I'm sick of writing about labeling genetically engineered foods.

I'm sick of it because there's really one thing to say, and I've said it before: Americans have a right to know how their food is produced. Period.

The fact is that most processed food in the supermarket is genetically engineered. That means it includes ingredients that have genes from other species inserted in their DNA. Nearly every single American has eaten genetically engineered foods, but many of us don't know it.

Does it matter? That's up to each individual.

Just like it's up to you whether you care if your food is kosher, gluten-free, low-carb, or anything else. You can decide whether it's worth it to you to buy cage-free eggs or not, because the eggs are labeled. That doesn't take freedom away from someone else who wishes to make a different choice than you.

The labeling fight is an old one. Food companies don't want to add any label that might make you less likely to buy their products.

For example, they don't want to add easy-to-read "traffic light" labels that give each product a health rating of green ("Yes! Eat this!"), yellow ("Think before you eat"), or red ("This is really bad for you"). In studies, consumers find these labels really easy to use -- so naturally businesses that sell junk food hate them.

On the flipside, food companies do want to add labels that make their products look more attractive -- even if the labels are misleading. Like the time orange juice from concentrate was mislabeled as "fresh." Or when Cheerios promised to lower your cholesterol, even though the claim was unproven.

Sometimes, food manufacturers even make up voluntary labeling systems to show consumers which of their foods are healthiest, like the corporate-backed Smart Choices Program that labeled sugary Froot Loops a "smart choice." When pressed, they defended the claim by noting that Froot Loops cereal is healthier than, say, a donut.

The pushback against labeling genetically engineered foods is simply an admission by manufacturers that we wouldn't want to eat their food if we knew what they were putting in it.

You know what, then? Maybe don't put it in the food.

But, they tell us, genetically engineered ingredients are safe.

OK, fine. Put them in the food and label it. And if you're afraid consumers won't buy it, make your case to the American people why we should eat it. Because Americans shouldn't have to eat in the dark. In the land of the free, we ought to have the freedom to decide what to put in our mouths.

Speaking of eating in the dark, just this week, Congress failed to pass legislation that its critics call the "DARK" Act. That stands for Deny Americans the Right to Know, and that's exactly what this kind of law would do.

It's a common game in food politics: When individual states finally do what the federal government won't -- as Vermont recently did by requiring labels -- industry opponents go to Congress to ban the regulations everywhere.

The tactic is completely undemocratic.

Whatever you think about genetically engineered foods, Big Food is proving again and again that its politics may be its most unappetizing product of all.

Conservatives are assailing a rule on payday lending currently being formulated by the Obama administration as an attack on states' rights.

Right-wing members of the House Financial Services Committee accused the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau of trying to "preempt" state law, in its impending regulatory initiative focusing on short-term loans.

Bureau Director Richard Cordray told the committee on Wednesday that a rule will be coming in the Spring, but that it wouldn't be based on preemption. He said it will be focused on setting minimum standards that "seek to eliminate predatory practices that embroil many consumers in a debt trap."

When the federal government "preempts" state law, it effectively means the statute can be ignored, as Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) noted in a back-and-forth with Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.)

"To preempt means to prevent the state law from being effective," Sherman said. "To supplement, you have to obey the state law and you have to obey the federal law."

"If the federal law requires me to wear a belt, state law requires to me wear both suspenders, I will wear both," he added.

That line of reasoning did not assuage Republicans -- often hostile, when questioning Cordray. A number of Democrats, too, are fiercely critical of CFPB efforts to crackdown on loansharking.

In recent weeks, some of those Democratic lawmakers have been subject to intense criticism from the party's rank-and-file. It came after Huffington Post published a story on the cosponsoring of anti-CFPB legislation by Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-Fla.). The bill would allow states with regulatory regimes similar to that of Florida to be exempt from any CFPB payday lending rules.

The state's framework was touted on Wednesday by Rep. Dennis Ross (R-Florida), the author of the aforementioned bill. Ross reacted angrily when Cordray refused to describe Florida law as a "gold standard."

"There's been analysis of the Florida model, and what it shows is that these loans are still being made at above a 300 percent rate of interest, and they're being rolled over on an average of nine times for many consumers," Cordroy said. The repeated roll-over is something Cordray and other payday lending rule supporters have described as a "debt trap."

Ross' proposal has significant support within the Florida Congressional delegation. Democratic co-sponsors beyond Wasserman-Schultz include Reps. Alcee Hastings and Patrick Murphy.

Murphy's support is most notable because he is running for the Senate seat being vacated by now-failed presidential candidate Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) Despite President Obama's numerous vows to protect the CFPB from legislative attacks, Murphy's senatorial campaign was endorsed earlier this month by the White House.

A member of the House Financial Services Committee, Murphy did not show up on Wednesday to ask Cordray any questions.

Also see: Obama's Supreme Court Nominee Must Take a Stance on "Citizens United"

As Democrats and Republicans gear up for a battle over whether the Republican-controlled Congress will hold hearings to consider President Obama's Supreme Court nomination of Judge Merrick Garland, we take a look at Garland's judicial record. Merrick Garland is the chief judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He was named to his current post by Bill Clinton in 1997, winning confirmation from a Republican-led Senate in a 76-23 vote. Prior to that, Garland worked in the Justice Department, where he prosecuted the Oklahoma City bombing case. Garland is widely viewed as a moderate judge, who he has received bipartisan support in the past. With the nine-member Supreme Court now evenly split with four liberal and four conservative justices, Garland could tilt the court to the left for the first time in decades. But some organizations have expressed concern that his record on certain issues, including abortion rights, is unclear. To examine his views, we are joined by Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women, and Ian Millhiser, author of the book Injustices: The Supreme Court's History of Comforting the Comfortable and Afflicting the Afflicted.

TRANSCRIPT:

NERMEEN SHAIKH:After weeks of speculation, President Obama has announced his nominee to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I've selected a nominee who is widely recognized not only as one of America's sharpest legal minds, but someone who brings to his work a spirit of decency, modesty, integrity, evenhandedness and excellence. These qualities and his long commitment to public service have earned him the respect and admiration of leaders from both sides of the aisle. He will ultimately bring that same character to bear on the Supreme Court, an institution in which he is uniquely prepared to serve immediately. Today I am nominating Chief Judge Merrick Brian Garland to join the Supreme Court.

AMY GOODMAN: Republicans have vowed to block the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate will wait until a new president is in place next January before even holding a hearing on a nominee.

MAJORITY LEADER MITCH McCONNELL: President Obama made this nomination not -- not with the intent of seeing the nominee confirmed, but in order to politicize it for purposes of the election.

AMY GOODMAN: President Obama criticized Republicans for threatening not to hold confirmation hearings.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: It is tempting to make this confirmation process simply an extension of our divided politics -- the squabbling that's going on in the news every day. But to go down that path would be wrong. It would be a betrayal of our best traditions and a betrayal of the vision of our founding documents.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Many analysts say Obama chose Judge Garland to make it harder for Republicans to outright reject him without facing a political backlash. Merrick Garland is the chief judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He's widely viewed as a moderate judge who has received bipartisan support in the past. He was named to his current post by Bill Clinton in 1997, winning confirmation from a Republican-led Senate in a 76-to-23 vote. Prior to that, Garland worked in the Justice Department, where he prosecuted the Oklahoma City bombing case. At 63 years old, Garland is the oldest Supreme Court nominee in four decades, a move some consider a concession by President Obama. The nine-member Supreme Court is now evenly split with four liberals and four conservative justices. Garland could tilt the court to the left for the first time in decades, though some organizations have expressed concern that his record on certain issues, including abortion rights, is unclear. On Wednesday, Merrick spoke briefly about his legal views.

