Hi! I just wanted you to know that I’ll be working just as hard to get you out of office as I did to get you in to office.

This is why.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/20/obama-backs-bush-on-bagra_n_168766.html

I was under the impression you were a Constitutional scholar. What you’ve just shown is that in reality you’re a Neocon capitulating chickenshit. That scumbag Perle must have some stroke, because the hand job you just gave We the People just reeks of Neocon.

Enjoy your one term.

“Binyam Mohamed, the British resident held at the Guantánamo Bay detention centre, is expected to be flown back to the UK early next week after a deal was agreed today on his transfer.

The attorney general is consulting the director of public prosecutions over whether to order a criminal investigation into claims that intelligence and security agents were involved in torturing Mohamed.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/20/binyam-mohamed-release-guantanamo

Let’s just hope the proverbial fan has been secured.

from today…
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/karl_rove/

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Posts on “U.S. Attorneys”
U.S. Attorney Firings Timeline: Now Better Than Ever!
By Chris Black – February 18, 2009, 10:58AM

“The Bush years may be over, but the U.S. Attorney firings scandal isn’t. In fact, Karl Rove and Congress are still locked in battle about whether he’ll ever have to reveal, under oath, what he knows.

So you’ll be excited to hear that we’ve updated our authoritative timeline of events in the years-long saga — and given it a new look.

You can check it out here…”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mohamed-farag-bashmilah/disappeared-in-the-name-o_b_168200.html

“A cross-party coalition of MPs and human-rights campaigners has written to Barack Obama calling on him to publish secret documents that allegedly contain evidence of US and British complicity in torture.

The letter to Obama calling on the president to publish them has been signed by Edward Davey, the Liberal Democrats’ foreign affairs spokesman, Andrew Tyrie, the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on extraordinary rendition, Chris Mullin, a former Foreign Office minister, Clare Algar, the executive director of the legal charity Reprieve, and Kate Allen, the director of Amnesty International UK.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/feb/19/obama-torture-mohamed

May I present you with Bishop Desmond Tutu . . .

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7895328.stm

He’s not as strong in voicing what needs to be done as someone without a Church affiliation can be, but he clearly get “it” too.

You make a very good point. Failure to prosecute for war crimes does undermine the presidency as well as weaken the position of the US in the world.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/13/AR2009021303093.html
Talks Could Clear Way for Congressional Testimony by Rove

By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 14, 2009; Page A05

White House lawyers and representatives for former president George W. Bush are engaged in discussions that could clear a path for congressional testimony by onetime Bush aide Karl Rove, three sources familiar with the talks said yesterday.

Word of the negotiations came on the same day that House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) issued Rove a fresh subpoena regarding his role in the firing of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006, allegedly for political reasons.

Rove has deflected congressional demands for information about the dismissals by citing executive privilege and instructions from Bush. But Democrats say President Obama’s view of the matter may open the door for Rove’s eventual appearance on Capitol Hill.

“I believe that continued defiance of the subpoena is even less tenable in light of the fact that Mr. Rove is now the former adviser to a former president,” Conyers wrote yesterday in a letter to Rove’s attorney, Robert D. Luskin.

Luskin replied that he and Rove are awaiting advice from White House counsel Gregory B. Craig about whether Obama would back the executive privilege assertion by his predecessor.

“The president is very sympathetic to those who want to find out what happened,” Craig said in a statement yesterday. “But he is also mindful as president of the United States not to do anything that would undermine or weaken the institution of the presidency. So, for that reason, he is urging both sides of this to settle.”

A clue about the next phase of the dispute will emerge next week, when the Justice Department is scheduled to file legal briefs in a federal court case in the District. The House of Representatives has sued for information about the prosecutor firings from former Bush White House counsel Harriet E. Miers and former chief of staff Joshua B. Bolten.

The issue is heating up even as a criminal investigation into the firings accelerates. Nora R. Dannehy — a career prosecutor from Connecticut named to examine whether laws on false statements, obstruction of justice or other matters were violated surrounding the dismissals — began to interview key witnesses Thursday.

Weeks earlier, a federal grand jury in the District issued subpoenas in the case to several people, including former senator Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.). Authorities are seeking information from Domenici about any possible role he played in the firing of former New Mexico prosecutor David C. Iglesias.

Rep. Lamar Smith (Tex.), the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, criticized Democrats yesterday, saying their “continued persecution of former Bush administration officials is a waste of taxpayers’ time and money.”

****************

Proof again that the hardest thing to ask of a decider, is that he/she actually decide.

You can’t say everyone is subject to law, except US, and not expect We the People not to get really angry and really creative in how we’ll extract our pound of flesh that is due. Because if the President is immune to the law, that makes him King, doesn’t it? NO MAN IS MY KING. I’ll die fighting first.

Craig is another fine example of an equivocating douche bag that the government, and indeed the world, could do with less of.

