Later On

MakeUseOf reviews interesting recipe sites.

I grow increasingly uneasy at the spectacle of high-placed criminals being given a pass because of their position: Jane Harman, the unnamed torturers in the CIA, the six high-placed people in the Bush Administration who clearly specified and authorized torture. Granted that these people all have significant positions, and several of them (including Harman) are wealthy. But, really, do we want to continue along the path that high-placed people can commit crimes and be immune from investigation and prosecution? As noted in the Jeff Stein column, Jane Harman did a “completed crime,” yet seemingly it will be ignored.

Surely the law should apply to people regardless of their position and wealth. And to say that “we don’t want to look back, that’s in the past” is beneath contempt: all crimes that are prosecuted are in the past. Just because a crime occurred in the past is no reason to ignore it. What if Bernard Madoff made the case that he should not be prosecuted because his Ponzi scheme occurred in the past?

I fear the US is moving toward increasing lawlessness at the top, since those crimes carry no penalty.

Daphne Eviatar at the Washington Independent:

While most of us were still reading or recovering from the latest batch of gruesome torture memos released by the Justice Department last week, bmaz at Emptywheel learned and reported that U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker issued his ruling in the al-Haramain warrantless wiretapping case.  In his order, Judge Walker rejects the government’s latest attempt to defy the court, hide the evidence of warrantless wiretapping, and begin an interlocutory appeal to the Ninth Circuit.

As I first reported in February, the case — al-Haramain Islamic Foundation v. Obama — challenges the federal government’s warrantless wiretapping program.  The now-defunct Islamic charity is suing the government for wiretapping the group and its lawyers in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA.

The Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, asserted the “state secrets” privilege, saying that the entire subject matter of the case — the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program — was a state secret, and disclosing any details about it to the the lawyers representing the Islamic charity would pose a national security threat. The judge rejected that argument, as did the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

But the Obama administration wasn’t going to let some federal judge tell it what to do. In March, it argued that Walker lacked the authority to reveal the secret document that supposedly proves al-Haramain was wiretapped. The Justice Department even went so far as to threaten to remove the document from the judge’s files.

In short, the Obama administration seemed to be setting up a direct standoff between the executive branch and the federal judiciary.

On Friday, the court rejected the Obama administration’s arguments and ordering the Justice Department to work out a procedure with al-Haramain’s lawyers by May 8 to allow them to view the secret document in a way that won’t compromise national security.

Let’s see what the Justice Department does now.

The Older Grandson is such a kid. Take a look at this annotated list of good sites.

Glenn Greenwald has a column on the AIPAC-Jane Harman story. From that column:

Jane Harman, in the wake of the NSA scandal, became probably the most crucial defender of the Bush warrantless eavesdropping program, using her status as “the ranking Democratic on the House intelligence committee” to repeatedly praise the NSA program as “essential to U.S. national security” and “both necessary and legal.”  She even went on Meet the Press to defend the program along with GOP Sen. Pat Roberts and Rep. Pete Hoekstra, and she even strongly suggested that the whistleblowers who exposed the lawbreaking and perhaps even the New York Times (but not Bush officials) should be criminally investigated, saying she “deplored the leak,” that “it is tragic that a lot of our capability is now across the pages of the newspapers,” and that the whistleblowers were “despicable.”  And Eric Lichtblau himself described how Harman, in 2004, attempted very aggressively to convince him not to write about the NSA program.

And apparently there was no need to apply pressure on Harman to support warrantless wiretapping. Greenwald notes later:

Atrios reads the CQ story as containing “the suggestion that in exchange for dropping the investigation, Harman became a cheerleader for Bush’s illegal wiretapping program.”  I’m not sure that’s what the CQ story suggests.  It was always clear that Harman would be a defender of the illegal NSA spying program; she was, as she herself acknowledged, repeatedly briefed on the program since 2003 and was such a vigorous proponent of it that she tried to bully Eric Lichtblau out of writing about it in 2004 — a full year before it became public.  She didn’t need to be bribed or cajoled to support it.  Instead, Gonzales’ motive in quashing the investigation seems to be that he did not want her credibility impaired — because, as a Democrat and a gushing defender of the NSA program, she would be of great value once the scandal broke.

Interesting column at Congressional Quarterly:

Rep. Jane Harman , the California Democrat with a longtime involvement in intelligence issues, was overheard on an NSA wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department to reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful pro-Israel organization in Washington.

