DOJ Lawyers: "Lunatics Had Taken Over The Country" They Feared Cheney & Feared For Their Lives

[kpete]

Mayer: Top DOJ Lawyers Spoke ‘In Codes’ For Fear Of Being Wiretapped By White House ‘Lunatics’
Last night on PBS, Bill Moyers interviewed investigative journalist Jane Mayer and mentioned that in Mayer’s new book, she notes that FBI agents refused to participate in the CIA’s interrogation of terror suspects at Guantánamo Bay because they determined it to be “borderline torture.” Moyers then asked, “Who were some of the other conservative heroes, as you call them, in your book?”

Mayer remembered one top Justice Department lawyer and “very conservative member of this administration” who said that after participating in White House meetings authorizing torture, he believed that “lunatics had taken over the country.”

Mayer said two other top DOJ lawyers had to develop a system of speaking codes because they feared they were being wiretapped while others described an “atmosphere of intimidation,” mainly from Vice President Dick Cheney:

MAYER: There was such an atmosphere of intimidation. … They felt so endangered in some ways that, at one point, two of the top lawyers from the Justice Department developed this system of talking in codes to each other because they thought they might be being wiretapped…by their own government. They felt like they might be kind of weirdly in physical danger. They were actually scared to stand up to Vice President Cheney

VIDEO & more at:
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/26/doj-codes-lunatics/

[spanone]

1. breaking: doj lawyers were a bunch of chickenshit enablers...did NOTHING when they could

[Warpy]

6. Not quite

which is why so many of them were fired. They were seen as disloyal to the dictatorship when they refused to bend or break the law to produce show trials of opposition party politicians before an election.

The ones who kept their jobs are chickenshit enablers who should be disqualified from anything but probating wills in Podunk for the rest of their lives.

[defendandprotect]

12. ... but the MAJORITY kept their jobs . . . only 8 out of 100 were fired .......

I would suggest that upholding our Constitutional laws should begin with lawyers . .. .


On the other hand, getting fired and or resigning isn't fun ---

and as we can see from these reports maybe even dangerous !!!

[RaleighNCDUer]

65. And one was killed, er, died under suspicious circumstances, IIRC.

The proper amount of pressure in the right place can work wonders. Wellstone dies in a plane crash, and suddenly congress lines up behind Bushco. An assistant federal attorney is murdered by person or persons unknown, a few more are fired, and the rest cooperate.

That's why I've always said a draft is entirely possible - enact the draft, hit the protests hard, arrest a few hundred and kill three or four, and you find the anti-draft protests will dry up for at least a couple years.

These criminals know exactly what they are doing.

[defendandprotect]

81. So many that I can only ....

vaguely recall reading a long list of questionable deaths that were kinda new to me ---

there have been so, so many!

Was it someone in DC . . . falling down stairs . . . ?

[ArbustoBuster]

23. I believe that probating wills requires membership in the bar.

These bastards should be disbarred for their assistance to torturers, thieves, and breakers of our Constitution. I believe this whole disaster of the last seven years happened because we didn't properly clean house after either Watergate or Iran-Contra.

[leveymg]

97. They'll make great jailhouse lawyers, filing appeals and stays of execution written in pencil.

[crikkett]

100. That's not funny.

It's graphic and pathetic but not funny.

[Enthusiast]

112. And you are right on!

The Reagan-Bush Administration did not completely relinquish control of the country after Clinton was sworn in.

[Missy Vixen]

26. How many of you spend your days believing you and your family are under a constant threat?

Think it's a joke? Please read the following, and tell me that the men mentioned in the following article had no reason to be afraid.

Newsweek's "Palace Revolt": http://www.newsweek.com/id/57101?tid=relatedcl

A man with a wife and five children does not walk off his job for no apparent reason. I wonder if they're still afraid.

Julie

[Joe Chi Minh]

27. You're the chicken shit. Words are cheap. Some female lawyers have already been murdered.

[flashl]

31. I can not remember all of pieces of their stories, what were they investigating? nt

[Joe Chi Minh]

51. I'm not at all sure now. But I have a feeling it was the politicization

of the judiciary - the criminal aspects involved. But it could have been something else. I'm not too sure.

