committee last March when asked directly if the NSA conducted mass surveillance of Americans.)

Of course, to Clapper 'fessing up isn't the same as it is for the rest of us. NO, it means delivering a mealy-mouthed wad of euphemistic babble which - for the weaker minded- is designed to assuage any doubts that it was legal by baffling with bullshit. Clapper's exact words as reported by The Guardian:

"There have been queries, using US person identifiers, of communications lawfully acquired to obtain foreign intelligence targeting non-US persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States.

These queries were performed pursuant to minimization procedures approved by the Fisa court and consistent with the statute and the fourth amendment.”


Pay attention to the last sentence in particular, because this is where the attempted exculpation of his misbegotten agency resides.  He claims the "queries were performed pursuant to minimization procedures approved by the FISA court" but what were these anyway?  In fact, nothing more than the merest fig leaf. The merest cover to defend the searches (i.e. one "end" of a phone call is in a foreign country, say Barbados).

Most of these came under Section 702  of the misnamed "Patriot Act" - which the traitors in congress also helped approve. As Clapper pointed out:

“As you know, when Congress reauthorized Section 702, the proposal to restrict such queries was specifically raised and ultimately not adopted,”

So congress punked out, When the opportunity arose to protect citizens' rights under the 4th amendment, congress shat on it, and refused to adopt the protections. Traitors!  Let us also recall congress - instead of prosecuting the Bushites for their warrantless wiretapping - made those illegal searches LEGAL!  Thus, they perverted the existing 1978 FISA law as fully as Hitler and the Nazis perverted the original Weimar laws into "Reich laws". The point is that using such a nefarious tactic any act which was once condemned as illegal can be made "legal" - all that's needed is the political will and power to do so.   This is why Clapper insists in his letter that the procedures were "consistent with the statutes and the 4th amendment".

In fact they were not! The 4th amendment is clear in its wording - as I showed above. Individual warrants must be issued for individual acts. And no amount of perturbing the language or making laws that were once illegal, legal can alter that. In this sense, the laws that legalized the original warrantless wiretaps of the Bushites are themselves baseless and LAWLESS.  They overturned the real laws that afforded genuine protections in return for mock laws.

Senators Wyden and  (Mark) Udall,  in their response to the Clapper bafflegab, were blunt:

“This is unacceptable. It raises serious constitutional questions, and poses a real threat to the privacy rights of law-abiding Americans. If a government agency thinks that a particular American is engaged in terrorism or espionage, the fourth amendment requires that the government secure a warrant or emergency authorization before monitoring his or her communications. This fact should be beyond dispute,”

If congress really had the interests of Americans at heart, and the protection of their 4th amendment rights, they'd have prosecuted the Bushite criminals, as they ought to have for their torture and rendition exercises - and illegal wars.  But they punked out! They refused to exercise their authority to uphold the actual laws, much as the Nazis - once in power- overturned the existing Weimar legal infrastructure in the Enabling Act. 

The tragedy is that by legalizing lawlessness - as regards the Constitution and citizen rights - the country has proceeded down the path of a "gangster state"- to use the words of deep politics authors Michael Parenti, as well as Chris Hedges, see e.g. http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/bradley_manning_and_the_gangster_state_20130821

The Senators final comment is one which to which we all need to pay heed:

“Today’s admission by the Director of National Intelligence is further proof that meaningful surveillance reform must include closing the back-door searches loophole and requiring the intelligence community to show probable cause before deliberately searching through data collected under section 702 to find the communications of individual Americans."