Category: Action

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If the president releases the Bush torture memos, Republicans are promising to “go nuclear” and filibuster his legal appointments. Scott Horton reports on a serious threat to Obama’s transparency.

As we all know, the appointment of Dawn Johnsen, as chief of the office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice, has been held up for quite some time now.  

Until recently, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, often considered the “brains” of the department, has been known mostly to legal experts. But for the past eight years, it was the epicenter of allegations of political manipulation and, worse, the source of infamous memoranda on torture. In tapping Eric Holder as attorney general, President Obama has promised to restore standards of professionalism to the department. For Republicans, this is tantamount to a declaration of partisan war

The real reason for their vehement opposition is that Johnsen is committed to overturning the Bush administration’s policies on torture and warrantless surveillance that would clip the wings of the imperial presidency.

The more you dig . . . .

Welcome to the fifth of the Dog’s letter writing campaign series. The basic premise here is to, on a weekly basis; write a letter to the President, the Attorney General, the nine Justices of the Supreme Court, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid, urging them to investigate the apparent State Sponsored Torture program of the Bush Administration. In order to get their attention, every week the Dog writes from a different perspective about the issue, so that on the off chance that they read more than one of these letters it is clear that it is not the same thing over and over. This series also offers the reader the chance to write their own letter or cut and paste the Dog’s letter and send it in. The more people that we have sending weekly letters the higher chance that we will be heard on this issue, so if you could take the time to send this along it would be greatly appreciated.  

Do you want action on the issue of the Bush Administrations apparent State Sponsored Torture program? It is an easy enough question, but you should consider it. Not, do you think it will happen or should happen, but do you want it to happen? Knowing the answer to this question can inform your next steps, so even if you think you know take a couple of minutes and really think about it.

Cross Posted At Square State

* Note: Cross posted at GOS and Antemedius

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Senator Leahy has posted a statement on his website, which states, in part, that he is still actively pursuing the “Truth Commission” idea.

So, I guess somebody is listening?

For those here who have been active in pressuring the Obama administration to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Bush administration War Crimes, (or if you’re even passingly interested in seeing some accountability at all for the grave misdeeds of Bush, Cheney, Feith, Addington, Yoo, et al), there’s some very bad news that seems to have flitted under the collective radar.

~more after the fold~  

UPDATE: now up at the orange.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

Are we there yet? No, of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. In fact, it’s gonna be a long haul. So. What can we do? What can we get going … ya know, now-ish…?

Well. We begin here, and other inner circles. We read, learn, watch, listen. And talk with one another. And we do that with the same respect and care that we like to believe is at the core of the values that we hold so dear, that have been so brutally violated and betrayed. We start with each other. Then, ripple out.

I’m creating this place, this series, to be something of a landing zone for us, any of us in the progressive community who feel the grief, who wish to contribute in some way to this growing call for justice, and/or who want to stay tuned in to any ACTION activities that emerge around this cause. I will publish every week, on Thursday’s. I invite you to join me around the bend.

Welcome to the fourth in the Dog’s ongoing letter writing campaign diaries. This has two purposes. First off it is designed to, on weekly basis send the President, the Attorney General, the Justices of the Supreme Court, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid a letter every week discussing one aspect of why we must investigate, indict, and prosecute those that ordered torture and those that carried it out. The other purpose is to provide those that would like to join the Dog in this effort a letter that they can cut and paste or a topic to use as the jumping off point for their own letter.

This week we will make the point that if the United States does not fulfill our obligations, some other country will.  

This is cross-posted from Big Orange, with no changes.  Apologies to the dharmaniacs who hate GOS…

Okay, those of you who know me, know that I am more of a commenter than a diarist.  But a story I read today, from yesterday’s NYT, touched me & since Kossacks are so giving (& since this is the biggest forum I go to), I thought it was perfect for a shout-out.

A quick search revealed nothing: if this has been diaried before, I will delete it.

Anyway, there’s a six-year-old girl in New York who needs a bone marrow trasnplant.  Details beneath the jump.

