Yoo hypocrite

By GottaLaff

Via L.A. Times Letters to the Editor (bolding mine):

Re “Yoo feels at ease among opposition,” March 29

It's pretty obvious why John Yoo likes living in Berkeley.

He can delude himself into thinking that most of those who disapprove of his actions are "self-indulgent, pot-smoking hippies."

He imagines himself a quasi-martyr living among these "troglodytes."

He may be a bright lawyer, but his introspective properties are clearly deficient.

****

It is good to know that Californians can sleep well at night because John Yoo, professor of law at the University of California's Boalt Hall law school, believes he is the "shining beacon of capitalism" -- while employed by the state of California, accepting state funds for his salary and accruing time for his taxpayer-funded retirement.

How does one spell "hypocrite"?

****

Torture usually leaves psychological scars that never heal and that subject its victims to lifelong illnesses and abuse, and can even lead to suicide.

Yoo excluded this important aspect from his definition of torture in order to make torture more acceptable to the Bush administration and to advance his career, despite the fact that the effects of torture on human psychology have been well documented during the past 100 years.

My original piece on the article referred to in these letters is here.

Torture Diaries, Drawings and the Special Prosecutor

By GottaLaff

(Illustration: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t)

My dear friend and all around terrific investigative reporter/writer came out with a great piece today over at Truthout. He allows me to share his work here at TPC, but I'll only give you a few excerpts.

His post is so thorough I can't possibly do it justice here:

Attorneys defending Abu Zubaydah, a Guantanamo prisoner designated as the first "high-value" detainee by the Bush administration, have finally gained access to three volumes of diaries he wrote while he was in the custody of the CIA and brutally tortured by agency interrogators and contractors at a secret "black site" prison.

The diaries, identified as volumes 7, 8 and 9, were written between 2002 and 2006 and total a little more than 300 pages. They were turned over to defense attorneys by the government late last year after a lengthy legal battle, and are believed to contain detailed descriptions of the torture techniques to which Zubaydah was subjected.

The diaries are crucial to the defense, said one of Zubaydah's attorneys, Brent Mickum, because they will reveal locations of where Zubaydah was detained and identify people with whom he spoke, contradicting previous government assertions that Zubaydah was connected to and involved in the planning of terrorist plots against the United States.

However, however, however, there's always a however:

However, because the diaries are written in Arabic and US District Court Judge John Roberts' ruling did not state that the government was required to have the diaries translated, it is unlikely the defense will learn what Zubaydah wrote about his torture any time soon.

However:

However, there were "some issues" that arose, the extent of which Mickum cannot discuss because those early volumes of Zubaydah's diaries, while unclassified, have been designated by the government as "protected," thus preventing the public from seeing any of this information.

"Frankly, it's just another, in a long litany of classification abuses that the judicial system, for whatever reason, refuses to address," Mickum said.

It is unclear why Roberts did not require the government to provide translations for volumes 7, 8, and 9, which are top secret because they describe specific torture techniques and may also describe the interrogators who administered the torture, Mickum said.

However:

Mickum said in lieu of the torture tapes, the drawings Zubaydah made contain the best description of the torture techniques CIA interrogators used against Zubaydah while he was being held at the agency's black site prison facilities.

Yet John Yoo, one of the architects of the systematic torture employed by BushCo, finds all of this rather amusing. Besides, we're just "settling scores" when we call this appalling brutality out.

****

All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes one specific to only Fayiz al-Kandari's story here. Here are audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

Lt. Col. Barry Wingard is a military attorney who represents Fayiz Al-Kandari in the Military Commission process and in no way represents the opinions of his home state. When not on active duty, Colonel Wingard is a public defender in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.

John Yoo: I'm "a shining beacon of capitalism and democracy surrounded by a sea of Marxism"

By GottaLaff

John Yoo, one of the architects of the "torture memos", is employed at U.C. Berkeley. He says he is very happy teaching at Boalt Hall School of Law.

He seemed perfectly happy when he sparred with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show.

He seemed perfectly happy when he wrote the memos, too. Weeee!

