About Those Memos

Is OPR Report the Key?

This story from the Future of Freedom Foundation's Andy Worthington (h/t Mike's Blog Roundup) has some interesting facts about the torture memos affair.

Some people have been saying that a full investigation won't and shouldn't get underway until the release of a report by the DoJ's Office of Professional Responsibility into actions taken by the Office of Legal Counsel, another branch of DoJ, the latter having much closer ties with the White House. OPR has been investigating OLC for FOUR YEARS now.

[T]he Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), ... was charged with looking at whether the legal advice in the crucial interrogation memos “was consistent with the professional standards that apply to Department of Justice attorneys.”

According to Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff, who broke the story, a draft of the report, submitted in the final weeks of the Bush administration, caused anxiety among former Bush administration officials, because “OPR investigators focused on whether the memo’s authors deliberately slanted their legal advice to provide the White House with the conclusions it wanted.” A former Bush lawyer, speaking anonymously, added that he “was stunned to discover how much material the investigators had gathered, including internal e-mails and multiple drafts that allowed OPR to reconstruct how the memos were crafted.”

That's news to me, and a significant positive for those who wish to see justice done on this issue. We already know that these memos were complete fabrications by any legal standards; created to provide an impression of legality that was utterly without substance. Chances are very good that the internal e-mails and multiple drafts will show that the various players - Bybee, Yoo, Bradbury, Gonzales, etc. - were not just bad lawyers doing sloppy work, but criminals entering into a conspiracy against the constitution and rule of law. Another repercussion if this is found to be the case -- the attorney-client privilege goes out the window. But even more significantly,

The OLC, as the New York Times explained in September 2007, holds a uniquely influential position, as it “interprets all laws that bear on the powers of the executive branch. The opinions of the head of the office are binding, except on the rare occasions when they are reversed by the attorney general or the president.” The legal opinions were, therefore, regarded as a “golden shield” by the administration, although, as lawyer Peter Weiss noted after I last wrote about the Bush administration’s war crimes, “it cannot be binding if it violates the constitution, or a jus cogens prohibition of international law, e.g. torture, or, perhaps, if it was made to order for the executive, as you demonstrate it was.”

So, such a finding would not only put exoneration for the memos' authors well out of reach, it would nullify any protection that those documents extend to any of the torturers themselves. Note that I'm speaking in legal, not political terms. Political mechanisms for protecting the guilty seem to be both numerous and robust. Even so, the anonymous former Bush lawyer quoted above who was "stunned to discover" the details at OPR's disposal must be filling his Fruit of the Looms. A particular sticky point hinges on the actions of Jack Goldsmith.

...Jack Goldsmith ... took over from Bybee as the head of the OLC in October 2003. A supposedly “safe pair of hands,” who, with Yoo, was regarded as “a leading proponent of the view that international standards of human rights should not apply in cases before U.S. courts,” Goldsmith in fact turned out to be a nightmare for the administration, as he withdrew four pieces of legal advice — including the “torture memo” and a March 2003 memo approving the more general use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” — because he regarded them as “tendentious, overly broad and legally flawed.”

As Goldsmith explained in September 2007 to Jeffrey Rosen of the New York Times, he concluded that the “torture memo” contained advice that “defined torture far too narrowly,” and also took exception to the memo’s claim that “any effort by Congress to regulate the interrogation of battlefield combatants would violate the Constitution's sole vesting of the commander in chief authority in the president,” explaining that he believed that “this extreme conclusion” would “call into question the constitutionality of federal laws that limit interrogation, like the War Crimes Act of 1996, which prohibits grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which prohibits cruelty and maltreatment.” He added that he “found the tone of both opinions ‘tendentious’ rather than cautious and feared that they might be interpreted as an attempt to immunize government officials for genuinely bad acts.”

When it came to withdrawing the “torture memo,” Goldsmith was acutely aware that it would anger the administration, because it “provided the legal foundation for the CIA’s interrogation program,” and, as Rosen described it,

He made a strategic decision: on the same day that he withdrew the opinion, he submitted his resignation, effectively forcing the administration to choose between accepting his decision and letting him leave quietly, or rejecting it and turning his resignation into a big news story. ”If the story had come out that the U.S. government decided to stick by the controversial opinions that led the head of the Office of Legal Counsel to resign, that would have looked bad,” Goldsmith told me. ”The timing was designed to ensure that the decision stuck.

Given the time line there should be no-one whose undies are more stained than those of the OLC’s Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Steven G. Bradbury. Yoo and Bybee might argue, however lamely, that they were just mistaken in their interpretation of the law, but Bradbury's three memos of May 2005 (available as PDFs here, here and here) came after Goldsmith had called bullshit on the earlier arguments. There seem no legal defenses left for Bradbury, unless he can demonstrate himself to have been clinically insane at the time. Then again, the APA might add Republicanism to its list of mental defects in the next DSM IV.

As I noted above, as dire as things get for these potential defendants in pure legal terms, there is still a chance that political forces wishing to just move on will prevail. As Worthington notes,

I maintain, as I last stressed a month ago, that the release of the OPR report is of critical importance (especially in light of recent reports that it has been rewritten, or is being rewritten, to reach a less stark conclusion of wrongdoing), as it seems clear that it is the key to securing concrete proof of the involvement of Dick Cheney, David Addington and Alberto Gonzales in the creation of the torture memos.

If true, that sucks. And what sucks worse is the way that the Lamestream Media has bent over backwards to portray the entire torture program in very Cheney-esque terms, as though it were 'a dunk in the water' being talked about here. Something you can do wearing a suit and tie, like watering the plant next to your desk in the office. (see illustration, top)

Glenn Greenwald has of course been meticulously chronicling the media's wave of propaganda in defense of the indefensible here, here, here, here, here and here. He's also done a post on the complicity of the Democrats here. So don't hold your breath waiting for justice - if you do you may end up feeling like a waterboarding victim yourself.

TAGS: Waterboarding, Torture Memos, Jay Bybee
Steven Bradbury, John Yoo, David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, Dick Cheney and the usual cast of clowns.

Gone Zo But Not Forgotten

Former A.G. A. G. Back In The Headlines

It's been a long time since we've heard about former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The little worm probably thought he wriggled off the various hooks he'd impaled himself on in service to his idol Führer President George W. Bush. Think again. From The Atlantic (via Crooks and Liars):

In March 2004, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales made a now-famous late-night visit to the hospital room of Attorney General John Ashcroft, seeking to get Ashcroft to sign a certification stating that the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program was legal. According to people familiar with statements recently made by Gonzales to federal investigators, Gonzales is now saying that George Bush personally directed him to make that hospital visit.

This incident is one of the worst examples of abuse of power in an administration rife with - indeed characterized by - abuse of power. We blogged about this dramatic story back in May of 2007 when the testimony of James Comey revealed the incident in front of a Senate Judiciary Committee. We lamented a day later that it had been virtually ignored by the Lamestream Media (abbreviated LaMe) - in stark defiance of the journalistic rule, "if it bleeds, it leads."

