Obama pick for Justice post withdraws.

Obama's nominee to head the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, Dawn Johnsen, has withdrawn her nomination after several Republicans objected to her criticisms of the Bush regime torture policy.

Dawn Johnsen's withdrawal - a setback for the Obama administration - was announced late Friday by the White House on a day the capital's legal and political elites were absorbed in the news that Justice John Paul Stevens would retire from the Supreme Court.

The Senate Judiciary Committee had recommended Johnsen's confirmation on party-line votes. But several Republicans objected to her sharp criticisms of terrorist interrogation policies under President George W. Bush, and the full Senate never voted on her nomination. The decision about who should lead the little-known office became a political flashpoint because of the controversies surrounding Bush-era interrogations of terror suspects.

The Office of Legal Counsel is supposed to give "impartial legal advice and constitutional analysis to the executive branch." In other words, to tell the president what is legal and what is not, rather than what he wants to hear.

The Republicans have objected because Johnsen has pointed out that the advice given by Yoo, Bybee and others was factually wrong.

I'd go further, in fact, and say that the advice they gave was criminal and that they should have been disbarred. The Obama administration would only concede that their advice was the result of poor judgement, not professional misconduct. That finding was generous in the extreme.

But the world is now totally upside down when the person who said they were wrong is considered too controversial to occupy that position. Would it be such a bad thing to have the Office of Legal Counsel led by someone who had read the law properly at a time when Yoo, Bybee and others were getting it so dreadfully wrong?

Tags: Dawn Johnsen, Office of Legal Counsel, Obama, torture, war crimes

Obama Steps Up To The Plate.

I must admit that I watched Obama's speech online with some trepidation, especially as, before I saw it, I had only read other people's accounts which seemed to highlight only the places where Obama had appeared to give ground to his opponents:

He also signalled he was ready to drop the public option, a proposed federal government-run insurance scheme, which many liberal Democrats regard as essential and would view its abandonment as betrayal.

On the public option, he said last night that a majority of Americans supported it. But, significantly, Obama added: "To my progressive friends, I would remind you that for decades, the driving idea behind reform has been to end insurance company abuses and make coverage affordable for those without it.

"The public option is only a means to that end‚ and we should remain open to other ideas that accomplish our ultimate goal."

However, having seen the whole thing, I am actually more confident that he will pass a good healthcare bill than I have ever previously been.

He just appears - when one strips away the Republican lies - to have the argument covered from every angle.

Americans pay more for an inferior system - and a system that might very well let you down, after years of paying insurance, at the very moment when you most need help - and everyone appears to acknowledge that.

But what we have also seen in these last months is the same partisan spectacle that only hardens the disdain many Americans have toward their own government. Instead of honest debate, we have seen scare tactics. Some have dug into unyielding ideological camps that offer no hope of compromise. Too many have used this as an opportunity to score short-term political points, even if it robs the country of our opportunity to solve a long-term challenge. And out of this blizzard of charges and countercharges, confusion has reigned.

Well the time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action.

And he underlined the complete falseness of the Republican party's concern over Medicare:

So don't pay attention to those scary stories about how your benefits will be cut especially since some of the same folks who are spreading these tall tales have fought against Medicare in the past, and just this year supported a budget that would have essentially turned Medicare into a privatized voucher program. That will never happen on my watch. I will protect Medicare.

And he - in a wonderfully accurate dig - managed to undermine the hypocrisy of the Republicans so called economic concerns over the cost of this bill:

Add it all up, and the plan I'm proposing will cost around $900 billion over ten years; less than we have spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and less than the tax cuts for the wealthiest few Americans that Congress passed at the beginning of the previous administration.

Hell, he even threw the Republicans a bone on being open to medical malpractice reform, which produced a Republican standing ovation.

That one moment aside, the Republicans came across dreadfully - for reasons I've touched on in another post - and for their demeanour in general, described best by Tomasky:

The Republicans looked alternatively like Caiaphas and Annas on the one hand and petulant high-school students waiting out the detention period on the other.

