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Senator Joe Biden appeared on This Week today and made his positions on the CIA torture tape scandal very clear. Biden says he he not only thinks the destruction of the CIA tapes constitutes obstruction of justice, he believes the scandal goes straight to the White House. He also makes it clear that he doesn't trust Attorney General Michael Mukasey and calls for an independent special prosecutor to take over the case.

Senator Biden also lays out some truth about Bush's rhetoric on Iran and their now-defunct nuclear weapons program. Links for that video below.

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68 comments

If Mukasey doesn't appoint a Special Prosecutor...its time to start asking what the Federalist Society promises got out of Mukasey.

We ought to just get rid of the CIA all together. Torture is the least of what they do.

Why a special counsel? So the Dems can look for another excuse to wag their fingers without actually doing anything?

Faux News Opinion Poll, 12-08-2007

Please vote:

What did Jesus mean when he said, “Turn the other cheek”?:

A. Slap the detainees so hard that their heads swivel like Saddam Hussein bobblehead dolls.

B. Use your good ear while illegally eavesdropping.

C. Be sure to get plenty of naked buttocks pictures of detained enemy combatants.

Every new scandal brings another congressman or senator out to call for special prosecutors, investigation, etc. The boy who cried wolf got old months ago. This isn't even a story. Nobody cares and nobody's going to do anything.

Apparently some repubs agree:

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), also appearing on the program, said there was “no justification” for either carrying out torture practices or destroying the tapes. “Burning tapes, destroying evidence, I don’t know how deep this goes,” Hagel said. “Could there be obstruction of justice? Yes. How far does this go up in the White House, who knew it? I don’t know.”

Wasn't it obstruction of justice when the White Horse Souse destroyed 10 Million emails? Or when Jack Abramoff Demanded Bush fire the U.S. Attorney in Guam? Oh nevermind. Impeachment is off the table, nuking Iran for Israel is on the table, and the sun will rise.

Well good for Joe Biden. So, what about his agenda from last week?
Last Sunday he was telling us all that Bush should be impeached and that was the last any of us heard about it.
By next Sunday he'll probably have moved onto another issue without doing anything about this torture tape item.
Quit running your mouth and actually do something for a change Joe.
He talks a big fight but I have yet to see him actually make a fist.
God forbid he might mess up his hair.
No wonder his ratings are in the tank.

I'm about ready to vote independant.

"This is the Nixon Administration without the competence."

That was awesome.

Most recent headline from Biden's web site:

12/05/07 Senators Announce Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention Resolution

Biden forgot to say "pretty please, with sugar on top?" Ach..Doesn't matter...Nothing will happen.

C'mon, the whole system is corrupt - Republican & Democrat. Harmon, Pelosi, Rockefeller - all knew about torture back and these tapes in '03 and approved. It's hopeless until we get some men and women of conscience in the political process.

This is what it takes for a special prosecuter...pahleeeze......!

Oh shit, the Dems are really steamed now. They're going to stop talking about appointing a committee to investigate the usefulness of angrily waving their fists in the air, and they're really going to get that committee up and running. By the time that Bush retires to his private land in whatever country with no extradition treaty with the USA that he bought a while back, the Dems are going to be ready to angrily wave their fists for real. That'll show the bastards!

The excuses for not doing a fricking thing about this murderous, fascist administration are getting so old they have mold on them.

We are fucked. This country is fucked. Stop listening to these million dollar hair jobs. They might have to break a sweat. They will never kill the goose (corporations) that laid the golden egg.

I'm getting so sick of this sh*t. Talk talk talk, cave cave cave, that's all they do. I have lost faith in the Dems completely, they are exactly what I've been told they are my entire life but just didn't want to believe...Spineless wussies. I mean I cannot for the life of me believe how much crap Bush has gotten away with! And the only thing they do is talk about "doing something" or write a stupid letter, jesus. A Dem president couldn't get away with 10 percent of it.

Did he vote to confirm Mukasey?

foolme1ns @ 15:

Did he vote to confirm Mukasey?

No. He said he did not.

When are the democrats going to charge administration officials past and present with contempt of congress??? When are they going to do a god damned thing????

Even better would be appoint a special prosecutor to go after Bushes Cronies and Buddies who are looting our life savings.

L.A. Confidential @ 18:

Even better would be appoint a special prosecutor to go after Bushes Cronies and Buddies who are looting our life savings.

They ain't a goin' to loot mine. I took all $13.42 out of savings and put it in my bra!

Seriously, the way the middle class has been destroyed makes me think it was the plan. Cause without us there is a banana republic. Capitalism run amok.

Pink Floyd's, "Animals" is as topical today as the day it was recorded.

Biden is awesome. I trust his mind and his instincts. he's got it right.

