Is Obama Embracing Unconstitutional War Powers?

Is Obama embracing unconstitutional powers?

A recent Hill article on Libya reveals the administration's disturbing disdain for checks on presidential authority

By David Sirota

Florent Marcie/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A Libyan rebel closed the eyelids of a government soldier who was killed in fighting this week southwest of Tripoli. American forces are aiding a NATO-led mission

Reuters

President Barack Obama

Thursday's Hill newspaper story on the White House's new Libya War is one for the history books. It is probably the most concise summation of two of the most powerful post-9/11 tropes in our politics.

First and foremost, as my Salon.com colleague Glenn Greenwald deftly shows, it exemplifies the unprincipled, hyper-partisan nature of our public policy discourse, to the point where on the gravest matters of war and peace, professional politicians and activists are thrilled to use the same jeremiads they previously criticized once it is in their momentary self-interest to do so.

But that's not all that this article so perfectly captures. In quoting the Obama administration's petulant criticism of Congress, it gives us a candid-camera snapshot of the executive branch's Kingly Presumption of blatantly unconstitutional authority. Here's what I mean (emphasis mine):

President Obama and his aides appear increasingly angered by threats from Congress over the president's authority to intervene in Libya.

Both in remarks the president made during his address on Afghanistan Wednesday night and in comments made by senior administration officials, the White House is losing patience with Congress...

One senior administration official, on a conference call with reporters Wednesday afternoon, seemed even more angered by the defunding threats from both sides of the aisle.

"And I think, astoundingly, there is a move in the House of Representatives to take an effort as it relates to the ongoing effort to stop a tyrant in Libya and to turn it into a political football in such a way here as to give, at a critical time -- potentially send a very negative signal to the leadership of that country, which, as we all know, has over the course of time carried out hateful and heinous attacks against U.S. citizens, including terrorist attacks."

If we take the Hill's portrayal of its sources as an accurate picture of the White House's not-for-attribution statements and attitude, and put it next to an administration that insists it is "astounding" for Congress to even consider fulfilling its War Powers Clause/War Powers Act responsibilities (and yes, they are responsibilities and not just prerogatives) -- we see a posture that goes way beyond the mere "unitary executive" theory. We see, in short, an administration asserting a monarchical supremacy that inherently assumes that there's no need to even rhetorically argue the legality of actions, much less halt those actions.

This, to be sure, is a step further down the authoritarian path than the recent -- and preposterous -- insistence by the White House that the Libya War is not actually a war. Obviously, it is a war as evidenced by the bombs, civilian casualties, Pentagon price tag -- and obviously the administration actually sees it as a war, as evidenced by its (correct) decision to grant soldiers combat pay.

At least with the administration's "War Is Peace" message, the president was implicitly admitting he was required to try to offer an explanation -- however ludicrous and transparent -- for how his actions can possibly be seen as legal. But now the message has clearly changed from Orwellian horseshit to the Kingly Presumption, spiced up with a few salutes to ends-justify-the-means-ism.

It is this shift that threatens to create a new precedent that goes beyond even this administration's current practice of totally ignoring Congress. If he is successful in pioneering the Kingly Presumption, Obama will have permanently delegitimized the right of Americans and their lawmakers to even question the legality of illegal war.

• David Sirota is a best-selling author of the new book "Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live In Now." He hosts the morning show on AM760 in Colorado. E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com, follow him on Twitter @davidsirota or visit his website at www.davidsirota.com. More: David Sirota

Climate of Fear: Jim Risen v. the Obama administration

Climate of Fear: Jim Risen v. the Obama administration

By Glenn Greenwald

AP

James Risen and President Barack Obama

[Barring unforeseen events, I'm going to leave this post at the top of the page for today and tomorrow, as I think the events it examines, rather in detail and at length, are vitally important and merit much more attention than they've received]

_________________

The Obama DOJ's effort to force New York Times investigative journalist Jim Risen to testify in a whistleblower prosecution and reveal his source is really remarkable and revealing in several ways; it should be receiving much more attention than it is. On its own, the whistleblower prosecution and accompanying targeting of Risen are pernicious, but more importantly, it underscores the menacing attempt by the Obama administration -- as Risen yesterday pointed out -- to threaten and intimidate whistleblowers, journalists and activists who meaningfully challenge what the government does in secret.

The subpoena to Risen was originally issued but then abandoned by the Bush administration, and then revitalized by Obama lawyers. It is part of the prosecution of Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA agent whom the DOJ accuses of leaking to Risen the story of a severely botched agency plot -- from 11 years ago -- to infiltrate Iran's nuclear program, a story Risen wrote about six years after the fact in his 2006 best-selling book, State of War. The DOJ wants to force Risen to testify under oath about whether Sterling was his source.

Like any good reporter would, Risen is categorically refusing to testify and, if it comes to that (meaning if the court orders him to testify), he appears prepared to go to prison in defense of press freedoms and to protect his source (just as some young WikiLeaks supporters are courageously prepared to do rather than cooperate with the Obama DOJ's repellent persecution of the whistleblowing site). Yesterday, Risen filed a Motion asking the Court to quash the government's subpoena on the ground that it violates the First Amendment's free press guarantee, and as part of the Motion, filed a lengthy Affidavit that is amazing in several respects.

During the Bush years, Risen was one of the few investigative journalists exposing the excesses and lawbreaking that was the War on Terror -- causing him to be literally hated by officials of the National Security State. Along with Eric Lichtblau, Risen most famously revealed, in 2005, that the NSA was secretly spying on Americans without warrants which -- as he put it in his Affidavit -- "in all likelihood, violated the law and the United States Constitution." In 2006, he revealed that the Bush administration had been obtaining huge amounts of financial and banking information about American citizens from the SWIFT system, all without oversight or Congressional authorization. And here's how he summarized the multiple revelations in State of War, the book for which the Obama DOJ is now seeking to force him to reveal his source upon pain of imprisonment:

State of War included explosive revelations about a series of illegal or potentially illegal actions taken by President Bush, including the domestic wiretapping program. It also disclosed how President Bush secretly pressured the CIA to use torture on detainees in secret prisons around the world; how the White House and CIA leadership ignored information before the 2003 invasion of Iraq that showed that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction; documented how, in the aftermath of the invasion, the Bush Administration punished CIA professionals who warned that the war in Iraq was going badly; showed how the Bush Administration turned a blind eye to Saudi involvement in terrorism; and revealed that the CIA's intelligence operations on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Iran and other countries were completely dysfunctional, and even reckless.

(To understand the function of the American media and American political culture: please re-read that paragraph -- describing revelations of pervasive lawbreaking and corruption at the highest levels of government from one reporter in one book -- and compare the media's indifferent and/or supportive treatment of that revealed conduct to the orgy of intense, obsessive condemnation directed at Anthony Weiner; or compare how the perpetrators of that conduct revealed by Risen are treated with great respect to the universal scorn heaped on Weiner).

