Obama Blinks on Birth Control

Swell: White House to Announce Contraception Rule 'Accommodation' for Religious Organizations.

With the White House under fire for its new rule requiring employers including religious organizations to offer health insurance that fully covers birth control coverage, ABC News has learned that later today the White House — possibly President Obama himself — will likely announce an attempt to accommodate these religious groups.

Adding cowardice upon cowardice—caving, and announcing it in the Friday News Hole.

One source familiar with the decision described the accommodation as "Hawaii-plus," insisting that it's better than the Hawaii plan — for both sides.

In Hawaii the employer is responsible for referring employees to places where they can obtain the contraception; Catholic leaders call that material cooperation with evil. But what the White House will likely announce later today is that the relationship between the religious employer and the insurance company will not need to have any component involving contraception. The insurance company will reach out on its own to the women employees. This is better for both sides, the source says, since the religious organizations do not have to deal with medical care to which they object, and women employees will not have to be dependent upon an organization strongly opposed to that care in order to obtain it.

Let's be clear about what this means: An additional burden is being placed on women to accommodate the bullshit objections of a vocal minority who are playing politics with religion to complain about a policy the central mandate of which has been law for over a decade.

All of this "religious freedom" malarkey is the invocation of false ethics by some of the most unethical, cynical, opportunistic jerks in the country. This isn't an issue of "religious freedom." They're forcing Obama's hand, seeing if they can get him to throw women's healthcare and equality under the bus again.

And he just blinked.

UPDATE: The administration's position is that it's really no big deal because women will still get free contraception coverage—women who are employed by religious institutions will just get it directly from their insurers rather than through their employers. I still have some grave concerns.

2FA, #4

Jim White at EmptyWheel: Iran Begins Uranium Enrichment at Qom Tuesday, Enrichment Scientist at Natanz Assassinated Wednesday.

2FA, #3

Washington Post: Has Obama taken Bush's 'preemption' strategy to another level?
[H/T to Katrina vanden Heuvel.]

It Ended Not with a Bang, But Indefinite Detention

[Content Note: Government-sanctioned injustice.]

On Dec. 31, Obama's final piece of presidenting for 2011 was a truly heinous stroke of his pen: He signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act, thus codifying into law the asserted authority to indefinitely detain any person, anywhere in the world, whom the US government deems to be a threat to US security.

Originally, Obama threatened to veto any bill that contained such a measure, but then signed the legislation anyway, justifying the reversal with the usual weakspeak: "Ultimately, I decided to sign this bill not only because of the critically important services it provides for our forces and their families and the national security programs it authorizes, but also because the Congress revised provisions that otherwise would have jeopardized the safety, security, and liberty of the American people."

It's some rich irony to rationalize indefinite detention with the rhetoric of liberty, especially considering that the provision gives the US government the right to indefinitely detain without trial or recourse "the American people" deemed to be enemies of the state, too.

The ACLU, who have vigorously objected to this assault on civil liberties and grave violation of international law, note: "While President Obama issued a signing statement saying he had 'serious reservations' about the provisions, the statement only applies to how his administration would use the authorities granted by the NDAA, and would not affect how the law is interpreted by subsequent administrations."

That is to say, President Obama recognizes the evident potential for abuse, but went ahead and signed it all the same. It's a power he wants—and he totes promises to use it in the GOOD way!—so who cares that a future president might use it to indefinitely imprison vocal ideological critics. Ha ha that could never happen!

ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero calls Obama's signing of the National Defense Authorization Act into law "a blight on his legacy because he will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law. ... Any hope that the Obama administration would roll back the constitutional excesses of George Bush in the war on terror was extinguished."

Well. I can't add anything to that.

The Not-War in Pakistan

[Trigger warning for state-sponsored killing.]

Karen DeYoung in the Washington Post: Secrecy defines Obama's drone war.

Since September, at least 60 people have died in 14 reported CIA drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal regions. The Obama administration has named only one of the dead, hailing the elimination of Janbaz Zadran, a top official in the Haqqani insurgent network, as a counterterrorism victory.

The identities of the rest remain classified, as does the existence of the drone program itself. Because the names of the dead and the threat they were believed to pose are secret, it is impossible for anyone without access to U.S. intelligence to assess whether the deaths were justified.

The administration has said that its covert, targeted killings with remote-controlled aircraft in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and potentially beyond are proper under both domestic and international law. It has said that the targets are chosen under strict criteria, with rigorous internal oversight.

It has parried reports of collateral damage and the alleged killing of innocents by saying that drones, with their surveillance capabilities and precision missiles, result in far fewer mistakes than less sophisticated weapons.

Yet in carrying out hundreds of strikes over three years — resulting in an estimated 1,350 to 2,250 deaths in Pakistan — it has provided virtually no details to support those assertions.

In outlining its legal reasoning, the administration has cited broad congressional authorizations and presidential approvals, the international laws of war and the right to self-defense. But it has not offered the American public, uneasy allies or international authorities any specifics that would make it possible to judge how it is applying those laws.

Emphasis mine.

Over the course of three years, in a not-war for which there is no direct authorization by Congress as required by the US Constitution, and no oversight, and thus no accountability, we have killed an estimated ~2,000 people in Pakistan.

There were things I expected about Barack Obama when I cast my vote for him. Some of them were low expectations—I expected fuck-all on women's issues, and he has managed to limbo right underneath even my rock bottom garbage expectations—but some of them were great expectations, among which were high hopes that his foreign policy would be a radical departure from the warmongering, secretive, accountability-free nightmare of the preceding administration.

This has not been the case, and it is a grave disappointment.

[H/T to Atrios.]