He now seems happy to throw around words like "Marxism" and "troglodytes" when he describes the very people from whom he's happy to take happy checks from and with whom he continues his happy employment.

He seems more than happy to continue to defend the "success" derived from torture.

He's bursting with happy when he sees himself as a "shining beacon of ... democracy."

Yoo lie!

"I think of myself as being West Berlin during the Cold War, a shining beacon of capitalism and democracy surrounded by a sea of Marxism," Yoo observes, sipping iced tea in the faculty club lounge, a wan smile registering the discomfort of colleagues walking by en route to the bar.

He sees his neighbors as the human figures of "a natural history museum of the 1960s," the Telegraph Avenue tableau of a graying, long-haired, pot-smoking counterculture stuck in the ideology's half-century-old heyday.

"It's like looking at the panoramic displays of troglodytes sitting around the campfire with their clubs. Here, it's tie-dye and marijuana. It's just like the 1960s, with the Vietnam War still to protest."

He's just one happy, clappy guy... who just doesn't get it:

Yoo sees the investigation as political score-settling by those who disagreed with the tough war-on-terror policies of the Bush White House. [...]

He sees the persistent protests of his fitness to teach law as the campaign of a radical community intolerant of views that don't accord with their own.

Yes, that's it. Brutalizing people, often innocent ones, had nothing to do with it. Invading a sovereign country who did not invade us, killing thousands upon thousands, in a fraudulent war is just "score-settling". It's all about our "intolerance".

But at least he's happy.

In fact, he's not only happy, he's "amused":

Yoo seems more amused than uncomfortable as the center of controversy.

Isn't that droll?

Yes, Torture Guy is having a good chuckle over objections to his crafting the legal justification for killing, maiming, and psychologically destroying fellow human beings.

That's some sense of humor.

Here's something else Mr. Happy is jolly about:

Yoo doesn't rule out a return to public service should Republican conservatives regain the White House.

Oh goody. If that's not a reason for utter ecstasy, I don't know what is.

Yoo seems at peace living in Berkeley, even though he disparages the community as an enclave of self-satisfied extremists intolerant of those who think outside the liberal mind-set.

This is a man at peace, after what he did, after his own intolerance for, you know, our system of justice, after shredding the Constitution.

At peace.

In that case, may Yoo rest in peace.

Torture Watch- Clarence Thomas: Peekaboo! I see Yoo!

By GottaLaff

Talk about mirror images. First, Clarence Thomas:

According to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, a prisoner who was slammed to a concrete floor and punched and kicked by a guard after asking for a grievance form -- but suffered neither serious nor permanent harm -- has no claim that his constitutional rights were violated.

If he were to look at his own reflection, he'd say, "Peekaboo! I see Yoo!"

Yoo||samohT:

The court's decision came a few days after Thomas' now-famous former law clerk John C. Yoo was charged with flawed reasoning, but not professional misconduct, as a Justice Department lawyer when he applied much the same view toward the treatment of Al Qaeda prisoners.

Um, that would be "alleged Al Qaeda" prisoners. Not every prisoner was affiliated with a terrorist group. Now, let's compare and contrast:

In the so-called torture memos in 2002, Yoo reasoned that subjecting prisoners to simulated drowning or "stress positions" in cold cells was not illegal torture because it did not cause the intense pain of a serious injury, equivalent to "death or organ failure."

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the cruelest of them all?

It's a tie.

Let's not leave out Scalia. That would be rude:

Thomas' consistent record of dismissing claims of prison brutality, most of them joined by Justice Antonin Scalia, shows that Yoo's view of torture was not that of a rogue lawyer. Instead, it represents a strain of conservative thinking that looks back in history to define cruelty and torture, rather than toward what the court has called the "evolving standards of decency."

Over two decades, Thomas and Scalia have repeatedly dissented when the court ruled for prisoners who alleged they were subjected to cruelty.

Alleged? Is this what they mean by "alleged"?


And see, it all depends on what the definition of "punishment" is, see:

The two justices explained that the word "punishment" as it was used in the English Bill of Rights in 1689 referred to judges imposing punishment for a crime. Prison guards do not impose "punishment" even if they mete out cruelty, they said.

