“I tire of being asked what I think about something only to have the conversation derailed at the first ‘bump’ in my logic, at the first self-contradiction,” Pat says, of life in general.

My response: “I savor your contradictions. It is my desire to explore them with you and to experience the change that happens when you wrestle with them.”

“Yes, I think you get it. How refreshing.”

As you can see, Pat and I have a deeply meaningful relationship. Enviable, in fact. It is based on not knowing things that we want to know, and how to fix that. There is also an element of bringing unformed or poorly formed thoughts to the table, cutting them up like a fruit salad, and enjoying them. Our conversations are like a cold fruit salad on a dusty hot summer day. Yes, very, very refreshing.

But not everybody has the opportunity to interact that way. This is because all utterances are questionable, if you want them to be. All communications are subject to measurement against a standard that one can easily justify as “Teh Standard,” even though one has merely pulled it out of one orifice or another. In fact, there is a place where that kind of communication is favored, revered, honed and practiced, and imposed by force of will and repetition on those who do not come to the table oppositional in affect and armed with snark.

That place is known…as the blogosphere.

But, dear reader, that is a feature of the blogosphere that I generally don’t like, even though it can be amusing, it can be productive, and it can bring lots of page views to my hit-counter. I don’t like it even though I am as capable as the next person of doing damage with printed word, baiting the most wary of trolls, and turning and churning the most innocent of conversation until it becomes vile like ogre piss. I don’t like it because I find it inhumane. I find it not the way I want to interact, not the way I want to understand. It is bitter roots and rotten offal. It is not a refreshing fruit salad on a dusty, hot, summer day.

I want to understand you. I don’t want you to say things to me in a way that I am brought to the edge of understanding and left to wait there, as though it was my job to figure out what you meant. I want you to just tell me what you meant.

I want you to understand me. I don’t want you to find meaning that I did not intend and then use that unintended meaning to abuse either yourself or me.

I don’t want you to misunderstand me, willfully or otherwise, and then fetishize the false or manufactured meaning of that misunderstanding like it was some sort of trophy. Your misunderstanding of my words is not your shrunken head.

But it goes beyond that. I don’t want you to be thinking the same thing today that you were thinking last month. I want there to be a conflict between what you thought about some thing the first time we talked about it and what you think about it now. I want to be your Red Queen, so we can keep moving yet luxuriate under the same forbidden tree. I want you to giggle when I mix my metaphors like a Kitchen Aid in heat. I want to hear the full version of the story behind the allusion.

Expect me to contradict myself. Sometimes what I say now will contradict what I said when we first met. Sometimes the end of my sentence will contradict the beginning of my sentence. Be an interesting grownup. Be an interested grownup. Don’t be a winged monkey. Don’t make it your business to jump on my wrongness and howl like some four-winged, maned, scale-covered, drooling mythical creature from a Piers Anthony book.

My wrongness is a comfortable table for two at a coffee shop. Your wrongness is a long, lonely drive on a nice day.

Little Known Military Thug Squad Still Brutalizing Prisoners at

Gitmo Under Obama
The ‘Black Shirts’ of Guantanamo routinely terrorize prisoners, breaking bones, gouging eyes, squeezing testicles, and ‘dousing’ them with chemicals.
Common Dreams

Gitmo general told Iraq WMD search team to torture

It’s one thing if, as former Vice President Dick Cheney keeps saying, the United States brutally interrogated people to keep our kids safe from another strike by Osama bin Laden. If folks got tortured to provide a rationale for going to war with Iraq, though, that’s a whole different story.

Recent news reports have suggested the possibility that the Bush administration might have endorsed torture to prove an Iraq-al Qaida link. And a recent report from the Senate Armed Services Committee shows that months after then-President Bush had declared Mission Accomplished in Iraq, an Army general working hand in glove with top administration officials tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to convince a unit charged with finding weapons of mass destruction to get tough on its prisoners.
Salon

Changing Obama’s Mindset

An editorial by Howard Zinn….”We are citizens, and Obama is a politician. You might not like that word. But the fact is he’s a politician. He’s other things, too-he’s a very sensitive and intelligent and thoughtful and promising person. But he’s a politician.”
Common Dreams

Bible quotes adorned covers of top-secret Rumsfeld intelligence reports

Top secret military intelligence briefings prepared by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and often hand-delivered to George W. Bush featured Crusades-like Bible quotes above triumphant photos of the U.S. military effort in Iraq.

