Goodling goes to the Rodeo

Born-again hole, Monica Goodling testified in front of the House Judiciary Committee today, stating among other things that she, "crossed the line" when it came to partisan hirings of rethuglicans who toed the Bush-line. Think Progress has the video and stories galore on Goodling's testimony.
Read it all.

Bush and the Tilt-O-Whirl

Image Courtesy of Intricate Art

LA Times posting "Bush's long history of tilting Justice"

Over the last six years, this Justice Department has ignored the advice of its staff and skewed aspects of law enforcement in ways that clearly were intended to influence the outcome of elections.

Quote of the Day found at The Carpetbagger: Thomas Friedman started his NYT column yesterday, “Sometimes you read something about this administration that is just so shameful it takes your breath away.” His piece was about the politicization of science, but as Steve M. noted today, “Tom? A lot of us think that happens every day.” Geez, even Tom "the world is flat" Friedman thinks Junior is a fucknut.

Friday Night Music (on Thursday)

By suggestion of the Fabulous Opera 99, I give you Weezer "The Sweater Song (I've come Undone)" Dedicated to Sampson and De-liar... the unraveling thread of BushCo Inc.
If you want to destroy my sweater
Pull this thread as I walk away
Watch me unravel, I'll soon be naked
Lying on the floor, lying on the floor
I've come undone

"Keep pulling those threads, Pat Leahy and company"-Op99

Impeach Gonzo

Read Robert Kuttner's "Gonzales Should Be Impeached".

Gonzales, the nation's highest legal officer, has been point man for serial assaults against the rule of law, most recently in the crude attempt to politicize criminal prosecutions. Obstruction of a prosecution is a felony, even when committed by the attorney general.

Read the rest...

One of the emails from the DoJ's 'Rosemary Woods moment' has been found. TPM tells all.

Smoking Gun

WaPo reports the prosecutor for a landmark tobacco case says Bush political appointees interfered with her case weakening the government's position.
The firebrands at Think Progress posts the Post.

DoJ is D.O.A.

Shoephone of Evergreen Politics is the speed reader extraordinaire who after poring over 1000 pages from the Department of Just-us docu-dump, gleans the really good stuff in a way I can actually read. I tried to read some of the emails out of the DoJ's junk mail but could trudge through very little. As has been reported in the MSM, much of the material submitted are repeats of the same email, over and over, 3 and 4 times. What they didn't repeat, they just redacted. As Shoephone says, "Distract, junk up, obfuscate, confuse. Rinse, repeat." Get over to E.P. and read, "The DOJ 'Document Dump' -- Fear and Loathing in D.C."

Skeletor to Replace Gonzo?

As soon as you stop laughing read the story at Politico.

Uncanny isn't it?

Cheney on the Lam

Carol Lam that is...Ms. Lam, before she was fired, was looking into Darth Cheney's possible involvement in the Duke Cunningham scandal. Think Progress writes it up.

To recap, the White House awarded a one-month, $140,000 contract to an individual who never held a federal contract. Two weeks after he got paid, that same contractor used a cashier’s check for exactly that amount to buy a boat for a now-imprisoned congressman at a price that the congressman had pre-negotiated.

That should raise questions about the White House’s involvement.

Crooks and Liars gives a bit more on the story.

Crime Blotter:1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Paul Craig Roberts over at Antiwar, has distilled the criminal goings-on of BushCo with frightening clarity in his article Crime Blotter:1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

We are faced with the almost certain fact that the two highest law enforcement officials of the United States are criminals.

What I don't understand is how Faux News reports the opposite sans facts and gets away with it.

Jon Stewart Explains the "Purge"

Meanwhile, back in the blogosphere, Crooks and Liars continues their stellar reportage of the up-to-the-minute events in the U.S. Attorney purge scandal which seems a non-stop juggernaut. We can only hope it picks up enough momentum for a knockout blow to BushCo. Read/view the whole of today's posts, all good.

Digby extracts all the Rovian pieces of 'Gonzalo-gate', the US Attorney scandal from the Krugman article at Hullabaloo.

Dubya's Blind Ambition Tour-DoJ Style

Every single day, some new information comes out about just how corrupt, mendacious and bone-chillingly evil this administration has been and continues to be. The Nixon administration--no group of boy scouts mind you--played fast and loose with the truth and perpetrated any number of "dirty tricks" but their behavior pales in comparison with the current bunch. Latest development happen in the Department of Justice, presided over by Alberto Gonzales who, to paraphrase Patrick Leahy (VT-D), doesn't realize he is no longer the president's personal lawyer and is responsible for defending the Constitution and not the money/power based machinations of the Bush administration.

