Contempt of Congress Update

Submitted by JC on March 28, 2008 - 10:46am.

As you know, the House voted 233 to 32 last month to hold Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten in contempt for failure to comply with subpoenas issued by the Judiciary Committee in its investigation into the U.S. Attorney firings and the politicization at the Bush Department of Justice. Speaker Pelosi referred the contempt citations to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia and on February 29, Attorney General Mukasey responded that the Justice Department would not prosecute.

Along with the contempt of Congress vote, the House authorized the Judiciary Committee to file a lawsuit to enforce the subpoenas. (TPM has our complaint posted here.) On March 10, we filed in the District Court here in DC. Since then, the Judge in the case, Judge John Bates, has scheduled the first oral arguments for June 23, and we hope to have a ruling on the White House's most expansive executive privilege claims shortly thereafter.

I will continue to keep you updated on the case as we move forward, but I also want to recommend TPMMuckraker.com for excellent, up-to-date coverage. And as always, thank you for all of your support as we work to bring accountability to the Bush Administration.

 

An Open Letter to John Conyers

Submitted by Max 1 on March 28, 2008 - 5:32pm.

An Open Letter to John Conyers

Chairman John Conyers
House Judiciary Committee
U.S. House of Representatives
U.S. Congress
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Chairman Conyers:

Prominent Constitutional law experts believe President Bush has engaged in at least, five categories of repeated, defiant "high crimes and misdemeanors", which separately or together would allow Congress to subject the President to impeachment under Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution. The sworn oath of members of Congress is to uphold the Constitution. Failure of the members of Congress to pursue impeachment of President Bush is an affront to the founding fathers, the Constitution, and the people of the United States.

In addition to a criminal war of aggression in Iraq, in violation of our constitution, statutes and treaties, there are the arrests of thousands of Americans and their imprisonment without charges, the spying on Americans without juridical warrant, systematic torture, and the unprecedented wholesale, defiant signing statements declaring that the President, in his unbridled discretion, is the law.

In 2005, a plurality of the American people polled declared that they would favor impeachment of President Bush if it was shown that he did not tell the truth about the reasons for going to War in Iraq. Congress should use its authority under Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution to officially determine what President Bush knew before going to war in Iraq.

Your files and retrieval systems are bulging with over-whelming evidence behind all these five categories. When constitutional duty combines with the available evidence, inaction amounts to a suppression of that evidence from constitutional implementation.

When the Democrats were heading for a net election gain in 2006 in the House of Representatives, many observers of presidential accountability entertained the hope that the Judiciary Committee, with its new chairman, would hold hearings on an impeachment resolution. No way! The next backup was the belief that there would an impeachment inquiry (fortified by your own op-ed in the The Washington Post) No way! The next lowered expectation backup was just a hearing on impeachment urged by several of your present and former Congressional colleagues. So far, no way!

The fourth fallback was simply a hearing on the criminal and constitutional violations of Bush-Cheney by your Committee, as urged in a letter sent to you earlier this year by, among others, several of your former Congressional colleagues, including Senators George McGovern and James Abourezk, and Representatives Andy Jacobs and Paul Findley, along with Rocky Anderson, former mayor of Salt Lake City, and the undersigned. So far, no progress.

There is another option: do nothing. Since January 2007 - the politically expedient option of doing nothing has triumphed. Volumes can and will be written, about what can go down as the most serious abdication of impeachment responsibilities by a Congress in its history. No other president has committed more systemic, repeated impeachable offenses, with such serious consequences to this country, its people, to Iraq, its people and the security of this nation before, than George W. Bush. James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and their colleagues had just these kinds of monarchical abuses and violations in their framework of anticipation.

Declarations by Bush on the somber occasion of the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq this past March 20, 2008 demonstrated his criminal, unconstitutional arrogance and his confidence that this Democratic Congress will continue to be cowed, continue its historic cowardliness, and continue to leave the American people without representation. Even should he unilaterally attack Iran. The Democratic Party has abandoned its critical role as an opposition Party in this and other serious matters.

In a January 6, 2008 op-ed in The Washington Post, former Senator George McGovern wrote an eloquently reasoned plea for the impeachment of George W. Bush. More than two out of three polled Americans want out of Iraq, believing it was a costly mistake.

Repeatedly during the past seven years, Mr. Bush has lectured the American people about "responsibility" and that actions with consequences must incur responsibility.

