So what now....

[duke_of_earl]

[bdlaw]

Dow is down to 6800 at end of February....as predicted...you're welcome!

Anyone sick of "Ob-amateur Hour" yet?

Nope.  Let us know when it gets to zero. 

That joke is older than rok.

[Soshin]

Dow is down to 6800 at end of February....as predicted...you're welcome!

Anyone sick of "Ob-amateur Hour" yet?

Nope.  Let us know when it gets to zero. 

[Groovejet]

Dow is down to 6800 at end of February....as predicted...you're welcome!

Anyone sick of "Ob-amateur Hour" yet?

[TheFang]

Change! Hope! Condoms!

Obama Administration to Reverse Bush Rule on 'Conscience' Regulation

Policy Provides Sweeping Federal Protections to Health-Care Workers Who Refuse to Provide Care That Violates Their Beliefs

By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 27, 2009; 11:41 AM

The Obama administration has begun the process of rescinding sweeping new federal protections that were granted in December to health-care workers who refuse to provide care that violates their personal, moral or religious beliefs.

The Office of Management and Budget announced this morning that it was reviewing a proposal to lift the controversial "conscience" regulation, the first step toward reversing the policy. Once the OMB has reviewed the proposal it will be published in Federal Register for a 30-day public comment period.

"We are proposing rescinding the Bush rule," said an official with the Health and Human Services Department, which drafted the rule change.

The administration took the step because the regulation was so broadly written that it could provide protections to health-care workers who object not only to abortion but also to a wide range of health-care services, said the HHS official, who asked not to be named because the process had just begun.

"We've been concerned that the way the Bush rule is written it could make it harder for women to get the care they need. It is worded so vaguely that some have argued it could limit family planning counseling and even potentially blood transfusions and end-of-life care," the official said.

After the 30-day comment period, the regulation could be lifted entirely or it could be modified to make the protections more specific, the official said.

"We support a tightly written conscience clause. We recognize and understand that some providers have objections about abortion, and we want to make sure that current law protects them," the official said. "We want to be thoughtful about this."

The new rule empowers the federal government to cut off federal funding for any state or local government, hospital, health plan, clinic or other entity that does not accommodate doctors, nurses, pharmacists or other employees who refuse to participate in care they find objectionable. The Bush administration adopted the rule at the urging of conservative groups, abortion opponents and others in order to safeguard workers from being fired, disciplined or penalized in other ways.

Women's health advocates, family planning proponents, abortion rights activists and others condemned the regulation, saying it would create a major obstacle to providing many health services, including family planning, infertility treatment and end-of-life care, as well as possibly a wide range of scientific research.

The move marks the latest challenge to the Obama administration's attempt to find more of middle ground on issues related to abortion. President Obama has said repeatedly he hopes those on both sides of the issue can work to reduce the number of abortions by preventing unwanted pregnancies and by offering support to women who do get pregnant and want to continue their pregnancies.

That approach has already been tested. Obama angered abortion opponents when he lifted restrictions on federal funding for international family planning groups that promote abortion. The next closely watched decision will be whether Obama lifts federal restrictions on federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research.

[elgoodo]

honkey begone!

[TMN]

meh. Send the crackers home to their own countries. <----please read plenty of sarcasm in my statement. If only it were that easy.

[Darna]

+1, AB.  The point of the Order was not to deny due process but to ensure his receipt of it.

[AmbushBug]

You might want to actually look at that Order before you criticize it (or use it to invalidate the other 3):

"Because he is not held at Guantánamo Bay, al-Marri is not covered by the review mandated in the Review and Disposition Order.  Yet it is equally in the interests of the United States that the executive branch undertake a prompt and thorough review of the factual and legal basis for al-Marri’s continued detention, and identify and thoroughly evaluate alternative dispositions.

Accordingly, I direct that a review of al-Marri’s status (”Review”) commence immediately."

-The Washington Independent (emphasis mine)

[jcpeace]

"Yay! The first step in the return of the Constitution and civil rights!"

Really?

The fourth EO once again post-pones the trial of a man who has been held without charges.

but but it's obama denying the guy due process now...so it's all good

[bdlaw]

"Yay! The first step in the return of the Constitution and civil rights!"

Really?

The fourth EO once again post-pones the trial of a man who has been held without charges.

