Actually, Dan, as you know, “Congress” does NOT get to see the “memo(s)” (while “memos” have been mentioned by Wyden and others, “reporters” continue to say that there is “a memo” …) only the 35 members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees will be permitted to “see” the memo(s).

That anyone might consider Obama’s “cave” to be anything but cynical manipulation on his part, is quite hard to honestly imagine …

Ah, well …

As always, much appreciation for all that you put before us.

DW

Correct, this is a bit of a last minute bluff against the committee using the press as cover but Wyden is still a wild card. He could acquiesce or throw caution aside and go all in.

I’m hoping for the latter today.

I kind of have to agree with DW. All Wyden is getting is a chance to see the memos (presumably we will, too). The memos will set out the specious rationalization for executive authority to determine life and death of everyone on the planet, there will be some hand-wringing, Brennan will be confirmed, and end of story. The only way this gets legs is for the Senate to call those who drafted the memos on the carpet, put them under oath, and make them explain why the Constitution is no longer binding law. I very much doubt this will happen, and the precedent of untrammeled Presidential power, until now surreptitious, will now be out in the open.

It would take Republican opposition to break this open via an impeachment proceeding. Highly unlikely.

The long hand of tyranny. Killing whomever, whenever, for whatever.

will wyden bring up Article 3, Section 3 as evidence against extrajudicial assassination rationale? — that it is unlawful without trial for treason as one of our fdl members pointed out several days ago.

i appologize for not providing “hattip” — perhaps someone in comments can do a search of the white paper articles and provide a link to the comment; it’s excellent.

At least, as you wrote, Knut, Obama’s claim to powers he doesn’t legally have and his (weak) rationale for it will be out in the open.
I wonder if there will come a time when the power Obama claims for himself will become so alarming and so dangerous and cause such outrage, the necessary number of politicians in both parties will screw up what courage they may have left, get together, and threaten impeachment proceedings.
Lawsuits and the the threat of impeachment might make this monster think twice. I suspect that, under all that bravado, lies a sniveling coward.

“Did the ploy work?”

There is no ploy. The MICC runs this country. They are shoving it in our faces and telling us to eat shit.

The term EXTRA-LEGAL says it all, “We are above the law.”

Everything else is mind-numbing theatrics.

Yep

Obama’s claims to unfettered Power run amock are nothing more or less than what the so-called “Republicans” set in motion on GW Bush. Obama is just kicking that can down the road.

Despite my “conservative” (i.e., loony?) friends whining & crying about how Obama “thinks he’s King,” they are mostly bitching about *maybe* having to pay a TINY bit more in taxes. This stuff????? NOT. on. their. radar.

And IF somehow the Tea Partiers actually wake up out of their dittoheaded stupors & figure out what’s going on with this? Why, they’ll be all “in” with it. Obots, as well.

So, no one’s gonna stop this train, which left the station quite some time ago. Conservatives would rather “impeach” Obama because of his allegedly forged birth certificate.

This shit? NO problema, mi amigos et amigas.

Looks like someone thinks that Wyden’s threat of filibustering some national security nomination is a credible threat (the most likely is Hagel instead of Brennan because of already existing Republican opposition).

Next question is whether the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is getting all of the authorizing memos. Reading between the lines on public statements and Wyden’s letters requesting the memos, emptywheel hypothesizes that there are separate memos for DoD and CIA with separate legal justification and procedures.

I agree with most of this.

But the only way it gets legs is for it to not go away from the public eye. And the military propaganda machines is already worried enough that it is putting ringers on progressive talk shows and blogs making the case that everything is OK–go back to sleep. And they are doing it by conflating the theater of Afghanistan with the use of drones in the rest of the world. And by asserting the US’s perfect knowledge of who is an al Quaeda commander who is an imminent threat to the US (carefully not mentioning the weasel-word “US interests”).

My expectation is that the SSCI looks at the memos, blesses them, confirms Brennan and moves on. Their oversight responsibilities have been honored; they feel they still have power; end of story.

So there needs to be enough of an uproar outside the hall that those inside the hall must pay attention because the MSM is talking about it. But that runs into the ADD of the media and the fact that their bosses will align with the PtB.

It is very interesting to me that the PtB are not themselves worried about this arbitrary power. It could take elite infighting back to the days of Richard III.

I question the use of the word “release” for what has been announced; I think that’s part of the propaganda.

DSWright for some reason says the Administration is “releasing” the memos, without qualification. The NY Times story starts out with “release”, though with the qualification that it is only to this committee’s members, but farther down, the story switches more to saying the committee will be getting “access”, which I’m sure is more accurate, and is all the Administration actually seems to have promised.

I wonder what degrading restrictions will be imposed on how these few senators can read these memos. I imagine they will be permitted, one by one, to go into a “secure” room and read them without being allowed to take notes, let alone make copies.

I also like how the Administration demanded, and the Times granted, anonymity even for the official that made this announcement. What purpose can that serve other than to keep everyone on notice that the rules of the game haven’t really changed.

These humiliating little details are how the supreme Undercover America apparatus makes sure the Senate and media, and we, know who is still running the show.

A Democrat is threatening filibuster? Ahahahahaha. As if.

