"the utter lack of sophistication and circus-like atmosphere..."

Every time someone says that the United States does not torture, remember this one salient point:

The CIA has acknowledged waterboarding [Abu] Zubaydah, in part out of concern that he had information that could prevent another imminent attack.

That is all the proof one needs in order to show that the US government tortures.

The larger revelations found in the Justice Department audit of the system in which detainees were handled raise troubling questions about the tactics and the mindset of the people who were charged with keeping America safe. Did they, unwittingly, endanger America even more by operating well outside the boundaries of common sense and decency?

The report, written by Glenn Fine, the Inspector General of the US Justice Department, reached several disturbing conclusions:

While the Inspector General's report "...found no instances in which an FBI agent participated in clear detainee abuse..." it blamed the FBI for failing to give clear instructions to its agents in the field.

The split, pitting the FBI against the CIA and Pentagon, came to a head over the treatment of the so-called 20th hijacker Muhammad al-Qahtani. Qahtani is accused by the government of attempting to enter the United States in August 2001 to be a muscle hijacker on one of the planes used in the 9/11 attacks. He was turned away at the Orlando airport and not allowed entry into the country.

Fine's report raises troubling questions about CIA and Pentagon interrogators whose use of snarling dogs, short shackles, mocking of the Quran and other abuses of detainees overseas appear to have overstepped what U.S. courts would allow in collecting evidence.

At the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, FBI agents in 2002 openly clashed with military interrogators bent on "aggressively" interrogating al-Qahtani by confronting him with agitated dogs and keeping him awake for continuous 20-hour interviews daily.

Didn't the US Military just apologize for desecrating a Koran in Iraq? Why the change of heart, one wonders.

The most glaring aspect of the revelations in this report are not that the US tortures detainees--we've become accustomed to learning that about our government. What stands out like a sore thumb, at least to me, is the rejection of proven methods for interrogation:

Such tactics "have been employed only when traditional means of questioning - things like rapport-building - were ineffective," CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said Tuesday.

In al-Qahtani's case, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said no evidence of torture has ever surfaced after extensive internal reviews. Al-Qahtani, designated as an additional hijacker for the 2001 attacks, was forced to wear a bra, dance with another man and behave like a dog while at Guantanamo Bay, according to a 2005 Pentagon report.

Whitman also said he was unaware of any Pentagon actions that would have delayed the Justice report. Fine's audit, however, describes seven months of foot-dragging and negotiating by the Pentagon over how much information in the report should be classified or otherwise shielded from public review. The 438-page report issued Tuesday is only sparsely blacked-out.

The report surveyed over 1,000 agents, interviews with hundreds of other witnesses and a review of more than a half-million documents. It concluded FBI agents in nearly all cases refused to participate in harsh interrogations and left the room when they were ongoing.

Agents also were fairly vigilant about reporting their concerns to their superiors, the report shows.

At Guantanamo Bay, two FBI agents "had concerns not only about the proposed techniques but also about the glee with which the would-be (military) participants discussed their respective roles in carrying out these techniques, and the utter lack of sophistication and circus-like atmosphere within this interrogation strategy session," the report found.

Within the system, there has emerged a few leaders who are trying to resist the CIA and the Bush Administration. We have seen this with the lawyers who have refused to go forward with the trials, and we're also seeing it with the men who have been brought in to clean up the mess:

Interrogators at Guantanamo got intelligence from detainees that helped U.S. troops in Afghanistan attack Taliban fighters last summer — and they did it through casual questioning and not torture, the military's chief interrogator [there] said.

In a rare interview with The Associated Press, veteran interrogator Paul Rester complained that his profession has gotten a bad reputation due to accounts of waterboarding and other rough interrogation tactics used by the CIA at "black sites."

Lawyers for Guantanamo detainees, however, allege their clients have been subjected to temperature extremes, sleep deprivation and threats at this U.S. military base in southeast Cuba.

Wearing a blue-striped business shirt without a tie and looking more like a harried executive than a top interrogator, Rester groused that his line of work is "a business that is fundamentally thankless."

He sat hunched over a table in a snack room inside the building where the top commanders keep their offices. In an attempt to keep personnel from blabbing about intelligence-gathering, a poster showed a picture of a hooded gunman and the words: "Keep talking. We're listening" — today's version of the World War II-era admonishment that "Loose lips sink ships."

"Everybody in the world believes that they know how we do what we do, and I have to endure it every time I turn around and somebody is making reference to waterboarding," Rester said. He insisted that Guantanamo interrogators have had many successes using rapport-building and said that technique was the norm here.

For security reasons, he would only discuss one of the successes, and that was only because his boss, Rear Adm. Mark Buzby, had already described it in a speech last month. Buzby said several detainees, using poster board paper and crayons, drew detailed maps of the Tora Bora area in eastern Afghanistan that enabled coalition forces to wipe out safe houses, trenches and supplies last summer as Taliban forces were returning to the stronghold they had abandoned more than five years ago.

Rapport-building actually works. But it is slow, tedious and not very glamorous to "make nice" with the enemy and use a more "diplomatic" way to getting information out of them.

It's not hard to see why anything relating to "talking" or "diplomacy" or "common sense" is universally rejected by the Bush Administration.

Senate Tells Justice Department Not to Investigate Torture

I picked this up off of TPM Muckraker, and it seems to have slipped my notice yesterday...