My opinion then, to which I still adhere, was that if the American public knew what went on in John Ashcroft's hospital room it would have led to Bush and Cheney's being lynched impeached. So I think one correction needs to be made to Murray Waas's otherwise excellent article about these new developments. The 'now-famous' visit to Ashcroft's hotel room is nothing of the sort. I would bet that it's only famous to the denizens of Greater Left BlogSylvania, because a) the LaMe have kept schtum about it, so 70% of the public have never heard the story and b) the complicit House and Senate chose not to make an issue of this political dynamite, that could well have put Bush, Cheney, and Gonzo in the dock defending against treason charges.

For a more thorough understanding of the issues surrounding this incident I urge you to read the entire Waas article and/or my own post from May of last year (links will open in new windows.) There are two new stories here, the first the revelation above, from Gonzo's own lips, that George Bush personally directed him to make that hospital visit. That's big. There's been speculation about this, Gonzo testified that he was acting 'on the authority of the White House' but until now that left the possibility open that he was under Cheney's direction. (TPM Muckraker has archive YouTube footage of Gonzo's testimony that goes to this issue.) This new revelation, if true, puts Dubya's skinny neck right on the chopping block. The deliberate and underhanded effort to subvert the Constitution and the rule of law in a naked grab for power is undeniable.

I just have to insert a reminder here. When this hospital room incident happened, Gonzales was still White House Counsel, John Ashcroft was the titular Attorney General but was not actively carrying out the duties of that office, and James Comey was the acting Attorney General. It's important to know that to understand the level of impropriety of Gone-Zo's actions.

The second aspect of the story that's new is the information "that in another instance the President asked [Gonzales] to fabricate fictitious notes." Parts of that story appear in the Murray Waas article linked above. Waas has a separate article here about the fabricated notes aspect of the story. This one puts Gone-z0's neck on the block, and I have to comment that it is simply shocking to see how compliant AGAG is with the most outrageous requests from his president.

President Bush reauthorized the surveillance program on March 11, 2004, one day after the hospitalized Attorney General John Ashcroft refused to sign a certification saying that the program was legal and could therefore continue.

In reauthorizing the surveillance program over the objections of his own Justice Department, President Bush later claimed to have relied on notes made by Gonzales about a meeting that had taken place the day before (March 10), in which Gonzales and Vice President Cheney had met with eight congressional leaders—also known as the “Gang of Eight”—who receive briefings about covert intelligence programs. According to Gonzales’s notes, the congressional leaders had said in the meeting that they wanted the surveillance program to continue despite the attorney general’s refusal to certify that it was legal.

But four of the congressional leaders present at the meeting say that’s not true; they never encouraged the White House to sidestep the objections of the attorney general and continue the program without his approval.

Investigators are skeptical of the notes because Gonzales did not write them until days after the meeting with the congressional leaders, and he wrote them after both Bush and Gonzales had together signed a reauthorization of the surveillance program.

Gonzales, who was White House counsel at the time he met with the congressional leaders, has told investigators working for the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General that President Bush personally directed him to write the notes so that he could “memorialize” what the legislators had told him, according to a report made public by the Inspector General’s Office on September 2 and sources close to the investigation.

The timing of when Bush directed Gonzales to write the notes is important: investigators say the fact that they were written after both the meeting and the reauthorization of the program might indicate that they were written in order to provide an after-the-fact justification for the signing of the reauthorization—and that that timing might have given Gonzales a motive to lie in the notes.

For the sake of clarity and brevity I'll try to sketch this out in bullet-point form.

• The Bush/Cheney crime syndicate wanted desperately to be able to wiretap whomever they wanted to, whenever they wanted to, without oversight.
  
• They knew damn well that this was illegal, as the FISA statutes had made this particular insult on the Fourth Amendment a FELONY - specifically emphasizing that the President himself was not only not exempt from the law, but after Nixon's transgressions was the very target of the law
• The Department of Justice seems to have initially certified the surveillance program on good faith, but significantly had done so without the White House really having disclosed what it was they were signing off on.
• When the DoJ got details (probably not full details) of what Bush/Cheney were actually doing with the initial authorization, they declared the program to be illegal, and vehemently declared that the certification would not be renewed.
• By the time the initial certification was to expire, Attorney General John Ashcroft lay in Intensive Care in the hospital, was recovering from surgery and under heavy sedation.
• Alberto Gonzales and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card were dispatched to Ashcroft's hospital room with a manila envelope containing the renewal of the DoJ certification that the surveillance program was legal.
• James Comey had already refused to sign this document. Ashcroft, Comey and other chief officials at DoJ as well as Robert Mueller, director of the FBI had all threatened to resign if the illegal wiretapping program continued.
• The President personally phoned ahead to advise Ashcroft's wife that Gonzales and Card were on their way. This led Ashcrofts Chief of Staff to call Comey and Mueller to advise them of what was about to go down.
• Comey sped to the scene to prevent Ashcroft from being pressured while he was in no condition to defy a two-on-one play to subvert justice. Mueller called the FBI agents assigned to guard Ashcroft and order that under no circumstances was Comey to be removed from the room.
• Ashcroft, to his credit, refused to be steamrolled, telling Gonzales and Card, "I'm not even the Attorney General right now, he (Comey) is." Thus the illegal attempt to obtain the illegal certification of an illegal program was thwarted.
• Phase Two begins. Having failed to subvert the Justice Department, the White House turned their efforts to the Legislative Branch. Gonzales and Dick Cheney met later the same day (Mar. 10, 2004.) with the so-called Gang of Eight.
  
• The next day President Bush re-authorized the surveillance program HIMSELF!! through an executive order - exerting a dictatorial power that he did NOT have under any interpretation of the Constitution of the United States of America.
  
• At some point AFTER this bogus 'reauthorization' Gonzales cobbles up notes giving a false account of the meeting with the Gang of Eight - an account wherein the Gang of Eight said they wanted the surveillance program to continue.
• The Congressmen who attended the meeting said that they did NOT express such desire.

In the shortest summation I can distill this to - the President of the United States committed fraud in order to usurp the powers of both the Judicial and Legislative branches, in order to commit a large number of serious felonies. More alarming, nobody tried to stop him in the face of these patent High Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Glenn Greenwald discussed these related stories with Murray Waas in Friday's Salon Radio segment. If this isn't Shock and Awe directed against the very foundations of the country I don't know what would be.

---

Geez Louise. Could it get any worse for the beleaguered Gonzales? It appears so. TPM Muckraker reports that the DoJ is going to release a report on Monday about the Prosecutors' Purge scandal. In that short report TPM recalls a predicition made by David Iglesias, who was one of the US Attorney's dismissed under questionable circumstances:

I expect them to conclude that there is sufficient evidence to show that former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and former Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty committed perjury in their statements before Congressional committees and investigators.

Seems like Alberto's got a whole lot of 'splainin' to do.

TAGS: Alberto Gonzales, Illegal Wiretaps, Usurpation of Power
James Comey and the Curious Case of the Hospital Visit

The Sergeant Schultz Defense

This post started out as a comment in response to this item at TPM Muckraker:

Gonzales Was Oblivious To Politicization At DOJ: IG

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales knew essentially nothing about the partisan culture and violations of federal law that were routine at the agency under his watch.

