Welcome Bruce, so glad you could be here today. Can you tell us — does Eric Holder have the option not to enforce the treaties we’ve signed regarding prosecuting torturers?

Hello, Mr. Fein–thank you for joining us today.

Welcome, Mr. Fein! I so respect your truth-telling and fighting for our Constitution.

PS, you caught me between fits of gardening and sore-back-tending.

Welcome. Do you have a response to Rahm’s statement yesterday that Pres. Obama believes that the authors of the torture memos, and those who ordered them/their content, should also not be prosecuted?

I have often said I have mostly concervative points of view, that those points of view are now reflected in the democratic party. the republican party represents corporations not concervatives, the two are mutually exclusive

as fein says, obama is failing his promise to America, his oath of office, our constitution, our children, this country’s past present and future

Bruce is the kind of republican I can certainly associate

obama seems too week for the job as president, we find now he is actually visiting the cia to assure them there will be no probe

http://rawstory.com/08/blog/20…..-officers/

I personally do not believe the real professionals had anything to do with torture, I believe they were cheney’s fake cia, “team b

Thank you for joining us today, Mr. Fein and for your continued clear statements in support of the Constitution.

Since Obama has not yet issued pardons, I am interested in what pathways still exist for getting prosecutions underway. Holder has to be the key pressure point. How can Congress and the American people convince Holder to appoint an independent prosecutor?

Firedoglake is collecting signatures on a petition, and that should be very helpful. I am asking what else we can do. Are there other pathways that could force Holder’s hand? Anything that could come through the courts?

Where to start? The National Security State seems to demand this suspension of the Constitution for it’s basic mission. A fix would be beyond the imagination or ability of those currently or likely to serve in
government anytime soon, a court case is too risky as far as I can see, so
where do we look for correction?

If anyone was hoping (as I was) that Obama meant only to grant immunity to those who were following orders dictated and written by those above them, they were disabused of that notion by statements made yesterday by Rahm Emanuel.

I have to say that even granting immunity to those following orders is an outrage. “I was just following orders” is the classic Nuremberg Defense–it didn’t fly in the aftermath of WWII and it shouldn’t fly now.

I believe he has already said, he needs to either prosecute them or pardon them, one or the other

I agree with you, it is OUTRAGOUS to say “I was following orders”, that gives license for ANYTHING and everything under the sun

not acceptable

a pardon and let them take their chances if they travel abroad

I am personally hoping cheney, gonzales and yoo deem fit to take an overseas vacation somewhere they actually believe there are such things as war crimes

Welcome back to FDL, Bruce. Would love your thoughts on the OLC memos that have been released. The specious reasoning and lack of underlying legal precedent is bad enough, but the coaching on how to end-run our legal treaty obligations is beyond appalling, most especially coming from lawyers at OLC.

mccain goes on the record, marcy gets a hat tip;

This morning on Fox News, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) responded to the startling information — first noted by blogger Marcy Wheeler — that detainee Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times. “It’s unacceptable,” McCain said, adding:

Just to let you all know, there was a technical delay, but we are sorting it out, and Mr. Fein will be here shortly.

Glad to address a turning point in the rule of law.

I have said in the recent past, if the republicans wanted to reclaim their party they could do it by attacking bush as a false republican, demand he’s held responsible for his crimes, then go after obama for his appeasment for those crimes

Mr Fein,
I believe we are being lied to about the torture tapes being destroyed. Some fine word parsing but they are like Porno tapes and somewhere someone has evidence of war crimes. Maybe not the originals but copies.
What do you think?

Thanks for being here today Bruce.

Can you point to any evidence that we have not passed the point where we can expect to regain contol of our government and return to the rule of law and democratic values?

I mean it seems the whole of Washington has either been caught on tape doing something despicible or is actively engaged in providing cover for those who have, so much so, that the “torches and pitchforks” thing has gone beyond being a joke recently.

speaking of the rule of law, this is tastey stuff;

Late last week, Texas district court judge Martin Hoffman ordered that President Bush be deposed in a lawsuit against Southern Methodist University (SMU). In the case, two condominium owners near SMU are claiming that “the university bullied owners into selling without disclosing plans to build a presidential library at the site.”

Rahm’s comment showed Obama’s deception in expressly only de facto exonerating CIA interrogators. He was too cowardly to give an express free pass to the Bush-Cheney duumvirate. Obama is no Rosa Parks!

Obama’s stand on torture, like that on FISA or the transfer of indefinite detention from Guantanamo to Bagram, confirms my view that Obama et al never fundamentally disagreed with the Bush Administration. The Obama Administration does not reject Bush policies. It just thinks it can do them better.

I agree that Obama’s position on torture not only condones past torture but leaves the door wide open for future torture.

Looking more broadly, the pattern repeats itself. Summers and Geithner are continuing Paulson’s benighted plans to bailout the worst offenders on Wall Street, especially Goldman Sachs. He also continues to follow the lead of Bush’s two generals Odierno and Petraeus in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In so many ways, what we are seeing is not change we can believe in but Bush’s third term.

I will say what I said in an earlier thread:

I am dumbfounded that Congress has refused to act.

I am dumbfounded that Eric “waterboarding is torture” Holder hasn’t appointed a special prosecutor.

I am dumbfounded that Obama considers civility and “looking forward” and not “laying blame” more important than the investigation of torture.

Torture.

They all seem to be sleepwalking. I wish they would wake up.

Welcome & thank you for being here, Bruce. Can you tell us what steps we can take and specifically what laws we can quote, to bring pressure to bear on Congress and the President’s Office ?

