Clif posted this astounding article today Volunteer Soldiers Devastated by Iraq Weren't "Asking for It"
From Arianna Huffington Huffington Post
"We're inside the White House now."
So says Bob Woodward, as portrayed by Robert Redford, in All the President's Men. He was, of course, talking about Watergate, a scandal in which the White House criminally used various arms of government for partisan political purposes.
Sound familiar? It will if you've been following the sordid saga of the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys by the Justice Department.
And, as of this weekend, we're inside the White House now. In an interview with McClatchy Newspapers, Alan Weh, chairman of the New Mexico Republican Party revealed that in 2005 he asked a White House staffer who worked for Karl Rove for help in getting rid of U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, then followed up directly with Rove in 2006. Weh was unhappy that Iglesias refused to rush an investigation of Democratic officials in time for the '06 election.
According to Weh, his conversation with the Boy Genius went like this:
Weh: "Is anything ever going to happen to that guy?"
Rove: "He's gone."
You can almost picture Rove letting out a satisfied laugh and pressing a button on his desk, a la Dr. Evil, causing a trapdoor thousands of miles away to open under Iglesias' chair.
"He's gone." Unfortunately for Rove, so is Scooter Libby. "Cheney's Cheney" took the fall for "Bush's Brain" once already, but now that he's gone, who will be the one to fall on his sword for the president's beloved thug? Maybe Rove can give Libby a call and convince him to take the hit on this one too, with Bush offering up a pardon two-fer in January 2009.
As could be expected, Weh has already started to backpedal, telling the AP that "Rove has little or nothing to do with this."
It doesn't take one of Fox's hotshot fifth graders to figure out that someone got to Weh after the McClatchy story broke. Before his name surfaced in connection to the scandal, Rove was playing down its importance, saying at a speech in Arkansas: "My view is this is unfortunately a very big attempt by some in the Congress to make a political stink about it." But now that the Turd Blossom has hit the fan, it's the White House that is starting to reek.
Not that we should be surprised by any of this. It's just one more vile example of how Bush treats every part of the executive branch: instead of protecting the environment, the E.P.A. is used to weaken it; the V.A. screws veterans; the State Department campaigns against diplomacy; the F.D.A. undermines food safety. And now the injustice at Justice. The Bushies have a long history of playing fast and loose with the law -- evading it, stretching it, getting around it, weakening it, ignoring it, nullifying it.
But now that this use of the Justice Department for partisan advantage is unraveling, Rove and the White House must know the investigations will continue to gather steam. Just yesterday the New York Times called for the ouster of Alberto Gonzalez, as did Senator Chuck Schumer on Face the Nation.
It's an outrage that U.S. Attorneys were fired because of their unwillingness to go along with the abuse of the judicial system being imposed from the top. But the real scandal lies in those who did go along with the abuse. According to a recent study reported by TPMmuckracker.com, 79 percent of elected officials and candidates under federal investigation between 2001 and 2006 were Democrats, and only 18 percent were Republican.
Hard to believe that's just a coincidence and that the pressuring phone calls we've learned about are the only ones that were made. Now that Democrats have the power of subpoena, we can finally uncover the White House connection to those calls. Indeed, according to Newsweek, the list of which U.S. attorneys whose heads were to go on the chopping block was generated by Kyle Sampson, Alberto Gonzales's chief of staff, "with input from the White House."
"Input from the White House." Who do you suppose gave that input? Who in the White House is really, really helpful with giving "input" on people whose integrity stands in the way of amassing and abusing more power?
The biggest scandals always start slowly. This one is just beginning to boil, and you can bet it's not going to be a fun year to be "inside the White House" as congressional investigators, journalists, and bloggers fill in the gaps of what's shaping up to be one of the worst abuses of our judicial system since Woodward met with Deep Throat in that parking garage.
We might even be in for a slightly rewritten sequel to this cinematic exchange:
DEEP THROAT: The little jerks are now running our government.
WOODWARD: Who? Be specific. How high up?
DEEP THROAT: You'll We'll have to find that out, won't you we?
Indeed we will. The only question is: Who will play Rove? Suggestions?
SUPPORT THE TROOPS BY SENDING PACKAGES AND LOVE!
If you have a few hours to spare, please contact Tom and help with this most worthy cause supporting our troops: www.projecthollywoodcares.org. And please forward to your friends.
Contact Information:
Thomas Fick
Executive Director
Project: Hollywood Cares
10900 Bluffside Dr., Suite 319
Studio City, CA 91604
{818} 509-9420
Tomfickprod@aol.com
www.projecthollywoodcares.org
Headquarters/Product Shipping Address:
Tom Fick - Project: Hollywood Cares
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Studio Supply Station Bldg.
4024 Radford Avenue
Studio City, CA 91604-2190
(818) 655-5566 (switchboard ext. 5000)
From Arianna Huffington Huffington Post
"We're inside the White House now."
So says Bob Woodward, as portrayed by Robert Redford, in All the President's Men. He was, of course, talking about Watergate, a scandal in which the White House criminally used various arms of government for partisan political purposes.
Sound familiar? It will if you've been following the sordid saga of the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys by the Justice Department.
And, as of this weekend, we're inside the White House now. In an interview with McClatchy Newspapers, Alan Weh, chairman of the New Mexico Republican Party revealed that in 2005 he asked a White House staffer who worked for Karl Rove for help in getting rid of U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, then followed up directly with Rove in 2006. Weh was unhappy that Iglesias refused to rush an investigation of Democratic officials in time for the '06 election.
According to Weh, his conversation with the Boy Genius went like this:
Weh: "Is anything ever going to happen to that guy?"
Rove: "He's gone."
You can almost picture Rove letting out a satisfied laugh and pressing a button on his desk, a la Dr. Evil, causing a trapdoor thousands of miles away to open under Iglesias' chair.
"He's gone." Unfortunately for Rove, so is Scooter Libby. "Cheney's Cheney" took the fall for "Bush's Brain" once already, but now that he's gone, who will be the one to fall on his sword for the president's beloved thug? Maybe Rove can give Libby a call and convince him to take the hit on this one too, with Bush offering up a pardon two-fer in January 2009.
As could be expected, Weh has already started to backpedal, telling the AP that "Rove has little or nothing to do with this."
It doesn't take one of Fox's hotshot fifth graders to figure out that someone got to Weh after the McClatchy story broke. Before his name surfaced in connection to the scandal, Rove was playing down its importance, saying at a speech in Arkansas: "My view is this is unfortunately a very big attempt by some in the Congress to make a political stink about it." But now that the Turd Blossom has hit the fan, it's the White House that is starting to reek.
Not that we should be surprised by any of this. It's just one more vile example of how Bush treats every part of the executive branch: instead of protecting the environment, the E.P.A. is used to weaken it; the V.A. screws veterans; the State Department campaigns against diplomacy; the F.D.A. undermines food safety. And now the injustice at Justice. The Bushies have a long history of playing fast and loose with the law -- evading it, stretching it, getting around it, weakening it, ignoring it, nullifying it.
But now that this use of the Justice Department for partisan advantage is unraveling, Rove and the White House must know the investigations will continue to gather steam. Just yesterday the New York Times called for the ouster of Alberto Gonzalez, as did Senator Chuck Schumer on Face the Nation.
It's an outrage that U.S. Attorneys were fired because of their unwillingness to go along with the abuse of the judicial system being imposed from the top. But the real scandal lies in those who did go along with the abuse. According to a recent study reported by TPMmuckracker.com, 79 percent of elected officials and candidates under federal investigation between 2001 and 2006 were Democrats, and only 18 percent were Republican.
Hard to believe that's just a coincidence and that the pressuring phone calls we've learned about are the only ones that were made. Now that Democrats have the power of subpoena, we can finally uncover the White House connection to those calls. Indeed, according to Newsweek, the list of which U.S. attorneys whose heads were to go on the chopping block was generated by Kyle Sampson, Alberto Gonzales's chief of staff, "with input from the White House."
"Input from the White House." Who do you suppose gave that input? Who in the White House is really, really helpful with giving "input" on people whose integrity stands in the way of amassing and abusing more power?
The biggest scandals always start slowly. This one is just beginning to boil, and you can bet it's not going to be a fun year to be "inside the White House" as congressional investigators, journalists, and bloggers fill in the gaps of what's shaping up to be one of the worst abuses of our judicial system since Woodward met with Deep Throat in that parking garage.
We might even be in for a slightly rewritten sequel to this cinematic exchange:
DEEP THROAT: The little jerks are now running our government.
WOODWARD: Who? Be specific. How high up?
DEEP THROAT: You'll We'll have to find that out, won't you we?
Indeed we will. The only question is: Who will play Rove? Suggestions?
SUPPORT THE TROOPS BY SENDING PACKAGES AND LOVE!
If you have a few hours to spare, please contact Tom and help with this most worthy cause supporting our troops: www.projecthollywoodcares.org. And please forward to your friends.
Contact Information:
Thomas Fick
Executive Director
Project: Hollywood Cares
10900 Bluffside Dr., Suite 319
Studio City, CA 91604
{818} 509-9420
Tomfickprod@aol.com
www.projecthollywoodcares.org
Headquarters/Product Shipping Address:
Tom Fick - Project: Hollywood Cares
CBS Studio Center
Studio Supply Station Bldg.
4024 Radford Avenue
Studio City, CA 91604-2190
(818) 655-5566 (switchboard ext. 5000)
ATTORNEY GENERAL SEEKS RESIGNATIONS FROM PROSECUTORS
ReplyDeleteMarch 24, 1993, Wednesday
By DAVID JOHNSTON, (Special to The New York Times); National Desk
Late Edition - Final, Section A, Page 1, Column 1, 1053 words
"Attorney General Janet Reno today demanded the prompt resignation of all United States Attorneys, leading the Federal prosecutor in the District of Columbia to suggest that the order could be tied to his long-running investigation of Representative Dan Rostenkowski, a crucial ally of President Clinton. Jay B. Stephens, the ..."
LYDIA!
ReplyDeleteDid I actually see you use the "F" bomb????
I'll see your FIFTEEN YEAR OLD BULLSHIT, reVolting, and raise you one....
JUSTICE AIDE RESIGNS OVER FIRINGS!!!!
How do you like me now, bitch?
You'll agree, reVolting, that there's a big difference between asking for resignations AND FIRING THE PEOPLE WHO REFUSED TO KOWTOW TO YOUR PARTY LINE!
ReplyDeleteBIG SHMILE! BIG SHMILE! BIG SHMILE!
Mike said...
ReplyDeleteCarl, I understand WHAT you are saying...........BUT..........my point is still that was a sign of weakness to put that clause in there and then take it out.
Totally agree with you there, Mike. Larijani has been quietly working behind the scenes for months now, and is probably the single biggest reason Iran is at these talks in Iraq.
