Senator Feingold Suggests Impeachment of Corrupt Supreme Court Justices - Democratic Underground

Senator Feingold Suggests Impeachment of Corrupt Supreme Court Justices - Democratic Underground

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There is only one other possible way that we could “get new justices”, as Feingold suggested: Impeachment. Before discussing the pros and cons of a Constitutional amendment vs. impeachment for dealing with the corrupt Citizens United decision, let’s consider why this USSC decision should rightly be considered, as Feingold said, “one of the most lawless in the history of the Supreme Court”.

One of the most lawless decisions in the history of the Supreme Court

Matthews summarized the crux of the Citizens United vs. the Federal Elections Commission in his article:

To read the 5-4 majority decision in Citizens United is to look at a fun-house mirror…. The McCain-Feingold law prohibited corporate-funded independent ads during such a timeframe, and Citizens United challenged the constitutionality of the law as it applied to this particular instance….

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, threw out decades of Supreme Court precedents. Writing in the most sweeping way, he declared that “political speech of corporations or other associations” cannot “be treated differently under the First Amendment simply because such associations are not ‘natural persons.’ ”

The logic of the Court’s argument would throw out all restrictions on corporate expenditures. “Political speech must prevail against laws that would suppress it, whether by design or inadvertence,” it said. This seems to justify unlimited direct gifts to candidates, though the majority didn’t quite go there. But it went everywhere else.

Former U.S. Senator from Wisconsin and Progressive Party candidate for President Bob La Follette, warned of the threat of unlimited corporate power during his 1924 run for the Presidency:

Democracy cannot live side by side with the control of government by private monopoly. We must choose, on the one hand, between representative government, with its guarantee of peace, liberty, and economic freedom and prosperity for all the people, and on the other, war, tyranny, and the impoverishment of the many for the enrichment of the favored few.

Implications for our democracy – Justice John Paul Stevens in dissent

86 years later, Justice John Paul Stevens, in his dissent to the majority decision in Citizens United, explained what the majority decision means to the future of our democracy:

Justice John Paul Stevens… warned: “Starting today, corporations with large war chests to deploy on electioneering may find democratically elected bodies becoming much more attuned to their interests.” The Court’s decision, he added, undermines the integrity of our democratic institutions and “will undoubtedly cripple the ability of ordinary citizens, Congress, and the states to adopt even limited measures to protect against corporate domination of the electoral process.”

Stevens cut to the heart of the matter and laid out why corporations should not be treated as persons. “In the context of election to public office, the distinction between corporate and human speakers is significant,” he argued. “Although they make enormous contributions to our society, corporations are not actually members of it…. Their interests may conflict in fundamental respects with the interests of eligible voters. . .

Our lawmakers have a compelling constitutional basis, if not also a democratic duty, to take measures designed to guard against the potentially deleterious effects of corporate spending in local and national races.” …

Stevens also invoked our Founders. “Unlike our colleagues, they had little trouble distinguishing corporations from human beings, and when they constitutionalized the right to free speech in the First Amendment, it was the free speech of individual Americans that they had in mind,” he wrote. “Thomas Jefferson famously fretted that corporations would subvert the Republic,” Stevens observed, and in a footnote, he provided thequotation from Jefferson from 1816: “I hope we shall… crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations.”

On the corrupt nature of the decision

Of course, impeachment of our public officials must not be taken lightly. Decisions to impeach should not be taken on the basis of mere differences of opinion or differences of ideology. But to understand the corrupt and lawless nature of the decision one need only look at the justifications put forth by Justice Kennedy, writing for the majority. Matthews summarized this in his article:

The decision asserted, astonishingly and without evidence, that “independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.” It added: “The appearance of influence or access, furthermore, will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy.”

The first sentence noted above essentially asserts that the unlimited use of corporate wealth to influence our elections does “not give rise to corruption…”. Doesn’t give rise to corruption? Perhaps not. It IS corruption.

Maryland State Senator and law professor Jamie Raskin explained the consequences of removing all limitations on the use of corporate wealth to influence our elections:

In 2008, the Fortune 100 corporations had $600 billion in profits… Now imagine that those top 100 companies decided to spend a modest 1 percent of their profits to intervene in our politics and to get their way. That would mean $6 billion, or double what the Obama campaign spent, the McCain campaign spent, and every candidate for House and Senate.

And as for the idea that “the appearance of influence or access… will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy”, my God, how could any reasonably intelligent person say such a thing? ...

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Bugliosi summed up the significance to our country of Bush v. Gore:

That an election for an American President can be stolen by the highest court in the land under the deliberate pretext of an inapplicable constitutional provision has got to be one of the most frightening and dangerous events ever to have occurred in this country. Until this act – which is treasonous, though again not technically, in its sweeping implications – is somehow rectified (and I do not know how this can be done), can we be serene about continuing to place the adjective "great" before the name of this country?

That assessment is right on target. And it applies as well to any corrupt and lawless decision by the highest court in our land.

Do we need to pass a constitutional amendment to deal with every blatantly corrupt, lawless and absurd decision of our Supreme Court? Or would it be a better idea to serve notice that such abominations will not be tolerated? Should our Supreme Court justices be made to understand that there is some limit to the absurdity and corruptness of their decisions that will be tolerated? Should we send a message that they will be held accountable for adhering to the rule of law? Should we take seriously their oath to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States? Or do we have to pass a Constitutional amendment every time they blatantly violate their oath and stray beyond the bounds of decency and faithfulness to the rule of law?

OpEdNews - Article: Does the Supreme Court Represent the Citizens of America?

OpEdNews - Article: Does the Supreme Court Represent the Citizens of America?

Every fall in the United States thousands of first year law students, start law school. Most have a dream of some day sitting on the Supreme Court bench. However, very few if any of those students will ever sit in the United States Capital on the Supreme Court. There are one hundred and ninety nine accredited law schools, according to the ABA and over a hundred unaccredited law schools in the United States. There are over one million one hundred forty three thousand three hundred fifty eight lawyers today in the United States, according to the ABA. There are only nine seats on the Supreme Court at any one time. The likelihood of winning the lottery is probably more likely for a lawyer than acquiring one of those seats on the Supreme Court.