I concur that Obama is too weak to challenge the intelligence community establishment. It is not only the non-prosecution of torture, but also non-prosecution of illegal surveillance or extraordinary rendition, and claim of state secrets to prevent the litigation of torture and illegal surveillance claims agaisnt government wrongdoers. Bush was an idiot and little could be expected from him on rule of law issues. Obama has brains, and knows he is flouting the Constitution. His moral culpability is correspondingly great.

I agree with your observations, but you understand the justifiable alarm. It is not simply an extension of Bush-Cheney by other euphemisms, but an embrace of the psychology of an Empire that will lacerate individual freedom and liberty in the name of an ostensible national security. Obama is killing civilians in Pakistan via drones launched by the CIA based on the same shoddy intelligence that brought us WMD in Iraq and enemy combatants at GITMO, most of whom have been released in habeas corpus proceedings. I fear most of the country has now accepted the Empire mentality that seeks to bully the world for the thrill of domination, and inflates danger five million fold to justify permanent war and a global military footprint. We are following the same decayed trajectory as the Roman and British Empires, but more on an installment plan.

I thought it was interesting that he chose to address only CIA officials who had been “following orders.” There are several classes of people Obama did not address — 1) Administration officials who ordered torture, 2) lawyers like Yoo who wrote the laws, or Bybee who signed the memo, as well as 3) CIA officials who went outside the law in what they did.

Why not be clear and address them all? I guess Rahm addressed 1) and 2), but nobody’s talking about 3) yet.

I

mean it seems the whole of Washington has either been caught on tape doing something despicible or is actively engaged in providing cover for those who have, so much so, that the “torches and pitchforks” thing has gone beyond being a joke recently.

I think we need to reassess. Why did the Democrats mount no real opposition during the Bush years? Why did they continue to pass toxic legislation like the FISA Amendments Act and the TARP long after Bush’s popularity had cratered and his days in office were running out? There was no blackmail. There was no need for it. Obama and the Democrats agreed with 90% of what Bush did. They still do.

KSM was waterboarded 183 times. That is not interrogation of any kind. That is plain torture. That the CIA did that and that they claim that they were just following orders is not in any sense legal. They were obliged by the oath that they took to not follow illegal orders and in fact they were obliged to report those illegal orders. The question is Who do you report the illegal orders to? They came from both the President and the VP. All of their superiors told them to do it. At the time the entire nation wanted revenge. The only thing that the CIA agents could have done at that time is resign. Who in authority would have assisted them in correcting an illegal order. Look at what happened after Dec 7 1941. The POTUS signed an order placing all Japanese-both citizens and non citizens-into concentration camps. In that instance how were we any different than the WWII Germans?

When an entire polity is bent on revenge and punishing any who appear responsible, how does one keep to american principles? Our past is by no means clean on this subject. After 9-11 we “arrested” and disappeared many arab americans simply due to their religion. Citizens turned in innocents to the police who arrested them on flimsy or no evidence.

In light of our own history and the general hysteria evidenced by the entire Bush administration, what could a low level employee of the CIA do? Even knowing that what they were doing was torture, the entire govt and polity was totally consumed with revenge and punishment, who could they report this to?

Petitions. Is there any evidence that any petition has ever caused the US govt to change policy?

That has been self evident since Tonkin Gulf and the infamous resolution
LBJ would pull from his pocket to wave in our faces.

I’d also like to know whether the particulars will or will not apply to outside contractors who were working with CIA. A number of these interrogations were either done by/with contractors or supervised by medical and psych personnel who were outside contractors according to published reports and information in the OLC memos.

Given the debate about legal applicability to contractors for military purposes in Iraq and elsewhere, I’d love to see some definitive statement on how the Obama administration will evaluate those instances as well. On the record.

Exercising the pardon power would expose Mr. Obama to political accountability. I imagine Mr. Emanuel understands his job as avoiding such unseemly consequences at all cost. After all, he wants Mr. Obama’s chair next time round.

Mr. Emanuel, and by implication, his boss, are triangulating too hard here and haven’t convinced anyone their stance is about anything other than self-preservation and a desire to have the same bag of tricks available to them that Mr. Bush stole from the American people.

Their stance is no more about “national security” than it was under Mr. Bush.

You should push Congress to pass a concurrent resolution demanding that Obama faithfully execute the laws against torture and electronic surveillance. Obama should either prosecute or take the political or public heat for issuing pardons, which at least requires the culprits to accept guilt. Also, petition Congress to impeach and remove Judge Bybee for complicity in the torture memos. In addition, demand Congress enact laws ending the President’s authority to withhold any information from Congress or the American people except military plans and identified intelligence agents. Finally, a law should impose a criminal penalty for Presidential lies to Congress or the American people to obtain authorization for war.

I would have thought that Obama could havee left this to a non-partisan special prosecutor, or alternatively, a special truth commission. They’re not the same, but each would have allowed him to “look forward” while allowing the law/justice to take it course. It’s consistent with “transparency,” which is his policy rationale for releasing the memos.

Surely, the clever, self-serving politicos around him would have foreseen the reaction to releasing the memos, exposing their lawyer/authors and their handlers to criticism, and the discrepancy between the “we relied in good faith” perpetrators and the “we never advised/ordered in good faith” officials. Does it not seem that the Administration has unleashed a process that has yet to run its course, and that more is to come? And if so, what’s next? Where does this end? Because surely the Administration would not have knowingly set up Obama to look completely feckless and cowardly.