There are literally dozens of these types of stories--you never want for material when you're blogging about the state of American political discourse and policy here in the last year of the Bush Administration. No sector of our government has suffered more than the small, elite sector of "inspector generals" or IGs. These people were supposed to be fair, tough, independent and unassailable. And yes, every time you turn around, the Congress or the Executive is finding a new and creative way to stymie or block these people from doing their jobs:

From the National Law Journal:

Congress is close to enacting the most significant boost in three decades in the independence of the cadre of government watchdogs -- federal inspectors general -- but the lawmakers have retreated from a key change involving the U.S. Department of Justice.
The Senate on April 23 approved, by unanimous consent, S. 2324, the Inspector General Reform Act of 2008. But the bill passed only after the lawmakers agreed to an amendment by Senator Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., which, among other items, deleted a provision giving the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General (OIG) jurisdiction to investigate misconduct allegations against department attorneys, including its most senior officials.

Unlike all other OIGs who can investigate misconduct within their entire agency, Justice's OIG must refer allegations against department attorneys to the department's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR). The latter office, unlike the OIG, is not statutorily independent and reports directly to the attorney general and the deputy attorney general....

President Bush had threatened to veto the House bill for a variety of reasons. The Kyl amendment to the Senate bill was seen by many as a vehicle for the White House's objections.

OPR, which reports to the attorney general, is currently conducting a variety of very sensitive investigations for the administration. The office is probing the Department's approval of the administration's warrantless wiretapping program. And recently it announced that it is investigating the Department's legal memos authorizing the use of waterboarding and other forms of torture by CIA and military interrogators.

It is conducting those probes because Inspector General Glenn Fine cannot. The bill which passed the House would have changed that, as Fine himself pointed out in a letter (pdf) to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) back in February, when he told them that he could not investigate the Department's authorization of torture because "under current law, the OIG does not have jurisdiction to review the actions of DOJ attorneys acting in their capacity to provide legal advice." Fine added: "Legislation that would remove this limitation has passed the House and is pending in the Senate, but at this point the OIG does not have jurisdiction to undertake the review you request."

Now, I don't know about you, but at some point, the Republicans are going to be screaming to put that provision of investigating "senior officials" back into effect once they lose control of the Executive Branch. This kind of thing is extremely damaging to the credibility of Attorney General Michael Mukasey--is he presiding over the most corrupt Justice Department ever, as a kind of traitorous caretaker, ordered to run out the clock?

One would think he'd at least try, right? Pretend to be acting as the chief law enforcement officer of the United States of America? Instead, he's running cover like a thug, barely able to keep up with the latest outrage, and willfully ignorant to this day of what it must have been like for our enemies to be waterboarded.

Another Reason To Watch the Watchers...

Some ace reporting from Ryan Singel--reminding us exactly why we need oversight of ANY agency investigating US persons:

For the second time in five months, a jury has deadlocked over charges against an inept group of Miami cultists, a massive setback for the Justice Department who accuses the group of plotting to topple the Sears Tower in Chicago.

The Justice Department built the case using paid informants and numerous wiretaps, but the six men on trial (one was acquitted) say they only pretended to want to wage jihad in order to swindle $50,000 from a government informant. The supposed ring-leader of the so-called Liberty City 7 Narseal Batiste was known for roaming Miami streets in his bathrobe to find recruits.

When the indictments were announced in 2006, FBI Deputy Director John Pistole described the arrests as "yet another important victory in the war on terrorism" and a "grim reminder of the persistent threat environment that exists here at home and underscores the need for continued vigilance and cooperation."

THREAT LEVEL is reminded of a snippet from FBI wiretapping documents that trumpeted the surveillance of the group, saying the wiretaps led to other leads and more than 50 intelligence reports.

We provided continuing support for a FBI Miami counterterrorism case which during this time period [October 2005 through September 2006] has intercepted in excess of 1800 telephone calls. Intercepted communications and call data records provided by the system that HAT [High-Capacity Access Team] installed, operates and maintains allowed for the identification of a previously unknown terror organization and individuals operating in the United States. This information has supplied the probable cause for additional case and FISA initiations at other FBI divisions. The derived intelligence has been disseminated to the intelligence community, via approximately 50 IIRS [Intelligence Information Reports], as well to allies of the United States.

One can only imagine the contents of the 50 intelligence reports about a group whose idea of secrecy was to station a guy in a military uniform with a mask on outside their warehouse when having 'meetings.'

You know, if we had a functioning system of overseeing what the FBI is doing and what our intelligence agencies as a whole are doing when they look at US persons, someone would have been able to step in and put a quick end to this ridiculous incident. The FISA provisions worked the way the wingnuts claim that they don't--no one was "denied" anything in this case. They SHOULD have been able to cut this off and have the local police deal with these idiots. If anything, this case proves there should be stringent oversight of the value of the intelligence, not just the process of giving permission to eavesdrop. These were clearly not "international terrorists." These were "wannabe badasses" who could have been arrested and charged locally for being stupid with firearms.

Oversight means more than just blessing off on whatever a G-man or a DIA analyst wants to do for months on end--oversight should function as a gatekeeper of sorts, ensuring that we are directing our resources at real threats and real targets, and not wasting our time on shambling, bath-robe wearing idiots. These particular idiots were more of a danger to themselves than they were to the public. You could, literally, make the case that they should have been committed to a mental health facility and treated, instead of being brought up on shaky Federal charges. Sure would have been a better use of resources and money.

This used to be a pretty badass country. If someone like this popped up on the radar back in the day, they were rounded up and dealt with accordingly, you know, with real courts and judges and the rule of law and Habeas Corpus and all that. Quaint, yes. But effective.

I mean, how many Michigan militia are running around right now?

Hubris is the word I'm looking for...

Hubris is the best way to describe this kind of arrogance. An arrogance that says
"we can do whatever we want to whoever we want and no one can touch us."

