Category: Congress

Why Republicans will take the Senate in November

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Because when the populace is in a state of abject pants soiling terror, people are more likely to vote conservative, and between Isis, Ebola, and the shootings in Ottawa, when juxtaposed with the hysterical coverage of our national press, leaves me unable to reach any other conclusion.

So, I expect Democrats to lose the Senate, and I expect Obama to use it as an excuse to try and privatize Social Security, which he has been itching to do since his election in 2008.

I hope that it fails because the Republicans are unwilling to give him a win.

You Know, the Whole Hamlet Thing Didn’t Work for Adlai Stevenson………

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Elizabeth Warren is not being not quite so categorical in her denial of a 2016 Presidential run:

Senator Elizabeth Warren gave an interview to People magazine for this week’s issue and was asked for roughly the thousandth time if she planned to run for president. But her answer to this query was different than all the others:

But is the freshman senator from Massachusetts herself on board with a run for the White House? Warren wrinkles her nose.

“I don’t think so,” she tells PEOPLE in an interview conducted at Warren’s Cambridge, Massachusetts, home for this week’s issue. “If there’s any lesson I’ve learned in the last five years, it’s don’t be so sure about what lies ahead. There are amazing doors that could open.”

She just doesn’t see the door of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue being one of them. Not yet, anyway. “Right now,” Warren says, “I’m focused on figuring out what else I can do from this spot” in the U.S. Senate.

As a veteran Warren-watcher, I can say with certainty this is more ambiguous than she’s ever been on the subject. “I don’t think so,” “amazing doors that could open,” and “right now” are the traditional vernacular of a someone flirting with a campaign—-and someone who wants you to know it.

In the past, Warren has been much more unequivocal. (Examples: “I’m not running for president, and I plan to serve out my term,” and “I am not running for president. Do you want to put an exclamation point at the end of that?”)

I understand how tempting it is to play a “will she or won’t she” game, it creates a buzz, and it can get one’s ego stroked, but you need to be either in or out.

I’d love to see someone from the Democratic wing of the Democratic party, as opposed to the current  front runner, Hillary Clinton, but jerking around potential supporters is never winning

Either get serious, and start an exploratory committee, or remain adamant about staying out.

Obama is Hoping to Lose the Senate

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Dan Froomkin is claiming that Obama is running out the clock, because he is expecting the Democrats to lose the Senate, and the Republicans will not vote to release the document:

Continued White House foot-dragging on the declassification of a much-anticipated Senate torture report is raising concerns that the administration is holding out until Republicans take over the chamber and kill the report themselves.

Senator Dianne Feinstein’s intelligence committee sent a 480-page executive summary of its extensive report on the CIA’s abuse of detainees to the White House for declassification more than six months ago.

In August, the White House, working closely with the CIA, sent back redactions that Feinstein and other Senate Democrats said rendered the summary unintelligible and unsupported.

Since then, the wrangling has continued behind closed doors, with projected release dates repeatedly falling by the wayside. The Huffington Post reported this week that White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, a close ally of CIA Director John Brennan, is personally leading the negotiations, suggesting keen interest in their progress — or lack thereof — on the part of Brennan and President Obama.

Human-rights lawyer Scott Horton, who interviewed a wide range of intelligence and administration officials for his upcoming book, “Lords of Secrecy: The National Security Elite and America’s Stealth Foreign Policy,” told The Intercept that the White House and the CIA are hoping a Republican Senate will, in their words, “put an end to this nonsense.”

(emphasis mine)

Seriously.  This is despicable.

Barack Obama in general, and CIA Director John Brennan have no intention of letting this report see the light of day.

This is why the Senate Intel Committee should declassify the document on their own using Senate Resolution 400, which allows them to release the document with a simple majority vote.

It’s something to consider for the lame duck session.  Because if they don’t do this, or read the report in the well of the Senate, or leak it to Glenn Greenwald, there is a whole bunch of stuff that is both evil and stupid will get buried, and we will do it all again the next time.

It’s Already Happened

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Howie Klein at Down with Tyranny observes that the Democratic Party establishment is targeting liberals, with both the DCCC and the DSCC systematically supporting conservative Dems over liberal ones, even when the numbers point toward the liberals being a more competitive candidates.

It’s clear, for example, that DCCC chairman Steve Israel feels that is more important to rebuild the Blue Dog Caucus than it is to win control of the Congress.