That's what we heard today from Glenn Fine, the Department of Justice Inspector General.

Fine told lawmakers on Capitol Hill today that his investigators interviewed Gonzales for their report, which found numerous senior officials were illegally using partisan considerations when hiring some prosecutors and judges.

Accompanying video

One might observe that Gonzales is like that Hogan's Heroes character, Sergeant Schultz, "I see nothing. Nu-u-u-thing!"

But that would be unfairly letting Gone-z0 off the hook. The fact of the matter is he expanded Goodlings hire/fire powers dramatically through an 'unpublished' (read 'secret') memo. From Wikipedia:

Goodling's authority over hiring expanded significantly in March 2006, when Gonzales signed an unpublished order delegating to Goodling and Kyle Sampson, his then chief of staff, the power to appoint or dismiss all department political appointees besides United States attorneys (who are appointed by the President). The delegation included authority over interim United States attorneys (who are appointed by the Attorney General) and heads of the divisions that handle civil rights, public corruption, environmental crimes and other matters.

Also, from the same Wiki article:
" Goodling worked alongside Tim Griffin as an opposition researcher for the Republican National Committee during the 2000 presidential campaign. " - that's as partisan a position possible even for somebody who's job is completely in the party, not the government.

Finally, Goodling's title at the time was White House Liaison. Even putting aside the issue of partisanship, Gonzales should have had an affirmative duty to maintain the independence of the Department of Justice. There was an impropriety in just giving that much power to someone with close ties to the administration. No way can you say that Gonzales, with his own ties to George W. Bush, didn't know exactly what he was doing.

And lest we forget, when Alberto Gonzales testified about the US Attorneys' Purge last April, he claimed to have amnesia no less than 74 times. And that was on just one day of testimony. Let's have Alternet refresh our memories:

When asked about the decision to fire eight federal prosecutors, Gonzales insisted he wasn't involved, then after e-mails about meetings he attended were released, okay, maybe he was involved. But just a little. Microscopically. An eensy teensy teeny wee bit of a tad. He did admit to making the decision to fire the US Attorneys but couldn't remember when he made the decision. Seems to be a perennial theme with this administration. "Had absolutely nothing to do with it. Oh, you have evidence? Nope. Sorry. Can't remember. Its all a blur."

At the hearing, Senators accused Bush's torture champion of being dishonest, deceitful, incompetent, evasive, inept, underhanded, misleading, smelling like rancid olive loaf and looking like he's wearing his father's burial suit. Not to mention scaring small children with a high squeaky voice that over broadcast airwaves has been known to activate smoke alarms, lawn sprinklers and TIVO recordings of Gladiator movies. And those were the Republicans.

The Sgt. Schultz defense just doesn't cut it here. That one of the most loyal of Bush loyalists gave unprecedented power to another Bush loyalist - who wasn't even qualified for the position she occupied - and didn't know exactly what was going to happen, simply strains all credibility. One really has to question how capable an Inspector General Glenn Fine is. He's sure doing a heckuva job.

TAGS: Alberto Gonzales, Monica Goodling, Loyal Bushies, Department of Injustice

Goodling Crossed the Line

From the New York Times:

Senior aides to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales broke the law by using politics to guide their hiring decisions for a wide range of important department positions, slowing the hiring process at critical times and damaging the department’s credibility and independence, an internal report concluded Monday.

The report, prepared by the Justice Department’s inspector general and its internal ethics office, singles out for particular criticism Monica Goodling, a young lawyer from the Republican National Committee who rose quickly through the ranks of the department to become a top aide to Mr. Gonzales.

Ms. Goodling, who testified before Congress in May 2007 at the height of the scandal over the firings of nine United States attorneys, introduced politics into the hiring process in a systematic way that constituted illegal misconduct, the report found.

(Underlining is mine.) So, the question is, if Ms. Goodling broke the law, if her behaviour constituted illegal misconduct, WHY HAS SHE NOT BEEN CHARGED?

OK, that question was merely rhetorical. We all know that the reason Goodling has not been charged is the same reason for which she was hired. The Department of Justice, who would be responsible for laying those charges is full of partisan hacks hired through an illegal process of politicization - a massive program of obstruction of justice. The Republican-fascist bastards, who committed perjury when they took their oaths of office, are interpreting the law of IOKIYAR as being paramount and superceding all the real laws.

Goodling was hired by the Queen Bee of Partisan Corruption, Mary Beth Buchanan, after proving her partisan fanaticism working as an opposition researcher under Tim Griffin. Opposition research is of course a purely political function, and as partisan as you can get. Buchanan had to have been fully aware that Goodling was the most loyal of Loyal Bushies possible.

Rather than provide supervision of her activities, Alberto Gonzales expanded her authority (and that of Deputy AG Kyle Samson) by way of an 'unpublished' memo in March 2006, to include "the power to appoint or dismiss all department political appointees besides United States attorneys (who are appointed by the President). The delegation included authority over interim United States attorneys (who are appointed by the Attorney General) and heads of the divisions that handle civil rights, public corruption, environmental crimes and other matters." (see Wikipedia for Goodling's career details.) And what a coincidence! "Reportedly, Goodling "took a leading role" in Bud Cummins's dismissal." Cummings was replaced in that position by her old opposition research boss, Tim Griffin.

When interviewed by the inspector general, Mr. Gonzales said he was not aware that Ms. Goodling and other aides were using political criteria in their decisions for career positions. Mr. Gonzales resigned last summer in the face of mounting accusations from congressional Democrats that politics had corrupted the department.

His successor, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, said in a statement Monday after the report’s release that he was disturbed by their findings that improper political considerations were used in hiring decisions relating to some career employees.

So I guess we're expected to believe that two (three really, because John Ashcroft was not much better) successive Attorneys General could have this kind of illegal activity going on right under their noses and not even know about it. How convenient!

So what can we expect to see happen? Will Mukasey press charges against Goodling, along with Esther McDonald and Michael Elston, who were named in an earlier IG report as having also crossed the line? Not bloody likely. Will those hired illegally be let go and replaced by personnel who can redress the imbalance and blatant cronyism that these loyal Bushies have suffused into the DoJ? I doubt it. Will Congress exercise its authority and mount a full investigation into the department to at least expose the full extent of the corruption? Yeah, right - when Hell freezes over.

These hirees will simply continue on in their positions like the Bush SCOTUS appointments, like hundreds of circuit judges and thousands of little cogs in the wheel, corrupting everything they touch until the country is well and truly the police state that they were all hired to enable. I can almost smell the jackboot polish now.

TAGS: Monica Goodling, Department of Injustice, Corruption, USAttorneys Scandal

Did Rove and Gonzo Flee Siegelman Backlash?

Why did Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzalez choose now to get out of Dodge?

I have long believed that once the purged U.S. Attorneys, Carol Lam in particular, were able to get their stories out to the media the clear obstruction of justice by Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales would lead to their ouster, possibly their arrest. Lam's story in particular looks like it goes right into Dick Cheney's bank account.

