The fundamental problem is that the Roe debate is only tangentially related to abortion. Instead, it’s about penalties. More precisely, it’s about whether (and what) penalties are appropriate for having an abortion. For this reason, the linguistic labels of the various camps – pro-life and pro-choice – don’t reflect the essence of the political debate very accurately. One can, for instance, oppose abortion personally, while simultaneously opposing efforts to ban or criminalize it. The Roe debate then, stripped to its essence, is about allocation of power. Does the individual get the final say? Or does the state? Obsidian Wings

Well, yes... but that instance is the essence of why the label "pro-choice" was chosen. The author's argument is not a new argument against the label, it is exactly the old argument for that label.

Pro-Choice means being for a woman's right to choose. How can the author see anything else but that in it? Why does he want it to be just another way of saying pro-abortion?

The case the author makes is simply the case that has always been made by the pro-choice camp. The problem is that the other side of debate is not debating that. They believe the debate is about life and death. The author here is contributing nothing new, but rather saying to the two sides, "Person A and Person B are both missing the point. The point is that Person B is correct."

New laws targeting employers who hire illegal immigrants take effect here on January 1, with experts predicting the move may cost the state's economy billions of dollars in lost income and taxes Scott Seckel

12.30.2007 Dahlia Lithwick: "The Bush administration's dumbest legal arguments of the year."

12.26.2007 Fix spying laws to protect liberties

In the spirit of Santa Claus, Congress should think twice about just how naughty the Bush administration has been. All of the administration's past lawbreaking was done under the guise of fighting international terrorists overseas in the post-9/11 era. But it turns out that the White House hasn't been telling us the truth about its dragnet operations.

With the help of recent revelations in The New York Times, we made a list of the ways that the Bush administration has hidden the facts on government spying. Congress should check it twice before it succumbs once again. Susan Goering:baltimoresun.com

“The Defense bill passed both houses of Congress by overwhelming bipartisan margins and addresses urgent national security priorities, including a 3.5 percent pay raise for our troops and Wounded Warriors legislation to remedy our veterans’ health care system. It is unfortunate that the President will not sign this critical legislation.

“Instead, we understand that the President is bowing to the demands of the Iraqi government, which is threatening to withdraw billions of dollars invested in U.S. banks if this bill is signed. The Gavel

The Bush administration is dropping a plan to take control over the promotions of military lawyers, following an outpouring of alarm over the independence of uniformed attorneys who have repeatedly objected to the White House's policies toward prisoners in the war on terrorism. Charlie Savage

12.29.2007

Keep in mind, the veto of the defense authorization bill puts a variety of key spending measures in limbo, including a pay raise for the troops, VA care for wounded veterans, a new "Truman Commission" to fight fraud and waste by military contractors, and expanded job protections for family members of severely wounded troops. Steve Benen:Washington Monthly

... The toll of withholding potentially life-saving information is becoming tragically evident. In the states where the abstinence-only approach is more likely to be used disease is up. School districts in the south are five times more likely than in the northeast to teach only abstinence. Today, the southern states have the highest rate of new HIV/AIDS infections, the highest rate of STDs, as well as the highest rate of teen births. While over the past decade other regions have made major strides in decreasing or stagnating HIV infection rates, according to the CDC, the South accounts for 45 percent of all new cases.

Teens need accurate information to make important life decisions. Many states legislatures and executives are realizing the cost of instilling ignorance about sex and protection in our teens is the real moral violation. To date, fifteen states have refused federal money for abstinence-only funding. Parents in the remaining 35 states must demand that their governors and statehouses reject federal grants for these ineffective and dangerous programs too. It's the only time just saying no might actually work. Christina Page:Huffington Post

...Along with pledging to give a fertilized egg full constitutional rights candidates prove their anti-contraception credentials in other ways. McCain boasts that he has consistently voted against funding pregnancy prevention for poor women. Romney vetoed an emergency contraception bill, calling it an 'abortion' drug. Ron Paul opposes federal funding for any contraceptive service.

These guys may try to outdo each other on anti-abortion rhetoric and explain, unflinchingly, how doctors will be thrown in jail when Roe fails (an inevitability in their minds). But it's the contraception question that really scares them. Because once the presidential debate focuses on how the candidates plan to alter the average American's sex life (made possible thanks to family planning) it is lifted from the pink ghetto of "woman's issues" and becomes a concern of male voters too.