[TheFang]

Obama repudiates Bush interrogation policies



Thursday, President Obama signed four executive orders that represent a break with Bush administration policies about the treatment of detainees suspected of involvement with terrorism. One order mandates the closing of the prison at Guantanamo Bay within a year; another lays out rules for interrogation, a third establishes a task force to determine how to deal with those currently held at Guantanamo and the fourth is about the case of detainee Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri.

By the time Obama signed the orders, they weren't a surprise. But some of the wording still stands out, particularly this section from the order regarding interrogations:

   

From this day forward, unless the Attorney General with appropriate consultation provides further guidance, officers, employees, and other agents of the United States Government may, in conducting interrogations, act in reliance upon Army Field Manual 2 22.3, but may not, in conducting interrogations, rely upon any interpretation of the law governing interrogation -- including interpretations of Federal criminal laws, the Convention Against Torture, Common Article 3, Army Field Manual 2 22.3, and its predecessor document, Army Field Manual 34 52 issued by the Department of Justice between September 11, 2001, and January 20, 2009.

Short version: With one stroke of a pen, Obama just erased more than seven years of the Justice Department's legal justifications for the Bush administration's interrogation policies.
― Alex Koppelman

-------------

Yay! The first step in the return of the Constitution and civil rights!

[bdlaw]

Was not related, Bug.

Fang cites one instance.

Has torture occured?  I'm sure it has.  Has it occured regularly, sanctioned, as the rule rather than the exception?  I don't know. Depends on how you define torture and it depends on what you mean by "sanctioned."

My emphasis:

"The techniques they used were all authorized, but the manner in which they applied them[/i] was overly aggressive and too persistent. . . .

[Soshin]

Kinda understandable that people would be a teeny bit anti-American once you've been flown halfway around the world. locked up and tortured.  Another great example of how to create a terrorist brought to you by the Bush administration....

[AmbushBug]

Bede, how does your post support your point about whether or not detaining people without trial —and then torturing them— is legal or illegal?

[bdlaw]

And on the flip side...

Pentagon: Ex-Gitmo detainees resume terror acts

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Dozens of suspected terrorists released by the United States from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are believed to have returned to terrorism activities, according to the Pentagon.

Pentagon officials say 61 former Gitmo detainees have committed or are suspected of returning to terrorism.

Since 2002, 61 former detainees have committed or are suspected to have committed attacks after being released from the detention camp, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said at a briefing Tuesday.

The number is up since the Pentagon's last report in March 2008 when officials said 37 former detainees had been suspected of returning to the battlefield since 2002.

Since 2007, more than 100 detainees were released, significantly more than in previous years, according to Pentagon officials.

According to the statistics, of the 61 former detainees that are believed to have returned to fighting, 18 have been officially confirmed while 43 are suspected, Morrell said.

The 18 were confirmed through intelligence, photographs, fingerprints and other information, Morrell said.

Of the 43 other detainees suspected of taking part in terrorist attacks, only "plausible reporting" on their activities indicated some kind of involvement, according to Morrell.

Officials would only identify one of the confirmed attackers, Adballah Salih al-Ajmi, a Kuwaiti man released from U.S. custody at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in 2005. Pentagon officials said Salih al-Ajmi blew himself up in a suicide attack in Iraq in April 2008.

Since 2002, the Pentagon has released about 520 detainees to their home countries or counties that agreed to take them. Some have been released in full by those countries while others are still being held.

"There, clearly, are people who are being held at Guantanamo who are still bent on doing harm to America, Americans and our allies, so there will have to be some solution for the likes of them," Morrell said.

About 250 detainees remain held at Guantanamo and about 60 of those detainees have been cleared for release by the Pentagon, but their home countries will not take them or the U.S. believes they could be harmed by their governments if returned.

President-elect Barack Obama has said he intends to shut down Guantanamo. Earlier this week, two sources close to the Obama transition team said he could issue an order to do so as early as his first week in office, saying that Obama believes "the legal framework at Gitmo has failed to successfully and swiftly prosecute terrorists."

[TheFang]

I don't necessarily think what happened *was* illegal.

Well luckily the Constitution isn't based on what you think.

You really think this was legal?:

Detainee Tortured, Says U.S. Official

The top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial has concluded that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, interrogating him with techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold, leaving him in a "life-threatening condition."

"We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani," said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution.

Crawford, a retired judge who served as general counsel for the Army during the Reagan administration and as Pentagon inspector general when Dick Cheney was secretary of defense, is the first senior Bush administration official responsible for reviewing practices at Guantanamo to publicly state that a detainee was tortured.