I get a lot of things wrong, as all pundits do. But I feel pretty sure about this. I think the Republicans hurt themselves tonight more than Obama hurt them. It just can't have looked right to average Americans.

They harrumphed and bellowed rudely, Commons-style – virtually unheard of in America. They looked silly holding up pieces of paper, evidently a bill of theirs or something, with scowls chiseled into their vein-popping faces.

Obama came across as infinitely reasonable, willing to throw them the odd bone, and serious about compromise if the other side were seeking genuine agreement.

If you come to me with a serious set of proposals, I will be there to listen. My door is always open.

But know this: I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it's better politics to kill this plan than improve it.

It seemed to me as if, once again, he looked like the only adult in the room.

In short, he made as good a speech as it was possible to make, emphasising what his bill would do for those who have insurance - no more caps on treatment and no more cutting people off because of pre-existing conditions - far clearer than he has ever done before. Sometimes his emphasis on those without insurance has slightly skewered his point, but he made no such mistakes here.

He clearly and precisely pointed out what's in this for everybody.

And he ended by making the point - and it's one that he has made before - that sometimes big government and empathy IS the answer.

That large heartedness that concern and regard for the plight of others is not a partisan feeling. It is not a Republican or a Democratic feeling. It, too, is part of the American character. Our ability to stand in other people's shoes. A recognition that we are all in this together; that when fortune turns against one of us, others are there to lend a helping hand. A belief that in this country, hard work and responsibility should be rewarded by some measure of security and fair play; and an acknowledgement that sometimes government has to step in to help deliver on that promise.

[...]

You see, our predecessors understood that government could not, and should not, solve every problem. They understood that there are instances when the gains in security from government action are not worth the added constraints on our freedom. But they also understood that the danger of too much government is matched by the perils of too little; that without the leavening hand of wise policy, markets can crash, monopolies can stifle competition, and the vulnerable can be exploited. And they knew that when any government measure, no matter how carefully crafted or beneficial, is subject to scorn; when any efforts to help people in need are attacked as un-American; when facts and reason are thrown overboard and only timidity passes for wisdom; and we can no longer even engage in a civil conversation with each other over the things that truly matter that at that point we don't merely lose our capacity to solve big challenges. We lose something essential about ourselves.

I honestly thought he knocked the ball out of the park. After weeks of listening to Republican rants and lies, an adult finally told everyone to get a grip.

I have no idea where the Republicans will now go and don't expect this to have any effect on their behaviour, but Obama - by being so reasonable - has only highlighted their churlishness and their lack of good will on this subject.

Click title for full text.

Tags: Obama, universal healthcare, Congress, Republicans, Democrats

Did Cheney Break the Law?

I accept Sheldon Whitehouse's argument that there is no need to criminalise the CIA because they ignored the law, but an investigation is needed to make sure that they follow the law in future.

This is exactly the same reason why I think Bush and Cheney must be investigated for participating in torture. I have no desire to see either man behind bars, but I think it is vital that it is recorded that their arguments are wrong. For, if it is not, then future Republican presidents will hold up the fact that they were not prosecuted as "proof" that they did no wrong.

Tags: pelosi, cia, lied, panetta, bush, cheney, war criminal, crime, torture

Members Of Congress Angry About Being Kept In The Dark About CIA Secret Program.

Congress reacts to the fact that they were kept in the dark. It's hard to dismiss Pelosi's remarks that the CIA mislead Congress "all the time" when we come across proof that Congress has deliberately been misleading them for a full eight years.

Tags: pelosi, cia lied, panetta, bush, cheney

BREAKING NEWS: Dems - Panetta testified that the CIA misled Congress.

So we discover now that there was a programme - which no-one can tell us about - which existed from 2001 until the day before Panetta went up the hill to tell Congress that the CIA did, indeed, mislead them and that Congress was "not properly informed" regarding this mysterious programme.

