Video: The Republicans Channel the Liberal Party

And stage a walk out:



The difference between the two stunts though is that the Liberal party left the building over Harper's attempt to bully the senate over the crime bill.

The Republicans refused to deal with two of their own being slapped with contempt charges:

The House of Representatives voted Thursday to cite Joshua B. Bolten, the White House chief of staff, and Harriet E. Miers, a former White House counsel, for contempt for refusing to testify about their participation in the firing of federal prosecutors.

The measure calls for House officials to seek enforcement of the contempt citation by the courts if, as expected, the Justice Department declines to act on the resolution.

The vote was a lopsided 223 to 32 in favor of the contempt citation, after most Republican members walked out to protest what their leaders called a political move.

Call the whambulance.
 

Random News & Views Roundup

- So much for Obama's hawkish foreign policy:

ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistan accused Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama of "sheer ignorance" for threatening to launch US military strikes against Al-Qaeda on Pakistani soil.

- So the White House thumbed its nose at having Karl Rove testifying before the senate committee investigating the US attorneys scandal and his aide, Scott Jennings, showed up and refused to answer "at least a dozen questions". Like getting blood from a stone.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, asked Jennings, "Where is Karl Rove? Why is he hiding? Why does he throw a young staffer like you into the line of fire while he hides behind the White House curtains?"

Because he's an arrogant asshole, Dick. Next question?

- I'd sure like to know where the Bush administration finds these clueless people who apparently all live on Fantasy Island:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 2 — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday that he was discouraged by the resignation of the Sunnis from Iraq’s cabinet and that the Bush administration might have misjudged the difficulty of achieving reconciliation between Iraq’s sectarian factions.

In one of his bluntest assessments of the progress of the administration’s Iraq strategy, Mr. Gates said, “I think the developments on the political side are somewhat discouraging at the national level.” He said that despite the Sunni withdrawal, “my hope is that it can all be patched back together.”

I guess democracy's a quilt now.

He acknowledged that when the Bush administration decided to send the additional troops, “We probably all underestimated the depth of the mistrust and how difficult it would be for these guys to come together on legislation, which, let’s face it, is not some kind of secondary issue.”

"might have"? "probably"?? Sheesh.

- Proof that Republicans are partisan idiots:

WASHINGTON -- Congress struggled Thursday over giving the government more power to eavesdrop on suspected terrorists, bogged down by concerns about the man who would oversee the plan _ Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
[...]
Gonzales "is clearly one of the concerns that has been expressed by the Democratic leaders," House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio told reporters.

"But at the end of the day, there has to be a way for our intelligence and counterintelligence agencies to collect data from known terrorists," Boehner said. "And we shouldn't let personalities get in the way of protecting the American people."

One of the most corrupt and torture-loving AGs ever and Boehner thinks it's a personality issue? That's exactly why America is so bloody screwed up.
 

You're in contempt!

Okay. Well it wasn't quite as dramatic as it is in a Hollywood movie but the house judiciary did its job today (the Democrats, anyway) and voted to issue contempt citations to Josh Bolten and Harriet Miers (who seems to be hiding in one of Cheney's underground bunkers).

The vote represents the first overt step towards finding Bolten and Miers in criminal contempt of Congress. Next would come a vote of the entire House, followed by a referral to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

But the Bush administration has made clear it intends to block prosecution of any contempt charges, arguing that a presidentially-appointed U.S. attorney cannot legally be forced by Congress to flout the president's determination that the materials and testimony sought are protected by executive privilege.

Republicans on the panel argued strongly today against issuing contempt citations, and Democrats shot down two proposed GOP amendments before voting for the contempt findings.

"I believe this is an unnecessary provocation of a constitutional crisis," said Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.). "Absent showing that a crime was committed in this process, I think the White House is going to win an argument in court."

It's about time someone in DC realized there's a constitutional crisis going on and actually did something about it, especially since Bush thinks the constitution is "just a goddamned piece of paper".

Contempt of Congress is a federal misdemeanor, punishable by as much as one year in prison and a $100,000 fine.

Bring it on.
 

Gonzales testifies; Bush cites al Qaeda 95 times in a speech

While Alberto Gonzales was, again, refusing to answer vital questions about the US attorney firings, what really happened at Ashcroft's hospital bedside, (C&L has the video) and insisting on dancing around the issue of torture in front of the senate judiciary committee today, his partner in crime, George Bush, gave a speech in which he referred to al Qaeda 95 times. "Al Qaeda is in Iraq and they're there for a reason," Bush said. Well, yes, they're there because you decided to illegally invade Iraq and invited them with your "bring 'em on" macho posturing.

And, as usual, Bush tried hard (it's hard work) to make the imaginary, debunked connection between 9/11 and al Qaeda in Iraq:

"I presented intelligence that clearly establishes this connection," said Bush. "The facts are that al Qaeda terrorists killed Americans on 9/11, they're fighting us in Iraq and across the world, and they're plotting to kill Americans here at home again."

Terror, terror, terror - but it's the same old story and certainly didn't stop the press from reporting on Gonzales' shady testimony.

Senators from both sides of the aisle attacked Gonzales:

"The attorney general has lost the confidence of the Congress and the American people," Leahy said. He said the administration "has squandered our trust" and told Gonzales bluntly, "I don't trust you."

Specter said there was "evidence of low morale" at the Justice Department and blasted what he described as Gonzales's lack of "personal credibility." He called the department "dysfunctional."

