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Senate Judiciary Pressures WH for Torture Documents
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Ranking Member Arlen Specter (R-PA) crossed the aisle once again to issue a renewed demand for documents on detainee interrogation policies from the White House today.
The letter (pdf) to White House Counsel Fred Fielding gives an August 29 deadline to turn over requested documentation, though it does not go so far as to say what the action the Committee will take if its requests are not met.
"I have been stonewalled even in my repeated request for something as simple as an index of OLC opinions," writes Chairman Leahy in the letter co-signed by Specter. "Examining the role of this Justice Department office in authorizing controversial activities is squarely within the oversight responsibilities of this Committee; in carrying out that responsibility we are entitled, at the very least, to know the subjects on which OLC has provided final legal advice. That after more than five years this Committee has been refused even this simple request is unacceptable."
"UNACCEPTABLE"? That's it?????
How about... unprecedented, scandalous, ludicrous, outrageous...or better still UNCONSTITUTIONAL and DICTATORIAL!!!????
What has happened to this country???
(and will it ever recover from the brutal Bush-Cheney dictatorship?)
August 19, 2008 6:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh Boy: I look forward to new and exciting adjectives in the next set of sternly worded missives! Go get 'em tiger.
August 19, 2008 6:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is obvious that without the threat of impeachment hanging over the WH, we have a one-branch 'government.'
Bring back the ICA.
August 19, 2008 8:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dear Senators Leahy and Specter...
you are both smart men...but even I know you will not receive what you want (and need for proper oversight) from this White House. Nor will you receive any "back-up" from the Attorney General or the politicized DOJ, they are covering up their crimes...period! If you will not impeach and force the law on them...we might as well burn the Constitution and declare this country a Oligarchy, Plutocracy, Dictatorship, (the "Rule of Law" is a joke, Sirs)... anything but a Democracy...the only answer to this level of obstruction, unlawfullness and criminality, is impeachment hearings, but you are all to politically cowardly and perhaps morally bankrupt your selves, to do the right thing and call for impeachment hearings..your "political careers" are far more important to you than this country or its citizens.
August 19, 2008 8:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I emailed your comment on to Sen. Leahy with an endorsement congratulating him, Pelosi, Reid, Conyers. et. al. for having served while Democracy died on their watch.
FYI:
senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov
August 20, 2008 8:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
"... this Committee has been refused even this simple request is unacceptable.""
Except that the committee continues to accept it...
Hopefully, voters are fed up enough with the current crop of clowns that they vote for the new guys, not the ones already in office...
August 19, 2008 10:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Stop wasting time with Senate investigations. There will be NO meaningful investigation of anything Bush has done unless Obama wins. Win first. Then investigate. The entire Democratic party -- Senators included -- should be mobilized with a single thought in mind: tie McCain to Bush's failed policies. Two parts to the syllogism: first, remind people incessantly that Bush has been a disaster across the board -- economics, foreign policy, climate change, etc. This should be easy since 70% of the country is convinced we are failing as a nation. List the substantive points, and begin at the beginning:
1. Failure to prevent or prepare for 9/11;
2. Failure to capture or kill bin Laden, etc;
3. False pretenses for an unnecassary war that has cost us . . .;
4. Failure to work with the civilized world even after 9/11 when the world was more than ready to do so;
5. Tax cuts for the rich, while everyone else struggles;
6. Tax beneits for oil companiers while they make record profits and gas prices are at rtecord highs;
7. Katrina;
8. Gloabal warming;
9. Gutting regulatory agencies and endangering the economy, the food supply, the environment. etc.
There are many more to add, but that is a start. DO NOT ASSUME that people "know" these things. Never assume that! Hammer and hammer and hammer these points over and over.
Second, which must be done simultaneously, show how McCain supports and will continue Bush's policies. His support for oil companies; his belligerence in foreign affairs; his financial ties to foreign governments (through advisers or otherwise); his dangerous support for the Iraq War FROM THE START. (This one deserves its own discussion, but suffice to say that it is a monumental screw-up by the Obama campaign to have allowed McCain to actually benefit from Iraq. This must be reversed!)
