Not surprising that the Republicans feel that the "enhanced interrogation" methods were effective. After all, when you create your own definition of torture then of course you can easily define the results of that torture as effective.

I don't see why the Right is so upset with the release of this report. If their methods were so effective and not torture as they claim, then you would think they would be proud of the actions they took and would want everyone to know about it. But, instead they seem to believe that the public knowing about it is some how embarrassing and makes them look like sadistic monsters. Why are they getting so upset about the public knowing who they really are if they fare so convinced that they are right.

We are a country run by hypocrites, cowards, paranoid schizophrenics, thieves, murderers, and Hitler-wanna-be's.

AND THE WHOLE WORLD KNOWS IT!!!!

What are conservatives trying to hide?!?

The last Confederate flag was WHITE!

So we have two choices of democrats: Sen. Landrieu type, who publicly capitulates to the "conservative" agenda or Sen. Schumer type, who placate/manipulate/lie to the public and continues serving the interest of their wealth backers. They both use the shameful practice of political pragmatism with little regard for public interest. Losing Sen. Landrieu's seat is meaningless if she was going to vote republican anyway.

Robotic-pigeon photo! (Okay, it's actually a steampunk dove sculpture, but I think Thom would enjoy the pictures of it.)

http://www.boredpanda.com/steampunk-animal-sculptures-igor-verniy/

Torture is wrong. It's just that simple. Torture is an act of terror. Torturing any human being or animal, for any reason, is just plain wrong. Everyone should know this just like we automaticly know that murder is wrong. We, the people of the planet Earth, call wrong doers, thieves, murderers, etc,, criminals and punish them according to the laws that exist all over the world. The means, (torture), does not justify the ends, (information). Torture is a crime and can never be justified. Justifying torture takes an extreme amount of arrogance. Torturing our enemies gives our enemies the idea that they have the right to torture us. Either way it's still wrong. The torture at Guantanamo is a crime and someone should be held accountable for it. If no one is punished for the crime then Bush & Chaney should at least be publicly shamed for it, leaving them with the legacy of themselves being terrorist.

Thom said, "We lost sight of the values that built this country, and of the ideals that have made this country great. That’s something that would deeply upset Abraham Lincoln. "

Well... I'm deeply upset that Thom now announces that he lost sight of the values — I certainly didn't! I knew this was wrong on the first day I found out that it was happening... and I find it offensive to be included in the "we" that somewhere along the way lost sight of the values. There's us... and there's them — don't lump both into we

Thom said, "That was a grave mistake and a huge lapse in our collective judgment." Sorry Charley... that was not a lapse in our collective judgement. It wasn't even a lapse of judgement by those in power — it was EVIL in action.

These guys weren't even elected to run the country. They confiscated power. Maybe the Supreme Court —a big part of them— should be brought in front of The Hague?

Pardon them? Does that mean forget about our old tradition of "innocent until proven guilty"? (Oops! Bush took that away too — never mind.) How can you pardon someone who STILL doesn't acknowledge their "lapse in judgement". To this day (including today!)... Cheney says he would do it again. To this day (including today!)... the liars are still lying about the success of their torture strategy. Shouldn't the victims have something to say about whether or not evil should be pardoned or permanently prevented from jamming their values and morality down everyone else's throat?

Do you really think that pardoning these evil people will tell the world that "we been bad... but we really do know right from wrong... it's just not politically possible to prosecute them"... is going to re-establish the gone-forever reputation of moral superiority we enjoyed?

If you really believe that merely calling these guys out on what they did will discourage a rerun (How's that strategy working with the banksters?)... you need to realize these people are EVIL and you can't change that. They really don't give a rat's ass about how anyone else perceives their behavior. Giving them a pardon is just telling their ilk they can do it again with impunity — the precedence will have been set. We're just a bunch of sissies that are too afraid to stand up for what's right.

We should have been in the streets when the Supreme Court overstepped their power and decided who should be president. We... collectively... have turned into a bunch of wimps. These people are raping us —economically and morally— and all we do is try to get more people to vote... on machines that they control... via the media that they also control. It was Stalin that said "It doesn't matter who people vote for... it only matters who counts the vote." Case in point: they know that we know how they steal elections. Has that stopped them? Have you noticed that all discussion of the corrupt voting machines ceases between elections?

There's only one rational reason that we have become so passive — it's the damn neurotoxin aspartame — thrust upon humanity by Reagan and Rumsfeld! The timing is right — you got a better explanation?

