Good morning!

Well, it’s a good morning for John Brennan.

I’ve been waiting for a “terrorism” thread or something similar so I wouldn’t be too far off point on my question;

does anyone know what happened with the revue of the maher arar rendition?;

“The Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued an extremely rare order that the case of Canadian rendition victim Maher Arar would be heard en banc by all of the active judges on the Second Circuit on December 9, 2008. For the court to issue the order sua sponte, that is, of its own accord without either party submitting papers requesting a rehearing, is even more rare. (…)

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) case seeks to hold accountable the high level administration officials responsible for sending Maher Arar to be tortured and interrogated in Syria for a year – a practice known as an extraordinary rendition

so did that hearing take place?…if so what happened, if not then when?

Will Brennan be able to direct torture from the WH?

Thanks for the reminder. I’m eager to hear the answer too.

OT a bit: When is Cheney going to give his farewell address to his minions, the one where he says something like:

… To have gone through this and yet – apart from a few exceptions, examples of human weakness – to have remained decent, this has made us hard. This is a glorious page in our history that has never been written and never shall be written.

DiFi be tickled pink.

The hearing was broadcast on CSPAN recently, on their America and the Courts series. It was pretty interesting. I don’t know if they have issued an opinion.

Or perhaps somebody could tickle DiFi until she turns pink, in celebration of torture.

And for those who missed the references yesterday on the torture topic. Check out the PBS site for its special “Torturing Democracy.” From some of the comments here, it is also available on other threads. A really great and important piece that we should all give attention and action plan.

So the one victory that Progressives can claim since the election has now been negated.

Seems to me PEBO has not missed a single opportunity to say FU to progressives. But some one will correct me if I’m wrong.

Speaking of answers, I wonder if Team Obama will answer the overwhelming most popular question on the Change.gov site?

“Will you appoint a Special Prosecutor — ideally Patrick Fitzgerald — to independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush Administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping,”

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes…..rom-obama/

The second place question isn’t even close to this one. Will have to keep tabs on what happens.

Brennan may not have to be confirmed or give testimony, but the National Intelligence Director and the CIA Director have to be. Pushing them on how they will interact with Brennan — perhaps asking for their reactions to some of the views expressed by Brennan — would be a very interesting avenue of inquiry.

I wonder how many examples of Obama not giving a flying f*ck about progressives are needed before we accept that he is part of the problem not the solution.

And with Brennan’s appointment, does anyone seriously think there will be a serious investigation of torture or any holding of those responsible to account?

Make it three things, with:

Three, Obama apparently doesn’t plan on Brennan being pulled into embarassing torture investigations during his administration.

I owe you a drink. So far the score stands at conservatives and Clintonites everything, progressives nothing.

cross posted with Hugh, but pondering the same question.

me four.

3 – I went to the CCR site to check and while I don’t see anything more recent than the Dec 8 oral argument, apparently that is available to stream through a link on the site

http://ccrjustice.org/ourcases……-ashcroft

I’ll have to try to go watch it later.

dean baker’s diary is up at the mothership. good timing too, as obama’s economic speech is supposed to start any minute now.

thanks! i didn’t know that was available to listen to.

I actually don’t think that this Brennan appointment is a big deal. The Director of Counterintelligence is not going to supervise interrogations, or have anyone in his employ who does, unless I’m really mistaken. He just coordinates info and strategy related to terrorism across agencies.

This might be a good way to use the guy’s actual expertise without involving him in torture issues. Meanwhile, we can have Panetta hard at work reforming the CIA.

Granted, my enthusiasm has been dented quite a bit by the Retread-apalooza Transition, but Obama has appointed quite a few really good people, and has hinted at some rather good policy. I think that’s been one of complaints about FDL (perhaps more about the comments sections), where it’s a constant drumbeat of highlighting the negatives while mostly ignoring the good things. Loudly speaking up is great, but we should also be giving credit where credit is due, and also realize we don’t live in a vacuum and there are a lot of dynamics at play. I’m on the Board of a couple of small nonprofits, and it can be extremely difficult to get consensus on even the smallest matter, so I can’t even imagine what it’s like in DeeCee.

Honestly, if we’re concerned about actually getting things changed and a seat at the table, there has to be more of a balance. It’s just basic human interaction, and it’ll be necessary in order to gain more of an audience for your (our) viewpoints, no matter how correct they may be.