JUDGE MERRICK GARLAND: Fidelity to the Constitution and the law has been the cornerstone of my professional life, and it is the hallmark of the kind of judge I have tried to be for the past 18 years. If the Senate sees fit to confirm me to the position for which I have been nominated today, I promise to continue on that course.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we're joined by two guests. Terry O'Neill is president of the National Organization for Women. NOW released a statement on Wednesday calling Judge Garland, quote, "a real nowhere man." And we're joined by Ian Millhiser, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund and the editor of ThinkProgress Justice. He's the author of the book Injustices: The Supreme Court's History of Comforting the Comfortable and Afflicting the Afflicted.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Ian Millhiser, why don't you review his record? Talk about Judge Garland, what he is known for, the decisions that he has made.

IAN MILLHISER: Sure. I mean, he is definitely to the left of center, but, you know, I think it's accurate to call him a fairly centrist judge. He comes from a long-standing progressive tradition of judicial restraint that really stretches back to the Roosevelt administration. And what that means is that as a justice, I think that he is likely to want the courts to do much less than conservatives have wanted them to do in the last seven years over the course of Obama's presidency. A big reason I think that Obama probably picked Garland is because Obama has spent his presidency being harassed by lawsuits, and I think he's tired of that. He wants a little more judicial restraint. What it means if Garland is confirmed is that the sort of aggressive judicial activism we've seen over the last seven years probably gets halted. It also means, however, that some things that liberals might want from the court, they're probably not going to get from Judge Garland.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, talk about some of his key decisions.

IAN MILLHISER: Well, I mean, I think that since he's a judge on the D.C. Circuit -- the D.C. Circuit's primary role is reviewing the regulatory actions of federal agencies. And there, he's been fairly deferential, and generally deference to federal agencies is something that's going to be good for the party that wants to be able to govern.

Two areas where he has shown a strain of conservatism: He is a federal prosecutor, and he does tend to be more conservative than other Democratic appointees on criminal justice; there's also a Guantánamo Bay opinion where he sided with the Bush administration. It's worth noting that the precedents that were in place at the time of that opinion were not good precedents. They were written in haste. They go back to World War II. And so, some people have defended him by saying that he was just following precedents. But he was also reversed by the Supreme Court, and he was reversed to his left. So, you know --

AMY GOODMAN: And explain what he ruled.

IAN MILLHISER: Sure. So there was a question then dealing with whether or not Guantánamo Bay detainees were allowed to go to civilian courts or whether they had to go through the military tribunal system. He joined a ruling saying that they had to go through the tribunal system. At the -- I believe he relied on a World War II precedent called Eisentrager, which is not a great decision. And that -- and then his opinion was reversed by the Supreme Court five to four in the Rasul case.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Terry O'Neill, your organization, the National Organization for Women, has called Judge Garland a "nowhere man." What are some of the concerns that you have about Judge Garland?

TERRY O'NEILL: You know, Amy, we don't know where Judge Garland stands on some key issues for women. And this, actually -- this concern actually sort of predates the nomination of Judge Garland. For a long time, it seems, presidents have decided that they must nominate people that we don't have much of a record on.

I think it's time for us to take a step back and look at values. President Obama is absolutely right: You want to put a person on the Supreme Court who has impeccable credentials, who is -- who really, truly has a strong intellectual capability and a record of excellent performance. But we also need justices on the Supreme Court who will uphold the values that this country stands for -- equality, a recognition of basic human rights, expansion of voting and political engagement for all of our citizens. If -- we need to have some assurance that those values are held by the Supreme Court nominee. And this is what I was getting at when I said, OK, so, "Nowhere Man" from The Beatles, a little quote there. But my point is that we don't know.

I also think it's important to have more diversity on the Supreme Court. I have joined with other women's -- women of color organizations. NOW has joined in calling for the appointment of an African-American woman. There are many highly qualified African-American women that could fill that seat.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Terry O'Neill, what have you heard or what do you know about the position that Judge Garland has taken on women's issues?

TERRY O'NEILL: Honestly, Amy, I just don't know. We are obviously digging into it now, and we are trying to find out. But let's be clear: The United States Congress, certainly the House of Representatives, has been very aggressive at trying to block women's access to basic healthcare. We know that state after state after state is not only going after basic reproductive healthcare, but in another area, states are suppressing the vote. It turns out when you target communities of color and immigrant communities and older people and younger people to suppress the vote, women are disproportionately impacted by that. So there's a range of issues that are coming, that have been before the Supreme Court, are going to be before the Supreme Court, that dramatically impact women. And we are trying to dig through and find out what we can about Judge Garland on those issues.

AMY GOODMAN: Actually, Terry, Nermeen asked you those questions. But I did want to ask Ian Millhiser, how is it -- I mean, isn't he the longest-reigning judge of any --

IAN MILLHISER: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: -- Supreme Court justice, any Supreme Court justice ever did -- what was he? Eighteen years on the bench? It's interesting that there is no record of his stand on women's reproductive rights.

IAN MILLHISER: Right. I mean, I actually don't think that's unusual. I mean, big abortion cases are not very common in the federal courts. Most federal court of appeals judges will go their entire career, never hear an abortion case. You know, this issue we have coming up now that's now in front of the Supreme Court again, dealing with whether or not women's bosses get to decide if they have access to birth control, that's a fairly new issue. That issue really didn't exist in the federal courts five years ago. And so, most federal judges just haven't heard those sorts of cases, either. There was a case in the D.C. Circuit, but Garland was not on that panel. So, I mean, I don't think that it would be fair to accuse him of being evasive. When you're a U.S. court of appeals judge, you are randomly assigned to panels, and I believe a computer does it. And if there was an abortion case that came up during his tenure, he just wasn't randomly assigned to the panel. It's fair to say that we don't know as much about him as we might want to know, because he wasn't randomly assigned to it. But I think that this is just simply a creature of the fact that those cases aren't particularly common, they're randomly assigned, and Garland didn't draw that straw.

AMY GOODMAN: He's most well known for overseeing the prosecution and investigation of the Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, which would put him also on the side of the death penalty?

IAN MILLHISER: Potentially, yes. Now, a lot has happened in the death penalty since then. There's a lot of new concerns that have been raised about not just racial profiling in the death penalty, but about the method we use to execute people and whether it amounts to torture. You know, Hillary Clinton said the other night that she supports the death penalty for someone like Timothy McVeigh, but she thinks that the states shouldn't be using it. So, you know, there are nuanced positions between total abolitionism and using it with the frequency that we use it now. And I could only speculate, based on his record, whether he would join some of the more nuanced cases saying, for example, that lethal injection is too cruel -- is too cruel a method of execution and shouldn't be used, or that there need to be more protections to prevent race from playing the role that it does right now.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Ian, since Judge Garland has had largely bipartisan support 'til now, what do you make of President Obama's decision to nominate him?

IAN MILLHISER: I think there's two things at play. I mean, one is simply that I think this is the person that Obama wanted. You know, Obama believes in judicial restraint. I think that his experience as president has enhanced that belief. And this is someone who aligns with what Obama believes.