I imagine that what they're saying when the mics are off is much more scathing than that.

And the wrangling over the US attorney firings continues:

Gonzales again depicted himself as largely detached from controversial personnel practices, including the firings of the nine U.S. attorneys last year. But in a video message to Justice Department employees on Friday, he said, "I am sorry, and I accept full responsibility."

But that's the nature of most, if not all, of his answers - constantly contradicting himself. If he bobbed and weaved physically as much as he did verbally today, he would have collapsed from sheer exhaustion halfway through the hearings.

With his legal advisors in tow, sitting right behind him throughout the hearing, I got the sense I was watching a mob boss testifying. That's not much of a stretch considering the lengths Gonzales has gone to try to stretch and obfuscate national and international laws. And, even though he insists he's determined to stay on and "fix" the problems in the justice department (to which one senator responded that at least he's admitting there are problems), the best thing for all sane and law-abiding people involved would be to impeach the bastard and find someone who actually believes that the law isn't a partisan, political tool. Not an easy job in DC but, at this point, they couldn't do that much worse than the lying attorney general they have now. His arrogance knows no bounds and his disrespect for the law and international treaties out to be enough to disbar him for life.

CSPAN has the video of today's hearing.

Update: Code Pink was on hand at the hearings to protest against Gonzales. You can see a video of that protest here.
 

Impeach Gonzales

A visibly shaken James Comey testified before the senate judiciary committee on Tuesday about the cold-heartedness and heavy-handedness of Alberto Gonzales and the White House who tried to convince a very ill and hospitalized John Ashcroft to reauthorize the warrantless wiretapping program back in 2004.

Via the WaPo:

JAMES B. COMEY, the straight-as-an-arrow former No. 2 official at the Justice Department, yesterday offered the Senate Judiciary Committee an account of Bush administration lawlessness so shocking it would have been unbelievable coming from a less reputable source. The episode involved a 2004 nighttime visit to the hospital room of then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft by Alberto Gonzales, then the White House counsel, and Andrew H. Card Jr., then the White House chief of staff. Only the broadest outlines of this visit were previously known: that Mr. Comey, who was acting as attorney general during Mr. Ashcroft's illness, had refused to recertify the legality of the administration's warrantless wiretapping program; that Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card had tried to do an end-run around Mr. Comey; that Mr. Ashcroft had rebuffed them.

Mr. Comey's vivid depiction, worthy of a Hollywood script, showed the lengths to which the administration and the man who is now attorney general were willing to go to pursue the surveillance program. First, they tried to coerce a man in intensive care -- a man so sick he had transferred the reins of power to Mr. Comey -- to grant them legal approval. Having failed, they were willing to defy the conclusions of the nation's chief law enforcement officer and pursue the surveillance without Justice's authorization. Only in the face of the prospect of mass resignations -- Mr. Comey, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and most likely Mr. Ashcroft himself -- did the president back down.

As Mr. Comey testified, "I couldn't stay, if the administration was going to engage in conduct that the Department of Justice had said had no legal basis." The crisis was averted only when, the morning after the program was reauthorized without Justice's approval, President Bush agreed to fix whatever problem Justice had with it (the details remain classified). "We had the president's direction to do . . . what the Justice Department believed was necessary to put this matter on a footing where we could certify to its legality," Mr. Comey said.

The dramatic details should not obscure the bottom line: the administration's alarming willingness, championed by, among others, Vice President Cheney and his counsel, David Addington, to ignore its own lawyers. Remember, this was a Justice Department that had embraced an expansive view of the president's inherent constitutional powers, allowing the administration to dispense with following the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Justice's conclusions are supposed to be the final word in the executive branch about what is lawful or not, and the administration has emphasized since the warrantless wiretapping story broke that it was being done under the department's supervision.

No wonder Bush wanted Gonzales to be the new AG. He should never have been confirmed.

Watch Comey's testimony:



Earlier this month, Comey also testified before the house judiciary committee regarding the US attorneys scandal:

James B. Comey, the Justice Department's second in command from 2003 until August 2005, also told a House Judiciary subcommittee that although he was the "direct supervisor" of all U.S attorneys, he was never informed about an effort by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and his aides to remove a large group of prosecutors that began in early 2005.

At that time as well, Gonzales circumvented the regular government hierarchy to get what he and the White House wanted:

The testimony from Comey, a highly regarded former prosecutor who is now general counsel for Lockheed Martin, further undermines assertions by Gonzales and his aides that dissatisfaction with the prosecutors' work led to their dismissals. It also underscores the extent to which the firings, which originated in the White House, were handled outside the normal chain of command at Justice.

It's obvious that Gonzales has never moved on from the mindset of his previous job as WH counsel and that he still operates at the behest of Bush and Cheney while bowing to the concept that anything this president wants, he gets - no matter what. We saw it on the issue of torture, which Gonzales sanctioned by whatever legal means he thought he could get away with, and now we have confirmation that the WH was bound and determined to circumvent the FISA court - a court that did its bidding anyway - even to the point where their lackeys would pressure an extremely ill Ashcroft in the ICU to fall in line.

Unconscionable.

I don't know what more the Democrats are waiting for before they decide to impeach Gonzales. If Bush won't fire him and he won't resign, it's up to them to wrest back control of the Justice department from a man who fashions himself to be a quasi-dictator with absolutely no conscience. Gonzales is a menace to society. Reid and Pelosi have already said that impeachment is "off the table" for Bush. The least they could do is to get rid of his footsoldier.

