davidswanson's blog

By David Swanson

Last June we were handed an opportunity to block the funding of our illegal, murderous, counterproductive, catastrophic, and hated wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The president insisted on an off-the-books "emergency supplemental" bill, and the Senate added an IMF bailout to the bill, leading all the Republicans in the House to commit what for years they'd called treason: they all voted No on war money.

So, we only needed 39 Democrats to vote No, and we could have stopped the thing, at least temporarily. We had a week-long knock-down drag-out fight, with the White House telling freshmen Democrats they would be "dead to us" if they didn't vote Yes. And we still persuaded 32 Democrats to vote No. » read more »

By David Swanson

No one disputes that Jay Bybee's name is at the bottom of memos that were, and to some extent still are, treated as laws which legalized aggressive war at the pleasure of a president and a variety of acts of torture. For many months the House Judiciary Committee has had two excuses for not impeaching Judge Bybee, even while proceeding with the impeachments of a judge for groping and another judge for petty corruption. The private excuse has been that impeaching Bybee would be opposed by Fox News. The public excuse has been that the Justice Department has not yet released its Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) report on the crimes of Bybee and his former colleagues. » read more »

By David Swanson

Whenever I write about U.S. politics, people ask me "Don't you have any good news?" (Unless the Republicans are in power, in which case people ask me "Who are you going to vote for?") But I do have good news, boatloads of good news, if Americans want to hear it. » read more »

An organization of attorneys, journalists, and advocates today filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act requesting the long-suppressed report from the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) regarding the conduct of President Bush's top lawyers in the Office of Legal Counsel who authored memos purporting to authorize torture and aggressive war.

The request, reproduced below along with a transmittal letter, asks for the OPR report that has long been promised by Attorney General Eric Holder, as well as an earlier OPR report completed during the last months of the Bush administration. The request also seeks the 10 page rebuttal of the 2008 report by then- Attorney General Michael Mukasey. » read more »

John Yoo at UVA
By David Swanson

Noted war criminal and torture lawyer John Yoo is scheduled to speak at UVA law school on March 19, 2010.

The day we go into year eight in the illegal occupation of Iraq that Yoo and Jay Bybee provided "legal" justification for, this "legalizer" of torture and other war crimes will be speaking at a law school, our law school, in our town.

John Yoo is a Professor of Law at Boalt Hall School of Law in Berkeley, California. I've joined in protests at his home at 1241 Grizzly Peak Blvd., Berkeley.

He is a lawyer with the Pennsylvania bar from which he should be disbarred and would be if enough people demanded it. Support: DisbarTortureLawyers.org.

Yoo counseled the White House on how to get away with war crimes, wrote this memo promoting presidential power to launch aggressive war, and claimed the power to decree that the federal statutes against torture, assault, maiming, and stalking do not apply to the military in the conduct of war, and to announce a new definition of torture limiting it to acts causing intense pain or suffering equivalent to pain associated with serious physical injury so severe that death, organ failure or permanent damage resulting in loss of significant body functions will likely result.

Yoo claimed in 2005 that a president has the right to enhance an interrogation by crushing the testicles of someone's child.

Yoo has been confronted in his classroom: video, and again confronted in the classroom.

He should not imagine he can seek shelter from protests of his open criminality by coming to lecture at the University of Virginia.

Yoo this week told the New York Times that he had worked, not for the law, but for his "client" the president, and that he had no regrets about pretending to legalize torture.

Let's change that.

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PS: The next day, March 20, I'll be speaking on a panel at the Va Festival of the Book.

By David Swanson

In 2004 I began speaking at rallies and forums around the country on issues of peace and justice, something I've done off-and-on ever since. Up through 2008, it was extremely unusual for questions from the audience to consist of pure defeatism. In 2009, it was rare to get through a Q&A session without being asked what the point was of trying. » read more »