Right Wing Nut House

Perhaps gunning down unarmed monks can be added as an Olympic sport. The Chinese, so concerned about the games later in the summer, could solve their “image problem” by simply including the practice in the Olympic program. This would result in a sure gold medal for the home team.

A small village high in the mountains was the scene of what can only be called a massacre by Chinese police. The authorities entered a monastery and began confiscating pictures of the Dalia Lama - photos of whom have been banned since the 1990’s. Then the police deliberately incited a reaction by throwing the pictures of the Lama on the ground which was considered a sacrilege by the monks.

One old monk protested the affront to his god-king and was arrested. This was a bad move by the police because apparently, the ancient monk was very well regarded by the villagers as a man of wisdom and piety.

That brought both villagers and monks to the camp of the police with predictable and tragic results:

About 6.30pm, the entire monastic body marched down to a nearby river, where paramilitary police were encamped and demanded the release of the two men. They were joined by several hundred local villagers, many of them enraged at the detention of the elderly monk, who locals say is well respected in the area for his learning and piety.

Shouting “Long Live the Dalai Lama”, “Let the Dalai Lama come back” and “We want freedom”, the crowd demonstrated until about 9pm. Witnesses said that up to 1,000 paramilitary police used force to try to end the protest and opened fire on the crowd.

In the gunfire, eight people died, according to a local resident in direct contact with the monastery. These included a 27-year-old monk identified as Cangdan and two women named as Zhulongcuo and Danluo.

Eight people were reportedly gunned down with many more injured. Predictably, the Chinese government spun the massacre as a “riot” with an invisible “government official” getting beat up:

State-run Chinese media confirmed that the police resorted to force but insisted that it was only after a government official was attacked and seriously wounded by protesters.

“Local officials exercised restraint during the riot and repeatedly told the rioters to abide by the law,” they reported. The use of live rounds was a last resort, the Xinhua news agency said, without specifying how the Tibetan demonstrators had injured the official. It said: “Police were forced to fire warning shots and put down the violence, since local officials and people were in great danger.”

Perhaps the Chinese could tell us how 8 people were killed by “warning shots?”

If the Chinese keep this up, the games themselves will be in trouble as western nations contemplate a full boycott in response to the crackdown. At the moment, such a move would not be popular. But if the Chinese government continues to use the people of Tibet as targets for the police, most decent nations will probably find it impossible to send their athletes to participate in games hosted by this murderous regime.

This blog post originally appears at The American Thinker

My latest column at PJ Media is up and it deals with a subject near and dear to my heart; baseball.

A sample:

The mists of time are sure to shroud some of my memories in an unrealistic haze that makes the game of my youth a little more glorious than it actually was, elevating that period in American history above the squalid, grasping cynicism of today’s spectacles. But there is little doubt that America’s love affair with baseball has cooled, and it is hard to see how it can ever be re-ignited.

They do not play softball — either the 12” or 16” variety. This isn’t “Beer Ball” or some variation of a Saturday afternoon lark by drinking buddies. They play what we used to call “league” ball or “hardball.” And I can testify to the fact that they play for keeps — games come complete with brush back pitches, head first slides, and even the occasional bench clearing “rhubarb,” where the dignity and wisdom of age is replaced with the white hot emotion of competitive ballplayers.

There’s only one thing I’d change about my life if given a chance; I’d have pursued my dream to be a sportswriter. I love writing about politics but sports is where my heart lies.

The votes are in from last week’s Watchers Council and the winner in the Council category is “Get Your Grim Milestone Today?” by Done With Mirrors. Finishing second was “What Would You Do?” by Bookworm Room.

Finishing first in the non Council category was “Stake Through Their Hearts” by Michael Yon.
If you would like to participate in the weekly Watchers vote, go here and follow instructions.

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

Maybe it’s something in the water. Or perhaps it’s a virus that only infects politicians and their cronies in the state in which Barack Obama chose to build his poilitical base.

Personally, I prefer the “politicians being inhabited by aliens” scenario where the outrageously corrupt behavior of our political leaders in the state is the result of an invasion of extraterrestrials who have taken over their bodies and minds.

If so, they certainly have moved in and made themselves right at home. The recent political history of the state is replete with some of the most jaw dropping examples of illegal shenanigans one can imagine.

