GOP threatens to "go nuclear" on DOJ appointees if Obama releases Bush torture memos:

[Kuya]

You mean outraged over what the GOP is doing? I'm more concerned over Obama caving to this and not doing what he promised. WHERE'S MY CHANGE!?

[Skjie]

You mean outraged over what the GOP is doing? I'm more concerned over Obama caving to this and not doing what he promised. WHERE'S MY CHANGE!?

Really.

[Beckwin]

If this story gets big and Obama decides to stick to his guns with releasing the memos, the GOP going "nuclear" in response could damn near bury themselves. I can only hope.

[Altariel]

The GOP can filibuster the nominees if they want but that is most certainly not "going nuclear." They are just trying and apparently succeeding in getting some headlines.

The term is used to describe a theory of how one might end a filibuster in the Senate. If the nuclear option theory were ever tested, a Senator would request an immediate vote on the nominee on the grounds that filibusters are unconstitutional. The chair would then rule on the constiutional question and his or her ruling would be subject to a simple majority vote. In this case, the chair would be Senator Robert Byrd who would most certainly rule that filibusters were constitutionally valid and if that question came before the full Senate it would be sustained by the Democratic majority.

(Incidentally, I think that should the GOP decide to filibuster a presidential nominee that they end up looking like big giant douchebags after making such a stink about them being unconstitutional 4 years ago.)

[Elvis]

can we just have all the dems and republicans in the world fight each other to the death in an arena with a moat filled with cannibalistic taxidermists and black bears?

[Zilong]

I can only wish for an Alien Invasion or Robot Overlord takeover to happen soon so I won't have to deal with this partisan bullshit.

[Olo401]

I've got only one thing to say to these obstructionist cocksuckers.

I fucking dare you.

[Mizango]

Beckwin, America needs you! Leave those commie bastards and come safe our nation.

[Acturus]

Obviously it's because he's black.

[Day]

I heard Obama flinched when a cannon was fired behind him. Shocking.

I heard this 8 times last night. Slow news night.

[hagun]

can we just have all the dems and republicans in the world fight each other to the death in an arena with a moat filled with cannibalistic taxidermists and black bears?

Disgaea: Hour of Darkness.

[Rhinox]

Apparently they're gonna release some of the memo's next week.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/213188

Report Reveals CIA Conducted Mock Executions

A long-awaited report on post-9/11 interrogation tactics will reveal harrowing new details about treatment of suspected terrorists.
By Mark Hosenball and Michael Isikoff | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Aug 21, 2009 | Updated: 6:58 p.m. ET Aug 21, 2009

A long-suppressed report by the Central Intelligence Agency's inspector general to be released next week reveals that CIA interrogators staged mock executions as part of the agency's post-9/11 program to detain and question terror suspects, NEWSWEEK has learned.
According to two sources—one who has read a draft of the paper and one who was briefed on it—the report describes how one detainee, suspected USS Cole bomber Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, was threatened with a gun and a power drill during the course of CIA interrogation. According to the sources, who like others quoted in this article asked not to be named while discussing sensitive information, Nashiri's interrogators brandished the gun in an effort to convince him that he was going to be shot. Interrogators also turned on a power drill and held it near him. "The purpose was to scare him into giving [information] up," said one of the sources. A federal law banning the use of torture expressly forbids threatening a detainee with "imminent death."

