The proposed detention center would replace the cavernous, makeshift American prison on the Bagram military base north of Kabul, which is now typically packed with about 630 prisoners, compared with the 270 held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Military officials have long been aware of serious problems [*cough*] with the existing detention center in Afghanistan, the Bagram Theater Internment Facility. After the prison was set up in early 2002, it became a primary site for screening prisoners captured in the fighting. Harsh interrogation methods and sleep deprivation were used widely, and two Afghan detainees died there in December 2002, after being repeatedly struck by American soldiers.
Yep, nothing says “corporate em ess em” quite like anodyne euphemisms and amoral utilization of the passive voice. “Harsh interrogation techniques and sleep deprevation.” Oh, and, out of the blue, those two detainees coincidently just happened to die.
After being “repeatedly struck”.
By American soldiers.
Correlation != causation, natch.
Conditions and treatment have improved markedly since then, but hundreds of Afghans and other men are still held in wire-mesh pens surrounded by coils of razor wire. There are only minimal areas for the prisoners to exercise, and kitchen, shower and bathroom space is also inadequate.
Hmm, the International Committee of the Red Cross wasn’t exactly brimming with praise this past January regarding the “marked improvement” in conditions and treatment at Bagram. Some folks are just never satisfied. But, hey, at least the US took the constructive criticism to heart.
Faced with that, American officials said they wanted to replace the Bagram prison, a converted aircraft hangar that still holds some of the decrepit aircraft-repair machinery left by the Soviet troops who occupied the country in the 1980s. In its place the United States will build what officials described as a more modern and humane detention center that would usually accommodate about 600 detainees — or as many as 1,100 in a surge — and cost more than $60 million.
“Our existing theater internment facility is deteriorating,” said Sandra L. Hodgkinson, the senior Pentagon official for detention policy, in a telephone interview. “It was renovated to do a temporary mission. There is a sense that this is the right time to build a new facility.”
American officials also acknowledged that there are serious health risks to detainees and American military personnel who work at the Bagram prison, because of their exposure to heavy metals from the aircraft-repair machinery and asbestos.
“It’s just not suitable,” another Pentagon official said. “At some point, you have to say, ‘That’s it. This place was not made to keep people there indefinitely.’ ”
Yes, so, the answer then is, obviously, to build a *ahem* more “humane” facility designed to, um, keep people there indefinitely:
The Pentagon is planning to use $60 million in emergency construction funds this fiscal year to build a complex of 6 to 10 semi-permanent structures resembling Quonset huts, each the size of a football field, a Defense Department official said. The structures will have more natural light, and each will have its own recreation area. There will be a half-dozen other buildings for administration, medical care and other purposes, the official said.
A luxury resort! It appears that the Pentagon is finally going to import the “beautiful, sunny Guantanamo Bay” experience to Central Asia. With a few bargain discounts, that is:
Military personnel who know both Bagram and Guantánamo describe the Afghan site, 40 miles north of Kabul, as far more spartan. Bagram prisoners have fewer privileges, less ability to contest their detention and no access to lawyers.
Some detainees have been held without charge for more than five years, officials said. As of April, about 10 juveniles were being held at Bagram, according to a recent American report to a United Nations committee.
Apparently designating a detention facility as “humane” doesn’t preclude the acknowledgment of basic human rights. A 2007 report published by The New Republic provides more details on the legal limbo detainees in Bagram find themselves in:
Prisoners don’t even have the limited access to lawyers available to prisoners in Guantánamo. Nor do they have the right to Combatant Status Review Tribunals, which Guantánamo detainees won in the 2004 Supreme Court ruling in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. Instead, if a combat commander chooses, he can convene an Enemy Combatant Review Board (ECRB), at which the detainee has no right to a personal advocate, no chance to speak in his own defense, and no opportunity to review the evidence against him. The detainee isn’t even allowed to attend. And, thanks to such limited access to justice, many former detainees say they have no idea why they were either detained or released.
DJ rewind:
“It’s just not suitable,” another Pentagon official said. “At some point, you have to say, ‘That’s it. This place was not made to keep people there indefinitely.’ ”
Well, at least they’ve seen fit to–ahem–humanely remedy that particular problem.
The day after admitting he killed a woman and dumped her body on a rural road, a St. Catharines, Ont., man was released from jail.
Judge Stephen Glithero sentenced Wayne Ryczak, 55, to one day in jail on Thursday for the death of 29-year-old Stephine Beck.
