The torture report is not the CIA's darkest hour. It's not even close.

[Jesus Malverde]

This week’s Senate report on the CIA’s use of harsh interrogation methods is neither the first nor the worst time the agency has run afoul of its congressional overseers.

Four decades ago, a series of hearings on Capitol Hill helped reveal that the CIA-run Phoenix Program in South Vietnam, working in concert with the U.S. and South Vietnamese militaries, had “neutralized” -- killed, detained or recruited -- as many as 80,000 people suspected of being members of the Communist Vietcong and used gang rape, beatings and electric shock as well as waterboarding to interrogate prisoners.

Then in 1975 and 1976, a Senate panel took a broader look into the dark side of the Central Intelligence Agency and found that the nation’s spies seemed to have few limits, with covert activities that included plotting to assassinate foreign leaders, domestic spying and LSD experiments on unwitting subjects.

The Church committee, the investigative panel named for Democratic chairman Frank Church of Idaho, published 14 reports on CIA activities, including efforts to kill leaders in Cuba, Chile, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Dominican Republic and Vietnam; a secret program to open Americans’ mail; and a mind-control program called MKULTRA.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-10/torture-report-revives-rogue-image-the-cia-has-sought-to-erase.html

[SamKnause]

1. The CIA is a United States

sponsored global terrorist organization.

The United States would destroy the world to keep crony capitalism king.

The United States of America does not believe in or support democracy.

They only support their brand of 'democracy'.

They deploy the CIA to carry out their crony capitalistic ideals.

The United States is not what it advertises itself to be.

I know.

I am an America going back many generations.

The Internet has been a strong tool for getting to the truth.

[True Blue Door]

2. There's reality, and there's perception.

I perceive the Bush era to be the ugliest period in American history because I was there.

I know, however, that there were worse.

Obviously the Civil War was the worst in absolute terms, and the outcome of that was far from just - the traitor leaders responsible for the murders of hundreds of thousands of Americans got off scot free.

Nixon was the second worst, for the Vietnam crimes as well as Chile and other regions.

Bush is only third worst.

[truedelphi]

3. As someone who intensely hated Nixon, I hate saying this:

Nixon refused to cooperate with the Big Bankers, with the result being possibly went down due to the fact that the Banking Class hated him back.

Summer of 1973 - Nixon rolled back prices. Not something the Financial Powers that Be appreciated.

When history looks back at those who destroyed the middle class by allying themelves with bankers, Obama is not going to get off the hook. Which is only fair - as he put himself on that damn hook.

[True Blue Door]

5. It's a lie that Obama "allied" himself with bankers.

When we had a majority, he brought through banking reform.

When we failed three fucking times in a row to maintain or bring back Democratic majorities, he dealt with a better Senate than he was going to see for the next two years and accepted things banks wanted because the Senate wanted them.

There's no escaping accountability: When we deliver, we get what we demand. When we fail to deliver, our complaints are hypocritical bullshit.

[rhett o rick]

6. Then plez explain his alegience to Tim Geitner, Lawrence Summers, Ben Bernanke,

and now Antonio Weiss. And we can't forget the Wall Street favorite Holder.

[True Blue Door]

8. He prefers a "team of rivals" doctrine in choosing advisors.

But his options are limited when we fail to deliver Congress, as we've done three times in a row. Clearly the most urgent issue in need of correction is our incompetence at legislative politics.

[socialist_n_TN]

12. That's kind of a deflection don't you think?......

Obama still had that "veto" pen somewhere and what was accomplished in the first two years could have been protected with the veto if necessary. Obama spent WAY too much of his time in office trying to be "bi-partisan" when it was obvious that all the Republicans wanted to do was thwart and nullify the '08 election as far as any potential policy changes went. Other incidents come to mind too, such as not letting the Bush tax cuts expire and instead "negotiating" a bad deal to keep them permanently in place.

Sometimes it's better to protect your gains and do nothing rather than go for a deal at any cost. There were some gains made during the first couple of years. Or maybe he really just agreed with the Republican positions?

