A soldier who had survived two tours in Iraq and had been sent home after suffering traumatic brain injury was murdered in December in Colorado Springs near Fort Carson, Colo. Army Spc. Kevin Shields was killed, according to police, by three fellow soldiers who had served with him in Iraq.
Army Spc. Kevin Shields was laid to rest on Dec. 15th. 2007
If you do a search of the names you’ll find more information.
But at the above link you’ll be able to read, and listen to, this mornings report.
You’ll also find much more, like their MySpace page links, discussed in the report, as well as other information.
My first question was, especially after hearing one statement:
The AK-47 is not issued by the U.S. military, but it is commonly used by Iraqi insurgents. “This is a weapon that should have been turned over to higher commanders and stored,” De Yoanna said.
Relating to ‘Real Life’
Defendant Bastien told police that he saw Eastridge fire at Iraqi civilians with an AK-47 to make it seem like enemy fire. The Army’s Criminal Investigative Division has investigated and so far has not been able to substantiate that charge. Eastridge earned a Purple Heart while in Iraq.
was, how many innocent Iraqi’s did he, and or the others Kill for no reason, if statement is true, i.e. Atrosities, with little or no concern for their fellow soldiers lives, from the Blowback, thus getting one or more killed or maimed!
Experiance from ‘Nam, as any Combat/Theater Vet from any conflict can tell you, Atrosities happen, and some are Intentional!
March 13-16 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans will gather in Washington DC to witness and tell their stories and experiences about U.S. foreign policy in both countries. The nation will hear directly from those who have been there on the ground. This gathering will be in the tradition of the 1971 Winter Soldier investigations held by Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Not since that original event has the American public had such an important opportunity to hear the truth about the brutality of war and the nature of U.S. foreign policy.
At a trial for one of his soldiers, the U.S. Army team leader says he ordered an Iraqi civilian killed ‘to shut him up.
After Janabi’s 17-year-old son, Mustafa, discovered them and was briefly detained by the sniper unit, Hensley said he decided he had no choice but to kill Janabi.
He described the decision on May 11 as one of many hard choices in a counterinsurgency campaign in Jarf Sakhr, 35 miles southwest of Baghdad.
But they let the Son go, think on that, as to their reasoning for killing the father.
Hensley said he had planted an AK-47 assault rifle on the body after Vela had shot Janabi, which he described as a common procedure.
James Culp, Vela’s civilian defense attorney, said this was the third case he had been involved with in which soldiers had planted weapons on bodies to boost their cases for “kills” in Iraq.
To all those who’ve joined the ranks of us Combat/Theater Veterans Atrosities Happen some are even policy from the top of the chain, some are intentional by one or more individuals, most are accidental.
But they do happen and when they do they endanger the rest in possible ‘Blowback’, that’s War.
They only happen because of the actions of the Few but they are perceived by the Invaded and Occupied as Acts Of Murder and other Human Rights Crimes and Retaliated as such, and the Invaded Populace Perception is the only one that matters!
We Condemn others for the same and if we don’t prosecute, right to the Top, we loose our Morality as a Nation and People!
Waterboarding, as Torture, is now front and center, but what other forms are we Condoning and Practising!
We are now the Face of Terrorism, as a Nation, for we are Terrorizing Millions!
And what is Extremely Dangerous and Much more than simple Sad, we have Many, here in this Society, that want us to sink even lower into this abis we’ve created!!
I’m cheering and applauding. Nebraska’s Supreme Court has dragged the state kicking and screaming into the 21st Century by forbidding the state, as a matter of State Constitutional Law, from using the electric chair to kill prisoners sentenced to death. Because electrocution was the only means of execution in the Nebraska statute, the state has reluctantly now joined the nationwide de facto stay on state executions.
The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled Friday that electrocution is cruel and unusual punishment, outlawing the electric chair in the only state that still used it as its sole means of execution.
The state’s death penalty remains on the books, but the court said the Legislature must approve another method to use it. The evidence shows that electrocution inflicts ”intense pain and agonizing suffering,” the court said.
”Condemned prisoners must not be tortured to death, regardless of their crimes,” Judge William Connolly wrote in the 6-1 opinion.
