Creative young speechwriters muzzled by Valerie JarrettVideo:
9/4/12
Cusack, Turley Expose Shameful O-Prog Stain
Related post:
MSNBC Stimulus Scandal Stains O-Camp
Baracko's legal policies would have amnestied WWII Nazis
MSNBC Stimulus Scandal Stains O-Camp
Baracko's legal policies would have amnestied WWII NazisJONATHAN TURLEY: The great irony of all this is that we're the architect of that international process. We're the one that always pushed for the position that no government could block war crimes prosecution.(full story at truth-out.org)
But that's not all. The Obama administration has also outdone the Bush administration in other areas. For example, one of the most important international principles to come out of World War II was the rejection of the "just following orders" defense. We were the country that led the world in saying that defendants brought before Nuremberg could not base their defense on the fact that they were just following orders. After Nuremberg, there were decades of development of this principle. It's a very important point, because that defense, if it is allowed, would shield most people accused of torture and war crime. So when the Obama administration –
JOHN CUSACK: That also parallels into the idea that the National Defense Authorization Act is using its powers not only to put a chilling effect on whistleblowers, but to also make it illegal for whistleblowers to bring the truth out. Am I right on that, or is that an overstatement?
TURLEY: Well, the biggest problem is that when the administration was fishing around for some way to justify not doing the right thing and not prosecuting torture, they finally released a document that said that CIA personnel and even some DOJ lawyers were "just following orders," but particularly CIA personnel.
The reason Obama promised them that none of them would be prosecuted is he said that they were just following the orders of higher authority in the government. That position gutted Nuremberg. Many lawyers around the world are upset because the US under the Obama administration has torn the heart out of Nuremberg. Just think of the implications: other countries that are accused of torture can shield their people and say, "Yeah, this guy was a torturer. This guy ordered a war crime. But they were all just following orders. And the guy that gave them the order, he's dead." It is the classic defense of war criminals. Now it is a viable defense again because of the Obama administration.
CUSACK: Yeah.
TURLEY: Certainly part of the problem is how the news media –
CUSACK: Oscar Wilde said most journalists would fall under the category of those who couldn't tell the difference between a bicycle accident and the end of civilization.
But why is it that all the journalists that you see mostly on MSNBC or most of the progressives, or so-called progressives, who believe that under Bush and Cheney and Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzalez these were great and grave constitutional crises, the wars were an ongoing moral fiasco — but now, since we have a friendly face in the White House, someone with kind of pleasing aesthetics and some new policies we like, now all of a sudden these aren't crimes, there's no crisis. Because he's our guy? Go, team, go?
TURLEY: Some in the media have certainly fallen into this cult of personality.
O-Surrogates Promote Job Training
Disgraced union big is also a County SupervisorOn the heels of the former U.S. Border Patrol union boss caught using union funds to pay for trips to his mistress, Media Trackers picked up a story about Western Wisconsin AFL-CIO boss, Bill Brockmiller, and four other would-be “Johns” who were arrested in a prostitution sting Monday night.(from laborunionreport.com)According to Brockmiller’s LinkedIn profile, the AFL-CIO boss is also employed as a labor market analyst for the La Crosse Job Center.
According Media Trackers’ research, Brockmiller is also a player in Wisconsin politics, donating to fellow union-bought Democrats, and was also involved in the recent failed effort to recall Republican Governor Scott Walker.
Tailors Strike, Thomas Eagleton, E.F. Schumacher
On this day: September 412,000 tailors strike against sweatshop working conditions in New York City (1894)
Brian Mulroney leads the Conservative Party to power, ending 20 years of nearly uninterrupted Liberal rule in Canada (1984)
b: Eduard Wirths (1909), Thomas R. Donahue (1928), Thomas Eagleton (1929); d: E. F. Schumacher (1977), William Kunstler (1995)
Prog tradition 'On this day' by RSS or via daily email.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
