Antiwar.com Blog

Former Reagan Lawyer: New Executive Order So Broad Even Senator Clinton’s Property Could Be Seized Over Iraq Policy Questions.

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/07_08_03_fein.mp3]

On Friday, former Assistant Deputy Attorney General Bruce Fein, in describing a new “Orwellian” executive order granting the Treasury Department unprecedented power to seize Americans’ property, told Antiwar Radio that the language of the order is so broad that it would be “arguable” that the government could even site Senator Clinton’s requests to the Pentagon for information about withdrawal plans, recently denounced by the Defense Department, as proof of “a significant risk” that she could do something else which might undermine the Iraqi government – and hence lose all her property with no recourse. The rest of us too.

MP3 here.

Bruce Fein, former Assistant Deputy Attorney General in the Reagan administration and co-founder of the American Freedom Agenda, explains the broad powers over Americans’ property claimed by George Bush in his new executive order, “Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq.” Fein says that Senator Hillary Clinton’s property could be seized under this order for “undermining the Iraqi government” by asking the Pentagon if they have a plan for withdrawal, which she was denounced for doing just last week by Deputy Secretary of Defense for Policy, Eric Edelman. Also, the American Freedom Agenda, the Unitary Executive theory, the “living Constitution,” NSA spying, National Security Letters and administrative subpoenas.

Bruce Fein graduated from Harvard Law School with honors in 1972. After a coveted federal judicial clerkship, he joined the U.S. Department of Justice where he served as assistant director of the Office of Legal Policy, legal adviser to the assistant attorney general for antitrust, and the associate deputy attorney general. Mr. Fein then was appointed general counsel of the Federal Communications Commission, followed by an appointment as research director for the Joint Congressional Committee on Covert Arms Sales to Iran. He recently served on the American Bar Association’s Task Force on Presidential signing statements.

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/07_08_03_ridgeway.mp3]

James Ridgeway, DC bureau chief for Mother Jones magazine, discusses his new article, “In Search of John Doe No. 2: The Story the Feds Never Told About the Oklahoma City Bombing;” the ordeal of Utah attorney Jesse Trentadue and his brother Kenneth, who was tortured and murdered by government agents in his Oklahoma prison cell in a case of mistaken identity – they thought he was Richard Guthrie (likely one of the many neo-Nazi “John Does” involved in the Oklahoma City bombing), the Treasury and Justice Department informants inside the plot, complicity by the media and Congress in the cover-up, the DoJ’s prosecution of their own best witness in order to obstruct justice in the McVeigh and Nichols trials, and the possible role of former German army officer Andreas Strassmeir.

MP3 here.

James Ridgeway is Mother Jones’ Washington bureau chief. A longtime Washington correspondent for the Village Voice, Ridgeway helped launch the modern muckraking era when he revealed that General Motors had hired private eyes to spy on a then-obscure consumer advocate named Ralph Nader. The expose prompted hearings on Capitol Hill (in which G.M. President James Roche was eventually forced to apologize to Nader) and made Nader’s book, “Unsafe at Any Speed,” a bestseller.

Ridgeway has written 16 books, including 2005’s “The Five Unanswered Questions About 9/11.” His broad-based national reporting has appeared in publications ranging from Harper’s to The Economist and the New York Times Magazine. He is known for his writing on the American right wing, from the mainstream conservative movement to the far right. He has also reported many international stories, including the coup in Haiti and the democratic revolution in Eastern Europe. Ridgeway co-directed “Blood in the Face,” a companion film to his book by the same name, as well as “Feed,” a documentary on the 1992 presidential campaign. Recently he launched Ridgewayng.com, a web site for short news videos.

See Also: Jesse Trentadue and Mother Jones’ document stash.

The Secret Life of Bill Clinton by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Scott’s Complete OKC soundbite file.

Scott’s 4 interviews of recently deceased investigative reporter J.D. Cash here.)

The State Department has had enough!

They see the recent sparring over the issue of whether to nuke or invade Pakistan, or to nuke Saudi Arabia, as irresponsible. (I guess making irresponsible comments on foreign policy is the private domain of the White House.)

The State Department would rather that neither citizens of other nations nor the American people should find out what the future leader of the US proposes to drag us into.

It looks like Hillary Clinton is going to be able to make that “breakout” session at the YearlyKos conference after all. Whew! Wouldn’t want to miss that! No doubt they’ll ask her about this, and here’s how I’d phrase the question: Under what possible set of circumstances would she order a nuclear attack on, say, Afghanistan, or Pakistan? Of course, she’ll never give a straight answer. But just having been asked the question is enough — which is why it won’t be asked.

Yet another long, pretentious pro-war, pro-Bush piece in Reason by Michael Young, this time praising the $60 billion arms deal recently announced by the Bush administration, has his readers in an uproar: this comment thread is hilarious. Libertarians are, naturally, antiwar, the Reason staff is officially agnostic on the issue, but in reality its foreign policy pieces are almost uniformly neoconnish to the max. One factor left out of this equation, however, is Reason‘s readers, who, it looks like, have had enough of Senor Young’s gunslinging on behalf of the Bushies.

I woke this morning to the news that Barack Obama, the subject of my column this morning, is having yet another tiff with Hillary Clinton, this time over the issue of whether or when to use nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Obama is saying “Never,” but Hillary — just as she did on the neogotiations with Iran, Syria, etc. question — is saying “Never say never.” While the War Wall Street Journal is now hailing Obama as a neocon for his let’s-invade-Pakistan stance, it looks like the race to see who among the Democratic front-runners is the most neoconnish is on…..