hilzoy

The Uighurs: 2

by

by hilzoy This is a continuation of my last post, on the Uighurs now detained at Guantanamo. I described the "training" that the Uighurs received, and quoted a description of them and their motivations given by an FBI agent who interviewed them in 2002. But I didn't address one crucial part of the current campaign … Read more

The Uighurs: 1

by

by hilzoy Newt Gingrich has decided to move on from lecturing us about Democrats' moral decrepitude and terror-coddling ways, and warn us about a brand new peril: "America, meet the Uighurs. Seventeen of the 241 terrorist detainees currently being held at Guantanamo Bay are Chinese Muslims known as Uighurs. These Uighurs have been allied with and trained by … Read more

Refugees

by

by hilzoy From the UNHCR: "The number of people who have fled the fighting in northwest Pakistan this month and been registered or recorded by authorities reached 670,906 on Wednesday, up from just over half a million the day before. The majority of those registered by Pakistani authorities with the assistance of UNHCR are staying … Read more

Release The Photos

by

by hilzoy From the Washington Post: "A month after making public once-classified Justice Department memos detailing the Bush administration's coercive methods of interrogation, President Obama yesterday chose secrecy over disclosure, saying he would seek to block the court-ordered release of photographs depicting the abuse of detainees held by U.S. authorities abroad. Obama agreed less than … Read more

Meeting Them On Their Level

by

by hilzoy I write to inform you that I have just concluded a special extraordinary session of me, in which I unanimously adopted the following resolution: WHEREAS the Urban Dictionary defines "Poopyhead" as "The single most offensive thing you can call someone. It's like the atom bomb of arguments. Men fear it's omnipotent and awesome … Read more

“My Colleagues Just Stared At That Line”

by

by hilzoy Michael Crowley catches an important development: "Obama's new budget plan includes a little-noted sea change in U.S. nuclear policy, and a step towards his vision of a denuclearized world. It provides no funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead program, created to design a new generation of long-lasting nuclear weapons that don't need to … Read more

Repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’

by

by hilzoy Lt. Daniel Choi, who recently came out as gay, wrote a letter to Barack Obama, citing the values of honesty and integrity that he learned at West Point, and asking: "Please do not wait to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Please do not fire me." But he also makes some very good points about the … Read more

Two Sizes Too Small

by

by hilzoy In a piece called "How Jezebel is Hurting Feminism", Linda Hirshman writes: "The Jezebels are clearly familiar with the rhetoric of feminism: sexism, sexual coercion, cultural misogyny, even the importance of remembering women’s history. But they are also a living demonstration of the chaotic possibilities the movement always contained. In its origins, women’s liberation … Read more

Division

by

by hilzoy CharleyCarp makes a very important point about prosecuting Bush administration officials for making torture US policy: "The people who think prosecution of these people is too divisive need to take into account their continuing conduct. They are trying to sow division right now. I'm not saying we should give in to them, but … Read more

Comparative Effectiveness Research

by

by hilzoy Reading this post by Merrill Goozner (it's very good) reminded me that I meant to write about the articles on comparative effectiveness research in the recent New England Journal of Medicine. One, by Jerry Avorn, concerns the backlash against CER: "The contested provisions were designed to support studies comparing the efficacy and safety … Read more

Sleep Deprivation

by

by hilzoy A major newpaper has an interesting story on the CIA's use of sleep deprivation: "Because of its effectiveness — as well as the perception that it was less objectionable than waterboarding, head-slamming or forced nudity — sleep deprivation may be seen as a tempting technique to restore. But the Justice Department memos released … Read more

How Dare He?

by

by hilzoy Dick Cheney on Face The Nation: "SCHIEFFER: What do you say to those, Mr. Vice President, who say that when we employ these kinds of tactics, which are after all the tactics that the other side uses, that when we adopt their methods, that we're weakening security, not enhancing security, because it sort … Read more

Exodus

by

by hilzoy Kevin Drum linked to this story about the evacuation of the Carteret Islands, a tiny atoll in the South Pacific. The sea levels have been rising, toppling trees and swallowing up the coastline. Salt water bubbles up from what were once the gardens where the islanders used to grow food. Every so often, king … Read more

“I Don’t Believe I’ve Ever Met A Homosexual”

by

by hilzoy

James Kirchick writes:

"I oppose using a person's sexual orientation as a job qualification for the same reasons that I oppose the privileging of a candidate based upon their race or sex: It boils individuals down to their immutable traits. The only aspect that Obama should consider as he weighs his options over the next few days is the candidates' jurisprudence."

Matt Yglesias responds:

"The nature of the Supreme Court is that a great many of its most important cases concern the rights of women and various kinds of minority groups. It’s absurd to think that a forum of nine white, male, heterosexual Christians could possibly compose the best possible forum for deciding these kinds of issues. The reality is that a nine-person group can’t possibly fully represent the diversity — in terms of religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, etc. — that exists in the country at large. But one can do better or worse on this regard and it makes perfect sense to aspire to do better. That’s not an alternative to caring about the quality of the jurisprudence, it’s part of trying to get good jurisprudence."

This is absolutely right, and I think it's why Obama was right to say that he wanted to nominate a justice who is not just "dedicated to the rule of law, who honors our constitutional traditions, who respects the integrity of the judicial process and the appropriate limits of the judicial role", but who has the "quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people's hopes and struggles". This is not opposed to caring about getting the law right; it's about understanding what is at stake in various cases well enough to see how the law, as it is written, actually applies.

To see why this matters, consider an anecdote about Justice Powell's deliberations in Bowers v. Hardwick. 