Update: The Justice department has issued the standard denial.

The Justice Department said yesterday that it will not retract a sworn statement in 2006 by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales that the Terrorist Surveillance Program had aroused no controversy inside the Bush administration, despite congressional testimony Tuesday that senior departmental officials nearly resigned in 2004 to protest such a program.

And, more Gonzales lies...

The Justice Department considered dismissing many more U.S. attorneys than officials have previously acknowledged, with at least 26 prosecutors suggested for termination between February 2005 and December 2006, according to sources familiar with documents withheld from the public.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales testified last week that the effort was limited to eight U.S. attorneys fired since last June, and other administration officials have said that only a few others were suggested for removal.

In fact, D. Kyle Sampson, then Gonzales's chief of staff, considered more than two dozen U.S. attorneys for termination, according to lists compiled by him and his colleagues, the sources said.

The Question Gonzales Won't Answer

Conyers (D-MI) to the smirking asshole from hell, Alberto Gonzales: who compiled the list of attorneys to be fired?

Watch Gonzales spin and guess who he's covering for:



Robert Wexler (D-FL) blows a gasket:

FYI: Gonzales Testifies Again

Alberto Gonzales is under fire by members of the House Judiciary committee again today regarding the shady firing of 8 US attorneys. He's not the only one who's tense as sparks are flying between committee members as well.

You can watch it live online on CSPAN 3. truthout is updating its site with highlights as they happen. (h/t to marisacat's commenters for the info.)

Gonzales is sticking with his "I do not recall" defence and the Republicans on the committee are pushing their typical "nothing to see here folks, move along now" modus operandi as they try to bury yet another scandal.

Related: TPM has a US Attorney Purge Timeline
 

Gonzales Under Fire

Having sat through and liveblogged Alberto Gonzales' confirmation hearings, watching a man at that time who made it a point to appear soft-spoken and congenial in order to impress those who would ultimately be responsible for giving him the job of US attorney general, I have to note that the Gonzales' persona I'm witnessing today in front of the senate judiciary committee is one of a desperate but still egotistical man - crossed arms, raised voice, quick talking, combative, defensive, sticking to his belief that all of the US attorneys who have been fired should have been regardless of what anyone else thinks.

He has only one thing going for him: the fact that Bush will most likely keep him on until the end of his term, no matter what. He's The Decider™, after all. It seems that unless Gonzales can be nailed for perjury, he has a get out of the hearings free card, despite the fact that numerous Republicans as well have already expressed the desire to throw him overboard - where he obviously belongs.

What's come out of the hearing thus far is the very strong opinion that even if there isn't any evidence of political motives for the attorneys' firings on Gonzales' part (and few believe there isn't), Gonzales' performance - the very thing he claims the attorneys were fired for - has been so incompetent and has so damaged the image of the justice department that he should resign for those reasons alone. Americans of every stripe have a very staunch belief in tradition and honour and both Democrats and Republicans on the committee have stated that Gonzales' behaviour has tarnished the office.

Gonzales' very questionable ethics and practices have been on view internationally since it was revealed that, as Bush's White House counsel, he found legal loopholes to justify torture. He should never have been confirmed as US Attorney General in the first place, but the Republicans and the president got their way. Those who voted for his confirmation share responsibility for what is happening today. As with so many decisions made when the Republicans controlled congress, necessitating major damage control and new investigations by the Democrats who now hold power, Gonzales' situation is endemic of the corruption inherent in narrow-minded partisan politics.

He's no scapegoat - he's a symbol of blind fealty to skewed political principles and is a reflection of the hubris and arrogance so in evidence since Bush became president: the trashing of the constitution, the refusal to comply with international treaties and courts, the sanctioning of secret kidnappings, prisons and torture practices, the belief that this administration is above the law - any law which doesn't suit its political purposes.

Bush knew exactly what he was doing when he nominated Gonzales - a man whose legal mind he has known since the days of his tenure as governor in Texas. Bush knew Gonzales would be his yes man - a person who would find ways to skirt laws to further Bush's agenda. He's not going to let go of him now. Unfortunately, today's hearings will serve as nothing but political theatre in the end. That's symbolic of the entire Bush presidency: the theatre of the absurd where the court jesters are the stars.

Related:

CSPAN has video archives and live coverage of the hearings.
Specter vs. Gonzales -- Round 1 (Video at Crooks and Liars.)
Gonzales Defends Actions on U.S. Attorney Firings
Gonzales: Criticism Damages DoJ Employees (Video of Dick Durbin's questioning of Gonzales.)
Video of Patrick Leahy's opening statement.
Gonzales' opening statement. (.pdf file)

More updates as they come in... by the way, I heard a reporter on CSPAN after the morning's testimony say that Gonzales said "I don't recall" 55 times. By the end of the day, I'm sure he'll have set a new world record.
 

Tuesday is 'Watch Gonzales Sweat" Day

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales (or, as I like to call him: the smirking asshole from hell) will be testifying before the senate judiciary committee on Tuesday. You can catch it live online on CSPAN.

Earlier this month, we learned that Gonzales was busy practicing his testimony for what he had referred to as an "overblown personnel matter." On the weekend, he put that practice to the test in a Washington Post editorial in which he declared he did "nothing improper" and has "nothing to hide". I imagine he actually believes that. Many people don't, however.

