President Relents, Backs Torture Ban
McCain Proposal Had Veto-Proof Support
By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 16, 2005; A01
President Bush reversed position yesterday and endorsed a torture ban crafted by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) after months of White House attempts to weaken the measure, which would prohibit the "cruel, inhuman, or degrading" treatment of any detainee in U.S. custody anywhere in the world.
The announcement of a deal at the White House yesterday was a setback for the administration, which had pressed the senator to either drop the measure or modify it so that interrogators, especially with the CIA, would have the flexibility to use a range of extreme tactics on terrorism suspects. In the end, McCain, bolstered by strong support in both houses of Congress, was willing to add only two paragraphs that would give civilian interrogators legal protections that are already afforded to military interrogators.
Perhaps he listened to his advisors and took their advice and decided to agree to it. Like a leader does.
Quote:And certainly if one must agree with you to be moral, one has to assume that you consider him/her to be immoral.
As I said, the strictly "morality" element applies in only the one instance. But I suppose that your complaint here speaks to a certain tone I apparently bring to discussions, a tone which my daughter, and all her cousins, refer to as my, or my brothers', "teacher voice". I gather it sounds patronizing, pedantic and superior. It might even BE those things rather than merely sounding like them. We are all teachers, so that fits. And clearly there is a Mennonitism component in this too (aggressive, though not absolute, pacifism; rejection of the authority of government where one disagrees with its policies or where it is effectively in the hands of oligarchies; high valuation of education and rationality and diversity; a rather William Blake conception of children - they "come trailing clouds of glory" and so we DO NOT drop cluster bombs on them; and that anabaptist rejection of salvation or godliness through 'magical' rituals). Pretty much everyone of these elements put me on a collision course with this administration. But I'm nearly sixty now and the chances of fundamental personality change look dim indeed.
Quote:I do accept your comments in the friendly spirit I believe they were intended. I do wish you would learn more productive ways to be friendly, however.
I'm pleased you understood the intention. I suppose I must confide finally that there was a particular point early in our discussions here where I decided to swing around and point my cannons your way. You slandered Elaine Pagels. You ought not to have done that. I don't know that Christian scholarship gets any better than hers and I labelled you an ideologue right at that point.
McGentrix wrote:Perhaps he listened to his advisors and took their advice and decided to agree to it. Like a leader does.
You therefore believe, I assume, from this comment, that Bush has no ethics or morality of his own that would cause him to to consider torture in any way problematic?
With the deficit (about $300 B) coming in significantly lower than Bush's OWN estimate, Bush is crowing about the booming economy, thanks to his tax and other policies. However, the reality (truth) of the situation is quite different.
^7/14/06: Left Behind Economics
By PAUL KRUGMAN
I'd like to say that there's a real dialogue taking place about the
state of the U.S. economy, but the discussion leaves a lot to be
desired. In general, the conversation sounds like this:
Bush supporter: "Why doesn't President Bush get credit for a great
economy? I blame liberal media bias."
Informed economist: "But it's not a great economy for most Americans.
Many families are actually losing ground, and only a very few affluent
people are doing really well."
Bush supporter: "Why doesn't President Bush get credit for a great
economy? I blame liberal media bias."
To a large extent, this dialogue of the deaf reflects Upton Sinclair's
principle: it's difficult to get a man to understand something when his
salary depends on his not understanding it. But there's also an element
of genuine incredulity. Many observers, even if they acknowledge the
growing concentration of income in the hands of the few, find it hard to
believe that this concentration could be proceeding so rapidly as to
deny most Americans any gains from economic growth.
Yet newly available data show that that's exactly what happened in 2004.
Why talk about 2004, rather than more recent experience? Unfortunately,
data on the distribution of income arrive with a substantial lag; the
full story of what happened in 2004 has only just become available, and
we won't be able to tell the full story of what's happening right now
until the last year of the Bush administration. But it's reasonably
clear that what's happening now is the same as what happened then:
growth in the economy as a whole is mainly benefiting a small elite,
while bypassing most families.
Here's what happened in 2004. The U.S. economy grew 4.2 percent, a very
good number. Yet last August the Census Bureau reported that real median
family income -- the purchasing power of the typical family -- actually
fell. Meanwhile, poverty increased, as did the number of Americans
without health insurance. So where did the growth go?