”Contrary to the State’s argument, there is abundant evidence that prisoners sometimes will retain enough brain functioning to consciously suffer the torture high voltage electric current inflicts on a human body,” Connolly wrote.
The opinion was strong in its disapproval of electrocution. The majority opinion had this gem:
…the high court said electrocution ”has proven itself to be a dinosaur more befitting the laboratory of Baron Frankenstein” than a state prison.
The decision was 6-1. The dissenting judge, Chief Justice Mike Heavican, argued that he didn’t think electrocution was cruel and unusual, and that he believed federal courts could take the case because, he said, the majority’s stated reliance on Nebraska’s constitution was misleading because the court actually based its decision on federal precedent.
Responding to the decision, Governor Dave Heineman (R) expressed his “outrage”:
”I am appalled by the Nebraska Supreme Court’s decision,” Heineman said in a statement. ”Once again, this activist court has ignored its own precedent and the precedent set by the U.S. Supreme Court to continue its assault on the Nebraska death penalty.”
What a joke. The Nebraska Supreme Court is an “activist court”? Does the Gov pay any attention to those “strict constructionists,” those “originalists” in DC? Give me a break. The Rethuglican rule of judicial criticism: if you win, they’re “strict constructionists”; but if you lose, then they’re “judicial activists.” What a crock.
The Governor’s spokesperson threatened that there would be a special legislative session to enact a new penalty provision. Evidently, Nebraskans cannot live for even a few months without having their finger on the trigger needle. One of the options to permit state killing to continue without a significant hiatus would be a bill to replace electrocution with lethal injection, a method of execution presently under consideration in the US Supreme Court and effectively stayed across the nation.
I have no idea why Nebraska cannot just sit it out for a little while. I guess when the Governor says he’s appalled you have to drop everything else and restore people killing. After all, WWJD?
I detest state killing. I want to see the death penalty abolished for all crimes in my lifetime. I want the United States as a whole to renounce barbarianism and to join the community of nations and the consensus that state killing is wrong. And the Nebraska Supreme Court’s decision is a small step in that direction. It is absolutely a recognition that standards of cruel and inhuman treatment are evolving over time and that the barbarities of the past can no longer be countenanced. Every single judicial decision that blocks state killing is a victory on the road to abolition of the death penalty.
So I cheer this decision. And I invite you to cheer and applaud it with me.
There are lots of drugs I’ve found enjoyable and some I would recommend (more on that at a later date..) but I never trusted pills or heroin. I knew pill heads in school. They were just as bad if not worse than junkies. Stealing medication by the bag fulls, offering randomly unnamed pills of various colors for everything from heart and nerve pills to valium. Stealing vicodin from grandparents with cancer. I always refused free pills. I was never even a big fan of snorting adderall which is all the rage these days…call me old fashioned but I was just fine with coke….I’ve lost 2 friends now to heroin addiction (more depending on whether you count not dying as living) and 2 to suicide. Most heroin addicts I knew either started out on or substituted with oxycontin. I had never seen it outside of that context until a friend of mine was prescribed it after a breast implant surgery. Of course, addiction in all forms is a dreadful state of affairs that regularly ruins lives, but there are things that can be done to help addicts before their lives are taken over by drugs. For example, finding somewhere like a Washington Drug Rehab center can be very beneficial for addicts, and can help them return their life to how it was before the drugs. What’s even more concerning is that some of these substances are readily available in prescriptions.
I still can’t believe that shit is legal.
For all my juvenile self indulgence I’ve never went totally overboard and was always able to maintain good grades, a job, relationships (well you know), etc…Although my mom to this day is still really good friends with the local police chief… I’m reckless but with a large degree of self control, if that makes any sense. I trust my judgment and know my limits. I think that’s why I never wanted to take prescriptions. What doctor would know my tolerance for substances in my own body? Especially since I had gotten so much practice on my own :p I was smart and unmanageably rebellious so obviously it was suggested quite frequently that I needed to be medicated. I always refused and thank god my mom always agreed.
