^^ somebody listens to Rush Limbaugh a bit too much.



poor white, middle-class conservatives.

the man always keeping him down.

1/31/2009 2:23:48 AM

Quote :

"Minority criminals are innocent until proven guilty"

Damn that Fourth Amendment and the general presumption of innocence in our justice system! Always getting in the way!

Quote :

"Republicans are guilty until proven innocent"

Yes, because opening up the very possibility of investigating acts which have the possibility of being criminal is basically an instant conviction, right there. The whole "opening an investigation" part must be a waste of time then, since we everybody seems to know guilt or innocence beforehand.

1/31/2009 2:59:53 AM

I'll admit that my previouis posts were half trolling, half baseless.

Nonetheless, I agree with most of DaBird's points.

Nothing else to really add to this thread at this point

2/2/2009 4:26:03 PM

Quote :

"Congress's Phony War on Torture Why not ban waterboarding once and for all? By WILLIAM MCGURN When Leon Panetta comes before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday about his nomination to head the Central Intelligence Agency, he ought to be asked tough questions about the things he's said about torture. And he will. At a time when key congressional Democrats are backing calls to investigate Bush administration officials for war crimes, it would help if our elected representatives first answered the tough questions themselves. But they won't. And therein lies the key to understanding contemporary congressional morality. For the past few years, no word has been more casually thrown about than "torture." At the same time, no word has been less precisely defined. That suits Congress just fine, because it allows members to take a pass on defining the law while reserving the right to second-guess the poor souls on the front lines who actually have to make decisions about what the law means. Last February, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid thumped loudly when they sent George W. Bush a bill that would have limited the CIA to the interrogation techniques found in the Army Field Manual -- knowing full well that he would veto it. Now they have a Democratic president who says he shares their views. So why not send him a bill declaring once and for all that waterboarding and other interrogation techniques constitute torture? Manifestly our system of government gives them the right to do so. As CIA Director Michael Hayden noted in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in September 2007, the "CIA operates only within the space given to us by the American people. . . . That space is defined by the policy makers we elect and the laws our representatives pass." Of course, defining that space would require something in short supply in Washington: an adult conversation. In such a conversation, good men and women could present the case for enhanced interrogation without having their words twisted and finding themselves held up in public as latter-day Torquemadas. Such a conversation might also begin by examining the reigning assumption of today's debate: that context and circumstances have nothing to say about what we call torture. This is not the reasoning we apply in other areas. Consider a police officer who kills a criminal in a justifiable shooting. We do not call that murder, because the circumstances surrounding the act determine our judgment of that act. If that's true for something as serious as killing, is it really impossible that similar reasoning might apply to interrogation practices that leave no permanent physical or mental damage? At times, even critics inadvertently make the point. When it is argued, for example, that Navy Seals have undergone waterboarding as part of their training, the response is, well, waterboarding someone as part of his military training is different from waterboarding someone in custody. Yes: Of course it is. In the real world, circumstances and context are crucial to our moral judgments. While we're at it, let's forget about the theoretical ticking time bomb. Instead, consider a real assertion: Leaders in our intelligence community have declared that the intelligence gained from enhanced interrogations of high-value terrorists have helped save innocent lives. You don't believe them? Fine. Bring in the people who know -- behind closed doors if you want them to speak honestly and avoid spilling classified information. And then come to an informed conclusion. In a better day, Congress would allow the executive branch a great deal of latitude during a time of war. We, however, do not live in a better day. In our day, senators and congressmen call for inquisitions of people who operate within a vague torture statute that Congress could easily clarify if it wanted. So what's stopping her? The ban President Barack Obama has put in place is not a law but an executive order that can be reversed. This order came, moreover, with a huge back door in the form of a "task force" that will study whether eliminating waterboarding and other enhanced techniques will affect our intelligence needs. If Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. Reid believe their own public statements that waterboarding and other techniques are both torture and ineffective, they ought to incorporate their words into a law that takes these practices off the table forever. That, of course, would mean a vote that would force lawmakers to face up to the real-life consequences of their actions -- and submit those actions to the judgment of the American people. And as Mr. Obama is learning, the one thing that frightens Congress more than al Qaeda is accountability."

Pretty much nails it...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123362332302441815.html

[Edited on February 3, 2009 at 12:43 PM. Reason : edit]

2/3/2009 12:39:54 PM

Quote :

"^^ if he/Cheney/Rove/Rumsfeld/etc are fully investigated and nothing is found to be wrong, that's fine. "

I think congress has some priorities to take care of before going on a liberal hunch. The same press that crucified Bush but has not provided a single shred of evidence he or his cabinet did anything illegal. Ethical, maybe... In legal gray areas...maybe, illegal..no. If they had something, they probably would have come out with it, especially to crucify the republican party when Barack Hussein Obama was campaigning for prez.

Oh, wait...congress does see it fit to pursue Bonds/Clemons so maybe you're right that they will go after Bush.

2/4/2009 2:14:42 PM

^^ nails what?

It seemed more like he completely missed the entire point on the issue with "torture."

Quote :

"The same press that crucified Bush but has not provided a single shred of evidence he or his cabinet did anything illegal."

The press didn't crucify Bush, Bush crucified Bush. There have been a constant string of ex-Bush admin people that have alleged things happened that may not have been legal, including Powell's staff and Bush's own press secretary. The issue here is not IF Bush, Co. did anything wrong. We know they did in fact do many things wrong. The question is should it be okay to go after a president after they leave office for wrong doing? Are the things that Bush and Co. did wrong bad enough to set this precedence?

I've said it before, I personally don't care if no one is ever punished from the Bush administration. But for the historical record, I think it should be known exactly what they did behind their unprecedentedly sealed doors, which includes inquiries of Rove and other Bush staff members. The only problem is that outside of a legal proceeding, these people have no incentive to tell the truth.

And at best, considering the epic failures of the past 8 years, it could actually exonerate Bush if the investigations show they did the best they could with what they had. Considering how secretive they are though, i'm guessing this is not the case.

[Edited on February 4, 2009 at 3:03 PM. Reason : ]

2/4/2009 2:57:34 PM

Quote :

"Ethical, maybe... In legal gray areas...maybe, illegal..no."

Cheney admitted he approved waterboarding. Waterboarding is toture. Toture is illegal. Therefore, Cheney committed an illegal act.

2/4/2009 3:43:34 PM

cheney shot his friend

he is capable of anything

2/4/2009 3:50:38 PM

^^then you can subpoena the entire freaking congress and senate, b/c they all knew exactly what was going on.

2/4/2009 8:11:27 PM

it's not clear that Congress and Senate knew exactly what was going on, but in any case, the orders comes from the Executive, not the Legislature.

2/4/2009 8:29:08 PM

the article ^x7

Quote :

"Pretty much nails it..."

2/5/2009 12:57:20 AM

^^^ Congress didn't know what was going on. They were told to "trust" that the administration knew what they were doing. And they did.

[Edited on February 5, 2009 at 10:36 AM. Reason : ]

2/5/2009 10:36:44 AM