The one-day sentence is in addition to time Ryczak already served since his March 5, 2007, arrest — time the judge said was equivalent to 30 months.
“Devastated, we’re devastated,” Beck’s mother, Alice Dort, said from her home in Nova Scotia shortly after a police detective broke the news by phone. “This is just so unbelievable.” “There’s no justice. None whatsoever. I’m just so disgusted.”
The Crown asked for seven to 10 years in jail.
Ryczak’s lawyer requested two years less a day to be served in the community.
After deliberating for 20 minutes, Glithero said a 30-month sentence in the penitentiary would be appropriate and Ryczak had already served it. Ryczak was also given three years’ probation.
This is fucking disgusting. A 30-month sentence is appropriate for killing a woman? Sure, if she has sex for money! After all, if you ladies happen to think you can do whatever you want with that vagina of yours, you deserve whatever it is that youget.
The Ontario NDP is calling on the attorney general to appeal the one-day sentence of a St. Catharines, Ont. man who plead guilty this week to manslaughter in the strangling death of 29-year-old Stephine Beck.
[...]
New Democratic Party Justice Critic Peter Kormos, in an open letter to Attorney General Chris Bentley, called on the province to ensure the sentence is appealed immediately.
“I tell you, sir, that the community is outraged,” Kormos wrote in his letter. “How can this sentence of one day, and it can barely be called a sentence, be justified?”
“They just dismissed [Stephine Beck's] life with that sentence,” said Dee Holman, a member of the community’s sex-trade task force. “They minimized her death.”
[...]
Holman said the sentencing made Ryczak appear to be the victim and minimized his use of drugs and prostitutes.
“(Beck) will never have a chance to get her drug and alcohol counselling,” Holman said. “Her life is gone.”
In sentencing Ryczak Thursday, Judge Stephen Glithero said he was not measuring the value of Beck’s life. “All life is valuable to us as a community,” he said.
He noted there were people in the courtroom for Wednesday’s plea hearing wearing T-shirts that read, “Sex work shouldn’t equal murder.”
“This was not a case whatsoever of anyone preying on a sex-trade worker,” Glithero said.
[...]
But Valerie Scott, executive director of Sex Professionals of Canada, which is in favour of legalizing prostitution, said a victim’s lifestyle is factored into court decisions.
“It happens all the time,” she said. “The laws against sex work continue to tell people that we’re disposable. It’s OK to kill us and murder us.”
The Ryczak sentencing puts the “gold seal of approval” on those actions, she said.
“If this were anyone else, it wouldn’t have gone down like that in court.”
President Bush feted Israel on Thursday in honor of the 60th anniversary of its founding and predicted that its 120th birthday would find it alongside a Palestinian state and in an all-democratic neighborhood free of today’s oppression, restrictions on freedom and extremist Muslim movements.
[…]
Bush made no acknowledgment of the hardship Palestinians suffered when hundreds of thousands were displaced or otherwise left following the creation of the Jewish state in 1948, a counterpoint to Israel’s two weeks of jubilant celebrations. Though Bush has set a goal of reaching an Israeli-Palestinian deal before the end of his term in January, he did not mention the ongoing negotiations or how to resolve the thorniest disputes.
The president also offered no detail on how the broader Mideast would move from today’s realities to his vision.
“From Cairo and Riyadh to Baghdad and Beirut, people will live in free and independent societies, where a desire for peace is reinforced by ties of diplomacy, tourism and trade,” he said. “Iran and Syria will be peaceful nations, where today’s oppression is a distant memory and people are free to speak their minds and develop their talents. And al-Qaida, Hezbollah and Hamas will be defeated, as Muslims across the region recognize the emptiness of the terrorists’ vision and the injustice of their cause.”
White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said Bush made such a brief mention of the Palestinians because his purpose was to sketch “broad themes and not the specifics of the process.”
NARAL PRO-CHOICE AMERICA ENDORSES SEN. BARACK OBAMA
Washington, DC - Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, released the following statement today, announcing that her organization’s political action committee proudly endorses Sen. Barack Obama for president.
“Today, NARAL Pro-Choice America PAC is proud to endorse Sen. Barack Obama for president. Sen. Obama has been a strong advocate for a woman’s right to choose throughout his career in public office. He steadfastly supports and defends a woman’s right to make the most personal, private decisions regarding her reproductive health without interference from government or politicians.
