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Republicans on Wednesday delayed a confirmation vote on attorney general nominee Eric Holder, some demanding assurances he would not prosecute U.S. agents for torture if they thought their methods were in compliance with the law…
With questions about torture and other matters, Republicans invoked their right to delay for one week the Senate Judiciary Committee’s vote on Holder, who had already been expected to endure one of the rockier confirmation processes in President Barack Obama’s new cabinet.
Holder still appears virtually certain to eventually win confirmation by the full Senate…
During his confirmation hearing before the Judiciary Committee last week, Holder broke with the Bush administration and said waterboarding, an interrogation technique that involves simulated drowning, was torture and thus illegal.
Asked if he would prosecute for torture, Holder said “no one is above the law.” But he also quoted Obama about the need to move ahead…
Holder said he would ensure that interrogations complied with treaty obligations and were effective. He pledged to review all Justice Department legal opinions on the matter.
I don’t recall Republicans defending the “Good Germans” who only “followed orders” while working in concentration camps.
#80, Ah Yea,
honestly, you are phucked up.
Congress knowingly allowed the AG to continue in the assertion that waterboarding is legal,
The Attorney General is part of the Cabinet and is appointed by and reports to the President. He does not report or answer to the Congress.
The AG does not make law, he enforces it. In case you missed it, many people have been upset that the Bush Administration was breaking the law and the only ones allowed to stop him were complicit.
If you want to talk about crime, talk about this. You become an accomplice in a criminal act if you had foreknowledge of the act but did nothing to stop it.
Then all you are doing is sinking the Bush Administration deeper. They knew the details of who, when, where, and how the prisoners were tortured. When asked by Congress, they denied it had happened then said it wouldn’t happen again.
There is nothing to suggest Congress knew specifically that anyone was going to be tortured.
There has never been a RULING that waterboarding is torture, therefore the AG and the White House was able to extend the policy position that it was not, and since Congress didn’t intervene, this position became the de facto law.
In #69, I posted US Code, Title 18, 2441 for the statute law on torture. That is the definition of what the legislators meant. That is what a Judge will look at to decide if the act someone is accused of doing fits the definition.
The AG issued an opinion saying that torture could be done in very broad areas before it would be considered torture. This is widely recognized as being worthless. No one outside the DoJ and quite a few inside the DoJ know that waterboarding is considered torture and that to torture is illegal.
The Yoo Memo is widely seen as worthless that no normal Judge would accept as justification to torture. You posted a link that discusses that fact. Read it.
I know you don’t like the fact that the Administration can’t make their own laws. That is the one thing that kept Bush from becoming a dictator. It still remains however, the AG can not make the law and torture is illegal.
PADDY O SAID
# 45 bobbo said, “Funny that the wiki flat out says it is torture”
Yeah, imagine if we used random posting from the internet as case law. ROFL
Well,you use wiki to back your arguements.
not an original bone in your overweight body
#80–Ah Yea==you sure are taking a sound thrashing by Fusion and seemingly refusing to learn anything from it.
For the 4th time: Courts interpret and apply the law==often without regard to what Congress EXPRESSLY states is its purpose. The “notion” that Congress has impliedly indicated anything is beyond naivete==a really bad thought process that you have not until now been corrected on==if you will take the lesson.
#82–Thanks Jimbo==my purpose in providing the wiki site was not for its “authority” but for its citations and links. Paddy has decided to dig his stupid hole deeper than I wish to travel.
There are a couple of people here who don’t get it, but I’m not one of them.
Ok, Fusion and Bobbo.
I’m really quite shocked at you both.
Try this on for size:
I said: “There has never been a RULING that waterboarding is torture”
Fusion said:
“That is what a Judge will look at to decide”
So, Fusion, I’m glad to see that you agree with me that there has been no RULING on waterboarding, since a judge ‘will look at’, which hasn’t happened yet.
Next:
“There is nothing to suggest Congress knew specifically that anyone was going to be tortured.”
WTF!! What planet have you been living on??
“Hill Briefed on Waterboarding in 2002″…”In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA’s overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.
Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.”…”With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter. The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan).”
http://tinyurl.com/2vjh53
Ok, so now we hopefully understand that the top leaders of Congress were appraised and permission obtained to use waterboarding. If they didn’t like it they could have stopped it right then and there or anytime thereafter.
In all fairness, I will amend my statement to say that the top RANKING members of Congress are implicit in the use of waterboarding, which ranking members were mostly Democrats, in case you missed it.
Now as for:
“Courts interpret and apply the law==often without regard to what Congress EXPRESSLY states is its purpose.”
You’re implication is that Congress has no control over the Judiciary. Wrong, so absolutely wrong it’s frightening it came from you, Bobbo.
Let me give you the perfect example of this.
