No War No Torture

“Speaking Thursday to MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, Harvard constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe said that Trump directly asking Comey if he was under investigation, as the president indicated to NBC’s Lester Holt during a ‘kryptonite’ interview, ‘is much worse than just a conflict of interest.’

‘You’re essentially dangling in front of the person who’s supposed to be investigating the chaos swirling around you, and perhaps you, you’re basically saying, “If you will assure me that I’m not going to be under investigation, then maybe I’ll keep you on. We’ll see what happens.” It’s essentially the language of bribery. It’s the language of the underworld, of racketeering, not the language of a president who is supposed to be enforcing the rule of law,’ he said.

‘It’s staggering—for all the bizarre things that have happened in these 112 or 113 days, this is really like the 13th chime of a clock,’ Tribe continued.”

When a Harvard constitutional law professor says this, it cannot be ignored.  We badly need to see Trump impeached and removed from office as swiftly as possible.  I am writing once again to my congressional representatives with a request for impeachment proceedings.

Rob Rosenstein

Donald Trump fired FBI director James B. Comey.  Comey was leading a counterintelligence investigation to find out if Trump’s associates had worked with Russia to interfere with last year’s presidential election.

This obviously impacts the investigation and Democrats were concerned and “immediately demanded a Special Prosecutor to continue investigations,” according to Jefferson Morley on AlterNet, which reports that a career Justice Department official, Rod Rosenstien, is now in charge of the criminal investigation of Trump and his organization’s ties with Russian state officials.

Trump had already dismissed three U.S. officials who were responsible for investigating Russia’s role in the 2016 election. Will Mr. Rosenstein actually be able to investigate Trump and his ties with Russia or will he, too, be fired?

What Congress needs to do is begin impeachment proceedings against Trump.

Julian Assange                            James Comey

Should a government have secrets?  I don’t think so.  We citizens pay for government agencies and services with our tax money and deserve to know how every penny is spent.

I read in the media today that:

” FBI Director James Comey lashed out at WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange, calling the anti-secrecy organization a hostile intelligence service and suggesting that Assange would have been taken into custody if he had not taken sanctuary in the Ecuadorian embassy in London nearly five years ago.

…

‘They [American journalists, continues Comey] will almost always call us before they publish classified information and say, is there anything about this that’s going to put lives in danger, that’s going to jeopardize government people, military people or— innocent civilians anywhere in the world. And then work with us to try and accomplish their important First Amendment goals while safeguarding those interests. This activity I’m talking about, WikiLeaks, involves no such considerations whatsoever.’

“The final statement amounts to a damning description of the collaboration of the so-called mainstream—i.e., corporate-controlled—media in the United States with the intelligence apparatus. WikiLeaks and Assange have proceeded in the tradition of actual journalism: collect facts and publish them, regardless of whose ox is gored. The ‘American journalists’ praised by Comey are accomplices and stenographers of the military-intelligence apparatus. If, as Comey says, they ‘almost always call us before they publish,’ it is because they, too, serve the interests of American imperialism.”

Above from WSWS, 4 May 2017

Prisoner at Guantanamo

A report on this blog about US torture exposed by Andy Worthington, authority on and advocate for those whom the US tortured and imprisoned in Guantanamo, included this statement:

“The Senate Intelligence Committee’s torture report…must be the trigger not just for airing of apologies, but for those who instigated and authorized the torture program to be held accountable — up to and including President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.”

That was published in December of 2014.  It is now May of 2017 and no one has been held accountable for US torture.

There are many posts on this blog dealing with ongoing US torture.  Instead of closing the Guantanamo prison, Obama left it open, and torture of prisoners is still going on there now. I see no evidence of anyone in the new administration even considering closure.  I wonder if Trump even knows the prison exists, given his level of ignorance in general.

What can we do to stop all US torture, that in US prisons in this country and in its prisons abroad?