Obama is a stimulating fellow, but tortured
See NY Times, Obama’s Battle on Stimulus Shows Threats to His Agenda,
It is a quick, sweet victory for the new president, and potentially a historic one. The question now is whether the $789 billion economic stimulus plan agreed to by Congressional leaders on Wednesday is the opening act for a more ambitious domestic agenda from President Obama or a harbinger of reduced expectations. …
In cobbling together a plan that could get through both the House and the Senate, Mr. Obama prevailed, but not in the way he had hoped. His inability to win over more than a handful of Republicans amounted to a loss of innocence, a reminder that his high-minded calls for change in the practice of governance had been ground up in a matter of weeks by entrenched forces of partisanship and deep, principled differences between left and right.
In the end, Congress did not come together to address what Mr. Obama has regularly suggested is a crisis that could rival the Great Depression. What consensus has been forged so far is likely to be tested in the months to come as he faces scrutiny over the effectiveness of the stimulus package and the likelihood that he will have to ask Congress for substantially more money to heal the fractures in the financial system.
So this was hardly a moment for cigars. …
So much for the stim. As for the tortured young Presidency, see Valtin at Daily Kos, Obama Reneges on Justice for Torture Victims, Embraces Bush Secrecy Doctrine (Updated),
…It really doesn’t matter who is president of the United States when it comes to torture policy. That has been in the hands of the CIA and certain folk in the Pentagon and Executive Branch for a long time now. Obama and Holder have demonstrated they have zero intention in challenging that institutional status quo, even if that means throwing entire civil suits brought by torture victims out of court, even when the information about the suit is almost totally part of the public record.
This is not about keeping secrets safe. It’s about controlling what the public can hear and not hear, so the repressive apparatus of the state can be allowed to function without public scrutiny or public control.
What will the followers of Obama do now? Will they sell out the most wretched and cruelly tortured for the feel-good vibes of the moment? Or will they hold their candidate to account? …
Sounds like things are going haywire both economically and torturally!
No Comments so far
Leave a comment
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>