Category: America

America: Do You Approve of Torture? Yes or No!?

Posted on by TL

Look.  We have to make a decision.  Do we approve of torture or not?

If we approve of torture, then, fine.  We’ll have to accept the fact that our men and women will be tortured.  And we must give up our right to complain or “officially protest” any torture on an American soldier.

So, which is it?  Do we approve of torture, or not?

From Carol Marin at the Sun-Times:

The feds can’t — just yet — deport Michigan restaurateur Ibrahim Parlak to his native Turkey. But they are frighteningly closer.

And the irony screams out.

On Monday, the same day Eric Holder, President Obama’s attorney general, announced he would appoint a special counsel to investigate whether torture was used by the CIA to extract confessions from foreign suspects, a U.S. appeals court at the behest of the U.S. government ruled that it didn’t have a problem sending Parlak back to the country where he was tortured — imprisoned for 17 months, shocked with electrodes, hung by his arms and sexually violated.

A Turkish Kurd, Parlak was granted political asylum in 1992. It was before our government got cozier with Turkey, before it re-classified some of the Kurdish separatist movement as “terrorist” and before the attacks of Sept. 11. With 9/11, Ibrahim Parlak’s horror began anew.

Suddenly he looked different to the newly created Department of Homeland Security and to the Justice Department’s Immigration courts. Instead of seeing a hard-working, tax-paying Chamber of Commerce member who ran Cafe Gulistan, a small Middle Eastern restaurant in the resort town of Harbert, Mich., the feds now saw an international menace.

So, which is it?  Yes, or no?  Torture yes, or torture no?

Senator Ted Kennedy, the ‘Lion of the Senate,’ Dead at 77

Posted on by TL

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I never met Senator Edward Kennedy.  A few years back, I took my son to Washington, D.C., for a vacation, and we saw him in a Senate Hearing.  Sen. Richard Durbin was there also.

We were not able to say hello or shake his hand.  The senators were called away for a vote.

I’m just sitting with this right now.  Senator Kennedy has died.

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the last surviving brother in a political dynasty and one of the most influential senators in history, died Tuesday night at his home on Cape Cod after a year-long struggle with brain cancer. He was 77.

In nearly 50 years in the Senate, Kennedy served alongside 10 presidents — his brother John Fitzgerald Kennedy among them — compiling an impressive list of legislative achievements on health care, civil rights, education, immigration and more.

His only run for the White House ended in defeat in 1980. More than a quarter-century later, he handed then-Sen. Barack Obama an endorsement at a critical point in the campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, explicitly likening the young contender to President Kennedy.

To the American public, Kennedy was best known as the last surviving son of America’s most glamorous political family, father figure and, memorably, eulogist of an Irish-American clan plagued again and again by tragedy.

The last son has died.  Rest in peace, Senator.  Rest in peace.

Sen Coburn Tells Women Crying Over Health Care “Govt Is Not The Answer”

Posted on by TL

Senator Coburn, you are government.  You just promised this woman that your office, an arm of the Federal Government, would help her husband.

You better step up and make it so.

For those accessing through an affiliate site, click through to see this very stirring video.

Justice Dept. Report Advises Pursuing C.I.A. Torture Allegations

Posted on by TL

We may finally begin to see justice restored in the United States of America.

Breaking news from The New York Times:

The Justice Department’s ethics office has recommended reversing the Bush administration and reopening nearly a dozen prisoner-abuse cases, potentially exposing Central Intelligence Agency employees and contractors to prosecution for brutal treatment of terrorism suspects, according to a person officially briefed on the matter.

The recommendation by the Office of Professional Responsibility, presented to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.in recent weeks, comes as the Justice Department is about to disclose on Monday voluminous details on prisoner abuse that were gathered in 2004 by the C.I.A.’s inspector general but have never been released.

When the C.I.A. first referred its inspector general’s findings to prosecutors, they decided that none of the cases merited prosecution. But Mr. Holder’s associates say that when he took office and saw the allegations, which included the deaths of people in custody and other cases of physical or mental torment, he began to reconsider.

With the release of the details on Monday and the formal advice that at least some cases be reopened, it now seems all but certain that the appointment of a prosecutor or other concrete steps will follow, posing significant new problems for the C.I.A. It is politically awkward, too, for Mr. Holder because President Obama has said that he would rather move forward than get bogged down in the issue at the expense of his own agenda.

The advice from the Office of Professional Responsibility strengthens Mr. Holder’s hand.

The recommendation to review the closed cases, in effect renewing the inquiries, centers mainly on allegations of detainee abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Justice Department report is to be made public after classified information is deleted from it.

President Obama, it’s time to lead and let justice be served.

1979 Family Reunites as Pittsburgh Pirates Rout Cincinnati Reds

Posted on by TL

Members of the 1979 world championship Pirates together with the World Series trophy before Saturday night’s game. From left to right, top row, Omar Moreno, Bruce Kison, partially blocked by Chuck Tanner, Kent Tekulve, Bill Madlock, wife of the late slugger Willie Stargell, Margaret Stargell, Don Robinson, and Rennie Stennett,, Bottom row right to left are Dale Berra , Mike Easler, Grant Jackson, Steve Nicosia and Phil Garner.