Particularly because of the NSA revelation, Risen was despised by Bush officials and was the target of a right-wing hate campaign (including suggestions -- from administration officials and prominent others -- that he be prosecuted for espionage). Risen compiles ample evidence in his Affidavit to argue that the Subpoena issued to him in the Sterling case was a by-product of the administration's efforts to harm him; he writes: "the administration was embarrassed by the disclosures I made in the course of my reporting for State of War as well as in The New York Times, and eventually singled me out as a target for political harassment." Indeed, Risen argues -- persuasively -- that the investigation to unmask his source, and the prosecution of Sterling itself, is little more than a means of punishing him for his reporting and for intimidating similar disclosures in the future:

I believe that the investigation that led to this prosecution started because of my reporting on the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program. The Bush White House was furious over that story. I believe that this investigation started as part of an effort by the Bush Administration to punish me and silence me, following the publication of the NSA wiretapping story. I was told by a reliable source that Vice President Dick Cheney pressured the Justice Department to personally target me because he was unhappy with my reporting and wanted to see me in jail.

As it has in so many other instances, the Obama administration appears on the verge of fulfilling Dick Cheney's nefarious wish beyond what even Cheney could achieve.

* * * * * *

There are two aspects to Risen's Affidavit which merit particular attention. First, Risen cites a 2006 ABC News report from Brian Ross and others that claimed the Bush administration was, without warrants, spying on the communications of reporters (including Ross) in order to discover the identity of their sources. I personally never attached much credence to that story because of how unreliable I find Brian Ross to be, but in his Affidavit, Risen states (under oath) that he "has reason to believe that the story . . . is true" because he "learned from an individual who testified before a grand jury in this District that was examining my reporting about the domestic wiretapping program that the Government had shown this individual copies of telephone records relating to calls made to and from me."

The fact that Bush officials were spying on reporters is extraordinary. Instead of pursuing Cheneyite vendettas by persecuting whistleblowers who exposed newsworthy ineptitude from long-irrelevant CIA plots, the Obama DOJ ought to be investigating that allegation; that it isn't and wouldn't speaks volumes.

Second, Risen links the Obama administration's pursuit of the Sterling case and of Risen to the current President's broader (and unprecedented) war on whistleblowers and investigative journalism. He writes:

[I believe that the efforts to target me have continued under the Obama Administration, which has been aggressively investigating whistleblowers and reporters in a way that will have a chilling effect on the freedom of the press in the United States.]

What's particularly striking about this prosecution is that it involves digging deep into the ancient past (the Iran operation in question was begun under the Clinton administration): this from a President who insisted that Bush officials not be investigated for their crimes on the ground that we must "Look Forward, Not Backward." But it's not hard to see why Obama officials are so intent on doing so: few things are more effective in creating a Climate of Fear -- one that deters investigation and disclosure and stifles the exercise of basic rights -- than prosecuting prominent people for having challenged and undermined the government's agenda. As Risen documents, that -- plainly -- is what this prosecution and the Obama administration's broader anti-whistleblower war is about: chilling the exercise of basic rights and the ability to challenge government actions.

* * * * *

While there is no good faith claim that Risen's revelation six years after the fact harmed U.S. national security, Risen's story was unquestionably newsworthy because it revealed how inept and ignorant American intelligence agencies are when it comes to Iran. Indeed, Risen claims vindication for his story "given subsequent reports about the unreliability of our intelligence about Iran's nuclear capabilities and about our government's tendency to overstate the threat in a way that is not entirely consistent with the intelligence actually gathered."

That Iran is developing nuclear weapons is one of the Obama administration's most cherished orthodoxies. Anything that challenges that is attacked. Recall how cowardly Obama officials ran to Politico to anonymously malign Seymour Hersh's recent New Yorker piece arguing that there is little credible evidence of Iran's nuclear activities. As Risen says: "Whether one agrees with Mr. Hersh's article or not, it is clear that, five years after I wrote State of War, there is still a serious national debate about Iran's nuclear ambitions and about whether the current administration has incentives to exaggerate intelligence related to this topic."

What the Obama administration is doing, above all else, is bolstering the Climate of Fear that prevents any challenges to its pronouncements of this sort. I wrote about that joint White-House/Politico attack on Hersh to mock the gross hypocrisy of criticizing Hersh for his use of anonymous sources in the very same article where Politico granted anonymity to Obama officials to attack him; but the more substantive point is that of course Hersh has to use anonymous sources. In the Climate of Fear being deliberately fortified by the Obama administration, what person in their right mind would openly challenge their national security decrees on classified matters or call their veracity into question? As the Sterling/Risen case and numerous others have intentionally conveyed: imprisonment is the likely outcome for those who do that.

* * * * *

This Climate of Fear is being strengthened by more than just whistleblowing prosecutions and the targeting of journalists. So many Obama policies are devoted to its fortification.

Today in The New York Times, former NYT reporter David Shipler chronicles the multiple ways the current President, in conjunction with Congress and the Supreme Court, have intensified the decades-long assault on the Fourth Amendment's guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures: "The Obama administration petitioned the Supreme Court to allow GPS tracking of vehicles without judicial permission. The Supreme Court ruled that the police could break into a house without a search warrant if, after knocking and announcing themselves, they heard what sounded like evidence being destroyed. Then it refused to see a Fourth Amendment violation where a citizen was jailed for 16 days on the false pretext that he was being held as a material witness to a crime. Congress renewed Patriot Act provisions on enhanced surveillance powers until 2015, and the F.B.I. expanded agents' authority to comb databases, follow people and rummage through their trash even if they are not suspected of a crime." In his last paragraph, Shipler describes why this matters so much:

The Fourth Amendment is weaker than it was 50 years ago, and this should worry everyone. "Uncontrolled search and seizure is one of the first and most effective weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government," Justice Robert H. Jackson, the former chief United States prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, wrote in 1949. "Among deprivations of rights, none is so effective in cowing a population, crushing the spirit of the individual and putting terror in every heart."

Beyond the numerous actions described by Shipler, the Obama adminstration has pursued multiple actions perfectly described by that passage, certain to achieve that very outcome. It has continuously harassed numerous WikiLeaks supporters, repeatedly detaining them at airports and seizing and copying their laptops, all without warrants, and subpoeaned their social networking records. It is seeking (and is likely to obtain) dramatically expanded domestic surveillance powers, physically and over the Internet. It has seized the power to target American citizens for assassination without a whiff of due process. It succeeded in convincing the Supreme Court to declare that one can "materially support Terrorism" -- a felony -- merely by talking to, or advocating on behalf of, designated Terrorist groups. In one of the most important stories I haven't written about (but should have), it has invasively investigated and threatened with prosecution a slew of domestic peace activists and those sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. And now the precedent has been bolstered that the prime circumstance that fuels and justifies all of these powers -- war -- can be unilaterally commenced by the President for any reason, for any length of time, without a pretense of democratic consent.

For someone who has no real interest in challenging government claims or undermining official actions, these policies will have no direct, perceptible effect. It's always true that those who are supportive of institutions of authority or who otherwise have no interest in challenging them are never targeted by measures of this sort; why would they be? That's why supporters of all Presidents -- Republicans during the Bush years and now Democratic loyalists under Obama -- are rarely disturbed by such developments.

Along with the apathetic, who by definition pose no threat to anyone, prominent cheerleaders for the President and his party, who labor every day to keep them in power, are the last ones who will be subjected to such programs. Obviously, nobody in the Obama administration is monitoring the phone calls at the Center for American Progress or ones placed to the large stable of columnists, bloggers and TV stars who daily spout White House talking points or devote each day to attacking the President's political opponents. That's why purported civil liberties concerns manifest only when the other party is in power, but vanish when their own is. Partisan loyalists are indifferent to their leader's ability to deter dissent; if anything, they're happy that their party's leader wields such power and can use it against political adversaries.