Ohhh, of course... the legal system stands corrected. How could so many have been so wrong all this time? Scalia, Thomas, and Yoo clearly have the letter of the law down pat... allegedly. The rest of us are dead wrong:

When asked about torture and cruelty toward prisoners, he discounted the possibility. "Has anyone ever referred to torture as punishment? I don't think so," Scalia said. "What's he punishing you for? He's trying to extract" information, he said.

And that justifies everything. America, and all those tortured-- not punished-- prisoners can breathe easy now.

Allegedly.

****

All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes one specific to only Fayiz al-Kandari's story here. Here are audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

Lt. Col. Barry Wingard is a military attorney who represents Fayiz Al-Kandari in the Military Commission process and in no way represents the opinions of his home state. When not on active duty, Colonel Wingard is a public defender in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.

VIDEO: Fox News allows John Yoo to make excuses for torture

By GottaLaff



F. Yoo.

"Waterboarding is not something that was cooked up in Cheney's office or something like that," he said. "Waterboarding is something that we had a lot of information on. Twenty thousand American soldiers and officers had undergone it and did not suffer any lasting pain, harm or suffering. So, when we looked at the statute that congress wrote and we looked at that evidence, we in the Justice Department and a lot of other lawyers too said that we don't think it amounts to torture because we would not be doing it to our own soldiers otherwise."

Waterboarding, which is indeed part of the military's Survival, Evade, Resist and Escape (SERE) training, is in fact torture.

Oh please, you slimy thug, allow someone, anyone, to waterboard you. Then we'll see if you "think" it amounts to torture.

That BushCo's little gang of abusers has been allowed to skate is literally a crime. Now Yoo feels oh so comfortable popping onto the Tee Vee Machine chatting his fool head off with his special Fox friends, justifying what should be considered criminal behavior.

And ClusterFox is aiding and abetting.

F. Yoo.

"Yoo, Bybee, Cheney and Bush have never suffered the burden of a conscience"

By GottaLaff

I've said this before, but I have no problem being redundant when it comes to torture: These thugs should be in prison.

Via the L.A. Times letters to the editor, Yoo asked for it:

Letting them off solves nothing

Re “Cleared but not vindicated,” Editorial, Feb. 23

The last line in your editorial reads: "They may not be disbarred, but they are disgraced."

In order for anyone to feel disgraced, they must have a conscience. It's been painfully obvious -- for some time now -- that John C. Yoo, Jay S. Bybee, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush have never suffered the burden of a conscience.

What is disgraceful is that so many of the Bush administration's transgressions will remain not only unpunished but uninvestigated.

*****

The "torture memo" and the horrors that sprang from it have discredited America and American ideals. The damage to our national security will take a generation to repair and, meanwhile, puts our nation and our citizens abroad at great risk. Yoo and Bybee could not have done more damage had they been undercover agents in the employ of an arch foe such as, oh, Al Qaeda.

Hmmm. Hmmm. If only there was a way to wring a confession out of them . . .

Hmmm. Hmmm. Indeed.

Yoo claims he ‘helped save Obama’s presidency’

By GottaLaff

Yoo gotta be kidding!

In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal Wednesday titled "My Gift to the Obama Presidency," Yoo declared that he "may have just helped save [Obama's] presidency. How? By winning a drawn-out fight to protect his powers as commander in chief to wage war and keep Americans safe."

First John McCain claims Obama suspended his 2008 campaign, too.

Then someone on ClusterFox blames Obama for Nevada's domestic violence.

Now this? Concocting legal justification for abuse of power, and abuse of humans, is nothing to boast about, Sparky. And the only think you've managed to save is your own ass.

Yet another WTF moment. Welcome to Opposite World.

The Torture Memo Author- + Executive Power to Massacre- You've Never Heard Of

By GottaLaff

Recently, we were told that John Yoo and his band of merry torturers got the equivalent of a "bad dog" scolding for crafting the rules that allowed BushCo to legalize the brutalization of human beings into submission in order to get worthless testimony.