Less than one month after U.S. and coalition forces invaded Iraq in March 2003, a “Worldwide Intelligence Update” reached then-President Bush with the following quote on the cover of the briefing, above photos of jubilant Iraqi crowds in newly liberated Baghdad: “Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him…To deliver their soul from death.”
The Raw Story

Kuwait elects first women MPs

Kuwaitis have voted for change in the country’s second election in a year by electing its first four women to parliament, which has been male-dominated for almost half a century.
Al Jazeera Net

Graham: CIA Gave Me False Information About Interrogation Briefings

In testimony that could bolster Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s claim that the CIA misled her during briefings on detainee interrogations, former Senator Bob Graham insisted on Thursday that he too was kept in the dark about the use of waterboarding, and called the agency’s records on these briefings “suspect.

Huffington Post

Prosecutors to Question Rove on U.S. Attorney Firings

Former top White House official Karl Rove will be interviewed tomorrow as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into the firing of U.S. attorneys during the Bush administration, according to two sources familiar with the appointment.

The Washington Post

Minnesotan interviewed by FBI agents investigating Kazeminy charges

… the FBI conducted an interview with a person in Minnesota as part of an investigation of so-called “Suitgate” charges leveled against Norm Coleman last summer. HuffPo doesn’t name the person and the FBI won’t confirm or deny.

The interview happened “recently,” Sam Stein reports. The story is the first news of FBI investigations into Coleman’s affairs taking place in Minnesota.

It’s also the first resurfacing in months of allegations that Coleman’s friend and benefactor Nasser Kazeminy bought suits for the former Senator when he was still in office.

Minnesota Independent

Whitehouse Judiciary Committee Hearing Round-up

The first of who knows how many Senate subcommittee hearings on the Bush administration torture regime was held today by Sen. Whitehouse’s Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts, with star witnesses Ali Soufan, the FBI interrogator who actually did get useful intelligence from Abu Zubaydah using legal interrogation procedures, and Philip Zelikow, the former State Department attorney who wrote a memo in opposition to the OLC torture memos. … and so on…

Daily Kos

White Phosphorus? Concern Over Burns on Afghans Caught in Battle

Afghanistan’s leading human rights organization said Sunday it was investigating the possibility that white phosphorus was used in a U.S.-Taliban battle that killed scores of Afghans. The U.S. military rejected speculation it had used the weapon but left open the possibility Taliban militants did.

White phosphorus can be employed legitimately in battle, but rights groups say its use over populated areas can indiscriminately burn civilians and constitutes a war crime.
Common Dreams

‘The Most Humiliating Experience I Have Ever Had’

Why Is the Supreme Court So Callous About Privacy?
Savana Redding was a 13-year-old eighth-grader at Arizona’s Safford Middle School when she was pulled out of class one day by her school’s vice principal, Kerry Wilson, and told to bring her books with her.

Rumors had been swirling that a group of students were packing prescription ibuprofen pills — “contraband” — and were planning to pass them out at lunch. Redding had been falsely accused of carrying the illicit substance, and Wilson took her into his office for questioning.
Alter Net

What’s FISHY? PawLENTY!

Guess who got up at the crack of dawn yesterday morning to try and warn all the people heading out on White Bear Lake at Minnesota’s grand “Fishing Opener” to be on the look-out for this Pirate PawLENTY who’s known to have sworn in pirate blood not to raise taxes on the wealthy, even if it means holding Minnesotans hostage these last six years. We told all the poor Minnesota fishermen who’d listen to be on the lookout for a real hypocritical character in red driving a slick speedboat and who likes to be called “Governor” but who’s doing just the opposite of what pirates used to do when they sailed the high seas: PawLENTY’s been stealing from the poor to give to the wealthy! He must still think his “no new taxes” piracy is the surefire, cutthroat way to the GOP Presidency.
Mn Progressive Project

Hill Panel Reviewing CIA Tactics

When the Justice Department said seven years ago that CIA interrogators at a secret prison in Thailand could make a suspected al-Qaeda leader fear he was drowning, it prescribed precise limits: Water could be poured from a cup or small watering can onto a saturated cloth covering his mouth and nose, inhibiting breathing for up to 40 seconds. It could be repeated, after allowing three or four full breaths, for up to 20 minutes.

But when the technique was employed on Abu Zubaida and later on 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and al-Qaeda planner Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the interrogators in several cases applied what the CIA’s Office of Inspector General described in a secret 2004 report as “large volumes of water” to the cloths, explaining that their aim was to be more “poignant and convincing,” according to a recently declassified Justice Department account.
The Washington Post

Garbage to Green: 10 Landfills Turned into Nature Preserves

Landfills are among the most notorious pieces of real estate in the world. Even a hardcore recycler is still directly or indirectly responsible for creating trash that will find its way to a landfill. It is a side effect of modern human life. But landfills don’t have to remain steaming heaps of smelly rubbish. Take these ten former trash heaps that are now characterized by abundant green and diverse wildlife.
Web Ecoist

Art historians claim Van Gogh’s ear ‘cut off by Gauguin’

Vincent van Gogh’s fame may owe as much to a legendary act of self-harm, as it does to his self-portraits. But, 119 years after his death, the tortured post-Impressionist’s bloody ear is at the centre of a new controversy, after two historians suggested that the painter did not hack off his own lobe but was attacked by his friend, the French artist Paul Gauguin.

