Month: February 2010

Ana Marie Cox debates Rich Lowry on ending the persecution of gay servicemembers in the military. It's a very pleasant and honest chat. I always learn something from hearing straight people talk about us.

I repeat my firm belief that the day after this ban is fully lifted … nothing will happen publicly. The closet will not burst open; these many patriots, often from the heartland, have absolutely no desire to inject their sexual orientation into combat or military culture. They want to do their jobs without fear of others targeting them, and to do so with integrity. The big change will happen in the minds and souls of gay servicemembers, who will fight without fear. I ave known countless of these men and women. They are among the best in our community. It pains me deeply for years to see them endure this kind of stress and fear, let alone the incidents of intense cruelty and humiliation when they are outed, sometimes days before they are due pensions for a lifetime of service.

Rich says that it's no big deal to live hiding one's sexual orientation. If you're straight, try it for one day.

Try never mentioning your spouse, your family, your home, your girlfriend or boyfriend to anyone you know or work with – just for one day. Take that photo off your desk at work, change the pronoun you use for your spouse to the opposite gender, guard everything you might say or do so that no one could know you're straight, shut the door in your office if you have a personal conversation if it might come up.

Try it. Now imagine doing it for a lifetime. It's crippling; it warps your mind; it destroys your self-esteem. These men and women are voluntarily risking their lives to defend us. And we are demanding they live lives like this in order to do so.

Yes, Admiral Mullen. It is about integrity. It's also about a minimum of human respect.

Jane Mayer reports on the heat Eric Holder has taken, the fight over KSM's trial, and the controversy over the handling of the undie-bomber:

Holder told me that he was frustrated by much of the criticism over the handling of Abdulmutallab. “What we did is totally consistent with what has happened in every similar case” since 9/11, he said. “There’s a desire to ignore the facts to try to score political points. It’s a little shocking.” Without exception, he noted, every previous terrorist suspect apprehended inside the country had been handled as a civilian criminal. Even so, critics such as Krauthammer were denouncing Holder for failing to send Abdulmutallab directly to Guantánamo. As a senior national-security official in the White House put it, “It’s a fantasy! Under what alternative legal system can Special Operations Forces fly into Detroit, and take someone away without court oversight?”

Scott Horton praises the article:

The article is essential reading for those who want to understand why the Holder Justice Department has shut down all efforts to secure accountability for serious crimes committed during the war on terror, potentially including homicides. Mayer gives us a step-by-step explanation of the process and the roles played by each. It leaves little doubt that the man in charge is Rahm Emanuel.

The British Daily Mail – a populist right-wing paper – reports:

A soldier waterboarded his four-year-old daughter because she was unable to recite her alphabet. Joshua Tabor admitted to police he had used the CIA torture technique because he was so angry. As his daughter 'squirmed' to get away, Tabor said he submerged her face three or four times until the water was lapping around her forehead and jawline. Tabor, 27, who had won custody of his daughter only four weeks earlier, admitted choosing the punishment because the girl was terrified of water…

[T]he terrified girl was found hiding in a closet, with bruising on her back and scratch marks on her neck and throat. Asked how she got the bruises, the girl is said to have replied: 'Daddy did it.'

Horrifying. No doubt Marc Thiessen will object that since she wasn't strapped to an actual board and only dunked three or four times, rather than 183, and her father wasn't in the CIA, she wasn't really "waterboarded" as the professionals do it.  But do you notice how a foreign newspaper uses plain English to describe torturing victims by use of near-drowning: the "CIA torture technique."

No US paper has yet to report the story. Why am I not surprised?

Two words, according to Jane Mayer's must-read: Rahm Emanuel:

Emanuel adamantly opposed a number of Holder’s decisions, including one that widened the scope of a special counsel who had begun investigating the C.I.A.’s interrogation program. Bush had appointed the special counsel, John Durham, to assess whether the C.I.A. had obstructed justice when it destroyed videotapes documenting

waterboarding sessions.

Holder authorized Durham to determine whether the agency’s abuse of detainees had itself violated laws. Emanuel worried that such investigations would alienate the intelligence community. But Holder, who had studied law at Columbia with Telford Taylor, the chief American prosecutor in the Nuremberg trials, was profoundly upset after seeing classified documents explicitly describing C.I.A. prisoner abuse. The United Nations Convention Against Torture requires the U.S. to investigate credible torture allegations. Holder felt that, as the top law-enforcement officer in the U.S., he had to do something.

Emanuel couldn’t complain directly to Holder without violating strictures against political interference in prosecutorial decisions. But he conveyed his unhappiness to Holder indirectly, two sources said. Emanuel demanded, “Didn’t he get the memo that we’re not re-litigating the past?”

I wonder if Emanuel was also quietly behind the decision not to reinvestigate the Gitmo "suicides".

Clive Crook has a very thoughtful post on why and if the bill remains unpopular.

