Via Andrew McCarthy on The Corner blog on National Review Online:

Binyam Mohammed: Is That All There Is?   [Andy McCarthy]

Binyam Mohammed is an al-Qaeda terrorist who planned, with his would-be partner Jose Padilla (the "Dirty Bomber") to carry out mass-murder attacks in U.S. cities as part of a 9/11 "second wave." (More here.) Unlike Padilla, who was prosecuted on (tangentially related) terrorism charges and is now serving a lengthy (albeit not lengthy enough) sentence, Mohammed was released by the Obama administration, under great pressure from British authorities.

Mohammed is a cause celebre in the U.K. — where he is living free and clear — because he made "torture" allegations against the CIA. Our military prosecutors wanted to try him for war crimes, but the Brits did not want a public trial — and neither, I imagine, did parts of our intelligence community — for fear that they'd be branded "torturers" in the press (which, naturally, happened anyway). So we released him, and of course he has had the vigorous support of the ususal suspects in pursuing civil suits demanding that details of his "torture" be revealed. 

The lower British court tried to force the release of seven redacted paragraphs in an internal British memo, describing what that government learned about his treatment in 2002. The Foreign Office rebuked the court for not respecting the assurances of secrecy that are the foundation of vital intelligence sharing between nations. Finally, the appellate court directed that the seven paragraphs be disclosed — but only because the information had already come out in American court cases. So the Foreign Office has now made disclosure. Here are the paragraphs that caused this whole mess:

It was reported that a new series of interviews was conducted by the United States authorities prior to 17 May 2001 as part of a new strategy designed by an expert interviewer.

It was reported that at some stage during that further interview process by the United States authorities, BM had been intentionally subjected to continuous sleep deprivation. The effects of the sleep deprivation were carefully observed. 

It was reported that combined with the sleep deprivation, threats and inducements were made to him. His fears of being removed from United States custody and “disappearing” were played upon.

It was reported that the stress brought about by these deliberate tactics was increased by him being shackled in his interviews.

It was clear not only from the reports of the content of the interviews but also from the report that he was being kept under self-harm observation, that the interviews were having a marked effect upon him and causing him significant mental stress and suffering.

We regret to have to conclude that the reports provide to the SyS made clear to anyone reading them that BM was being subjected to the treatment that we have described and the effect upon him of that intentional treatment.

The treatment reported, if had been administered on behalf of the United Kingdom, would clearly have been in breach of the undertakings given by the United Kingdom in 1972. Although it is not necessary for us to categorise the treatment reported, it could readily be contended to be at the very least cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by the United States authorities.

That's it. No water-boarding, no beating, no slapping around. Mohammed was not even stuck in a box with a caterpillar. Just sleep-deprivation (carefully monitored to avoid doing real damage), shackling (not in a stress position), and playing on his fear that he would be taken out of the custody of the U.S. (you know, the torturers) and handed over to some less solicitous country.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWRlYzg4YzlkYzk5NDIyYzdlZjdhNjhlOTEzZGEyOTk=

February 10, 2010 4:00 A.M.

After Murtha
The GOP can win, if it chooses its candidate wisely.

With the death of longtime congressman John Murtha, there is an open House seat in Pennsylvania’s twelfth congressional district. The state’s regular primary is scheduled for May 18, and Gov. Ed Rendell is expected to set the twelfth district’s special election for that date as well. Because of the abbreviated schedule, there will be no primary for the special election; each state party will simply nominate its choice.If you’re flashing back to the name “Dede Scozzafava,” it’s for good reason: This situation is similar to the one that created so much controversy in New York’s 23rd congressional district last year. The GOP’s county committees selected state assemblywoman Scozzafava as their nominee over eight other Republicans. One of the other candidates, Doug Hoffman, ran against Scozzafava as the Conservative-party candidate and gradually chipped away at her support as the election approached. Right-of-center support for Scozzafava dwindled as conservatives learned of her support for same-sex marriage, card check, federal funding for abortion, the stimulus, the public option, and police action against inconvenient Weekly Standard reporters. Several days before the election, she withdrew from the race, and the following day, she endorsed the Democrat, Bill Owens. Owens won, 49 percent to 46 percent.