Read more

Signs And Portents

by

by hilzoy Apparently, it's a big deal in some quarters that Barack Obama did not hold a ceremony for the National Day of Prayer, preferring instead to issue a proclamation and pray in private, "something that the president does every day". This is an instance of something that generally bothers me about many discussions of … Read more

Dueling Videos

by

by hilzoy The Senate Republicans have put up an unusually boneheaded video about the idea of holding Guantanamo detainees in the US: Something about 9/11 seems to have produced a kind of amnesia among some people on the right. It's as though they think that we have never before had to figure out such questions … Read more

Disbar Them

by

by hilzoy From the NYT: "An internal Justice Department inquiry into the conduct of Bush administration lawyers who wrote secret memorandums authorizing brutal interrogations has concluded that the authors committed serious lapses of judgment but should not be criminally prosecuted, according to government officials briefed on a draft of the findings. The report by the … Read more

Resolution

by

by hilzoy Matthew Richardson and Nouriel Roubini have an op-ed on the stress tests in the WSJ. It makes a number of good points, but this one is particularly important: "Stress tests aside, it is highly likely that some of these large banks will be insolvent, given the various estimates of aggregate losses. The government … Read more

Conflict Of Interest

by

by hilzoy There is just no way that this ought to have been allowed: "The Federal Reserve Bank of New York shaped Washington's response to the financial crisis late last year, which buoyed Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and other Wall Street firms. Goldman received speedy approval to become a bank holding company in September and a $10 … Read more

Motiveless Malignancy

by

by hilzoy The NYT has an interesting story on Bush administration fights over torture policy. (Though, as emptywheel says, it "seems to be at least partly the product of two entities–the Bellinger/Condi- and the Goss-reputation protection entities–that have been working overtime lately.") It claims that the CIA had stopped using the "enhanced interrogation techniques" by 2005: "Still, … Read more

Well, I Think Demographics Is Interesting …

by

by hilzoy Here's a fascinating article on global demographics (h/t): "Something dramatic has happened to the world’s birthrates. Defying predictions of demographic decline, northern Europeans have started having more babies. Britain and France are now projecting steady population growth through the middle of the century. In North America, the trends are similar. In 2050, according … Read more

“He Used … Sarcasm”

by

by hilzoy Erick Erickson informs us that "The Obama Thugocracy Has Arrived", and that Obama is "turning to the bully pulpit and the press to beat the hell out of dissenters." "Beating the hell out of dissenters"? With the White House Press Corps? It all sounded very peculiar, so I clicked the link Erick provided, expecting … Read more

Erosion

by

by hilzoy The Washington Post has an article with the headline: "Wage Growth Is Eroding As Firms Rush To Slim Down". It opens with this example: "In December, Timothy Owner, a trombone player with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, called his landlord to tell her he might have trouble paying rent around May. He and the … Read more

Paul Krugman Asks An Excellent Question

by

by hilzoy Paul Krugman's column today is on the costs of cap and trade: "If emission permits were auctioned off — as they should be — the revenue thus raised could be used to give consumers rebates or reduce other taxes, partially offsetting the higher prices. But the offset wouldn't be complete. Consumers would end … Read more

No, We Shouldn’t Close The Border. Sigh.

by

by hilzoy In the wake of the swine flu outbreak, we have the inevitable calls for closing the borders with Mexico (h/t): "A spokesman for Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., said Wednesday night that Franks believes the border should be closed right now except in critical cases or situations involving emergency personnel. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., … Read more

Souter Will Resign

by

by hilzoy From the NYT: "Justice David H. Souter has indicated that he plans to retire at the end of the term in June, giving President Obama his first appointment to the Supreme Court, three people informed about the decision said Thursday night. Justice Souter, who was appointed by a Republican president, George H. W. … Read more

Swine Flu: What We Should Do for One Another

by

What follows is a guest post by Ruth A. Karron and Ruth R. Faden. Ruth A. Karron is the director of the Center for Immunization Research and Johns Hopkins Vaccine Initiative at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.  Ruth R. Faden is the executive director of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. *** At … Read more

Magic!

by

by hilzoy From the NYT: "The rest of the nation may be getting back to basics, but on Wall Street, paychecks still come with a golden promise. Workers at the largest financial institutions are on track to earn as much money this year as they did before the financial crisis began, because of the strong … Read more

Swine Flu

by

by hilzoy From the Washington Post: "The World Health Organization rushed to convene an emergency meeting Saturday to develop a response to the "pandemic potential" of a new swine flu virus that has sparked a deadly outbreak in Mexico and spread to disparate parts of the United States. Health officials reported that at least eight … Read more

My Allegedly Vengeful Heart

by

by hilzoy In an unprecedented, shocking development, David Broder is against any sort of accountability for what he refers to as "torture":  "If ever there were a time for President Obama to trust his instincts and stick to his guns, that time is now, when he is being pressured to change his mind about closing … Read more

Make It So

by

by hilzoy From the LATimes: "The Obama administration is preparing to admit into the United States as many as seven Chinese Muslims who have been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay in the first release of any of the detainees into this country, according to current and former U.S. officials. Their release is seen as a crucial … Read more

Learned Helplessness

by

by hilzoy I wanted to highlight a point from yesterday's NYT article on the decision to use torture: "By late 2001, the agency had contracted with James E. Mitchell, a psychologist with the SERE program who had monitored many mock interrogations but had never conducted any real ones, according to colleagues. He was known for … Read more

Why We Fight

by

by hilzoy I'm late getting to this, from McClatchy: "The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist. (…) … Read more

A Perfect Storm

by

by hilzoy The NYT has a damning piece about the decision to use torture: "In a series of high-level meetings in 2002, without a single dissent from cabinet members or lawmakers, the United States for the first time officially embraced the brutal methods of interrogation it had always condemned. This extraordinary consensus was possible, an … Read more