The Crime of a Two-Tiered Justice System

In the context of the vapors experienced by the Beltway fainting virgins at the prospect of prosecuting torturers and murderers for, you know, torturing and murdering, Glenn Greenwald brings us an example of the kind of justice Smirky/Darth and their minions should be receiving.

Homeless man gets 15 years for stealing $100

A homeless man robbed a Louisiana bank and took a $100 bill. After feeling remorseful, he surrendered to police the next day. The judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison.

Roy Brown, 54, robbed the Capital One bank in Shreveport, Louisiana in December 2007. He approached the teller with one of his hands under his jacket and told her that it was a robbery.

The teller handed Brown three stacks of bill but he only took a single $100 bill and returned the remaining money back to her. He said that he was homeless and hungry and left the bank.

The next day he surrendered to the police voluntarily and told them that his mother didn't raise him that way.

Brown told the police he needed the money to stay at the detox center and had no other place to stay and was hungry.

In Caddo District Court, he pleaded guilty. The judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison for first degree robbery.

Fifteen years for feeling remorseful about taking a hundred-dollar bill. By that logic, 4,200-plus counts of pre-meditated murder ought to get Dubya and Dick 10 or 12 lifetimes hanging from a hook in the ceiling by their scrotums.

Greenwald goes into shameful detail about the American criminal injustice system's ludicrous over-sentencing of the powerless and its passes for the powerful. But here's the point:

Under all circumstances, arguing that high political officials should be immunized from prosecution when they commit felonies such as illegal eavesdropping and torture would be both destructive and wrong [not to mention, in the case of the latter crimes, a clear violation of a treaty which the U.S. (under Ronald Reagan) signed and thereafter ratified].

But what makes it so much worse, so much more corrupted, is the fact that this "ignore-the-past-and-forget-retribution" rationale is invoked by our media elites only for a tiny, special class of people -- our political leaders -- while the exact opposite rationale ("ignore their lame excuses, lock them up and throw away the key") is applied to everyone else. That, by definition, is what a "two-tiered system of justice" means and that, more than anything else, is what characterizes (and sustains) deeply corrupt political systems. That's the two-tiered system which, for obvious reasons, our political and media elites are now vehemently arguing must be preserved.

Read the whole thing.

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Dishonoring 9/11 Victims at Guantanamo

President Obama's order to suspend the ludicrous "military commissions" at Guantanamo came just after a heart-wrenching scene that illuminates just what torture George W. Bush has inflicted - not on detainees, but on the families and loves ones of those who died on 9/11.

Following Monday's hearings, the Office of the Military Commissions held a press conference with several 9/11 family members, who had reportedly been selected by lottery to travel to the base to attend the hearings. Visibly angry, and holding up large photographs of their relatives who died on 9/11, they appealed to President Obama to keep Guantánamo open.

"Today we were in the presence of true evil," said Donald Arias, who lost his brother Adam in the attack on the World Trade Center. "Mr. Obama needs to reexamine his decision and keep these tribunals going."

Joe Holland, who lost his son in the World Trade Center, trembled with rage as he took the podium.

"My name is Joe Holland and I lost my son in 9/11," he said. "When I said I was coming down here, people asked me what they could do. I said, 'Write a letter to Obama saying that this place should stay open.'"

When journalists asked Holland about the possibility of trying the 9/11 suspects in federal court, he replied, "No, right here, at Guantánamo," then excused himself from the podium as he fought back tears.

One of the most horrific acts committed by George W. Bush is the cruel trick he played on the loved ones of 9-11 victims.

In their names, he justified a "war on terror" that has accomplished nothing but increase global terror and make this nation far more vulnerable to terrorist acts.

In their names, he bungled the search for bin Laden, allowing the actual 9/11 criminal to escape and remain free for more than seven years.

In their names, he launched an illegal war against one of bin Laden's greatest enemies, thus giving great aid and comfort to the person who killed their loved ones.

In their names, he authorized torture that made it impossible to try and convict bin Laden's captured confederates.

In their names, he did nothing to assuage their loss, but instead everything to ensure that no one actually responsible would ever pay for the crime of 9/11.

