Thursday, May 17, 2007

High Crimes and Misdemeanors (Updated! 5/18/07)


Marty Lederman reports
Comey testified as follows:

(i) that he, OLC and the AG concluded that the NSA program was not legally defensible, i.e., that it violated FISA and that the Article II argument OLC had previously approved was not an adequate justification (a conclusion prompted by the New AAG, Jack Goldsmith, having undertaken a systematic review of OLC's previous legal opinions regarding the Commander in Chief's powers);

(ii) that the White House nevertheless continued with the program anyway, despite DOJ's judgment that it was unlawful;

(iii) that Comey, Ashcroft, the head of the FBI (Robert Mueller) and several other DOJ officials therefore threatened to resign;

(iv) that the White House accordingly -- one day later -- asked DOJ to figure out a way the program could be changed to bring it into compliance with the law (presumably on the AUMF authorizaton theory); and

(v) that OLC thereafter did develop proposed amendments to the program over the subsequent two or three weeks, which were eventually implemented.

The program continued in the interim, even after DOJ concluded that it was unlawful.
from msnbc Countdown, Keith with Jonathan Turley, constitutional law expert, George Washington Uuniversity:
OLBERMANN:
It‘s also been reported that the president personally killed a Justice Department internal probe into all this, and he did so by denying the investigators security clearance. Given Comey‘s testimony appears to implicate Mr. Bush himself now in the implementation of this wiretap program, and we also know U.S. Justice Department considered the program illegal, is this meeting the standards for appointing an independent counsel, at minimum, at this point?

TURLEY:
Oh, I think that long ago we passed that line. When the Congress was under the control of the Republicans, the Democrats couldn‘t even get a committee hearing or room. I was called to the first hearing on this by John Conyers. We had to meet in the basement because they wouldn‘t open up the doors to the committee room.

So long ago, there should have been an independent or special counsel.

But the problem comes down to the failure of Congress to deal with what is a very ugly and unfortunate fact. This would be a clear impeachable offense. I don‘t know of a more clear potential charge of impeachment within the modern presidency. I mean, this law makes it a crime to order domestic surveillance without a warrant. The president ordered it and renewed it 30 times. And now we find out that the very top of the Justice Department told him, This is unlawful.


I am Not a lawyer,
but I submit these acts are
abuse of presidential power for political gain
and are
Completely beyond
any accusations ever made against Bill Clinton's administration,
(even if we don't exclude
the false accusations that were paid for
by a coordinated smear campaign of the VRWC.)
Bu$hCo has conspired against the Constitution of The United States.
We find ourselves completely above and beyond the level of
High Crimes and Misdemeanors
.

We have uncovered fascist Traitors.


Impeachment is no longer an option.
Now, it is mandatory.


emptywheel is at the Guardian.
Glenn Greenwald is of the essence (as always).
TPMmuckraker says it's the Program, St*p*d!
Digby questions What Could Possibly Be So Bad?

Swopa has the story board at Needlenose.

Comey, being a smart attorney, surely he has these movie rights, right?
When may we talk casting?

UPDATE!
Swopa calls the consig a consig (
Alberto Gonzales, White House Consigliere) at FDL and says it clearly here:
The President sent his men to Ashcroft’s hospital room to make an illegal end run around the Justice Department and its acting Attorney General. Acting AG Comey and the Department’s Office of Legal Counsel — whose interpretations were binding throughout the Executive Branch — had determined and told the White House that the President’s warrantless surveillance program was unlawful. The President and his men knew that continuing the program was unlawful, but instead of obeying the law, they tried to end run the DoJ’s findings.

it's not the chirping of crickets.
no.
it's almost the ticking sound one sometimes can hear from a time bomb.
oh!
it's that sizzling kind of sound that crackles from the gun powder twisted into the material of an incendiary fuse that has been ignited, that burning fuse sound, burning its way to that big powder keg loaded with dynamite.
lots of dynamite.
political dynamite.

Gonzales is chicken feed at this point.
cheneySchrubCo are the orchestrators/traitors coordinating their campaign against the Rule of Law.

(please read Swopa's whole article)(thank you Swopa.)

(no chickens have been hurt in the posting of this blog.)


...

Sunday, May 13, 2007

my ongoing attempt

This list attempts to compile the institutions that have
been corrupted by /victims of BushCo scandals.