It is never too late to enforce the Constitution. It is never too late to uphold the rule of law. It is never too late to awaken the Congress to its sworn duties under the Constitution. But it will soon be too late to avoid the searing verdict of history when on January 21, 2009, George W. Bush becomes a fugitive from a justice that was never invoked by those in Congress so solely authorized to hold the President accountable.

Is this the massive Bush precedent you and your colleagues wish to convey to presidential successors who may be similarly tempted to establish themselves above and beyond the rule of law?

Is this the way you and your colleagues wish to be remembered by the American people?

Sincerely,

Ralph Nader

(emphasis mine)

Nader's letter buttresses my Q U E S T I O N:
No matter WHO gets elected to be the next reigning president of the USA in 2008, once ascended, if they order/authorize the use of torture, warrantless wiretaps upon Americans by corporate America, the use of the U.S. DoJ as a tool, etc.
... Would John prosecute? How about an unauthorized attack against Iran by president Obama? Or would that be just the first strike only to be rewarded with a sternly worded letter?

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I M P E A C H
or R E S I G N!!!

A New...

Submitted by Max 1 on March 28, 2008 - 6:10pm.

QUESTION:
The past attempt at banning the use of waterboarding H.R. 2082: Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 passed BOTH the House and Senate with respectable margins only to falter in the House after Bush's veto.

However, looking at the cause of the need of H.R.2082 to come about one can assume that a majority in the House would IMPEACH alone, based on the authorization and use of TORTURE by this Administration. Why else did the House vote in plurality the first time, but to ensure the use of waterboarding never happen AGAIN! Again being the operative here in that it admits to certain facts in the first place; The Bush Administration DID use unlawful techniques of interrogation upon human beings.

There are your votes, Congressman!
NOW, IMPEACH!

Nearly 2/3 of the Senate is almost achieved as exemplified by their votes on H.R. 2082. I'm sure the arguments from the House should be persuasive enough to the Senate and their constituency... NO?

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The People shall REMEMBER
Come Voting time NOVEMBER!!!

Bush to escape to Paraguay!!!

Submitted by wallen on March 29, 2008 - 6:37am.

The Bushes and the Moons : The Bush Family Conspiracy, The New World Order, Paraguay, and The Moonies

March 11, 2008

George W. Bush’s seven years in the White House have fueled all kinds of terrible, paranoid conspiracies — and the greatest, weirdest Bush Conspiracy is the “Exile To Paraguay“ tale.

The story goes like this: George W. Bush and/or George H.W. Bush bought hundreds of thousands of acres in Paraguay, adjoining a similar spread owned by the Unification Church’s Rev. Sun Myung Moon. Both massive parcels are hidden within a remote South American wilderness atop the world’s biggest freshwater aquifer adjoining a secret U.S. military airbase. Oh, and there’s a special non-extradition law to protect the Bush/Moon families as they enjoy their old age and run drug/weapons smuggling rings, safe from American justice. And they’ll own all the drinking water in the world, or something.

So when George W.’s scandal-plagued little brother Neil Bush rushes down to Paraguay to meet with Rev. Moon’s secret cabal, as happened Thursday, even the professional skeptic can be forgiven for wondering just what is up with these people.
A lot more here

and here

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You can lead a republican to the truth, but you can't make him think it...

Oh, and just think -

Submitted by koryannder on April 4, 2008 - 1:15am.

the Bu$h finca backs up on the Bolivian border, and Bolivia is notorious for being the source of the World's purest cocaine! So Georgie will not be shorted for "Blow."

Don't think I'm not VERY angry.

Submitted by Frosted Flake on March 29, 2008 - 6:55pm.

Five Things You Need to Know to Understand the Latest Violence in Iraq

And one more, for those who look around

Returning to the main point, does anyone actually believe Terror can be conquered through war? Or suppose the advocates of same are honest men?
Frosted Flake

It sure would be nice to have ground to stand on from which to lecture China about Tibet.

On the character of Americans, the good and bad :

Submitted by Frosted Flake on March 30, 2008 - 3:13am.

On the main topic once more : Is there terror to motivate having a war to celebrate it? I doubt it. I am not alone.

Gathering of Eagles, or Chicken Little’s Lament?
Who is the "Hero" here? Is it the guy whose butt got kicked? Or is it the little old lady who paid $25 for the crime?

Shootings on Interstate 64
Read the comments. Are these people frightened? Or more worried about being called frightened?

It is not just people in the streets.

It's not just Vets.

It is also our local governments. Have you ever played Marbles? The winner is he who winds up with the most, No? If it does not look like people are preparing to push the federal government aside - because it has stopped serving, and started ruling - then maybe a closer look is warranted.