But for anyone who is engaged in meaningful dissent from and challenge to government officials -- the Jim Risens and other real investigative reporters, the Thomas Drakes and other whistleblowers, the WikiLeaks supporters, the Midwest peace activists -- these prosecutions and these ever-expanding surveillance, detention and even assassination powers are inevitably intimidating. Regardless of how those powers are used or even whether they are, they will, as Risen put it, have "a chilling effect" on the exercise of core freedoms. As Risen explained in his Affidavit, even if Brian Ross' story turned out to be false, the mere claim by anonymous officials that the phone records of journalists are being monitored -- combined with threats of prison for their sources and even for reporters who are subpoenaed -- means "the Government further contributed to creating an atmosphere of fear for journalists who publish stories about national security and intelligence issues."

The most odious aspect of this Climate of Fear is that it fundamentally changes how the citizenry thinks of itself and its relationship to the Government. A state can offer all the theoretical guarantees of freedom in the world, but those become meaningless if citizens are afraid to exercise them. In that climate, the Government need not even act to abridge rights; a fearful populace will voluntarily refrain on its own from exercising those rights.

Nobody wants to believe that they have been put in a state of fear, that they are intimidated, so rationalizations are often contrived: I don't perceive any violations of my rights because there's nothing I want to do that I'm not able to do. Inducing a fearful population to refrain from exercising rights -- as it convinces itself no such thing is happening -- is a far more effective, and far more pernicious, means of suppressing freedoms. That's what a Climate of Fear uniquely enables. The vast National Security and Surveillance State has for decades been compiling powers -- and eroding safeguards and checks -- devoted to the strengthening of this climate, and the past two-and-a-half years have seen as rapid and concerted intensification as any other period one can recall. Read Jim Risen's Affidavit if you doubt that.

Defining 'Withdrawal' From Afghanistan

FAIR

Defining 'Withdrawal' From Afghanistan


Media Advisory

Defining 'Withdrawal' From Afghanistan
Media's selective memory on Obama escalations

6/23/11

Barack Obama's June 22 announcement of a phased troop withdrawal from Afghanistan was often portrayed as a major step towards ending the war, with many outlets neglecting to accurately explain the pace of escalation that has happened under his watch.

When Obama took office in 2009, the U.S. had about 34,000 troops in Afghanistan. Obama has initiated two major troop increases in Afghanistan: about 20,000 additional troops were announced in February 2009, followed by the December 2009 announcement that an another 33,000 would be deployed as well; other smaller increases have brought the total to 100,000. Much of the media conversation portrays the announced withdrawal schedule as a removal of all the surge troops--"the withdrawal of the entire surge force by the end of next summer," as the New York Times put it (6/23/11)--which ignores the initial escalation.

News accounts over how many troops might leave should account for the total U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, in historical context. As ThinkProgress noted (6/22/11),

if the reductions are carried out as planned, the United States would still have far more troops in Afghanistan than it did when Obama came into office and more than at any point during former president George W. Bush’s administration. This means that the troop reduction would not put us much closer to actually ending the war by the end of 2012.

That was not the impression many in the media were giving; coverage often made it sound as if the war was ending. "Obama Moves Toward Exit from Afghanistan" read one Reuters headline (6/22/11). USA Today reported (6/23/11), "President Obama heralded the beginning of the end of the nation's 10-year war in Afghanistan on Wednesday."

Reporting also nearly universally excluded any mention of the 100,000 Pentagon contractors currently in Afghanistan, which double the U.S. military commitment there. Given the full context, it's hard to read a phased pullout of 30,000 out of 200,000 over the course of an entire year as a "rapid" withdrawal (Los Angeles Times, 6/23/11). Nor is it clear how this withdrawal, which conforms to Obama's promise to begin to pull out troops from the second surge within 18 months of their deployment, merits a headline like the New York Times' "Obama Will Speed Military Pullout From Afghan War" (6/23/11).

Instead, the pace of the withdrawal, and the remaining U.S. presence in the country, reveal that the Afghan War is a long way from being over. A Washington Post headline before the speech (6/22/11) was: "Obama's Challenge: Leaving, But Not Too Quickly." Given the public's anti war sentiment, the real challenge might be exactly the opposite: leaving too slowly.

Obama as Mass Murderer or Still Looking for Bin Laden?

Sentimental Mass Murderer

by Linh Dinh / June 23rd, 2011

When Obama came into power, there were roughly 35,000 American troops in Afghanistan. Within two years, he tripled that number. Now, Obama announces that 10,000 soldiers will come home by the end of 2011, and 33,000 by the end of next summer. He surges twice, pulls back once, and declares it a successful withdrawal, as promised. I’m sure glad Obama’s not my accountant, or both of us would be arrested for fraud, but wait a sec, Obama is my accountant, and my banker, and my president.

And why are we in Afghanistan? Officially, we are there to fight the Taliban, whom we propped up in the first place. Democratic Jimmy Carter and Republican Ronald Reagan armed, financed and trained these freedom fighters or Islamofascists. In the 1980’s, America poured gasoline onto the flames of Islamic fanaticism to burn down the Soviets. Now, we are the Soviets.

America goes into Iraq and Afghanistan, turns these countries upside down, then explains that it would be irresponsible to leave them topsy-turvy, but as long as America stays there, these countries will remain messed up. America causes bombs to explode, then insists that it has to stay put until these bombs stop exploding, but America is the bomb! Time and time again, America has set the fire, then shows up as a volunteer firefighter. Such is the burden of being a world leader in freedom, democracy and weapon sales.

America, you are a sentimental mass murderer. You wage war after war, then pretend to mourn for some of the victims. (The “us” victims, not the “them” victims.) As Barack sends America’s sons and daughters into these needless carnages, Michelle urges us to value their pointless sacrifices.

While our grunts perform their imperial overstretch duties overseas, their loved ones struggle back home, so Michelle wants us offer these families comfort and assistance, “It can be helping a neighbor mow their lawn. People can volunteer to babysit for an afternoon, cook a meal, offer to fix a heater, or reach out to a reserve family living away from the support of a military installation.” Of course, these hardships could be avoided if we would only stop sending our gung ho fodders all over to kill and maim, and sometimes be wiped out in turns.

As the husband kills, the wife comforts, but often, this janus trick is performed by the selfsame joker. It has become an annual rite for Colin Powell to give a solemn speech on the Capitol lawn on Memorial Day. This year, he again paid tribute to Americans “fighting the global war against terrorism, serving and sacrificing in Afghanistan and Iraq and at other outposts on the front lines of freedom. The life of each and every one of them is precious to their loved ones and to our nation. And each life given in the name of liberty is a life that has not been lost in vain.”

Though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and had no weapons of mass destruction, Powell can claim, even now and with a straight face, that it is a front line of the war against terrorism. Done with his unctuous and hypocritical verbiage, Powell went into the crowd to hug a dozen vets and their loved ones. He patted the baby of a brain-damaged and blind man. Why no one, but no one, stood up and shouted, “Hey, Powell, wasn’t it you who helped to lie us into war? Didn’t you stand in front of the whole world and pointed to bogus satellite photos of ‘mobile laboratories for making biological weapons’?” In contemporary America, an architect of war can play at consoling its victims, and no one will bat an eye.