“Sen. Obama has been a leader on this issue in the United States Senate. Since joining the Senate in 2005, he has worked to unite Americans on both side of this debate behind commonsense, common-ground ways to prevent unintended pregnancy. Sen. Obama supports legislation to provide our teens with comprehensive sex education, prevent pharmacies from denying women access to their legal birth-control prescriptions, and increase access to family-planning services.
“We are confident that Barack Obama is the candidate of the future. Americans are tired of the divisive politics of the last eight years, and will unite behind Obama in the fall. We look forward to working with a pro-choice Obama White House in January.”
Keenan also praised Senator Clinton as a pro-choice leader. “Americans have been fortunate to have two fully pro-choice candidates in the race for the Democratic nomination. But only one can go forward to the general election. It is truly historic for us to have these two outstanding candidates in the race.”
So, Obama now has in his corner John Edwards, who has broad appeal to white working class voters, and NARAL, which is quite obviously sending a message to Senator Clinton’s white feminist base. I highly doubt the timing of either announcement (ie, coming right after a brutal 40 point thumpin’ in WV that surprised no one) is coincidental. Big Media Matt may be correct here:
It seems that nobody’s going to “force” Hillary Clinton out of the race, but when you have her natural allies deciding that the time’s come to endorse in the Obama-McCain race you can see it’s over in more than just the mathematical sense.
Recent elections have been marked by high levels of voter ignorance, low turnout, polarization between the parties and media coverage as broad as it was shallow. But within the Democratic Party this time, we have been witnessing the exact opposite: engagement and excitement. Pundits worry that the long race hurt the Democrats’ chances in the fall, but it’s hard to share their gloom when the whole exercise has been so good for our civic health.
This is definitely not the way for Obama to broaden his appeal with female voters:
Obama has subsequently apologized to WXYZ reporter Peggy Agar, but his explanation mainly serves to dig himself further into a hole:
“Hi Peggy. This is Barack Obama. I’m calling to apologize on two fronts. One was you didn’t get your question answered and I apologize. I thought that we had set up interviews with all the local stations. I guess we got it with your station but you weren’t the reporter that got the interview. And so, I broke my word. I apologize for that and I will make up for it.
“Second apology is for using the word ’sweetie.’ That’s a bad habit of mine. I do it sometimes with all kinds of people [yes, he certainly does - mb]. I mean no disrespect and so I am duly chastened on that front.”
No, dig up, stupid!
Jesus tapdancing Christ. You wanna know how to better help make the case that you deserve the support of women? Step 1: DON’T BE A SEXIST ASSHAT.
Look, intent is irrelevant–habitually using reductive terms like “sweetie’ is both disrespectful and indicative that Obama may have a bigger problem with women than simply not getting their votes, regardless of whether his actions are conscious or otherwise. Not to say that this sort of thing is unique (gee, a man says something misogynistic and dismissive to a woman–film at 11!), nor is it definitive proof that Obama actively perpetuates misogyny (does anyone seriously think that Geraldine Ferraro burns crosses in her free time?) But a good ally is duty bound to call out the people on his or her team when someone fucks up (to be clear: my team is the ‘not John McSame’ team).
I’m very glad that Obama did apologize; however, I hope he takes the opportunity to reflect on exactly why he’s still having a tough go at making inroads with women.
More than anything else, the presidential election ongoing is — or, as a right, ought to be — about ending an era of complicity. There is no point anymore in blaming George Bush or the men he hired or the party he represented or the conservative movement that energized that party for what has happened to this country in the past seven years. They were all merely the vehicles through whom the fear and the lassitude and the neglect and the dry rot that had been afflicting the democratic structures for decades came to a dramatic and disastrous crescendo. The Bill of Rights had been rendered a nullity by degrees long before a passel of apparatchik hired lawyers found in its text enough gray space to allow a fecklessly incompetent president to command that torture be carried out in the country’s name. The war powers of the Congress had been deeded wholesale to the executive long before Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz and a passel of think-tank cowboys found within them the right of a fecklessly incompetent president to make war unilaterally on anyone, anywhere, forever. The war in Iraq is the powerful bastard child of the Iran-Contra scandal, which went unpunished.
The ownership of the people over their politics — and, therefore, over their government — had been placed in quitclaim long before the towers fell, and the president told the people to be just afraid enough to let him take them to war and just afraid enough to reelect him, but not to be so afraid that they stayed out of the malls.
