ANGLER II: How...Bush/Cheney Circumnavigated Supremes & Still Practicing Torture!

[KoKo]

Part 2 of the WaPo Investigative report on Cheney titled "ANGLER" reveals the battles over torture and detainess that went on between the State Department and VP Office. Ted Olson resigned over some of it and Ashcroft reveals a "little more" in the report about what went on.

Congress is impotent according to the report unless it Repeals the "War Powers Act." Cheney, Addington and Yoo have managed to make a mockery of our legal system and the Supreme Court. Justice Kennedy was target of their anger. The Supreme Court decisions in favor of Hamdi and Padilla were then overturned by Cheney's "red pen" as he and Addington struck down by clever interpretation what the Supreme Court decided. Bush remained a "foot dragger" not taking a position on what the Supreme Court had decided by allowing the McCain anti-torture bill to be completely changed with signing statement and non-action.

It's worth a read...but warning to already frustrated DU'ers...it will make your blood boil or turn you off politics forever. It just about did me in reading it. :grr:


PART II: WAR AND INTERROGATIONS

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/chapters/pushing_the_envelope_on_presi/index.html


(A Snip from the Last Paragraph Conclusion....for those who don't want to get into the gory details)

Almost Everything Cheney Wanted

For all the apparent setbacks, close observers said, Cheney has preserved his top-priority tools in the "war on terror." After a private meeting with Cheney, one of them said, Bush decided not to promise that there would be no more black sites -- and seven months later, the White House acknowledged that secret detention had resumed.

The Military Commissions Act, passed by strong majorities of the Senate and House on Sept. 28 and 29, 2006, gave "the office of the vice president almost everything it wanted," said Yoo, who maintained his contact with Addington after returning to a tenured position at Berkeley.

The new law withstood its first Supreme Court challenge on April 2. It exempts CIA case officers and other government employees from prosecution for past war crimes or torture. Once again, an apparently technical provision held great importance to Cheney and his allies.

Without repealing the War Crimes Act, which imposes criminal penalties for grave breaches of Geneva's humane-treatment standards, Congress said the president, not the Supreme Court, has final authority to decide what the standards mean -- and whether they even apply.

more at....
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/chapters/pushing_the_envelope_on_presi/index.html

[Atman]

1. And this is a surprise to whom, exactly?

Just curious. Did you seriously think they'd stopped just because of what some crummy-assed court told them?

.

[KoKo]

2. I think reading of the back and forth and skullduggering and criminality going on behind the scenes

being detailed is what's new. Some revelations we didn't know about...RW Constitutionalists Olson, Asscroft (trying to put up a few weak roadblocks)and the total power of John Yoo and David Addington. The powerlessness and cowardice of our State Department the total lack of awareness or concern of Congress that passed the War Power Act...when they had to know what was going on.

It's a collapse of everything we were taught in school about "Checks & Balances." It seems if you get two or three clever lawyers and a corrupted sociopathic Pres and VP that you can do ANYTHING.

I think as cynical as most DU'ers are...this report on Cheney goes beyond what even our darkest thoughts were...and most of us have very DARK thoughts about what has been going on...and had put "pieces" together long ago. Reading how the sausage was made......one almost doesn't want to know anymore.

[KoKo]

3. Randi on AAR was just ranting about Part II...and the Cheney List of Impeachable

offences...saying why is everyone so "quiet" about this!

[KoKo]

4. USA TODAY...Op Ed: "Above the Law?" (Cheney)

The latest example of Cheney's arrogance is his decision to exempt himself from an executive order that sets rules and oversight for executive-branch officials who handle classified documents.

After filing reports in 2001 and 2002, Cheney stopped. In 2004, according to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, his staff blocked an inspection by the National Archives' Information Security Oversight Office.

Why'd they do that? At first, Cheney's office suggested to the Chicago Tribune that Cheney wasn't subject to President Bush's order because he wasn't only part of the executive branch; he also holds a legislative office as president of the Senate. But that argument passes neither the laugh test nor basic civics.

Now the White House contends that President Bush never intended the 26-page order to apply to the vice president. Never mind that the order specifies "any entity within the executive branch that comes into possession of classified information."

This "intent" dodge is an interesting excuse and one that any citizen who writes a letter or signs a contract might want to invoke: The language might say one thing, but I meant something else.

For an administration bent on expanding executive power, this is part of a pattern. Bush has frequently signed laws and simultaneously issued "signing statements" signaling his intention to ignore parts of the legislation he's just enacted.

Though Cheney's office selectively leaked classified material to buttress the administration's case for invading Iraq, the controversy over security procedures isn't really whether Cheney is being irresponsible with classified documents. He has broad power to classify and declassify. But exempting himself from reasonable restrictions and safeguards on a "trust me" basis simply says that he considers himself to be above the law and his actions to be beyond review.

Administration defenders should stop to think: Would they really want a Democratic president and vice president to take such an elastic view of the law if the White House changes hands next year?

Whichever party is in power, it's hard to imagine a surer way for leaders to get the country in trouble than to mix arrogance with secrecy.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=post&forum=389&topic_id=1179650&mesg_id=1179650

[KoKo]

5. Some More Good News...David Schuster filling in for Tucker covered this with

Ron (cross eyed Cheney/Bushbot) and Schuster confronted Christie with WHY Libby doesn't deserve Pardon and Cheney ...can he have it BOTH WAYS! Showed Clip of Helen Thomas going after Dana Perino at todays "Presser" and confronted Christie whenever he did his Repug/Bot Spin that used to WORK for the Repugs but Now seems OLD...

Much more good stuff from Schuster who is filling in for that idiot Tucker tonight!