According to official versions, the disturbed Dutch painter cut off his ear with a razor after a row with Gauguin in 1888. Bleeding heavily, Van Gogh then walked to a brothel and presented the severed ear to an astonished prostitute called Rachel before going home to sleep in a blood-drenched bed.

The Guardian

Astrologer: Stars say Franken will win June 14

The stars indicate that on or about June 14, a decision by the Minnesota Supreme Court will make Al Franken a U.S. Senator. That’s the view of astrology blogger Terry Lamb, who cautions that “[i]f the senate seat remains in limbo past this time, the eclipses will come into play.”

Minnesota Independent

Buy one, get two free at Fox Nation

This was screencapped today from Fox Nation, Fox News’ month old conservative opinion site, which is already being pegged for something racial today. Notice anything?

The Raw Story

Protesters Disrupt Health Care Hearing

A series of protesters demanding single-payer health care coverage disrupted a Senate Finance Committee roundtable on health care reform Tuesday. At the beginning of the hearing Tuesday morning, a man stood and yelled, “So let me get this straight — you have 15 seats at the table and not one for single payer? Why is that?”

Huffington Post

Torture memo authors unlikely to be prosecuted

Bush administration attorneys who wrote memos authorizing torture should not be prosecuted, a Justice Department report will recommend according to sources close to an investigation.

“The report by the Office of Professional Responsibility, an internal ethics unit within the Justice Department, is also likely to ask that state bar associations consider possible disciplinary action, including reprimands or even disbarment, for some of the lawyers involved in writing the legal opinions, the officials said,” reported the New York Times.

The Raw Story

Welcome to the 90th edition, continuing the tradition bequeathed to Quiche Moraine by the intrepid Johnny Pez. For those new to Quiche Moraine, this is a collaboration of blogging excellence conceived and maintained in the hopes of inspiring liberals to write about food and stuff. An example of “stuff” intended for publication is the blog carnival. Hmm. Blog carnival. Liberal. What could be a better fit for Quiche Moraine than the Carnival of the Liberals? It’s a go!

Carnival of the Liberals

COTL tradition dictates that the carnival host reads the submissions then chooses the best ten posts to include and share with you. I tend to do that with COTL, but add the remaining submissions to the end of the post. I cull the submissions irrelevant to the idea of a COTL (no apologies to those who write a post to get traffic for their “monetizing blogs”), but I do think that if a writer thinks that a post has value enough to submit, it is only right to share.

Torture and waterboarding were heavy on our minds in the liberal blogosphere. For those unfamiliar with the term waterboarding, it’s that peculiar form of torture that the United States considers criminal when practiced by other governments but a minor rite of passage for terrorists when performed by “our guys.” The torturee is restrained to a board, a cloth is placed over their face and water is poured over their nose. The torturee vainly struggles to breathe and fight the feeling that they are drowning. Apparently it is an agonizing sensation, and may you and your loved ones never experience it.

David Gross presents What would Thoreau have said about the torture policy? posted at The Picket Line.

Finding a justification for torture is not easy, but if you happen to be a Republican, we have a handy flowchart for you to follow. Save it in case most of America suffers major head trauma before a future election and returns the conservatives to power. With the flowchart, you’ll know just what to do.

Batocchio presents The Torture Flowchart posted at Vagabond Scholar.

Actually, there is a more sobering examination of the road to torture, and Greta Christina connects the dots. It’s neither cute nor funny.

Greta Christina presents Connecting the Dots: Torture, Iraq, and the Creation of Propaganda posted at Greta Christina’s Blog.

Greta also sent to me a post written by Susie Bright, and it is a heartbreaking story of SERE training and how it affected one of Susie’s first loves.

Susie Bright presents SERE Training Turned My Boyfriend from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde posted at Susie Bright’s Journal.

Let’s turn the page a bit to a historical treatment of Pakistan (see, there are other countries beyond our borders!). Has Pakistan ever been anything other than an Islamic state? We have some dissenting views on the issue.

Joseph presents Pakistan is Already an Islamic State posted at Dissent Magazine.