He then wonders the establishment would target a liberal presidential candidate and support a less electable corporate Democrat:

Which suggests an interesting thought. If a truly hard-core progressive — an Elizabeth Warren or Zephyr Teachout, say — were the party’s strongest presidential candidate, would corporate Democrats choose a lesser candidate anyway, one with a greater chance of losing, just to keep the White House in the hands of someone’s One-Percent candidate? Again, your call, but we may see that tested fairly soon.

 He’s actually wrong about this.  It already happened ……… In 1973, and not only did the party establishment not support the Liberal nominee, George McGovern, and they actively sabotaged his campaign, and tacitly supported Richard “The Human Stain” Nixon.

The corporatist wing of the Democratic Party will fight for its power within the party even at the expense of the power of the party.

Bravo, Occupy the SEC

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Occupy the SEC now has a simple rating of your Congress critter.

It’s a pretty simple system:

Methodology

Our methodology was rather straightforward. We created a simple formula that allowed us to produce a score between 0 and 100 for each member of the House . A score of 100 means that a member voted in a manner that was consistent with our positions on every bill. Conversely, a score of 0 means that the member took the opposite view of OSEC on all considered bills.

Additionally, we gave some weight to the sponsorship and cosponsorship of bills. If a bill was “good” then we viewed sponsoring (or introducing) the bill as good and therefore rewarded that individual with what amounts to additional good votes. If the individual introduced a “bad” bill then we subtracted from the member’s score by counting the sponsorship as if it constituted additional bad votes. Co-sponsorship of bills was treated in a similar fashion but the weight we applied was smaller. Lastly, we added a multiplier to each bill that reflected the importance of the bill and its potential impact. For instance, if the bill was just a minor “technical fix” then it received a small multiplier, but if the bill was aimed at, say rehauling an entire agency (as HR 3193 aims to do by changing the makeup of the CFPB), then we viewed votes on that bill as being more significant, and consequently applied a larger multiplier to it.

Rather unsurprisingly, the Dems score better than the Republicans, but I would note that any Dem under 50 should be considered for a primary challenge.

H/t naked capitalism.

Kansas Supreme Court Slaps Down Kris Korbach’s Election Shenanigans

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The court ruled unanimously that Democrat Chad Taylor’s name has to be dropped from the ballot as he requested:

The Kansas Supreme Court on Thursday sided with the Democratic candidate for Senate in his attempt to drop off the November ballot, creating a tougher contest for the Republican incumbent, Pat Roberts, in a race with a strong independent candidate.

But the Kansas secretary of state, Kris Kobach, a Republican who had fought the withdrawal, said afterward that Democrats would have to pick another candidate, adding to the uncertainty about whose names would appear on the ballot.

Noticed the last bit?

Where Korbach is now insisting that the Democrats will have to nominate a replacement, something he never brought up during arguments?

I understand the electoral dynamics. 

The current polls show that Pat Roberts wins in a 3-way race,  and gets demolished in a 2-way race, but this is not an excuse for the secretary of state to be so blatantly corrupt.

Here is hoping that Kris Korbach ends up like disgraced former Kansas AG Phill Kline, who was disbarred.

Kraptacular Kris Korbach Kaves Kravenly

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I don’t know who got pictures having sex with a billie goat, but the Kansas secretary of state has capitulated on the withdrawal of the Democratic candidate for Senate, and will send out absentee ballots without a Dem in that race:

In an apparent reversal, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s office is instructing election officials in the state to send out overseas military ballots without Democratic Senate nominee Chad Taylor or any other Democratic Senate candidate listed.

Kobach spokeswoman Samantha Poetter confirmed to TPM that the ballots would be sent out by Saturday, the deadline under state and federal law.

“Our ballots are going out without Chad Taylor (or any Democratic candidate) for U.S. Senate,” Poetter said. “They’ve been ordered to send them out as soon as possible.”

TPM obtained a copy of the official order sent to local election officials.

“The list does NOT contain the name of a Democratic nominee for United States Senate,” the order said. “There are three candidates, Randall Batson, Libertarian, Greg Orman, independent, Pat Roberts, Republican.”

They will be going out with some sort of disclaimer about the courts possibly ordering a new ballot, but this I really don’t see this particularly likely.

Here is hoping that this entire mishugas will serve to turn off the voters, Korbach is up for reelection, and the race is close.