I also think there's a strategic play here, which is that as it becomes clearer and clearer that Senate Majority Leader McConnell's position is that Donald Trump should get to pick the next Supreme Court justice and not Barack Obama, the fact that Obama has offered a very moderate, very reasonable guy, who's had a lot of bipartisan support, I think the White House is hoping that that puts Republican senators in a box, and it might be possible to peel some of them off. I don't know if I necessarily agree with that calculation, but I think that's part of the calculation, is he thinks that, faced with constant attacks, pointing out that their position is Donald Trump should pick the next Supreme Court nominee, eventually, he thinks, some of them are going to buckle.

AMY GOODMAN: Prior to his time as federal judge, Merrick Garland served as a prosecutor in the Clinton Justice Department, as we said, overseeing the prosecution of Timothy McVeigh. That was April 19, 1995, killing 168 people. Merrick Garland spoke about the case on Wednesday.

JUDGE MERRICK GARLAND: Years later, when I went to Oklahoma City to investigate the bombing of the federal building, I saw up close the devastation that can happen when someone abandons the justice system as a way of resolving grievances and instead takes matters into his own hands. Once again, I saw the importance of assuring victims and families that the justice system could work. We promised that we would find the perpetrators, that we would bring them to justice and that we would do it in a way that honored the Constitution. The people of Oklahoma City gave us their trust, and we did everything we could to live up to it.

AMY GOODMAN: Ian Millhiser, if you can talk about now the politics of what's going to happen, the whole issue of who will meet with him, who won't? Senator Grassley, who's going to come under a lot of pressure because he's up for re-election this year, has said he will meet with him. Mitch McConnell spoke to him on the phone but says he will not meet with him. Talk about precedent for this.

IAN MILLHISER: Well, this is completely unprecedented. A third of all presidents have had someone confirmed during the last year of -- the last year of their presidency to the Supreme Court. This idea that there's some sort of rule that you are less -- that Barack Obama is less the president because he's in his last year, that's something that hasn't existed before. And Mitch McConnell has said that he will not guarantee the next president's nominee a vote, depending on who that president is. So what's really going on here is that the rule that the Senate Republicans want to set is that you don't get your nominee confirmed if you are a Democrat.

The question is whether they're going to be able to hold to that. And, you know, there's going to be a lot of silly dances going on. You know, who's going to meet with him? Who's going to not meet with him? Is he going to get a hearing? Is he not going to get a hearing? At the end of the day, though, Obama has offered them a pretty good deal. You know, Obama has offered them a pretty moderate guy. He's offered them an older justice, who won't serve as long as someone younger would. And if they hold out too long, they risk having President Clinton come in next year and pick a 49-year-old. So, at the end of the day, I think that Republicans need to be smart about this and realize that Obama has put a deal on the table that's actually a pretty good deal for them. And if they want to hold out for Donald Trump or whoever they want the next president to be, they can try to do that, but they could wind up with President Clinton in the White House picking someone that they're going to like even less.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you both for being with us, Ian Millhiser, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund and editor of ThinkProgress Justice. And I also want to thank Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women.

This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. When we come back, one of the worst Supreme Court decisions ever. We'll speak with Adam Cohen, author of a new book called Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck. Stay with us.

The 2016 presidential campaign is one of the strangest I've witnessed in a lifetime obsession with politics. I thought there was nothing new under the sun, but then the Donald Trump campaign walked into my life.

On the night he won the Michigan Republican primary, Trump spoke to the press from Florida standing in front of a pile of Trump wine, Trump vodka, Trump water and Trump steaks. He said, "Trump steaks. Where are the steaks? Do we have steak? We have Trump steak," and then he went on to extol the virtues of Trump wine, Trump water and even Trump magazine. Suddenly, the event seemed morphed from a victory speech into a cheesy late night infomercial or QVC segment. (Never mind that "Trump Steaks" has been defunct for about eight years and "Trump Vodka" stopped production in 2011.)

Trump is not the first candidate to hawk his wares. Several presidential candidates have seemed as if their campaigns were really glorified book and speaking tours -- think Herman Cain in 2012 and his book, This Is Herman Cain! And Ben Carson's sleepy 2016 effort and his book, A More Perfect Union. A 1996 Federal Election Commission advisory opinion allows campaigns to hand out candidate books, as long as the candidate does not profit from the transaction. Although the candidate won't benefit from books distributed by the campaign, that's not to say the candidate can't make money from greater sales in other outlets (such as Amazon) or more lucrative lecture fees or book deals once the campaign ends.

But Trump seems to be taking product placement to a whole new level. The Trump steaks incident was a more public version of what the campaign as been doing all along: paying Trump and Trump-owned businesses with campaign funds.

Trump's campaign is remarkable for all the money it funnels to Trump-owned enterprises. If you look at the February 2016 FEC expenditure filings for "Donald J. Trump For President, Inc." (the most recent month available) you'll see payments to Trump National Doral, Trump Old Post Office LLC, Trump Payroll Corp., Trump Restaurants LLC, Trump Soho, Trump Tower Commercial LLC, Trump CPS LLC, and $31,748 to the Donald himself. And those are just the self-evidently eponymous businesses the Trump campaign is using as vendors.

As Olivia Nuzzi has written in The Daily Beast, from the time Trump announced his candidacy in mid-June until the end of 2015, the campaign spent $2.2 million on Trump businesses. "The majority--$2 million -- was spent on Tag Air Inc., where Trump is CEO. Trump owns a commercial-sized plane, a Boeing 757-200, which is equipped to safely transport 43 passengers in seat belts plated with 24-carat gold -- although they might prefer to sit in the dining room, one of two bedrooms, or in the shower, (or they might prefer to travel in his smaller jet or one of his two helicopters). His aircraft ferry him around the country, from New York to Des Moines to Manchester to Biloxi, at a steep cost." (The campaign spent $537,436 on Tag Air in January 2016, according to the most recent FEC filing.)

If you ever wondered if the campaign rules were written by the rich for the rich, here's one of the more glaring examples. Usually, a presidential candidate flying on a private plane has to pay the "normal and usual charter rate for travel…" But if the candidate owns the plane, such as Trump, the campaign only has to pay the operating costs.

Trump can also give himself a salary from the campaign, but it is based on the lesser of his salary last year or the salary of the President ($400,000). If he gives himself more, then he runs into the personal use rules. Federal candidates are not supposed to financially benefit from their campaign money under 52 USC 30114. As the FEC explains, "if the expense would exist even in the absence of the candidacy or even if the officeholder were not in office, then the personal use ban applies." These "personal use" rules are supposed to keep candidates from dipping into their campaign coffers as a personal piggy bank.

Personal use of campaign funds is what landed former Chicago Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. in trouble in 2013.  As the original indictment stated: "The goal of the conspiracy was for Defendant Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. and his co-conspirator 1 to enrich themselves by engaging in a scheme to defraud in which they used funds donated to the campaign for their own personal benefit." Jackson spent $750,000 in campaign funds on personal items such as a cashmere cape, a mink parka and Michael Jackson memorabilia. He was sentenced to 30 months in jail.  

When Trump was the only source of his campaign funds -- he's spent about $18 million so far -- the money flowing from his campaign to his businesses was not so troubling. But Trump has also raised about $7.5 million from outsiders, and nearly 75 percent of these contributions are less than $200, indicating that those who can afford it least are supporting his campaign. (It remains to be seen how much Trump will rely on his own money should he become the GOP nominee.) And it is other people's money, which is not supposed to be for Trump's personal financial gain. 

When Trump uses campaign funds to sell the "Donald Trump" brand instead promoting his candidacy, it takes the concept of a "conflict of interest" to a whole new Trumpian level.

The views expressed are the author's own and not necessarily those of the Brennan Center for Justice.

