Check Bugliosi out. He's entirely correct on prosecuting Bush for murder, the more serious crime, one against U.S. citizens. Since the book came out a while ago, he's come over to the 1.2 million Iraqi dead civilian figure, which is correct and he hammers that along with the soldier deaths. He is incendiary on the issue of prosecution. The title of the article is "Murder Trumps Torture Says Bugliosi."

The torture business is important but Bush and his crew killed a shit load of people. That's murder. Indict and prosecute. But NOBODY among the gatekeepers wants to say this. To real, to accurate, to fucking true!


I read Buliosi's book - very compelling. The case is there for the taking, but I suspect most good prosecutors wouldn't waste their time because Obama would pardon Bush before it ever gets anywhere near a court. He's got his re-election to think about.


I agree. The vast majority of DA's won't even think about it. 2,200 of them got this material and the book from Prosecute George W. Bush.Com
http://prosecutegeorgebush.com/

I see something happening when the full impact of the depression hits. It takes anger to bring justice, at times, when the perpetrator is viewed as above the law. But this prosecution may be an offering that the PTB are willing to make as a massive diversion. If things get bad enough and Bush is indicted, I suspect that Obama will be on the outs in a big way. He'd never believe it, but it's coming.

Obviously we cannot prosecute someone for a crime that they may commit in the future.

Duh. (what's that Tom Cruise movie?)

Another for the list: Racism. but I'll work on a Health Care one myself...


I saw that Tom Cruise movie. It totally sucked, unimaginably so. The only thing I remember was there was a lot of litter in the future.

Bugliosi is riffing on the idiocy of Obama's droid like response anytime someone asks about prosecuting bush - that's in the past. It's ironic.

Check Bugliosi out. He's entirely correct on prosecuting Bush for murder, the more serious crime, one against U.S. citizens. Since the book came out a while ago, he's come over to the 1.2 million Iraqi dead civilian figure, which is correct and he hammers that along with the soldier deaths. He is incendiary on the issue of prosecution. The title of the article is "Murder Trumps Torture Says Bugliosi."

The torture business is important but Bush and his crew killed a shit load of people. That's murder. Indict and prosecute. But NOBODY among the gatekeepers wants to say this. To real, to accurate, to fucking true!


I understood, Bugliosi!! the Duh wasn't referring to my ignorance for once! :)

It is such a stupid argument to say forget the past, Its amazing its being bought at all, if it really is...Bugliosi is dead right there...

Oh and the Cruise movie was Minority Report, and it was kind of like the second meaning of tea bagging kid was referring to...

on edit: maybe I should moderate myself here?? ;)


No, Dimitri, I'm more ignorant than you are;)

I missed your subtle , which is now more apparent when explained to me.

Why moderate yourself. That's a legitimate topic. The high level second definition of tea bagging should be "Some really fucking strange activity that accomplishes very little in a situation where much might be accomplished."

Obviously we cannot prosecute someone for a crime that they may commit in the future.

Duh. (what's that Tom Cruise movie?)

Another for the list: Racism. but I'll work on a Health Care one myself...


I saw that Tom Cruise movie. It totally sucked, unimaginably so. The only thing I remember was there was a lot of litter in the future.

Bugliosi is riffing on the idiocy of Obama's droid like response anytime someone asks about prosecuting bush - that's in the past. It's ironic.

Check Bugliosi out. He's entirely correct on prosecuting Bush for murder, the more serious crime, one against U.S. citizens. Since the book came out a while ago, he's come over to the 1.2 million Iraqi dead civilian figure, which is correct and he hammers that along with the soldier deaths. He is incendiary on the issue of prosecution. The title of the article is "Murder Trumps Torture Says Bugliosi."

The torture business is important but Bush and his crew killed a shit load of people. That's murder. Indict and prosecute. But NOBODY among the gatekeepers wants to say this. To real, to accurate, to fucking true!


I understood, Bugliosi!! the Duh wasn't referring to my ignorance for once! :)

It is such a stupid argument to say forget the past, Its amazing its being bought at all, if it really is...Bugliosi is dead right there...