Sometimes, first thoughts are correct, and mine here were that it concerned the election fraud, but on reflection I think the only two murders I've read about in that connection were that of the African American manufacturer of a more secure voting machine, who was crashed into by a large truck; and the election integrity investigator (don't know the official designation). It was thought to have been a mob killing. He was found in a bath in a hotel, with his wrists slashed in bizarre and highly improbable circumstances. The police didn't seem to move on it much at all. Put down to suicide.

[Judi Lynn]

88. I remember the dead person you've mentioned: Ray Lemme. Fatal acquaintance with Rep. Speaker of

the Florida House Tom Feeney, who was also a lobbyist for Yang Enterprises. Feeney worked for the _Bushes and he spearheaded the drive to dump the Florida slate of electors and get new ones once it was determined that Al Gore had won in Florida.

I've seen a photo of that poor guy sitting slumped in the bathtub somewhere. Very, VERY, VERY sad.



The Fiendish Thingie.He was later elected
Florida State Representative to Congress.

A whistle blower alleges that U.S. Rep. Tom Feeney might have rigged the election in South Florida
BY TREVOR AARONSON
[e-mail]

http://www.wanttoknow.info/050217riggedelections

[Joe Chi Minh]

107. The mills of God grind slow...

[flashl]

109. FYI. The two US Attys deaths I vaguely remembered were linked Medicare and Medicaid fraud case.

Samuel Lipari v Novation.

[roguevalley]

34. I agree. Walk a mile. I have been harassed until I thought I would

die but I had to work because my family's medical existence DEPENDED upon me. Easy to blame, harder to be there and be the one.

[Joe Chi Minh]

52. Well, you'll be a hero of mine, as long as I remember that name.

[roguevalley]

61. life can be hard and shades of grey. I wish it were different.

[Joe Chi Minh]

106. It's a very spiritual position to be in. To act in good faith, when you're in an

intensely conflicted situation, not knowing for sure whether you are doing the right thing or the wrong thing. But, "All things work together for good...".

The scribes and Pharises of Christ's time found it much more convenient to have a set of external rules. By abiding by them, even just seeming to, as some presumably would have, it was so easy and agreeable in their comfortable position, to tout themselves as virtuous, and those "up against it" (in large part, because of the former's unconscionable avarice and unjust regulation of their society), as gutter-snipes and ne'er-do-wells.

[notadmblnd]

2. I'll bet it was the one who went to the hospital to see Ashcroft

what was his name? Comey?

[speedoo]

20. Comey came to mind right away for me.

Sounds like him.

[leveymg]

98. and Jack Goldsmith. Here's an extract from Jeff Rosen's NYT article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/magazine/09rosen.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Conscience of a Conservative


By JEFFREY ROSEN
Published: September 9, 2007

In the fall of 2003, Jack L. Goldsmith was widely considered one of the brightest stars in the conservative legal firmament. A 40-year-old law professor at the University of Chicago, Goldsmith had established himself, with his friend and fellow law professor John Yoo, as a leading proponent of the view that international standards of human rights should not apply in cases before U.S. courts. In recognition of their prominence, Goldsmith and Yoo had been anointed the “New Sovereigntists” by the journal Foreign Affairs.

Jack L. Goldsmith, who currently teaches at Harvard Law School.
Goldsmith had been hired the year before as a legal adviser to the general counsel of the Defense Department, William J. Haynes II. While at the Pentagon, Goldsmith wrote a memo for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warning that prosecutors from the International Criminal Court might indict American officials for their actions in the war on terror. Goldsmith described this threat as “the judicialization of international politics.” No one was surprised when he was hired in October 2003 to head the Office of Legal Counsel, the division of the Justice Department that advises the president on the limits of executive power. Immediately, the job put him at the center of critical debates within the Bush administration about its continuing response to 9/11 — debates about coercive interrogation, secret surveillance and the detention and trial of enemy combatants.