But could they have run like hell because another, yet (natioanlly) unknown scandal was close to breaking?

Let's think back: When the purge became a large news story many observers made the point that while firing eight (that number moves around a lot) perfectly competent, in some cases exemplary, U.S. attorneys for a variety of ruthless political purposes is appalling, the damage done by the other eighty-odd loyal Bushie U.S. Attorneys was the real story.

Enter un-fired Alabama U.S. Attorney, Leura Canary. Wife of a notorious state politico William Canary. Confirmed with the first crop of Bush USAs in 2001, Leura Canary went on to prosecute former Democratic Alabama Governor (1999-2003) Don Siegelman. Siegelman (website) is in prison right now serving seven years after his conviction on federal corruption charges in 2006.

When Siegelman lost his 2002 re-election campaign to Republican Rep. Bob Riley, the margin was incredibly slim. Six thousand votes materialized in the dead of night giving Riley a three thousand-vote victory.

After years of continued, bitter partisan sparring between Riley and Siegelman, Canary was brought in with, according to a whistleblower, orders from Karl Rove and the backing of the Justice Department.

Now one of the key witnesses against Siegleman is up for sentencing in his plea deal, and the judge, perhaps compelled by distrust of Alberto Gonzales's Justice Department, suddenly doesn't want to allow that witness to walk despite the prosecution's recommendation.

From Harpers:

The House Judiciary Committee and its staff are continuing their preparations for hearings looking into serious irregularities surrounding the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don E. Siegelman, now imprisoned in Texas. As hearings loom ever more likely in Washington, the anxiety level in the U.S. Attorney’s Office run by Mrs. William Canary seems to be reaching the breaking point. Is a mild sedative in order?

How else to explain the latest bizarre eruption in the Courtroom of Judge Mark Everett Fuller? At a hearing to sentence former Siegelman aide Nick Bailey, who cooperated with the prosecution and who the prosecution wanted to let off without time, Judge Fuller disagreed, insisting that Bailey serve time. Then Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Feaga offered this, as reported by the Associated Press:

(more)

The judge either didn't like Bailey's face or he thought this whole thing stunk bad, because he sent Baily up for 18 months.

Along the way, Canary recused herself from the case, but now Congress has subpoenaed her recusal papers and continue to investigate.

If Rove is made to sit down with Congress, this will come up and I will be monitoring the situation.

Hard to say exactly how hard Siegelman got screwed in this. He was convicted by a jury--though that jury had an emailing problem--so maybe he was a crook. Either way, independent judgment had no part in this prosecution. The integrity of the system was destroyed so Rove and Riley could eliminate a popular political adversary who was the only viable Democrat in a very red state.

Incidentally, Shit Daisy and Gonzo made it out of town ahead of the storm, and surprisingly, all anyone can talk about is toe-tappin' Larry Craig. Amazing how that months-old story just happened to leak the day after Gonzo absconded.

While Rove and Gonzo have reason to dread the outrage this story could generate, I'm thinking the accumulated damage sustained by both men on many fronts led them to the realization that their jobs were untenable. Of course, publicly leaving office doesn't mean you can't keep doing that job. Not in this administration.

Oh, and as bad as the misconduct is in this story, you'll likely never hear about it again.

AUDIO: If you didn't get all that, because I didn't get all that and I wrote it, Thom Hartmann tells the entire epic his way over the course of his first two segments of today's show.

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TAGS: Alberto Gonzales, Karl Rove, Don Siegelman, Thom Hartmann

Gone!

Hey Alberto, I packed you a salami sandwich, you torturing rat bastard.

UPDATE: Steve Benin at The Carpetbagger Report has his initial reactions up, including perspective on Gonzales's horrific tenure.
UPDATE 2: I'm playing Songs for Gonzo over at the station.
UPDATE 3: Kvatch has a great post up at Blognonymous; The Bush Administration - A Modern Politburo
And great coverage as always on justice/legal issues from Firedoglake, here, here, here, and here. Glenn Greenwald weighs in here.
UPDATE 4: Hilzoy offers his take on Gonzo's tardy retreat.
UPDATE 5: Might Bush slip us the Mickey?
UPDATE 6: Nancy Pelosi says that the nominee to replace Gonzo must cooperate with the continuing investigations into the politicization of the Justice Department. That don't make it so, just means that's what she's saying. Harry Reid echoes that.
UPDATE 7: Think Progress has a good guess as to who might take over for Chertoff at DHS if Chertoff is confirmed as AG. Note to Senate, do not confirm Chertoff as AG.
UPDATE 8: Bush announced Solicitor General Paul Clement will serve as the interim A.G.
UPDATE 9: Deal with the devil? Glen Greenwald claims Harry Reid and Bush have a deal for Gonzo's resignation if there's no recess appointment.

TAGS: Alberto Gonzales, Resignation, Justice Department, Sandwiches

Taking impeachment off my table.

First, this. Remember, now, this is the guy who can't seem to remember his own name sometimes...

WASHINGTON (Los Angeles Times) - The Justice Department is
putting the final touches on regulations that could give Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales important new sway over death penalty cases in California and other states, including the power to shorten the time that death row inmates have to appeal convictions to federal courts.

The rules implement a little-noticed provision in last year's
reauthorization of the Patriot Act that gives the attorney general the power to decide whether individual states are providing adequate counsel for defendants in death penalty cases. The authority has been held by federal judges.

Under the rules now being prepared, if a state requested it and Gonzales agreed, prosecutors could use "fast track" procedures that could shave years off the time that a death row inmate has to appeal to the federal courts after conviction in a state court.

The move to shorten the appeals process and effectively speed up executions comes at a time of growing national concern about the fairness of the death penalty, underscored by the use of DNA testing to establish the innocence of more than a dozen death row inmates in recent years.

Amid the public debate, the number of people executed in the U.S. has declined steadily since the mid-1990s [except in Texas - Me].

The rest is here. This further erosion of our due process rights should scare the absolute crap out of all of us, but I have yet to see this discussed anywhere in the media. I found the link to this article on The Huffington Post, which is good, but that's just another "left-wing blog," so the Bootlicking Corporate Media will probably ignore it. (Oops: I did hear it reported on NPR just now.) Let me know if I'm wrong.

You should know first that I oppose the death penalty. Unequivocally. In all cases. If we captured Osama bin Laden tomorrow (yeah, right, like that'd happen...), I'd be against executing him. I was against executing Tim McVeigh. I'm against executing the worst forms of humanity, including pedophiles. I was against executing the guy who shot one of my closest friends for the few bills he had in his wallet two weeks after we graduated from college years ago. I was against the death penalty before I became a Quaker, and I'm even more against it now that I am one. For one thing, new technology has allowed us to prove beyond any doubt that many of the folks on death row are not guilty of the crimes for which they were convicted, and that means we have surely executed innocent people in the past. That's just one of the many reasons I oppose capital punishment.

But that's not what this post is really about. Here comes the leap.

