President Bush prodded Congress on Friday to allow oil drilling in offshore waters and in the Alaskan wildlife refuge, citing "tough economic times" for the American people.
And they’ll do it, too, won’t they, Congressman Wexler?
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
The votes in the Senate on various amendments to the FISA "compromise" bill and to the underlying bill itself were originally scheduled for today, but have been postponed until tomorrow (Wednesday, July 9) to enable Senators to attend the funeral of Jesse Helms. Rejection of the amendments -- including the Dodd-Feingold-Leahy amendment to strip telecom immunity from the bill -- is all but certain, and final passage of the bill (with the support of both presidential candidates) is guaranteed.Once passed by the Senate, the FISA bill will then immediately be sent by the Democratic Congress to an eagerly awaiting and immensely pleased President Bush, who will sign it into law, thereby putting a permanent and happy end to the scandal that began when -- in December, 2005 -- he was caught spying on the communications of American citizens in violation of the law.
[...]
[The] reality is that the Government and the telecoms broke the law not for weeks or months, but for years -- well into 2007. They continued to do so even after the NYT exposed what they were doing. They could have brought their spying activities into a legal framework at any time, but chose instead to spy on Americans in exactly the way our laws criminalize. Manifestly, then, national security had nothing to do with why they did it. The Bush administration chose to do so because they wanted to eavesdrop without oversight and to establish that neither Congress nor the courts can limit what the President does, and telecoms did not want to jeopardize the massive government surveillance contracts they have by refusing.
[...]
One of the pending Senate amendments -- the only one with any remote chance of passing -- is an amendment sponsored by Sen. Jeff Bingaman (co-sponsored by GOP Sen. Arlen Specter and Democratic Sen. Bob Casey). The Bingaman amendment would merely postpone the granting of telecom immunity until 90 days after Congress receives the Inspector General's audits of the President's NSA spying program which the new FISA bill mandates, and would freeze the telecom lawsuits in place until then.
The rationale behind the amendment is clear and simple: namely, members of Congress, the vast majority of whom know virtually nothing about what the telecoms did, shouldn't grant immunity unless they know what this illegal spying program entailed. If the IG Report reveals that the program (even though illegal) was devoted to a benign and proper purpose, then Congress (if it is so inclined) can grant immunity then. But if the IG Report reveals the spying program to be something other than what the President and the telecoms claim it to be -- if it entails far more invasive surveillance of Americans or was abused for improper purposes -- then immunity would obviously be wildly inappropriate.
[...]
Bush DNI Mike McConnell (who previously worked on behalf of the telecom industry to increase their government surveillance contracts) and Attorney General Michael Mukasey sent a joint letter to the Senate yesterday vowing that the President would veto the entire FISA bill if the Bingaman amendment were included.
[...]
Manipulative appeals to "national security" are, of course, exactly what has enabled the Bush administration to bully Congress into giving them everything they want for years -- "give us the powers we want and immunize our lawbreaking or be killed by Terrorists." That's how our country has been "governed" in the Bush era -- with heavy-handed, authoritarian decrees that we must comply with our Leader's secretly-formed judgments if we want to survive -- and it's likely how it will continue to be governed.
[...]
Those who support this bill, by definition, support both warrantless eavesdropping on Americans and the right of the President and private corporations to break our laws with impunity.
[...]
The political class has made as clear as can be that it is intent on supporting a limitless erosion of core constitutional liberties and the creation of a two-tiered justice system that exempts the political elite from the rule of law. Neither the "opposition party" nor the establishment media are the slightest bit interested in, or capable of, stopping any of that. Battling against that is the responsibility of citizens who find these political trends dangerous and intolerable.
A Bush-41-appointed Federal District Judge yesterday became the third judge -- out of three who have ruled on the issue -- to reject the Bush administration's claim that Article II entitles the President to override or ignore the provisions of FISA. Yesterday's decision by Judge Vaughn Walker of the Northern District of California also guts the central claims for telecom immunity and gives the lie to the excuses coming from Congress as to why the new FISA bill is some sort of important "concession." More than anything else, this decision is but the most recent demonstration that, with this new FISA bill, our political establishment is doing what it now habitually does: namely, ensuring that the political and corporate elite who break our laws on purpose are immune from consequences.