There's been a quiet shift from the bellicose belligerence of the Cheney-dominated braggadoccio to a more reflective and cautious policy coordinated by Condosleeza Rice, in an acknowledgement that not only have the neo-cons no teeth any longer, but that they were bereft of ideas in the first place.
Imagine...they all but duplicated the 1994 accord between the US and North Korea, sans some of the guarantees Kim Jong Il's father had agreed to, so fundamentally, the agreement they signed after six years of nonsense was the agreement they mocked as being "unenforceable".
Except that theirs truly IS unenforceable...
Voltron, please put out the details of WHY Reno asked for their resignation. Specifics, such as abiding by LAW are important.
ReplyDeleteThanks.
Lydia,
ReplyDeleteI know the reason why. Ashcroft did the same thing in 2001...
Why?
Because, my dear, no AG wants anyone but HIS OWN PEOPLE in those positions.
Something reVolting "forgets" to mention in his nonsensical post.
I knew why when I first saw this post, but I figured I'd sandbag the rat bastard on his own words.
More here, at the wonderful Mahablog.
ReplyDeleteSee, the difference is, Reno was firing people hired back in the Bush I days, people who held a different viewpoint on proecutions and so on.
Gonzalez fired people HIRED BY THE BUSHIES, for reasons that, while not clear, could be due to an overhaul of the Justice Department in the wake of new Congresional oversight, as Democrats seek to remove the Federal prosecutors from strictly executive oversight and place them under the aegis of the Federal courts themselves.
Now. reVolting...you were saying...?
Carl I particularly would like to focus on this portion of the linked article you posted:
ReplyDelete"As Paul Krugman wrote in the January 19 New York Times, “the Bush administration is trying to protect itself by purging independent-minded prosecutors.” Obviously.
However, ultimately the Senate must revoke that part of the Patriot Act that allows the White House to appoint “interim” attorneys who can serve indefinitely without Senate confirmation. (If they want to revoke the rest of the Patriot Act while they’re at it, I wouldn’t mind.)"
Thats it in a nutshell, the Bush Administration is TRYING to protect itself by installing blindly loyal partisan cronnies who will just wink and snicker and look the other way and their treasonous crimes and wrong doings.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that these so called "patriots" are defending the very treasons that Stalin and Hitler would impose on a people says a lot about them.
ReplyDeleteBut Mike, we forgot the first rule of trolldom:
ReplyDeletereVolting won't be back. We posted a fact. It's like sunlight to the vampires.
Voltron has nothing to say AS USUAL............because as Carl pointed out it doesnt look like Reno was trying to circumvent justice and enable the criminal empire to operate unfettered by such things as the Constitution, statutes, or legal prescedent.
ReplyDeleteAnd Volty even if Reno HAD done something illegal..........thats 14 years ago bud, we cant change what happened 14 or 140 years ago, but we sure can make sure it doesnt happen in the here and now.
Oh, whoops! The Dow fell apart.
ReplyDeleteAgain.
But Volty I am curious as to what your point is????????
ReplyDeleteAre you saying Well Janet Reno did something similar so its ok..............kinda like you said well Foley molested children but a democrat did it Once over 3o years ago so its REALLY NOT THAT BAD.
You repugs are pieces of work the clown running Walter Reed was making excuses that about half the vets werent living in filth and squalor like that makes it ok.
You clowns have set the bar aweful low if your arguments are Well:
1) Foley's not that bad because a Democrat molested kids ONCE
2) Well All the veterans werent living in filth and squalor, only half were.
3) Well Foley didnt molest ALL the pages, only some.
4) Well We didnt torture, abuse, murder or falsely imprison ALL the innocent Iraqi's just some.
Wonder if your argument for Newt, MCain and Rudy will be.........Well guys they arent that bad, they werent cheating on their wives and committing adultery their entire marriage just half the time.........................Wonder how that will play to your morality police family values crowd VOLTY?????????
Carl said "The fact that these so called "patriots" are defending the very treasons that Stalin and Hitler would impose on a people says a lot about them."
ReplyDeleteCouldnt have said it better........These Neo Con clowns are following Hitlers script to seize power to a tee!!!!
And Pelosi stands behind him and applauds him and is too timid to challenge them or have a showdown even on things that are alllready congresses responsibility and would likely be a slam dunk........she may as well fetch Bush and Cheney their coffee every morning because she doesnt seem good at much else particularly defending or representing the people who elected her.
Updated:2007-03-13 16:31:06
ReplyDeleteGonzales Acknowledges Mistakes in Firings
Attorney General Accepts Resignation of Top Aide
By LARA JAKES JORDAN
AP
WASHINGTON (March 13) - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales accepted responsibility Tuesday for mistakes in the way the Justice Department handled the dismissal of eight federal prosecutors but he rejected calls for his resignation.
Talk About It: Post Thoughts
At a Justice Department news conference, Gonzales said he would find out why Congress was not told sooner that the White House was involved in discussions of who would be fired and when. He did not, however, back away his stance that the dismissals that did take place were appropriate.
"I stand by the decision and I think it was the right decision," Gonzales said.
Democrats in Congress have charged that the eight dismissals announced last December were politically motivated and that some of those ousted have said they felt pressured by powerful Republicans in their home states to rush investigations of potential voter fraud involving Democrats.
Justice Department officials, led by Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, told lawmakers under oath that the decision to fire eight U.S. attorneys in December was made solely by the Justice Department and said the decision was based on performance, not politics.
U.S. Attorney General Responds to Firings
Alberto Gonzales takes responsibility for dismissal of 8 federal prosecutors.
Next Video: Schumer Wants Gonzales Out
E-mails released Tuesday, however, revealed that the firings were considered and discussed for two years by Justice Department and White House officials.
"Obviously I am concerned about the fact that information - incomplete information was communicated or may have been communicated to the Congress," Gonzales said. "I believe very strongly in our obligation to ensure that when we provide information to the Congress, it is accurate and it is complete. And I very dismayed that that may not have occurred here."
Gonzales earlier accepted the resignation of his top aide, Kyle Sampson. Authorities said that Sampson failed to brief other senior Justice Department officials of his discussions about the firings with then-White House counsel Harriet Miers.
E-mail correspondence between Sampson and Miers indicate they began two years ago to consider individual U.S. attorneys for possible dismissal. As the list took shape, their correspondence indicated possible political backlash from the attorneys and their congressional allies.
In a Sept 13, 2006, e-mail to Miers, Sampson listed one prosecutor, Bud Cummins in Little Rock,Ark., "in the process of being pushed out." Five other prosecutors - in Arizona, Nevada, Grand Rapids, Mich., San Diego and Seattle - were listed as U.S attorneys "we should now consider pushing out."
Four days later, Miers responded: "Kyle, thanks for this. I have not forgotten I need to follow up on the info but things have been crazy."
But nearly three months later, the Justice Department was still waiting for White House approval for the firings. "Still waiting for green light from White House," Sampson wrote in a Dec. 2, 2006, e-mail to Michael Elston, the top aide to McNulty.
The White House responded shortly thereafter.
"We're a go for the US Atty plan," deputy White House counsel William K. Kelley wrote in a Dec. 4, 2006, e-mail to Sampson and Miers. "WH leg, political, communications have signed off and acknowledged that we have to be committed to following through once the pressure comes."
The term "WH leg" refers to the White House office of legislative affairs, which deals with Congress. Copies of dozens of Sampson's e-mails to various White House and Justice Department aides were released Tuesday by congressional judiciary oversight panels.
White House spokesman Tony Snow said that President Bush never directed the Justice Department to fire a U.S. attorney. He said the contacts between the White House and DOJ about the concerns about the performance of various U.S. attorneys was appropriate.
"If somebody had passed on a concern about vote fraud allegations and we had not passed it on, can you imagine the kind of second-guessing we would have?" Snow said, adding, "You're not making recommendations, you're not issuing pressure you're not saying `Fire somebody!' "
Testifying before Democratic-controlled congressional committees, several of the ousted prosecutors described what they said was improper pressure by Republicans on pending cases.
On Capitol Hill, Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., who is leading a Senate investigation of the firings, called for the second time in three days for Gonzales to step down. He said Sampson's resignation didn't take the heat off Gonzales.
"In fact, it raises the temperature," Schumer said. Alluding to the recent conviction of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby in the CIA leak case, Schumer said: "Kyle Sampson will not become the next Scooter Libby, the next fall guy."
Even Republicans were angry. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said Gonzales mishandled the dismissal of the U.S. attorney in Las Vegas .
"I was either intentionally misled or someone was misinformed," Ensign said.
The government's 93 U.S. attorneys are presidential appointees who can be hired and fired at will. But critics say the fate of the eight who were dismissed last year appeared to have been politically motivated. And Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike said they were outraged that Justice Department officials weren't forthcoming on how the firings unfolded.
A Justice Department official said Tuesday that Miers, in a February 2005 discussion with Sampson, suggested firing all of the U.S. attorneys. Snow described the idea as a move to get fresh faces in the 4-year term jobs, and said that it was not a firm recommendation by Miers.
The e-mails show that Sampson rejected the idea to fire all of the prosecutors but spent the next year drawing up a list of potential dismissals. On Jan. 9, 2006, Sampson sent Miers a memo listing what the official described as roughly 10 names of prosecutors who were viewed as underperforming in their jobs.
By September, Sampson began moving forward with the firings, the Justice official said. The White House did not ask for names to be added or removed from that list, the official said. Gonzales and Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty signed off on the list around that time, the official said.
Gonzales was aware of the discussions with the White House, but McNulty and other senior department officials were not, the official said.
Associated Press Writer Laurie Kellman contributed to this report. Riechmann contributed from Merida, Mexico.
How do these rethugs keep getting some patsy to fall on a sword for them............if Gonzalez were REALLY taking responsibility for this HE would resign partticularly when polls say 86% of America thinks this was a partisan plot by the Bush Administration to avoid prosecution and seize more power, and 79% of America wants Gonzalez to resign......................................79% is that a lot?????????????????
ReplyDeletelets see 79% of America is roughly 240 million Americans, so 240 million Americans want Gonzalez to resign...........IS THAT A LOT VOLT or TT, OR TROLL TROLL?
Weasels in the White House is a great term for the most rogue bunch of lepers that ever held power in the White House.
ReplyDeleteMike said...
ReplyDeleteBut Volty I am curious as to what your point is????????
Are you saying Well Janet Reno did something similar so its ok
Would that it were that simple, Mike.
reVColting is saying that, because Reno did something WHOLLY UNRELATED, it's OK...
For example, it was wholly within her power to fire Ken Starr when it became clear that his investigation was nothing more than a partisan witchunt that provided absolutely zero evidence of any criminal activity, yet she didnt.
ReplyDeleteTHAT would have been similar, but the Clinton administration rolled the dice and let the chips fall where they may.