Stephie is a weasel...notice how his "questions" emphasized how low Biden is in the phoney polls and questions like that to deflate Biden and tear him down...god!

The last person the repugs would like to be up against is Biden, because he's not fucking insane like they are and the last thing they want is someone who would snap this country back to sanity like a REAL statesman.

"this is a Nixon administration without the competence"

And boy am I thankful they are incompetent, the way this country sleeps through our darkest hours if this administration wasn't a bunch of buffoons America would already be done, with no hope. But I think, and lucky for us, these idiots never thought it would happen like this and they didn't have a proper plan to deal with it (or they had a plan, PNAC, and couldn't stick to it.) but I am grateful that they were not smart enough to pull it off without a hitch!

Manila Ryce @ 2:

We ought to just get rid of the CIA all together. Torture is the least of what they do.

thats what got jfk murdered!

I just saw the headline on CNN.com that: Four people shot outside church - I remember George Carlin years ago on HBO coining the phrase "Disgruntled Worshipers" and now there actually are disgruntled worshipers. I'm sorry, I know it's tasteless, and I don't blame you if you delete this posting, but I just get a kick when I see life imitate art.

Ozymandias @ 9:

"This is the Nixon Administration without the competence."

That was awesome.

And ladies and gentlemen, this line says so much!

I would laugh if it didn't just make me want to cry. How can we save our country from these blovating gingriches?

Jeon Ji-Yung @ 12:

Oh shit, the Dems are really steamed now. They're going to stop talking about appointing a committee to investigate the usefulness of angrily waving their fists in the air, and they're really going to get that committee up and running. By the time that Bush retires to his private land in whatever country with no extradition treaty with the USA that he bought a while back, the Dems are going to be ready to angrily wave their fists for real. That'll show the bastards!

Actually, the resolution to establish a committee to investigate the usefulness of angrily waving their fists in the air is tied up in committee. The Republicans on the committee are all voting against it, and the Dems can't agree on whether they should investigate waving their fists clockwise or counter-clockwise ... and some of them think that fist-waving is too severe. They say that a disapproving scowl would be enough.

yeah, Biden does well with the one-liners, but it seems strictly for the cameras and never directed against the real problem, fellow traveler  dems. When I see him call out difi or cupajoke or ourmormon, then I might believe he is more than hot air. Remember, he voted for the invasion and for the patriot act.

Jo @ 19:

L.A. Confidential @ 18:

Even better would be appoint a special prosecutor to go after Bushes Cronies and Buddies who are looting our life savings.

They ain't a goin' to loot mine. I took all $13.42 out of savings and put it in my bra!

Seriously, the way the middle class has been destroyed makes me think it was the plan. Cause without us there is a banana republic. Capitalism run amok.

It is the plan. It's called transferring of wealth. They are taking everything people gained from the Clinton Boom years and putting in into their own coffers. They are hitting everyone else also. In every way imaginable. Everyday prices are going higher and higher and higher.

Huh. Gingriches. A breed you'd keep tied up in your yard.

john in california @ 27:

yeah, Biden does well with the one-liners, but it seems strictly for the cameras and never directed against the real problem, fellow traveler  dems. When I see him call out difi or cupajoke or ourmormon, then I might believe he is more than hot air. Remember, he voted for the invasion and for the patriot act.

Look, they never go after someone in their own party. He was pretty damn concise in the Nov debate. Many dems, including Biden were snowed in the early Iraq fiasco and have 'come to' since, including Biden. (never mind WE saw through it immediately, which was astonishing how stupid and dull they were, because it is their JOB to know).

I say dump the entire lot of them... the whole system ...that's what I'm going for.

crazytown @ 29:

Huh. Gingriches. A breed you'd keep tied up in your yard.

Better yet, GinGRINCHes. I wouldn't touch them with a 39 1/2 ft pole. If you own this breed, have it neutered and quarantined immediately.

So Joe, do you still think Gonzo was the real deal? Just wondering.

impeach the reasonphobes now

L.A. Confidential @ 28:

Jo @ 19:

L.A. Confidential @ 18:

Even better would be appoint a special prosecutor to go after Bushes Cronies and Buddies who are looting our life savings.

They ain't a goin' to loot mine. I took all $13.42 out of savings and put it in my bra!

Seriously, the way the middle class has been destroyed makes me think it was the plan. Cause without us there is a banana republic. Capitalism run amok.

It is the plan. It's called transferring of wealth. They are taking everything people gained from the Clinton Boom years and putting in into their own coffers. They are hitting everyone else also. In every way imaginable. Everyday prices are going higher and higher and higher.

Sort of like Bonnie and Clyde without the guns? (Bush as Bonnie and Cheney as Clyde.)