And if Iraq does not look like Vietnam - then maybe a closer look is warranted. Why are we there : Lies. What are we trying to do : Not even George knows. When will it end : No-one is planning for that, they are planning for another war. And that is why We can't impeach George.

The Chinese refer to this situation as : Losing the mandate of heaven.

It is an apt turn of phrase.
Frosted Flake

A Voice...

Submitted by Max 1 on March 30, 2008 - 1:33am.

Rep. Betty Hall explains why she felt the need to introduce a Resolution to Petition Congress to Commence Impeachment Procedures in the United States Congress.

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I M P E A C H

...

Submitted by Max 1 on April 4, 2008 - 4:30pm.


Remember Abu Ghraib? Who got punished?

Submitted by wallen on March 30, 2008 - 5:39am.

Well, no one in charge did...


Shame

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You can lead a republican to the truth, but you can't make him think it...

Did You Hear the One About...

Submitted by Max 1 on April 1, 2008 - 1:33am.



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I M P E A C H
THEM BOTH !!!

Hey asshole! You worried yet? You should be.

Submitted by Mark A. Jeror Sr. on April 1, 2008 - 7:26am.

Considering all the "divided we fall" crap in my latest DSCC, DCCC, and DNC e-mails, the powerbrokers are getting worried.

Rather than accept their mandate to end the destruction of the Constitution, which protects every citizen in America, they chose to solidify BusCo's ill-gotten gain by allowing the offenses to go unchallenged.

But now, the loopholes of deceit they've been conspiring to acquire and utilize, are being closed, by a retreating army of GOP criminals.

Now, when old boy opportunistic Democrats attempt to take advantage of these loopholes, the "New GOP" law and order criminals will regurgitate a pro-constitution winning argument, people like Pelosi/Conyers are refusing to make.

But what Conyers and friends fail to understand, is how correct the statement "divided we fall", truly is.

The criminals who have highjacked the political process in America, are now understood to be the enemy. THEY are responsible for bringing us to this point, and WE must accept our Constitutional obligation to stop them.

Tell your handlers that their opinion shaping and distractive efforts have failed. It was a good try, but the rug has too much garbage swept under it to ignore the stench any longer.

Timing is everything in politics. You still have time to do the right thing, but the window of opportunity is closing.

Divided we fall is correct. Tell your DLC buddies that we ain't as stupid as they need us to be, and the uniting factor is the Constitution.

Change to a pro-impeachment message, or get accustomed to being worried.

As far as I'm concerned, you should be worrying from a jail cell. If the New GOP'ers change to a pro-impeachment stance first, it might happen yet.

Hell, if they can turn a blowjob into impeachment, they can argue that knowingly turning your back on Constitutional crimes, is a hanging offense, and I'll be listening.

I hope they use a hemp rope. Poetic justice anyone?

Worried yet?

Mark

Submitted by Ron on April 1, 2008 - 4:27pm.

I would suggest using a wire rope, it will not only break the neck, it will also sever the head of the asshole, making sure that it doesn't recover in some mysterious way!
I say all traitors to the constitution should suffer that fate!
The world is too precious, to let it be ruined by a few greedy assholes!

Hanging, although gross and disgusting, is still better than Willy Peter and napalm, especially when it is used on unarmed civilians in unprovoked wars.

How many more innocents must suffer horrible fates ,before these bone headed miscreants react?

IMPEACH


OR IS HUMANITY OFF THE TABLE ?

Some lite reading::::


Skull and Bones, the Elite of the Empire


The Testimony of a US ex-marine, who went to fight in Iraq

The resignation of Admiral Fallon will provoke renewed fighting in Iraq

Ron, what they did to Saddam Hussein is fine with me.

Submitted by Mark A. Jeror Sr. on April 1, 2008 - 4:47pm.

Wasn't it Saddam's head that popped off when Congress's Iraqi toadies hung him for America's amusement?

I bet THEY use hemp rope. Maybe we can outsource the job.

Better yet, we can have an international lottery and make a little money for America's coffers. I bet if we look hard enough we might find a nation or two willing to pay us for the honor.

We could sell tickets, popcorn, cotton candy, hotdogs, and lots of booze. Throw in a clown or two and we've got a ready made event for the whole family.

If we time the trials right, we can have us a good old fashioned hangin' ever Sunday after church. Nothin' puts the fear of God in'ya like watchin' a sinner danglin' from a rope.

