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April 30, 2009

Big Bro 43's "meaning of is" perjury or obstruction of justice

By winston

Big bro 43 committed perjury regarding torture. The GOP impeached Clinton over that. The GOP is now saying that the administration in power should not in any instance investigate the previous administration, except they did it. They went after Clinton for his pardons and for trashing some offices. The GOP has to be consistent, which means they have to support investigating W's war crimes.

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Big bro 43 committed perjury regarding torture. After an exhaustive investigation, the GOP impeached Clinton over perjury. The GOP is now saying that the administration in power should not in any instance investigate the previous administration, unless of course, they're the administration in power. They went after Clinton for his pardons and for trashing some offices. The GOP has to be consistent, which means they have to support investigating W's war crimes.

In his Daily Kos diary -- "Top Ten Bush Torture Lies" -- Plubius states it took him just five minutes to come up with 10 W torture lies. Yet, the GOP spent six years and $40 million dollars investigating whether President Bill Clinton's "meaning of is" was perjury or obstruction of justice.

Back then, the GOP knew precisely what it believed. On September 13, 1998, House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex) told NBC's "Meet the Press"..."I believe that if you commit perjury under oath and you suborn perjury and you obstruct justice, then you ought to be impeached."

In his article, "When Indignation Was Righteous: Republicans Once Wanted To Investigate The Past Administration," Sam Stein deals with the hypocrisy of the GOP...

In the early months of 2001, as the Bush administration was publicly urging people to "look forward," Republicans in Congress were consumed by two decidedly backward-looking investigations. The most prominent of these was the controversial pardon of (Mark) Rich, the fugitive financier whose ex-wife had donated heavily to Democratic causes. This is "outrageous," said then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), who called for a congressional investigation. "We should at least take a look at what happened and ask ourselves, should we take some action to try to prevent abuses that do occur?"

"Congress has an obligation to find out if this was appropriate," said House Government Reform Committee Chair Dan Burton (R-IN) on January 26. "[My] panel will obtain subpoenas if necessary."

If they wanted to look backward at Clinton's pardon then they should want to look backward at war crimes. The article continues...

"It would take our country in a backward-looking direction at a time when our detainee-related challenges demand that we look forward," read a letter to Barack Obama signed by Lieberman, Graham and Sen. John McCain. "Given the great challenges that face our country in dealing with detainees... we have every interest in looking forward to solutions, not backward to recriminations. That is why we do not support the idea of a commission that would focus on the mistakes of the past."

That they wanted to go after Clinton for pardons was one thing. But the other item they wanted to investigate was a trivial prank. According to Stein...

Indeed, the other, less controversial investigation called for at the time was an effort to determine whether Clinton officials had trashed the Oval Office and Air Force One shortly before leaving the White House. Former Rep. Bob Barr demanded a probe, declaring that ''the Clinton administration [had] treated the White House worse than college freshmen checking out of their dorm rooms."

Former Senator Rick Santorum, meanwhile, told the Washington Times that, "there needs to be at least someone to look into it." The GAO, at Barr's request, did just that, interviewing 78 Bush and 72 Clinton aides and tasking one employee to work on the case full-time for nearly nine months. When the results came back mixed -- the vandalism was playful at worst -- the Bush administration did not hide its displeasure."

So, W, after stealing the 2000 election, gets his personal lawyer to complain about the report, which was a waste of time anyway...

"The Bush White House was deeply disappointed with the report. Alberto R. Gonzales, counsel to President Bush, had demanded that the accounting office provide more detail, including the full text of graffiti and other messages that were ''especially offensive or vulgar.''

The accounting office said such details were unnecessary and inappropriate. But Bush administration officials said the details would have revealed the ''mind-set or intentions'' of Clinton administration pranksters. Moreover, in a response much longer than the actual report, the Bush administration said, ''It appears that the G.A.O. has undertaken a concerted effort to downplay the damage found in the White House complex."

This was probably a test that Gonzales passed, as W would soon appoint him to Attorney General, where he would later help big bro 43 phony-up memos ending our adherence to Geneva Conventions protection for detainees and run from office lawyers who weren't right-wing extremists, in essence dealing the worst blow to a democracy -- politicizing the Justice Department -- therefore ruining our foundation as a land of laws.

All laws are applied to all -- including the president. When W used Fredo to destroy justice in America he dealt a blow to all of us -- a blow the terrorists could never have dreamed to inflict.

The article brings W's "Turd Blossom" into the fray...

