BTC News: Nobody could have predicted the disaster that is Homeland Security

Facing South: The real story of racism at the USDA, and why it probably won't be seen anywhere else

Scott Horton : Another audacious whitewash at DOJ

Pruning Shears: Putting Geneva down the memory hole

jaysays: Federal Hate Crimes case illustrates Christian myopia

FavStocks: More than weather heating up in DC: Rush-Waxman bill puts Toxic Chemicals Safety Act reform back on the front burner

Occasionally, we’ll hear that Joe Lieberman is generally in line with Democrats, but makes an exception on the war in Iraq and a neocon worldview of foreign policy. When it comes to values and domestic policy, the argument usually goes, Lieberman is generally reliable.

Let’s just erase that thought from our minds now, shall we?

Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman reluctantly acknowledged Thursday that he does not believe waterboarding is torture, but believes the interrogation technique should be available only under the most extreme circumstances.

Lieberman was one of 45 senators who voted Wednesday in opposition to a bill that would limit the CIA to the 19 interrogation techniques outlined in the Army field manual. That manual prohibits waterboarding, a method where detainees typically are strapped to a bench and have water poured into their mouth and nose making them feel as if they will drown.

“We are at war,” Lieberman said. “I know enough from public statements made by Osama bin Laden and others as well as classified information I see to know the terrorists are actively planning, plotting to attack us again. I want our government to be able to gather information again within both the law and Geneva Convention.”

All of this is spectacularly and breathtakingly wrong.

Download | play Download | play (h/t Logan)

Obviously, the Republican leadership has gotten to Sen. Kit Bond with the message: You're. Not. Helping. Our. Cause. by likening waterboarding to swimming. So Bond goes on C-Span's Washington Journal and tries to clarify his comment with increasing incoherence.

Apparently, he meant that there was as much variety in waterboarding techniques as there are swimming strokes--still not helping, Senator Bond. The kind of waterboarding the Japanese did to our soldiers in WWII--bad...the kind we did (?--have we stopped?) to our soldiers in training--fine. Not particularly sure that's helpful either, Sen. Bond. Unfortunately for those of us who actually understand the issue at hand, he doesn't specify which kind we've done to detainees like Maher Arar, or if it's acceptable. That glaring omission is certainly helpful to the Republicans torture apologist platform.

However, he does feel a blanket banning on waterboarding--such as the one in the Geneva Conventions that we signed--is bad, because it then prevents us from using it in an extreme national emergency--the Jack Bauer scenario raising its ugly head again. Bingo, Sen. Bond! You found the party line. How amoral of you.

We posted a clip of NBC's Law & Order SVU last week that dealt with the issue of physician-assisted torture in Iraq and I came across this article by Health Day. According to them, an alarming number of U.S. physicians are given inadequate training (as little as one hour total) on medical ethics as they relate to war and the Geneva Conventions:

Too few American medical students receive adequate instruction about military medical ethics and a physician's ethical duties under the Geneva Conventions, say Harvard Medical School researchers.

"The abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo have galvanized much of the world against the U.S. Those abuses, in part abetted by physicians, will likely go down as one of our country's most egregious ethical lapses," lead author Dr. J. Wesley Boyd said in a prepared statement.

• Only 37 percent of medical students could correctly identify that the Geneva Conventions apply irrespective of whether war had formally been declared.
• 33.8 percent didn't know that the Geneva Conventions state that physicians should "treat the sickest first, regardless of nationality."
• 37 percent didn't know that the Geneva Conventions prohibit ever threatening or demeaning prisoners, or depriving them of food or water for any length of time.
• 33.9 percent couldn't state when they would be required to disobey an unethical order from a superior. Read on...

Via Daily Kos:

In addition to newspaper condemnations of APA's pathetic resolution, prominent psychologists are responding as well. Well-known psychologist and author Mary Pipher, of Reviving Ophelia fame, has taken up the cause. She has chosen to return an APA Presidential Citation she received in 2006 from then-APA president Gerald Koocher. Koocher has been a big supporter of the current APA position on allowing psychologists to work in Bush's coercive and inhumane detention camps.

Dr. Pipher wrote in a letter to current APA president Sharon Brehm:

President Brehm:

I am writing to inform you that I am returning my Presidential Citation dated 2/02/06 and awarded to me by then President of the American Psychological Association, Dr. Gerald Koocher. I have struggled for many months with this decision, and I make it with pain and sorrow. I was honored to receive this award and proud to be a member of APA. Over the years I have spoken at national conventions many times and had enjoyed an excellent relationship with the APA and its staff. With this letter, I feel as if I am ostracizing a good friend.