I miss courageous folks like that....
In effect, what we have here is a judicial putsch.
ReplyDeleteOops! When all is said and done, when you are devoid of talking points to defend and distract, admit the problem then blame Clinton!
ReplyDeleteSo predictable.
Altho there is one telling quote....
ReplyDelete"NEAL GABLER (media writer): But -- but here is -- here is something that the media is not good at, and that is the larger issue. The larger issue is: How did we get here?"
Neal? Your answer lies in your mirror. THAT'S how we got here! Fox is more than ten times more interested in Anna Nicole Smith's rotting corpse than in the rotting bodies of our servicemen and wiomen.
Fox news is a HUNDRED times more interested in promoting a fascist propaganda line than in telling the story of what really goes on in the world and in so doing, in promoting an unreal warped reality field view of the world, Fox has dragged down news coverage into the muck it created all by its lonesome.
Shame on you, Gabler, shame on you.
Well DOLT as usual with your reichwingnut spin, your missing the point as usual, which I will elaborate on…..
ReplyDeleteWe agree on this;
Look, by law and by Constitution (sic), these attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president and traditionally are given a four year term.
This is also true;
And Clinton, when he came in, replaced all 93 U.S. attorneys. When we came in, we ultimately replace most all 93 U.S. attorneys - there are some still left from the Clinton era in place. We have appointed a total of I think128 U.S. attorneys - that is to say the original 93, plus replaced some, some have served 4 years, some served less, most have served more. Clinton did 123.
Damn dolty boy Bush DID exactly what your pathetic attempt to slime Clinton, Bill Clinton did...., HOWEVER;
This is where we disagree,
I mean, this is normal and ordinary.
BTW all of the quotes are from KKKArl Rove, if ya didn’t know….
Now, Here’s former Clinton chief-of-staff John Podesta:
Mr. Rove’s claims today that the Bush administration’s purge of qualified and capable U.S. attorneys is “normal and ordinary” is pure fiction. Replacing most U.S. attorneys when a new administration comes in - as we did in 1993 and the Bush administration did in 2001 - is not unusual. But the Clinton administration never fired federal prosecutors as pure political retribution. These U.S. attorneys received positive performance reviews from the Justice Department and were then given no reason for their firings.
We’re used to this White House distorting the facts to blame the Clinton administration for its failures. Apparently, it’s also willing to distort the facts and invoke the Clinton administration to try to justify its bad behavior.
So Rove lied again, what else is new?
According to the Associated Press:
Q: How often are U.S. attorneys fired?
A: Excluding the current controversy, the Congressional Research Service found just five instances over 25 years in which U.S. attorneys were fired by the president or resigned following reports of questionable conduct. A Reagan-era prosecutor was fired and later convicted in federal court in connection with charges that he leaked confidential information. A Clinton appointee resigned over allegations he bit a topless dancer on the arm during a visit to an adult club following a loss in a big drug case. The CRS study did not include departures that followed a change in presidential administration, when turnover is common.
Thus Reagan 1 known for cause,
Clinton 1 known for actions not appropriate for a federal Prosecuter,
NONE until Bush for political partisan reasons to abuse the system.
Seems what you claim as normal is not , so your WRONG again son, but then again that is normal isn’t it?
Thanks for MISSING the point.
BTW dolty boy, interfering with an investigation by a US Attorney is considered Obstruction of Justice…..by the US Justice Department.
At least it was until the Bush consigliare was appointed Attorney General…..
Alberto Gonzales, who still thinks he is Bush’s personal lawyer not the chief law enforcement official of this country, which is why Bush ET Al think the have free reign to break any laws they want.
Firing prosecutors who refuse to preform acts of political skull duggery or retribution is just part of the price of working in the Bush Criminal Empire.
Of course with true oversight by the new democratic congressional committees that might just be changing.
So dolty boy you miss the reason what Rove and Gonzolas did was , completely different than what Clinton did at the beginning of his term. Which is why THIS is a scandal, but the re-pubie hit squad in the 1990's never went after Clinton for what he did, and given the fact they went after everything they thought would harm Clinton, it says even they did NOT think Clinton's actions were illegal.
Rove and Gonzolas wanted to replace all US attorneys with their loyal minions , by bypassing SENATE OVERSIGHT, which means;
This is just another classic example of Bushco criminal empire's pathetic attempt to circumvent the constitutional system of checks and balances from the founders of this country, and replace it with a system where the officials have to be loyal to Bush and the GOP instead of upholding the LAW equally for all.
Another point missed is this: in order to facilitate this change, the GOP stealth-inserted a provision in at conference committee on the revision of the (Un)Patriot Act that allowed Bush to make replacement US Attorney appointments without Senate confirmation. Furthermore Gonzales lied about it.
ReplyDeletePS, as Mike reposted from my place in the previous thread, Bush was in on it.
ReplyDeleteI just saw Tracy Scoggins yesterday. We got to play opposite each other in a really funny scene for a show.
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen her in years.
Thanks Tom with ALL the BUSHCO scandals and all the intertwined personalities breaking the law for BUSH and the GOP with out a flow chart of scandals and personalities in each one, it is getting HARD to keep up;
ReplyDeleteEven the MSM has to assign proorities in what is breaking on each scandal that day to decide whether to report on ther lies to the Iraq war, Katrins failures, Foleygate, walter Reedgate, Attorneygate, Halliburton's criminal actions, corruption in the GOP congress k street project, the spin Cheney is involved in to start a war with Iran, Cheney's orchestration of the outing of a CIA covert agent, Scooter lying about that, and his trial.
It almost makes your head spin.....
Bush bootlicker John McCain is running a NCAA basketball pool on his website, after berating such a thing in 2003, saying" gambling on amateur athletics is wrong."
ReplyDeletePoor Alberto Gonzales.
ReplyDeleteHis Chief of Staff has resigned because of all the probing into Alby and his shady dealings.
The Senate passed the Homeland Security bill that would give screeners more protections of their jobs.
ReplyDeleteBush says he will veto the bill because he doesn't want the employees to have the freedom to join a union.
Didn't Bush claim one of the many reasons he invaded Iraq was to give them freedom to choose?
I haven't seen Tracy Scoggins for some time.
ReplyDeleteShe was a good villain.
Larry said "I haven't seen Tracy Scoggins for some time.
ReplyDeleteShe was a good villain.
I havent seen her in ages either.....thats cool.
That will be good having Tracy Scoggins and Lydia on the same show.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteLarry said "The Senate passed the Homeland Security bill that would give screeners more protections of their jobs.
ReplyDeleteBush says he will veto the bill because he doesn't want the employees to have the freedom to join a union.
Didn't Bush claim one of the many reasons he invaded Iraq was to give them freedom to choose?"
Bush only likes to be able to have the Freedom to choose for himself he likes others to simply obey him...........after all he is the self proclaimed "DECIDER"
Besides unions are for the middle class and Bush is a blue blood frat boy that despises the poor and middle class.............Bush is the Foe of Freedom and the enemy of the working class and whats so sad is that so many working class rednecks are deceived by thgis idiot and his tough guy ignorant talk.......they think its cool or something and that Bush would be cool to have a beer with........they dont realize that this elitist doesnt go slumming with the riff raff he just steals from them and exploits them.
Bush is supposed to be for freeing all the oppressed in Iraq and Iran, but in his own country, thousands are in bondage because he refuses to let them have the freedom to join an organization.
ReplyDeleteLarry said "Bush bootlicker John McCain is running a NCAA basketball pool on his website, after berating such a thing in 2003, saying" gambling on amateur athletics is wrong.""
ReplyDeleteWonder how that wil play with the Reich wing morality police.......that along with the divorce and adultery............Yeah i'm sure the religious right family values types would just love a divorced, gambling adulter............BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!
McCain probably thinks sucking up to Bush will get the neocon votes and money, and encouraging gambling on his website will draw in the rednecks.
ReplyDeleteThe idiot has lost all of them because his lips can't break away from Bush's earlobes.
I've heard rumors McCain is a loose cannon and has a short fuse, wonder if the Reuich Wing would call him hateful like they try to do to others?
ReplyDeleteA very good read by some who know possible futures from Bush's blunder
ReplyDeleteMCCain is a hippocritical Foll that will do and say anything to get elected President.........Even the Reich Wing sees through this phony.
ReplyDeleteThe worst case senario looks the most probable to me Clif.
ReplyDeleteAP:
ReplyDeleteAlberto Gonzales rejects calls for his resignation.
This thug knows Bush won't fire someone who is doing his bidding for him.
A lot of what they say is juts extensions of the catastrophes which have arisen from the Fiasco wrought by Bush and Dumsfeld ..... and of course Dead Eye's penchant for being totally wrong about almost every thing he has said about what is going on in Iraq ever since he decided to try to attack there in 1998......
ReplyDeleteWashington Post:
ReplyDeleteHome forclosures hit the highest level in 4 decades.
More of the Bush economy. More to come.
The idiot will do the same in Iran since he hasn't any real opposition with backbone in Congress.
ReplyDeleteExcellent article Clif!
ReplyDeleteExcellent article Clif!
ReplyDeleteBush will ignore those findings in the article as more liberal propaganda.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteLets look at this part in particular
ReplyDelete"McPeak: This is a dark chapter in our history. Whatever else happens, our country's international standing has been frittered away by people who don't have the foggiest understanding of how the hell the world works. America has been conducting an experiment for the past six years, trying to validate the proposition that it really doesn't make any difference who you elect president. Now we know the result of that experiment [laughs]. If a guy is stupid, it makes a big difference."
Bush is an arrogant ignorant fool who has destroyed our Country in less than 6 years.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteMcPeak has proven true if yuo don't care what happens to the country or the people within.
ReplyDeleteI told you they were weasals.
ReplyDeleteYou were right. The ones who want to fight are muzzled by all the rest.
ReplyDeleteIs anyone having trouble posting?
ReplyDeleteAre you finding you are double posting?
I am having trouble. It goes to server problem and if you refresh it will double post, so I just go back to blog page.
ReplyDeleteYea, same here. Looks like Google is having difficulties.
ReplyDeleteI was having trouble on other blogs earlier.
ReplyDeleteWell, I imagine the right wing is pissed, considering the damning new release of the emails showing a clear plan to purge the federal prosecutors who were not loyal Bush supporters.
ReplyDeleteThis is the one thats gonna leave a mark.
And they know it.
Gonzales Chief of Staff bit the bullet for the team, but it will take more than him.
ReplyDeleteDid you see Gonzales today?
ReplyDeleteHe looked like someone just took his last donut.
Yes Gonzales doesn't like the arrow pointed at him, instead of him pointing the flame.
