1-    The Supplemental. Yet another blank check for war and occupation – and while our leadership in Congress refused to include an amendment from Rep. Jim McGovern merely asking for a report on an exit strategy by the end of the year, the Senate zipped through confirmation of General McChrystal to head up the Afghan effort with barely a whisper of concern over his command of torture forces like those who ran Camp Nama.

2-    Graham Lieberman – make it possible for the administration to refuse to comply with FOIA requests to release the torture photos.

3-    IMF funding – another bailout package without the proper controls to guarantee the funds aid the poorest countries and people most impacted by the economic crisis.

So we have a big ball of yes for war, no for torture accountability and bucks for big banks.

Now we could shake our heads and murmer something about “not the change…” but we have a better option – we can counter Rahm’s aggressive lobbying with some of our own. Already, we’re seeing signs that a number of members are willing to stand firm but we need your help to make sure more listen to their constituents and supporters and say No.

Tomorrow you can help to whip the vote – and Jane has put together the tools to do just that. Click here to see the list of members who need calls and then get calling!

We know that eventually the administration will find a way to fund the wars – but we have a unique chance over the next few days to make them take notice of our strong opposition and our intention to not back down, no matter who is in the White House.

For lots of great background, see David Swanson’s roundup and see Jane’s this afternoon – and if you have questions in preparation for your calls tomorrow, lets discuss them in comments below.

Photo by Roebot 

photo by Rickydavid

It’s incredibly easy to give yourself over to cynicism in the wake of the Tiller murder. The net effect will be that politicians continue to turn their backs on women as anti-choice advocates push the ball incrementally further toward the goal of limiting a woman’s right to choose, and doctors who provide these services will continue to do so with the knowledge that they’ll be the targets of demagogues, religious fanatics and violent extremists.

The media won’t cover the story because of the "ick" factor, and we’ll be treated to the spectacle of the American Taliban preening in its righteousness and its inability to be appeased. Pro-choice advocates will be painted as unreasonable extremists incapable of compromise in a "pox on both your houses" burst of sensible (mostly male) centrism, and major pro-choice groups will sweep up the cash yet somehow fail once again to come up with a political strategy that manages to get choice off the ropes.

And yet, some still hope:

About 100 people got together tonight for a candlelight vigil in memory of Dr. George Tiller, organized via Twitter a few hours before it started.

After hearing of Tiller’s murder, Tanya Tarr, who works in the labor movement, put out a call for D.C. residents to join her in Dupont Circle, less than a mile from the White House. She posted her first message at around 5 p.m., four hours before the vigil started. (Various liberal bloggers, including the Daily Kos’s Markos Moulitsas and Firedoglake’s Jane Hamsher, passed the word on to their Twitter followers as well.)

"It is outrageous that a ‘pro-life’ movement would kill someone in their church," Tarr told me as people walked into the park to light candles in Tiller’s memory. Because of the short notice, Tarr passed out leftover Hanukah candles, with foil cupcake wrappers to catch melting wax.

The crowd stood quietly lighting candles and talking; there were no counter-protesters.

I was so grateful when Tanya’s Facebook announcement hit my email last night that Tiller’s killing at the hands of domestic terrorists wasn’t going to get sucked down the memory hole.

Wichita and Lawrence also held vigils last night. Tonight Boston, Seattle, Portland and Kansas City will do the same. Tomorrow, Ottawa. Feministing recommends that donations go to the following:

• Medical Students for Choice — to train the next generation of abortion providers
• National Network of Abortion Funds — to help low-income women access abortion

You can also write letters to the editors of your local papers.

Thanks to everyone for making the effort, and refusing to go quietly.

h/t Show Me Progress

Earlier this week, Sen. Claire McCaskill held a town meeting in Sedalia, MO. In itself, there’s nothing earthshattering about that — it’s what members of Congress do when they go back home, and about 150 folks turned out to hear her and to let her hear them. 

Local MO democrats, though, have taken things one step further. Michael Bersin posted a three part transcript of her Q&A at Show Me Progress and They Gave Us a Republic (part one, part two, part three, and part four). The whole thing is a good read — not too long — and McCaskill and her constituents covered a lot of subjects, from closing Gitmo to reforming government contracting to energy policy to Native American concerns to . . . well, to anything that was on someone’s mind.

And that’s the whole point of these events.