Republicans Aren’t Even Trying to Appear Non Corrupt Anymore

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Last night, Democratic Senate Candidate Chad Taylor withdrew from the race for US Senate:

Kansas voters have lost a chance to vote for a Democratic senator this fall — and Republicans could pay the price.

 Chad Taylor’s stunning decision Wednesday to withdraw from the U.S. Senate race forced partisans and analysts to recalculate the potential outcome of the Kansas contest.

 The consensus: Longtime incumbent Sen. Pat Roberts is in serious trouble, and the GOP’s chances of controlling the Senate could suffer as a result.

 “It’s extraordinary. It’s stunning. It’s shocking,” said Stu Rothenberg, a nationally known political analyst. Roberts “is still going to be the favorite, but the fact that those of us in Washington who look at races actually have Kansas on our radar is a significant development.”

 After surviving a brutal GOP primary in August, Roberts — and other Republicans — were counting on a four-way election to split his opposition, giving the veteran a chance to win in November with less than a majority of votes.

 The likelihood of that outcome tumbled dramatically Wednesday when Taylor quit.

 A recent poll found remaining independent candidate Greg Orman leading Roberts by 10 points in a one-on-one matchup. The Olathe businessman enjoyed the same margin in a different mid-August poll.

Chad Taylor was in 3rd place, and Dems in Kansas are focused on the governor’s race, so it makes sense to do this.

Senator Roberts nearly lost the primary to a doctor whose hobby was posting gunshot victims’ X-Rays on Facebook, and so his going from 2 opponents to one is a very big deal, as the poll numbers show.

In going from a 3 person to a 2 person race, Pat Roberts gains just 1% against Greg Orman, while he picked up 10% and Taylor was still behind in the polling, so from a tactical perspective (Orman would likely caucus with the Dems) it makes sense for everyone involved.

Of course, this story is not complete.  After contacting the Secretary of State’s office, and getting explicit instruction on withdrawing from the race, but Republican Secretary of State Kris Kobach is trying to invoke the heretofore not used in a Senate race no backsie rule:

Chad Taylor doesn’t want to be in the race for U.S. Senate, but he’s going to remain on the ballot at least for now.

 Taylor, the Democratic nominee for Senate and district attorney of Shawnee County, submitted a formal letter to the Secretary of State’s Office to withdraw his candidacy on Wednesday, the deadline to drop out of the race.

 Political analysts said his withdrawal would give a boost to independent candidate Greg Orman against U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts in November. But Secretary of State Kris Kobach announced Thursday afternoon that Taylor must remain on the ballot.

 A few hours later, Taylor announced plans to challenge that decision, saying that Assistant Secretary of State Brad Bryant had assured him he met all the requirements to withdraw.

 “I specifically asked Mr. Bryant if the letter contained all the information necessary to remove my name from the ballot. Mr. Bryant said, ‘Yes,’ affirming to me, and my campaign manager, that the letter was sufficient to withdraw my name from the ballot,” Taylor said in a statement

Kris Kobach has been at the forefront of the Republican efforts to keep Blacks and Hispanics to vote, and he’s on Senator Roberts’ steering committee, but it appears that the words “ethics” and “recusal” are not in his vocabulary.

This ratf%$# makes Katherine Harris look like a responsible public servant.

But having a completely corrupt partisan in charge of the election is not enough for the national Republican party, so they have brought in national political operatives to run the Roberts campaign:

National Republicans on Thursday moved to take control of the campaign of Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas by sending a longtime party strategist to the state to advise him, a day after his hopes for re-election and those of his party for taking control of the Senate were threatened by the attempted withdrawal of the Democrat in the race.

………

The National Republican Senatorial Committee is sending Chris LaCivita, who has served as a political troubleshooter in past Republican campaigns, to counsel Mr. Roberts and help oversee his campaign. The committee will also seek to hire a local lawyer in any legal challenge against Mr. Taylor, who had tried to drop off the ballot on the last day candidates were allowed to do so.

Just when I think that Republican politics can’t get any more repulsive, they exceed my own low expectations.

James Foley was Tortured Before Being Beheaded Because We Tortured

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Dan Froomkin, in a post on the continuing efforts by the US state security apparatus to use redactions on the Senate torture report to conceal the nature torture, gives us this tidbit:

Feinstein also agreed with [NBC reporter Andrea] Mitchell’s suggestion that Islamic militants in Syria tortured Americans — including journalist James Foley, who was reportedly waterboarded before being beheaded — in a “rebuke” to the U.S. for its own use of torture during the Bush administration.