I stopped taking harder drugs before I went to college. I had my fun and was ready to move forward with a new chapter in my life. After years of getting by just fine on pot I went through a complicated breakup and a transfer to main campus. The transition was really difficult. I was overworked between rigorous coursework and outside work, stressed, worried I was self medicating with the wrong drug, lonely. I finally decided that maybe I should just give medication a try. Maybe I had been wrong. You know there are TV commercials about once every 10 minutes selling you pills. And billboards. And magazines. And pens. And paper. And calendars…And…
I don’t care what statistics say about prescription drug use, but it is totally and completely out of control. I just recently dated a guy who couldn’t tell people he had a prescription for Adderall because we would get calls day and night asking for the adderall price. It’s like some dirty little secret. I was all concerned and ashamed. Then I found out I had been about the only person that wasn’t on something.
At first it was amazing. I felt “happy” for the first time in years. I knew what it was like to live my life without heightened anxiety and low depressions.
Ever hear the term “chasing the dragon”? I’d heard it in the context of perusing a rush you’re never going to have again after the first time. It reminds me of that. After a few months it wasn’t the same. It felt dark and heavy.
I was going to counseling for a while, but stopped when I stopped being able to do anything actually. I couldn’t understand my coursework anymore, thinking was hard. Towards the end I was sleeping about 2/3 of the day and drinking the rest of the time. I just couldn’t feel anything and on top of it I didn’t care. I hear that a lot from other people who are taking meds. You’re not sad, but you’re not happy either. You don’t feel up or down. You just don’t feel. Period. Problem solved.
I always pictured it was like dumping a bucket of chemicals on your brain. Everything about us is so complicated, I find it hard to believe that we have found the actual and specific chemicals to ever so slightly tweak the “crazy” out of people. But then again, what do I know?
I went off the pills with the help of my doctor when my health insurance ran out. Surprisingly even without health insurance your doctor can still get you free pills through about 3 different venues (not birth control though!). I had always said that if I was going to do it, I was going to do it right and commit. I never went off my pills, I did exactly as the doctor told me every step of the way. And it didn’t work. In fact it almost destroyed my life. So I decided to stop taking them.
I have never ever felt like so much shit in my entire life. Being even an hour or two late with taking effexor will make you feel dizzy, twitchy and nauseas. Withdrawing from it was a nightmare. Harder than quitting smoking cigarettes by a long shot. At least with smoking after about 4-5 days I didn’t feel a physical withdrawal anymore. The effexor was constant over about 3 months of stepping down in very small weekly increments. I had to drop out of a semester of school. I couldn’t ride the bus I was so dizzy. My thoughts were mashing together. There were days I couldn’t even stand. I just slept as much as possible waiting for it to be over. Anything to stop my body from shocking, curling up with my pillow while my cat licked my face. Dragging myself off the floor. It was a bad scene.
When I woke up it was like there was a cloud over 2 years of my life. Suddenly I was myself again and the haze was gone. I could think again. I don’t regret, because what’s the point? I learned a lot about myself. To be honest the time I spent not working and withdrawing from pills was the most rest I’d been able to get. I’d been running on 150% just to keep up. I needed a fucking break. I think if I would have been able to take a vacation I never would have sought out medication in the first place. But the beauty of being a poor American is that you never rest. You can’t or you’ll waste away and no one will notice.
Pills are handed out for everything. To kids of all ages. I know way too many people who have been on mood altering medications since elementary school. I find it sad and dangerous. An Iraq vet friend of mine told me they were sending soldiers back all pilled up after their first tour. Barely functioning and rocking back and forth. It’s some scary stuff. I’m pissed that they have been allowed to advertise on TV. I’m pissed that parents feed this shit to their children instead of raising them. I’m pissed that parents are taking them instead of changing the world. I’m pissed that no one cares that the population is popping pills and starting at the TV all day while the world literally and figuratively collapses around them. Hello?
You know what would cure 90% of the depression in this country? Not fucking torturing people, starting wars, forcing sexual repression, manipulating religion, creating institutionalized racism and sexism and poverty, stifling educational creativity, and destroying the planet. For starters. Oh yeah, and not treating people as never tiring, working machines that exist for the sole purpose of consuming and producing.