“S. 397 – Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act”
This act: “Prohibits a qualified civil liability action from being brought in any state or federal court”…”Requires pending actions to be dismissed.”
http://tinyurl.com/am7bg
Not to mention:
“The possibility of imposing liability on an entire industry for harm that is solely caused by others is an abuse of the legal system”…”The liability actions commenced or contemplated by the Federal Government, States, municipalities, private interest groups and others attempt to use the judicial branch to circumvent the Legislative branch of government to regulate interstate and foreign commerce through judgments and judicial decrees thereby threatening the Separation of Powers doctrine and weakening and undermining important principles of federalism, State sovereignty and comity between the sister States.”
What, Congress can act on an out of control Judiciary? Congress can dismiss all “pending actions”?
Try again, Bobbo!
BTW, Yes, I am sinking the Bush administration further, but also congress at the same time.
Congress knew about waterboarding, Congress allowed the continuance of the Patriot Act, Congress allowed the War on Terror to continue unchecked, Congress approved Bush’s spending policies. In fact, I’m having a hard time finding what Congress did to curb Bush in any meaningful way.
Ah_Yea: 1
Fusion & Bobbo: 0
#84–Ah Yea==I accept your fact statements as accurate. They don’t bear on the continuing mistake you make.
Congress = passes laws.
Courts = rule on what the law means, how it will be applied.
Executive = charged with enforcing the law.
So, in this little 3-way, it DOESN’T MATTER what “inferences” you want to draw from Congress and the Executive meeting together. Such true facts when brought into court will be referred to in argument, but they cannot be used as “authority” because for “authority” the Court looks only to its own precedents.
CASE LAW controls over “arguments” about what congress meant or what express authorizations where reached between Congress and the Executive==hence dismissing most of your post.
WHAT DOES APPLY: is a law directly on point. Has Congress passed a LAW ((not just taken testimony, private converstions, or hearings with the Executive Branch==or even published various Congressional expressed opinions int he local rag)) stating that waterboarding is or is not torture? If not, then prior case law is the only controlling authority.
I admire the rigor of your defense, but you simply don’t understand how the parts work.
#84–Ah Yea==I completely dismissed as irrelevant the examples you gave because they don’t address the issue of torture and I did say that LAWS directly on point are part of a courts review.
Let me not leave a huge loose thread: There is a Constitution guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment. This arises in discussion about punishment on convictions for crimes but I think I read cases about this rational applying to any detention===so even LAWS directly on point regarding torture may not be sufficient without Constitutional Amendment.
Within their own jurisdicition, the power of the Court is independent from Congress and the Executive and is very well developed.
Well in the end it only matters what happens. Does a high official get successfully prosecuted for waterboarding.
So, I’m taking bets at 2:1 against major (Director or above)prosecutions.
#87–Paddy==I’ll steal your market and give 3:1.
Shame really–but why would anyone enforce laws they could well be thinking they might have to violate themselves????
Orwellian Double Speak: “Look to the Future.”
#88. Okay, you outmaneuvered me. I think you’ll get cash from Fusion & Dallas, at least.
They think there is actually a difference between the 2 parties that is more than cosmetic…
#69–Paddy==very gracious. Pick any two items you like and it is only a function of knowledge, intelligence, and imagination to find many similarities and differences between them. People that say any two things are “just the same” or “totally different” have missed this bit of Confucius Wisdom, the ying/yang of life.
Try it on for a different perspective.
Barrack “Change” Obama nominates William Lynn, Raytheon lobbyist, for the critical position of Deputy Secretary of Defense.
ROFL! “change we can believe in”
Thank you Bobbo for the compliment. I appreciate it.
Now as to the point about case law precedent.
There are two types of precedents, Binding and Persuasive. Persuasive only has the force of opinion, and therefore is not important to us here.
You are therefore talking about a precedent being Binding.
For a precedent to be Binding, these conditions must ALL be met.
“By definition decisions of lower courts are not binding on each other or any courts higher in the system, nor are appeals court decisions binding on each other or on local courts that fall under a different appeals court.”…
“Given a determination as to the governing jurisdiction, a court is “bound” to follow a precedent of that jurisdiction only if it is directly in point. In the strongest sense, “directly in point” means that: (1) the question resolved in the precedent case is the same as the question to be resolved in the pending case, (2) resolution of that question was necessary to disposition of the precedent case; (3) the significant facts of the precedent case are also present in the pending case, and (4) no additional facts appear in the pending case that might be treated as significant.”
So your position on Binding precedent is false. There is no Binding president as to waterboarding. Any and all prior rulings concerning the use of waterboarding are either not on point to the present situation or out of jurisdiction, as in the Military.
To be specific, there has been NO prior case where ANY of the provisions of Binding precedent have been fulfilled.
And the clincher is (4), “no additional facts appear in the pending case that might be treated as significant.”. Try to find a prior case law where waterboarding was used to prevent further terrorist attacks. Only this precedence would even be close to “significant”.
Hence the declared position of the AG. The need for clarification, given that there exist NO prior Binding precedent.
Now, Congress could have changed this at any moment, instead of their acquiescence.
Now you can certainly see why calling for the prosecution of those involved in waterboarding is simply a PR campaign. It won’t go anywhere because it can’t. Pelosi, Harman, Graham, and Rockefeller can’t allow it since they were involved from the beginning.