It had been happening, bit by bit, over nearly forty years. Ronald Reagan sold the idea that “government” was something alien. The notion of a political commonwealth fell into a desuetude so profound that even Bill Clinton said, “The era of Big Government is over” and was cheered across the political spectrum, so that when an American city drowned and the president didn’t care enough to leave a birthday party, and the disgraced former luxury-horse executive who’d been placed in charge of disaster relief behaved pretty much the way a disgraced former luxury-horse executive could be expected to behave in that situation, it could not have come as any kind of surprise to anyone honest enough to have watched the country steadily abandon self-government over the previous four decades. The catastrophe that is the administration of George W. Bush is not unprecedented. It was merely inevitable. The people of the United States have been accessorial in the murder of their country
A police psychologist blasted Taser International at the public inquiry probing the controversial use of Tasers, claiming Tuesday that Canadian police have been “brainwashed” by the manufacturer to justify “ridiculously inappropriate” use of the electronic weapon.
Mike Webster accused the company that makes Tasers of instructing police in Canada that when they encounter a person suffering from a “mythical” condition that Taser calls “excited delirium,” police have few options other than jolting the person with the controversial electrical weapon, which delivers a five-second shock that incapacitates a person.
“When you think the only tool you have is a hammer, then the whole world begins looking like a nail,” Webster told the inquiry in Vancouver.
[...]
“It may be that police and medical examiners are using the term [excited delirium] as a convenient excuse for what could be excessive use of force or inappropriate control techniques during an arrest,” Webster said.
“My own opinion on this is that Canadian law enforcement, and its American brothers and sisters, have been brainwashed by companies like Taser International and the Institute for the Prevention of In-custody Deaths,” he added.
“These organizations have created a virtual world replete with avatars that wander about with the potential to manifest a horrific condition characterized by profuse sweating, superhuman strength and a penchant for smashing glass that appeals to well-meaning but psychologically unsophisticated police personnel,” Webster said.
The chair of Taser, Tom Smith, told the inquiry Monday that Tasers save lives and reduce injuries to police and suspects.
Webster, however, said he has been shocked and embarrassed by recent “ridiculously inappropriate applications of the Taser” in low-risk situations involving people who are mentally imbalanced, likely suffering from “plain old delirium.”
Please make sure to read the entire article, which includes some examples of incidents in which Webster contends a stun gun should never have been deployed. Transcripts of the Brainwood Inquiry are available here (note: as of today, archive only includes transcripts sessions on or before 05/09).
h/t Alison, who also provides an extensive list detailing more intances of “embarrassing” TASER misuse.
Flashback (originally posted here): The Lede has more on…‘excited delirium’, which, as noted earlier this year by an NPR report, “is not recognized by professional medical associations, and [is not] listed in the chief psychiatric reference book.” Part 2 of the report is also entirely relevant, focusing on the vested interest law enforcement officials and Taser International have in marketing the dubious disorder and includes the following abridged list of individuals who have died in police custody after being [stunned], with the cause of death listed as ‘excited delirium’:
June 13, 2005 – Shawn C. Pirolozzi, 30, of Canton, Ohio, dies after police tried to subdue him with a Taser. His death certificate listed excited delirium as the cause of death. The Taser was not listed as a contributing factor.
April 21, 2006 — Alvin Itula, 35, dies after a struggle with Salt Lake City police. Itula led officers on a foot chase, then fought with them when the officers caught up, according to police. Officers tased Itula and also used pepper spray and a baton. Itula stopped breathing soon after. The medical examiner found that Itula died of excited delirium brought on by methamphetamine and cocaine.
April 24, 2006 — Jose Romero, 23, dies in Dallas police custody. He was in his underwear, screaming and holding a knife on his neighbor’s porch. Police tased him multiple times. He died shortly thereafter. The Dallas County medical examiner ruled Romero died of excited delirium.
Sept. 5, 2006 — Larry Noles, 52, dies in Louisville, Ky., after a struggle with police. Noles, an ex-Marine, was standing naked in the middle of a street when police were called. Police said he was agitated. They tased him two or three times. He died a few minutes later. The Jefferson County medical examiner ruled Noles died because of excited delirium and not the Taser.