It's only natural to want to make a little cash from it. After all, this IS America. I see t-shirts for sale, hanging bobblebody dolls with your favorite Congressman's likeness and date of his homegoing, miniature gallows, miniature noose mobiles with dangling dandy's for above the baby's crib (black and white for the early months of course), and a whole plethora of products as far as the eye can see.

But I get ahead of myself.

I'd rather they just impeach the dinks.

Mark

Submitted by Ron on April 2, 2008 - 11:56am.

I concur, but the circus is still in town, and the clowns are still directing.
I too would prefer to see all those that chose willfully to violate OUR Constitution, IMPEACHED!

Seems like that train has left the station.

The main problem, That we face now, is discerning between the so called parties. The usual definition, has now blurred and I fear that they have become one!

What to do?

IMPEACH?

Damn Right!

So why is it not happening?


Aside from all the theories that have been brought forth Here on this forum, there have been countless attempts to give suggestions and help from every known direction!

All by the way, Ignored, ignored in exactly the same way those pleas from the people to explain the downing street minutes and every thing else sent to BUSH CO.


We are being ignored, placated,misdirected,and flat out lied too by the better part of congress,and the rest of this self appointed government!


Hanging------is probably far too humane for those that freely choose to kill our sons and daughters, and destroy OUR Constitution, for greed, or profit!!


That said, you forgot the boiled P-Nuts to finish off the real Circus experience(<:

Mukasey hints US had attack warning before 9/11

Submitted by wallen on April 1, 2008 - 6:51pm.

Mukasey hints US had attack warning before 9/11
04/01/2008 @ 11:03 am
Filed by David Edwards and Muriel Kane

When Attorney General Mukasey delivered a speech last week demanding that Congress grant the president warrantless eavesdropping powers and telecom immunity, the question and answer session afterwards included one extraordinary but little-noticed claim.
Advertisement

Mukasey argued that officials "shouldn't need a warrant when somebody with a phone in Iraq picks up a phone and calls somebody in the United States because that's the call that we may really want to know about. And before 9/11, that's the call that we didn't know about. We knew that there has been a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn't know precisely where it went."

Blogger Glenn Greenwald picked up on Mukasey's statement, suggesting, "If what Muskasey said this week is true -- and that's a big 'if' -- his revelation about this Afghan call that the administration knew about but didn't intercept really amounts to one of the most potent indictments yet about the Bush administration's failure to detect the plot in action. Contrary to his false claims, FISA -- for multiple reasons -- did not prevent eavesdropping on that call."

Keith Olbermann has now featured the story on MSNBC's Countdown. "What?" Olbermann asked incredulously after quoting Mukasey. "The government knew about some phone call from a safe house in Afghanistan into the U.S. about 9/11? Before 9/11? ... You didn't do anything about it?"

"Either the attorney general just admitted that the government for which he works is guilty of malfeasant complicity in the 9/11 attacks," Olbermann commented, "or he's lying."

"I'm betting on lying," concluded Olbermann. "If not, somebody in Congress better put that man under oath right quick."

After September 11, 2001, it was revealed that the CIA and FBI had intercepted a variety of messages including phrases such as "There is a big thing coming," "They're going to pay the price" and "We're ready to go." None of these messages gave specific details and none reached intelligence analysts until after the destruction of the World Trade Center.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, "Mukasey did not specify the call to which he referred. He also did not explain why the government, if it knew of telephone calls from suspected foreign terrorists, hadn't sought a wiretapping warrant from a court established by Congress to authorize terrorist surveillance, or hadn't monitored all such calls without a warrant for 72 hours as allowed by law. The Justice Department did not respond to a request for more information."

This video is from MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann, broadcast March 31, 2008.
click here

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You can lead a republican to the truth, but you can't make him think it...

A Plethera of Warnings...

Submitted by Max 1 on April 2, 2008 - 1:15am.

So, along with the Aug. 6,2001 PDB the CIA knew of OTHER contacts of an imminent attack upon America? Really? Or is the Bush Admin. a bunch of slackers?

Did the Admin reveal this info to the 9/11 Sham Commission?

A Memo in Two Parts...

Submitted by Max 1 on April 2, 2008 - 3:41am.

First, let's recap...

And now...

U.S. 2003 Memo Allowed
'Enhanced' Interrogation

By EVAN PEREZ
April 2, 2008; Page A3

The Bush administration declassified a 2003 Justice Department document that allowed military interrogators to subject detainees to some of the "enhanced" interrogation techniques used by Central Intelligence Agency.