Oh and the Cruise movie was Minority Report, and it was kind of like the second meaning of tea bagging kid was referring to...

on edit: maybe I should moderate myself here?? ;)


No, Dimitri, I'm more ignorant than you are;)

I missed your subtle , which is now more apparent when explained to me.

Why moderate yourself. That's a legitimate topic. The high level second definition of tea bagging should be "Some really fucking strange activity that accomplishes very little in a situation where much might be accomplished."





LOL!! Now I understand High Tea!

OTOH

http://www.oftwominds.com/blogapr09/obamas-secret-plan04-09.html

It's a deep, wide river.

OTOH

http://www.oftwominds.com/blogapr09/obamas-secret-plan04-09.html

It's a deep, wide river.


Here's another one from a familiar "pragmatist":


Practical Vision: Grading Obama's 100 Days

http://oldelmtree.com/discussion/index.php/topic,3764.0.html

OTOH

http://www.oftwominds.com/blogapr09/obamas-secret-plan04-09.html

It's a deep, wide river.


Here's another one from a familiar "pragmatist":


Practical Vision: Grading Obama's 100 Days

http://oldelmtree.com/discussion/index.php/topic,3764.0.html



Yep, saw the DU version. The guy is just all over the place, heart on his sleeve.

I often wonder when he finds time to write so much. Feel for him though, he's an optimist. I wish I could tell him it will all get better but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

the new White House's actions to (for example):

* Significantly expand the reach and intensity of imperial violence (replete with the mass slaughter of civilians and the related escalation of targeted assassinations) in South Asia.

* Promote a notorious assassin and death-squad leader (Lt. General Stanley A McChrystal - former chief of the military's special Joint Special Operations Command) to the position of Commander of U.S. Forces in the newly merged "Af-Pak" war theater. [1]

* Sustain the criminal occupation of Iraq beneath rhetoric of withdrawal. [2]

* Increase "defense" (empire) spending, consistent with the following statement in a report issued by the leading Wall Street investment firm Morgan Stanley one day after Obama's presidential election victory: "As we understand it, Obama has been advised and agrees that there is no peace dividend."[3]

* Revive military commissions.

* Continue the practice of renditions.

* Maintain secret prisons for persons "held on a short-term, transitory basis."

* Continue the unspeakable torture of prisoners by an "extrajudicial terror squad" (Jeremy Scahill's description of the Pentagon's sadistic "Immediate Reaction Force" in Cuba) at Guantanamo Bay. [4]

* Advance the policy of "indefinite detention" (potentially permanent incarceration) for Guantanamo prisoners for whom no legally compelling evidence can be marshaled.

* Intimidate [Britain] (with a threat to withhold intelligence data on potential terrorist attacks!) into preventing a Guantanamo victim from having his day in court on the Bush administration's torture practices. [5]

* Sustain the Bush administration's abrogation of habeas corpus rights in regard to the roughly 600 "enemy combatants" kept at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan (where people rendered out of other countries like Yemen and England can be considered "war [-zone]" prisoners!. [6]

* Advance nauseatingly specious legal and moral arguments ("better to look forward than backward") to prevent serious federal investigation of the Bush administration's human rights crimes.

* Sustain George W. Bush's domestic wiretapping program.

* Invoke the "state secrets" (akin to the divine right of kings) doctrine to prevent disclosure of evidence in response to lawsuits emerging from Bush era rendition and surveillance policies.

* Suppress photographic evidence of U.S. torture practices.

* Justify all this and more in the name of the supposed "global war on terror" that was supposedly launched in legitimate defense against the supposedly unprovoked jetliner attacks of September 11, 2001.

* Disregard qualified progressive defenders of civil liberties and human rights from consideration for appointment to succeed Supreme Justice David H. Souter and to thereby counter the hard right leanings of the court's conservative majority. [7]

* Send clear signals of intent to roll back and partially privatize Social Security and Medicare benefits.

* Betray campaign pledges to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to insert stronger labor and environmental protections. [7A]

* Betray campaign pledges of serious intent to advance an elementary and overdue labor law reform (the Employee Free Choice Act).