We are also led to believe that the people we bomb, shoot and rape are our beneficiaries. According to Yahoo! News, the withdrawal of American troops brings “a mix of joy and concern [among Afghans] as the nation struggles with the idea of less assistance,” so to invade a country is to assist it, but such is the logics of empire. Next time someone shoots you, know that you’re being assisted.

The empire is going broke, however, so our victims should voluntarily send us loads of cash. Visiting Baghdad, congressman Rohrabacher (CA) declared, “Once Iraq becomes a very rich and prosperous country… we would hope that some consideration be given to repaying the United States some of the mega-dollars that we have spent here in the last eight years. We were hoping that there would be a consideration of a payback because the United States right now is in close to a very serious economic crisis and we could certainly use some people to care about our situation as we have cared about theirs.” Bombed by Obama, Libyans should feel a similar gratitude, “If the Libyans for example are willing to help pay, compensate the United States, for what we would spend in helping them through this rough period, that’s one way to do it.”

With one hand, Uncle Sam will shoot you. With the other, he’ll jiggle the tin cup. Give it up already, all you bloody ingrates! America’s in deep, deep trouble. With our media the way they are, our leaders will continue speak nonsense and there’s nothing we can do about it.

America needs an urgent triage, but none is forthcoming. As she decays, festers and convulses, our next president is asked, “Deep dish or thin crust? American Idol or Dancing with the Stars?”

Linh Dinh is the author of two books of stories, five of poems, and a just released novel, Love Like Hate. He's tracking our deteriorating socialscape through his frequently updated photo blog, State of the Union. Read other articles by Linh.

This article was posted on Thursday, June 23rd, 2011 at 8:01am and is filed under Afghanistan, Imperialism, Iraq, Military/Militarism, Obama.

Why the GOP Should Nominate Barack Obama in 2012

Tuesday, Jun 21, 2011 07:01 ET

Why the GOP should nominate Barack Obama in 2012

A modest proposal stemming from the president's apparent rejection of his own party's liberal tradition

By Michael Lind

• 
  

AP/Reuters

Clockwise, top left: Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, President Barack Obama, Michelle Bachmann, Tim Pawlenty

With the possible exception of Jon Huntsman, the Republican presidential field is weak on candidates who could appeal to centrist swing voters, including moderate Republicans. But there is one 2012 prospect who has a proven track record of pursuing policies that owe a great deal to the moderate Republican tradition and who could potentially shake up the race for the GOP presidential nomination: President Barack Obama.

If Obama chose to run for reelection not as a Democrat but as a moderate Republican, he could bring about two healthy transformations in the American political system. The moderate wing of the Republican Party could be restored. And the Democratic presidential nomination might be opened up to politicians from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.

In the last generation, the old-fashioned moderate Republicans from New England and the Midwest symbolized by Nelson Rockefeller have been driven out of the GOP by the conservative followers of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. Streaming into the Democratic Party as voters, and buying it with ample Wall Street cash as donors, this upscale elite has changed the party from a populist liberal alliance of unionized workers and populists into a socially liberal, economically conservative version of the old country-club Republicanism of the pre-Reagan era. The transformation began under Jimmy Carter, accelerated under Bill Clinton and has nearly been completed under Barack Obama. This is not your grandfather’s Democratic Party. It is your grandfather’s Republican Party of 1955.

In his book "The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House," Bob Woodward described a Clinton administration meeting in 1993: "Where are all the Democrats?" Clinton bellowed. "I hope you’re all aware we’re all Eisenhower Republicans," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "We’re all Eisenhower Republicans here, and we are fighting the Reagan Republicans. We stand for lower deficits and free trade and the bond market. Isn't that great?"

The Obama administration is the third Clinton administration -- or perhaps the fifth Eisenhower administration, following the four combined terms of Dwight Eisenhower and Bill Clinton (by comparison to both, Richard Nixon, as president, was a New Deal liberal). Under the influence of Treasury secretary and master fundraiser Robert Rubin, the Mark Hanna of the modern Democratic Party, Clinton scrapped the "putting people first" agenda he had run on in 1992 and focused on rapidly balancing the budget -- a longtime obsession of fiscal conservatives in the Eisenhower-Rockefeller tradition, rather than supply-siders in the Reagan-Kemp tradition. Similarly, Barack Obama supported a stimulus that was only a quarter as big as necessary -- half of the $2 trillion that his advisor Christina Romer estimated was necessary, with about half of that wasted on ineffectual tax cuts. In spite of the prospect of years of mass unemployment, Barack Obama, in the spirit of the budget-balancing Rubinomics of the 1990s and Ike-onomics of the 1950s, has called for freezing discretionary spending except for defense. He has allowed the conversation to be shifted from recovery to long-term fiscal consolidation, which conservatives will try to use as an excuse to partly replace Social Security and Medicare with mandatory private accounts that will generate lucrative fees for Wall Street and the insurance industry from a huge captive population of American fee-payers.

If he were to run for the Republican nomination, Obama could point out that in the past few years he has already done far more to thwart American liberalism than any of his rivals in the GOP primary have done in their entire careers. He could boast that when liberal economists called for the temporary nationalization of insolvent megabanks, forcing shareholders to swallow their losses and firing their managers, he stood firm and protected Wall Street.

In the area of job creation, too, Obama can honestly tell Republican voters that he never supported massive public works job creation programs, like those of the New Deal. To the extent that the Obama administration has had any job creation policies at all, other than an inadequate stimulus and diversionary rhetoric about training today’s children for high-tech jobs in the 2030s or 2040s, it has consisted of payroll tax cuts -- a supply-side measure that practitioners of voodoo economics like Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp would have supported.

Of course, there are limits to Obama’s moderate Republicanism. While his economic policy is moderately conservative, Obama’s foreign policy is expansive -- and expensive -- Neoconservatism Lite, not a rebirth of Eisenhower’s cautious, budget-conscious "New Look" strategy of the 1950s.

In spite of an economic boom, Eisenhower worried about the effects of military spending on the civilian economy. In spite of a near-Depression, Obama exempted defense spending from the government spending freeze.

Eisenhower wound down the Korean War that he inherited from Harry Truman. Obama expanded the Afghan War that he inherited from George W. Bush. In Afghanistan Obama pursued the "surge," a strategy backed by neoconservatives that will have led to the unnecessary death and crippling of even more Americans before the inevitable U.S. withdrawal.

Eisenhower refused to take part in the British, French and Israeli attack on Egypt, during the Suez crisis in 1956. Obama, in contrast, agreed that the U.S. would provide most of the muscle in the Franco-British-American attack on Gadhafi’s regime in Libya.

In committing the U.S. to a third ongoing war in a Muslim country, President Obama lied to the public and trashed the Constitution. The administration lied when it said that the purpose of the Libyan war was only to protect civilians in a few areas of Libya from being massacred by Gadhafi’s forces. Pilots from the U.S. and other NATO countries soon began trying to assassinate the Libyan dictator from the air.