Mr. Fein:

Bush is not the only village idiot. Bush is only part of a system (many village idiots) that allowed Tenet to be appointed to the staff of the NSC and then to the CIA by the Clintons as then continued by Bush. Obama has only limited powers in the context of holding accountable a system practiced through three previous administrations of appointing incompetents to run the CIA with incompetent Congressional oversight or no oversight. The fact that Obama released the subject memos is a message, as I take it, to the effect, not on my watch. Now if Congress or the so-called journalists in the MSM have the ability or the temerity to follow up, that would be fine. But it will not happen. But be sure that the Clintons would never have released the subject memos “voluntarily”. So whatever change in this regard Obama has effected is helpful.

thank you for using the words “deception” and “cowardly” to describe obama and his actions.

i think we dems have to unabiguously reject obama’s policies: acceptance of torture, spying w/o warrants, imperial foreign policy and trillions of dollars for the banksters.

if we don’t, if we continue to support or excuse obama and the dems in congress while these policies are continued – then we are hardly better than the republicans who for 8 years have continued to tell me what a good guy bush is and how they are sure that he must have good reasons for the choices he made.

thanks for showing us an example of what needs to be done when our party goes so profoundly off track.

I find the fact that our last two chief executive officers of the government have been lawbreakers by cavalierly disregarding their oaths of office and thereby wrecking the rule of law extremely troubling. How can we survive as the preeminent world power, the sole superpower, without the rule of law? (Obviously, we can’t!)

Bruce, welcome!

So if the chances of the Obama DOJ doing anything substantive with regard to holding those who authorized and ordered torture, what about Congress?

If you had to pick one or two members of Congress to head up a select/special committee of inquiry, who would you choose?

There remain mysteries behind Obama’s blanket torture exoneration. We don’t know whether the torture occurred before or after the torture memos were written. We don’t know if endless restrictions and caveats in the memos on interrogation practices were followed or ignored. And we don’t know if any of the physicians on the scene to stop techniques as they strayed into the torture area did so. In other words, we don’t know whether any rule of law defense would be available to those who have been de facto pardoned. That is intolerable, and shows why we need complete transparency, not the partial disclosures of Obama.

Thank you Sir ! I hope this Book provides you many forums to trumpet these ideas.

I fear most of the country has now accepted the Empire mentality that seeks to bully the world for the thrill of domination,

Like that is something new, give me a break.

There was no blackmail. There was no need for it. Obama and the Democrats agreed with 90% of what Bush did. They still do.

I’m starting to think we have to accept the fact that no matter who won the last election, we’re never going to influence policy decisions, but perhaps we can at least have some influence over the evil stuff they refuse to stop doing if we all go broke and can no longer pay taxes.

3) CIA officials who went outside the law in what they did.

This is something I have been wondering about. Also those who have continued to torture in spite of Obama’s instructions otherwise. (I can’t imagine it has all stopped.)

So do these loopholes in Rahm’s and Obama’s recent statements mean that these individuals are liable to be prosecuted?

The Republicans and the Blue Dogs will never allow any of that to happen.
The political/corporate/media complex owns the process, it would take a
political earthquake to change the ground rules laid out in NSC 68.

Nicely said. Only one person has to hold the umbrella, but it protects a crowd.

I’m struggling to avoid the conclusion that Mr. Obama is or has become a Chicago machine politician who happens to speak better than the other guys in the gang. His stance here is wholly at odds with his rhetoric and public demeanor, though not with his choice of close aides, such as Rahm Emanuel.

I appreciate that Republican obstructionism is formidable. It is, no doubt, supported by the fruits of whatever informal eavesdropping on Democrats and their donors they might have acquired the last eight years. But that was obvious going in; Mr. Obama confronted it daily while running for the presidency for two years. He saw it in the Senate before that. He knew the outlines of what he was taking on and still wanted the job.

His actions in protecting the Bush crowd seem more than the absence of political courage on an issue he knew he would confront. They seem outright cowardly. The irony that he taught constitutional law at an Ivy League-peer school is lost on no one. Unlike Mr. Bush, ignorance is no excuse.

Because surely the Administration would not have knowingly set up Obama to look completely feckless and cowardly.

you mean like last summer when obama, as soon as it was clear he would have the nomination, went back on his campaign promise re telco fisa immunity – and then fed us bald faced lies about same?

why should obama and those around him think it will be any different now? are rank and file democrats willing to hold him accountable this time when we weren’t then? if not this time then when?

serious question.

I concur that Obama is too weak to challenge the intelligence community establishment.

I disagree. Obama moves quite forcibly when he wants to. Look at FISA, his budget, or Geithner’s end run around Congress. It is only when Obama (who we must remember has something like a 70% approval rating) doesn’t want to act that excuses like political weakness, etc. are invoked.

and as with any contractor, there comes the rules, parameters and specifics of that contract.

and if not a no-bid contract there would also be the initial layout of services and rules listed on the contractual bids.

at least two more documents not shared.

I think you overstate the intelligence of the White House. Their time horizon is 15 seconds or less. I think the chorus of public voices demanding an investigation will grow, but Congress will do nothign because it is still in thrall with Obama. I repeat, however, that until the nation repudiates the Empire-national security state and comes to cherish freedom with reasonable risks to virtually no-risk (the Cheney 1% doctrine)life with vassalage or serfdom to a Big Brother in the White House we will not witness any serious effort to enforce the law except against suspected terrorists with names we have difficulty pronouncing, like Boumediene.