In what could prove an embarrassing new setback for embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on the eve of his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, a group of influential conservatives and longtime Bush supporters has written a letter to the White House to call for his resignation.

The two-page letter, written on stationery of the American Freedom Agenda, a recently formed body designed to promote conservative legal principles, is blunt. Addressed to both Bush and Gonzales, it goes well beyond the U.S. attorneys controversy and details other alleged failings by Gonzales. "Mr. Gonzales has presided over an unprecedented crippling of the Constitution's time-honored checks and balances," it declares. "He has brought rule of law into disrepute, and debased honesty as the coin of the realm." Alluding to ongoing scandal, it notes: "He has engendered the suspicion that partisan politics trumps evenhanded law enforcement in the Department of Justice."

The letter concludes by saying, "Attorney General Gonzales has proven an unsuitable steward of the law and should resign for the good of the country... The President should accept the resignation, and set a standard to which the wise and honest might repair in nominating a successor..." It is the first public demand by a group of conservatives for Gonzales' firing. Signatories to the letter include Bruce Fein, a former senior official in the Reagan Justice Department, who has worked frequently with current Administration and the Republican National Committee to promote Bush's court nominees; David Keene, chairman of the influential American Conservative Union, one of the nation's oldest and largest grassroots conservative groups, Richard Viguerie, a well-known GOP direct mail expert and fundraiser, Bob Barr, the former Republican congressman from Georgia and free speech advocate, as well as John Whitehead, head of the Rutherford Institute, a conservative non-forit[sic] active in fighting for what it calls religious freedoms.

I don't recall any of these "influential conservatives" calling for Gonzales' resignation after they found out that he wrote a legal opinion for Bush justifying torture. It seems this episode has proved to be sufficiently embarassing though that they felt the need to act. Twisted principles. What else is new?

Gonzales can't go soon enough.

Update: From the "guess who's reading this post?" file. It's the US Department of Justice.


You'd think that people at the DoJ would have something better to do today besides reading blog posts about their boss, considering that the biggest school massacre in US history happened this morning.

Update: Gonzales's testimony has been postponed until Thursday.
 

Video: Leahy on the "lost" WH e-mails

Bonus: TPMmuckraker has a portion of a letter sent by the tireless Henry Waxman of the House Oversight committee to the so-called justice department in which he states:

According to Mr. Kelner, the RNC had a policy, which the RNC called a "document retention" policy, that purged all e-mails from RNC e-mail accounts and the RNC server that were more than 30 days old. Mr. Kelner said that as a result of unspecified legal inquiries, a "hold" was placed on this e-mail destruction policy for the accounts of White House officials in August 2004.
[...]
According to Mr. Kelner, although the hold started in August 2004, the RNC does not have any e-mails prior to 2005 for Mr. Rove. Mr. Kelner did not give any explanation for the e-mails missing from Mr. Rove's account, but he did acknowledge that one possible explanation is that Mr. Rove personally deleted his e-mails from the RNC server.

Mr. Kelner also explained that starting in 2005, the RNC began to treat Mr. Rove's emails in a special fashion. At some point in 2005, the RNC commenced an automatic archive policy for Mr. Rove, but not for any other White House officials. According to Mr. Kelner, this archive policy removed Mr. Rove's ability to personally delete his e-mails from the RNC server. Mr. Kelner did not provide many details about why this special policy was adopted for Mr. Rove. But he did indicate that one factor was the presence of investigative or discovery requests or other legal concerns. It was unclear from Mr. Kelner's briefing whether the special archiving policy for Mr. Rove was consistently in effect after 2005.

Dan Froomkin has more:

In an afternoon conference call with reporters, White House spokesman Scott Stanzel spread the blame all around. "White House policy did not give clear enough guidance," he said. "The oversight of that wasn't aggressive enough." And individual White House staffers "did not do a good enough job of following existing preservation policy -- or seeking guidance."

Said Stanzel: "I guess the bottom line is that our policy at the White House was not clear enough for employees."

But when I asked Stanzel to read out loud the White House e-mail policy, it seemed clear enough to me: "Federal law requires the preservation of electronic communications sent or received by White House staff," says the handbook that all staffers are given and expected to read and comply with.

"As a result, personnel working on behalf of the EOP [Executive Office of the President] are expected to only use government-provided e-mail services for all official communication."

The handbook further explains: "The official EOP e-mail system is designed to automatically comply with records management requirements."

Well, that sounds simple enough, doesn't it?

It's obvious the WH is drowning over this one:

Stanzel refused to publicly release the relevant portions of the White House staff manual and denied my request to make public the transcript of the call, which lasted more than an hour but which -- due to Stanzel's refusal or inability to provide straight answers on many issues -- raised more questions than it answered...

Maybe freedom from the Bush administration's lies really is on the march. Keep pushing, Waxman.

Oh, and here's another bonus:

So is anyone in trouble? Apparently not. Stanzel was careful to apportion blame widely and generically. "This issue is not the fault of one individual," he said. He refused even to acknowledge that it is the White House counsel's office that is responsible for the establishment and oversight of internal rules of conduct. The White House counsel during Bush's entire first term, of course, was Alberto Gonzales, now the embattled attorney general.