Nine months later, in June 2004, Goldsmith resigned. Although he refused to discuss his resignation at the time, he had led a small group of administration lawyers in a behind-the-scenes revolt against what he considered the constitutional excesses of the legal policies embraced by his White House superiors in the war on terror. During his first weeks on the job, Goldsmith had discovered that the Office of Legal Counsel had written two legal opinions — both drafted by Goldsmith’s friend Yoo, who served as a deputy in the office — about the authority of the executive branch to conduct coercive interrogations. Goldsmith considered these opinions, now known as the “torture memos,” to be tendentious, overly broad and legally flawed, and he fought to change them. He also found himself challenging the White House on a variety of other issues, ranging from surveillance to the trial of suspected terrorists. His efforts succeeded in bringing the Bush administration somewhat closer to what Goldsmith considered the rule of law — although at considerable cost to Goldsmith himself. By the end of his tenure, he was worn out. “I was disgusted with the whole process and fed up and exhausted,” he told me recently.

After leaving the Office of Legal Counsel, Goldsmith was uncertain about what, if anything, he should say publicly about his resignation. His silence came to be widely misinterpreted. After leaving the Justice Department, he accepted a tenured professorship at Harvard Law School, where he currently teaches. During his first weeks in Cambridge, in the fall of 2004, some of his colleagues denounced him for what they mistakenly assumed was his role in drafting the torture memos. One colleague, Elizabeth Bartholet, complained to a Boston Globe reporter that the faculty was remiss in not investigating any role Goldsmith might have played in “justifying torture.” “It was a nightmare,” Goldsmith told me. “I didn’t say anything to defend myself, except that I didn’t do the things I was accused of.”

Now Goldsmith is speaking out. In a new book, “The Terror Presidency,” which will be published later this month, and in a series of conversations I had with him this summer, Goldsmith has recounted how, from his first weeks on the job, he fought vigorously against an expansive view of executive power championed by officials in the White House, including Alberto Gonzales, who was then the White House counsel and who recently resigned as attorney general, and David Addington, who was then Vice President Cheney’s legal adviser and is now his chief of staff. Goldsmith says he is not speaking out for the money; though he received a low six-figure advance for the book, he is, after deducting some minor expenses, donating the advance and any profits to charity. Nor is he speaking out because he disagrees with the basic goals of the Bush administration in the war on terror. “I shared, and I still share, a lot of their concerns about what we have to do to meet the terrorist threat,” he told me. When I asked whether he thought Gonzales should have resigned and whether Addington should follow, he demurred. “I was friends with Gonzales and feel very sorry for him,” he said. “We got along really well. I admired and respected Addington, even when I thought his judgment was crazy. They thought they were doing the right thing.”

[helderheid]

3. Rec 5

[melody]

4. They were smart not to stand up to Cheney -- he murders people

That's why they're not impeaching Bush, too.

[defendandprotect]

13. Absolutely agree --- we have failed to acknowledge the political

violence which has brought us to this point in time ---

[melody]

43. Paul Wellstone was almost certainly a Bush/Cheney victim

The Bush family is an organized criminal family at the heart of our government.
Cheney (and the whole "Watergate" gang) is an unofficial member of the family.

[defendandprotect]

46. Absolutely . . .

and I'm wondering about Ted Kennedy ---

[melody]

50. I wouldn't be surprised. n/t

[NBachers]

63. Ted Kennedy?

Read about the "unusual" circumstances around the JFK Jr. plane crash.

[melody]

70. JFK Jr goes without saying, imo n/t

[defendandprotect]

76. Yes . . . I have .. .

at the time, I wondered about it -- but it seemed that it was so elaborate --

so out in the open -- but still, worrying.

At some point I did come by quite an explanation --- and don't find it hard to believe!

Fuel in the OFF position ... ????

Are we ever going to be able to expose these people --- ???

[glitch]

15. Agreed - but not just Cheney, his little pet monkey is vicious too. nt

[yardwork]

35. That is a true characterization, right there.

Too many people want to give the vicious monkey a pass. He's right in the middle of this.

[fla nocount]

38. Only after the Pretzel visited, when he had his attitude adjusted. n/t

[melody]

44. Absolutely but the topic wasn't Bush -- the Bush family is Murder Inc. n/t

[glitch]

67. Topic Cheney = Topic Bush, and vice versa. They are both deeply emeshed with the Texas Mafia

(who are the real brains behind all the scams they've been running on the US Treasury anyway), so as far as I am concerned, they are inseparable.