ReplyDeleteI think they fired prosecutors to get VERY pro-Bush and pro-GOP prosecutors to aid in their sleazy political activities during election time to aid in the re-pubies attempts to destroy true democracy and replace it with a GOP inspired alternate where ONLY the GOP has a good chance of getting elected except in specially gerrymandered districts to keep a democratic minority to keep a semblance of a two p[arty system, while guaranteeing ONLY one party ever has the levers of power in their hands.
ReplyDeleteThe actual first firing of a US attorney was to try to stop the Abramoff scandal way back in 2002,
Bush removal ended Guam investigation
US attorney’s demotion halted probe of lobbyist
By Walter F. Roche Jr., Los Angeles Times | August 8, 2005
WASHINGTON — A US grand jury in Guam opened an investigation of controversial lobbyist Jack Abramoff more than two years ago, but President Bush removed the supervising federal prosecutor, and the probe ended soon after.
The previously undisclosed Guam inquiry is separate from a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia that is investigating allegations that Abramoff bilked Indian tribes out of millions of dollars.
In Guam, a US territory in the Pacific, investigators were looking into Abramoff’s secret arrangement with Superior Court officials to lobby against a court reform bill then pending in Congress. The legislation, since approved, gave the Guam Supreme Court authority over the Superior Court.
In 2002, Abramoff was retained by the Superior Court in what was an unusual arrangement for a public agency. The Los Angeles Times reported in May that Abramoff was paid with a series of $9,000 checks funneled through a Laguna Beach, Calif., lawyer to disguise the lobbyist’s role working for the Guam court. No separate contract was authorized for Abramoff’s work.
Guam court officials have never explained the contractual arrangement. At the time, Abramoff was a well-known lobbying figure in the Pacific islands because of his work for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and Saipan garment manufacturers, accused of employing workers in what critics called sweatshop conditions.
Abramoff spokesman Andrew Blum said the lobbyist ”has no recollection of his being investigated in Guam in 2002. If he had been aware of an investigation, he would have cooperated fully.” Blum declined to respond to detailed questions.
The transactions were the target of a grand jury subpoena issued Nov. 18, 2002, according to the subpoena. It demanded that Anthony Sanchez, administrative director of the Guam Superior Court, turn over all records involving the lobbying contract, including bills and payments.
A day later, the chief prosecutor, US Attorney Frederick A. Black, who had launched the investigation, was demoted. A White House news release announced that Bush was replacing Black.
The timing caught some by surprise. Despite his officially temporary status as the acting US attorney, Black had held the assignment for more than a decade.
The acting US attorney was a controversial official in Guam. At the time he was replaced, Black was directing a long-term investigation into allegations of public corruption in the administration of then-Governor Carl Gutierrez. The probe produced numerous indictments, including some of the governor’s political associates and top aides.
Black, 56, had served as acting US attorney for Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands since 1991, when he was named to the post by the president’s father, President George H. W. Bush.
The career prosecutor, who held a senior position as first assistant before accepting the acting US attorney job, was demoted to a staff post. Black’s demotion came after an intensive lobbying effort by supporters of Gutierrez, who had been publicly critical of Black and his investigative efforts.
Black declined to comment for this article.
His replacement, Leonardo Rapadas, was confirmed in May 2003 without any debate. Rapadas had been recommended for the job by the Guam Republican Party. Fred Radewagen, a lobbyist who had been under contract to the Gutierrez administration, said he carried that recommendation to top Bush aide Karl Rove in early 2003.
After taking office, Rapadas recused himself from the public corruption case involving Gutierrez. The new US attorney was a cousin of ”one of the main targets,” according to a confidential memo to Justice Department officials.
Rapadas declined to comment and referred questions about his recusal to Justice Department officials who did not respond to requests for comment.
As a result of this, Abramoff and the GOP culture of corruption got three more years to operate before their putrid action were exposed, and the GOP sleazy machine started to fall apart.
The scandal we now have is bigger than most realize because the GOP was trying to influence both elections and enable political hacks to rise in the legal system to undermine that also. It is just part of Roves and Delay’s idea of a permanent re-pubie majority. The both were willing to break the law, and undermine the US constitution to do so, however only Rove still has the chief executive of this country running interference for him. This scandal if FULLY exposed will show a situation where significant players in the GOP were willing to throw ther US constitution away to seize permanent power for them and their agenda of corporate over citizen and no accountability for their upper echelons, which would eventually lead to abuses and separate rights and laws according to whether your inside the GOP machine or not.
Just realize their is an actual plan for permanent GOP control by the right of this country, and a very large part of what they have done in the last 25 years are directed towards that goal, the right-wing think tanks like AEI-Hoover-Hudson_Cato and the “grassroots which they spawn to hide their fingerprints from the spin cycle machine.
Fox Lies Noise Machine is their central media propaganda outfit, but they also have worked hard to dismantle the protections for ordinary citizens whether Reagans attacks on New Deal and Great society programs or their fight to remove the tax burden off the rich to place it on future generations, to the present administrations attempts with things like the patriot act, and illegal spying programs to destroy the civil liberty protections of ordinary citizens from the GOP controlled government and Private corporations which Bush ET Al have turned to to circumvent Congressional oversight and limits.
This scandal when looked at through the prism of the past 25 years looms much harder because it was the right-wing’s direct attack to dismantle the justice system for most Americans and make it work for the GOP’ political aims.
Clif that article makes Hitler look like a school kid compared to what Bush and the Repugs are doing.
ReplyDeleteClif, great article. This is going to be big.
ReplyDeleteThe house of cards is falling.
Clif that article is a great summary of whats been going on in this country and why.
ReplyDeleteThe following is dedicated to Tiny the Liar, Crusty the Clown, johnny Goo Goo and Dolty Boy, who all have made similar statements about the troops asked for what they got, even though they all are gutless chicken hawks who never even offered to serve, just attack those who do.
ReplyDeleteVolunteer Soldiers Devastated by Iraq Weren't "Asking for It"
"They volunteered, didn't they?" is a common sneering response to the stories about National Guardsmen whose lives were destroyed by Iraq -- the truth is that going to war is not what they signed up for.
"They volunteered, didn't they?"
As the war in Iraq has gone from wrong to worse, that question, often delivered as a statement, has become the fallback stance of folks who are attempting to silence the voices of those of us who actually have loved ones in uniform, or who died while wearing it. I love my country dearly, but sometimes it's difficult to retain a feeling of love for my countrymen who have said, "They volunteered, didn't they?" in an effort to shut up the growing numbers of military and Gold Star families who are speaking out against this war.
More often than not, the phrase falls from the mouths of people who will send our fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, spouses and children to war, but blanch or literally roll their eyes at the suggestion that they send their own, or -- heavens! -- go themselves.
Less than one percent of Americans are in the Armed Forces. Over 1.3 million US troops have served in Iraq, including upwards of 450,000 National Guard and Reservists, surpassing by hundreds of thousands the number of Guard and Reservists that have fought in any other foreign war in this nation's history. In the early years of the occupation, my husband was stationed at LSA Anaconda with the Army National Guard's 81st brigade, so I speak from that experience, my conversations with hundreds of military families, soldiers, and Iraq War veterans, and a ridiculous amount of research.
I had to become something of a layman's expert on the National Guard in order to navigate the stultifying military bureaucracy, advocate for our soldiers and veterans, and speak out against the war.
What citizen soldiers signed up for:
What the television ad promised: "One weekend a month, two weeks a year. Earn money for college and protect your local community." That's what citizen soldiers signed up for. While they were certainly aware of the dual mission, they believed the recruiters who told them that they'd never get deployed; that the only way they'd see combat is "if World War III broke out." Since 2001, "four out of five guardsmen have been sent overseas in the largest deployment of the National Guard since World War II." (Stateline.org, January 12, 2007) Over 400 Army National Guard soldiers have died in Iraq, more than quadruple the amount that died in the entire Vietnam War.
For more than half a century, the National Guard's policy regarding mobilization was that Guardsmen would be required to serve no more than one year cumulative on active duty (with no more than six months overseas) for each five years of regular drill. After September 11, 2001, the possible mobilization time was increased to 18 months (with no more than one year overseas). Then it was increased again, to 24 months. That policy was effectively abandoned by the Pentagon in January of 2007 because it's the only way they can continue to redeploy Iraq War veterans/Reservists. The cumulative number of days Guard soldiers called to duty [rose] from 12.7 million in 2001 to 68.3 million in 2005, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The constant changes to policy, time and terms of deployment, extensions, stop-loss, etc, are, in fact, not what they signed up for when they took an oath to protect the Constitution from "threats both foreign and domestic."
The Army National Guard's charter is the Constitution of the United States: Title 10 U.S.C. 12301 (a) provides that, in time of war or national emergency declared by the Congress, reserve components can be called to active duty.
1) Article I, Section 8; Clause 15: The Congress shall have Power ... To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.
The men and women who volunteered to serve their communities and country did so with the contractual guarantee that they would not be sent into the killing fields unless the aforementioned conditions were met. "There is a contract between the soldiers and their civilian leaders that they will be sent into harm's way under lawful condictions. The Bush administration has broken that contract. Citizens are the soldiers only protection," said Michael McPherson, Gulf War I veteran, and father of an Iraq War veteran. Promises, promises:
Dick Cheney said our soldiers would be greeted as liberators, and rose petals strewn in their path. Looking back, I think we can all agree: That went badly. The President told the troops they had his support, and they would have everything they needed, on the ground and after the war, including body armor, equipment, etc.
The bulk of the troops on the ground in Iraq are Army, Army National Guard, and Reserves, and yet, they are grossly under funded, receiving approximately 17% of the DOD budget, with just 2-3% trickling to the Guard/Reserve. The severity of equipment shortages were brought to light by the Guard and Reservists in Iraq, and thousands of calls made to Congress by National Guardsmen and their families, pleading for body armor, fully up armored tanks and HMMV's and other equipment. After four years, the problem has yet to be fully corrected.
Instead, they keep sending our soldiers, while failing miserably at keeping their promise to take care of them when they come home. After having served some of the longest tours in Iraq, while their families waited, worried, and often suffered financial shortfalls or problems with receiving pay and benefits, our citizen soldiers come home, and bring the war with them. I wrote about this in "Broken by this War," and want to expand on the following:
The tab so far: more than 3,000 dead U.S. troops, tens of thousands of wounded, over half a million Iraqi casualties, roughly 250,000 American servicemen and women struggling with PTSD, and almost 60,000 military marriages that have been broken by this war. Including mine.
Broken, which includes domestic abuse, spousal murder, suicide, internet porn addiction, divorce, separation, and estrangement. What does it say when a nation that prides itself on supporting the troops, shared sacrifice, and a commitment to children and family values continues to pass policies that directly and indirectly undercut them all?
