From RAW’s coverage of Cheney’s upcoming “interview” on Fox in which the war criminal continues his public defense/deception on his use of illegal torture against detainees [emphasis ours]:
Just prior to that moment, according to the transcript, Cheney also says: “The fact of the matter is the lawyers in the Justice Department who gave us those opinions had every right to give us the opinions they did. Now you get a new administration and they say, well, we didn’t like those opinions, we’re going to go investigate those lawyers and perhaps have them disbarred.”
I don’t believe I’ve seen any noteworthy discussion about disbarring any torture lawyers in the public domain other other than from VelvetRevolution.us’ DisbarTortureLawyers.com campaign [Disclosure: The BRAD BLOG is co-founder of VR], and certainly not from the Obama Administration, with which we have no relation…not by a long shot.
So, unless I’m wrong, it seems we (VR) have succeeded in getting Cheney’s attention, at least.
Good. Let’s hope they’re all disbarred for the shameful example they’ve proven to be to both their country and their profession.
But disbarring Cheney’s torture attorney stooges is hardly enough, of course. And no doubt, that’s why he’s kicking back into full save-his-ass mode this weekend, in light of Holder’s announced torture probe following the release of the CIA Inspector General’s devasting torture report [PDF] and more CIA docs said coming on Monday. Yes, it’s another full media blitz from the Cheneys, as both he and Mary Liz will be making appearances on the Sunday Shows this weekend where Republican Insiders are allowed full, unfettered access to our public airwaves, allowed to lie with impunity, with the assurance that nobody will counter or fact-check them, and where they will even be able to refer to stories they’ve previously planted in major papers via “anonymous sources” as proof of the case they will make. (See both Greenwald and Wheeler today on how WaPo has now completely discredited itself, Judith Miller-style, once and for all).
So with Cheney defending his stooge lawyers, and on full-throated Orwellian attack yet again against Team Obama’s so-far pathetic baby step towards accountability, I’m reminded, for some reason, of the scene from Rambo in which he’s been captured, detained, tortured, and shackled, before being allowed by his captors to radio back to his base to prove he’s being held by the enemy, but is still alive. With everything absolutely stacked against him, he asks to speak to the man on his own team who, as it turns out, turned traitor to allow him to be captured in the first place, leading to one of the great twists in 80’s action film history.
The quick scene follows. Replace “Murdock” with “Cheney,” and Rambo with me, and that’s a little bit of how I’m feeling this afternoon…
Brad, I think you meant to write “both he and LIZ will be making appearances on the Sunday Shows this weekend”
Mary Cheney doesn’t defend her father much 🙂
Go get ’em Rambo!
Whoops. Thanks, John. I noticed that error just after I published, but got distracted before remembering to correct! Have done so now.
I heard Larry Beinhart exclaiming disbarment is at least in order on Electric Politics yesterday….
They said a lot more in that hour and twenty minutes worth listening to and thinking about, but it’s very clear the real public sentiment is on the side of prosecution, even when they want to water it down this way or that way, still are too befuddled by the ugliness of it all.
But, man, we’ve gotta go a lot farther than disbarment! For real. It’s the goddam law. We have to stop thinking about all the excuses and the poll numbers, whether they’re skewed or not, and just wake the hell up, stay awake, get this stuff handled.
Or we’re not America.
Or we’re not America.
Actually, the initiation of disbarment proceedings against Jay Bybee raises an intriguing possibility. It would be a little difficult for Congress to continue to evade its impeachment responsibility if Bybee were to face charges before his state bar association.
In the meantime, Bybee, the author of extralegal sophistries designed to provide quasi-legal cover for a decision to torture that was made well in advance of the tortures, sits on a federal court of appeals, passing judgment on others.
How sick is that?
The sack of shit Cheney and other treasonous lying murderers were directly resposible for the staged military event on 9-11 AND TRUTH WILL EVENTUALLY COME OUT. ACHITECTS AND ENGINEERS CAN GET ALL AMERICAN AND WORLD PEOPLE INFORMATION ABOUT HOW THE 3 WORLD TRADE TOWERS WERE BOMBED TO THE GROUND HERE AT: http://www.ae911truth.org
Former arms contractor oil man Dick Cheney was the worst greedy fcking loser anti-environmental ass wipe when Vice President who used this country’s resources and power for his own means and that of all the other worthless New World Order Illuminati bankers, oil and coal industrialists, and those in the Military Industrial Congressional Complex.
He used lies and deception every step of the way using the Carl Rove propaganda machine tool know as the U.S. corporate mass media. He evoked illegal use of the Executive state’s secrecy every step of the way to cover-up any legitimate investigation turning a cracked open government into one based on “their” neo-con spin perspective ONLY.
