Despite the torture memo revelations, Democratic leaders are showing little interest in prosecuting torturers, according to Jason Leopold:

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy reiterated his calls for a bipartisan “truth commission.”

Here's more evidence that the bipartisan "Truth Commission" proposed by Sen. Pat Leahy and Rep.  John Conyers is impossible. Bill O'Reilly attacked it immediately as a treasonous effort to help Osama Bin Laden attack America. The ventriloquist's dummy for O'Reilly's attack was Marc Thiessen, Bush’s former chief speechwriter:

THIESSEN: [T]he facts that they want to get out are the techniques we use to interrogate terrorists. The techniques that we used to intercept e-mails and communications and telephone calls. And when you get those facts out, it’s not just going out to the American people and to the viewers on television. It’s going out to Osama bin Laden. It’s going out to the terrorists who can use those information to get around our intelligence and plan the next attack.

To build support for his proposed "Truth Commission" (see BushTruthCommission.com) Senate Judiciary chair Pat Leahy (D-VT) offers more fallacies. (Senator Leahy's staff has not replied to my phone/email requests to answer the questions I posed yesterday.)

During the past several years, this country has been divided as deeply as it has been at any time in our history since the Civil War...

In this week when we begin commemorating the Lincoln bicentennial, there is need, again, "to bind up the nation's wounds."...  

Dear Senator Leahy,

When you proposed a Truth Commission on February 9, you rejected prosecution because it could "take all of the next eight years."

In your interview with Rachel Maddow on February 10, you said prosecution could "take 10 or 15 years."

Your statements require us to ask these questions:

1. Are you aware that President Bush and Vice President Cheney have publicly confessed that they authorized waterboarding and other acts which are established forms of torture under federal law?

Rachel Maddow did an excellent segment on Senator Pat Leahy's call for a Truth Commission. Despite Leahy's brushoffs, Maddow kept returning to the question of prosecution. Leahy's objection to prosecution is simple - and ludicrous:

You're gonna have some people who say "let's go ahead and prosecute everybody," that could take 10 or 15 years.

Senator Leahy, are you unaware that both Bush and Cheney have publicly confessed to authorizing waterboarding and other forms of torture? Given these confessions, why would prosecution take more than 10-15 minutes?

Democratic "leaders" desperately want to sweep the most heinous crimes of the Bush-Cheney administration under the rug, rather than prosecute those crimes according to the Rule of Law. Today, Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy proposed a "truth commission," which he called

a middle ground to find the truth.  We need to get to the bottom of what happened -- and why -- so we make sure it never happens again. 

Notice what is glaringly missing - any form of accountability. Of course, the only way to "make sure it never happens again" is to punish those who just did it. Otherwise they will come back in 4 or 8 years and commit all the same crimes again, only worse!

The Senate will vote this week on two disastrous bills: $163B for the continued occupation of Iraq and immunity for George Bush and the telecoms who are illegally wiretapping our calls and emails.

On Tuesday, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) launched a filibuster against the "Warrantless Wiretapping Immunity Act" with an impassioned speech on the Senate floor. Dodd is supported by Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Ron Wyden (D-OR).

Unfortunately it takes 41 votes for a successful filibuster, and we can only count on 30, based on a similar vote on 2/12/08. These Democrats voted wrong. Call them and tell them to join the Dodd Filibuster against telecom immunity.

At a time when the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are being shredded in front of our eyes, what a pleasure it is to watch Sen. Pat Leahy descend from the lofty heights of Capitol Hill to give a terrific speech to a rally of The People.

 

New sign on the Highways!

Dispatch from a Hotel in Normal, IL - 12:15A CST

Karl Rove and the gang are at it again, this time it is to destroy the Democratic Governor of Kansas. Her mortal sin was to tell the truth about the Kansas National Guard equipment.

Tony Snow, living up to his name, started the snowball rolling by stating "Governor Sebelius never requested anything from the Federal Government." Today that ball was picked up by none other than Sean Hannity. He interviewed two idiots from Pittsburgh, PA, who have a morning show on 104.7 FM (a Clearchannel station) and XM Radio named Quinn and Rose, and accused Howard Dean of orchestrating the Governor's statement for political gain.

The story goes like this:

Senator Pat Leahy led the first real oversight hearings with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who did his best to dodge and weave. Finally Leahy let Gonzales have it, blasting him over the treatment of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who was detained and sent to Syria, where he was regularly tortured for almost a year before being released uncharged.