If the president releases the Bush torture memos, Republicans are promising to “go nuclear” and filibuster his legal appointments. Scott Horton reports on a serious threat to Obama’s transparency.Senate Republicans are now privately threatening to derail the confirmation of key Obama administration nominees for top legal positions by linking the votes to suppressing critical torture memos from the Bush era. A reliable Justice Department source advises me that Senate Republicans are planning to “go nuclear” over the nominations of Dawn Johnsen as chief of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice and Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh as State Department legal counsel if the torture documents are made public.
The source says these threats are the principal reason for the Obama administration’s abrupt pullback last week from a commitment to release some of the documents. A Republican Senate source confirms the strategy. It now appears that Republicans are seeking an Obama commitment to safeguard the Bush administration’s darkest secrets in exchange for letting these nominations go forward.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-04-05/are-republicans-blackmailing-obama/And about that Republican Sanctioned Torture:
Report Calls CIA Detainee Treatment 'Inhuman'Medical officers who oversaw interrogations of terrorism suspects in CIA secret prisons committed gross violations of medical ethics and in some cases essentially participated in torture, the International Committee of the Red Cross concluded in a confidential report that labeled the CIA program "inhuman."
...
Previously, top Bush administration officials defended the interrogation methods, saying they were legal and necessary to prevent terrorist attacks.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/06/AR2009040603654.html?hpid=topnewsWhat filth the Republican party is. First torture and now blackmail to cover up the details of that torture.