[melody]

69. They are when the topic is both of them. This topic was on Cheney

Which is the reason I only mentioned him.

I've been writing about the Bush Evil Empire for 20 years.

[RufusTFirefly]

19. Bingo

Avoid risking your life and get wealthy too. It takes a special kind of courage to face danger head on and turn your back on wealth.

[melody]

45. The ones who are killed are also the ones they can't buy off/intimidate

As a result, we lose the best of our statespeople.

[femrap]

22. Right....who do you think mailed the

ant*ra* to Dashle, Brokaw, etc??? This regime meant business....Shooter could call on some jackalls and have family members run over by cars...hit and run. These people are the ultimate in evil. True sociopaths. W loves to inflict pain...it gets him off.

[melody]

42. Exactly

The Bush family is nothing but a sociopath producing hot house. Every generation is more evil than the one before.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

58. If he is bad he must go. The American people deserve better.

[bulloney]

60. Or at least blows buckshot in your face. And then expects an apology from you.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

96. And he shoots friends in the face just for fun!

He's just got to have some karmic payback- PLEASE

[Canuckistanian]

5. Why isn't this heappening more often?

I mean assuming your phone is tapped and altering your conversations.

If you work on a Democratic campaign, you damn well KNOW you're being listened to.

Are people actually changing their habits because they know their conversations are no longer secure?

[Fumesucker]

37. Anyone who pays attention to history knows that communications are subject to interception.

The FBI bugged MLK.

Just a cursory glance at a history book shows that governments are not to be trusted.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

7. This intimidation, blackmail, and extortion is the greatest reason

we have suffered this long with the criminals occupying the WH. It is past time to bring them to justice.

[helderheid]

8. This needs to be on the front page of DU

[EFerrari]

9. And yet, even people like Nadler, who says outright that these criminals

have committed war crimes, will not impeach.

:shrug:

[defendandprotect]

11. Watched Nadler yesterday and he said he had previously been against . . .

but I got the idea he was for it now ---

Holtzman and Fein made clear that the administration is so stonewalling on every issue,

blocking every avenue that the only recourse can be impeachment.

Holtzman responded that she thought it should be a "two-fer" . . .


Meanwhile, let's also note how Pelosi is also blocking us re the war in refunding it ---

and re impeachment which must have been one hell of a reassurance to the administration --

giving them yet more license to move on their criminal pursuits.

[EFerrari]

16. Nadler, Conyers, Waxman, Watt, Jackon Lee, Wexler --

none of those people need expertsto tell them to impeach or why. They already know they should and how.

[defendandprotect]

49. Forget if Nadler gave a reason for not wanting to go -- but hope he's ready now-!!

[NNN0LHI]

21. Thats because he is scared too

About all we can hope for here is an orderly transfer of power.

And it isn't going to be easy either.

Don

[EFerrari]

25. He should be scared. I'm doing some research on Porter Goss

and that mfer first shows up in Operation 40 which was basically a group of assassins.

Just check out who Pelosi just named co-chair of the Office of Congressional Ethics.

Operation 40 was a Central Intelligence Agency-sponsored undercover operation in the early 1960s, which was active in the Caribbean (including Cuba), Central America, and Mexico. Created by US President Dwight D. Eisenhower in March 1960 after the 1959 Cuban Revolution and presided by vice-president Richard Nixon, it included people such as Frank Sturgis (who would later become one of the Watergate burglars), Felix Rodriguez (a CIA officer who later hunted down Che Guevara), Luis Posada Carriles (now held in the US under illegal immigration charges, he is demanded by Venezuela for his key role in the execution of the 1976 Cubana Flight 455 bombing), Orlando Bosch (founder of the CORU counter-revolutionary organization, which organized Chilean former minister Orlando Letelier's murder in 1976), Rafael 'Chi Chi' Quintero, Virgilio Paz Romero, Pedro Luis Diaz Lanz, Bernard Barker, Porter Goss, and Barry Seal. Members took part in the April 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion directed against Fidel Castro's regime. Operation 40 had 86 employees in 1961, of which 37 were trained as case officers.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_40

/oops

[truedelphi]

33. Ah Pelosi opens the closet of weasels

And Porter Goss comes skittering out.