(CBS/AP) The Pentagon on Tuesday made public a now-defunct legal memo that approved the use of harsh interrogation techniques against terror suspects, saying that President Bush's wartime authority trumps any international ban on torture.

The Justice Department memo, dated March 14, 2003, outlines legal justification for military interrogators to use harsh tactics against al Qaeda and Taliban detainees overseas - so long as they did not specifically intend to torture their captors.

Even so, the memo noted, the president's wartime power as commander in chief would not be limited by the U.N. treaties against torture.

"Our previous opinions make clear that customary international law is not federal law and that the president is free to override it at his discretion," said the memo written by John Yoo, who was then deputy assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel.

The memo also offered a defense in case any interrogator was charged with violating U.S. or international laws.

"Finally, even if the criminal prohibitions outlined above applied, and an interrogation method might violate those prohibitions, necessity or self-defense could provide justifications for any criminal liability," the memo concluded.

Is there a reason why John Yoo is not sitting in a Federal prison right now? Just on the basis of his inability to tell the difference between the law and "what the boss wants" he should be incarcerated. This legal opinion tries to tear down the rule of law in this country. Tries to, because it had to be withdrawn.

And I don't think anything these people have done will ever stand up over time. We will move on from them soon. We will rebuild this country and we will reject the logic in this memo and condemn it for the rest of our days. This is the framed document that should welcome people to the George W. Bush Presidential Library--framed under glass and tastefully lit next to the PDB that says "Bin Laden Determined to Strike U.S. and the text of his "Mission Accomplished" speech.

"The whole point of the memo is obviously to nullify every possible legal restraint on the president's wartime authority," Jaffer said. "The memo was meant to allow torture, and that's exactly what it did."

The 81-page legal analysis largely centers on whether interrogators can be held responsible for torture if torture is not the intent of the questioning. And it defines torture as the intended sum of a variety of acts, which could include acid scalding, severe mental pain and suffering, threat of imminent death and physical pain resulting in impaired body functions, organ failure or death.

The "definition of torture must be read as a sum of these component parts," the memo said.

The memo also includes past legal defenses of interrogations that Yoo wrote are not considered torture, such as sleep deprivation, hooding detainees and "frog crouching," which forces prisoners to crouch while standing on the tips of their toes.

"This standard permits some physical contact," the memo said. "Employing a shove or slap as part of an interrogation would not run afoul of this standard."

The memo concludes that foreign enemy combatants held overseas do not have defendants' rights or protections from cruel and unusual punishment that U.S. citizens have under the Constitution. It also says that Congress "cannot interfere with the president's exercise of his authority as commander in chief to control the conduct of operations during a war."

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy said the memo "reflects the expansive view of executive power that has been the hallmark of this administration." He called for its release four months ago.

"It is no wonder that this memo ... could not withstand scrutiny and had to be withdrawn," said Leahy, D-Vt. "This memo seeks to find ways to avoid legal restrictions and accountability on torture and threatens our country's status as a beacon of human rights around the world."

That's what we have to rebuiild. That's what we have to restore to get our soul back. And there has to be accountability. Has to be.

The rule of law doesn't mean much when third-rate legal minds are allowed to write whatever they want and pass it off as legal advice. To think that these people concocted such a policy and have never repudiated it and keep defending what they did is enough hubris to last us a lifetime.

Siegelman is Being Beaten In Prison

We want to stress that this is from a Diary at DailyKOS. We have no idea how thoroughly vetted this story is. We hope it is not true, actually, but we relay it because of what we know to be true - that Don Siegelman is a political prisoner. --BG

I'm back, and your initial comments are the same as mine, basically. How do you know for sure? Like you, I'm not certain of the veracity of this information. I found it on a Daily Kos diary that Crooks and Liars was linking to. I've watched the comments at C&L and it's the usual trolling concern over there--people going after Siegelman and the like.

The bottom line is this--it's not whether Siegelman is guilty or not. It's about the dignity of his treatment and did he have a fair trial. If there are indications that he is not being treated with dignity and that he didn't have a fair shake, that's an outrage.

What seals the deal is the image on Crooks and Liars and on the DKOS diary, which is Siegelman forced to write a letter to someone on a printed page like it was being snuck out of the gulag--pretty powerful stuff.

As always, view with skepticism and view with a critical eye towards what could be happening.


Start spreading this around...

DailyKos:

All roads lead to Rove. That was the message scrawled as an afterthought in the lower left-hand corner of the envelope I received in yesterday’s mail. It contained a letter from an old and dear friend of mine. His name is Don Siegelman. He is the former governor of Alabama and he is being held as a political prisoner of the Bush administration in a Federal prison in Louisiana.

They don’t allow Don the luxury of stationary so he must write his letters on whatever he can find. He wrote me on a xeroxed article he wanted me to see. [..]

When I first heard of Don being prosecuted for corruption my heart sank. I didn’t know what to think. It had been years since we’d spoken and the press made it sound awful for Don (what else?). Of course I had no idea what was really going on. Now that I do I am horrified…and furious.

Don is a formidable force in Alabama politics. His friends are loyal and his supporters enthusiastic. They re-elected him Governor in the midst of a bogus corruption trial engineered by the Bush Justice Department at the behest of Karl Rove who takes orders from you-know-who. Don campaigned for re-election throughout the early phases of the trial. On election night he was declared the winner, but Karl Rove’s minions stole the election overnight by manipulating the ballots in Baldwin County. It was classic Rovian/Republican election theft. They did it with computers and electronic voting machines. Don went to bed the re-elected Governor of Alabama, and woke up an unemployed defendant. [..]

Something that has not been reported is that they have been physically beating Don. I don’t know the extent of his injuries or exactly how many times it has happened – but it has been multiple times.