No less than 3 of the last 7 governors of Illinois have gone to jail for corruption. The most recent inmate being previous governor George Ryan who pressured state workers to raise money for his campaigns when Secretary of State, while overseeing a “pay for play” scheme at drivers license bureaus where unqualified truck drivers bribed state employees to get licenses. One such driver was involved in a horrific accident that killed 6 children. The resulting investigation into that crash unmasked the conspiracy. More than 70 lobbyists, state employees, and government officials have been convicted in connection with the scheme.

And to list the corruption associated with Mayor Daley’s Chicago Democratic Machine would require an encyclopedia-length dissertation. The most recent example of Machine sleaze was the conviction of one of the Mayor’s closest aides in a city hall patronage scandal that had Barack Obama praising hizzoner for beginning to “clean up” city hall.

Frankly, I believe the Augean Stables would be an easier place to start cleaning up. Might as well start with something less taxing than trying to clean up Chicago politics.

The sleaze is not limited to Chicago — not by any means. The sad fact is, the entire state is in some ways a gigantic cesspool of bid rigging, kickback schemes, cronyism, and outright bribery greased by campaign contributions, and where the businessman, the criminal, and the politician merge into a seamless, corrupt beast that greedily feeds at the public trough.

The beast survives due to an apathetic public and, despite some noble exceptions, a curiously quiescent press who seem to have adopted the blasé attitude in some cases that everyone does it so what’s new?

What is new is that someone has stepped forward and under oath, given chapter and verse of the Hitchhiker’s Guide To Political Sleaze in Illinois. For seven long days prominent Republican fundraiser and financier Stuart Levine has been in the witness chair at the trial of Antoin “Tony” Rezko — Chicago political “fixer” and star fundraiser for both Governor Blagojevitch and Senator Barack Obama. Levine is the primary witness in the federal trial alleging massive fraud and extortion on Rezko’s part, shaking down firms doing business with the state by forcing them to make contributions to the Governor’s campaign in return for state contracts.

Levine is a character out of Dante’s Purgatorio — a tortured soul addicted to cocaine, crystal meth and other drugs while leading a secret life filled with drug fueled day long parties at a suburban hotel. At age 62, Levine proves the adage you’re never to old to act like an immature idiot. Details of what really went on at these all day sybaritic trysts with Levine and up to 5 male friends are sketchy because the judge has refused the prosecution permission to get into the sexual aspects of Levine’s romps.

No matter. It is on the drug use that the defense will concentrate, hammering home to the jury that Levine’s story is not believable because he very well could have imagined it all. And what gives impetus to the defense claim of Levine being a first class fantasist is the unreal scope of the corruption that he, Rezko, and a few cronies spread throughout the state government in order to raise money for Blagojevitch as well as line their own pockets with “finders fees” and other kickbacks.

Tony Rezko had his fingers in an extraordinary number of money making pies — property developer, slumlord, pizza franchise owner, and friend and patron to dozens of the most prominent politicians from both parties in Illinois. He even went in on a money making scheme with a former Chicago cop to train Iraqi “power plant guards” in security techniques — a contract signed by a school chum of Rezko’s who is a former Iraqi Minister of Electricity, currently under indictment in Iraq for embezzling $2.5 billion in reconstruction funds.

The gig with Levine was just one of many projects with which Rezko was involved where he used his connections with politicians to enrich himself — legally in most cases. But the way Levine describes the shakedown operation, Rezko could have no illusions about the legality of what he was doing.

Levine was in a perfect position to initiate the kickback scheme. Not only was he a power in state politics, he sat on two prominent state boards where he was able to handpick members who would pretty much do as he asked. And what he asked was that they steer state contracts to companies that gave money to Blagojevitch. Rezko was very helpful in this regard as he recommended Levine’s cronies to Blagojevitch for positions on the two regulatory boards — a hospital expansion board and the Teachers Retirement System.

Levine also received what he euphemistically refers to as “finders fees” from the companies for assisting them in getting the contracts. The feds call them what they are: illegal kickbacks. Until the government swooped down on him in January 2006, Levine carried on with his scheme, using Rezko’s clout with the governor to staff the two regulatory boards he served on with cronies who would do his bidding.

But things didn’t go so smoothly always. On Wednesday, jurors listened to testimony from Levine that may put Governor Blagojevitch himself in legal jeopardy. Stephen Spruiell from National Review sums up the story of one investment company who refused to play ball:

Levine used his positions on various state boards to steal as much money as he could from people with business before those boards. One of those people was a Hollywood producer and financier named Tom Rosenberg. Rosenberg was a principal at a firm called Capri Capital. Capri managed over a billion dollars for the Illinois Teachers Retirement System, of which Levine was a trustee.

