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November 23, 2009 CNN

SANCHEZ: I want to start with some breaking news, Mark Sanford, embattled governor of South Carolina, accused today of breaking state laws, not one time, not two times, 37 times, according to the finding by the state ethics commission, 37 counts of law-breaking, which means Sanford's problems may transcend the political now, even as an impeachment committee is set to convene tomorrow.

You're going to recall the governor's problems began when he disappeared from view for something like five days last summer. It was a big story then, still is. Aides said that Sanford was -- quote -- "trying to clear his head" hiking along the Appalachian Trail.

But he was spotted then by a reporter getting off a flight from Argentina and then was forced to admit what we all now remember he ended up saying in a news conference, forced to admit to having a South American mistress at the time.

Since then, his wife has left him. She says the couple's separated. She is also writing a book about him. Any talk of a presidential run, forget about it, and now, on top of potential impeachment, 37 counts of breaking state law, much of it stemming from Sanford's frequent travels. Joining me now from Washington, CNN's Peter Hamby, who spent a lot of time chasing this story in South Carolina.

Look, we get the ethics thing. What I think you need to explain to us is how this becomes a criminal issue and specifically what crimes are we talking about.

PETER HAMBY: Well, what we're talking about here. And the ethics commission is not saying that he's actually broken a law yet. What they have found are 37 counts in this complaint that he may have violated state law by using his office for personal gain.

They list three different kinds of charges against him that they will argue in a hearing. They haven't set a hearing date yet, but they will soon. Many of those counts say that he upgraded from business class to coach on flights going back to 2005.

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(Suzanne Ito writes for and manages Blog of Rights, the blog of the national ACLU.)

June 26 of this year marked the International Day in Support of Torture Victims, and the anniversary of the United Nations' Convention Against Torture. On that day, the ACLU joined countless other human rights groups in calling for Accountability for Torture. We asked people to send Attorney General Eric Holder the Office of Legal Counsel memos—the actual evidence released through ACLU lawsuits that revealed the fact that high-level Bush administration officials had sanctioned these illegal acts—and urged him to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate these crimes.

We were pleased when Newsweek's Daniel Klaidman reported that Holder was indeed considering an investigation. But now a month has passed, we haven't heard much from the Justice Department. So last week, the ACLU renewed its call for accountability by launching a new video, featuring director Oliver Stone, composer Philip Glass, Rosie Perez, and many others reading from the torture memos, and calling for accountability.

The public knows that detainees were tortured during the Bush presidency. From the photos from Abu Ghraib, to congressional reports (PDF), to the torture memos themselves, it's crystal-clear that these abusive interrogation practices were authorized by the highest levels of the Bush administration. Even Dick Cheney couldn't resist a little cheerleading about how effective he thought waterboarding was.

It is a core premise of American democracy that no one—not even the president—is above the law. When we hear Attorney General Holder is considering only investigating those who carried out the torture, not those who authorized the torture in the first place, it sickens us to think how this clashes with the most fundamental American ideals of fairness. Too much evidence of high-level orders exists to limit criminal investigations to "a few bad apples." We cannot compromise the rule of law because we're afraid the outcome might be politically messy, inconvenient or even painful. To not investigate is to tell future presidents and their administrations that they're above the law, and that would render our system of justice meaningless.

So please watch the video, and send it to Attorney General Holder. It's time for a comprehensive investigation of the Bush era torture policies.

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July 02, 2009 BBC World

Bernie with his BFF.

Remember Bernie Kerik, that swaggering sack of testosterone? Looks like he's in real trouble now:

NEW YORK - Former New York City police Commissioner Bernard Kerik has been indicted on charges of making false statements to White House officials vetting him for the position of Department of Homeland Security secretary.

The indictment was handed up Tuesday by a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C. It means Kerik will face trials in New York and Washington.

Similar false-statement charges were brought as part of a larger case in New York but were dismissed and transferred to Washington, where prosecutors say the crimes occurred.

The indictment alleges Kerik falsely denied that as a public official he had any financial dealings with contractors seeking to do business with the city. Prosecutors say the contractors spent more than $255,000 renovating Kerik's apartment.

Well, I'm just going to say it: Obama gives a very nice speech, but his plans worry me. Ever see "Minority Report," the movie with Tom Cruise? Set in the future, he works for the Department of Pre-Crime. The police use technology to predict who will commit crimes, and they arrest them before the crimes happen.

Don't pretty this up, folks. This is exactly the position Obama expressed in his speech today, and if we keep silent simply because he's a Democrat, well, we're not doing our job as citizens of this democratic republic.