Oct. 29, 2006 — Roger Holyfield, 17, dies after police in Jerseyville, Ill., shocked him twice with a Taser. Holyfield had been walking down a street, holding a phone in one hand and a Bible in the other, yelling that he wanted Jesus. After policed shot him with the stun gun, Holyfield went into a coma; he died the following day. A medical examiner ruled the death was probably a result of excited delirium.
Dec. 17, 2006 — Terill Enard, 29, dies following a disturbance at a Waffle house in Lafayette, La. He was naked and yelling, with a broken leg bone piercing his skin. Police stunned Enard with a Taser; he died several hours later. Police said the forensic report from the Lafayette Parish coroner’s office found Enard died as a result of “cocaine-induced excited delirium.”
Dr. Kathleen Frydl, Assistant Professor of History at U.C. Berkeley, draws parallels between the Vietnam War and the current war in Iraq.
Related: Der Spiegel interview with Lawrence F. Kaplan: “Before the war, Iraq was an abstraction, an idea. Once you have seen the place you can’t help but be much more cautious with the ideas that you put on the table.”
Trannycat Doll lead singer(?), Nicole Scherzinger, has taken the first step in dispelling all the rumors that everyone in this group has cocks by getting out of a car at Villa in Hollywood. Despite what my ex-girlfriend tells you, I’ve seen a lot of vaginas up close, so I’m comfortable saying this chick has one. I guess this is good news. She also looks like Pocahontas, so if you’re thinking about raping her, you can say it was just for a history project.
Missing from the RCMP report :
1) Dziekanski’s name [!]
2) the name and rank of the officer who fired the TASER™
3) the name of his supervisor
4) details about the duration of the firing
5) the number of times the weapon was used in stun mode
6) whether Dziekanski was armed
7) a written summary of the incident
8) “assessments as to whether use of the TASER™ helped the RCMP either “avoid use of lethal force” or “avoid injuries to subject or Police.”
In other words, pretty much everything of use for the general public to understand exactly what happened (and, more importantly, why), all purportedly redacted in order to to protect the late Mr. Dziekanski’s “privacy”.
Yeah. To protect [redacted]’s privacy–sure. As Alison further notes,
It’s worth remembering that none of these inquiries would be happening at all had not Paul Pritchard of Victoria first recorded Dziekanski’s murder, stood his ground and hired a lawyer to get the recording back from the RCMP on being told it might be several years before they would return it, and then released it to the public.
Previous to Pritchard’s YouTube going worldwide, the RCMP were already covering their tracks, muttering darkly about the likelihood of Dziekanski being a drug mule and how the officers were forced to use stun guns because the room was crowded with airline passengers.
Contra Barack Obama and Frank Rich, the reaction to the Sean Bell verdict shows that Americans still have a long way to go to “[transcend] the racial and cultural rifts that [have] divided them for centuries”, says Max Blumenthal.
Related:
A joint investigation by Colorlines magazine and the Chicago Reporter into police shootings that occurred in the US’ 10 largest cities found that in NYC “the percentage of black people killed by police was at least double that of their share of the city’s total population.” (Gabriel Thompson has more)
[W]hile we might be outraged at the Sean Bell decision itself, it comes directly from the flawed jurisprudence that gave us the Dred Scott Decision in 1857, Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, Bakke in 1978, Croson in 1989, Adarand in 1995, Gratz in 2003, and all of the Ward Connerly-inspired attacks on the very same affirmative action hard won by students facing water hoses and dogs, men and women facing jail, lynch mobs, and death.
After last week’s Indiana and North Carolina primaries, Obama has all but won the nomination — but democracy has been the real winner of the process. According to the Associated Press, 3.5 million newly registered voters appeared during the 2008 primaries, including unusually large numbers of women and African Americans. Turnout reached historic highs in many Democratic primaries; indeed, more Democrats turned out this week in both North Carolina and Indiana than voted for Sen. John F. Kerry in those states in 2004. Both Clinton and Obama raised more money during a single month than most candidates in previous elections raised during the entire primary season. Moreover, the bulk of that money came from small donors; in fact, 1.5 million individuals, an unprecedented number, contributed to the Obama campaign. By every measure of individual interest in politics, this campaign has grabbed the public’s attention.
[...]
Recent elections have been marked by high levels of voter ignorance, low turnout, polarization between the parties and media coverage as broad as it was shallow. But within the Democratic Party this time, we have been witnessing the exact opposite: engagement and excitement. Pundits worry that the long race hurt the Democrats’ chances in the fall, but it’s hard to share their gloom when the whole exercise has been so good for our civic health.
