Letters to the Editor
Scientician
Published Letters: 523 Editor's Choice: 1
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Jared:
[Read the article: Chris Dodd's leadership vs. Clinton and Obama's game playing]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This is a guy who voted AGAINST the last FISA bill. Why are we assuming Obama is for something now that he was against a few months ago and is lying (or misleadingly "game playing") in order to cover it up? This is the sort of illogical conjecture this blog usually excoriates.
We're calling it "equivocal" because it is. Adding a comma to the bill might change it enough for Obama to support it. What we don't have is unequivocal opposition to telco immunity being in the bill. His statement is a day late and a dollar short anyway.
And yes, his vote against the last one is fine, but again, where was his hold or filibuster? This token opposition isn't good enough. We want leaders who will not just dissent, but actually be willing to lose friends and allies in order to do the right thing and actually block these abominations.
The Alito debacle was the proof of that lesson. 42 senators voted against him, more than enough to block except that only 25 senators were willing to filibuster. Meaning 17 senators didn't care enough about Alito to stop him, even if they didn't actually want him there.
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specter, snowe and collins, smith
[Read the article: Chris Dodd's leadership vs. Clinton and Obama's game playing]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]maybe hagel
those are the best (slim) bets for republican opposition to this bill
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Aycharaych:
[Read the article: Anonymous Liberal for Glenn Greenwald: Giuliani on torture]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There are several answers to your line of inquiry:
1) This is about condoning torture as a matter of policy. I am not aware of any US state or the Federal government sanctioning torturing prisoners. Someone being tortured by a guard or other prisoners illicitly is not the same thing.
2) The US policy on and treatment of foreigners held under the War On Terror is a significant point of moral judgment by the world of America. Torturing 1 POW is far worse as far as the world is concerned than 1000 domestic prisoners dying in squalor. This is not merely optics, it affects how the world treats America and even influences how other countries view torture as policy. The US condoning torture could result in many more people around the world being tortured, and the US having no moral credibility to stop it.
3) I dislike how you characterize liberals as unconcerned with the state of the US prison system. This is seen by liberals as a problem. What "liberals" are you talking to who aren't concerned with the overuse of incarceration in America?
Liberals advocate against things like 3-strikes laws, for felon-voting, for rehabilitation programs, against mandatory minimums, and against the general thrust of the war on drugs as a solely criminal matter. Liberal policies would result in many fewer prisoners, and many fewer criminals to begin with.
Further, that prisoner populations ballooned under Clinton is a weak point since most prisoners are in state prisons, Clinton is not a liberal, and there was a Republican congress.
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are you considering his offer?
[Read the article: A bizarre, unsolicited e-mail from Gen. Petraeus' spokesman ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't know if I would take it, but it seems like he's offering you a trip to Iraq.
Not sure what value there is in it, and going to "prove" him wrong is definitely a bad reason, but the offer is on the table, however bitterly made.
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hoax
[Read the article: A bizarre, unsolicited e-mail from Gen. Petraeus' spokesman ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My first thought is that Glenn did not publish the email address of this guy from the earlier correspondence, so if it is a hoax, that raises the interesting question of how the hoaxer got ahold of this guy's email?
Unless the email address is predictable for anyone familiar with military email systems.
The email header will contain clues as to its origin, including IP addresses that should be traceable to DoD servers (likely in Iraq).
there are IP address to location web sites which can tell you approximately where an IP is, and sometimes who owns it.
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Glenn, check for spyware
[Read the article: A bizarre, unsolicited e-mail from Gen. Petraeus' spokesman ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's possible (I think) that all this information can be spoofed, and that the spoofer obtained it directly from your computer somehow. This would be possible if your machine had been infected with some kind of malware giving someone remote access to it whenever it is online.
(It is also possible the spoofer has access to Col Boylan, or that Col Boylan really is the sender.)
It would be useful to eliminate your machine as the source of the information necessary to create this hoax.
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Engage Salon's IT
[Read the article: A bizarre, unsolicited e-mail from Gen. Petraeus' spokesman ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Whoever runs salon's email system should be engaged to investigate this.
Assuming it is a hoax, the perpetrator would have needed the email address and header information for the infantile colonel, and could get it in a few places:
- the Col's laptop
- Glenn's laptop
- the MIL email server
- Salon's email server
Right now, occam's razor has me leaning towards "this is genuine" and this insufferable twit sent this email in a fit of pique, and now regrets it, and is playing dumb.
If it is faked, to what end? No obvious motive comes to mind that adequately explains this (particularly since it has been months since Glenn corresponded with this guy, so why now?).
My other suggestion would be to find the Army's Inspector General and make a sincere request for investigation of possible email spoofing of high ranking military officers, and such would be a security problem worth checking into.
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Swift Loris:
[Read the article: A bizarre, unsolicited e-mail from Gen. Petraeus' spokesman ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]About the "vermont identity theft" that was stunningly asinine on the Col's part. As if it was common knowledge that he had been victim of identity theft and glenn should have known.
And yeah, I doubt the ID theft of a colonel would make the news, so how the hell would we check this, unless it reached the public domain?
It smells like unverifiable bullshit to cover up his regret for sending this email.