Institution .... .... .... .... scandal date

Supreme Court .... .... .... .... .... Bush v. Gore 12/12/00
National Energy Policy .... Cheney's Energy Task Force 02/2000
corporate governance .... .... .... .... .... Enron late 2001
U.S. Army .... .... .... .... .... .... Pat Tillman R.I.P. 4/22/04
Geneva Conventions .... .... ...Abu Ghraib reports 4/04
habeas corpus .... .... .... .... .... Guantanamo 2002
House of Representatives .... Tom Delay/Jack Abramoff '90s onward
House of Representatives Pages .... .... .... Mark Foley 9/30/06
FEMA .... .... .... .... .... Hurricane Katrina 8/29/05
Department of Defense .... .... .... Rumsfeld 2001 - 2006
Iraq .... .... .... .... .... .... .... Coalition Provisional Authority
CIA .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... Valerie Plame
FBI .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... National Security Letters
GSA .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... gross Hatch Act violations
Supreme Court .... .... .... .... .... Alito
State Department .... .... .... .... ..SOTU speech 16 words &
.... .... .... .... no-talk policy toward Iran, no. Korean, et al
vice presidency .... .... .... .... .... Dick Cheney
.... .... .... and that Filipino spy working in the OVP
quail hunting .... .... .... .... .... ... Dick Cheney
Dept. of Justice .... .... .... .... .... U.S. Atty’s purge
Civil Rights Division of DOJ .... .... .... .... Bradley Schlozman 2003 - 06
Ofc of Faith-based Initiatives .... scamming the faithful for votes
the atmosphere .... .... .... .... .... Kyoto Treaty
journalism .... Jeff Gannon (thanks LJ/Aquaria) and Judy Miller
NSA .... .... .... .... .... domestic spying (thanks LJ/Aquaria)
NIH .... .... .... .... .... .... restriction on stem cell research
EPA …. .... .... .... ....political censorship of scientific publications
FDA .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... delay on Plan B,
withheld food contamination info from public 3/23/07
CDC …. .... .... .... censorship of scientific publications,
published a disproved link between abortion and breast cancer
(thanks for NIH through CDC to rxbusa)
Even CDC Not Immune from Political Minders
EPA .... increased allowable levels of arsenic in drinking water.
(thanks oceanbreeze)
U.S. Navy Japanese students accidentally killed by a submarine
.... .... .... on a joyride for Republican fundraisers (thanks Harold)
PBS .... .... .... .... .... Ken Tomlinson
death .... .... .... .... .... .... Terri Shiavo 3/05
Student Loan industry .... .... Matteo Fontana 9/2006
Consumer Product Safety CommissionMichael Broody
Dept of Education "Reading First" Program Margaret Spellings
NASA .... .... .... Sean O'Keefe 2/18/2005
National Forest Service .... .... .... ???
Dept of the Interior Scott Griles/Sue Ellen Wooldridge 2/2003
Parks Service .... .... .... Mark Rey 12/17/2001
ban on wars of aggression .... .... Downing Street Memos
veterans .... .... .... .... Walter Reed
US AID /Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief Randall L. Tobias
World Bank .... .... .... Paul Wolfowitz 4/2007


slow progress.
though there is a sense of the scale of the challenge here.
which is something.

just compare to Whitewater and Lewinsky and all the clintonian "scandals" combined.
even if we were to allow the VRWC most expansive incrimination of the Bill Clinton administration, cheneyBu$hco dwarfs Clinton by many orders of magnitude.

Not to mention the dangerous level of threat to our constitutional democracy from cheneyBu$hco.

(we do NOT except the VRWC claims of scandals against Clinton.)
nevertheless, cheneyBu$hco have initiated an internal ROT of the entire federal government.

Now contrast the levels of your "Mainstream" media coverage of the respective administrations' scandals.


corruption
on
a
heretofore
unimaginable
scale.




....

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Major General John Batiste

(we thank nolo at indict dick cheney for showing us General Batiste's video.)




this is what i save the word "riveting" for.

from Wikipedia:

Major General John Batiste (* ca. 1953[1]) is a retired officer of the United States Army.[2]

From March 2001 to June 2002 he worked with Paul Wolfowitz, and was involved in the very early planning stages of the Iraq war.[1] In spring 2002 Eric Shinseki chose Batiste to be commander of the First Infantry Division of the United States Army, which was deployed to Iraq in December 2003, during the war.[1]

from Alternet:

John R.S. Batiste

Major General, U.S. Army (Retired)

September 25, 2006

My name is John Batiste. I left the military on principle on November 1, 2005, after more than 31 years of service. I walked away from promotion and a promising future serving our country. I hung up my uniform because I came to the gut-wrenching realization that I could do more good for my soldiers and their families out of uniform. I am a West Point graduate, the son and son-in-law of veteran career soldiers, a two-time combat veteran with extensive service in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Iraq, and a life-long Republican. Bottom line, our nation is in peril, our Department of Defense's leadership is extraordinarily bad, and our Congress is only today, more than five years into this war, beginning to exercise its oversight responsibilities. This is all about accountability and setting our nation on the path to victory. There is no substitute for victory and I believe we must complete what we started in Iraq and Afghanistan.



Gen. Batiste supports our troops.
George Bush uses them.


...

Tuesday, May 8, 2007