Can I Get a Whut Whut! Obama Reverses Global Gag Rule, Bans Torture, Orders the Closing of Gitmo, CIA Detention Centers, Tightens Lobbying Standards
Jan 24th, 2009 by admin
President Obama struck down a rule Friday that prohibits U.S. money from funding international family-planning clinics that promote abortion or provide counseling or referrals about abortion services…
The policy says any organization receiving U.S. family-planning funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development cannot offer abortions or abortion counseling.
…Obama’s memorandum reversing the policy comes the day after the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. The landmark 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision held that a woman’s right to an abortion fell within the right to privacy protected by the 14th Amendment. The ruling gave a woman autonomy over her pregnancy during the first trimester.
The memorandum reverses the “Mexico City policy,” initiated by President Reagan in 1984, canceled by President Clinton and reinstated by President George W. Bush in 2001.
In a blizzard of executive orders and memoranda, the new president of the United States ordered the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay closed within exactly one year, by Jan. 22, 2010. He banned the use of torture, ordering strict adherence to the U.S. Army Field Manual in the conducting of interrogations. He ordered the closing of CIA detention centers for terrorist suspects around the world. He went further than any previous president in mandating the release of documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act.
Obama also ordered far more transparency and far tighter standards on the way lobbying is carried out in Washington. He banned any member of his administration from accepting any lobbying job while the administration is still in power. He banned any member of his administration from accepting any gifts at all from lobbyists. He banned all administration appointees from being able to work on policy issues that could affect their former bosses or clients for a minimum of two years.
Not since the first days of President Jimmy Carter in 1977 has any president concentrated so clearly on cleaning up government and restoring the transparency of its processes to the American people — an issue that greatly concerned the Founding Fathers and the authors of the Federalist Papers.
And, this is the best news I’ve heard in a very long time. That is substantial change in just a few days and I am happy to acknowledge it.
Heart
Whut Whut!!!!
I was checking online obsessively yesterday waiting for news about the global gag rule. Yay!
I know he’s certainly not perfect, that’s for dang sure. But it is so exciting to wake up in the morning and wonder what he will do! As opposed to the last 8 years, where every day I felt dread about what Bush would do to destroy our world.
Cautiously optimistic over here. He’s certainly making noises in the right direction at the moment.
Yes and they are BIG noises. Closing the CIA detention centers, wow!
Excellent but not unexpected steps to be taken by a Democratic president. Oddly enough, he rescinded the global gag rule the day *after* the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade and without much media fanfare. I signed onto a couple of internet letters thanking him for taking those steps. Too bad he also urged a federal judge Friday to stay enforcement of a ruling favoring plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program.
Call me a cynic but I am a little concerned about what they’ll do with those incarcerated in Guantanamo and the other centres.
[...] It’s big stuff. More over at Women’s Space. [...]
Call me a cynic but I am a little concerned about what they’ll do with those incarcerated in Guantanamo and the other centres.
You should be. All indications are that Obama, like Bush, is going to set up special courts to try those prisoners instead of trying them in either existing civilian or military courts where they would get the protections of the US Constitution and international law and where evidence obtained by torture would not be admissible.
We sent a thank you letter to Obama for putting a stop to torture at Guantan. I may get mad a lot, but I believe thank you letters and praise are due for good work. Seems sensible to simply charge people there with a real crime, get them adequate lawyers and have a trial, where their guilt or innocense can be proved or disproved. I don’t see what’s so hard about due process… Whew…
Naomi Klein wrote a really scary list of the 10 things totalitarian leaders/governments always do. They all follow this pattern, and hearing her list these was so scary!! One of the danger signs was when they singled out a group to torture (Jews, Terrorists, Arabs…lesbians, gays…)– a hated minority or outsider group first, and then torture was then ALWAYS turned on their own population. We were on that road folks, but got a reprieve. I don’t know how many out there realize how close we were coming!!
I’m ambivilent about abortion, so I better shut up about that issue. But I’m glad feminists are happy! “If it makes you happy…” guoting an old song
Yes, Pres. Obama has done some truly good things in record time. I voted for Heart, so he wasn’t my first choic, but I have to give credit due for these positive changes. Women will keep watching him. . .the proof is in the pudding.