Fault lines on the home front:
When Iraq was invaded in 2003, there were a combined total of almost 670,000 personnel in the Guard and Reserves, more than active duty Army, which had 499,301 soldiers. (DOD [309A] Sept. 30, 2003) According to the Department of Defense, approximately 51% of Army soldiers were married, as compared to nearly 60% of Guard and Reservists.
The Pentagon's Defense Manpower Data Center reveals that in the first years of the war, the annual divorce rate among active-duty Army officers and enlisted personnel nearly doubled, from 5,658 to 10,477. The increase is about 5,000 Army marriages per year, times four years, which totals 20,000 official divorces. That does not include active-duty Navy and Marines.
If the Army divorce rate is applied to Guard/Reserve, (the number is probably higher because of increased PTSD rates , less preparation/support/care before, during, and after deployment, financial burdens, etc.), given that the total force strength of citizen soldiers is almost one-third higher than active-duty Army, and almost 60% of Guard and Reservists are married (when averaged between branches) then, holding everything else equal, the annual increase in divorces among citizen soldiers would be roughly 8,000, times four years, equaling 32,000.
A study conducted in 1996 on the impact of long-term overseas deployments of Guard and Reserve troops found that "Reservists were more vulnerable than regular service soldiers...for psychiatric breakdown. [And] being a Reservist, having low enlisted rank, and belonging to a support unit increased the risk for psychiatric breakdown ... Many such personnel entertained little expectation that they would ever be called to active duty."
Just eleven months after returning from Iraq, 46% of one Washington State Reserve Combat Engineer Company reported mental health problems, more than double the rates for regular enlisted.
None of the estimates reflect Iraq war veterans whose military contracts expired prior to filing or finalization of divorce papers. Nor do they include the hundreds of divorces pending in the system, and several thousand other couples who are separated, but have not filed any paperwork, according to anecdotal reports, informal surveys, and conversations with dozens of military personnel and health care professionals. We aren't official statistics, but things sure feel broken.
As the war drags on, and soldiers are sent for their 3rd, 4th, and now 5th deployments, with the attendant risks and stressors involved, the fault lines that this war has created in too many -- not all -- of families will become chasms. Based on trends from previous wars, case studies, and information from marriage counselors, military families and soldiers, the rates of divorce and separation are rising, and available figures are "just the tip of the iceberg."
But divorce and separation aren't the only things that break a marriage and shred the fabric of the family. In 2005, according to DoD figures, there were 16,400 cases of domestic violence reported, with 9,450 of them substantiated. That's 14 cases for every 1,000 couples, compared with 3 per 1,000 among civilians. Domestic violence advocates contend that the figures are even higher than the DOD says. If military spouses live off-post -- as do many active duty personnel, and virtually 100 percent of Guard/Reserves -- and call the local police or shelter for asistance, they typically don't show up in the military's statistics.
And consider that many soldiers spent all or part of 2004/2005 deployed and thus physically separated from their spouses. In every war, domestic abuse rates spike when troops return, up to and including murder.
Over the past several years, returning soldiers have turned their fists and guns on their families, and a number of married veterans have committed suicide. Army Special Forces soldier Bill Howell, back three weeks from Iraq, beat his wife, and then committed suicide. A recently returned soldier at Fort Lewis, Washington, "turned himself in ... saying he had committed a homicide," according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The Pierce County sheriff's department later found the soldier's 28-year-old wife dead "apparently from homicidal violence."
Sergeant Matthew Denni served in Iraq with the 671st Engineer Army Reserve Company. During his trial, it was determined that PTSD contributed to him murdering his wife and stuffing her corpse in a footlocker.
Murder, suicide, domestic violence, abuse, internet porn addictions are all casualties of war, collateral damage that destroys marriages and families, but they won't be found on the DOD's list of divorces. So when I said that "almost 60,000 military marriages that have been broken by this war. Including mine," I was being kind with the numbers. Yet some of the responses I got were hateful, intentionally hurtful, small-hearted and mean-spirited comments about "bad, selfish wives" and "stupid, irresponsible soldiers," demonizing those of us who have suffered and sacrificed so much. Enough.
Veterans and their families are already struggling, with too few resources and support, to try and heal. And yes, "they volunteered," but not for this, America. Not for this.
Alberto Gonzales says "mistakes were made" in the U.S attorney firings.
ReplyDeleteGonzales says he is going to find out what went wrong.
Doesn't Bush's houseboy remember what he did?
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, Tracy Scoggins....*drool*
ReplyDeleteOh. Sorry. Lydia. I didn't mean to cheat on you...
Larry said...
ReplyDeleteDoesn't Bush's houseboy remember what he did?
No se habla Engles, senor!
Clif,
ReplyDeleteYou can add this to your post about the soldiers...
Larry said "Alberto Gonzales says "mistakes were made" in the U.S attorney firings.
ReplyDeleteGonzales says he is going to find out what went wrong."
Bush stealing the elections and hiring Gonzalez is what went wrong in a nutshell!
Gonzales resists calls for his resignation
ReplyDeleteBush ‘not happy’ about handling of attorney firings, but stands by AG
AP Updated: 2 hours, 59 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Wednesday it is up to President Bush whether he remains in the administration and said he wants to stay and explain to Congress the circumstances surrounding the firings of eight U.S. attorneys.
“I work for the American people and serve at the pleasure of the president,” Gonzales said. Defending himself amid an escalating political row over the replacement of a host of federal prosecutors, Gonzales said he had done a good job in the country’s top law enforcement position.
“I think you can look at the record of the department in terms of what we’ve done ... going after child predators, public corruption cases,” he said on NBC’s “Today” show. “I think our record is outstanding.”
acknowledged, as he had on Tuesday, that mistakes were made in the handling of the U.S. attorney firings and said he wanted to remain in the job to make things right with Congress.
“I think we’ve done a good job in managing the department. ... Things are going to happen,” he said. “We are going to work with Congress to make sure they know what happened. ... We want to ensure that they have a complete and accurate picture of what happened here.”
President defends AG
Bush, speaking in Mexico, said Wednesday he was troubled by the Justice Department’s misleading explanations to Congress about the firings and expected Gonzales to address the problem.
acknowledged, as he had on Tuesday, that mistakes were made in the handling of the U.S. attorney firings and said he wanted to remain in the job to make things right with Congress.
“I think we’ve done a good job in managing the department. ... Things are going to happen,” he said. “We are going to work with Congress to make sure they know what happened. ... We want to ensure that they have a complete and accurate picture of what happened here.”
President defends AG
Bush, speaking in Mexico, said Wednesday he was troubled by the Justice Department’s misleading explanations to Congress about the firings and expected Gonzales to address the problem.
Bush said he stood by Gonzales amid calls for his ouster.
“Mistakes were made. And I’m frankly not happy about them,” Bush told reporters at a news conference in Merida, Mexico, where he is wrapping up a weeklong trip to Latin America.
Criticism from Democrats
The dispute over the prosecutors has become the latest clash between Bush’s Republican Party and the newly empowered Democratic majority in Congress. Democrats, who have long accused Republicans of running roughshod over opponents, have portrayed the firings as part of a campaign of intimidation and obstruction by the Bush administration and Republican lawmakers.
Several Democrats have called for Gonzales’ resignation, among them presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards.
“The buck should stop somewhere,” Clinton said in an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America” which was broadcast Wednesday morning. She added that Bush “needs to be very forthcoming — what did he say, what did he know, what did he do?” and that high-level White House adviser Karl Rove also “owes the Congress and the country an explanation” for his role in the affair.
Click for related content
Vote: Should Gonzales resign?
The firestorm of criticism has erupted in the wake of the disclosure of e-mails within the administration which showed that Gonzales’ chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, had discussed the possible firings of U.S. attorneys in early 2005 with then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers.
Gonzales accepted Sampson’s resignation this week; Miers had left the administration earlier this year.
‘He’s a standup guy’
It was the second time in as many weeks that Gonzales came under withering criticism on Capitol Hill. Last week, he and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller admitted that the FBI had improperly, and at times illegally, used the USA Patriot Act to secretly pry out personal information about Americans in terrorism investigations.
Gonzales, himself a former White House counsel, has been friends with Bush for years, going back to when he served as Bush’s secretary of state in Texas. Bush retains full confidence in the attorney general, spokesman Dan Bartlett, traveling with Bush in Mexico. said Wednesday during the president’s visit to Mexico. “He’s a standup guy,” Bartlett said of Gonzales.
As for the firings, Bartlett said White House officials had heard complaints from members of Congress regarding prosecutors and Bush had raised the subject during an October 2006 meeting with Gonzales. He described the exchange as “offhand” and said Bush did not name any specific prosecutors but did identify their states.
“This briefly came up and the president said, ‘I’ve been hearing about this election fraud issue from members of Congress and want to be sure you’re on top of it as well,’” Bartlett said.
Bartlett said that Gonzales had responded, “I know, and we’re looking at those issues.”
Awe isnt that nice Gonzalez thinks "HE'S" doing an outstanding job wondder if Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay thought they were doing outstanding jobs, Or If Donald Rumsfeld Or the head of FEMA thought they were doing outstanding jobs.........GWB clearly "said" he did......."Heckuva Job guys..................Wonder if the fox guarding the henhouse thinks he's doing a heckuva job too.
ReplyDeleteClearly GWB eith possesses extremely poor judgement or he is a liar or all of the above.....
But regardless how can we trust a President who repeatedly lies, excercises extrelely poor judgement and defends criminals and cronnies until practicaally forced to fire them like With Rumsfeld and Mike Brown who he said were doing a great job and wanted to stay for the remainder of his term even while he was looking for a replacement to fire them.
ReplyDeleteHow can you trust a man that lies and says he wants a man to stay while looking for a replacement so he can fire that person or that looks the American people in the eye and says Rumsfeld or Brown were doing "a good job"
and lets not forget the Bush Administration cronny making $180,000 that was chronically stealing and shoplifting from target that Bush swore was a "good man"
Lets not forget Jack Abramoff or Mark Foley or Ken Lay that were "good men" also by repug standards.
But I say again if this pack of fools has constantly been wrong about EVERYTHING, and constantly exhibitted poor judgement and lied and misrepresented information and defended and supported criminals..................why should we trust their judgement NOW on Iraq or the Constitution or ANYTHING for that matter.
ReplyDeleteGWB NEEDS TO BE IMPEACHED ASAP and there is no other logical way to look at this sitution.
Purging the US Attorney's to find ones loyal to the administration is a Nazi like act if there ever was one. I don't care who you are are what "side" you think you're on, but purging the US Attorney's to find favorable ones is closer than ever to finding ourselves in a totalitarian nation.
ReplyDeleteThe Indians have an old saying.
The way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.
Which is exactly how Bush is eating away at our constitution.
One bite at a time
Only this last bite, the purging of the prosecutors is not going to go down to well.
ReplyDeleteThat bite, might be the one that makes him toss all the cookies.
