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More fear mongering from Bill-O and KKKarl on the "show trial" of Khalid Sheikh Muhammed. I want to know why Karl hasn't had his "show trial" yet. Apparently Rove thinks that judges in this country have absolutely no control over what happens during their court proceedings or he would not be making these ridiculous claims. The only thing Rove and his ilk are actually worried about is outrage over what the Bush administration did in our name if the general public hears too much about it.

Transcript via Nexis Lexis.

O'REILLY: And joining us now from Washington, FOX News analyst Karl Rove.

Now, look, as I said, I appreciated the counselor coming in here because he knew he was going to get, you know, a tough interview. But the bigger picture is he had absolutely no, no salient points to justify this show trial in New York City. And I'm saying to myself, I think this is going to damage the Obama administration and the entire country in front of the world in ways that are just going to be unbelievable. Am I wrong?

ROVE: Oh, no, you're absolutely right. This is an utter, complete disaster. It will hurt America's security and America's interests all around the world. And I understand that lawyers have an obligation to mount the most powerful defense they can mount to make every argument they can make to provide their clients every opportunity to be heard in the court of law. And that is exactly - they're going to undermine the methods that we use to capture these people in war by saying well, you wouldn't do that to an ordinary criminal who knocked over the 7/11. They're going to say the chain of evidence, the treatment of these people, you didn't mirandize them. They're going to make a mockery, a mockery of our Constitution by trying to apply it to people who are not mere criminals but are, you know, enemy combatants.

And it is going to damage our country all around the world by providing a stage, you know, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed since his capture in Pakistan has wanted nothing more than to have the opportunity to spew his hatred all clear around the world and hurt America. And we're going to give it to him.

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Oh lovely. More fear mongering on another Sunday bobble-head show, this time from Bob Schieffer. Pat Leahy sets him straight on why the United States is perfectly capable of prosecuting terrorism cases.

SCHIEFFER: Well, you heard what the congressman said, Senator Leahy. Tell me why you think he’s wrong.

LEAHY: I think that Eric Holder, our attorney general, is right. I think the president is right in holding the trials of these murderers in New York City.

What we’re saying to the world is the United States acts out of strength, not out of fear. I know when I go around Vermont, people say, let’s try criminals. Let’s try criminals like KSM. Let’s get them convicted. We’re very much a law enforcement type of state here.

I was a former prosecutor. I’d like to just see them prosecuted. In the same which way we prosecuted Timothy McVeigh. We’re not afraid to do that. We’re the most powerful nation on earth. We have a judicial system that is the envy of the world. Let’s show the world that we can use that power. We can use our judicial system, just as we did with Timothy McVeigh, and send the people -- and convict the people.

SCHIEFFER: But Timothy McVeigh was an American. He was not what some people would call an enemy combatant.

LEAHY: But...

SCHIEFFER: Won’t this be a circus of sorts, though? That’s what the congressman is saying. He says it’s going to just turn into a propaganda show.

LEAHY: I have a lot of faith in our judges. They know how to run a trial. They know how to keep decorum in their court. If Khalid Sheikh Mohammed wants to stand up and say, as he did in Guantanamo, I committed all these murders, I did all these things, fine. If I was a prosecutor, I would just sit there and let that jury hear it, because he’s going to be convicted.

That’s the important thing. And we show the world that our judicial system works. I think that’s why people like Ray Kelly, who is the commissioner of police, one of the finest commissioners of police anybody has ever had there in New York City, said we’re prepared, we can handle this.

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From the "fair and balanced" CNN, Wolf Blitzer filling in for Larry King plays concern troll for every right wing talking point out there on the trials of the suspected 9/11 terrorists being moved to New York.

BLITZER: Welcome back. We're continuing our conversation on the major decision made today by the Justice Department, the Attorney General Eric Holder, supported by the president of the United States, to try these 9/11 detainees in New York at a civilian trial. Joining us now, Peter Bergen, CNN's national security analyst. He's the best selling author of "Holy War Inc." and "The Osama bin Laden I know." Also joining us from New York, Paul Cruickshank. He's a terrorism expert, and an investigative journalist. He's a fellow at NYU Center on Law and Security, collaborated with Peter on the book, "The Osama bin Laden I Know." And Ron Suskind, a good friend, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and best-selling author. Books included "The One Percent Doctrine, Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11."

Ron, you have spent a lot of time thinking about what's happening right now. Tell us about the decision that the president and the attorney general made today.