Obama had already torn up the Constitution, when his administration announced, in effect, that the part about Congress declaring war was a dead letter, as long as an American war was approved by the United Nations and European countries that belong to NATO. The president then set fire to the torn-up shreds of the Constitution, when his administration informed Congress that the War to Assassinate Gadhafi did not trigger the 1973 War Powers Act, with the Orwellian argument that the attempts at murder by American forces of the ruler of Libya while bombing all of the nation’s territory did not rise to the level of "hostilities."

All of this might help Obama win the Republican nomination. His appeal to some neocons as well as to socially moderate fiscal conservatives would make Barack Obama an attractive Republican presidential candidate in 2012. After all, the chief problem facing the GOP is its over-reliance on high turnout among white working-class populist conservatives. The Goldwater-Reagan conservatives succeeded too well in pushing out Rockefeller Republican RINOs (Republicans in Name Only), many of whom voted for Obama in 2008. If he received the Republican nomination, Obama might bring many of the moderate Republicans back home. His fiscal conservatism would appeal to Republicans worried about deficits and put off by supply-side economics, while his foreign policy of three simultaneous wars, one of them his own, would reassure neoconservative Republicans worried about the kind of right-wing isolationism symbolized by Ron Paul.

Best of all, Obama could run on healthcare. "ObamaCare" after all was modeled on "RomneyCare" in Massachusetts and resembled the healthcare plan set forth in the 1990s by the conservative Heritage Foundation. Another model for the newly enacted healthcare system, based on individual mandates and subsidies to for-profit private insurance, was the plan that Lincoln Chafee, an old-fashioned Northeastern liberal Republican, put forth during the Clinton era healthcare debate. The pedigree of Obama’s healthcare program stretches all the way back to his true role model, Dwight Eisenhower, whose vice president, Richard Nixon, backed the Eisenhower’s administration plan to expand healthcare access by subsidizing private insurance rather than through universal social insurance like Medicare.

Obama’s speech to the Republican convention practically writes itself:

"I have fought against the failed tradition of New Deal liberalism from the strongest possible position -- the presidency. When the liberals wanted to nationalize the banks, I bailed them out and let their executives reap huge bonuses, thanks to the taxpayers. When the liberals wanted an expansion of Lyndon Johnson’s big government Medicare, I said no and pushed for a version of the Heritage Foundation’s healthcare coverage plan and what Mitt Romney did in Massachusetts. When the liberals wanted a bigger stimulus, I drew the line in the sand. When the liberals criticized the Bowles-Simpson plan to gut Social Security and Medicare, I praised it. When the liberals demanded tougher action against Chinese mercantilist policies that hurt our manufacturing industries, I said no and sided with the U.S. multinationals that want to appease the Chinese government. When the liberals wanted America to withdraw from Afghanistan, I sided with the neoconservatives and ordered the surge. When the voices of the old, failed liberalism said that Congress has a part to play in authorizing foreign wars, I ignored that radical liberal assault on unchecked, arbitrary presidential power and ordered the U.S. to war in Libya on my own authority."

You can already hear the thunder of the standing ovation in the Republican convention hall, when Barack Obama declares: "America needs a president who can stand up to the kind of Wall Street-bashing, big-government, Franklin Roosevelt liberalism that thinks that three wars at one time are too many -- and my record in the White House proves that I am that president."

• Michael Lind is Policy Director of the Economic Growth Program at the New America Foundation and is the author of "The Next American Nation: The New Nationalism and the Fourth American Revolution." More: Michael Lind

Bru ha ha: Cornel West, Obama, Wall Street, feminism, socialism, etc.

Bru ha ha: Cornel West, Obama, Wall Street, feminism, socialism, etc.

by: Roger S. Gottlieb on June 20th, 2011 |

As you may have noticed, superstar academic Cornel West has been in some public hot water for a recent web interview in which he made some, well, not very nice comments about president Obama. West, who writes on culture, politics, religion, and race, and who tends to shuttle between Princeton and Harvard, accused the nation’s first African-American president of being the puppet of Wall Street interests, uncomfortable in his own black identity, and more likely to be hanging out with “white and Jewish men,” then the brothers and the sisters. West was bitter about not getting an invitation to the inauguration, and that Obama was no longer returning his phone calls. And this despite his own hard work in getting Obama elected.

Comments on West were predictable. Most of them were wholesale attacks on his intelligence, character, or even sanity (A Boston Globe article credited some observers with suggesting that he was both a blowhard and “unhinged.”) Of West’s few defenders, the most striking was radical journalist Chris Hedges, who believes that West is a major social prophet and that West’s critics can’t even carry West’s computer paper.

Look around the web and you’re sure to find lots more about this encounter, and here are my few cents. First, there is no question that West was out of line in the way he talked about Obama. Especially for a man who calls himself a Christian, as West does, why stoop to all this nastiness? The psychological explanation is not hard to find: West was hurt that Obama was no longer treating him like a buddy. And even more, that Obama is not the agent of social change that West imagined he might be.

Is it too much to ask that West simply admit all this? Especially, after forty years of modern feminism, which has made this point in countless ways and which West claims to have learned from, can’t an angry man – even a really smart angry man – say something like: “I feel very hurt by the way Obama is treating me. I thought we had a better relationship, and I just feel used.” And could not West admit that he, the very, very, very smart Cornel West, had been wrong: “And I have to admit, I really misjudged Obama, I thought he was a lot more than he is. Here’s why I made that mistake [or] I’m really going to have to ask myself some serious questions about how I could have been so wrong.”

Ahh… for Cornel West, or any other big time big shot male intellectual or spiritual voice, to talk to us like that. What a different model of how to talk and think that would be!

On the other hand… What did West say that was true? Certainly not his silly dissing of Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity campaign and his advice to her to visit some prisons (where I’m sure he spends a great deal of his time). Besides being rude and emotionally out of touch with himself, did he tell us anything we needed to hear?

And the sad answer is, I believe, yes, he did. Many of Obama’s fiscal and foreign policies aren’t very different than the ones Republicans endorsed. His staff of economic advisors are in the main politically conservative, cut from the same Wall Street cloth that Bush used. He has made no serious move to cut back on the U.S’s 150 or so military bases throughout the world; he gave up on climate change legislation with barely a whimper. There are some exceptions (for instance his attempt to nominate a major environmentalist to the head of the Commerce Department), but they are far from the rule.

So if West needed to spend some quality time with his therapist before he gave his angry interview, he was still on to something important.

But let’s push this all a little further, in two ways.

First, every president had better be a (phrased much more nicely) “puppet of Wall Street,” for if they are not, the ruling class in this country will do even more what it is doing now: go on strike. American corporations on sitting on trillions of dollars in cash, and not investing. Why? To discipline the politicians and the general population, to let them know what will happen if the “business climate” is not what Wall Street likes. Until we have socialism–collective, democratic control of investment–the owners of the means of production can always trump liberal movements simply by not investing, thereby creating high unemployment, and then letting the people demand that politicians give investors anything they want so that the jobs will come back. (Sound familiar?) Until there is a serious mass movement for socialism, Obama and all those who follow him will have their hands tied by this fundamental economic fact.

Second, and even more frightening: many believe that there is in this country a shadow government of defense contractors, military, and national security types who would simply execute any political leader who threatened their interests. The Kennedys, King, other leaders who have had plane crashes, several Black Panthers–all died under mysterious circumstances. It may be that Obama knows that his own life is subject to similar threats. Stray too far off the reservation, and you won’t come home that night.

