Open Thread

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They Were Not Following Orders

Reputed mad man Serbian ex-President Milan Milutinovic has been acquitted on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Kosovo by a UN war crimes tribunal. He was ordered released from custody.

Haven't you wondered how Bush II could be guilty of intensively complicated robber baron schemes when he has such a difficult time with the Queen's english?

I think this paragraph from the article expresses my summation of the Bush II regime:

Five former top Serbian officials were found guilty on some or all the charges relating to the 1990s conflict. Their sentences range from 15 to 22 years.
...

The court found that the 66-year-old, who led Serbia from December 1997 to December 2002, had no direct control over the Yugoslav army.

(BBC News). In other words, Bush II was told to say "I am the decider" and he dutifully did so.

Even though he really wasn't. The military oil complex was the real decider.

Inhofe, Beavis, & Butthead Need Waders

The unexpected discovery of the fact of the acceleration of the melt of the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet has major side effects:

"That has a very large impact," Allison said, adding that extremely large storms which might previously have occurred once in a year would start to occur on a weekly basis.

(ABC News, italics added). We need not think long to imagine what it would be like to have a Katrina annually or even more frequently. After all, we haven't recovered from the last one yet.

Add to that a possible 5ft or more rise in ocean levels, and we have catastrophe in our future.

Nobel Prize winner and Economics Professor Paul Krugman said recently after hearing Jindal's rebuttal to President Obama's address to congress that the GOP is becoming the party of Beavis & Butthead. Perhaps GOP Senator Inhofe can take some of the blame for that. He infamously said:

As I said on the Senate floor on July 28, 2003, "much of the debate over global warming is predicated on fear, rather than science." I called the threat of catastrophic global warming the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people," a statement that, to put it mildly, was not viewed kindly by environmental extremists and their elitist organizations.

(Real Climate). Yes, it is a bit extreme to call the warnings of the greater scientific community "the greatest hoax".

The history of climate science, as well as the history of climate science denial, which infected Inhofe, is presented in this [Ecocosmology Blog post] that has a video of a university professor giving a lecture on the subject.

Here Come The Torture Investigations

Several sources are reporting that Senators Leahy and Whitehouse, of the Senate Judiciary Committee, will commence investigations into the Bush II regime's use of torture.

Who knows where that will lead, but some of the talk is that it will be a trickle down investigation. Meaning that the top echelons will be looked at first. That would include professor Yoo and judge Bybee.

Yoo has been embedded in the "liberal" University of California at Berkeley, and Bybee has been embedded in the "liberal" Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for life.

They wrote the infamous "torture is ok" memos, which were thereafter classified, so no one could see them.

Those memos approved of and tried to give legal authority to the president's right to torture detainees. Detainees who are American citizens and those who are not citizens.

We wrote about the "I was following orders" syndrome a while back.

Let the justice begin.

UPDATE: Note that we criticized investigations that only produce more words, and we agree with Speaker Pelosi that immunity from criminal prosecution is less than desirable.

And we point out that both Leahy and Whitehouse were prosecutors, Pelosi was not. They know that some immunity to witnesses will be necessary before anyone goes to jail.

So we give a little bit of deference to Leahy and Whitehouse because they know the difficulty of this type of criminal prosecution. And we defer to Pelosi for demanding jail time in every instance we can get them there.

All that having being said, the truth of the greatest crime spree in the history of American government must become a part of our history text books. At a minimum.

Again, let the justice begin.

Foggy Mountain Boyz Out To Watergate

We have posted articles concerning spookiness here, here, and here in the recent past.

Just to prove that history means little to nothing to some of them, the CIA boys rented front offices at the infamous Watergate and showed the Nixon boyz a thing or two about corruption.

The sentencing process for the deputy ring leader Dusty Foggo has drummed up some more dirty laundry very recently.

What set this up was that the CIA director at the time, Porter Goss, who had left his republican partners in the House, came over to CIA and was going to "clean it up". Heh heh heh.

He ended up at Foggy's Watergate place filled with wine, gambling, and high cost prostitutes.

Goss did an infamous Friday night resignation and disappeared into the dusty fog of bushie hysterics and history. And the CIA was left as clean as it ever had been before Goss and Foggy showed up.

But that is the way the cookie crumbles when the gambling at Foggy's Watergate had been rigged to let certain ones win. And when those certain ones won they got a free prostitute.

And you got notice of lots of pictures of your bed and gambling business so they could control what you did from then on. Blackmail by the good guyz, for the good guyz, and of the good guyz is what they call it.