When McCaskill stepped to the microphone, here’s how she opened her remarks (from the transcript in part 2 above):

Good morning everyone, it’s terrific to be here.  I am not here to give a speech, I’m here to listen and answer questions.  So, I’m not gonna do a long introductory set of remarks.  I will tell you that when they talk about us leaving Washington, I want to reassure everyone that when we get a week off from Washington, at least this senator and I think most of my colleagues  don’t  go home and watch Oprah. [laughter] We do things like this, which is a really important part of my job, is to come out in a public forum, no screening, no, no preset questions, to listen.  And to understand what’s on your mind.  And so, the more we get a few weeks off in Washington, the better it is I think, because that gives us the time to move around the state and have the kinds of meetings and opportunities to talk to the people that we work for. Because you can get to thinking you’re a pretty big deal out there.  They’re very deferential and it’s kind of an insulated environment. And I can see how you can lose perspective about what’s important and, and how you should conduct, how you should set your priorities. 

This is why connecting with senators, representatives, and candidates for those positions is so important. It helps them to keep a healthy perspective about themselves and the people of the nation they serve, and to set priorities that reflect that broader perspective.

Email contact is nice, and so are letters and phone calls and faxes. But nothing says to a senator or representative "This matters to me" more than someone who takes the time and makes the effort to show up in person. It could be at their office in DC, one of the offices "back home," or at public events like these.

Today’s a Saturday, and I’ll bet there are hundreds of events like this going on around the country. Come by here at 11 AM FDL, and chat with Howie Klein’s Blue America guest Linda Ketner from South Carolina. But also check the websites of your senators and representatives, see if there’s something happening around you, and then go ask them a question or two. 

You’ll be glad you did, and (if they’re smart) so will they.

Each proscribed and terrifying act of handing out leaflets, chanting, chalking, or — gasp — Googling is now a Federal crime, punishable by up to five years in Federal prison. How did the Homeland’s security police make speech a crime? They used AETA, the Animal Enterprise Terrorist Act: the law that makes America’s civil rights movement a Federal crime.

Who wrote AETA and bribed pushed it through Congress? ALEC, the American Legislative Enterprise Council: the megacorps’ mega-lobby group that includes Pharma and the drive-through diabetes junk food industry. Why do Homeland Security and ALEC want to defy our Constitution and destroy our civil rights?

Oh, the usual reason: freedom’s bad for capital. Our civil rights and our Constitution might somehow someday mean some bankster or CEO may get a smaller bonus. Now that’s worth destroying a democracy for, right?

Yesterday the Civil Liberties Defense Center and the Center For Constitutional Rights joined defense counsel for the four arrestees (the AETA 4) in petitioning the US District Court for Northern California to strike down the Animal Enterprise Act as unconstitutional.

Damn good thing, too. The San Jose Mercury News reports the AETA 4’s alleged crimes include:

Oct. 21, 2007: A group of 20 protesters demonstrated outside of a UC Berkeley professor’s home in El Cerrito. Some wore bandanas to hide their faces. They trespassed on his front yard, chanted slogans and accused him of being a murderer because of his use of animals in research.

Jan. 27, 2008: Demonstrations, including chalking, in front of the homes of several UC researchers

July 29, 2008: Fliers left at Caffe Pergolesi in Santa Cruz that contained the names, addresses and telephone numbers of several UCSC scientists. The fliers said the researchers were "murders and torturers alive and well in Santa Cruz" and stated "We know where you live. We know where you work. We will never back down until you end your abuse."

Though taking protests to people’s homes is a tactic many folks find unacceptable, many other Americans choose to exercise their right to peaceably assemble and protest in residential neighborhoods, as well as outside of offices and factories. This form of public speech is as old as the Republic, and as recent as public protests outside of banksters’ estates.

Is trespass a crime? Yep, and under California law, it can be prosecuted. Are assault and battery and attempted forcible entry crimes under California law? Yep, and those too may be prosecuted. California’s been prosecuting people for violence before Carter marketed little pills. Nothing in AETA is required to prosecute the following alleged crime:

Feb. 20, 2008: A group of five protesters tried to forcibly enter the Westside home of a UC Santa Cruz researcher during a child’s birthday party. The researcher’s husband was hit during the demonstration.

I’ll never support violence or home invasions, but AETA isn’t about prohibiting those acts. AETA’s about prohibiting speech and public advocacy: that’s why protest and chalking and chanting and fliers are specific acts of allegedly criminal content. Because AETA sez so. And our trusty Federal minders have decided they want to enforce the corporatist law that makes speech a crime.

They have plenty of company in their corporate servitude. When ALEC wanted to make effective civil disobedience against megacorps a crime, their carefully bribed servants hired hands in Congress gave them exactly what they wanted:

Virginia Representative Bobby Scott-often called the "go-to-guy" in the House on civil liberties and civil rights issues-came out swinging in support of the "ecoterrorism" bill. Scott, a Democrat, said that existing laws have been "reasonably effective," but "gaps and loopholes" prevent law enforcement from going after animal rights "extremists."