I do not want an award from an organization that sanctions its members’ participation in the enhanced interrogations at CIA Black Sites and at Guantanamo . The presence of psychologists has both educated the interrogation teams in more skillful methods of breaking people down and legitimized the process of torture in defiance of the Geneva Conventions. Read more...

Think Moderate: President Bush lies (again) about the troop 'surge'

d r i f t g l a s s: Please, I am begging you. Begging. Keep defending Alberto Gonzales! Keep regurgitating GOP talking points many Friedmans after the facts have consigned them to the compost heap of history.

INSTAPUTZ: Wingmutts accuse captured Brits of 'cowardice' and even cite the GENEVA CONVENTIONS!....and they're beating the war drums

Norwegianity: How a bogus letter became the case for War

Sic Semper Tyrannis 2007: A couple more BUSHCO flacks experience eleventh-hour conversions. Take note of both the accuracy of their present analysis and the egregious crap that they've been shoveling until now.

HOLY CRAP: The Conservative Weather Channel...Sexual and religious addictions aren't strange bedfellows...Have you ever had unkind thoughts about L. Ron Hubbard?...Beware The Workplace Religious Freedom Act...The right to worship, or not...Mr.Deity, and the signs from god...Bible Study for Atheists...Top Ten Courses offered by Pat Robertson's Law School...God Debate: Sam Harris vs. Rick Warren...Religious Right fat cats bankroll legal crusade against church/state separation...It's Stem Cell Time...Did the Red Sea Part? Fuhgeddaboudit!

Shakespeare's Sister has moved over to Shakesville

Blue Jersey:

After all the uproar over Senator Menendez's vote a few months ago for the unconstitutional Military Commissions Act which eliminated habeas corpus and legalized torture, it appears he's had a change of heart. That vote was taken under immense pressure during the campaign, and he's now doing the responsible thing and cleaning up the mess he helped make. According to an announcement from the campaign, Menendez and Senator Chris Dodd will introduce legislation to correct the "flawed Military Commissions Act":

WASHINGTON - TOMORROW, Tuesday, February 12, 2007, U.S. Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) will hold a press conference to discuss the Effective Terrorists Prosecution Act which will restore habeus corpus rights, ban torture and uphold the Geneva Conventions. The senators, both members of the Foreign Relations Committee, will discuss the need for these protections in the fight against terrorism.

YahooNews :

Pay for federal judges is so inadequate that it threatens to undermine the judiciary's independence, Chief Justice John Roberts says in a year-end report critical of Congress.

Issuing an eight-page message devoted exclusively to salaries, Roberts says the 678 full-time U.S. District Court judges, the backbone of the federal judiciary, are paid about half that of deans and senior law professors at top schools.

In the 1950s, 65 percent of U.S. District Court judges came from the practicing bar and 35 percent came from the public sector. Today the situation is reversed, Roberts said, with 60 percent from the public sector and less than 40 percent from private practice.

Federal district court judges are paid $165,200 annually; appeals court judges make $175,100; associate justices of the Supreme Court earn $203,000; the chief justice gets $212,100.

Thirty-eight judges have left the federal bench in the past six years and 17 in the past two years.

The issue of pay, says Roberts, "has now reached the level of a constitutional crisis."

"Inadequate compensation directly threatens the viability of life tenure, and if tenure in office is made uncertain, the strength and independence judges need to uphold the rule of law - even when it is unpopular to do so - will be seriously eroded," Roberts wrote.

Habeas Corpus, domestic wiretapping, violations of the Geneva Conventions, illegal wars and THIS is a constitutional crisis for Roberts? Hyperbole much?

Feingold

Mr. President, I oppose the Military Commissions Act.

Let me be clear: I welcome efforts to bring terrorists to justice. It is about time. This Administration has too long been distracted by the war in Iraq from the fight against al Qaeda. We need a renewed focus on the terrorist networks that present the greatest threat to this country...read on

Kerry:

Let me be clear about something—something that it seems few people are willing to say. This bill permits torture. It gives the President the discretion to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions. No matter how much well-intended United States Senators would like to believe otherwise, it gives an Administration that lobbied for torture just what it wanted...read on

Yes, Michelle Malkin has had a change of heart. She's very upset with the way detainees at Gitmo have been treated. No--wait a second---I got confused--There I go thinking she was supporting the Geneva Conventions, but Greenwald had to ruin it for me.