 “The United States military has always prevented any kind of torture or waterboarding because they felt that then, whatever the enemy was, would come back and do it to our people,” she said. “In this case, the enemy came back and did it to one of our citizens.”

So, torture does not work, and it gets our guys tortured.

BTW, it’s clear that the CIA is attempting to change the conclusions of the report through supposedly security related redactions:

Senate intelligence committee chair Dianne Feinstein expects the executive summary of her staff’s long-awaited report on the torture of American detainees to be ready for public release before the end of September, she said in an unaired segment of her “Meet the Press” interview this weekend (starts at 10:25 of the video).

The torture report, which was five years in the making, was sent to the White House for declassification in April. But the exhaustive redactions that Obama administration officials sent back in early August included such things as the elimination of pseudonyms, apparently to make the report too confusing to follow, and the blacking out of copious supporting evidence, such as proof that information derived from torture actually came from other intelligence sources.

“What we are engaged in is working with the administration to see that the redaction is such that it does not destroy the report,” Feinstein told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell. “If you redact the evidence — heavily — then we cannot sustain our findings. We will not put out a report that does not enable us to sustain our findings. And I believe that that is understood.

………

People who have seen the report’s executive summary have told reporters that it discloses abuse that was more brutal, systematic and widespread than generally recognized — and presents extensive evidence that officials most closely linked to the torture regime lied to others inside the CIA and the Justice Department, as well as to Congress and the public, about what they were doing, what they had done, and what it accomplished.

The evidence is quite clear at this point:  The CIA is actively obstructing the oversight process, and as such, it should have no input whatsoever in clearing the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report.

Obama should, but won’t, remove the security review process from the CIA, so the Senate Committee should do release it on it’s own, as its right under statute.

There is Hope for the Democrats in November

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It appears that the more that people hate Congress, the more likely they are to vote:

Could voter disdain for Congress motivate more people to turn out this November? Could be.

A new Gallup study suggests that in recent elections, disapproval of Congress’ job performance meant higher turnout. Currently, Gallup’s congressional job approval is 13 percent, with 19 percent of registered voters saying members of Congress deserve re-election.

Voters may feel they can effect change, since in 1994, 2006 and 2010 control of the House of Representatives changed parties.

“There has been a clear pattern of turnout being on the higher end of the midterm year range when Americans were less approving of Congress,” said Gallup analyst Jeffrey Jones in the Gallup study.

If this is true, then the Dems will definitely hold onto the Senate, because high turnout favors Dems, and this Congress rates 100% voter turnout.

The US State Security Apparatus has Dropped Even the Pretense of Cooperating with the Senate Intelligence Committee on Their Torture Report

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Because they have put a defense attorney who represented some of the CIA torturers in charge of making the CIA’s redactions in the torture report:

The background of a key negotiator in the battle over a Senate report on the CIA’s use of interrogation techniques widely denounced as torture has sparked concerns about the Obama administration’s objectivity in handling the study’s public release.

Robert Litt, the general counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, is a former defense lawyer who represented several CIA officials in matters relating to the agency’s detention and interrogation program. Now he’s in a key position to determine what parts of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s 6,300-page report will be made public.

Litt’s involvement doesn’t appear to be an ethics issue, at least by the legal definition. But experts say that while it may be acceptable on paper, his involvement in the review should have been a red flag.

Seeing as how Obama has seriously drunk the CIA’s Koolaid, the only way that the torture report will see the light of day in any meaningful way is if the Senate votes to declassify it on their own, which they are authorized to do by statute.

Pass the Popcorn

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Pass the Popcorn

In 2012, Michelle Bachmann accused the Ron Paul Presidential campaign of bribing Iowa state senator Kent Sorenson for his changing his endorsement from her to the Libertarian stalwart.

Well, it turns out to be true.

Sorenson has pled guilty to taking at least $25,000.00 to switch his endorsement.

While this bit of of corruption may not seem significant beyond an indication that the Iowa caucuses are too corrupt and thus should lose their first in the nation status, there is actually more to this.

Specifically, it appears that Ron Paul’s 2012 campaign manager, Jesse Benton, is hip deep in this.

How is is significant today that the campaign manager for an iconoclast’s 2012 campaign is implicated in  bribery scandal?