Study after study proves that contraceptive use is the only way to prevent abortion; the places on earth contraception is most available are also where abortion is most rare. According to Save the Children, the countries where infant and maternal mortality are the lowest is where contraception is used the most (because planned pregnancies are healthier pregnancies.) Using abortion rates, maternal and infant death rates, as measures, it's undeniable: the most pro-life thing a president can do is support the right to use contraception and make it widely available. The public knows this. And sometime before the primaries the candidates must be made to state openly whether they support contraception. Because the candidates know those professional pro-life dogs are still listening for the right whistle. Christina Page:Huffington Post

12,29.2007 $156M Terrorism Damage Award Thrown Out

A federal appeals court overturned a $156 million award Friday against U.S.-based Muslim activists for their involvement in the terrorist death of an American teenager in the West Bank more than a decade ago.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the judge in the case had failed to require the parents of 17-year-old David Boim to properly show a link between the boy's death and the fundraising activities of the charities Guardian Unlimited [Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development; the American Muslim Society, also known as the Islamic Association for Palestine; the Quranic Literacy Institute of suburban Oak Lawn]

Military Paper Challenges Defense Dept.

... Ms. Barber said it was only recently that the news staff voiced concerns about the relationship with the publicity program. “What I would say is if we’ve had the America Supports You contract for maybe two years, and they didn’t even know about it, then clearly there is that established firewall that you have to have in an organization that is a First Amendment organization,” she said.
SARAH ABRUZZESE:NYT

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Wednesday that employers could reduce or eliminate health benefits for retirees when they turn 65 and become eligible for Medicare. ROBERT PEAR:NYT

This seems excessively cruel at a time when we are running out of enough ice-flows to house them.

Anonymous Liberal discusses the Savage article

By in large, I found the answers given by the Democratic candidates to be reassuring. Clinton, Obama, Biden, Richardson, and Dodd all made clear that they considered the president to be bound by FISA, the various laws against torture, and treaties like the Geneva Conventions. Their answers were clear and unequivocal, as they should be.
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The only issue about which there was any real disagreement among the Democrats was on the use of signing statements. Biden, Richardson, and Dodd all claimed that they would not use statements as president, while Clinton, Obama, and Edwards claimed that they would use signing statements the way they had traditionally been used prior to the Bush administration. Like Marty, I think the latter position is probably the correct one. Here's Obama's response:

Signing statements have been used by presidents of both parties, dating back to Andrew Jackson. While it is legitimate for a president to issue a signing statement to clarify his understanding of ambiguous provisions of statutes and to explain his view of how he intends to faithfully execute the law, it is a clear abuse of power to use such statements as a license to evade laws that the president does not like or as an end-run around provisions designed to foster accountability.

I will not use signing statements to nullify or undermine congressional instructions as enacted into law. The problem with this administration is that it has attached signing statements to legislation in an effort to change the meaning of the legislation, to avoid enforcing certain provisions of the legislation that the President does not like, and to raise implausible or dubious constitutional objections to the legislation.

...
Mitt Romney's responses read like something David Addington or John Yoo might have written. They were largely non-responsive and in a way that suggests Romney doesn't believe the president's power to be subject to any serious constraints.
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Give Romney credit for at least bothering to respond, though. Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, and Mike Huckabee chose not to. On Giuliani's behalf, Ted Olson gave this boilerplate response: ...

Translation: I'm not going to tell you how Giuliani would respond to these questions because it would probably scare you.

Mitt Romney is running for President and proudly refuses to say if he would obey the law regarding torture. Worse, he's citing national security as an excuse for refusing to answer the question. He's not even President yet, and he's already insisting that it's too Top Secret for him even to participate in the debate over the President's duties to abide by the law. Even considering where our country has been taken with these matters, that's an astonishing assertion -- that the Terrorists will win if Mitt Romney expresses his views on whether the President must obey the law.