WKYC reports that a 5th woman has come forward with allegations that Stark County law enforcement officials forced her to strip unlawfully:
“Elizabeth” fears reprisals for speaking out so she prefers we not use her last name.
She says a Stark County Sheriff’s deputy pulled her over one night for failing to signal during a lane change. Elizabeth says she had to undergo a field sobriety test. According to the officer’s incident report, she failed some aspects of the test. She was arrested for driving under the influence and taken to the station for further testing.
She was told to blow into a breathylyzer, but she suffers from asthma. When she failed to produce enough air, she says a deputy told her, “Baby we both know you can blow harder than that. She says a second deputy laughed. The officer marked her as a “refusal” for not blowing harder.
She was told to blow into a breathylyzer, but she suffers from asthma. When she failed to produce enough air, she says a deputy told her, “Baby we both know you can blow harder than that. She says a second deputy laughed. The officer marked her as a “refusal” for not blowing harder.
[...]
When Elizabeth was told to remove all her clothes, she did so voluntarily saying she worked at a medium security prison in Ohio and knew her clothes would be forcibly removed if she failed to obey.
The incident report says Elizabeth wanted to commit suicide. But she says that’s just not true. “I’ve never been suicidal. I’m not suicidal. I was terrified,” she told the Investigator.
(”Male
34 years old
CHICAGO, Illinois
United States “):
Sez YouTube commenter lilsasami (in response to Mr. “I <3 pre bornz almost as much as I <3 JPII”):
Oh my god! I’ve been abortin’ my four celled babies!
Christ, just when I think the [lifers] can’t get any dumber they come out with this shit. Congratulations loons, you just took crazy to a whole new level.
Dan Conley, who served as an aide to former Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, posted a must-read article at Salon this past Thursday (h/t jrootham @ BnR) detailing how any future concessions by the Clinton campaign might play out. Using Wilder’s departure from the 1994 Virginia senate race as an example, Conley calmly outlines what could potentially be involved in any backroom negotiations between the two prospective Democratic presidential nominees:
So if, eventually, Hillary Clinton does the math that the rest of the world is doing and decides to fold her hand, she could learn a great deal from Doug Wilder’s negotiations back in 1994. Get your own money back. Don’t worry so much about everyone else; they knew what they were getting into. Get a big symbolic victory that will show that the race was about something more than your ego. And keep in the game long term by promoting a supporter for a future role.
So if she does concede defeat, the question “What does Hillary want?” should have some fairly obvious answers.
Debt Relief. Here’s an irony: Hillary can keep lending money to her campaign, at least in the short term, without much risk because it’s very likely that Obama will agree to pay it in exchange for peace. There are limits to Obama’s generosity, of course. Money used for negative attacks from here on out would put her debt repayment at risk.
[...]
A Major Platform Win. Namely, healthcare. Hillary needs to be able to make the case that her campaign had a substantive impact on the race. The best way to do that is to get to write the party’s healthcare plank in the platform. If Obama folds on the mandate issue, Hillary walks away with a policy win. Plus, this would please John and Elizabeth Edwards. Choosing Elizabeth to write the healthcare plank of the platform could appease both camps.
[...]
Without question, Barack Obama is entering a very uncomfortable stage of his campaign. Comparisons to Mike Dukakis in 1988 are inevitable — and if the negotiations drag out, there will be questions about who is really in charge. The sooner he gets it over with, the better for him.
Clinton advisers say attacks on Mr. Obama are no longer enough to change the momentum or the outcome of the nomination race. So continuing to attack him on the campaign trail, at this point, would probably inflict more long-term harm on Mrs. Clinton than on Mr. Obama, her advisers said.
Mr. Obama made his own peace offering to the Clinton camp, albeit a tactical one, suggesting he would be open to helping her retire her campaign debt. “I’d want to have a broad-ranging discussion with Senator Clinton about how I could make her feel good about the process and have her on the team moving forward,” he said. “But as I said, it’s premature right now. She’s still actively running, and we’ve still got business to do right here in Oregon and in other states.”
The tonal change in Mrs. Clinton’s campaigning away from sharp engagement with Mr. Obama could reflect cold political calculation: with elements of the party now coalescing around him, her own political legacy may be at stake in the few weeks remaining before primary voting comes to a close on June 3.