Here’s how:

Neither Lori Pyeatt, Ron Paul’s granddaughter and the treasurer of his 2012 presidential campaign, nor Jesse Benton, who was Paul’s campaign manager (and is now manager of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s re-election campaign), had responded to requests for comment at the time this post was published.

(emphasis mine)

So Mitch McConnell’s campaign manager is implicated in a bribery scandal, and what’s more, it appears that he might be rolling over to prosecutors:

It isn’t clear if the investigation is continuing, but Sorenson has been granted immunity from further prosecution on federal and state charges, as has his wife, according to the plea agreement. OpenSecrets.org has learned that two grand juries have been investigating the events in Iowa, one focused on the Paul campaign and one on Bachmann’s. Last August, OpenSecrets.org published a copy of a memo written by Aaron Dorr, the head of the Iowa Gun Owners, in which he outlined Sorenson’s demands to switch his endorsement. Included in the emails surrounding the negotiations were several top Paul campaign officials, including Benton.

(Again, emphasis mine)

So Sorenson is singing to the feds like a canary, and Mitch McConnell’s (soon to be former?) campaign manager is clearly in the prosecutor’s cross-hairs.

James Woods, Democrat for Congress, Who Mails Condoms to Pro-Lifers

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The condom

His letter

Abortion criminalizers mail a questionnaire to a Democratic congressional candidate, and he mails them back condoms stamped “Prevent Abortion.” How can you not love that?

In response to a letter-writing campaign promoted by an anti-abortion organization, Democratic congressional candidate James Woods is mailing back condoms — campaign condoms.

 The form-letters sent to Woods, who’s running for the Congressional District 5 seat currently occupied by Republican Congressman Matt Salmon, asked him to sign a pledge to fully support the “sanctity of life” in a candidate survey from the National Pro-Life Alliance.

 “Woods did return the survey, but stood in opposition to the entire platform of the Alliance,” Woods’ spokeswoman Seráh Blain tells New Times.

 The people who mailed this letter to Woods will also be getting some protection in the mail from the Woods campaign headquarters. Woods’ campaign also included a letter explaining why he’s not going to support the platform of the National Pro-Life Alliance.

This is epic beyond my capacity for to express.

He’s a long shot candidate, and he’s unopposed in the primary, and he’s blind, and he’s an atheist, and I’m putting him on Matthew Saroff’s Act Blue Page.

Give him money, or you make bunny cry.

House GOPer: Obama Impeachment Talk Is A ‘Trap’

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Actually, he looks less like an alien than John Boehner’s “tan”

In the House, Representative Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) is warning his fellow party members that all the impeachment talk is a ploy from Obama and the Democrats:

Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) last week said that Democrats are “desperate” for House Republicans to impeach President Obama, but warned the GOP against falling into such a “trap.”

“Believe me, let’s make one thing perfectly clear. The only people who want impeachment more than the right wing of the Republican Party is the entire Democrat Party,” Mulvaney said in an interview with WQSC 1340, according to audio obtained by Buzzfeed.

The congressman said that Democrats are using calls for impeachment to distract from other issues and raise money.

“They’re desperate for impeachment. They would love to be able to talk about impeachment and immigration between now and the November elections, instead of talking about jobs, and the economy, and health care,” he said. “They are desperate to change the dialogue, which is exactly why you heard the president starting to talk about his amnesty cause he’s begging to be impeached.”

This is completely unfair.

There are no Democrats who would attempt to extract political benefit from ……… Attempt to use impeachment ……… Sorry, I just cannot keep a straight face.

Of course this is what they are doing!  

The Republicans are being played for fools, and the Democratic politicians and consultants who are “condemning” the Teabaggers for calling for impeachment are the players doing this.

It’s all they can do not to drool in public over the prospect.  (Well, Mark Penn is drooling a bit, but he always does)

There is No Light at the End of the Tunnel. We are Just Digging a Deeper Hole.

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The usual suspects are arguing that killing of General Green in Afghanistan means that we should double down on the forever war going on there:

An insider attack against international and Afghan forces in Kabul that killed a U.S. general has renewed questions about the Obama administration’s exit strategy from Afghanistan and the country’s security.

 ………

 Republican lawmakers critical of Obama’s withdrawal plan pointed to the insider attack as a reason to change course. In May, Obama announced plans to reduce U.S. troop strength to 9,800 by the end of this year and to half that number in late 2015. Only a small security assistance force at the U.S. embassy would remain by the end of 2016, as Obama prepares to leave office.