If you must write to Obama on behalf of the loved ones of the victims of 9/11, then write to demand he prosecute the people in the recent maladministration who have spent the last seven years desecrating their memories.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic.

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Obama Must Prosecute Bush War Crimes

Keith Olbermann's Monday night Special Comment:



Here's the transcript.

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Oaths Have Consequences

In the eight years since Dubya committed perjury when he swore to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, we seem to have forgotten that the Presidential Oath of Office is not an introduction to a speech, but a legal, enforceable oath.

Through eight years of dictatorial rule by an imposter placed in office by a judicial coup, we've forgotten that the president has actual duties he must fulfill or be removed from office and prosecuted for malfeasance.

Hilzoy explains how the Oath of Office binds Barack Obama to constitutional duties ignored by Smirky/Darth and why those duties give him no choice but to prosecute George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales and their whole mob organization for war crimes.

Some Facts For Obama To Consider

(1) According to Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution, the President "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed".

(2) According to Article VI of the Constitution, "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land".

(3) The United States is a party to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

(4) As Dahlia Lithwick reminds us, the Convention Against Torture not only prohibits torture, it imposes a set of affirmative obligations on its parties.

SNIP

It seems to me that these facts imply that if Barack Obama, or his administration, has reasonable grounds to believe that members of the Bush administration have committed torture, then they are legally obligated to investigate; and that if that investigation shows that acts of torture were committed, to submit those cases for prosecution, if the officials who committed or sanctioned those acts are found on US territory. If they are on the territory of some other party to the Convention, then it has that obligation. Under the Convention, as I read it, this is not discretionary. And under the Constitution, obeying the laws, which include treaties, is not discretionary either.

On Thursday, Eric Holder, Obama's nominee, for Attorney General, stated categorically in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, countless television cameras, the FSM and everybody:

"No one is above the law."

That doesn't just mean that neither the new president nor any member of his administration may break the law or undermine the Constitution. It means they have the affirmative duty to enforce the law, including international treaties.

Failing in that duty - breaking his Oath of Office - in the name of "moving forward" or "bipartisanship" or "changing the tone" or getting 80 votes for the economic stimulus is a crime in and of itself for which brand-new President Obama would deserve impeachment.

Not prosecuting Bush war crimes is not an option.

Read the whole thing.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....

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Don't Believe the Lies: Court did NOT Absolve Bush

The overarching lie used to falsely justify all of George Bush's domestic crimes, war crimes and treason is that of unlimited presidential authority.

Never mind Article One Congressional powers, never mind Separation of Powers, never mind Constitutional limits on the executive, for eight years it's been "because I'm the president and I said so!"

Thus he justified: breaking treaties, ignoring bin Laden and allowing 9/11, launching an illegal invasion, wiretapping and spying on innocent citizens, torture, rendition, detention and every other way he could imagine to shred the Constitution and shit diarrhea all over the remnants.

Now Smirky/Darth's slimy apologists are claiming a FISA Court decision has endorsed Bush's "if the president does it it's not illegal" theory.

Bullshit, as Steve Benen explains.

There's been some talk today that the FISA court has endorsed the notion that the president has the authority to engage in warrantless wiretaps. That's not what happened today, and the details matter.

SNIP

The decision has nothing to do with the president's inherent authority, and everything to do with Congress' ability to shape surveillance law, giving the White House far more authority than it was previously allowed.

Put another way, the case was about the legality of the Protect America Act. It cleared the court's examination. But as A.L. explained, this doesn't lend "credence" to the administration's legal arguments at all.

Quite the contrary. From the moment the NSA program was first disclosed in December of 2005, the issue has always been whether the president has the "inherent authority" to disregard a statute like FISA that purports to place restrictions on his ability to conduct surveillance of Americans. The Bush administration claimed it had such powers, despite overwhelming legal authority to the contrary. When Congress passed the Protect America Act, it statutorily authorized the President's subsequent surveillance activities, assuming he stays within the rather wide confines of that law. The court here has merely upheld Congress's prerogative to pass such a law.

There's nothing here that lends any credence whatsoever to claims of law-breaking authority made by the Bush administration over the last few years.

Several far-right blogs insisted today that Bush has been "vindicated" and was "right all along." That's simply not what happened.