How can Panetta say that Congress was not lied to when Congress asked if there were any programmes that they did not know about and were told that there was not? Even he admits that Congress was not properly informed, all Panetta is refusing to do is to acknowledge whether or not this misleading was deliberate.

And Panetta's strange denial, when he states that, "It is neither the policy nor the practice of the CIA to mislead Congress" he's not exactly denying it. He's simply saying it is not policy or the usual practice. That doesn't mean it didn't happen.



Here one of the letter signers explains how this played out. And she reminds us that the CIA have an obligation under the National Security Act of 1947 to fully - and in a timely way - inform Congress. That clearly hasn't happened here.

And just what was this programme if the people who heard of it were as stunned as they say they were?

Tags: CIA, Panetta, Congress

Brown's call to US: Seize the moment to tackle world crisis.

It was hard to listen to Gordon Brown's plea to the American Congress and to imagine him making such a plea during the Bush years. It would simply have appeared as an utter waste of everyone's time.

The prime minister's 36-minute speech won 19 standing ovations but was, at crucial moments, received in silence on the Republican side of the aisle as he made the case for a united global effort to revive economies and to turn away from the Bush doctrine on the environment.

Brown said that during this peacetime crisis it was the task of government as "the representatives of the people to be the people's last line of defence".

Urging Congress to have "faith in the future" and in itself, he won strong applause when he called on members to recognise "now more than ever the world wants to work with you".

He was, of course, recognising that the Bush years were over, and with them, hopefully, the days of American unilateralism.

But it was when he moved his message on to climate change and what needs to be done that he began to encounter Republican resistance.

Brown tried to challenge as well as flatter in the speech, which was delivered to a crowded, but not completely full, chamber. He urged the joint meeting of both houses to sign a climate change agreement this year by saying: "I believe that you, the nation that had the vision to put a man on the moon are also the nation with the vision to protect and preserve our planet Earth." It was notable that the Republicans sat stony in response while the Democrats applauded.

But he managed to lose the Democrats and the Republicans when he delivered the message that he traveled across the ocean to deliver.

Brown also challenged Congress by asking: "Should we succumb to a race to the bottom, and a protectionism that history tells us that in the end protects no one? No. We should have the confidence that we can seize the opportunities ahead and make the future work for us."

Neither side of the aisle applauded, but the prime minister forced his argument, predicting that the stricken global economy would double in size over the next 20 years as China and India became consumers of goods from the west on a massive scale.

He won his strongest applause - again mainly from Democrats - when he argued that "wealth must help more than wealthy, and riches must enrich not just some of our community but all our community". The Democrats also lit up when he demanded an end to offshore tax havens.

It was a noble effort, and I thought a good enough speech, but I doubt that Brown is enough of a star player for this good speech to have much impact in the United States.

I liked the fact that he stated that, "the new frontier is that there is no frontier, and the new shared truth is that global problems now need global solutions."

And, in a direct put down to Rumsfeld's logic, he stated, "There is no old Europe and new Europe, there is only your friend Europe. So seize the moment."

Again, it was impossible to imagine this speech being made during the days of the Bush presidency, this was a speech which was only made possible by the election of Obama.

Indeed, at times Brown appeared to echo the sentiments which Obama himself has stated:

For let us remember there is a common bond that unites us as human beings across different beliefs, cultures and nationalities. It is at the core of my convictions, the essence of America's spirit and the heart of all faiths And it must be at the centre of our response to the crisis of today. At their best, our values tell us that we cannot be wholly content while others go without, cannot be fully comfortable while millions go without comfort, cannot be truly happy while others grieve alone.

It was hard to listen to Brown speaking without hearing Obama stating, "I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper."

Whether Americans heard him or not, Brown did his job. He went to the US to state that Europe recognises that the days of Bush unilateralism are over and that we are ready to seize the moment and work to address the problems in our financial system and to finally tackle the issue of global warming.

The Republicans might have been lukewarm to his message, but he was talking to the new Obama administration rather than to the Republicans. He was stating that, even if the Republicans attempt to thwart Obama's best efforts to tackle global warming and other pressing issues at home, that he has allies across the ocean who share his concerns and his sense of urgency and that they are willing to seize the moment.

