I'm Back!

So I deleted (more like hid, actually, but I digress) this blog for a while. Only now it's back. I mostly deleted it due to school stuff. But now that my level of school stress has been lowered (i.e. the semester's over, and I switched into honors world for second semester) I decided to put it back up. I'm still vegan, by the way. And I'm still working at the library. Not sure if anything about me has really changed since the last post...

So since I'm back, I'm going to jump right in and start talking about Gitmo. So it has been a year and two days since Obama promised that he would close Gitmo in a year (i.e. his deadline was two days ago and he missed it). And is it closed? Why of course not! (I may have become more critical of Obama since I last posted...). In fact, Obama has already decided to illegally detain without a trial FIFTY PEOPLE from Gitmo. Fifty.

So I've decided that tomorrow, I'm going to write a letter to him about how we need to close Gitmo. Some of my planned main points are as follows:
Infinite detention is a violation of due process and doesn't work with the idea of "innocent until proven guilty"
This actually hurts us to keep Gitmo open because you know those terrorists everyone's so afraid of? This is actually helping their recruitment efforts.
The justice system that we have (i.e. no military commissions) is perfectly able to deal with any of these people: if there's no evidence, the prisoners should be released and transferred to the appropriate country

And that's the gist of it. It's just ridiculous that even with a Democratic president, a majority of Democrats in the House and Senate, etc., we can't even manage to follow our own Constitution! And I also feel that Obama's hushing the whole Gitmo thing up. It feels like he's hoping everyone will just forget about it and that maybe he really doesn't have any interest in remedying the situation. And that scares me. Which is why I'm writing the letter.

Miscellaneous Details

I haven't posted anything this week, mostly because I've been extremely busy. My camp started (I'm basically a CIT) and it runs from 8 AM to 5 PM. Plus the bus ride takes a while. So I haven't had time to do much of anything else. Now it's the weekend, though, so I have more free time.

So this morning I was catching up on the news, etc, and I found it interesting that I didn't see much of anything about the whole prosecution thing. I think I'm taking that to mean that there definitely isn't any real investigation of the Bush administration about torture going on any time soon.
However, there's been a lot of work on healthcare that I was mostly unaware of this week due to my busy schedule. I've been having trouble finding too much detail on this, other than all the ridiculous claims the Republicans are throwing out. (Like this, for example). There may or may not be some willingness to just pass it without worrying about the Republicans, which would be good. I'll have to look around for more information later.

Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings have started. Apparently they have gone pretty well. It looks she'll be confirmed.

I seem to be unable to say anything much so I'll just link to some things. Think Progress points out that Obama should just issue an executive order preventing the further application of Don't Ask Don't Tell, which is a very good point. I don't understand why the Obama administration is acting like it can't really do anything. This piece of news about how the conservatives don't think civil rights leaders are important enough for students to learn about bothered me. This, about some of what Obama is doing with infinite detention, was troubling. This (about Obama's faith based initiatives thing) upset me, too.

Tentative Relief- Never mind

I'm assuming that anyone who reads this already knows that I really think that Bush and others who were responsible for the whole Guantanamo Bay situation really need to be prosecuted. If anyone didn't at the very least suspect this of me, I will be completely shocked. Well, lately I've been feeling disappointed and frustrated because it was looking like that wasn't going to happen. But luckily, there's some good news on this front!!!

Think Progress (not just Think Progress, but that's what I'm going to link to) is reporting that attorney general Holder is "leaning toward appointing a prosecutor to investigate Bush admin's torture policies".

...Curses! So much for that! Look at this. Basically, he's only prosecuting interrogators who went beyond what the evil John Yoo did. ...If you're looking at the link, read through the whole thing: through update two. ...I almost didn't read that part.

Basically, information is very tentative at this point, but it looks like there will be an investigation so limited and so badly targetted that it would have been better not to have it at all. All of this is extremely discouraging, and what's truly awful is that it appears that Holder's trying to trick us or something. I'm most confused about all this.