The answer comes from the economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez,
whose long-term estimates of income equality have become the gold
standard for research on this topic, and who have recently updated their
estimates to include 2004. They show that even if you exclude capital
gains from a rising stock market, in 2004 the real income of the richest
1 percent of Americans surged by almost 12.5 percent. Meanwhile, the
average real income of the bottom 99 percent of the population rose only
1.5 percent. In other words, a relative handful of people received most
of the benefits of growth.
There are a couple of additional revelations in the 2004 data. One is
that growth didn't just bypass the poor and the lower middle class, it
bypassed the upper middle class too. Even people at the 95th percentile
of the income distribution -- that is, people richer than 19 out of 20
Americans -- gained only modestly. The big increases went only to people
who were already in the economic stratosphere.
The other revelation is that being highly educated was no guarantee of
sharing in the benefits of economic growth. There's a persistent myth,
perpetuated by economists who should know better -- like Edward Lazear,
the chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers -- that
rising inequality in the United States is mainly a matter of a rising
gap between those with a lot of education and those without. But census
data show that the real earnings of the typical college graduate
actually fell in 2004.
In short, it's a great economy if you're a high-level corporate
executive or someone who owns a lot of stock. For most other Americans,
economic growth is a spectator sport.
Can anything be done to spread the benefits of a growing economy more
widely? Of course. A good start would be to increase the minimum wage,
which in real terms is at its lowest level in half a century.
But don't expect this administration or this Congress to do anything to
limit the growing concentration of income. Sometimes I even feel sorry
for these people and their apologists, who are prevented from
acknowledging that inequality is a problem by both their political
philosophy and their dependence on financial support from the wealthy.
That leaves them no choice but to keep insisting that ordinary Americans
-- who have, in fact, been bypassed by economic growth -- just don't
understand how well they're doing.
dlowan wrote:McGentrix wrote:Perhaps he listened to his advisors and took their advice and decided to agree to it. Like a leader does.
You therefore believe, I assume, from this comment, that Bush has no ethics or morality of his own that would cause him to to consider torture in any way problematic?
You could assume that, but it would make you appear to be retarded.
<giggle>
McG use the word "retarded"......
sometimes, I wonder if irony exists in the RW world.
Apropos...well just about everything in recent pages.
Quote:June 26, 2006
The Political Brain
A recent brain-imaging study shows that our political predilections are a product of unconscious confirmation bias
By Michael Shermer
The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion ... draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises ... in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate. --Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, 1620
Pace Will Rogers, I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a libertarian. As a fiscal conservative and social liberal, I have found at least something to like about each Republican or Democrat I have met. I have close friends in both camps, in which I have observed the following: no matter the issue under discussion, both sides are equally convinced that the evidence overwhelmingly supports their position.
This surety is called the confirmation bias, whereby we seek and find confirmatory evidence in support of already existing beliefs and ignore or reinterpret disconfirmatory evidence. Now a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study shows where in the brain the confirmation bias arises and how it is unconscious and driven by emotions. Psychologist Drew Westen led the study, conducted at Emory University, and the team presented the results at the 2006 annual conference of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.
During the run-up to the 2004 presidential election, while undergoing an fMRI bran scan, 30 men--half self-described as "strong" Republicans and half as "strong" Democrats--were tasked with assessing statements by both George W. Bush and John Kerry in which the candidates clearly contradicted themselves. Not surprisingly, in their assessments Republican subjects were as critical of Kerry as Democratic subjects were of Bush, yet both let their own candidate off the hook.
The neuroimaging results, however, revealed that the part of the brain most associated with reasoning--the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex--was quiescent. Most active were the orbital frontal cortex, which is involved in the processing of emotions; the anterior cingulate, which is associated with conflict resolution; the posterior cingulate, which is concerned with making judgments about moral accountability; and--once subjects had arrived at a conclusion that made them emotionally comfortable--the ventral striatum, which is related to reward and pleasure.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Politicians need a peer-review system.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning," Westen is quoted as saying in an Emory University press release. "What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up, including circuits hypothesized to be involved in regulating emotion, and circuits known to be involved in resolving conflicts." Interestingly, neural circuits engaged in rewarding selective behaviors were activated. "Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones," Westen said.
The implications of the findings reach far beyond politics. A jury assessing evidence against a defendant, a CEO evaluating information about a company or a scientist weighing data in favor of a theory will undergo the same cognitive process. What can we do about it?