I agree wholeheartedly with what Digby said:

I know it's a mess, but the fact is that this isn't really that difficult, except in the usual beltway kabuki political sense. There are literally tens of thousands of potential terrorists all over the world who could theoretically harm America. We cannot protect ourselves from that possibility by keeping the handful we have in custody locked up forever, whether in Guantanamo or some Super Max prison in the US. It's patently absurd to obsess over these guys like it makes us even the slightest bit safer to have them under indefinite lock and key so they "can't kill Americans."

The mere fact that we are doing this makes us less safe because the complete lack of faith we show in our constitution and our justice systems is what fuels the idea that this country is weak and easily terrified. There is no such thing as a terrorist suspect who is too dangerous to be set free. They are a dime a dozen, they are all over the world and for every one we lock up there will be three to take his place. There is not some finite number of terrorists we can kill or capture and then the "war" will be over and the babies will always be safe. This whole concept is nonsensical.

The real terrorists, I'm afraid, are the self-serving hawks who promise to explode a political dirty bomb in the halls of the capitol every time someone tries to be sensible about American foreign policy and national security. They are still running things. They have always run things. And the sorry fact is that their dominance is a decades long model of bipartisan comity.

Glenn Greenwald:

So now, we're going to have huge numbers of people who spent the last eight years vehemently opposing such ideas running around arguing that we're waging a War against Terrorism, a "War President" must have the power to indefinitely lock people away who allegedly pose a "threat to Americans" but haven't violated any laws, our normal court system can't be trusted to decide who is guilty, terrorists don't deserve the same rights as Americans, the primary obligation of the President is to "keep us safe," and -- most of all -- anyone who objects to or disagrees with any of that is a leftist purist ideologue who doesn't really care about national security.

In other words, arguments and rhetoric that were once confined to Fox News/Bush-following precincts will now become mainstream Democratic argumentation in service of defending what Obama is doing. That's the most harmful part of this -- it trains the other half of the citizenry to now become fervent admirers and defenders of some rather extreme presidential "war powers."

And Will Bunch sums up:

No matter how much Obama tries to blame this on the Cheney torture policies (which created that inadmissible evidence), two wrongs don't make a right. What he's proposing is against one of this country's core principles, which is habeas corpus. No matter how many guidelines that Obama and his administration try to impose, there is nothing in the Constitution that would permit the indefinite jailing of people "who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes" but who "nonetheless pose a threat to the security of the United States" -- nor should their be. Not even if we ever do develop the mind-reading powers of a "thought police."

This is why people need to keep the pressure on Obama -- even those inclined to view his presidency favorably. Because while clearly his overall approach to torture and detention issues are "on the right track" as opposed to the very "wrong track" of Cheney and Bush, it is so easy inside the Beltway to start veering off the rails. Making people accountable for the torture and Guantanamo debacles of the Bush years requires the American people constantly holding our new president accountable, too.

FOX News star Fred Barnes called Nancy Pelosi a liar over the issue of what she knew or didn't know about waterboarding. The CIA has not been persuasive with their smears of Pelosi because they haven't released the facts, just innuendo, to muddy up the water regarding torture. If they have the goods, well, then release it and we can talk about Nancy.

Barnes launches on a psycho-babble rant that is nonsensical and outright repulsive. He puts forth evidence of the success of torture when there isn't any, and describes Pelosi's motives like she wrote them in an op-ed. Maybe she talked to him off the record like all the Democratic sources Robert Novak always claimed to have. And let's not forget. Nancy Pelosi was not part of the torture discussion that the Bush Administration had when they decided torturing people was fine for America to be involved with. They implemented it before she was ever supposedly briefed about it. They committed crimes without her knowledge. It's all a smoke screen to take the heat of of them.
Shame on Barnes.

Glenn Greenwald wrote this a few days ago:

I'm truly amazed to watch the eruption of "controversy" today over the fact that Nancy Pelosi was briefed in 2002 on various aspects of the CIA's interrogation program, as though (a) this is some sort of new revelation and (b) it has any bearing on whether there should be investigations and prosecutions into Bush crimes. As many of us have long pointed out, the extent to which Democratic leaders in Congress were complicit in Bush lawbreaking -- including torture -- is a major issue that needs resolution, and is almost certainly a key reason why there have been no investigations thus far. There are real disputes still about what these Democrats were and were not told -- how complete the briefings were, the extent to which they obfuscated rather than illuminated what the CIA was doing -- though they were obviously told enough to have warranted further action on their part, to say the least.

But what's the point of all of this? Secretly telling Nancy Pelosi that you're committing crimes doesn't mean that you have the right to do so. And the profound failures of the other institutions that are supposed to check executive lawbreaking during the Bush era -- principally Congress and the "opposition party" -- is a vital issue that demands serious examination. This dispute over what Pelosi (and Jay Rockefeller and others) knew highlights, rather than negates, the need for a meaningful investigation into what took place.

