Once again from The Daily Dish: 

Abraham Lincoln’s General Orders, 100 Instructions for the government of the armies of the United States in the field. 

“Military necessity does not admit of cruelty–that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, nor of maiming or wounding except in fight, nor of torture to extort confessions.”

Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago. 

“To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good . . . Ideology—that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others’ eyes, so that he won’t hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors. That was how the agents of the Inquisition fortified their wills: by invoking Christianity; the conquerors of foreign lands, by extolling the grandeur of their Motherland; the colonizers, by civilization; the Nazis, by race, and the Jacobins (early and late), by equality, brotherhood, and the happiness of future generations.

The Daily Dish points out a “factual account of who was seized and imprisoned at Gitmo”.

Andy Worthington: The Definitive Prisoner List

Key Points

1. “At least 93 percent of the 779 men and boys imprisoned in total — were either completely innocent people, seized as a result of dubious intelligence or sold for bounty payments, or Taliban foot soldiers, recruited to fight an inter-Muslim civil war that began long before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and that had nothing to do with al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or international terrorism.”
2. “Overall, as it stood at December 31, 2009, 574 prisoners had been released from Guantánamo (532 under Bush, 42 under Obama), one — Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani — had been transferred to the US mainland to face a federal court trial, six had died, and 198 remained. “

Sullivan also points to an article by Stuart Taylor in the Atlantic to debunk many of the assertions that continue to be made by those who support Guantánamo and the use of torture. There is no doubt that there is a dangerous enemy and it remains a primary responsibility of government to be ever vigilant. However, there were dangerous enemies before and there will be dangerous enemies again. They will become more clever or utilize ever more exotic techologies. It is the nature of the human condition. Why is it necessary to create false information to enhance fear, or to abandon core principles for the purpose of expediency?* This is not an exhibition of sound leadership, or strength in the face of an enemy, but the actions of scared men.

———-
* Simple act of “due process”  which traces back to English Common Law and the Magna Carta in 1215.

US health care costs more than in other countries because we pay more per unit of care. Ezra Klein spoke with Kaiser Permanente CEO George Halvorson:

There is a simple explanation for why American health care costs so much more than health care in any other country: because we pay so much more for each unit of care. As Halvorson explained, and academics and consultancies have repeatedly confirmed, if you leave everything else the same — the volume of procedures, the days we spend in the hospital, the number of surgeries we need — but plug in the prices Canadians pay, our health-care spending falls by about 50 percent.

Wasn’t  it the role of Insurance firms to control health care costs? The article contains set of charts from the International Federation of Health Plans Comparative Price Report to demonstrate the significant difference in fees for medical services and procedures.

Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general overseeing the Troubled Asset Relief Program that began under President George W. Bush, and was expanded under President Barack Obama, states in his Quarterly Report to Congress:

“It’s unrealistic to think we’re going to get all of that money back.”

“Despite the aspects of TARP that could reasonably be viewed as a substantial success,” he wrote, “Treasury’s actions (i.e. ‘Treasury’s refusal to require TARP recipients to report on their use of TARP funds, its less-than accurate statements concerning TARP’s first investments in nine large financial institutions, and its initial defense of those inaccurate statements’) have contributed to damage the credibility of the program and of the government itself, and the anger, cynicism and distrust created must be chalked up as one of the substantial, albeit unnecessary, costs of TARP.”

The Treasury Department has spent more than $454 billion. Of the $454 billion only $73 billion has been paid back, while $317 billion remains outstanding.

Source: Yahoo! News and SIGTARP

Sometimes Sen. Lindsey Graham frustrates the heck out of me, and other times I think this is a guy that can provide the type of leadership that is required from our members of Congress. From the Greenville Online.com’’s South Carolina Senator Graham willing to compromise on health care:

“The key to getting health care changes passed, Graham said, is a compromise in which Republicans agree on universal coverage, Democrats agree that it be run by the private sector, and the cost doesn’t add to the country’s deficit….

The bill is an overhaul of the current system and would be funded by the money now being spent on health care, Graham said. It features incentives to reduce costs for people who adopt a healthy lifestyle, such as not smoking, he said.

If Graham agreed to mandatory coverage as a compromise, he has come to believe that allowing people not to carry health insurance isn’t an option in meaningful reform.

“The only way that works is if you can say no to people who don’t get coverage,” he said. “Well, nobody says no to anyone. You go to the emergency room, you get whatever you need. It’s called cost shifting.

“You and I are paying for people who are uninsured. Many of them are capable of paying, they just don’t. The ones who are truly needy and can’t pay, it’s our obligation to help them.”

Graham indicates that he is very willing to work outside his comfort zone, but is also going to hold President Obama accountable. Perfect, a reasoned opposition providing leadership on a key issue:

His main criticism is that Obama’s promise that he won’t sign a health-care bill that isn’t deficit-neutral can’t be kept.

For example, he doubts Obama’s claims that health-care reform can be financed partly using money from cutting Medicare waste and claims that “triggers” can be built in that require Congress to reduce costs when spending reaches a certain level.

“He’s trying to use his talents and his tone to take on a legitimate problem (health care), but he says things that need to be challenged,” Graham said. “He says things like, ‘I won’t add a penny to the deficit.’

“But when you talk about how you are going to pay for these bills, cutting Medicare is not going to happen,” he said. “Triggers, we’ve never pulled one of those triggers before.”

Obama says he is confident a health-care bill he can sign will reach his desk. Graham is hoping lawmakers and the president are up to the challenge.

“Health-care inflation in the private and public sectors is unsustainable,” he said. “So we do need to fix the system.”