[snip]

Disturbingly, Scott said in passing that civil disobedience could be covered in the bill-which some other supporters of the bill have denied-but he tried to ease public fears by saying that the civil disobedience would have to cause disruption and loss of profits to qualify, and that "it must be proven that such losses were specifically intended." The same congressman who frequently praises the achievements of the civil rights movement is suddenly standing on the House floor and advocating the inclusion of that movement’s tactics in a "terrorism" bill.

Gee, so Representative Scott now only wants America to allow protests whose organizers don’t expect to disrupt business profits…say, by sitting for hours at a lunch counter without being served. Thanks for pulling up the ladder behind you, Congressman Scott.

As they showed back when they rubber-stamped the Patriot Act and confirmed last week when they pretended the MP’s at Leavenworth couldn’t handle Gitmo detainees, the vast majority of what pass for our Congresscritters are rank cowards who piss themselves whenever opponents brand them "soft on terror". Same thing the vast majority of their predecessors did when the corporatists’ Mighty Wurlitzer screamed "soft on commies", and later "soft on crime".

The only thing that can make them betray their oath to protect and uphold the Constitution faster are the bribes campaign contributions the American Legislative Exchange Council’s megacorp owners eagerly provide. Hey – thanks to their prior "donations", it’s all tax-deductible. Shredding our Constitution for the corporatists – such a deal.

Don’t you just love those patriots at ALEC – and the one-third of ALEC’s legislative members who are Democrats? People For The American Way have more on ALEC’s mission:

ALEC’s agenda includes rolling back civil rights, challenging government restrictions on corporate pollution, limiting government regulations of commerce, privatizing public services, and representing the interests of the corporations that make up its supporters.

Who could have anticipated? Well, anyone who watched what happened after ALEC’s sponsors wrote AETA’s parent, the Animal Enterprise Protection Act. The Center For Constitutional Rights watched what happened with AEPA:

The AEPA was put on the books in 1992 by well-funded industries that exploit animals. Proponents of the AEPA argued that the number of violent attacks committed by so-called animal rights extremists on farming and research facilities was escalating, and that the AEPA was necessary to protect these facilities. They claimed that (1) existing state & federal laws had failed to curtail such acts, and (2) these attacks disrupted vital services relied on by millions of Americans. Despite these assertions, the language of the AEPA swept up constitutionally-protected free speech activities, even though legislators believed they had struck a balance between the right to protest and the need to provide additional criminal penalties for violent acts. Despite the claims of the corporate interests that this law was vital, the law has only been used twice during the last 16 years.

In one of those two uses, our brave servants in Federal law enforcement prosecuted the "SHAC 7" — six activists and a non-profit (Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty USA Inc.) — for the crime of posting information about animal rights protests on the internet. The activists covered a global campaign against a private firm, Huntington Life Sciences, that contracts to perform hideous painful animal testing for cosmetics manufacturers, but were not direct participants in other folks’ illegal actions against HLS.

In January DOJ attorneys sword to uphold the Constitution told the Third Circuit Court of Appeals the SHAC activists convictions must be upheld. Why?

Will Potter of Green Is The New Red reported on the hearing.

Perhaps the most disturbing element of the appeal was hearing the government speak so candidly and succinctly about what kind of conduct should be prosecuted.

For instance, Darius Fullmer was a leader of the Animal Defense League in New Jersey. He sent emails to the defendants saying that, although his group is focused on anti-fur campaigning, he will try to get people to start showing up at protests. He also forwarded a SHAC email to his members which describe "Black Fax Mondays" (electronic civil disobedience where activists fax black pieces of paper to the targeted company, in hopes of draining their toner cartridges and tying up their fax machine lines.)

"That’s his embrace," Moramarco said. "That one document is sufficient evidence."

Similarly, Josh Harper made two speeches in which he supported the "black fax" tactic. One was to a local group in Seattle, the other was to activists in Little Rock. Those speeches, the government said, are enough for a conviction. Two speeches. Three years in prison.

Moramarco stretched even further in the case of Lauren Gazzola. He pointed to a radio interview in which Gazzola says, "We support property destruction, we support illegal action, we support home demonstrations and economic sabotage."

In what might have been the boldest, most chilling argument made by the government in this case, Moramarco said that such a statement of her political beliefs and her personal views, such a statement about which tactics she believes are effective, was "tantamount to a confession."

Wonder if US Asst. Attorney Glenn J. Moramarco went to law school wanting to prosecute thought crimes, or if that’s something he only picked up in the Bushie DOJ?

We’re lucky that Lauren Regan and the CLDC together with the good folks at CCR stepped forward yesterday. Let’s hope they can persuade Federal Courts to uphold the same Constitution that most of the Congress would so eagerly destroy.

"A Republic, if you can keep it."

