UPDATE due to tchnical issues I am Reposting saturday's post with some added content : 3:29 PM & 4:38 PM, & 8:16 PM & 8:38 PM Feb. 20, 2010 ; 2:00PM & 8:30Feb.21.
First a Sunday Sermon by Conservative loon & spokesperson Glenn Beck
While Basking In His Millions, Glenn Beck Wants You To Give Up Social Security And Medicare- Of course he is against social security, medicare, the GI bill & the New Deal -people he believes must fend for themselves whether old or infirm the physically or mentally disabled -
CPAC Conference Dissolves Into Right-Wing Civil War Over Gay Rights
Cindi Sheehan in Washington DC
On October 6th, 2009, Cindy Sheehan, mother of Casey Sheehan, a Specialist in the United States Army that was killed in action on April 4th, 2004 while serving in Iraq, announced that she was going to start what will be called “Peace of the Action.”
Camp OUT NOW's stated objective is to: "Clog Washington, DC every week day through diffuse Civil Resistance (CR) actions to have the effect of tampering with 'business as usual' in the Capital of the United States of America."
Our demands are simple:
* Troops out of the Middle East, which includes drones, permanent bases, contractors and torture/detention facilities.
* Reparations for the peoples of these war torn regions and a fully funded VA system to reintegrate our soldiers healthfully into our society
George Bush chuckles as Yoo & Bybee get away with murder.
DOJ defends John Yoo & Jay Bybee and by extension George Bush and the Gang. So does this mean that the US justice system is just a facade and only applies to some citizens and not others. What is legal or ethical is just a matter of opinion. I thought conservatives believed in the Rule of Law and in Morality and Ethics ???
John Yoo & Jay Bybee the authors of the Infamous Torture Memos Will not be tried nor even disciplined by the Department of Justice(or is it Injustice) And meanwhile Obama just allows another travesty of miscarried justice to take place. For who is to stop lawyers in the DOJ from rewriting and interpreting laws according to a political agenda. And one can almost hear the snickering and maniacal laughter of Dick Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld & Condoleeza Rice knowing they are literally getting away with torture, murder and launching an Unnecessary war . In the end it is not a matter of right or wrong but whether one can get away with it. Odd how Conservatives claim to be so concerned about religion, ethics & morality until it is applied to their actions.
Sen. Marsden pairing MLK with Browning Gun Manufacturer
Is Marsden just a bit thick or is he trying to convey a rather nasty message that is that without an Industrialist like Browning the assassin of MLK would not have had the tools to complete his job which many conservatives even these days they see as a good thing since they claim that Martin Luther King Jr. was just an uppity Negro who was not a "Real American" and was if anything UnAmerican and connected with Communists because only a Commie according to these right wing nuts would insist that Black Americans should have the same rights as white Americans ??? Just watch some of the insane things being said at CPAC this week.
Let us begin with a bit of madness -Some Americans love their guns too too much-sen.Marsden wants to combine MLK holiday with Browning gun manufacturer- he doesn't see the irony-combining assassinated Civil Rights leader with Gun Manufacturer-Right-Wingers have no common sense- The pro gun lobbyist believe that American citizens should be permitted to carry loaded weapons where ever they go to the Mall, to the Beach, to Movie Theaters to Church or to political rallies as we saw last summer at the Town Hall meetings -are they just nuts-meanwhile another domestic terrorists who is ant-government anti-taxes etc. flies his plane into an IRS building yet because the man was white and wasn't named Muhammed or was a Muslim he therefore according to the Republicans & their leaders Cheney, Limbaugh, Glenn Beck etc. say he wasn't a terrorist there is something gone dreadfully wrong with these people-
"This week in crazy: State Sen. Mark Madsen of Utah
The Republican had a big idea to expand Martin Luther King Day -- pair it with a holiday for a gun manufacturer" By Mary Elizabeth Williams at Salon.com Feb.19,2010
Some holidays just naturally go together. The proximity between the February birthdays of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, for example, makes them a natural pairing for one all-purpose, sale-a-bration-centric day off. But trying to combine an assassinated civil rights leader's day of remembrance with the birthday of a gun manufacturer? That's just wack.
And yet this week, Utah state Sen. Mark Madsen, R-Eagle Mountain, took a shot at just that, submitting a bill to the state proposing a "John M. Browning State Holiday." Though the text of the bill itself was left blank, the Salt Lake City Tribune reported that "a draft has been circulating in the Senate that would combine the current King holiday with a celebration of Browning, an Ogden native and one of the most significant pioneers in firearms manufacturing."
Two more war criminals escape justice-John Yoo & Jay Bybee are not to be even disciplined for interpreting federal law so that Bush and Cheney Rumsfeld etc. could clim that the torturing was legal-it wasn't legal . According to the judicial decisions at the Nuremberg trials lawyers are not immune to prosecution for War Crimes and enabling the torturers to do their jobs-
But in America Justice & the rule of law apply differently to those in power-for them its anything goes. Once again Americans are deemed outside the jurisdiction of the Geneva Conventions and the Judgments at Nuremberg and all other International Agreements.
Now this leads to a bigger question that if the USA can arbitrarily & unilaterally ignore International Laws and agreements why would any nation sign an agreement with the USA and expect that the USA will abide by it. If the nations that belong to the United Nations had any real say in the UN they would find ways to chastise America ie boycotts ,sanctions ,blockades etc. or even toss the US at least out of the UN Security Council or the UN entirely. But nothing will come of this as usual since the UN's position is that these laws, rules, regulations only apply to mainly third world countries and certainly not the United States, or Great Britain or Canada or Australia all of whom have committed various war crimes by actions or as the result of inaction.