Can you feel that proverbial noose tightening around your neck there, Al? Starting to feel a bit tortured? That's nothing compared to what you've counseled this administration to do to "detainees" and so-called "terrorism suspects". Karma's a bitch, isn't it?
 

Random News & Views Roundup

Catching up with the world...

- Diplomacy, what a concept. John Bolton and Dick Cheney cry.

- Let's hope those British captives aren't villified by the right-wingers like Jill Carroll was.

- Speaking of Bolton, who was appointed by Bush as ambassador to the UN while congress was on a recess because they wouldn't approve his nomination (twice), Bush has decided to pull the same stunt and has appointed former Swift Boat Veterans for Smears contributor Sam Fox as ambassador to Belgium.

Recognizing Fox did not have the votes to obtain Senate confirmation in the Foreign Relations Committee, Bush withdrew the nomination last week. On Wednesday, with the Senate on a one-week break, the president used his power to make recess appointments to put Fox in the job without Senate confirmation.

This means Fox can remain ambassador until the end of the next session of Congress, effectively through the end of the Bush presidency.
[...]
Recess appointments are intended to give the president flexibility if Congress is out for a lengthy period of time, such as the four-week adjournment in summer. But Dodd said the law was not intended to circumvent lawmakers' approval.

"This is really now taking the recess appointment vehicle and abusing this beyond anyone's imagination," said Dodd, a candidate for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. "This is a travesty."

Bush? Abusing his authority? No way. I mean, c'mon...

- AttorneyGate update:

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has retreated from public view this week in an intensive effort to save his job, spending hours practicing testimony and phoning lawmakers for support in preparation for pivotal appearances in the Senate this month, according to administration officials.

He should be practicing his golf swing and phoning for tee times instead.

- Condi, pussycat:

Julius Caesar, as is well known, reported to the Roman Senate, "I came. I saw. I conquered." Condoleezza could report to the U.S. Senate: "I came. I saw. I capitulated." To whom? To a failing Israeli prime minister, whose popularity rating is approaching zero and who practically nobody expects to survive to the end of the year.

In the ongoing debate about which is wagging which – the dog its tail or the tail its dog – the proponents of the tail have won the day. In the round just finished, Israel has won against the United States.

This bout started with President Bush deciding, it seems, to clear the decks for action. The U.S. is preparing for war against Iran. For that purpose, it has to put an end to the mess in Iraq, unify the pro-American Arab regimes, and find a solution to the Palestinian problem.

In the beginning, everything worked just fine.

read on...

- So-called "friendly fire" incidents are bad enough but, when a soldier involved in one wasn't even properly trained, because he was "rushed to the country in the "surge"", that lands right in Bush's lap.

"Zeimer arrived at Fort Stewart on Dec. 18 after basic training and deployed to Iraq just a few weeks later. He missed the brigade's intensive four-week mission rehearsal in October when more than 1,300 trainers and Iraqi role-players came to the post as part of the most realistic training program the Army offers for Iraq operations.

"The fact some of the brigade's 4,000 soldiers missed that training raises questions about how well the Army is preparing troops for war in the face of accelerated and repeat deployments."

- Wait times:

All 10 provinces and three territories have agreed to provide wait-time guarantees in a treatment area of their choosing by 2010, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Wednesday.

That sounds good. What's the catch?

Harper did not say how the federal government will ensure that the provinces and territories deliver on the guarantees and it was not clear how long individual waiting periods for various procedures will be.

There you go. Just another day in health-care paradise waiting for something to happen while hoping someone might actually be held accountable if it doesn't. Looks good on paper though and that's what counts, isn't it?

- Hopefully, I'll be adding my Paypal donation button by the end of the week once my account is verified. Thanks to all of you who've been so supportive. It really has helped me tremendously. I'll keep you updated. My posting has been lighter than usual since I've been quite busy this week. Thanks for hanging in there with me.
 

Torture

The tainted fruits of torture:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An al Qaeda suspect at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. military prison said he was tortured until he confessed to involvement in the USS Cole attack and other plans, according to a hearing transcript released on Friday.

Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the suspected mastermind of the 2000 attack on the U.S. warship, also said he told interrogators Osama bin Laden had a nuclear bomb. He said he made up that and other statements because he was being tortured, according to a transcript of a March 14 hearing held at Guantanamo Bay.

"From the time I was arrested five years ago, they have been torturing me," Nashiri, a Saudi Arabian national of Yemeni descent, said through a translator.

"I just said those things to make the people happy," he said. "They were very happy when I told them those things.

Do we have any reason not to believe his claims considering the Bush administration's track record?

It is still utterly unbelievable that there hasn't been a rebellion in the United States to take the country back from the torturers and those who make and condone the torture policies. The silence is absolutely deafening.

It's not enough to just sit in front of your television or computer screen, cringing whenever another tale of alleged torture appears. It's not enough to just fire off a few e-mails in disgust when there's proof that your president endorses torture and has taken it upon himself to even itemize what's acceptable. A man who also authorized torture flights and makes no apology for them whatsoever. And, when victims have sued the government, their cases are blocked on "state secrets" grounds because, apparently, protecting the security of the United States means covering up torture methods and locations.

Torture continues.

That is something everyone should keep in mind.

The CIA operatives involved in torture have been giving immunity from congress.

Somewhere, in some secret US torture prison, someone is most likely being tortured as you read this - in the name of the United States.