* Force and approve an automobile industry re-structuring that drastically cuts domestic autoworkers' jobs, wages and benefits while subsidizing General Motors' further shifting of jobs abroad. [8]

* Advance a tepid, business-friendly health care "reform" that leaves the leading parasitic insurance corporations (major campaign sponsors of his) in power.

* "Methodically erase single-payer advocates from the picture" (Glen Ford) of health care reform despite the fact that a majority of Americans have long favored a single-payer ("Medicare for all") health insurance system. [9]

* Spend trillions of federal dollars on taxpayer handouts to giant Wall Street firms who spent millions on his campaign and who drove the economy over the cliff. Obama's Wall Street bailout rejects the elementary bank nationalizations and public financial restructuring that are required to put the nation's credit system on a sound and socially responsible basis, choosing instead to guarantee the financial, insurance, and real estate industries' toxic, hyper-inflated assets while keeping existing Wall Street management in place. It amounts to a giant effort to "keep perpetrators afloat" (liberal economist James Gailbraith) through a scheme in which the government takes more than 90 percent of the risk but private investors reap at least half the reward.

I could go on. It's not a pretty story. And it's only going to get worse.

http://mostlywater.org/obama_lessons_left

Kerry, unable to assert himself, would have been a one term president, just as Obama will be. Obama’s base was essentially suckered into voting for him. All his talk of openness and accountability were only election gambits. Obama, occupying what is arguably the most powerful position on the planet, while enjoying democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress, doesn’t have the spine to make a discernable difference in the lives of Americans. This is exponentially derelict after eight years of a dull witted, and morally bereft, fraud. But as the luck of drunks and fools will have it, Bush will escape accountability. Obama, unfortunately for him, will be deserving of his abbreviated presidency, and his frightened legacy will be but another contradiction of the Founder’s intent. Progressive ideology will have taken another step back, perhaps its last.

Progressives may as well get used to the idea that, in four years, the presidency will go back to the republicans. The Democratic Congressional Majorities, if not replaced, will be reduced. It doesn‘t matter because the majorities are paralyzed anyway. House Speaker Pelosi, checkmated by her own involvement as a cheerleader for torture, is worse than useless. Voters are impressed with strong, assertive leadership, whether it is right or wrong. The republicans, never ones to let an opportunity, real or construed go by, have wasted no time in resting the blame for the economic collapse squarely on Obama’s unresisting shoulders. The question begs. Why would a man devote his entire adult life to politics, then rise to the highest level of his profession, only to cower before the advance of a weakened and outnumbered enemy? Cowardice leaps to mind, but Obama’s agenda is probably more servile than simple cowardice allows.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Melted-Wings--Icarus-And-by-Jon-Faulkner-090612-334.html

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22855.htm

Obama a Very Smooth Liar

By John R. MacArthur

June 17, 2009 "The Providence Journal" -- It isn't quite fair to call Barack Obama a liar. During the campaign he carefully avoided committing to much of anything important that he might have to take back later. For now, I won’t quibble with The St. Petersburg Times’s Obamameter, which so far has the president keeping 30 promises and breaking only six.

And yet, broadly speaking, Obama has been lying on a pretty impressive scale. You just have to get past his grandiloquent rhetoric — usually empty of substance — to get a handle on it. I offer a short, incomplete list, which I’m sure others could easily enlarge.

* Obama portrayed himself as the peace candidate, or at least the anti-war candidate. He is not a peace president, nor is he stopping any wars. True, he promised military escalation in Afghanistan (to blunt John McCain’s accusations of wimpishness), but well-meaning folks believed their new hero would genuinely move to end the occupation of Iraq and seriously try to negotiate with the Taliban. Instead, he has not only increased the number of troops and attacks against the Afghan insurgency, he has also expanded on George Bush’s cross-border raids into Pakistan, which have killed many civilians. The way things are going, Pakistan could become the new Cambodia and Obama the new Nixon.

