I’m pretty sure why Alaska now appears to be the most corrupt state in the nation, their petro-economy, and now their sole congressman, Don Young is opening a legal defense fund.
The whole state of Alaska has about the same population as the city of Baltimore, but they make Maryland look like Norway, both in absolute, and per capita, terms.
McConnell is getting a number of opponents, with Bruce Lunsford throwing his hat into the ring, this gets him, “Andrew Horne and another wealthy candidate, businessman Greg Fischer”, all competing in the primary to face him in the general.
This is a campaign Democrats should make a priority, for the following reasons:
I have no clue who to support in the primary, but I’m not giving money to the DSCC so that they can waste money Landrieu in the ethnically cleansed Louisiana.
Whoever wins though, will go on my Act Blue page.
He’s trying to claim that organizations that have endorsed Donna Edwards are somehow breaking the law.
“There seems to be a vast, dare I say, left-wing conspiracy designed to circumvent campaign finance laws,” Wynn told reporters during a conference call. “Within this scheme, her supporters are coordinating efforts to exceed fundraising limits and engaging in illegal campaign activities.”
Here’s hoping that you are unemployed come January.
Two more Republican Congressmen are not standing for reelection, Kenny Hulshof of Missouri and Ron Lewis of Kentucky.
Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.
Here.
Technically, it’s the Orwellian named Protect America Act, but still, the ‘Phants had this won, and got obnoxious.
Call your congresscritter. No Telco Immunity.
Bush is ratcheting up the rhetoric on the “give the phone companies a blow job” version of the FISA update, and Harry Reid is pushing back.
Bush is threatening a veto of an extension of the so called “Protect America Act”, because, even though it protects phone companies for current warrantless domestic spying, it does not indemnify them for prior spying, some of which began in February 2001, more than 7 months before 911.
Let’s be clear. Indemnification is not about getting phone companies to cooperate. It is about helping phone companies conceal the details of this activity, so that Bush and His Evil Minions™ will never face legal consequences of their law breaking.
Well, $%#@ that.
Care of Firedoglake, they will both show up to vote against cloture on the “give the phone companies a blow job” version of the FISA update.
Good for them, or more accurately, their pollsters. Someone told them that this was more important than a fund raising meeting.
Telco immunity is about Bush and His Evil Minions&trade covering up their illegal wiretapping activities that started before 9/11.
Edwards is calling on people to call their Senators to act against Telco immunity.
Clinton and Obama???
crickets.
I guess it’s tough to do the job you have sworn to do in the Senate when you are busy campaigning for Prez.
Firedog Lake asks What The F*!k Is Up With FISA?
Reid is now saying that if there is not an extension, than there will be nothing when the current misbegotten bill expires on February 1.
According to Think Progress, this is Reid’s Statement:
The White House threat to veto a short extension of the Protect America Act is shamefully irresponsible. The President is simply posturing in advance of Monday’s State of the Union address.
When it comes to providing a strong long-term Foreign Intelligence Surveillance bill, Democrats in Congress are focused on solutions, while Republicans are obviously playing politics.
The House has already passed a FISA bill, and the Senate was ready to pass its own bill until Republicans blocked all amendments. At the same time, Democrats are ready to extend current law for as long as necessary, but Republicans are blocking that extension and the White House is threatening a veto.
It is shenanigans like this that make Americans so eager for change. We hope the American public will remember these Republican stunts when they go to the polling booth this November.
In any event, current law ensures that no ongoing collection activity will be cut off on February 1. There will be no terrorism intelligence collection gap. But if there is any problem, the blame will clearly and unequivocally fall where it belongs: on President Bush and his allies in Congress.
The ‘Phants overreached. They were going to get everything that they wanted this, so they wanted this, and a pony…OK, it wasn’t a pony, they wanted to be able to humiliate the Democrats too.
Senate Democrats are looking about, “giving retirees tax rebates, extending unemployment benefits, boosting heating subsidies for the poor and temporarily increasing food stamp payments.”
This is great politics!!!, and here’s why:
On a policy level, if they were to strike the business tax credits, which will take months to have any effect, and are very inefficient, that would be a good thing.
Another Republican has decided not to stand for reelection.
There have been 22 retirees so far.
Part of it is an increasingly difficult political environment, but it’s also that being in the minority is much less fun, particularly if you have been in the majority.