I like what Biden says, but I share the views of many of those who commented and want to see action. Biden needs to show he can lead, and what better way then to lead the senate in taking action against the white house.

"Nixon without the competence."

It's worse than even that. Whenever these jokers are on the hot seat, they don't say, well, we screwed up, or we did something wrong and we're fixing it this way, or even, "We did that and we meant it because...." They say, like Stalin, that it's all the fault of the Trotskyite wreckers or the Bukharinites, or the traitorous Czarist remnant lapdogs, or whatever line has been approved by die Partei. (Blaming this on the anti-Bush intelligence network was endorsed by the Neo-Con Politburo when Podhoretz jumped on board, and now it's their line. Oh, Mr. America's Mayor, what do you think about it? (blah, blah, duckspeak doubleplusungood journalists only tell negative stories -- what about the good stories, like where we didn't do that, Michael Moore did?)

“Nixon without the competence.” Priceless. True.

The missing tapes are a scandal.

But what about the fact that Bush and Cheney were screaming about Iran's Nukes,
threatening war, when they knew that Iran had no nukes and was not seeking them?

This is of much more worthy of a special prosecutor and might even stop Bush in his
tracks.

Otherwise, I fear that we are going ahead with one more adventure in the middle East
while the congress twiddles its' thumbs.

Biddens just a commercial for tooth paste , show them pearly whites

Why is there coverage of what Newt thinks? Even the prez says he believes the report that contradicts his own previous statements. The crazy lady down the street is wearing a tinfoil hat, lets not hear her opinion please.

Manila Ryce @ 2:

We ought to just get rid of the CIA all together. Torture is the least of what they do.

Rid of the USA more like it ........ sick and rotten to the core from the edges in, the world would be a much better place.

Ozymandias @ 9:

"This is the Nixon Administration without the competence."

That was awesome.

That's what I was thinking...

Whoever gets the nomination should either keep Biden handy for language crafting or consider him for a VEEP slot.

fuck joe buy-dem. he has sold the constitution to that highest bidder just like the repugs. his asking price was just different. probably the best moving mouth in the DLC.

Special prosecutor is definitely required on this and other Bushco lawbreaking. Lets get on with it.

Has Mukasey even answered Waxman's letter yet? And as the professor from Georgetown University told Keith Olbermann on the tape C & L had up yesterday, Mukasey failed to issue an order of preservation of any and all other materials immediately as Ed Meese did in the Iran Contra investigation. I don't expect anything from an AG who refused to answer questions about waterboarding. If he, or Bush through him, appointed a special prosecutor, I would not have any faith in the person. We have doubts in our household on the role of Fitzgerald in the CIA Leak investigation which was the mountain that gave birth to a mouse. No, if there is any investigation, the Democrats need to do it themselves in Congress, and they need to choose the people who do it very carefully because even some of them are tainted in our eyes.

a nixon administration

without the competence

heh...

good one joe

Nixon without the competence?

A slur on Nixon.

Nixon never destroyed his tapes. Nixon was a moderate. Nixon was an environmentalist.

The real reason a special counsel is needed is twofold:

First, Mukasey was involved, as a judge, with rounding up Muslims after 9/11 and with issuing warrants to do so. If the result of his orders was that detainees were tortured, and there is tape of that, he is (at least tangentially) involved.

Second, remember that the use of torture was sanctioned by the DOJ ITSELF in the Bybee/Yoo memos, when those war criminals were working in the department's Office of Legal Counsel. How can the DOJ investigate anything having to do with torture when it, itself, authorized it?

And, we know Congress won't do anything effective to investigate this. They haven't investigated Abu Ghraib, the missing billions in Iraq, the remining unanswered questions about 9/11 or much of anything else, for that matter. Take a look at how long it's taking Rockefeller's intel committee (formerly Pat Roberts' committee) to issue the second part of the report on the cooking of intelligence leading up to the invasion in Iraq.

Biden is exactly right. If this latest Bushie crime is going to be investigated, it's going to have to be by a special prosecutor. I just hope it's someone more effective than Patrick Fitzgerald who couldn't even nail the real leakers in the Plamegate affair for their treason.

.

R E M E M B E R:

~ Valerie Plame was a success in Iran.

~ The new NIE underscores the success of the work she and her team were doing.

~ Someone in the White House hatched a plan to "OUT PLAME".

~ "OUTING PLAME" would undermine her level of success achieved in Iran.

TREASON HAPPENS.

.

I think this has more to do with attempting to destroy evidence that could be used against Bush, Cheney and others in war crimes tribunals.

So Stephanapoulis calls in the "non-biased" "expert", The Newt, to complain about a conspiracy among 16 agencies to make the Shrub look bad?