In Iraq, Obama has promised to withdraw all the troops . . . unless, which means that we’re not leaving. Whether it’s 50,000 troops remaining at the “invitation” of the so-called government of Iraq, or just enough to man the 14 permanent military bases, or some combination of U.S. military personnel and private mercenaries that exceeds 50,000 soldiers, our army will almost certainly stay in Iraq past the stated deadline of Jan. 1, 2012.


* Obama said he wanted to reform Washington and “fix” its “broken” system of corrupt lobbying. But Obama is neither a reformer nor a skilled legislative mechanic. Hatched from the Daley Machine in one-party Chicago, Obama wouldn’t be president today if he rocked boats. Witness the appointment of Roland Burris by the corrupt former Gov. Rod Blagojevich to fill Obama’s Senate seat: not a word of public protest from the new administration because Burris is a made man in the Chicago Democratic organization. So what if “Tombstone Roland” can be heard on the U.S. attorney’s wiretaps of Blagojevich, dancing around the delicate question of how to raise money for Blago without appearing to be buying his seat.

As for pork-barrel politics, Obama named one of its greatest champions, Chicago’s own Rahm Emanuel, as his chief of staff, and the new budget (as well as the “stimulus” package) is loaded with pork. Meanwhile, have you heard anything serious about campaign-finance reform from Obama? Not very likely from someone who refused public financing and still has about $10 million left over from record receipts of $745.7 million. It’s just a detail, I know, but Obama’s naming of former Raytheon lobbyist William Lynn III as deputy secretary of defense seems to be at odds with the president’s alleged crusade against special interests and the “revolving door” between private business and government. He has also “sold” ambassadorships to campaign donors. The biggest plum, London, is slated for Lou Susman, a Chicagoan and former Citigroup executive who bundled $239,000. Paris has been reserved for Charles Rivkin, who raised about $500,000 for Obama.


* Obama, with his Arabic middle name and his big Cairo speech, wants people to think that he is the Muslim world’s new best friend. Well, the photograph of a cheery Obama with Saudi King Abdullah and a smiling Emanuel with Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, proves the contrary. The Saudi royal family hates the idea of representative government for ordinary Muslims and is cruelly indifferent to the fate of the Palestinians. A democratic, independent, partly secular Palestine could only make the Saudi oligarchy look bad. Thus, the House of Saud is perfectly happy with the status quo, and so, evidently, is Obama.

Without Saudi pressure, there will be no resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, since Saudi oil is the only lever that would cause America to press Israel into making real concessions. Indeed, the president doesn’t mean for one minute to force Israel into anything more than symbolic withdrawals of its illegal settlements on the West Bank. Meanwhile, the Saudi elite continues to play its double game, paying protection money to extremist Islam and granting pensions to the relatives of suicide bombers. It’s just politics, say Barack and Rahm, grinning ear-to-ear with their sleazy new friends from Riyahd. Just keep the oil pumping around election time and all will be well.


* Obama makes like he’s a friend of organized labor, at least he did during the Ohio primary when he needed to beat Hillary Clinton. At the time, he put out a flier headlined “Only Barack Obama fought NAFTA and other bad trade deals” and charged that “a little more than a year ago, Hillary Clinton thought NAFTA was a ‘boon’ to the economy.” In a debate with Clinton on Feb. 26, 2008, he said, “I will make sure that we renegotiate [NAFTA] in the same way that Senator Clinton talked about” and “use the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage” to get “labor and environmental standards that are enforced.”

But two months ago, U.S. Trade Rep. Ron Kirk said such a blunt instrument was no longer necessary and that the leaders of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico were now “of the mind that we should be looking for opportunities to strengthen [the North American Free Trade Agreement].” And, of course, there is no discussion at all about renegotiating Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China, a “bad trade deal” that has done even greater harm to American workers and unions than has NAFTA.