Harman was recorded saying she would “waddle into” the AIPAC case “if you think it’ll make a difference,” according to two former senior national security officials familiar with the NSA transcript.

In exchange for Harman’s help, the sources said, the suspected Israeli agent pledged to help lobby Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., then-House minority leader, to appoint Harman chair of the Intelligence Committee after the 2006 elections, which the Democrats were heavily favored to win.

Seemingly wary of what she had just agreed to, according to an official who read the NSA transcript, Harman hung up after saying, “This conversation doesn’t exist.”

Harman declined to discuss the wiretap allegations, instead issuing an angry denial through a spokesman.

“These claims are an outrageous and recycled canard, and have no basis in fact,” Harman said in a prepared statement. “I never engaged in any such activity. Those who are peddling these false accusations should be ashamed of themselves.”

It’s true that allegations of pro-Israel lobbyists trying to help Harman get the chairmanship of the intelligence panel by lobbying and raising money for Pelosi aren’t new.

They were widely reported in 2006, along with allegations that the FBI launched an investigation of Harman that was eventually dropped for a “lack of evidence.”

What is new is that Harman is said to have been picked up on a court-approved NSA tap directed at alleged Israel covert action operations in Washington.

And that, contrary to reports that the Harman investigation was dropped for “lack of evidence,” it was Alberto R. Gonzales, President Bush’s top counsel and then attorney general, who intervened to stop the Harman probe.

Why? Because, according to three top former national security officials, Gonzales wanted Harman to be able to help defend the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, which was about break in The New York Times and engulf the White House…

Continue reading. It’s particularly interesting that the Bush Administration used its illegal wiretaps to collect information to blackmail pressure Congressional foes into cooperation. So, though they said the surveillance was to detect terrorist activities, they turn out to have found other uses for the information they uncovered.

By all means, read the entire column: it has lots more. For example, later in the column:

Harman responded that Gonzales would be a difficult task, because he “just follows White House orders,” but that she might be able to influence lesser officials, according to an official who read the transcript.

From TPMmuckraker:

A U.N. torture expert said Saturday that the United States has an obligation to prosecute CIA officers who used harsh interrogation tactics to question detainees in the War on Terror. Manfred Nowak, the U.N. special rapporteur in Geneva, told the AP that the U.S. had to abide by the U.N. Convention against Torture to make torture illegal and seek justice against those who used it. Nowak criticized President Obama’s logic in the decision announced Thursday not to prosecute CIA officers who used the tactics — including waterboarding. "The fact that you carried out an order doesn’t relieve you of your responsibility," Nowak said. (AP)

I can’t help but feel that, were this another country and the tortured prisoners Americans, people here would have no problem at all in understanding (a) that it was torture and (b) that investigation and prosecution was absolutely necessary.

From TPMmuckraker:

For more than twenty years, officials of Crestwood, a small suburban town in Illinois, pumped water contaminated by carcinogenic toxins to the town’s 11,000 residents to cut costs, a Chicago Tribune investigation found. Even after state environmental officials warned town officials that the water was contaminated by dry-cleaning chemicals and twice cited the town for violating environmental laws, officials continued to use the poisoned source. The officials said in 1986 that they would get all of their tap water from Lake Michigan but continued using the poisoned well for as much as twenty percent of the town’s drinking water, until state environmental officials shut down the well in 2007 after testing it for the first time in twenty years. The state’s environmental protection agency and Attorney General are investigating the matter. (Chicago Tribune)

When I make chili, I (of course) never use ground beef. If I’m using beef (which I don’t seem to do anymore) or pork or chicken, I buy an appropriate piece (cross-rib chuck roast, or pork shoulder roast, or boneless chicken thighs or breasts) and cut it into small pieces for the chili. Other ingredients are canned diced tomatoes, onions, garlic, dash liquid smoke, dash of Worcestershire, and these herbs and spices: Mexican oregano, ground cumin, ground ancho chili, ground chipotle. No chili powder. But The Younger Daughter brought my attention to Penzey’s 9000 chili powder. Penzey’s has an interesting line-up of chili powders:

Regular chili powder: ancho chili pepper, cumin, garlic, and Mexican oregano

Medium hot chili powder: ancho chili pepper, red pepper, cumin, garlic, and Mexican oregano

Hot chili powder: ancho chili pepper, red pepper, cumin, crushed red pepper, garlic, and Mexican oregano