The 2016 presidential candidates have thus far largely avoided addressing some of the most crucial foreign policy issues. (Photo: White House via Shutterstock; Edited: LW / TO)

The nuances of foreign policy do not feature heavily in the ongoing presidential campaign. Every candidate intends to "destroy" the Islamic State; each has concerns about Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korea, and China; every one of them will defend Israel; and no one wants to talk much about anything else -- except, in the case of the Republicans, who rattle their sabers against Iran.

In that light, here's a little trip down memory lane: in October 2012, I considered five critical foreign policy questions -- they form the section headings below -- that were not being discussed by then-candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. Romney today is a sideshow act for the current Republican circus, and Obama has started packing up his tent at the White House and producing his own foreign policy obituary.

And sadly, those five questions of 2012 remain as pertinent and unraised today as they were four years ago. Unlike then, however, answers may be at hand, and believe me, that's not good news.  Now, let's consider them four years later, one by one. 

Is There an Endgame for the Global War on Terror?

That was the first question I asked back in 2012. In the ensuing years, no such endgame has either been proposed or found, and these days no one's even talking about looking for one. Instead, a state of perpetual conflict in the Greater Middle East and Africa has become so much the norm that most of us don't even notice.

In 2012, I wrote, "The current president, elected on the promise of change, altered very little when it came to George W. Bush's Global War on Terror (other than dropping the name). That jewel-in-the-crown of Bush-era offshore imprisonment, Guantanamo, still houses over 160 prisoners held without trial. While the U.S. pulled its troops out of Iraq... the war in Afghanistan stumbles on. Drone strikes and other forms of conflict continue in the same places Bush tormented: Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan (and it's clear that northern Mali is heading our way)."

Well, candidates of 2016? Guantanamo remains open for business, with 91 men still left. Five others were expeditiously traded away by executive decision to retrieve runaway American soldier Bowe Bergdahl in Afghanistan, but somehow President Obama feels he can't release most of the others without lots of approvals by... well, someone. The Republicans running for president are howling to expand Gitmo, and the two Democratic candidates are in favor of whatever sort of not-a-plan plan Obama has been pushing around his plate for eight years.

Iraq took a bad bounce when the same president who withdrew U.S. troops in 2011 let loose the planes and drones and started putting those boots back on that same old ground in 2014. It didn't take long for the U.S. to morph that conflict from a rescue mission to a training mission to bombing to Special Operations forces in ongoing contact with the enemy, and not just in Iraq, but Syria, too. No candidate has said that s/he will pull out.

As for the war in Afghanistan, it now features an indefinite, "generational" American troop commitment. Think of that country as the third rail of campaign 2016 -- no candidate dares touch it for fear of instant electrocution, though (since the American public seems to have forgotten the place) by whom exactly is unclear. There's still plenty of fighting going on in Yemen -- albeit now mostly via America's well-armed proxies the Saudis -- and Africa is more militarized than ever.

As for the most common "American" someone in what used to be called the third world is likely to encounter, it's no longer a diplomat, a missionary, a tourist, or even a soldier -- it's a drone. The United States claims the right to fly into any nation's airspace and kill anyone it wishes. Add it all together and when it comes to that war on terror across significant parts of the globe, the once-reluctant heir to the Bush legacy leaves behind a twenty-first century mechanism for perpetual war and eternal assassination missions. And no candidate in either party is willing to even suggest that such a situation needs to end.

In 2012, I also wrote, "Washington seems able to come up with nothing more than a whack-a-mole strategy for ridding itself of the scourge of terror, an endless succession of killings of 'al-Qaeda Number 3' guys. Counterterrorism tsar John Brennan, Obama's drone-meister, has put it this way: 'We're not going to rest until al-Qaeda the organization is destroyed and is eliminated from areas in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Africa, and other areas.'"

Four years later, whack-a-mole seems to still be as polite a way as possible of categorizing America's strategy. In 2013, the top whacker John Brennan got an upgrade to director of the CIA, but strangely -- despite so many drones sent off, Special Operations teams sent in, and bombers let loose -- the moles keep burrowing and he's gotten none of the rest he was seeking in 2012. Al-Qaeda is still around, but more significantly, the Islamic State (IS) has replaced that outfit as the signature terrorist organization for the 2016 election.

And speaking of IS, the 2011 war in Libya, midwifed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, led to the elimination of autocrat Muammar Qaddafi, which in turn led to chaos, which in turn led to the spread of IS there big time, which appears on its way to leading to a new American war in Libya seeking the kind of stability that, for all his terrors, Qaddafi had indeed brought to that country during his 34 years in power and the U.S. military will never find.

So an end to the Global War on Terror? Nope.

Do Today's Foreign Policy Challenges Mean That It's Time to Retire the Constitution?

In 2012 I wrote, "Starting on September 12, 2001, challenges, threats, and risks abroad have been used to justify abandoning core beliefs enshrined in the Bill of Rights. That bill, we are told, can't accommodate terror threats to the Homeland."

At the time, however, our concerns about unconstitutionality were mostly based on limited information from early whistleblowers like Tom Drake and Bill Binney, and what some then called conspiracy theories. That was before National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden confirmed our worst nightmares in June 2013 by leaking a trove of NSA documents about the overwhelming American surveillance state. Snowden summed it up this way: "You see programs and policies that were publicly justified on the basis of preventing terrorism -- which we all want -- in fact being used for very different purposes."

Now, here's the strange thing: since Rand Paul dropped out of the 2016 presidential race, no candidate seems to find it worth his or her while to discuss protecting the Bill of Rights or the Constitution from the national security state. (Only the Second Amendment, it turns out, is still sacred.) And speaking of rights, things had already grown so extreme by 2013 that Attorney General Eric Holder felt forced to publicly insist that the government did not plan to torture or kill Edward Snowden, should he end up in its hands. Given the tone of this election, someone may want to update that promise.

In 2012, of course, the Obama administration had only managed to put two whistleblowers in jail for violating the Espionage Act. Since then, such prosecutions have grown almost commonplace, with five more convictions (including that of Chelsea Manning) and with whatever penalties short of torture and murder are planned for Edward Snowden still pending. No one then mentioned the use of the draconian World War I-era Espionage Act, but that wasn't surprising. Its moment was still coming.

Four years later, still not a peep out of any candidate about the uses of that act, once aimed at spying for foreign powers in wartime, or a serious discussion of government surveillance and the loss of privacy in American life. (And we just learned that the Pentagon's spy drones have been released over "the homeland," too, but don't expect to hear anything about that or its implications either.) Of course, Snowden has come up in the debates of both parties. He has been labeled a traitor as part of the blood sport that the Republican debates have devolved into, and denounced as a thief by Hillary Clinton, while Bernie Sanders gave him credit for "educating the American people" but still thought he deserved prison time.

If the question in 2012 was: "Candidates, have we walked away from the Constitution? If so, shouldn't we publish some sort of notice or bulletin?" In 2016, the answer seems to be: "Yes, we've walked away, and accept that or else... you traitor!"

What Do We Want From the Middle East?

In 2012, considering the wreckage of the post-9/11 policies of two administrations in the Middle East, I wondered what the goal of America's presence there could possibly be. Washington had just ended its war in Iraq, walked away from the chaos in Libya, and yet continued to launch a seemingly never-ending series of drone strikes in the region. "Is it all about oil?" I asked. "Israel? Old-fashioned hegemony and containment? History suggests that we should make up our mind on what America's goals in the Middle East might actually be. No cheating now -- having no policy is a policy of its own."