The 81-page memo and an earlier one issued to guide the CIA have since been withdrawn, but they show how sweeping the Justice Department viewed presidential power to be after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The newly declassified memo by John Yoo, then deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's Office of the Legal Counsel states: "In wartime, it is for the President alone to decide what methods to use to best prevail against the enemy." (Memo: part 1 | part 2)

The memo was issued to guide the Pentagon on treatment of terror suspects detained overseas. Like an earlier memo issued by John Bybee, the head of OLC, it sanctioned certain techniques that inflict "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" on detainees.

Mr. Yoo concludes that even if techniques are found to be in violation of U.S. and international laws against torture, "necessity or self-defense could provide justifications for any criminal liability."

Peter Carr, a Justice Department spokesman, says the department's current legal view "does not conclude that the President can supersede statutes regulating detainee treatment."

The techniques allowed by the memo have since come under criticism from human-rights groups. Jameel Jaffer, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's national security project, says, "The overall purpose of the memo was to remove any possible legal limitation on the interrogation of prisoners. The result of this legal analysis was the systematic abuse and torture abuse of prisoners in U.S. custody."

The ACLU sued to get this and other documents released by the government, while members of Congress have been pressuring the administration to release the memos.

Pentagon spokesman Jeffrey Gordon said, "Our policy is, and always has been, to treat detainees humanely."

Justice officials withdrew the Yoo and Bybee memos, calling them flawed, and issued a December 2004 legal opinion that declared "torture is abhorrent both to American law and values and to international norms."

The 2005 Detainee Treatment Act prohibits the severe treatment of terror suspects and requires military interrogators, but not those of the CIA, to abide by the requirements in the Army Field Manual and the Geneva Conventions.

A 2006 Supreme Court ruling rejected the Bush administration's argument that the Geneva Convention protections don't apply to detainees held at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Critics of the Bush administration contend the government's legal views leave plenty of room for doubt on whether torture is indeed prohibited. In his confirmation hearing, Attorney General Michael Mukasey refused to say whether waterboarding, a technique intended to give the sensation of drowning, is torture.

Write to Evan Perez at evan.perez@wsj.com

I'm still trying to figure out what kind of American lets be, a president and vice president that continue to soil their respective offices? I mean, what with such tacit acceptance, ANY president can violate international laws, Constitutional law and Federal laws AND do it with impunity. What a disgrace the Congressman allows to be bestowed upon America... NO?

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I M P E A C H
or R E S I G N!!!

TORTURE R US

Submitted by Max 1 on April 2, 2008 - 1:18pm.

The Green Light
by Phillippe Sands May 2008

As the first anniversary of 9/11 approached, and a prized Guantánamo detainee wouldn’t talk, the Bush administration’s highest-ranking lawyers argued for extreme interrogation techniques, circumventing international law, the Geneva Conventions, and the army’s own Field Manual. The attorneys would even fly to Guantánamo to ratchet up the pressure—then blame abuses on the military. Philippe Sands follows the torture trail, and holds out the possibility of war-crimes charges.

The abuse, rising to the level of torture, of those captured and detained in the war on terror is a defining feature of the presidency of George W. Bush. Its military beginnings, however, lie not in Abu Ghraib, as is commonly thought, or in the “rendition” of prisoners to other countries for questioning, but in the treatment of the very first prisoners at Guantánamo. Starting in late 2002 a detainee bearing the number 063 was tortured over a period of more than seven weeks. In his story lies the answer to a crucial question: How was the decision made to let the U.S. military start using coercive interrogations at Guantánamo?

The Bush administration has always taken refuge behind a “trickle up” explanation: that is, the decision was generated by military commanders and interrogators on the ground. This explanation is false. The origins lie in actions taken at the very highest levels of the administration—by some of the most senior personal advisers to the president, the vice president, and the secretary of defense. At the heart of the matter stand several political appointees—lawyers—who, it can be argued, broke their ethical codes of conduct and took themselves into a zone of international criminality, where formal investigation is now a very real option. This is the story of how the torture at Guantánamo began, and how it spread.

(continued at link)

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I M P E A C H

One way or the other:::

Submitted by Ron on April 2, 2008 - 1:46pm.

Do ya think they want to kill you?


BOMB BOMB BOMB, BOMB BOMB IRAN!!!

If We Go To War With Iran, Who Will You Blame?

How has your food been tasting lately?


America's Silent Killing Fields

The "trickle up" explanation.

Submitted by Frosted Flake on April 3, 2008 - 1:54am.

