Commoditize This has a rec'd diary up on how unfair it is to call out President Obama.
The argument goes, that we are missing all the good things he's done.
- He called Faux News a bad name
- Lily Ledbetter Act among others
But, hey, how about what else he's done?
How about President Obama and Atty General Holder continually defending Bush-era crimes, if not taking their arguments even further, in court?
Yesterday, the Obama DOJ -- as expected -- filed a legal brief (.pdf) which adopted the arguments originally made by the Bush DOJ to insist that detainees whom they abduct from around the world and then ship to Bagram (rather than Guantanamo) lack any constitutional rights whatsoever, including habeas review. The Obama administration is appealing from a decision (.pdf) by Bush-43-appointed District Court Judge John Bates which, applying Boumediene, held that detainees at Bagram who are originally detained outside of Afghanistan have the right to habeas review (Afghan citizens detained in Afghanistan have none, he found). In other words, after Obama praised Boumediene as "defending the freedom that violent extremists seek to destroy," he's now attempting to make a complete mockery of that decision by insisting that it is inapplicable as long as he decides to ship detainees from, say, Thailand to Bagram rather than Guantanamo. Obama apparently sees "our core values" as nothing more than an absurd shell game, where the U.S. Government can evade the limits of the Constitution by simply moving the locale of its due-process-free detention system.
Wow. Isn't that "change" we can believe in? Close Guantanamo, then play a shell game with the prisoners by moving them to Bagram AB with the same "you get no rights" claimed at Guantanamo, that the Supreme Court already struck down.
Or, hey, how about going after low-level guys? Nope. Bradley Schlozman gets off scot free under President Obama.
In the letter to lawmakers, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich said Holder oversaw an "extensive" review of the Schlozman matter. Holder found the alleged conduct of Schlozman disturbing, but ultimately chose to defer to the prosecutors' original decision not to bring charges, Weich wrote.
Hey, why should we hobble a Democratic President? Don't you know he's fighting for the rule of law???? Fighting for US?
So what if he increases troops in Afghanistan. He's just listening to his Generals. Who cares if Gen. McChrystal wants 40,000 more troops to pacify Afghanistan when Gen. Shinseki said he need several thousand troops to pacify Iraq, a country with less people and less area to cover. We can send more troops into a situation they simply cannot win with that paltry amount. Our troops LOVE the idea!
American soldiers serving in Afghanistan are depressed and deeply disillusioned, according to the chaplains of two US battalions that have spent nine months on the front line in the war against the Taleban.
Many feel that they are risking their lives — and that colleagues have died — for a futile mission and an Afghan population that does nothing to help them, the chaplains told The Times in their makeshift chapel on this fortress-like base in a dusty, brown valley southwest of Kabul.
"The many soldiers who come to see us have a sense of futility and anger about being here. They are really in a state of depression and despair and just want to get back to their families," said Captain Jeff Masengale, of the 10th Mountain Division’s 2-87 Infantry Battalion.
He's talking a big game on the public option, though, he's only THREATENED progressive Senator's and Representative's, while pandering to the likes of Olympia Snowe.
We are hobbling him!!!! Quit speaking about what he's actually DOING!!!
Who doesn't like getting boned by a candidate that said one thing and then turns around as President and sides with the insurance, finance, and every other corporation.
Yeah... he's so much better than McCain. We haven't attacked Iran. But he's been selling us out on everything else.
Leave Barack alooonneeeeeeeee....