Next, assuming there was a proper state of war (there was not) and the right authority ordered the destruction of the evidence tapes (they did not), were the right circumstances present permitting destruction under the provision? It is hard to imagine how a few videotapes could credibly be considered to "occupy space urgently needed for military purposes", nor can it, even remotely, be said that the tapes "are without sufficient administrative, legal, research, or other value to warrant their continued preservation". The only authorized situation remaining is where the records are "prejudicial to the interest of the United States". I will grant the contents of the torture tapes are prejudicial to the interests of the United States; but, personally, I am not very plussed with conflation of concealment of blatant and intentional commission of national and international war crimes by elected politicians, and the general interest of the country. Furthermore, these provisions are designed to apply only to emergency situations. What emergency was there necessitating the destruction of evidence that no one knew about, kept in a safe in a third party country no one is aware of, that is under no known threat or attack by anything, some four years after the tapes were made? The only threat was that the tapes would be discovered and the heinous war crimes of this Administration become exposed and proved beyond any reasonable doubt. Not particularly compelling.

You can almost detect a pattern here eh? The next consideration is, if all the requisite elements permitting the emergency destruction of the torture tapes were met (they were not), were the proper protocols and procedures followed in effecting the destruction? That would require that:

Within 6 months after the destruction of any records under this authorization, a written statement describing the character of the records and showing when and where the disposal was accomplished shall be submitted to NARA (NWML) by the agency official who directed the disposal.

emptywheel:FireDogLake

Kevin Drum: So let's review:

* The 9/11 Commission was an official investigative body chartered by both Congress and the president.

* It specifically asked for "documents," "reports" and "information" related to detainee interrogations.

* The CIA knew about the tapes, knew they were germane, and knew the commission was likely to ask for them at some point.

* But it never revealed their existence and never turned them over because no one ever specifically said the word, "videotape."

From an administration that said the vice president is a fourth branch of government; that the Medicare prescription bill would only cost $400 billion; that waterboarding isn't torture; and that Iraq was trying to procure uranium from Africa — well, this one might not even make its all-time top ten mendacity list. For one thing, the deceit is a little too obvious. Surely to make the list your lies have to display more than a fourth-grade level of sophistication?

Judge Hellerstein was appointed to the federal bench by President Bill Clinton in 1998. An editor of the Columbia Law Review during his law school years, he started his legal career in the Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps of the Army in 1959-1960. An experienced litigator with a prestigious New York City law firm, he is a highly-respected judge. He works hard, is fair, and is savvy.

He is also a nightmare for the CIA in a case like this, because on June 3, 2005 he ordered the release of four videos from Abu Ghraib, along with dozens of photographs - not withstanding an effort of the government to suppress this material from ever becoming public.

Judge Hellerstein appears to have no tolerance for torture. Unlike his former colleague and now-Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who still is not clear that waterboarding is torture, one does not have the sense that Judge Hellerstein suffers from such confusion. While Judge Hellerstein is going to appropriately protect the sources and methods of the CIA, if any judge is going to get to the bottom of this destruction of these records quickly, this is the judge. Alternet

12.21.2007 Emptywheel, regarding the New Hampshire phone jamming case: Does it strike anyone as odd that the regional chair for Bush-Cheney's re-election campaign would have Dick Cheney's lawyer calling around DOJ to postpone his indictment until after the election?

l2.21.2007 State Dept Document from 2005 Shows Fraud in Blackwater's Iraq Contract

A report prepared for the State Department's inspector general in January 2005, and obtained by TPMmuckraker, shows Blackwater's accounting system for its no-bid, multimillion dollar Iraq contract was "not considered adequate for accumulating costs on government contracts."
...
It also found that Blackwater cited its profit from the contract as a cost it incurred, and billed the government for it -- resulting in what the report called "a pyramiding of profit." Spencer Ackerman:TPMmuckraker

12.20.2007 "Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) plans to keep the Senate in a pro forma session over the holiday recess in order to block President Bush’s controversial recess appointments. “Reid’s decision came after an afternoon of private negotiations with the White House” to reach a deal didn’t pan out." Think Progress

12.19.2007 "Mukasey cuts off White House access to information on probes" Mcclatchy

12.20.2007 The Captain and I agree on something:

Michael Mukasey promised Congress during his confirmation hearings that he would operate the Department of Justice in a more independent manner than his predecessor. Yesterday, he took a big step in that direction with an order limiting contacts between Justice and the White House. Communications on pending criminal and civil cases will only get conducted through a limited number of channels (via Memeorandum):
...
These guidelines make sense, as this aptly shows. Even if nothing unethical happened, the frequency and breadth of communications on criminal and civil cases between the DoJ and the White House leads to the appearance of interference, at the very least. Having bright lines between the two organizations acts to protect both from inferences of impropriety.