Good luck.

photot by just.Luc

There was a chunk of Jane’s post on the Kerry hearing on journalism that really stood out for me. It was the part where she quoted David Simon, creator of the award-winning TV series The Wire, and his attack — favorably cited by the WaPo’s Dana Milbank — on online media:

"The day I run into a Huffington Post reporter at a Baltimore zoning board hearing," added the casually clad Simon, "is the day that I will be confident that we have actually reached some sort of balance."

Well, for starters, the Huffington Post is — as Mr. Simon would know if he ever actually read it — much like the New York Times and USA Today in that it doesn’t have a regional focus, but a national one. (In fact, the New York Times recently slashed what pitifully-thin local coverage it does do by folding its Metro section into the first part of the paper.)

If David Simon wants to see a blog covering Baltimore zoning board meetings, he should check out the bazillion local blogs over at http://www.blogtimore.com. One of their featured blogs is an outfit called The Dagger — and guess what? They’re looking for people like you to go cover local news:

The Dagger is looking for…

Writers, reporters, bloggers, critics, photographers, videographers, comedians and neighborhood busybodies who are interested in telling the rest of our community what you know. While our home base is the Central Maryland region, we are always looking to grow and are interested in expanding our horizons and minds. Email us for more information, or drop us a note using our contact form.

How is The Dagger different?

Citizen Journalism. Although most of us at one time worked as professional journalists, most of us are not presently employed in the media industry. We like to think we’ve retained the best the newspaper world has to offer (objective reporting, biting writing, quality storytelling) while being able to jettison some of the problems of the profession (attachment to media conglomerates, refusal to adapt to modern technology/society, stubbornly wrong-headed traditionalist thinking).

What’s more, we’ve torn down the boundary between reporter and reader. We are all citizen journalists. There is no longer a need to filter information through a reporter and editor. No one can tell the story like someone who lived it. No one can report on community happenings like someone who resides there. Our readers are our writers and vice versa. Through submissions, open commenting and our forum, there is nothing preventing you from telling your story anymore. No deaf-eared editor will tune you out and effectively mute you.

Tell us. Join us.

Oh, and by the way, I found this out simply by typing the search terms "baltimore blogs" into Google. That got me to Blogtimore, which got me to The Dagger. Total time spent: Five minutes. . . which is probably five minutes more than Mr. Simon has spent researching the subject.

Your move, David. Be the change you want to see.

Yesterday PEER reported that Obama has asked Glenda Owens to to take over the helm of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM). Owens has a long history as one of Steven Griles’ helpers, assisting his attempts to burying ancient streams and hollows under toxic coal mining waste in a mad rush to roast the planet:

During her federal service, Glenda Owens has been one of the top officials fighting legal efforts by conservationists to limit valley fills, delaying reclamation standards and defending Bush cutbacks in clean-ups for abandoned mines. Owens also worked closely with former Deputy Interior Secretary Steven Griles (a mining lobbyist now serving a prison sentence on corruption charges) to "streamline" strip mining permits by allowing operators to shortcut environmental reviews.

Mining lobbyists from the National Mining Association flipped out when the New York Times reported on March 23 that the EPA would begin an "aggressive review" of the strip mining permits that the Bush administration handed out like penny candy, citing potential harm to water quality. In classic "have it both ways" fashion, the EPA immediately released a statement walking it back, saying they were "not halting, holding or placing a moratorium on any of the mining permit applications."

Is Owens’ appointment a bone for mining interests? They’re no doubt thrilled about it– Kentucky residents, somewhat less so.

The Louisville, KY Courier-Journal and their coal country colleagues share PEER’s dim view of Ms Owens:

There are good outside candidates who would bring a real change in leadership to the federal Office of Surface Mining. Why, then, does the change advocate who now occupies the White House contemplate promoting Acting OSM Director Glenda Owens?

As Charleston Gazette reporter Ken Ward Jr. pointed out over the weekend, Ms. Owens, while with OSM, "has defended proposed cuts in spending on abandoned mine cleanups, been involved in working to streamline mountaintop removal permits, helped delay improvements in West Virginia’s abandoned mine reclamation program and harshly attacked federal court rulings that would have limited valley fills."

[]

What should be avoided is an "insider" appointment that would satisfy the coal industry and disappoint the people who have to live with scalped mountains and polluted streams throughout the Central Appalachian strip-mine region.

What’s needed is change that strip mining’s victims can believe in.

As Ken Ward, Jr. reports, they favored people who would clean up the mess left by Owens and Bush:

Lexington, Ky., lawyer Joe Childers…has also been backed by Tom FitzGerald, a leading environmental advocate in Kentucky, and by a number of coalfield citizen groups.

But Pat McGinley, a West Virginia University law professor, has been supported by environmental groups in this state, where dealing with the controversy over mountaintop removal coal mining poses one of OSM’s biggest challenges.

