Waterboarding, rendition, drones and U.S. presidents

Harold Koh, with Obama’s State Dept., said at a 2010 press conference "cruel and inhuman" treatment would not be used "going forward." Not a single media personality has asked Koh or Obama to explain how killing someone is not a painful process. (Photo from U.S. Government)Remember the media fury about waterboarding when President Barack Obama was a junior senator seeking the U.S. presidency?

Rendition was also a hot topic, with most media blaming President George W. Bush for starting the practice of spiriting a suspect off to a foreign country for interrogation.

In the interest of cleaning up the spin, a look at past and current presidents' policy is useful because legacy media completely overlooked the Clinton era.

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Preparing for 2016? Democrat filmmaker continues Clintons’ political rehab

Tipper Gore (left), former wife of Al Gore (second from left), with then First Lady Hillary and President Bill Clinton and others at the dedication of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial in 1997. Roosevelt enjoyed lack of public scrutiny commonly bestowed on Democrats in Washington.(Photo: Carol M. Highsmith, U.S. Library of Congress)Martin Scorsese will add another dimension to the political rehabilitation of former president Bill Clinton with a new documentary. Personally, I think it’ll be more like a slick piece of propaganda, but I admit I’m jaded anytime Hollywood goes near a president from either political party.

Scorsese told media:

“Through intimate conversations, I hope to provide greater insight into this transcendent figure.”

Transcendent is pretty appropriate, but the context is in the mind of the beholder.

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Rep. Cummings should read GAO report—State budget didn’t cause Libya meltdown

Cover of a report from the Government Accountability Office in June, 2012. [Screen snip]During the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee meeting on Wednesday, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) blamed the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya on budget cuts made by Republicans.

Cummings is mistaken or he is deliberately misleading his constituents. Had he taken time to read a report issued by the Government Accountability Office, he might have cast his partisanship aside and recognized a real problem. President Barack Obama apparently missed the report as well.

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For Clinton at DNC, it’s a legacy speech; for Crist, search for a political future

Photo: The US Report/KBDPresident Bill Clinton will speak at the Democrats’ national convention in Charlotte, and so will former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist.

Democrats have probably invested hope in both men for different reasons—Clinton as sage of the party and Crist as disenchanted ex-Republican in search of a political future.

There are potential political hazards for both men should they falter.

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What Obama should tell you in the State of the Union Address

When he delivers his State of the Union address on Tuesday, there are many things President Barack Obama should tell you.

For starters, Obama did not ‘inherit’ a mess?  He asked for one. Nobody twisted his arm to make him run for president.

President George W.  Bush asked for a mess too.

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What is Agenda 21?

By Chris Carter

“Agenda 21 proposes an array of actions which are intended to be implemented by every person on Earth…it calls for specific changes in the activities of all people… Effective execution of Agenda 21 will require a profound reorientation of all humans, unlike anything the world has ever experienced… ” - Agenda 21: The Earth Summit Strategy to Save Our Planet (Earthpress, 1993).

The UN plan referenced by Newt Gingrich is a real threat to private property and US sovereignty.

Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich stated during a recent campaign event that the United Nations was seeking to create an “extraconstitutional control” over the US with programs like Agenda 21. Gingrich's remarks are featured in a YouTube video. But what is Agenda 21,  and why has it taken nearly 20 years before this subject got national recognition?

Agenda 21 seeks to control populations through zoning and seizure of private property, strip national sovereignty, reduce the world population, even control our consumption of meat and air conditioning ... all in the name of the environment. And who can be against the environment, right?

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Scheuer unloads on US leaders and educators for war policy

Michael Scheuer has never been bashful. In his book The Looming Tower, author Lawrence Wright described Scheuer as “temperamental.” Scheuer  was CIA chief of the station charged with tracking Osama bin Laden during the 1990s when President Bill Clinton grossly underestimated the al Qaeda leader’s intentions towards the U.S.

Scheuer is an outspoken advocate of non-intervention in the affairs of other countries who don’t pose a threat to the U.S. I don’t know Scheuer’s politics, but I’d place him in alignment with the Libertarian camp on issues like foreign policy.

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