There are no words for the fury I feel. This is an outrage. And it is the most un-American thing I have ever heard. I cry bitter tears of frustration and rage.

Please everyone. We have to help Don, and we have to crush these thugs and put them out of the business of perverting our democracy. We must investigate and prosecute the responsible parties, not for political reasons, but to actually serve the interest of justice. The cause of justice calls upon us to hold these criminals accountable. We must bring them to justice and stop such travesties from ever again happening in our United States of America.

A new review of evidence suggests that an aligned group of Republican interests were pressing for — and seeking to profit financially from — the trial of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman on charges of bribery, according to Sam Stein of HuffPo.

Please contact Rep. John Conyers and Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairmen of their respective Judiciary committees and ask them to appoint an Independent Investigator. You can also donate to Siegelman’s Defense Fund.

Filed Under: Republican Party, Scandals

Have you ever heard of a man so dangerous, he was denied blank sheets of paper in prison?

What is THAT all about???

Don Siegelman
#24775-0001
Satellite Prison Camp
Post Office Box 5010
Oakdale, LA 71463-5019

UPDATE I - Warren Street (adding image from Crooks and Liars/DKos story)

Pretty powerful image, huh? Definitely NOT appearing in the GWB presidential library.

It Really Is a Republican Crime Syndicate

Smile, you're under indictment.



Yes, that's Rep. Rick Renzi, state co-chair of the McCain's leadership team in Arizona, under indictment for damned near everything.

A 26-page federal indictment unsealed today accuses Renzi and two former business partners of conspiring to promote the sale of land that buyers could swap for property owned by the federal government. The sale netted one of Renzi's former partners $4.5 million.

A little newswatch for you--see if you can see where they identify any linkage to McCain in this article from MSNBC.comin this article:

Congressman charged in land deal

WASHINGTON - Republican Rep. Rick Renzi has been indicted for extortion, wire fraud, money laundering and other charges related to a land deal in Arizona.

A 26-page federal indictment unsealed in Arizona accuses Renzi and two former business partners of conspiring to promote the sale of land that buyers could swap for property owned by the federal government. The sale netted one of Renzi's former partners $4.5 million.

Renzi is a three-term member of the House. He announced in August that he would not seek re-election.

Today's indictment comes after a lengthy federal investigation into the land developing and insurance businesses owned by Renzi's family.

In April 2007, federal agents raided a Sonoita, Arizona business owned by Renzi's wife, Roberta.

You read that right--MSNBC.com continues to carry water for McCain and the pushback from the NYTimes story is having an effect, apparently. If a Clinton or Obama guy sneezes and gets indicted for it, regardless of who they are or where they are on the chain of command up to the candidate, you're going to hear about it. Not so with McCain, of course. Because McCain doesn't have lobbyists in his campaign--he has friends, of course. Friends like Rick Renzi. Who couldn't even serve three terms without using his office to line his pockets.

I guess it isn't news when, the day after McCain denies being involved in shady dealings with a lobbyist, a member of his home state Congressional delegation, a supporter of his at a very high level, and a man with who he's written legislation gets a kiss-of-death indictment. I guess McCain's "mentoring" of the three term Congressman ain't what it was cracked up to be.

And, bear in mind, the Republicans still control the fucking Justice Department. That Renzi was indicted at all, in lieu of the US Attorney scandal, says a lot.

Yes--there's ALWAYS a nice picture to go at the end of one of these posts...
























UPDATE by Blue Girl, Noon Central

There is a whole ‘nother level to the Rick Renzi story that hasn’t been addressed. Here is the part you haven’t heard, from beyonddelay.org

"In 2003, Rep. Renzi sponsored legislation (signed into law in November 2003) that earmarked hundreds of millions of dollars to his father’s business while, according to environmentalists, devastating the San Pedro River. The provision, which was added to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004, exempted the Army’s Fort Huachuca base in Sierra Vista, Arizona from maintaining water levels in the San Pedro River as called for in an agreement made in 2002 with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Rep. Renzi claimed he introduced the measure to prevent the closing of the Fort and to promote its enlargement. Environmentalists, however, concerned about the impact Fort Huachuca’s expansion may have on water consumption and the fate of the San Pedro River, argued that as the fort expands, so too would the local population, draining water from the river. Notably, neither the fort nor the river is located in Rep. Renzi’s district."

"A key beneficiary of Rep. Renzi’s legislation was ManTech International Corp., a Fairfax, Virginia based defense contractor where Rep. Renzi’s father, Retired Major General Eugene Renzi, is an executive vice president. General Renzi served at Fort Huachuca during his career in the military. ManTech had $467 million in contracts at Fort Huachuca with options for an additional $1.1 billion between 2004 through 2008. In addition, the company, which has an office in Sierra Vista, Arizona, was the largest contributor to Renzi’s 2002 congressional campaign and the second largest in his 2004 campaign."

And this is the analysis of bmaz at Watching Those We Chose:

This information is extremely critical to the Renzi equation, in spite of the fact that it is not what the superficial mainstream media are focusing on. Ft. Huachuca is not just a nice town near the fragile San Pedro River, it is an important, if not critical, military intelligence facility. Renzi's father is much more than a simple pass through for money on the land deals you are hearing about. Renzi's father is Gene Renzi, who is one of the owners and chief executives of a not so nice, and not so little, company by the name of ManTech International. www.mantech.com If you are not aware of ManTech, take a look at them. If you ever wondered what in the world was the general template for rogue security outfits like Blackwater Inc; here is your answer and more; and what is in the public domain is a mere fraction of what they appear to really have going on.