[True Blue Door]

13. Focusing on Obama is a deflection.

If we had maintained Congress and expanded liberal power within the Democratic Party, none of this would even be an issue.

[socialist_n_TN]

14. Where does that maintaining Congress and expanding liberal power start though?......

Leadership was needed and we didn't get it.

When Obama was elected in '08 along with a LOT of other Democrats, that was an actual mandate for a change of mindset. I had an old, white, Republican relative in Mississippi that voted for Obama in '08 because he thought that the "Reagan Revolution" had led to the downfall of the economy and almost for the country itself. When Obama and the majority of Dems gave us nothing different to believe in, then that mandate was frittered away in some sort of phony "bi-partisanship". It was a squandered opportunity in the name of keeping the Republican Party alive as a meaningful force in American bourgeois politics.

I honestly believe that all the people needed immediately after the '08 elections was a obvious shift away from the neo-liberal economic agenda of trickle down, etc. and the rest of Obama's two terms would have been different. We didn't get it because Obama believes in this failed economic groupthink too.

So now we WILL have to do it ourselves and we'll have to do it in the streets.

[True Blue Door]

15. Leadership starts with the people demanding it.

We failed. Obama said, "We are the ones we've been waiting for." And we responded, "Fuck you, gimme a pony!"

[GeorgeGist]

29. Ah, the pony ...

Now I understand you.

[rhett o rick]

16. "Team of rivals" doctrine. LOL. You gotta be kidding. They weren't advisors. They

were Atty General, Sec of Treasurer and the Fed. Once appointed these people made policy. Obama appointed all conservatives and they made policy AS CONSERVATIVES. Holder gave Wall Street a pass while he prosecuted medical marijuana dispensers in states where it was legal.

If Pres Obama were to assemble a "team of rivals" it would be made up of liberals. Conservatives and Obama love fracking, the Patriot Act, indefinite detention, unlimited domestic spying, etc. Pres Obama is a conservative.

[True Blue Door]

17. A 'team of rivals' would be made up entirely of people like you? ROFL!

Have you ever managed anything more complicated than a DVR?

Your comment is cookie-cutter ODS delusion.

[rhett o rick]

20. So you ran out of arguments and had to stoop to insults. Bring it. Pres Obama doesn't like

liberals. His nominations were all conservatives.
Let's look:
Tim Geitner, Lawrence Summers, Ben Bernanke, William M. Daley, Jeff Immelt, Dave Cote, Jeb Bush, Robert Gates, Gen Stanley McChrystal, Jacob Lew, Jeremiah Norton, Gen Petraeus, John Brennen, Chuck Hegal, Michael Taylor, James Comey, James R. Clapper, Robert Gates, Leon Panette, Robert Mueller, Michele Leonhart (DEA), Lois Lerner (IRS), Arnie Duncan (education) , Rahm Emanuel, Penny Pritzker, Michael Froman as U.S. trade representative, Republican Senator Judd Gregg nominated to be Commerce Secretary, Kenneth Salazar (DINO) Dept of Interior, Tom Wheeler FCC, Charles Ramsey

Not a liberal in the bunch. His "team of rivals" were "teams of friends".

And I would hope you'd be above trying to bait me with insults.

[True Blue Door]

21. Elizabeth Warren was one of his nominations.

But ODS is infamous for its amnesia.

[rhett o rick]

24. LOL. Still can't be decent can you? You came up with one example. And a lulu at that. Yes,

technically he did nominate her and then fell all over himself withdrawing the nomination when the Republicans told him to.
Do you support what Arnie Duncan is doing to teachers? How about the FCC and Wheeler killing the internet?
Obama dumped Howard Dean and Van Jones. But he did have Rick Warren give a prayer at his inauguration. He killed ACORN.
Pres Obama is not a friend of the left.