McGinley has also been supported by some national groups, such as the Sierra Club, by the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, and by the United Mine Workers of America union.

The debate went public last month, when the Louisville Courier-Journal editorialized in support of Childers. The Charleston Gazette then backed McGinley. And then, the Lexington Herald-Leader cautioned that Obama should at all costs avoid hiring someone from the mining industry or someone from within OSM.

And Obama should also avoid hiring someone who worked with Steven Griles. Like Glenda Owens. Ken Ward, Jr again:

Through 2002, 2003 and 2004, Owens was apparently heavily involved in Bush administration efforts – led by former mining lobbyist and Deputy Interior Secretary Steven Griles (who later went to prison on corruption charges) – to subvert the mountaintop removal Environmental Impact Statement to help coal operators obtain strip mine permits more quickly.

Owens is currently a co-defendent with the National Mining Association in a suit brought by the National Parks Conservation Association, challenging a last-minute Bush rule which says regulators no longer have to prove that coal mining activities will not harm water quality in nearby streams before issuing strip mining permits. The good folks at Mountain Justice Summer covered Owens’ attempts back in 2007 to help make that dream a reality so King Coal could entomb more streams.

The rest of us can get on the Green bus with the two-thirds of West Virginians who oppose mountain top destruction mining and tell our Senators we all deserve better than King Coal’s servant Glenda Owens. We can also get on the road and lend a hand to the locals and their supporters in Mountain Justice Summer: their Summer Training Camp starts May 17. Good work, and good fun: joining good people working together to save their community and their kids’ futures will change your life in the best possible ways.

Bon appetit!

From the Human Rights Campaign today:

The New Hampshire House has passed two important bills: a bill to add gender identity and expression protections to the state’s anti-discrimination and hate crimes laws and a bill to replace the separate and unequal civil union system with full marriage equality under state law for lesbian and gay couples in loving and committed relationships.

Both of these bills now await action by the state senate. Please take action now by contacting your state senator and asking him or her to vote yes on both bills!

Your message will be most effective if you are able to share a bit about yourself and why you support these bills.

All state Senators need to hear from marriage equality and gender identity protection supporters today, but in particular Sen. Deb Reynolds from Plymouth, Senate Leader Sylvia Larsen and Sen. Karen Sgambati need more constituent feedback.

Right now.

Please pass both these links along to your New Hampshire friends and family. The first allows for emails; the second provides direct email & phone contact information.

Email: http://www.hrcactioncenter.org/campaign/nhmarriagediscrim

Senate phone/email list: http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/senate/senatemembers.asp

Thanks for standing up for marriage equality and gender identity protection in the Granite State. Winning a New Hampshire victory will continue the momentum of Connecticut, Iowa, and Vermont.

Outside of the Bushies’ DOJ or Harvard Law, regular people know "just following orders" is not a valid defense for war crimes. Using fancier words, Nuremberg Principle IV states the same thing:

"The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him."

Just in case Harvard Law doesn’t cover the Nuremberg Principles, we need to remind Obama:

Principle I

Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefor and liable to punishment.

Principle II

The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law.

Principle III

The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.

Oh, and. . .

Principle VI

The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:

[snip]

(b) War Crimes:

Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to…. murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war…

Jeebus, the Greatest Generation is still up and walking around. Why would we want to bury the Nuremberg Principles? The UN Convention against Torture partially implements those Principles, our Senate’s ratified the Convention, and Obama’s predecessor signed it. Is abrogating the Convention the "change" Obama held out?

And what does Harvard Law teach, anyway? Why does Obama keep needing remedial lessons? Today, the UN’s Special Rapporteur On Torture joined Glenn Greenwald and other Constitutional scholars in reminding the former Con Law lecturer:

The US would be in breach of international law if it does not prosecute CIA officials for torturing alleged terrorists, the United Nations’ monitor on torture Manfred Nowak said in a newspaper interview published Saturday in Austria. The UN Special Rapporteur on torture was reacting to the announcement by US President Barack Obama that CIA operatives who used harsh interrogation tactics authorized by the Bush administration should not be held responsible.

"Like all other contracting states to the UN convention against torture, the US has committed to conduct criminal investigations of torture and to bring all persons to court against whom there is sound evidence," the Austrian human rights expert was quoted as saying by the daily Der Standard.

Nowak said he did not think the president would not go so far as to issue an amnesty law for CIA operatives. Therefore US courts could still try torture suspects.

[snip]

Before bringing alleged torturers to court and compensating their victims, it was important that an independent entity investigate the matter, Nowak said.

Looks like Nowak’s covering all his bases. Good thing — maybe Harvard Law also forgot to teach about the independent counsel.