Good job, BushCo.

Now we discover that someone at OLC slipped under the radar.

Yes, there was another architect involved. Little Miss Sunshine aka Jennifer Koester, was young and new and bored and had a pile of spare time and must have been like, rilly rilly tired of posting on MySpace. What's a girl to do?

The Office of Legal Counsel remedied that. They closed their eyes, stuck out Mr. Pointer Finger, spun around, stopped, opened their eyes, and wham! Mr. Pointer was aimed directly at Lawyerette Jenny:

Though Koester was clearly the junior partner in the process, and appears to have had no authority to approve the final versions of the memos that went out from the department, it's notable nonetheless that OLC assigned the task of drafting what was essentially the government's position on the legality of torture to an attorney just two years out of law school, who appears to have been around 28 at the time. And that it did so in part because Koester, having just joined the unit, "had some time available," according to the report. It's also perhaps surprising -- given the intense level of scrutiny that Yoo has rightly received for his role in producing the memos -- that Koester has until now remained almost entirely under the radar. [...]

But the report also makes clear that, despite apparently having been given the assignment almost at random, Koester played a more active role in the process of producing the memos than perhaps anyone else at DOJ, with the possible exception of Yoo. [...]

Indeed, according to the report, it was Koester who drafted perhaps the most controversial section of the memos: the discussion of the "commander in chief" power, in which OLC essentially advises the government that the president, as commander in chief, can disregard any law he wants during wartime. "Koester also told us that she thinks she ended up writing the Commander-in-Chief section, with 'a lot of input' from Yoo and Philbin," writes OPR (p. 50).

Oh, but wait. That's not all. An internal Justice Department report released Friday revealed this little exchange:

Q: I guess the question I'm raising is, does this particular law really affect the President's war-making abilities ....

Yoo: Yes, certainly.

Q: What is your authority for that?

Yoo: Because this is an option that the President might use in war.

Q: What about ordering a village of resistants to be massacred? ... Is that a power that the president could legally--

Yoo: Yeah. Although, let me say this. So, certainly, that would fall within the commander-in-chief's power over tactical decisions.

Q: To order a village of civilians to be [exterminated]?

Yoo: Sure.

You read that correctly. Boy Georgie could order the extermination of entire villages. How WWII of them. Georgie, Yoo, and Lawyerette Jenny sure did think alike! They must have been BFF.

I wonder if Little Miss Sunshine came up with that gem, too. After all, she had more free time than everyone else did to slip in all kinds of innovative laws that rational people never would have been able to come up with.

After all, she did, per the report, draft the part of the memo that gave the "commander in chief power to disregard any law he wants during wartime."

And then, as all Lawyerettes do, she ate her P, B and J sammich, watched Barney, grabbed her blankie, and took a nap.

She slept very soundly and dreamed good dreams, because little boys and girls with no consciences never have nightmares about death and torture.

H/t: Gr8RDH

Leahy To Hold Hearing On Free Pass To Yoo And Bybee

By GottaLaff

I was in tears yesterday when I heard the outrageous news about John Yoo and Jay Bybee wriggling out from under a prison sentence for their part in legalizing torture.

But there is good news. It comes from Senator Pat Leahy, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Commitee:

The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing to examine the Office of Professional Responsibility Report on the Office of Legal Counsel, Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) announced today. The report was released to Congress today.

The hearing will be held Friday, February 26, at 10:00 a.m. Witnesses will be announced in the coming days, and the hearing will be webcast live online.

I will be watching.

One hearing won't do it, but maybe, possibly, hopefully it will open the door to much more... at the very least, disbarment.

More details here.

********

All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes one specific to only Fayiz al-Kandari's story here. Here are audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

Lt. Col. Barry Wingard is a military attorney who represents Fayiz Al-Kandari in the Military Commission process and in no way represents the opinions of his home state. When not on active duty, Colonel Wingard is a public defender in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.H/t: VNDNBRG

Quickie: Yoo v. Tiger edition

By GottaLaff

Today's Quickie:

There was a lengthy three-person panel discussion about Tiger Wood's apology worship on the Tee Vee Machine this morning, preceded and followed by extensive reporting on the subject.