RON SUSKIND, AUTHOR, "THE ONE PERCENT DOCTRINE": The president is, I think, finally trying to bring rubber to hit this road. You know, this has been a long delay. There's been great passion and anger and shouting inside of the White House, what do we do here? And I think what you see here is essentially the unveiling of a plan. We're going to have a public trial for the low hanging fruit, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other 9/11 hijackers, for which there is a great deal of evidence. This should not be a difficult prosecution, at its heart, jurisprudentially.

And then there are others who are other categories that we'll get to. In a way what this is, I think, is a kind of demonstration model as to what America stands for, in terms of rule of law. And the fact is, you know, Mike Mukasey, the former attorney general, said something interesting. He said this is exactly the sort of pre-9/11 mentality. I think that these folks are not at war with us. And I think the president will say exactly, they're criminals. They should be treated as such.

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Lawrence O'Donnell reports on the expected right wing freak-out over Eric Holder’s announcement that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed among others will be tried in New York rather than military tribunals. Jonathan Turley weighs in and notes that this is a return to the rule of law after the disgrace that was the Bush administration.

Turley has more at his blog-- 9-11 Defendants to be Given Real Trials as Holder Stands on Principle — Sort Of:

Attorney General Eric Holder has ordered actual trials for five 9/11 suspects rather than military tribunals. The decision places the United States squarely back on the road of the rule of law in giving due process even to our most hated defendants. The five defendants include 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The other four are Waleed bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi and Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali. However, this courageous act was diminished by an inexplicable decision of Holder to order five other defendants — including USS Cole suspect Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri — be tried in a military tribunal. I will be discussing this decision tonight on MSNBC Countdown.

Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn condemned the move as putting “political ideology ahead of the safety of the American people just to fulfill an ill-conceived campaign promise.” I am not sure what ideology means but I assume it is a reference to the Constitution. What makes us safer is to offer the world an alternative to these men; to show that we are not the hypocrites that we appeared during the Bush Administration.

The decision to send some detainees to military tribunals, however, is a baffling contradiction. Holder has denied the Administration the high ground in the debate by trying to appease both sides and deny due process to some of these accused individuals. It is a case of snatching hypocrisy out of the jaws of principle.

The right is going crazy over this of course since they don't want the Bush administration exposed for the treatment of these terrorism suspects. Limbaugh admits as much in the rant they play in the beginning of the segment whether he meant to or not.

I think it's awfully nice of them to promise not to arrest sick people who are trying not to puke their guts out:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration will not seek to arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers as long as they conform to state laws, under new policy guidelines to be sent to federal prosecutors Monday.

Two Justice Department officials described the new policy to The Associated Press, saying prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state laws.

The new policy is a significant departure from the Bush administration, which insisted it would continue to enforce federal anti-pot laws regardless of state codes.

Attorney General Eric Holder said in March that he wanted federal law enforcement officials to pursue those who violate both federal and state law, but it has not been clear how that goal would be put into practice.

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From the very moment he was elected, right-wingers have been waiting, hoping, and watching anxiously for President Obama to take some kind of action -- any kind of action -- relating to guns. Just so they can start screaming, "He's trying to take away our guns!!!! Lock and load!!! Molon labe!!!"

Of course, he's done nothing. Nada. Zippo.

Which means they're now forced to just make stuff up.

This is never a problem for the paranoid, gun-toting right anyway. It's what they do.

Lou Dobbs was out leading the parade last night:

DOBBS: A record 1 million background checks on gun sales were completed by the FBI in the month of August alone. Those numbers show that gun owners are increasingly concerned that the Obama administration is on a mission to restrict Second Amendment rights in this country.

Supporters of those rights gathered in St. Louis over this weekend to fight attempts to strip Americans of their right to keep and to bear arms. Bill Tucker with our report.

And what exactly is the source of that fear? Um, well ...

TUCKER: Ask them why, and they recall the words of Attorney General Eric Holder on the need to ban assault weapons to help reduce drug violence in Mexico.

They point to the president's regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein, who personally is not just opposed to hunting, but said back in 2007 it should be banned. Or they will point to the president's consistent voting record for gun control, both in the Senate and back in Illinois.

Nor do these gun rights enthusiasts trust the newest Supreme Court justice, who in her only ruling on gun rights said the Second Amendment could only be applied to the federal government.