Sadly for all of us, as well as for all of the victims, a whole lot of Americans willingly created America’s network of abductors, torturers, jailers, and secret prisons. As retired ex-FBI agent Daniel Coleman told Jane Mayer, in The Dark Side, "Torture has become bureaucratized." Mayer reports that Coleman, who was the FBI’s first case agent assigned to Bin Laden, watched the network form:

The CIA, Coleman said, liked rendition from the start. "They loved that these guys would just disappear off the books and never be heard of again" he said. "They were proud of it."

Along with the prison guards and torturers and secret police types and lawyers, America’s Gulag – Our Gulag – requires doctors and psychologists and nurses. Today Joby Warrick and Peter Finn describe how physicians and psychologists freely and deeply participated in torture:

. . . the long-concealed Bush administration memos released Thursday. . . . show a steady stream of psychologists, physicians and other health officials who both kept detainees alive and actively participated in designing the interrogation program and monitoring its implementation. Their presence also enabled the government to argue that the interrogations did not include torture.

A couple of weeks ago, Mark Danner revealed the Red Cross’ secret official report (to the CIA’s general counsel, natch) on Our Nation’s Gulag concluded:

Medical officers who oversaw interrogations of terrorism suspects in CIA secret prisons committed gross violations of medical ethics and in some cases essentially participated in torture. . . .

Duh. As if any of the "doctors" involved, or their fellow torturers, didn’t already know.

As if we didn’t know. For years, Amy Goodman and Pacifica told anyone who’d listen. So did journalists like Jane Mayer, Seymour Hersch, Mark Danner, Joby Warrick, and their peers. So did LHP and many others here at FDL, as well as other progressive blogs. So did Steven Miles, M.D. in "Oath Betrayed: America’s Torture Doctors". So did Frank Donoghue and Physicians For Human Rights.

Like Good Germans, most Americans didn’t speak out or object. We failed to peaceably prevent war crimes our fellow citizens willingly committed on a massive scale, in our name.

Will we fail our Nuremberg Test, reject the UN Convention Against Torture, and join Obama in complicity with our little Eichmanns by protecting them from trial for their direct and indirect participation in torture? Or will we finally abide by the rule of law and try America’s official torturers as the Convention demands? When Dr. Torture comes marching home again, do we want him treating our kids, or do we want his license surrendered?

Now that we can all see America’s Gulag, which Nuremberg will we choose: the Rallies, or the Principles?

photo by xbloodsin

Last Tuesday, Homeland Security’s very own Border Patrol announced they were canceling their plans to begin aerial spraying of the pesticide imazapyr along a stretch of the Rio Grande the following day. In other words, the agency that demands billions to seal America’s borders (in large part so they can prevent Americans from voluntarily putting dangerous chemicals in their own bodies) grudgingly changed their own plan to expose Americans to dangerous chemicals. So, the fact our Federal Government belatedly delayed plans to spray weed killers over a small part of our water supply is good news. But the fact that they considered this reckless "plan" in the first place is ominous. Where did this wacko idea come from, and why did it take so long to fail?

Like so many of the ecocidal schemes that federal agencies use federal dollars for in the Southwest, this poison plan came from the neighborhood slurp-fest among local land speculators/"business interests," and the obedient local pols who service them. Like so many federal schemes for the Southwest, Border Patrol/Homeland Security’s plan for aerial poison spraying along a densely populated stretch of the Rio Grande sacrifices the "commons" — the local community and their shared health and welfare — in service of some abstract goals that just happened to hold out a whole pot of water money for the local fat cats.

How do we know? Texas Border Coalition chair and Eagle Pass mayor Chad Foster quite openly told us:

Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster, who chairs the Texas Border Coalition, said border security would be improved if the government cleared out the Carrizo cane and Salt cedar along the banks of the Rio Grande.

"We have a great natural resource, the Rio Grande. Let’s give Border Patrol line of sight. That way they can put in a virtual fence," Foster said. "Besides, the water sucked out of the river by Carrizo cane and Salt cedar could feed the city of Brownsville for four years."

A "great resource," indeed.

Oh, heck, that stuff about local land developers and business types using their cozy relationships with the local pols they fund in order to use government agencies to grab water supplies from another region so the developers make more fortunes with the water they’ve "freed up" is just fiction, right, Mr. Mullholland and Mr. Eaton? Um. . . sure, Jake.

Along the Rio Grande Valley, the big clout’s in the Texas Border Coalition. The Coalition opposes the Great Border Wall, but loves them their weed killers. And Senator Cornyn listened. Well, he listened to the pesticide love.

Cornyn said he was listening to and acting upon the concerns of border leaders and, by way of an example, cited Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster’s push to have Carrizo cane eradicated or reduced along the Rio Grande.