“This is significant: President Obama’s top lawyer, White House counsel Gregory Craig, has now made some expansive and telling comments about Obama’s views of how or whether to reverse the legal tactics Bush used to expand the power of the Presidency. And they won’t cheer those hoping for a clean break with the past…

Craig, addressing the question of whether the Obama White House will uphold Karl Rove’s claims of executive privilege as he seeks to avoid revealing information about the scandal surrounding the firing of U.S. Attorneys, said this:

“The president is very sympathetic to those who want to find out what happened. But he is also mindful as president of the United States not to do anything that would undermine or weaken the institution of the presidency. So for that reason, he is urging both sides of this to settle.”

http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/probes-of-bush-administration/obamas-top-lawyer-says-obama-doesnt-want-to-weaken-presidency/

Also, I’ve always used the expression “ass-clown”. Now, thanks to Buddha, I will try to mix it up a little with asshat.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/02/18/ashcroft-obama-bush/

A little loud maybe, but hear, hear!

“Man perfected by society is the best of all animals; he is the most terrible of all when he lives without law, and without justice.”

ARISTOTLE

“The former head of MI5 has accused ministers of exploiting fears over terrorism to restrict civil liberties, adding to mounting criticism of the government’s record on human rights.

In an interview with a Spanish newspaper, Stella Rimington said state interference in people’s privacy played into the hands of terrorists.

“It would be better that the government recognised that there are risks rather than frightening people in order to be able to pass laws which restrict civil liberties, [which is] precisely one of the objects of terrorism: that we live in fear and under a police state,” she told La Vanguardia.

Rimington, who stood down as the British security service’s director general in 1996, also accused the US of torture.” (from The Guardian)

It is precisely the assult on civil liberities, justified by the “war of terror” that the Obama administration seems hell bent on continuing. Glenn Greenwald discusses some of the bad and good on this matter in his column today. The case of Binyam Mohamed in UK is bringing things to a head. Much information on torutre by both govts. is coming to light due to this case. As this information comes out, I am hoping it will be hard for either govt. to sweep it under the rug.

As to those hideous lawyers, I don’t know why they weren’t disbarred a long time ago, but I’m happy it’s being considered now. From what I can tell, Mukasey is open to charges of obstruction of justice and the legal crew, to war crimes.

That is the post of the year so far! Well said indeed!

You don’t punish the guilty, We the People will. Force our collective hand and see how well that works out for you.

And for clarity, I’ll spell a couple of things out -

1) No one expects Bush to go to prison. He’s a moron and a puppet, not as intrinsically evil as he is stupid. History will be adequate punishment for him and his family. Don’t believe that? Try getting elected without cheating with the name Bush EVER again. You want to throw the Neocon Nazis a bone? That’s the ONLY one you’re going to get.

2) Cheney and the Secret Energy Taskforce ALL NEED TO GO TO PRISON AND HAVE THEIR ASSETS SEIZED AS REPARATIONS TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. Period. This is NOT negotiable if you want a) our international standing restored and b) continued “domestic tranquility”. We the People WILL enforce the Constitution if you are unwilling or unable.

3) Halliburton – they should be destroyed. End of story. And while your at it, find that pallet of cash those asshats stole. Blackwater can change their name to Xe, but that changes nothing. They deserve the same fate as Halliburton.

4) Rove and those who stacked the DOJ with Regent’s half-assed theocratic fascists for Jesus and Pat Robertson all NEED TO GO TO PRISON. A supermax too, not a country club. This includes Gonzo, Addington, Yoo and, yes, possibly Mukasey. Related to this a) unlimited detention without trial FOR ANYONE is UNCONSTITUTIONAL and UNACCEPTABLE, b) torture FOR ANYONE is UNCONSTITUTIONAL and UNACCEPTABLE, but I’ll throw you this bone – you can keep rendition if the purpose is to bring someone to trial, not ship them off for torture by proxy. Not all of us ignorant to how field intelligence operations SHOULD be run and have been run in the past. You want to sneak in and snag the bad guys, fine, but you better give them a trial as MANDATED by the Constitution. And that also means “speedy” in addition to fair.

There are more issues you need to pick up the pace on, but those four are CRITICAL.

Justice delayed is justice denied. The only people who think this is optional are equivocating weasels. Which is to say “self-serving politicians”. PUNISHING THE GUILTY IS REQUIRED FOR CLOSURE BOTH DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN. Count on it. Justice denied is a recipe for revolution. Add that to the generous portions of “Let them eat cake” you’re serving by not putting a boot to criminal Wall St.’s throat? That’s insult to injury. It’s also a recipe for being a one term wonder, to appeal to your self-interest and ego. But if you won’t enforce our laws, then quite respectfully fuck you, Mr. President. We’ll get someone who will or we’ll do it ourselves. The adults in the room are standing up whether you acknowledge them or not. And we’re FURIOUS. We might sit back down if you punish the offending children. If not? Well, you get the idea. We the People is THE most powerful force on Earth. King or President, it isn’t wise to piss us off.

Now do the job we elected you to do.

http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2009/02/department-of-just-us.html

I hope Yoo and company get what they deserve as it’s been a long time coming.

–Leonardo da Vinci