There were no panels, three-person or otherwise, about our Department of Justice [sic] allowing torture architects John Yoo and Jay Bybee to skate.

Manufactured contrition for serial boinking monopolizes the air waves. The complete lack of contrition (or consequences) for war crimes gets a brief mention.

Such is the state of the news [sic] media... and our justice system.

That was today's Quickie. Was it good for you?

F Yoo

By GottaLaff

Via a news alert e-mail, just one sentence, one that I can't seem to process:

Justice Department finds no misconduct by lawyers who authorized harsh terror interrogations.

First, it's not "harsh terror interrogations". It's torture. And one cannot interrogate terror.

Next, they can legalese this all they want, but we all know what Yoo and Co. did was dead wrong. Once again, BushCo skates.

It seems "Justice Department" is still an oxymoron.

UPDATE:

The Justice Department has concluded Bush administration lawyers showed poor judgment - not professional misconduct - in writing memos authorizing harsh interrogation techniques.

"Poor judgment"? "Poor judgment"?

No, poor judgment is when you drink so much that you don't remember who's lying next to you the next morning.

Poor judgment is spending money you don't have.

Poor judgment is not creating legal justification for torture.

Yoo asked for it

By GottaLaff

Yoo hooooo!

As reports circulate that the Justice Department has softened its criticism of attorney John Yoo for memos approving the Bush administration's treatment of terrorism suspects, several prominent lawyers are urging a federal appeals court in San Francisco to hold Yoo accountable.

They have submitted arguments opposing dismissal of a prisoner's lawsuit that accuses the former Justice Department attorney of providing a legal cover for torture. The suit covers much of the same ground as the department's ethics investigation of Yoo. [...]

Yoo says he always gave good-faith legal advice and denies authorizing torture. Those claims could be tested in a San Francisco federal court, however, unless Yoo can persuade a court to dismiss Jose Padilla's lawsuit. [...]

Yoo has appealed, saying the suit would interfere with presidential war-making authority. The Obama administration has taken his side, arguing that courts should not meddle in questions of national security.

But in filings over the last 10 days, groups of constitutional law professors, legal ethics scholars and former government attorneys urged the court to keep Padilla's suit alive.

They argue that this is not a dispute over legal advice, as Yoo contends, but the case of a lawyer who allegedly stepped out of his role to take part in planning detention and interrogation policies, and then devised legal opinions to justify those policies.

And who are some of these very principled, very learned, very ethical lawyers who support the novel concept of upholding the-- What's it called again? Oh yeah-- U.S. Constitution? Here's who:

Erwin Chemerinsky, law school dean at UC Irvine; Alan Morrison, an assistant law dean at George Washington and former director of Public Citizen Litigation Group; and Norman Dorsen of New York University, former president of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Also, Stanford's Deborah Rhode and former California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso, not to mention Bruce Fein, special assistant to the director of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel in President Ronald Reagan's administration.

They stressed the importance of applying ethical standards to lawyers who advise the president on constitutional issues.

There is much more here. (h/t: VNDNBRG)

And here:

*****

All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes one specific to only Fayiz al-Kandari's story here. Here are audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

Lt. Col. Barry Wingard is a military attorney who represents Fayiz Al-Kandari in the Military Commission process and in no way represents the opinions of his home state. When not on active duty, Colonel Wingard is a public defender in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.

DOJ official reportedly clears torture memo authors Yoo and Bybee.