As I say, it matters not what impact this speech has on the American conscience, Obama heard it. And that's what Brown set out to do. Obama knows that, no matter how much the Republicans resist his message, Europe is on board.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Brown, Congress, Obama, global warming, economic crisis, stimulus package

Daily Show: Bailout City Madness

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Clusterf#@k to the Poor House - Bean on a Plate Edition

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Executives from the auto industry were put through the wringer by Congress, being asked to justify how they got there etc, in a deliberate attempt to shame them. Jon Stewart compares this to the way Wall Street executives were treated.

Tags: Auto Bailout, Congress, Daily Show, Jon Stewart

HOUSE FAILS TO PASS BAILOUT... 228 NAY, 205 YEA... DOW PLUNGES MORE THAN 600...

I'll say more about this in the morning. For now, I'll just pass it on.

The House on Monday defeated a $700 billion emergency rescue package, ignoring urgent pleas from President Bush and bipartisan congressional leaders to quickly bail out the staggering financial industry.

Stocks plummeted on Wall Street even before the 228-205 vote to reject the bill was announced on the House floor.

When the critical vote was tallied, too few members of the House were willing to support the unpopular measure with elections just five weeks away. Ample no votes came from both the Democratic and Republican sides of the aisle.

Bush and a host of leading congressional figures had implored the lawmakers to pass the legislation despite howls of protest from their constituents back home.

I didn't see that coming.

Hat tip to Huffington Post.

Tags: Financial crisis, Wall Street, Bush, Paulson

Waxman Threatens to Kick Issa Out of Hearing Room

The evasiveness of this guy is unbelievable. Waxman eventually totally loses it with Issa, who continually interrupts as Waxman tries to get to the truth.

Tags: henry waxman, darrell issa, stephen johnson, epa hearing, testimony, congress, remove, kick out, gavel

Top Bush aides pushed for Guantánamo torture

The Guardian are leading today with the story that General Richard Myers, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff from 2001 to 2005, was "duped" by the Bush administration into believing that the Geneva Conventions were being applied in Guantanamo Bay and that prisoners in the Cuban base could not be subjected to torture.

Myers, it is claimed in a new book by Philippe Sands QC, believed that all interrogations at the camp were being carried out in accordance with the army's field manual and believes that he was a victim of "intrigue" by top lawyers at the department of justice, the office of vice-president Dick Cheney, and at Donald Rumsfeld's defence department.

The lawyers, all political appointees, who pushed through the interrogation techniques were Alberto Gonzales, David Addington and William Haynes. Also involved were Doug Feith, Rumsfeld's under-secretary for policy, and Jay Bybee and John Yoo, two assistant attorney generals.

Again and again as this sorry tale unfolds the same names continually appear. Gonzales, Addington, Feith, Bybee and Yoo. Without these men none of this could have taken place as they are the men who continually told Bush and his administration that what they were doing was legal. Despite the fact that some of what they were doing is recognised as torture by every country that the US would consider an ally.

The revelations have sparked a fierce response in the US from those familiar with the contents of the book, and who are determined to establish accountability for the way the Bush administration violated international and domestic law by sanctioning prisoner abuse and torture.

The Bush administration has tried to explain away the ill-treatment of detainees at Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq by blaming junior officials. Sands' book establishes that pressure for aggressive and cruel treatment of detainees came from the top and was sanctioned by the most senior lawyers.

Myers was one top official who did not understand the implications of what was being done. Sands, who spent three hours with the former general, says he was "confused" about the decisions that were taken.

Myers mistakenly believed that new techniques recommended by Haynes and authorised by Rumsfeld in December 2002 for use by the military at Guantánamo had been taken from the US army field manual. They included hooding, sensory deprivation, and physical and mental abuse.

"As we worked through the list of techniques, Myers became increasingly hesitant and troubled," writes Sands. "Haynes and Rumsfeld had been able to run rings around him."