Four years later, Washington is desperately trying to destroy an Islamic State "caliphate" that wasn't even on its radar in 2012. Of course, that brings up the question of whether IS can be militarily destroyed at all, as we watch its spread to places as far-flung as Afghanistan, Yemen, and Libya. And then there's the question no one would have thought to ask back then: If we destroy that movement in Iraq and Syria, will another even more brutish group simply take its place, as the Islamic State did with al-Qaeda in Iraq? No candidate this time around even seems to grasp that these groups aren't just problems in themselves, but symptoms of a broader Sunni-Shi'ite problem.

In the meantime, the one broad policy consensus to emerge is that we shouldn't hesitate to unleash our air power and Special Operations forces and, with the help of local proxies, wreck as much stuff as possible. America has welcomed all comers to take their best shots in Syria and Iraq in the name of fighting the Islamic State. The ongoing effort to bomb it away has resulted in the destruction of cities that were still in decent shape in 2012, like Ramadi, Kobane, Homs, and evidently at some future moment Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, "in order to save" them. Four American presidents have made war in the region without success, and whoever follows Obama into the Oval Office will be number five. No questions asked.

What Is Your Plan to Right-Size Our Military and What About Downsizing the Global Mission?

Plan? Right-size? Here's the reality four years after I asked that question: Absolutely no candidate, including the most progressive one, is talking about cutting or in any way seriously curtailing the U.S. military.

Not surprisingly, in response to the ongoing question of the year, "So how will you pay for that?" (in other words, any project being discussed from massive border security and mass deportations to free public college tuition), no candidate has said: "Let's spend less than 54% of our discretionary budget on defense."

Call me sentimental, but as I wrote in 2012, I'd still like to know from the candidates, "What will you do to right-size the military and downsize its global mission? Secondly, did this country's founders really intend for the president to have unchecked personal war-making powers?"

Such questions would at least provide a little comic relief, as all the candidates except Bernie Sanders lock horns to see who will be the one to increase the defense budget the most.

Since No One Outside Our Borders Buys American Exceptionalism Anymore, What's Next? What Is the United States' Point These Days?

In 2012, I laid out the reality of twenty-first-century America this way: "We keep the old myth alive that America is a special, good place, the most 'exceptional' of places in fact, but in our foreign policy we're more like some mean old man, reduced to feeling good about himself by yelling at the kids to get off the lawn (or simply taking potshots at them). Now, who we are and what we are abroad seems so much grimmer... America the Exceptional, has, it seems, run its course. Saber rattling... feels angry, unproductive, and without any doubt unbelievably expensive."

Yet in 2016 most of the candidates are still barking about America the Exceptional despite another four years of rust on the chrome. Donald Trump may be the exceptional exception in that he appears to think America's exceptional greatness is still to come, though quite soon under his guidance.

The question for the candidates in 2012 was and in 2016 remains "Who exactly are we in the world and who do you want us to be? Are you ready to promote a policy of fighting to be planetary top dog -- and we all know where that leads -- or can we find a place in the global community? Without resorting to the usual 'shining city on a hill' metaphors, can you tell us your vision for America in the world?"

The answer is a resounding no.

See You Again in 2020

The candidates have made it clear that the struggle against terror is a forever war, the U.S. military can never be big enough, bombing and missiling the Greater Middle East is now the American Way of Life, and the Constitution is indeed a pain and should get the hell out of the way.

Above all, no politician dares or cares to tell us anything but what they think we want to hear: America is exceptional, military power can solve problems, the U.S. military isn't big enough, and it is necessary to give up our freedoms to protect our freedoms. Are we, in the perhaps slightly exaggerated words of one foreign commentator, now just a "nation of idiots, incapable of doing anything except conducting military operations against primitive countries"?

Bookmark this page. I'll be back before the 2020 elections to see how we're doing.

The Obama administration's decision to drop the Atlantic from the federal government's offshore drilling plan is being heralded as a win for grassroots organizing against the might of Big Oil and its allies in government. (Photo: Arctic Rig via Shutterstock)Environmentalists and local community leaders across the Southeast scored a David vs. Goliath victory over the oil and gas industry and its powerful allies in government this week when the Obama administration issued a revised five-year offshore drilling plan that excludes the Atlantic.

"This is a victory for people over politics and shows the importance of old-fashioned grassroots organizing," said Jacqueline Savitz, U.S. vice president for Oceana, a conservation group that helped organize against Atlantic drilling.

The Interior Department said it canceled the proposed lease sale off the Atlantic Coast between Virginia and Georgia because of "current market dynamics, strong local opposition and conflicts with competing commercial and military ocean uses."

That local opposition, which was organized by a coalition of state and national environmental groups, included more than 100 municipal and county governments along the East Coast passing resolutions against offshore drilling and/or seismic blasting for oil and gas deposits, with many of them citing concerns about what a spill could do to their communities and economies. They included important tourist destinations such as Wilmington, North Carolina; Charleston, South Carolina; and Savannah, Georgia.

In addition, thousands of citizens showed up to public meetings to express opposition to Atlantic drilling. A hearing held last March in the North Carolina Outer Banks community of Kill Devil Hills drew 670 people, most of them opposed to drilling, and set a new attendance record for a Bureau of Ocean Energy Management hearing.

On the other side, leading the push to open the region to offshore oil and gas development was the Outer Continental Shelf Governors Coalition, a bipartisan coalition of pro-drilling coastal state executives chaired by North Carolina's Pat McCrory (R) that includes the governors of Alabama, Alaska, Maine, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia. The involvement of governors is key since the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act that guides the federal offshore oil and gas leasing process gives significant weight to gubernatorial recommendations.

As a Facing South investigation documented, the Governors Coalition is operated by the Consumer Energy Alliance, a secret-money nonprofit with close ties to major oil and gas companies and energy industry lobbyists. The Consumer Energy Alliance said it was "deeply disappointed" by the decision to exclude the Atlantic and called on the next administration to "reverse course."

McCrory's office also issued a statement blasting the administration's action:

President Obama's total reversal can only be described as a special political favor to far-left activists that have no problem importing energy resources from countries hostile to the United States. What's more troubling is the President is closing the door before he even knows what resources can be harnessed in an environmentally sound way. Unfortunately, the Obama administration's deal could ultimately cost North Carolina thousands of new jobs and billions in needed revenue for schools, infrastructure, dredging and beach renourishment.

Though McCrory blamed the cancellation of Atlantic drilling on "far-left activists," the opposition included members of his own party such as Congressmen Mark Sanford and Tom Rice of South Carolina. It also included more than 1,100 businesses and business groups, many involved in coastal tourism and recreation, that were concerned about how spills and coastal industrialization could hurt their bottom line.

An economic study released last year found the industry's jobs promises were greatly overstated, with the region's established ocean economy centered on tourism and fishing surpassing even overly optimistic projections for drilling jobs.

McCrory's claim that the decision to bar Atlantic drilling would cost North Carolina billions in revenue is based on the hope that Congress would have passed legislation requiring the federal government to share oil and gas leasing revenues with Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia, but that proposal faced tough odds. U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, said earlier this month that he would put a hold on any attempt to advance the measure, which would have effectively prevented it from coming up for a vote.

The same day the Obama administration announced the decision, coastal conservation activists gathered for an organizing meeting in Wilmington, North Carolina. They had planned to discuss next steps to halt Atlantic drilling but instead made plans to thank those who helped in their fight and then headed to a local brewery to celebrate.

Sierra Weaver, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center that was involved in the organizing effort, called it "an incredible day for the Southeast."

