Entries by emptywheel

Senate Judiciary Hearing on Torture, Two

Whitehouse: SASC report. Great deal of disagreement with OLC analysis. Mora called 2003 OLC memo profoundly in error. To extent that it relied on memo, did not include fair analysis. Chart based on OLC opinion. Green means go column. Read Admiral Dalton, that green column was wrong legally, embarrassing.

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Senate Judiciary Hearing on Torture

Here’s the committee stream.

Whitehouse: Winston Churchill, truth always attended by bodyguard of lies. Sordid truth of torture accompanies by bodyguard of lies. Lies are legion. Bush told us America does not torture. Cheney agreed that waterboarding a dunk in the water. Former CIA said waterboarding once. Waterboarding determined to be legal, but not told how badly law ignored and bastardized, how furiously lawyers rejected OLC opinions.

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Geithner NY Fed & Congress Knew About AIG Bonuses All Along

It’s not just torture hearings on the training table this morning, there is a plateful of AIG/Bankster/Bailout fun on tap too. At 10:00 am EST, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will hold a hearing on “AIG: Where is the Taxpayer Money Going?”. In advance of the big hearing, the Washington Post has a significant article out detailing how complicit the NY Fed, Congress and, likely, Tim Geithner are in the bonus scandal.

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McCain’s Tortured Briefing Memory

McCain is lecturing Nancy Pelosi about all the things she should have done had she been briefed on waterboarding. But that lecture is coming from a guy who promptly capitulated to Bush demands that he water down the Detainee Treatment Act after being briefed on torture.

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