And as my dear She-Bean says: It will ever be thus.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
They've been at this one for a while. It appears it was put up for bid at least a year ago. Could Congress have possibly wasted any time more valuable than we have been living through these past years when serious issues have been bombarding us right and left?
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has joined with her Senate colleague [Harry Reid], scheduling two pro forma sessions for the House this week so that Bush cannot call Congress back into special session to take up the now-expired Protect America Act, an enhanced surveillance bill that lapsed over the weekend, or the Senate-passed amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.[...]
Since neither chamber goes out for more than three days, Bush cannot take the dramatic step of calling the Congress back for the first special session since Harry Truman did it in 1948.
And for all you progressives out there, the non-Republican senator you most love to hate – Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) – will be presiding over one of the pro forma sessions this week. So, you better keep an eye on him
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
The [House voted] 223-32 Thursday to hold presidential chief of staff Josh Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers in contempt. The citations charge Miers with failing to testify and accuse her and Bolten of refusing Congress' demands for documents related to the 2006-2007 firings.
Much good may it do them.
The White House said the Justice Department would not ask the U.S. attorney to pursue the House contempt charges.
Uh-huh. Which is one reason maintaining a crook as the AG is so important.
With great contempt for the contempt vote, "scores" of Republican Congresslugs got up and stormed out.
....but hey, report what you want....you will anyway.
Read the article. It looks to me like George tried but missed the pocket veto. He should stick to what he does best: pocket pool. Don't tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don't tell them where they know the fish. --Mark Twain
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
Update: The Army Times says that the Army has halted the payment of bonuses pending passage of the bill. George is withholding money from the troops. I thought that was exactly the unpatriotic, if not traitorous, act he's been accusing Congress of.
The US representative to Bali's climate talks was appropriately told that the rest of the world looked to the US to lead, but if we're not going to lead, we should get out of the way.
News sources are making a big deal out of the US delegate's turn-around to finally agree to consensus on the accord. That accord is an agreement to begin 2-year negotiations to revamp the Kyoto treaty. So, don't worry. We can still stand in the way when it matters.
[Mitch] McConnell and his fellow Republicans are playing such tight defense, blocking nearly every bill proposed by the slim Democratic majority that they are increasingly able to dictate what they want, much to the dismay of the majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, and frustrated Democrats in the House.In fact, the Senate Republicans are so accustomed to blocking measures that when the Democrats finally agreed last week to their demands on a bill to repair the alternative minimum tax, the Republicans still objected, briefly blocking the version of the bill that they wanted before scrambling to approve it later.
Maru at WTF reacts:
Unprincipled scumholes. Jebus Christ. And don't get me started on the Capitulation Party. Damn.
Iran absolutely, positively must not have any nuclear weapons capabilities. Libya, on the other hand, may. And Pakistan? Already done. And, hey, the US government already made available the information necessary on a military website. Arab translation gratis.
The reaction at WTF?
The Democratic "opposition" in Congress – you know, the party that represents the common people, good working folk and the most vulnerable in our society: the sick, the old, the poor, the children – have just effected yet another capitulation to Money Power, gutting an energy bill that would have required Big Oil – now reaping the most gargantuan profit margins in the entire history of human enterprise – to pay a pittance in new taxes.[...]
These measures – displeasing to the boardroom lords and their viceroy in the White House – were dutifully stripped out by Senate Majority Leader Harry "Shaky Knees" Reid.
Time and time again, President Bush has run circles around what is, at least on paper, a co-equal branch of government. Sometimes he doesn't bother to ask Congress for its approval. Sometimes he demands it -- and gets it.Amazingly enough, that didn't change when the Democrats won control of the House and Senate. They just make a bit more fuss before rolling over.