The theory that the Unitary Commander in Chief was ordered by his men to commit an astonishing variety of hanging offenses. Requires the acceptance of certain cockeyed ideas ; including : That Privates give orders to Presidents. And : That Orders receive preference to Laws when the two contradict. And : that up is down, and black, white.

The mere suggestion that the policy was invented in the field automatically raised the question, "What did you do to stop it?" The question went unanswered, as I recall, and the poser of it was branded a coward, a traitor, and quite rude.

I have more questions. Do you recall the fire at Mazar al-Shariff?

Isn't the fact of who was in control of the prison settled by noting that if it were the prisoners in control, they would certainly not let the guards pour fuel oil on them - and then light it?

Do you recall the trucks to nowhere that ran back and forth in Afghanistan, until the men packed in back like sardines were all dead?

Do you suppose these events, preceding Guantanamo, occurred without official sanction?

Do they differ in any way, practical or moral, from the worst examples that could be pointed at during the thirties and forties in Germany? Should, then, the history professors be any kinder to us than they have been to the Nazi regime?

Or would that make the history professors...unpatriotic?
Frosted Flake

Here is Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post
You decide if it ain't the same topic.

Contempt

Submitted by Frosted Flake on April 3, 2008 - 3:11am.

Feith was animated as he relived this moment. I remained puzzled. How had the administration gone from a commitment to Geneva, as suggested by the meeting with Rumsfeld, to the president’s declaration that none of the detainees had any rights under Geneva? It all turns on what you mean by “promoting respect” for Geneva, Feith explained. Geneva didn’t apply at all to al-Qaeda fighters, because they weren’t part of a state and therefore couldn’t claim rights under a treaty that was binding only on states. Geneva did apply to the Taliban, but by Geneva’s own terms Taliban fighters weren’t entitled to P.O.W. status, because they hadn’t worn uniforms or insignia. That would still leave the safety net provided by the rules reflected in Common Article 3— but detainees could not rely on this either, on the theory that its provisions applied only to “armed conflict not of an international character,” which the administration interpreted to mean civil war. This was new. In reaching this conclusion, the Bush administration simply abandoned all legal and customary precedent that regards Common Article 3 as a minimal bill of rights for everyone.

In the administration’s account there was no connection between the decision on Geneva and the new interrogation rules later approved by Rumsfeld for Detainee 063; its position on Geneva was dictated purely by the law itself. I asked Feith, just to be clear: Didn’t the administration’s approach mean that Geneva’s constraints on interrogation couldn’t be invoked by anyone at Guantánamo? “Oh yes, sure,” he shot back. Was that the intended result?, I asked. “Absolutely,” he replied. I asked again: Under the Geneva Conventions, no one at Guantánamo was entitled to any protection? “That’s the point,” Feith reiterated. As he saw it, either you were a detainee to whom Geneva didn’t apply or you were a detainee to whom Geneva applied but whose rights you couldn’t invoke. What was the difference for the purpose of interrogation?, I asked. Feith answered with a certain satisfaction, “It turns out, none. But that’s the point.”

That indeed was the point. The principled legal arguments were a fig leaf. The real reason for the Geneva decision, as Feith now made explicit, was the desire to interrogate these detainees with as few constraints as possible. Feith thought he’d found a clever way to do this, which on the one hand upheld Geneva as a matter of law—the speech he made to Myers and Rumsfeld—and on the other pulled the rug out from under it as a matter of reality. Feith’s argument was so clever that Myers continued to believe Geneva’s protections remained in force—he was “well and truly hoodwinked,” one seasoned observer of military affairs later told me.

It would be kinda pointless to try to use words in such a way that Mr Douglas Feeth could not "misunderstand" them. Seeing as there would be no point to writing ANY words if the intent of them were what Feith says he thinks they mean. A prohibition that is not a prohibition is not a prohibition. Mr. Feith would read a No Parking sign as if it said in print only he could see, "Just kidding." When you encounter those who simply WILL not understant the expression "NO!", the options are A/ Put up with him. B/ Slam the cell door.

That is why I am for Obama. I have had enough of this baloney. I want my reputation back. And I am not going to get it by going along with the program.

Nor will you.
Frosted Flake

And about the Program...

Submitted by Frosted Flake on April 3, 2008 - 3:46am.

IRAQ: 'Handed Over' to a Government Called Sadr
By Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail

BAGHDAD, Apr 2 (IPS) - Despite the huge media campaign led by U.S. officials and a complicit corporate-controlled media to convince the world of U.S. success in Iraq, emerging facts on the ground show massive failure.

The date March 25 of this year will be remembered as the day of truth through five years of occupation.