Yeah. That might help.
Fuck it. I’m going to smoke pot until the day I die. Keeps me happy, keeps me sane, keeps me lucid and keeps me thinking. Only downside is the illegal part, but now torture is legal. So the laws don’t count anymore.
I’ve had some close friends who were bi-polar and known a few schizophrenics. None of them have become fully functioning productive members of society from medication. It seems to be a constant struggle with switching medication, acclimating, withdrawing, switching, acclimating, withdrawing. I’m by no means saying that medications aren’t helpful for certain situations and people. I’ve never personally seen it, but I do believe there are cases out there or else why would we still be using them?
I thought I would share my experience in case anyone has been in the same place before or going through it now. Seems more common than you would expect. This was about 2 years ago and it’s taken me this long to rebuild my life. I helped my last boyfriend off of anti-depressants and he’s doing really well now too. His parents still take cocktails of pills, each one offsetting side effects of the others. I just don’t get it. I’m at a point that I feel like I can’t trust anything anymore. Doctors, loan companies, government, food, money, TV, air, water, language, emotion….
This whole place is sick. War is right. Torture is legal. Love is hate. Shame is pride. God is fear. This is the world I’ve walked in to? I don’t know if I should vomit or cry. I’d sleep it off again but this time my bed is gone.
Fuck the elections and fuck the superbowl. I don’t give a shit. Impeach the war criminals, throw out the complicit congress and start this over right. This is beyond surreal. Should I be knocking on people’s doors and shaking them or something? Maybe kick over their TV while I’m at it? What exactly are you supposed to do in this situation anyways?
The Los Angeles Times reports Court rejects EPA’s scheme to allow excessive mercury emissions. “A federal appeals court today struck down a market-based effort by the Bush administration to regulate emissions of mercury from coal- and oil-fired power plants, agreeing with critics that the Environmental Protection Agency had violated the Clean Air Act when it established the rule… The EPA had planned to establish a mandatory national cap on mercury emissions and then allow power plants that fail to meet their targets to buy credits from less-polluting plants. Environmentalists have criticized this approach because mercury tends to accumulate near its source, rather than dispersing like other pollutants that have been regulated under so-called cap-and-trade mechanisms.”
Via TPMmuckraker, the Wall Street Journal reports Contractors likely involved in waterboarding. “The CIA’s secret interrogation program has made extensive use of outside contractors, whose role likely included the waterboarding of terrorist suspects, according to testimony yesterday from the CIA director and two other people familiar with the program. Many of the contractors involved aren’t large corporate entities but rather individuals who are often former agency or military officers. However, large corporations also are involved, current and former officials said. Their identities couldn’t be learned… Using nongovernment employees also helped maintain a low profile, they said.” Is your next door neighbor a freelance mercenary torturer for the CIA?
The Nebraska Supreme Court struck down the state’s reliance on the electric chair for executions on Friday as “cruel and unusual” punishment, leaving no alternative method in its place.
“We recognize the temptation to make the prisoner suffer, just as the prisoner made an innocent victim suffer,” the court wrote. “But it is the hallmark of a civilized society that we punish cruelty without practicing it.”
In its 6-1 ruling, the court said evidence proves that unconsciousness and death are not instantaneous for many prisoners and they could experience intense pain and “agonizing suffering.”
Nebraska is the only U.S. state that uses the electric chair as its only means of execution, though a few others still allow prisoners to choose it as an alternative to lethal injection.
Governor Dave Heineman is “appalled” by ruling. “‘I am appalled by (the court’s) decision,’ the governor said in a statement. ‘…the court has asserted itself improperly as a policymaker. Once again, this activist court has ignored its own precedent and the precedent set by the U.S. Supreme Court to continue its assault on the Nebraska death penalty.'” The Nebraska Republican has a self-described “pro-life administration“.