Cornyn said removing the cane would provide numerous benefits, including water conservation, enhanced border security and other advantages. If implemented, the proposal could impact where border fencing would go.

"There is no substitute for advice from those who live on the border year-round. The Carrizo cane idea is a perfect example – it has been pushed for months by Mayor Chad Foster of Eagle Pass and others."

Foster, chairman of the Texas Border Coalition (TBC), has been recommending removal of Carrizo cane and Salt cedar from the banks of the Rio Grande for over a year so that Border Patrol have better line of sight to the river.

Gee, when the Senator listened, so did US Customs and Border Patrol’s incoming Deputy Chief. . . and the Texas state Senator from Brownsville.

Among the federal officials planning to attend the Brownsville meeting, Cornyn said, are the incoming Deputy Chief of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Ron Colburn, IBWC Commissioner Carlos Marin, and a special adviser to CBP Commissioner Ralph Basham.

Yep, the same Border Patrol that adopted Mayor Foster’s poison spraying plan for their very own. Yep: the same Brownsville that Mayor Foster says will get four or five years worth of water from the poison spraying.

Of course, folks along the border not marooned on Planet Cornyn offered plenty of substitutions for Mayor Foster’s "advice." They even demanded solutions that didn’t happen to give bonuses to developers in Brownsville. . . and didn’t "require" this arid region’s primary watercourse (and those living along it) to suffer mass spraying of apparently toxic chemicals known to persist in soil for long periods of time.

You see, like so many of the deadly chemicals we collectively know as "pesticides," the herbicide (plant killing chemical) licensed as "imazapyr" is largely a stranger to us. No one knows what happens to humans born to those who were themselves exposed to small quantities of the chemical in their own mothers’ wombs. Those sort of detailed epidemiological studies are the only way we can truly know how a chemical affects us over generations: for imazapyr, as for many other chemicals already licensed for use by EPA and CalEPA, the data are simply unknown. We also have no way of knowing how simultaneous exposure to trace amounts of imazapyr along with other pesticides already contaminating the Rio Grande Valley will harm those living their, those living in wombs there, or those womb-dwellers’ future offspring.

Thanks to the good folks at Alaska Community Action on Toxics, Rio Grande Valley residents and activists as well as the rest of us have been reminded of what the Northwest Coalition Of Alternatives To Pesticides published in 1996

•Rabbits dermally exposed to imazapyr and rats inhaling
Arsenal both showed bleeding and congested lungs.
Congestion of the liver, intestine, and kidneys was also
observed.
• Rabbits given imazapyr orally exhibited stomach ulcers
and intestinal lesions at most doses tested.
• There is no information on the hazards imazapyr and
imazapyr herbicides pose to fish. However, a closely related
herbicide (imazamethabenz-methyl) has high
chronic toxicity to fish, with effects occurring at concentrations
less than one part per million.
• Mice and rats fed sublethal doses of imazapyr over two
years showed fluid accumulation in the air sacs of the lungs,
brain congestion, kidney cysts, abnormal blood formation
in the spleen, blood pooling in the liver, thyroid cysts,
tumors, and cancers, brain tumors, adrenal gland tumors
and cancers, and decreased food efficiency.

Oh, and because the poison-industrial complex that makes pesticides long ago bribed made the right campaign contributions, almost half of the stuff comprising the imazapyr product most commonly used is so secret we citizens aren’t allowed to know what’s in it. Simply by calling an ingredient "inert," the posion manufacturers get to keep it a big secret. The serial poisoners’ "trade secrets," you see, are far more valuable than our puny lives. Or our kids’ puny lives. The business of pesticide regulation is business, don’cha know? And the business of the Texas Border Coalition, whatever it may be, appears to discount the lives and health of those who would be directly exposed to an apparently limitless poison spraying program, a program the TBC hoped would be extended to over one hundred miles of the Rio Grande.

Those of us whose heads aren’t implanted in the backsides of local Southwest pols and the land speculators/developers they depend upon for bribes campaign contributions can literally afford to take a wider view. In September, 2007 Californians For Alternatives To Toxics sued to prevent widespread application of imazapyr over dozens of miles along California’s Eel River. They succeeded; in granting their preliminary injunction Superior Court Judge Michael Brown took imazapyr’s potential dangers into account and required state agencies to prepare full environmental impact reports according to CEQA, the state’s environmental protection law. Over a decade ago, Arundo donax, the very plant which almost became the target of the aerial offensive Foster and the Texas Border Coalition so desired, became the focus of community action in SoCal’s Topanga Canyon. Then, the emergency du jour was "invasive species." Officials with the Golden state’s State Parks Department planned to purify the native biota of Topanga Canyon with vigorous applications of Roundup/glyphosate to invasive Arundo reeds. As the "gold" atop the "Golden state’s" tawny summer hills is the result of invasive species imported during the Spanish conquest, locals opposed what appeared to be a limitless public plan for pesticide application. Locals also demanded full evaluation of alternatives: including goats!