And so on for several minutes until finally letting drop a size thirteen combat boot :

Further complicating matters for the occupiers of Iraq, the U.S.-backed Awakening groups, largely comprised of former resistance fighters, are now going on strike to demand overdue payment from the U.S. military.

We knew this already, of course, because we pay attention. You have to, when you live in the reality based community. Unlike Doug Feith, who still thinks he is the good guy. And probably always will. We knew this, and have been waiting to see if the Awakening Groups were not really just waiting their moment - from a nice, safe place : the employ of their enemy, us.

Not so strange, if you bother to think about it. Advantages : they don't get shot at, they get paid, they get the juicy details on just what is up (beats guessing) and they get to study our guys up close and personal while making plans on the best way to take them out.

You thought about that, didn't you?
Frosted Flake

Rachel smacks down Morning Joe - Great!

Submitted by wallen on April 3, 2008 - 4:43am.


Hey Joe, don't let the facts get in the way of your suspension of disbelief...
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You can lead a republican to the truth, but you can't make him think it...

It All Comes Down to Yoo...

Submitted by Max 1 on April 4, 2008 - 4:47am.

... er... you... er ... maybe even both.

Now from Yoo's own lips...


"I think it depends on why the president thinks he needs to do that."
THAT, Yoo maintains, is the ability to crush the testicles of a child who's father is in custody. Ergo, torture of an innocent CHILD so as to compel the prisoner to confess to the crime of the moment.

Congressman,
Did you enjoy your company today? I'm sorry I wasn't there to join them but Seattle is so far a drive for a minimum wage earner at $4.00 a gallon who is coming down with a cold and has no health care other than the RiteAide shelves to manage by with my out of pocket expenses.

Did you know that because you let Yoo walk away unscathed, clean and free, he now is fully employed as a Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkley, teaching a host of classes that include:
International Civil Litigation
International Law
Constitutional Law
Foreign Relations Law
Civil Procedure
International Trade
Separation of Powers Law

You have let the madman walk free to educate our future leaders the ways of this madman's mind. Do you have it in you to bring Yoo to justice?

Oh, and about that sit in today, did anyone ever mention to you that your specious argument about NOT impeaching Bush/Cheney et. al. guilty of conspiracy to commit crimes against the people in violation of numerous Charters, treaties and Constitutional Amendments, instead having it rest on ANOTHER illegal invasion of a sovereign nation that has not attacked America, (i.e. IRAN) would only come about because YOU let it get that far? At which point people could be blaming you for being the appeaser you are being today, admittedly or not so? Oh, and this John McCain angle is just evidence of how twisted YOUR mind is working at keeping impeachment a tool OF politics. I mean, sure... let's have McCain defend Bush/Cheney et al just to get Obama elected. It could work... if it was plausible. But the way I look at it:

When Principles guided politics the world birthed America...
When politics dictated principles the world lost Rome.

Has America become the latest Rome on your watch?

p.s.
This is a very nice letter to Mukasey you penned. You're good at writing letters...
Maybe Mukasey was talking about the phone calls that were already being monitored by the NSA but went unheeded...

For example, ABCNEWS has learned that shortly before Sept. 11, NSA intercepts detected multiple phone calls from Abu Zubaida, bin Laden's chief of operations, to the United States. The intercepts were never passed on.

"We do have a joint antiterrorism center, and that is a failure of information consolidation and analysis," said Rudman. "It obviously (a) wasn't consolidated and (b) wasn't analyzed. I mean, those are serious shortcomings."

Or the ones that went untranslated...

September 10, 2001: NSA Monitors Call as KSM Gives Mohamed Atta Final Approval to Launch Attacks
Mohamed Atta calls Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) in Afghanistan. KSM gives final approval to Atta to launch the attacks. The specifics of the conversation haven’t been released. [Independent, 9/15/2002] Unnamed intelligence officials later tell Knight Ridder Newspapers that the call is monitored by the NSA, but only translated after the 9/11 attacks. KSM, “using coded language, [gives] Atta final approval” for the attacks. [Knight Ridder, 9/9/2002] NSA monitored other calls between KSM and Atta in the summer of 2001 but did not share the information about this with other agencies (see Summer 2001). Additionally, it will later be revealed that an FBI squad built an antenna in the Indian Ocean some time before 9/11 with the specific purpose of listening in on KSM’s phone calls, so they may have learned about this call to Atta on their own (see Before September 11, 2001).

Mukasey is grasping at straws to cover for incompetence. They knew damn well. Did they care? A new Pearl Harbor, perhaps?

