Im glad the torture memo was release. I did hope there went after some top officials for this

No civilized country epically the U.S should ever torture.

No lame excuse can justify it, along with if we torture it taints our image home and aboard and produces more enemies.

Enough fun has been made of these ridiculous “tea-baggers” that I don’t have to add to it here.

I will say the “protests” had a conspicuous lack of color.
Was FAUX NEWS only using white-tea?

While President Obama is saying the right things about stopping the flow of guns from the U.S. to Mexico, he and the members of Congress, Democrat and Republican, are afraid to address the real problem, namely, the legal sale of assault weapons in the U.S. Why are they buckling to the NRA? There is probably (I’m not sure) a majority of Americans who would agree that assault weapons have no business in the hands of private citizens. Where is their nerve? What can we do to give them a backbone?

Mike Y.,
Getting rid of enough Republicans in congress to eliminate the threat of filibuster will be a good start.

Why are everyone in the media studiously avoiding saying that IA operatives WERE ONLY FOLLOWING ORDERS!
Obaying legal findings and directives does not do Neurenburg justice to the stain on our national honor. Please stop nuiancing torture. I exopect more from “independent, publicly funded” Public Broadcasting

I am a supporter of Obama but I disagree with the decision to not pursue possible criminal charges against those who allegedly committed torture. Any leniency for those charged should be based on the evidence and the ENTIRETY of the fearful environment stoked by the Bush administration. Our justice system should be able to issue convictions w/o jail time, convictions with jail time, acquittals for those whom the evidence dictates such. To “blanketly” not follow-up on this is wrong.

Secondly, I think politics has entered into this decision in that congress can still investigate w/o interference from the executive branch. This way the the AG is forced to follow up on the evidence if the congressional investigation reveals blatant criminal infractions. The administration gets to save face among the CIA career folks and the hard left gets their investigation. Obama’s administration sails down the middle.

Lastly, as a veteran I remember being told that it is my duty to DISOBEY any order that is unlawful. In fact, it is written in the UCMJ. If CIA, Military, or other intelligence agencies received legal opinions that they disagreed with it was their duty to resign, disobey or file suits in court to rectify the situation. For the executive branch to stymie this search for justice confounds me.

Janet Neopolitano’s Apologies:

It is a shame that we are forcing our Good Officials to apoligize whenever then make a comment that they believe and may be true.

Isn’t it true that there are certain fractions of our society who is wreckless with buffed-up muscles and Born-To-Kill tatoos. They might be in overseas duties just for the money and due to high-levels of testasterone. This subject has nothing to do with Patriotism. Those people may be dangerous when the money dries up.

She did have a good point and courage to say something that she believe in. Weapons are bad; too many weapons with young people is worse.

Does no one in news remember the Nueremberg Trials after WWII?
The critical point of law conming from those trials was that underlings had no excuse for torture, cruelty, murder. These actions were inherently unlawful.
Compliance with orders from those above did not excuse conduct which was inhernetly immoral, unethical, against humanity.
We should not excuse CIA employees and others who tortured because they followed and relied upon legal opinions that stated such actions were not illegal. The U.S. claims to be a country of laws. We are not following the laws we effectively created and enforced.

Mike Yantachka sadly wish this was the case, but a majority of 51% according to different polls favors the gun laws the way they are. The NRA has way to much power.

Assault weapons should permanently banned.

Here is a little statistic, since 9/11 120,000 people have been killed with guns in this country.

Just this month more people died in gun deaths than American solders in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

I hope the NRA is proud.

Wow, there was a wall of lefty spin and/or ignorance in today’s show. Just keep telling everybody that the tea party protest is lead by extremists and hate groups – that should keep everything civil and stop them from protesting again! I don’t know if I should feel offended or if you guys are just totally clueless about why people are protesting.

I don’t listen to NPR for this – please have more balance in your programs about political issues.

I watched some of the footage on Fox and on line.
Ben I don’t know if these people are extremist, but they sure know how to get population all riled up.

Well not really, what I saw of the protest in DC was out of some kind of comedy film. It’s interesting how Fox said there were hundreds of people and yet there might have 150 200 people tops. That’s not the point though, the idea is absurd, on the one hand they don’t want to pay taxes. On the other they all support the troops or so it would seem.