Hmmm. This sounds like almost exactly the same charges the NRA has been peddling since January, and yet the Obama administration has not acted on guns in any fashion.

The only new thing is the bit about Cass Sunstein, the demonization of whom began with Glenn Beck and has now spread to Dobbs' show. Dobbs and Tucker delve this in more detail:

TUCKER: All of them, of course, united under the banner of securing their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. For his part, the president does say he respects the constitutional right and promised that he will "protect the rights of hunters and other law- abiding Americans to purchase, own, and transport, and use guns."

But gun activists remain skeptical -- Lou?

DOBBS: I mean, the attorney general, Eric Holder, has said "They just want to do a few things with the Second Amendment." And the czar here, Cass Sunstein -- I mean, what's his deal?

TUCKER: He's a vegetarian, and he believes that hunting ought to be banned.

DOBBS: So, he's not big on hunting.

TUCKER: He's not big on hunting at all. But he has openly supported the right of animals to sue. He believes animals ought to have rights...

DOBBS: I'm sorry, repeat that again?

TUCKER: He believes animals should have rights, which would include the right to sue if they have been mistreated.

DOBBS: If they were hunted.

TUCKER: Or I guess hunted.

DOBBS: If they were hunted -- really?

TUCKER: I can't explain it, Lou, I'm just telling you.

DOBBS: I just think we should let this sort of percolate, because, presumably, the president knows this man, knows who he put there...

TUCKER: Yes.

DOBBS: ... as the regulatory czar over guns. That's truly, truly interesting.

Thank you very much, Bill Tucker.

TUCKER: You're welcome.

Cass Sunstein, the regulatory czar over guns? Not exactly. And by "not exactly," we mean, "not even remotely related to the truth."

Sunstein has been nominated to head up the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, whose role it is to review draft regulations under Executive Order 12866; additionally, "OIRA reviews collections of information under the Paperwork Reduction Act, and also develops and oversees the implementation of government-wide policies in the areas of information technology, information policy, privacy, and statistical policy."

Guns are nowhere near this picture, except hypothetically (it would be possible, as a matter of conjecture, that Sunstein's office would review the efficacy of proposed gun regs coming out of the ATF). And that's it. That's the entire "connection" here.

But hey, don't worry, Lou. When the next Richard Poplawski kills three cops because he was afraid Obama was gonna take his guns away, we'll know who to thank.

TPM Muckraker has found the next late-night sensation - a birther infomercial entitled "Where Was President Obama Born." It's already received the usual 1:00-in-the-morning airing on at least one local TV station in Texas. The United States Justice Foundation, a Birther front group led by the aptly named Gary Kreep, paid $100 to the CBS affiliate in Lubbock for the privilege of gracing their airwaves. That seems like money well spent for the Birthers for reaching a few thousand eyeballs or so and filling them with wingnut ideology. But that's not the true purpose.

For a $30 contribution, viewers also get a fax sent in their name to the 50 state attorneys general and Attorney General Eric Holder demanding that President Obama produce his real birth certificate.

Getting 4 suckers to fork over $30 for nothing covers their whole expense, and looking at the production values, producing the episode didn't cost much more than $100 either. This is pure conservative hucksterism, where a few people make money off of whipping up fears for no real purpose.

And Bill Keller, the host of the birthermercial, is perfectly positioned to be that huckster - he's a fundamentalist preacher:

The program was produced by LivePrayer.com, a Web site affiliated with Bill Keller, a fundamentalist Christian minister who also hosts the infomercial.

Imprisoned in the late 1980s after an insider trading conviction, Keller later committed his life to God, attended Liberty University in Virginia, and founded Bill Keller Ministries, according to his bio. LivePrayer.com was "founded for the sole purpose of having a site on the internet where people can go 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for prayer."

This has about as much of a chance at dislodging Barack Obama from office as the Sham-Wow, but both infomercials have the same goal - to get rich off of selling you garbage. Sadly, there are probably enough morons in America to make Gary Kreep and Bill Keller very wealthy men.

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On Sunday's ABC Roundtable, Liz Cheney and Sam Donaldson got into it on the torture investigations.

The only reason she's on is to defend her father once again. This is old and tired. Why does Dick only appear on FOX News to defend his position? We know the answer to that one. Chris Wallace makes with the Love Boat eyes and crawls on his tummy to try and get Dick all excited. They are like two cats in heat. Sam Donaldson wouldn't take Liz's ridiculous arguments. I mean, she actually says that there already were investigations...cough...cough...by the Bush administration and they passed with flying colors. She then continues to lie about the 2004 report and says that nobody was raped...Sure, Liz...