Worf, I agree completely.
ReplyDeleteSee the first post on this thread.
I posted Clif's tragic article-link about volunteer National Guard at the top of the blog thread.
ReplyDeleteWorf you're right: this purging of the Federal prosecutors is exaclty the way they did it in Nazi Germany. In fact everything, all the cronyism in every dept. is just like Nazi Germany.
Did you hear Ensign and Sununu?
Yea, thats very nice Voltron.
ReplyDeleteIf this were a history class you'd certainly receive a gold star.
What you didn't mention is thats something Presidents often do when first taking office.
In fact, Bush and Clinton did it when they first took office.
What Bush did here is clear to everyone other than you. The emails are quite specific that these were politically motivated firings, and the mens reputations were trashed in the process, attributing poor performance to them falsly.
Don't deists know the 10 commandments?
If not, look up number 9 sometime.
What Bush did was what you people do. Lie about another man to make some sort of politcal manuver. These judges were told they were being removed for incompetence and such. When asked, Bush and Gonzales looked into the camera and LIED. They said it was not for political reasons.
Now we know it was.
You can kid yourself all you want, but every week more and more is coming to light, and theres nothing you can do to stop it.
ReplyDeleteYou can cry "But Billy did it tooo", each time Bush and his band of thugs gets caught crapping on the constitution, but you just sound stupid doing it.
It doesn't matter what Clinton did or didn't do dimwad.
The only thing we can change is what happens next.
Did it ever occur to you heroes out there who support this war, that maybe there are some people who just aren't ready for our form of government?
ReplyDelete:|
Did that notion even enter your thoughts even once?
When we told you that we'd be exactly where we are right now with regards to Iraq, Dick Cheney responded by saying he "doubted the war would last 6 months".
ReplyDeleteNow, 4 years later, we're exactly where we said we'd be in Iraq, and exactly not where Cheney and you war hero's said we'd be.
Do you ever take 5 minutes out of your day to consider that?
Ever?
While you and your smug band of knuckleheads are in here every day scoffing at us, did you ever bother to notice that everything we told you would happen if you invaded Iraq has happened, and nothing that you war experts predicted would happen has not?
ReplyDeleteThink about that next time your slapping each other on the back over how funny you are, and how pathetic we are.
Ok ace?
In fact, I think Ace is a good handle for you.
ReplyDeleteACE.
We'll, really you're kinda the anti ace, since an ace hits everything he aims at, and guys like you hit nothing you aim at...
So be it.
Ace.
Ace it is.
ReplyDeleteThe republicans are like a travelling side show of slapstick shennanigan making noodniks.
ReplyDeleteYou are the laughing stock of the world, when they're not burning one of you in effigy.
When other Presidents travelled abroad they were greeted and loved.
When Bush travels abroad, Mayan priests have to perform purification rituals to cleanse their land of his evil.
Do the math shithead.
You lose.
Unless of course your goal was to make America the most hated and ridiculed nation on the face of the planet.
ReplyDeleteIf that was your goal, then you're a huge success.
Or should I say, SUCKcess?
ReplyDeleteClif said Thanks Tom with ALL the BUSHCO scandals and all the intertwined personalities breaking the law for BUSH and the GOP with out a flow chart of scandals and personalities in each one, it is getting HARD to keep up;
ReplyDeleteClif, you said a mouthful. Just yesterday I was thinking that between Bush being responsible for firing the US attorneys, the FBI spying policy, his policy of neglect for fallen heroes at Walter Reed, and the documentation that Bush issued an executive order approving torture, what ELSE is happening under the radar, because out attention is overloaded already?
Carl said Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, Tracy Scoggins....*drool*
ReplyDeleteOur Lydia is cuter. ;-)
Tomcat thank you for the nice words.
ReplyDeleteTomcat, I just went to you site and read your amazing response to the Osama question.
You are one of my new heros. What integrity. That's a beautiful, reasoned answer.
Thank you for raising the level of discourse in the blogosphere.
We must never torture.
The Pentagon is finally calling the mess in Iraq a civil war.
ReplyDeleteWhat rock did they crawl out from?
Rumboy Rudy Giuliani's law firm lobbies on behalf of Citgo Petroleum, which is controlled by Hugo Chavez.
ReplyDeleteGiuliani's firm registered to lobby for Citgo less than a month after he joined the firm.
What a coincidence!
Another beautiful example of Republicans secretly doing business with the enemy.
Chiquita has been charged with making payments to a Columbian group on the U.S list of official terrorist organizations.
ReplyDeleteWhat will Bush eat for supper now?
New Orleans:
ReplyDeleteGeorge W and Jebby Bush's friend installed faulty pumps at the levees.
The Army Corps of Engineers were pressured by the Bush White House to install the pumps in spite of warnings they were faulty.
Another example of Bush's loyal leanings to wealthy friends over the well being of the citizens.
Voltron said...
ReplyDeleteWorf, I agree completely.
See the first post on this thread.
What? That tortured piece of cowshit that you pooped?
Go away. You bore us.
TomCat said...
ReplyDeleteCarl said Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, Tracy Scoggins....*drool*
Our Lydia is cuter. ;-)
I thnk we ought to arrange a beauty pageant. Loser has to be dunked in a tub of chocolate pudding.
(I'd vote for Lydia, but either way, how could we lose?)
By the way, folks...today is the Ides of March, which means that some 2,500 years ago, a tin-pot dictator who invaded countries willy-nilly to obtain "oil" as slaughtered...
ReplyDeletePlus ca change, plus ce meme chose.
Gen. Petraeus Linked To High-Profile Suicide in Iraq
ReplyDeleteCol. Ted Westhusing, a West Point scholar, put a bullet in his head in Iraq after reporting widespread corruption. His suicide note -- complaining about human rights abuses and other crimes -- was addressed to his two commanders, including Gen. David Petraeus, now leader of the U.S. "surge" effort in Iraq. It urged them to "Reevaluate yourselves....You are not what you think you are and I know it."
Clif,
ReplyDeleteDamn suicidal liberals...why do they hate America?
Carl said "y the way, folks...today is the Ides of March, which means that some 2,500 years ago, a tin-pot dictator who invaded countries willy-nilly to obtain "oil" as slaughtered...
ReplyDeletePlus ca change, plus ce meme chose."
Sorry Carl, but the Ides of March is March 15.
What a shame Clif, the koolaid drinking fools dont want to hear the truth.........................a shame but not a surprise
ReplyDeleteI was watching CNBC today and some brainwashed elitist repug shill was trying to say we need to give tax cuts to the wealthy because they are the ones supporting the economy and keeping it strong not the working class..............so let me get this straight thois IDIOT is saying that the top 1% is supporting our economy.........I'd love to hear how, i'm all ears??????????????
ReplyDeleteWow Clif. I am just reading your post now about the suicide.
ReplyDeleteThese are the signs and the tokens of a country thats lost its way.
Awwww, Lydia..... {{blush}} You just said that cause I said you're cuter. ;-) I'd say the real hero was Kurt for having to courage to ask that question, and then for having the courage to choose my response from a field of really ugly ones.
ReplyDeleteGreat minds fall in the same ditch, Clif. I found the same article about an hour ago and it's sitting in OneNote for me to post at my place tomorrow. Definitely worth the read.
Worf said "Purging the US Attorney's to find ones loyal to the administration is a Nazi like act if there ever was one. I don't care who you are are what "side" you think you're on, but purging the US Attorney's to find favorable ones is closer than ever to finding ourselves in a totalitarian nation.
ReplyDeleteThe Indians have an old saying.
The way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.
Which is exactly how Bush is eating away at our constitution.
One bite at a time"
Excellent post.......you've really been "on" the last two days that is a brilliant analogy of what is going on.
Bush Criminals
ReplyDeletejurisprudence: The law, lawyers, and the court.
Hyper HacksWhat's really wrong with the Bush Justice Department.
By Lincoln Caplan
Posted Wednesday, March 14, 2007, at 5:53 PM ET
Some of the U.S. attorneys fired last year
Our system of government tries to limit the sway of partisan politics over the law by giving life tenure to federal judges. But it doesn't do the same for the attorney general or the lawyers who work for him. They serve at the pleasure of the president, to whom we grant the legal authority to fire anyone from his team for any reason.
The straightforwardness of this rule helps explain why the Bush administration's firing of seven U.S. attorneys at the beginning of December, plus an eighth last summer, didn't immediately ignite into controversy. But what's come out since then makes clear that this targeted removal of prosecutors was different in kind as well as degree from political dramas at the Department of Justice in prior administrations. In the context of other Bush administration assaults on DOJ lawyers, the U.S. attorney scandal confirms the administration's disdain for the nonpolitical tradition of federal law enforcement.
To be sure, the past practices that embodied this tradition weren't codified. Nor are they legally binding. They're the kind of custom recorded by anthropologists more than legal scholars, and they include many exceptions. Yet they have long governed how federal law-enforcement decisions were made. And they have been sturdy enough to keep in check the president's authority to remove lawyers at will for a generation before the current administration.
he attorney general and the lawyers who work for him represent the administration that picks them. But their client is the United States, and the oath they swear is to uphold the nation's laws and the Constitution. The country's 93 U.S. attorneys transform from political appointees into public servants when they join the Justice Department. Once in place, they gain a significant measure of independence. For most crimes, they have the power to indict without approval from "Main Justice," the Washington, D.C. headquarters. This independence is "vital to ensuring the fair and impartial administration of justice," in the words of Mary Jo White, a former U.S. attorney who worked in the Justice Department for both Republican and Democratic attorneys general.
The White House and DoJ are now under fire because, in disrespecting the post of U.S. attorney, they appeared to interfere with the independence of that office in a way that's unprecedented. In the previous quarter-century, according to the Congressional Research Service, no more than five and perhaps only two U.S. attorneys, out of 486 appointed by a president and confirmed by the Senate, have been similarly forced out—in the middle of a presidential term for reasons not related to misconduct. "It would be unprecedented for the Department of Justice or the president to ask for the resignations of United States attorneys during an administration, except in rare instances of misconduct or for other significant cause," White said when she testified in February about the Bush firings before much was known about them. Previous midterm removals include those of a Reagan U.S. attorney fired and convicted for leaking confidential information and a Clinton appointee who resigned under pressure after he lost a major drug case and allegedly went to an adult club and bit a topless dancer on the arm. This time, the stories are quite different.
Why should U.S. attorneys be insulated from presidential politics? White quoted from a 1940 speech to U.S. attorneys by Robert Jackson, then attorney general and later Supreme Court justice: "The prosecutor has more control over life, liberty, and reputation than any other person in America. His discretion is tremendous." The power of law enforcement to tarnish reputations, end people's liberty, and ruin lives, in other words, is so great that it has to be exercised judiciously and, above all, nonpolitically. That's one basic element of the rule of law. U.S. attorneys and other Justice Department lawyers have lived by the declaration of evenhandedness carved into the rotunda of the attorney general's office: "The United States wins its point whenever justice is done its citizens in the courts."