Two Republicans were already preparing to run against Murtha this year: Tim Burns and Bill Russell. And because Murtha’s death was so unexpected, it is possible that several Republicans who had not planned on running this cycle may choose to.

http://article.nationalreview.com/424527/after-murtha/jim-geraghty

Billboard mystery partly revealed

Posted at 11:41 AM on February 9, 2010 by Bob Collins

Mary Teske, the general manager of Schubert & Hoey Outdoor Advertising reports, "The Bush Miss Me Yet? billboard was paid for by a group of small business owners who feel like Washington is against them. They wish to remain anonymous. They thought it was a fun way of getting out their message."

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/news_cut/archive/2010/02/billboard_mystery_partly_revea.shtml?refid=0

'Miss Me Yet?' Billboard With Photo Of Bush Is Real; Not An Internet Trick

By Mark Memmott

Internet chatter had led to speculation that it might be an urban myth -- nothing more than clever digital trickery spreading via the Web.

But our friend Bob Collins at Minnesota Public Radio assures us he's seen it with his own eyes:

There is a billboard along I-35 near Wyoming, Minn., with a huge photo of former president George W. Bush and this question: "Miss Me Yet?"

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/02/bush_miss_me_yet_billboard_is.html

On Capitol Hill, there's a war being fought over the War on Terror, and so far, Republicans are winning. Or at least they're winning the Battle of Miranda.

GOP lawmakers believe they are having some success in the effort to stiffen the spine of the Obama administration as it makes policy for dealing with captured terrorist suspects in the future. Even as the administration defends its decision to grant accused Detroit bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab the right to remain silent, the president himself is hinting that things might be done differently in the future.

"Should the practice of reading suspected terrorist their Miranda rights be reviewed?" CBS's Katie Couric asked President Obama during Sunday's Super Bowl interview.

"Absolutely," Obama answered. "Everything should be reviewed."

"It's important for us to recognize," Obama explained, "that when we're dealing with al Qaeda operatives, that they may have national security intelligence that we need, and it's important to make sure that the processes and procedures we approach with respect to these folks are not identical to the ones we would use if we were apprehending the local drug dealer."

Translation: Maybe we'll do it differently next time.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/GOP-winning-war-over-Miranda-rights-for-terrorists-83835672.html

February 08, 2010

America is Not Ungovernable

Recently, some analysts have suggested that the lack of major policy breakthroughs in the last year is due to the fact that America has become ungovernable. Ezra Klein argued that it was time to reform the filibuster because the government cannot function with it intact anymore. Tom Friedman suggested that America's "political instability" was making people abroad nervous. And Michael Cohen of Newsweek blamed "obstructionist Republicans," "spineless Democrats," and an "incoherent public" for the problem.

Nonsense. America is not ungovernable. Her President has simply not been up to the job.

Let's acknowledge that governing the United States of America is an extremely difficult task. Intentionally so. When designing our system, the Founders were faced with a dilemma. How to empower a vigorous government without endangering liberty or true republicanism? On the one hand, George III's government was effective at satisfying the will of the sovereign, but that will had become tyrannical. On the other hand, the Articles of Confederation acknowledged the rights of the states, but so much so that the federal government was incapable of solving basic problems.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/horseraceblog/2010/02/america_is_not_ungovernable.html

Poll: Debra Medina closing on Kay Bailey Hutchison

By ANDY BARR | 2/9/10 12:58 PM EST

Tea party-backed candidate Debra Medina is closing on Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in Texas’s Republican gubernatorial primary, increasing the odds the race led by Gov. Rick Perry will be thrown into a runoff.

