On Olbermann tonight, Jonathan Turley said:
“we now know that the democratic leadership knew about the illegal surveillance program almost from its inception…they were aware of an unlawful surveillance program as well as a torture program. and ever since that came out the democrats have been silently trying to kill any effort to hold anyone accountable because that list could very well include some of their own members.
Turley is correct: see my post from December 2007, citing the Washington Post:
In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique[ly illegal and unconstitutional?] CIA program designed to wring [torture] vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the Bipartisan group, which included future-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA’s overseas detention sites [gulags] and the harsh techniques [torture] interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.
Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill [not to mention the US military**]. But on that day, no objections were raised.
With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods [torture] during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter. The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan).
So now you know why impeachment is off the table, and why the telecoms will get immunity. It’s old news, yet no less a vile and disgusting state of affairs, and I encourage all of you to take action and contribute to actblue to run ads targeting these disgusting self-serving sociopaths who have no respect for law or morals or humanity or anything other than their own skins.
Throw the bums out.