The sub-text should be that McCain has sold out. He was once an honorable man, but after his 2000 whipping by the Bush Republicans, he became a Bush Republican. He has lost his way; sold out. This attack has the added benefit of tapping into concerns about McCain's age and temperament.
Finally, Obama must start NOW to reclaim the terms of the debate. If he isn't comfortable attacking, then he MUST unleash surrogates. NOW!!!
August 20, 2008 11:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
wbgonne,
these pitiful attempts at investigation and the Democrats' inability to attack McCain are two sides of the same coin. When attack dogs do show up for Obama (Wesley Clark, who should have been VP) McCain doesn't have to answer, because the Dems fall over themselves attacking their own attack dogs first.
Same thing here: Dems continually subvert themselves, wrecking their own (few)accomplishments (for example,running Gonzo out of town) by promptly installing the WH's new Obstructor in Chief.
You'd think they couldn't be so stupid, so self-defeating. But they are.
August 20, 2008 11:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree 100%. I had hoped Obama would be better but I began getting nervous when he couldn't put Clinton away after she started playing nasty. Obama should have smacked Clinton down hard, though I understand that was a bit more complicated, being an intramural matter. Not now. Obama better wake up fast or McCain will win.
August 20, 2008 12:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
The weaklings in congress throw more smoke.
August 20, 2008 11:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Posted by wbgonne. "Stop wasting time with Senate investigations. There will be NO meaningful investigation of anything Bush has done unless Obama wins."
Don't get your hopes up. The Democrats have been just as much a cover-up as Republicans. Obama, himself, voted to coverup the illegal spying investigation by granting retro-active immunity to the telecom industry.
(Both political partys stated that the telecom industries "might not" cooperate in the future if needed, but anyone with sense knows that if they didn't they would be nationalizeds in a heart beat).
Pelosi has even blocked any talk of the impeachment of either Bush or Cheney.
Naw. As soon as the new president is installed, the Democrats will stall all investigations ("In the national interests we don't have time for this, we've got too many other things that need to be done.") and Congress will be back to "business as usual."
Somebody else said it best. Gangesters used to be called the mafia, now they're called Congress. And what the American people do during national elections is vote to see who will be the Don for the next four years.
If that was not the case, we'd have seen a stop to this Bush mess during his first term.
You don't have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.
August 20, 2008 5:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
sternly worded letter ignored for 5 years!
dog bites man!
Lincoln shot!
August 21, 2008 12:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
I cannot figure out...why these cowardly butt licking punks (LEAHY, BIDEN, SCHUMER, SPECTOR, CONYERS, WAXMAN, etc) even bother anymore?
1) Dems are at 9%...lower than Bush?
2) They done nothing with what I gave them?...and when they did use the info (SD AND MINN US ATTY problems) they used "secretly to finally break Gonzo's camel back" with the last straws that I gave them (See, Memo to Schumer outlining the SD AND MINN problems).
3) THEY got to call me as a witness to lay a foundation...leading to other witnesses like:
--DR MARK GORDON,
--MICHELLE TAPKEN (an interim SD US ATTORNEY after I got James McMahon fired along with SD FBI agents and MINNEOPOLIS FBI SAC Deb Streibel Pierce,
--JAMES MCMAHON,
--STEPHEN MULLINS,
--FBI AGENT STEVEN PLUTA,
--SD HWPATROL CAPTAIN JEFF TALBOT,
--RRPD DET COOMBS on the CHRISTINA MOORE MURDER covered up by FBI HQ and their agent working on that Round Rock PD, TEXAS task force???????????????
--DR CHAD CARDA AND DR JENNIFER BURGER,
--ALLAN EIDE, city of Sioux Falls, SD, attorney who "illegally violated the HIPPA STATUTE" prohibiting access and dissemination of private medical info,
4) IF you knew what I know about "Leahy-Waxman-Conyers" shameless cowardice and gutless sniveling punk act (all of which resulted in the passage of PATRIOT ACT RENEWAL, WAR COMMISSIONS ACT as it applies to US citizens, and FISA LAW SELLOUT) ....................YOU would be livid and POSTING AT THIS FORUM IN CAPITAL LETTERS???!!!
August 21, 2008 3:13 PM | Reply | Permalink