Turley Tells Olbermann: Spanish Courts Could Bring A Case Against Cheney (VIDEO)

Turley: Spanish courts may be building case against Cheney

Raw Story- David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster
Published: Tuesday March 31, 2009

According to constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley, the prosecution of Bush’s so-called “torture lawyers” might just give Spanish prosecutors the “low lying fruit” needed to bring a case against Vice President Cheney.

Appearing on Monday night’s edition of MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann, George Washington University law professor Turley said that although President Obama is “protecting” the former administration from prosecution, the Spanish investigation could serve as a point of leverage.

By targeting attorneys who wrote legal justifications for torture, said Turley, prosecutors are going “for the first line of defendants.”

“And then if you have a case, you go for the higher ones,” he added.

Referencing Seymor Hersh’s allegation that an “executive assassination ring” reported directly to the former Vice President — and the apparent confirmation of the allegation’s veracity by a former Cheney aide — Olbermann wondered, “Should the Spanish prosecutors be taking notes?””

“It’s well known the Obama administration is protecting President Bush and Vice President Cheney from criminal investigation,” he concluded. “And if he went after the two of them, the U.S. government could move aggressively to shut down the inquiry.”

This video is from MSNBC’s Countdown, broadcast Mar. 30, 2009.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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Your Tax Money & Their Bail-Out Plan$

Your Tax Money & Their Bail-Out Plan$

by Geezer Power

The media in those days was AM radio and the news papers, but there was considerable propaganda at the movie theatres. The News and a cartoon were always shown before the previews and the main feature. In those times the focus was on “guns and butter”, and the idea presented was for the tax payers to conserve resources and pay for the war by raising taxes.

We have come a long way since then, and the industrial war complex has morphed into a corpo-government that advocates using up resources and cutting taxes. Propaganda these days is a 24/7 thing where the truth is buried in dis-information by media that is bought and paid for by the same crooks that we are trusting with our tax money.

Paulson Bailout Plan a Historic Swindle

The Nation

By William Greider

September 19, 2008

Financial-market wise guys, who had been seized with fear, are suddenly drunk with hope. They are rallying explosively because they think they have successfully stampeded Washington into accepting the Wall Street Journal solution to the crisis: dump it all on the taxpayers. That is the meaning of the massive bailout Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has shopped around Congress. It would relieve the major banks and investment firms of their mountainous rotten assets and make the public swallow their losses–many hundreds of billions, maybe much more. What’s not to like if you are a financial titan threatened with extinction?

If Wall Street gets away with this, it will represent an historic swindle of the American public–all sugar for the villains, lasting pain and damage for the victims. My advice to Washington politicians: Stop, take a deep breath and examine what you are being told to do by so-called “responsible opinion.” If this deal succeeds, I predict it will become a transforming event in American politics–exposing the deep deformities in our democracy and launching a tidal wave of righteous anger and popular rebellion. As I have been saying for several months, this crisis has the potential to bring down one or both political parties, take your choice.

More

Here’s a recent interview by Bill Moyers

Bill Moyers Journal

March 27, 2009

For years best-selling author William Greider sounded the alarm about Washington’s unholy alliance with Wall Street and the failure of the Federal Reserve and other regulators to take preventive measures to avoid disaster. Now, he offers some suggestions to the question everyone is asking: “What do we do now?”

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Spanish Lawyer Tells Feith: “Get A Good Lawyer”

‘Get a good lawyer,’ lawyer tells former Bush official

Raw Story- John Byrne
Published: Monday March 30, 2009

After a former Bush official responded to a lawyer who’s suing him for alleged torture at Guantanamo Bay, the lawyer has fired back in kind.

Douglas Feith, former undersecretary of defense under President George W. Bush, is accused by Spanish human rights lawyers of providing legal cover to Bush policies under which detainees were tortured. The lawyers want to try a number of Bush officials — among them former Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales — in Spanish court.

Feith fired back in an interview Sunday, saying, “the charges as related to me make no sense.”

“They criticize me for promoting a controversial position that I never advocated,” Feith added.

In response, Gonzalo Boye, one of the lawyers filing the complaint, advised Feith to get a “very good lawyer.”

MORE HERE

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Afternoon Jukebox- Whenever Wherever

Shakira- Whenever Wherever (Live- Moscow)

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GM CEO, Rick Wagoner, Will Step Down

Rick Wagoner, GM CEO, Will Step Down At Obama’s Behest

Huffington Post/NYT/CNBC |   March 29, 2009 05:04 PM

UPDATE:

The Obama administration asked GM CEO Rick Wagoner to step down, according to numerous reports.

According to Politico:

The Obama administration asked Rick Wagoner, the chairman and CEO of General Motors, to step down and he agreed, a White House official said.
The White House confirmed Wagoner was leaving at the government’s behest after The Associated Press reported his immediate departure, without giving a reason.