Liz: You do, you say it has already been looked at..

Sam: By who?

Liz: By career prosecutors...

Sam: In the Bush administration justice department.

But Sam, they were less political than Eric Holder, who is a political appointee...

When Sam brought up drilling people in the head and rape, Liz Cheney was outraged. Not at the act, but at the accusation...

Liz: That is totally, that is inexcusable..

Sam: It's in the report...

Liz: Nobody raped anybody...

George: The law said the threats were illegal, It's against the law.

Liz: Wait a second, that's not clear.

{}

Sam: Everyone except one person that I know has commented ....says torture is waterboarding is wrong.

Liz: Waterboarding isn't torture. We can go that path...the lack of seriousness here is important...

When a conservative is losing an argument, one of their weapons is to say that you're not serious. It's a one stop shop argument fixer. Kristol uses the word "serious" a lot to make himself sound intelligent, but nobody buys it except FOX.

Oh and Liz is still trying to sell her best product of all: Waterboarding isn't torture. How many times has she denied it already?

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From Fox's Wall Street Journal Editorial Report, the panel recites the latest GOP talking point that any abuse of prisoners has already been investigated. Scott Horton does a nice job of debunking this in his article at Harpers Magazine, Seven Points on the CIA Report:

The “prior investigation” canard. It looks like the favorite talking point emerging for torture apologists (like David Ignatius) is that the CIA cases were already examined by career prosecutors who decided not to take any action. But this claim is false. Although these cases were enshrouded in extraordinary secrecy from the outset, I closely studied their management and conducted a number of interviews with Justice personnel who were involved; I also worked with the House Judiciary Committee in its review of the matter. The cases were referred by Helgerson to the Justice Department, which in turn passed them to the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Paul J. McNulty. (This U.S. attorney’s office was the most highly politicized in the entire U.S. attorneys system, and McNulty was ultimately promoted to the office of deputy attorney general and then resigned amidst accusations of misconduct involving the politicization of the Justice Department.)

McNulty’s office acted as a sort of “dead letter office” for troublesome torture allegations. The suggestion that there was an active investigation is laughable. No grand jury was impaneled or testimony taken, and contrary to Ignatius’s claims no decision was taken not to prosecute. What happened instead was inaction. Why? If the cases had been pressed, the CIA personnel involved would have immediately implicated high-level Bush Administration officials. The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility has examined the handling of these cases and has confirmed that no serious investigation ever occurred. So the suggestion that Holder is now somehow undermining or second-guessing the decision of career prosecutors is preposterous.

Transcript below the fold.

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I'm not sure what's more infuriating here, listening to Orrin Hatch pretend he doesn't know full well that what was done to the prisoners in our custody was torture, or John Kerry defending the Obama administration's decision not to go after the ones at the top who ordered it, and then smile and nod politely while Hatch spins.

STEPHANOPOULOS: OK. Let me move to another issue that came up earlier this week. The attorney general decided to investigate possible CIA abuses in the prisoner interrogation cases.

And Vice President Cheney this morning has blasted that decision by the attorney general.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DICK CHENEY, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT: The approach of the Obama administration should be to come to those people who were involved in that policy and say, how did you do it? What were the keys to keeping the country safe over that period of time?

Instead, they're out there now threatening to disbar the lawyers who gave us the legal opinions, threatening, contrary to what the president originally said, they were going to go out and investigate the CIA personnel who carried out those investigations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: He called it an outrageous and possibly dangerous act.

KERRY: Well, Dick Cheney has shown through the years, frankly, a disrespect for the Constitution, for sharing of information with Congress, respect for the law, and I'm not surprised that he is upset about this.

The Obama administration has no intention -- I think the president himself has been unbelievably bending in the direction of trying to be careful about what happens to national security, protecting our national security interests, being very sensitive about the CIA's prerogatives and needs and so forth.

And in fact, I think there is a little bit of a tension between the White House itself and the lawyers in the Justice Department as they see the law and as what their obligation is.

And in a sense, that's good. That's appropriate, because it shows that we have an attorney general who is not pursuing a political agenda, but who is doing what he believes the law requires him to do.

And we have an administration, on the other hand, that is balancing some of those other interests.