Chili con carne seasoning: ancho chili pepper, tomato powder, ground cumin, Mexican oregano, garlic, coriander, minced onions, red and green bell peppers, Tellicherry black pepper, allspice, cilantro, and cloves

Chili 3000: ancho chili powder, garlic, cumin, onion, cilantro, paprika, cayenne red pepper, lemon peel, Mexican oregano, black pepper, citric acid, natural smoke flavor, and jalapeño pepper

Chili 9000: ancho chili pepper, cumin, garlic, cilantro, onion, paprika, cayenne pepper, lemon peel, Mexican oregano, black pepper, cocoa powder, citric acid, turmeric, cinnamon, coriander, ginger, natural smoke flavoring, fenugreek, cloves, fennel, nutmeg, white pepper, anise seed, jalapeño pepper, star anise, and cardamom

I have to try that Chili 9000.

A very interesting column by Norm Stamper, of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). One snippet:

Over the past four years I’ve asked police officers throughout the U.S. (and in Canada) two questions. When’s the last time you had to fight someone under the influence of marijuana? (I’m talking marijuana only, not pot plus a six-pack or a fifth of tequila.) My colleagues pause, they reflect. Their eyes widen as they realize that in their five or fifteen or thirty years on the job they have never had to fight a marijuana user. I then ask: When’s the last time you had to fight a drunk? They look at their watches.

I never got to the dishes over the weekend, so you’ll probably get light blogging today: the cleaning ladies are coming, and I have to get the kitchen in order.

I also need to do a food run. My last couple of extemporized dishes have failed miserably, so a fresh start is needed. I’ll roast a chicken with a lemon (this recipe, which always works). That’s for The Wife, so that she can mine it for lunches to take with her on her days in Palo Alto this week. For myself, I’m making a chicken stroganoff, working a variation on this recipe at Slashfood. But no tomatoes, of course, and 3 Tbs of sour cream for 3 pounds of chicken? They’ve got to be kidding. Also, the onions (in my experience) should be sliced, not chopped. And too much sherry—well, as I said, I’m making a variation.

I have been giving the Swissmar Borner V-Slicer a great workout, which will continue when I slice the onions. It’s quite a device (once you know to wear a cut-resistant glove when you use it).

The Slant Bar is best for the Monday shave, without a doubt, and of course I’m using the gold one as part of the gold series. D.R. Harris shave sticks make superb lather, this morning with the Plisson Chinese Grey. A very fine 3-pass shave that left my face totally smooth and refreshed, the last helped by a good splash of Booster Aquarius, a very fine aftershave.

Michael Scherer of TIME:

President Obama has an ability to issue coherent, Op-Ed-length answers during press conferences that is currently unmatched on the American political stage. Today, at a press conference in Trinidad, NBC’s Chuck Todd asked Obama to describe the “Obama doctrine” for foreign policy. At first Obama joked that it would be up to the press to write the “definitive statement on Obamism.” But then he said the following, which reads to me as just about the clearest, most succinct statement yet of Obama’s diplomatic approach (with a little editing). Here is his answer:

[T]here are a couple of principles that I’ve tried to apply across the board: Number one, that the United States remains the most powerful, wealthiest nation on Earth, but we’re only one nation, and that the problems that we confront, whether it’s drug cartels, climate change, terrorism, you name it, can’t be solved just by one country. And I think if you start with that approach, then you are inclined to listen and not just talk.

And so in all these meetings what I’ve said is, we have some very clear ideas in terms of where the international community should be moving; we have some very specific national interests, starting with safety and security that we have to attend to; but we recognize that other countries have good ideas, too, and we want to hear them. And the fact that a good idea comes from a small country like a Costa Rica should not somehow diminish the fact that it’s a good idea. I think people appreciate that. So that’s number one.

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The Wife just heard this on the radio:

Take a ripe avocado, peel and seed and mash it up with a fork. Add diced canned green chiles and lime juice, mix. Then mix that into softened vanilla ice cream and refreeze.

I bet also that canned diced jalapeños would be interesting: cold and hot at the same time.

Via the Ethicurean:

More little goodies:

Bill Marler talks about why he does what he does, how his kids have never eaten a hamburger (we bet they’ve snuck one), and how his response to meat reps saying “If only people would cook the meat” was “If only you didn’t put cow shit in it, people wouldn’t have to worry about it.” (Culinate; thanks Julie!)