A mysterious shipwreck has been revealed by winter storms in Oregon. The Oregonian has the story, A ship in the sands of time. “A massive wooden ship that disappeared on the southern Oregon coast decades and decades ago is emerging from a sand dune eroded by wild winter storms. On a remote beach of Coos Bay’s North Spit, the seas are revealing the bow of a mystery ship. Thirty feet of its thick, wooden bow protrudes from the dune. Forty feet wide at its broadest point, the hull sits dug into the dune, pointed toward the sea. Its iron supports are rusted and bent, its deck supports exposed, its portholes deep and square. The ship was built from massive timbers and likely dates to the late 19th or early 20th century… Between 1852 and 1953, 58 ships wrecked in a span of about five miles off Coos Bay”.
A bonus story about the Enchantress is below the fold…
The Seattle Times tells of a Derelict tugboat still enchanting, after all these years. In Fidalgo Bay, Washing during the summer of 2000 “an old World War II-era tugboat named The Enchantress mysteriously appeared 300 yards offshore, its hull skewered on a charred creosote piling that’s held the boat in place ever since… [and the tug has] become a local icon… But The Enchantress could well be headed for the scrap heap, even though residents have launched an impassioned campaign to save the wartime relic. Keeping it afloat ‘just doesn’t mesh’ with the state’s larger goal of cleansing Puget Sound of industrial contaminants, restoring marine habitat and ridding waterways of derelict vessels, all by 2020, said Sandra Caldwell of the state Department of Ecology.”
I work with numbers all day long. Numbers tell you the truth about what’s going on, if you can manage to be neutral when evaluating them. People – in all our marvelously complicated screwed-up glory – make the world go around. But numbers are how you make sense of it all.
I’ve been reading mostly lately, not commenting or writing my little stories. But the discussion here the last couple of days about defeating evil Republicans vs. how the Democrats are ‘worse than evil’ for enabling evil — well it gets the juices flowing.
I believe in nuance, in all sorts of shades of grey, yet I also believe there is an objective truth to many if not most issues. This contradiction fuels my life in many ways. But I believe complex issues can be explained through detailed analysis and empirical review. Science for lack of a better term.
So — you want some numbers that I think will help decipher our modern day political code? Six (plus one) are humbly presented below. A warning in advance, I’m avoiding links on purpose for narrative purposes. Google is our friend.
The first number – 140. That’s a rough consensus estimate of how many days per year each of our elected members of government spend FUND RAISING to get re-elected whenever the next time comes around. It’s marginally better in the Senate, with their 6-year terms, but the overall effect on our system is unbelievable.
The next number – $2.5 Billion. That’s the estimated dollar figure spent in 2006 alone on lobbying of our Congress and federal agencies. This number keeps going up every year, in spite of half-hearted efforts to control spending by lobbyists. These first two numbers (140 days and 2.5 billion dollars per year) explain a huge percentage of what happens in our government today.
Another number – 48. This is the estimated number of Blue / Bush Dog Democrats in Congress, combining both the Senate and House. These ‘fine’ ladies and gents are a big reason we have an enabling Democratic Congress today. The Democratic majorities are slim enough that these 48 have a disproportionate share of power over many of the elected Democrats who want to do the right thing but don’t have, well – the numbers. I like to keep this in mind before giving completely into anger towards our ‘side’ when I think of the mess we’re in.
Ok – so those are three daunting numbers that are working against us today. But amazingly we also have some numbers working in our favor.
First, the number 32 is our friend. That’s the average approval rating for President Bush these past two years. It is the longest any President has remained at such a pathetic figure of support. You see, in spite of the traditional media, and in my view thanks to new media such as the intertoobs, the truth is getting out there. This low approval rating will help us this November to reduce the influence the 48 Bush Dogs, unless of course we do something stupid like nominate for President someone every single Republican can unite behind in anger and hate. But we wouldn’t be that dumb, would we? Nah. Ok – back to the narrative.
This leads directly to the next positive number – $32 million. That’s the amount raised by one of our challengers for the Presidency in January alone. Coincidently, 32 shows up twice on our side, but sometimes that’s the way it works. As usual, our friends in the traditional media completely miss the mark when deciphering the meaning behind this number. It’s huge. And it’s great for our team. Numbers like $32 million give us power, and the ability to craft our message regardless of the forces against us.