Illegal use of TORTURE like illegal use of surveillance of Americans, or giving his super rich banker friends their increased power of debt enslavement only to get their money back after help destroy America are only small indescretions compared to sacrificing 3000 Americans on 9-11 just to get people behind their “war on terror” campaign.
I WILL DESTROY YOU AND YOUR PEOPLE WITH MY WORDS.
Next thing you know we’ll be hearing that the prisoners at guantanamo bay had their organs harvested against their will. Oh wait, nevermind, that’s already happened in Gaza. I guess that’s not important tho since I’m just some right wing anti-semitic troll even though I’ve been reading this blog since 2003 or so, and voted for Cynthia McKinney in the last presidential election.
http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=8390&lg=en
Give me a break! Glenn Greenwald presented a much more comprehensive take-down of Cheney and the WaPo’s weak regurgitation of Cheney-speak than the Bradblog ever could have.
A taste…
The Washington Post’s Cheney-ite defense of torture
[ed note: Comment edited for format and length. I agree Greenwald did a right fine job today, Styve, but you don’t have to give such a big taste, when the link itself will do nicely, especially when it’s Greenwald. –99]
As they say…”don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back!”
I find the partisan crying absolutely ridiculous.
After hearing every AMERICAN (none actually, or perhaps 1) secretly picked up while lofting daisies from their derriere and residing in gulag gitmo in agony for years deserves to be treated like a human being, to the countless thousands picked apart and skin peeled by Cheney and his master Illuminati forces of the 33+ degree – it turns out when the hated crew quietly told all of us EXACTLY 3 terrorists had been waterboarded, they weren’t fudging that number, but they failed to tell us how many times each of the 3 was DUNKED IN THE SWIMMING POOL – like ALL OF YOU DID to your little brother or sister.
Yes, it’s absolute insanity and ridiculous – but that’s what we have now in the USA, a bunch of insane fools.
I can understand if you’re full blown 100% INSIDE JOB – but then that’s not the argument made even if you are.
It’s another lunatic sensationalist spree by sissified crybaby 68’ers who cannot begin to fathom 10,000 dead Americans in one day on one beach in WW2.
I don’t agree with any of this crazy torture talk. Much worse happens in ONE SKIRMISH and it’s aftermath on any portion of the battlefield than ALL THE YEARS of Gitmo , and the truth is the prisoners TORTURE our soldiers with their excrement, foul vulgarities, and in one case the smashed skull of a female serviceperson the enemy had “gained the trust of” before caving her head in. You don’t hear about that much, and if the people doing this idiot flyspeck parade made into a federal case circus did, they wouldn’t believe it anyway.
Personally, a sane view would be nice, but that is far too much to ask for nowadays. I’d just like to see any of these complainers spend 10 minutes with any of these gitmo detainees – even before they were “randomly picked up” while tooting daises from their derrieres.
What a JOKE the USA has become, a sad, pathetic, lying, sick, partisan kookballfest JOKE.
Sorry Brad…I just think you take a bit too much credit for the work you do, without acknowledging others who have done the groundwork for things you report on.
You might also want to refrain from the Jethro-dialect, “right fine” – sounds ignant, if you know what I mean…B0CF4
[ed note: I took the trouble to make your comment stop looking like a piece of crap, and to sign my editor’s note, so don’t y’all go giving Brad the credit for that, now, y’hear? –99]
Senator Bob Bennett invited Karl Rove to come and stump for him in Utah Friday. He was perpetuating the lie that waterboarding has stopped terrorism and slams Obama for not using it.
Here is a great article written by a Utah opinion writer here mentioning Siegelman and telling Bennett’s opponents to watch out, saying:
Of course this is just opinion, not real news. 🙂
Why do we think that Cheney and Liz got out in front of this in the first place?
So that the truth wouldn’t catch on and send the story spiraling into places where they don’t want it to go of course.
Iffin yer gonna rewrite history, ya have to do that. 😉
I think the embedding on that video has been removed.
Dick Cheney this morning on Faux News Sunday with Chris Wallace said;
He said it several times in response to Wallace asking about the torture probes. He was trying to politicize the process and put the onus on the WhiteHouse. Never mind that the Attorney General of the United States is the actual chief law enforcement officer, not the President.
Chris Wallace didn’t challenge or correct Cheney either time he made that silly lying remark. Wallace just allowed that piece of disinformation to go uncorrected or unchallenged.
But then that’s Faux new’s purpose…disseminating disinformation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etoyumdyRS4
That video above, is the difference between leftwing rhetoric vs. rightwing rhetoric. Rightwing rhetoric is “eliminationist”, meaning get rid of the opponenet, don’t work with them, even joke about KILLING them, which we have plenty of proof of.
The leftwing, THIS IS ABSENT!!! This type of hate speech.
We were having this discussion with some commenters here, and they said things like they took ONE snippet of Mike Malloy and generalized that “leftwing hate is as bad as rightwing hate”.
