Psychopolitik 2.0

Ridiculous…:

A videotape showing Pentagon officials’ final interrogation of al-Qaida suspect Jose Padilla is missing, raising questions about whether federal prosecutors have lost other recordings and evidence in the case.

The tape is classified, but Padilla’s attorneys said they believe something happened during that interrogation that could explain why Padilla does not trust them and suspects they are government agents.

Padilla attorney Anthony Natale said in court papers that the March 2, 2004, interrogation at the Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., could contain information the government conveyed to Padilla that “directly impacts upon his relationship with his attorneys.”

Prosecutors and the Pentagon have said they cannot find the tape despite an intensive search.

Authorities made 88 video recordings of Padilla being interrogated during the 3 1/2 years he was held at the brig as an “enemy combatant,” officials said. Eighty-seven tapes have been given to the defense, leaving only the last session unaccounted for.

“I don’t know what happened to it,” Pentagon attorney James Schmidli said during a recent court hearing.

U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke was incredulous that anything connected to such a high-profile defendant could be lost.

“Do you understand how it might be difficult for me to understand that a tape related to this particular individual just got mislaid?” Cooke told prosecutors at a hearing last month. (emphasis mine)

Lost?  More like tossed, if you ask me.  But wait, there’s more…

Defense lawyers say brig logs indicate that there were 72 hours of Padilla interviews that either were not taped or for which tapes may be missing. Natale said it seems unlikely that any interrogation session with Padilla was not videotaped “when he was videoed taking showers.” 

I can think of only one reason an interrogation of him wouldn’t be recorded: it involved or contained reference to abuse so blatant it couldn’t be explained away or fudged to make it look like any objection was being “soft on terror”.

Look what Bush got rammed through in the last gasps of the previous congress:

Prior to the elections that transformed the makeup of Congress, the Bush Administration pushed for the inclusion of two stealth provisions into a mammoth defense budget bill. The additions made it easier for the government to declare martial law and establish a dictatorship. […]
[W]ith the inclusion of a seemingly insignificant rider into the massive defense bill (the martial law section of the 591-page Defense Appropriations Act takes up just a few paragraphs), the Bush Administration has managed to weaken what the New York Times refers to as “two obscure but important bulwarks of liberty.” One is posse comitatus. The other is the Insurrection Act of 1807, which limits a president’s domestic use of the military to putting down lawlessness, insurrection and rebellion where a state is violating federal law or depriving the people of their constitutional rights.

Under these new provisions, the president can now use the military as a domestic police force in response to a natural disaster, disease outbreak, terrorist attack or to any “other condition.” According to the new law, Bush doesn’t even have to notify Congress of his intent to use military force against the American people—he just has to notify them once he has done so. The defense budget provision’s vague language leaves the doors wide open for rampant abuse. (emphasis mine)

“Other condition”?  You mean like people realizing the moral bankruptcy of this government?  And wouldn’t it be kinda pointless to “notify” congress (as if notification beforehand would make it any less evil) after the massacres commence?

A few lines that you know damn well no one read before passing a gigantic bill have given Bush a blank check to sic our own military on us.  Great…

Another test of just how far the no-religious-test-for-office clause goes: some member of congress is going to out themself as a non-theist, supposedly next week.

Props.

Weird: Some self-proclaimed pedophile w/ a website has been handicapping the 2008 election based on the “cuteness” of underage kids of the candidates.

Stupid: Upon finding out that this included his daughters, Barack Obama is threatening legal action — even though what the pedophile did, though creepy, was in no way criminal. He didn’t digitally alter their photos to look like kiddie porn, he didn’t threaten to do anything to them, he just commented on them. Most you can do in this case is say “that’s sick” and move on…that is, unless you don’t believe in free speech.

Yeah, you read that right. My view of free speech is that the best way to protect it for the average Joe is to make sure even nutjobs can say whatever. Once you start getting into “it’s OK to say this, but not THAT, as I find it offensive”, you stop defending freedom of speech and start building the inevitable case for speech codes. That Obama is taking it to this level, to me, is a sign that he’s starting to buy into his own hype: “they can’t do that, I’m a SENATOR! I could be PRESIDENT! How DARE they offend their future leader!”

Libby gets convicted, and the next day there’s already insider talk of him being pardoned:

A White House official said last night that there was a “strong expectation” that President George W Bush would pardon Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the disgraced aide.

The former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney was found guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice on Tuesday in a case linked to the unmasking of a covert CIA operative. If the conviction is upheld, he is expected to be jailed for two years.

But an administration official said that it was highly unlikely that Libby would go to prison. “There’s a lot of anger about the way Libby has been treated,” he said. […]

The official said that advisers to Mr Bush believed that Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor who charged Libby, had pursued a “political vendetta” against the White House and that no one had committed any crime. (emphasis mine)

Question: say that this charge were correct.  Wouldn’t it be a colossal waste to fulfill such a “vendetta” by just getting Cheney’s buddy?  Why not Rove?  Hell, why not Cheney?  Even Bush himself could’ve been a target, the precedent has been set for going after the president for far less than this.  And why perjury rather than the leak itself (Armitage outed himself on it, but from the sounds of the case the real question was who didn’t out Plame)?

If he does get pardoned, I’ll qualify for a senior discount at restaurants before another republican gets to be president.

“The US congress, as the branch that declares war and also allocates funds, has the power to end a military engagement by withdrawing funding for it.  Would you interpret use of this power to trigger withdrawal from Iraq as hurting US troops?”

I eagerly await this kind of question.  Let’s lay it out clear as a bell, so the wingers can stop with this “supporting the troops = supporting endless war” bullshit.