There has been a long running controversy over the groundwater/environmental contamination issue, with much of the effort being led by a firebrand local environmentalist by the name of Dr. Robin Silver and his group, the Southwest Center for Biological Diversity. Dr. Silver has been tilting at both Renzis for years, is tenacious, and is owed a debt of gratitude for pressing the case against Rick Renzi from the outset. It has long been rumored that there is much more than the groundwater/environmental bit going on the Renzi/ManTech front, and that giant digital fiber optic trunk lines carrying all types of critical information and data, including some highly secure, i.e. the kind that all the illegal and warrantless Total Information Awareness programs might would desire and require, are involved.

All of this is just a rumor, of course; there has never been any substantive confirmation, nor any hard evidence at all. Of course that is what you would expect if it is just a loony conspiracy theory; it is also what you would expect if the rumors were true. This much is known: Eugene Renzi is a very major, under the radar, VERY connected player in the absolute highest levels of intelligence gathering, data mining and analysis. With, and through, John Poindexter (Gene Renzi and Poindexter have an enduring, tight, decades long parallel path in Naval and Army Intel, with Gene Renzi reportedly being tasked or associated with Poindexter on spook type NSA programs during the Reagan/Bush41 years), Gene Renzi is said to be directly connected to Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld. There appears to be far more here than could have been imagined.

My imagination is ginned up. How ‘bout yours?

UPDATE II - PALE RIDER at 1:26 Eastern

I spent two months on Fort Huachuca--hated every minute of it.

What they have there is the training set-up for almost all of military intelligence--Army, Navy, USAF and Marines go there for schools. They do the UAVs there, they do some collection and they have a blimp that flies aloft most days to watch people crossing the border.

Much of what goes on there is not so hush-hush or significant, however. Misawa, Fort Meade, Fort Lewis, Hawaii, Denver, Fort Gordon and Lackland all have facilities that are probably a lot more significant than Huachuca.

UPDATE III - BLUE GIRL at 7:00 Central

If I had known that the congressman was indicted the day after his father's funeral, I might have worded my concerns about specious contracts and ManTech a bit differently. MG Eugene Renzi was laid to rest yesterday. The congressman's attorneys are decrying the timing and the crass nature of issuing an indictment today, before he has been allowed a decent mourning time.

And that attitude pisses me off...I would ask "why is he so special?" I knew someone in high school who ran afoul of the law and was in jail when his grandma passed away. He was allowed to attend the funeral...wearing orange and shackled, and he and his guards sat in the back of the church, alone. He was not allowed to speak to his siblings as they buried the grandmother who raised them. So I don't feel too sorry for a criminal republican who was indicted after the funeral, and not during. Who the hell does he think he is that he should get different rules than everyone else? That very notion makes me want some arrogant assholes head on a platter every time I witness it, no matter who is displaying it.

What Are You Watching This Sunday Night?

Might we make a suggestion?

I am advised by CBS News that their long-awaited feature dealing with the trial of former Alabama Governor Don E. Siegelman will air on the next 60 Minutes program, on Sunday, February 24.

This story is related to the politicization of the Justice Department--remember those days, when Gonzales ran things and no one knew what was really going on? What with all of those missing E-mails, and with Mukasey making sure no one holds the Justice Department accountable, we'll probably never know. People who have previewed or seen transcripts say that the 60 Minutes piece is going to wow some people.

Here's why the Don Siegelman case is so important:

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., May 31 — Alabama has a tradition of savage political warfare, but Don E. Siegelman’s fight to stay out of prison is reverberating all the way back to Washington.

Federal prosecutors here are seeking 30 years in prison for Mr. Siegelman, who was the Democratic governor of Alabama from 1999 to 2003 and was convicted last year of accepting $500,000 in bribes from the chairman of the HealthSouth Corporation.

Mr. Siegelman, who is scheduled for sentencing on June 26, says he was singled out by prosecutors with close personal ties to Alabama Republican leaders and to the Bush White House.

Mr. Siegelman’s defenders have tied his plight to the uproar in Washington over the Bush administration’s decision to dismiss eight United States attorneys, but they have produced no firm evidence of political interference.

Now they have an affidavit from a lawyer who says she heard a top Republican operative in Alabama boast in 2002 that the United States attorneys in Alabama would “take care” of Mr. Siegelman. The operative, William Canary, is married to the United States attorney in Montgomery, Leura G. Canary. Mr. Canary, who heads the Business Council of Alabama, was an informal adviser to Bob Riley, a Republican, who defeated Mr. Siegelman in 2002.

Earlier, Mr. Canary worked in the White House under President Bush’s father and has close ties to Karl Rove, Mr. Bush’s top political strategist.

In the affidavit, the lawyer, Jill Simpson, said Mr. Canary’s remark was made in a conference call with her and Rob Riley, Governor Riley’s son and campaign manager.

Ms. Simpson said Mr. Canary assured the younger Mr. Riley that “his girls would take care of” Mr. Siegelman before he had a chance to run for the governor’s seat in 2006 and identified “his girls” as Leura Canary and Alice Martin, the United States attorney in Birmingham.

Neither Mr. Canary nor Mr. Riley responded to requests for comment about Ms. Simpson’s affidavit.

In 2003, Ms. Canary recused herself from the investigation, after Mr. Siegelman’s lawyer accused her of conflicts of interest. She turned the case over to Louis Franklin, a career prosecutor who had served under Republicans and Democrats.

After a nine-week trial last year, a jury acquitted Mr. Siegelman on 25 counts and convicted him on 7, almost all tied to accepting money from Richard Scrushy, the former chairman of HealthSouth. Mr. Siegelman was not convicted of pocketing any money himself. Rather, a jury convicted him of persuading Mr. Scrushy to pay $500,000 to retire the debt of a political group that had campaigned to win voter approval for a state lottery.