Edit: For once my giant folder of politics-related bookmarks came in handy. A lot of websites don't have anything about this yet, and even fewer actually include the bit about the discouraging details. Sites that actually do have something about this include TalkLeft, ... and other than what I already linked to, that's it. Plus a few had the first bit, but the second part's kind of important. Hopefully all that means is that no one has managed to write anything about it yet.

Not Joe the Plumber Again

Does anyone remember Joe the Plumber? Or, as I generally like to refer to him, not-Joe the not-plumber? Well, look who decided to embarrass himself again. Not-Joe the Not-Plumber completely perplexes me. Just in general. As in, everything he's ever done that's been publicized. Then again, I never have been able to completely understand any of these right-wing people. But Not-Joe the Not-Plumber in particular is very, very perplexing.

I'll get to the point already. So, you know how all the crazy Republicans decided to do the whole "teabagging" thing? ...That never made sense to me either, of course. So, first of all, Not-Joe decides that he is exactly the right person to tell us all what to do since we're clearly all dissatisfied by intrusive government (I sort of am, but it's about completely different things, such as wiretapping...). I'm going to start quoting from this article: he "said the best advice he can give to citizens who are frustrated with intrusive government is to stop voting along party lines and begin electing leaders who will abide by the nation's founding document.

"Learn the Constitution," he said. "Then when someone wants to be elected, hold their feet to the fire and make them follow it because that's what we need to get back to. It works so well when we follow it. Forget party politics. Learn the Constitution and vote the best American in, not the best Democrat or Republican.""

...He says as he prepares his ballot to vote for another Republican. I find it terribly ironic that the guy who's so in favor of the tea parties and other Republican nonsense is telling us that we need to "learn the Constitution". I, for one, already "learned the Constitution".

Don't worry, I'm not nearly at the best part yet. So another thing mentioned was that "I'm cynical by nature, but I am also very hopeful because I see people from the Left and the Right showing up to these tea parties," he said. "You have people, bikers, union members and guys in three-piece suits showing up to these things." ...Because bikers, union members, and guys in three-piece suits are CLEARLY not people. ...I suppose that wouldn't have amused me so much if I weren't so grammar-obsessed, but I found that really funny.

THIS is the really great part: "Asked if he has plans to run for public office, he replied, "I hope not. You know, I talked to God about that and he was like, 'No.'"" That's the epitome of stupidity. Is this guy mentally ill? Then again, I suppose a lot of people think that this "God" character exists, so this is only a small step from the unfortunate norm. Still, though. I thought only the really crazy religious wackos (not that they aren't all, but those that stand out) thought God actually talked to them. What did he do? Just call God up on the phone? Where do people get this nonsense?

This last bit's sort of amusing, too. "He continued, "I believe he's gotten me on this grassroots movement. If I can encourage leaders to step up, that's what I would like to do. That's a heavy role. That's something I don't know if I am prepared to do yet."

But Wurzelbacher said he will keep that door open if God ever calls him to be that leader.

"I just know whenever I fall off his path, things get really hard," he said. "So I just stick with what God tells me to do.""

I swear this guy must be delusional. Maybe he hears voices, actually. Which wouldn't be any of my concern, except that this guy somehow presumably has some sort of credibility with the crazy Republicans. Also, the very idea of not-Joe being elected is a mix of amusing and horrifying. I want to say it would never happen, but we've elected some pretty stupid people before. Bush is the example that comes to mind, of course. You know what the Republican ticket should be for the next election? Sarah Palin and Not-Joe. The question is who would be president and who would be vice-president. Candidates, I mean. I think Palin would have to be the presidential candidate. SNL could do some very funny stuff with the two of them. Of course, if they got elected it would be a nightmare.

I just re-read the post about it at Think Progress, and the bit about him actually considering being in public office last year surprised me. Mostly I was surprised because I don't think I ever heard about that. ...I don't want to link to anything that awful, but click on the link at the Think Progress post. It's really pathetic. Well, at least this is a sign that the Republican party still isn't doing too well. Not that it wasn't already obvious.

Edit: speaking of Republicans who are so crazy it's surprising even the Republican party takes them seriously... look at this about Michael Steele (also referred to as work-not-jobs for obvious reasons).