"It represents the hard work of thousands of people and protects some of our most cherished places, from the Chesapeake Bay and the Outer Banks to the South Carolina Lowcountry and Georgia barrier islands," Weaver said. "Communities along the Atlantic have been strongly unified against this plan, and we are grateful the President listened."

A corrections officer stands outside a solitary confinement sell at Pelican Bay State Prison in Crescent City, California. In June 2014, a federal judge agreed to hear a class-action lawsuit on behalf of prisoners held in units like this for more than a decade -- a decision that legal experts say could shape national policy on the long-term use of solitary cells. (Photo: Jim Wilson / The New York Times)

The United States holds more than 80,000 people in solitary confinement on any given day. Hell Is a Very Small Place collects first-hand accounts describing the miserable realities of life in solitary and showing how isolated people hold on to their humanity and even build solidarity with those next to whom they are incarcerated, without ever meeting face-to-face. Order your copy of this important book by making a donation to Truthout today!

The following is an account of Todd Lewis Ashker's efforts -- on behalf of both himself and other prisoners -- against solitary confinement at the infamous Pelican Bay State Prison in California.

A Tale of Evolving Resistance

In 2013 the call for the largest coordinated hunger strike in American history came from the Pelican Bay Short Corridor Collective, a political alliance between the twenty "main representatives" of the prison racial groups. Ashker is one of these representatives, along with Arturo Castellanos, Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa (aka Ronald Dewberry), and Antonio Guillen. The four also published a joint letter calling for the cessation of all hostilities among racial groups. The strike lasted sixty days and was joined by thirty thousand people, a quarter of the state's prison population, garnering significant global attention. Ashker has successfully sued the prison system at least fifteen times -- earning people in prison the right to hardcover books (with the covers torn off), limited mail correspondences with individuals held in other facilities (his father is also incarcerated), and the right to keep the interest generated from prisoner accounts. Ashker was one of the lead plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights, Ashker v. Governor of California, which reached a ground-breaking settlement on September 1, 2015, that promises to significantly scale back the use of solitary confinement in Calfornia's prisons. According to the terms of the settlement, CDCR can no longer hold prisoners in isolation indeterminately or for more than ten years. In addition, "gang validation" is no longer a legitimate reason for placement in the SHU. As a result, an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 prisoners may qualify for release into the general population, including the 500 that have been isolated at Pelican Bay for over ten years. Ashker will be placed in a high-security unit where he'll able to interact face-to-face with other prisoners for the first time in twenty-five years.

Hell Week

I've now spent more than twenty-seven years in solitary confinement, aka Security Housing Units (SHU). My original six-year term started in 1984 and was eventually increased to twenty-one years to life. I've been personally subject to and/or witnessed almost every form of abuse imaginable. This is a summary inclusive of my evolving resistance and fight for human rights.

It was at Folsom State Prison that I learned that prison staff are the real enemy. Guards are far more prone to dirty, illegal moves than any convicted felons I've ever done time with. By "prison staff" I'm referring to custody, medical, and even the "free" staff, like plumbers and electricians. Top to bottom, they're all corrupt.

The staff at Folsom State Prison used to play different racial groups against each other by setting up yard incidents. They'd break up the fights by firing live rounds from their Mini 14 assault rifles into the crowd. In 1987 they encouraged the Africans to attack the whites and vice versa. During one incident, they shot my friend in the stomach, then planted weapons in the drain they later claimed were used in the melee. A guard was stabbed in the neck a few days later.

About a week later, a large group of staff took a group of us out of our cells, twenty whites and four Africans. We were then escorted one at a time with our hands still cuffed behind our backs, in nothing but our boxers and shower shoes, to a secluded area where they beat the crap out of us. They told us they were going to kill us and bury us behind the prison. I ended up covered with my own blood from head to foot, with a broken foot, cracked ribs, and my teeth through my lip.

As the guards escorted us to the medical clinic, one asked me what I was smiling about. "Well, for being killed and buried I feel pretty good," I replied. The sergeant told the guards to put me through another beat down for that crack. When what staff referred to as "hell week" was finally over, twenty-four prisoners were charged with assaulting staff. Not one guard suffered any consequence.

I was placed in one of the new Bedrock SHU cells as soon as the cement dried. We each were allowed to have a shoebox-sized amount of property, no shoes, no access to canteen and only half our food rations. We responded with a minor "dirty protest," each of us filling milk cartons with shit and piss, then slinging them all over the control booth windows every time we'd come out for showers. After about two weeks of having to clean up shit every day, staff began giving us our full food ration, plus extras.

The Roman gladiator pit–style fights sadistic guards set up continued at Bedrock. The Bedrock unit looked like a ward in a military hospital -- men with "dead" arms and legs from nerve damage, others with colostomy bags, and one missing an eye. At least two men were shot and killed. The guards filed charges against us for these injuries, using the incidents to further the guard union's agenda -- more supermax prison cells!

Within the first nine months in Bedrock, half the men there became "debriefers," informing on other prisoners to get out of there and into protective custody. Either you break, or you do all you can to survive.

Pelican Bay SHU

While at New Folsom SHU, on May 25, 1987, I entered a guy's cell for a prearranged fight. He'd challenged me to a fistfight to settle some fabricated beef. I had to accept; it was that or request protective custody, which I'd never do. His cellmate immediately placed a mattress over the door to block the control booth's view, hoping to keep the guards from shooting blindly into the cell.

The guy swung at me with an eight-inch knife. As we fought over it, two guards fired a total of three rifle shots through the mattress. The guy ended up stabbed, and took a bullet in his shoulder. He died an hour later at the outside hospital.

In California, if you're put in the SHU for killing someone, you get sent there for a maximum of three to five years. If you're a validated gang member, you can count on spending the rest of your life in the SHU. After I was validated, I was transferred from New Folsom SHU to Pelican Bay SHU on May 2, 1990. Upon arrival I was told by staff that the only way I'd ever leave was to parole, die, or debrief.

A few months later the control booth opened my cell door when a prisoner was on the tier who they'd allegedly overheard threatening me two days before. With the alarm blaring and eight or ten guards screaming "Shoot them" at the control booth, the two of us began exchanging blows. The guard shot me from about nine feet away. The bullet hit my right radius about one inch above the wrist, disintegrating more than two inches of the radius, and broke the ulna into ten separate pieces. My hand was barely attached to my wrist by a bit of muscle and skin.

At this time prison staff were desperate to fix a serious flaw in the cell-door security system. The state had just spent more than $217 million on Pelican Bay and staff needed to have documented support to accompany any request for additional emergency funds. Toward this end, they falsely claimed I'd opened my cell door myself.

After being shot, I spent five days in the outside hospital. The nurses were kind. For the first time in more than six years, I was treated like a human being. I had completely forgotten what that felt like.

Evolving Resistance

During my first few years of imprisonment, the only way I knew how to deal with the abusive conditions was violent resistance. For more than two decades, we'd all watched the guards successfully pit racial groups against each other to the point where being on "lockdown" was a common state of affairs. "Lockdown" means everyone is kept in his or her cell 24/7 without yard time or programing. It means higher security and more guard jobs and higher pay. It is in the interest of the guards' union to have violence in the prisons, resulting in more jobs, more dues-paying members, more political power in the state. This is all fodder for the fascist police state mentality that plagues our country today.

Part of the torture I've personally experienced during the past twenty-nine years of solitary confinement has been the repeated denial of adequate medication for the chronic pain in my permanently disabled arm. Adding insult to injury, staff periodically remind me that I "hold the key to get out of the SHU and receive better care for my arm . . . by debriefing."