If you read Rahm’s interpretation from his ABC appearance, there are not exceptions. The we won’t prosecute expressly applies to those who followed orders in reliance; but Rahm then cited the “no recrimination, just look forward” argument to cover other categories. That argument can apply to anyone, even though he was not expressly asked about every possible category. The Rahm interpretation arguably doesn’t leave exceptions.

So the “cowards” are really the nation.

Those senior officials you mention appear to be within the penumbra of his exoneration of the appliers of torture, though as its originators, they benefit considerably more from it.

Bush was an idiot, perhaps, but it was Cheney’s Law implemented by David Addington and the approved hires over at OLC.

Bruce — to avoid confusion when replying to a commenter, use the “Reply” at the bottom of their comment, not the “Reply” above the line with their name and commment #. The latter belongs to the previous comment.

Having been an Obama supporter,he seems to be in some sort of a “illusion funk” of some sort.Thats the best way I can describe what I see.

It seems as if Obama is taking the position that all the actions undertaken by the CIA were “policy” matters, not crimes (despite the under oath recognition of his AG that waterboarding is torture)

Does he really understand where that leaves us – the collateral damage of that kind of a public position?

The Executive Order on classification which prohibits classification of criminal acts and acts that would embarass the adminitration – means nothing if crimes are not crimes when the President decides they are ‘policy’ decisions.

Whistleblower protections for reporting criminal acts – nonexistant if the acts are redefined as policy rather than crimes (and isn’t it interesting that Thomas Tamm is being hounded and losing his savings trying to defend himself, but Yoo and Ashcroft et al get the whole resources of the DOJ to defend them for their direct participation in criminal acts.

Extraditions issues involving countries which do actually follow the CAT that we signed, and Obama is spitting on, become more problematic.

US torture cases involving police and other governmental authorities, like the Chicago Burge case, take on a new aspect when DOJ has redefined torture to exclude a whole plethora of activities, including EVEN activities that DO result in long term damage or death, if the “intent” was to “get information” for “security purposes”

Foreign countries with citizens or residents abused, in particular a country like Germany where there has been findings with respect to Kurnza and el-Masri, are put into a position where they have to either pursue cases or make it a very public position that the US is actually allowed to violate CAT at whim, just not little countries.

Intelligence sharing with with the US, and actions on US submitted info, becomes very much at issue.

Countries like Pakistan and Thailand which were heavily involved in the US torture programs face additional and continued unrest.

And on and on. Does no one sit down and consider these things? Do the patriot-torturers think these costs are worth it to the nation, as long as they save themselves?

What’s your take on the collateral fallout?

[and because I ask it as often as possible to as many as possible, do you have any take on why no one seems to ever question what happened to KSM’s two young children who were taken in the joint US/PakistaniIntel raid and who were reportedly held and interrogated by US forces and who, according to Suskind’s book, were used as threat leverage with KSM? They seem to have disappeared now, for years, after last being in US hands and no one (in Congress or the media) ever seems to even ask the first question about them or their status (or their mother’s status)

Round up the usual suspects!

If it has not been brought up by others, what are your views on Obama’s stance on torture and Nuremberg?

It’s clear many Repubs have been actively trying to distance themselves from the Bush Admin, and it is in fact a PR play in order to resurrect the false Repub “brand” as the responsible Party.

Given that most of your career has involved defending these people and policies that have directly resulted in the economic and Constitutional crises we know live with, how are we to know that your recent admirable efforts are sincere, and not simply part of PR effort to save the Repub Party?

At least in my lifetime, we did force a president from office for failing to execute the laws and obstructing justice in the name of national security. His name was Richard Nixon, and I had a hand in the impeachmnet proceedings. After the United States secured its independence, its creed was to eschew going abroad in search of monstors to destroy in favor of confining its influence to the force of example. We did not attack the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire, the Ausrian-Hungarian Empire, or the French monarchy after defeating the British. Enlightened life is thinking in matters of degree, and I think with Bush-Obama post-9/11 the nation for the first time in its history has declared every square inch of the planet is an active battlefield proper for military force and military law; and, that we are in a permanent war with international terrorism that will forever justify the President’s claim to emergency powers. The nation has never before asserted such imperial authorty as a perpetual fixture of our form of government.

How much of the difficulty in obtaining a special prosecutor or other action is driven by obstructionist Republicans/compliant Democrats, and how much is driven by the cocktail wienie set as demonstrated by Peggy Noonan and Co. on Stephanopoulos’ show yesterday? A “why he was such a nice neighborly guy you’d like to have a beer with” attitude that doesn’t want to deal with the realities?

re: obama’s action or lack thereof–
i keep thinking how long it takes to clean up a trashed, moldy, rat-infested house. months. then i think he’s only been there three months.

then i think what if he’s block-patching the plaster when you need to take out the whole wall down to the studs. make a move. rip it out. i’m not seeing a game plan that leads to anyone being held responsible for all of this. i’m seeing someone patching plaster to make it ‘look nice’ but not really fixing it.

Problem is, laws mean nothing without the will to enforce them, as we’ve learned in the last two administrations. Even the checks and balances built into the constitution means nothing if Congress is so willing to submit to the superiority of the executive branch. How do we bring this government back into balance if none of the elected officials want to go back into balance? We thought electing a constitutional law professor would be an answer, but obviously, that tactic did not work either. Is there any hope to undo all the harm to the Republic?

Do we even have a criminal justice system at all when the president and his craven chief of staff can exempt entire categories of war criminals from prosecution?

Thanks for stopping by to chat today, Mr Fein.