And, let's not forget that Canada's government is doing absolutely nothing to have Gitmo prisoner Omar Khadr, who has also reported being tortured returned to our country - a move that many other countries have made regarding their nationals. Why have we washed our hands of him? Has he ceased being a Canadian?

When did that become acceptable? When was it decided that it's okay to push the issue of torture to irrelevance behind whatever other concerns of the day may be competing for the nightly news audience? Why aren't more people talking about it? Why isn't there an investigation by this Democratic congress into the use of torture? Why, in relation to the attorney scandal which surrounds Alberto Gonzales right now, aren't more people screaming that his endorsement of torture via his legal justifications made as Bush's counsel shows exactly what kind of so-called character he has? Why is he considered to be a moral authority on anything related to the concept of "justice"?

Tortured. That's what all of this is. And let's never forget the victims. They will live with their physical scars and the scars of indifference forever. They deserve more than that.
 

Tony Snow's Tortured Logic

See Tony.

See Tony spin.

Spin Tony spin.

Following Bush's Deal or No Deal tantrum conference on Monday, Tony Snow tried his best on Tuesday to convince the White House press corps today that, even though Rove and Miers would only be made available for an "interview" (sans transcript and not under oath) to the senate judiciary committee, they would (of course!) be telling The Truth™.

Snow, in his self-proclaimed infinite wisdom, said that if a transcript was available, it would be used for "political spin". Frustrated reporters reminded him that if a transcript is not made available, those senators who were present at the interviews would more likely mischaracterize what was said. True. That's human nature. Mr Snow however, is quite confident that since there would be Democratic and Republican senators present, any resulting spin would be avoided.

It got even more bizarre when Snow said that Bush was never made aware of what was happening with the firings but insisted that his aides should not be compelled to testify because their advice to the president should be protected by executive privilege.

Tony Snow just fell off a turnip truck yesterday, apparently.

In the meantime, today is brought to you by the word "showdown":

WASHINGTON - A House panel on Wednesday defied the White House and authorized subpoenas for President Bush’s political adviser, Karl Rove and other top aides, setting up a constitutional showdown over the firings of eight federal prosecutors.

By voice vote and without objection, the House Judiciary subcommittee on commercial and administrative law decided to compel the president’s top aides to testify publicly and under oath about their roles in the firings.

If the White House has nothing to hide, why is it choosing this hill to die on?

Update: Think Progress has a video clips of Snow from today's press conference (not) addressing the 18 day e-mail gap along with Snow's sniping at left-wing blogs.
 

Breaking: Document Dump in US Attorneys Case

Via ABC News:

March 19, 2007— New e-mails released this evening by the Justice Department reveal the depth of White House involvement in the discussions to fire eight U.S. attorneys last year. The thousands of pages of e-mails suggest the White House was involved in the plan from the beginning.

The e-mails detail conversations about attorneys targeted for dismissal. There are no e-mails from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who reportedly does not use e-mail, though the Justice Department says messages show some indication that Gonzales' former chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, kept the attorney general apprised.
[...]
Though the Justice Department has released e-mails and said it would allow those involved in the plan to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the White House has yet to provide e-mails, documents and witnesses to Congress in its investigation into the controversial firings.

It's obviously going to take some time for those in receipt of these documents to get a notion of the larger picture and who was involved when, but I'd say this looks like this is one scandal these Republicans won't be able to run from - especially the smirking asshole from hell, Alberto Gonzales.

More from US News & World Report:

U.S. News's Chitra Ragavan has learned that one day after Justice Department Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty testified on Capitol Hill about the reasons eight U.S. attorneys were summarily fired, a Justice Department spokesman, Brian Roehrkasse--who was traveling abroad with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in Argentina -- sent an E-mail to McNulty saying Gonzales was unhappy with McNulty's testimony regarding why U.S. attorney Bud Cummins of Arkansas had been let go. That E-mail is what is causing the most concern at the Justice Department among the 2000 pages of documents about to be released on Capitol Hill in the next hour.

On February 6, McNulty acknowledged during contentious testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee that Cummins had been fired because the administration wanted to name Timothy Griffin, a former aide to presidential adviser Karl Rove, who had also worked for the Republican National Committee. But McNulty said the firings of the other prosecutors were related to their poor performance.

more...(testimony transcript from tha hearing)

Among the 2,000 pages, there were a handful of other documents that are causing concern at the Justice Department, sources said, because they "may not put things in a great light" and could be seen as Justice officials' "potentially misleading" Congress, sources said, which is the key concern among members of Congress.

Update: Via The Daily Background:

Exclusive: Cunningham complained about Lam to Attorney General before he plead guilty

The release of more than 3,000 pages by the Department of Justice tonight is sure to cause shock-waves across Washington.

Among the documents buried in the enormous document dump, The Daily Background has discovered, is an letter from 19 members of Congress to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales concerning then-US Attorney Carol Lam. Lam was at the time involved in a high-profile corruption investigation Republican Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham.

The 19 members of Congress wrote Gonzales in October of 2005 complaining that they felt Lam was too lax on illegal immigration. One of the members of Congress who signed the letter complaining about Lam was Congressman Cunningham, who is now serving an eight year prison term after Lam successfully prosecuted him.

Barely a month after the 19 Congressmen (Cunningham included) requested to meet with Gonzales specifically to complain about Lam’s prosecution policy on immigration-related matters, Cunningham plead guilty to two felony counts of criminal conspiracy and tax evasion.