Read the whole thing.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....

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The Right Way to "Move Forward"

edger makes the case for pushing Obama hard to name a special prosecutor for Bush/Cheney war crimes and treason.

Yesterday George Will, of all people, was comparing Obama refusing to prosecute Bush and Cheney to Ford pardoning Nixon.

If a far right crazed wingnut can get it right, why can't the rest of us?

This comparison is one that we can use to good effect, but only if we do it continuously and loudly.

He's got the evidence, the passion, Jane Hamsher and The Petition.

Read the whole thing, then, in the immortal words of Blue Girl: Sign the fucking petition already!

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Simple Answers to Stupid Questions

It's going to be tough enough for the next few years fighting the already widespread lies about Smirky/Darth's true legacy to the nation and the world. The last thing we need is pseudo-progressives doing the wingnuts' work for them by publishing fake critiques that perpetuate the bushies' lies.

Granted, Jake Weisberg has been for years one of the most gullible and least insightful "journalists"on the subject of Smirky/Darth, the Iraq clusterfuck, the War On A Noun and destructive repug idiocy in general, but this really takes the cake.

As George W. Bush once noted, "You never know what your history is going to be like until long after you're gone." What I think he was trying to say is that, over time, historians may evolve toward a more positive view of his presidency than the one held by most of his contemporaries.

No, what he actually was saying is "as I have done for my entire life, I'm going to escape accountability, not to mention punishment, for my many war crimes and acts of treason."

At the moment, this seems a vain hope. Bush's three most obvious legacies are his decision to invade Iraq, his framing of a global war on terror after Sept. 11, and the massive financial crisis. Each of these constitutes a separate epic in presidential misjudgment and mismanagement.

No, the Iraq clusterfuck, delcaring war on a noun to justify torture and shredding the Constitution, and destroying the economy are not, by any stretch "misjudgment and mismanagement." They are major crimes and acts of treason.

It remains a brainteaser to come up with ways, however minor, in which Bush changed government, politics, or the world for the better. Among presidential historians, it is hardly an eccentric view that 43 ranks as America's worst president ever. On the other hand, he has nowhere to go but up.

No, there's a long, long fall to the eternal damnation Smirky has richly earned. After he's arrested, tried, convicted and imprisoned, spent decades getting his anus dry-reamed with a barbed dildo by the family members of dead American soldiers and marines, and become a curse in the mouths of former supporters who blame him for the complete distruction of the republican party, THEN we can talk about whether he has anywhere to go but up.

In a different sense, however, Bush's comment has some validity to it.

No, nothing Smirky says has "validity" except in the sense of incriminating evidence.

We do not know how people will one day view this presidency because we, Bush's contemporaries, don't yet understand it ourselves.

No, those of us with functioning reasoning capacity and an ounce of personal and professional integrity understand it perfectly well. It's only sniveling apologists like Jake Weisberg who pretend they don't understand.

The Bush administration has had startling success in one area—namely keeping its inner workings secret. Intensely loyal, contemptuous of the press, and overwhelmingly hostile to any form of public disclosure, the Bushies did a remarkable job at keeping their doings hidden for eight years.

No, it's been pretty fucking obvious to most of us for at least three years exactly what is and has been going on in the overlowing toilet that used to be the White House, despite the efforts of the repug dupes and cowardly transcribers of the Village to pretend otherwise.

Probably the biggest question Bush leaves behind is about the most consequential choice of his presidency: his decision to invade Iraq.

No. This question was answered in Ron Suskind's 2004 book, in which Smirky/Darth started planning to invade Iraq about 35 seconds after the Inauguration.

When did the president make up his mind to go to war against Saddam Hussein?

January 20, 2001. And it was never a "war." It's an illegal invasion.

What were his real reasons?

Dictatorial power. He admitted as much when he said his father didn't get re-elected because he ended the Gulf War instead of keeping it going forever.

What roles did various figures around him—Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice—play in the actual decision?

For pity's fucking sake, Weisberg, have you read nothing but Harry Potter for the past five years? Shit, even that repug tool Woodward managed eventually to document all of this.

Was the selling of the war on the basis of WMD evidence a matter of conscious deception or of self-deception on their part?