38 – yes, and we do know that there are extensive reports indicating the likelihood that they were tortured before the first memo, that the procedures did go beyond those authorized (something Bradbury pretty much admits in his reference to the IG report) that there have been reports of deaths (Jamadi, Priest’s reporting of a frozen to death detainee) etc.

I’m glad you called this as “de facto” pardons because I agree on that front and I think that as egregious as it all is in general, the extra cowardice of avoiding responsiblity for issuing torture pardons by instead relying on a complete corruption of DOJ to not-prosecute anyone the President doesn’t want prosecuted makes this even more disturbing.

BTW – according to this story
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..03331.html
Rice says that she ordered a DOJ Crim Div investigation. Someone who keeps his name from being too associated with the torture programs has been Chertoff, although he was one of those who took the “field trip” to GITMO in Sept of 2002. Any chance that we will ever see anything about that investigation and any reports generated by it?

Yes, although maybe cowards is an inexact description. I think it is an attitude of complacency or indifference to freedom and self-government and an overrridng craving for a riskless, hardship-free life to which everything else will be abandoned–includign freedom. Until the American people re-gain a thrill and dignity from knowing what their government is doing and directing the nation’s destiny by daily critiques of the President and Congress, the life-blood of the Constitution will remain depleted and degraded. A President’s chief mission should be to re-ignite that thrill, and confess he is fallible and needs criticism and not slavishness.

Do we even have a criminal justice system at all when the president and his craven chief of staff can exempt entire categories of war criminals from prosecution?

No.

PS: “craven” is a great word, it was bouncing around in my head this morning, and your use of the word couldn’t be more appropriate.

It is better to be feared than to be loved as a voter. We need to tell candidates for Congress that they will not receive our votes unless they make their number one priority impeaching the President or his Cabinet for failing to execute the laws, secrecy rather than transparency, or initiating wars that are not expressly demanded by Congress. That will happen only if our education system is upgraded manifold to teach youths the meaning of the Constitution and the moral imperative of preserving and strenghting the blessings of liberty in the United States to those yet to be born. A country cannot remain both free and ignorant.

Citizen Bruce Fein:

I remember your voice shouting over the airwaves during the Clinton impeachment debacle, so pardon me if I am a bit reluctant to annoint you as a direct ideological decendant of John Adams. I am concerned about leaping over the criminal Bush corporatists to assign liability to Obama and his administration for the cover-up. I would like to hear you bring the heat on the Congress to excercise it’s perogatives in these matters and force the Executive to comply…it seems to me that Obama is battling institutional forces within the government that have taken root over the last 60 years and may have been responsible for the assination of one President during that time…your remark about Obama not being in the tradition of Rosa Parks is WAAAAY over the top and casts doubt on your motives.

I did more than probably anyone else in the entire country to have Bush and Cheney both impeached and removed from office for high crimes and misdemeanors, including you!

That reply was to bonkers @ 58, I’m sure …

So, we have a DCI insistent on not pissing off agents, a President and his CoS obsessed with “programs over principles” (as Jonathan Turley put it), a DoJ that doesn’t look inclined to prosecute, and no special prosecutor. Some members of Congress were no doubt briefed in on these practices and have no interest in seeing that discussed, and the minority party will likely move to block any special investigative committee. So, Mr. Fein, where is a viable pressure point? What do you see as the best remedy around which to organize?

I need to leave. Thank you all for participating. You are all great Americans who would have been worthy of the Stamp Tax protests and Valley Forge. All great movements start as an acorn and grow to invincible oaks if the people display courage and tenacity. Let’s go for it.

Bruce Fein

A country cannot remain both free and ignorant.

We’ve still got a lot of folks willing to give it a try.

I’m still wondering if you can describe any reasons for optimism?

thank you.

ann-that one was to your 62

mr. fein–use the reply button after the commment to reply to it. you are in a time warp using the one above the number.

Citizen Bruce Fein:

Just who is this “we” you are adressing that need to strike fear into our elected representatives? It seems to me that many of the elected representatives who proudly wear the label “conservative” are those who are already fearful of voters and actively support voter suppression efforts and legal assaults on state elections like those of Norm Coleman and George W. Bush in 2000.

Pardon me if I remain skeptical of your “non-partisan” motives in these matters today.

Did you campaign and donate to their Selection in 2000? It was clear who they were even before being Selected. Was “Bush v. Gore” a travesty for Constitutional protections as well? I honestly don’t know what you did back then, so just asking for clarity’s sake, and if you did denounce all that, then right on, man!

Don’t want to re-hash the past, but personally I have some reservations with getting on the same “team” with all these Repubs that now seem concerned about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, so knowing where people stood on some of these issues in the past will help me feel better about “partnering” with some of these folks in the future.

bruce, I enjoyed your stay here at the lake, please visit again soon

thanks for coming!!
i wish more of the legal-land pups could have been here, they will regret missing this opportunity.

Thanks for your insights. FDL and others are doing a lot of work to push for transparency and accountability.

Citizen bonkers:

Right on Citizen…this voice of “non-partisan” outrage at executive power grabs does NOT ring true to the sheet music of the past.

Mr Fein, thanks for clearly describing the links between our Empire and our CIA’s gulag and torture. What began badly with our betrayal of the Phillipines after the Spanish-American War has grown worse than even Mark Twain had imagined. I hope that public pressure to try our little Eichmanns helps root out the CIA’s love affair with torture (Iran; Guatemala; Indonesia; Brazil; Honduras; El Salvador….etc).