Glenn Greenwald: It was exclusively in response to that blog-based outpouring of citizen passion that Dodd -- within a matter of a few hours -- emphatically vowed that he would do something he has almost never done during his 24-year Senate career: place a "hold" on this bill and, if necessary, lead a filibuster against it on the floor of the Senate. Dodd's responsiveness, and the all-too-rare leadership he displayed, prompted an outpouring of support for his campaign from citizens hungry for any sort of Democratic leadership, as he raised $200,000 in small donations over the next 24 hours alone, exceeding the total he had raised for the preceding many months.
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Without question, it was those efforts, spontaneously created and driven by blogs and their readers, which led directly to the principled stand Chris Dodd took yesterday in defense of the rule of law. This was not a process whereby some Beltway politician announced a campaign and then citizens fell into line behind it. The opposite occurred. The very idea for the "hold" originated among a few citizens, was almost immediately exploded into a virtual movement by tens of thousands of people, and was then made into a reality by a single political figure, Chris Dodd, responding to that passion by taking the lead on it.
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The most important value of victories of this sort is that they ought to serve as a potent tonic against defeatism, regardless of the ultimate outcome. And successes like this can and should provide a template for how to continue to strengthen these efforts. Yesterday's victory, temporary as it is, shouldn't be over-stated, but it also shouldn't be minimized. All of it stemmed from the spontaneous passion and anger of hundreds of thousands of individuals demanding that telecoms be subject to the rule of law like everyone else. And this effort could have been -- and, with this additional time, still can be -- much bigger and stronger still.

12.16.07 Black Marks and Prior Restraints

Guantanamo detainee Majid Khan claims that the CSRT determination that he is a detainable combatant was infected by testimony procurred by way of unlawful torture and other illegal forms of coercion. In challenging his detention under the Detainee Treatment Act, he has now asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to declare that such evidence was inadmissible -- a holding that would presumably have a significant bearing on his challenge to the CSRT detention decision.

The most remarkable thing about Khan's motion is that all of his descriptions of the way our government treated him are redacted in the public version of the motion (linked above). Check out the large swaths of blacked-out text. The government presumably required his lawyers to make those redactions as a condition of their access to Khan at GTMO. As I've discussed before, as a condition of being able to speak to their client in the first place, the government required the lawyers to agree not to reveal what their client has told them -- not even to members of Congress!
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In any event: Can anyone think of any precedent in history where the government has claimed a lawful right to prevent a U.S. resident from publicly describing what the government has done to them?

I imagine that Khan's lawyers are understandably wary of raising this issue, for fear that their access to their client might be restricted. But the First Amendment right extends to the audience for Khan's speech, as well (see, e.g., Lamont), and that audience First Amendment right is even more substantial now that the allegations are the fulcrum of a motion pending before a federal court. Has any media outlet made a motion to make the allegations public? If not, why not? Marty Lederman:Balkinization

12.15.07 Control sought on military lawyers - Bush wants power over promotions Charlie Savage

12.15.07 Attorney General Rejects Demand for Information

Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey has firmly rejected Congressional demands that he provide information about the Justice Department's investigation into the Central Intelligence Agency's destruction of videotapes showing interrogations, a stance that inflamed a feud between Capitol Hill and the administration this afternoon. DAVID STOUT

Several former intelligence officials who said CIA officers do not need insurance because they can rely on the government to defend their lawful actions depicted the growing number of policies as a barometer of the uncertainty officers have of the legality of their work. R. Jeffrey Smith:WaPo

The target rock survived Spirit’s charge, but a neighboring rock cracked open. The interior of that rock, which the scientists informally named “Innocent Bystander,” turned out to be rich in silica.