Yes. That Scrushy:

Scrushy guilty of bribery in case involving ex-governor
Updated 6/30/2006

By Greg Farrell, USA TODAY
Richard Scrushy, the charismatic former chief executive of HealthSouth who was acquitted last year of masterminding a $2.7 billion fraud, was found guilty of bribery and related charges by an Alabama jury Thursday.

Scrushy, the only CEO to triumph over the Justice Department in the government's recent campaign against corporate fraud, was convicted of funneling $500,000 to former Alabama governor Don Siegelman in exchange for a seat on the state hospital regulatory board.

The jury convicted Siegelman and Scrushy of six charges of bribery, conspiracy and mail fraud. Siegelman was also convicted of obstructing justice. The two men face as much as 30 years in prison each. Both vowed to appeal.

Scrushy's conviction is yet another reversal of fortune for a man who's been riding a legal roller coaster for three years. Throughout the 1990s, Scrushy was a highly respected CEO who helped HealthSouth grow from a regional chain of hospitals into a Fortune 500 company.

So what does it all mean? Tune in and find out. It should be a hell of a show.

More Fun at the Justice Department

Here's an idea--why not impeach Attorney General Mukasey?

He won't give anyone a straight answer about waterboarding and he won't do anything about whistleblower complaints.

[By Paul Kiel]
It's hard enough to get the facts straight when allegations are made. But everything gets all the more complicated in the Bush Administration's hall of mirrors; it's all pots and kettles.

Consider this dust-up between the Office of Special Counsel and the Justice Department. In one corner, you have Special Counsel Scott Bloch, who heads an obscure little office that is charged with investigating whistleblower complaints, Hatch Act violations, and the like -- but who is himself being investigated for retaliating against whistleblowers and politicizing his office. Oh, and he used a tech service called Geeks on Call to scrub his hard drive at work (he says all the info was personal). In the other corner, you have the Justice Department, and well, you know all about that.

In a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey last week, Bloch charged that the Department was blocking his probe of politicization in the DoJ, his investigation of U.S. Attorney David Iglesias' firing (was it because of his Navy reserve service?), and a whistleblower complaint against former U.S. attorney Rachel Paulose. Eric Black, who reported on the letter last night, has helpfully posted a copy here (pdf).

The OSC, an independent executive branch agency that is not part of the Justice Department, had received a whistleblower complaint about Paulose from Assistant U.S. Attorney John Marti, who had stepped down from his position as Paulose's top deputy in protest against her degrading management style. As characterized by the Bloch letter of last week, Marti alleged that Paulose's management "by fear and intimidation" was disrupting the operation of the office.

While OSC proceeded to investigate those areas over which it has direct authority — specifically relating to prohibited personnel practices, or to the possibility that Paulose had retaliated against Marti for blowing the whistle on her — Bloch referred other matters — such as the allegation that Paulose had mishandled classified national security documents, and the belief that her management style was undermining the morale and efficiency of the office — to Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine last August for investigation.

In the letter, Bloch complains that 1) after the Justice Department launched its own internal investigation of the U.S. attorney firings and politicization in the Department last spring, they asked him to back off, and 2) the DoJ has refused to investigate a whistleblower complaint against Paulose.

Bloch's job, at least under the Bush administration, is to write investigatory reports which the White House will then ignore. Tellingly, Bloch complains in the letter that he's been trying to get White House counsel Fred Fielding on the phone for two months and had no luck.

An official from the Justice Department can't get Fred Fielding on the phone? Incredible.

And now that Paulose has been forced out of her position as a US Attorney, why won't Mukasey do anything about Bloch's attempts to find out how it all went wrong for Paulose (perhaps more prayer next time, and a row of trumpeters to blow a triumphant theme as doves are released would help the next time she is sworn in for a job for which she isn't qualified for.)

Mukasey is a disgrace and should be impeached.

It's a sweet little scam if you happen to be connected

Just when you thought this crew couldn't possibly be more corrupt, a new depth is plumbed.

The latest scam to enrich cronies and former cronies of the Bush administration goes by the name of "Monitorships." Monitorships are unique and unusual contractual arrangements under which an outside entity (headed by a former administration crony) is given broad powers to "expose corruption and change business practices." The arrangements allow the companies to avoid criminal charges while giving prosecutors cover - the companies have to clean up their act and the prosecutors can move on to more important matters than white collar crime - you know - like getting back to pissing away money losing that misguided futile "war on drugs."

Last month I wrote about one such arrangement with former Attorney General John Ashcroft, which somewhere between $29 and $52 million dollars - to be paid by the company in question - for serving as corporate watchdog for a mere 18 months. The no-bid contract was bestowed upon Ashcroft by the US Attorney for New Jersey - who was Ashcroft's employee when he was the head of the Department formerly known as Justice.

But the Eagle isn't the only one cashing in. Several former Bush administration officials have snagged similar deals, which are paid using corporate funds, and there are minimal checks on spending.

Now these spurious deals are being scrutinized.

But legal experts and lawmakers are expressing growing concern about inconsistency and secrecy surrounding the appointments.

The chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary committees last week demanded that Justice Department leaders provide a list of all such deals and the fees they have generated. The Project on Government Oversight watchdog group has questioned whether the agreements reward "cronies" who share political affiliations or backgrounds with the U.S. attorneys handing out the deals.

The arrangements raise alarms about "potential favoritism and political interference that can undermine our judicial system," said Rep. Frank Pallone Jr . (D-N.J.). Pallone has been critical of U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie, the New Jersey prosecutor who chose Ashcroft and a possible GOP gubernatorial candidate in the state.