Gonzales latest stomping of the Constitution becomes apparent during his testimony in front of the senate judiciary committee regarding the U.S. attorney firings. And it would seem the White House knew all about it. Big surprise.

I'll play fly on the wall as we listen to commentary on the matter by two readers here at DeepCon, Mary and Anne, a Dynamic Duo of epic proportions. Let's listen shall we?

Mary:I’m not surprised at all - it seemed the USAtty strategy had to come from the WH, with Abu the implementer. W had less than no respect for law and the lawyers he has dealt with have not been tough enough to smack him and make him show a little respect.

Abu knew they didn’t have 93 candidates Bush would back who could make it through advice and consent. They’ve scraped the bottom of the barrel as it is.


Anne:This comes from Dana Perino, deputy press secretary:

“At no time were names added or subtracted by the White House,” Perino said. “We continue to believe that the decision to remove and replace U.S. attorneys who serve at the pleasure of the president was perfectly appropriate and within administration’s discretion. We stand by the Department of Justice’s assertion that they were removed for performance and managerial reasons.”
[snip]
“At no time did any White House officials, including the president, direct the Department of Justice to take specific action against any individual U.S. attorney,” Perino said.

Now, I am confused. Did the president know what was going on? Did he know who he was appointing and who he was firing? I mean, I realize that he’s not going to micromanage the process, but what Perino is suggesting is that he just rubber-stamped whatever was coming out of DOJ. And what was coming out of DOJ looks like a combination of collusion with a political operative and their own successful effort to insert a provision in Patriot II to ensure that there would be no interference from Congress or the state congressional delegations in the process.

How can Gonzales possibly be allowed to continue as AG? Aside from the fact that Bush apparently only fires people if they are wearing orange jumpsuits.

Wonder if Lieberman would be considered for THAT job?

Mary:That’s part of what I have been saying. I do expect micromanaging on the decision to remove a USAtty. It is a big decision and by statute it falls ONLY to the Decider. Not the AG. So I’d like to have them hammer that a bit. A decision as important as removing USAs, where the statutory scheme contemplates that the President would be directly involved in any such decision - what happened? Did the President abdicate that important area of Decidering to someone else? If so, who, how, when and with what parameters? Did the President actually fulfill his statutory duty and make the decision and if so, why is everyone fibbing, ducking and dodging? If not, did the AG’s office run amok and usurp the President’s power under 541 to itself? If so, who made that decision, when, why etc.?

I think they could structure some nicely difficult questions. I also think McNulty and Moschella and Gonzales, all of whom - in light of Sampson’s new revelations appear to have been ‘less than’ forthcoming - need to be grilled about that. Did they know about Sampson’s info or not. If not, why not? Are they too incompetent to gather information for the hearings? Does Gonzales never get briefed by his Chief of Staff? etc.

I’m so glad that Leahy will be involved. He makes AG sweat.

Ahh, very satisfying to be a fly-on-the-wall with those two in the room. Thank you ladies.

My only commentary is at least after Abu G. (his rap name) gets fired, he won’t have to change any of his monograms on his prison costume.
Alberto Gonzales=Attorney General=Asshole Grande
For more up-to-the-minute info on the DoJ excesses check over at Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo.

The Gray Lady Says Something Worth Printing

March 4, 2007
New York Times

The Must-Do List

The Bush administration’s assault on some of the founding principles of American democracy marches onward despite the Democratic victory in the 2006 elections. The new Democratic majorities in Congress can block the sort of noxious measures that the Republican majority rubber-stamped. But preventing new assaults on civil liberties is not nearly enough.

Five years of presidential overreaching and Congressional collaboration continue to exact a high toll in human lives, America’s global reputation and the architecture of democracy. Brutality toward prisoners, and the denial of their human rights, have been institutionalized; unlawful spying on Americans continues; and the courts are being closed to legal challenges of these practices.

It will require forceful steps by this Congress to undo the damage. A few lawmakers are offering bills intended to do just that, but they are only a start. Taking on this task is a moral imperative that will show the world the United States can be tough on terrorism without sacrificing its humanity and the rule of law.