Through a variety of corrupt means, including allowing TRS executive director Jon Bauman to write his own (glowing) evaluations, Levine wielded a disproportionate amount of influence over TRS investment decisions. Levine used this influence to steer TRS contracts to whomever would pay him and his associates the biggest “finder’s fees.” Levine decided that Rosenberg was getting far too much TRS business and paying far too little in the form of kickbacks to him and his cronies — an arrangement that Levine saw an opportunity to amend when Capri sought a new contract from TRS in early 2004.

According to his testimony, Levine and an associate named Bill Cellini (both Republicans) conspired with two of Governor Blagojevich’s top fundraisers and advisers — Tony Rezko and a roofing contractor named Chris Kelly (both Democrats) — to offer Rosenberg a choice: Either pay a $2 million bribe or raise $1.5 million for Blagojevich’s re-election campaign. Rosenberg was to be made to understand that all of his business with TRS was at stake.

As you can see, when it comes to political corruption in Illinois, there is only one party: “The Green Party” — as in the color of cash.

But Rosenberg was not someone they could threaten or push around. In a phone conversation taped by the government, Rosenberg angrily denounced Cellini and Levine and promised to “take them down” if they didn’t back off.

This set off alarm bells with Rezko, Levine, Cellini and others involved in the kickback schemes. Clearly, if Rosenberg tattled, they’d all go to jail for a very long time. So in the end, they only backed off putting the arm on Rosenberg, but they made good on their threat to deny Rosenberg any more state business.

In this, they had the blessing of the Governor of the State of Illinois Rod Blagojevitch.

Apparently, Rezko related the entire story to Blagojevitch, who it appears agreed with the crooks that Rosenberg should be frozen out of doing future business with the state. Levine is heard in another taped conversation saying that “the big guy” himself had given the word.

This would be a clear misuse of his office and, depending of what the governor knew of Rezko, Levine, and their cronies, it could lead to possible conspiracy charges as well.

NRO’s Stephen Spruiell interviews Cook County Commissioner Tony Peraica, a Republican who says that Blagojevitch’s indictment is “inevitable:”

“What we have,” Peraica says, “is a level of corruption that is integrated both vertically and horizontally across all layers of government: city, municipal, county, and state.” To him, the Rezko case illustrates that corruption in Illinois is a bipartisan problem. “We have a corrupt political combine, where the members of the two parties… have come together, not pursuant to a public interest, but to pursue their own financial interests, which they have done with great zeal and ingenuity.”

And what of Barack Obama? A couple of the players in this little drama have close connections to the Senator. In addition to Rezko, there is the case of Allison Walker, Obama’s old boss at the law firm of Davis Miner Barnhill & Galland who was also a business partner of Rezko. Davis’s firm handled an unknown amount of business for Rezko’s property management company — the same company under investigation for illegal activities in connection with government contracts used to rehab low income housing (an unrelated investigation to the Rezko trial).

Davis, a friend of Rosenberg’s, acted as a go-between, carrying the investment manager’s message to Rezko that he might raise some money for the governor’s campaign if that would help keep his business in the mix for a contract with the teachers pension fund board that Levine ran as his own little fiefdom. This didn’t satisfy Rezko who told Davis to have Rosenberg call Levine. From there, Levine put the squeeze on Rosenberg as described above.

Neither Obama or Davis will get very specific about how much work the law firm did for Rezko or what Obama did over the years to assist Rezko in the management of several low income properties that by all accounts were barely habitable. Most of them have been condemned as of today. And the government wants to know just what Rezko did with those millions in rehab funds and loans he received from the city, state, and federal government.

Obama may not be an intimate part of all this corruption. But it is equally clear that he has benefited politically from his association with the sleaze artists like Rezko. He has also eschewed attaching himself too closely to the reform movement in Cook County politics by endorsing for office not only Mayor Daley, but the notorious former Cook County Board Chairman John Stroger and the equally corrupt Alderman Dorothy Tillman.

It appears that when principle collides with political expediency, Obama has chosen to ally himself with those who can do his career the most good - even at the expense, as Commissioner Peraica says of “principles and morals and good government.”

I am pleased to announce that I have signed on as the Chicago Editor for Pajamas Media effective next Monday.

My association with PJM goes back to the beginning when I signed on to accept advertising on my site under their rubric. Then last year, Roger Simon, CEO of Pajamas, asked me to write for the site - an opportunity I relish to this day.