On Earth, such high concentrations of silica can form in only two places: a hot spring, where the silica is dissolved away and deposited elsewhere, or a fumarole, an environment, often near a volcano, where acidic steam rises through cracks. The acids dissolve other minerals, leaving mostly silica. On Earth, both environments teem with life. KENNETH CHANG, NYT

12.11.2007 Regarding the contras, the CIA and cocain Robert Parry via True Blue Liberal [Gary Webb]

12.11.2007 "FISA Court Denies Public Access to Records Concerning Wiretapping "

12.11.2007 "Destruction of C.I.A. Tapes Cleared by Lawyers" NYT

Kevin Drum:

Let me get this straight. The White House had been in the loop for two years. The CIA had received letters from both the Justice Department and congressional leaders arguing that the tapes shouldn't be destroyed. The CIA's top lawyer had been involved for the entire time. And yet we're supposed to believe that, in 2005, a mid-ranking agency lawyer suddenly decided the tapes could be destroyed and the head of the clandestine branch then gave the order to do so without anyone else being involved? Really? Does anyone actually believe this story? (Here)

And now we have further confirmation of the astonishing culture of lawlessness and insubordination that continues to prevail at the highest levels in Langley. At a time when Congress and the courts are conducting important hearings on the critical question of extreme interrogation, and at a time when accusations of outright torture are helping to besmirch and discredit the United States all around the world, a senior official of the CIA takes the unilateral decision to destroy the crucial evidence. This deserves to be described as what it is: mutiny and treason.
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It was after the grotesque estimate of continued Soviet health and prosperity that the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan argued that the CIA should be abolished. It is high time for his proposal to be revived. The system is worse than useless—it's a positive menace. We need to shut the whole thing down and start again. (Here)

12.10.2007 "Report Describes Systematic White House Effort to Manipulate Climate Change Science" (Here)

12.09.2007 "Where is Jose Rodriguez? Apparently in business with the brother of top Democrat on Intel Panel" Ken Silverstein

The Torture Tapes

CBS on the CIA tapes (Via Think Progress)

Michael Gorse:

The New York Times web page carries the story C.I.A. Destroyed 2 Tapes Showing Interrogations By MARK MAZZETTI - and beneath the story, a link to the letter from US Attorney,Chuck Rosenberg to Chief Judge Williams and Judge Brinkema explaining the tapes existence.
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On page 2 of the PDF, paragraphs two and three, the sollicitor clearly says "On September 13, 2007, an attorney for the CIA notified us of a discovery of a video tape of the interogation of [redacted]. On September 19, 2007, we viewed that video tape and a transctipt [redacted] of the interview."
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It appears to me the US Attorney has told the Judges he watched the video tapes in September and October of 2007, that Michael Hayden says were destroyed ("all copies") in 2005. American Constitution Society

emptywheel Torture and Taping Timeline

ACLU:

The CIA reportedly withheld knowledge of the tapes' existence from federal prosecutors and the 9/11 Commission, both of which specifically asked for depictions of interrogations. The government also failed to produce the tapes as part of an ACLU Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in which a federal judge ordered the release of any documentation pertaining to treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. ACLU lawyers are considering appropriate next steps in that ongoing litigation. CIA officials claim the tapes were destroyed partly out of concern that showing the brutal interrogation methods could expose the agency to legal risks. In June 2004, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft sent 21 referrals of possible violations of federal anti-torture laws by civilian interrogators to the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. To date, the Justice Department has not brought any indictments based on these referrals.

"We used to love America. Give me Tom Cruise and a vacation in Florida any day," said Parveen Aslam, 30, who like many Pakistanis has relatives in the United States. "But why isn't the U.S. standing up for Pakistan when we need it most? Is America even listening to us? We are calling them Busharraf now. They are the same man." Emily Wax and Imtiaz Ali:WaPo

A confidential 2003 manual for operating the Guantánamo detention center shows that military officials had a policy of denying detainees access to independent monitors from the International Committee of the Red Cross.
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The document, a two-inch-thick operations manual, was first posted on Wikileaks, a Web site that encourages posting of leaked materials. Military officials said that the manual appeared genuine but described outdated policies and that all Guantánamo detainees could now see Red Cross monitors. William Glaberson:NYT

The House voted Thursday night to strengthen court oversight of the government's surveillance of terrorist suspects but stopped short of providing legal immunity to telecommunication companies that helped eavesdrop on Americans.