Today we’re offering a list — which, sadly, is hardly exhaustive — of things that need to be done to reverse the unwise and lawless policies of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Many will require a rewrite of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, an atrocious measure pushed through Congress with the help of three Republican senators, Arlen Specter, Lindsey Graham and John McCain; Senator McCain lent his moral authority to improving one part of the bill and thus obscured its many other problems.

Our list starts with three fundamental tasks:

Restore Habeas Corpus

One of the new act’s most indecent provisions denies anyone Mr. Bush labels an “illegal enemy combatant” the ancient right to challenge his imprisonment in court. The arguments for doing this were specious. Habeas corpus is nothing remotely like a get-out-of-jail-free card for terrorists, as supporters would have you believe. It is a way to sort out those justly detained from those unjustly detained. It will not “clog the courts,” as Senator Graham claims. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the Democratic chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has a worthy bill that would restore habeas corpus. It is essential to bringing integrity to the detention system and reviving the United States’ credibility.

Stop Illegal Spying

Mr. Bush’s program of intercepting Americans’ international calls and e-mail messages without a warrant has not ceased. The agreement announced recently — under which a secret court supposedly gave its blessing to the program — did nothing to restore judicial process or ensure that Americans’ rights are preserved. Congress needs to pass a measure, like one proposed by Senator Dianne Feinstein, to force Mr. Bush to obey the law that requires warrants for electronic surveillance.

Ban Torture, Really

The provisions in the Military Commissions Act that Senator McCain trumpeted as a ban on torture are hardly that. It is still largely up to the president to decide what constitutes torture and abuse for the purpose of prosecuting anyone who breaks the rules. This amounts to rewriting the Geneva Conventions and puts every American soldier at far greater risk if captured. It allows the president to decide in secret what kinds of treatment he will permit at the Central Intelligence Agency’s prisons. The law absolves American intelligence agents and their bosses of any acts of torture and abuse they have already committed.

Many of the tasks facing Congress involve the way the United States takes prisoners, and how it treats them. There are two sets of prisons in the war on terror. The military runs one set in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay. The other is even more shadowy, run by the C.I.A. at secret places.

Close the C.I.A. Prisons

When the Military Commissions Act passed, Mr. Bush triumphantly announced that he now had the power to keep the secret prisons open. He cast this as a great victory for national security. It was a defeat for America’s image around the world. The prisons should be closed.

Account for ‘Ghost Prisoners’

The United States has to come clean on all of the “ghost prisoners” it has in the secret camps. Holding prisoners without any accounting violates human rights norms. Human Rights Watch says it has identified nearly 40 men and women who have disappeared into secret American-run prisons.

Ban Extraordinary Rendition

This is the odious practice of abducting foreign citizens and secretly flying them to countries where everyone knows they will be tortured. It is already illegal to send a prisoner to a country if there is reason to believe he will be tortured. The administration’s claim that it got “diplomatic assurances” that prisoners would not be abused is laughable.

A bill by Representative Edward Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, would require the executive branch to list countries known to abuse and torture prisoners. No prisoner could be sent to any of them unless the secretary of state certified that the country’s government no longer abused its prisoners or offered a way to verify that a prisoner will not be mistreated. It says “diplomatic assurances” are not sufficient.

Congress needs to completely overhaul the military prisons for terrorist suspects, starting with the way prisoners are classified. Shortly after 9/11, Mr. Bush declared all members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban to be “illegal enemy combatants” not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions or American justice. Over time, the designation was applied to anyone the administration chose, including some United States citizens and the entire detainee population of Gitmo.

To address this mess, the government must:

Tighten the Definition of Combatant

“Illegal enemy combatant” is assigned a dangerously broad definition in the Military Commissions Act. It allows Mr. Bush — or for that matter anyone he chooses to designate to do the job — to apply this label to virtually any foreigner anywhere, including those living legally in the United States.

Screen Prisoners Fairly and Effectively

When the administration began taking prisoners in Afghanistan, it did not much bother to screen them. Hundreds of innocent men were sent to Gitmo, where far too many remain to this day. The vast majority will never even be brought before tribunals and still face indefinite detention without charges.

Under legal pressure, Mr. Bush created “combatant status review tribunals,” but they are a mockery of any civilized legal proceeding. They take place thousands of miles from the point of capture, and often years later. Evidence obtained by coercion and torture is permitted. The inmates do not get to challenge this evidence. They usually do not see it.

