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TPMDC Sunday Roundup

Gibbs States White House Reticence On Truth Commission
Appearing on Meet The Press, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs stated the White House's reluctance for a truth commission on the torture issue, deferring instead to the ongoing work of the Senate Intelligence Committee: "Well, I think the president had great fears that the debate that you've seen happen in this town on each side of this issue, at the extremes, has -- that's taken place would be what would envelop any commission that looked backward. That's why his focus, David, the whole time is how we look forward in this country."

Poll: Close Public Divide On Torture
A new ABC/Washington Post poll finds a majority of Americans supporting President Obama's decision to release the torture memos: 53% in favor, to 44% again. A slim 51%-47% majority supports investigation of whether laws were broken in the treatment of terrorism suspects. At the same time, it's a close divide on whether the U.S. should consider using torture in some cases: 49% against it, versus 48% who say there are cases where it should be considered.

No Obama Or Biden Public Events Today
President Obama and Vice President Biden are each spending the weekend in Washington, D.C., and do not have any public events scheduled for today.

Another Poll: Minnesotans Want Coleman To Concede
A new Minneapolis Star Tribune poll finds that 64% of Minnesotans believe that former Sen. Norm Coleman (R) should concede the disputed Senate election to Democrat Al Franken, compared to only 28% who believe Coleman's appeal of his defeat at the election trial is "appropriate." Said one respondent, who voted for Coleman: "Obviously, the Republican Party is trying to keep Franken's vote out of the United States Senate. We should get another [senator] in there."

Levin Calls For Special Investigation, Potential Prosecution Of Torture
Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) called for a special investigation of torture policies: "I have recommended that the Department of Justice select one or two or three people outside of the department who will have credibility, perhaps retired federal judges, who will make a recommendation to the Department of Justice as to whether or not anybody ought to be prosecuted on this matter or any other action ought to be taken against lawyers, for instance."

McCain Opposes Torture Prosecutions; Admits U.S. Was Violating Torture Ban
Appearing on CBS' Face The Nation, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) reiterated his opposition to prosecutions over past torture policies. "Are you going to prosecute people for giving bad legal advice" McCain asked. At the same time, McCain also said: "Under President Reagan, we signed an agreement against torture. We were in violation of that."

Summers: Economy Now Has Some Positive Indicators
Appearing on Fox News Sunday, National Economic Council Director Larry Summers pointed to improvement in the direction of the economy. "Six or eight weeks ago, there were no positive statistics to be found anywhere. The economy felt like it was falling vertically," said Summers. "Today, the picture is much more mixed. There are some negative indicators, to be sure. There are also some positive indicators. And no one knows what the next turn will be."

Ahmadinejad Continues To Question Holocaust
Appearing on ABC's This Week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for additional studies of the Holocaust -- essentially questioning its veracity: "If this is a historically documented event, why do Western states show so much sensitivity towards a historical event? They do not want the lid to be taken off. I am asking them to permit studies."


26 Comments

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Summers is a twit.I watched a Bill Moyer's interview with Michael Perino and Simon Johnson. Johnson made a profound statement - once a bank becomes too big to fail it becomes too hard to control which could explain why everything started to fly out of control especially since most of the regulations needed to keep them in check were dismantled. As for being out of the woods, Summers needs to go into the forest first ... looking at it from the outside doesn't tell you what's inside that's makes all that horrible noise.

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It seems John McCain is talking out of two side of his mouth. On the one side he acknowledges that torture is wrong and illegal. On the other side he diminishes the legal opinions, which were the basis for the Bush administration to justify torture, as "bad advice", and says the lawyers should not be prosecuted for it. I think Eric Holder is saying no one is above the law, and the investigations need to lead the way as to wherher laws were broken (and they were). It seems McCain is trying to give "cover" to the lawyers.What he should be advocating for is investigation to find out what laws were broken and then go after those who broke the law--and it leads straight to Bush, Cheney,Rice, Rumsfeld--the whole cabal who gave the orders and used the legal opinions as their justification for torturing.

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1. You're right, of course.

2. Increasingly I view McCain as just an idiot with a huge ego who walks with a swagger and parades around his stern-looking jawbone. ...Wow, it's a very different case, but I realize that description matches Bush as well!

3. As to whom this leads to, don't leave out Wolfowitz. He's the genius who insisted that 9/11 couldn't be caused by Al Qaeda; it had to be by a state (country) since it was so well-planned, i.e., his favorite delusional bugaboo, Iraq. You can be fairly sure he have the interrogators a good scolding and them back into the room with the rubber hoses every time they couldn't substantiate his maniacal ravings.

4. It's not just about waterboarding BTW. Under extraordinary rendition which these same perpetrators organized, we can be sure the methods were much harsher and the aims just as crazed.

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Ah, but what you don't understand and McCain does is this:

1) Torture is necessary to our national survival

2) We do not torture.

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Please Carl Levin will back down from any investigation as he always does. He does not have the balls.

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When did enforcing the law need a popularity poll?

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Exactly. What an utterly stupid thing. The question (if any) should be something like, "Americans who torture under any circumstances whatsoever are criminally liable. Is that a law you would want to change, or should torture be always illegal as now?"

AND NOT, "Here is the law. Should we follow it most of the time, or some of the time, or when it's convenient, or what?"

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Ooooh, very good argument.

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Thx.

