http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/01/world/asia/us-seems-set-to-designate-haqqani-network-as-terror-group.html


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Fri, Aug 31, 2012 at 12:21 PM
Subject: re: U.S. Seems Set to Designate Haqqani Network as Terror Group
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor,
   The official recognition  of the Haqqani network as a terrorist
organization may not, as you note, "[H]amper...the group’s ability to
raise money from wealthy private donors in Persian Gulf countries" But
our law restricts not only money, but "material support". That would
invite an investigation of general Ashfaq Kayani's ongoing
relationship to the Haqqanis going back to his days as head of the
ISI.  It would be awkward to discover that our key ally in the region
is a "state sponsor of terror".
Barry Haskell Levine

No Charges Filed on Harsh Tactics Used by the C.I.A.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/31/us/holder-rules-out-prosecutions-in-cia-interrogations.html?pagewanted=all

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, Aug 31, 2012 at 10:26 AM
Subject: re: No Charges Filed on Harsh Tactics Used by the C.I.A.
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  It long been established that: 1-men were waterboarded while in U.S. custody, 2-that waterboarding is torture, 3-that torture violates both U.S. statute and our treaty obligations and 4-that our Executive is sworn  to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed".   Yet the only investigation launched to date was John Durham's inquiry in to possible violations of the Department of Justice's internal guidelines, not of the law. Attorney General Eric Holder hints darkly that there might have been a prosecution but the evidence is not admissible in court. That may prove problematic in all the torture prosecutions. But it does not excuse his failure in his sworn duty to properly investigate these crimes.

Barry Haskell Levine

We Need a ‘Conservative’ Party

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/22/opinion/friedman-we-need-a-conservative-party.html

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 9:53 AM
Subject: re: We Need a ‘Conservative’ Party
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   In an American political spectrum that is already laughably narrow, Thomas Friedman suggests that all could be well if we would just split the difference. He has been inside the beltway too long. What America needs is a new voice to president Obama's Left, not to his Right. Who will prosecute torturers, rather than hold the CIA above the law? Who will defend citizens from illegal wiretaps, rather than grovel for telecom corporations' political donations? Who will question the Military/Industrial complex that consumes  half of our nation's tax revenues?  Yes, there are important voices lacking in our national political discourse. They won't be found in the aisles of Congress.

Barry Haskell Levine

Serving Foie Gras

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/opinion/serving-foie-gras.html

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, Aug 21, 2012 at 9:07 AM
Subject: re: Serving Foie Gras
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   If we are to take Gabe Walters' logic seriously, anyone who has let her date pay for dinner has engaged in prostitution.

Barry Haskell Levine

No Criminal Case Is Likely in Loss at MF Global

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/no-criminal-case-is-likely-in-loss-at-mf-global/

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Thu, Aug 16, 2012 at 9:12 AM
Subject: re: No Criminal Case Is Likely in Loss at MF Global
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

     In 2005, we learned of a pattern of illegal wiretaps of U.S. citizens in violation of the FISA statute of 1979 and of our Fourth Amendment. In 2007 we learned that men had been waterboarded while in U.S. custody. In 2011, we learned that hundreds of millions of USD had vanished from MFGlobal's investors' accounts. In each case, a crime is manifest. In each case, Eric Holder's Department of Justice has demurred to mount a prosecution. Instead, our DoJ is in court right now asserting a novel presidential power to circumvent citizens' guarantee to Due Process of Law.  Attorney General Holder is not an elected official. He serves at the pleasure of our president, to execute the president's agenda. The president of the United States has broad latitude to set that agenda, but can't escape the Constitution's charge to  "take care that the laws be faithfully executed".  If Attorney General Holder is too busy seizing novel presidential powers to do the job of enforcing existing laws, he should be replaced immediately.

Barry Haskell Levine

On Wall Street, the Rising Cost of Faster Trades

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/14/business/on-wall-street-the-rising-cost-of-high-speed-trading.html?pagewanted=all

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, Aug 14, 2012 at 1:58 PM
Subject: re: On Wall Street, the Rising Cost of Faster Trades
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor;

    Doing the wrong thing more efficiently is a poor substitute for doing the right thing. Yet efficiency is easy to quantify and right is often elusive.  Faster, cheaper trading has made Wall Street less an engine to provide capital to build and innovate than a casino for speculators. To get money into ventures that will create wealth over the next decade, rather than post paper gains over the next milliseconds, we need to impose transaction fees like those Europe already has.

Barry Haskell Levine

Romney Presses Obama on Work in Welfare Law

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/08/us/politics/romney-accuses-obama-of-taking-work-out-of-welfare-law.html

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Wed, Aug 8, 2012 at 11:11 AM
Subject: re: Romney Presses Obama on Work in Welfare Law
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

    Until our Press finds the spine to skewer a politician caught in a falsehood, our political process will belong to the most skillful liars.  To blandly note that Romney's "claim seemed a stretch even by the low standards of 30-second political ads" is namby-pamby. This newspaper as much as anyone else is the guardian of our historical record. As long as Romney's people are free to savage president Obama for fictive outrages, they will never engage real issues.

Barry Haskell Levine

unprosecuted crimes

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/01/opinion/invitation-to-a-dialogue-unprosecuted-crimes.html

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 12:16 AM
Subject: re: unprosecuted crimes
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  If we are to catalogue the privileged classes who are not held accountable to the Law, the list begins with the officers and agents of our CIA.  Director Panetta famously announced that no one in his agency would be prosecuted for torture even before these crimes were investigated. When an investigator was belated named, he was charged only with finding violations of the DoJ's internal guidelines, not violations of the law.  Our constitution provides the presidential pardon as the unique exception to the rule of one law, applied equally to all.  There is no place in it for a CIA above scrutiny and accountability.

Barry Haskell Levine