At the time Cunningham and the other 18 Congressmen complained about Lam, Cunningham was still claiming innocence in the corruption probe that had intensified just as the complaint to Attorney General Gonzales was made.

more...

There's a vastly growing web here stretching from sea to sea obviously involving some underhanded political attempts by some very desperate Republicans to control what these fired attorneys were investigating and to bring them down when they got too close.

The Washington Post reported Monday evening that Patrick Fitzgerald's name was on a 2005 Justice department chart that ranked prosecutors. His listing was among those who had "not distinguished themselves". Fitz, of course, was involved in the CIA leak investigation at the time and has an impeccable background, as the article states.

The newly-released Justice department documents, along with those the White House is trying to hide, could be the ones that begin to bring down the Bushco house of cards - finally.

The House Judiciary Committee will continue to post the released documents on their site throughout the nite, according to the NYT.

Also note this agenda item on the House committee site: Tuesday 03/20/2007 - 9:30 AM - Hearing on: The Inspector General's Independent Report on the F.B.I.'s Use of National Security Letters. Yet another brewing scandal for Gonzales.

The Justice Department's problem child, the FBI, has done it again. This time, it's the bureau's failure to comply with the legal requirements in issuing so-called National Security Letters (NSLs)–highly powerful and intrusive tools to get personal and financial information on virtually anyone, including U.S. citizens – that has landed the bureau in hot water. Today, the Justice Department's inspector general will describe to congress how the FBI repeatedly and deliberately "circumvented" the law in its use of NSLs, a tool that FBI Director Robert Mueller obtained with the solemn promise that civil liberties would be protected.

There are multiple oversight hearings scheduled this week regarding these crises: a House Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday on the FBI's use of NSLs; a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the same topic Wednesday; a hearing on FBI oversight for Thursday by the House Select Intelligence Committee.

It's going to be quite the week!
 

Gonzales Apologizes; Nobody's Buying it

McClatchy Newspapers reveals that Gonzales had a conference call with all of the (remaining) US attorneys on Friday in which he apologized "not for the firings but for their execution, including for inaccurate public statements about poor job performance".

He's already blamed (the now fired) Kyle Sampson for the way the firings were handled, so Gonzales really didn't apologize for anything he did.

It shouldn't have happened," Gonzales said, according to one lawyer familiar with the conversation. The lawyer, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the matter, said Gonzales acknowledged that he'd seemed too detached during his news conference earlier this week. He told the prosecutors that he "should have known" about the dismissal planning by his former chief of staff.

"I want you to feel like you can be open with me," Gonzales told the attorneys, and he gave his assurance that their independence was expected and that they wouldn't be punished.

Right. They're going to trust the smirking asshole from hell after 8 of their colleagues were pushed out for political purposes? And they're supposed to believe that he didn't know what was going on? Let's get real. He knew before he was even made attorney general that firings were being planned.

Sampson, the fall guy, decided to fight back on Friday by issuing a statement that was then revised on Saturday.

Statement #1 released by his lawyer:

"Kyle did not resign because he had misled anyone at the Justice Department or withheld information concerning the replacement of the U.S. Attorneys. He resigned because, as Chief of Staff, he felt he had let the Attorney General down in failing to appreciate the need for and organize a more effective political response to the unfounded accusations of impropriety in the replacement process. The fact that the White House and Justice Department had been discussing this subject for several years was well-known to a number of other senior officials at the Department, including others who were involved in preparing the Department's testimony to Congress. If this background was not called to Mr. McNulty or Mr. Moschella's attention, it was not because any of these individuals deliberately withheld it from them but rather because no one focused on it or deemed it important at the time. The focus of preparation efforts was on why the U.S. Attorneys had been replaced, not how."

The revised statement:

"Kyle did not resign because he had misled anyone at the Justice Department or withheld information concerning the replacement of the U.S. Attorneys. He resigned because, as Chief of Staff, he felt he had let the Attorney General down in failing to appreciate the need for and organize a more effective response to the unfounded accusations that the replacements were improper."

"The fact that the White House and Justice Department had been discussing this subject since the election was well-known to a number of other senior officials at the Department, including others who were involved in preparing the Department's testimony to Congress. If this background was not called to Mr. McNulty or Mr. Moschella's attention, it was not because any of these individuals deliberately withheld it from them but rather because no one focused on it at the time. The focus of preparation efforts was on why the U.S. Attorneys had been replaced, not how."

Gone is the language "political" response.

Meanwhile, the Justice department has still not turned over documents asked for by congress. Monday, they say. I can almost hear the hard drives whirring and the paper shredders churning.

A Newsweek poll shows "weak" support for Gonzales.

The NEWSWEEK poll results offer little good news for Gonzales, who faces pressure to resign from Democrats and a handful of Republicans. Fewer than one third (32 percent) of those surveyed want him to stay remain in his job, while slightly more than one third (35 percent) say he should quit. Another third say they don’t know what Gonzales should do as a result of the slow-burning controversy.

What the Democrats need to do is make it a fast-burning controversy so they can get rid of Gonzales. This is not time to be timid. We're talking about a man who found legal excuses for torture. He should have been set out on his ass just for that but the more conservative (blue dog) Democrats actually supported his nomination regardless.

They have their chance now. They'd better not blow it.

