Several pieces today of blatant importance, but shall refrain from much commentary. Go read ‘em. Promise it’s worth your while.

The Good:
1:

The Obama administration said Wednesday it will participate directly in group talks with Iran over its suspect nuclear program, another significant shift from President George W. Bush’s policy toward a nation he labeled part of an axis of evil.

The State Department said the United States would be at the table “from now on” when senior diplomats from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany meet with Iranian officials to discuss the nuclear issue.… Source

2 (all emphasis added — and, by the way, an indicator of the sad state of affairs in general that it is necessary to have to say what is bolded here):

…A new white paper prepared by a group of former US ambassadors and progressive foreign policy experts urges the Obama administration not to succumb to hawks pushing an unduly harsh and counterproductive stance regarding Iran. At issue is how to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. In clear reference to Iraq invasion (remember those elusive WMDs Saddam was supposedly stockpiling?), the Iran Nuclear Policy Group warns, “publicly assuming the worst in the absence of evidence–and issuing an ultimatum based on that assumption–is a singularly bad idea.” Source

The Bad:
1)

Late on Friday, the Obama Justice Department filed an astonishing document with a San Francisco court. Seeking the dismissal of Jewel v. National Security Agency, a suit brought by persons who had been subjected to warrantless—and thus presumably unlawful—intercepts by the National Security Agency, the Justice Department advanced two arguments. First, it fully embraced the discredited Bush Administration view that by claiming “state secrets” it could simply terminate the lawsuit. This is a position that Senators Obama and Biden both criticized and members of their campaign insisted would never be asserted by an Obama Administration. That promise has now been repeatedly broken. Still more pernicious was a second argument. Directly contradicting the assurances of the legislation’s sponsors that suits against the government could proceed undisturbed, the Obama Justice Department argues that FISA amendments giving immunity to the telecom service providers accidentally granted “sovereign immunity” to the government, shielding it from suits by Americans in American courts.

[snip]

…These claims ring hollow. The real threat that the Justice Department seeks to combat is a citizenry that is increasingly angered by a national intelligence apparatus that ignores the law. We need a government that fears its citizenry, and not a citizenry that lives in fear of its government. Source

The Ugly:
1 (emphasis added, and possibly the most chilling – and, regretably, accurate – statement encountered in a long, long time):

“To hide relevant and exculpatory evidence from counsel and from the court under any circumstances, particularly here where there is no other means to discover this information and where the stakes are so very high . . . is fundamentally unjust, outrageous and will not be tolerated,” [Judge Emmett] Sullivan said, according to a transcript of the hearing.

“How can this court have any confidence whatsoever in the United States government to comply with its obligations and to be truthful to the court?”

[snip]

“I’m not going to continue to tolerate indefinite delay on the part of the United States government,” Sullivan said. “I mean this Guantanamo issue is a travesty . . . a horror story . . . and I’m not going to buy into an extended indefinite delay of this man’s stay at Guantanamo.” Source

2 (emphasis added):

When Sgt. X went to see [Army psychologist Douglas] McNinch with a tape recorder, he was concerned that something was amiss with his diagnosis. He wanted to find out why the psychologist had told the medical evaluation board that handles disability payments that Sgt. X did not, in fact, have PTSD, but instead an “anxiety disorder,” which could substantially lower the amount of benefits he would receive if the Army discharged him for a disability. The recorder in Sgt. X’s pocket captured McNinch in a moment of candor. (Listen to a segment of the recording here.)

“OK,” McNinch told Sgt. X. “I will tell you something confidentially that I would have to deny if it were ever public. Not only myself, but all the clinicians up here are being pressured to not diagnose PTSD and diagnose anxiety disorder NOS [instead].” McNinch told him that Army medical boards were “kick[ing] back” his diagnoses of PTSD, saying soldiers had not seen enough trauma to have “serious PTSD issues.”

“Unfortunately,” McNinch told Sgt. X, “yours has not been the only case … I and other [doctors] are under a lot of pressure to not diagnose PTSD. It’s not fair. I think it’s a horrible way to treat soldiers, but unfortunately, you know, now the V.A. is jumping on board, saying, ‘Well, these people don’t have PTSD,’ and stuff like that.”

[snip]

McNinch added that he also received pressure not to properly diagnose traumatic brain injury, Sgt. X’s other medical problem. “When I got there I was told I was overdiagnosing brain injuries and now everybody is finding out that, yes, there are brain injuries,” he recalled. McNinch said he argued, “‘What are we going to do about treatment?’ And they said, ‘Oh, we are just counting people. We don’t plan on treating them.’” McNinch replied, “‘You are bringing a generation of brain-damaged individuals back here. You have got to get a game plan together for this public health crisis.’” Source

The Other:
1)

With this publication, taxpayers can take stock of how the federal government spent each 2008 income tax dollar: 37.3 cents went towards military-related spending (military and military-related debt), while environment, energy and science-related spending split 2.8 cents.… Source