I've been trying to think of a good excuse to throw this idea out there, and this issue is as good as any. I've been reading and following (and contributing to) all kids of conversations lately about impeaching either George Bush or Dick Cheney or both. My chosen candidate, Dennis Kucinich, is the only Democratic presidential wannabe who has come out for impeaching Cheney. There are dozens of web sites and blogs devoted to the topic, and zillions more blog postings and comment threads. If you search Cafe Press using the words "impeach Bush," you will find 172,000 items bearing that phrase for sale there alone. Which means lots of folks are making money off the idea. Well, good for them, and it's an interesting exercise.

But, as it's not going to happen, I wonder why we waste so much time on it.

Speaker Pelosi, who so many liberals seem to think is just so effing wonderful, has taken impeachment "off the table" (one wonders what is on her table these days...), and she did so almost immediately after the change in leadership in Congress. And - I know this is progressive heresy right now - impeachment should be off the table. I actually agree with her on this one. There. I said it. What Congress should be doing is stopping stuff like this: new rules giving the Justice Department's Screw-Up-In-Chief the right to expedite the trip to the death chambers of this country. This is a certifiable outrage, only the latest in a long list of anti-Constitutional outrages. But what does the "Democratically controlled Congress" do? Well, last week, after they blasted Gonzo for his "lack of cooperation" with their inquiries, a whole bunch of those same "Democrats" helped pass a law that actually expands the Bush regime's ability to spy on its own citizens. That's the outrage. If we're seriously talking about impeaching somebody, it should be Gonzales. But this Congress won't even cite the guy for contempt of Congress or perjury. And you folks are seriously still thinking this crew will impeach Bush? Simply wishing - and selling tee shirts - will not make it so.

What Congress - and what we who call ourselves progressives - should be doing is working to end the war. That should be Job # 1. Bush and his junta will be out of office in sixteen months. As my favorite curmudgeonly columnist Alexander Cockburn writes in the latest edition of The Nation, let the regime face charges as war criminals after they leave office. Impeachment proceedings, even if they began on September 1, would simply force almost everything else in Washington to a screeching halt, and what good would it do? Some of us might feel better because the Repos would get a taste of what they did to Bill Clinton, but, so what? The war would still be there, and it can only get worse, in spite of the recent spin. Congress could and should have voted this past spring to defund the Bush/Cheney carnage machine, but they didn't. You still thought that, after writing Bush another check to pay for his war, that those same folks would turn around and impeach him? All of us should be out there (and here) every day doing whatever we can, in whatever way we can, to end the war. (What's funny is that when people do work to end the war, say, by protesting against it by picketing recruiting centers, supposed "liberals" actually mock those efforts. Don't believe me? Read the comments here.) The war is a giant toilet into which we are dumping our fine young people, our resources, our national soul. We should be demanding that Congress act to clean up the mess that still exists down in New Orleans. We should be working to bring universal health care (yes, a single-payer system, also "off the table," largely thanks to Sen. Clinton) to this country. We should be doing something to get our politicians to end the pandemic of gun violence that is killing more and more of our citizens, especially our youth. We should be forcing Congress to throw out the so-called "No Child Left Behind" legislation which is systematically undermining and dumbing down our system of public education. We should be supporting infrastructure reconstruction and coal mine safety and demanding that Congress do something now about those concerns. Right. Now. And that's just for starters.

The idea of impeachment can make us feel good and may work for getting us all ramped up as a convenient place to focus all of our rage and frustration with the Bush junta, and I do appreciate that. Few of you are more angry than I am right now. But the day-to-day outrages being foisted upon us, like the one mentioned above - many of them with the not-so-tacit approval of the so-called Democrats who "control" Congress - are what should be getting our attention. Being for impeachment is a handy way to let folks know we're against Bush. Okay. I get that. But no matter how much we might want it to happen, he's not leaving until January of 2009. Maybe it's about time we start spending more time talking about (and working for, and raising money for) what we're for, and making our elected politicians at every level hear that, and organizing for that. I just typed in the phrase "save our coal miners" at Cafe Press. My search returned "no matching designs." Wonder why.

TAGS: Death penalty, Capital punishment, Alberto Gonzalez, Justice Department

Fredo Going Down

I'm breaking my rule about 'blink and a link' posts to announce that Congressional Democrats plan to introduce a resolution requiring the Judiciary Committee to begin an impeachment investigation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Crooks and Liars has the story.

TAGS: Alberto Gonzales, Impeachment

The Ever Helpful Hatch

The American Fascist from Utah

Full disclosure: I've hated Sen. Orrin Hatch for decades, long before I had ever heard of George W. Bush. I first heard of the lizardlike Republican from Utah when watching the Iran/Contra hearings. Even then he had his techniques for obfuscation down pat. When Ollie North, John Poindexter, Robert Mcfarlane, Michael Ledeen or any of the other traitors were on the stand, he would throw marshmallows at them, praise them for their service to the country and try to make them look like patriots. "Tell me, Colonel North, how your noble and heroic efforts to supply the Contra freedom fighters with bullets, boots and beans helped their country while serving vital American interests at home," that kind of thing.

If you're not familiar with the details of the Iran/Contra affair, or even if you are, click on some of the links above. It's scary to think that Ollie North has a cushy job with FOX "news" as a commentator, despite multiple convictions. Or that John Poindexter "served a brief stint as the Director of the DARPA Information Awareness Office for the administration of George W. Bush" in spite of his multiple convictions stemming from the Iran/Contra affair. In private life Poindexter helped develop the technology used by the NSA to massively violate Americans' fourth amendment rights of privacy.

Check out Michael Ledeen and his self-avowed love of fascism. He's now "a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a contributing editor to National Review." Spewing neocon/fascist propaganda into the American consciousness. While we're on the subject, it might be of interest to look up Dick Cheney's connection to Iran/Contra too. Verrrry interesting.

The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power." -- Henry A. Wallace, Vice President to FDR, 1944
The Danger of American Fascism

These are the type of people Orrin Hatch conspires with. Traitors, criminals, avowed fascists. Most of whom, by the way, never paid fully for their crimes because they were pardoned by George H. W. Bush.

Now watch Hatch in action yesterday 'questioning' (questionably) Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Video courtesy of TPM Muckraker, who along with FireDogLake's liveblogging has providing the best overall coverage of the hearings.

Hatch on Comey

You should now make note of another obfuscatory technique that Hatch uses here, which he also used to great advantage in the Iran/Contra hearings. Not only does he 'set up' the witness to disgorge his well-rehearsed talking points in the best possible light, Hatch also (and this is vitally important) testifies himself. The key to the success of this technique is that Hatch is not under oath. Quite an advantage, wouldn't you say?

Watching this exchange, it is hard not to believe that Hatch and Gonzales rehearsed this beforehand. Hatch's first objective is to bring up exactly the points that Gonzo relies on during the entirety of his testimony, trying to defuse the explosive story of Gonzo's visit to Ashcroft's ICU unit when he was WhiteHouse counsel. And most telling, Hatch elaborates on Gonzales' contrived excuse that this visit's origin was not in the White House, but in Congress ('the gang of eight'.)