There are many of us who simply never bought the story that Abu Ghraib and other atrocities were the work of a few bad apples as the stories of abuse circulating from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch all had the same techniques being replicated in different locations all over the world. It was very easy to work out that we were witnessing a pattern of abuse that must have been sanctioned very near the top of the political ladder.

And, with Bush's recent admission that he sanctioned this behaviour, the story is finally going to come out.

And people like Myers appear to have been totally cut out of the loop by Rumsfeld and others. Indeed, there is some suggestion that Myers was chosen precisely because Rumsfeld could outsmart him.

"We never authorised torture, we just didn't, not what we would do," Myers said. Sands comments: "He really had taken his eye off the ball ... he didn't ask too many questions ... and kept his distance from the decision-making process."

Larry Wilkerson, a former army officer and chief of staff to Colin Powell, US secretary of state at the time, told the Guardian: "I do know that Rumsfeld had neutralised the chairman [Myers] in many significant ways.

"The secretary did this by cutting [Myers] out of important communications, meetings, deliberations and plans.

"At the end of the day, however, Dick Myers was not a very powerful chairman in the first place, one reason Rumsfeld recommended him for the job".

Wilkerson makes one final chilling point:

"Haynes, Feith, Yoo, Bybee, Gonzalez and - at the apex - Addington, should never travel outside the US, except perhaps to Saudi Arabia and Israel. They broke the law; they violated their professional ethical code. In future, some government may build the case necessary to prosecute them in a foreign court, or in an international court."

They are criminals who enabled torture. If they were ever to set foot in Britain I feel quite sure that Peter Thatchell would apply for them to be arrested and I am quite sure that a British court would grant a warrant for their arrest just as British courts approved the arrest of Pinochet.

I know that many right wing Americans treat international law as if it is something which they are entitled to take or leave as it suits their purposes, but the rest of the planet takes it a bit more seriously than they do. As Haynes, Feith, Yoo, Bybee, Gonzales and Addington would discover if they ever leave America's shores.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Haynes, Feith, Yoo, Bybee, Gonzales, Addington, Bush, war crimes, torture, Guantanamo Bay, Aby Ghraib, General Richard Myers

The Dems Should Grow a Spine.

"Who do you want to see take the lead role in setting policy for the country: George W. Bush or the Congress?"

This is the question asked by a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll. It turns out that only 21% want policy set by Bush whilst a massive 62% want policy to be set by Congress.

Now, in the same poll, a majority of people - 53% - think it's a good thing that the Democrats are in control of Congress whilst 56% disagree with how the Democrats have done so far this year.

65% think that Congress has achieved "Not Too Much" this year and 51% of poll participants think this is the fault of "Bush and the Republicans in Congress".

A further 50% think that the policies being proposed by the Democratic leaders in the U.S. House and Senate would move the country in the right direction.

Perhaps it's time the Democrats grew a spine and realised that one of the reasons people have such a low opinion of Congress is that they are not doing enough to oppose the policies of Bush's White House. Bush can't get any more unpopular so why do the Dems keep rolling over and playing dead?

Click title for poll.

Tags: NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll, Congress, Democrats, Republicans

His Last State of the Union.

The only thing Bush said in his entire State of the Union address which made me sit up and blink was his astonishing claim that the people of Palestine elected Abbas to look after their interests. I was under the illusion that they had elected Hamas for that function, but I suppose that claim was actually no more false than many of the other themes he was expounding.

It really was a tick list of the usual baloney. The surge is working, Iran must be confronted, and the US must pass immunity for telecoms companies who broke the law by assisting the US government to spy on it's own citizens. What one super patriot in the Republican party referred to as "a terrorist loophole".

Russ Feingold saw that for what it was:

"He once again attempted to bully Congress into giving broad powers to the executive branch far beyond what is necessary to protect the country from terrorists."