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Currently sitting on the Supreme Court is John Roberts; he is Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.He was born in Buffalo New York. His family moved to northern Indiana when his father retired as the CEO of Bethlehem Steel. He graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School. While at Harvard Law School, he was managing editor of the Harvard Law Review. He taught at Georgetown University for several years as well during his career as a lawyer. Justice Roberts is one of six Catholics on the Supreme Court.

Another lawyer on the Supreme Court bench is Stephen G. Breyer. He grew up in San Francisco California where his father was a lawyer. He received a B.A. in philosophy at Stanford University.He then attended Magadalen College in Oxford and received a bachelor of law degree. Upon returning to the United States, he received an LLB at Harvard University. He practiced law a few years and taught at Harvard University from 1967 until 1994. Justice Breyer is one of the two Jews on the Supreme Court.

The third lawyer to attend Harvard Law School currently sitting on the bench is Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She was born in Brooklyn New York and received her B.A. at Cornell University at Ithaca New York. She attended Harvard Law School and had already been put on the Harvard Law Review when her husband graduated and got a job in New York. She then transferred to the University of Columbia Law School and was placed on law review. Ms. Ginsberg during her career taught at Rutgers Law and Columbia University. Also during the summers, she taught at Tulane University. Justice Ginsberg is one of the two Jews currently serving on the Supreme Court.

The fourth Harvard trained lawyer on the United States Supreme Court currently is Anthony M. Kennedy. He was born and raised in Sacramento California. He received his B.A. from Stanford University in California. He attended his senior year of under graduate school at the London School of Economics. He received his law degree from Harvard University Law School. Mr. Kennedy has been teaching for years at the McGeorge School of Law at the University of the Pacific. He teaches each summer, as he sits on the bench, at Salzberg Austria. Justice Kennedy is one of the six Catholics serving on the Supreme Court. ...

OpEdNews - Article: Part 8 of Supreme Court Analysis: First Amendment Absolutism, But Only For Corporations

OpEdNews - Article: Part 8 of Supreme Court Analysis: First Amendment Absolutism, But Only For Corporations

This is the eighth of our much anticipated installments tearing up into little itsy bitsy pieces the rogue Supreme Court ruling to declare our country the kingdom of the corporations. We're not proud, we're not tired. But there are still yet more fundamental and unforgivable errors in this opinion we have not yet addressed.

Here we confront the shameless hypocrisy of creating a super protected status for the "speech" (amounting to nothing more than the power to spend vast sums of money) of corporations, by the same Supreme Court line up that has demonstrated ZERO tolerance for the "free" speech of just about anybody else.

In his opinion, Kennedy, writing for The Supreme Court 5 (including Roberts, Scalia, Thomas and Alito), can find no other reading of the First Amendment except that the "speech" of corporations "beyond all doubt" cannot be constrained in any way (opinion p. 19). Even requiring them to maintain a PAC as a vehicle for their political speech is too onerous of a paperwork burden he says (opinion pp. 20-21). And though previous courts and Congress have long recognized a compelling governmental interest making sure ordinary citizens were not drowned by a flood of corporate money, for Kennedy this was somehow a new invention of the Austin case that he then arrogates to overrule (opinion p. 31), specifically a governmental interest in preventing "... the corrosive and distorting effects of immense aggregations of wealth that are accumulated with the help of the corporate form and that have little or no correlation to the public's support for the corporation's political ideas."
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So what, you might now be asking yourselves, WOULD be a compelling governmental interest in limiting free speech? The opinion cites a handful of some 20-30 plus year old cases, examples of people in the military, people in prison, etc. (opinion pp. 24-25) But of course we don't have to look that far to find evidence of Kennedy's hypocrisy. This same line up of judges has spoken very recently on the free speech rights of ACTUAL people, and let's just see what they said.


In Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006), Kennedy wrote the opinion that a whistle blower, who was a deputy district attorney, could be retaliated against for speaking out against wrongdoing by the police. Somehow defending the free speech of someone charged with protecting the integrity of our law enforcement agencies was not a compelling government interest. But making sure multi-national corporations are not even slightly inconvenienced in buying our elections? That is, according to this same judge.


In Morse v. Frederick, 551 U.S. 393 (2007), Roberts wrote the opinion that unfurling a nonsensical joke banner ("Bong Hits For Jesus") off of school property was such a threat to the foundations of our society that it must be stamped out with the biggest possible boot, a dire governmental emergency. But having our policy debate leading up to an election totally dominated by corporate special interests? For Roberts, not so much.


Yes, when it comes to actual people or real compelling interests (like stopping police wrongdoing) the First Amendment is not for us. Because we now have a majority on our Supreme Court for which only the rights of corporations are supreme, inviolable, and sacrosanct. But for more evidence of just how dreadfully bad this decision is, you will have to wait until the ninth bone chilling installment of the Night of the Living Dead Dissents. ...

George W. Bush 'knew Guant�namo prisoners were innocent' - Times Online

George W. Bush 'knew Guant�namo prisoners were innocent' - Times Online

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld covered up that hundreds of innocent men were sent to the Guantánamo Bay prison camp because they feared that releasing them would harm the push for war in Iraq and the broader War on Terror, according to a new document obtained by The Times.

The accusations were made by Lawrence Wilkerson, a top aide to Colin Powell, the former Republican Secretary of State, in a signed declaration to support a lawsuit filed by a Guantánamo detainee. It is the first time that such allegations have been made by a senior member of the Bush Administration.

Colonel Wilkerson, who was General Powell’s chief of staff when he ran the State Department, was most critical of Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld. He claimed that the former Vice-President and Defence Secretary knew that the majority of the initial 742 detainees sent to Guantánamo in 2002 were innocent but believed that it was “politically impossible to release them”.

General Powell, who left the Bush Administration in 2005, angry about the misinformation that he unwittingly gave the world when he made the case for the invasion of Iraq at the UN, is understood to have backed Colonel Wilkerson’s declaration. ...

Anger over health-care reform spurs rise in threats against Congress members

Anger over health-care reform spurs rise in threats against Congress members

By Sari Horwitz and Ben Pershing | Friday, April 9, 2010 | Washington Post Staff Writers

Anger over the health-care overhaul has led to a nearly threefold increase in recent months in the number of serious threats against members of Congress, federal law enforcement officials said.

The lawmakers reported 42 threats in the first three months of this year, compared with 15 in last three months of 2009, said Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Terrance W. Gainer, who had information about threats involving both chambers.