Again, read a fucking book. To name just one, Fiasco proves irrefutably that it was deliberate deception.

Bob Woodward, Ron Suskind, and I recently debated in Slate the issue of how much we really know about Bush's biggest decision. Woodward, the author of four inside accounts of the Bush administration, believes that we do know the most important facts. He argues that Bush decided to invade Iraq in January 2003, that the reason was 9/11, and that Bush himself was the real decision-maker. Suskind and I argued that we don't know really how, when, or why the decision was made—though we suspect it was much earlier. By the summer of 2002, administration officials and foreign diplomats were hearing that Bush's course was already set.

Wrong. January 2001, as Suskind himself documented. What kind of pharmaceuticals were distributed at this "debate?"

The disputed dates and details go to the most interesting larger issues about what went wrong during the Bush years.

No, they don't, and no, they aren't disputed, except by tools, apologists and accomplices.

Did Bush's own innocence and incompetence drive his missteps?

He's neither innocent nor incompetent, and they aren't missteps. He's a psychopath, and what he did are high crimes and acts of treason.

Or was it the people around him, most importantly his vice president, who manipulated him into his major bad choices? On so many issues—the framing of the war on terrorism, the use of torture, the expansion of executive power—it was Cheney's views that prevailed.

Darth's evil does not absolve Smirky's eager treason. To say Cheney "manipulated" him is like saying I "manipulated" my dog into eating his favorite snack.

Yet at some point, perhaps around the 2006 election, Bush seems to have lost confidence in his vice president and stopped taking his advice.

So what and who cares? These are Smirky's crimes and treason, from beginning to end. Darth has his own crimes and treason for which he must pay. Stop trying to muddy each with the other.

To reckon with the Bush years, we need to understand what went on between these two men behind closed doors.

Oh gag. I just ate.

Yet despite some superb spadework by journalist Barton Gellman and others, we know very little about Cheney's true role. We have seen few of the pertinent documents and heard little relevant testimony. Congressional investigations and litigation have shed only the faintest light on Cheney's role in Bush's biggest blunders.

Wrong, irrelevant and stop calling murder and treason "blunders."

The same is generally true of Bush's most important political relationship, with Karl Rove, and his most important personal one, with his father. Only with greater insight into these connections are we likely to be able to answer some of the other pressing historical questions. To what extent was Bush himself really the driver of his central decisions? How engaged or disengaged was he? Why, after governing as a successful moderate in Texas, did he adopt such an ideological and polarizing style as president? Why did he politicize the fight against terrorism? Why did he choose to permit the torture of American detainees? Why did he wait so long to revise a failing strategy in Iraq?

Bleeding baby jeebus. Smirky has done everything to acquire power, authority and popularity without work, responsibility or accountability. He is engaged to the extent required by acquire power, authority and popularity without work, responsibility or accountability. He was NOT a successful governor, but merely a repug with a famous name in a repug state, who knew just enough to avoid offense in a constitutionally weak office. He showed his true self as president because the office permitted him to do so. He politicized terrorism, encouraged torture and ensured we'd never get out of Iraq because all those things acquired power, authority and popularity without work, responsibility or accountability.

It seems unlikely that the memoirs in the works from Rove and Rumsfeld will challenge Bush's repeated assertions that he was not only in charge but in control. As for the president himself, we're unlikely to get much: Bush has a poor memory and is too unreflective to have kept the kind of diary that would elucidate matters. In time, however, other accounts are sure to emerge. Congressional investigations will shed new light. Declassified documents and e-mails may paint a clearer picture.

Was this written five years ago? C'mon, Jake - there are dozens, if not hundreds, of books out there that have answered every one of these questions over and over and over again. Pretending this is all still a mystery makes you look like a tool or an idiot.

Once the country is rid of Bush, perhaps we can start developing a more nuanced understanding of how his presidency went astray. His was no ordinary failure, and he leaves not just an unholy mess but also some genuine mysteries.

Don't you listen to your own Fearless Leader? Smirky doesn't do nuance. There is no nuance. There is no mystery. It's as obvious as a five-buck whore.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....