I’m beginning to think that we need a constitutional amendment requiring that all children of Congressmen between the ages of 18 and 40 be required to serve as active duty service members.

I expect to hear from John McCain arguing for moar woar on the Sunday shows in 4 days.

The New York Times Compares the CIA Torture Coverup to Catch-22

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If you recall, the Times was forced to publish its story about NSA spying on Americans when their James Risen, who co-wrote this story announced that he was going to publish on its own.

The “Gray Lady” has a long history of kowtowing to the US state security apparatus, which is why we see an OP/ED by Editorial Page Editor Andrew Rosenthal invoking the seminal Joseph Heller war farce to describe the CIA’s behavior with regard the Senate Inteligence Committee’s torture report:

In Joseph Heller’s anti-war satire, “Catch 22,” the hero, Yossarian, is assigned to a censorship detail. He amuses himself by deleting all the adverbs and adjectives from soldiers’ letters, then all the articles, then everything but the articles, and so on. His job was to delete details that threatened operational security. The result was gibberish.

It seems the Central Intelligence Agency was inspired by Yossarian’s example.

The C.I.A. was given the task of censoring the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report denouncing none other than the C.I.A. for torturing prisoners, lying to its overseers in Congress about the torture, and exaggerating how much valuable information the torture provided (if any). The result was predictable and proof, if anyone still needed it, that having the subject of the report censor that report is a very bad idea.

When the White House approved the C.I.A.’s censorship (the term of art in Washington is “redaction”) and sent the report to the Hill, James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, said in his usual sneering way that 85 percent of the report was intact and that half the blackouts were made to footnotes.

The issue, of course, is not merely how much is deleted, but what is deleted. On Monday, McClatchy reported that C.I.A. censors had blacked out the pseudonyms used to protect the identities of agents involved in the detention and interrogation of suspected terrorists. That, McClatchy said, rendered parts of the report unintelligible.

“Redactions are supposed to remove names or anything that could compromise sources and methods, not to undermine the source material so that it is impossible to understand,” said Senator Martin Heinrich, the New Mexico Democrat, who is a member of the intelligence committee. “Try reading a novel with 15 percent of the words blacked out.”

………

Asked about the dispute, the White House press secretary Josh Earnest, offered the usual boilerplate about national security reviews. Here’s how Yossarian might have quoted him: “It is BLANK that a BLANK process be carried out that BLANKS sources and BLANK and other BLANK that is BLANK to our BLANK BLANK.”

Let me be clear: this is not one of the unsigned Times editorials, and as such, it is not as official as that would be, but this is the f%$#ing editorial page editor of the f%$#ing New York Times, and as such, is arguably the 3rd most official statement from the paper. (something from publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. coming in at number 2).

As I have said before, Obama, and the rest of his national security troika, fetishize secrecy, and you can expect a good faith declassification from them, so the Senate Intelligence Committee should exercise its statutory authority, and declassify the report on its own.

Feinstein* Accuses the CIA of Using Redactions to Muzzle Torture Report

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This is what Dianne Feinstein means when she says that “certain redactions eliminate or obscure key facts that support the report’s findings and conclusions.”

I would start getting my ducks in a row about having the Senate intelligence committee releasing the report unilaterally, because it is clear that neither the CIA, nor Barack Obama have the slightest interest interest in the public’s right to know here:

The key senator behind a landmark congressional investigation into the CIA’s use of torture has rejected redactions made by the Obama administration ahead of a planned public release of the politically charged report.

 In the latest struggle between senator Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who chairs the intelligence committee, and the CIA, Feinstein said she would delay a heavily anticipated disclosure of portions of the report in an attempt to reverse redactions that “eliminate or obscure key facts that support the report’s findings and conclusions”.

 “Until these redactions are addressed to the committee’s satisfaction, the report will not be made public,” said Feinstein, who added that she intended to outline the committee’s desired disclosures in a private letter to President Barack Obama.

 Another powerful senator and Obama ally, Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who chairs the armed services committee and who spearheaded his own investigation into US military torture, called the redactions “totally unacceptable.”

Spencer Ackerman’s analysis at this point becomes rather chilling:

Clapper left the door open to a “constructive dialogue with the committee.” In an indication of the deep strains between the committee and the CIA, that dialogue is largely brokered by the White House, which is attempting to balance the competing interests of both powerful entities while each looks to Obama for support.