In science we have built-in self-correcting machinery. Strict double-blind controls are required in experiments, in which neither the subjects nor the experimenters know the experimental conditions during the data-collection phase. Results are vetted at professional conferences and in peer-reviewed journals. Research must be replicated in other laboratories unaffiliated with the original researcher. Disconfirmatory evidence, as well as contradictory interpretations of the data, must be included in the paper. Colleagues are rewarded for being skeptical. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
We need similar controls for the confirmation bias in the arenas of law, business and politics. Judges and lawyers should call one another on the practice of mining data selectively to bolster an argument and warn juries about the confirmation bias. CEOs should assess critically the enthusiastic recommendations of their VPs and demand to see contradictory evidence and alternative evaluations of the same plan. Politicians need a stronger peer-review system that goes beyond the churlish opprobrium of the campaign trail, and I would love to see a political debate in which the candidates were required to make the opposite case.
Skepticism is the antidote for the confirmation bias.
Scientific American
From Advocates above post:
Bush supporter: "Why doesn't President Bush get credit for a great
economy? I blame liberal media bias."
Informed economist: "But it's not a great economy for most Americans.
Many families are actually losing ground, and only a very few affluent
people are doing really well."
This is the interesting part; when economists talk about "most Americans" that includes both conservatives and liberals - and those of us "in-betweens." However, one would think from the conservative's rhetoric, that the economy hasn't impacted them - that is, "losing ground." Makes you wonder when the reality will hit. Denial comes to mind.
blatham wrote:Quote:And certainly if one must agree with you to be moral, one has to assume that you consider him/her to be immoral.
As I said, the strictly "morality" element applies in only the one instance. But I suppose that your complaint here speaks to a certain tone I apparently bring to discussions, a tone which my daughter, and all her cousins, refer to as my, or my brothers', "teacher voice". I gather it sounds patronizing, pedantic and superior. It might even BE those things rather than merely sounding like them. We are all teachers, so that fits. And clearly there is a Mennonitism component in this too (aggressive, though not absolute, pacifism; rejection of the authority of government where one disagrees with its policies or where it is effectively in the hands of oligarchies; high valuation of education and rationality and diversity; a rather William Blake conception of children - they "come trailing clouds of glory" and so we DO NOT drop cluster bombs on them; and that anabaptist rejection of salvation or godliness through 'magical' rituals). Pretty much everyone of these elements put me on a collision course with this administration. But I'm nearly sixty now and the chances of fundamental personality change look dim indeed.
Well, okay. I'll make allowances for your teacher voice if you will allow me my ENTJ personality that promotes conviction that irritates some people if I just say good morning.
blatham wrote:Quote:I do accept your comments in the friendly spirit I believe they were intended. I do wish you would learn more productive ways to be friendly, however.
I'm pleased you understood the intention. I suppose I must confide finally that there was a particular point early in our discussions here where I decided to swing around and point my cannons your way. You slandered Elaine Pagels. You ought not to have done that. I don't know that Christian scholarship gets any better than hers and I labelled you an ideologue right at that point.
I have actually quoted Pagels in some of my own writings, but have also found some of her conclusions to be pretty off the wall. I don't remember that particular conversation, but I must have thought she said something positively awful for me to have slandered her. But on the theory that I overreacted, I will apologize. (Unless she does it again of course.)
Apology returned. White flags gently waft in the serene summer air.
Now, I'd like to take a photo to mark this occasion. Could I get you to move back...just a bit closer to the edge there...
blatham, Sometimes your humor is way over the cliff...
Blatham makes me laugh often.
snood wrote:Blatham makes me laugh often.
Oh yeah? It's easy to laugh unless you're the one backing off the cliff.
This may end up to be nothing, but if it does, it'll be interesting - at any rate.
Abramoff Lobbying of White House Probed
By Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 15, 2006; A02
The House Government Reform Committee has subpoenaed the former law firm of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff for records of any contacts he or members of his lobbying team had with the Bush White House.
Chairman Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) authorized a subpoena weeks ago to Greenberg Traurig, according to several of the law firm's former clients who have been notified that it is turning over billing records, e-mails, phone logs and other material that reflects efforts to lobby the White House.
Representatives of four of Abramoff's former tribal clients said they have been notified by Greenberg Traurig that the firm is turning over records. In some cases, there were scores of phone calls or other contacts with the White House. It is not known whether any of those contacts resulted in improper aid to Abramoff. Several tribal representatives said they believe many contacts were with staff members at the White House office of intergovernmental affairs.