Oh and those roads they all road in to DC on were payed for by tax dollars.

I couldn’t believe the caller who called foul on the tea party movement and said we should all just pony up and pay more taxes.

The few “tea-baggers” that turned out don’t have a clue.

If the country really went the direction they claim to want, they would all be crying for mommy and peeing their pants, wondering where the government is in their times of need and bellowing for their government to come to their aid.

Clueless hypocrites.

For instance,
just give them a flood, hurricane, earthquake, or rampant fire; let them lose all of their savings in a bank collapse; let their neighborhoods riot during a massive power blackout; let their entire community suffer during a particular industry’s sector collapse; let them go bankrupt due to their child’s illness; let them get taken by a developer who scammed them when building their new home; let their loved one die due to tainted food or a faulty product…

Let any of these things happen to them and watch them clamor “where is my government and why isn’t it helping me?”

Oh, we don’t provide any services any more… remember? No taxes!

I dont see why most people perception of the “teabag” party would be seen to be promoted by the far extremist right.

I mean not like a supposed news organization promoted it. Even know some of the biggest promoters where right wing talk radio, who also have shows on the same news organization that supposedly did not promote it. Whose protesters seem not to have the same message along with a diversity of say color as well.

The supposed news outlet only providing time,dates,contacts,locations, and of course lovely far right host to talk about it and be there.

Man how could anyone think this wasnt a silly, ill thought-out ploy by the far-right, that all and all failed.

But was really funny when i heard some on foxes using the term teabag.

Jeffe, no one got the population “all riled up” – people protested because they were already upset (in any case, there does not seem to be a single organization directing these events). And while frustration over taxes was certainly a main theme (it was tax day, after all) it was really the misuse of those tax dollars that people were protesting about. The problem started with the first bailout under Bush and has only continued under Obama. People of all political stripes are uniting to protest against the Bush-Obama economic model. We’re jeopardizing our future with this massive government spending.

Today on NPR Jack Beady actually called the anti-tax tea party protesters “Tea Baggers” and made it clear in his very “objective” way that the “tea baggers” are somehow involved with “white supremacy?” When I heard this I started laughing so hard I almost drove my car off the road. Beady is representative of how the establishment despises the white working and middle classes in this country.

At the same time, Beady ignores incidents like what occurred at the University of North Carolina recently. At UNC ex-Congressman Tom Tancredo was denied his free speech by “protesters” when he tried to give a speech against illegal immigration[1]. If this incident had been a Right Wing student group denying a “civil rights” leader the right to free speech it would have been international news and Jack Beady would be calling for blood.

I can see where this going. Everything and anything that can be twisted around to make working and middle class white people appear on the verge of forming the 4th Reich will be reported, while real left wing and/or racial minority actions will be covered up or minimized. The Internet will be demonized as a “hate-zone,” and anyone who rejects Obama’s policies will be labeled “racist” and “unwilling to change.”

[1] http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/16/inside-politics/

The ironic thing about the tea party protests is that about 99% of the protesters actually saw their taxes go down with this administration. Where were they the last 8 years when their taxes were higher and Bush was running record deficits?

To me, the protests were more about party politics than anything else: People identify with a certain party, but it is a vague identification, not necessarily hinging on specific issues, and not well thought out. That is why when it comes time to criticize the other party, it doesn’t matter if there is any logical coherency to it, or if it is hypocritical. It is simply the chance to criticize the other side that matters.

From an epidemiological point of view legal guns in the home are bad news.

Are they a deterrent to home invasion? Probably in a few (nominal) cases. It’s the exceptions that fuel the gun nuts but highlight the rule.

Are guns an emotional crutch? Definitely.

I’d love to hear a show about the second amendment. Is it still valid?

Could either private ownership of firearms or a, ‘well regulated militia,’ whatever that is fulfill the reasoning behind the second amendment?

Beatty got exactly the response he was looking for from you “Mr. White” – and that’s very unfortunate. It was appalling to hear Beatty slander a whole movement with the same vitriol and race baiting we hear from Right Wing radio while twice invoking an obscene reference to make it very clear what he thinks about those of us in the protest.