Chris Anderson thinks small:

The tools of factory production, from electronics assembly to 3-D printing, are now available to individuals, in batches as small as a single unit. Anybody with an idea and a little expertise can set assembly lines in China into motion with nothing more than some keystrokes on their laptop. A few days later, a prototype will be at their door, and once it all checks out, they can push a few more buttons and be in full production, making hundreds, thousands, or more.

They can become a virtual micro-factory, able to design and sell goods without any infrastructure or even inventory; products can be assembled and drop-shipped by contractors who serve hundreds of such customers simultaneously.

Today, micro-factories make everything from cars to bike components to bespoke furniture in any design you can imagine. The collective potential of a million garage tinkerers is about to be unleashed on the global markets, as ideas go straight into production, no financing or tooling required. “Three guys with laptops” used to describe a Web startup. Now it describes a hardware company, too.

(Image: One of Josef Schulz's signs, now on exhibit, via Cool Hunting)

Jonathan H. Kupitsky attended the tea party convention:

I think the one thing that really did surprise me was the high level of explicitly Christian social conservatism on display here. One of the “breakout sessions” featured a speech from Pastor Rick Scarborough — who is most famous for trying to get America’s preachers more politicized. (“I’m not a Republican. I’m not a Democrat. I’m a Christocrat.”)

After his speech, a middle-aged female delegate with a twang stood up and said, during the Q&A, “All the media types are asking us why we’re here. Here’s what I say. We’re all here for a little R&R — revival and revolt. If you’re not a Christian, and a person of faith, you just can’t understand what we’re doing!!” She got a standing ovation.

I think the MSM is missing the real focus of this movement. We keep describing the tea-partiers as fiscal conservatives. But this is patently untrue on its face.

They have no plans to cut serious spending whatsoever. They love their Medicare, as they screamed at us last August. Do you remember them revolting against Bush’s unfunded, Medicare prescription drug bill, the worst act of fiscal vandalism since the Iraq war? They want much more defense spending. And does anyone think they would ever touch social security? Tell me of one speech this weekend in which any serious spending cuts were actually proposed.

On healthcare costs, any attempt to restrain the massive fiscal burden of the care of people in their last days and hours of their lives – by entirely voluntary attempts to get them to prepare powers of attorney in advance – will be described as death-panels. This new form of Christianity – unlike the vast tradition stretching back to the Middle Ages – believes that even those in a vegetative state should be kept on feeding tubes for ever.

Everything they stand for is about more spending, not less. Remember that none of these people were up in arms when an evangelical president was adding trillions of debt, with not even a gesture at funding any of it. And they want to cut taxes as well.

So why are they really there?

They want their country back. That’s what they tell us. I watched a CNN segment where one woman explicitly described Obama as Satan’s agent. And the biggest applause of the Palin speech was her reference to children with special needs, her brilliant way of telling the base that she is a real pro-lifer and not a fake one. That’s why she hauls little Trig everywhere she goes. He’s a pro-life prop. A special needs child would be kept at home, cared for intently, and out of the limelight. 

This is about Christianism, permanent war against Islam, rounding up illegals (did you hear Tancredo?) and a culture war against the cities and “unreal Americans”. Unreal means not Christianist.

Know fear.

Andrew live-blogged Palin's speech here and here. His immediate take-away here, and further analysis here, here, and here. Later on, she essentially announced her candidacy, called for full-scale war with Iran, and kissed Limbaugh's ring. Weigel corrected her false history, moderated a fratricidal spat, and scooped up other details from the Tea Party Convention. Mark Leibovich profiled her in the NYT. 

In Levi coverage, his pistachios are huge but his Playgirl cover is lacking. Fox edited Stewart and O'Reilly to make the latter look better, Oliver North played the NAMBLA card, Thiessen topped himself, and DiA delved into the disturbing use of torture treaties to torture.

In science coverage, we learned how to survive a fall from 35,000 feet and the many uses of nano glass spray. Nick Carr informed us how unhip blogging has become, Ryan Sager examined tipping, Totten reviewed Hurt Locker, and Jake Weisberg told us to quit our whining. Andrew meditated over Montaigne, friendship, and time. His column this week focused on the Gitmo "suicides."

Super Bowl coverage here, here, here, here, and especially here. The snowpocalypse drove a weatherman crazy. Our window book is a big hit in the bathroom. Action-movie rap-ups here and ugly furniture here.

— C.B.

The drug war lives:

We're still spending twice as much on the war as we are on treatment for the actual people our drug policy is supposed to help. The urge to describe this as "balanced" is just the trademark dishonesty we've come to expect from the drug czar's office anytime they're required to sum up their agenda in one sentence.

This waste of resources never really shifts from president to president. It's like defense spending in the war on terror, structured so that it never ends, and can never be cut. It's true, however, that under Obama, the most insane aspect of this – the war on marijuana – has been greatly ameliorated through the sanity of federalism. But you know that under president Palin, the feds would swoop back in.