As usual, a load of Republican crap:
Earlier this month, the Bush administration nominated Neil Barofsky, a federal prosecutor, to be the Treasury Department’s special inspector general on the bailout program. That’s a crucial post, given the astronomical sums at issue, the broad authority that Treasury has been given to distribute them, the concerns that have been raised about possible conflicts of interest, and the general urgency of our efforts to prevent an economic collapse.
So you’d think Congress would be doing everything it could to get Barofsky confirmed right away. You’d be wrong.
Last week, Sen. Chris Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who chairs the banking committee, issued a little-noticed statement saying that although the nomination “was cleared by members of the Senate Banking Committee, the leadership of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and all Democratic Senators,” it was“blocked on the floor by at least one Republican member.” (itals ours.)
Senate rules allow any senator to anonymously block a vote on confirmation to any federal post, for any reason.
The rationale for the move remains unclear. But a Washington Post story from a few days before Dodd’s statement offers two suggestions. It notes that Barofsky supported Barack Obama, and describes an unresolved “battle between the Finance and Banking committees over which has jurisdiction over the confirmation process.”
It was never more than a dodge. It never is, with them. You can’t trust a damn word they say. I don’t know why I, a girl with a web site, can figure this out and the U.S. Senate leadership seems to have some kind of mental block (not to mention which, Chris, these are the people your pal Joe thought were great guys, so …) on realizing when they’re getting hosed.
This is why, whiletruth and reconciliation commissions are a nice idea, my personal desire is to see everyone who had anything to do with the Bush administration’s abuses, I mean down to the clerk who photocopied Douglas Feith’s memos, prosecuted and imprisoned. Because there’s absolutely zero call to trust that going forward, they won’t simply do the same damn thing all over again. While the 1970s Nostalgia Presidency was fun for a few defense contractors and the Bush family, not so much for the rest of the country, and I don’t think we can take another turn of this particular screw.
A.
I was talking yesterday to some people over a second Thanksgiving and they all felt that there was no political will to go after these people.
I think about that and I wonder what it would take for people go GET the political will? Is there always a down side to investigation of war crimes? Is it because nobody wants to read about them? Is it because the people who committed them still have too much power? Or is it because they think, “There but for the grace of Dodd go I?”
If you have a group of people who change the laws so that they can’t be accused of breaking the law you also know that they will spend big bucks to “lawyer up”. Maybe they can be sued in civil court if the Government doesn’t have the will. The wingnuts are afraid that if the Gitmo prisoners are allowed to go to trial they will sue the Government for millions. “That’s our tax dollars!”
georgee nominated an obama supporter?!?
Remember, bipartisanship is only for Democrats. Divisiveness and gridlock are OKIYAR.
Okay, so here’s my take on the Truth and Reconciliation thing. Notice the first word in that phrase. It is impossible to have reconciliation without first having the truth out in the open.
I am actually okay with the Bush cronies not serving jail time. Yes, I’d prefer it, but I totally get that in order to achieve that goal, lots of bad shit would have to go down, and a lot of people would resist that.
So my proposal is that we have the truth out. Have a commission that investigates every effing thing they did. And put it out there before the American public. A full on prosecution and trial, with the understanding that at the end, all would be forgiven. But the truth would be available, in perpetuity, to anyone. Bush crony wants job? Check the Truth commission report, see what he or she did, and then decide if you rally want to hire him or her. Bush crony runs for office? Let his or her opponent have full access to all the information about what that person did while working for Bush.
THIS is why the truth matters. Because no matter who we convict and sentence, unless the full truth about what they did becomes public, anybody who aided and abetted them gets off without so much as a hand slap.
I like the idea of PBS, using taxpayer dollars, investigating the Bush administration, with full access to all the needed information – give the investigators a top secret security classification if it takes that. Then I want to see a PBS Special, televised in installments, about 2 hours long per installment, for as long as it takes to get the story out. Actually, I would prefer that all networks have to televise that series as a pre-condition to maintaining their broadcast license.
Unless we force feed the information about the Bush crimes to all citizens, we can be assured that in 8 years or less we will see a real life rerun.
Taking bets that the one senator is Tom Coburn, Mr. Gridlock.
So how come it’s OK for a repub senator to annonymously block a vote on a candidate?
Didn’t they want a straight up or down vote?
And when one Democratic senator wanted to block a piece of legislation that was unconstitutional from coming to the floor, the Democratic Senate Majority Leader told him (not in so many words) to go fuck himself.
It sure is nice to see how the rules work for Republicans.
Perhaps a Truth & Reconciliation commission is best, perhaps vigorous federal prosecution is best, etc., I’m not really sure that I have a preference.
For me, the bottom line is:The USA must NEVER torture again. Torture, as an official policy, must be put back beyond the pale, completely and totally unacceptable, like it was just a decade ago.
Unfortunately, I suspect that the only thing that will make the conservitards give up their torture hard-ons is if it looks like they personally will be on the receiving end, or if everyone who participated in or advocated torture is in danger of summary execution.
When stated that way, it certainly seems extreme. But it took what, half a million dead? to rid the US of slavery. Like slavery, torture is an abomination that needs to be stamped out, and stamped out hard. No quarter.