Meanwhile, as I noted in my April 15 column, “Wall Street sharks circle the UAW,” Obama and his banker friend Steven Rattner are liquidating the United Auto Workers even as they liquidate the American auto industry. Robert Reich, Bill Clinton’s pseudo-secretary of labor, said as much. “The only practical purpose I can imagine for the bailout is to slow the decline of GM to create enough time for its workers, suppliers, dealers and communities to adjust to its eventual demise,” he wrote last month in the Financial Times — no surprise, considering that Obama’s chief economic adviser remains Lawrence Summers, a champion of deregulation and “free-market” economics in the Clinton administration and very much the enemy of labor unions.

Yes, of course it’s nice to have a president who speaks in complete sentences. But that they’re coherent doesn’t make them honest.

John R. MacArthur, publisher of Harper's Magazine.
© 2009 The Providence Journal

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Information Clearing House has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Information ClearingHouse endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

Holder Refuses to Stand By Statements Saying Violating FISA Breaks the Law
By: emptywheel Wednesday June 17, 2009 11:30 am
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By far the most disturbing part of the Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing today came when Russ Feingold asked Eric Holder whether he stands by a statement he made before the American Constitution Society last year.

In the midst of a speech that repeated "rule of law" like a Greek Chorus, after introducing this passage from his speech by saying certain steps taken by the Bush Administration "were unlawful," Holder said, "I never thought a President would act in direct defiance of federal law by authorizing warrantless NSA surveillance of American citizens."

When Feingold asked Holder whether he stands by that statement, Holder ignored the early part of his speech where he described all of Bush's abuses to be "unlawful," and instead tried to claim he was narrowly saying that Bush simply "contravened" FISA.

FEINGOLD: On another topic, I wrote to the president on Monday about my continued concern that the administration has not formally withdrawn certain legal opinions, including the January 2006 white paper that provided the justification for the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program. At the letter was prompted in part by a recent speech that I'm sure you're aware of by the director of national intelligence in which he asserted that the program was not illegal, but he later clarified that.

In a speech to the American Constitutional Society in June 2008, you, sir, set the following. "I never thought that I would see the day when a president would act in direct defiance of federal law by authorizing warrantless NSA surveillance of American citizens."

And the president himself also several times as a senator and during the campaign said the program was illegal. Now that you are the attorney general, is there any doubt in your mind that the warrantless wiretapping program was illegal?

HOLDER: Well, I think that the warrantless wiretapping program as it existed at that point was certainly unwise in that it was put together without the approval of Congress and as a result did not have all the protections, all the strength that it might have had behind it, as -- as I think it now exists with regard to having had congressional approval of it. So I think that the concerns that I expressed in that speech no longer exist because of the action that Congress has taken in regard...

FEINGOLD: But I asked you, Mr. Attorney General, not whether it was unwise, but whether you consider it to be an illegal, because that's certainly the implication of what you said in the quote I read and the explicit statement of the man who is now president of the United States.

HOLDER: Yes, well what I was saying in that speech was that I thought the action that the administration had taken was inconsistent with the dictates of -- of FISA, and I think I used the word "contravention," and as a result I thought that the policy was an unwise one. And I think that the concerns that I expressed then have really been remedied by the fact that Congress has now authorized the program.

FEINGOLD: But did you think it was illegal?

HOLDER: Well, I thought that, as I said, it was inconsistent with -- with the FISA statute and unwise as a matter of policy.

FEINGOLD: Has something happened that's changed your opinion since your June 2008 statement that would make it hard for you to just simply say what the president said, that it's illegal?

HOLDER: No, I don't think so. And I don't think what I'm saying now is necessarily inconsistent with what I said at the -- at the ACS convention or speech that I gave.

FEINGOLD: Well, it sounds awfully mild compared to some very clear statements and a very important principle here, which is not only that this has to do with the scope of the FISA law, but the underlying constitutional issue that people like mean and many people believe that is his statute is -- is that explicit under the third test, under Justice Jackson's test, that it is in fact unconstitutional for the president and illegal, of course, for the president to override the expressed will of -- of the Congress.

HOLDER: Yes. Well, as I said, I think I said "contravention of," "inconsistent with." I'm not sure I'd use the term "illegal," and I would adhere to -- I'd adhere to what I said then. I think what I'm saying now is consistent with what I said in the -- in the speech.