Here in the Bay Area, we’re blessed with Yoo (those he’s run off to Chapman) and Bybee. SF’s vibrant activist community will take care of street level protests outside the Federal Courthouse here. What can attorneys scheduled to appear before Bybee do?

What procedure(s) allow attorneys to request reassignment of their cases from Judge Bybee due to his apparent moral turptitude?

Wait, he’s telling everyone here what they want to hear. Ya’ll will probably have to go have a smoke after that breathless encounter.

And just in the nick of time, Blue Texan’s new post is up: “Gingrich and GOP Anklebiters: Only Republicans are Allowed to Shake Hands with Dictators”

oops: too late. Thanks for being here and thanks for your advocacy for the Constitution over the last eight years.

Yes, I guessed that as well. I hope we have people like Fein with us for the long haul. Really. It’s just that I have my guard up since I know there’s an active movement to throw Bush/Cheney “under the bus” in order to save the Repub brand for future elections, which will lead to the same problems all over again.

I honestly am just looking for some explanation, since Fein has done some pretty ugly stuff in his past, and much of it is quite hypocritical of what he’s saying now. I can understand when people say “that was job” or “it’s gotten so bad” etc, just looking for some clarity, that’s all. Not trying to be an ass…

I ain’t buyin it.

Read the comments and think about this. A large portion of military vets(not all by any means, but more than 20%) totally believe believe that what the wing nuts and faux say is 100% truth. I have seen this same opinion on most military boards and even more offline in magazines devoted to military vets and retired military. I have no idea how this all started, but after a while one has to wonder what is going on. All of these people have had military training. I get a monthy magazine that really is more far right than JBS. It worries me a lot. The absolute hatred is beyond my understanding. The all volunteer military. What are we doing to ourselves? I served with both. Draftees and the AVA. The draftee Army was better, with a draftee military we would never haver gotten into Iraq. Bring back the draft.
http://www.military.com/news/a…..#community

Citizen Raven:

I am feelin’ some of the frustration that you have expressed in the past at the bandwagoning around here…sometimes some of our comrades get to soundin’ like back-ups for Little Richard.

Fuck em

Most of us had no intention to purchase any tickets, but here we are, none the less.

There’s an online petition at Democrats.com demanding this of Congress.

Wherever you go, there you are.

Mr. Fein needn’t be non-partisan. His facts and analysis need to be correct or critiqued. “What about that?” questions distract from Mr. Fein’s long-held opinions about presidential abuses of power.

He was a lone conservative with top legal credentials who spoke out about serial Bush administration abuses long before most Democrats. But that doesn’t mean he has to stop being a Republican or a conservative, though from his talks with Bill Moyers, I’d say he defines those affiliations differently than Cheney, Rove or Gingrich.

Thanks for dropping by and chatting, Mr. Fein.

I’d like more clarification on this. I can give you twenty examples in about 2 minutes where Bruce has been quite vigorously critical of Bush, Cheney, Addington, Yoo and all the torture apologists in the past — are you claiming that his critique is one-sided, or that he should be silent now that Obama is in office?

Brother Raven:

Yes indeed, “fuck ‘em” whether they have a sense a humor or not! And I am REALLY gettin’ tired of these youngsters who don’t remember JFK and the real monster Obama is fightin’ in this mess…Bruce Fine is a fuckin’ Reagan corporatist who happens to be jest a bit more articulate than his blue collar counterpart, Ron Paul.

One thing I didn’t get to ask, because I arrived too late, was how many other conservatives he knows who feel as he does on this issue. I imagine it’s a short list, but then I mostly go by what I see at blogs like this one and on TV.

Ask him where he was in 1968, fucking Harvard Law school. Don’t lecture me Bruce.

since Fein has done some pretty ugly stuff in his past, and much of it is quite hypocritical of what he’s saying now

maybe i don’t know what you are referring to here. would you be specific? because while i sometimes disagree with somethings i know that fein has done, i don’t know about any that seem hypocritical to me. what am i missing? thanks.

That’s a good rundown. I’ll just add the thought that if we don’t attempt to prosecute the people responsible for torture, someone else will. Someone like Spain, or some other country whose citizens we kidnapped and tortured. Do we then refuse to extradite anyone they indict, which is part of our treaty obligation under the U.N. Convention Against Torture?

What will all that mean for the advancement of civilization? Nothing good, I’m sure of that.

Citizen Hamsher:

I would like to hear your friend Bruce Fine call upon the Congress to excercise it’s power in these matters to take the pressure off Obama (or in a positive sense put it ON Obama)…his willingness to graft the crimes of the Bush administration onto Obama without recognizing the very real existential danger Obama faces with the institutional “shadow government” makes him suspect in my mind…and the remark about Rosa Parks makes everything he says suspect as far as this old white, left-winger is concerned.

The “coward” shit just adds to it.

WHY IS OBAMA ADMINISTRATION MAKING THE SAME ARGUMENT TO IGNORE OUR LAWS THAT BUSH AND CHENEY MADE TO VIOLATE THEM?

It’s not “looking to the past” to ENFORCE the LAW. Since WHEN is NOT enforcing the law an acceptable option in AMERICA? It is “ignoring the law” to choose to ALLOW LAWBREAKERS TO GO UNPROSECUTED FOR THEIR CRIMES. Since WHEN is the POLITICAL ramifications of prosecution an acceptable or relevant argument?

WHERE does President Obama draw the line when it comes to IGNORING illegal acts? Is it EVERYONE in AMERICA who broke the law during Bush’s/Cheney’s reign; or is it ONLY those who were active participants in AIDING and or ABETTING Bush and Cheney? Since WHEN is someone who aids and abets a crime not subject to CRIMINAL prosecution?