"What [Obama has] essentially said is if we have policy disagreements with our predecessor, we are going to do is turn ourselves into the moral equivalent of a Latin American country run by colonels in weird sunglasses," Karl Rove said during an appearance on Fox News."

That he could be paid by the GOP's main TV propaganda organ to utter such hypocrisy is appalling. Following Rove's logic, pardons -- such as the commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence and trashing rooms in the White House -- are equal to breaking international treaties, ruining our international standing and acting as a recruiting bonanza for Osama bin Laden.

You know that W's defense is going to be that his crack lawyers redefined torture; therefore, his "enhanced interrogation" methods were not torture.

Senator Pat Leahy (D-Vt), before we knew that W was committing war crimes said, "You know, simply because something is classified doesn't make it legal." I agree. The fact that our torture program was classified, didn't make it legal.

Last week, ABC's Jake Tapper laid out some of the war crimes that big bro 43 has committed in his article "Yoo Defends Himself, while Leahy Accuses and Holder Investigates." Tapper quotes Senator Leahy, who said, when referencing the memos President Obama released, "opinions were written totally contrary to the law." Tapper continues...

"How did they convince themselves and have lawyers who would write twisted, twisted memos to convince themselves that they didn't have to follow the law?" Leahy asked. "We had a certain cadre within the White House or within the administration, they could automatically excuse themselves from following the law."

"They were trying to steal the Constitution of the United States," Leahy said on the floor of the Senate, comparing what he believes the Bush administration did with some of the bankers who have recently been accused of stealing funds...They're trying to steal the credibility of the United States and trying to steal the honor and morality of the United States."

Definitions of perjury include:

1. The deliberate, willful giving of false, misleading, or incomplete testimony under oath.

2. The breach of an oath or promise.

That W got the US government and OLC lawyers involved in muddying up the definition of torture means he knew that he was breaking the law, which is important. You can unintentionally give false information and not be a perjurer. W knew he was giving false information, which is why he got John Yoo and the OLC attorneys to write those bogus legal memos.

Authors Bio:
Winston Smith is an ex-Social Worker. I worked in child welfare, and in medical settings and in homeless settings. In the later our facility was geared as a permanent address for people to apply for welfare. Once they received that we could send them to facilities in which their welfare paid the bill and provided enough for a meager existence. We also referred people to vocational rehabilitation services. Many of the people who came to us were people who were clearly emotionally ill, but Reagan's slashing of the services for these people caused them to become homeless. One woman I dealt with-St. Jane, believed she was in direct communication with God, urinated freely without using the facilities and she had 47 bags of trash which were prized possessions. She got welfare and was sent to a facility were she could survive. The rule was that our facility could be used 1 time only as we had too many people who thought that the services that we provided we would lift them from the dire straights that they were in. Well, we provided our services for St. Jane around Thanksgiving. On Christmas Eve she was back with her 47 bags of trash and wanted to stay at our facility. I informed my superior of this situation, but we declined to provide services for St. Jane. She slept in front of our facility in a snowstorm. The local rag took the picture and excoriated us for what we did. The local welfare department asked her where she would like to live. St. Jane said Chicago because she liked the wind. She knew on one there. She and her 47 bags of trash of were carted onto a train for the windy city and never of again. The local welfare department was glad to get shed of her. Social welfare in the mid-1980's was geared to blame the victim. Ill people were sent home from hospitals were no one was going to help them because social welfare budgets were slashed by Reagan. Bush 41's â"thousand points of lightâ" was just another way to shaft the weakest in our society. Bush 43's faith based initiative was just another attempt to reduce social welfare services. Reagan's â"Just say Noâ" was the pinnacle of hypocrisy. No services for those who desperately needed them under the guise of tough love.

Obviously I became burnt out by too much indifference regarding our weak and weary. I couldn't look at desperate people and could not get myself to say that what I could offer them wouldn't really help themâ"?it would only get them out of my office to be another person's problem, until the local welfare department carted them away.

I had little interest in politics until the illegal Iraq War started. Growing up in the 1960's caused me to understand that the GOP used war to attract right-wing extremists to vote for them. When â"Tricky Dick'sâ" secret plan to end the Vietnam War unfolded into elongating our presence there for 8 years I knew that I would never believe a GOP war-monger again. I dislike Obama's plan to escalate our presence in Afghanistan and see it as a craven attempt to placate the GOP. Maybe he'll reduce the GOP's attacks against him, but it will at the expense of alienating his base.

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