NPR is my sanctuary from this kind of thing. I listen to be informed, not enflamed.

Analysis from WBUR is usually top notch, so I do hope that this is not a sign of things to come.

“While President Obama is saying the right things about stopping the flow of guns from the U.S. to Mexico, he and the members of Congress, Democrat and Republican, are afraid to address the real problem, namely, the legal sale of assault weapons in the U.S. Why are they buckling to the NRA? There is probably (I’m not sure) a majority of Americans who would agree that assault weapons have no business in the hands of private citizens. Where is their nerve? What can we do to give them a backbone?”

First off an “assault weapon” has traditionally been applied to full-auto weapons, which have been highly regulated since the 1930s. The misapplication of the term here is largely due to folks who, either through ignorance or deliberate obfuscation, attempt to conflate high regulated full auto weapons with semi-auto rifles. Second, what exactly is the issue with semi-auto rifle? According to the Department of Justice’s own statistics (see DOJ link below), homicides involving *all* guns other than handguns (that includes shotguns, hunting rifles, etc.) comprised 17% of all homicides that involved a weapon, approximately the same as knives and “other weapons”. Third, according to “All Things Considered” this afternoon, the “flow of guns” from the U.S. to Mexico has been a bit exaggerated. The “90% of crime guns in Mexico coming from the U.S.” is a bogus stat. In reality, this number only refers to guns which have successfully been traced by the ATF–in other words, a “percentage within a percentage” according to the news report. Last, were that we only lived in a world where everything you found distasteful was made illegal. What a place that would be.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/tables/weaponstab.htm

“From an epidemiological point of view legal guns in the home are bad news. ”

In what way? According to the book Freakonomics, the rate of death of children due to guns kept in the house pales in comparison with that of houses with swimming pools. To quote: “Likelihood of death by pool (1 in 11,000) versus death by guns (1 in 1 million plus) isn’t even close” (pg 150). So, from an epidemiological point of view, you should probably be more worried about swimming pools.

I attended a Tea Party, and did not see any of the things that the Obama Media reported on. First, let me state that the Tea Parties have been going on for a long time, even through the Bush regime. They were started by the Libertarian Party, of which I am a member, and then was expanded upon by those of us that supported Ron Paul’s campaign. The recent ones were planned almost a year ago, prior to any mention of them on MSNBC, and Fox News and other talk shows hosts promoted them, and some tried to co-opt them. They were NOT sponsored by anyone other than the people, which makes Nancy Pelosi a big liar (nothing new for her).
I attended the Tea Party in Green Bay, WI in March, where there were people of all ages, races, and economic backgrounds. The Madison, WI Tea Party, which I missed had an African-American Minister as one of its key-note speakers. The Appleton, WI Tea Party, which I did attend on 4/15, was like the Green Bay one, but a lot more people showed up.
The problem is that the media wants you to believe that we are all racists and loons, just because we don’t agree with Obama.
I know plenty non-white people that would make great Presidents. Take a look at Thomas Sowell or Dr. Walter E. Williams. Both African-American. Both highly educated. Both Patriots.
Just because we don’t agree with the path to Socialism that Obama, and the Congress (both sides), are taking this country, does not make us a bunch of whackos.
Hillary Clinton said it perfectly when she said that disagreeing with the government was not only patriotic, it was our God given right.

People are upset because Obama is tripling the deficit in one year and the national debt in three. Congress is pandering to the 50% of the population that pay no income tax. The tea parties are designed to get the attention of the other 50% who work and whose hard-earned money is being used to build high-speed rails to nowhere. It’s clear where JP and jeffe fall.

Jack Beatty has nothing of value to add to any discussion.

Hi Ethan,

Foxes has it wrong, is where u got the 17 percent because i watch them say it. though it is not as high as 90 percent it is much closer to 90 percent. the 17 percent is far from right.

u can listen yourself if u like

here it is

http: //www. npr.org/ templates/story/story. php?storyId=103224899

Is anyone on this blog under 35?

Do you know what “tea bagging” is?

Regardless of your position on taxation, the use of the phrase “tea bagging” in the mainstream media (including NPR) to represent/describe the action/movement of Americans to say “no” to taxes on tax day is ludicrous at best and at worst reprehensible.