Charles Babington writes for the Associated Press: "Congressional Democrats prepared Wednesday for major concessions on Iraq war funding, children's health insurance, tax policies, general spending and energy, because they could not overcome vetoes by President Bush.
[...]
Historians looking back on the Bush presidency may well wonder if Congress actually existed.
By a vote of 12-7, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved contempt resolutions against Karl Rove and Joshua Bolten, White House chief of staff.
The criminal contempt resolutions now move to the Senate floor, although no action on them is expected until next year.
I would have said that no action on them is expected, period. Maybe a little toothless verbiage.
Two major Republicans voted for the resolution which comes from the refusal of the WH to testify or turn over documents on the Attorney General purges: Arlen Spector and Iowa’s Charles Grassley.
Seattle’s Democratic Reprsentative Jim McDermott, however, showing a suicidal choice of battles, voted against a resolution”recognizing the importance of Christmas” as a protest to Bush’s power over Congress.
"While the Republicans are passing a resolution celebrating Christmas, the president was vetoing health care for children. There's a little bit of irony going on around here," McDermott said Thursday.Earlier this year, McDermott voted in favor of resolutions honoring Ramadan and Diwali. Ramadan is an Islamic holiday, while Diwali is celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and others.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
[L]ong before "waterboarding" entered the public discourse, the CIA gave key legislative overseers about 30 private briefings, some of which included descriptions of that technique and other harsh interrogation methods, according to interviews with multiple U.S. officials with firsthand knowledge.[...]
In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.
Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.
[...]
The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan).
[...]
Congressional officials say the groups' ability to challenge the practices was hampered by strict rules of secrecy that prohibited them from being able to take notes or consult legal experts or members of their own staffs.
Because you have to consult with a member of your staff or a legal expert to know torture when you see it.
Graham said he has no memory of ever being told about waterboarding or other harsh tactics.
Maybe there are records of those meetings that can jog his poor memory?
Pelosi declined to comment directly on her reaction to the classified briefings.[...]
Roberts declined to comment on his participation in the briefings. Rockefeller also declined to talk about the briefings, but the West Virginia Democrat's public statements show him leading the push in 2005 for expanded congressional oversight and an investigation of CIA interrogation practices.
[...]
Harman, who replaced Pelosi as the committee's top Democrat in January 2003, disclosed Friday that she filed a classified letter to the CIA in February of that year as an official protest about the interrogation program. Harman said she had been prevented from publicly discussing the letter or the CIA's program because of strict rules of secrecy.
"When you serve on intelligence committee you sign a second oath -- one of secrecy," she said. "I was briefed, but the information was closely held to just the Gang of Four. I was not free to disclose anything."
”I was just doing my job.”
Honor among thieves.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
Update: While researching information for another post, I came across this election campaign snippet from a JFK speech:
But if the time should ever come — and I do not concede any conflict to be even remotely possible — when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office; and I hope any conscientious public servant would do the same.
If still living, he would no doubt have long since abandoned hope.