Breaking: Rove's Ties to the US Attorney Firings

Karl Rove emerged from his dungeon today to wave off the firing of 8 US attorneys as being no big deal - accusing the congress of playing politics.

Well, not so fast there, Karl.

ABC News reports in a breaking, exclusive story:

March 15, 2007 — New unreleased e-mails from top administration officials show that the idea of firing all 93 U.S. attorneys was raised by White House adviser Karl Rove in early January 2005, indicating Rove was more involved in the plan than the White House previously acknowledged.

The e-mails also show that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales discussed the idea of firing the attorneys en masse weeks before he was confirmed as attorney general.

The e-mails directly contradict White House assertions that the notion originated with recently departed White House counsel Harriet Miers, and was her idea alone.

Two independent sources in a position to know have described the contents of the e-mail exchange, which could be released as early as Friday. They put Rove at the epicenter of the imbroglio and raise questions about Gonzales' explanations of the matter.

The e-mail exchange is dated early January 2005, more than a month before the White House acknowledged it was considering firing all the U.S. attorneys. On its face, the plan is not improper, inappropriate or even unusual: The president has the right to fire U.S. attorneys at any time, and presidents have done so when they took office.

What has made the issue a political firestorm is the White House's insistence that the idea came from Miers and was swiftly rejected.

White House press secretary Tony Snow told reporters Tuesday that Miers had suggested firing all 93, and that it was "her idea only." Snow said Miers' idea was quickly rejected by the Department of Justice...

Good . Maybe we can get a twofer here: get rid of Gonzales and Rove in one fell swoop. That would be sweet justice.

Scooter Libby = fall guy
Harriet Miers = fall gal
Kyle Sampson = fall guy

Was it worth it, you pathetic Bush bootlickers?

Related: All Roads Lead to Rove
Internal Affairs; Aborted DOJ Probe Probably Would Have Targeted Gonzales

Think Progress has more.
 

Rove's Involvement in the US Attorney Firings

With everything the Bush administration has gotten away with to this point, I have to wonder if the scandal of the firings of some US attorneys might finally be the one thing to bring some of them down.

Here's the latest:

Rove was asked to fire U.S. attorney
By Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Presidential advisor Karl Rove and at least one other member of the White House political team were urged by the New Mexico Republican party chairman to fire the state's U.S. attorney because of dissatisfaction in part with his failure to indict Democrats in a voter fraud investigation in the battleground election state.

In an interview Saturday with McClatchy Newspapers, Allen Weh, the party chairman, said he complained in 2005 about then-U.S. Attorney David Iglesias to a White House liaison who worked for Rove and asked that he be removed. Weh said he followed up with Rove personally in late 2006 during a visit to the White House.

"Is anything ever going to happen to that guy?" Weh said he asked Rove at a White House holiday event that month.

"He's gone," Rove said, according to Weh.

"I probably said something close to 'Hallelujah,'" said Weh.

Weh's account calls into question the Justice Department's stance that the recent decision to fire Iglesias and seven U.S. attorneys in other states was a personnel matter - made without White House intervention. Justice Department officials have said the White House's involvement was limited to approving a list of the U.S. attorneys after the Justice Department made the decision to fire them.

Abu Gonzales called this an "overblown personnel matter" last week in an editorial in USA Today. Nothing to see here folks. Move along now. But, when your own Republicans are mad at you Gonzales, you'd better start paying attention. You don't get to wave this one off.

As for Rove, he's just playing dirty backroom politics as usual. One of these days that will catch up to him. Let's hope it's sooner rather than later.

Here's the crux of this story:

The firings, most of which happened Dec. 7, became a flashpoint for Democrats in part because they were accompanied by a little-noticed change in federal law in 2006 that allowed Gonzales to appoint interim federal prosecutors to indefinite terms. Under the previous system, the local federal district court would appoint a temporary replacement after 120 days until a permanent candidate was named and confirmed by the Senate.

Democrats and some Republicans said they were concerned the Justice Department was attempting to use the new provision to appoint political cronies without Senate oversight and that the firings were a means to that end. Gonzales and other Justice officials have argued that the old replacement system was inefficient and unconstitutional.

Democrats have attempted to attach to several pieces of legislation language to remove the provision, but they have been blocked repeatedly by Kyl. Senate aides cautioned that Gonzales's assertion that the administration will stand down did not guarantee passage, as Senate Republicans could still block the measure.

But after their meeting, Leahy said Gonzales assured him Bush will sign the bill if it reaches his desk. "My understanding is the president would," Leahy said.

The Bush administration has grasped for every possible ounce of power it could while it thought no one was paying attention. And frankly, some of the Dems weren't - obviously. Who reads all of those silly little bills anyway?

They have to spend so much time trying to play catch up with everything that's gone wrong that they'll be in hearings constantly from now until the next election - if not beyond that time. Meanwhile, who knows what else Bushco will try to slip past them? (War: Iran) The Dems need to start playing offense instead of always being stuck in defensive mode. They need to get on top of things quickly - now - before they're left behind again. Surely, they can walk and chew gum at the same time, can't they?

Bonus update: The NYT's editorial board has had enough of Gonzales:

On Thursday, Senator Arlen Specter, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, hinted very obliquely that perhaps Mr. Gonzales’s time was up. We’re not going to be oblique. Mr. Bush should dismiss Mr. Gonzales and finally appoint an attorney general who will use the job to enforce the law and defend the Constitution.

Amen and read the whole thing.