A third number on our side is 346. That’s how many (few) days we have left until we can turn the chapter on the Bush years, start the long process of recovery, and allow history to lurch back towards inevitable progress. Sometimes these blips occur. For us, we are lucky in a way that there remains only a blink in time until we can start again. Our democracy protects us to a certain extent against the likes of this pathetic administration. And we’re now into the home stretch. Thank goodness.
The final number?
ONE. As in you. And me. What can one person do in the face of all the crap going on? Well, the objective truth is very little. No one voice, no one idea will save the world. The best one person can do is keep an open mind, learn as much as possible, and teach those around us about the truth as we see it. Individually – there is no such thing as stopping ‘evil’. Collectively, we can do much more. There IS plenty of opportunity to make the world a little better if we band together, but along the way we will be essentially alone. Alone together – against numbers that align against us. I am confident that in the end – we will prevail. Funny how life is, but I do have faith. Faith in each one of us.
One may be the loneliest number, but it’s all any of us have. And it will be good enough, if we maintain our relationship with hope.
Both The Progressive and the ACLU have stories up over on their sites about how the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have recruited tens of thousands of members of corporate America to be the “eyes and ears” of the government. In return, they receive secret briefings on terrorism. The program is called InfraGard, and from The Progressive story:
The members of this rapidly growing group, called InfraGard, receive secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public does-and, at least on one occasion, before elected officials. In return, they provide information to the government, which alarms the ACLU. But there may be more to it than that. One business executive, who showed me his InfraGard card, told me they have permission to “shoot to kill” in the event of martial law.
InfraGard is “a child of the FBI,” says Michael Hershman, the chairman of the advisory board of the InfraGard National Members Alliance and CEO of the Fairfax Group, an international consulting firm.
InfraGard is an information sharing and analysis effort serving the interests and combining the knowledge base of a wide range of members. At its most basic level, InfraGard is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the private sector. InfraGard is an association of businesses, academic institutions, state and local law enforcement agencies, and other participants dedicated to sharing information and intelligence to prevent hostile acts against the United States. InfraGard Chapters are geographically linked with FBI Field Office territories.
This is all very scary stuff, as Daily Kos writer Sick of It notes in his essay on the subject (and a hat tip to him/her for bringing this to my attention). I highly recommend checking out all the links provided here, and especially the ACLU report. As they describe it themselves, the report covers:
Recruiting Individuals. Documents how individuals are being recruited to serve as “eyes and ears” for the authorities even after Congress rejected the infamous TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System) program that would have recruited workers like cable repairmen to spy on their customers.
Recruiting Companies. Examines how companies are pressured to voluntarily provide consumer information to the government; the many ways security agencies can force companies to turn over sensitive information under federal laws such as the Patriot Act; how the government is forcing companies to participate in watchlist programs and in systems for the automatic scrutiny of individuals’ financial transactions.
Mass Data Use, Public and Private. Focuses on the government’s use of private data on a mass scale, either through data mining programs like the MATRIX state information-sharing program, or the purchase of information from private-sector data aggregators.
Pro-Surveillance Lobbying. Looks at the flip side of the issue: how some companies are pushing the government to adopt surveillance technologies and programs based on private-sector data.
The Progressive article details more how closely the FBI works with its new corporate associates:
FBI Director Robert Mueller addressed an InfraGard convention on August 9, 2005. At that time, the group had less than half as many members as it does today. “To date, there are more than 11,000 members of InfraGard,” he said. “From our perspective that amounts to 11,000 contacts . . . and 11,000 partners in our mission to protect America.” He added a little later, “Those of you in the private sector are the first line of defense.”
He urged InfraGard members to contact the FBI if they “note suspicious activity or an unusual event.” And he said they could sic the FBI on “disgruntled employees who will use knowledge gained on the job against their employers.”
It is necessary to fight back against this ominious threat against our civil liberties. The ACLU is asking people
to contact prominent companies – such as drugstore chains, insurance companies and retailers – to ask them to take a “no-spy pledge” to defend their customers’ privacy against government intrusion. A list of suggested companies for consumers to contact is available online at http://www.aclu.org/privatize.
