One Nation Under Investigation

One Nation Under Investigation -- (Emphasis added)

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"Give it up, President Bush. When you've lost Appleton, Wisconsin, you've lost pretty much everyone." TChris

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11.30.2006 Bob Gates & Locking You Up Forever By Robert Parry

The questions about Gates’s integrity and independence stand out in even sharper relief now because of the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006. The new law empowers the Defense Secretary to create a parallel American legal system, existing outside the protections of the U.S. Constitution.

As Defense Secretary, Gates would handpick the military judges and set the rules for administering the system, which was established under a law passed by Congress in September and signed by President Bush on Oct. 17. The law allows the jailing of both “unlawful enemy combatants” and “any person” who allegedly helps them.
...
But before Gates’s confirmation by acclamation, senators might want to consider posing the following questions: (Here)

11.30.2006 "The Office on Violence Against Women gets a new (scary) director"

11.30.2006 Feds to Toughen E-Voting Standards? By Michael Hickins via Brad Blog

11.30.2006 The Supreme Court melts down over greenhouse gasses. By Dahlia Lithwick

Now, maybe it's because I have a toddler at home, but the EPA's argument, presented by Deputy Solicitor General Gregory Garre, quickly sounds very familiar. 1) I can't clean it up; 2) Even if I could, I don't want to clean it up; 3) You can't make me clean it up; and 4) China is making an even bigger mess. How come China never has to clean it up? When and if all that fails, the EPA, like my son, just puts its hands over its eyes and says there is no mess in the first place.
11.30.2006 A Crack in the Stone Wall NYT Op-ed
The department’s inspector general, Glenn Fine, has already said that the question of whether the program was legal is beyond his jurisdiction. Instead, he will investigate whether department employees followed the rules governing the program — rules that were established in a secret executive order signed by the president in October 2001.

Whether or not Justice Department employees followed the rules they were given may have bearing on their individual performance evaluations, but it will tell us very little else. Since the rules Mr. Bush established under his secret order will presumably stay secret, the investigation will not even help us to understand just how far from established legal standards he strayed when he authorized the government to eavesdrop on Americans’ international calls and e-mail without a court-issued warrant.

11.30.2006 Digby:
I suspect that what started out as a shield by Cheney and Rove to narrow the influences upon him may have morphed into a bubble designed to keep him from completely spinning out of control. But it couldn't keep him from making decisions, and make them he did, without thought or analysis or knowledge. His belief in his "gut" and God's anointment has been leading this nation since 9/11. Combined with Cheney's megalomaniacal belief in untrammelled executive power it has been a disaster.(In fact, Cheney could not have chosen a better subject to more thoroughly discredit his theory than Junior.)
...
Most importantly, the people who work in politics and the media need to take this more seriously. Presidential politics isn't American Idol, it's a contest for the leadership of the United States of America and putting together an "electable" package cannot be the only focus. And it goes without saying that this kewl kidz and mean girls nonsense from the press has to stop. The past six years have been a tragedy and we desperately need some thoughtful, intelligent, competent leadership to set this right.
11.29.2006 Sibel Edmonds speaks out in spite of governmental attempts to muzzel her.

11.29.2006 "Iran/contra: 20 Years Later and What It Means" By David Corn

Guess who is the president of Nicaragua?!

11.15.2006 Sen. Jim Webb on Class Struggle -- Speaking Truth to the Wall Street Journal

11.29.2006 Judge deals blow to key parts of Bush anti-terrorist order By DAN EGGEN

David Cole, a Georgetown University law professor helping represent the plaintiffs, said the executive order and a related federal statute improperly allow Bush to create "blacklists" and engage in "guilt by association."
11.28.2006 Step Away From The Constitution, Mr. Gingrich, And Put Your Hands Where We Can See Them By Bob Cesca

11.27.2006 Dick Cheney's mission to expand - or "restore" - the powers of the presidency. By Charlie Savage, The Boston Globe Why is that man still here?