I used to wonder what Di Fi and George Schulz spent time talking about after their moments at the SF Opera.

And in fact I am still wondering about that. Is Schultz explaining that her husband can get the contracts he wants in Iraq, but only if he and she use some of the hundreds of millions for pay offs to get what the Administration needs?

[EFerrari]

86. Of Course. We really are Guatemala, just on a bigger scale.

Who knew.

[defendandprotect]

53. Operation 40 was headed by Nixon . . . and Pelosi is shocking -- !!!

evidently while Ike was recovering in the hospital from his heart attack . . .

And Operation 40 becomes the Bay of Pigs invasion . . .

What's with Pelosi ... ????

It's frightening --- !!!

[EFerrari]

73. I know. It's a through line. Porter Gosss has been Poppy's jogging buddy

-- all over the constitution. That meeting with Pakistani intelligence on 9/11 -- Goss was the host.

[defendandprotect]

74. Re Goss . ..

he was the HOST on 9/11 . . . !! Didn't know that . . .

You know I never got the "Poppy" connection -- but one day I was reading something which

suggests that it's his involvement with drugs -- overall, that is.

Pelosi is really worrying me . . .

[EFerrari]

78. Could also be that Bay of Pigs offshoot, Dallas.

Every POS CIA did between Bay of Pigs to now, Goss is there like Forrest Gump. Watergate, Iran Contra, 9/11, the War of Terror.

And now he's going to mind Congressional ethics as an expert outsider? :rofl:

[defendandprotect]

80. I'm worried more . . .

about Pelosi --- what next?

Gates is also a cutie --- "October Surprise" ---

[defendandprotect]

10. Went to my library the other day looking for the book -- it's on order . . .

a little slow of them, I thought --- but happily someone else was there and also asking
for the book, so hopefully they'll give it a push.

[glitch]

14. And they are absolutely correct.

Lunatics have taken over the country. Cheney is the Cancer, Bush the Catapult.

[CJCRANE]

17. LARTA.

Lunatics Are Running The Asylum.

[nolabels]

64. Please stop demeaning Asylum dwellers

The megalomaniacs that are sometimes seen inhabiting parts of D.C. are in a league all by themselves

[my2sense]

18. K & R

[coalition_unwilling]

24. Kudos to Bill Moyers for a fine interview segment. Just when I thought

I had seen it all and had no further capacity to be outraged, I saw the incredibly moving and thought-provoking interview with Mayer.

The part that got to me yesterday was the segment in which Mayer outlined the active participation of doctors and psychologists in the torture regime. The way Mayer expressed it, the doctors and shrinks were actively participating in the torture regime, going so far as to resuscitate a detainee whose vital signs were 'cratering,' only so he could be further tortured.

At this point, I am somewhat sorry to tell DU, I no longer plan to vote for Obama in November. Sorry, but I now plan to vote 3rd party, probably McKinney and the Greens. I do not take this decision lightly, having voted Dem in every presidential and off-year election since 1980. But anyone with even a shred of decency would be calling for war crimes trials to convene immediately, not saying that no prosecutions are envisioned and that country should 'move on' (the thrust of Obama's remarks on the subject to date).

[Disturbed]

28. The vast Criminality of the Busholini Regime is staggering.

Congress, for the most part, is complicit. This is why Impeachment of Bush &/or Cheney was taken "Off the table".

[shanti]

91. my god...

what happened to the hippocratic oath? do the physicians and psychs even have a conscience??

[Overseas]

29. Good to have Mayer's compilation of this information.

But I remember being disturbed by hearing it all along as well. How our VP intimidated career intelligence and foreign service officers and prompted lots of early retirements. It has been eerie hearing about these things during this criminal administration and the news is still creepy. Intimidating the agencies that are supposed to give you objective input about international conditions to be sure they produce reports telling you what you want to hear.

Or else!

[shanti]

92. yes

it was 'my way or the highway' with the veep!

[flashl]

30. Boosh's DOJ ...

Inside The Bush DoJ's Purge of The Civil Rights Division
TPM

By Paul Kiel
April 17, 2007

Over the past six years, the Bush administration has aggressively reshaped the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. Many career analysts and attorneys have either been transferred or driven out; their replacements are long on conservative credentials and short on civil rights experience.