Oh, and the economy is slowing and tax cuts must, therefore, be made permanent. That, and many other of Bush's vacuous claims, had the right wing of the chamber on its feet. And as always, Bush phrased this wish to continue to give tax cuts to America's richest citizens in the most deceitful way possible.

"Members of Congress should know: if any bill raising taxes reaches my desk, I will veto it."

In other words, a refusal to make tax cuts permanent is actually a tax increase, rather than simply the ending of a short term tax break.

Oh, and he wants an end to "earmarks" and will also veto any bill which contains them. An argument which might carry more force and credibility had he not himself requested more than $15bn in "earmarks" last year.

But, more than anything, there was something of the wake about the whole affair. He referred at one point to "seven years ago" and it was impossible not to think that he was simply supplying a list of all the areas in which he has been found to be lacking.

His last minute attempt to push for peace in the Middle East only made me more aware than ever that this was the man who encouraged Israel to use force rather than to negotiate with the Palestinians; indeed, that this was the man who refused to call for a ceasefire during the Israeli Lebanon war, a refusal that led to Israel to all intents and purposes losing that war, the consequences of which are still to be determined.

I also remember the promises he made prior to the Iraq war, the same promises that Blair used to try and drum up support for that conflict, that the road to a Palestinian state was through Baghdad, and that once Saddam was out of the way Bush would push his "road map for peace" in the region. More empty words and promises that were simply left to wither on the vine.

And, with words that seemed to echo those hazy days before he invaded Iraq, he turned to Iran:

"Our message to the people of Iran is clear: we have no quarrel with you, we respect your traditions and your history, and we look forward to the day when you have your freedom.

Our message to the leaders of Iran is also clear: verifiably suspend your nuclear enrichment so negotiations can begin. And to rejoin the community of nations, come clean about your nuclear intentions and past actions, stop your oppression at home and cease your support for terror abroad.

But above all, know this: America will confront those who threaten our troops, we will stand by our allies and we will defend our vital interests in the Persian Gulf."

He made a similar claim about having no quarrel with the people of Iraq before he invaded their country and turned their lives into a living Hell, but the only comfort the people of Iran can take from this message to them is that the man delivering it is heading out the front door and is, hopefully, too weak to come to their aid.

I strongly suspect the people of Iran do not want rescued in the same fashion that Bush supposedly "rescued" the people of Iraq.

So the Iranians, like many people around the globe, can take comfort from the fact that this is the last time this pompous little failure will get to make a State of the Union address. It's the last time we will have to listen to this tick list of Republican talking points which hardly changes even when NIE reports say the opposite of what the President has been claiming.

The defining moment of his Presidency will be when he landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln, resplendent in his flight suit, and then made a speech in front of a banner reading, "Mission Accomplished". It was the ultimate example of Bush's desire for reality to be what he wished it to be rather than what it actually was.

He will leave office with two unfinished wars still raging on, with hatred for the US around the globe at unprecedented levels, and having taken a $200 billion surplus and turned it into a $167 billion deficit.

Way to go, George. Don't let the door hit your arse on the way out!

Tags: George Bush, State of the Union, Iraq war, tax cuts, FISA

Mukasey's Nomination Runs Into Trouble

Mukasey's nomination has run into trouble over his refusal to say on the record whether or not he considers waterboarding to constitute torture.

Two top Senate Democrats said their votes hinge on whether he will say on the record that an interrogation technique that simulates drowning is torture.

"It's fair to say my vote would depend on him answering that question," Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., told reporters Thursday.

"This to me is the seminal issue," said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, another member of Leahy's panel. Asked if his vote depends on whether Mukasey equates waterboarding with torture, Durbin answered: "It does."

Leahy has refused to set a date for a vote on Mukasey's nomination until he clarifies his answer to that question.

Here's hoping that the Democrats grow a spine and refuse confirmation until Mukasey complies.

Or perhaps Mukasey can rely on the Giuliani definition of torture and simply claim it can't be torture because it's us doing it.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Mukasey, Attorney General, Giuliani

Cheney's Law

This is just the thirty second trailer. You can watch the entire thing here. It's an hour long, but well worth the time.