***

Yes! magazine’s April issue, titled “Food for Everyone: How to Grow a Local Food Revolution,” is an informative, educational smorgasbord. Choice morsels: 8 Ways To Join the Local Food Movement; Claire Hope Cummings on GMO-colonized Kaua‘i, which some think should be called Hawaii’s “Mutant Garden Island; and a profile of Growing Power’s Will Allen.

***

Paul Shapiro, senior director of The Humane Society’s factory farming campaign, takes the poultry industry to task for going on the attack, PR wise, rather than distancing itself from the facility captured in a new animal-cruelty undercover video. God forbid they condemn the abuses. (Civil Eats)

Several more short notes:

A new study from Purdue University — funded by Monsanto, interestingly — indicates that farmers who rely on Roundup Ready crops are definitely seeing increased herbicide resistance in weeds. Money quote: the researcher said “farmers should treat Roundup and Roundup Ready crops as an investment and work to protect the technology” by rotating crops consistently and using two different herbicides. (Purdue University) OK, so a genetically modified seed that costs extra, that you have to re-buy every year, and the act of buying which represents a contract that Monsanto will hunt you to the ends of the earth to uphold — now that seed doesn’t even do its one piddly job? GMO seeds rock.

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The Associated Press has obtained records showing that the federal government handed out more than $687 millions’ worth of subsidies, for both cheap irrigation water and for water-intensive crop growing, over the past two years to hundreds of farmers in California and Arizona, the most seriously drought-stricken states in the West. (Washington Post)

***

Some big food processors, eager to avoid food-safety scandals, are paying other government agencies to do the FDA’s dirty field work for them. “With industry itself footing the bill, some safety advocates worry that the approach could introduce new problems and new conflicts of interest,” reports Andrew Martin. (New York Times)

***

The USDA’s People Garden, which started off as an ill-planned PR stunt, is not only really happening, it’s happening as a 100% organic showcase for food growing, reports Eddie Gehman Kohan, in a great post reported from the garden. And the effort is drawing out sustainability-minded USDA worker bees. (Obama Foodorama) Frankly, we’re stunned and a little stoned on the awesomeness of this. Except we fear that somewhere, Monsanto and Syngenta lobbyists are sitting around a darkened bar plotting their response.

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The EPA will require pesticide manufacturers to test 67 chemicals to determine whether they disrupt the endocrine system, which regulates animals’ and humans’ growth, metabolism and reproduction. It’s about time — researchers like UC Berkeley’s Tyrone Hayes have been sounding the alarm about atrazine, for example, for years. We hope the tests will be conducted by third parties; the article doesn’t specify. (Washington Post)

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The number of blue crabs in the Chesapeake Bay increased about 43% last year, probably a sign that measures taken to protect the beleaguered bay icon are working for now. (Washington Post)

From the Ethicurean:

In India, the Green Revolution system of farming is heading toward collapse. Farmers are running out of groundwater, have to buy three times as much fertilizer as they did 30 years ago to grow the same amount of crops, and face pesticide-resistant insects. (NPR)

The violence is not "spilling over the border" from Mexico:

On March 25, CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° rolled into El Paso to report on Mexican drug-cartel violence. Cooper was one more in a recent wave of national news heavy hitters to parachute in, scare the pants off millions of viewers, then jet off to the next headline destination.

Dressed in military green, Cooper furrowed his brow and squinted solemnly into the camera as the lights of the international border checkpoint glimmered behind him. Guest Fred Burton, identified as a terrorism and security expert with Stratfor Global Intelligence, was beamed in from a studio in Austin to paint a menacing picture of Mexican cartels invading U.S. city streets. “It’s just a matter of time before it really spills over into the United States unless we shore up the border as best we can,” Burton warned.

By God, they’re coming to your neighborhood! Looking at another live feed from El Paso, listening to the breathless reports of violence and “expert” analysis about “spillover,” viewers could only assume that the city in which Cooper stood was under imminent assault.

That’s the reality these days for El Pasoans. Or rather, it’s the twisted perception created by border-warrior politicians and national news media, and foisted on Juarez’s relatively peaceful sister city. For El Pasoans and residents of nearby border towns, it might all be a mere oddity—maybe even worth a chuckle—if it didn’t mean the construction of 18-foot border walls, blustery talk about National Guard troop surges, and new resources for the disastrous war on drugs. While “troop surge,” “border wall,” and “drug war” might sound irresistibly sexy to politicians and pundits, it’s border residents who have to live with the fences and tanks and consequences.

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