(Supposedly...) More than those on the right... we on the left have knowledge. We're not ignorant... but it's sure looking like some of us don't know what to do with our knowledge. People that have knowledge but don't know what to do with it —by definition— are stupid. Unfortunately... there is no cure for "stupid".

I'm having a really hard time understanding the concept of "let’s hold them accountable by pardoning them". Exactly how does that differ from giving them a "Get out of Jail Free" card? I thought that concept was in a game ... not real life. Where can I get one?

They're not about to say "I been bad... remove me from society". Saying "They will never be prosecuted"... will certainly be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

"Grave atrocities allowed to pass, Blinded by the twisted holy word, Deceit and murder tried to justify, A stain that history cannot erase." http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/0-9/3_inches_of_blood/all_of_them_witches.html

Right on, Phillip Henderson!

Bush, Cheney, Rummy and an entire string of Neo-con perps.

As I tune in, Thom’s very good and justified rant is calling on Pres. Obama to hold W. Bush and Cheney accountable for war crimes. By pardoning them? I’m not sure I agree, but I see his point. I know indictment is unrealistic, but shouldn’t we at least steer the dialogue in that direction?..Pardoning is no more likely to happen than idictment. Obama will not pardon or indict. Why?…because Obama is also a war criminal..don’t take my word for it;

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/04/over-twice-as-many-u-s-soldiers-have-died-in-afghanistan-under-obama-in-3-12-years-than-did-under-bush-in-8-years-yet-no-media-outrage/

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/12/3/a_precise_us_drone_war_report

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/obamas_new_normal_the_drone_strikes_continue_20131223

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/26/study_finds_us_drone_strikes_in

Rupugs aren’t going to impeach for war crimes…which is the only legitimate reason Obama could be impeached. If Obama prosecuted Bush/Cheney, etc. it would indeed blow up in his face…and so it should!! D.C. might well become a free-for-all…oh wait, it’s already a free-for-rich.

Obama is the one going after Chelsea Manning, Snowden and James Risen. Even Bush didn’t go after journalists and whistle blowers as aggressively. I’m no fan of Bush, by any means, but can you imagine the uproar on the “professional left” if the NSA was known to be conducting business as we have discovered they have been under Obama, during the Bush administration?..or if it had been learned that for every 1 “combatant” killed by a drone strike, 28 civilians died, many of them children, or that drone pilots were ordered to return to attack the rescuers of victims in a so-called “second strike strategy”? What if we discovered that prisoners at GITMO, many of them innocent, were being force fed under Bush? All of this has happened since Obama took office. Maybe Obama is having trouble closing the facility, but he could, with a stroke of a pen, take a stand to end the torture…which is still going on in black sites all over the world if one believes Jeremy Scahill. As I write, a caller is also bringing up another story covered by Amy Goodman a while back, how, under Obama, US soldiers were complicit in leaving men in cargo containers in 120 degree heat for days. I remember the man interviewed saying that when they finally opened the containers the stench of blood, vomit, urine, feces and death was like the stench of hell itself. The men, stacked like chord wood and unable to move freely and desparate for water had literally bitten into one another trying to drink each other’s blood.

Thom asserts that Bush and Cheney went insane with fear after 9/11. Cheney and Bush didn’t go insane, they were sociopaths from the start. War profiteering was their goal at any cost. The notion that, in journalism, we have to have all the answers and evidence of what did occur before we can publicly pose the questions or risk being labeled a conspiracy theorist (like that’s always bad thing?) is tragic. Speculation encourages critical thought. The only time anyone should be labeled a ‘conspiracy freak’ is when they assert a hypothesis as fact for which they have no evidence. As an intuitive, I know things to be true that although I can’t prove, there is more than enough circumstantial evidence just beneath the surface. I am more than willing to be thought of as a conspiracy nut in order to, hopefully, stimulate thought and conversation. Although it’s not popular to openly discuss, there are more than just a few credible whistle blowers coming forward with evidence pointing to various corporate and governmental entities within Saudi Arabia/US that likely perpetrated 9/11. One of these whistle blowers is Barbara Honegger whom you’ve had on your show, Thom. Perhaps, popular or not, it’s time to pose bigger questions.

You can see Barbara’s lecture here; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fvJ8nFa5Qk Every detail is covered and thoughtfully analyzed as only her mind can.

