Dems to Question Roberts on Torture Memo (Leahy to bring up "Bybee memo")

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1078228&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312



complete story: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1078228&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

the obvious question that will make the right squirm.

Hillbilly Hitler art:

"Bybee memo" was given to Roberts for him to be able to comment on.

It's unclear to me that he's had any further connection with it other than recently coming into possession of a copy.

Until the White House, which nominated Roberts for this lifetime appointment, produces a full copy of Roberts' record as a government lawyer, Senate Democrats should block any attempt to hold a committee hearing on Roberts' qualifications. Then they should block any attempt to issue a committee report without inclusion of their minority report recommending against confirming Roberts. Then they should block any attempt to bring the Roberts nomination to a vote.

It'll take some party discipline, but would you hire someone for a lifetime job without looking very carefully at his entire record? Of course not. And the Senate has a constitutional obligation to check into Roberts' career before considering a vote on his nomination.

Some of our bulldogs like Kennedy and Leahy will try to keep things honest, but in the end Roberts will get 70+ votes.

But John Bolton was a shoe-in for UN Ambassador just a few days before Democrats started insisting on reviewing his full record. Bush was reduced to giving him a recess appointment, and Bolton has shown he was every bit as incompetent as his critics said he would be.

With that kind of recent track record, coupled with Bush's plummeting approval ratings, I think there might be a few Democrats willing to hold the administration's feet to the fire on getting Mr. Roberts' full record before the Senate.

The Italian bank BNL was one of BCCI's main tentacles. BNL's Atlanta branch was the primary funnel used by the first Bush Administration to send millions of secret dollars to Saddam for arms purchases, including deadly chemicals and other WMD materials supplied by the Chilean arms dealer Cardoen and various politically-connected operators in the United States like, weapons merchant Matrix Churchill. (As always with the Busha Nostra, geopolitics--in this case, helping Saddam wage aggressive war against Iran--and crony profits go hand in hand. Once the war was over and Iran was left a shattered hulk, with millions dead and displaced, the useful idiot Saddam was expendable, swiftly morphing from good buddy into budding Hitler.)

As soon as the BNL case broke, President Bush I moved to throttle the investigation. He appointed lawyers from both Cardoen and Matrix to top Justice Department posts--where they supervised the officials investigating their old companies. Meanwhile, White House aides applied heavy pressure on other prosecutors to restrict the range of the probe--especially the fact that Bush cabinet officials Brent Scowcroft and Lawrence Eagleburger had served as consultants for BNL during their pre-White House days as spear-carriers for yet another secretive international front that profits from war, weapons, etc., etc.: Kissinger Associates.

Which brings us to the judicial appointment. One of the White House aides who unlawfully intervened in the BNL prosecution was a certain factotum named Jay S. ByBee. Last week, said factotum was nominated by the current warmer of the Oval Office seat, George W. Bush, to a place on the federal appeals court--a lifetime sinecure of perks and power. Well done, thou good and faithful servant!

And the commodities connection? President Pretzel's relentless hissy-fit for war on Iraq has of course goosed the price of gold enormously--and that's set Bush Family coffers a-clinking. How so? In the waning days of his failed presidency, Bush I invoked an obscure 1872 statute to give a Canadian firm, Barrick Corporation, the right to mine $10 billion in gold from U.S. public lands. (U.S. taxpayers got a whopping $10,000 fee in return.) Bush then joined Barrick as a highly-paid "international consultant," brokering deals with various dictators of his close acquaintance. Barrick reciprocated with big bucks for Junior's presidential run. And in another quid for the old pro quo, last year Junior dutifully approved Barrick's controversial acquisition of a major rival. (Barrick is also one of the biggest polluters in America, by the way.)

more
http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd02152003.html

vile doings of this regime for a couple of decades

It may be easier to see a list of the most horrible things the Republicans have tried and check off the ones he has facilitated.

It is obvious he would rule to protect himself and that would involve case after case that could come out after this regime is kicked out.

This is a disgusting nominee.

This is a disaster of a nomination.