As difficult as it is to believe, there are even varying degrees of loyalty to Bush within the 41 Bush Dogs. The following six Democrats not only voted for a blank check on Iraq, not only voted to continue warrant-less government spying on American citizens through FISA, but also voted against S-Chip:
Vital Stats on “The Ultimate Bush Dogs”
Member District PVI Term 2006 win % New Dem Blue Dog Boren OK-02 R +4.9 2nd 73% No Yes Ethridge NC-02 R +2.7 6th 66% Yes No Hill IN-09 R +7.1 1st / 4th* 50% Yes Yes Marshall GA-08 R +8 3rd 51% No Yes McIntyre NC-07 R +2.8 6th 73% Yes Yes Taylor MS-04 R +16.3 10th 80% No Yes
Blue Dog Democrats are a group of 47 moderate and conservative Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives. The Blue Dogs are a coalition seeking to promote what they see as fiscally responsible budget reforms and accountability for taxpayer dollars. Many members come from conservative districts, where liberal Democrats comprise a decided minority. In 2006, Blue Dog candidates such as Heath Shuler and Brad Ellsworth were elected in conservative-leaning districts, ending years of Republican dominance in these districts.The term is a reference to the "Blue Dog" paintings of Cajun artist George Rodrigue of Lafayette, Louisiana; the original members of the coalition would regularly meet in the offices of Louisiana representatives Billy Tauzin and Jimmy Hayes, both of whom had Rodrigue's paintings on their walls (and both of whom later switched to the Republican Party). It may also be meant as an ironic counterpoint to the traditional "Yellow Dog" label, which is applied to those Southern Democrats said to be so loyal to the party that they would vote for a yellow dog before voting for a Republican.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
"Vice President Cheney came up to see the Republicans yesterday. You can always tell when the Republicans are getting restless, because the Vice President’s motorcade pulls into the Capitol, and Darth Vader emerges," Hillary Clinton said just now at a $100-a-head fundraiser at Town Hall near New York's Times Square, referring to Cheney's efforts shore up Republican congressional support for the Iraq war."I’m not invited to their meetings and I don’t know what he says or does," she said, in an informal conversation on stage with former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack and retired General Wesley Clark. "But all the brave talk about bringing our troops home, and setting deadlines, and getting out by a certain date just dissipated."
Republicans and the Bush administration used a 'bogus' terror threat that raised specific fears of an attack on the Capitol to scare lawmakers into adopting a dramatic temporary expansion of the government's spy powers last month, a former top intelligence committee Democrat said Wednesday.
And you know what? They'll fall for it every time.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
Aug. 18 — Broad new surveillance powers approved by Congress this month could allow the Bush administration to conduct spy operations that go well beyond wiretapping to include — without court approval — certain types of physical searches on American soil and the collection of Americans’ business records, Democratic Congressional officials and other experts said.[...]The dispute illustrates how lawmakers, in a frenetic, end-of-session scramble, passed legislation they may not have fully understood and may have given the administration more surveillance powers than it sought.
In fact, if they were following their normal course, they didn't even read it. That's our Congress. It's a crying shame, but there's no surprise there.
Democratic leaders have said they plan to push for a revision of the legislation as soon as September. “It was a legislative over-reach, limited in time,” said one Congressional Democratic aide. “But Democrats feel like they can regroup.”
Where they get that belief is beyond me. They haven't been showing very well so far.
Though many Democratic leaders opposed the final version of the legislation, they did not work forcefully to block its passage, largely out of fear that they would be criticized by President Bush and Republican leaders during the August recess as being soft on terrorism.
Hand them the power, and they're still afraid of being criticized by the people the power was meant to be taken from, including the man who's credibility with the public is tanking into the toilet and from whom presidential candidates in his own party are distancing themselves. Infuckingcredible.
Yet Bush administration officials have already signaled that, in their view, the president retains his constitutional authority to do whatever it takes to protect the country, regardless of any action Congress takes.[...]
At a tense meeting last week with lawyers from a range of private groups active in the wiretapping issue, senior Justice Department officials refused to commit the administration to adhering to the limits laid out in the new legislation and left open the possibility that the president could once again use what they have said in other instances is his constitutional authority to act outside the regulations set by Congress.
[...]
At the meeting, Bruce Fein, a Justice Department lawyer in the Reagan administration, along with other critics of the legislation, pressed Justice Department officials repeatedly for an assurance that the administration considered itself bound by the restrictions imposed by Congress. The Justice Department, led by Ken Wainstein, the assistant attorney general for national security, refused to do so, according to three participants in the meeting. That stance angered Mr. Fein and others. It sent the message, Mr. Fein said in an interview, that the new legislation, though it is already broadly worded, “is just advisory. The president can still do whatever he wants to do."
So, really, it doesn't make a whit's difference what legislation the Congress might pass. George will do as he pleases. Waste all the time you want passing laws. He's above them. And "impeachment is off the the table," according to Ms. Speaker of the House, Democrat Nancy Pelosi.