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Great question Par4. Personally, I'm sick and tired of these "Americans" claiming that we should not investigate or hold ALL of the people involved accountable. "I was just following orders", is NOT an excuse. Soldiers are trained to refuse illegal and IMMORAL orders and mistreating an unarmed prisoner is clearly immoral.

I'm stunned that there are still people who cannot see that the torture in question began BEFORE there were any OLC opinions because the adminstration needed the link between Al Qaeda and Saddam to justify the invasion of Iraq.

To claim there was any good reason for the torture is simply wrong and to attempt to cover this up is just another crime in a long list of crimes.

AG Holder needs to get of the dime and go after these animals like a crazed dog!

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Soldiers are trained to refuse illegal and IMMORAL orders and mistreating an unarmed prisoner is clearly immoral.

While I agree this was drilled into me when I was in the military, I don't see that now. Currently, I deal with military types daily and just a casual comment on the torture issue in the news brings out some astonishing statements. And this is from senior NCO's, not the lower ranks! I believe is comes down from the Commander-in-Chief what's expected and everyone toes the line - your promotion and position depends on your obedience. If you get drummed out of the service because you refused to obey an order (lawful or not), no one will hire you and your security clearance is pulled indefinitely. And I guarantee you military contractors will avoid anyone with a questionable discharge, especially if they have to face the military and explain why they wish to hire someone the military discharged under less than desirable terms.

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Forget the Torture of KSM, Bushies Waterboarded KFC
http://satiricalpolitical.com/?p=6990

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"cases it should be considered"

Gee, I wonder which scenario they have in mind??? Could it be the">http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/observer2/2009/04/the-ticking-timebomb-fallacy.php?ref=recdc">the one the MSM is constantly peddling, unrebutted?


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oops

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There is a divergence of serious legal opinion about whether the CIA's type of controlled waterboarding is torture. This is proof that this was not and is not an easy call. No one should ever be prosecuted for something that was in such a legally gray area. Good grief!

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There is a divergence of serious legal opinion about whether the CIA's type of controlled waterboarding is torture.

Really? Sounds similar to the "divergence of serious scientific opinions" about evolution. Please cite one objective, serious legal opinion that waterboarding is not torture.

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The released memos are full of objective, serious legal opinions. Obviously, the opinions are not shared by everyone; that's why they are called opinions. I don't know what evolution has to do with this.

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The released memos are full of objective, serious legal opinions.

I think you and could agree that the memos are "full of" something, but that might be as far as we could go. Really, your assertion that the memos are objective is really quite ...a subjective opinion! You see how this works?

Not to mention that an author of some of those memos, Jay Bybee, now is quoted by (unnamed) friends in the WaPo as saying he is not proud of the legal scholarship in those memos and regrets how they have been used. If he thought they were "Objective, serious legal opinions", why would he regret them now?

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You believe that the opinions of the OLC were "objective?" Seriously? As someone once famously said, "I do not think that word means what you think it means...."

My point with evolution is that creationists/intelligent design supporters play the same game that you're trying to play here....they find one whacked out "expert" who agrees with them and then they scream "The jury's still out! There's no general consensus! There's debate amongst the experts!" Truth be told, it's a load of crap and the MSM in a desperate search for "objectivity" seems to always fall for it hook, line, and sinker.

I think Andrew Sullivan says it best here:

The idea that the Bush administration's insistence for the first time in human history that waterboarding is legal and not torture - when it has itself used the torture technique - is to be weighed equally against the entire body of legal, historical and cultural evidence in deciding what to call torture is preposterous.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/04/can-doug-jehl-read.html

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He's not saying that evolution has anything to do with it. He's questioning your illegitimate resort to a logical fallacy, i.e., there is a divergence of opinions, so therefore it's not true or valid.

There is a divergence of opinions as to whether the Holocaust occurred, whether Nixon broke the law, whether Stalin and Mao killed millions, whether O.J. murdered. But it did, he did, they did, and he did. And it's the divergence which in each case is not valid, not the facts.

Ann Coulter will surely tell us the memos were well crafted. Ann can go forth and multiply.

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FYI, the US prosecuted people for the "legally grey area" of waterboarding after WWII. So if it's a "legally grey area" then it must be a recently "legally grey area."

Spare us the total, undiluted BS. Waterboarding is torture. That matter is settled. Of course, you probably think the jury is still out on whether the earth is 6000 years old, too.

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"Well, I think the president had great fears that the debate that you've seen happen in this town on each side of this issue, at the extremes, has -- that's taken place would be what would envelop any commission that looked backward.
======================================================
This town (D.C.) is full of Republicans on the take, and their enablers in the press.

Using those whores as an excuse to avoid doing the right thing is shameless cowardice.
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The number against torture will probably rise when the pictures are released. But I'm not sure the numbers will change on whether an investigation should be pursued. People are having a hard time coping with what is going on with the economy right now and don't want D.C. getting distracted. I don't agree with it, but I think that's what Obama instincts are telling him too. Folks are just overwhelmed.

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Evidently, some folks are un-overwhelmed enough that they have time to create new I.D.s on TPM to argue that we should let the torturers get away clean.

E.g. maryalice
~

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"Well, I think the president had great fears that the debate that you've seen happen in this town on each side of this issue, at the extremes, has -- that's taken place would be what would envelop any commission that looked backward. That's why his focus, David, the whole time is how we look forward in this country."
That ^^ looks awfully strategic.
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I find it disturbing that Never Torture is only up 1 point, which is within the margin of error. Sometimes Torture could pull this thing off.

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