Silence Is Golden

Remember when the GOP and Republican talking heads went apeshit when the Obama administration decided to try Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, AKA "The Underwear Bomber" in federal civilian court? Remember when Senate Minority Leader Mitch "The Jowel" McConnell said President Obama was acting “as if [Abdulmutallab] had robbed a convenience store”?

There was a time when the circumstances surrounding Abdulmutallab’s arrest were part of a lengthy national debate about the best way to handle terrorism cases. There were letters, television appearances and press releases calling on the Obama administration to reverse its position and send Abdulmutallab into the military tribunal system due to perceived weaknesses in the civilian court system.

Now that he’s locked up for life, it’s pretty much radio silence. A search for press releases mentioning Abdulmutallab from members of Congress this week turns up just one, from Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), who said the sentence ‘demonstrations that our federal court system is fully capable of bringing terrorist to justice.”

Yeah, they trusted our judicial system so much, they insisted he be sent to a military tribunal. Why do Republicans hate America and its justice system?



*Note: I know Joe Lieberman also insisted on a military tribunal for Abdulmutallab too, but really, let's not delude ourselves for a second that he was ever really a Democrat or even an Independent.

Gay Marriage

POSTED BY JHW22

This just in...

The Obama Justice Department has decided that part of the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and will not defend it in court.

Woo hoo!

Two Days Left? Why Follow The Law Now?

Given the fact that this administration has abused their power and broken laws at will, it comes as no surprise that after claiming they've found the supposedly millions of missing e-mails thought lost, they still have no intention of preserving them for archival purposes. Why preserve something that can find you culpable of crimes?

The Bush administration is aggressively pushing back against a federal court order instructing the most important offices in the White House to preserve all of their e-mail.
In court papers late Friday, the administration argued that a federal court has no authority to impose such a requirement on the offices of President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and the National Security Council.
...The issue arose Wednesday after U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy directed the White House to issue a notice to all employees to surrender any e-mails from March 2003 to October 2005.
Justice Department lawyers argued that the order applied only to White House offices subject to the Federal Records Act, prompting a quick response from U.S. Magistrate Judge John Facciola, who is working with Kennedy on the case. Facciola said that all White House offices must be searched for e-mail.

Fucking criminals to the end.

(H/T C&L)

More Obstruction? Lindsay Graham and the GOP

After Attorney General Michael Mukasey refused congressional demands for information Friday, the Justice Department filed late-night court documents urging a federal judge not to begin his own inquiry.
...Congressional inquiries and criminal investigations frequently overlap and it is not uncommon for the Justice Department to ask lawmakers to ease off. The request for the court to stand down is more unusual. Judges take seriously even the suggestion that evidence was destroyed, but they also are reluctant to wade into political debates.

Kennedy ordered the administration in June 2005 to safeguard "all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse of detainees now at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay."
Five months later, the CIA destroyed the interrogation videos, which involved suspected terrorists Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.

...[Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey S.] Bucholtz argued that the tapes were not covered by Kennedy's court order because Zubaydah and al-Nashiri were not at the Guantanamo military prison in Cuba. The men were being held overseas in a network of secret CIA prisons. By the time President Bush acknowledged the existence of those prisons and the prisoners were transferred to Guantanamo, the tapes had been destroyed.

...Even if Kennedy agrees that the government did not violate his order, he still could schedule a hearing. He could raise questions about obstruction or spoliation, a legal term for the destruction of evidence in "pending or reasonably foreseeable litigation."

Speaking of obstruction, Senator Lindsay Graham is becoming the new Arlen Specter. The House passed a bill that bans waterboarding yesterday and Graham blocked it from being voted upon in the Senate. So even though he believes waterboarding violates the Geneva Convention ("I don’t think you have to have a lot of knowledge about the law to understand this technique violates Geneva Convention common article three, the War Crimes statutes...") and plainly was pissed off at Brigadier General Hartmann during a Senate Judiciary Commitee hearing on Guantanamo detainees, he still protects the Worst President Ever and prevents Bush from having to veto a bill banning waterboarding.

Just like Specter, Graham is all talk, talk, talk and then continues to tow the party line. Heckuva job, Grahamy.

Ex-CIA Agent: White House Authorized Torture

They're finally starting to revolt.

Former CIA agent John Kiriakou, who witnessed the waterboarding of top al-Qaida operative Abu Zubaida, has said that the practice is indeed torture and “a policy made at the White House, with concurrence from the National Security Council and the Justice Department.” Kiriakou added during an interview with NBC that the destruction of video evidence of the technique was “a terrible mistake.”

How many more agents and former agents are going to come out of the woodwork? Perhaps this is a little payback for blaming the intelligence agencies for the failed Iraq occupation and for the outing of Valerie Plame.

No Need To Worry About Voter Disenfranchisement

...Minorities Die Young Anyway

What does it say about the Bush Department of Justice when its top ranking voting rights official says photo ID requirements do not disproportionately disenfranchise elderly minority voters because they die first?

NY TIMES: In a speech to a Latino group earlier this month in Los Angeles, Mr. Tanner said that a disproportionate share of elderly minority voters did not have identification, but added that it was not a widespread problem because of their life expectancy.

“Creating problems for elderly persons just is not good under any circumstance,” Mr. Tanner told the National Latino Congreso... “Of course, that also ties into the racial aspect because our society is such that minorities don’t become elderly the way white people do. They die first.”

Nah, he couldn't have said that... could he?