MyDD: Porter Goss insults our intelligence.  This isn't about mere politics, Mr. Goss

thought crimes: Uh, guys...about that "LET Texas secede" joke...

AMERICAblog News|: Freed US hostage from Somalia-tanker slams Limbaugh's "disgusting" comments

Small Wars Journal: Pakistan in Peril

Wonk Room: Ignore 9/11, except as a defense of torture

ANNALS OF JOURNALISM: Neutral Coverage of Climate Change?...Mild in the Streets...Stop Snitching...Congrats...The Pulitzer-Winning Investigation that wasn't mentioned on TV...Bill Moyers talks Drugs, Crime, Journalism and Democracy with the creator of "The Wire"...Cillizza hearts Drudge...Maddow's numbers drop... Cognitive Dissonance...Ethical Patriot...Braying Jackass...Why pay when most righties will lie for nothing...

Whenever things start looking really bleak -- like prison-time bleak -- for conservatives, you can always count on them to trot out that timeworn old Nixon favorite: "You're just criminalizing politics! Waaaaaaah!!!"

As Jon Perr recently elucidated, this has become a favorite line of the right with increasing frequency.

Of course, I fully agree that the criminalization of politics is a problem that needs to be solved. And I think the way to solve it is to get the criminals out of politics.

After all, nothing criminalizes politics faster than criminals. If we don't want to be charging our politicians with crimes they've committed while in office, we shouldn't be electing politicians who commit them. Or condone them.

Now, with the release of the torture memos -- which let us see, once and for all, just how morally and ethically depraved the Bush administration decided to make us -- the wingnuts are upping the ante.

Now we're "criminalizing conservatism".

Of course, I fully agree that the criminalization of conservatism is a problem that needs to be solved ...

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More not so veiled threats from Republicans with their outrage over the release of the torture memos? I think Bill Bennett is confusing what President Obama did to the way Republicans do business. Slash and burn and if you're going down take as many as possible with you. I also just love the way Cooper introduced this. "We don't take sides". Well that's great Anderson. Heaven forbid one "side" might represent the truth at times and if that's the case, you should take that "side". I don't think truth is what your after when you bring in James Carville and Bill Bennett to debate each other. One corporate Democratic DLC partisan hack vs a Repubican partisan hack. Fair and balanced right?

COOPER: Now the growing political uproar over allegations of torture and enhanced interrogations, breaking down mainly, though by no means exclusively, along party and administration lines. Now, depending on which blog or op-ed page you read, the president is either poisoning the political waters by leaving the door open to investigating torture, or Dick Cheney and company are trying to bury the ugly past and get away with crimes.

We don't take sides on this program. We present you with facts and opposing views, so you can make up your own mind.

COOPER: I'm joined now by political contributors, left and right, James Carville and Bill Bennett.

James, a "Wall Street Journal" editorial today said -- and I quote -- "By inviting the prosecution of Bush officials for their anti-terror legal advice, President Obama has injected a poison into our politics that he and the country will live to regret."

If laws were broken, should there be an investigation?

CARVILLE: Well, first of all, if laws were broken, of course there should be. That's the -- the job is to uphold the laws of the Constitution of the United States.

But it -- it may be that there's a way -- you know, maybe -- we certainly need to find out more about this. It might be through a commission. It might be through congressional hearings. It might be through a trial.

But I think that the public now is going to demand that we have some answers here, and the answers may be favorable to the Bush administration. They may not be favorable. But it's -- it's going to be a pursuit here. I mean, journalism's not going to leave this alone. I -- I doubt if the Congress is. And it appears that the legal system's not going to leave this alone.

COOPER: Bill, is -- by doing that, is the president injecting a poison, Bill?

(CROSSTALK)

BENNETT: Well, I think so, but let put me down a marker here. I think Barack Obama's going to regret that he did this.

He's going to regret that he changed his mind, too, because it looks less, frankly, right now like the rule of law, or a -- you know, saluting the rule of law, and more like bloodlust. The president said let bygones be bygones, we're moving forward, let's put this behind us, and then flipped.

And it looks, from all evidence, that he was pressured into this for political reasons.

Now, can there still be an inquiry that's not politically based? Yes. But just bear this in mind. When you build the gallows, be sure you know who it is you plan to hang, because, when all of this comes out, some of the people who are, you know, yelling the loudest for Dick Cheney's head or for these lawyers' heads -- and this is not going to happen -- may find themselves in trouble as well.

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February 13, 2009 MSNBC HARDBALL

January 26, 2009 MSNBC Keith Olbermann

From daveyork0.

Retrospective montage on the subject of the lowlights and legacy of both terms of George W Bush, 43rd President of the United States.