Russell Blackford’s blog is in my feed reader. When I first read this post, I planned to include it in the Carnival. Not so coincidentally, just as I finished reading the final paragraph, it showed up in my inbox. Read it and see why I was excited to see the submission.

Russell Blackford presents Hate speech and the ICCPR – why we ought to be worried posted at Metamagician and the Hellfire Club.

Heavy stuff, but now it’s time to lighten up. Forget the idea that liberals worship Barack Obama. This NSFW panel (L) of captioned photos has fun with Barack of a 100 Days.

Manila Ryce presents Photos of the First 100 Days posted at The Largest Minority.

Bob Newhart honored Mad Kane’s humor writing (read about it at her blog). She specializes in political limericks. Karl Rove may never recover. Or so I hope.

Madeleine Begun Kane presents Karl’s Roving Standards posted at Mad Kane’s Political Madness.

Opposite-sex marriage used to be cool and sensible (and a foundation of our society, I think) until those danged gays came along and wanted to change things. It ruined the whole idea of marriage for everyone, including the Saudis.

Doctor Biobrain presents Gay Marriage Strikes Again posted at Doctor Biobrain.

Larry Niven at Rust Belt philosophy was chagrined at reading some self-contradictory statements put out by the NOM. Nom, nom, nom. He chews it up but spits it out.

Larry Niven presents The stupid, it burns posted at Rust Belt Philosophy.

Okay, so what happens when piracy strikes across the waves off the coast of Somalia? The New Republican Party of No finds a way to blame Obama for screwing up the rescue. Never mind that Obama didn’t actually screw up the rescue.

The Richmond Democrat presents PR disaster for the GOP: Republicans bet against the United States and lose posted at The Richmond Democrat.

Speaking of anarchy, we have some anarchists in Minneapolis. At the Black Forest Inn, no less. They try to gang up on Greg Laden. This post is here, at Quiche Moraine.

Greg Laden presents The Black Forest Inn: Anarchists 2; Scientists 1 posted at Quiche Moraine.

A major argument for anarchy is the sinking realization that as much as we like to pretend that we have a democracy, much of our law and policy is bought and paid for by moneyed interests.

Chris Penny presents Fixing Democracy by Revamping Lobbying posted at Yer Not Da Boss O Me.

Teabaggery was so April 15th. The faux grassroots movement kind of died out. “Douchebaggery” is the new black.

Ron Britton presents John Hawkins Takes Conservative Douchebaggery to High Art posted at Bay of Fundie.

I can’t let the topic of  H1N1 pass without some excellent examination of the whole factory farming industry. There may not be a straight line to draw from the way that factory pigs are treated to the spread of H1N1, but the industry is sickening. Read some excellent commentary on the issue, and then go buy some free-range meat, or even vegetables.

Eric Michael Johnson presents Priming the Pump of a Swine Flu Pandemic posted at The Primate Diaries.

How many posts was that? I lost count (sorry, Leo, I broke the rules). Wait! There’s more!

More Blackford!

Russell Blackford presents And speaking of bullshit, try this example from Terry Eagleton posted at Metamagician and the Hellfire Club.

More Laden!

Greg Laden presents How I learned to stop worrying and love the city. Three times. posted at Greg Laden’s Blog.

At Quiche Moraine, I like that there is someone willing to take on the sometimes thankless role of editor. Stephanie Zvan is an excellent writer in her own, um, right. At Almost Diamonds she writes about the thankless task of following Michele Bachmann on Twitter (so we don’t have to!). For more Bachmannalia, Stephanie compiles and edits the monthly Replace Michele Bachmann Blog Carnival right here at this very blog. (We shall overcome.)

The host of the blog also gets to share one of his or her own posts. At Tangled Up in Blue Guy, I had a little something to say about Arlen Specter moving to the Democratic Party. The earth moved? No, not exactly. But that isn’t how Michael Steele puts it in a fundraising letter in Panic! At the RNC.

Had enough? Me too. I need to come up for air and catch my breath. Two weeks from now, Lou Shackleton takes on the Carnival of the Liberals. He claims I shamed him into it. I know better. The man has no shame. Submit your stuff to be featured at Crowded Head, Cozy Bed on May 19th!

Volunteer to host.

When Does ‘Close’ Become Too-Close-to-Call?

The Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board, whose previous coverage of the Minnesota recount has tended to reflect a lack of command of the facts and circumstances of the case, is now back for another round, this time pressing for a re-vote:

FiveThirtyEight

Coleman lawyer in ‘06: GOP not into ‘whole notion of equal protection’

Republican attorney Ben Ginsberg is helping usher Norm Coleman’s equal-protection claims to a high court (Minnesota’s), just as he did with another client, George W. Bush, and another high court (the United States’) eight years ago. Indeed, Coleman’s yet-to-be submitted brief is expected to cite Bush vs. Gore, as have his earlier briefs presented (unsuccessfully) to the state Supreme Court and the election-contest court. Maybe there’s a reason for that.