Well, why not? You can't impeach a king.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) plans to review the Senate testimony of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel A. Alito to determine if their reversal of several long-standing opinions conflicts with promises they made to senators to win confirmation.[...]
"There are things he has said, and I want to see how well he has complied with it," Specter said, singling out Roberts.
The Specter inquiry poses a potential political problem for the GOP and future nominees because Democrats are increasingly complaining that the Supreme Court moved quicker and more dramatically than advertised to overturn or chip away at prior decisions.
So, they were okay with it if it took longer? What's the problem? I thought Democrats were supposed to like activist judges.
"The reality is, although John Roberts and Samuel Alito promised to follow precedent, they either explicitly or implicitly overruled precedent," said Erwin Chemerinsky, a Duke University law professor."It is important to point out how the confirmation hearings were a sham. There is nothing you can do about it now; they are there for life. But it is important as we look to future hearings."
So, essentially, Specter is wasting everybody's time. Neither judge swore he wouldn't reverse previous decisions, and they're already on the bench. There's an old Texas adage (to borrow from a recent Bush speech - and this is just as much an old Texas adage as whatever he said) that there's no sense closing the barn door after the horse has already gotten out.
A review could put "judges on notice that they can't come in front of the Judiciary Committee, say one thing and leave one impression, and then go out and do another." [Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif)]
Oh, yeah. A review will really put the fear of God in them.
Specter says he'll get to that review as soon as he "gets a spare moment." So maybe he's not going to waste any more time than it took him to catch some headlines and take some print away from the Gonzales story.
New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a powerful member of the Democratic leadership, said Friday the Senate should not confirm another U.S. Supreme Court nominee under President Bush "except in extraordinary circumstances."
There's an old Texas adage....
Senators were too quick to accept the nominees’ word that they would respect legal precedents, and "too easily impressed with the charm of Roberts and the erudition of Alito," Schumer said."There is no doubt that we were hoodwinked."
Yes, but it's so easy to do.
Schumer said there were four lessons to be learned from Alito and Roberts: Confirmation hearings are meaningless, a nominee’s record should be weighed more heavily than rhetoric, "ideology matters" and "take the president at his word.""When a president says he wants to nominate justices in the mold of [Antonin] Scalia and [Clarence] Thomas," Schumer said, "believe him."
Was there somebody who didn't believe him?
If Congress didn't know before Alito and Roberts that a person's record is worth more than his rhetoric, they're a sad lot indeed. But that would explain a lot.
And confirmation hearings are meaningless only when Congress is so easily "hoodwinked."
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
[W]hat does it take to get the Bush administration to communicate with a Democratic Congress about matters of foreign policy? Directives from the Saudis.
Let the squealing begin.
Democrats steered the Senate into an attention-grabbing, all-night Senate session Tuesday to dramatize opposition to the Iraq war but conceded they were unlikely to gain the votes needed to advance troop withdrawal legislation blocked by Republicans."Our enemies aren't threatened by talk-a-thons, and our troops deserve better than publicity stunts," said Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader.
Avoiding mention of the reason for the all-nighter: Republican filibuster to avoid voting on withdrawal, fearing passage.
Josh Marshall laments the fact that no major media outlet will call the filibuster for what it is.
And I was wondering how many of them would actually stay awake.
Turns out, they needn't have worried.
Reid changed his mind about how many [Senators had to be present], and when. He had originally planned holding [a live quorum call] around 3 a.m. and another at 7 a.m. But that changed during the midnight vote when Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., made the case against senatorial sleep deprivation and implored Reid to push the quorum call back.
You mean torture?
Reid, who had his very own cot waiting for him in a quiet parlor off his office, agreed.
With the onset of dawn, the senators continued to speak. Reid set a vote later in the morning on whether to advance legislation to withdraw troops from Iraq.
A few hours earlier, most senators hit the hay.
Meanwhile, people are dying by the scores.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
Update 9:20 AM Either the action stopped just after mid-night, or that's when the "live blogger" from Think Progress fell asleep.
Corexit: More toxic than the oil
IVAW: Iraq Veterans Against the War