"The incidents ranged from very vulgar to serious threats, including death threats," Gainer said. "The ability to carry them out is another question and part of an investigation to determine what, if any, appropriate steps to take."

Nearly all of the recent threats appear to come from opponents of the health-care overhaul, said Gainer, who also served four years as chief of the U.S. Capitol Police. And, he said, there have been "significantly more" threats against House members than against senators.

The threats, which have led to at least three arrests, have not abated since President Obama signed the measure into law March 23. The Capitol Police have contacted the FBI about such threats even more often since the law was signed, said Lindsay Godwin, an FBI spokeswoman. ...

Exclusive: FEC commissioner helped RNC conceal role in 2004 vote suppression | Raw Story

Exclusive: FEC commissioner helped RNC conceal role in 2004 vote suppression | Raw Story
Judge found sworn testimony 'belied' the facts

Caroline Hunter, a Bush-appointed Federal Election Commissioner who remains in office, provided misleading statements under oath in an effort to conceal Republican National Committee involvement in vote suppression activities during the 2004 presidential election, a Raw Story investigation has found.

Legal experts say Hunter's submission of such statements under oath is a serious ethical and professional breach which could warrant a bar review and potential disbarment. At the time, Hunter was serving as deputy counsel to the Republican National Committee.

How a young Republican lawyer became a central witness

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On Oct. 20, 2004 in Columbus, Ohio, Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie and Ohio Republican Party Chairman Bob Bennett decry rampant voter fraud in the state.

"The reports of voter fraud in Ohio are some of the most alarming in the nation," Gillespie asserts.

Two days later, the Ohio Republican Party challenges 35,000 voters, most of whom live in urban, Democratic-leaning areas.

On Nov. 1, the showdown over the injunction plays out in Newark Federal District Court.

"Is the RNC discussing the political aspects of wide-scale voter fraud? Absolutely, your Honor," argues RNC counsel Bobby Burchfield. "They're talking about it every day, because it's a pervasive problem." ...

OpEdNews - Article: Senate Has Become Graveyard of Congress

OpEdNews - Article: Senate Has Become Graveyard of Congress

The U.S. Senate has become the graveyard of Congress! Dozens of bills passed by the House of Representatives--to improve the health, safety and economic well-being of Americans--are locked up in the Senate month after month.

This was not always the case. In the sixties and seventies, legislation affecting consumers, workers and the environment often started in the Senate and was sent to the House in the hope that that body would not weaken or defeat these bills.

Committee chairs like Senators Warren Magnuson, Gaylord Nelson, and Walter Mondale would move legislation after great public hearings open to the citizenry. Auto safety, product safety, meat and poultry inspection, gas pipeline safety in the late sixties, followed by the sweeping air and water pollution control bills in the early seventies, were examples of Senatorial initiatives.

Today, the Senate lies paralyzed even as it is controlled by 59 Democrats--usually enough for comfortable passage of legislation sought by a majority party that also controls the presidency ....

Supreme Court May Lack Protestants, After Stevens Leaves : NPR

Supreme Court May Lack Protestants, After Stevens Leaves : NPR

With U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens talking openly about retirement, attention has focused on the "who" — as in who is on President Obama's short list of potential nominees. But almost nobody has noticed that when Justice Stevens retires, it is entirely possible that there will be no Protestant justices on the court for the first time ever.

Topic With A Hint Of Taboo

Let's face it: This is a radioactive subject. As Jeff Shesol, author of the critically acclaimed new book Supreme Power, puts it, "religion is the third rail of Supreme Court politics. It's not something that's talked about in polite company." And although Shesol notes that privately a lot of people remark about the surprising fact that there are so many Catholics on the Supreme Court, this is not a subject that people openly discuss.

In fact, six of the nine justices on the current court are Roman Catholic. That's half of the 12 Catholics who have ever served on the court. Only seven Jews have ever served, and two of them are there now. Depending on the Stevens replacement, there may be no Protestants left on the court at all in a majority Protestant nation where, for decades and generations, all of the justices were Protestant. ...

Exclusive: FEC inaction on enforcing election laws rises more than 600 percent | Raw Story

Exclusive: FEC inaction on enforcing election laws rises more than 600 percent | Raw Story

Little-noticed Republican appointee has encouraged deadlock

After GOP lawyer Caroline Hunter helped lead the national Election Assistance Commission, a propitious series of events allowed her swift confirmation to the Federal Election Commission.

The result, along with FEC appointments of her two Republican colleagues, has been a staggering decrease in the commission's ability to enforce campaign finance law.

A new statistical analysis shows that the number of FEC enforcement decisions that ended up in deadlocked votes -- three-three ties on the six-member bipartisan commission -- soared more than 600 percent in 2009.

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The new statistical analysis performed by Holman for Public Citizen, which he released exclusively to Raw Story, shows that from 2003 to 2008 the number of FEC enforcement decisions that ended up in deadlocked votes averaged less than 2 percent and in three of those six years averaged less than 1 percent. (Holman said those low percentages have been consistent since the creation of the FEC in 1975.) Yet, in 2009, Holman found that deadlocks on enforcement cases jumped to 12.6 percent -- an increase of more than 600 percent.

(The full Public Citizen analysis, showing that there has not been a comparable leap in other types of votes, can be found here.)...

Federal Judge Rules Bush Program Illegally Wiretapped Americans

Federal Judge Rules Bush Program Illegally Wiretapped Americans

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge ruled Wednesday that government investigators illegally wiretapped the phone conversations of an Islamic charity and two American lawyers without a search warrant.

U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker said the plaintiffs have provided enough evidence to show "they were subjected to warrantless electronic surveillance."

The judge ordered more legal arguments before deciding damages. Lawyers were seeking $1 million for each plaintiff plus attorney fees. The ruling also stands as repudiation of the now-defunct Bush administration's Terrorist Surveillance Program.

At issue was a 2006 lawsuit filed by the Ashland, Ore., branch of the Saudi-based Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation and two American lawyers Wendell Belew and Asim Ghafoor.

Belew and Ghafoor claimed their 2004 phone conversations with foundation official Soliman al-Buthi were wiretapped without warrants soon after the Treasury Department had declared the Oregon branch a supporter of terrorism. They argued that wiretaps installed without a judge's authorization are illegal.

Jon Eisenberg, lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the complicated 45-page ruling holds the Bush administration program was unconstitutional. ....