The Minnesota Independent

Democrats file campaign finance complaint against Coleman

Norm Coleman may be violating federal campaign finance laws by paying his personal legal bills with campaign funds, according to charges in a complaint filed today by the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party with the Federal Elections Commission. The controversy stems from a pair of lawsuits alleging that longtime Coleman associate Nasser Kazeminy attempted to funnel $75,000 to the Republican politician while he was serving in the U.S. Senate.

The Minnesota Independent

Coleman seeks slower court schedule

Norm Coleman wants more time to prepare his appeal of the U.S. Senate contest. In a brief filed this morning with the Minnesota Supreme Court, the former senator contends that he needs until April 30 to present his arguments to the court. Under Coleman’s proposed time-line, oral arguments would not be heard until after May 15. The brief states that the Republican “must be given enough time to fully develop and consider the issues on appeal.”

The Minnesota Independent

Minnesota Supremes Set Schedule For Coleman’s Appeal — Giving Him More Time

The Minnesota Supreme Court has just issued its order establishing a schedule for Norm Coleman’s appeal of the Senate election result — and even though this schedule has been expedited by the standards of normal civil litigation, it’s going to be a while by political standards.

Talking Points Memo

Report Details Origins of Bush-Era Interrogation Policies

A wealth of new details emerged Tuesday about how techniques designed to help captured U.S. troops resist torture formed the basis for the post-9/11 interrogation policies of the Bush-era Pentagon.

Instructors of those techniques proved to be eager in 2002 and 2003 to disseminate them to an emerging crop of inexperienced military interrogators facing the prospect of wresting information out of new captives. “I believe our niche lies in the fact that we can provide the ability to exploit personnel based on how our enemies have done this type of thing over the last five decades,” said Joseph Witsch, an instructor for the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA), a component of U.S. Joint Forces Command that oversees the so-called Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Evasion (SERE) program for U.S. special forces, during a 2002 training session for U.S. military interrogators, according to a newly released report.

The Washington Independent

Report: Abusive tactics used to seek Iraq-al Qaida link

The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.

Such information would’ve provided a foundation for one of former President George W. Bush’s main arguments for invading Iraq in 2003. In fact, no evidence has ever been found of operational ties between Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network and Saddam’s regime.

McClatchy

MoJo Video: Inside the Secret Cellblocks of Abu Ghraib

A soldier-narrated tour of the detainee camp during its final days.

Mother Jones

Torturing detainee may have produced false terror alerts

As the nation struggles to make sense of a wave of new revelations regarding the “harsh interrogation techniques” brought to bear on detainees by the CIA, two very different narratives are shaping up to describe the treatment of captured al Qaeda member Abu Zubaydah in April and May of 2002.

The Raw Story

‘Torture Works’ is Not a Defense

Dick Cheney’s continued insistence that the torture techniques used by the CIA and DOD on terror suspects, or associates of terror suspects, or anyone they picked up that they thought might know some information, based at times on the “confessions” extracted from torture victims, has shifted much of the debate to the question, “Does Torture Work?”

The Washington Independent

Obama: Bush Official Prosecutions Over Torture Memos Possible

The question of whether to bring charges against those who devised justification for the methods “is going to be more of a decision for the attorney general within the parameters of various laws and I don’t want to prejudge that,” Obama said. The president discussed the continuing issue of terrorism-era interrogation tactics with reporters as he finished an Oval Office meeting with visiting King Abdullah II of Jordan.

Huffington Post

The Story Has Legs

That’s what Bob Woodward said yesterday on Face The Nation about the unfolding story of torture and the rule of law. Torture memos prepared within George W. Bush’s Administration were released on April 16th; for the last 10 days the story has been getting bigger and Bigger and BIGGER. Which is amazing, in today’s media cycle – and indeed demonstrates, as Woodward says, that the story has legs.

MN Progressive

Appeals court rules Gitmo detainees are not ‘persons’

The ruling sprang from an appeal of Rasul v. Rumsfeld, which was thrown out in Jan. 2008. “The court affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the constitutional and international law claims, and reversed the district court’s decision that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) applied to Guantanamo detainees, dismissing those claims as well,” the Center for Constitutional Rights said.