Architects and engineers thoroughly and scientifically debunk the official story re. the collapse of the towers here; http://www.ae911truth.org/

The only difference I can see at this point from the corporate Dem establishment and the Repugs is…at least with wolves, what you see is what you get. With Dems you get sheep…oh wait…wolves in sheep’s clothing and sheep who are told, “do as we say, or you’ll get eaten.” It is hard to express any legitimate outrage without being labeled as “hyperbolic” perhaps, but I’ll take that chance. My favorite line from one of my favorite movies, ‘Mars Attacks!’ is when Grandma, points at the TV while laughing hysterically and says. “They just killed Congress”. Of course I’m not proposing violence against Congress, but I honestly believe, at this point, most Americans would be better off if the Federal Government, with all of it’s tenticulous (as in ‘many tentacles’ ) agencies in it’s current utterly & irrevocably corrupt incarnation, did not exist at all. It has become a giant cancerous tumor raveging the last vestiges of life from the heart and soul of it’s own people. As Thom, for a second time plays a recording of sHillary recounting Washington’s noble treatment of British POWs, I am not fooled into thinking she will not follow in the footsteps of the two recent administrations. Again, lets not forget who she appointed as Assistant Sec. of State right before resigning, so as to attempt to distance herself from the agenda of the ‘Project for a New American Century’. I think it’s time we accept the fact that our government is nothing more than a marionette who’s strings are pulled by those with the most money and nothing but collapse or war can change this.

John McMurtry internationally recognized moral and political philosopher who is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and University Professor Emeritus at the University of Guelph, Ontario and author of several books put it well. Paraphrasing, he said that the current incarnation of fascism in America is worse than Hitler’s Nazism, because Hitler’s Nationalist Nazism thought to care for , with the exception of those in concentration camps like GITMO of course, the German country and the German people. Infrastructure and good work for ‘good’ Germans was valued. At least Hitler sought to conquer openly instead of hiding behind covert coups or the feigned attempts to bring “democracy” to the more ‘unfortunate” nations. Now, as McMurtry put it, the current incarnation of American fascism is consuming itself from within, sucking the very economic ‘blood’ from it’s own people and infrastructure. I couldn’t agree more.

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and others have spoken freely about their orders to have certain detainees subject to "enhanced interrogation" that is merely another word for torture. This is admission of being a war criminal. At the conclusion of World War II the United States participated in war crimes tribrinals where Japanese officers were prosecuted for water boarding Allied prisoners. The Japanese officers were convicted of torture for water boarding and hanged. If they had said they were not torturing but merely using enhanced interrogation methods they still would have been convicted and hanged for their actions.

I understand Thom's argument but I think it may be flawed in three ways:

1. As much as I agree that Buish et al are war criminals, "branding" them as such with no due process is inhernetly problematic and unjust. It too violates the values we claim to stand for...and
2. It would be a precedent ripe for abuse. A subsequent president could, for example, retaliate by "pardoning" Obama for "covering up Benghazi," or "granting amnesty to the dreamers," or "exceeding his executive authority," or any other trumped up charge they could come up with...and
3. For Obama to seek an indictment of Bush et al may indeed be politically impossible, but I'm not sure it would "blow up in his face" the way Clinton's impeachment did for the Republicans, for the simple reason that the impeachment was frivolous on its face and clearly unjustifed, something the American people and even some Republicans could see immediately. The war crimes revealed in the Senate report are just as clearly not. Far from blowing up in his face, it could be tremendously uplifting for the American people -- and the world -- to see that no one is above the law, especially right now when our collective faith in the rule of law and basic fairness is being sorely tested, provoking nationwide protests like we haven't seen since the 60's.

But how could we do this? Why couldn't Eric Holder, the outgoing Attorney General who for thatv reason has little if anything to lose politically, and who also has the virtue of not being Obama, simply say, "We don't know for sure if Bush et al have committed war crimes or not, but the crimes revealed by the Senate report are certainly serious enough to merit further investigation, and in the interests of fairness, such an investigation should not be conducted by anyone holding partisan political office...therefore I am appointing an Independent Counsel/Special Prosecutor to delve deeply into this and proceed accordingly." (I could be wrong, but I don't believe the Atty General would need Congressional approval to simply do his job and enforce the law.)

Even when the Republicans and the right wing echo chamber screamed bloody murder and blamed Obama for Holder's decision, he could simply say to them and the world that these crimes are too serious to sweep under history's rug, and both our national integrity and the principle of "equal justice under law" require such a diligent, impartial, and non-partisan inquiry, with any offenders held to appropriate account.

Given all the lip service they endlessly pay to "values and principles and the rule of law," I'd love to hear the Republicans and Fox News argue against that.