By GottaLaff

I'm sure I'll hear from die-hard Obama supporters about how anti-Obama I am (which is laughable if you read TPC regularly), but this, in a word, sucks:

Newsweek now reports that a senior DOJ official has essentially cleared the two men of misconduct in an upcoming office of Professional Responsibility report:

While the probe is sharply critical of the legal reasoning used to justify waterboarding and other “enhanced” interrogation techniques, NEWSWEEK has learned that a senior Justice official who did the final review of the report softened an earlier OPR finding. Previously, the report concluded that two key authors — Jay Bybee, now a federal appellate court judge, and John Yoo, now a law professor — violated their professional obligations as lawyers when they crafted a crucial 2002 memo approving the use of harsh tactics, say two Justice sources who asked for anonymity discussing an internal matter. But the reviewer, career veteran David Margolis, downgraded that assessment to say they showed “poor judgment,” say the sources. (Under department rules, poor judgment does not constitute professional misconduct.) The shift is significant: the original finding would have triggered a referral to state bar associations for potential disciplinary action — which, in Bybee’s case, could have led to an impeachment inquiry.

Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler, who you can see here in Blunt, the Sequel), has more.

I'm heartbroken, angry, frustrated, baffled, you name it. But I pretty much expected this outcome. How depressing.

Apparently, Margolis didn't get "input" from A.G. Holder. Maybe he should have.

I simply don't understand sweeping the entire foundation for legalizing torture under the rug, as it obviously was in a Friday night dump (when it was released).

Don't even bother trying to talk me down. I'm way past that.

VIDEO: Jon Stewart v. John Yoo

By GottaLaff

Yoo lose:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Exclusive - John Yoo Extended Interview Pt. 2
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Jon Stewart is one of the only journalists-- and yes, I consider him to be a journalist-- that has the stones to confront his guests head on.

He used to be more deferential, which would frustrate me immensely. But lately, he does what any interviewer worth his salt should do: Knows his subject, asks hard questions, insists on answers, and if neither succeed, makes that obvious and somehow points out why.

The only other host that I can think of who does this consistently is Rachel Maddow (of course, on a completely different level, and in a separate genre).

As for the substance of the interview, I've written about Yoo and Co. many, many times. So this time, please watch, and then feel free to vent in Comments.

Blistering Indictment Leveled Against Obama Over His Handling of Bush-Era War Crimes

By GottaLaff

Jason Leopold, a very thorough, very talented investigative reporter, has done an extensive piece on the Obama administration and its handling of BushCo war crimes.

It's not easy to read some of his words, because the facts aren't what some of us want them to be. As much as I admire President Obama and understand that he's been in office for a very short time, there are a few decisions that I question.

There is no way he can solve every problem (and there are so, so many) facing this country, and I hear complaint after complaint that he hasn't addressed every issue "right now!" That's absurd. He's done an outstanding job of sorting through the mountain of waste product that he inherited, and rectified some hugely important "mistakes".

However, he has dealt with a few leftovers in a way that made me raise my eyebrows:

Officials from the civil rights organization [ACLU] issued a withering indictment of the Obama administration’s handling of clear-cut cases of war crimes they say were committed by former Bush officials who the Obama administration not only refuses to prosecute but has gone to extraordinary lengths to cover up.

"We're increasingly disappointed and alarmed by the current administration's stance on accountability for torture," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, during a conference call with reporters. "On every front, the [Obama] administration is actively obstructing accountability. This administration is shielding Bush administration officials from civil liability, criminal investigation and even public scrutiny for their role in authorizing torture." [...]

Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley said the Obama administration "has gutted the hard-fought victories in Nuremberg where lawyers and judges were often guilty of war crimes in their legal advice and opinions."

"If successful in [the Padilla] case, the Obama Administration will succeed in returning the world to the rules leading to the war crimes at Nuremberg," Turley said. "Quite a legacy for the world’s newest Nobel Peace Prize winner."

What’s remarkable about the Obama Justice Department’s amicus brief in the Padilla case is that it didn't need to be filed to begin with. Yoo hired a private defense attorney, albeit one who is paid for with taxpayer dollars, earlier this year when the Justice Department backed out of representing Yoo due to undisclosed conflicts.

There is a whole lot more. Jason's a detail-oriented writer, so please take a look.

I don't have the expertise to know if, legally speaking, the administration is tending to these matters properly or not. But after hearing what Lt. Col. Barry Wingard has told me (military attorney for Fayiz al-Kandari), among others, I do have questions.

And as far as I'm concerned, after living through 2001-8, questions are a healthy thing to have.

