Can We Prosecute NOW?!?!?!

From the United Nations Special Rapporteur on counter terrorism and human rights, Ben Emmerson:

The summary of the Feinstein report which was released this afternoon confirms what the international community has long believed - that there was a clear policy orchestrated at a high level within the Bush administration, which allowed to commit systematic crimes and gross violations of international human rights law.

The identities of the perpetrators, and many other details, have been redacted in the published summary report but are known to the Select Committee and to those who provided the Committee with information on the programme.

It is now time to take action. The individuals responsible for the criminal conspiracy revealed in today’s report must be brought to justice, and must face criminal penalties commensurate with the gravity of their crimes.

Yes, but they believed they had the authority, right?  I mean the OLC drafted a memo or two saying it was OK, right?  I mean even if subsequent officials in charge decided the memos were less than valuable, at the time they believed their now-criminal actions to be OK, right?

And the president even gave the order to waterboard, so it must've been OK, right?

Uh, no.  From Emmerson, again:

The fact that the policies revealed in this report were authorised at a high level within the US Government provides no excuse whatsoever. Indeed, it reinforces the need for criminal accountability.

International law prohibits the granting of immunities to public officials who have engaged in acts of torture. This applies not only to the actual perpetrators but also to those senior officials within the US Government who devised, planned and authorised these crimes.

As a matter of international law, the US is legally obliged to bring those responsible to justice. The UN Convention Against Torture and the UN Convention on Enforced Disappearances require States to prosecute acts of torture and enforced disappearance where there is sufficient evidence to provide a reasonable prospect of conviction. States are not free to maintain or permit impunity for these grave crimes.

Furthermore, The President says:

The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention. It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today.

The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called "universal jurisdiction." Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.

Wait. Obama said THAT?!?

Um, no.  That would be President Ronald Reagan, when he signed the law in 1988.

Torture occurred.  We've known that for a while.  Reagan signed the UN Convention against torture that requires the prosecution of the torturers (both the people who did it and the people who ordered it).

For the sake of our stained national honor, for any claim to be a nation of laws, for any claim to be a beacon for all those who must have freedom, President Obama:

Prosecute the torturers.

This is your legacy, now.

Recess Appointments - Trib Style

A few days ago the editorial board of Richard Mellon Scaife's Tribune-Review published an editorial.  They wrote:

A federal appellate court ruling that President Obama's January 2012 “recess” appointments of three National Labor Relations Board members were an unconstitutional end run around Congress is a victory for the Constitution.

The Framers intended recess appointments to fill vacancies only after Congress — then able to meet just a few months a year because traveling to Washington took so long — had finished a year's work and couldn't confirm nominees.

But particularly in the past 60 years or so, presidents have stretched that power to evade Senate unwillingness to confirm certain nominees, and lawmakers have gaveled in and out of brief “pro forma” sessions to evade adjourning for the year — as they were when those NLRB appointments were made.

They go on to call for Obama's impeachment if he knew he was making the appointments knowing it was an abuse of power.  This is how they put it:

And if supposed constitutional scholar Obama didn't know better than to misuse recess appointments, he's no constitutional scholar. If he did know better, he committed an abuse of power that rises to the level of an impeachable offense.

Interesting that the braintrust points out how "presidents have stretched that power" over the last 60 years or so.  I mean considering this report from the Congressional Research Service.

The CRS did some work and found out how many "recess appointments" would not have been allowed had the appellate court ruling been in place since, say, late January of 1981.

I'll give them an exposition:

On January 25, 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (DC Circuit) issued its opinion in Noel Canning v. National Labor Relations Board (hereafter Noel Canning).  In its ruling, the court determined that the President can make recess appointments only during intersession recesses, and that such appointments can be made only to vacancies that have occurred during the recess in which the appointment is made. The court also appeared to support the position that the recess appointment power may not be used to fill newly established positions, although that question was not before the court. [Italics in original]

In a footnote, they define "intersession" and "intrasession" this way:

Intersession recess appointments are those made between annual sessions of the Senate. The court indicated in Noel Canning that intersession recesses are only entered into when Congress adjourns sine die to end the session of Congress. Intrasession recess appointments are those made during recesses within annual sessions of the Senate. {Italics in original.]

Guess what they found?

Of the total number of 652 intra- and intersession appointments made between 1/20/1981 to the present nearly 36% of them (72 intra-and 160 intersession appointments) came from one man: Ronald Wilson Reagan.

Another 26% (141 intra- and 30 intersession) came from George W. Bush.

Looks to me, that's more than half of the appointments.

According to this report, had Canning been in place Jeanne Kirkpatrick could not have been appointed by Ronald Reagan as "Representative, U.N. General Assembly Session" on September 8, 1981, and William Bennett could not have been appointed as "Chair, National Endowment for the Humanities" by Ronald Reagan. Alan Greenspan could not have been appointed "Chair, Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System" by George H. W. Bush on August 10, 1991.

A question to my friends on Scaife's braintrust: tell me again how it rises to the level of impeachment?

Presidential Thought Bubble

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