Supreme Court rules torture is a ‘foreseeable consequence’

By GottaLaff

I usually face challenges, feelings, and events that bother me head on, because by avoiding confrontation, I feel like I avoid the ability to affect change.

But once in awhile, I become so emotionally overwhelmed by something I read or hear that I have to step away for a minute. Sometimes it's the threats to the environment, global warming, the increasing number of endangered species, etc. It's nearly too much to bear and I feel like an impotent bystander, helpless to do as much to rectify the situation as I'd like.

Another is this:

The Supreme Court has refused to hear a suit seeking accountability for Guantanamo torture. (h/t Digby) SCOTUS received an assist from the Obama White House, which had asked the court not to hear the case.

Today, the United States Supreme Court refused to review a lower court’s dismissal of a case brought by four British former detainees against Donald Rumsfeld and senior military officers for ordering torture and religious abuse at Guantánamo. The British detainees spent more than two years in Guantanamo and were repatriated to the U.K. in 2004. [...]

SCOTUS and the Obama White House are asking US officials to differentiate between the people who are protected by constitutional rights, and the “baddies” who are not protected under the law. And since anyone taken into US custody is an “enemy combatant,” that means no one declared an enemy by the United States is, according to SCOTUS, protected from torture.

There is a lot more, so please go read.

Meantime, I'll supply you with the usual links below and then go back to being overwhelmed. Between this and the devolution of health care reform, I'm suffering from a temporary case of vertigo.

******

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: Jazzguyal

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.

Leahy Vows to Name Names if Obama's Nominees Are Delayed

By GottaLaff

Watch out... Patrick Leahy is growling and pawing the ground:

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is warning his colleagues that he will shine a light on any of them who try to hold up a nominee of President Barack Obama.

Leahy, speaking on the Senate floor Wednesday, criticized the use of anonymous "holds" and other tactics that allow a senator to delay a nomination without revealing that he or she is the one doing so. Any senator for any reason can place a hold on a nominee and thereby prevent the formal debate and vote from being scheduled.

"Today, however, there will be no more secret and anonymous Republican holds. Any effort to oppose the president's nominees -- executive or judicial -- will have to withstand public scrutiny. There will be no more anonymous holds," Leahy said in his prepared remarks.

His stance could have the effect of speeding up some of Obama's nominees, including those for the Department of Justice who have faced procedural delays. [...]

Last week, Senate Republicans -- who championed up-or-down votes during the Bush administration -- sent a letter to Obama advising that they are prepared to block votes on nominees when they see fit.

There are several methods that Leahy could use to try to identify publicly a senator who delays a nominee. He could make a request on the Senate floor to consider the nomination, possibly forcing a voice objection by a senator who placed a hold.

He could also name a senator who -- under what's known as the "blue slip" tradition -- has not given consent to consider a nominee from the senator's home state.

In the face of a possible filibuster, Democrats could move to cut off debate, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., did Monday with Ogden's nomination, but doing so requires lengthy procedures and at least 60 votes in favor.

How dare the Democrats force the Rushpublics' hand!? What?! That's unheard of!

That would make them all accountable and stuff. And that's undemocratically unpatriotically treasonous! Only Democrats should be held accountable for their votes, never Rushpubs.

There. I've said it. Someone had to. Damn Democratic zealots.

Van Hollen: We'll Hold The GOP Accountable For Opposing Stimulus

By GottaLaff

Hold the GOP accountable? Let me get out my Berlitz Democratic Phrase Book and find a translation for that. It's such an old copy. Everything is on CD now. Leafing through... leafing... ah! Here it is. "Hold the GOP accountable." "See 'spine'".

Darn. Cross referencing is such a pain. Spine.. spine... under S, for Since When Did One of Them Grow One...? Here 'tis!

Appearing today on Fox News Sunday, DCCC chairman Chris Van Hollen said that the Democrats will be going after Republicans for their opposition to the stimulus plan. "Well, we're certainly going to hold people accountable for their votes and explain to the American people what the consequences are," said Van Hollen. "When you've got millions of Americans losing their jobs, it's hard to defend the position that you don't want to get the economy moving again."

I hope more Democrats pick up the language. It's not that hard to learn, and it can even be fun.

The Rachel Maddow Show- Bailout Rage

When I was listening to this last night I literally stopped and thought, "Wow, an intelligent discussion of the facts with no screeching or need for an "opposing" (i.e. wrong) views. Heaven."

UPDATE- Video replaced. MSNBC video can be a bear to get around.