The Democratic bill, approved 227-189, was a rebuke to President Bush, who has promised to veto any legislation that does not shield telecom companies from civil lawsuits. About 40 civil suits have been filed alleging the companies broke wiretapping and privacy lawsuits for monitoring phone calls and e-mails without permission of a secret court created 30 years ago for that purpose.
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Earlier Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee punted on the question of telecom immunity. Pamela Hess:Huntington Post

Civil liberties groups got a stunningly unexpected win Thursday as the Senate Judiciary panel passed their version of the new government spying bill out of committee without including a provision giving immunity to telecoms being sued for helping the government secretly spy on Americans.
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The provision - which was part of the version passed by the Senate Intelligence committee in mid-October - was widely expected to make it into the bill, due to the administration's full court press on the issue, the telcos small army of lobbyists and the vocal support of California Democrat Dianne Feintstein. Feinstein's vote was expected to reverse the Dems 10-9 advantage in the committee.

But after a long day of complicated finagling over technical amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and proposed alternatives to total immunity for companies such as AT&T and Verizon, committeee chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) decided to send the bill out of committee without an agreement on immunity.Ryan Singel:Wired Blog Network

Jane Hamsher:

It’s a huge victory, but just the beginning of the fight. If the version of the bill that came out of the Judiciary proceeds to the floor, retroactive telecom immunity (which Bush is demanding) will have to be added back in as an amendment — but it will have a much harder time passing if it stands alone without the cover of measures that sound a bit more legitimate in the interest of national security.

It’s safe to say it probably never would have happened if Chris Dodd hadn’t stepped out in a leadership role — the tremendous outpouring of support he got online from a progressive coalition that included the blogs, Blue America, BlogPac, MoveOn, EFF, ACLU, Color of Change and Working Assets certainly emboldened Pat Leahy to flip the bird to the Intelligence Committee. (Here)

James Risen:

The Senate Intelligence Committee’s bill was the result of a compromise between Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who is chairman of the panel, and the White House. Mr. Rockefeller agreed to the immunity measure, and in exchange won the administration’s support for other provisions that would provide greater court oversight of the government’s eavesdropping operations. NYT

Jane Hamsher: As Chairman of the Intelligence Committee Rockefeller made a deal with the White House to put retroactive telecom immunity into the bill, in exchange for seeing a small portion of the documents they were already legally entitled to see. Firedoglake

The White House insistence on immunity for the telecom companies peels away its long-maintained certitude that its spying operations were constitutionally sound, limited to overseas communications and within a president's wartime prerogatives. If that were the case, neither the administration nor the telecom companies would have anything to worry about. San Francisco Chronicle

The Judiciary Committee voted in favor of contempt in July and issued its final report 10 days ago. The full House should vote without further delay. If a majority supports a finding of contempt, as it should, the matter would go to the United States attorney for the District of Columbia. If Mr. Mukasey, the new attorney general, believes in the rule of law, he will see to it that Ms. Miers's and Mr. Bolten's cases are presented to a grand jury for criminal prosecution.

11.15.2007 emptywheel re Judith Regan suit vs News Corp:

If what Regan alleges is true (and she says she has recordings of the conversations), it mocks the very notion of editorial independence. Here's a company that--at a corporate level--is intruding on the editorial independence of one of its properties. Yet Kevin Martin thinks that, in spite of that clear evidence that no one within the News Corp empire has editorial independence, Rupert can be trusted to grant it as he further expands his empire? (Here)

11.15.2007 Progress report: Blackwater Buzz

One of the most serious charges against Krongard is that he impeded an investigation into whether Blackwater USA employees illegally smuggled weapons into Iraq that were then sold on the black market. In a Sept. 18 letter, Waxman revealed that Krongard had ordered his employees to "IMMEDIATELY" stop cooperating with federal investigators. Krongard has denied this allegation, but yesterday's hearing revealed that he has a conflict-of-interest with the contractor: his brother, Alvin "Buzzy" Krongard sits on Blackwater USA's advisory board. At first, Krongard vehemently rebuffed the charge, calling it an "ugly rumor." "It couldn't possibly have affected anything I've done, because I don't believe it," he said. Yet during a break in the proceedings, Krongard called his brother and confirmed that the "ugly rumor" was in fact true, and promised to recuse himself from any Blackwater investigations: MORE