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Often, when the Pirates have some commemorative event for a championship team, then win the game later the same day, all kinds of intangible, inspirational connections get made.

To be sure, plenty of those were heard after the 12-2 rout of the Cincinnati Reds last night before 32,570 at PNC Park: It brought a season-best five-game winning streak, and it followed a moving ceremony to honor 22 members of the 1979 Family, highlighted by Chuck Tanner, 80 years old and recovering from heart surgery, getting warmly embraced as all huddled around their World Series trophy.

It was, as pitcher Zach Duke would describe it, “A great moment, for us and for the city.”

For Ryan Doumit, it was more.

And not just because he busted out of a 4-for-34 funk with a home run, double, single and three RBIs.

Flash back to a few minutes before 7 p.m., as Doumit, Duke and pitching coach Joe Kerrigan came up the tunnel steps on the way to Duke’s warmup. Near the bat rack was Tanner, who is more than just an acquaintance to Doumit, having once pleaded his case to management that Doumit should be the everyday catcher by pounding his fist on a meeting-room table during spring training of 2008.

This time, Tanner grabbed Doumit by the elbow, caught his full attention and gave him an old-fashioned earful.

As always with Tanner, it was all positive.

How cool to see all those wonderful faces together again, holding that magic trophy.

One more time, sing it Sister:

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/

Stephen Amidon: Why I Love Britain’s Socialized Healthcare System

Posted on by TL

Stephen Amidon, an American from New Jersey, learned to appreciate the U.K.’s socialized healthcare system when his newborn daughter was born very sick in London.

From Salon.com:

I was initially skeptical about the NHS. I’d grown up comfortably in suburban New Jersey; good private healthcare was always immediately available through my father’s insurance. When my English wife became pregnant soon after we settled in London, I was alarmed by the idea of having our first child born in a system I had been told was underfunded, overstressed and inefficient. After all, healthcare in the UK was free. How good could it be? Friends and relatives back in the States were spending thousands to have children. If you get what you pay for, I was about to get a whole lot of nothing.

[…]

This, I learned, is what the NHS is about — common decency. It is about the shared belief that all the people who live in the United Kingdom constitute a society, and a decent society provides certain necessities for its members. Freedom from hunger is one. Police protection is another. Free healthcare from the cradle to the grave is simply one more item on this list.

I saw this decency at work countless times over the following decade, until my return to the United States. I saw it with the twice-daily home visits by community midwives for the fortnight after each of our newborn children’s release from hospital, and in the vouchers for free milk we were given for those babies. I saw it when our GP paid us a house call early one Sunday morning to treat our son’s spiking fever.

I saw it most clearly, however, in the treatment my in-laws received at the end of their lives…

Read more here at Salon.com.

Health Insurance Industry: Home of the Real ‘Death Panels’

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Commentary from Courage Campaign:

Our "Insurance Jive" video shows that insurance companies actually operate de facto "death panels" — and demonstrates why we must demand that a strong public option be included in health care reform.

Send this video to your friends and help spread a progressive message that shows why reform is so desperately needed.

Visit http://www.couragecampaign.org now to take action.

Gov. Howard Dean: The Democrats Need to Grow a Pair

Posted on by TL

I had the privilege of attending Netroots Nation Friday as a member of the media for Turning Left. Former Governor Howard Dean held a town hall meeting at 9:00 a.m.  I’m currently working on transcribing his comments, and I’ll publish that story tomorrow.

However, I want to share one quote that Dr. Dean shared with me when I had the opportunity to speak with him during the book signing that followed his presentation.

I stood in a rather long line, and Dr. Dean was extremely gracious with each person who came for his autograph in the book Howard Dean’s Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform: How We Can Achieve Affordable Medical Care for Every American and Make Our Jobs Safer.  When I finally reached the good doctor, I shook his hand and thanked him.

I then told him, if I had the chance during the large town hall meeting, I would have asked him, “When are the Democrats going to grow some, stand up, and fight for health care reform?”

Dr. Dean responded by reiterating what he said to the larger group,  “The Blue Dogs are Democrats,” he said.  “They are Democrats.”

“Ideologically?”  I asked.

“They are Democrats,” Dean repeated.  “But, you’re right.  They do need to grow a pair.”

Those were his exact words.

In the town hall gathering, Dr. Dean told Netroots Nation that the “Conserva-Dems” have done us a favor in the health care reform debate.  Dean noted that the Conserva-Dems are the only group at the table truly representing conservative Americans.  The Republicans have removed themselves from the table, Dean said.  They have chosen to not participate in the health care reform debate.  The Conserva-Dems, or Blue Dogs, are the only truly conservative voice at the table.

That being said, Dean told Netroots Nation the Democrats have already compromised with conservatives in that single-payer health care is off the table.

“There will be no more compromise,” Dean said.

It’s time for the Democrats to fight for the change this country needs.

Stand up now, Dems! And grow a pair.