The subpoena -- read to The Washington Post by a former client who received a copy from Greenberg Traurig -- seeks all firm billing records "referring or relating to matters involving Jack Abramoff or any person working with Jack Abramoff," as well as all records reflecting any contacts those lobbyists had with the White House. The subpoena seeks records from Jan. 1, 1998, to the present, though Abramoff did not begin work at Greenberg Traurig until early 2001.
J. Keith Ausbrook, chief counsel to the Government Reform Committee, yesterday declined to discuss the scope of any investigation. "We're not commenting at this point on the existence of a subpoena," he said. The panel is charged with oversight of the executive branch.
Abramoff has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to bribe government officials. To date, most of those implicated in the wide-ranging criminal probe of his activities have been members of Congress and their aides. It is a group that has largely escaped scrutiny on Capitol Hill, though the House ethics committee announced in May that after many months of inactivity it was looking into bribery allegations involving two lawmakers, one of whom had dealings with Abramoff.
A spokeswoman for Greenberg Traurig declined to discuss what the firm has turned over to the committee. But she said in a statement that "consistent with our ethical obligations to clients, our firm has cooperated fully with ongoing government investigations, and refrains from commenting on matters that are the subject of such investigations."
Abramoff, a major fundraiser for George W. Bush in the 2000 election, had a half-dozen appointments at the White House in the early months of the administration, according to logs released this month by the U.S. Secret Service. Some were social events, others were group events involving tribal officials. On one occasion, Abramoff unsuccessfully sought presidential adviser Karl Rove's assistance in placing associates at the Interior Department.
The Senate Indian Affairs Committee has already subpoenaed Greenberg Traurig for material relating to Abramoff's dealings with Indian tribes. The firm produced a trove of embarrassing e-mails between Abramoff and his lobbying team that received wide attention in hearings in 2004 and 2005.
Because of that panel's limited jurisdiction, the committee largely steered clear of examining Abramoff's dealings with the White House and Congress, although it spotlighted his lobbying team's contacts with Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) on behalf of a Texas tribe.
The Justice Department's investigation is scrutinizing Ney and several other lawmakers. It has led to guilty pleas from three former congressional aides who went to work for Abramoff -- two of them former aides to Tom DeLay (R), who stepped down as House majority leader and resigned from Congress this spring.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
Bush, et al., will be so busy defending themselves from corruption charges that they will not have time to start new wars.
Bob Shrum, a political consultant, said that the war in Iraq is over but for the killing. Basically, we are marking time there until Bush can find a fig leaf of an excuse to get out. Indeed, reductions in forces have begun.
Advocate, We must remember to archive all the statements by Bush on "stay the course" and "we will succeed" speeches.
Advocate wrote:Bush, et al., will be so busy defending themselves from corruption charges that they will not have time to start new wars.
Bob Shrum, a political consultant, said that the war in Iraq is over but for the killing. Basically, we are marking time there until Bush can find a fig leaf of an excuse to get out. Indeed, reductions in forces have begun.
cicerone imposter wrote:Advocate, We must remember to archive all the statements by Bush on "stay the course" and "we will succeed" speeches.
Yes, indeed ... for if and when the Bush Administration initiates a troop reduction -- something most on the left have been clamoring for for ages -- they will still seek out the means to criticize and denigrate that decision.
We don't need to denigrate anything: moron Bush does that all by himself. Have you seen his picture with Putin? ROFLMAO
Tucker Carlson in a 2002 or 2003 interview speaking on Karen Hughes' loyalty to truth/accuracy. I disagree with this fellow more often than not, but I resect him because he isn't kneejerk partisan and as for being an asshole, he's no worse than me.
Quote:Then I heard that [on the campaign bus, Bush communications director] Karen Hughes accused me of lying. And so I called Karen and asked her why she was saying this, and she had this almost Orwellian rap that she laid on me about how things she'd heard -- that I watched her hear -- she in fact had never heard, and she'd never heard Bush use profanity ever. It was insane.
I've obviously been lied to a lot by campaign operatives, but the striking thing about the way she lied was she knew I knew she was lying, and she did it anyway. There is no word in English that captures that. It almost crosses over from bravado into mental illness.
They get carried away, consultants do, in the heat of the campaign, they're really invested in this. A lot of times they really like the candidate. That's all conventional. But on some level, you think, there's a hint of recognition that there is reality -- even if they don't recognize reality exists -- there is an objective truth. With Karen you didn't get that sense at all. A lot of people like her. A lot of people I know like her. I'm not one of them.
http://dir.salon.com/story/books/feature/2003/09/13/carlson/index.html