Here's an inside account of what it's like inside from Toby Moore, a redistricting expert with the division's voting section until the spring of 2006. Like many of his colleagues, he left due to the hostile atmosphere in the section, where he says there was a pattern of selective intimidation towards career staff.

According to Moore, his supervisor and the political appointees in the section consistently criticized his work because it didn't jibe with their pre-drawn conclusions.

So, if anybody expecting responsiveness from DOJ on election day about voting rights violations, think again.

[Botany]

32. They had good reason to be scared ..... Raymond Lemme

"They felt like they might be kind of weirdly in physical danger."


Investigator Ray Lemme of Florida who was looking into vote rigging and fraud in
Florida woke up one morning and drove to GA and committed suicide in a room that
showed he checked into the night before.


http://www.bradblog.com/?p=1244

Cheney would whack his own mother if he felt she was blocking his oil war.

[Hubert Flottz]

36. We tried to tell them in 2001 didn't we?

K&R!

[Uncle Joe]

39. When I watched Moyers' program last night, and as I read the last paragraph of your O.P.

I couldn't help but wonder as to whether there was something more to Cheney's mistaking his attorney friend's face for a quail?

If I remember correctly his attorney friend apologized for getting in the way of Cheney's shot, I thought that was rather odd at the time.

Thanks for the thread, kpete.

[Joe Chi Minh]

55. Just a tad. Sounds like the Onion, doesn't it?

[calimary]

40. I did what I usually do with stuff like this. Bookmarked it AND emailed it to myself

so I could find it later, whenever.

I wrote a note with it: "Unbelievable. On second thought, knowing these criminals, I DO believe it."

[Faygo Kid]

41. Does anyone here really think Cheney et al will give up power quietly?

These people are mad. I don't know what awaits us, but an honest election and peaceful transition of power simply isn't in the cards.

[skepticscott]

48. I fear you're right

There is just too much shit that will hit the fan if the Republicans lose control of the White House and the executive branch. The cabinet departments are filled with careerists who have been bullied and threatened into silence about all kinds of wrongdoing. Bush, Cheney and their criminal cohorts will be desperate to keep all this from coming out and will stop at nothing to prevent it. And from looking at the Democrats, I just don't think they truly realize what lengths their enemies will go to, and I'm doubtful that they have the stones to play as rough as they'll need to to win in November.

[ensho]

104. agree

nt

[bertman]

47. Based on what I"ve heard for a long time and also what is being posted here it's not hard to

imagine Bush and Cheney tightening the screws on Pelosi, Reid and anyone else who stands a remote possibility of getting in their way. Honestly, I have not followed Pelosi's climb to the top, so I don't know if she's been exhibiting Repig behavior all along or if she just now "got religion".

But that really doesn't matter. What matters is that NO ONE on the Democratic leadership side stood up and shouted "FIRE!!!" when the building started burning.

Given that Congress--THE DEMOCRATIC MAJORITY CONGRESS, I MIGHT ADD--saw fit to reauthorize the Patriot Act and to pass the Military Commissions Act, we are in a truly precarious position because the President now has been given authority to become a military dictator at the drop of a false flag terrorist incident.

That said, how is it that our Democratic leaders could have totally failed to fathom that there were many many people who were being coerced by threats of physical violence or blackmail by the Bush Crime Family? Surely, Pelosi and Reid had the wherewithal to find out about these DOJ types who were being threatened. Surely, they had heard the stories of people being murdered.

Had the Senate Majority Leader, the Speaker of the House, along with any other Dems who had experienced these types of intimidation joined with Republicans who were in the same boat and held a press conference to bring these horrors into the light of day, our world would be a far different place today.

We will probably never know how these key Dems were twisted (if they actually were), but one thing is for sure. They did not put up a fight. And that is a tragedy.

[merh]

84. Didn't Pelosi's husband show up at the Grove earlier this month?

They have on him and he is one of them now so they have her.

[shanti]

94. really.....

i was looking for stories about the grove, but had heard nothing. maybe they're still at it.

