BET– As the 2012 presidential elections draws closer, the arguments for and against President Obama grow more heated. Last night, an outright shouting match between two of America’s most notable Black leaders—Cornel West and Al Sharpton—gave an indication as to just how important this election will be.

West, a Princeton professor and author, and Sharpton, a controversial civil rights icon, sat on a panel of experts on the Ed Schultz-led special program A Stronger America: The Black Agenda. The talk soon turned to what African-Americans can and should expect from Obama. Sharpton, whose recent National Action Network conference saw an Obama cameo, believes people are being too hard on the president. West vehemently disagreed.

Read full article about Cornel West Calls Obama Mascot of Wall Street Oligarchs.

© 2011 BET

Photo by flickr user Joe Crimmings

LOS ANGELES TIMES– The system of military commissions that will try Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other alleged 9/11 plotters contains a dirty little secret. Hardly anybody talks about it, but it’s a key reason for concern as the apparatus becomes established.

It is this: The commissions can operate inside the United States, and they have jurisdiction over a broad range of crimes. Nothing in the Military Commissions Act limits the military trials to Guantanamo detainees, or to people captured and held abroad, or even to terrorism suspects. Nothing prevents the commissions from trying noncitizens, arrested inside the country, whom the president unilaterally designates as “unprivileged enemy belligerents.” In other words, the law permits military officers to try non-Americans from Alabama and Arkansas as well as Afghanistan.

The Obama administration’s decision last week to shift the high-profile 9/11 case from federal court is bound to move the military system toward legitimacy. The commissions lack the seasoned body of precedent that guides civilian courts, so their procedures will have to survive litigation by defense lawyers. But once the commissions gain stature and become the “new normal,” every future administration will have a ready instrument to arrest, judge and sentence wholly within the executive branch, evading the separation of powers carefully calibrated in the Constitution. The judicial branch has no role except on appeal, where only the federal court for the D.C. circuit may review a verdict and sentence after the trial.

Read full article about 9/11 Trials at Guantanamo Will Create a Distressing Legacy.

© 2011 LA TIMES

Photo by Brennan Linsley Pool, Reuters

MEDIA ROOTS– As the mainstream media failed abysmally in their role as public watchdogs during the Bush administration, the Daily Show and Colbert Report, although comedy based, seemed like two of the last bastions of a semi fourth estate.

Although their shows still propped up the establishment, Stewart didn’t hold back on calling out Republican rhetoric and hypocrisy. Now, despite a few joking jabs about the Obama administration, Jon Stewart’s overall performance and critique of government since Obama got elected has been disappointing at best.

On the night of Barack Obama’s inauguration, Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart actually cried tears of joy during a live broadcast of the Daily Show. After that, I didn’t have much hope for the show to maintain the same ingenuity and credibility.

However, Stewart has been making some scathing criticisms leveled towards Obama lately that have been on point (can’t say the same for Colbert after he went all Army on us and shaved his head for the troops).

The most recent critique was on last night’s show pointing out how ridiculous it is for Obama to win an award for “transparency” while at the same time shrouding the acceptance of the award in secrecy. Stewart also accurately points out that Obama has gone after whistle blowers more aggressively than any President since Nixon.

 

Abby

Photo by flikr user Joint Chief of Staff

DEMOCRACY NOW!– Republicans and Democrats are already gearing up for the 2012 election, projected to be the most expensive in history. Obama is expected to formally kick off his re-election bid on April 14, and his campaign could raise as much as $1 billion. In a move criticized by progressives, Obama has appointed former White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina as his campaign manager. Obama’s move has drawn scrutiny over Messina’s ties to corporate America, his push to drop the public option from healthcare reform, and his lack of support for gay rights. We speak with journalist and author Ari Berman about his new profile of Messina in The Nation. “Messina has a ‘take no prisoners’ style; the problem is, the people he’s often taking prisoner are Democratic activists and grassroots organizers,” Berman says.

For the full transcript, click here.

 

© Copyright Democracy Now!, 2011

SALON– One of the most intense scandals the field of psychology has faced over the last decade is the involvement of several of its members in enabling Bush’s worldwide torture regime.  Numerous health professionals worked for the U.S. government to help understand how best to mentally degrade and break down detainees. At the center of that controversy was — and is — Dr. Larry James.  James, a retired Army colonel, was the Chief Psychologist at Guantanamo in 2003, at the height of the abuses at that camp, and then served in the same position at Abu Ghraib during 2004.  

Today, Dr. James circulated an excited email announcing, “with great pride,” that he has now been selected to serve on the “White House Task Force entitled Enhancing the Psychological Well-Being of The Military Family.”  In his new position, he will be meeting at the White House with Michelle Obama and other White House officials on Tuesday.

For his work at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, Dr. James was the subject of two formal ethics complaints in the two states where he is licensed to practice: Louisiana and Ohio.  Those complaints — 50 pages long and full of detailed and well-documented allegations — were filed by the International Human Rights Clinic of Harvard Law School’s Human Rights Program, on behalf of veterans, mental health professionals and others.  The complaints detailed how James “was the senior psychologist of the Guantánamo BSCT, a small but influential group of mental health professionals whose job it was to advise on and participate in the interrogations, and to help create an environment designed to break down prisoners.”  Specifically:

During his tenure at the prison, boys and men were threatened with rape and death for themselves and their family members; sexually, culturally, and religiously humiliated; forced naked; deprived of sleep; subjected to sensory deprivation, over-stimulation, and extreme isolation; short-shackled into stress positions for hours; and physically assaulted. The evidence indicates that abuse of this kind was systemic, that BSCT health professionals played an integral role in its planning and practice. . . .

Writing in 2009, Law Professor Bill Quigley and Deborah Popowski, a Fellow at the Harvard Law School Human Rights Program, described James’ role in this particularly notorious incident:

In 2003, Louisiana psychologist and retired Col. Larry James watched behind a one-way mirror in a US prison camp while an interrogator and three prison guards wrestled a screaming, near-naked man on the floor.

The prisoner had been forced into pink women’s panties, lipstick and a wig; the men then pinned the prisoner to the floor in an effort “to outfit him with the matching pink nightgown.” As he recounts in his memoir, “Fixing Hell,” Dr. James initially chose not to respond. He “opened [his] thermos, poured a cup of coffee, and watched the episode play out, hoping it would take a better turn and not wanting to interfere without good reason …”

Although he claims to eventually find “good reason” to intervene, the Army colonel never reported the incident or even so much as reprimanded men who had engaged in activities that constituted war crimes.

Read full article about Top Bush-era Psychologist Obama’s Newest Appointment.

Written by Glenn Greenwald