The BRAD BLOG : BREAKING: Clay County, KY Election Officials Found Guilty of Election Fraud, Vote Buying

The BRAD BLOG : BREAKING: Clay County, KY Election Officials Found Guilty of Election Fraud, Vote Buying

Convicted high-ranking officials include a circuit court judge, county clerk and school superintendent

Each face up to 20 years in broad conspiracy that included manipulation of electronic voting machines...

All eight defendants in Clay County, Kentucky's election fraud trial have been found guilty today by a federal jury. Six of those eight were high-ranking election officials, including the county clerk, a circuit judge and the school superintendent. The conspirators were charged with having manipulated federal elections in 2002, 2004 and 2006 by buying and selling votes and manipulating electronic voting machines.

According to AP, each of the now-convicted felons could face up to 20 years in prison for what prosecutors had described as a conspiracy to manipulate elections for decades in the rural, heavily Republican county.

In additional to federal racketeering, several of the defendants were also convicted of charges that included mail fraud, extortion and laundering money used to buy votes.

The BRAD BLOG has been following this story since the conspirators were originally arrested in March of last year, and as details of the election officials' manipulation of ES&S iVotronic touch-screen voting machines has emerged...

Supporters of unverifiable electronic voting, such as election officials and voting machines companies, had long argued that, though manipulation of such systems was possible, nobody had actually ever done so. While that dubious argument was difficult to independently verify one way or another --- since the private vendors make public oversight of such systems virtually impossible by blocking citizen inspection and oversight of such systems due to claims of "trade secrecy" --- the denialists arguments are no longer valid.

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And, just for good measure, we'll take this opportunity to remind readers, yet again, that the community organization ACORN --- who has long been used as a red-herring by the Republican Party to suggest the existence of massive Democratic "voter fraud" --- has never been charged with, or found guilty of aiding in the illegal casting of a single vote. Ever. Anywhere. No actual evidence has ever been presented in support of such a charge either.

Nonetheless, a recent survey by the the non-partisan polling outfit, Research 2000 found that one in five (21%) self-identified Republicans believe that ACORN stole the 2008 election for Barack Obama. Another 55% are "not sure" if they did or not.

Mark Udall: Republicans Upset Over Health Care Passage Block Bark Beetle Hearing

Mark Udall: Republicans Upset Over Health Care Passage Block Bark Beetle Hearing

Colorado Senator Mark Udall accused Senate Republicans of obstructionism Tuesday after GOP members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee canceled a hearing regarding bark beetles, an intrusive species of insect that are destroying Western forests and causing damaging fires.

In a statement, Udall's office said that Republicans, angry over the passage of health care reform on Sunday night, invoked an obscure senate rule to block the hearing as part of theirstated strategy of not cooperating with Democrats.

Udall's office wrote:

"Today's scheduled hearing on Senator Mark Udall's bill to protect communities from wildfire and falling trees as a result of bark beetle infestation has been canceled due to Republican obstructionism. Angry over the passage of health insurance reform legislation, Republican leaders are using an arcane rule, which requires the unanimous consent of Senators in both parties to agree to hearings scheduled after 2 p.m., and have objected to the bark beetle hearing and vowed not to cooperate with Democrats for the rest of the year."

Bark Beetles, which kill Western trees when they lay eggs in their trunks, have destroyed millions of acres of forests in the Rocky Mountain West over the last several years in what is considered to be one of the worse outbreaks in recorded history. ...

'Baby Killer' Yelled At Bart Stupak During Health Care Debate (VIDEO)

'Baby Killer' Yelled At Bart Stupak During Health Care Debate (VIDEO)

A Republican members of Congress apparently called Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) a "baby killer" near the end of the day-long House debate on health care Sunday night.

House Republicans, in an effort to derail the bill, introduced a "motion to recommit" that would have reintroduced the abortion amendment cosponsored by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and Rep. Joseph Pitts (R-Pa.).

In a dramatic gesture, the pro-life Stupak rose to speak against the amendment saying that it was nothing more than an effort to deprive 32 million Americans of health insurance. Democrats rose to applaud the much-maligned Stupak.

"It's your bill!" shouted several chastened members from the GOP side, as the chamber descended into chaos. Once order was restored, a GOP member then shouted at Stupak: "Baby killer!" ..

OpEdNews - Article: Hightower: Two Right-Wing Billionaire Brothers Are Remaking America for Their Own Benefit

OpEdNews - Article: Hightower: Two Right-Wing Billionaire Brothers Are Remaking America for Their Own Benefit

For OpEdNews: Jim Hightower - Writer

Despite a constant racket from the forces of the far-out right (Fox television's yackety-yackers, just-say-no GOP know-nothings, tea-bag howlers, Sarah Palinistas, et al.), the great majority of Americans support a bold progressive agenda for our country, ranging from Medicare for all to the decentralization and re-regulation of Wall Street. Indeed, in the elections of 2006 and 2008, people voted for a fundamental break from Washington's 30-year push to enthrone a corporate kleptocracy.

Yet the economic and political thievery continues, as the White House, Congress, both parties, the courts, the media, much of academia, and other national institutions that shape our public policies reflexively shy away from any structural change. Instead, the first instinct of these entities is to soothe the fevered brow of corporate power by insisting that corporate primacy be the starting point of any "reform." Thus, when Washington began its widely ballyhooed effort last year to reform our health-care system, step number one was to announce publicly that the monopolistic, bureaucratic insurance behemoths that cost us so much and deliver so little would retain their controlling position in the structure. Likewise, Wall Street barons who crashed America's financial system were allowed to oversee the system's remake--and (Big Surprise!) the same top-heavy structure and shaky practices that caused the crash are being kept in place.

In other words, the foxes who ate the chickens keep being put in charge of designing the new hen house -- so nothing really changes.

This is more than frustrating, it's infuriating -- and it's debilitating for our democracy. As a fellow said to me about the lack of real changes in national policy during the Clinton presidency, "I don't mind losing when we lose, but I hate losing when we win."

Why does this keep happening to us, and who's doing it? ...

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With 70,000 employees in 60 countries, this publicity-shy giant is America's second-largest privately owned corporation. Being private means it makes very few disclosures about its finances and operating practices, but we do know that it has sales topping $100 billion a year, which means it is bigger than such corporate giants as Verizon and Morgan Stanley.

