rssRepublicans Blackmailing Obama
Monday, April 06, 2009 at 1:29 pm
- 7 Comments
Senate Republicans are pressuring President Obama into not releasing the controversial torture memos we’ve all been waiting for (and which the administration again refused to release last week) by threatening to block confirmation of two key Obama Justice Department nominees, Scott Horton reports in The Daily Beast today.
The appointments of Dawn Johnsen, nominated to head the same Office of Legal Counsel that produced those memos (and who’s been strongly critical of the office’s work in the past), and of Harold Hongju Koh, the illustrious Dean of Yale Law School who has been tapped for State Department legal counsel, hang in the balance. Both have already been publicly attacked by conservatives as extreme leftists for, in Johnsen’s case, criticizing the torture memos and supporting the right to an abortion, and in Koh’s, for being a strong advocate of international law. (Dahlia Lithwick at Slate recently catalogued some of the more absurd attacks in her own defense of Koh.)
Horton wrote of the current political struggle:
“Senate Republicans are now privately threatening to derail the confirmation of key Obama administration nominees for top legal positions by linking the votes to suppressing critical torture memos from the Bush era. A reliable Justice Department source advises me that Senate Republicans are planning to “go nuclear” over the nominations of Dawn Johnsen as chief of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice and Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh as State Department legal counsel if the torture documents are made public. The source says these threats are the principal reason for the Obama administration’s abrupt pullback last week from a commitment to release some of the documents. A Republican Senate source confirms the strategy. It now appears that Republicans are seeking an Obama commitment to safeguard the Bush administration’s darkest secrets in exchange for letting these nominations go forward.”
7 Comments
Comment posted April 6, 2009 @ 11:09 am
Blackmailing is a strong word you idiot !!!!!1 No wonder your a nobody reporter !!!1
Comment posted April 6, 2009 @ 11:28 am
Officially, the Obama administration has asked for more time to review the memos and declassify them. Last week DOJ lawyers negotiated for more time with the ACLU, which has sued to get them. I wrote about it here:
http://washingtonindependent.com/37175/governme…
But there have been lots of reports that there's an internal struggle within the administration over whether DOJ should actually release them.
Comment posted April 6, 2009 @ 11:48 am
Filthy little swine.
What else can be said. It shocks me that Republicans can even raise their heads after what they have done to this country under the guise of being super americans.
For 27 years, these people have completely undermined not only the economy of the US and the world, but they have consisitently undermined the moral fiber of our sociely. While they scream their moral superiorty by standing against a womans right to abortion (to get elected since every republican resident's family since and including Nixon have had abortions), they have continuously undermined our country's consititution and laws.
They have one of the most effective propaganda machines in politics, though. They are capable of convincing far too many middle class voters to vote for them, when they in fact work for a narrow group of mega rich individuals and have burdened the middle class with taxes, robbed them of good public education, and have continuously blocked any health care programs to benefit the american people: something other industialized countries have put in place long ago.
Folks, get mad and get mad enough to charge into the streets, into the federal government offices, and drag these dogs into the streets and tar and feather them.
Comment posted April 6, 2009 @ 6:28 pm
Officially, the Obama administration has asked for more time to review the memos and declassify them. Last week DOJ lawyers negotiated for more time with the ACLU, which has sued to get them. I wrote about it here:
http://washingtonindependent.com/37175/governme…
But there have been lots of reports that there's an internal struggle within the administration over whether DOJ should actually release them.
Comment posted April 6, 2009 @ 6:48 pm
Filthy little swine.
What else can be said. It shocks me that Republicans can even raise their heads after what they have done to this country under the guise of being super americans.
For 27 years, these people have completely undermined not only the economy of the US and the world, but they have consisitently undermined the moral fiber of our sociely. While they scream their moral superiorty by standing against a womans right to abortion (to get elected since every republican resident's family since and including Nixon have had abortions), they have continuously undermined our country's consititution and laws.
They have one of the most effective propaganda machines in politics, though. They are capable of convincing far too many middle class voters to vote for them, when they in fact work for a narrow group of mega rich individuals and have burdened the middle class with taxes, robbed them of good public education, and have continuously blocked any health care programs to benefit the american people: something other industialized countries have put in place long ago.
Folks, get mad and get mad enough to charge into the streets, into the federal government offices, and drag these dogs into the streets and tar and feather them.
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