The lessons in all this? Conversations will be a lot more productive if we admit our emotional connection to the subject matter and get real about our own mistakes, if we try to be respectful even as we tell the truth, and if we focus on the kernel of truth even if a lot of what’s been said is you know what.

June 19, 2011 at 00:08:18

Obama's John Yoo Moment-- Cherry Picking Lawyers to Break a Major Law

By Rob Kall (about the author)

Bush and Cheney searched around until they found an attorney who would vet torture.

Now we have the news that Obama did the same thing to start an illegal war in Libya. He rejected the legal advice of the DOJ's office of legal counsel and Pentagon attorneys and cherry picked lawyers who would tell him what he wanted to hear. Pentagon General Counsel Jeh C. Johnson and acting head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel Caroline D. Krass advised Obama against invading Libya without congressional permission.

Instead, president Obama, following in the footsteps of Bush and Cheney, when they depended upon the legal counsel of John Yoo, went to White House counsel Robert Bauer and State Department legal adviser Harold H. Koh, the NY Times reported.

Now, there is a bi-partisan effort in the house to confront Obama's alleged violation of the War Powers act.

Obama continues to walk in the footsteps of Bush. It was bad for Bush to justify torture by finding an integrity-challenged attorney to cover his ass. Now, we have Obama starting a war with the help of lawyers who say it's okay. Obama again embraces and extends a precedent set by Bush. What's worse, torture or starting a war without the authorization of the "people's" congress.

Yoo testifiying before congress

Ironically, John Yoo criticized Republicans, who have traditionally opposed the war powers act and supported allowing Presidents to take the nation to war, Politico reported. Yoo said, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed,

By accusing President Barack Obama of violating the War Powers Resolution, House Republicans are abandoning their party's longstanding position that the Constitution allows the executive to use force abroad, subject to Congress's control over funding. Sadly, they've fallen victim to the siren song of short-term political gain ..

The thin veils are dropping away. The smoke is clearing. The chimera of democracy is eroding.

There is a bi-partisan effort to challenge Obama. Too bad the Republicans aren't impeaching him for his violation of the war powers act. lawyers can't just say it's okay and that makes it okay. I say impeach Obama. Force a primary or get him off the ballot altogether. My choice for the Democratic candidate-- Elizabeth Warren.

Rob Kall is executive editor, publisher and site architect of OpEdNews.com, Host of the Rob Kall Bottom Up Radio Show (WNJC 1360 AM), President of Futurehealth, Inc, more...)

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.

Obama's Message: It's Not War Because I say So

Published on Thursday, June 16, 2011 by McClatchy

White House Defends US Role in Libya after Lawmakers Sue

by Steven Thomma and David Lightman

WASHINGTON — Facing growing opposition on Capitol Hill, the White House insisted Wednesday that it's within its legal rights to wage war in Libya without explicit authorization from Congress, essentially because no American lives are at risk.

The Obama administration rejects criticism that the U.S. president failed to provide a "compelling rationale" for the Libya mission. (RFE) The administration argued that its limited role in the allied air campaign against Libya means it's not really the kind of escalating war that would require approval from Congress or an end to fighting after 60 days under the War Powers Resolution, passed in 1973 in response to the Vietnam War.

Even before the White House could sent its arguments to Capitol Hill, 10 members of the House of Representatives — conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats — filed suit in U.S. District Court Wednesday challenging President Barack Obama's right to wage the war, even if in a supporting role.

"We believe the law was violated," said Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, one of the effort's leaders. "We have asked the courts to protect the American people from the results of these illegal policies."

In a 32-page report to Congress, the White House laid out its argument.

"U.S. operations do not involve sustained fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces, nor do they involve the presence of U.S. ground troops, U.S. casualties or a serious threat thereof, or any significant chance of escalation into a conflict characterized by those factors," the White House said.

"We're now in a position where we're operating in a support role," said a senior Obama administration official who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity under White House policy.

"We're not engaged in sustained fighting. There's been no exchange of fire with hostile forces. We don't have troops on the ground. We don't risk casualties to those troops. None of the factors, frankly, speaking more broadly, has risked the sort of escalation that Congress was concerned would impinge on its war-making power," the official said.

The White House also warned Congress against questioning the U.S. commitment at a time when Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi may be on his way out. "Now is not the time to send mixed messages," said spokesman Jay Carney.

The White House report also said the U.S. has spent $716 million through June 3 on bombs and other supplies since helping launch the allied air campaign on March 19, a cost expected to rise to $1.1 billion by Sept. 30. Aides said the money would come from other appropriated funds and would not require a new appropriation from Congress this year.

It was unclear how the memo would impact the debate in Congress over the military campaign.

"The creative arguments made by the White House raise a number of questions that must be further explored," said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

"Regardless, the commander-in-chief has a responsibility to articulate how U.S. military action is vital to our national security and consistent with American policy goals. With Libya, the president has fallen short on this obligation. We will review the information that was provided today, but hope and expect that this will serve as the beginning, not the end, of the president's explanation for continued American operations in Libya."

The lawmakers who filed suit maintained that a president cannot "unilaterally go to war in Libya and other countries" without a formal declaration of war from Congress. Their suit also maintains that a president cannot commit this country to a war "under the authority of the United Nations without authorization from Congress."

And, it said, the White House cannot use previously allocated federal funds for "an unconstitutional and unauthorized war in Libya or other countries."

Beyond Kucinich, House members filing the suit included Reps. Walter Jones, R-N.C., Howard Coble, R-N.C., John Duncan, R-Tenn., Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., John Conyers, D-Mich., Ron Paul, R-Texas, Michael Capuano, D-Mass., Tim Johnson, R-Ill., and Dan Burton, R-Ind.

Under the 1973 War Powers Resolution, Obama is required to consult with Congress before acting. He did inform lawmakers of his Libya decision on March 18, the day before the mission began. Under the resolution, Congress must approve any military action within 60 to 90 days, or it's canceled. The 60th day came and went last month, but the Libya mission continues.

The lawmakers' lawsuit isn't likely to succeed, according to Todd Gaziano, director of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

He noted that similar lawsuits during the Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton presidencies were dismissed by the same court, and that the court is bound by those precedents. A key reason, he said, is that Congress already has the power to stop financing military action.

Kucinich earlier led an unsuccessful effort to get the House to call for a U.S. pullout from NATO's Libya operation within 15 days of passage; it failed by 265-148 on June 3, with 87 Republicans and 60 other Democrats supporting Kucinich.

Instead, the House passed a diluted measure, backed by Boehner, giving Obama until Friday to justify his Libya decision.

Boehner's resolution warned the White House that Congress "has the constitutional prerogative to withhold funding for any unauthorized use of the United States Armed Forces, including for unauthorized activities regarding Libya."

The Senate, where lawmakers from both parties have also expressed qualms about the White House action in Libya, has delayed an anticipated debate, awaiting the report Boehner's resolution requires.

© 2011 McClatchy Newspapers

June 15, 2011 at 01:14:48

Rescind President Obama's 'Transparency Award' Now

By Sibel Edmonds (about the author)

This article was co-written by Coleen Rowley

The Obama administration's record on secrecy and surveillance is a disgrace and should not be sanitised by unearned prizes.

