The number one thing I am pissed off about this month, right after NBC's Olympics coverage, is the disappeared John Yoo emails, which could probably shed a lot of light on how the previous administration created policies to torture people. This is such an unbelievable scandal, both on the issue of torture but also of government accountability. Pretty much, as a nation, everything should come to a standstill until this is dealt with. This morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee asked Gary Grindler, Acting Deputy Attorney General, about the emails, and got total mumbling in response. This is like, pitchforks and subpoenas and prosecution time, people. There are extremely explicit rules about this kind of thing, and in light of the Bush administration email-disappearing shtick, in which everyone had to go to court over and over again simply to get what should have been carefully-conserved White House emails, was bad enough. But these are actual lawyers, at the actual Department of Justice, who have engaged in disappearing critical emails.
Friday, February 26, 2010
28
"Pretty much, as a nation, everything, after healthcare, should come to a standstill until this is dealt with." AGREED!
Oh! For once I agree with Representative Abe's friendly amendment. Duly seconded.
as if theissen and cheney flying about on leathery wings trying to scare the fuck out of everyone wasn't enough proof... ...aghghh...fuushitferfucsakes.....
i just had a rage stroke.
After healthcare, and after making sure the government cheese warehouses are topped off.
will be done in reconciliation!
Lawyers? Acting shady?
Yes. This. All of it. *storms off to scrub bathroom in a rage*
Rage-scrubbing is the best kind of scrubbing.
Just ask Joan Crawford.
I think procrastination scrubbing is better, but I am unsure.
Nothing gets the grout cleaner than a good rage scrub.
Melancholy-scrubbing begs to differ. (The secret ingredient is despair!!!)
Cinderella style. I can dig it.
"I'm not mad at the DIRT... I'm mad at Yoo!"
You know, Choire, when you lay down this sort of righteous anger, I get totally turned on. Maybe if you had a cigarette sticking out of your trousers...
I've been sharpening my pitchfork for the better part of 4 maybe 5 years now. I'm sooooo ready for this.
John Yoo is 42. Bybee, Addington, Haynes and Feith are all in their fifties.
European lawyers are no more forgetful or less patient than the US Justice Department's who waited for 30 years for Polanski to wander into the right territory.
Also, the outrage over this should really go hand in hand with this complete affront
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2010/01/hbc-90006368
as indicative of a government that at so many levels just doesn't feel it necessary to be held to account anymore which, in its seeming increasing pervasiveness, is SCARILY bordering on the kind of behavior we sanction other places for. But that people seem more upset about Julia Mancuso's ski run being cut early.. well... government we deserve I guess (??)
The only thing more outrageous than that Scott Horton's Guantanamo story is that it seems to have no legs whatsoever. I really don't get it.
God, I agree so much. Even NPR, which I COUNT on to bubble stuff like this up, did a short bit on it and it didn;t really seem to hook. Meanwhile, Science Friday's polar bears mating with grizzlies thing has got the phone bank on fire.
Then again, "something in Harper's doesn't have legs" is like a bumper sticker or something.
Considering it took 50 years for all of the WW2 communications to be declassified, I'm betting we're looking at a similar timeline. FOIA or not, this is going to be another one of those "everyone involved has to be dead before we're telling you anything" situations.
The Justice Department or Congress could investigate the disappearance of the e-mails without declassifying anything.
Wake me when he writes an overly long and inane profile of a smart young media figure.
HA!
If we the people choose to play don't-ask-don't-tell with our elected representatives, then we the people will have to accept the consequences of their actions. You know, those consequences that take things away from us, or empty our wallets, or go bang. I don't understand why we aren't there yet, but that whole "Pretty much, as a nation, everything should come to a standstill until this is dealt with" sentiment (which I agree with whole-heartedly) didn't kick in after the financial meltdown either. I'm now genuinely fascinated by what it will take for we the people to become we the people in the streets with pitchforks and subpoenas.
Two-bit fall guys notwithstanding, the fact is if anyone makes any serious gestures in a prosecutorial direction as regards detainee mistreatment, a considerable fraction of the popluace will flip their shit so hard the Higgs boson will be found. This is just one of those matters we're going to have to leave to future historians, and get on with our lives. Don't know any Rwandans? Well you didn't know the guy in the trunk either.
It ain't just the Yoo e-mails. It's the e-mails pertaining to pretty much every damn Bush-era scandal except the illegal warrantless wiretapping, and maybe even that.