The number of corporate monitors has risen more than sevenfold since 2001, researchers said, a move that reflects a shift from lodging criminal indictments against businesses for fear they will collapse and cost employees their jobs. Instead, the government has taken a different path: forcing companies to submit to outside oversight at their own expense as a condition of settling fraud and corruption cases. Major companies from AOL and Bristol-Myers Squibb to Merrill Lynch have yielded to such oversight after recent financial scandals.

So - companies with deep pockets can fork over a few million, and buy their way out of indictments and public humiliation - and prosecutors all but get a seat in the boardroom. Monitors have virtually unlimited authority to interview employees, pore over contracts, expose violations and force companies to change their cheating and kick-backing ways - none of which is a bad thing, by the way.

But - as the number of monitorships has grown in recent years, they have usurped more and more power, enlisting high-priced accountants of the monitor's choosing and even making recommendations on who to fire - and who to hire. Typically, the monitors send their reports to prosecutors and their bills to the companies being monitored.

As a general rule, monitorship fees are not made public, but those 'in the know' say it is common for such fees to exceed tens of millions of dollars over two or three years. The fees rarely, if ever, involve any court approval, and defense attorneys say that they are hardly ever questioned by the companies being monitored out of fear of reprisal. Executives at companies that were monitored years ago still decline comment.

Richard C. Breeden, a former Republican chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, engineered a nearly complete overhaul at WorldCom after its top executives faced criminal charges in one of the largest fraud schemes in the nation's history. After being appointed by a federal judge from a different political party, Breeden and his team helped reshape WorldCom from its board of directors to its executive ranks, before guiding the telecommunications company, which emerged from bankruptcy protection as MCI, into a 2006 merger with Verizon.

"People should be very careful to make sure that monitorships do not become political plums," said Breeden, who stressed that he was not speaking about specific cases. "The key is the person who is monitor has to have a very good understanding of the business they're dealing in."

In the past few years, U.S. attorneys in Alabama, New York and Virginia have turned to corporate monitors to keep companies clean, hiring various former prosecutors and SEC officials with ties to President Bush, his father and other Republican luminaries. Some prosecutors hammer out with companies a short list of candidates from which to choose, while others have retained veto power over a business's choice. A smaller group has given corporate executives little input on the selection.

You can call me a crusty old liberal with a mean streak and a fetish for openness - go ahead, it has the advantage of being true - but damnit! I do not like the idea of privatizing justice and sure as hell not for a profit! And anyway, isn't that sort of oversight supposed to fall to the purview of the courts?

OOOPS!

Something about his story didn't make sense...

WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice is investigating whether a former intelligence officer illegally disclosed classified information in interviews he gave on how the CIA interrogated a suspected senior al Qaida member.

In interviews with ABC News and The Washington Post earlier this month, former CIA officer John Kiriakou gave detailed descriptions of how a detainee known as Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded. The procedure produces the sensation of drowning and is widely considered a form of torture, which is illegal under U.S. and international laws.

The interviews were the first public confirmation that Zubaydah, a Palestinian who allegedly helped finance the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, had been subjected to the technique while in secret CIA custody. The CIA surrendered Zubaydah to the U.S. military in September 2006, and he's now being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The department opened the criminal probe of Kiriakou after receiving a "criminal referral" from the CIA, according to officials familiar with the process. The officials requested anonymity because criminal referrals aren't made public.

The investigation comes as the White House and the CIA face congressional investigations and court battles over a 2005 decision to destroy videotapes of Zubaydah's interrogation and that of another al Qaida member while they were being held secretly by the CIA.

A federal judge scheduled a hearing in Washington on Friday on whether the destruction of the videotapes violated his order to the government to preserve evidence in a lawsuit brought by 16 detainees held at Guantanamo Bay.

* * *

Come on, we already know they've figured out that the only road out of town is paved with destroyed evidence. Does anyone really think that the Republicans in charge of this administration haven't been furiously destroying evidence since the second inaugural? They've long known that this was going to be the Republican Party's last shot at Executive Power for a generation. They've been reading the demographic tea leaves long enough to know that we may well see twenty uninterrupted years of Democratic control of at least the Congress and the Executive. No one is interested in defending this country. They're more concerned with successfully fleecing and raping the country and leaving no evidence behind.

Continuing with the article, this made me laugh:

* * *

CIA Director Michael Hayden has taken a hard line against leaks because he believes national security has been damaged by disclosures of the administration's domestic eavesdropping program and the identity of an undercover CIA officer married to a White House critic.

A former senior U.S. intelligence official, who asked not to be identified because of the issue's sensitivity, said that current CIA officers have "expressed mixed feelings" about Kiriakou's interviews.

They welcomed his defense of their effort to save American lives, "but they are faced with the problem of a guy going out there and talking about stuff that he is not authorized to speak about. You can't send a signal to everybody to go out there and say what you know," he said.

* * *

I honestly don't think Hayden cares about the Plame case. I think they view that incident as their civilian overlords doing whatever was necessary to preserve their lie to start a war. The reason they're going after Kiriakou is that they had everything all sorted out--all of the evidence was neatly destroyed and everything was lined up all dress right dress--and he screwed the pooch for them by opening his mouth.

* * *

The other shoe that drops today is this:

WASHINGTON - A House of Representatives committee issued a subpoena Thursday for Jose Rodriguez, a former CIA official who directed that secret interrogation videotapes be destroyed.

The House intelligence committee ordered Rodriguez, former head of the CIA's National Clandestine Service, to appear Jan. 16 for a hearing. The Democratic committee chairman, Silvestre Reyes, said Rodriguez "would like to tell his story, but his counsel has advised us that a subpoena would be necessary."