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August 24, 2009 News Corp

(Heather): Wow. Bill-O actually put someone on his show who does a good job of shooting down his talking points. O'Reilly thinks that no one wants torture investigated and that it's just a witch hunt, and that our torture program was "an absolute success". Jami Floyd hits back at him with some logic, like the Department of Justice is not supposed to be politicized, and that "we have federal laws on torture for a reason".

I guess after all of those years of the Bush administration using the D.O.J. as a political arm of the White House, Bill-O is having a little bit of trouble understanding that how the Bush administration did things is not exactly how they are supposed to work.

Transcript below the fold.

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From The Ed Schultz Show, Jerrold Nadler says the appointment of a Special Prosecutor doesn't go far enough and that the law is that when torture occurs under American jurisdiction there must be an investigation of everyone who may have been involved and if warranted prosecutions. Nadler expressed concern that we aren't being aggressive enough and limiting the investigations too much. He also adds this:

Nadler: We are well into territory already, where because of the pardon of Nixon after Watergate and the people around him, because of in the Iran Contra, we're getting into territory where it becomes taken for granted that high officials can violate the law and get away with it.

Schultz: Yep.

Nadler: If high officials violated the law here, if Cheney did, if Rice did, etc., they've got to be prosecuted to show that no one is above the law.

I agree with his point that no one is above the law. I disagree that we're "getting into territory" where high officials take it for granted that they will never be held accountable for their law breaking. We're well past that point now.

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Keith talks to Harper's Scott Horton about the reports that Attorney General Eric Holder is about to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate the CIA for torturing prisoners. Horton has more at Harpers:

Here’s another question. According to the Los Angeles Times, “Officials said it wasn’t clear that any CIA interrogators were ever informed of the limits laid out in the Justice Department memo. ‘A number of people could say honestly, correctly, “I didn’t know what was in it,”‘ said a former senior U.S. intelligence official.” How would that affect the work of a special prosecutor?

The Times piece builds off accounts furnished by “former senior Justice officials,” close to the torture issue, with apparent knowledge of “investigations.” In all likelihood, we’re talking about Bush Administration political appointees apprehensive about what a special prosecutor might uncover. I would strongly discount the claims that the investigations will never go anywhere because of a lack of witnesses and evidence. That conclusion can’t be justified until a serious investigation has actually been conducted—and it’s clear that the Bush Justice Department did not conduct a serious investigation because they were concerned about where it might lead.

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(Suzanne Ito writes for and manages Blog of Rights, the blog of the national ACLU.)

June 26 of this year marked the International Day in Support of Torture Victims, and the anniversary of the United Nations' Convention Against Torture. On that day, the ACLU joined countless other human rights groups in calling for Accountability for Torture. We asked people to send Attorney General Eric Holder the Office of Legal Counsel memos—the actual evidence released through ACLU lawsuits that revealed the fact that high-level Bush administration officials had sanctioned these illegal acts—and urged him to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate these crimes.

We were pleased when Newsweek's Daniel Klaidman reported that Holder was indeed considering an investigation. But now a month has passed, we haven't heard much from the Justice Department. So last week, the ACLU renewed its call for accountability by launching a new video, featuring director Oliver Stone, composer Philip Glass, Rosie Perez, and many others reading from the torture memos, and calling for accountability.

The public knows that detainees were tortured during the Bush presidency. From the photos from Abu Ghraib, to congressional reports (PDF), to the torture memos themselves, it's crystal-clear that these abusive interrogation practices were authorized by the highest levels of the Bush administration. Even Dick Cheney couldn't resist a little cheerleading about how effective he thought waterboarding was.

It is a core premise of American democracy that no one—not even the president—is above the law. When we hear Attorney General Holder is considering only investigating those who carried out the torture, not those who authorized the torture in the first place, it sickens us to think how this clashes with the most fundamental American ideals of fairness. Too much evidence of high-level orders exists to limit criminal investigations to "a few bad apples." We cannot compromise the rule of law because we're afraid the outcome might be politically messy, inconvenient or even painful. To not investigate is to tell future presidents and their administrations that they're above the law, and that would render our system of justice meaningless.

So please watch the video, and send it to Attorney General Holder. It's time for a comprehensive investigation of the Bush era torture policies.

Looks like Glenn Greenwald caught Stephen's attention as well. From The Colbert Report:

Investigating prisoner abuse will be a political food fight, and that is messier than torture.