What Did Yoo Expect?

Dude, it’s Berkeley!

And John Yoo, the plump, nebbishy law instructor who loved to write memos justifying torture and the Unitary Executive, just came face to face with the ghost of Mario Savio!

The home of free speech has freely spoken about Yoo and his role in unleashing one of the darkest episodes in recent American history. The Berkeley City Council voted on Monday to demand that the US Attorney for NorCal and the Attorney General for the US prosecute Yoo for war crimes.

The proposal came out of the city’s “Peace and Justice Commission.”

Yeah, dude…Berkeley has a Peace and Justice Commission! Of course, many will laugh at the idea that wacky Berkeley is passing measures on such things…that they have this commission…or that they voted many years ago to declare the city a “nuclear-free zone.”

But, doesn’t kinda make you smile…particularly since it won’t make Yoo smile?!

I mean, there seems to be zero chance that Yoo, or Dr. Frankencheney’s version of Igor—David Addington, will ever be brought to account for what they did. At least, not if we leave it up to the Feds, to the leadership of the Dems or to the media.

Read the rest of this entry →

Obama’s To Do List

8:07 am in Uncategorized by JP Sottile

We all have "to-do lists," but rarely is the very foundation of an entire, 230-year-old governmental system at stake when we jot down the do this and get that of day-to-day living.

Sorry Obama, but you have much more riding on your "to-do list" than picking up the cleaning, getting pet food and finally washing windows.

We live in a country where the legal system and government are based on precedent, and the last seven-plus years have seen a number of bad precedents set. If we go another 4 years without those changes challenged, it is likely that we will never get rid of them.

So, Mr. President-Elect, here is a to-do list that you might…really, you must…take on as soon as you settle into that chair…behind that desk…in that office:

1. End Torture: Okay, you’ve promised to shut down Gitmo. But that was sorta in the cards, so no props for that. How about re-defining torture along the lines of the Geneva Convention? Issue an Exec Order…or prod Congress to pass a law that includes waterboarding, extreme stress positions…all of it…as torture. Stop the semantic games about "enhanced interrogation," which Naomi Wolf points out in my film–The Warning–is what the Nazis called torture. Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: bill of rights, Bush, COG, Executive power, Government, Obama, rendition, Rule Of Law, spying, surveillance, terrorism, the warning, Torture, unitary executive, watch list, wiretapping
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