The Billionaire Brothers

Charles and David Koch, who control this family-owned empire, are tied for a spot as the 19th-richest billionaire in the world, according to a 2009 ranking by Forbes. Each brother has a net worth of $14 billion, just below the wealth held by four heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune. Charles, 73, and David, 68, boast of being "self-made" billionaires. Actually, that's a fib, for they had a little help from Daddy. Fred Koch, who died in 1967, started his name-sake business after inventing a method of turning heavy oil into gasoline, and his sons got a leg up on their climb to billionairedom by inheriting Fred's company.

They also inherited something else: a burning ideological commitment to right-wing politics. How right wing? In 1958, Daddy Fred helped found the John Birch Society.

Following in those footsteps, Charles and David have used the wealth they draw from Koch Industries to fuel a network of three Koch Family Foundations. During the past three decades, these "charitable" foundations have set up and financed a secretive army of political operatives dedicated to achieving the brothers' anti-government, corporate-controlled vision for America. This stealth force includes national and state-level think tanks, Astroturf front groups, academic shills, university centers, political-training programs, fundraising clearinghouses, publications, lobbyists, and various other units useful to Charles and David's ideological cause.

This army's effort is effective because it is comprehensive, well funded, coordinated, and focused on a long term political strategy. Contrast that to the progressive movement, which largely consists of underfunded, unconnected groups and hops from battle to battle with little or no strategic planning.

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The different pushes to implement this anti-government ideology have come from a wide assortment of seemingly independent groups and individuals, creating a sense of broad public demand for a libertarian corporate kingdom in America. However, when you examine those pushing this dog-eat-dog ethic, chances are you'll find that they have one thing in common: funding from the Koch fortune.

The three Koch family foundations discreetly refrain from publishing the recipients of their beneficence, but some progressive watchdogs (see Do Something) have dug into the dense IRS reports that foundations must file, giving us a glimpse of the extensive right-wing web spun by this one oil family. The Kochs are not the only funders, of course -- such other far-right family foundations as Bradley, Coors, Olin, and Scaife are also major players. But the size, scope, strategic purpose, and secrecy of the Koch investments make the brothers worthy of special attention. The following list by no means covers the entirety of their network (they've put money into hundreds of groups), but it'll give you a sense of their reach into every nook and cranny of public policy.

Charles and David are not idle check-writers -- they're actively involved in the creation and running of this interconnected web of political influence and hold top positions in many groups. For example, David is board chairman of Americans for Prosperity and is on the boards of the Cato Institute and Reason Foundation, while Charles (who founded Cato in 1977) is chairman of the Institute for Humane Studies and a director of the Mercatus Center.

The focus of most political groups is to influence candidates, lawmakers, agency heads, and reporters at the top of the system. But these two brothers have been executing a concerted plan for more than 30 years not only to influence those at the top, but also to go much deeper. They spend freely on dozens of ideologically grounded, right-wing groups to influence schoolteachers and high-school curricula, state and federal judges, lawyers and legal scholars, conservative policy thinkers and media producers, city-council candidates and local party activists -- and their aim is to shove the country's national debate to the hard right, discombobulate the public's progressive wishes, and alter government policies to advance corporate interests generally and the Kochs' own interests specifically. ...

It's Obama vs. the Supreme Court, Round 2, over campaign finance ruling - washingtonpost.com

It's Obama vs. the Supreme Court, Round 2, over campaign finance ruling - washingtonpost.com

By Robert Barnes and Anne E. Kornblut Thursday, March 11, 2010 | Washington Post Staff Writer

President Obama and the Supreme Court have waded again into unfamiliar and strikingly personal territory.

When Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. told law students in Alabama on Tuesday that the timing of Obama's criticism of the court during the State of the Union address was "very troubling," the White House pounced. It shot back with a new denouncement of the court's ruling that allowed a more active campaign role for corporations and unions.

On Wednesday, Senate Democrats followed up with pointed criticism of Roberts, and at a hearing on the decision, a leading Democrat said the American public had "rightfully recoiled" from the ruling.

The heated rhetoric has cast the normally cloistered workings of the court into a very public spotlight. Democrats hope to make the decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission part of their strategy to portray the conservative justices as more protective of corporate interests than of average Americans.

A Democratic strategist who works with the White House said the fight is a good one for Obama, helping lay the groundwork for the next Supreme Court opening. "Most Americans have no idea what the Supreme Court does or how it impacts their lives," the strategist said. "This decision makes it crystal clear."

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) opened the hearing on the ruling Wednesday by declaring that "the Citizens United decision turns the idea of government of, by and for the people on its head." The committee's ranking Republican, Jeff Sessions (Ala.), countered that Obama and Democrats are mischaracterizing the ruling for political gain. ...

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Obama's blunt criticism, while six black-robed justices sat at the front of the House chamber, set off a round of public debate about whether he was both wrong and rude, or whether Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. violated judicial custom by silently mouthing "not true" while the president was speaking.

Presidential historians said that while other presidents have criticized Supreme Court decisions or called upon Congress to remedy them, Obama's was the most pointed and direct criticism in a State of the Union address since President Franklin D. Roosevelt took on the court for blocking his programs.
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But when asked whether the State of the Union address was the "proper venue" in which to "chide" the Supreme Court, Roberts did not hesitate.

....

He continued: "On the other hand, there is the issue of the setting, the circumstances and the decorum. The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court -- according to the requirements of protocol -- has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling."

The White House struck back quickly -- not at Roberts's point, but at the decision. "What is troubling is that this decision opened the floodgates for corporations and special interests to pour money into elections -- drowning out the voices of average Americans," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement. "The president has long been committed to reducing the undue influence of special interests and their lobbyists over government. That is why he spoke out to condemn the decision." ....

Broken Government: Conservatives Keep Up Record Pace Of Obstruction | OurFuture.org

Broken Government: Conservatives Keep Up Record Pace Of Obstruction | OurFuture.org

A Center for American Progress report this week chronicles just how obstructionist conservatives in the Senate continue to be as they use the filibuster to block reform efforts in the Senate.

Scott Lilly elaborates on a trend that we began chronicling more than two years ago as conservatives announced that routine use of the filibuster would become their political strategy. They would flip-flop from being the party that insisted on "the up-or-down vote" to the party sometimes willing to block votes at all costs.