11.26.2006 Glenn Greenwald:

So Harman has a history of defending the administration's illegal intelligence activities. She was among the most gullible and/or deceitful when it came to disseminating the administration's most extreme (and most inaccurate) intelligence claims to "justify" the invasion of Iraq. She supports the administration's efforts to criminally investigate, if not prosecute, journalists who reveal illegal intelligence activities on the part of the President (including illegal activities about which Harman knew but said nothing).
11.26.2006 "Justice Department eyes spy program" By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer

11.26.2006 "High court to hear global warming case"

The Bush administration intends to argue before the court on Wednesday that the EPA lacks the power under the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant. The agency contends that even if it did have such authority, it would have discretion under the law on how to address the problem without imposing emissions controls.
11.26.2006 Media Disconnect from America: It's the Geography, Stupid David Sirota
By any honest definition, America's political opinion/propaganda machine is comprised primarily of the Washington Post Writers Group, the New York Times columnists, the LA Times columnists, and Creator's Syndicate. There are certainly others who contribute to opinionmaking. But looking at these institutions is a good way to survey the world that is the Punditocracy, especially because through media consolidation, the Sunday/cable chat shows that nationalize these pundits' message, and the modern wonders of syndication into local papers, these opinionmakers' tentacles now reach into almost every community in America.

These companies, because they claim to represent "national" opinion, could choose to present diverse voices. But when you look at this large group of pundits, what do you know, almost every single one of these columnists lives in Washington, D.C. or New York City.

11.26.2006 Are we there yet? No
Voting experts say it is impossible to say how many votes were not counted that should have been. But in Florida alone, the discrepancies reported across Sarasota County and three others amount to more than 60,000 votes. In Colorado, as many as 20,000 people gave up trying to vote, election officials say, as new online systems for verifying voter registrations crashed repeatedly. And in Arkansas, election officials tallied votes three times in one county, and each time the number of ballots cast changed by more than 30,000. (Here)
11.26.2006 It's time to admit it's over in Iraq By Richard A. Clarke
Too often in the Iraq debate, we have let intuition, slogans and appealing thoughts cloud logic. Perhaps the most troublesome example is the argument that we must honor the American dead by staying until we can build something worthy of their sacrifice.

Stripped of its emotional tones, this argument is, in economic analysis, an appeal to sunk cost. An MIT professor once promised to fail me if I ever justified actions based on sunk cost – so I learned that what is gone is gone, and what is left we should conserve, cherish and employ wisely.
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Pursuing the terrorists in Iraq does not require 150,000 troops; it can be done with intelligence capabilities, U.S. Special Forces and air power – much of which can be based in Kuwait.

11.26.2006 "AZHAR OUTLAWS FEMALE CIRCUMCISION"

11.25.2006 Rumsfeld okayed abuses says former U.S. general

Karpinski, who ran the prison until early 2004, said she saw a memorandum signed by Rumsfeld detailing the use of harsh interrogation methods.

"The handwritten signature was above his printed name and in the same handwriting in the margin was written: "Make sure this is accomplished"," she told Saturday's El Pais.

11.25.2006 The E. coli Free Market By Joel Bleifuss

11.25.2006 Kelpie Wilson:

The White House has begun closing the Enviromental Protection Agency's research libraries to the public and to its own staff, cementing Bush's reputation as usher of a new dark age.
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In the early days of the Bush reign, the Natural Resources Defense Council began compiling all of the Bush administration rollbacks and assaults on environmental quality. By the November 2004 elections, it had listed more than 300 Bush "crimes against nature." NRDC stopped counting a year later, but you can still see the list at their web site.

So it's hard to say what the Democrats' environmental priorities should be. Climate change, energy, clean air and water, forest and wildlands protection, toxics, endangered species -- they are all important, urgent and critical. The common thread through all of these environmental issues is the need to understand and follow the science. That requires two things: good information and good people. Without the presidency, the Democrats will be limited in their ability to enact new policies, but they should do their utmost to block bad appointees, encourage and protect whistleblowers, and pump some money back into starved and understaffed agencies like the EPA and the Forest Service.