The Bush administration uses the hoary “fog of war” dodge to justify the failure to screen prisoners, saying it is not practical to do that on the battlefield. That’s nonsense. It did not happen in Afghanistan, and often in Iraq, because Mr. Bush decided just to ship the prisoners off to Gitmo.

Prisoners designated as illegal combatants are subject to trial rules out of the Red Queen’s playbook. The administration refuses to allow lawyers access to 14 terrorism suspects transferred in September from C.I.A. prisons to Guantánamo. It says that if they had a lawyer, they might say that they were tortured or abused at the C.I.A. prisons, and anything that happened at those prisons is secret.

At first, Mr. Bush provided no system of trial at the Guantánamo camp. Then he invented his own military tribunals, which were rightly overturned by the Supreme Court. Congress then passed the Military Commissions Act, which did not fix the problem. Some tasks now for Congress:

Ban Tainted Evidence

The Military Commissions Act and the regulations drawn up by the Pentagon to put it into action, are far too permissive on evidence obtained through physical abuse or coercion. This evidence is unreliable. The method of obtaining it is an affront.

Ban Secret Evidence

Under the Pentagon’s new rules for military tribunals, judges are allowed to keep evidence secret from a prisoner’s lawyer if the government persuades the judge it is classified. The information that may be withheld can include interrogation methods, which would make it hard, if not impossible, to prove torture or abuse.

Better Define ‘Classified’ Evidence

The military commission rules define this sort of secret evidence as “any information or material that has been determined by the United States government pursuant to statute, executive order or regulation to require protection against unauthorized disclosure for reasons of national security.” This is too broad, even if a president can be trusted to exercise the power fairly and carefully. Mr. Bush has shown he cannot be trusted to do that.

Respect the Right to Counsel

Soon after 9/11, the Bush administration allowed the government to listen to conversations and intercept mail between some prisoners and their lawyers. This had the effect of suspending their right to effective legal representation. Since then, the administration has been unceasingly hostile to any lawyers who defend detainees. The right to legal counsel does not exist to coddle serial terrorists or snarl legal proceedings. It exists to protect innocent people from illegal imprisonment.

Beyond all these huge tasks, Congress should halt the federal government’s race to classify documents to avoid public scrutiny — 15.6 million in 2005, nearly double the 2001 number. It should also reverse the grievous harm this administration has done to the Freedom of Information Act by encouraging agencies to reject requests for documents whenever possible. Congress should curtail F.B.I. spying on nonviolent antiwar groups and revisit parts of the Patriot Act that allow this practice.

The United States should apologize to a Canadian citizen and a German citizen, both innocent, who were kidnapped and tortured by American agents.

Oh yes, and it is time to close the Guantánamo camp. It is a despicable symbol of the abuses committed by this administration (with Congress’s complicity) in the name of fighting terrorism.

On The Lam

TPM Muckraker has posted the letter from congressional members to the Abu Gonzales DOJ requesting that San Diego federal prosecutor Carol Lam be kept on as outside counsel in the Cunningham/Foggo/Wilkes corruption scandal. Will we ever hear this stuff instead of Anna Nicole's paternity fight in the MSM? Sadly, no. Sigh. In a related story, Raw Story has the DOJ's "leaked" talking points on the corporate corruption scandal. [H/T to Lotus for the linky]

Quote of the Day

Our quote today comes from from Shoephone that irrepressible sprite over at Evergreen Politics. She has a great post up about the US Attorney firings prompted by Abu Gonzales and BushCo Inc.


Is this the new majority's idea of gate crashing?

Senator Patty Murray said she's finds it "deeply disconcerting that he could have been let go for political reasons". That's a nice sound bite, but I'd like to ask Senator Murray exactly what she and her newly Democratic majority plan to do about it. It's not just a matter of pushing good attorneys out, it's that the re-strengthened Patriot Act allows for replacements without even a cursory look by a Congress needing to conduct oversight. I have hopes that Senator Pat Leahy, the chair of the Judiciary Committee, will be looking into this, but it's time for all of our senators to start undoing some of the damage that's been done to this country - before the 2008 campaign season begins in earnest and they start skipping votes. So, as they wade through the broken glass of the last 6 years, I'd like to remind the Democrats that flying the banner of "majority" doesn't mean much until you crash the gates and really take the castle.