Crawford, 61, said the combination of the interrogation techniques, their duration and the impact on Qahtani's health led to her conclusion. "The techniques they used were all authorized, but the manner in which they applied them was overly aggressive and too persistent. . . . You think of torture, you think of some horrendous physical act done to an individual. This was not any one particular act; this was just a combination of things that had a medical impact on him, that hurt his health. It was abusive and uncalled for. And coercive. Clearly coercive. It was that medical impact that pushed me over the edge" to call it torture, she said.

more...

[bdlaw]

I don't necessarily think what happened *was* illegal.

[TheFang]

Y'know what bd, you're right, none of those people who actually drew up and enacted those "tactics" should be held responsible first, lets first go after the people who 5 years later funded it.

Besides, don't we have special rules for not prosecuting the mentally handicapped?

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/rToKEnySb7s&amp;color1=0xb1b1b1&amp;color2=0xcfcfcf&amp;hl=en&amp;feature=player_embedded&amp;fs=1" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/rToKEnySb7s&amp;color1=0xb1b1b1&amp;color2=0xcfcfcf&amp;hl=en&amp;feature=player_embedded&amp;fs=1</a>

[bdlaw]

. . . should be investigated and we should all know who they are and let them be run out on a rail and we should run them out on a rail.

Sigh, the passive voice. I'm sick of iffy lefty speech. No-one's gonna do it for us, Fang. We have to do it ourselves.

But I agree, they all need to go to federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.

Fine, start with the new Chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee

[AmbushBug]

. . . should be investigated and we should all know who they are and let them be run out on a rail and we should run them out on a rail.

Sigh, the passive voice. I'm sick of iffy lefty speech. No-one's gonna do it for us, Fang. We have to do it ourselves.

But I agree, they all need to go to federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.

[TheFang]

Psst.. Fang:

Fienstein and company have been briefed on this stuff since what, '05?

Where was the outrage back then?  Why no blocking action in Congress?  They could've simply with held funds yet didn't.  If all this stuff was patently illegal didn't folks like Diane Fienstein have a legal and moral obligation to do something about it?

Oh believe me, there is plenty of outrage on my part. As far as I'm concerned congress and those with access to this information and authorized it should be investigated and prosecuted as well. Everyone who is responsible for war crimes and crimes against the American people (y'know like wiretapping and detaining citizens and the like) should be investigated and we should all know who they are and let them be run out on a rail.

This isn't partisan for me. This is right and wrong.

[bdlaw]

Psst.. Fang:

Fienstein and company have been briefed on this stuff since what, '05?

Where was the outrage back then?  Why no blocking action in Congress?  They could've simply with held funds yet didn't.  If all this stuff was patently illegal didn't folks like Diane Fienstein have a legal and moral obligation to do something about it?

[TheFang]

Hey Mr. Almost President Guy,
As much as I love this. If this isn't enough of a reason to "look to the past", then I don't know what is.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/ghMeeXxYbho&amp;color1=0xb1b1b1&amp;color2=0xcfcfcf&amp;hl=en&amp;feature=player_embedded&amp;fs=1" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/ghMeeXxYbho&amp;color1=0xb1b1b1&amp;color2=0xcfcfcf&amp;hl=en&amp;feature=player_embedded&amp;fs=1</a>

Sunday, 1/11/9 ABC News.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So no 9/11 Commission with independent seeking of power?

OBAMA: Well we have not made any final decisions but my instinct is for us to focus on how do we make sure that moving forward, we are doing the right thing. That doesn't mean that if somebody has blatantly broken the law, that they are above the law. But my orientation's going to be to move forward.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So let me just press that one more time. You're not ruling out prosecution, but will you tell your Justice Department to investigate these cases and follow the evidence where it leads?

OBAMA: What I -- I think my general view when it comes to my attorney general is that he's the people's lawyer. Eric Holder's been nominated. His job is to uphold the Constitution and look after the interests of the American people. Not be swayed by my day-to-day politics. So ultimately, he's going to be making some calls. But my general belief is that when it comes to national security, what we have to focus on is getting things right in the future as opposed to looking at what we got wrong in the past.

[TheFang]

Sincerely,
 
Jello Biafra

I would like to know two things. One, did he actually sign it as "Jello Biafra" and not "Eric Reed Boucher"? And two, do we think Obama knows who the Dead Kennedys are (and 2a) does he like them? Because that would make me even more pleased to have voted for him.