[merh]

99. check the dungeon for any discussion here

this thread survived because it was just talking about the folks on the list
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=3676264

[man4allcats]

90. Re: "They did not put up a fight. And that is a tragedy."

It is more than a tragedy. It is or should be a judgment. These people took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. If they weren't up to the task, they shouldn't have signed on. Many people have faced danger and ultimately lost their lives defending this country. This congress makes a mockery of their sacrifices. And these elected officials were afraid? Please! Give me a break! Washington, Franklin, Jefferson and the rest must be spinning in their graves. No wonder we lost this country! No guts, no glory. They make me want to throw up.

[bertman]

54. This thread reminds me of another story that transpired during George HW Bush's presidency.

There was a well-known and particularly tenacious bulldog investigative journalist (named Danny Casolaro) who was working on an in-depth, years long probe of a secret operation called Octopus. The gist of the story is that he was getting into some seriously dirty stuff that went to Ed Meese, Reagan's Atty General, and Poppy Bush, among others.

Casolaro was found dead in the bathtub of a West Virginia motel, allegedly a suicide. Interestingly enough, all of the papers and documents he had amassed as a result of his digging into this Octopus operation were gone.

Probably just coincidence. Right?

Try this link if you want to learn more.

http://backissues.cjarchives.org/year/91/6/octopus.asp

[Joe Chi Minh]

56. I don't think I could have really got a more or less true impression of Meese, if

I hadn't read Hunter S Thompson's diatribes about him in his chronicle, Generation of Swine. If it wasn't so late here, I'd transcribe them. Matchless invective, unbelievably comical.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

57. Hunter Thompson - another "suicide" -nt

[Joe Chi Minh]

105. Yes, you wonder, don't you? Even if it was a technical suicide in the sense

of being driven to it by harrassment in one form or another, or a threat to his family.

[klyon]

59. this is what I have been thinking

nobody wants to stand against this administration out of fear, the anthrax thing scared everyone

hopefully we can put it in the past soon, but then again they can not afford to lose the election

[Triana]

62. I can't blame them. Many times when you stand up to psychopaths, you get...

...dead (and bu$h/tricky dick II ARE psychopaths). Best to just get away from them/avoid them if possible.

[Holly_Hobby]

66. My neutered dogs have more balls than these wimps

Why didn't they call a press conference or two?

Oh, they might lose their jobs like the rest of us.

[live love laugh]

68. "Why didn't they call a press conference or two?" Newsflash: the press belongs to RW

Republicons. That's reason enough. And yes, fear of losing a job is also reasonable. They might do more good staying quiet and keeping their jobs, than they would being out of them, and the benefit of them staying is not just a paycheck for them but for the good they can do for others.

[bertman]

72. live love laugh, while I understand your sentiments about the RW owning the press, having

THE LEADERSHIP OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY bring this up at a national news conference would be easy enough. They just go in with some other agenda set up by their press people and unload the bomb mid-answer of some question. Trot out the Republicans and the other government types who have been threatened and let everybody say a few words.

Dangerous times require bold moves and it seems we Dems have only shakers, but no movers.

[azul]

75. Shakers in fear and movers silenced by the big sleep. Dems outgunned.

And this is acceptable to the general public as the hidden workings of dirty politics. And it is very disenfranchising and a real turn-off on political activism.

[live love laugh]

95. The dem leadership bringing this up would be met with same deaf ear by the press. nt

[merh]

85. Press conferences have been had

and ignored - the impeachment hearing held yesterday, how well did the MSM cover that?

[live love laugh]

93. And that's my point, too. A...."A" press conference alone is nothing. Whether the media

runs with the story is the issue and they fail to do that when it is a liberal issue. Look at the Siegelman case. This is way more important and it's been quashed. So was the attorney firing scandal. Oh sure it ran for a day or two, but there has been no followup, it broke and it died. On the other hand, hardly a day goes by that we aren't reminded that Bill Clinton got a blow job.

[bertman]

108. And, as much as I hate to say this, since Pelosi took impeachment off the table, the MSM

certainly have a basis on which to put these types of hearings way down on the exposure list.

If we wait for the mainsteam media to take up our causes and make them their own WE WILL NEVER EVER GET ANYTHING EXCEPT THE CORPORATE AGENDA.

That is why bold leadership is required and why Dems, but especially progressives, have to be creative and persistent.