What happened when the Department of Agriculture actually took the trouble to compare strategies to manage Arundo/Carizzo along the Rio Grande? Well, it turns out the USDA’s first choice isn’t deadly chemicals. Or goats. Nope: for Arundo/Carrizo along the Rio Grande, the USDA’s experts suggest wasps.

The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announced on March 6 that it has completed an environmental assessment of the plague of the Arundo donax, as well as its possible cures, and concluded that the introduction of the reed-killing wasps is probably the best of a handful of potential solutions.

Mayor Foster’s "plan" — the local pol’s scheme that Planet Cornyn touted and Homeland Security’s satraps along the Rio Grande frontier duly adopted — fails to fully consider both risks and alternatives, and hence fails the precautionary principle. The "plan" is merely a giant crapshoot. We don’t fully know how the imazapyr spraying will affect this generation, much less future generations, so we can’t possibly know how spraying the stuff along the river used for drinking water could harm the people who drink that water. Or anything else that drinks that water. Or will. We literally have no way of calculating how the "plan" pushed by local pols and subservient Federal officials focused on a small area will affect the health, lives, and futures of everyone living in the region. The "plan" the Border Patrol put on ice Tuesday was simply another Federally-backed, privately hatched gamble with the "commons" upon which we all depend for our very survival.

Unlike the Feds’ "plan" to rescue the banksters, this Federally endorsed raid on the commons has been stopped. For now.

For the future — if and when the local pols and local Feds get all hot and bothered about getting out their nozzles and getting down to spraying — another solution that worked in Topanga may be helpful. Topanga lies astride Hwy 27, one of LA’s congested commuter routes. The day after the public meeting where Topangans and an EarthFirst! type talked openly of legal, peaceful drive-time protests along Hwy 27, the most powerful local pol’s office rolled over: drop the commute time protests (and the certain traffic problems they’d cause), and the state would drop the spraying. And the state did. Of course, such legal and powerful means to motivate local pols would only be available to those living along congested transport corridors. Peaceful legal non-violent direct action can still, sometimes, get the goods. Even against Homeland Security.

Bon appetit.

First and foremost would obviously have to be the fine folks at The UpTake.  The largely-volunteer force, working on a busted-shoestring budget, first came to the outside world’s attention for its coverage of the Republican National Convention in Saint Paul last summer.  Noah Kunin has been the lead reporter for the recount and contest, and he’s worked his tail off so much on this story I’m surprised his hair’s not gray.  

The UpTake has been covering the election and post-election events in fine fashion, drawing a devoted fan base from around the world: "MrsB", one of the most dedicated UpTake viewers and liveblog commenters, is one of the fans from the UK.  The UpTake’s motto is "Will journalism be done by you or to you?" and they encourage viewers and listeners to take up cameras and join the cause.  "51stWardPrecinctCaptain", an UpTake fan from Chicago, got addicted to the site during the Franken-Coleman recount and is now part of The UpTake family, working as a liveblog mod and even visiting Minnesota in the dead of winter to see the recount and contest goings-on for himself.

The UpTake is the sun around which so much of the coverage revolves. At least one legacy-media reporter, Rachel Stassen-Berger of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, spends her waking hours hanging around (or rather Twittering to) the liveblog.  She was even interviewed yesterday by UpTake founder Mike McIntee (shown in the picture above with MinnPost’s David Brauer, another fine reporter).   It’s not a coincidence that her "Political Animal" blog perch at the PiPress shows some of the best TradMed reporting on this subject.

Another notable reporter is Eric Black, currently of MinnPost and formerly of the Minnesota Independent.  Black had a long and distinguished career with the StarTribune, but was one of the early casualties of the newspaper death spiral.  He has two big scoops to his credit recently:  His discovery that the Minnesota Supreme Court was signaling its intent to order the issuing of an election certificate even if Norm Coleman appeals to the Federal level, and his teasing out of Sy Hersh a blockbuster story about the assassination squads of Dick Cheney.  He and Jay Weiner have done excellent work for MinnPost.

Over at the Minnesota Independent, Paul Schmelzer, Chris Steller and Andy Birkey have all contributed key coverage.  [Update:  And Paul Demko, too.  Thanks, Dan!]

TPM’s  Eric Kleefeld rounds out the group; he’s also another UpTake habitué and has done signal reporting thereby.

[Update:  And of course there are the Kossacks, WineRev and Tomtech and Vote For America, all of whom now can be found hanging out at The UpTake’s liveblog as well as providing spreadsheets and charts for the noble UpTakers to use.}

Take a bow, everyone!  You did good.