I said otherwise.
I ALSO said, by DOING THAT, they’re RATIONALIZING their hate speech!!!
Watch that video!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My point is: we can’t sit by and let people post that leftwing speech is just as hateful as rightwing…AND REMAIN SILENT ABOUT IT!
BECAUSE THAT IS FALSE!!!!!!!!!!!!
Racism, bigotry, joking about killing, etc….CLOSE TO 100% FROM THE RIGHTWING!
PERIOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You know the scam that they say the liberal media is liberal…and it isn’t?
Well, it’s the same thing saying leftwing speech is hateful as rightwing…THE SAME TACTIC!
And we can’t remain silent about it. If you ignore it, you may as well just say you agree with them.
Guns at Town Hall meetings, etc…ALL FROM THE RIGHT! PERIOD!!!
why does Dr. evil slither out of his hole into public to cheer for torture, then slither back in?
Who told CIA/Blackwater to waterboard KSM
183 freakin’ times!!
in one month!
So what, the tapes were destroyed, big deal. What we want are the TRANSCRIPTS. What questions were these enhanced interregators asking poor Kalid? About upcoming plots? Maybe. More like getting him to verify most of their 9/11 fairy tale. A large part of the Commissions whitewash is based on KSM “confessions”. Also we know dick wanted him to connect Sadaam w/AQ.
Styve –
I note Cheney’s comments about disbarring attorneys, as a likely reference to the VR campaign, as it’s the only one that I know of that is calling for that.
As to the other business (the planted news story in the WaPo) perhaps you didn’t notice, but I linked to/cite both Glenn Greenwald and Marcy Wheeler on that in my article above.
Don’t know what else to tell you, other than yes, those “ed note” replies to your comments here were from Agent 99. But she appears to have done a ‘right fine’ job of it.
SiliconDoc @ 8 laughed at the Constitution and took the side of criminals, and noted:
What “partisan” anything are you talking about? We’re talking about the Rule of Law and the Constitution. For example, Ronald Reagan’s signing statement on the UN Torture Treaty in which he said there are no special circumstances that would allow for torture, and that all states a party to the treaty shall either prosecute torturers or extradite them to other countries that will prosecute tortures.
We’re talking about George W. Bush who, in the moments before the Iraq War went on television to warn Iraqis that War Crimes would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and that “just following orders” would not be an excuse.
We’ve covered both of those points, and much more, many times here on The BRAD BLOG. As I’m about to go on the air, I don’t have time to go back and find the URLs for you, but a search here (or elsewhere) should help you out, and hopefully remind you what it is your country stands for, since clearly, you’ve lost your way…if you ever had one.
The “liberal media” hires Bush’s daughter:
George W. Bush’s daughter Jenna hired by NBC
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/08/30/today-show-hires-jenna-hager-bushs-daughter/
Brad and 99…
That’s cool and sorry I was railing.
What about the Cheney spawn pulling a Cheney?!
Peace~
Clearly, this apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree. What drives me crazy is that Fudd and members of the Fudd clan get any media coverage at all. Of course, it points directly at the true agenda of media ownership, and so we should take the warning from it, but it still just drives me nuts.
Gos @ 6 blathered:
I don’t believe anybody ever accused you of being right wing.
I don’t think you need to explain yourself, darlin’…’cause y’all been doin’ a right fine job here for long enough.
Good luck goin’ after the prince of darkness, Brad. Bring the handcuffs.
Dots connected.
This bastard Cheney sold out US forest land owned by all Americans to mining interests as well as multiple policies of lowering health standards and enviro laws. He got a lot of help with the 109th Congress and continued his reign with G W Bushit until their 2 Presidential terms they stolen finally ended. Then they sold out oil permits in our coast-land oceans further with their record of ecosystem destruction.
Also screwed the whales over by allowing deadly sonar experiments where they breed so the navy could practice their war exercises like the rest of the ocean isn’t a big enough area.
I wish Cheney would read this and agree to get into a boxing ring with me so I can bash his lying murderous head in who is responsible for the killing of thousands.
Are legal opinions Law? Is it legal to use a “legal opinion” as substance to carry out or enforce law?
IBETT
Sue
No. And, no. In many instances people act on the basis of legal opinions, with a reasonable expectation that it means their actions will be in accord with law, but, no, legal opinions are not law and acting on the basis of legal opinions that were rendered in bad faith and/or incompetently is not legal. The more outrageous the “basis” for the opinion, the harder it is to defend such actions in court.
In this case, in America, the bogus legal opinions that sought to untorturize torture are prima facie bad faith efforts to try to trick people into thinking criminals aren’t criminal and shouldn’t be prosecuted. They’re banking on the people being too stupid, and the authorities too pusillanimous to call them on it.