Government Dirt

Capitol Hill, Washington D.C.--It happened today! Get down there and join the fun! Impeachment time is now, and it's time to correct the bloodless-coup of 2000. With the release of the existence of the "torture memo," the excuses are over, done. To all patriots, and all winter soldiers: it's on, it's time to DEMAND impeachment.

The release of information on the "Yoo memo" (former Deputy Assistant Attorney General, back in 2002 under AG John Ashcroft, writing to then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales) confirms the criminality of this administration and her allies inside and outside of Congress:

John Yoo, the former Bush Administration lawyer who now teaches at UC Berkeley's law school, authored the torture memo that cleared the way for the U.S. military to begin torturing suspected Al Qaeda members in Guantanamo and black site prisons, as well as Iraqis in Abu Ghraib.

Perhaps less well known is that Yoo also wrote a legal opinion blessing the president's targeting of American citizens for wiretapping, a memo that even members of Congress have not seen.

There have been clues before in the administration's defense of its wiretapping program. For instance, the Justice Department said (.pdf) the Authorization to Use Military Force and the president's war making powers in the Constitution.

But in the Yoo torture memo (.pdf) which was just released and declassified yesterday, Yoo himself seems to clue us in... ("Yoo Torture Memo Says Fourth Amendment Doesn't Apply in War on Terror," Wired.com, 04.02.2008)

The Bush administration must be made persona non grata. Keep it legal, keep it non-violent, but do what you feel you must do. The time has come to do what should have been done in 2000. With the knowledge of the "torture memo" out there, the excuses are over. The laws of the land have been broken. Yoo must be fired from his teaching-post and prosecuted along with his co-conspirators in the White House and Congress.

Allowing these precedents to stand is tantamount to a capitulation to tyranny. Get motivated, call your representatives, write them, e-mail them, and fax them. Tell them it's time for impeachment and the nullification of every single law and executive order initiated by the Bush administration. The time is now. Anything less is cowardice. This is the smoking gun, it's on, it's time. They still won't reinstate Habeas Corpus.

Context: http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/doj/bybee80102ltr.html

Wired Yesterday, Alarmed Today: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/yoo-torture-mem.html

Postscript: It appears Mr. Swanson achieved what he wanted to--getting his face and name in the papers, online, youtube, and available soon at your local Wal-Mart, the DVD and accompanying soundtrack. Eli Pariser part II? Enough of the mic-hogs in the so-called anti-war movement. We don't need another Bernadine Dohrn (the Weathermen leader who fragmented SDS).