Felix Barrett / Revolution Newspaper

Tonight I had an opportunity to ask Barack Obama a question that is on the minds of many Americans, yet rarely rises to the surface in the great ruckus of the 2008 presidential race -- and that is whether an Obama administration would seek to prosecute officials of a former Bush administration on the revelations that they greenlighted torture, or for other potential crimes that took place in the White House.

Obama said that as president he would indeed ask his new Attorney General and his deputies to "immediately review the information that's already there" and determine if an inquiry is warranted -- but he also tread carefully on the issue, in line with his reputation for seeking to bridge the partisan divide. He worried that such a probe could be spun as "a partisan witch hunt." However, he said that equation changes if there was willful criminality, because "nobody is above the law."

The question was inspired by a recent report by ABC News, confirmed by the Associated Press, that high-level officials including Vice President Dick Cheney and former Cabinet secretaries Colin Powell, John Ashcroft and Donald Rumsfeld, among others, met in the White House and discussed the use of waterboarding and other torture techniques on terrorism suspects.

And the complete article ê here

Obama would ask his AG to "immediately review" potential of crimes in Bush White House  



Let's all remember, we've waterboarded a couple terrorists....and we haven't seen a terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9-11....


So, now back to the picture. 

Here we see a demonstration of waterboarding.

That got me a bit interested.

A "demonstration?"

Why do we need a demonstration of "torture?"

If waterboarding is indeed "torture," who in their right mind is going to demonstrate the procedure, especially if it is so bad?

Would you demonstrate attaching electrical wires to someone and firing them up?

Mutilating someone?

I checked these photos out and found that this "demonstration" was at none other than UC Berkeley!

Well, go figure.

People want war crime trials against the former Bush administration -  Ashcroft, Rumsfeld and Powell - for discussing waterboarding?

How about these liberal Berkeley students demonstrating ...no, correction....actually performing waterboarding?

How about prosecuting these men for performing "torture" on a fellow U.S. citizen?


Let's check out the entire "demonstration" at Berkeley  ç here


Is there ever any police presence in Berkeley?

Oh, wait, I do recall seeing some when Code Pink was blocking the doors of the Marine recruiting center illegally.

They just let it go on.

So I guess the answer  is no, there really isn't any police presence in Berkeley

There are just liberals.

According to Eric Haas, of the Rockridge Institute, "On the issue of immigration, politicians and much of the mainstream media are playing with our minds. By repeating the phrase "illegal immigrants," they're creating a misleading stereotype. It's inaccurate. And, it's distracting us from the real issue -- economic exploitation of all low-wage workers in the United States."

He further goes on to say, "Branding people with the Scarlet "I" creates a fearful stigma. The vast majority of immigrants, whatever their legal status, are law-abiding members of society. Yet, the "illegal" description is so pervasive that it has us thinking about punishment and revenge, instead of solutions to the real problem -- the economic exploitation of people, both immigrant and native-born."

 And then, "And the American Immigration Law Foundation tells us the likely reason why:

The problem of crime in the United States is not 'caused' or even aggravated by immigrants, regardless of their legal status. This is hardly surprising since immigrants come to the United States to pursue economic and educational opportunities not available in their home countries and to build better lives for themselves and their families. As a result, they have little to gain and much to lose by breaking the law. Undocumented immigrants in particular have even more reason to not run afoul of the law given the risk of deportation that their lack of legal status entails.

"Sounds more like a good neighbor than a criminal."

Then Mr. Haas goes on to give one example of a good illegal immigrant, Jesus Manuel Cordova Soberanes, who rescued a 9-year old boy from a car wreck on Thanksgiving.

 See his full article, from Rights & Liberties, Losing Our Minds Over Immigration  ç here.
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