If the MSM dismissed a charge such as we are discussing, that was raised by the leaders of the majority party in Congress, and we couldn't get it back into the media spotlight, then we may as well just give the fuck up because we will never change anything.

Edited for grammar mostly.

[libnnc]

71. And how can we assume that these threats and tactics

are limited to the Justice Department?

Fear has permeated every square inch of Capitol Hill.

[DeepModem Mom]

77. K&R

[azul]

79. Fortunate Son author didn't sound suicidal, but somehow...

quit moving and talking anyhow. When I heard this interview in 2003, I said wow, W's cooked. Then at the end Goodman said Hatfied was found dead of an apparent suicide in 2001:



Democracy Now! Premieres the Full Interview with Bush Biographer J.H. Hatfield Who Died 2 Years Ago of an Alleged Suicide Amidst Controversy Over his Book Fortunate Son

Today we play an interview that we have held for over three years. It involves allegations of President Bush, drugs, obstruction of justice and corporate scandal. It raises questions about why Bush’s driver license number was changed.

In the book Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American President author J.H. Hatfield charges that President Bush was arrested in 1972 for cocaine possession and that Bush’s father George Sr. used his political connections to have his son’s record expunged.

http://www.democracynow.org/2003/8/11/democracy_now_premieres_the_full_interview

[csziggy]

82. Weren't some of the DOJ attorneys fired when they refused to participate

in trumped up voter fraud charges?

Here:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/usa-timeline.php

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5219

Edited to add: That they may have well be afraid and faced firing rather than pursue frivolous prosecutions says a lot for them.

[lilyannerose]

83. What I Find Most Disgusting

Is that at this time it looks like these thugs in the Admin are going to get away with it.

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

87. I am really starting to believe that Pelosi and Reid

were taken aside by DicKKK and his private Gestapo after the 2006 election and told something along the lines of "play ball with me on the big stuff. Remember what happened to that little Jew shit from Minnesota? It can happen to you and your family too."

That is the only possible explanation for what has happened since.

[Zhade]

89. MARCH INTO THE WHITE HOUSE AND ARREST THE CRIMINALS.

or forever face the shame of letting murderers and torturers walk free, you fucking COWARDS in Congress!

[Senator]

101. Only Impeachment Can Stop This Terrorism Of Americans

We need to stop the escapist dreams of "truthiness commissions," "future Obama prosecutions," and "the World/Hague will save us."

NONE of it is possible without impeachment in real time.

We must FORCE people to do nothing but keep talking impeachment.

--

[peacetalksforall]

102. The Republican Party in the Democratic Party - the players are

identifying themselves, one bote by one statement by one inaction - everyday there are signs that the Dem Party in leadership is very small. Feingold, Kucinich, Wexler ... just a few.

From Clinton to Pelosi to Hoyers to Bayh to the Nelsons and Landrieau and way too often Biden - a high proportion of them.

We are screwed.

I missed out on the news about Goss. Babyface Nelson and a few other more recognized criminals were princes compared to Goss.

Naming Goss is indicative of her ethics.

How does a person go on hoping that these rotting eggs are making the right decisions and that we just don't understand they have a plan for justice.

I am also very concerned about Obama.

We are constantly in the position of trusting blindly and it means we are self blinding oursevles because there is more proof than ever that we have been betrayed by Pelois and all her backers and cohorts.

All those who I believe have betrayed us are heavy into the DLC. Tell me that I'm wrong and why.

[Joanne98]

103. She's got a very good book. I have one problem with it though...

It lets Bush completely off the hook. She describes Cheney as running everything and Bush as passive. I doubt that. I feel the description "When he makes up his mind, that the end of it" sounds like what's been happening. Cheney is doing alot, no doubt. But I don't think he's been in charge.

[dysfunctional press]

110. them, and the whole of congress...apparently.

how long before dick decides to "die" and join kenny-boy in retirement by the pool in the tropics?

[MyNameGoesHere]

111. Just finished the book

The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals

I don't know whether to cry, shout, or go on a rampage. But one thing is clear in my mind. SOMEONE must arrest and bring these criminals to justice. Why cheney is still free to roam this earth is beyond my comprehension. And for all you impeachment apologists, please read this. Then look me in the face and say you oppose impeaching them all.