Hatch (testifying, but not under oath): "That was the gang of eight you're saying.. ..The two leaders of the intelligence committee in the House, the two leaders in the Senate? Democrats and Republicans?"

Gonzales: "Democrats and Republicans."

As Henry Wallace said in 1944, "His method is to poison the channels of public information." And why was it so important that it be Hatch, and not Gonzales to introduce this gang of eight tidbit into the story? Because three of the eight have already come out saying that it's a lie.

-Read more on this story at Ice Station Tango. (with Keith Olbermann video)

TAGS: Judiciary Committee Hearings, Alberto Gonzales
Treason, Orrin Hatch, Traitor

Privilege, Schmivilege

Constitutional Crisis Looming Over Prosecutors Case?

All of the top officials in the Department of Justice who were supposed to be responsible for the dismissals of seven US Attorneys have been brought before the Senate Judiciary committee.

All have been asked "who knew?", "Why were they fired?" and "who made up the list?"

All of them have responded, "not me", "I don't remember", and "ask somebody else please." Those who have responded thusly so far include:

• Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
• his (now former) Deputy AG J. Paul McNulty
• his chief of staff Kyle Sampson
• Mc'Nulty's chief of staff Michael Elston
• Monica Goodling, liaison between Gonzales and the White House.
  
• Michael Battle, Director of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys

The mere depth of Goodling's involvement raises a number of red flags. Prior to her rise in the DoJ's executive branch, "Ms. Goodling worked alongside Tim Griffin as an opposition researcher for the Republican National Committee during the 2000 presidential campaign." (Wikipedia) There isn't a more partisan position in politics than opposition researcher, and Goodling is a legal featherweight who graduated from the 'fourth tier' Regent College. And yet, for some unexplained reason;

Goodling's authority over hiring [was] expanded significantly in March 2006, when Attorney General Gonzales signed an unpublished order delegating to Goodling and Kyle Sampson, Gonzales's then chief of staff, the power to appoint or dismiss all department political appointees besides United States attorneys (who are appointed by the President.)

But I digress. I just found some of those details about Goodling's career to be especially fascinating, and thought it important to point out that the authority Gonzales secretly vested in her was supposed to be in the office of Michael Battle. One other point of digression. Other than Gonzales, all the DoJ officials on the list above have resigned since the Purge Scandal investigation began. Although they may still be coming to work for all I know. All have exhibited a stunning collective amnesia worthy of the very worst soap opera plotlines, so they probably don't remember their own resignations.

The main point I was trying to get at, and I've made it before, is that there is a consistant denial that anyone at the DoJ was involved in the dismissals - leaving only one logical conclusion. The orders for the dismissals really didn't originate at DoJ, but in the White House. Further, that they were developed not out of any official government business, but from purely partisan Republican political maneuvering. The evidence for this conclusion is overwhelming. We have the testimony of fired US Attorney David Iglesias concerning the improper interference in his duties by Senator Pete Domenici and Congresswoman Heather Wilson. We have the parallel story from Seattle's US Attorney John McKay. We have the dismissal of Bud Cummings in Arkansas to make way for Goodling's old boss Tim Griffin. We have the fact of Griffin's criminal involvement in voter suppression through the drawing up of 'caging lists.' We have the obstruction of justice entailed in the parallel case of the missing emails.

Behind it all we have the 'untouchable' KKKarl Rove, whom all of the above jumped 'under the bus' to protect. This scandal is vastly dirtier, and reaches much further, than the Watergate scandal that brought down Richard Milhouse Nixon.

Richard Nixon 'stonewalled' any investigations into his illegal White House excursions by invoking executive privilege. A privilege that the administration of George W. Bush now is invoking, both in the Prosecutors' case, and in the NSA wiretapping scandal. The thing is, executive privilege is NOWHERE MENTIONED IN THE CONSTITUTION. So where the heck did Nixon, and after him Reagan and GW Bush, get the idea?

Presidents have argued that executive privilege is a principle implied in the constitutionally mandated separation of powers. In order to do their job, presidents contend, they need candid advice from their aides — and aides simply won't be willing to give such advice if they know they might be called to testify, under oath, before a congressional committee or in some other forum.

Not surprisingly, there is one crucial word left out of this explanation that is required to have it make any sense. That word is CRIMINAL. The only suppression of the 'candid' advice of aides that requires them to be protected from scrutiny is in a case where what they are advising is illegal and unconstitutional. Or maybe just bonehead stupid. Think about it. If the advice you are giving is good advice, and legal, why would you want to hide it? In my mind, the idea that everything an aide tells the President will eventually become public knowledge would be much more likely to improve the quality of that advice. IOW, it's a bullshit argument.

Anyway, subpoenas have been issued by the Senate seeking documents and testimony from White House officials, and those subpoenas have been ignored. Some in regards to the Prosecutors' Purge scandal, some over the illegal NSA warrantless wiretapping program. Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy has vowed he will take Bush to court. In fact, here's the letter Leahy and House Judiciary chairman John Conyers sent to White House Counsel Fred Fielding on Friday, demanding, "the White House 'immediately provide us with the specific bases for your claims regarding each document withheld via a privilege log...and a copy of any explicit determination by the President with respect to the assertion of privilege.' ".

TPM has the letter from Fielding asserting the privilege here. Think Progress has the best piece on the implications of the conflict. In fact, this piece contains one of the juiciest tidbits to come out of this whole affair, and should be read in its entirety.

Fielding attached a legal memorandum written by Solicitor General Paul Clement, laying out the legal basis for the executive privilege claim... In his letter, Clement reveals what investigators have suspected from the very beginning — that the White House was intimately involved in the attorney scandal. Upon examination of the White House documents, Clement writes:

Among other things, these communications discuss the wisdom of such a proposal, specific U.S. Attorneys who could be removed, potential replacement candidates, and possible responses to congressional and media inquiries about the dismissals.

The White House had “said that Mr. Bush’s aides approved the list of prosecutors only after it was compiled.” President Bush himself said that “the Justice Department made recommendations, which the White House accepted” regarding the removal of the attorneys.

If you don't have the time to follow the link to Think Progress, well SHAME ON YOU, but you at least MUST read this excerpt they cite from a Marcy Wheeler article on Clement's conflict of interest in this matter.

Paul Clement, as you’ll recall, is the guy currently in charge of any investigation into the US Attorney firings, since Alberto Gonzales recused himself some months ago...And now, he’s the guy who gets to tell the President that he doesn’t have to turn over what might amount to evidence of obstruction of justice in the Foggo and Wilkes case, among others.

This whole affair sets up what the media always refer to as a Constitutional Crisis, but I don't like that characterization. I think the crisis would be if the congress didn't confront the White House over illegal, even criminal activity.

Bush has been in contempt of Congress since his inauguration in January 2001. Nowhere has that been so prominent than in his assertion of 'unitary executive' powers as delineated (in a series of internal memoranda) by John Yoo, another one-time Department of Justice misfit. Let me make my feelings on the 'Yoo Doctrine' clear. If this theory were ever to be officially announced, that really would be a constitutional crisis, because it is nothing less than an outright declaration of a Bush dictatorship. The thing is, the administration has been acting from day one as if the Yoo doctrine were official.

