Prairie's following: FDL Liveblogging

FDL's superb Teddy Partridge is liveblogging today the trial that evidently the judge and the Roberts Supreme Court do not want you to see, hear, or otherwise know about.

You can follow it here.

Because, as a wise ol' guy once said: first they came...and I did nothing.

Becoming informed...that's a start.
.

The Whole Truth

.
Over at Crooks & Liars, Jamie blogged about Scarborough's plucked-from-his-posterior positing that the FBI is out to "get" the CIA 'cause it's all about the turf wars.

And I had this to say:

Spare me the spin, the hype, the hyperventilating, the pivoting, the posturing, the fingerpointing.

I want the truth. The whole truth. Nothing but the truth.

And, yeah, I can handle it.

And even as I was typing, in the background, MSNBC's Tamron Hall was talking about Chee-knee's allegedly microdictating [presidenting? deciderating?] when, who, and how much alleged terrorists should be tortured. Yes, I said tortured. It was torture. You and I both know it.

This story is now accelerating and the momentum's growing so strong that it seems to me there's only one solution, and that's for Attorney General Holder to step forward and announce that there are enough questions raised of alleged criminal activities, and to stop the rush by some to make this appear just partisan fingerpointing, he is appointing a special prosecutor to investigate—thoroughly and professionally—the issues and the facts being alleged.

Patrick "no leaks" Fitzgerald would be fine with me.

.
crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette

One Clear, Simple Truth

.
This morning, during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on torture via emptywheel's liveblogging, we learned one clear, simple truth. A truth that cannot be knocked down by the weaselly lies of the Chee-knee family or the handwringing of the torture apologists who show up on all the pundit shows or the Republican hardwiring of the media in Teh inbred Village of DeeCee.

From the first person account of Ali Soufan, a trained professional FBI interrogator:

Information was gained in spite of torture,
not because of it.

There is only one hope for the GOP on this, and that's to get ahead of the Democrats and the American people, and demand indictments...and impeachment of Bush and Chee-knee to revoke all their post-presidential perks.

.

crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette

First Pillar of the New Foundation

.
The magnificent Glenzilla over at Salon reminds all the lavender-scented hankie waving Villagers that it's not about pointing a finger while ignoring your own other fingers pointing back at yourself. It's not about Republican vs Democrat. It's not about politics. It's not about parsing and clever wordsmithing. It's not about retribution.

It's about acts of torture. Who directed them? Who knew? Who....

The inability of so many people (both Republicans and Obama-loyal Democrats) to view the need for prosecutions independent of political considerations is a potent sign of how sick our political culture has become. The need for criminal investigations is motivated by one simple, consummately apolitical fact: serious and brutal crimes were committed at the highest levels of the government, ones that left a trail of many victims. A country that purports to live under the rule of law has no choice but to treat its most powerful members who commit serious crimes exactly the same as ordinary citizens who do so. That has nothing to do with Republicans or Democrats.

And thus, it's about the foundation of this nation.

There is none so blind as those who willfully will not see. And none are more blind than the incestuous denizens of The Village.

President Obama promised to build a new foundation under the country on the shattered shards of the Bush years. No doubt he was focused on the wretched state of the economy, and health care, the environment and implications of global climate extremes, and education. But we must rebuild the strong pillar of the rule of law in order for this new foundation to sustain the nation.

When rule of law is restored, then the other pillars will rise in like fashion.

Strong, built to endure like rock...not sand that melts away and clouds umpire's eyes.

These are all interlinked, you can see it if you have the will.

If you are committed to the most fundamental foundation on which this nation and our Constitution were founded:

We, the people...

.
.
crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette

Irish Wish for AIG

.
St. Paddy's Day wish for AIG and the rest of the vandals and berserkers and barbarians still holding sway from the era o'Bushie...a curse still in play.
.
To the vandals of AIG and their minions near and far,
May the spirit of the Irish come crap upon your car.

You destroyed the American economy and now you whine
Oooh, oooh, them bonuses must be mine.

Yet while your eyes widen and your conniving brains spin
We've people living in tents and praying for regular meals ag'in.

'Tis a good time to be Irish or living with one, too.
'cause then I can take this moment to send this wish to you...

All of you, you know who you are.
Your craven greed and recklessness and avarice runs beyond the bar

of human decency and there should be just reward.
Not bonuses and big bucks lives, but a coat of feathers, richly tarred.

Yes, on this day of St. Paddy's here is my wish for the likes of you.
An indictment from Fitzgerald and the sting of his shillelagh, too.
.
crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette

Thugs Walk Among Us

There’s a sorry videoclip making the rounds of YouTube—a deputy tipping a quadriplegic man out of his wheelchair, facedown so he can see it coming, onto the hard concrete floor.

I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch it. Our family knows what it is to be wheelchair reliant, and frankly it’s a little like gawking at an injury accident scene along the highway. I just can’t look.

But I can listen, and this morning I heard the defense attorney for the deputy lamenting that all that YouTube coverage means his client can’t get a fair trial.

Cry me a river.

I want an outraged jury. I want them to look. And decide based on the cold hard facts. Not let the woman off the hook because the facts show her for the thug that she is. And no better are the sniggering deputies around her.

We live in a thug culture these days. It starts at the top. A little shoot an old guy in the face and get away with it here. A little waterboarding and Gitmo and Abu Ghraib and other tortures there. And gaming the legal system. Trying to backdate the laws, skirt the responsibility, withhold the evidence, rationalize the blame—boogga-boogga, ticking timebomb anyone—and you’ve got a whole societal norm that extends from the Oval Office right down to the local sheriff’s office saying, hey, we’re the law, we get to do whatever we want. And get away with it.

And look where it gets us.

The media play no small role in this situation. This morning, instead of telling us anything about FISA, for example, the Morning Mouths are giving us More Hill, Less Bill, then proceeding to wallpaper Bill all over the airwaves.

When there were voices loudly crying out against the use of torture, including voices of WW II vets and professional interrogators saying it does not work…including a Senator who has lost his way who knew first hand torture did not work…those voices were given short shrift for more of the BushCo spin. And media consciences were shut down for whatever reason they told themselves—bad for the corporate bottom line; it’s unpatriotic; it’s treason; oooooh, it’s hard and it gives me a header… but no reason excuses such compliance.

Meanwhile, who watches the watchdogs when they’ve been so watered down and hamstrung and w-ussified by Bushie that they’ve lost their will? The Congress, the media are both complicit in the thug culture. But so has been the rest of the country. Fear worked, for a while.

It’s not just the Congress that needs a spine, it’s every last one of us. We’re working on it, and so far, we’re looking pretty fair. And Congress may even be sitting up and taking notice.

And it’s important cleanup work we have to do. Because when a country is debased, when people are made beasts, then they have lost their claim to leadership and honor in the world community…and in their own hometowns.

Accountability matters.

So give that deputy her day in court. If I were on the jury, I’d sentence her to every payday for the rest of her life write out a check to that man in the wheelchair. Doesn’t matter the amount so much, it could be one dollar. Let him collect a bigger compensation from the government that failed him…and all of us. Let's all of us wheel a mile in his shoes.

There’s a segment of the country that believes dinosaurs walked the earth with man some six thousand years ago. As long as thuggery is ennobled, for whatever excuse, they still do.