It is a ‘ha-ha”, ‘wink-wink’, ‘tongue-in-cheek’ effort by those in the mainstream media that know what the modern terminology of “tea bagging” actually is to laugh in spite of those going along and having no clue. (Anderson Cooper with David Gergen and others)

It is downright describing a pornographic act! Period.

Ya, I guess that is funny if you are of a descending opinion from those protesting.

In a different media environment, having subtle pornographic undertones to a serious argument would get you taken off the air.

Nobody at any Tea Party was using that terminology. That was the “liberal media’s” spin by their own doing.

Google “tea bagging, testicles” and see what you find.

Adam –

The fact that a handful of people are making fools of themselves “tea bagging” at the bequest of corporate media giant Fox News is no one’s fault but their own.

Sharon –

You say “Obama media.” I think you’d be happier watching Fox News than listening to NPR.

It’s just a guess.

Christopher: You too could be an onpoint commentator!

Adam: A couple of us mentioned it, not as adamantly as you.. You’re right, it is sick and offensive – I expect better from NPR.

ban assault weapons? why? thats not going to stop violence here or abroad. people killed people before guns. i am not a republican, i am not right wing ( im actually a socalist). but to say that not allowing me or any american, to own a firearm because of magizine capacity, or its origanal military use, is nonsence. nobody wants to ban bolt actions, byt they had origanaly been intended for military use. swords, arrows, rocks , have all been used to kill. stoping guns, wont stop murder. the issue can be resolved with legalizing pot. the reason that people sell pot is because of demand, the reason it is proffitable is because of its illegal status. this would all but disapear if pot was legal, as it grows in almost all climates and would be in a matter of years as common as tommatos in gardens and thus, would be worthless as a product that could be traded or sold. example , booze. when it was banned, crime florished around it, and it had many murders commited over it. until it was legalised, then it was and is, a product that is taxed and makes a lot of legitamate income. these cartels are the modern day version of al capone, making money on somthing because its ilegal and in demand.
these cartels would switch to other drugs that have more specific growing requirements, and would be easier to fight at the sorce. not to mention the amount of money needed to “combat” pot, prosicute, and incarcarate, someone for wanting to get high. cocane, meth, heroin… those are real problems.

Like many other posters here, I was disgusted by Jack Beatty’s insensitive and intellectually dishonest description of the April 15 protests. When people go out into the streets to exercise their free speech in defense of progressive causes, I do not hear anyone on this program malign them as tools of a “left-wing” media establishment (even if MSNBC, CNN, and Daily Kos have promoted the events) and sieze upon fringe elements at these protests and claim that they are somehow representative of the entire group.

To be honest, I am greatly distressed about the future of democracy in this country. So-called objective media like NPR and CNN maligned these protesters in every way possible and further chill any criticism of President Obama by insinuating that every attack on his policies is nothing more than veiled racism.

As for the protesters themselves: Of course most of them will see their taxes go down in the first years of the Obama administration. The point, though, is two-fold: 1) Even if my taxes go down, I still want the money being spent responsibly. Slapping the word “responsibility” on your budget does not make it so. In fact, it makes me think you are hiding something. 2) We are not idiots. Obama’s proposed spending levels are simply unsustainable without BOTH MASSIVE inflation and MASSIVE tax hikes in the future. We need open and honest discussion about the likely consequences of these proposals, both good and bad. So far, I have heard very little of it on this program. Whatever happened to asking hard questions of those in power?

I have decided I can no longer listen to any On Point program with Mr. Beatty as a “news analyst.” I get nothing from them–I could get the same exact message from putting what Janeane Garofalo has to say into FifteenDollarWordsWhenTwoDollarWordsWillDo.com and reading what comes out. As a political moderate, I listened to this program because I found right-wing talk radio to be not very intellectually satisfying, but this isn’t, either. (Don’t kid yourselves.) Thankfully, I have found far superior podcasts on the web, so I no longer need to rely on Mr. Ashbrook’s Week in Review.

Jack Beatty is one of the best guys who can give honest and correct answers. He does not have any affiliations to anything.

We need more people like him.

Who else would say: We should have invaded Hamburg, instead of Afghanistan.

ps. Harman should be forced to resign.