11.24.2006 "I Wish Thanksgiving Were For All of Us"

11.24.2006 "The first thing we do"

Justice Department officials have long said they will resist efforts to require disclosure of classified documents that provide legal advice to other agencies. But in the interview this week, Mr. Leahy signaled that he expected the department to provide a fuller documentary history on issues like detention.

The senator’s letter to Mr. Gonzales requested “all directives, memoranda, and/or orders including any and all attachments to such documents, regarding C.I.A. interrogation methods or policies for the treatment of detainees.” It also sought an index of all documents related to Justice Department inquiries into detainee abuse by “U.S. military or civilian personnel in Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib prison or elsewhere.” [Here]

11.23.2006 By Onnesha Roychoudhuri, In These Times:
The Department of Justice's response to inquiries sent by Maine, Connecticut, Vermont and New Jersey about possible illegal wiretapping has been to sue.
11.22.2006 Sandy Levinson:
So the question is this: Does "democracy" entail that an incompetent President and a demented Vice-President should be able to lead the country into another absolutely disastrous war?
11.21.2006 KBR's “temporary detention and processing capabilities to augment existing Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) Detention and Removable Operations” and the President's move to improve the Insurrection Act (Here) (FY2007 Defense Department Authorization Act (PL 109-364)

11.22.2006 When in doubt, blame the victim:

Leon Wieseltier worried that the problem may be deeper than the number of our troops; it may be Iraq itself. “After we invaded Iraq, Iraq invaded itself. ... We are at the mercy of Iraq, where there is no mercy.” Maureen Dowd via NP
11.22.2006 Glenn Greenwald:
This is rank historical revisionism of the most deliberately dishonest strain, designed to cleanse the sins of neoconservatives and other Iraq war advocates, and it is spreading everywhere. It is vital to preserve the truth that the invasion of Iraq was not some slightly excessive extension of our long-standing idealistic desire to help the world's oppressed people. The opposite was true.
11.21.2006 Hitting a man when he is down
U.S. authorities last month filed a civil forfeiture case against Lay's estate, seeking $12.5 million for victims of Enron's collapse. The government asked for a jury trial to re- establish Lay's responsibility for the fraud. (Here) via Talk Left
11.21.2006 Eight former Justice Department officials challenge the right of the government to bring Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri before a military tribunal. (Here) The al-Marri matter is before the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va.

11.21.2006 Carpetbagger quotes a WaPo editorial:

Now the government is arguing that by subjecting detainees to such treatment, the CIA gives them “top secret” classified information — and the government can then take extraordinary measures to keep them quiet about it. If this argument carries the day, it will make virtually impossible any accountability for the administration’s treatment of top al-Qaeda detainees. And it will also ensure that key parts of any military trials get litigated in secrecy.
rege comments: I think the torturers should be prosecuted for releasing classified information to unauthorized persons

11.21.2006 JENNIFER GLAUDEMANS a former CIA analyst and an attorney, writes about the Gates appointment, his active role in the Iran Contra scandal and the corrosive effect of ideology upon intelligence reporting. (Here)

11.20.2006 CACI: Torture in Iraq, Intimidation at Home By Joshua Holland, AlterNet

Dogged by serious allegations of human rights abuses in Iraq, a leading profiteer from the Iraq war engages in intimidation campaigns against journalists in America who seek to expose its practices.
11.20.2006 Federal Judge rejects FOIA request for NSA documents
The People for the American Way Foundation, a liberal advocacy group, sued to obtain records under the Freedom of Information Act. The group sought to find out how many wiretaps were approved and who reviewed the program.
...
U.S. Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle disagreed, saying that even if the program is ultimately determined to be illegal, it doesn't change the fact that the materials are classified and are not covered by the Freedom of Information Act.
11.20.2006 Kill Bill - Neutering Bush's Torture Law by Bob Geiger
The text of the MCA (Bush's Military Commissions Act of 2006) may fill almost 40 pages, but it only takes a few paragraphs of Dodd's 10-page Effective Terrorists Prosecution Act (S.4060) to render its most onerous aspects moot.

I analyzed Dodd's bill over the weekend and am writing this piece to give you the basics of how it fixes the Constitutional ruin imposed by the MCA and puts the power of the executive branch of government back in its rightful place.