A previous low point for the Justice Department came almost two decades ago, during the Reagan years, when the switchboard sometimes answered, "Ninth Street Disillusionment Center" and the graffiti "Resign," "Leave," and "Sleaze" were scrawled on walls near the office of Attorney General Ed Meese. In 1988, six prominent Republicans resigned. Led by William Weld, then-head of DoJ's criminal division and later the governor of Massachusetts, they said they believed that the Justice Department was too impaired to enforce the law. These political appointees left behind a dispirited bureaucracy. But Meese didn't really tamper with the ranks of career attorneys, who don't normally come and go with the president, or with the department's basic apparatus for enforcement, including the U.S. attorneys' offices.
The early Clinton years brought woes of their own, with two tanked nominees for attorney general before the confirmation of Janet Reno, and the widespread perception that friendship and political loyalty were high on the list of qualifications for senior appointment. But the departure of Associate Attorney General Webb Hubbell, Hillary Clinton's former law partner and the department's crony-in-chief, and the arrival of the Whitewater scandal loosened the department's political leash. And again, the troubles in the senior political ranks didn't infect the U.S. attorneys' offices or the career lawyers.
In the Bush years, by contrast, senior political appointees have applied a political litmus test to the work of career lawyers and punished them for failing it. William Yeomans, a lawyer in the department's Civil Rights Division from 1981 until 2005, told part of this story in Legal Affairs, the magazine I edited. Many leading career attorneys—they number in the dozens—have been forced out, removed, or transferred. In a concerted effort by the Bush administration to remake the career staff, Yeomans says, these veterans were replaced by the hirees of political appointees, chosen with no input from the longtime career staff.
Yeomans also recounted the division's retreat from defending traditional civil rights. Of many examples, the most dramatic involve lack of enforcement of the Voting Rights Act because the beneficiaries would likely support Democratic candidates. For Yeomans and others, working in the Bush administration was very different from their experience in previous Republican and Democratic administrations. Most profound was the halting of conversation between political appointees and career lawyers that had guided law enforcement in the division and elsewhere in the department—"government by discussion," former Attorney General Edward Levi called it. In this administration, political appointees no longer want career attorneys even to make recommendations about how a case should proceed, for fear that ignoring their suggestions could make the politicos look bad.
The dismissal of the U.S. attorneys is a more visible example of the same purgelike practices. Three of the fired U.S. attorneys—David Iglesias of New Mexico, Carol Lam of the southern district of California, and John McKay of the western district of Washington—were lauded by the Justice Department before they were fired. Bud Cummins, former U.S. attorney of Arkansas's eastern district, was told that the only reason he was being pushed out was to make way for J. Timothy Griffin, a protégé of Karl Rove and a one-time Republican National Committee staffer known for his skill at opposition research, not his legal acumen. According to an e-mail from Kyle Sampson, the DoJ official who resigned this week over his role in the firings, getting Griffin appointed "was important to Harriet, Karl, etc."—Harriet Miers, then-White House counsel, and Karl Rove, the president's top political adviser. Given Griffin's thin qualifications for the job, the position of U.S. attorney was reduced to nothing more than a patronage perk.
Home-state politicians and White House officials clearly had a hand in other firings. Allen Weh, chairman of the New Mexico Republican Party, told McClatchy newspapers that in 2005, he urged Karl Rove to have Iglesias fired because he failed to indict some Democrats for voter fraud. Iglesias testified that Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson, both Republicans from New Mexico, "leaned on" him for the same reason. In each instance, there was direct and, to Iglesias, sickening political interference. The facts add up to retaliation for a decision not to prosecute, which stabs at the heart of prosecutorial discretion.
As for Lam, she successfully prosecuted and convicted on corruption charges former Republican and San Diego Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Yesterday on the Senate floor, Arlen Specter, the Republican from Pennsylvania, asked whether she was dismissed because she was "about to investigate other people who were politically powerful." And former U.S. Attorney John McKay felt that he was under pressure from the office of Doc Hastings, a Republican congressman from Washington.
Were Iglesias and McKay fired for not indicting enough Democrats? Lam for threatening to bring down too many Republicans? We don't know for sure. But the lesson of some of the firings could be: Woe to the U.S. attorney who didn't enforce the law as political hacks in the Bush administration dictated. Political directives like this flout the tradition of nonpolitical law enforcement that's essential because of the awesome power of prosecutors. The uproar over the firings seems to have taken the administration by surprise, and it's possible they resulted from incompetence as much as cunning. But an administration's use of law enforcement for political ends has rarely seemed more brazen.
Alberto keeps saying he serves at "the pleasure of the president";
ReplyDeleteHowever given the Jeff Gannon, Ted Haggard, Ken Melhman connections this White House had, and the Mark Foley, Matt Sanchez GOP closet cases(and those not out of the closet yet) "Speedy" needs to find a new talking point unless he is secretly trying to tell us something.
Pleasuring George "lips" Bush is not something that should be talked about in public.......
Thinl about it in context of the big picture
ReplyDelete1) Gerrymandering
2) Election Fraud
3) Patriot Act
4) spying on American Citizens to dig up dirt on them
5) Laws making it easier for Bush to declare martial law inserted in the Dark of night.
6) Attorneys who are blindly loyal partisans are purged.
The repugs are after perpetual power......you dont do these things and take the country down this road if that is not your goal............and what do the Democrats do.............oh yeah applaud him as he dismantles the Constitution, destroys our Freedom and Military and leaves our soldiers and veterans to die.
Iraq is our Poland.
ReplyDeleteAnbar is our Warsaw Ghetto.
ReplyDeleteTomcat said "We are expected to believe that Gonzales knew nothing. If he's telling the truth, he should be fired for incompetence. If not, he should be fired for lying, but not before further investigation places the fault for this conspiracy in the lap of the criminal responsible, George W. Bush."
ReplyDeleteDitto............Like usual, I couldnt have said it better buddy!!!!!
Keep up the good work.
Tomcat said "China Returns Fire on US Human Rights Abuses
ReplyDeleteIn its newly released annual report on the status of human rights around the world, the U.S. State Department disparages a long list of nations about their violations of individual freedoms.
The report notes that countries in which power is concentrated in the hands of unaccountable rulers, whether totalitarian or authoritarian, continue to be the world’s most systematic human rights violators. These countries include North Korea, Iran, Burma, Zimbabwe, Cuba, China, Belarus, and Eritrea.
“We are recommitting ourselves to call every government to account that still treats the basic rights of its citizens as options rather than, in President Bush’s words, the non-negotiable demands of human dignity,” said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in releasing the report.
The authoritarian government in China gleefully responded to the U.S. censure of its policies with return fire on the Bush administration’s abysmal record on civil liberties. Things are getting bad when an autocracy chastises a republic for its human rights abuses and the criticism has merit. The Chinese condemned U.S. practices of kidnapping, torture, and indefinite detention without the opportunity for legal challenge. They also pinged the U.S. government for increased spying on American citizens. Of course, these are the same abuses that the U.S. government has criticized the Chinese government of perpetrating. China also cited Martin Sheinin, U.N. special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms, as saying that parts of the U.S. Military Commissions Act violate the Geneva Conventions.
In 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that habeas corpus -- the ancient right of a prisoner to challenge his or her detention -- could not be denied to detainees at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo, Cuba, simply because they were not being held on U.S. territory. Despite this ruling, in late 2006, the Republican Congress passed, at the urging of President Bush, the aforementioned Military Commissions Act, which prohibited federal courts from hearing habeas petitions from prisoners at Guantanamo and elsewhere. The denial of habeas corpus rights for these prisoners -- despite a February 2007 ruling by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the act -- is clearly unconstitutional. The Constitution clearly states that the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, except in times of rebellion or invasion -- neither of which applies in this case. In addition, no exception is made for non-citizens or persons held by the U.S. government outside U.S. territory.
The Chinese criticism has merit. If habeas corpus can be so denied, the U.S. government can kidnap people off the streets anywhere in the world, declare them “enemy combatants,” and hold them secretly and indefinitely without being charged, having access to legal counsel, being able to challenge their detention, and having a trial. In fact, foreigners have been kidnapped, sent to foreign countries for torture, and are now rotting in perpetuity in Guantanamo and other secret prisons around the world. At Guantanamo, some prisoners have already been held for five years without proper due process.Some would say that legal niceties, such as habeas corpus, impede the war on vile “terrorists.” But for the battle against “al Qaeda” to succeed, the right people must be apprehended. The purpose of habeas corpus is to catch mistakes the government might make in detaining the wrong person. A person accused of a heinous terrorist attack might not be guilty, while the actual perpetrator runs free and attacks again. And the government snaring the wrong person is not a rare event -- especially when the U.S. government offered large monetary rewards for terrorism suspects in the poor nation of Afghanistan, motivating people to turn in innocents to get the cash. As a result, a significant number of prisoners at Guantanamo were arrested by mistake and are not terrorists. Thus, suspects of even the most atrocious crimes need a court to review their habeas corpus petitions. The U.S. Congress should pass the bill introduced by Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania that would restore habeas corpus rights for detainees.
The Chinese were also right about President Bush’s flagrant disregard of the law in conducting domestic spying without court approved warrants. Again the Bush administration tried to remove a judicial check on executive branch activities -- a principle at the core of the U.S. Constitution. Under public pressure, the administration pledged to obtain warrants, but may still try to minimize judicial scrutiny.
Similarly, the draconian USAPATRIOT Act, pushed through Congress by the administration during the post-9/11 hysteria, expanded the use of “National Security Letters.” Using these unconstitutional letters, federal law enforcement authorities can obtain telephone, e-mail, credit, and financial records without applying for a court-issued warrant. Even worse, records can be obtained for people who are not even suspected terrorists. FBI field office chiefs can approve acquiring the information from anyone, as long as the data are “relevant” to a terrorism or spy case.The Justice Department’s own Inspector General recently found that the FBI was “seriously misusing” the letters and also attempting to get around even the minimum safeguards against abuse by pleading a dubious “emergency.” What a surprise, a law enforcement bureaucracy stretching even permissive laws to expand its power and abuse the liberty of its citizens. This sounds like something that would happen in . . . well . . . China.
Inserted from Online Journal
For China to respond to US claims of human rights abuses with counter-claims is nothing new. I remember that happening since I was a child. What is new, and for this we can thank G.W. Bush, is for China to be right.
Thanks Mike for what you said earlier.
ReplyDeleteRight now, we don't have much business lecturing any nation on human rights abuses.
ReplyDeleteWhen we get the 4x4 post out of our own eye, then we'll be able to pull the splinters out of our neighbors eye.