Anyway, there now seems little possibility that Bu$hCo™ will be able to ignore these subpoenas for very long. Law professor Jonathan Turley lays out the bottom line on Countdown (Video available in yet another excellent article from Think Progress.) And here's what that bottom line entails for the White House.

As Columbia University law professor Michael Dorf points out, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Nixon that, “where the President asserts only a generalized need for confidentiality, [executive privilege] must yield to the interests of the government and defendants in a criminal prosecution.”

And from Turley:

[with respect to the NSA program] -- that was a clearly criminal act that the president called for — that under federal law, it’s a federal crime to do what the president has ordered hundreds of people do. Now, if we’re right, not only did he order that crime, it would in fact be an impeachable offense... They don’t want to recognize that this president may have ordered criminal offenses, but they now may be on the road to do that, because the way Congress can get around the executive privilege in court is to say we are investigating a potential crime.

And Raw Story has some transcript from a different portion of the Countdown piece. And a rather more complete video, in a larger window.

"This administration, I have to say, has a certain contempt for the law," said Turley. "They treat it like some of my criminal defendents used to treat it. ... They come up with any argument that might work. ... It's a sort of shocking development. ... But at the end of the day, they will lose, and they're making the situation worse."

At least for once, they're making the situation worse for themselves, not for everybody else. And I love that phrase, "at the end of the day, they will lose." It sounds like hopeful news for a change, even to my pessimistic ear.

For further reading, Station Agent has this post up at Ice Station, likening the confrontation to a gunfight in the western movie Tombstone.

TAGS: Prosecutors' Purge, NSA Wiretapping, Stonewalling, Constitutional Crisis

That Goddamn Piece of Paper

...Some More Historical Perspective

Maybe as the only Canadian member of the unruly mob, I shouldn't be the one writing this essay - but maybe my outsider's perspective will bring something new to the table.

You be the judge.

At some early time in my life, probably in public school, I became aware that Canada did not have anything equivalent to your Declaration of Independence, Constitution, or Bill of Rights. Canada as a nation was defined by an act of BRITISH Parliament called the BNA (British North America) Act of 1867. Frankly, I have always found that to be outrageous, and somewhat shameful. Some of these concerns were addressed with the Canada Act of 1982, with its attendant Charter of Rights and Freedoms. While this 'repatriated' the Constitution in Canada, I still feel your documents are better than ours.

And I'll tell you why.

Prior to the founding of the United States, legal systems were based on the theory of Divine Right. The law was all about the government telling the people what they could and couldn't do. The U.S. Constitution set that premise on its ear, declaring that the will of the people should limit what government could and couldn't do. That is a radical and some may say sublime departure from what went before. OK, some would argue that the Magna Carta did that, but the premise of the Great Charter was still that power flowed from above, so it's not the same thing at all. Most importantly, in my view at least, the U.S. Constitution denied the leader the ability to claim authority based on a special connection to God. And hey, ya gotta love that strong opening, "We The People."

So what the heck went wrong? The government is now regularly doing exactly those things that the constitution supposedly prevents them from doing. President Bush loudly and proudly claims that his decisions ARE based on some special communication with God, and therefore beyond questioning. Shouldn't this trigger some corrective mechanism? Shouldn't something be happening to reverse this? Why isn't SOMEbody doing someTHING?

The situation brings to mind a quote from one of the most cynical men of the twentieth century, Joseph Stalin. "The Pope? How many divisions has he got?" One might well ask how many divisions the Constitution brings to the fight. And the answer, in theory, would be all the divisions in the country. The President, Congressmen, Senators, Supreme Court Justices, and every commissioned officer in the United States Armed Services must take an oath to 'uphold and defend' the Constitution against 'all enemies foreign and domestic.' That, one would imagine, should be more than enough, in theory. Sadly, as some sage said, "In theory, theory and practice are the same thing. In practice they are very different."

In practice, the honorable men that the Founders assumed would be taking all these oaths are not as abundant anymore as one would wish. I feel certain that George W. Bush, who is know to have referred to the Constitution as 'That Goddamn piece of paper', cannot be believed to have given serious consideration to his oath to defend and uphold same. Other oath-takers who have drop-kicked their Constitutional obligations into the nearest drainage ditch sit on the Supreme Court, fill seats in both houses of the legislature (and on both sides of the aisle in those houses), and fill key positions like, say, the Attorney General for example. I would say the majority of posts on this blog contain concrete demonstrations of how these men have dishonored themselves and their positions in all three branches of government.

Checks and balances my ass!

To their credit, the framers of The Constitution of The United States of America created a layered defense for liberty and the rights of man. One can readily see though how the assumptions that they made are no longer pertinent. The first assumption Is that the Chief Executive would recognize his position as a sworn servant of the people. Puh-leeese!! The Chimpster has shown no respect for any one of the 300,000,000 citizens of the country he is destroying.

The one thing the framers never considered when writing the Constitution was the idea that all three branches of government could ever become complicit in the same highjacking of democratic values. It rather erodes the layered defense that they provided with the model of checks and balances.

American fascism really became a fait accompli with the appointment of John Roberts as Chief Justice. The two then Republican-controlled branches of the government had effectively conspired to subvert the third. Worse, they did so in a manner that could not be corrected even when the Democrats regained the majority in the legislature. Worst, John Roberts being a young man this could have an impact extending into the next thirty or forty years. Any hope that democracy can be restored through the ballot box during the next election, even with an overwhelming Democratic majority ignores this depressing fact.

And oh, what abundant rewards the fascist bastards have already reaped from their subversion of the Justice System.

As I pointed out earlier, the administration, when they had Republican control of both houses, pushed legislation that is overtly unconstitutional (For example: the USA PATRIOT Act, Military Commissions Act, etc, or any of the dozens of signing statements through which pResident Bush intrudes on legislative authority.) - secure in the knowledge that the US Supreme Court could simply do what they did in the case of the MCA 'torture bill.' They didn't stick their necks out and rule to let the offending law stand. That would be a patent and obvious abuse of authority, and quite likely impeachable. Any law student, or for that matter any high school civics student could see through such an act. This would leave FIVE conservative justices vulnerable.

No, what they did was in its own way even more odious. They simply refused to even consider any test case. In such an instance, where the Supreme Court has not declared a law to be unconstitutional, said law remains in full force. Not a bad play, really - treason by sin of ommission.

Similarly, much Republican wrongdoing has been overlooked by the Gonzales Department of Justice. There are quite likely a number of Republican Congressmen, and at least a couple of Senators who would be in jail today if not for the inaction and outright OBSTRUCTION of justice represented most prominently by the Prosecutors' Purge affair. Again, treason by sin of ommission.

Anyone who doesn't see malice aforethought in this is simply not paying attention. Or more likely, they have been grotesquely misinformed by the mainstream media - which by the way was considered to be the last layer in the layered defense of democracy envisioned by Jefferson, Madison, et. al. Or more precisely, they saw a general population ("We The People") properly informed by a free press to be that last layer. And they most certainly saw the final remedy for the subversion of the Constitution and Justice System to be the same remedy they had taken against the intolerable actions of King George, and beautifully expressed in the Declaration of Independence.