The Raw Story

Dozens of Prisoners Held by CIA Still Missing, Fates Unknown

Last week, we pointed out that one of the newly released Bush-era memos inadvertently confirmed that the CIA held an al-Qaeda suspect [1] named Hassan Ghul in a secret prison and subjected him to what Bush administration lawyers called “enhanced interrogation techniques.” The CIA has never acknowledged holding Ghul, and his whereabouts today are secret.

But Ghul is not the only such prisoner who remains missing. At least three dozen others who were held in the CIA’s secret prisons overseas appear to be missing as well. Efforts by human rights organizations to track their whereabouts have been unsuccessful, and no foreign governments have acknowledged holding them.

ProPublica

Obama Lawyers Invoke “State Secrets” to Block Warrantless Spying Lawsuit

In a motion filed in a San Francisco court on Friday, attorneys for the Obama administration moved to dismiss a challenge to the National Security Agency’s notorious warrantless wiretapping program. “The information implicated by this case, which concerns how the United States seeks to detect and prevent terrorist attacks, would cause exceptionally grave harm to national security,” DOJ lawyers argued in the 36-page brief, echoing an argument made ad nauseum by the Bush administration.

AlterNet

More Immunity Claims on Wiretapping from Obama DOJ

In three separate cases in as many months, the Obama Justice Department has used the same arguments that the Bush administration Justice Department used to attempt to stop judicial review of extraordinary rendition and warrantless wiretapping. In the Mohamed v. Jeppesen extraordinary rendition case, the Obama administration reiterated the Bush administration argument that the case should be dismissed to preserve “states secrets.” Likewise, in the Al-Haramain wiretapping case, Obama’s DOJ used the arguments of the Bush administration to argue, again, that state secrets should prevent the Al-Haramain case–in which the only secret isn’t a secret because it was inadvertently shared with plaintiff’s attorneys–from moving forward.

Daily Kos

Officials Say U.S. Wiretaps Exceeded Law

The legal and operational problems surrounding the N.S.A.’s surveillance activities have come under scrutiny from the Obama administration, Congressional intelligence committees and a secret national security court, said the intelligence officials, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because N.S.A. activities are classified. Classified government briefings have been held in recent weeks in response to a brewing controversy that some officials worry could damage the credibility of legitimate intelligence-gathering efforts.

NY Times

NSA Revelations Spark Push to Restore FISA

In 2007 and 2008, as the Democratic-led Congress and the Bush administration collaborated in rewriting several elements of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, civil libertarians in and outside of Congress warned that the changes would institutionalize wide-ranging surveillance by the National Security Agency on U.S. citizens. In the wake of the revelations that the NSA “overcollected” domestic communications even beyond the boundaries of the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, many are claiming vindication — and vowing to lead an effort, once thought to be a longshot, to restore old FISA protections.

The Washington Independent

President’s Statement On Torture Memos

The Department of Justice will today release certain memos issued by the Office of Legal Counsel between 2002 and 2005 as part of an ongoing court case. These memos speak to techniques that were used in the interrogation of terrorism suspects during that period, and their release is required by the rule of law.

Talking Points Memo

UN torture investigator: Obama has broken International law

The United Nation’s top torture investigator has suggested it is illegal under International law for President Barack Obama to announce that the United States government has no intention of prosecuting low-level CIA officers who carried out torture sanctioned by the Bush Administration.

The Raw Story

Official: Obama doesn’t want interrogation charges

President Barack Obama does not intend to prosecute Bush administration officials who devised the policies that led to the harsh interrogation of suspected terrorists, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said Sunday.

Talking Point Memo

Is Eric Holder a Gonzalez-like Lackey?

How do we square this statement with the President’s announcement that those who waterboarded terrorism suspects, among other torture techniques, would not be prosecuted? By issuing such a statement it appears President Obama is the “legal decider” and he has decided, in explicitly political terms, that “nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.”

Open Left

Pragmatism on Torture Another ‘Sorry Kind of Wisdom’

Three of the saddest days in my life occurred in 1996 when I stood at the edge of a mass grave being excavated in Guatemala. It was a product of right-wing death squads who roamed at will in a country whose most murderous leaders were praised in Washington. After the 1954 CIA coup, the military there was trained in the United States and by visiting Green Beret advisers. Vigorous support by the ruling oligarchs for U.S. corporate interests marked one of the darkest episodes since the Monroe Doctrine and Roosevelt Corollary gave Washington “legal” support for meddling in the affairs of this hemisphere’s sovereign nations.

Daily Kos

Geithner Bank Plan Faces New Wave Of Criticism

Two weeks after being introduced, Timothy Geithner’s bank rescue plan is facing a new round of withering criticism from economists who say the proposal is likely to produce major losses for taxpayers as banks and investors game the system.