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I M P E A C H
or R E S I G N!!!

But when the Congress is controlled

Submitted by koryannder on April 4, 2008 - 1:06am.

By a well-known Fascist who is not even an "Official" politician, then political reality trumps Constitutional duty. I refer, of course, to the traitorously active financier Felix Rohatyn, who personally financed Pinochet's takeover of Chile, and who is a member of one of the Banking Houses (Lazard Freres) who financed Adolf Hitler, who has used his lovely money to pretend to be a Democrat, and who is in ABSOLUTE control of the Congress, since Nancy Pelosi rules the Congress with an iron fist and who does not breathe without permission from Rohatyn, there is absolutely no way that the Congress is going to even make a stab at carrying out its sworn duty. The best of all worlds for the fascists among us is for them to have control of the purse strings and hence the money that elects a lot of Pols. I cannot think of a better argument for total Federal financing of elections to Federal Offices.

Take their money away...right now.

Submitted by Mark A. Jeror Sr. on April 4, 2008 - 7:35am.

The vulture capitalists who are raping Wall Street even as we speak, are the fascists Kory speaks of.

After stealing much of America's coffers under the ruse of the war of terror, the resulting financial chaos induces faint hearted small pocket investors to either mitigate their losses or profit take on a meager scale, regardless of the quality of their product. Then vulture capitalists like "Blackstone" swoop them up consolidating the wealth of America into smaller pockets of entitled communities.

Essentially, they are betting the farm on their ability to corner the American markets.

But what happens when their gentrification efforts don't result in the expected economic upturn? They lose the frickin farm.

Right now the fascists are putting all their eggs in one basket, for permanent control over our financial and political future. Like Kory says, until we reach the point of public financing, our electoral process will continue to be a sham. But as long as these vultures are the only ones with cash, public financing is a pipedream.

The answer lies in what most Americans fear the most. A continued drop in stocks after the robber barons take control. This will cause the economic shift needed to redistribute the wealth of America. Of course their Saudi and Communist China friends will fill the void temporarily, but situations like this must be brought to a head like a pimple. Timing is everything, and if we force the discussion now, it won't be so hard to deal with later.

Get out of debt, retire, take your profits, downsize your home and take steps to permanently lower your energy overhead.

Stocks will soon begin to climb again, now that the vulture capitalists are gorging on the "investor victim class". Educated Joe America needs to protect themselves by accepting that their profits have been maximized, and sell, sell, sell, before the fascists Kory and I speak so frequently about, pull the rug from everyone.

Force the Robber Barons to lose their ill-gotten gain through an adherence to the most basic investment principle of all. Buy low and sell high.

They're gambling that they've trained the American citizen to be so greedy, we'll wait too long to protect ourselves. But if we get a little greedier, we'll take their money too.

Sell now, and don't buy until you see the whites of their eyes.

Worse case scenario, we'll all be poor together. That's a hell of a lot better than allowing the entitled legacy families to keep using their money like a club.

It's an eat or be eaten world. If we don't do something to level the expanding economic imbalance, we won't have any teeth left to eat with.

America's individuals need to act to protect themselves and their investments, on a large scale. The less vulnerable we are, the less power the fascists can weild.

Protecting yourself, takes the predators money away.

Or maybe we can just ask Mr. Conyers how much the anti-impeachment people bribed him to keep impeachment off the table, and we can double the offer.

Not enough? How about triple? Still not enough? Shit man, just tell us how much it costs to buy a House Judiciary Chairman. If we get together enough money, can we have equal representation too?

Where's the Feith?

Submitted by Max 1 on April 4, 2008 - 8:27pm.

In an upcoming CBS 60Minutes interview to air April 6,2008, Douglas Feith attempts to rationalize an unprovoked attack upon a sovereign nation that posed no threat and had not attacked the U.S.A.

Vigilantee Justice?
Do the Geneva Conventions even matter anymore?
How is this rationale differ from Hitler's need to invade Poland?
Why is Feith free to LIE and craft the illusion that aggressive, unprovoked attacks upon innocent nations is somehow rational; justified?

Is this why they needed to craft the lies:

What WMD'S?
What Ties to Al-CIA-duh?
What Yellow Cake Uranium from Niger?
What Mobile Bio-Chem Weapons Plants?
What Imminent Threat?
What Suitcase Nukes?
What Mushroom Clouds?
What Truth?

WHERE'S THE JUSTICE IN ALL OF THIS?

Uhhhh...
HELLO?

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I M P E A C H
or R E S I G N!!!

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