Evidently during all that effort to protect Americans from bad guys, some of the photos got lost, or some of the hookers talked, or some other spies were spying on those spies ... who knows for sure ... but the frolic and wine hit the fan.

Hence, Friday night resignations and jail time.

Hey, just another example of taxpayer dollars being used for maximum bang for the luck.

UPDATE: Some people in congress were targets of surveillance which was used to further the ambitions of the spy. Sounds like someone graduated from the J. Edgar Hoover school of political blackmail.

Common Sense and Marbury v Madison

Today marks the 206th year since the world famous Marbury v Madison case was decided.

If a nation's statutes are governed by a constitution that guides those statutes toward the betterment of the nation, then the betterment of the nation will depend on the legal hermeneutics (a.k.a textual interpretation) of that constitution.

The Marbury case made it crystal clear this means that "betterment" will depend on what judges say the constitution says.

In that light it is an every day occurrence for a common citizen to read the text of the constitution and say "it says thus and such", and for that citizen's lawyer to respond "actually it says what the judge says it says".

And that is where the rubber meets the road. The famous Marbury case has a common sense foundation:

It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each.

(Marbury v Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803), italics added). A federal district judge in San Francisco is tasked with that problem at the moment. In Hepting v AT&T these issues are currently being litigated.

In a case that concerns what is called "immunity", the congress passed a bill allowing the DOJ to, in effect, give retro-active immunity to telephone companies that helped Bush II get access to all of your phone and email records without a warrant. Contra the 4th Amendment of our Constitution.

Bush II said he needed to know all about you to protect you, and therefore he asked congress to give DOJ the power to give the phone companies retroactive immunity. Because they gave your records to Bush II illegally.

Why Bush II did not simply pardon the telecoms is a mystery, because that act would have ended the matter.

Perhaps Bush II was tired of taking all the blame and wanted congress to share the blame load? Who knows.

Then senator, and now President, Obama voted for that statute to the chagrin of many civil rights activists (me included). Now his Attorney General, Eric Holder, is supporting the statute as did Bush II Attorneys General.

Federal Judge Walker has ordered the parties in the telecom immunity cases, including AG Holder, to explain why that statute does not violate, among other things, the separation of powers doctrine.

The basis of the order stems in part from a 1944 Supreme Court ruling which requires a statute to clearly define the bounds of performance of the administration of that statute so as to constitutionally delineate legislative will from administrative will:

[T]he only concern of courts is to ascertain whether the will of Congress has been obeyed. This depends not upon the breadth of the definition of the facts or conditions which the administrative officer is to find but upon the determination whether the definition sufficiently marks the field within which the Administrator is to act so that it may be known whether he has kept within it in compliance with the legislative will.

(Walker's Order, 2/11/09), quoting from Yakus v United States, 321 US 414, 425 (1944)).

Judge Walker ordered the parties to further brief the court and to answer the following question:

Does the retroactive immunity statute give the DOJ unfettered authority, thereby, in effect giving it the power to make law - which is the sole province of the legislative branch of government?

(ibid). In essence congress can't say to the president, "you make the laws", and if it did so in this retroactive immunity case, then that statute is unconstitutional.

In the final analysis, Judge Walker must decide not whether anyone or any company is above the law, but whether or not congress can lift them that high.

Brad Blog's Popcorn Machine Emptied

Removed for new posts ...

Not-So-Free Press Files Bankruptcy

The rumors are that a number of publishers of newspapers will have to file bankruptcy in this economic storm.

This storm we can't seem to get a handle on as to its depth and its width and its dangers.

Some significant newspapers have already taken the plunge and are struggling to avoid a Chapter 11 becoming a Chapter 7.

Read about the danger to newspapers in the US in general at our news links where we link to the Newsosaur.

You need to.

Because you need to realize how important the free internet is going to become.

It is now or soon will be the real and true FREE PRESS.

Keep on bloggin' in the free world.

Whole Truth Is Nothing But The Truth

We can play child games and argue about whether or not a half-truth is a lie or whether it is ok because it is some of the truth.

But when a nation is in economic death throes because the truth was deliberately and officially not told, only the whole truth and nothing but the truth will do.

Our survival, yes, our national security depends on it.

That is why the Bush Truth Commission is such a vital organ in the movement to cleanse our national history. To cleanse our national conscience.

When we control our national history with the whole truth and nothing but the truth we are in supreme position not to have to repeat the mistakes of our grossest criminal leaders.

Think Judge John Sirica when you think of American heroes, and think of neoCons when your think of the destroyers of American tradition.

Big Bad Bard Blog Lies In Wait

Post removed to make room for the new ...

Open Thread

Keep on bloggin' and rockin' in the free world.