In the late 1980s some of us in Bedrock started to recognize that the prisoner class was getting the short end of the stick. We decided to learn the law and use the legal system to rein in the California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation's (CDCR) illegal and abusive policies. From 1988 to the present I have been challenging prison conditions in the courts. I have been a named plaintiff or assisted in several cases resulting in positive rulings beneficial to prisoners.

(Image: Molly Crabapple)The Short Corridor Collective

In 2006, they decided to isolate two hundred of the alleged "worst of the worst" prisoners at Pelican Bay into the "Short Corridor." Fortunately for us, the prison's definition of "the worst of the worst" includes many fine people. Many of us have been prison condition litigators and many are well read. All of us are long-term SHU prisoners who have been subject to the same type of torturous conditions for two or more decades. In the Short Corridor, we soon came to recognize and respect our racial and cultural differences. We shared reading material on history, culture, sociology, politics, etc. We came to recognize that we are all in the same boat when it comes to the prison staff's dehumanizing treatment and abuse -- they are our jailers, our torturers, and our common adversaries.

My good friend Danny Troxell was also moved to the Short Corridor. Danny and I began reading political books, including Thomas Paine, Naomi Wolf, and Howard Zinn, then we would discuss them across the tier. Six other men often joined in and the conversation gradually shifted to our progressively punitive prison conditions.

In 2009, we were introduced to a sociology professor named Denis O'Hearn, who invited Danny and me to participate in a class at Binghamton University. O'Hearn sent us the books that were required reading by the class, and asked us some questions related to our opinions on the subject matter. One of the books was Nothing But an Unfinished Song, about Bobby Sands and the Irish prisoner hunger strikes of 1980–81. This book greatly increased my awareness of and respect for the power of peaceful resistance against oppression.

At first many of us in the Short Corridor opposed the idea of a hunger strike. Yet, when we realized how it'd been used effectively in other parts of the world, we decided it might actually gain us the widespread exposure we needed to force an end to long-term solitary. We talked with other prisoners in our pod area and everyone agreed with the idea. That's when the "Short Corridor Collective" was born and we articulated our five core demands. We spread the word via the grapevine about our plans to strike -- making clear in our articles that no person or group was leading the protest and that this was to be a purely voluntary action.

In 2012 we wrote the Agreement to End Racial Group Hostilities, a call for a ceasing of violence between racial groups across the state. [See below.] Then in 2013 the hunger strike, combined with work stoppage, began -- more than thirty thousand prisoners answered our call.

The prison administration portrayed the Short Corridor Collective as "violent, murderous gang leaders, making a power play to regain control of the prison system by forcing prisoners to hunger strike." Despite this, I believe prison officials' efforts to turn global support against us backfired. After sixty days we agreed to suspend the strike in response to lawmakers Loni Hancock and Tom Ammiano's public acknowledgment of our issues and request for time to enable them to hold hearings and hopefully enact legislation.

We Hope the Tide Is Turning

We are not operating openly in a free system; we are in a protracted struggle against a powerful entity with a police state world view. It's difficult to keep a movement together when we are so isolated, constrained, and surveilled at all times. CDCR counts on internal disputes and hopes for us to implode as a result of their increased pressure on us post–hunger strike. We all do the best we can.

We hope the tide is turning. Hundreds have been released to general population. That is a partial victory, but it's not nearly enough. We have held on for so long that change sometimes seems unlikely. We've become skeptical of hope, but that may be because there is a possibility we might win. The reason for our progress is our collective unity inside and outside the walls and the global attention our cause has attracted. Our support remains strong, and continues to grow, while we patiently wait and see if change comes via our collective efforts inside and outside these walls.

It's an honor to participate in our collective coalition. For the third time in twenty-nine years I have felt a sense of human connectedness.

This collective energy -- inside and out -- keeps us strong, positive, and alive. It gives us hope of one day having a glimpse of trees; feeling the warmth of the sun; receiving a hug, kiss, or handshake; sharing a game of basketball or checkers; tasting a hot meal that has flavor or feeling a bed that is warm.

We stand united as a prisoner class, not just for ourselves, but for those who are young and headed this way. I stand strong, united in solidarity with each of you.

 

Agreement to End Hostilities, August 12, 2012

To whom it may concern and all California prisoners:

Greetings from the entire PBSP-SHU Short Corridor Hunger Strike Representatives. We are hereby presenting this mutual agreement on behalf of all racial groups here in the PBSP-SHU Corridor. Wherein, we have arrived at a mutual agreement concerning the following points:

1. If we really want to bring about substantive meaningful changes to the CDCR system in a manner beneficial to all solid individuals, who have never been broken by CDCR's torture tactics intended to coerce one to become a state informant via debriefing, that now is the time for us to collectively seize this moment in time, and put an end to more than 20–30 years of hostilities between our racial groups.

2. Therefore, beginning on October 10, 2012, all hostilities between our racial groups . . . in SHU, Ad-Seg, General Population, and County Jails, will officially cease. This means that from this date on, all racial group hostilities need to be at an end . . . and if personal issues arise between individuals, people need to do all they can to exhaust all diplomatic means to settle such disputes; do not allow personal, individual issues to escalate into racial group issues!!

3. We also want to warn those in the General Population that IGI will continue to plant undercover Sensitive Needs Yard (SNY) debriefer "inmates" amongst the solid GP prisoners with orders from IGI to be informers, snitches, rats, and obstructionists, in order to attempt to disrupt and undermine our collective groups' mutual understanding on issues intended for our mutual causes [i.e., forcing CDCR to open up all GP main lines, and return to a rehabilitative-type system of meaningful programs/privileges, including lifer conjugal visits, etc. via peaceful protest activity/noncooperation e.g., hunger strike, no labor, etc. etc.]. People need to be aware and vigilant to such tactics, and refuse to allow such IGI inmate snitches to create chaos and reignite hostilities amongst our racial groups. We can no longer play into IGI, ISU, OCS, and SSU's old manipulative divide and conquer tactics!!!

In conclusion, we must all hold strong to our mutual agreement from this point on and focus our time, attention, and energy on mutual causes beneficial to all of us [i.e., prisoners], and our best interests. We can no longer allow CDCR to use us against each other for their benefit!! Because the reality is that collectively, we are an empowered, mighty force that can positively change this entire corrupt system into a system that actually benefits prisoners, and thereby, the public as a whole . . . and we simply cannot allow CDCR/CCPOA – Prison Guard's Union, IGI, ISU, OCS, and SSU to continue to get away with their constant form of progressive oppression and warehousing of tens of thousands of prisoners, including the 14,000 plus prisoners held in solitary confinement torture chambers [i.e., SHU/Ad-Seg Units], for decades!!! We send our love and respects to all those of like mind and heart . . . onward in struggle and solidarity . . .

Presented by the PBSP-SHU Short Corridor Collective: Todd Ashker, C58191, D1-119

Arturo Castellanos, C17275, D1-121

Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa (Dewberry), C35671, D1-117

Antonio Guillen, P81948, D2-106

And the Representatives' Body: Danny Troxell, B76578, D1-120

George Franco, D46556, D4-217

Ronnie Yandell, V27927, D4-215

Paul Redd, B72683, D2-117

James Baridi Williamson, D-34288, D4-107

Alfred Sandoval, D61000, D4-214

Louis Powell, B59864, D1-104

Alex Yrigollen, H32421, D2-204

Gabriel Huerta, C80766, D3-222

Frank Clement, D07919, D3-116

Raymond Chavo Perez, K12922, D1-219

James Mario Perez, B48186, D3-124

 

Copyright (2016) of Todd Lewis Ashker, as included in Hell Is a Very Small Place: Voices from Solitary Confirnment. Not to be reposted without permission of the publisher, The New Press.

