Obama Moves to Bar Release of Detainee Abuse Photos

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/us/politics/14photos.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, May 14, 2009 at 12:25 PM
Subject: re: Obama Moves to Bar Release of Detainee Abuse Photos
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   Many of the actions and policies of the Bush administration provided recruiting opportunities for Al Qaeda. The detention of innocents without charges or trial, the abuse and even killing of prisoners and the falsification of data to justify the invasion of Iraq all have been used to recruit new fighters to resist and repel the American presence in Iraq and Afghanistan.  President Obama would do well to distance himself from these policies. By preferring to cover them up, he makes these sins his own and feeds our enemies.

Barry Levine

A Moderate Plan for Health Care

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/opinion/12tue2.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=moderate%20plan%20for%20health%20care&st=cse

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, May 12, 2009 at 11:35 AM
Subject: re: A Moderate Plan for Health Care
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

    The Insurance industry is indeed "desperate to avoid competition". The arguments they advance must be weighed with this in mind. When they worry that a public plan might "have unfair advantages", they are fretting that a public plan won't pay lobbyists, won't pay bureaucrats to contest who has to pay and won't pay bonuses to highly paid executives. What look like "unfair advantages" to the entrenched insurance companies and their lobbyists look like excellent arguments in favor of a public plan to me.

Barry Levine

China Outpaces U.S. in Cleaner Coal-Fired Plants

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/11/world/asia/11coal.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=china%20far%20outpaces&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, May 11, 2009 at 10:34 AM
Subject: re: China Outpaces U.S. in Cleaner Coal-Fired Plants
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

    In 1977, the U.S. mandated higher efficiency in our coal-fired power plants through "New Source Review". For thirty-six years, the industry has been allowed to weasel its way around the law. The People voted for Change; this would be a good time to see it.

Barry Levine

Souter’s Exit Opens Door for a More Influential Justice

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/08/us/08court.html?scp=1&sq=souter's%20exit&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, May 8, 2009 at 9:04 AM
Subject: re: Souter’s Exit Opens Door for a More Influential Justice
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   I had thought that justice Scalia's long masquerade was over when he opined in Medellin that the Supremacy clause of our Constitution doesn't mean what it says. How then can Mr. Liptak write of justice Scalia's "adhering to the text and original meaning of the Constitution"? Is this satire?

Barry Levine

The Torture Debate: The Lawyers

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/07/opinion/07thu2.html?scp=1&sq=the-lawyers&st=cse

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, May 7, 2009 at 8:58 AM
Subject: re: The Torture Debate: The Lawyers
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

    From beyond the grave, the Bush department of Justice calls out that the lawyers who signed off on torture are not culpable. Obama's new head of the CIA promises that those who tortured will not be prosecuted. Next, someone will point out that to prosecute Bush and Cheney would look partisan and unseemly. Presto! all culpability for these crimes against humanity can be made to disappear in the crosstalk. What we need from out Executive is less of this hocus pocus and more of one clear voice. Torture is illegal and repugnant in the present, torture was illegal and repugnant when the U.S. was doing it in the recent past, incidents of torture past will be prosecuted in the future, starting today.

Barry Levine

Bailout Justice

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/05/opinion/05ashcroft.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=bailout%20justice&st=cse

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, May 5, 2009 at 12:51 PM
Subject: re: Bailout Justice
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   Looking back on eight dark years, Attorney General Ashcroft observes that "Every day seemed to bring news of another betrayal of trust". Some of us remember that the phone companies on whom we rely for daily communication began spying on citizens in violation of both our statutes and of our constitution almost eight years ago. Mr. Ashcroft's department of justice never prosecuted those crimes. To the best of my knowledge, they are ongoing to this day. If Mr. Ashcroft has evidence that this non--prosecution has led us towards a more prosperous and just society, it is too subtle for this reader.

Barry Levine

Interrogation Debate Sharply Divided Bush White House

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/04/us/politics/04detain.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=debate%20over%20interrogation%20methods&st=cse

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, May 4, 2009 at 9:35 AM
Subject: re: Interrogation Debate Sharply Divided Bush White House
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   I am puzzled that "Top C.I.A. officials [in 2005] feared that the agency's methods could actually be illegal" only after the passage of a new law by congress. The bill of 2005 duplicated language and prohibitions from the Conventions on Torture that the U.S. Senate had ratified twenty years earlier. It was already the settled law of the land that cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment--like torture--is illegal.

Barry Levine

Hints That Detainees May Be Held on U.S. Soil

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/us/politics/01gitmo.html?scp=2&sq=bumiller&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, May 1, 2009 at 8:49 AM
Subject: re: Hints That Detainees May Be Held on U.S. Soil
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   If Attorney General Holder has pre-judged that the 100 will be detained in the U.S. without charges or trial, and turns to the law only to make it "appear to be fair", we have fallen far, far short of the rule of law.

Barry Levine

A Torturous Compromise

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/opinion/29friedman.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=torturous%20compromise&st=cse

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 9:16 AM
Subject: re: A Torturous Compromise
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   Our nation was founded in existential crisis. Our Founding Fathers would have been hanged for treason against the crown if our revolution had failed. Still, from this dire circumstance, they gave us a free country with the rule of law. Now Mr. Friedman suggests that we should retreat from the rule of law, from our treaty obligations and from the defense of human dignity because the threat from Al Qaeda is "unique". The Obama administration is faced with some grim challenges. The temptation to discard our core values when they seem inconvenient ranks high among them.

Barry Levine

Storm of Violence in Iraq Strains Its Security Forces

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/25/world/middleeast/25iraq.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Apr 25, 2009 at 2:12 PM
Subject: re: Storm of Violence in Iraq Strains Its Security Forces
To: letters@nytimes.com


Throughout 2007 and 2008, the U.S. armed and empowered sectarian militias in Iraq at the expense of building non-partisan national institutions. It was entirely predictable at that time that this would cause a sectarian bloodbath if the U.S. were ever to withdraw. Our first MBA ex-president could explain to us that in the business world, this is called a "poison-pill" strategy to cling to power, or to cripple a successor regime. In national politics, it smells like treason.

Barry Levine

To the Editor:

   I confess, there were years in which I grumbled about government of the People, by the Lawyers and for the Donors. Eight years of our only MBA president has taught me how foolish I was; Lawyers as presidents have worked for goals much farther in the future than did George W. Bush. Throughout the last two years of his term, president Bush worked for the quarterly statement of GIs dead in Iraq, rather than for peace. The result was a strategy of arming sectarian militias rather than building national non-partisan institutions. This led predictably to the recent rise in sectarian strife and the renewed prospect that American troops may be stuck in Iraq for the indefinite future.