According to the sources, the report also says that a mock execution was staged in a room next to a detainee, during which a gunshot was fired in an effort to make the suspect believe that another prisoner had been killed. The inspector general's report alludes to more than one mock execution.
Before leaving office, Bush administration officials confirmed that Nashiri was one of three CIA detainees subjected to waterboarding. They also acknowledged that Nashiri was one of two al Qaeda detainees whose detentions and interrogations were documented at length in CIA videotapes. But senior officials of the agency's undercover operations branch, the National Clandestine Service, ordered that the tapes be destroyed, an action which has been under investigation for over a year by a federal prosecutor.
The new revelations are contained in a lengthy report on the CIA interrogation program completed by the agency's inspector general in May 2004, around the time that the initial, most intense phase of the CIA effort began to wind down. The purpose of the report was to examine how the CIA program had been conducted, and whether Justice Department guidelines governing the use of harsh "enhanced" interrogation techniques had been followed. According to the sources, the inspector general criticizes some agency interrogators for exceeding official guidelines in the use of extreme tactics on detainees.
Mock executions were not authorized in Justice Department memoranda that outlined the legal parameters that Bush administration lawyers believed should govern the use of "enhanced" interrogations. The Justice Department memoranda, once highly classified, were released earlier this year by the Obama administration in the face of strenuous objections from the CIA and former Bush White House officials.
The inspector general's report, commissioned by then CIA-director George Tenet, was sent to the Justice Department and congressional intelligence committee leaders shortly after it was written. But it was not shown to all members of the intelligence committees until September 2006, around the time that President Bush publicly acknowledged the CIA detention and interrogation program and instructed the agency, which had been holding detainees in a network of secret overseas prisons, to transfer them to the U.S. military detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Top Bush CIA officials, including Tenet's successors as CIA director, Porter Goss and Gen. Michael Hayden, strongly lobbied for the IG report to be kept secret from the public. They argued that its release would damage America's reputation around the world, could damage CIA morale, and would tip off terrorists regarding American interrogation tactics.
The inspector general's report is expected to fuel political debates over whether the tough interrogation methods used during the Bush administration actually worked. According to another source who has seen the document, the report says that the agency's interrogation program did produce usable intelligence.
At the same time the administration releases the inspector general's report, it is also expected to release other CIA documents that assert the agency collected valuable intelligence through the interrogation program. For months, former Vice President Dick Cheney has called for these documents to be released. However, a person familiar with the contents of the documents says that they contain material which both opponents and supporters of Bush administration tactics can use to bolster their case. The Senate Intelligence Committee is now conducting what is supposed to be a thorough investigation of the CIA's interrogation and detention program. The probe is intended not only to document everything that happened, but also to assess whether on balance the program produced major breakthroughs or a deluge of false leads.
"Justice has had the complete document since 2004, and their career prosecutors have reviewed it carefully for legal accountability," said CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano. "That's already been done."

[Pirian]

dun dun duuuuuun!

[Milkster]

And Republicans wonder why people hate them.

[Tristam]

You mean outraged over what the GOP is doing? I'm more concerned over Obama caving to this and not doing what he promised. WHERE'S MY CHANGE!?

This is the real story, if the democrats continue to cave in to people just as (if not more) unpopular as they are, we're effectively headed towards a single-party government. Are the reactionary GOPers really so prevalent now that the dems are going to pussy out on anything important?

[Rhinox]

This is the real story, if the democrats continue to cave in to people just as (if not more) unpopular as they are, we're effectively headed towards a single-party government. Are the reactionary GOPers really so prevalent now that the dems are going to pussy out on anything important?

Unfortunately this has been the case for decades. We haven't had a true liberal in the white house since LBJ. The true progressives get drowned out and ridiculed.

[Pirian]

This is the real story, if the democrats continue to cave in to people just as (if not more) unpopular as they are, we're effectively headed towards a single-party government. Are the reactionary GOPers really so prevalent now that the dems are going to pussy out on anything important?

Well, George Washington did want a single party system and warned that multi-party systems would divide the US. lol

[Kuya]

I don't think these are the same memos. If i'm not mistaken, the memos the OP refers to might be the Yoo, Bybee, etc memos, and the memos rhinox is referring to are part of a CIA report.

[Plow]

Unfortunately this has been the case for decades. We haven't had a true liberal in the white house since LBJ. The true progressives get drowned out and ridiculed.

Uh, there's this guy you might want to check out named Clinton.

He didn't do much, just the most liberal economic and foreign policy in recent history...

With repub house and senate doing everything they could imagine to block him every single step of the way...



Told you guys to vote for Hillary, dammit.


and no, this isn't the "memos," this is an investigative report, which has been released before with 99% of it blocked out, which is going to be re-released next week, with hopefully a lot less shit hidden

[The Blackrose]

I love the difference 4 years makes. Back in 2005 when the Dem's were threatening to go nuclear they were undermining Amurica, now I guess its okay?

Sorry, gotta correct you here. The Republicans threatened the nuclear option by vowing to amend procedures to eliminate the filibuster entirely back then (I think it was during a Supreme Court nomination... Alito's?).