In public writings and interviews with the Huffington Post, some of the same figures that issued early warnings about the current financial crisis now say that Geithner’s designs for alleviating toxic assets from the nation’s banks are inherently flawed. As evidence, they point to the massive amount of federal funding, in the form of FDIC backing, being offered to prospective buyers of toxic assets.

Huffington Post

Geithner and Summers Want More Debt Bubbles: The Result Could Be Catastrophic

Are we standing at the edge of a Great Inflation (like Weimar Germany), a second Republican Great Depression, or a return to the middle class prosperity of the Roosevelt/Eisenhower New Deal era? Until Americans understand the difference between “money” and “debt,” odds are its going to be one of the first two, at least over the next few years.

AlterNet

Assessing Treasury’s Strategy: Six Months of TARP

The April oversight report for COP is entitled Assessing Treasury’s Strategy: Six Months of TARP. In this report, COP offers a preliminary look at Treasury’s strategy and offers a comparative analysis of previous efforts to combat banking crises in the past. Over the last six months, Treasury has spent or committed $590.4 billion of the TARP funds. Treasury has also relied heavily on the use of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet which has expanded by more than $1.5 trillion (not including expected TALF loans) in conjunction with the financial stabilization activities it has undertaken beyond its monetary policy operations. This has allowed Treasury to leverage TARP funds well beyond the funds appropriated by Congress.

Congressional Oversight Panel

This Week in Scandals: TARP, Torture, and More

TARP cash was supposed to ultimately wend its way to borrowers, but it seems to have gotten stuck in bank coffers along the way: Lending actually fell [4] in February at the 21 largest banks receiving bailout bucks, the Treasury said this week. (Mortgage lending did see a significant boost, though.) Meanwhile, mortgage lenders are lifting foreclosure moratoriums, putting more people out on the street [5] just as the Obama administration unrolls its “homeowner bailout [6].”

ProPublica

Obama to allow travel, money transfers to Cuba

President Barack Obama directed his administration Monday to allow unlimited travel and money transfers by Cuban Americans to family in Cuba, and to take other steps to ease U.S. restrictions on the island, a senior administration official told The Associated Press.

MPR

Obama’s Reality Check

Many people, including most of the presidents and leaders of South America, were hoping that President Obama would initiate a serious change in US-Latin American relations, after the low point reached during the Bush years. Change will certainly come – it is happening every week – but there are few if any signs that the initiative will come from the north.

truthout

Obama’s “faith-based” FAIL

Obama has made his final appointments to his controversial council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Sarah Posner summarizes what that means for reproductive rights:

With his council appointments now complete, Obama has given far more seats on his council to religious leaders who are anti-choice than to ones who are openly pro-choice, even though the majority of Americans favor legal abortion. There are only two pro-choicers, and they’re both Jewish. Reproductive-health advocates suggested several pro-choice Christians to the White House as worthy additions to the council. By not giving them seats, though, the administration shows that it is too afraid to challenge anti-choice evangelicals by putting their pro-choice brothers and sisters at the same table.

Feministing

What a Killer Was Watching

On April 6, two days after the 22-year-old Richard Poplawski allegedly murdered three police officers in Pittsburgh, a radio host named Alex Jones settled in before a microphone in his studio in Austin, Texas, to do some damage control. “The mainstream media has certainly enjoyed tying me into this story,” Jones complained. “They’re attacking me and saying I’m delusional and there’s no New World Order… The Second Amendment, what the country’s founded on—it’s all my fault!”

The Daily Beast

At Gun Show, Conservatives Panic About Obama

Other attendees were uncomfortable revealing their first or last names. As massive as the event is — the Knob Creek Gun Range estimated that around 15,000 people passed through the gates–it does not keep tabs on who comes in. This is a safe haven, where guns can change hands without a lot of paperwork, and where ammunition is relatively cheap, though the prices have skyrocketed in the last few years. A purchase of an old Mauser rifle that would take some red tape-cutting in a gun shop is hassle-free at the gun range.

The Washington Independent

DHS Report: After Obama’s Election, Right-Wing Extremists ‘May Be Gaining New Recruits’

Throughout the presidential campaign, the public saw extreme right-wing rhetoric on display at several McCain rallies, with some yelling “kill him” about President Obama — and others even calling him a “terrorist.”

The extreme right — those who are “hate-oriented,” “mainly antigovernment,” or those dedicated to a “single issue” — is a legitimate threat that law enforcement must deal with, according to a new assessment from the Office of Intelligence and Analysis at the Department of Homeland Security.

Think Progress

The Quiet Coup

The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.

The Atlantic

Administration Seeks an Out On Bailout Rules for Firms

Administration officials have concluded that this approach is vital for persuading firms to participate in programs funded by the $700 billion financial rescue package.