Not quite enough time for staff to fully digest memos and come up with questions. But it gives Obama’s defenders something to point to indicate his (reluctant) forthcoming nature. I guess those ‘defenders’ would be dems, because I can imagine repubs trying to pull Obama’s chestnuts out of the fire; not that there’s even going to be a fire.

There is no assurance at this point that staff will even see them, according to the Times.

Perhaps, I am tad too much of a cynic.

Wyden, like the White House and majority of the Senate, is blowing smoke and done in order to remain on the national stage.

Consequently, if ‘Whyden’ is serious, he would’ve already introduced legislation that would “rescind the AUMF.” And since he hasn’t, who among us are going to create “Rescind the AUMF” Campaign?

And in all likelihood, emptywheel is probably correct with the differing memos as thes memos apply to the DOD and the CIA, separately.

At the end of the political day, the legal justification is premised on the bedrock that is the AUMF.

Jaango

The memos will set out the specious rationalization for executive authority to determine life and death of everyone on the planet, there will be some hand-wringing, Brennan will be confirmed, and end of story. The only way this gets legs is for the Senate to call those who drafted the memos on the carpet, put them under oath, and make them explain why the Constitution is no longer binding law. I very much doubt this will happen, and the precedent of untrammeled Presidential power, until now surreptitious, will now be out in the open.

What have you done to repeal Public Law 107-40 which explicitly declares endless global war on individuals that the president is required to pick, passed overwhelmingly by Congress on September 14, 2001.

The voters have ratified this act by Congress in 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012. This declaration of endless global war in individual identified by the president is the law of the land, and in the nearly 12 years since has not been debated in any of the thousands of elections for Congress.

If Obama were not aggressively executing Public Law 107-40, conservatives would be trying to impeach him.

Conservatives in 2008 and 2009 attacked Obama as weak and putting Americans in danger for failing to execute Public Law 107-40.

However, since then, Obama has been carrying out Public Law 107-40 more aggressively than President Bush, and carried it out just as he promised in 2008, and just as John McCain said he would NOT carry out the law.

Conservatives wrote a vague open-ended law and got it passed September 14, 2001, and find that President Obama is executing the law better than conservatives were able to before Obama became president.

Conservatives are not about to refudiate their law, or criticize the execution of the law. John McCain tried to lead a conservative effort to force Obama to unilaterally begin wars because he did not want to get Congress to declare war, given war is no longer popular.

On the other hand, progressives do not want to get Congress to repeal Public Law 107-40 because the voters love that law as executed by Obama much better than that law executed by Bush, and the voters fully supported it then.

Precisely, Obama works for someone else and it isn’t the American people. This is more like gasoline price manipulation to me; they put out a story in the propaganda MSM and they don’t care if anyone believes it or not. Can’t have the masses deciding what is right and wrong.

I agree with you, kapock, that the devil is in the word “release”. That word has the same resonance as the words “public option” – it is the fuzzy football we all are supposed to play with and argue about while Congress gets to be tightlipped about ‘classified’ reasons for killing us.

I don’t think this is nearly enough. All of we the people have a right to know, and if we don’t get that, we get nothing.

I watched Nova with interest last night. Fascinating story of the remanufacture of an Egyptian chariot – what’s not to like? I’ll tell you what – the constant repetition of the mantra “killing machine” and duplication of how effectively the turning capacity made for darting in and firing off an arrow into a dummy (repeated many times so we get the psychological message of how good it feels to do this). Closeup of dummy being skewered by arrow, over and over. And repetition of the claim that this chariot is the reason for the dominance of Egypt for many, many centuries. (See, just like us with drones?)

We get the message shot at us like an Egyptian arrow from every angle.

Enough!

Propaganda is everywhere.

No, that law does not enable endless war, as you describe.

” …. To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against those
responsible for the recent attacks…”

Many of us voted for Obama in 2008 in the belief he would end these wars, and end this policy. What else does ‘recent’ mean? Not endlessly, as you infer. Isn’t there an implied statute of limitation here, and last time I looked that was seven years.

You seem to be happy with that interpretation. Not me!

There is no Gad Damn reason that my congressman, your congressman and every congressman, if they are to govern the country, does not get to see these memos , PERIOD. Secret police, secret drone killings, secret memos , have no place in the land of the brave.

There is no reason WE don’t get to see those memos. It’s our bodies that are targets, not the kevlar padded congresspersons’!

Common Sense!

“What have you done to repeal Public Law 107-40 which explicitly declares endless global war on individuals that the president is required to pick”

Actually your explicitly showign Obama is violating the Constitution since this is ‘war.’ The Constitution expressly states for citizens allegedly engaging in war against the US, they’re to be tried for Treason with two witnesses testifying against them.

“High level official” sounds like two citizens to me , no ? After all he’s a high level official as well as a citizen, What could go wrong.

Are you telling me there wasn’t a secret trial with a secret verdict passed by the Gitmo “trial” military commission vetted by the secret censor that found this guy guilty of treason. Eric says, with all due respect to the constitution, the process is his due process.? See how that works ?

“One might ask all of the principals involved, in exec branch and Congress, what is so different now about denying the morally tainted and unacceptable Brennan of 2009 confirmation, and voting on him today. Seriously. (cross posted emptywheel)