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

If the people of the United States of America don't rise up against their oppressors, and soon, very soon, it may be too late - not only for your country, but for the rest of the world as well. It's time to ask yourself the question, "how many defenders does the Constitution have?"

TAGS: Constitution, Declaration of Independence, American Revolution, V 2.0

Charges Against Khadr Dropped

...But He Will Still Remain in Guantanamo

Well, this is one for the books. According to this report from CBC News,

An American military judge abruptly dropped all charges on Monday against Omar Khadr, although it's unlikely to mean freedom for the only Canadian at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.

A bit of background is in order. Khadr is the only Canadian citizen in Guantanamo. He was arrested FIVE YEARS AGO in Afghanistan, and accused of throwing a hand grenade that killed Sgt. First Class Christopher J. Speer, described by the CBC as a Marine medic. Sounds fishy to me. The Marines don't have their own medics, and rely on Navy Corpsmen for that function. But I won't distract you further with what is probably just an honest mistake by the CBC.

Khadr was wounded in the firefight that led to his, mmm, what do you call it exactly? Arrest? Capture? Detention? Anyway, it looks like the judge couldn't find a way to shoehorn a claim of jurisdiction over the prisoner.

When Khadr arrived at Guantanamo five years ago, he was classified by a military panel as an "enemy combatant."

But under the new Military Commission Act, revised and passed by the U.S. Congress in October 2006, the military commissions only have jurisdiction to try "unlawful enemy combatants."

CBC News's Bill Gillespie, reporting from Guantanamo, said Khadr's classification as an enemy combatant means he was a fighting on the battlefield, but not necessarily acting unlawfully.

Gillespie said it is unclear what will happen to Khadr now, although it is unlikely he will be released.

"A greater possibility is that he will be sent back to another panel who will again review his status and perhaps then come up with a definition that gives the court jurisdiction," Gillespie said.

Khadr's sister said she is still holding out hope Khadr will be able to return to Canada.

What is one to make of this? On one hand, it's almost as if the rule of law has emerged to exert its authority over the proceedings of the military commissions created to deal with these 380 'prisoners' (only a handful of whom have ever been charged with anything.) There seems to be some repudiation of Bu$hCo™'s unconstitutional and vile creation of new law to deal with these people somewhere in this.

On the other hand, this dropping of the charges seems to be yet another instance of the government avoiding any possibility of this being tested in a Supreme Court showdown, because they KNOW they would lose. The treatment of these prisoners has been unlawful and unconstitutional since day one on a number of counts. The Bush solution to this hinges on their designation being as ill-defined as possible. They are not acknowledged as enemy soldiers, because that would bring in the authority of the Geneva Conventions. Nor are they criminal defendants, because they would then clearly enjoy habeas corpus rights. And of course, whatever rights they might have are nullified by the fact that Guantanamo is not on US soil, but in Cuba. It's the most elaborate legal shell game to come along since the Soviet gulags.

One thing is certain - no ruling, even total exoneration for these Guantanamo kidnap victims (cause that's what they are if you think about it) ever results in any of them actually being released. That just stinks.

Did you ever think that they are just practicing techniques on these people that they fully intend to apply to everybody?

UPDATE: By now you probably know that a very similar ruling has been made in the case of Salim Hamdan, another Guantanamo detainee. It was the Supreme Court's ruling against the government in the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that led to the infamous and unconstitutional Military Commissions Act. Among the odious provisions of the MCA was the effective suspension of habeas corpus in US law. The US Supreme Court's refusal to consider the constitutionality of the MCA was a clear breach of their duty under the law, IMO. Holding people prisoners without legal justification is a practice that was repudiated by the Constitution, and moreover by English Common Law going back centuries.

Hamdan and Khadr are the only two inmates charged with any offense since the passing of the MCA. Reactions to the decision - from Patrick Leahy, via Think Progress; from the White House via MSNBC.

TAGS: Omar Khadr, Guantanamo Bay, American Gulag, Jackboot Foreign Policy

Prosecution of Alabama Governor Work of Rove?

When the U.S. Attorney purge story began to clarify a couple months ago, one of the most chilling observations was that the real problem with the firings of nine fair-minded attorneys so they could be replaced by cronies, was the implication that among the other 84 USAs not fired, a lot of dirty deeds were being done at the behest of the White House.

Well, Alabama's former governor is in jail and a Republican whistle blower has fingered Karl Rove.

From Time Magazine:

At the moment, [Alabama's] former Democratic governor, Don Siegelman, stands convicted of bribery and conspiracy charges and faces a sentence of up to 30 years in prison. Siegelman has long claimed that his prosecution was driven by politically motivated, Republican-appointed U.S. attorneys.

Now Karl Rove, the President's top political strategist, has been implicated in the controversy. A longtime Republican lawyer in Alabama swears she heard a top G.O.P. operative in the state say that Rove "had spoken with the Department of Justice" about "pursuing" Siegelman, with help from two of Alabama's U.S. attorneys.

The allegation was made by Dana Jill Simpson, a lifelong Republican and lawyer who practices in Alabama. She made the charges in a May 21 affidavit, obtained by TIME, in which she describes a conference call on November 18, 2002, which involved a group of senior aides to Bob Riley, who had just narrowly defeated Siegelman in a bitterly contested election for governor. Though Republican Riley, a former Congressman, initially found himself behind by several thousand votes, he had pulled ahead at the last minute when disputed ballots were tallied in his favor. After the abrupt vote turnaround, Siegelman sought a recount. The Simpson affidavit says the conference call focused on how the Riley campaign could get Siegelman to withdraw his challenge.

According to Simpson's statement, William Canary, a senior G.O.P. political operative and Riley adviser who was on the conference call, said "not to worry about Don Siegelman" because "'his girls' would take care of" the governor. Canary then made clear that "his girls" was a reference to his wife, Leura Canary, the U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Alabama, and Alice Martin, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama.

(more)

There's so much corruption going on here, that it's difficult to boil it down to a simple narrative for mass consumption. If Rove had an affair with an intern, we'd be golden.

Rove has troubles on another front today--or, like so many of these scandals, maybe it's connected. His former executive assistant Susan Ralston asked for immunity before giving testimony to Henry Waxman's House Oversight Committee on contacts between The White House and disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Waxman said he's in no rush and he'd get back to her.

By the way something, White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett resigned today, effective July 4. Adios, Dan. Effective July 4 though? What's that about? Shouldn't that be effective July 3? Is he going in on the 4th? Are they having a cookout? Is Bush grilling up some brats?

Furthermore, Bartlett's not the only Republican on the way out.

VIDEO: A couple weeks ago, Keith Olbermann covered Karl Rove's role in Gonzogate.


(Part 2)

Crossposted at IST.

TAGS: Karl Rove, Dana Jill Simpson, Don Siegelman, Jack Abramoff