The administration believes it can sidestep the rules because, in many cases, it has decided not to provide federal aid directly to financial companies, the sources said. Instead, the government has set up special entities that act as middlemen, channeling the bailout funds to the firms and, via this two-step process, stripping away the requirement that the restrictions be imposed, according to officials.

Washington Post

Bailout Watchdog: Treasury’s stonewalling

Elizabeth Warren, the law professor appointed as Congress’s oversight czar on bank bailouts, blasted the Treasury Department — saying new legislation might be needed to give the House and Senate more access to details of the $700 billion rescue program.

Warren, testifying before the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday morning, said keeping Congress in the loop isn’t a “priority” of Secretary Tim Geithner — and suggested a possible “next step” would be to pass legislation that would “require [Treasury] to consult” with her.

Glenn Thrush

Where Wall Street Trades in Political Currency

With sweeping reforms coming, the Wall Street-Washington connection may be more important than ever, and political connections may be the new currency for deal makers.

Below is a matrix of Wall Street chiefs and private-equity bosses, as well as their personal contributions to politicians in 2007 and 2008, as recorded by the Center for Responsive Politics. The list, which gives politicians’ titles at the time, also illustrates the political action committee money given by each chief’s firm and its employees.

NY Times

The Definition of Insanity

A few months ago, I did some posts and TV appearances discussing some of the problems that would inevitably occur with the appointment of Goldman Sachs lobbyist Mark Patterson as the chief of staff at the Treasury Department. As Mother Jones subsequently reported, we’ve already seen some of those problems happen.

Open Left

Mr. Taleb Goes to Washington

Nassim Taleb is an unlikely choice to play the Jimmy Stewart role in a 21st-century remake of the Depression-era classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. But the tale of a naive do-gooder who tries to remind a corrupt political class of its obligations was re-enacted this week when Taleb attended the Wall Street Journal’s Future of Finance conference in Washington, D.C.

The Big Money

Was Eliot Spitzer Taken Out Because He Was Going to Bust AIG?

Eliot Spitzer is back and he’s talking. The thought of this, no doubt, brings a small shiver to the boardrooms of some of the perps walking around trying to figure out how to hide the money this week. Today Edward Liddy testified that there have been death threats made to or about executives who received bonuses, so no names will be put on the record, but these anonymous players must know that the jig is up in the land of easy-money. Isn’t what to do a no-brainer for these great Americans?

AlterNet

Specter Announces His Intention To Vote Against Employee Free Choice Act

Today on the Senate floor, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) announced his intention to vote against cloture on the Employee Free Choice Act. Specter was the only Republican to vote for cloture when the measure was last considered in 2007. During his announcement, Specter noted his previous support for EFCA, but suggested that the current condition of the economy makes “this a particularly bad time to enact employee’s choice legislation”

Think Progress

Recruited to Serve and Sniff — Again

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan aren’t just forcing thousands of soldiers and Marines to deploy for two and three tours. The sacrifice is being shared by a key, and growing, part of the U.S. military: highly trained German shepherds and Belgian Malinois. In a war with no front lines, they have become valuable at sniffing out makeshift bombs, which cause most U.S. casualties.

Washington Post

Around the Country, Calls for Lawmakers to Address “Real Problems, Not Imaginary Ones”

As several states enter critical phases in their legislative sessions, the debate for one of the most controversial election reforms continues to dominate headlines and legislative hearings. This year, more than 26 states introduced legislation to go above and beyond federal election law relating to voter ID, despite near consensus among voting rights advocates that it hurts the process far more than it helps. Last week, the hysteria around voter ID reached an all time high in six states, evoking public concern from advocates and citizens alike.

Open Left

The Woman Who Could Nail Bush: Are the Worst of the Torture Memos Still to Come?

On March 19, the nomination of Indiana University law professor Dawn Johnsen to head the OLC was endorsed by the Judiciary Committee with every Republican voting against her and Sen. Arlen Spector (R-PA) abstaining. The nomination was to have been brought to the Senate floor for a vote on Monday and then again on Wednesday, but it has been held back. Republican leaders, it appears, are playing with the notion of making Johnsen the target of their first filibuster.

AlterNet

Insurers shun those taking certain meds

Trying to buy health insurance on your own and have gallstones? You’ll automatically be denied coverage. Rheumatoid arthritis? Automatic denial. Severe acne? Probably denied. Do you take metformin, a popular drug for diabetes? Denied. Use the anti-clotting drug Plavix or Seroquel, prescribed for anti-psychotic or sleep problems? Forget about it.

Miami Herald