FEINGOLD: Well, that may well be, but I would hope that you would use the word "illegal" now, then. And I request in a letter I sent to the president on Monday and also in a letter dated April 29th, that the administration withdraw the January 2006 white paper and other classified OLC memos providing legal justification of the program. I know you have initiated a review of the Bush era OLC memos. And, of course, certain memos that authorize torture have been withdrawn. Apparently, you discussed this a bit already today with Senator Feinstein. What is -- what is the status of your review of the memos concerning the warrantless wiretapping program?

HOLDER: Well, I asked the Office of Legal Counsel to review these prior opinions, including those that deal with surveillance, with the goal of making as many of these opinions public as we can, consistent with our national security interests and also consistent with ensuring that robust debate can happen within the executive branch. It is my hope that that process, which is ongoing, will lead to the release of several opinions in a relatively short period of time.

FEINGOLD: I just want to reiterate how important it is for the legal justification for this program to be withdrawn concerning these memos that make unsupportable claims of executive power that will come back to haunt us if they remain in effect. And if you believe, as I -- I think the president has indicated in the past, that the program was illegal, they -- they cannot stand.

Watch Holder squirm as he tries to suggest that the President could violate FISA and yet not break the law.

Now, Feingold asks this question to support his insistence that the opinions authorizing the warrantless wiretap program must be withdrawn. But I suspect Holder squirmed so wildly as much because of the cases before Vaughn Walker as he did because they're still relying on those opinions to authorize domestic surveillance. After all, if Holder admitted that violating FISA was tantamount to breaking the law, then it would simplify Judge Walker's task significantly. If the Attorney General admits that the former President violated FISA, then it makes it a lot easier for Walker to rule that he did.

But instead Holder squirmed and equivocated.

It's bad enough that Holder's trying to weasel out of statements he made a year ago. But I just saw the Attorney General all but suggest that contravening a law does not constitute breaking it.

Update: Here's Feingold's statement from after the hearing:

I was disappointed by Attorney General Holder’s unwillingness to repeat what both he and President Obama had stated in the past – that President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program was illegal. For an administration that has repeatedly stated its intention to restore the rule of law, this episode was a step backward. While the Attorney G

eneral restated his belief that the program was inconsistent with the FISA statute, his testimony today, and the administration’s delay in withdrawing the Bush Administration’s legal justifications for the program, are troubling.

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/06/17/holder-refuses-to-stand-by-statements-saying-violating-fisa-breaks-the-law/

Holder Refuses to Call Warrantless Spying Illegal

In probably the most disturbing testimony to hit Capitol Hill since Attorney General Eric Holder appeared before the House Judiciary Committee in May and refused to rule out lawless detention or to agree that government officials can sometimes be prosecuted for their crimes, on Wednesday Holder appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee and, among much else, refused five times to agree that warrantless spying is illegal and unconstitutional. I spoke to Holder in April, and he assured me that I would be proud of my country. When?

Over the months that have passed since Holder last testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee at his confirmation hearings, it has become clear that most, if not all, of the major criminal activities of the Bush Administration will be covered up and protected, and in fact continued, by the Obama Administration -- yes, including torture. Most recently in the media, including in Wednesday's New York Times, are accounts of ongoing warrantless spying. At Wednesday's hearing, liveblogged here, illegal spying was the subject of a dramatic exchange.

Chairman Patrick Leahy was the first to raise the topic and to complain that he had to learn about the executive branch's crimes from the New York Times. I'm not sure who he would prefer or expect to hear such things from. Holder, in response, claimed not to know anything about it, because he hadn't "reviewed in any detail" the New York Times article. Senators Tom Coburn and Diane Feinstein both claimed that the New York Times article was not accurate.