I’ve had many people check out FDL only to have them come back to me with this complaint, so I worry that not taking this into account is hurting our ability to gain more influence. Just a thought…

(before the obligatory “Links?” comment comes up, I don’t have time now…there are plenty of sites doing it…)

22 – Usually I get all the cool links from you, so I’m glad perris’ question sent me looking on this one.

A) we already have evidence of what Obama will do based on what he did on FISA and the Paulson bailout.

B) Obama’s first tier choices are all Clintonites and conservatives

C) Why does Obama have to hint? He’s the President elect. He has said that he not his subordinates will be the one calling the shots so why all of a sudden is it that he is being buffaloed by the Village?

I think we are going to have to make unfortunate distinctions between those who physically carried out the torture, those who enthusiastically pushed it at the highest levels, and the ‘good Germans’ who just went along because they knew it was going to happen anyway. Brennan is probably one of the latter. I think anyone who defended the procedure publicly should be dismissed, but those who kept out of the line of sight ought to let off. I know this is morally reprehensible, but it seems the safe way through this minefield. It’s a little like De-Nazification. We let alot of bad guys go, but caught at least some of the worst. If Obama were to try to clean out the whole chain of command root and branch, he’s have a revolt on his hands, and we know what happened to Kennedy.

Having Clintonites and conservatives supervising economic policy seems like a good idea. If I remember correctly, thee economy under Clinton was in slightly better shape than it present.

It’s got to be unfair to critisize Obama as a PRESIDENT until AT LEAST 12:01 pm on January 20th. Until then he is operating under President-Elect rules which are just not the same. I believe there are DANGEROUS unintended consequences to his speaking as a President before then. Besides, he’s just a bit busy with the economy. I would be too.

bonkers @ 24: hear, hear!

JohnMacLeren @ 23: hear, hear!

My initial reaction to this assignment: SO?

Totally confer, Bonkers.

As a long time reader of FDL, I don’t even bother to look at comments anymore because most of them regarding Obama are better poster over at Larry Johnson’s No Quarter. I suspect that it stems from a kind of P-PTSD: Progressive-Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, in which these folks still are having recurring nightmares in which we really re-elected Bush in 2008.

And I agree with macaquerman and others who remind us that having the excellent remnants of the Clinton era is a terrific idea. If you don’t believe me look at Krugman’s “Conscience” Blog today, and the just released CBO GDP Gap charts. The last time we had Clinton-style prosperity appears to be for a short period around 1972, and only better during the late 50’s through mid-60’s boom. It’s time to bring it back, doncha think?

Having Clintonites and conservatives supervising economic policy seems like a good idea. If I remember correctly, thee economy under Clinton was in slightly better shape than it present.

Where to begin? A lot of the Clinton era prosperity was based on Greenspan’s policy of easy credit at the Fed. Remember too that he had his own bubble, the dot com one. Major parts of Obama’s economic team are Rubin and Summers who under Clinton pushed for a lot of the deregulation that got us into this mess. And Geithner for his part is a Summers protege and sat on his ass at th NY Fed while the housing bubble went on, as the meltdown occurred, and his principal response was to structure the sweetheart deals behind what was done for JP Morgan’s buy out of Bear Stearns and the bailout of AIG.

Yeah, or maybe the real story is just that Brennan has something non-torture-y in his dirty little past that he doesn’t want us to hear about or that he/Obama think they can’t get by the Senate. Spooks do scary things and lots of them tend toward creepy, so who would be surprised if Brennan’s skeletons were bone-rattling awful.

The Constant Weader at RealityChex.com

I thought that the bulk of the ill-conceived deregulation, along with the regressive restructure of the tax base,occurred at the behest of the Bush administration.

I don’t agree with “ideally Patrick Fitzgerald”…he’s not the White Knight he appeared to be when he was prosecuting Scooter Libby. Why didn’t he pursue that to its natural conclusion (i.e. Bush and Cheney)? Everyone knows Scooted did not mastermind the outing of Valerie Plame on his own. Furthermore, the real story of the US attorney firing wasn’t who lost their jobs but who KEPT them and what they did to keep them. We learned from Monica Goodling that Fitz must have taken an oath of loyalty to GWB to get that job!

I think you’re onto something here. Did you hear any of the stories about Brennen involving marmosets, funnels and hydrogenation? There was even something about Unilever, the parent company of the Skippy people, having to burn crop fields.