What a moron. Click here to send a letter demanding his ouster through Barack Obama's website.

Reaction to Gonzo's Resignation

Here's some video I put together of the reaction and speculation that arose from the Alberto Gonzales resignation, including Hillary Clinton at the Livestrong Presidential Cancer Forum, CNN Senior Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin and CNN Chief National Correspondent John King.

Executive Orders to the Nth Degree

This past week, George W. Bush made it absolutely clear what he thinks of the US Constitution and the "separate but equal" branches of government.

As reported in the Washington Post, Bush administration officials unveiled a bold new assertion of executive authority yesterday [July 19, 2007] in the dispute over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, saying that the Justice Department will never be allowed to pursue contempt charges initiated by Congress against White House officials once the president has invoked executive privilege.

Uh, excuse me? Well I guess I didn't realize the Justice Department worked for the White House... oh wait, IT DOESN'T. But Gonzo does.

...Mark J. Rozell, a professor of public policy at George Mason University who has written a book on executive-privilege issues, called the administration's stance "astonishing."
"That's a breathtakingly broad view of the president's role in this system of separation of powers," Rozell said. "What this statement is saying is the president's claim of executive privilege trumps all."

This comes on the heels of the latest executive orders, which state that the government can seize your assets and block "property of certain persons who threaten stabilization efforts in Iraq" without prior notice.

What does that mean? And who gets to decide what the definition of "threatening stabilization efforts" is? Is it protest? Does it mean dissent of White House policies? Can Hillary Clinton's or Barack Obama's assets be seized for vocalizing anti-Iraq war sentiments while they campaign? And the topper is that anyone who attempts to aid someone who is in this situation can have their assets frozen as well. So if I am deemed a threat to stabilization efforts in Iraq due to this blog, I can have my assets frozen. If my friend lends me money to pay my mortgage so I don't default on my loan, he can have his assets seized as well.

In his latest speech on July 24th in South Carolina, W. mentions "Osama bin Laden" 23 times and "terror" or "terrorists" 39 times in a twenty-nine minute speech. This from a man who admitted he didn't "spend that much time on [bin Laden]" only 6 months after the 9/11 attack. It seems the only time he mentions Osama bin Laden is at a local Bush supporter rally to further his ill-fated ideological cause. Bin Laden is not important to W. unless his name can be used to frighten the public at hand.

Bush's Distortions, Delusions and Distractions

BUSH: “The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq,” he said, “were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th, and that’s why what happens in Iraq matters to the security here at home.”

Here's my assessment on that quote: BULLSHIT.

The Al-Qaeda fear card is coming up more and more frequently as Bush gets further away from reality and the administration sits in their bunker trying to figure out how to salvage what little left there is to their pathetic term in office. The more they realize that the GOP will probably get a "whoopin'" again in 2008, the more they use fear and the threat of terror to try to justify their debacle in Iraq.

As Bob Woodward reports, even CIA Director Michael V. Hayden catalogued what he saw as the main sources of violence [for the Iraq Study Group] in this order: the insurgency, sectarian strife, criminality, general anarchy and, lastly, al-Qaeda. Though Hayden had listed al-Qaeda as the fifth most pressing threat in Iraq, Bush regularly lists al-Qaeda first.

Even "general anarchy" is ahead of al-Qaeda in his assessment of the situation. But the more trouble the administration gets into, the more they shout "al-Qaeda". Just this week, Harriet Meirs, on advice from the White House, disregarded a subpoena from the Senate Judiciary Committee and decided not to show up. ...AL-QAEDA!!!

"I can't fathom a private citizen getting a subpoena to come before this body and not showing up," said Rep. Stephen I. Cohen, a Tennessee Democrat. "What we've got here is an empty chair. I mean, that is as contemptuous as anybody can be of the government, of the process, of the country."

But will she be charged with contempt of Congress and arrested like any other "private citizen"? I'm guessing the answer is a big, fat NO. ... AL-QAEDA!!!

At least Sara M. Taylor, the former White House Political Director showed up in person to spit in the face of the committee: "I have a very clear letter from Mr. Fielding," Taylor began at 10:40 a.m., pointing to the letter from White House Counsel Fred Fielding that has "directed" Taylor not to testify about internal deliberations and external communications while she worked in the West Wing.

She finally did start answering some questions after she was reminded by Chairman Senator Leahy what sort of questions she could and couldn't answer. And her answers proved that either she is one of the "loyal Bushies" that Kyle Sampson categorized, or that her mind is just as full of holes as Alberto Gonzales'.

Speaking of Gonzales, Dahlia Lithwick from Slate.com reports, "In April 2005, Gonzales testified before the Senate that "there has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse" as a consequence of expanded FBI powers under the Patriot Act. We now learn that at the time, he was in possession of at least six FBI reports detailing unlawful surveillance, searches, and improper use of national security letters. It's tempting to write off Gonzales' failure to admit to these numerous abuses as yet another punch line. "Ooopsy. Lied again." Heh heh. Shrug. But at least grant that Gonzales' buffoonery serves a larger Bush administration purpose. His dereliction of duty takes our minds off the real story: the extent of the damage he and Bush have done to the Justice Department in a few short years.

...It's difficult to ascertain the precise moment in the Bush administration in which confessing not to have been doing one's job at all became the best defense against the claim that one did one's job badly. But given the choice between admitting to perjury or incompetence, you can bet that Gonzales will easily, indeed gleefully, cop to the latter."

It just doesn't stop... AL-QAEDA!!!