It comes down to this: the Bush Administration believes it is above the law, and Congressional Democrats concur. There is no other way to explain the unwillingness of the Democrats to force the confrontations that would reassert the primacy of law. The Administration demonstrates, time and again, that as long as it is allowed to get away with anything, it will do whatever it wants. The rule of law and the balance of powers are irrelevant. Obsolete, perhaps. Perhaps quaint. When Nancy Pelosi took impeachment off the table, it signaled to the Administration that it had a green light to function as a monarchy. If it wasn’t going to be held accountable for past crimes, it might as well continue committing them, abusing its power, and overstepping its authority whenever and however it pleased. The Democrats would not force confrontations, because to do so would inevitably lead to questions of consequences. Eliminate the very question of impeachment, and there are no consequences. All is allowed. All is acceptable. All is tacitly permitted.
At his confirmation hearings, Michael Mukasey gave lip service about being an independent Attorney General. Since taking office, he has been nothing but an Administration lackey. Yesterday, he proved it once again. First, Mukasey told Congress that he would not investigate waterboarding, if those who committed it had done so with DOJ approval, and he also explained that he will not investigate warrantless wiretapping, if it was ordered by the president, under DOJ advisement. The rationale, if you can call it that, is made clear in this exchange between Mukasey and Rep. Bill Delahunt, as paraphrased by emptywheel:
Delahunt: You said if an opinion was rendered, that would insulate him from any consequences.
MM: We could not investigate or prosecute somebody for acting in reliance on a justice department opinion.
Delahunt: If that opinion was inaccurate and in fact violated a section of US Criminal Code, that reliance is in effect an immunity from any criminal culpability.
MM: Immunity connoted culpability.
Delahunt: This is brand new legal theory.
MM: Disclosure of waterboarding was part of CIA interrogation and permitted by DOJ opinion, would and should bar investigation of people who relied on that opinion.
Delahunt: Let’s concede that waterboarding is in contravention of international obligation. If opinion rendered that amounted to malpractice, whoever employed that technique, simply by relying on that opinion would be legally barred from criminal investigation.
MM: If you’re talking about legal mistake, there is an inquiry regarding whether properly rendered opinions or didn’t. But yes, that bars the person who relied on that opinion from being investigated.
Delahunt: I find that a new legal doctrine. The law is the law.
MM: If it comes to pass that somebody at a later date that the opinion should have been different the person who relied on the opinion cannot be investigated.
Delahunt: Is there a legal precedent.
MM: There is practical consideration. I can’t cite you a case.
Now, keep in mind that Mukasey is not saying that these acts may not have been illegal, nor is he saying that there are questions about whether or not these acts were even committed. He is saying that neither the facts nor the law matters. He is saying that if officials of the Department of Justice give permission for the commission of possibly illegal acts, those perpetrating said acts are automatically immunized from legal consequences. As dday put it:
The Attorney General is saying that the President can do anything he wants, break the law any way he wants, as long as the President’s own Justice Department, populated his own handpicked officials, validates it. And he’s saying it directly to members of Congress, essentially telling them that they don’t exist. They have no power to prosecute because the Justice Department won’t take up the case, and the courts have no power to adjudicate because these are official state secrets. There is only one branch of government that matters.
We have now the Attorney General of the United States telling Congress that it’s not against the law for the President to violate the law if his own Department of Justice says it’s not.
It is as brazen a defense of the unitary executive as anything put forward by the Administration in the last seven years, and it comes from an attorney general who was supposed to be not just a more professional, but a more moderate, version of Alberto Gonzales (Thanks to Democrats like Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer for caving on the Mukasey nomination.).
President Bush has now laid down his most aggressive challenge to the very constitutional authority of Congress. It is a naked assertion of executive power. The founders would have called it tyrannical. His cards are now all on the table. This is no bluff.