Get your mind out of the gutter, this is about the Senate is looking at tuitions exploding as university endowments skyrocket.
It’s a legitimate question. The US government spends billions sending students to increasingly expensive colleges and universities, but these same not for profit institutions are amassing increasingly large endowments as they hike costs for the students.
As Richard Vedder noted, there is a whole lot of excess going on in higher education.
The example that he gives is Whitman College at Princeton, a residence hall that, “cost $388,571 per room unit, nearly identical to what Donald Trump spent on his luxury resort Ocean Club Panama.”
The explosion in college costs started during the Vietnam War, where the alternative to college was combat, and it has continued unabated for the next 40 years, helped along by collusion among the top schools in tuition and financial aid.
Simply expanding student loan and grand programs make this worse. Regulation is needed to ensure that the managers educational institutions don’t take the money and build monuments to their own egos.
I had to send two very different letters, because Ben Cardin voted against retroactive Telco immunity, and Barbara Mikulski voted for it.
To the Honorable Barbara Mikulski:
I have no idea why you were one of the 12 Democratic Senators to vote for Telecommunications Company immunity in the recent vote on the FISA update.
However, I will tell you as a lifelong Democrat, I can find no reason for you to do so.
Given the electoral dynamics of Maryland, you are at no risk, and in any case, you are not up for election this year.
The activity that you voted to indemnify PRE-DATED THE 911 ATTACKS, and the demands of the Bush administration, and were CLEARLY illegal.
Indemnification is an attempt to cover up the clearly illegal actions of the Bush administration and the NSA to illegally spy on Americans.
Absent a convincing justification for this vote, I cannot support you, or vote for you in the future.
This is not an issue of national security. FISA as it exists already includes the necessary mechanisms to make our country secure, notwithstanding DNI Michael McConnell’s lies on this matter.
This is not a matter for politics, or for listening to lobbyists employed by the telecommunications industry.
These actions were clearly illegal, which is why Qwest refused this access, and given the intensity of the desire of the Bush administration on this issue, I can only conclude that the purpose of this immunity is to cover up systematic surveillance of political opponents.
To the Honorable Benjamin Cardin:
I appreciate your vote on to remove telecommunications immunity from the FISA update.
This is a matter beyond politics, and it strikes at core of our constitutional rights to be free from unreasonable searches.
Much of the illegal activity in question was taken months before the attacks on 9-11, and it was unequivocally illegal.
The desire for immunity on the part of the Bush administration is clearly driven by a desire to cover up their role in illegally spying on American citizens, which very likely involved spying political opponents.
Personally, I would consider any vote to create retroactive immunity to be unacceptable, and dangerous to our republic.
You can find a list of the Democratic Senators who betrayed their oaths of office here.
First, Harriy Reid attempts to exhibit some intestinal fortitude, and demands real filibusters, and then 12 Democrats (Sens. Evan Bayh (D-IN), Tom Carper (D-DE), Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Tim Johnson (D-SD), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Bill Nelson (D-FL), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Mark Pryor (D-AR), Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), and Ken Salazar (D-CO)) voted with the Republicans to keep Telco immunity.
I have to figure that this is Reid playing both ends against the middle. He says, “Real Filibuster”, and defuses efforts to remove him as leader, but then twists arms to get Dem Senators to vote to support bush’s position.
It still appears, however, that George W. Bush won’t get what he wants from the house easily, so he hasreleased White House wiretap docs to the house.
NOTE: When reading this article, there is a significant factual error, “The companies were helping the administration carry out the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program, a still classified effort that intercepted communications on U.S. soil without oversight from the FISA court from Sept. 11, 2001 to January 17, 2007.”
This is not true.
This program was initiated in February, 2001, predating the attacks by 7 months.
Stephen J. Bradbury wrote the memoranda that authorized torture, and so the Senate has refused to confirm, but George W. Bush, in a fit of pique I guess, has decided that there are not enough war criminals in the Department of Justice, so he’s sending him back again.
If there is a level of lawlessnesses that demands impeachment, it was reached some time ago, and by not addressing this with an investigation, the Congress is ignoring their constitutional responsibility.
NOT ON THE TABLE! NOT ON THE TABLE!
Jim Walsh (R-NY 25) will not stand for reelection.
