US Flight Policies Make No Sense

In an effort to seemingly terrorize the populace by evoking memories of 9/11 (that have been kept so persistently in the forefront of our collective consciousness by those in power) the White House approved a low flyover of a 747 over Manhattan. The official explanation is that it was a 'photo-op.'

In other flight-related news, a flight to the US was diverted because it contained someone on the no-fly list, an author that had been critical of US foreign policy in Latin America. Way to treat guests nicely.

Pentagon's 'Privilege Review Team' Off Its Rocker

This post by Glenn Greenwald has to be read to be believed. A defense attorney for Binyam Mohamed, a man tortured by the US, has written a letter to president Obama about the torture that his client has received at the hands of the US. In response, the Prentagon's 'Privilege Review Team' has initiated a summons against him to explain himself in court. All this for complying with policies that the Pentagon itself set up. Amazing.

Obama administration expands secrecy claims beyond Bush levels

When we signed up for 'change,' we thought it would be a change back to pre-Bush policies, not exacerbating Bush's insane agenda! Unfortunately, we were wrong. The Obama Department of Justice is now making new and novel arguments to expand the secrecy and immunity of the government. They even coined a new, Orwellian phrase: "sovereign immunity." Keep up the good work, guys!

Update: Turley on video from Countdown

Obama administration doesn't actually think bailout fund accountability is a good idea

Obama and co. are engineering bailouts to the banks such that they can circumvent the limits that Congress puts on executive pay viz. these actions. From Dissenting Justice:

Perhaps Obama believes that "if" doling out trillions to the banks gets the economy (artificially) working again that people will forget that he is doing something that goes against his promises concerning transparency, accountability, and, ahem, change.

Obama administration tries to block release of torture memos

In another bout of political CYA, current senior national security aide John Brennan, who played a prominent role in the past administration's intelligence efforts, is trying to block publication of torture memos that will likely implicate many in the current and former administrations. As Turley notes, the only person that can break this blockade is Obama, who will now have to personally order the documents to be released.

Time to show what you're made of, Barack. The right thing to do is release these memos, even if (and especially if) it will trigger a war crimes investigation that brings nearly the whole government under scrutiny.

Update: More on Greenwald

UK has list of potential terrorist schoolchildren, as reported by teachers

The first commenter on this article on boingboing says it best: WTF?

Obama doesn't actually think listening to citizens' suggestions is a good idea

So much for new thinking and new ideas. From Politico:

In this moment of national economic crisis, the top four questions under the heading of “Financial security” concerned marijuana; on the budget, people voted up questions about marijuana to positions 1-4; marijuana was in the first and third positions under “jobs”; people boosted a plug for legalizing marijuana to No. 2 under “health care reform.” And questions about decriminalizing pot occupied spots 1 and 2 under “green jobs and energy.”

After taking questions lower on the list, Obama addressed the pot issue head-on, noting the huge number of questions about marijuana legalization and remarking with a chuckle, “I don't know what that says about the online audience."

"The answer is no, I don't think that is a good strategy to grow our economy," he said, as the audience in the room applauded and joined him in a laugh.

I guess we're not going to see any drug / prison policy changes until 2016 (or later).