[...]
At a children’s hospital in Portland on Friday, Mrs. Clinton did not refer to Mr. Obama by name but drew a sharp contrast between her plan for universal health care and Mr. Obama’s less inclusive plan: “How can anyone run for Democratic nominee for president and not have a universal health care plan? This is a huge, huge difference and one I feel passionately about.”
[...]
Bill Carrick, a longtime Democratic campaign consultant who is neutral but who has close ties to many in the Clinton inner circle, said, “She’s very, very sensitive to the position she’s in now.” He added: “Definitely as she campaigns in these upcoming states she will stress her commitment to the Democratic Party and the stakes in the fall. She’s clearly sending a message to those voters that it’s in their interest to support the party in the fall, whoever the nominee is.”
Despite general consensus that the math is stacked against her (though even Obama admits that the nomination is far from locked up) I don’t believe for a second that, by staying in the race, Senator Clinton is deliberately attempting to sink the good ship Democrat (along with its soon-to-be-chosen Captain) under the weight of her unnatural and double plus ungood ambition (sigh). Rather, it seems apparent that she’s pragmatically attempting to put herself in a strong position to work with Obama so she can achieve certain concessions. In other words, all part of, as Conley puts it, “building a lasting peace” via “that most underrated of campaign rituals– the post-campaign negotiation.”
If Clinton did eventually accept Obama’s offer of debt relief, and were Obama to adopt Clinton’s (IMO) superior health care platform, the Democratic Party could (theoretically) march into Denver fully unified and girded for battle in the general (assuming Clinton’s “hard working white people” gaffe doesn’t spark civil conflict beyond the limited borders of the blogosphere). Then maybe, just maybe, certain overzealous members of Blogtopia’s Obama wing will finally get over their increasingly hyperbolic Clinton Derangement Syndrome. And for god’s sake, stop treating Andrew “ZOMG SHE’S NORMA DESMOND!!!11one” Sullivan like he’s a serious pundit.
Related: Robert Farley fires some serious meta up yer ass re: the tedious online rift between so-called “Clintonistas” and “Obamamaniacs”.
The Real News reports on the rising death toll and ongoing aid efforts in Myanmar (Burma) following the devastation wrought by Tropical Cyclone Nargis:
The United Nations appealed for $187 million in aid on Friday to help 1.5 million victims in cyclone-ravaged Myanmar and said it would resume relief flights despite the military government’s seizure of food supplies.U.N. humanitarian affairs chief John Holmes said initial pledges totaled about $77 million to provide water, food, medicine, shelter and other supplies to survivors of Cyclone Nargis, which killed tens of thousands of people.
“I think more pledges will follow,” Holmes told reporters after he addressed representatives of the 192 member states, saying he was confident the appeal for $187 million would be met. “The important thing is that the response is there.”
Bloomberg News reports that “[a]nother storm heading toward Myanmar threatens to further disrupt aid distribution. The country will have rain, some of it torrential, in the next few days, according to forecaster AccuWeather.com.”
“As a current resident of Yangon and a resident of New Orleans at the time of Hurricane Katrina, I was disgusted by Laura Bush’s comments in the immediate aftermath of Cyclone Nargis. First of all, she was inaccurate in saying that the Burmese people had no warning. Everyone I know in Yangon was aware of the approaching storm because of a government warning. Schools, businesses, and government offices closed down early on Friday so people could prepare for the storm. Second, her comments were insensitive and tactless. It was brazenly insensitive to focus on criticizing the government when upwards of a hundred thousand people had just lost their lives and millions were without homes. It is tactless because insulting the Myanmar government is not the way to promote the cooperation necessary to provide relief to the millions in need. Finally, it is hypocritical. No one associated with the Bush administration has any right whatsoever to criticize a country on their disaster management policies, especially when it is one with a miniscule fraction of the resources available in the United States. Shame on you, Laura Bush”
Even though aid flights have been (hopefully only temporarily) suspended (edit: see update), you can still make a secure donation to the World Food Programme’s Myanmar relief fund here. Donations can also be made to Red Cross/Red Crescent, Doctors Without Borders and UNICEF’s fund for the immediate and long-term response to children in Myanmar.
(Oh, and as for the unfortunate “SexyPolitics.com” shout out at the end: what was that about gender discrimination in politics? Yeah, well, exactly. Sigh.)