He’s had some close races, and as a relatively moderate Republican, he’s a typical New York Republican, as opposed to a Long Island Neanderthal, he probably realizes that the current Republican leadership does not listen to him.
His district went Kerry in 2004.
During his confirmation hearings, Mukasey said that he would not be able to make a determination as to whether waterboarding was torture until after he consulted with the DoJ and intelligence officials about what was going on, and what legal justifications were used.
Well, Mukasey is appearing before the Senate next week, and Senators have figured that he has had plenty of time to get their answer:
January 23, 2008
The Honorable Michael Mukasey
Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20530Dear Attorney General Mukasey:
On October 23, 2007, we wrote to you to ask you whether the abusive interrogation technique known as waterboarding is illegal.
On October 30, you responded that waterboarding and other abusive techniques “seem over the line or, on a personal basis, repugnant to me.” You said that you could not offer an opinion on the legality of waterboarding based on “hypothetical facts and circumstances” because you had not been briefed on the government’s interrogation techniques: “Legal opinions should treat real issues. I have not been briefed on techniques used in any classified interrogation program conducted by any government agency.” However, you committed that, “if confirmed I will review any coercive interrogation techniques currently used by the United States Government and the legal analysis authorizing their use to assess whether such techniques comply with the law.”
You were confirmed as Attorney General on November 8, 2007. On November 9, Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham sent you a letter stating, “The scenarios you previously described as hypothetical are no longer so, and you now have the benefit of full access to classified programs and memoranda. We urge you to acquaint yourself immediately with these matters and take the opportunity to make clear that waterboarding is illegal and can never be employed.”
It has been over two months since then, ample time for you to study this issue and reach a conclusion. On November 27, State Department Legal Advisor John Bellinger said you were giving “high priority” to reviewing interrogation techniques, claiming, “I think there is a growing recognition … about the need for greater clarity about what is permitted and what is prohibited.”
Your failure to say whether waterboarding is legal has placed Judge Mark Filip, the nominee for Deputy Attorney General, in a difficult position. When Judge Filip was asked at his confirmation hearing whether waterboarding was unlawful, he was unwilling to answer because you were studying the issue: “[T]he Attorney General of the United States is presently reviewing that legal question. … I don’t think I can, or anyone who could potentially [be] considered for his deputy, could get out in front of him on that question while it’s under review.”
We are concerned that your silence poses a more serious threat to American servicemembers. As we noted in our October 23rd letter:
Your unwillingness to state that waterboarding is illegal may place Americans at risk of being subjected to this abusive technique. If the United States does not explicitly and publicly condemn waterboarding, it will be more difficult to argue that enemy forces cannot waterboard American prisoners.
This concern was highlighted recently during “The Legal Rights of Guantanamo Detainees: What Are They, Should They Be Changed, and Is an End in Sight?” a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security on December 11. Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann, Legal Advisor to the Convening Authority for the Office of Military Commissions, refused to say whether it would be legal for the Iranian government to subject an American citizen to waterboarding. He also testified that it is possible that information obtained through waterboarding could be introduced as evidence in a military commission.
In stark contrast to Brigadier General Hartmann’s refusal to say whether it would be illegal to waterboard an American, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell recently opined that waterboarding would be torture if used against him. According to The New Yorker, DNI McConnell said, “If I had water draining into my nose, oh God, I just can’t imagine how painful! Whether it’s torture by anybody else’s definition, for me it would be torture.”
Please respond to the following questions:
1. Is the use of waterboading as an interrogation technique illegal under U.S. law, including treaty obligations?2. Based on your review of other coercive interrogation techniques and the legal analysis authorizing their use, what is your assessment of whether such techniques comply with the law?
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Richard J. Durbin
Patrick J. Leahy
Edward M. Kennedy
Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
Herb Kohl
Dianne Feinstein
Russell D. Feingold
Charles E. Schumer
Benjamin L. Cardin
Sheldon Whitehouse
Not great, so change a period to a comma, and send it back for another veto and another override vote.
Make Republicthug congressmen vote against the fabulously popular SCHIP program again, and again, and again.
Make them cut their own throat.
I guess the Democrats are waiting until after the statutes of limitations have expired, because they’ve yet again delayed a contempt vote. It appears that they don’t want to, “Step on their message” regarding economic stimulus.
The reality is that they are reinforcing their message that they are a group of people who cannot be trusted to stand up for the right thing.