Lilly chronicles a steadily rising occurrence of filibusters in the Senate, from an average of 20 a year in the 1970s and 1980s to an average of 36 a year up to the 2006 elections. But that dramatically changed when the Democrats took control of the Senate in 2006.

To borrow a term from “Star Wars,” filibustering has gone from overdrive to “hyperspace.” Filibusters are now commonly used to block not only legislation the minority opposes, but to block legislation the minority does not necessarily have strong feelings on but will use to place a stick in the spokes of the legislative wheel anytime an opportunity presents itself.

The effect is that a 60-vote supermajority has become a routine requirement for moving virtually any legislation through the Senate. That has fueled the accurate perception that the Senate is "broken," though only sporadically have Senate leaders clearly stated that it is Senate conservatives who have broken it.

Statistics maintained by the Senate show that so far in the 111th Congress, starting last year, there have been 80 cloture motions filed to end filibusters, a pace that could match, if not exceed, the 110th Congress, which saw a total of 139 cloture motions filed to end filibusters. There were more than twice as many cloture motions in the 110th Congress as there were in the 109th.

Those numbers, as Lilly notes, do not take into account the invisible filibusters that never result in floor action but have the same effect of allowing a conservative minority to kill legislation.

Cloture is filed against only those threatened filibusters that the Senate leadership has the floor time and possible votes to overcome. Much legislation and many presidential appointments are killed before they can be reported by committee either because 60 votes cannot be obtained or the cost in time to the Senate schedule is too great to warrant the effort required to defeat a threatened filibuster.

Lilly is proposing some modest measures to address the abuse of the filibuster, recommending that filibusters not be allowed on appropriations bills and confirmations. In the wake of the recent filibuster by arch-conservative Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning that ended up cutting off unemployment benefits for thousands of unemployed people and furloughing thousands of transportation workers, Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., said he is pushing for a broader filibuster reform that he wants to see enacted at the beginning of the next congressional session. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., has said this week that he is prepared to hold hearings on the subject as chairman of the Senate Rules Committee. ...

Action is my duty Reward is not my concern - Kudos To Senator Reid's SCORCHING Letter To Repubs Vowing To Use Reconciliation

<div align=center><em>Action is my duty <br> Reward is not my concern</em></div> - Kudos To Senator Reid's SCORCHING Letter To Repubs Vowing To Use Reconciliation

March 11, 2010
The Honorable Mitch McConnell

Republican Leader

United States Senate

Washington, DC 20510

Dear Leader McConnell:

Eleven months ago, I wrote you to share my expectations for the coming health reform debate. At the time, I expressed Democrats’ intention to work in good faith with Republicans, and my desire that – while we would disagree at times – we could engage in an honest discussion grounded in facts rather than fear, and focused on producing results, not playing partisan politics.

Obviously, the opposite has happened, as many Republicans have spent the past year mischaracterizing the health reform bill and misleading the public. Though we have tried to engage in a serious discussion, our efforts have been met by repeatedly debunked myths and outright lies. At the same time, Republicans have resorted to extraordinary legislative maneuvers in an effort not to improve the bill, but to delay and kill it. After watching these tactics for nearly a year, there is only one conclusion an objective observer could make: these Republican maneuvers are rooted less in substantive policy concerns and more in a partisan desire to discredit Democrats, bolster Republicans, and protect the status quo on behalf of the insurance industry.

In fact, the attacks on the health care bill are part of a broader pattern. As has been well documented, your caucus conspicuously shattered the record for obstruction last Congress by demanding gratuitous procedural votes on even the most non-controversial matters, and by stalling the work of the Senate despite the urgency of the serious problems facing our country. Senate Republicans are on pace to again break their own record this Congress, illustrated by Sen. Bunning’s effort to prevent the Senate from acting to extend families’ unemployment and health benefits even after those benefits had expired.

While Republicans were distorting the facts in the health care debate and inflicting delay after needless delay, millions of Americans have continued to suffer as they struggle to afford to stay healthy, stay out of bankruptcy and stay in their homes. Thousands of Americans lose their health care every day, and tens of thousands of the uninsured have lost their lives since this debate began. Meanwhile, rising health costs have contributed to a rising federal budget deficit.

To address these problems, 60 Senators voted to pass historic reform that will make health insurance more affordable, make health insurance companies more accountable and reduce our deficit by roughly a trillion dollars. The House passed a similar bill. However, many Republicans now are demanding that we simply ignore the progress we’ve made, the extensive debate and negotiations we’ve held, the amendments we’ve added (including more than 100 from Republicans) and the votes of a supermajority in favor of a bill whose contents the American people unambiguously support. We will not. We will finish the job. We will do so by revising individual elements of the bills both Houses of Congress passed last year, and we plan to use the regular budget reconciliation process that the Republican caucus has used many times. ...

The Guant�namo “Suicides”: A Camp Delta sergeant blows the whistle—By Scott Horton (Harper's Magazine)

The Guant�namo “Suicides”: A Camp Delta sergeant blows the whistle—By Scott Horton (Harper's Magazine)
...
Furthermore, new evidence now emerging may entangle Obama’s young administration with crimes that occurred during the George W. Bush presidency, evidence that suggests the current administration failed to investigate seriously—and may even have continued—a cover-up of the possible homicides of three prisoners at Guantánamo in 2006.

Late on the evening of June 9 that year, three prisoners at Guantánamo died suddenly and violently. Salah Ahmed Al-Salami, from Yemen, was thirty-seven. Mani Shaman Al-Utaybi, from Saudi Arabia, was thirty. Yasser Talal Al-Zahrani, also from Saudi Arabia, was twenty-two, and had been imprisoned at Guantánamo since he was captured at the age of seventeen. None of the men had been charged with a crime, though all three had been engaged in hunger strikes to protest the conditions of their imprisonment. They were being held in a cell block, known as Alpha Block, reserved for particularly troublesome or high-value prisoners.

As news of the deaths emerged the following day, the camp quickly went into lockdown. The authorities ordered nearly all the reporters at Guantánamo to leave and those en route to turn back. The commander at Guantánamo, Rear Admiral Harry Harris, then declared the deaths “suicides.” In an unusual move, he also used the announcement to attack the dead men. “I believe this was not an act of desperation,” he said, “but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.” Reporters accepted the official account, and even lawyers for the prisoners appeared to believe that they had killed themselves. Only the prisoners’ families in Saudi Arabia and Yemen rejected the notion.