Obama lawyers: Drop John Yoo's charges

By GottaLaff

It's Talk Me Down time:

Citing an argument that hallmarked the Bush years, Obama administration attorneys have asked a San Francisco court to drop all charges against Berkeley law professor John Yoo, who authored legal opinions that permitted the torture of prisoners.

An amicus curiae brief [PDF link] filed by the Department of Justice with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday essentially argues that because he was giving advice to the president on a national security matter, Yoo should not be held accountable for his actions as it would have a chilling effect on advice provided to future presidents.

In other words, the DoJ explained, accusations of torture in this case present "special factors" that the court should not address "in the absence of congressional action."

The rest is here.

I'm still reeling from the health care reform updates. I don't think I can endure reeling from two things at once at the moment, so excuse me if I stop here before my head explodes.

Torture Watch: Yoo too

By GottaLaff

Sully makes this so easy to understand:

Holder should start with Yoo and work his way up. My worry is that if he doesn't, his investigation of the extremes legitimizes the non-extreme torture and abuse; and integrates the precedent into American government and way of life. Torture, following Bush and Cheney's embraceof it as a moral necessity, has gained great new life around the world; and I'm sure, in the netherworld of America's prison system, Cheney methods are now quite popular.

All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.

H/t: Cody

What the CIA hid from Congress

By GottaLaff

Jane Harman (D-Venice) chairs the House Homeland Security subcommittee on intelligence and terrorism risk assessment, and part of the "Gang of Eight" who are " required by law to be briefed on the CIA's "covert" action programs." She'd like to clarify a few things:

[C]omments by Michael Hayden, former director of the National Security Agency and the CIA, that the Gang of Eight was "fully" briefed on the TSP prompt me to disclose, for the first time, what they were like.

In virtually every meeting, Hayden would present PowerPoint "slides," walking us through the operational details of the TSP [Terrorist Surveillance Program]. The program has since been described, in part, as one that intercepted communications to and from the U.S. in an effort to uncover terrorist networks and prevent or disrupt attacks. We were told that the program was the centerpiece of our counter-terrorism efforts, legal and yielding impressive results.

Often present were CIA officials (including then-Director George Tenet) and then-White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales. Missing was any Justice Department presence -- a tipoff, in retrospect, to the legal limbo under which the program operated. [...]

It is now clear to me that we learned only what the briefers wanted to tell us -- even though they were required by law to keep us "fully and currently informed." Absent the ability to do any independent research, it did not occur to me then that the program was operated wholly outside of the framework Congress created as the exclusive means to conduct such surveillance: the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Nor did I know that the Justice Department was cut out of the process, and that one lawyer, John Yoo, had drafted the internal memo justifying the TSP under the president's Article 2 authorities. A new head of the Office of Legal Counsel repudiated that memo, citing the "shoddiness" of the legal reasoning. [...]

While our country had experienced the worst terrorist attack in our history, the Orwellian solution conjured up by a small group in the Bush administration was to shred our laws and Constitution in order to save us -- a false and unnecessary choice. [...]

The House and Senate intelligence authorization bills would require increased notification, including, in the House bill, information on lawfulness, cost, benefit and risk. The White House has issued a veto threat, citing constitutional concerns. Surely both sides -- and policy -- would profit more from a robust partnership.

Remember, John Yoo was one of the exclusive fraternity that created law, as in "Torture Memos" (all my related posts on torture, detainee mistreatment, military commissions, etc. here).

This sleazy little club would concoct flimsy, tortured legal memos that were binding, and they would do so under the radar, excluding anybody whose input should have been seriously considered, even required. If anybody dared challenge them, they would be loudly and abruptly cut short and/or paid lip service and ignored.

Jane Mayer goes into great detail about this in her book The Dark Side.

I have two words for BushCo: Screw Yoo.

