We appear to have crossed the Rubicon. The criminal conduct of this administration is so pervasive and Congress so corrupt, I can no longer see a clear path to cleaning up the damage to our Constitution and any notion of equal justice under the law.

OT, but back on the perfect crimes front, how much more perfect does it get than for everyone to absolutely know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you have been engaged in wanton depravity, in violation of laws, treaties, morality, constitutions, nature and pretty much every religious standard other than those adopted for Satanic rituals, and once you are done – some of your depravity sated, you get to either toss publically aside your victims like trash, or publically kill them, and not only do you never ever ever have to answer to anyone for what you did, but you get to completely remake the justice system of a nation to embrace Executive Branch sponsored torture, abuse, torture deaths and disappearances of men, children and infants and lovingly make it a part of our national identity.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..72_pf.html

The “Clean Team” Takes Care of Business at GITMO.

This proves, not only how depraved, but how infantile, even the so-called “good guys” at DOJ were. It’s not as if we haven’t had years, decades and centuries of voices telling us what happens when you open the door to lawless, state sponsored, depraved acts. Still, the one thing that the excuse for lawyers who have claimed a mantle of holiness in their “defense” against Bush, have pretty much always held to is that they weren’t going to fully destroy the system of justice in this country, because they were that the victims of DOJ’s solicitations of offshore and onshore depravity wouldn’t actually be tried, no US judicial tribunal would be tainted with adopting Executive Branch torture as acceptable and judicially condoned.

And of course, like everything else gibbered by the egocentric infantile, that was nonsense too.

Starting with the Fitzgerald efforts in the Salah case, through the Padilla case in Miami, and now a wholescale, world watched, farce in Guantanamo, torture is a part of the US Judicial System now. Executive Branch torture, whether or not it actually takes place on US soil against US citizens or not (Padilla), whether or not it actually does result in death or not (frozen, tortured CIA victims), whether or not it involve innocent men of mistaken identity or the innocent named by other torture victims seeking to deliver up information that would stop their torture (el-Masri, Arar, hundreds of those released now from GITMO, thousand released from Bagram and US concentrated population camps in Iraq), whether or not it involves someone not only innocent, but who seeking to provide whistleblowing information about the guilty (Vance) – it doesn’t matter.

And whether you tip your hat to Mueller and Goldsmith and Fitzgerald and Comey andco as heroes of the piece or not, they have each played their own, quite integral, part in making torture a part of the US court judicial system now. This Valentine’s day, Torture has so many sweathearts who are either still with, or have left, the DOJ, that there may be a run on red roses.

So all the problems of Bush depravity for the GITMO trials (where JAG has been more particular than DOJ was with the Padilla trial in Miami) have been solved by a “clean team”

FBI and military interrogators who began work with the suspects in late 2006 called themselves the “Clean Team” and set as their goal the collection of virtually the same information the CIA had obtained from five of the six through duress at secret prisons.

Gosh, see how easy it is? Disappear people, torture, humiliate and psychologically destroy them for years, then put them in a setting where they know they can never leave, never get away, and give them the option of spending time with a “clean team” or going back to constant sensory deprivation, hypothermia and anal probings from deviants — and golly, you now have ‘cleansed’ and ‘non-coerced’ statements. After all, it’s not like there was anything to fear if you didn’t say what the FBI agents wanted you to say, it’s not like you had years of torture to make you think otherwise.

God, they just won’t stop until they make EVERYONE and EVERY department an equal partner in the choreographed evil.

To ensure that the data would not be tainted by allegations of torture or illegal coercion, the FBI and military team won the suspects’ trust over the past 16 months by using time-tested rapport-building techniques, the officials said.

Ah, well, that takes care of any taint – thanks for the stenography WaPo. It’s interesting after this to go back and read this kind of heartbreaking fantasy put forward by Fallon and others in NCIS who fought against the torture – the fantasy that DOJ was saying that the torture didn’t matter anymore because with all the torture so far, it’s not as if the man COULD ever be tried – it would degrade American justice to a point below any contempt to try after the things that were done. Except that – golly, it doesn’t after all. Jeepers! Com’on Billy, get Suzie, we get to have our show in the hay barn after all!!! Let’s go see if grouchy old heart of gold Mr. Scalia at the dimestore will buy a ticket!

Everyone knew that the torture would end up in the courts. They weren’t that stupid. It always does. We’ve already lost the exclusionary rule for all kinds of 4th Amendment violations (no doubt the Justices setting the scene for making sure that the fruits of the massively criminal surveillance program are never blocked), but there really isn’t anything to compare with what is going on now.

Oh, and isn’t it interesting that the amount of time needed for the “clean team” to get their victims trust and confidence and get “clean” and untainted info, was exactly the right amount of time to make sure that the “trials” are going on during the Presidential campaign.

Golly, isn’t BUSH DOJ Justice just grand? Trust Hayden to strike just the right note in that song:

CIA Director Michael V. Hayden sent a congratulatory message to employees, saying the trials would be a “crucial milestone on the road to justice” for victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.

And when you see that list of 6 being tried – notice that 2 of the 3 waterboarding victims aren’t on it. Nor are the other 90 or so victims of CIA secret prisons that Hayden has acknowledged.

Apparently the Evidentiary Cleansing program was hatched by “a small group of senior officials from several agencies” And isn’t this interesting – remote viewing was apparently an option for the non-torture sessions (although no one says much about it for the torture session)

Observers watched the interrogations remotely so they could verify that the questioning complied with the Army’s updated field manual on interrogations, which includes strict prohibitions against aggressive techniques.

I know that some of you here don’t believe in comingling church and state, but I have to admit that I’m looking forward to this year’s DOJ Easter celebration. They’ve invited everyone who worked with them in the Bush admin, current and past. And when they reach the climactic point in their celebration, it won’t be *just* an FBI Clean Team, it will be everyone who stands up, dips their hands in a bowl, and recites in unison:

Ich Bin Pilate.

It’ll give you goosebumps.

Especially if you’re stripped naked, somewhere in the world, with the wrong name, being slowly frozen to death.

31-67, not even enough for cloture later.

Dodd in his finest hour two and a half hours