The precedents that President Obama would set in failing to hold Bush administration appointees and or employees legally accountable for their illegal actions if FAR MORE DANGEROUS TO AMERICA’S FUTURE than whatever POLITICAL COST we might pay.

How can a Constitutional Law Professor advocate IGNORING the reasons that America was founded as a NATION OF LAWS instead of a NATION OF MEN?!

President Obama is WRONG to PREVENT the prescribed enforcement of our laws. In making the argument that “we have more pressing matters to consider”, he is making the SAME ARGUMENT to IGNORE our laws that the Bush administration made to VIOLATE them. The ends DO NOT justify the means!

I think maybe the time has come to admit to ourselves and everyone else that the two party system as it relates to differences essential to maintaining our republic is dead.

All the elections do now is to redirect the money flow every now and then in the public arena. Under the table all these criminals are getting taken care of while 95% of the country sinks under the crap they’ve piled up on top of us.

Citizen Raven:

Bruce Fine and his ilk are as dangerous as the crypto-Nazis of Bush-Cheney regime…Fine provides a good look at the new socially acceptable “libertarian” ideology and I really think his remark in reference to Obama and Rosa Parks exposes this little bastard for what he is.

So are you saying if someone did not serve in Viet Nam, he is not worthy of talking to you about anything?

Nope

Citizen Ann:

No that is NOT what Raven is saying…Raven is takin Fine’s political statements about unconstitutional criminality and moral cowardice and puttin a little historical mirror up. Sorry for speakin’ for you Brother Raven but “it takes a village” so ta speak or at least a platoon.

Obama is no Rosa Parks.

He was allowed to become president for one reason: to eviscerate Social Security and give cover to the further looting of the Treasury. So far he’s doing exactly what he was chosen to do.

The kabuki of meeting with Chavez is meant to give further ammo to the right-wing so they can gin up the fires of hatred within the racist/democracy hating base that makes up the current GOP.

Obama was never meant to be the working man’s friend. He was put in place to forestall the complete radicalization or politicization of many of the middle class morons, who had consistently voted against their class interests, before it was too late and they finally saw behind the curtain.

yea, that’s it James, he was put in place. Ya’ll have fun jerkin each other off

Citizen Raven:

Jesus H. keeeRIST on a fuckin crutch…where do these folks come from??!!! I’m outta here…I gotta do battle with my non-union employer on behlf of a bunch of older folks who are bein’ run out with a kiss on the cheek and 1 month’s pay, so I don’t have time for this shit….I work the “Late Nite” FDL shift so sign on before ya go ta bed tanight…I don’t think I ken take this shit anymore taday.

Citizen James:

Jest where in the fuck do you get off talkin’ about Obama and Rosa Parks…your moral courage is NOT reflected in your rediculous remarks.

Hugh, every word right on target. Bush could rightfully claim stupidity, Obama cannot.

Thank you, Mr. Fein, for being a true patriot. We may disagree on political issues, but I have great respect for your love for the Constitution.

Nadler to press Holder on Tuesday for Special Prosecutor – from HuffPo

Sorry but Dubya does not have the right to claim stupidity either. His every action was to loot the nation of Blood & Treasure.

A new Emptywheel post is awaiting our arrival: “Alberto Gonzales’ Blackmail Notes and Jane Harman’s Support”

That appears to be the argument. Isn’t it ironic that the people who would not criticize their own President on pain of death, who have never once done so and who will find any excuse not to, are lobbing grenades at Bruce Fein, who has always been willing to criticize George Bush, for not doing enough to…criticize George Bush.

I’ve gotta admit, I find it appalling that some of our commenters don’t seem to have the common courtesy to be civil to folks who are invited guests that others want to hear. I don’t understand what it is about the words, if you don’t like the guest, get out of the thread. Go to a different thread, but don’t diss or embarrass your host by behaving like you personally own the site. Nobody is force fed here, that I know of, so it would behoove commenters to treat invited guests as we are expected to treat one another.

Bullshit, I waited until he signed off to say a word.

What the hell are you talking about

that the people who would not criticize their own President on pain of death, who have never once done so and who will find any excuse not to, are lobbing grenades at Bruce Fein,

, that’s even more buillshit. Come on Jane.

By the actions of the people, or the non-actions of the “people”,in the days, weeks, and months ahead, regarding what is, clearly, torture, this nation shall henceforth be known and judged.

The Political Class will do nothing and is confident that that is ‘enough’.

After all, this ‘political policy’, which cannot be “made” criminal, was devised, developed and executed in the name of the people of the United States of America. It was done in our names. It anticipates the will of the people and commits them to a course of actions and consequences. But the Political Class bears no responsibility because they merely ‘represent’ the people, they would not deign to presume to do the people’s thinking for them.

The Political Class comprises both “political parties”, all two of them.

They are, both parties, complicit, to greater or lesser degree, in the use and attempted cover-up of of torture, the un-Constitutional and internationally illegal use of deliberate, orchestrated, and systematic torture, however they may try to ‘parse’ or ’spin’ what the public has already come to learn, despite the intentional downplaying by some in the media. The largest body of members of the federal Political Class, the Congress, has done little or nothing, quite deliberately, in the face of the appropriation of virtually limitless power, which often, is so secret that nobody knows what it is, excepting its authors and whatever attorneys are required to screw up, as much as possible, the rule of law,the Constitution, and any means of accountability, for that particular instance, while ‘building’ toward the next.