President Obama announces his nominee for the Supreme Court vacancy, Merrick Garland, right, currently chief judge for US Court of Appeals DC Circuit, in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, March 16, 2016. (Photo: Doug Mills / The New York Times)

Judge Merrick Garland, who President Obama has nominated to be the 113th justice of the Supreme Court, has yet to take a firm stance on the court's Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling -- the 2010 decision that opened the floodgates for corporations and unions to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections. The Senate should hold hearings and ask Garland to clarify his position on campaign finance law.

If Garland does not clearly renounce the court's ruling in Citizens United and related cases, the Senate should reject his nomination. Now is not the time for fainthearted politics of pragmatism. If Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell chooses to block an anti-Citizens United nominee, then the November 2016 elections will rightfully be a referendum on the Roberts court's stance on campaign finance.

As a result of Citizens United -- one of the most controversial examples of judicial overreach in the modern United States -- true power no longer solely resides within our three branches of government, but within a narrow cabal of political campaign donors that decides who can run for office as a viable candidate, who will win elections and what issues will be put forth for debate. Any individual donor doesn't always see his or her favorite candidate win: Sometimes they lose to other big money candidates. But with the candidate who raises the most money winning nine out of 10 congressional campaigns, big money donors have collectively prevented candidates lacking access to wealth from governing the country.

Any move by President Obama, any nominee or any senator that seeks to dodge the issue of Citizens United would do a fundamental disservice to our country by preventing voters from ultimately weighing in on the issue. Recent polls show that nearly 80 percent of people in the United States disapprove of the ruling and want to see it overturned. In a representative democracy, the will of the people should be reflected in our political institutions.

Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have made clear that they would apply a litmus test that would ensure that any potential Supreme Court nominee would seek opportunities to overturn Supreme Court doctrine that has struck down limits on big money in politics. But President Obama has made no such pledge. Rather, his desire to secure his legacy may lead him to choose a "consensus" nominee for the court with no track record whatsoever on campaign finance reform issues. While this might make it harder for Republicans to deny an up or down vote on his nominee, such a move prevents the executive and legislative branches from using the confirmation process as one of the few tools they have to check and balance a Supreme Court that has gone off the rails.

Judicial nominees are coached to give vague answers during confirmation hearings, in part to promote an image of impartiality of Supreme Court justices. But this pretense no longer holds water in an era in which justices now routinely act like politicians in robes. There was a time when the Supreme Court declined to rule on "political" issues, leaving them for the other branches of government and ultimately the voters themselves to sort out. In the wake of Bush v. Gore, Citizens United and rulings upholding partisan voter suppression and redistricting laws, the Supreme Court can no longer pretend to be an impartial body. If we are going to get another partisan on the bench, voters deserve to know their true colors. If Garland or any Obama nominee refuses to candidly disclose their views of past Supreme Court rulings, Citizens United chief among them, the Senate should reject them.

While Justice Antonin Scalia was confirmed by a 98-0 vote, the Supreme Court's political behavior has led to a politicized confirmation process, with Democrats routinely voting against nominees of Republican presidents and vice versa. So be it. While it would be unacceptable for the Senate to refuse to hold a vote on any of President Obama's nominees, individual senators are free to use their political judgments in deciding whether to confirm them. These individual Senate votes than provide a record for voters to approve or reject in the upcoming November elections.

If Republican senators vote down a judicial nominee who has candidly answered questions that demonstrate opposition to the flawed reasoning of the Citizens United ruling, voters will have a chance to vote those senators out of office. 

Rather than pretending that Supreme Court justices are not, or should not be, political, we should openly acknowledge that they are. As Thomas Jefferson noted, "Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have with others the same passions for the party, for power and the privilege of the [corporations.]" The appropriate response is a transparently political confirmation process that allows the voters the final chance to weigh in through the utmost of political processes: voting.

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks during a primary night event in Phoenix, Arizona, March 15, 2016. (Photo: Sam Hodgson / The New York Times)

Last night was pretty tough for Bernie Sanders. Hillary Clinton won four of the five primary contests at play in the latest Super Tuesday, and leads in a fifth contest in Missouri that's still too close to call. She also added to her already significant lead in delegates.

The mainstream corporate media, of course, have now declared the Democratic race for president over, and Hillary Clinton is now once again the "inevitable" nominee, and they couldn't be happier. This is probably the reason not one of the major networks covered Sanders' speech live last night. They're already writing him off as a cute but harmless afterthought.

But here's the thing: this race isn't over -- far from it. Sanders still has a path to the nomination, and a strong one at that.

See more news and opinion from Thom Hartmann at Truthout here.

Over the next few weeks, the primary schedule shifts to the West and upper Midwest, where Sanders has already had success and where he's favored to pick up even more victories.

If Sanders manages to win by big margins in states like Wyoming or Wisconsin, he can whittle away at Clinton's delegate lead -- which, despite what you might hear on the mainstream media, only grew by a net total of 57 delegates last night.

But more importantly, success out West and in the Midwest could win Sanders some much-needed momentum and media coverage, which will mean a lot when voters in big states like Pennsylvania, New York and California head to the polls later on in the year.

What happens after that is anyone's guess, but in the wake of what happened last week in Michigan, when Sanders won the largest primary election upset in history, there's no reason to think the "impossible" couldn't happen again. The experts and pundits in the establishment media industrial complex have written Sanders off before, and they've been wrong about pretty much everything this election, so we should take what they say with a gigantic grain of salt.

Even so, Sanders could still end up losing this race.

Even if he does win big in the West, he has to win really big (or at least not lose big) elsewhere to overcome Clinton's substantial pledged delegate and superdelegate leads. That superdelegate lead will be the hardest to overcome, because superdelegates are the establishment and likely won't ditch Clinton, the ultimate establishment candidate, unless things go really badly for her.

They ditched her back in 2008, but that was a different race -- a personality clash between mainstream Democrats, as opposed to an ideological clash between a neoliberal and a true-blue progressive.

All this is to say that while Sanders supporters should ignore the "conventional wisdom" BS that Sanders can't win and that this race is over, they should also be prepared for the real possibility that he won't be the Democratic nominee for president. And they should be prepared because an electoral loss is the not the end -- not if a political revolution is what you're fighting for.

It's only the beginning.

There is no better example of this than Ronald Reagan's first campaign for president.

Although a conservative, Reagan was a revolutionary who wanted to fundamentally transform his party and his country. And so in 1976, when conservatives called for a true right-winger to challenge President Gerald Ford, he threw his hat into the ring.

Reagan lost, but it was a very, very close race that was only decided at the convention. This close loss then set stage for Reagan's 1980 campaign, the campaign that set in motion the chain of events that led to the Reagan Revolution, which persists to this day.

Now, Bernie Sanders may not get the nomination, and he most likely won't run for president again, but for progressives, a narrow loss like Reagan's in 1976 might, in the long run, be almost as a good as an electoral victory.

That's because it would cement the progressive movement as the kingmaker in the Democratic Party, and signal to the establishment Clinton Democrats that their days are numbered unless they return to the FDR roots of the party.

It would also give Bernie a chance to play a big role at the convention -- perhaps even a role writing the party's platform.

So, in other words, the political revolution wins regardless of whether not its leader does.