On 28 March 2011, President Obama was given a "transparency award" from five "open government" organizations: OMB Watch, the National Security Archive, the Project on Government Oversight, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and OpenTheGovernment.org. Ironically -- and quite likely in response to growing public criticism regarding the Obama administration's lack of transparency -- heads of the five organizations gave their award to Obama in a closed, undisclosed meeting at the White House. If the ceremony had been open to the press, it is likely that reporters would have questioned the organizations' proffered justification for the award, in contrast to the current reality:

• President Obama has not decreased, but has dramatically increased governmental secrecy. According to a new report to the president by the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) -- the federal agency that provides oversight of the government's security classification system -- the cost of classification for 2010 has reached over $10.17bn. That's a 15% jump from the previous year, and the first time ever that secrecy costs have surpassed $10bn. Last month, ISOO reported that the number of original classification decisions generated by the Obama administration in 2010 was 224,734 -- a 22.6% jump from the previous year (see The Price of Secrecy, Obama Edition).
  


• There were 544,360 requests for information last year under the Freedom of Information Act to the 35 biggest federal agencies -- 41,000 requests more than the year before. Yet the bureaucracy responded to 12,400 fewer requests than the prior year, according to an analysis by the Associated Press.
  


• Obama has invoked baseless and unconstitutional executive secrecy to quash legal inquiries into secret illegalities more often than any predecessor. The list of this president's invocations of the "state secrets privilege" has already resulted in shutting down lawsuits involving the National Security Agency's illegal wiretapping -- Jewel v NSA and Shubert v Obama; extraordinary rendition and assassination -- Anwar al-Awlaki; and illegal torture - Binyam Mohamed.
  


• Ignoring his campaign promise to protect government whistleblowers, Obama's presidency has amassed the worst record in US history for persecuting, prosecuting and jailing government whistleblowers and truth-tellers. President Obama's behavior has been in stark contrast to his campaign promises, which included live-streaming meetings online and rewarding whistleblowers. Obama's department of justice is twisting the 1917 Espionage Act to press criminal charges in five alleged instances of national security leaks -- more such prosecutions than have occurred in all previous administrations combined.
  


• The Obama justice department's prosecution of former NSA official Thomas Drake, who, up till 9 June, faced 35 years in prison for having blown the whistle on the NSA's costly and unlawful warrantless monitoring of American citizens, typifies the abusive practices made possible through expansive secrecy agreements and threats of prosecution.
  


• President Obama has set a powerful and chilling example for potential whistleblowers through the abuse and torture of Bradley Manning, whose guilt he has also publicly stated prior to any trial by his, Obama's, military subordinates.
  


• Obama is the only president who has reenacted Fahrenheit 451 by actually having his agency collect and burn a book due to a never-justified classification excuse: Lt Col Tony Shaffer's Operation Dark Heart.
  


• Under President Obama, the FBI has launched a series of raids and issued grand jury subpoenas targeting nearly two dozen antiwar activists. Over 2,600 arrests of protesters in the US have been made while Obama has been president, further encroaching on the exercise of first amendment rights.
  


• President Obama has initiated a secret assassination program, has publicly announced that he has given himself the power to include Americans on the list of people to be assassinated, and has attempted to assassinate at least one, Anwar al-Awlaki.
  


• President Obama has maintained the power to secretly kidnap, imprison, rendition, or torture, and he has formalized the power to lawlessly imprison in an executive order. This also means the power to secretly imprison. There are some 1,700 prisoners outside the rule of law in Bagram alone.
  


• The Obama administration is also busy going after reporters to discover their sources and convening grand juries in order to target journalists and news publishers.
  


• President Obama promised to reveal White House visitors' logs. He didn't. In response to outrage over his refusal to reveal the names of health insurance CEOs he had met with and cut deals with on the health insurance reform bill, he announced that he would release the names going forward, but not those in the past. And going forward, he would withhold names he chose to withhold. White House staff then began regularly meeting lobbyists just off White House grounds in order to avoid the visitors' logs.
  


• President Obama has sent representatives to aggressively pressure Spain, England and Germany to shut down investigations that could have exposed the crimes of the Bush era, just as he has instructed the US justice department to avoid such matters. This includes his refusal to allow prosecutions of the CIA for torture, following a public letter from eight previous heads of the CIA informing him that he had better not enforce those laws.

The "transparency award" in question was described as "aspirational," similar to the rationale for awarding Obama the Nobel Peace Prize early in his presidency when he had done nothing yet to further the cause of peace. Participants admitted they used the private meeting in March to try and lobby Obama to do more to earn their award. If the president doesn't change course as a result of the lobbying and "award," there are some who would shrug and say, "no harm, no foul."

The giving of an unmerited award, however, whether for transparency or peace, is not entirely benign. No one knows better how destructive secrecy is for maintaining systems of justice, ethics and democracy than these self-proclaimed "open government" watchdogs. Especially when such a false accolade emanates, as in this case, from those who are supposed to serve as counters to secrecy and to retaliation against government whistleblowers, such appearance of approval will tend to cover up and mask the reality of the executive's increasingly undemocratic and illegal use of secrecy.

Therefore, the undersigned call on these organizations: OMB Watch, the National Security Archive, the Project on Government Oversight, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and OpenTheGovernment.org, to publicly take back their "transparency award", as difficult as that may be, from Barack Obama. The watchdog organizations should, of course, continue to promote aspirations for open, democratic government, reduced secrecy and adherence to the rule of law, in more genuine, legitimate ways than giving unmerited awards to the executive. Such false awards only stand to backfire and hurt the cause of open government.

Drafted by FBI whistleblowers Sibel Edmonds and Coleen Rowley.

Whistleblowers:

Raymond L McGovern, former analyst, CIA
Colonel Ann Wright, US Army Reserve (ret) and former US diplomat
Daniel Ellsberg, former official, department of defence and department of state
Lt Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, US Air Force (ret), veteran policy analyst, department of defence
Lt Colonel Tony Shaffer, senior intelligence officer (Operations), DIA
Jesselyn Radack, former attorney, department of justice
John M Cole, former veteran intelligence operations specialist, FBI
David "Mark" Conrad, agent in charge (ret), internal affairs, US Customs
P Jeffrey Black, air marshal (ret), Federal Air Marshal Service, department of homeland security
Bogdan Dzakovic, former red team leader, FAA
Russ Tice, former senior intelligence analyst, NSA
Sandalio Gonzalez, special agent in charge (ret), DEA
John Vincent, veteran special agent, counterterrorism, FBI
Bill Bergman, financial market analyst, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Steve Jenkins, intelligence analyst, NGIC, US Army
Linda Lewis, policy analyst (ret), US department of agriculture
David MacMichael, PhD, former senior estimates officer, CIA
William H Russell, computer specialist, R&E Division, NSA
William Savich, special agent, bureau of diplomatic security, department of state
Julia Davis, customs and border protection officer, department of homeland security
Tom Maertens, counterterrorism official (ret), department of state
Joseph Carson, PE, nuclear safety engineer, department of energy
Gabe Bruno, manager (ret), flight standards services, FAA
Dr Jeffrey Fudin, founder, VA Whistleblowers Coalition

Organizations:

National Security Whistleblowers Coalition
National Whistleblowers Centre
Green party of the US
Citizens for Legitimate Government
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Campaign for Peace and Democracy
September 11th Advocates
Code Pink
Consumers for Peace
Fellowship of Reconciliation
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
WarIsACrime.org
OSC Watch
Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence
Socialist party of Central Virginia
Environmentalists Against War
High Road for Human Rights
Broken Covenant Campaign
Bring Our Troops Home Coalition
Progressive Democrats of the Santa Monica Mountains
United for Peace and Justice
Americans Who Tell the Truth
Veterans for Peace Chapter 27
Committee to Stop FBI Repression

This petition can be signed at takeawardback.org

www.nswbc.org

Sibel Edmonds, a former FBI language specialist, was terminated from the bureau after reporting security breaches, cover-up, and blocking of intelligence with national security implications. Since that time, court proceedings in her whistleblower (more...)