Update: Thanks for the promote, buhdy!

so. I am thinking of this… “yelling louder.”  My hub is the musician, not me but…  maybe there’s some metaphor… can we not just increase the volume (“yell louder”)  but also adjust the balance, the bass/treble, the equalizer (ha)? So I have this one little idea that has been hatching for a while now, but it is still embryonic. Im asking for your input & feedback, and also I am not a lone wolf type at all, I prefer  team style…. I don’t have “ego” in this (much),  please feel free to tell me it just sucks…lol.

My proposal is basically this:

A new weekly series (yes at the orange) to follow (piggyback) the Valtin Crew’s  new Sunday Round Up Series…. Mine to be an ACTION Diary (sorta).

In an effort to derive some direction and a way forward to accountability, on March 20, 2009, Colleen Costello of the World Organization for Human Rights USA, Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and Jamil Dakwar of the American Civil Liberties Union, spoke before the Inter-American Commission Human Rights, in  Washington D.C.  The issue:  “Accountability for Violations of Human Rights in the United States.”

Colleen Costello laid forth the details of our torture, including the waterboarding of Sheik Khalid Mohamed, our detention systems, renditions, and secret prisons.

Michael Ratner spoke with passion concerning the many obstacles confronting our efforts to achieve accountability, including some of the “legal” ones put in place by the Bush Administration, such as the Military Commissions Act, a lack of habeas corpus and how all efforts, thus far, have been thwarted by the Obama administration.  That Sen. Leahy has called for a “truth commission” with immunity provisions, but would not lead necessarily to criminal prosecutions.  He spoke with a sense of urgency and there truly is one, in terms of the U.S. statute of limitations on torture, we have a window of one and half years to prosecute.  Moreover, Ratner pointed out that an Executive Order banning torture can easily be reversed by the next President and thus, accountability is the only conceivable way to assure that the U.S. is no longer a party to torture.  One of the panel members of the IACHR reminded Ratner that there was no statute of limitations on the torture in international terms.

Jamil Dakwar spoke concerning the difficulty in obtaining documents because of the “state secrecy” stance, and that they (the UCLA) were able to obtain some documentation through the Freedom of Information Act.

Also speaking was Lewis Amselem, Deputy Permanent Representative of the United States to the Organization of American States (OAS).  He spoke about the immediate steps of President Obama to end torture, close down Guantanamo, close CIA prisons by his Executive Orders.  He went on and on about these accomplishments without really confronting the issue of accountability.  

A Sarah Paoletti, Division of the Legal Clinic, University of Pennsylvania, also spoke briefly.

In the proceedings, and at the conclusion various members of the IACHR, i.e., Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, Commissioner of the CIDH, asked what the Commission could do.  Santiago A. Canton, Executive Secretary of the CIDH, spoke and asked that documents be produced to the Commission, as well as any cases that have been brought for trial on torture.

The entire video may be seen here.  It is about an hour long and very worth while seeing.  (Home)

Also, written complaints filed with the IACHR will be posted here.

Welcome the third week of the Dog’s letter writing campaign about torture. This is a small effort to keep the decision makers of our nation aware that we as a people will not and can not simple draw a line under the State Sanctioned Torture policy of the criminal Bush administration. The basic premise of this series is that the Dog will write a letter every Monday to the President, the Attorney General, and the Justices of the US Supreme Court, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid, reminding them of one or another point about the State Sanctioned Torture policy of the last Administration. Those that wish to join the Dog in this endeavor are more than welcome to cut and paste the entire thing or write their own on the topic of the week.  

Welcome the second of the Dog’s weekly letter writing series about torture. The idea behind this series is to get as many people as possible sending a weekly notice that we as a people have not forgotten nor will forget about the Bush Administration’s torture program, nor our responsibility as nation of laws to investigate, indict and prosecute these most heinous of crimes.  

As those of you that can read the title and sometimes read the Dog’s posts know the Dog is very serious about torture. It is, in fact, the only issue that could make the Dog a single issue voter. There are few things more heinous than the act of State sponsored torture. It degrades every society that is seduced by its brutality for whatever reason. There is nothing that a country can do that is worse for it and for its people than to engage in torture.