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No Enthusiasm for the Truth

What we really need, of course, is Smirky, Darth, Rummy, Wolfie, Feith, Yoo, The Mustache, Gonzo, Tenet, and all their minions frog-marched into federal court and prosecuted for War Crimes and Treason.

What we might have to settle for is a fact-finding body like the 9-11 Commission.

Now it appears we won't even get that.

It happens more often than you might think on Capitol Hill: a new bill is announced by a congressional office, with little fanfare and fewer co-sponsors than it deserves but a purpose so abundantly sensible that the plan cries out for more attention.

Such is the case with H.R. 104, a bill introduced on Tuesday by House judiciary committee chairman John Conyers (D-MI) and nine other lawmakers. The measure would set up a National Commission on Presidential War Powers and Civil Liberties, with subpoena power and a reported budget of around $3 million, to investigate issues ranging from detainee treatment to waterboarding to extraordinary rendition. The panel's members would hail from outside the government and be appointed by the president and congressional leaders of both parties.

Sounds like a great idea. In fact, it sounds a lot like Senate armed services committee chairman Carl Levin's (D-MI) proposed interrogation-policy commission that has been kicking around since 2005. So why does such a good bill only have 10 co-sponsors?

The answer is complicated -- and neither House Speaker Nancy Pelosi nor Majority Leader Steny Hoyer have returned my calls to talk about it. But I'd wager that it has a lot to do with the Democratic majority's desire to turn the page on the Bush years and begin pressing on with an Obama agenda designed to showcase its ability to govern. Nothing wrong with that.

But as the stimulus plan and financial regulation and health care reform and a host of worthy issues takes up the oxygen in Washington over the coming months, who will make sure that accountability for past misdeeds gets as much attention as current achievements? Who will shed more sunshine on the debacles of the Bush years?

There's support in the House for it (although not yet, it appears, from leadership). There's a constituency in the Senate for it, and inside the Obama camp. Does anybody think that this sleeper bill will get so much as a hearing in any of the three separate committees it's been referred to?

A commission, particularly one that goes beyond mere fact-finding to actual public confessions along the lines of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, is the absolute bare minimum required by an ostensible democracy to deal with criminal behavior by its highest officials.

Although the South African commission succeeded in preventing civil war after the end of apartheid, it failed to achieve genuine justice.

Most believed that justice was a prerequisite for reconciliation rather than an alternative to it, and that the TRC had been weighted in favour of the perpetrators of abuse.

"Justice was a prerequisite for reconciliation." Precisely. The consequences of failing to achieve justice, of allowing perpetrators to escape punishment, are always more severe than any political repurcussions of making criminals pay for their crimes.

And the proof is in the history books.

Because Nixon got away with illegal wiretapping and domestic spying, Reagan and 41 got away with Iran/Contra.

Because Reagan and 41 got away with Iran/Contra, Smirky-Darth is getting away with Treason and War Crimes.

Because Smirky-Darth get away with Treason and War Crimes, what will the next repug who snatches the presidency get away with?

We're half an inch away from being a lawless banana republic.

The key is not how law-abiding the Obama administration is; the key is whether the Obama administration upholds the Rule of Law for everyone, even former presidents.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....

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Protesters Heckle Bush At July 4 Monticello Event

With the carefully pre-screened, hand-picked audiences that he has always faced in his eight years in the White House, it's not often that George W. Bush gets a earful from ordinary citizens.

But he did on July 4, as protesters spoke out for many of us when they screamed "Impeach Bush!" and "War Criminal!" to Bush during a July 4 appearance he made at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello.

I find Bush's "We believe in free speech in the United States" remark particularly ironic. Even as Bush was making this comment, protesters trying to exercise freedom of speech were being forcibly removed from the event.

Speaking of freedom of speech, how about Joseph Wilson's freedom of speech? He tried to inform the American people that Bush's case for war in Iraq was a pack of lies. In return, his wife, Valerie Plame was treasonously outed as a covert CIA agent, which destroyed her career (and no doubt put the lives of other agents in the field in jeopardy).

From silencing government scientists speaking out on global warming to using our tax dollars to pay a newspaper columnist to peddle propaganda, it's clear that Bush holds the concept of "freedom of speech" as much in contempt as he does the rest of the Constitution.

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