Monday, February 16, 2009

Office Of Fear Closed, Facts Flow, Call For Justice Grows…Finally!


Office Of Fear Closed, Facts Flow, Call For Justice Grows…Finally!

 

 

"The action I am taking is no more than a radical measure to hasten the explosion of truth and justice. I have but one passion: to enlighten those who have been kept in the dark, in the name of humanity which has suffered so much and is entitled to happiness. My fiery protest is simply the cry of my very soul. Let them dare, then,
to bring me before a court of law and let the enquiry take place in
broad daylight!"


- Emile Zola, J'accuse! (1898) –

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude
than the animating contest of freedom, — go from us in peace. We ask
not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed
you.
May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget
that ye were our countrymen!”

-Sam Adams-

 

GET READY!

http://www.pentagonmarch.org/

 

 

A Truth Commission to Investigate Bush-Cheney Administration Abuses

 

I have set up a petition at BushTruthCommission.com, and I hope you will sign it to urge Congress to consider establishing a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate the Bush-Cheney administration's abuses. We already have over 7,000 signatures, but we need to hit 10,000 signatures -- or more -- by next week, to build momentum behind this idea.

Patrick Leahy
U.S. Senator

 

Indict Bush Now.org

Camus Cafe Political Coffee House: Leahy Opens Petition Drive to ...
By Ed. Dickau 
Dear 
EdDickau, Thank you for signing my petition at BushTruthCommission.com, urging Congress to consider the establishment of a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate Bush-Cheney Administration abuses. ...
Camus Cafe Political Coffee House - http://cafecamuspoliticalcoffeehouse.blogspot.com/

 

 

JUSTICE  Http://www.Newsweek.Com/Id/184801

A Torture Report Could Spell Big Trouble For Bush Lawyers

By Michael Isikoff | NEWSWEEK

Published Feb 14, 2009

From the magazine issue dated Feb 23, 2009

 

An internal Justice Department report on the conduct of senior lawyers who approved waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics is causing anxiety among former Bush administration officials. H. Marshall Jarrett, chief of the department's ethics watchdog unit, the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), confirmed last year he was investigating whether the legal advice in crucial interrogation memos "was consistent with the professional standards that apply to Department of Justice attorneys." According to two knowledgeable sources who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive matters, a draft of the report was submitted in the final weeks of the Bush administration. It sharply criticized the legal work of two former top officials—Jay Bybee and John Yoo—as well as that of Steven Bradbury, who was chief of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) at the time the report was submitted, the sources said. (Bybee, Yoo and Bradbury did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)

 

But then–Attorney General Michael Mukasey and his deputy, Mark Filip, strongly objected to the draft, according to the sources. Filip wanted the report to include responses from all three principals, said one of the sources, a former top Bush administration lawyer. (Mukasey could not be reached; his former chief of staff did not respond to requests for comment. Filip also did not return a phone message.) OPR is now seeking to include the responses before a final version is presented to Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. "The matter is under review," said Justice spokesman Matthew Miller.

 

If Holder accepts the OPR findings, the report could be forwarded to state bar associations for possible disciplinary action. But some former Bush officials are furious about the OPR's initial findings and question the premise of the probe. "OPR is not competent to judge [the opinions by Justice attorneys]. They're not constitutional scholars," said the former Bush lawyer. Mukasey, in speeches before he left, decried the second-guessing of Justice lawyers who, acting under "almost unimaginable pressure" after 9/11, offered "their best judgment of what the law required."

 

But the OPR probe began after Jack Goldsmith, a Bush appointee who took over OLC in 2003, protested the legal arguments made in the memos. Goldsmith resigned the following year after withdrawing the memos, and later wrote that he was "astonished" by the "deeply flawed" and "sloppily reasoned" legal analysis in the memos by Yoo and Bybee, including their assertion (challenged by many scholars) that the president could unilaterally disregard a law passed by Congress banning torture.

 

OPR investigators focused on whether the memo's authors deliberately slanted their legal advice to provide the White House with the conclusions it wanted, according to three former Bush lawyers who asked not to be identified discussing an ongoing probe. One of the lawyers said he was stunned to discover how much material the investigators had gathered, including internal e-mails and multiple drafts that allowed OPR to reconstruct how the memos were crafted. In a departure from the norm, Jarrett also told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee last year he would inform them of his findings and would "consider" releasing a public version. If he does, it could be the most revealing public glimpse yet at how some of the major decisions of Bush-era counterterrorism policy were made.

 

 

http://theadvocatesdailynewssources.blogspot.com/

 

http://www.laprogressive.com/

 

To End This Financial Crisis, Americans Are Going to Have to Get Angry

Steve Fraser, Tomdispatch.com Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace:FDR alone didn't pull America out of the Great Depression. The passion of ordinary citizens did. Can we do it again?

 

GOP Senators Say Obama Off To Bad Start: Republican BS Translation: “He Didn’t Bend Over And Do It Their Way! (Ed.)


 

 

Nationalizing the Banks Seems Inevitable: How Bad Does It Have to Get First?

Joshua Holland, AlterNet Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace:Failure to act decisively over the collapse of our banking system could mire the US in a protracted slump, like Japan's "lost decade" in the '90s.

 

Rumsfeld Knew His Guys Were Torturing People to Death, Which Is a Serious Crime Stephen Pizzo, News for Real Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace:71% of Americans want to see Bush investigated, and it's about time Obama's team hightailed their way over to court to start doing it.

 

Questioning Authority: A Rethinking of the Infamous Milgram Experiments

Liliana Segura, AlterNet Rights and Liberties: A famous 1970s experiment was recently replicated, revealing what it takes for us to question and resist those in positions of authority.

 

Time to Dump That Bush-Era Law Permitting an Invasion of Holland to "Rescue" U.S. Soldiers Robert Marquand, Christian Science Monitor Rights and Liberties: Congress passed a law in 2002 enabling the military to storm into Holland to rescue U.S. soldiers held for war crimes. The Dutch want it revoked.

 

The Hague - In 2002, Congress passed a law enabling United States forces to unilaterally storm into peaceful Holland to liberate American soldiers held for war crimes.

Coming in the early days of the war on terrorists, and as the International Criminal Court was being formed here, the measure provoked controversy and seemed to the Dutch – stout US allies – an absurd example of America's "with us or against us" foreign policy.

The Law Is Still On The Books.

 

 

Torture Report Erodes Bush's Defense
A critical report by a Justice Department watchdog undercuts George W. Bush's claim that he is innocent of war crimes because he was relying on honest legal advice, writes Jason Leopold. February 15, 2009

 

New Details on Torture Deaths
The Pentagon released documents on how several prisoners in Afghanistan died under brutal interrogation as the Bush administration was toughening its methods in 2002, reports Jason Leopold. February 12, 2009

 

 

http://cafecamuspoliticalcoffeehouse.blogspot.com/2009/02/justice-republican-games-revolution.html

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