Frank Rich: Two Cheers for Rod Blagojevich

By GottaLaff

Barry Blitt

Frank Rich:

What went down in the Land of Lincoln is just the reductio ad absurdum of an American era where both entitlement and corruption have been the calling cards of power. Blagojevich’s alleged crimes pale next to the larger scandals of Washington and Wall Street. Yet those who promoted and condoned the twin national catastrophes of reckless war in Iraq and reckless gambling in our markets have largely escaped the accountability that now seems to await the Chicago punk nabbed by the United States attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald. [...]

Bush had arrived in Washington vowing to inaugurate a new, post-Clinton era of “personal responsibility” in which “people are accountable for their actions.” Eight years later he holds himself accountable for nothing. [...]

[W]hile some perpetrators of fraud at Enron would ultimately pay a price, any lessons from its demise, including a need for safeguards, were promptly forgotten by one and all in the power centers of both federal and corporate governance. [...]

Despite Bush’s post-Enron call for “a new ethic of personal responsibility in the business community,” the exact opposite has happened in the six years since. [...]

It’s a sad snapshot of our century’s establishment that Rubin has been an economic adviser to Barack Obama and Gramm to John McCain. And that both captains of finance remain unapologetic, unaccountable and still at their banks, which have each lost more than 70 percent of their shareholders’ value this year and have collectively announced more than 90,000 layoffs so far.

The Times calls its chilling investigative series on the financial failures “The Reckoning,” but the reckoning is largely for the rest of us — taxpayers, shareholders, the countless laid-off employees — not the corporate and political leaders who led us into the quagmire. It’s a replay of the Iraq equation: the troops, the Iraqi people and American taxpayers have borne the harshest costs while Bush and company retire to their McMansions. [...]

After a while they all start to sound like O. J. Simpson, who when at last held accountable for some of his behavior told a Las Vegas judge this month, “In no way did I mean to hurt anybody.” Or perhaps they are channeling Donald Rumsfeld, whose famous excuse for his failure to secure post-invasion Iraq, “Stuff happens,” could be the epitaph of our age.

Our next president, like his predecessor, is promising “a new era of responsibility and accountability.” We must hope he means it. Meanwhile, we have the governor he leaves behind in Illinois to serve as our national whipping boy, the one betrayer of the public trust who could actually end up paying for his behavior. The surveillance tapes of Blagojevich are so fabulous it seems a tragedy we don’t have similar audio records of the bigger fish who have wrecked the country. But in these hard times we’ll take what we can get.

VIDEO: At what price bipartisanship?

By GottaLaff

On Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Jonathan Turley talks about Obama's surrogate and adviser Cass Sunstein's allegations that, if elected, Obama wouldn't hold Bush to account for the last eight years of crimes. 7/22/08

Setting legal precedent is more important than bipartisanship, at least when it comes to maintaining the integrity of the U.S. Constitution.

By allowing BushCo to get away with the overwhelming number of despicable ways they spit in the faces of real patriots and the rule of law, Obama would be setting this country up to accept the destruction of democracy as the new normal.

Michael Isikoff:

Despite the hopes of many human-rights advocates, the new Obama Justice Department is not likely to launch major new criminal probes of harsh interrogations and other alleged abuses by the Bush administration. But one idea that has currency among some top Obama advisers is setting up a 9/11-style commission that would investigate counterterrorism policies and make public as many details as possible.

And then what?

The commission would be empowered to order the U.S. intelligence agencies to open their files for review and question senior officials who approved "waterboarding" and other controversial practices.

And then what?

Obama aides are wary of taking any steps that would smack of political retribution. That's one reason they are reluctant to see high-profile investigations by the Democratic-controlled Congress or to greenlight a broad Justice inquiry (absent specific new evidence of wrongdoing). "If there was any effort to have war-crimes prosecutions of the Bush administration, you'd instantly destroy whatever hopes you have of bipartisanship," said Robert Litt, a former Justice criminal division chief during the Clinton administration.

At what cost? Since when does Congressional harmony take priority over due process and accountability?

The idea of such [9/11] panels is not universally favored among Obama advisers. Some with ties to the intelligence community fear the demoralizing impact on intelligence officers, said one source who had discussions with Obama aides about the idea. But during the campaign, both Obama and Eric Holder, slated to be nominated as attorney general, sharply criticized the use of torture and the legal rulings that permitted them.

While it's understandable that Congress will have its hands full (understatement) with Very Important Matters, it's hard to believe that war crimes (among other legal atrocities) don't also fall under that category.

Ignoring the abuses committed by the Bush administration is tantamount to tacit approval. See video.