But his cards have always been on the table, and it’s always been clear that he’s not bluffing. The Administration has continually asserted its immunity from Judicial or Congressional oversight, and no one has taken any action to stand up for the primacy of law or the balance of powers. Mukasey used the exact same explanation, when also telling Congress that he wouldn’t enforce any Congressional subpoenas served to Joshua Bolten and Harriet Miers, in the U.S Attorneys firings scandal. Mukasey’s exchange with Rep. Robert Wexler was also paraphrased by emptywheel:
Wexler: Failure to reply to Congressional subpoenas. Refusal of Bolten and Miers to even appear. Have you been instructed by POTUS to enforce or not to enforce subpoenas.
MM: I can’t say.
Wexler: Can you tell me the individual that Clinton instructed not to appear?
MM: Dellinger wrote an opinion.
Wexler: I didn’t ask opinions. I asked about the President instructing someone not to appear. Have you been instructed to enforce or not to enforce contempt citations.
MM: That’s privileged.
Wexler: Should Congress pass a contempt citation would you enforce it?
MM: If you’re talking about a contempt citation based on Bolten’s failure to appear–he can’t violate the President’s request.
Wexler: Are you the people’s lawyer or the President’s?
MM: AG of US.
Here’s the video:
As emptywheel asks:
Shouldn’t Mukasey be able to say, “it would be inappropriate for me to discuss these subpoenas with my superiors, Bush, Dick, and Addington”?
But of course not. And no one should be surprised, because this is what this administration is all about. And the very idea of Congressional Democrats enforcing subpoenas is laughable, anyway, because they have continually run from even attempting that level of oversight. At Daily Kos, Kagro X has been documenting Congress’s failure to provide oversight since at least May of 2006. On the specific example of these unenforced subpoenas, Kagro recently provided this excellent timeline, which I’ve distilled to this:
June 2007: House Judiciary Committee warns Bolten and Miers that if they don’t comply, they will be held in contempt.
July 2007: The Committee votes contempt, which must then be validated by the full House.
September 2007: House leaders postpone the full House vote.
October 2007: Democratic aides say the vote could come soon, although Speaker Pelosi’s office had not yet determined when, or even if it will ever happen.
November 2007: The House vote is again postponed.
December 2007: More hints that the vote may come soon, or possibly in January.
January 14, 2008: Democratic leadership aides say the vote will come soon.
January 22, 2008: The Democratic leadership postpones the vote, so they can work on an economic stimulus package.
Are they embarrassed? Are they even capable of shame? Should they even bother pretending to believe that the Administration is subject to the rule of law?
And just to wrap this up, by coming full circle, let’s go back to Mukasey’s confirmation hearings. Because all the outrage and astonishment at his testimony, yesterday, is wasted. This should not have been a surprise. Mukasey had already made the exact same point at his confirmation hearing!
And despite this, he was confirmed.
No one should now be shocked that Mukasey is acting on precepts he outlined when he was but a nominee. And despite the best efforts of people like Representatives Delahunt and Wexler, no one should be shocked that the Democratic “leadership” will once again prove unwilling to do anything about any of this. Consequences are off the table. Not only is the Democratic “leadership” unwilling to hold Administration officials accountable for the outrages they commit while in office, they are unwilling even to prevent Administration nominees from becoming officials, even when they admit beforehand that committing outrages is part of their judicial philosophy!
George W. Bush is the Unitary Executive. The Democratic “leadership” is unwilling to prove otherwise. A new AP Poll puts it bluntly:
It’s almost as if people can barely stand the thought of President Bush and Congress anymore.
Bush reached his lowest approval rating in The Associated Press-Ipsos poll on Friday as only 30 percent said they like the job he is doing, including an all-time low in his support by Republicans. Congress’ approval fell to just 22 percent, equaling its poorest grade in the survey. Both marks dropped by 4 percentage points since early January.
Is it any wonder?
The America you thought you knew no longer exists.
March 13-16 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans will gather in Washington DC to witness and tell their stories and experiences about U.S. foreign policy in both countries. The nation will hear directly from those who have been there on the ground. This gathering will be in the tradition of the 1971 Winter Soldier investigations held by Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Not since that original event has the American public had such an important opportunity to hear the truth about the brutality of war and the nature of U.S. foreign policy.
A mysterious shipwreck has been revealed by winter storms in Oregon. The Oregonian has the story, 
The Seattle Times tells of a