[True Blue Door]

25. Obama really is Satan in your universe, isn't he?

Every good thing is an accident or a result of his being thwarted, every bad thing that happened while he was President without him coming out and banging his shoe on a table in rage was part of some conspiracy he hatched.

Is there any functional difference between you and the Tea Party?

I know this President's record. And I know the record of the people who bitch and moan about his record. There's no comparison - he's the liberal, and they aren't.

[rhett o rick]

26. I gave you a chance to argue in a decent manner and you just couldn't. You have no argument so

you have to get personal. I am finding that typical of those that deride the left. No decent argument just derision. Sayounara

[True Blue Door]

28. I demand basic honesty from people I talk to, and give it in return.

If that's too high a demand, there's nothing I can do but say what I see in front of me.

[Octafish]

7. What would Goldman think of that?

Larry Summers: Goldman Sacked

Monday, September 16, 2013
By Greg Palast for Reader Supported News

Joseph Stiglitz couldn't believe his ears. Here they were in the White House, with President Bill Clinton asking the chiefs of the US Treasury for guidance on the life and death of America's economy, when the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers turns to his boss, Secretary Robert Rubin, and says, "What would Goldman think of that?"

Huh?

Then, at another meeting, Summers said it again: What would Goldman think?A shocked Stiglitz, then Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisors, told me he'd turned to Summers, and asked if Summers thought it appropriate to decide US economic policy based on "what Goldman thought." As opposed to say, the facts, or say, the needs of the American public, you know, all that stuff that we heard in Cabinet meetings on The West Wing.

Summers looked at Stiglitz like Stiglitz was some kind of naive fool who'd read too many civics books.

CONTINUED...

http://www.gregpalast.com/larry-summers-goldman-sacked/

[True Blue Door]

9. There are two things that have to be addressed in decisions.

The way things are, and the way they should be.

Summers knows how things are - the power wielded by institutions like Goldman Sachs - but seems to have no conception of how things should be. He thinks how things are and how they should be are the same thing.

[Octafish]

10. Good point.

But Lawrence Summer's the guy President Obama wanted to serve as Secretary of Treasury. And his masters just happen to be the same people who consider themselves the masters of the universe, the people on Wall Street who want the US taxpayer to back their derivatives, or crap imaginary "bets" that helped crash the stock market before the Great Depression. So, other than that, I'm sure he's a great guy.

[True Blue Door]

11. Summers was never nominated, so that claim is not justified.

Being considered means only that and nothing more - his biases were not considered egregious enough to rule him out for a job that is largely managerial rather than visionary.

[rhett o rick]

18. You are picking nits. Pres Obama's economic policies are conservative. His DoJ have been soft

on Wall Street crime. Hell he wants to appoint Antonio Weiss. Who do you think Holder will go to work for after he leaves office?

[True Blue Door]

19. I am stating facts. Summers was not nominated, period.

I don't know Weiss as well.

[rhett o rick]

22. The facts are that Pres Obama has turned his back on the left and appointed only conservatives.

He is a conservative. He embraces the Patriot Act, the TPP, fracking, indefinite detention in the NDAA, whistle-blower persecution, unlimited spying by the NSA/CIA, drone killing, continuous war in the middle east, and is soft on torture.

[True Blue Door]

23. You have an Elizabeth Warren avatar.

So I guess you know she was chosen by the President to help implement Dodd-Frank. Real "corporatist Wall St. sellout" behavior.

But since you know that - which I assume, since I would rather not think the alternative - your comment is a real puzzler.

[DonCoquixote]

27. peoplewill hate to admit it

but frankly, they failed to do the work needed. Yes Obama has not a strogn leftist, but when we failed to vote because of various reasobns, some good, some outright awful (I am gonna punish him because I did not get what I want now, or I am not gonna vote for him becvause i want Hillary) than who the hell is to blame. I do not agree with some Foprginers hating all Americans, but there is a point where we have to look and say whether or not we as Americans diod iour part, and the fact is, we did not.

[Comrade Grumpy]

4. The organization needs to be abolished and reconstituted without its secret armies.