Do these MSM figures have any idea how mind-numbingly gullible, and stupid, they look?

If the CIA is so worried about revealing the identities of the torturers, black them out of the film.

"Why did they destroy the tapes?", Biden queries (but you bet he knows why).

Could it be that they killed one or more and don't want to go down for murder?

The more this story keeps getting spun around water-boarding,torture and protecting the identities of the agents the more I'm starting to think these tapes were actually destroyed to hide the content of the information that was retrieved.

Gerald Posner wrote a very interesting article about it on the huff_po, which also ties in with Michael Moore's observations in Fahrenheit 9-11.

Why did the Saudis get flown out of the country while everyone else was stuck on the ground?, why were 15 of the 19 hijackers from Saudi?

Gerald Posner - The CIA's Destroyed Interrogation Tapes and the Saudi-Pakistani 9/11 Connection

Good on yer, Joe.

But what if Mukasey appoints 'Berto Gonzales?

Shit up Biden, you've been in congress for year now you care about all this, your not getting elected......

Chris @ 56:

Shit up Biden, you've been in congress for year now you care about all this, your not getting elected......

Yes, interesting the way we had pure silence out of Biden until he decided he wanted to use our support to obtain the presidency.

Mr Biden can flash the impeachment meme around as much as he wants, but actions speak louder than words. How much further down the road does he want to sleepwalk on the path to fascism, here's a check list for you to fill out Mr Biden :)

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.
2. Disdain for the importance of human rights.
3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause.
4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism.
5. Rampant sexism.
6. A controlled mass media.
7. Obsession with national security.
8. Religion and ruling elite tied together.
9. Power of corporations protected.
10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated.
11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.
12. Obsession with crime and punishment.
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption.
14. Fraudulent elections.

14 points on the route to fascism

or maybe just watch this tuber
Talk by Naomi Wolf - The End of America (warning 47 mins long and worth every minute)

Interesting I suppose, but hardly surprising from any of them. Think about this. Look around at what's happening, and yet nothing ever goes in any direction other than the worse. This is a game, a game where you and I and pieces on a grand chessboard. Plays are just numbers e4 e5 - d4 exd4 - Qxd4. Your voice is only sound effect, what you think is already planted, what you say is parroted. But this is the cry of every revolutionary in history who beLIEves that the 'red' team will make it all better when they replace the 'blue' team in the clubhouse. Meanwhile they all use the same bathroom.

Ozymandias @ 9:

"This is the Nixon Administration without the competence."

That was awesome.

everyone is picking up on this and saying it's awesome and the likes.

I would say This is the Nixon Administration without any oversight." :twisted:

"Look at me! Look at me! I'm running for president too!"

I agree with the Senator, however, they need special prosecutors for many events, that have occurred with this administration and as all of us American tax paying citizens, who believe in accountability, the bill of rights and the constitution, fair and equal justice for All, and demand no less.

The President cannot continue to spew his special, presidential power on issues that involve any kind of crime, especially, when it involves him and his administration. The American people in overwhelming numbers believe there is activity that needs to be looked into, that involve the President of the United States, and we have that right.

Oh, joy. More nutless Democrats.

Impeachment of both cheney and bush is the prescription for this Joe, the only thing that we should focus on, all else follows.

These two people as a front for others or on their own stick have driven America to the depths of shame and Malfeasance.Created more debt and walked all over our constitution which is the only thing right now preventing a complete reversal of all it stands for.
I don't carte if it is their last day in office they need to answer for their crimes and to me nothing else will be accomplished until impeachment is put in motion.

Gekke @ 58:

Mr Biden can flash the impeachment meme around as much as he wants, but actions speak louder than words. How much further down the road does he want to sleepwalk on the path to fascism, here's a check list for you to fill out Mr Biden :)

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.
2. Disdain for the importance of human rights.
3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause.
4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism.
5. Rampant sexism.
6. A controlled mass media.
7. Obsession with national security.
8. Religion and ruling elite tied together.
9. Power of corporations protected.
10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated.
11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.
12. Obsession with crime and punishment.
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption.
14. Fraudulent elections.

14 points on the route to fascism

or maybe just watch this tuber
Talk by Naomi Wolf - The End of America (warning 47 mins long and worth every minute)

+1

"Go you support water boarding of terrorist suspects?"

If this question was asked in a nationwide survey of the American people, there is no doubt the overwhelming response would be a resounding and enthusiastic...YES

Ozymandias @ 9:

"This is the Nixon Administration without the competence."

That was awesome.

I agree. That was perfect!

Manila Ryce @ 2:

We ought to just get rid of the CIA all together. Torture is the least of what they do.

Certainly something to be discussed. Far too much cancerous secrecy is damaging the health of this democracy.

68 comments

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