SubscribeStill, Holder couldn't shake what he had learned in reports about the treatment of prisoners at the CIA's "black sites." If the public knew the details, he and his aides figured, there would be a groundswell of support for an independent probe. He raised with his staff the possibility of appointing a prosecutor. According to three sources familiar with the process, they discussed several potential choices and the criteria for such a sensitive investigation. Holder was looking for someone with "gravitas and grit," according to one of these sources, all of whom declined to be named. At one point, an aide joked that Holder might need to clone Patrick Fitzgerald, the hard-charging, independent-minded U.S. attorney who had prosecuted Scooter Libby in the Plamegate affair. In the end, Holder asked for a list of 10 candidates, five from within the Justice Department and five from outside.
The Republicans will retaliate by prosecuting every Democratic office-holder in the country with a litany of crimes the next time they control the Justice Department. Eventually, incoming administrations of any political stripe will investigate and prosecute the previous administration as a matter of course.The solution is to stop breaking the law. Since the judiciary is (theoretically) impartial they can throw out bogus cases. If the cases are legit, then they should be prosecuted and the criminals should be thrown in jail.
At that point, our political system would be a larger, more civilized Zimbabwe, wherein each election becomes a mini-coup where the losers can expect to do some serious jail time until the opposition gets voted out, and the cycle begins again.
Well, if this is true, you can pretty-much kiss the rest of Obama's first term goodbye.What does that even mean? Obviously you don't mean that time will somehow skip forward like an episode of Star Trek, so what are you talking about? The democrats have 60 senators and control the house. They can pass whatever they want without a single republican vote.
More like, it's either "kill 'em now at great loss" or "kill 'em later." Then it's a cost analysis. And the plate is pretty damn full right now.I don't mind the "let 'em sweat" attitude. But how long do you think Cheney is going to be alive? But the whole "political capital" argument is just tired. Political capital isn't like some fuel that you burn and then it's gone. It's just a metaphor, and like I said, the republicans are lock-step opposed to Obama right now, so what is it you think they could start doing that they're not doing now?
Screw that. If the real goal is to prevent injustices like this by the government, anything that derails the political future of Obama is working against that.That's completely idiotic. You're basically arguing that the only way to prevent government criminality is for the government to engage in crimes and cover-ups so that "the other side" doesn't win elections. And furthermore, you seem to think that someone who has said that the government has the right to detain people without trial, or even if they are acquitted is an opponent of injustice. If Obama isn't saying he's going to fight injustice, and if he's not doing anything about injustice that exists and that he's responsible for, why should we think he is going to?. It's just an idiotic sentiment.
If there are 500,000 strong marches on Washington, however, that changes the political equation enormously.Right, because politics is just like trigonometry. You've just got to know the equations and you can predict the future!
But in late June Holder asked an aide for a copy of the CIA inspector general's thick classified report on interrogation abuses. He cleared his schedule and, over two days, holed up alone in his Justice Depart ment office, immersed himself in what Dick Cheney once referred to as "the dark side." He read the report twice, the first time as a lawyer, looking for evidence and instances of transgressions that might call for prosecution. The second time, he started to absorb what he was reading at a more emotional level. He was "shocked and saddened," he told a friend, by what government servants were alleged to have done in America's name. When he was done he stood at his window for a long time, staring at Constitution Avenue.
People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they'll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They're so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand. -- The American PresidentIf the Republicans are the only ones out there doing the shouting, which they generally are, then progressive politicians will always be the bad guys. No matter what atrocities the conservatives commit.
(b) Jurisdiction.— There is jurisdiction over the activity prohibited in subsection (a) if—And of course, that's just for starters. There's the whole problem that there isn't, in fact, any statutory definition of what, exactly, constitutes torture (hence John Yoo's hijinks). There's also the fact that you almost certainly won't find Bush and Cheney actually signing off on any specific action in such a way that it would meet the standard of "conspiracy to commit torture."
(1) the alleged offender is a national of the United States; or
(2) the alleged offender is present in the United States, irrespective of the nationality of the victim or alleged offender.
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posted by ZenMasterThis at 3:14 PM on July 11 [7 favorites has favorites]