For three decades Vice President Dick Cheney conducted a secretive, behind-closed-doors campaign to give the president virtually unlimited wartime power. Finally, in the aftermath of 9/11, the Justice Department and the White House made a number of controversial legal decisions. Orchestrated by Cheney and his lawyer David Addington, the department interpreted executive power in an expansive and extraordinary way, granting President George W. Bush the power to detain, interrogate, torture, wiretap and spy -- without congressional approval or judicial review.

Tags: Dick Cheney, executive power, 9-11, Bush presidency

Rep. Pete Stark Blasts GOP on SCHIP, Iraq

“I’m just amazed that the Republicans are worried that we can’t pay for insuring an additional 10 million children. They sure don’t care about finding $200 billion to fight the illegal War in Iraq.

“”President Bush’s statements about children’s health shouldn’t be taken any more seriously than his lies about the War in Iraq. The truth is that that Bush just likes to blow things up – in Iraq, in the United States, and in Congress.

Tags: Rep. Pete Stark, Bush, veto, SCHIP

Stand Up with Chris Dodd.

Tags: chris dodd, democrats, fisa, telecom, constitution

Mario Cuomo On HardBall

This guy is so on the money when it comes to the Democratic cowardice over possible action against Iran.

Tags: Mario Cuomo, HardBall, Iraq war, Iran, Democrats, Republicans

FISA debate Jackson Lee

She says it all.

Tags: FISA, House, Jackson Lee, Democratic

House Passes Changes in Eavesdropping Program

It will come as no great surprise to anyone that the House has passed Bush's amendments to FISA. Bush has not only refused to follow the law regarding FISA, but he has consistently insisted that the FISA law did not need updating, which made his recent insistence that it must be updated as a matter of urgency all the more bizarre.

The legislation makes changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA.

There was no indication that lawmakers were responding to new intelligence warnings. Rather, Democrats were responding to administration pleas that a recent secret court ruling had created a legal obstacle in monitoring foreign communications relayed over the Internet.

They also appeared worried about the political repercussions of being perceived as interfering with intelligence gathering. But the disputes were significant enough that they are likely to resurface before the end of the year.

Democrats have expressed concerns that the administration is reaching for powers that go well beyond solving what officials have depicted as narrow technical issues in the current law.

In a statement issued late Saturday, Mr. Bush said he would “sign this legislation as soon as it gets to my desk.” The Senate approved its version of the bill on Friday.

The new laws will be effective for the next six months, although senior Democratic leaders say that they are not going to wait that long before they propose changes.

Representative Silvestre Reyes, Democrat of Texas and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Friday that the bill the administration wanted would allow wiretapping without warrants as long as it was “concerning a person abroad.” As a result, Mr. Reyes said, the law could be construed as allowing any search inside the United States as long as the government claimed it “concerned” Al Qaeda.

Democrats said their suspicions had been fueled in part by the White House’s repeated reluctance to ask Congress for technical changes addressing issues that should have been apparent long ago.

In a recent letter to a Republican on the committee, Representative Heather A. Wilson of New Mexico, Mr. Reyes noted that Congress had updated the FISA law eight times since the Sept. 11 attacks.

“You repeatedly claim that FISA is woefully outdated,” Mr. Reyes wrote. “Neither you nor the administration raised concerns during consideration of those bills that the statutory changes proposed were inadequate.”

It is fairly astonishing that there has been such a breakdown on matters of national security between the Republicans and the Democrats since 9-11. Here in Britain, the need to confront the terrorist threat is about the one thing that the main parties can agree on.

However, the Bush administration's cavalier attitude to the law - Guantanamo Bay, suspension of Habeas Corpus, wiretapping without warrants from FISA etc, - have led to an unavoidable chasm of mistrust. Blair was said to have consulted Cameron and Menzies whenever he proposed any course of action that might have been controversial, knowing that it was important that he kept the other political parties on board. In the United States this has not been possible because Dick Cheney and others have set out, from the first day of the Bush administration, to reclaim powers that they think the executive has given up since the Nixon administration. The Bush administration has been cloaked in secrecy which means, whenever they make this kind of request, no-one is ever taken inside the loop and told exactly why the changes they are demanding are so important. The administration simply make the demand and impugn the patriotism of anyone who asks why they need such vague powers.