Now, why would he be in the process of lawyering up?

Has anyone screamed Executive Privilege yet?

Aside from Peter Hoekstra pretending to care, where is the outrage? Where is the outrage from the Republican Party on this issue? Oh, wait. They won't start caring about this stuff until after Bush and Cheney roll out of town.

Subpeonaed

Representative Conyers has had it.

He subpoenaed the Attorney General today for documents that were withheld from the Judiciary committee as the investigations into the U.S. Attorney scandal began to unfold.

"We have been patient in allowing the department to work through its concerns regarding the sensitive nature of some of these materials," Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the judiciary panel's chairman, wrote Gonzales in a letter that accompanied the subpoena. "Unfortunately, the department has not indicated any meaningful willingness to find a way to meet our legitimate needs."

Conyers added that "further delay in receiving these materials will not serve any constructive purpose."

The subpoena demands that Gonzales turn over the material by Monday at 2 p.m., according to a copy released by the committee. It does not require Justice to reproduce copies of documents, totaling nearly 4,000 pages, that were turned over in recent weeks, except in cases where the previous versions were censored.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond.

The subpoena was issued today, one week before the Attorney General is scheduled to appear before the committee to answer questions about the purge.

Not to be left out, the Senate is getting in the game too. Both of the Senators from Wisconsin are probing the wrongful prosecution and conviction of a state employee. Georgia Thompson was wrongly convicted on a corruption charge and served four months in prison, simply for doing her job in a Democratic administration. On appeal, the verdict was vacated and the defendant ordered immediately released from custody.

The case against Ms. Thompson was flogged mightily during the run-up to the mid-term electiosn. Now we know that it was a political witch-hunt and the conviction of Ms. Thompson was cited prominently by Republicans during an unsuccessful challenge of Wisconsin's Democratic governor last year.

It is obvious to all that her persecution was political. Those responsible need to pay, and pay dearly.

Justice can not be subverted and politicized. Not by either side. Not if we want to remain a society of laws.

Monica Goodling Resigns

No details yet - just heard it on NPR.

Not that it's going to help her any...

UPDATED: ABC News has a piece on their website, but it is not very detail-rich.

There was no immediate reason given, but Monica M. Goodling's refusal to face Congress had intensified a controversy that threatens Gonzales' job.

She resigned in a three-sentence letter to Gonzales, calling her five-year stint at Justice an honor and telling him, "May God bless you richly as you continue your service to America."

More details to follow as they emerge...

Wanker of the Week: Ruben Navarrette Jr. of the San Diego Union Tribune

Look out! Here comes the race card! And this chump thinks it's a trump!

Yep. According to this jackass, we only want Gonzo's head because we are "white liberals who resent Gonzales because they can't claim the credit for his life's accomplishments and because they can't get him to curtsy. Why should he? Gonzales doesn't owe them a damn thing."

Yeah. And those U.S. Attorneys were all fired for performance reasons, too.

What a wanker.

Listen up folks, and I don't care who this pisses off, but I am sick to death of identity politics. You're hispanic, she's black, I'm a Jew and who gives a flying fuck about any of that? I don't give a rats ass what race, gender, sexual orientation, or creed you are. Can you do your fucking job? Are you trustworthy? Are you competent? If pressed, could you locate your moral compass?

I was born during the Civil Rights movement and and grew up with parents who weren't fucking insane. When I don't get earnest enough for the identity politicians, I shake my head in dismay. Hell, isn't this what the struggle was for? That whole content of the character thing? Got it. Think it's a grand idea. Consider that one incorporated into my gestalt.

Another given is that assholes come in all varieties of human. Gonzo happens to be an asshole and Hispanic. Lieberman is an asshole and a Jew. That's my cross to bear.

Gonzo was not appointed to be the Attorney General for Hispanic Americans. Or do we all get one?

It isn't about race, it's about turning Justice into "Just Us" and I don't give a fuck if the offender is the only one of his or her kind - I still want their fuckin' head on a pike.

Just in case the race card fails, Navarrette also offers this totally DOA defense of Gonzo's fecklessness: "Gonzales' persecutors are blind with rage, or maybe just blind. Surely they see that the push to dump the U.S. attorneys came from White House political adviser Karl Rove."

Ummm. That's a defense? Somehow I don't think so. If a member of my ethnic group was so useless and weak as to capitulate the entire fucking Constitution to the likes of Karl Rove...I would be the first one calling for their resignation, not the last loyalist at the battlements. Buy a fucking clue, moron.

And for just flat out not fucking getting it, Ruben Navarrette, Jr. of the San Diego Union Tribune Editorial Board is our Wanker of the Week™.

Sacrificial Lam

First off, let me say, if you aren't clicking over to Watching Those We Chose and getting the analysis of the Justice Department scandals from Corpus Juris, you are missing out on the best analysis of the Justice Department scandals out there. He knows the material and he makes it all understandable and readable. If you haven't checked it out yet, do so now.

Here is what it all boils down to...

Carol Lam, the U.S. Attorney for San Diego, who took down Duke Cunningham and sent a powerful Republican congressman to prison was on the verge of taking down another (Jerry Lewis). Indications are that either Brett Wilkes or Kyle "Dusty" Foggo was about to flip.

She was going after corruption wherever she found it, and this displeased movers and shakers in the Republican ranks.

Uppity woman, anyway. Who the hell did she think she was?

Not to confuse TV with real life or anything, but I've watched a lot of procedurals, and when a crowd gets mowed down, there are always a lot of innocent victims, and one targeted individual.

In this crowd, the targeted individual was Carol Lam.