Gay Marriage Seems to Wane as Conservative Issue

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/25/us/politics/25marriage.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=gay%20marriage%20seems%20to%20wane&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, Feb 25, 2011 at 8:38 AM
Subject: re: Gay Marriage Seems to Wane as Conservative Issue
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   President Obama has taken a principled stand for an oppressed minority and for the Constitution in walking away from DOMA and the sky didn't fall. We should all take heart. Now it is time that he should take a principled stand for us all; whether Congress re-authorizes them or not, he should renounce National Security Letters today.  Professor Obama can entertain no doubt that NSLs are unconstitutional. While even a single NSL is respected, Americans enjoy our Constitutional guarantees only by the grace of our Executive and not by right. We can have either a guarantee of Due Process of Law or we can have NSLs. We cannot have both.

Barry Levine

American Held in Pakistan Worked With C.I.A.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/world/asia/22pakistan.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 8:35 AM
Subject: re: American Held in Pakistan Worked With C.I.A.
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

    When the U.S. and Pakistan established diplomatic relations, we exchanged extraterritoriality; we each allowed that the other's laws and not ours had force on the grounds of their embassies. "Diplomatic Immunity" extends this privilege to the persons of our diplomats and their staffs. In the case of Raymond A. Davis, the U.S. advances this claim in bad faith.  In case after case in recent years, we have seen that agents of the U.S. CIA are held neither to the laws of the host country nor to our laws, but to no law at all.  Pakistan may bend to American arm twisting as the Germans did in the torture of Khaled al-Masri or as the Italians did in the killing of Giuliana Sgrena's escort. But they should not try to delude anyone that this is in the service of Justice.

Barry Levine

Hiding Details of Dubious Deal, U.S. Invokes National Security

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/20/us/politics/20data.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=hiding%20details%20of%20dubious%20deal&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Sun, Feb 20, 2011 at 9:12 AM
Subject: re: Hiding Details of Dubious Deal, U.S. Invokes National Security
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   In March of 1863, president Lincoln signed the False Claims Act, providing penalties for those who defraud the federal government. The People (through our elected representatives) had spoken; bilking our government for profit--especially in times of war--was not to be tolerated. It is therefore a matter of great concern that the Obama administration is obstructing justice in the matter of Dennis Montgomery.  If he is guilty of nothing, that can be proven in court. If he has been gouging the American public an example should be made of him. To invoke "National Security" is not a substitute for the due process of law, in this or in any other matter.

Barry Levine

House Votes to Extend Patriot Act Provisions

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/15/us/politics/15terror.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=house%20votes%20to%20extend%20patriot%20act&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 10:45 AM
Subject: re: House Votes to Extend Patriot Act Provisions
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

    This week, America applauds the Egyptian people, who rejected thirty years of "Emergency Law", under which they enjoyed no Constitutional guarantees.  We should do as well ourselves. As long as "National Security Letters" exist, our Constitutional freedoms exist only by the grace of our Executives, to be suspended at will and in secret. This nation was founded on the premise that people have inalienable Rights that apply in good times and bad. For our Senate to renew the "Patriot Act" and therefore the National Security Letters would be to perpetuate an abomination. A government that claims such powers deserves to be overthrown, in Washington no less than in Cairo.

Barry Levine

Better Drug Ads, Fewer Side Effects

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/10/opinion/10spatz.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=better%20drug%20ads&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Thu, Feb 10, 2011 at 10:19 AM
Subject: re: Better Drug Ads, Fewer Side Effects
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  For decades, a gentleman's agreement among the Drug Companies in this country limited advertising of prescription drugs to those physicians with the power to prescribe them. That all collapsed with the advent of Minoxidil for hairloss; the vanity market was too lucrative to be constrained by such niceties.  Since then, Sales and Marketing have grown to represent more than half of the entire budget of a typical drug company.  Most of that money is spent in a zero-sum game stealing market-share back and forth among the same players; all of that is money not available for the pursuit of new, life-saving therapeutics. 

   Now it is proposed that this can be fixed by punching a new hole in the structure of our anti-trust laws. The precedent isn't encouraging. The Milk Board is right now engaged in foisting mountains of fatty cheese onto our school-children in direct violation of the dietary guidelines of our own Department of Agriculture. Surely this would be a cure worse than the disease?

Barry Levine

In Egypt, U.S. Weighs Push for Change With Stability

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/world/middleeast/08diplomacy.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 8:59 AM
Subject: re: In Egypt, U.S. Weighs Push for Change With Stability
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

    Omar Suleiman's offer that "the state of emergency will be lifted based on the security situation" is no offer at all.  Either the government is bound by the constitution and by law or it is not; one can always find an "emergency" if there is a motive to find an emergency. It is not for the U.S. to choose or to bless an Egyptian government, but we can put ourselves on the wrong side of history yet again by backing a man with a history of working with our CIA to torture innocents.

Barry Levine

Obama the Realist

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/07/opinion/07douthat.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Obama%20the%20realist&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 9:53 AM
Subject: re:Obama the Realist
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   President Obama's Right-wards drift calls out for explanation. Ross Douthat proposes that the electorate was duped; Obama was never a Liberal.  Another explanation is worth exploring. The few lonely voices on the Left have been drowned out by the noise machine on the Right, and president Obama has altered course to align with the noise. This is the quantum reality of our media. They can't comment on our politics without affecting the outcome.

Barry Levine

Dealing With Assange and the WikiLeaks Secrets

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/magazine/30Wikileaks-t.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=bill%20keller&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 8:25 AM
Subject: re: Dealing With Assange and the WikiLeaks Secrets
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  Surely Bill Keller takes too much credit for publishing the news of the Bush administration's illegal wiretaps. He personally quashed that story for a year. Had Lichtblau been free to publish, the American electorate would have known about Bush's crimes before the presidential election of 2004.  I welcome Keller's defense of Freedom of the Press, but I won't absolve him of his past crimes. He'll take his complicity in  Bush's re-election to his grave.

Barry Levine

Justice and the I.G.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/02/opinion/02wed4.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Justice%20and%20the%20I.G.&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 11:03 AM
Subject: re: Justice and the I.G.
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   In 1975, in the wake of the Watergate abuses, the Office of Professional Responsibility was created to reassure the American public that our Department of Justice was serving our interests.  Congress attempted a more sweeping solution by creating The Offices of the Inspector General in 1978  in every cabinet department and independent agency to prevent " fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement of the government programs and operations within their parent organizations". At that time, the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Justice should have subsumed the powers of the OPR. Instead, it was given the  debased authority to investigate only those members of our DoJ who are not attorneys. It is overdue that this be repaired. The Congressional mandate was for an I.G. answerable only to the President, with power to investigate all the doings of the DoJ.

Barry Levine

Pakistani Nuclear Arms Pose Challenge to U.S. Policy

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/world/asia/01policy.html?scp=1&sq=Pakistani%20arms%20pose%20challenge%20to&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, Feb 1, 2011 at 10:59 AM
Subject: re: Pakistani Nuclear Arms Pose Challenge to U.S. Policy
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   When he was the head of Pakistan's ISI from 2004-2007, general Ashfaq Kayani built a relationship with the Haqqani network for intelligence gathering and covert operations. Now that he is the head of Pakistan's Armed Forces, he has built a large and growing nuclear arsenal.  In each case, he as gathered into his own hand extraordinary powers outside the usual channels. General Kayani assures us that he doesn't want to usurp civilian power in Pakistan. He already has quite enough power to run the country.

Barry Levine