According to a survey out Tuesday by Public Policy Polling, Medina, a nurse who’s now a businesswoman, had the support of 24 percent of likely Republican primary voters, trailing the three-term senator by only 4 percentage points. Perry, who leads Hutchison by double-digits in several polls, got 39 percent in the latest survey.

If no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote in the March 2 primary, the top two finishers will compete in a runoff on April 13.

The poll of 423 likely Republican voters found Medina particularly strong among those angry at Washington. Among the third of voters in the poll who said they disapproved of Washington, Medina topped Perry, 37 percent to 32 percent.

Both Perry and Hutchison had approval ratings of at least 50 percent in the poll, making Medina’s surge even more surprising.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/32739.html

MSNBC's Ratigan Blames 'Snowpocalypse' on Global Warming

By Jeff Poor
Tue, 02/09/2010 - 10:44 ET

With Washington, D.C. buried beneath at least 20 inches of snow, and with more in the forecast, common sense would suggest global warming alarmists look elsewhere to make the argument to raise awareness for their concerns.

But no, Dylan Ratigan thinks it's ridiculous to suggest all the snowfall totals could cast doubt on the theory of anthropogenic global warming. On MSNBC's Feb. 8 "The Dylan Ratigan Show," Ratigan criticized those who would dare express misgivings about climate change based on the so-called "snowpocalypse."

"Here's the problem - these ‘snowpocalypses' that have been going through D.C. and other extreme weather events are precisely what climate scientists have been predicting, fearing and anticipating because of global warming," Ratigan said.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jeff-poor/2010/02/09/msnbcs-ratigan-blames-snowpocalypse-global-warming

Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) called on Deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan's resignation on Tuesday.

Bond said Brennan, with whom he's tangled publicly over the Obama administration's handling of the attempted bombing of a flight on Christmas, to resign.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/80427-sen-bond-calls-for-brennans-resignation

February 8, 2010 4:00 A.M.

The ‘Shut Up’ Candidate
Obama’s labor pick wants to silence critics and rig the rules in union elections.

Barack Obama and his closest allies have a message for America, and that message is: “Shut up.”

Obama himself is famous for telling his critics to shut up: “I don’t want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking,” he said while defending his so-far ineffective economic-recovery agenda. “I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess. I don’t mind cleaning up after them, but don’t do a lot of talking.” The president used the State of the Union address to hector, in a most unstatesmanlike fashion, the justices of the Supreme Court for upholding the First Amendment right of nonprofits and businesses to make their voices heard before elections, and demanded that Congress pass legislation to shut them up. Endlessly described as “articulate,” the president apparently desires to monopolize the conversation. But Craig Becker, his nominee to the powerful National Labor Relations Board, surpasses the president in that he has made an entire legal and political philosophy out of “shut your trap.”

The NLRB is one of our most defective public institutions. Charged with policing unfair labor practices in general, and with overseeing union-organizing votes in particular, the NLRB is far from a neutral referee — it acts principally as an organ of the unions themselves, and it bristles with hostility toward business owners who are not eager to have their operations organized by the likes of the Teamsters or the ACORN-affiliated Service Employees International Union.

Becker, a lawyer for the AFL-CIO and SEIU, in many ways fits the mold of a typical Democratic pick for the agency, but there are three reasons to have serious reservations about putting him in such a powerful position. First: His opinions are extreme. He has argued that workers should be allowed to choose only between unions, not between a union and no representation, and he wants employers to be banned from even attending NLRB hearings about union elections. On the subject of the NLRB itself, he has gone so far as to write that “employers should have no right to be heard in either a representation case or an unfair labor practice case, even though Board rulings might indirectly affect their duty to bargain.” In other words: “Shut up.” Second: He is affiliated with ACORN, a corrupt enterprise that works the intersection of Big Labor and politics for its own benefit. Third: He has lied to Congress about his relationship with ACORN. On all of those grounds, his nomination should be opposed, vigorously.

http://article.nationalreview.com/424227/the-shut-up-candidate/kevin-williamson