11.20.2006 Iraqi views:

  • Baghdad Burning
  • Omar Ghanim Fathi
  • Basim Mardan
  • Waddah Ali
    What made Saddam Hussein powerful? Information. Whenever a person checked into a hotel, a paper with his full name and a copy of his passport was given to the security quarters. Iraq was a castle; a bird could not go in without being checked. If you caused offense, you could be put in prison for good. If you were lucky you would be tried one day; if not, then we have a word in Arabic that means you rot, as food rots.
11.18.2006 Frank Rich:
... Carl Levin and Joe Biden, among the party’s leaders in thinking through a new Iraq policy, are gravitating toward a long-gestating centrist exit strategy: a phased withdrawal starting in four to six months; a loosely federal Iraqi government that would ratify the de facto separation of the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds and fairly allocate the oil spoils; and diplomacy, diplomacy, diplomacy to engage Iraq’s neighbors, including Iran and Syria, in securing some kind of peace.

None of these ideas are radical, novel or much removed from what James Baker’s Iraq Study Group is expected to come up with. All are debatable and all could fail. At this late date, only triage is an option, not “victory.”

11.17.2006 "New Report on Guantanamo Review Hearings" By Jeralyn Merritt. Read the Seaton Hall report with a barf bag firmly held in place.

Senator Dodd answers: EFFECTIVE TERRORISTS PROSECUTION ACT WILL BRING TERRORISTS TO JUSTICE; HONOR AMERICA’S GOOD NAME

And the General says:

Be prepared. Although Sen. Dodd's bill probably won't come up until after the holidays, these Senators need to hear from their constituents early and often:

Brown (OH), Carper (Del.), Johnson (S.D.), Landrieu (La.), Lautenberg (N.J.), Lieberman (Conn.), Menendez (N.J), Nelson (Fla.), Nelson (Neb.), Pryor (Ark.), Rockefeller (W. Va.), Salazar (Co.), Stabenow (Mich)

Never forget.

New Report Finds Bush Banned Rights Before Military Tribunal Law Enacted By Congress Patriot Daily via Talk Left
... when a suspected terrorist is subjected to an administrative proceeding to determine whether he or she is an unlawful enemy combatant, that person should be provided constitutional rights like an attorney because the consequences of this status adjudication is to keep the prisoner at Guantanamo and perhaps charge that prisoner with war crimes. While Sen. Dodd introduced new legislation called the Effective Terrorists Prosecution Act to remedy the problems with Bush's military tribunal law, there is no provision reported which addresses the unfairness of this status determination. If changes are not made to the status determination hearings, then the US will have a bifurcated process whereby some prisoners may be afforded rights not available to other prisoners.
11.15.2006 Gates & the Iran-Contra Legacy By Ivan Eland

11.18.2006 Dem judiciary leader seeks torture documents By Brian Beutler, Raw Story

In a letter addressed to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, chairman-to-be of the Senate Judiciary Committee Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has requested the release of documents that outline the Bush Administration's interrogation policies.
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One of those documents is believed to be a companion piece to the now-infamous August 2002 memorandum which redefined torture and, as a result, broadened the range of interrogation tactics permitted in the field.

The companion document, the so-called “Yoo Two” document (named after legal counsel John Yoo) is believed to contain a list of actual techniques that have been approved by the Department of Justice—and which are therefore legally protected interrogation methods used by intelligence operatives against suspected terrorists.

(See also ACLU FOIA lawsuit)

11.18.2006 McCain: Bush Admin Breaks Laws to Hide Global Warming Data By Justin Rood
McCain isn't alone in wanting the study. On Tuesday, a trio of environmental groups announced they are suing NOAA to release the document.
What's wrong with these people?