We need to get our own house in order, before we go around the neighborhood trying to clean up everyone elses.
ReplyDeleteNo Worf its true You and Tomcat have had some REALLY excellent posts the last two days.
ReplyDeleteThat eating the elephant bite by bite is EXCELLENT thats a keeper!
Gonzales does serve at the pleasure of the President.
ReplyDeleteIt is always Bush's pleasure to ruin peoples lives and Gonzales serves him well.
Patrick Leahy says he will subpeona Karl Rove.
ReplyDeleteThat never worked before, unless they are inviting him up for tea.
Soft as they come.
If you didn't see Jon Stewarts interview tonight with Zbigniew Brzezinski, then go to comedycentral.com and download it tomorrow. Don't miss this interview. Brzezinski is right on the mark.
ReplyDeleteThese fools want to turn our country into exactly that which we claim to despise.
ReplyDeleteBush says the terrorists hate us for our freedom so what does he do...........He destroys our freedoms, liberties and privacy.
Bush claims Iran and Iraq "MIGHT have" attacked us pre-emptively..........so what does he do.........He attacks or tries to attack them pre-emptively.
Bush claims they are lawless animals that would torture our troops.........so what does he do he tortures them.
Bush decrys China for Human rights abuses while gleefully doing the same things.
Do you think the rest of the world views GWB as a threat to peace and a terrorist???????
Gingrich doesn't have to worry about that endorsement.
ReplyDeleteHe still has the love of Falwell and Dobson.
Make believe McCain would love to have that.
If the trolls have any questions, just tell them to watch the press conference today with President Bush in Guatemala.
ReplyDeleteJust tell them to watch him squirm as Kelly O'donnell asks the right questions.
Tell them to shut up, and watch the press conference.
T
Bush's responses, or lack thereof, today, spell it all out.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised Kelly O'Donnell asked anything like that since she always seemed to embrace the Repugs.
ReplyDeleteAnd as you watch him squirm, as he further and further incriminates himself and his administration, remember what worfeus predicted many moons ago.
ReplyDelete2007 is the year, and impeachment is near.
Larry said...
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised Kelly O'Donnell asked anything like that since she always seemed to embrace the Repugs.
Are you thinking of Nora? I never noticed Kelley to be anything other than a serious journalist.
Either way, that was one hell of a question today.
It was brilliantly concieved and flawlessly articulated.
It was a good moment for her I think.
Poor Alberto is sunk when an idiot like Bush is his verbal defender.
ReplyDeleteBush looked like he forgot what Rove told him to say on that question.
Little Alberto didn't do much better in his press briefing.
ReplyDeleteHe talked himself right into a corner.
Did they get ripped or humiliated or just basically look stupid as usual.........how bout a quick and dirty summary!
ReplyDeleteNo Mike.
ReplyDeleteThey sounded guilty.
Bush really seemed stunned. The only problem with your prediction of impeachment Worf, is the spineless group who will have to find the nerve to impeach.
ReplyDeleteI think of all the things that have come to light so far the federal prosecutor scandal could be the straw that breaks the camels back............I think this will bring Gonzalez down.
ReplyDeleteI say Gonzalez resigns this year.
BTW just as a gage of how bad things REALLY are for the repugs........note how the trolls have been hiding for the last week.
ReplyDeleteEVERY time things get REALLY bad like the Foly scandal or when they lost the election they hide till things die down because there is NOTHING they CAN SAY!
I don't know Mike. He is like Condi and Colin Powell. They all want to be in the "in" crowd and he has been Bush's houseboy for years.
ReplyDeleteAnd they basically hung themselves. Bush insisted the firings were not for politcal reasons. Following a Grand Jury investigation, that will prove to be a lie.
ReplyDeleteAs for Seedy Gonzales, he confessed to either complete and utter incompetence in fulfulling the duties of his office, or he, the US Attorney General, just lied on camera, to all the world.
Either way, he's finished.
Bush couldn't even remember anyone's names that he had heard about. He can't even lie well anymore.
ReplyDeleteLarry said...
ReplyDeleteBush really seemed stunned. The only problem with your prediction of impeachment Worf, is the spineless group who will have to find the nerve to impeach.
You're preaching to the choir there Larry.
But I think events, and revelations will outweigh their tiny balls, and impeachment will be demanded by the general population. I see news anchors calling for it openly on their broadcasts. I see a republicans washing their hands of Bush, and the stench of his untidy reign.
It will soon be obvious to all, that impeachment is the only solution, to this mass experiment in totalitarianism gone terribly wrong.
The worthless senate are going to take out another resolution to end the war.
ReplyDeleteThey backed out of the last one because they have no coils.
I hope your right Worf.
In other words, I think Bush will be impeached in SPITE of a weak and spineless democratic congress.
ReplyDeleteI hope you are right. In case my fears are true, then Pelosi and Reid need to make another appearance on camera, in their farewell address.
ReplyDeleteWorf said "And they basically hung themselves. Bush insisted the firings were not for politcal reasons. Following a Grand Jury investigation, that will prove to be a lie.
ReplyDeleteAs for Seedy Gonzales, he confessed to either complete and utter incompetence in fulfulling the duties of his office, or he, the US Attorney General, just lied on camera, to all the world.
Either way, he's finished."
Tomcat and I basically said the same thing earlier today............I think Gonzalez is finished!!!
He either looks completely incompetent or like a liar and criminal.
Well thats what he said Mike. He tried to squirm out of it by saying he has over 100,000 employees in the Justice Dept so he doesn't know what they're all up to (in other words no accountability) but what he failed to mention is that the person in question was HIS CHEIF OF STAFF.
ReplyDelete:|
Boggles the mind.
Anyway that means he either is lying, or he doesn't have a damn clue about what is going on in his name, by his own cheif of staff, who's already taken the first fall.
Next fall's his.
The sucker is all the above and more but he is a clinger. He like Condi, have no way to make it in life unless they leach on some pathetic elitist who needs someone to tell him hourly, how great he is.
ReplyDeleteIt was clear to me today Kelly Odonnell knew what she was doing today.
ReplyDeleteShe took him out for a ride, and let him drop himself off.
They will be moving her to the back row in press briefings like they did Helen Thomas.
ReplyDeleteNot with all the spotlight on them.
ReplyDeleteRight about now all they're thinking about is staying out of jail.
"JUSTICE DEPARTMENT"....................BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteIsnt it Ironic that its still called the "Justice Department" with these thugs and cronnies running it?
Well, they're still good people there. We just need to get t hem some decent leaders.
ReplyDeleteMike said:
ReplyDeleteMike said...
These fools want to turn our country into exactly that which we claim to despise.
Bush says the terrorists hate us for our freedom so what does he do...........He destroys our freedoms, liberties and privacy.
Bush claims Iran and Iraq "MIGHT have" attacked us pre-emptively..........so what does he do.........He attacks or tries to attack them pre-emptively.
Bush claims they are lawless animals that would torture our troops.........so what does he do he tortures them.
Bush decrys China for Human rights abuses while gleefully doing the same things.
Do you think the rest of the world views GWB as a threat to peace and a terrorist???????
INCREDIBLE POST MIKE!
Clif, is that suicide breaking news, right now? This is unbelievable, so tragic, so sad.
ReplyDeleteWorf, Clif, Mike, Larry, Carl, Tomcat -- all your posts are riveting.
BUT WHAT THE DID NORA OR KELLY O'DONNELL SAY? I'm dying to know.
No Lydia, the suicide was revealed in 2005, but new relevations connect both Gen Petraeus and Gen Fil with it, and Both Generals have been sent back to Iraq to command, Gen Fil Baghdad, and Gen Petraeus all of Iraq.
ReplyDeleteWhich raises the question what was the Col, so distraught about, and why did he single out the two generals?
I dont know that much about Petraeus, but he seems like a shill to me..........Bush fired all the generals who didnt say what he wanted to hear and hired a lap dog/yes man that will spew all the repug talking points and buy them time!
ReplyDeleteBaghdad:
ReplyDeleteEarly today bombs killed six and wounded dozens as the war in Iraq continues.
Another great day for Bush.
An FBI counterterror unit has in its possesion Brian Anderson who with business partner Abdul Tawala Ibn Alishtari, who regularly attend GOP campaign events to raise money.
ReplyDeleteWhat is now known is these two have been indicted for raising funds to finance terrorist camps in Afganistan.
Alishtari was even placed on the GOP congressional committee's Business Advisory Council.
The Republican Motto: We embrace all terrorist!
Dozens in GOP turn against Bush's No Child Left Behind Act.
ReplyDeleteMore than 50 House and Senate members will introduce legislation today to undercut Bush's No Child Left Behind Act.
The legislation will allow states to opt out of testing mandates.
Larry its funny isnt it how the repugs "CLAIMED" Democrats were in league with terrorists and supported them, and the terrorists wanted the Democrats to be elected ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,BUT Alishtari proves the exact opposite, I posted about this around 2 weeks ago.
ReplyDeleteAlishtari was financing BOTH terrorist training camps and Repug Relection Campaigns........Alishtarti also tried to defraud investors and was named a "LIFETIME" "Inner Circle Member" to the NRCC's :White House Business Advisory Committee"
So The Repugs and terrorists were not ONLY in league and supporting each other but the Bush administration and NRCC were being ADVISED by know terrorists.
Larry, ask ANY teacher, No Child Left Behind is one of their biggest frustrations it causes students and teachers to focus on merely passsing tests rather than actually learning and teaching.......It causes more students to actually be left behind than anything other than possibly repug under funding for education.
ReplyDeleteIts an ignorant blight on the education system proposed by an ignorant man.
Lydia Cornell said...
ReplyDeleteBUT WHAT THE DID NORA OR KELLY O'DONNELL SAY? I'm dying to know.
Lydia, you misspelled "Noron" O'Donnell...
Larry, Mike,
ReplyDeleteNCLB *might* have stood a chance of helping kids learn better, IF Bush had funded it fully like he promised to. The jury's still out on that.
But rather than raise taxes on his precious wealthy "base" he cut funding across the board for education, including NCLB, and left millions of kids stranded between bad test scores and underfunded schools.
It's not going to be pretty.
Mike said...
ReplyDeleteSorry Carl, but the Ides of March is March 15.
When I wrote that, it was after midnight in Rome.
That's my story and I'm sticking with it!
I just posted the Petraeus article that Clif brought to my attention.
ReplyDeleteThis is new evidence from the Freedom of Information Act.
I believe Col. Westhusing died to bring attention to the human rights abuses and corruption going on in Iraq by our hand -- and WE MUST GET THIS STORY OUT THERE SO HE DIDN'T DIE IN VAIN.
Mike, you Worf and I do seem to end up in the same place, don't we? Feel free to clip from my blog anytime.
ReplyDelete