BushCo v. The Constitution: Guess who debated using G.I.’s in U.S. to arrest people

By GottaLaff

I just heard Rachel Maddow mention this, so I had to share. She believes that this story is payback for Cheney's recent smackdown of Bush for the Scooter Libby non-pardon, and that it will be a big deal. And since we're into big deals here at TPC:

Top Bush administration officials in 2002 debated testing the Constitution by sending American troops into the suburbs of Buffalo to arrest a group of men suspected of plotting with Al Qaeda, according to former administration officials.

Some of the advisers to President George W. Bush, including Vice President Dick Cheney, argued that a president had the power to use the military on domestic soil to sweep up the terrorism suspects, who came to be known as the Lackawanna Six, and declare them enemy combatants.

How sick is it that we consider that kind of BushCo thinking "par for the course"?

Mr. Bush ultimately decided against the proposal to use military force.

Probably because he couldn't pronounce Lackawanna.

A decision to dispatch troops into the streets to make arrests would be nearly unprecedented in American history, as both the Constitution and subsequent laws restrict the military from being used to conduct domestic raids and seize property.

As if that would stop His Dickiness.

The Fourth Amendment bans “unreasonable” searches and seizures without probable cause. And the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 generally prohibits the military from acting in a law enforcement capacity.

I seem to remember posting about this possibility back when. Nobody seemed to notice. But you know what they say: Good things come to those who wait.

In the discussions, Mr. Cheney and others cited an Oct. 23, 2001, memorandum from the Justice Department that, using a broad interpretation of presidential authority, argued that the domestic use of the military against Al Qaeda would be legal because it served a national security, rather than a law enforcement, purpose.

That would be the same Justice Department that wrote up those spiffy little torture memos.

“The president has ample constitutional and statutory authority to deploy the military against international or foreign terrorists operating within the United States,” the memorandum said.

Of course it did, because that's what Boy Georgie's DoJ deemed. The United Deem of America. Deem and Deemer?

The memorandum — written by the lawyers John C. Yoo and Robert J. Delahunty — was directed to Alberto R. Gonzales, then the White House counsel, who had asked the department about a president’s authority to use the military to combat terrorist activities in the United States.

Ding!

The memorandum was declassified in March. But the White House debate about the Lackawanna group is the first evidence that top American officials, after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, actually considered using the document to justify deploying the military into an American town to make arrests. [...]

Former officials in the administration said this debate was not as bitter as others during Mr. Bush’s first term. The discussions did not proceed far enough to put military units on alert.

See how they could all get along when they put their minds to it?

Still, at least one high-level meeting was convened to debate the issue, at which several top Bush aides argued firmly against the proposal to use the military, advanced by Mr. Cheney, his legal adviser David S. Addington and some senior Defense Department officials.

Reminder: Read The Dark Side by Jane Mayer. Learn all about Addington, His Dickiness, and their band of merry despots.

Among those in opposition were Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser; John B. Bellinger III, the top lawyer at the National Security Council; Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and Michael Chertoff, then the head of the Justice Department’s criminal division. [...]

Scott L. Silliman, a Duke University law professor specializing in national security law, said an American president had not deployed the active-duty military on domestic soil in a law enforcement capacity, without specific statutory authority, since the Civil War.

That, of course, was when His Dickiness was just a young boy.

Senior military officials were never consulted, former officials said. Richard B. Myers, a retired general who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a recent interview that he was unaware of the discussion. [...]

Despite this guidance, some Bush aides bristled at the prospect of troops descending on an American suburb to arrest terrorism suspects.

“What would it look like to have the American military go into an American town and knock on people’s door?” said a second former official in the debate.

Um, like Iraq?

Chief James L. Michel of the Lackawanna police agreed. “If we had tanks rolling down the streets of our city,” Chief Michel said, “we would have had pandemonium down here.”

Um, like Iraq?

VIDEO: Guy dressed as torture detainee v. John Yoo; Guy dressed as Barney v. Cheney's Secret Service

By GottaLaff

Because I am sleep-deprived and cannot form two thoughts, until I can down some more coffee, here is a hilarious video by the same team that gave you this one,which is included in this more comprehensive edition:

The Chaser team discuss torture, talks with John Yoo at Berkeley and displays Barney the Dinosaurs plight for royalties from Dick Cheney.

H/t: Annette