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.

AlterNet.org

ENVIRONMENT

AlterNet / By Joshua Frank

Death By Pollution: How the Obama Administration Just Put Thousands of Lives at Risk

The Democrats and President Obama have just turned their backs on the most disenfranchised and vulnerable among us.

June 3, 2011 |

It must be election season. Like other prominent Democrats, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson has been making the rounds. Two weeks ago she popped up on Jon Stewart's "Daily Show" and explained that regulating toxins like mercury from coal burners across the country would prevent thousands of deaths and create jobs. She even rallied people to action.

"Environmentalism is not a spectator sport," Jackson told Stewart, as if she was encouraging viewers to turn off their televisions and get busy. "You actually have to stand up and demand that we be vigilant in protecting our air and water."

It was certainly a boisterous display of support for stronger environmental statues, something Jackson happens to know a little bit about. However, just one week after Jackson's Comedy Central performance the EPA indefinitely delayed essential health protections designed to reduce public exposure to airborne toxins such as mercury, arsenic, lead, and acid gases by thousands of tons per year.

It was back in 1990 when President H.W. Bush signed Clean Air Act Amendments into law, requiring the EPA to establish emission standards limiting toxins like mercury from the largest pollution sources. One of these laws, called Boiler MACT, covers emissions from boilers that produce power, like those from large to small coal plants. In February 2011, under court order, the EPA was forced to finally issue these rules. But now the EPA has indefinitely delayed the law from going into effect.

"Two years ago the Obama administration took office vowing to protect public health and respect the law," said Earthjustice attorney James Pew shortly after the EPA's announcement. "Today's action disserves both of these principles. By the EPA's own calculations, the health protections it has elected to delay would save up to 6,500 lives each year."

In fact, according to the EPA itself, more than 4,000 non-fatal heart attacks, 1,600 cases of acute bronchitis and 313,000 missed work and school days would be avoided if the law was enacted -- not to mention upwards of 6,600 premature deaths. All these benefits, despite the fact that the proposal had been dramatically watered down after industry pushed the EPA to weaken its original draft of the rule early last summer.

"It appears that EPA has addressed many of the industry complaints while still putting out standards that would bring significant public health benefits," Frank O'Donnell of Clean Air Watch told Greenwire. "Let's hope that EPA stands its ground when industries argue for further changes."

But the EPA didn't stand its ground. It soon backed off and has now delayed the rule indefinitely.

By all accounts the action to protect human health by regulating toxic emissions is long overdue. While there are several major air pollutants at play, mercury may be the most significant. One the largest producers of airborne mercury happens to be coal plants. This pollution ends up in water, poisoning fish and the humans that eat them. And the poisoning is rampant.

In August 2009, the U.S. Geological Survey released a study of mercury contamination in fish in 291 streams around the country. The study, which is the most comprehensive to date, was conducted from 1998 to 2005 and tested over 1,000 fish. Every fish tested, including those from isolated rural waterways, contained at least trace amounts of toxic mercury. According to the researchers, the majority of mercury in the streams tested came from coal plants.

This pollution has a direct impact on human health. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 8 percent of American women of childbearing age have unsafe levels of mercury in their blood, putting approximately 322,000 newborns at risk of neurological deficits. Mercury exposure can also lead to increased cardiovascular risk in adults.

In response to the USGS study, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said, "This science sends a clear message that our country must continue to confront pollution, restore our nation's waterways, and protect the public from potential health dangers."

Nonetheless, industry is no doubt pleased with the EPA's announcement to delay regulating emissions from power plants. Since 2006 the EPA has been under court order to complete its boiler emissions ruling. The agency extended deadlines a number of times. Finally, after years or procrastination, the final issuing was set for January 2011. House Republicans weren't pleased and a month before the law went into effect the EPA caved and sought to extend its deadline for another 15 long months. However, the U.S. District Court denied the EPA's request, stating it had had plenty of time to iron out any wrinkles in the proposed boiler rule.

Since the District Court decided not to back the EPA, Lisa Jackson's trusted agency went about creating a new so-called reconsideration process for these specific boiler emissions rules. This reconsideration, though, didn't buy the EPA a lot of time, only 90 days per the guidelines outlined by the Clean Air Act.

Through some pretty imaginative legal maneuvering, the EPA then managed to take the 90-day stay and extend it into an indefinite one. At that point, Lisa Jackson threw the Clean Air Act and all those people who would benefit from this particular boiler ruling under the proverbial bus. "[The] agency has elected to stay the effective date pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), rather than to section 307(d)(7)(B) of the Clean Air Act," explains the Center for Progressive Reform. "Section 705 of the APA, the EPA explains, provides that 'an agency . . . may postpone the effective date of [an] action taken by it pending judicial review'--provided that the agency finds that 'justice' requires staying the effectiveness of the rule until judicial review has been completed. Thus, the EPA set about cobbling together a weak explanation of why 'justice' requires an indefinite stay of the Boiler MACT rule's effective date."

It is difficult to understand how delaying a ruling that will save thousands of lives could be halted over concerns of "justice." But then again, the delay is not about justice, it's about politics. With the 2012 elections fast approaching, the Obama administration and their go-to gal Lisa Jackson at the EPA are putting reelection aspirations ahead of public and environmental health.

By sidelining the ruling indefinitely, even with court challenges that are likely to come because of the EPA's blatant disregard for the Clean Air Act, any decision on the Boiler MACT rule will not happen until after election 2012. Obama clearly fears the polluters' retaliation far more than any backlash from eco-minded voters. As such, he and the EPA have pandered to the Tea Party and its mantra that regulation intrudes on the free market and the will of the people.

In the meantime, what are the people living near toxic coal plants supposed to do? According to CoalSwarm, 126 coal burning plants are located near residential areas, accounting for 17.5 percent of total U.S. coal power capacity. A total of 6.11 million people live within three miles of these plants and have an average per capita income of just over $18,500, which is 14 percent lower than the average American. Not surprisingly, 43.7 percebt of these folks are people of color.

With Lisa Jackson's and the EPA's delay on the boiler emissions ruling, the Democrats and President Obama have turned their backs on the most disenfranchised and vulnerable among us. This action is not only unforgivable, it is a death sentence for thousands of people who could be spared.

Joshua Frank is an environmental journalist and author of "Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush." He is co-editor, with Jeffrey St. Clair, of "Red State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland." Frank and St. Clair are also the authors of the forthcoming book, "Green Scare: The New War on Environmentalism." He can be reached at brickburner@gmail.com.