And the Wall Street Journal adds more details:

Mr. Wagoner was asked to step down on Friday by Steven Rattner, the investment banker picked last month by the administration to lead the Treasury Department’s auto-industry task force. Mr. Rattner broke the news to Mr. Wagoner in person at his office at Treasury, according to an administration official. Afterward, Mr. Rattner met one-on-one with Mr. Henderson, who will fill in as GM’s CEO.
“On Friday I was in Washington for a meeting with administration officials,” Mr. Wagoner said in a statement released by GM. “In the course of that meeting, they requested that I ‘step aside’ as CEO of GM, and so I have.”

**************************************

General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner will step down from the company, according to several reports.

MORE HERE

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Spanish Official: Arrest Warrants ‘Highly Probable’ For Bush ‘Torture Lawyers’; Gonzales, Yoo, Addington, Haynes, Bybee And Feith

Pinochet judge weighs criminal probe of Bush ‘torture lawyers’

Raw Story- Stephen C. Webster
Published: Saturday March 28, 2009

Spanish official says arrest warrants ‘highly probable’

Six Bush-era officials responsible for crafting the legal justifications permitting the military prison at Guantanamo Bay are the subject of a potential Spanish criminal probe which could place the men under serious risk of arrest if they travel outside the United States.

“[Spanish newspaper] Público identifies the targets as University of California law professor John Yoo, former Department of Defense general counsel William J. Haynes II (now a lawyer working for Chevron), former vice presidential chief-of-staff David Addington, former attorney general and White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, now a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and former Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith,” noted Scott Horton at Harper’s.

He called them Bush’s “torture lawyers.”

On March 17, Lawrence B. Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, published an editorial in the Washington Note which accused Bush officials of knowingly holding innocent men in Guantanamo Bay for years.

“The case was sent to the prosecutor’s office for review by Baltasar Garzón, the crusading investigative judge who indicted the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet,” reported the New York Times. “The official said that it was ‘highly probable’ that the case would go forward and could lead to arrest warrants.”

MORE HERE

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GOP Is Suddenly Worried About “Rights”

After 8 years of Republicans trashing the Constitution and illegally spying on Americans, now the GOP is suddenly worried about “rights”

AmericaBlog- by John Aravosis (DC) on 3/27/2009 09:00:00 AM

Gingrich and Hannity think America is hurtling towards socialism, or worse, dictatorship.

Funny that Gingrich and Hannity sure didn’t care when their Republican buddies in the White House and Congress spent the last eight years trashing the US Constitution and the rights of our citizens, all for the “greater good.” That was okay. But trying to pass legislation to make it easier to forestall a depression, that’s dictatorship.

So, in a nutshell: Taking rights away from citizens is patriotic, but taking rights away from corporations is dictatorship.

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Afternoon Jukebox- Ironic

Alanis Morissette – Ironic

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They banned the wrong George

Sudhan @17:30 CET

Erik Wallenberg wonders about the mix-up in Canada where the government allowed in a known war criminal, but kept out a leading opponent of war.

Socialist Worker, March 27, 2009

George Galloway speaking at a 2008 protest of George W. Bush’s visit to London (Davide Simonetti)

IT SEEMS that the Canadian government, and the immigration ministry in particular, has gotten their Georges confused. Though how you could confuse a bumbling idiot with a Texas drawl for an erudite Scotsman with an oratory of the first degree, is hard to imagine.

George W. Bush was granted safe passage to Calgary earlier this month for a speaking engagement that netted him some $400-a-plate to talk about his eight years in the White House–God only knows what anyone would want to hear him talk about. Meanwhile, George Galloway was branded an “infandous street-corner Cromwell” by Alykhan Velshi, spokesperson for Canada’s immigration minister Jason Kenney, and refused entry into the country.

Continued >>

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• Galloway: We Are The Authors Of This Tragedy
• George Galloway Barred From Entering…Canada! CANADA?
• Canada bans George Galloway for ’supporting’ terrorists
• Canada closes doors on Galloway

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Earth Hour: Lights out at 8:30 PM March 28, 2009

Hmm, interesting concept* wonder if there is anyone out there who will notice. I will be participating, always the optimist when it comes to group think, and I hope that the participation is 100%. If our troubled old planet is being observed from other lifeforms in our galaxy an event like this might get their attention. Not only could the light fluxuation be seen, on an hourly basis, but a decrease in energy could be observed.

With a flick of the light switch, we the sheeple will have spoken and if this is successful at all we might consider greater sacrifices as we, “shudder” shut down our computers, telephones, radios, teevee’s, and all the other amenities that we consider indespsensible. With any luck, maybe next year, we could have a “The Day The Earth Stood Still” moment…G:

YOUR LIGHT SWITCH IS YOUR VOTE

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