This has never been truer than in the past eighteen months when it was leaked that the President has authorised warrantless wiretapping, outside of the rules of FISA, and that he refuses to stop doing so.

Then there is the other matter of any time this administration is asked to account for itself at Congressional committee hearings, it either refuses to send people who have been subpoenaed, or it sends Alberto Gonzales along to lie or to claim a memory loss which is so profound that, in anyone else, would signal the onset of Alzheimer's disease.

The House Democratic leadership had severe reservations about the proposal and an overwhelming majority of Democrats opposed it. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the measure “does violence to the Constitution of the United States.”

And that, more than anything else, explains the chasm of mistrust between the Democrats and the Republican party. The current President refers to the Constitution as “just a goddamned piece of paper!” The fact that he has so little respect for this "piece of paper" that he has worn a solemn oath to "preserve, protect, and defend" was always going to lead to a rift between the two main parties.

Giving someone with so little respect for the Constitution the amount of unchecked power that has now been handed to Bush is a grave mistake. And, based on past behaviour, it is a power that he will almost certainly abuse.

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Tags: Bush, FISA, Pelosi, Constitution of the United States of America, amendments to FISA, Congress, Senate

Gonzales, Senators Spar on Credibility

Dear, dear, dear. Alberto Gonzales is up to his old tricks again, simply making things up as he goes along. That's certainly what Democrats claimed yesterday when Gonzales appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Gonzales stated that congressional leaders from both parties agreed in March 2004 to continue a classified surveillance activity that Justice Department officials had deemed illegal.

This brought an instant denial from Pelosi and Rockefeller and others.

"He once again is making something up to protect himself," Rockefeller said of the embattled attorney general.

The dispute came as Gonzales weathered one of the most contentious and hostile congressional hearings seen during the Bush administration. Democrats and the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee accused him of repeatedly misleading them and warned that he could face perjury charges if he lied to the panel.

"I do not find your testimony credible, candidly," said Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who became visibly angry at several points during his exchanges with Gonzales. "The committee's going to review your testimony very carefully to see if your credibility has been breached to the point of being actionable."

Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) told Gonzales bluntly: "I don't trust you."

Specter is quite clearly stating that he thinks the embattled Attorney General is sitting before them and repeatedly perjuring himself.

This is all about the visit Gonzales and Card made to the sick bed of John Ashcroft in an attempt to get Ashcroft to overrule Comey's refusal to continue to sanction the classified surveillance activity.

Gonzales's testimony differed from an account Comey provided to the same committee in May. Comey said that he had rushed to the hospital after learning that Gonzales was headed there, and that he believed Gonzales and Card sought "to take advantage of a very sick man." Comey did not mention any discussion in the room about the congressional leadership's views.

Pelosi, Rockefeller and former senator Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.), who were members of the Gang of Eight at the time, also sharply disputed Gonzales's description of the White House meeting. Daschle said in a statement that he could not recall the meeting and is "quite certain that at no time did we encourage the AG or anyone else to take such actions." He added: "This appears to be another attempt to rewrite history."

Rockefeller said that lawmakers were never asked to give the program their approval and that administration officials' infrequent briefings about it were short and involved "virtually no questions."

Here's an example of Gonzales' smug testimony and Specter's reaction to it.



Bush continues to have faith in this man. Here, when the subject moves to the firing of US Attorneys, we have him stating that "there were some instances where peeople were asked to leave, quite frankly, because there was legitimate cause."

You couldn't make this stuff up.



He's becoming a perfect metaphor for the incompetence that defines this administration.

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Tags: Gonzales, fired attorneys, wiretapping, Senate Judiciary Committee, congressional hearings