I agree about the Constitutional Guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment. This is one of the many reasons why I am adamantly against the “living Constitution” crock. The Constitution needs to be set in stone as much as possible so the President nor Congress can change it to fit their whims.
Imagine what would happen if the Supreme Court ruled a law unconstitutional, and instead of changing the law, the Government simply changed the constitution instead!
That is why only the people, through the amendment process, can change the constitution.
I’m very sorry for the long post…
Paddy==better than Wolfowitz. Given they are all crooks, what is important is the “transparency” of government operations and agressive/honest auditors.
Auditors.
Unsung heroes because the government gives them a position, but then won’t let them do their jobs.
The watchdogs are one major key to honest government and most if not all of them are unreviewable appointments.
I don’t expect much==but maybe. Interesting to see Obamagod’s disapproval of Biden’s joking about Judge Roberts regarding his fuckup. He really doesn’t want drama, conflict. That may paint him into corners he wouldn’t choose right off the bat.
It will be fun to see. I trust, but I’m verifying.
# 94 bobbo said, “Paddy==better than Wolfowitz.”
So much for his pledge to eliminate lobbyist from his Admin. LOL
“Change that you’d be a fool to believe in”
#92–Ah Yea==well done. I agree there are no controlling precedents, only some pretty good persuasive ones. You might be over relying on fact patterns, parties, and circumstances whereas a court might just look to the common sense obviousness of the “Chinese Water Torture” being only “American Enhanced Interrogation.” I’m sure Scalia could do that if he got the special handshake.
You have switched emphasis if not entirely ditching your original argument though which was that Congress’s taking no action was some sort of precedent on the court. I take it your new and actually relevant approach is tacitly an admission you had it all wrong?
Progress.
So==what do you think? Is “the water cure” torture or not? I think it is and only very incompetent people would advocate its use==so I’m not surprised the repuglicans champion it. Their humanity is outshown only by their greed.
#84, Ah Yea,
But on that day, no objections were raised.
Would you post a link to this? Could I see some actual proof that no objection was made? But to add to that is this gem from your link.
Ok, so now we hopefully understand that the top leaders of Congress were appraised and permission obtained to use waterboarding. If they didn’t like it they could have stopped it right then and there or anytime thereafter.
Whoa !!! I missed the part where “permission was obtained”. Secondly, it was not the Congressional delegation’s authority to grant permission to break the law. Third, there is nothing in the Constitution or statutes that expressly allows someone to break the law. Common law only provides a police officer to exceed the law in limited circumstances such as speeding to catch a speeder.
I will amend my statement to say that the top RANKING members of Congress are implicit in the use of waterboarding, which ranking members were mostly Democrats, in case you missed it.
In case you missed it, the Congressional delegation was comprised of the top members of the House (Speaker and Minority Leader), the top members of the Senate (Majority and Minority Leaders), and the Chairmen and Ranking members of the Intelligence committees. That makes eight people, four Democrats and four Republicans. The top leaders were all Republicans as they controlled both Houses of Congress.
You’re implication is that Congress has no control over the Judiciary. Wrong, so absolutely wrong it’s frightening it came from you, Bobbo.
You screwed up again. Bobbo is very correct. There are three branches of government. The Legislative, the Executive, and the Judiciary. None is beholding to the other. All statute laws are subject to review by the courts UNLESS the Congress expressly forbids it. The Supreme Court though may still rule on a law’s Constitutionality even if the lower courts may not.
Congress may only make an issue moot, they can not dismiss a properly filed lawsuit. To control any out of control Judges, they only have the power of impeachment. Congress can not tell any Judge how to rule in a specific case. All Judges, excepting the Supreme Court, must follow prior settled law. Settled law is how other courts have decided questions of law. Only the Supreme Court may alter their decision from previous decisions. Since no two cases are the exact same, and the statute law keeps changing, that still leaves a lot of room for Judges to have input.
Ah yea, you are really trying hard, unfortunately you can not just pin the blame for torture on Congress. The Bush Administration is the party responsible. To be complicit requires a party know the details before hand and have some degree of control over the situation or be a party to the actual crime.
Bobbo. Thank you. High praise!
Waterboarding is torture, no doubt about it. Anyone with a soul knows that.
And waterboarding is apparently not all that useful, but then there is that rare case where lives are actually saved and bad guys thwarted.
I didn’t mean to say that Congress’s lack of action was anything to be construed as law, but that the foreknowledge and lack of action of congress made it as culpable in the crime as the AG and others who approved it.
This is why all the talk of prosecuting those involved is just so much grandstanding. Once the new AG opens that Pandora’s box, who knows what will come out?
Fusion:
“But on that day, no objections were raised.
Would you post a link to this?
Just actually read the link I already posted in #84. It gets tiring to tell you to do your homework.
In case anyone missed it:
Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, a conservative, NRA endorsed, upstate Dem to replace Clinton in Senate!
LOL