11.18.2006 UCLA police used a Taser to subdue a student studying in Powell Library
11.17.2006 "Houston Police Run Over Striking Janitors with Horses"

11.17.2006 Clear Evidence 2006 Congressional Elections Hacked From OpEdNews By Rob Kall

“The numbers tell us there absolutely was hacking going on, just not enough to overcome the size of the actual turnout. The tide turned so much in the last few weeks before the eleciton. It looks for all the world that they’d already figured out the percentage they needed to rig, when the programming of the vote rigging software was distributed weeks before the election, and it wasn’t enough,” Castleman commented.
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Simon concluded, "These machines are completely and utterly black box. The idea that we have this enormous burden of proof that they are miscounting, and there's no burden of proof that they are counting accurately--that, first and foremost, has to change."
See also: Bob Koehler:
This is the untold story of Election ’06. “The real winner in the Nov. 7 election is the grassroots voter protection movement,” wrote Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman at FreePress.org. “That the well-oiled, well-funded Rove/Bush theft machine lost control of (Congress) says just one thing: Somebody was watching.”
11.17.2006 Bush Pick for Family-Planning Post Is Criticized By Christopher Lee
The Bush administration has appointed a new chief of family-planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services who worked at a Christian pregnancy-counseling organization that regards the distribution of contraceptives as "demeaning to women." ... "The president has said we will look to reach common ground where we can find it. However, he's not going to compromise on his principles."
11.17.2006 The Uncovered War: Permanent Bases in Iraq Tom Engelhardt

3.21.2006 "Extended presence of U.S. in Iraq looms large -- $1 billion for construction of American military bases and no public plans" (Here)

See also:

2.14.2006 Tomgram: "A Permanent Basis for Withdrawal? - Can You Say "Permanent Bases"? - The American Press Can't" By Tom Engelhardt (Here)

11.17.2006 Still Waiting for Bipartisanship

The voters sent a clear message last week that they do not want the far right of the Republican Party calling the shots in Washington. But President Bush has ignored the message, resubmitting a group of archconservative, underqualified judicial nominees that Senate Democrats have already said are unacceptable. With the Democrats about to take control of the Senate, it is highly unlikely that these men will be confirmed. But the renominations suggest that when it comes to filling judgeships, Mr. Bush is still not looking for either excellence or common ground.
See also:

11.15.2006 The Same Old George By William Rivers Pitt

The first rumblings of the wow-nothing-has-changed-at-all-in-the-White-House phenomenon started last week, when Bush's people intimated that the lame-duck GOP Congress would be tasked to ram through some highly dubious legislation before they get shoved into the minority seats come January. First off, Bush wanted John Bolton, now serving a temp job as UN ambassador, to be permanently confirmed.

If any time was available, Bush also wanted Congress to pass blanket approval for his highly controversial and almost certainly illegal warrantless wiretapping program. To wit, he was hoping his pals in Congress would paper over this particular set of broken FISA laws before the new chairmen come in with subpoena power.

And, if all else fails:

11.14.2006 A Deliberate Evasion of Democracy Through the Administrative Apparatus By Brian Tamanaha

Given the many recent corporate scandals--Enron and Worldcom, CEO's sentenced to imprisonment, disclosures of widespread backdating of stock options to benefit corporate officers, new information about conflicts of interest in consulting groups that set sky-high compensation levels for CEOs--one would think that this is not a propitious time to undertake an effort to reduce corporate regulation and legal accountability.

Indeed it is not. In recognition of this, these two group have designed and scheduled their activities to evade democratic institutions and accountability:

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Minimum Daily Requirement
  • Glenn Greenwald

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    Investigations
    Senate Judiciary Committee
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    Documents
    Fact Checker Center for American Progress

    The Library of Congress -- Legislative information, pending bills, etc.

    January 25, 2001 Richard Clarke Memo: "We urgently need . . . a Principals level review on the al Qida network." (Here)

    Transcript of Powell's U.N. presentation

    The Scalito, Mafia PDF

    Alphabet Soup

    The Project for the New American Century's Statement of Principles, and its pre-2000 writings about Iraq.

    The U.S. Constitution
    See also

    Civil Disobedience, by Henry David Thoreau

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    Bush Count-down clock -- The Yellowcake Road and other Scandals -- Strategies for the Future -- Spying on America -- Bad Writing -- The Conservatives Get It

    Red and Blue maps
    (Senate Races) (Gubernatorial Races)

    Litigation:

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