Treading water on waterboarding
The issue of waterboarding drowned out almost all other concerns about Attorney General Michael Mukasey during his confirmation hearings last year, and it could wipe out today's confirmation hearings for Mark Filip, slated to become the next deputy attorney general. From Congressional Quarterly:
Senate Democrats plan to delay a floor vote on President Bush’s nominee for the No. 2 post at the Justice Department until the department responds to several Judiciary Committee oversight letters.
Mukasey had managed to stay afloat and pass muster by the smallest margin in 50 years. At the time, he hedged wildly on waterboarding, protesting that he didn't know enough to make a judgment.
Yesterday, judgment day came. And the verdict? That he can't issue one.
Slate's Dahlia Lithwick has a scathing critique of Mukasey's logic:
Mukasey won't speculate about future water-boarding, either, claiming he will not be drawn into "imagining facts and circumstances that are not present and thereby telling our enemies exactly what they can expect in those eventualities." He also refuses to tell "people in the field ... what they have to refrain from or not refrain from in a situation that is not performing."
Just to be clear then, to the extent that there is any purpose to the law, i.e., to punish past bad acts and to alert people as to what types of conduct will be punished in the future, the attorney general has just obliterated that purpose. Unless someone were to actually be water-boarded before Mukasey's eyes at the witness table in the Hart Senate Building, America's lawyer cannot hazard an opinion as to its legality.
But Mukasey calls out the senators as well -- and he has a point, says CBS News analyst Andrew Cohen:
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, especially Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), want Mukasey to do their heavy lifting. They want him to proclaim by legal memorandum what they have so far been unable to accomplish by political power. It would be nice if he were willing to do so. And you can bet that if a majority of Republicans and the President were calling upon Mukasey to say the magic words he’d be game. But they aren’t and he isn’t and it’s time Leahy and Company moved on.
Judging by their toying with today's confirmation hearings, it doesn't seem like they're ready to take Cohen's advice just yet.
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Oh yeah, lest we forget, what about the poor innocent people we end up torturing who provide no intel and were done wrongly? Do they have rights? Do they have habeas? Welcome to Nazi America led by Skull and Bones and CFR and secret or not so secret cults with Nazi ideologies.
Heil America!
Posted by: eliot bernstein | February 02, 2008 at 10:06 AM
What about the people who are tortured wrongly, that after torture had nothing to say, do they have rights in Nazi America? Do they have habeas? What about those that died in Gitmoschwitz with no trial or rights, tortured to death, is that not murder. America is nation under siege by Nazi Americans from the Skull and Bones (Bush v. Kerry both Skulls) and Council on Foreign Nations (CFR) a Skull founded an organization that most of the 2008 Presidential Candidates belong too!!!!!except Ron Paul and Mike Gravel. All this has roots with Nazi’s. Who are these Jews that would ever consider this, they are Judenrat, who welcome you to the oven and shower in Hebrew, telling you how nice the water temperature is. The Yale Law School and Yale School are breeding grounds for this Nazi sentiment traitor to America. Yale is represented by Proskauer Rose, hmm a Jewish law firm founded by Joseph Proskauer, the guy famous as JP Morgans stooge in the infamous coup on America to kill FDR and side with the Nazi’s. Proskauer is more Judenrat. Their coup http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot was spoiled by my hero, Smedley Butler, who exposed the Nazi Americans to congress leading to congressional hearings on these traitors. They were exposed but not tried for treason and went back to the drawing board to siege the nation and for the last three generations have operated in secrecy as Skulls and other Nazi Bilderberg groups. We must force them to disclose to the public www.iviewit.tv/senatecultbill.htm and weed them out of government before they try some sicko plot like Hitler http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJBxdRIQx7Y&NR=1 . Please do everything you can to wake American’s up before it is to late and we exterminate more people in Nazi America.
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From Headline news today
BusinessWeek - 18 hours ago
By ROBERT JABLON “The hamburger chains Jack-In-the-Box and In-N-Out as well more than 150 school districts around the nation have banned meat from a Chino slaughterhouse after a video showed workers brutalizing sick and crippled cows, officials said ...”
This is a sick torture video link below (bring the kids) but Attorney General Mukasey says that in certain instances, where the cows could provide intel against terrorists it may or may not be ok. Of course, you can't tell if this torture intel was worth it without first torturing. But who cares, if you torture the cow and it has no intel or more likely, say anything to stop torture intel, you would have never known without torturing and who cares about the innocent ones. Rumsfeld is rumored to have left politics and become a cattleman with Gonzales, Libby and Rove, to date they have tortured numerous cows who have led to intel that may or may not be true but who cares, torture is fun and legal now in America. Welcome to Nazi America - ask any cow how proud they are to be American.
Very happy meal
Watch the video on this page
https://community.hsus.org/campaign/CA_2008_investigation?qp_source=gaba89 (if links don't work copy and past them into browser url)
Eliot I. Bernstein
Founder & Inventor
Iviewit Technologies, Inc.
batoutofhell @ iviewit@iviewit.tv
Iviewit Holdings, Inc.
Posted by: eliot bernstein | February 02, 2008 at 11:02 AM