Anyway the DOJ is just as usual protecting its own - if one or two lawyers might have to answer to the Department of Justice for their decisions it would mean that lawyers would be treated in a just manner as if they were ordinary lower class citizens . And the whole point of being a lawyer is to do whatever a client ask for even if it is illegal, breaks international laws or is unethical. Of course we end up trying to apply ethics and morality to the law or to lawyers or judges and they will not have it since it is they who decide what the law says and what is or is not moral ie if a lawyer does it it cannot by definition be illegal or unethical.
"DOJ bails out torture memo authors Yoo, Bybee:
Justice official overruled recommendation that Bush lawyers face disciplinary action"
By Alex Koppelman at Salon.com Feb. 19,2010
After a very long wait, a report from the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility about the conduct of torture memo authors Jay Bybee and John Yoo was released Friday. It was already all but certain that the men would not face criminal charges for their actions during the Bush administration; now it seems that -- despite the report's recommendation -- they'll also escape any professional sanctions.
In the report, which was actually completed in July of 2009, the OPR concludes that Bybee and Yoo were guilty of professional misconduct, and that they should face disciplinary action by their respective state bars. But in a memo written to Attorney General Eric Holder, Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis says he's overruling that decision, and "will not authorize OPR to refer its findings to the state bar disciplinary authorities in the jurisdictions where Yoo and Bybee are licensed."
That doesn't mean Margolis is excusing what Bybee and Yoo did; he repeatedly criticizes their memos. But, he says, they didn't violate any specific professional standards and are thus not guilty of professional misconduct.
and see:
DOJ Report on Torture Memo: Yoo Said Bush Could Order Civilians "Exterminated" by: Jason Leopold, t r u t h o u t.org, Feb. 19,2010
A long-awaited report into the legal memos former Justice Department attorneys John Yoo and Jay Bybee prepared for the Bush administration on torture was released Friday afternoon and concluded that the men violated "professional standards" and should be referred to state bar associations where a further review of their legal work could have led to the revocation of their law licenses.So it was just a matter of poor judgment on the part of Yoo & Bybee to encourage and give a legal cover for torture, summary executions, indefinite detentions , ignoring the rights of the accused or spying on millions of American citizens as long as a lawyer signs off on it it is therefore legal and no court can say other wise. As I mentioned earlier American citizens and their lawyers should draw up legal contracts or what have you to commit any crime you want -then the defendant says 'my lawyer said it was Okay' end of the argument. If lawyers can't be held responsible it is unfair and unjust to expect average citizens to know when and if they are breaking the law. Only someone with a law degree can know when a law should or should not be obeyed.
But career prosecutor David Margolis, who reviewed the final version of the report, changed the disciplinary recommendations to "exercised poor judgment."
also see via Afterdowningstreet.org.:
Join Peace of the Action's "Camp OUT NOW"
http://peaceoftheaction.org
Peace of the Action will be establishing Camp OUT NOW on the lawn of the Washington Monument (with or without governmental permission) on Saturday, March 13th, to be a base of operations from which we will organize and direct daily acts of civil resistance throughout the DC area until our demands are met:
Troops out of the Middle East, which includes drones, permanent bases, contractors and torture/detention facilities.
Reparations for the peoples of these war torn regions and a fully funded VA system to reintegrate our soldiers healthfully into our society.
The first week of Camp OUT NOW, we will be holding non-violent civil resistance training, hosting peace notables and being invigorated by musicians as we start building the community that we are going to need in order to help each other through the planned sustained actions.
All persons who have had enough of "business as usual" in DC and are willing to put our anti-war, pro-humanity principles into practice, are invited to come out to Camp OUT NOW and stay with us for as little or as long as you have available.
Direct acts of non-violent resistance will begin Monday, March 22nd, following these events:
March 20 will be a national march on Washington.
We Want Yoo Prosecuted
After Downing Street, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Peace of the Action, Progressive Democrats of America, and War Criminals Watch invite you to a protest of John Yoo, author of memos "legalizing" aggressive war and torture.
Yoo is scheduled to speak on March 19, from 3:30-4:30 p.m. at the University of Virginia, Room 125, Minor Hall, McCormick Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903. Meet at Minor Hall at 3 p.m.
March 19th marks the beginning of Year Eight in the illegal occupation of Iraq that Yoo and Jay Bybee provided "legal" justification for. Yoo counseled the White House on how to get away with war crimes, wrote this memo promoting presidential power to launch aggressive war, and claimed the power to decree that the federal statutes against torture, assault, maiming, and stalking do not apply to the military in the conduct of the war, and to announce a new definition of torture limiting it to acts causing intense pain or suffering equivalent to pain associated with serious physical injury so severe that death, organ failure or permanent damage resulting in loss of significant body functions will likely result.
Yoo claimed in 2005 that a president has the right to enhance an interrogation by crushing the testicles of someone's child.
Yoo has been confronted in his classroom: video, and defended by the Washington Post, and again confronted in the classroom.
Yoo recently told the New York Times that he had worked, not for the law, but for his "client" the president, and that he had no regrets for the felony of conspiring to commit torture.
and so it goes,
GORD.
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