Two years later, the U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which has primary investigative jurisdiction within the naval base, issued a report supporting the account originally advanced by Harris, now a vice-admiral in command of the Sixth Fleet. The Pentagon declined to make the NCIS report public, and only when pressed with Freedom of Information Act demands did it disclose parts of the report, some 1,700 pages of documents so heavily redacted as to be nearly incomprehensible. The NCIS documents were carefully cross-referenced and deciphered by students and faculty at the law school of Seton Hall University in New Jersey, and their findings, released in November 2009, made clear why the Pentagon had been unwilling to make its conclusions public. The official story of the prisoners’ deaths was full of unacknowledged contradictions, and the centerpiece of the report—a reconstruction of the events—was simply unbelievable.

According to the NCIS documents, each prisoner had fashioned a noose from torn sheets and T-shirts and tied it to the top of his cell’s eight-foot-high steel-mesh wall. Each prisoner was able somehow to bind his own hands, and, in at least one case, his own feet, then stuff more rags deep down into his own throat. We are then asked to believe that each prisoner, even as he was choking on those rags, climbed up on his washbasin, slipped his head through the noose, tightened it, and leapt from the washbasin to hang until he asphyxiated. The NCIS report also proposes that the three prisoners, who were held in non-adjoining cells, carried out each of these actions almost simultaneously.

...

He described the events in detail to his lawyer, Zachary Katznelson, who was permitted to speak to him several weeks later. Katznelson recorded every detail of Aamer’s account and filed an affidavit with the federal district court in Washington, setting it out:

On June 9th, 2006, [Aamer] was beaten for two and a half hours straight. Seven naval military police participated in his beating. Mr. Aamer stated he had refused to provide a retina scan and fingerprints. He reported to me that he was strapped to a chair, fully restrained at the head, arms and legs. The MPs inflicted so much pain, Mr. Aamer said he thought he was going to die. The MPs pressed on pressure points all over his body: his temples, just under his jawline, in the hollow beneath his ears. They choked him. They bent his nose repeatedly so hard to the side he thought it would break. They pinched his thighs and feet constantly. They gouged his eyes. They held his eyes open and shined a mag-lite in them for minutes on end, generating intense heat. They bent his fingers until he screamed. When he screamed, they cut off his airway, then put a mask on him so he could not cry out.

The treatment Aamer describes is noteworthy because it produces excruciating pain without leaving lasting marks. Still, the fact that Aamer had his airway cut off and a mask put over his face “so he could not cry out” is alarming. This is the same technique that appears to have been used on the three deceased prisoners.

The United Kingdom has pressed aggressively for the return of British subjects and persons of interest. Every individual requested by the British has been turned over, with one exception: Shaker Aamer. In denying this request, U.S. authorities have cited unelaborated “security” concerns. There is no suggestion that the Americans intend to charge him before a military commission, or in a federal criminal court, and, indeed, they have no meaningful evidence linking him to any crime. American authorities may be concerned that Aamer, if released, could provide evidence against them in criminal investigations. This evidence would include what he experienced on June 9, 2006, and during his 2002 detention in Afghanistan at Bagram Airfield, where he says he was subjected to a procedure in which his head was smashed repeatedly against a wall. This torture technique, called “walling” in CIA documents, was expressly approved at a later date by the Department of Justice. ...

UN expert slams US for not looking into torture claims | Raw Story

UN expert slams US for not looking into torture claims | Raw Story

GENEVA — The UN's independent expert on torture on Wednesday criticised the Obama administration for not investigating allegations of torture made when president George W. Bush was in power.

"This is my criticism of the Obama administration: There is not enough done to remedy what has been done in the past," Manfred Nowak, UN special rapporteur on torture, told journalists.

"I think it's a legal question," he said.

"The US are a part of the UN Convention against Torture, but there are very clear legal obligations -- wherever you have indications, complaints about torture, then you have to investigate them independently and effectively."

Editorial - The Torture Lawyers - NYTimes.com

Editorial - The Torture Lawyers - NYTimes.com

Published: February 24, 2010

Is this really the state of ethics in the American legal profession? Government lawyers who abused their offices to give the president license to get away with torture did nothing that merits a review by the bar?

A five-year inquiry by the Justice Department’s ethics watchdogs recommended a disciplinary review for the two lawyers who produced the infamous torture memos for former President George W. Bush, but they were overruled by a more senior Justice Department official.

The original investigation found that the lawyers, John Yoo and Jay Bybee, had committed “professional misconduct” in a series of memos starting in August 2002. First, they defined torture so narrowly as to make it almost impossible to accuse a jailer of torturing a prisoner, and they finally concluded that President Bush was free to ignore any law on the conduct of war.

The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility said appropriate bar associations should be asked to look at the actions of Mr. Yoo, who teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, and Mr. Bybee, who was rewarded for his political loyalty with a lifetime appointment to the federal bench. It was a credible accounting, especially since some former officials, like Attorney General John Ashcroft, refused to cooperate and e-mails from Mr. Yoo were mysteriously missing.

But the more senior official, David Margolis, decided that Mr. Yoo and Mr. Bybee only had shown “poor judgment” and should not be disciplined. Mr. Margolis did not dispute that Mr. Yoo and Mr. Bybee mangled legal reasoning and produced work that ultimately was repudiated by the Bush administration itself. He criticized the professional responsibility office’s investigation on procedural grounds and excused Mr. Yoo and Mr. Bybee by noting that everyone was frightened after Sept. 11, 2001, and that they were in a hurry. ...

Op-Ed Columnist - The Bankruptcy Boys - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist - The Bankruptcy Boys - NYTimes.com

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: February 21, 2010

O.K., the beast is starving. Now what? That’s the question confronting Republicans. But they’re refusing to answer, or even to engage in any serious discussion about what to do.

For readers who don’t know what I’m talking about: ever since Reagan, the G.O.P. has been run by people who want a much smaller government. In the famous words of the activist Grover Norquist, conservatives want to get the government “down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”

But there has always been a political problem with this agenda. Voters may say that they oppose big government, but the programs that actually dominate federal spending — Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — are very popular. So how can the public be persuaded to accept large spending cuts?