While reasonable people, should any ever end up in Congress, might come to have stumbled over a number of reasons to suspect that untoward things were going on,during the last eight years, Congress finds itself left with but one option. They shall now have to claim that they didn’t know anything.

And then insist that they don’t want to know anything.

And that, for our sakes, the Congress has determined that the rest of us are better off not knowing anything either.

Too much is out of the bag, however, and unless the tide of things yet to break over the public awareness can, somehow, be held back, the political class had best consider that it will look very foolish indeed, as well as even more complicit, if it doesn’t start swimming in the proper direction very soon. (That is, beyond looking quite ‘inept’ as regards our current economic straits and those responsible for its apparent continuation in the guise of throwing as much unaccountable money as possible at the most deviously wealthy, among whose numbers must be included the chief suspects in the “responsible”, as in “to blame …”, part of ‘things’ and their complicit (that pesky word again) counterparts in Congress (that group, again?).

(If this ‘behavior’, this torturing of other human beings is not something to be ashamed of, then why was it ever hidden? Why must its authors be defended before the law by attorneys paid for by the government or worse, attorneys from the Department of Justice? If there is no question that this behavior, this abuse of other human beings, of power, and of trust, is actually a good thing, then a slight reworking of a few minor ‘rules’ should suffice to not only to get such persuasive behavior on the up and up, it might well result in broader approval for use and application of these tecniques among the recalcitrant everywhere, a growth-industry perhaps?

If it is so right, then why not shout it from the rooftops, that friend and foe alike may know the quality of our steel and the steadfastness of our convictions? (How’s that for bombast?)

As many of you know I’m an atheist, which I am most glad of at the moment, as I’ve only my own conscience and the qualms of those friends of mine who are willing to share such thoughts with me, to bother me.

The religious must be in an especially unpleasant and difficult quandary, however, as all subscribe, even if unofficially, to the golden rule, one hopes, and one who is not religious in any fashion imagines that, some aspects of what has happened must touch upon archetypal notions within almost any religious tradition …

It must be very difficult for some to determine right from wrong.

Is there a ‘lodestone’ of which to fashion a device to point the ‘best’ moral direction or will the crowd, so complacent in the rigor of their moral ‘values’, now discover a need of ’situational ethics’?

When George W. Bush was speaking to God on a regular basis, as was the claim in those bygone days of yore, when George reverently said that Jesus was his favorite philosopher, did any of this stuff come up?

As a atheist, I can say with some conviction that the assertion that George and God were having these little chats, was, and is, total garbage.

What doubts may assail the righteously religious?

It is to be understood that it will be deemed unreasonable and prejudicial to any semblance of honest communication to mention the terms “Crusade” or “religious war” in answering of any question here raised, as the use of these terms will demonstrate both a closed mind-set and an unsavory appeal to emotionally manipulative methodologies, or false-argument and will be treated as they deserve. “You’re either with us or against us”, is the false-argument known as “the big stick” form of compelling support. It has an ancient and dishonorable history. You may recall the last time when it was used?

Will it work again?

Reason may be the only recourse left us.

If it turns out to be valued enough.

And that’s the truth.

We are following the same decayed trajectory as the Roman and British Empires, but more on an installment plan.

Let’s all go to the Coliseum and then meet at the orgy later on. I hear they’ve got a great vomitorium just installed.

At minimum the idea of ejecting them from gov’t has to be considered. Going beyond legal limits or orders or standing policy isn’t the job of front-line people. It’s up to the other criminals to do that.

Somehow I suspect all these people still have better health care than the rest of us.

He was allowed to become president for one reason: to eviscerate Social Security and give cover to the further looting of the Treasury.

Hmmm, I don’t remember that speech.

There remain mysteries behind Obama’s blanket torture exoneration. We don’t know whether the torture occurred before or after the torture memos were written. We don’t know if endless restrictions and caveats in the memos on interrogation practices were followed or ignored. And we don’t know if any of the physicians on the scene to stop techniques as they strayed into the torture area did so. In other words, we don’t know whether any rule of law defense would be available to those who have been de facto pardoned. That is intolerable, and shows why we need complete transparency, not the partial disclosures of Obama.

I have a guess on this one, and I admit it is only a guess.
Mr. Fein said he worked on Watergate.
Well, that one took a long time to develop.
One thing after the other came out over time and it took quite a while for the momentum to grow.
I think it is growing on this issue.
My guess is Obama realizes they can’t prosecute evryone involved and that the heads that need to roll are small in number.
By clearing the decks of any possibility of prosecuting the foot soldiers, the spotlight on Yoo, Bybee, Addington and ultimately chain-chain-Cheney and Bush will continue to intensify.
If there is indeed an irresistably rising public tide then Obama can go after them “reluctantly” when it is really what he wanted all along.
He doesn’t want this to degenerate into a Dem-Rep thing and to avoid that he needs an irresitstable public wave of outrage to ride.

With Nixon, it finally got to a point that the facts did not matter as much as the fact that a large part of the country wanted him outta there and even if he was able to beat the rap he still would have had to resign.

I think it is possible this is the sort of thing Obama is angling for. He may feel if he gets out in front and aggressively calls for prosecution, it will look too much like partisan politics.
But by releasing these memos and forcing prosecutors to fish or cut bait with trials, at the same time they are looking into it in Congress, Obama can let things develop without him being a cheerleader.
He may see trying the scalawags as inevitable and wants to be seen as not actively pushing it because he believes things will develop i.e. more releases of documents that will bring about what a lot of us want.