Tag: treason

Crossposted at Daily Kos

Thanks to the Supreme Council Court, meet your new Corporate Masters!

Say hello to Saudi Arabia!

Saudi Arabia has already signaled that the progressive effort to build a clean energy American economy is its “biggest threat”:

   Saudi Arabia’s economy depends on oil exports so stands to be one of the biggest losers in any pact that curbs oil demand by penalizing carbon emissions. “It’s one of the biggest threats that we are facing,” said Muhammed al-Sabban, head of the Saudi delegation to U.N. talks on climate change and a senior economic adviser to the Saudi oil ministry. […] Climate talks posed a bigger threat, Sabban said, and subsidies for the development of renewable energy were distorting market economics in the sector, he said.

ThinkProgress.org

It’s good to be the King of Saudi Arabia!

More below the fold

From the Washington Post :

federal judge yesterday sharply questioned an assertion by the Obama administration that former Vice President Richard B. Cheney’s statements to a special prosecutor about the Valerie Plame case must be kept secret, partly so they do not become fodder for Cheney’s political enemies or late-night commentary on “The Daily Show.”

Ugh.  But it gets even better.  

But career civil division lawyer Jeffrey M. Smith, responding to Sullivan’s questions, said Bradbury’s arguments against the disclosure were supported by the department’s current leadership. He told the judge that if Cheney’s remarks were published, then a future vice president asked to provide candid information during a criminal probe might refuse to do so out of concern “that it’s going to get on ‘The Daily Show’ ” or somehow be used as a political weapon.

snip

Fitzgerald, in a 2008 letter to Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) cited by CREW, drew a distinction between interviews that he conducted under standard investigative secrecy rules and the meetings he held with Bush and Cheney. Fitzgerald said “there were no ‘agreements, conditions, and understandings between the Office of Special Counsel or the Federal Bureau of Investigation’ and either the President or Vice President ‘regarding the conduct and use of the interview or interviews.’ ”

So the Change You Can Believe In administration is arguing, with an apparent straight face that this isn’t a cover up of treason by Richard Bruce Cheney, that’s a 1st amendment issue.  Let me calm down and try to suss this out.  

The claim made originally by war criminal Bradbury, that the Vice President may not participate in a criminal probe in which he is himself the prime suspect, because Jon Stewart might make fun of him.  Not because he may incriminate himself.  And we can’t know about this, not because it might provide proof that Cheney is a criminal, but because in the future, when a Vice President breaks the law, he may, out of a fear of embarrassment, not cooperate with criminal investigations against him.  

H/t to Devin at Dkos

Joe Biden….excuse me, future Vice President, Joe Biden:

“In an Obama-Biden administration, we will not have an attorney general who blatantly breaks the law,” Biden said at a town-hall meeting in West Palm Beach, Florida, his voice at times drowned out by applause. “We will not have a president who doesn’t understand the Constitution. And I will not be a vice-president who thinks he’s not part of any of the three branches of government.”

snip

Looking to the future but with one eye on the past, Biden also promised that an Obama-Biden government would go through Bush administration data with “a fine-toothed comb” and pursue criminal charges if necessary.  

“If there has been a basis upon which you can pursue someone for a criminal violation,” he said, “they will be pursued, not out of vengeance, not out of retribution – out of the need to preserve the notion that no one, no one, no attorney general, no president, no one is above the law.”

Encouraging stuff, especially when reinforced by Obama’s previous statement to Will Bunch:

The dualistic mind is enjoying the on-going debate between “purity trolls” and “sell-outs.”  And most people on both sides of the issue appear to be quite certain of their stance.  Feeling somewhat queasy from the shaky ground under me, I’ve been looking in vain for the solid ground others seem to have found.  All I see is a Sophie’s Choice:  which one do you choose to kill–the Constitution of the United States or any chance of participation in the process?  I don’t know.  But I’m here to urge people to accept that we have a tough decision which cries out for meaningful, respectful debate.  And during this debate, may we keep in mind the most important political question we face–what action gives us the best chance of rescuing the constitution from imminent demise.