The conservative answer, which evolved in the late 1970s, would be dubbed “starving the beast” during the Reagan years. The idea — propounded by many members of the conservative intelligentsia, from Alan Greenspan to Irving Kristol — was basically that sympathetic politicians should engage in a game of bait and switch. Rather than proposing unpopular spending cuts, Republicans would push through popular tax cuts, with the deliberate intention of worsening the government’s fiscal position. Spending cuts could then be sold as a necessity rather than a choice, the only way to eliminate an unsustainable budget deficit.

And the deficit came. True, more than half of this year’s budget deficit is the result of the Great Recession, which has both depressed revenues and required a temporary surge in spending to contain the damage. But even when the crisis is over, the budget will remain deeply in the red, largely as a result of Bush-era tax cuts (and Bush-era unfunded wars). And the combination of an aging population and rising medical costs will, unless something is done, lead to explosive debt growth after 2020.

So the beast is starving, as planned. It should be time, then, for conservatives to explain which parts of the beast they want to cut. And President Obama has, in effect, invited them to do just that, by calling for a bipartisan deficit commission....

Sen. Michael Bennet: Reform the Filibuster

Sen. Michael Bennet: Reform the Filibuster

During the past year I've had conversations with thousands of people from all parts of Colorado, and I've heard a common refrain: Washington isn't working. Last week, the obstructionist actions of Republican senator Jim Bunning left no doubt that the people of Colorado are right -- Washington is broken, and it's getting worse.

The filibuster was originally intended to protect minority rights and encourage meaningful debate on the Senate floor. Today, this important rule is being abused at an unprecedented rate, and it's grinding the business of the Senate to a standstill.

That's why I am introducing new legislation to reform the Senate's rules -- to reform the filibuster in a responsible, practical way. My bill protects minority rights, while allowing the Senate to more efficiently conduct the people's business and put an end to pointless delays.

The real problem is that the filibuster is being abused with unprecedented frequency. Individuals and parties are using it to obstruct progress, and the American people are paying the price.

Here are the specifics of my filibuster reform proposal:

• Ends anonymous holds so senators will have to answer to their constituents;
• Requires filibuster supporters to actually show up and vote;
• Filibusters at the beginning of debate will be eliminated so we can get back to the business of deliberating bills; and,
• Creates incentives to encourage bipartisanship and allows bills with bipartisan support to move more quickly. ...

Jim Bunning Repeatedly Blocks Unemployment Benefits Extension, Tells Dem 'Tough Shit'

Jim Bunning Repeatedly Blocks Unemployment Benefits Extension, Tells Dem 'Tough Shit'

...

Updated below: The Senate has now recessed for the weekend without taking action.

Jim Bunning, a Republican from Kentucky, is single-handedly blocking Senate action needed to prevent an estimated 1.2 million American workers from prematurely losing their unemployment benefits next month.

As Democratic senators asked again and again for unanimous consent for a vote on a 30-day extension Thursday night, Bunning refused to go along.

And when Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) begged him to drop his objection, Politico reports, Bunning replied: "Tough shit."

Bunning says he doesn't oppose extending benefits -- he just doesn't want the money that's required added to the deficit. He proposes paying for the 30-day extension with stimulus funds. The Senate's GOP leadership did not support him in his objections. ....

OpEdNews - Article: The Seven Paragraphs: Released Binyan Mohamed Abuse Evidence Poses Problems for Both British and US Governments

OpEdNews - Article: The Seven Paragraphs: Released Binyan Mohamed Abuse Evidence Poses Problems for Both British and US Governments
...
In a major development in the struggle to curb the abuses committed as part of the War on Terror, the British government today released under court order previously redacted information on the abuse of Binyan Mohamed by US interrogators. Here are the seven paragraphs that were released which summarizes intelligence information which both the British and US governments fought hard to suppress:

It was reported that a new series of interviews was conducted by the United States authorities prior to 17 May 2002 as part of a new strategy designed by an expert interviewer.

v) It was reported that at some stage during that further interview process by the United States authorities, BM had been intentionally subjected to continuous sleep deprivation. The effects of the sleep deprivation were carefully observed.

vi) It was reported that combined with the sleep deprivation, threats and inducements were made to him. His fears of being removed from United States custody and "disappearing" were played upon.

vii) It was reported that the stress brought about by these deliberate tactics was increased by him being shackled in his interviews

viii) It was clear not only from the reports of the content of the interviews but also from the report that he was being kept under self-harm observation, that the interviews were having a marked effect upon him and causing him significant mental stress and suffering.

ix) We regret to have to conclude that the reports provide to the SyS [security services] made clear to anyone reading them that BM was being subjected to the treatment that we have described and the effect upon him of that intentional treatment.

x) The treatment reported, if had been administered on behalf of the United Kingdom, would clearly have been in breach of the undertakings given by the United Kingdom in 1972. Although it is not necessary for us to categorise the treatment reported, it could readily be contended to be at the very least cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by the United States authorities.

This case has aroused tremendous attention in Britain, as it clearly revealed British intelligence agents', and the British Government's, complicity in abuse of a British citizen. The British public, unlike much of the American, finds complicity in torture by its intelligence agents to be deeply disturbing.

The court decision ordering the release of this material is causing additional outrage because it violated hundreds of years of legal precedent in allowing only one side, the British government, to suggest changes in the decision. These changes were made without an opportunity of the defense to object. The letter to the court from the government lawyers requesting the changes was released, however. That letter gives a sense of what was excluded:

The master of the rolls' observations " will be read as statements by the court that the security service does not in fact operate a culture that respects human rights or abjures participation in coercive interrogation techniques.

Thus, the British government is afraid that the lies they perpetrated in the Binyan Mohamed case will disincline future courts from believing claims that the British government can be trusted when it asserts that they are opposed to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. In other words, the court might correctly understand that the British government, like the US and many other governments, is a serial liar when it comes to abuses committed by its agents.

What may be less clear to US citizens is the potential enormous impact of the released information to the anti-torture struggle in the US. Marcy Wheeler [emptywheel] has pointed out the major significance of the apparent timing of Binyan Mohamed's abuse. It is reported to have occurred before a visit by an MI5 officer on May 17, 2002. The significance of the date is that it is before the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel memos providing a legal cover for torture were issued in august, 2002.Thus, Binyan Mohamed's abuse, unlike later abuses, cannot be justified as being conducted in good faith under an authoritative legal opinion from the OLC.

Thus, this information just might provide an opportunity for prosecuting some of the torture perpetrators. And if the perpetrators are culpable, so may be those officials, however high they may be, who authorized the abuse. ...