Now, I’ll be even more closely associated with this growing and changing concern. I look forward to a happy and productive collaboration with the good folks there and hope you stop by a couple of times a day to see what’s new. The site is undergoing a major redesign with some exciting things on tap for the future. It will truly be a unique opportunity for me to work for a company on the cutting edge of the revolution in blogs and news dissemination.

I don’t expect too many of you to agree with me about the shame I believe that John Yoo and the Bush Administration has brought upon America as a result of their attempt to legally justify the torture of prisoners. From what I’ve been reading for years on other conservative sites, I know that many of you believe that any treatment we hand out to terrorists is too good for them, that they deserve to suffer and besides we need the information that only torture will elicit. Beyond that, there is a troubling rationale used by many conservatives that posits the notion of reciprocity; that because the terrorists treat prisoners in a beastly manner, it is perfectly alright for us to do the same to them.

It vexes me that conservatives believe such nonsense - believe it and use it as a justification for the violation of international and domestic law not to mention destroying our long standing and proud tradition of simply being better than that. Why this aspect of American exceptionalism escapes my friends on the right who don’t hesitate to use the argument that we are a different nation than all others when it comes to rightly boasting about our vast freedoms and brilliantly constructed Constitution is beyond me.

But for me and many others on the right, the issue of torture defines America in a way that does not weigh comfortably on our consciences or on our self image as citizens of this country. I am saddened beyond words to be associated with a country that willingly gives up its traditions and adherence to the rule of law for the easy way, the short cut around the law, while giving in to the basest instincts we posses because we are afraid.

I do not wish terrorists to be tortured. I wish them dead. But if they must surrender themselves to our custody or if we find it to our tactical advantage to hold them, then we have no alternative but to treat them as Americans treat prisoners not as the terrorists themselves treat their captives. This is self evident and it is shocking at times to be reviled as a “terrorist lover” just because I wish that our tradition of human decency and adhering to the rule of law be upheld.

The specifics of what is or what is not torture matter not. Inflicting pain is not something you can put on a scale and judge whether an interrogation technique crosses some invisible line between just being a little painful and outright agony. Mental and physical pain inflicted on purpose is a crime according to international law and our domestic statutes. It is pure sophistry to argue otherwise.

Let’s be clear on this; John Yoo’s memo does a tap dance around the Constitution, the UN treaty banning torture, and domestic laws prohibiting our public officials from engaging in acts that cause bodily harm to another person.

I am not a lawyer. But I can read. When a document is written in order to justify what otherwise would be illegal acts during peacetime (something that is clearly on Yoo’s mind throughout much of his memo), one would hope that something besides expanding the power of the executive to grant immunity to those who carry out the erstwhile illegalities would be used as a legal framework. Yoo makes little attempt, from my reading, to do so.

One example of this breathtaking and troubling expansion of executive authority:

On Page 47 of the Yoo memo, if I’m not mistaken, there’s the amazing assertion that the Convention Against Torture doesn’t apply whenever the president says it doesn’t. “Any presidential decision to order interrogations methods that are inconsistent with CAT would amount to a suspension or termination of those treaty provisions.” Doesn’t this mean that whether or not a treaty has been ratified, with or without express reservations, Yoo is saying that the president can implicitly and on his own authority withdraw the United States from the treaty simply by not abiding by it? Is there precedent for such a claim? In my quick scan so far of the tortured (sorry) reasoning here, I can’t find anything other than ipso facto—because I say so, the president says so.

From the memo Part II, page 41, we see a similar justification for defense against charges of torture, i.e. the president says it’s OK:

As we have made clear in other opinions involving the war against al Qaeda, the Nation’s right to self-defense has been triggered by the events of September 11. If a govenunent defendant were to harm an enemy combatant during an interrogation in a manner that might arguably violate a criminal prohibition, he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al Qaeda terrorist network. In that case, we believe that he’ could argue that the executive branch’s constitutional authority to protect the nation from attack justified his actions. This national and international version of the right to self-defense could supplement and bolster the government defendant’s individual right.

How can any conservative believing in limited government not at the very least look twice at such an expansion of government authority?

I believe that Vice President Cheney is correct when he says that executive power suffered as a result of naked power grabs by the Democratic Congress back in the 1970’s. But this goes far beyond redressing any imbalances that occurred as a result of abuses of executive authority uncovered in Watergate and Viet Nam. It does not appear that Mr. Yoo has deigned to supply any limits whatsoever to executive power during wartime.