But whether that article is accurate or not misses the broader question that was then raised by Senator Russ Feingold. He pointed out that executive "opinions" asserting the legality of torture have been overturned, but that those asserting the legality of warrantless wiretapping have not been. Senator Feinstein asked whether the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) "opinion" announcing that the 4th Amendment did not apply in the "war on terror" had been withdrawn. Holder said he did not know. Feingold pointed to past statements by Barack Obama and Eric Holder denouncing the warrantless wiretapping. And he asked Holder directly whether the warrantless wiretapping programs set up during Bush's presidency were illegal. Holder replied that they were "unwise". So Feingold asked again, and a third, fourth, and fifth time. Holder would go so far as to say "inconsistent with FISA" and yet explicitly refused to say "illegal." Holder said he hoped to someday release secret "opinions" on spying. But releasing something is not the same as overturning or "withdrawing" it. After five unsuccessful attempts to get Holder to call illegal spying illegal (even though Holder would, later in the same hearing, indicate his reliance on legislation that provided immunity for the crime), Feingold gave up and moved to another topic.

Feingold asked Holder about abuse of the "state secrets" privilege. Since February, Feingold said, he has sought a classified briefing from the executive branch to explain three cases in which Holder's department has used the "state secrets" excuse to try to block court cases. Feingold asked Holder to get him that briefing. Holder refused twice, but did claim that within "a matter of days" he would make some proposals public. The Senate Judiciary Committee plans on Thursday to mark up the State Secrets Protection Act, a bill to restrain executive abuse. Holder told the committee on Wednesday that the executive branch would release its position on the matter within days, and that then no legislation should be needed. Leahy appeared to agree to that outrageous assertion of power, saying that unless the position was released, his committee would mark up the bill.

Senator Dick Durbin asked Holder about the endlessly delayed report from the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), within the Department of Justice, on Jay Bybee's, John Yoo's, and Steven Bradbury's complicity in torture. Durbin pointed out that it has been six weeks since the comment period for the subjects closed (that is to say, Yoo and Bybee and Bradbury concluded their unprecedented and outrageous opportunity to submit edits to a report on their own wrongdoing). Holder told Durbin that changes are being made to the report as a result of those responses. He said that part of the report might be released in "a matter of weeks", but that other parts will be classified. Holder added that he believed the unclassified portion alone would give wrong impressions. He said that he would want to get more of the report declassified, but that doing so would take more time.

It's worth noting that leaders in both houses of Congress, including Leahy and his House counterpart Chairman John Conyers, have long since made clear that they will not seek to hold anyone accountable for torture until the OPR report is released. Presumably they mean the full report. And that could apparently be months or never. No doubt the assurances that all action will wait for the report is strong motivation to delay the report.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse ran through the chronology of delays and stalling tactics thus far. He said that on February 18, 2008, he had been told the OPR report was underway, that a draft report had been delivered in December 2008, that on May 4, 2009, the comment period from the torture lawyers had ended, and that the CIA was given an opportunity for substantive comment and classification review. Whitehouse asked whether the CIA was the current logjam. Holder said No. He said that the OPR is still working on the report in light of the responses it received from the torturers six weeks ago. Whitehouse focused on the CIA and asked Holder (a number of times) if he had any assurances from the CIA that those giving input to the report were not themselves involved in the torture. Holder made clear that the answer was no. He has no such assurances and isn't interested in them.

Wednesday's hearing also featured an amicable exchange in which Holder and Senator Lindsey Graham discussed the creation of a "review" procedure that might amount to "due process" for prisoners who would be held forever without trial. Graham also asked for an assurance from Holder that the President would decree torture photos to be classified before (or after) the next court order to release them. On that point, Holder refused to make such a commitment. But then, he's not the president.

Holder did say something encouraging about the nature of OLC opinions. Senator John Cornyn, who is concerned to prevent the residents of Washington D.C. from having voting representation in Congress, said that an OLC opinion that a proposal for DC voting rights was unconstitutional had not been released. Pressed repeatedly, Holder ended up saying that OLC opinions are just recommendations that he has the power to ignore. Of course, this should be true, but then Ashcroft, Gonzales, and Mukasey, not to mention Bush, had the same power and responsibility to reject absurd "opinions" that torture and warrantless spying and wars of aggression were legal.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5868668#5870660