So, apparently, the f%$#ing US state security apparatus is now a branch of government coequal to the Executive and the Congress, and, if the constant assertions of the State Secrets Privilege by the DoJ, the judiciary as well.

They aren’t, and the fact that the CIA is defying the Senate committee charged with overseeing their actions is wrong from almost every perspective.

*Full disclosure, my great grandfather, Harry Goldman, and her grandfather, Sam Goldman were brothers, though we have never met, either in person or electronically.

Full statement from her office after the break:

Aug 05 2014
Feinstein Statement on Redactions in Detention, Interrogation Study

 Washington—Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) today released the following statement on the committee study of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program:

 “After further review of the redacted version of the executive summary, I have concluded that certain redactions eliminate or obscure key facts that support the report’s findings and conclusions. Until these redactions are addressed to the committee’s satisfaction, the report will not be made public.

“I am sending a letter today to the president laying out a series of changes to the redactions that we believe are necessary prior to public release. The White House and the intelligence community have committed to working through these changes in good faith. This process will take some time, and the report will not be released until I am satisfied that all redactions are appropriate.

“The bottom line is that the United States must never again make the mistakes documented in this report. I believe the best way to accomplish that is to make public our thorough documentary history of the CIA’s program. That is why I believe taking our time and getting it right is so important, and I will not rush this process.”

(Emphasis original)

If We Can’t Jail John Brennan, Can We Please Fire Him?

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Remember when Congressional staffers accused the CIA?

Remember when John Brennan went on the Sunday shows and categorically denied it?

Rather unsurprisingly, John Brennan was lying through his teeth:

I don’t want to understate how seriously wrong it is that the CIA searched Senate computers. Our constitutional order is seriously out of whack when the executive branch acts with that kind of impunity — to its overseers, no less.

But given everything else that’s been going on lately, the single biggest — and arguably most constructive — thing to focus on is how outrageously CIA Director John Brennan lied to everyone about it.

“As far as the allegations of the CIA hacking into Senate computers, nothing could be further from the truth,” Brennan told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell in March. “We wouldn’t do that. I mean, that’s just beyond the, you know, the scope of reason in terms of what we do.”

Earlier, he had castigated “some members of the Senate” for making “spurious allegations about CIA actions that are wholly unsupported by the facts.” He called for an end to “outbursts that do a disservice to the important relationship that needs to be maintained between intelligence officials and Congressional overseers.”

And what compelled Senate intelligence committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein to make a dramatic floor speech in the first place, bringing everything out in the open, was that Brennan had responded to her initial concerns not by acknowledging the CIA’s misconduct — but by firing back with an allegation of criminal activity by her own staff.

Not coincidentally, the document the CIA was hunting for, that Senate staffers were accused of purloining, and that Brennan was now lying about, was a big deal precisely because it exposed more lies.

Senator Mark UDall has called for Brennan’s resignation, but seeing as how DNI James Clapper lied under oath to Congress without consequence, I believe that Brennan’s current gig is secure.

As I have noted before, “The Cossacks work for the Czar.”

The fish rots from the head.

The Republicans Have Completely Screwed the Pooch

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Here’s a Blast from the Past

Because John Boehner could not put an child refugees bill that a single Democrat could vote for, and because cannot count Republican votes, he had to pull the bill from the floor, and delay the Congressional recess:

House Republicans are poised to delay their August recess by one day, as they frantically scramble to pass a border security bill.

After a chaotic afternoon, which saw the GOP leadership suddenly pull their legislation from the House floor because of flagging support, lawmakers planned a Friday morning meeting at 9 a.m. to try to plot a path forward. Plans are in flux, and subject to change at any minute, aides and lawmakers warned.

In a Thursday afternoon meeting, Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) heard from a number of Republicans who did not want to leave Washington until a package passed the House — a sentiment reflected by nearly every lawmaker who emerged after the meeting ended.

Last time a Republican politician shortened a vacation, it was W coming back early from vacation to sign the Terry Sciavo bill, (see Vid) and we all know how the politics on all of that played out.

Needless to say, this clusterf%$# does not bode well for the Republicans.

To paraphrase Napoleon, never stop your enemy when is busy stepping on his own dick.

I am still worried a bit  about the collateral damage to the rest of us though.