As for his justifications for torture, some of Yoo’s reasoning is positively Orwellian:

As to mental torture, Richard testified that “no international consensus had emerged [as to] what degree of mental suffering is required to constitute torture[,]“but that it was nonetheless clear that severe mental pain or suffering “does not encompass the normal legal compulsions which are properly a part of the criminal justice system[:] .interrogation, incarceration, prosecution; compelled. testimony against a friend, etc,-notwithstanding the fact that they may have the incidental effect of producing mental strain.” Id. at 17. According to Richard, CAT was intended to “condemn as torture intentional acts such as those designed to damage and destroy the human personality.” Id. at 14. This description of mental suffering emphasizes the requirement that any mental harm be. of significant duration and supports our conclusion that ( mind-altering substances must have a profoundly disruptive effect to serve as a predicate.act.

It is a mindset like this that can justify barbarity.

I don’t buy the argument that because it only hurts “a little” that it’s not torture. The difference between having your fingernails pulled out and being forced to stand for 24 hours is irrelevant. It is the intent that matters. And if the intent is to cause suffering in order to get a prisoner to talk, that is torture whether it is chaining a terrorist to the floor and turning up the heat or making him believe he is drowning as a result of waterboarding.

Ed Morrissey, Christian gentleman that he is, wrestles mightily with this issue and comes up short. First, he attempts to spread the blame for torture authorization to the Congress:

First, the 2003 memo didn’t authorize the start of coercive techniques. As early as September 2002, Congressional leadership of both parties got briefed on interrogations of three al-Qaeda operatives. The CIA gave members of both parties dozens of classified briefings which detailed such techniques as waterboarding, stress positions, and other controversial methods that Congress later acted to ban. This obviously predates the Yoo memo.

Yoo also didn’t occupy any position that could have authorized any interrogative techniques. He provided a legal analysis when asked, but the responsibility for relying on the analysis falls to the CIA, Pentagon, and White House. Congress certainly appeared to agree in that same time frame; the reporting on the briefings notes that none of the Congressional delegation raised any objections during the briefings. One specifically asked whether the interrogations should be made tougher.

I would say to Ed that just because two branches of our government signed off on torture does not make it right. Whether it makes it legal or not may be another question. But it seems to me that Ed is trying to spread the blame for the US using torture techniques around and include Congress. If that is what he is trying to do, I find it irrelevant.

And I would agree with Ed that Yoo is hardly a “war criminal” as Lambchop would have us believe. There was no force of law behind this memo. As Ed rightly says it was the CIA, the Pentagon and especially the White House who relied on this memo to justify acts that would ordinarily violate international and domestic laws. Yoo was asked to give an opinion nothing more. This was no “Wannsee” scenario where justification for implementing the Nazi “Final Solution” were developed and discussed. Yoo himself may have been surprised that his memo became policy although I’m sure he didn’t mind it at the time.

The fact that his memo was withdrawn a year later and others substituted for it makes me think that the liberal criticism of the memo being a slap-dash, insufficiently fleshed out document with poor or non-existent justifications for such a massive change in policy to be pretty close to the mark. Again, I’m no lawyer but in reading it, I was struck again and again by how almost everything could be squeezed into the broad executive authority that Yoo was creating by expanding the limits of executive power. Ed Morrissey says in his piece that Yoo defined the president’s limits. This he did. But Ed did not mention that Yoo vastly expanded those limits from where they were in peace time. Did he expand them too much? I believe he did.

At some point in the future, we will be able to look back at the decisions that were made in the aftermath of 9/11 and make judgements based on how history unfolded. Some of those judgements will almost certainly meet with near universal approval. Others may prove to be less than efficacious.

But I sincerely doubt whether history will be kind to John Yoo or the president he thought he was serving when he used his considerable legal talents to justify throwing the law, the Constitution, and our good standing in the world out the window by giving a “legal” basis for torture.

I will have author/embed/war correspondent/film maker J.D. Johannes on my Blog Talk Radio show tonight to discuss recent events in Iraq and his film “Outside the Wire.”

The show will stream live from 7-8 PM Central time and can be accessed here:

If you would like to call in and join the discussion, the number is (718) 664-9764. A podcast of the show will be avalible about 15 minutes after its conclusion at the link above.

The film has received critical acclaim for its gritty, realistic portrayal of the American soldier’s experience in Iraq. You won’t want to miss this special appearance by one of the most knowledgeable journalists in America about Iraq.

UPDATE

Definition of “gritty”: