Mukasey won't enforce Contempt Citations

Here is your Friday News Dump™. And boy howdy, is it the sort of thing a failed administration would really try to release after the east coast network news broadcasts.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Michael Mukasey on Friday rejected referring the House's contempt citations against two of President Bush's top aides to a federal grand jury. Mukasey says they committed no crime.

Mukasey said White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former presidential counsel Harriet Miers were right in refusing to provide Congress White House documents or testify about the firings of federal prosecutors.

"The department will not bring the congressional contempt citations before a grand jury or take any other action to prosecute Mr. Bolten or Ms. Miers," Mukasey wrote House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The House voted two weeks ago to cite Bolten and Mukasey for contempt of Congress and seek a grand jury investigation. Most Republicans boycotted the vote.

Speaker Pelosi requested a grand jury investigation yesterday (Thursday) and gave Mukasey a week to reply. He wasted no time in responding, because he only had one crack at the news dump. Had he responded on Thursday of next week, it would have been THE STORY all day Friday and going into the weekend.

Pelosi is pissed, and apparently prepared to make good on her threat to file a federal civil suit if the attorney general dug in his heels and refused to act as the attorney the people of this country instead of the president.

Mukasey, taking a very Nixonian position, has maintained that Miers and Bolton were right to refuse to appear because Bush told them not to. And acting on the orders of the president means they committed no crime. Like I said - Nixonian, like when he said to David Frost "[W]hen the president does it that means that it is not illegal."

Folks, this is exactly why we need to ITMFA right now. Because if aWol is not impeached, he can pardon the whole lot of them, putting them out of reach of a future Justice Department. But a president under impeachment can't pardon a thanksgiving turkey.

UPDATE I - PALE RIDER

Say we're sitting here a year from now--and Attorney General John Edwards has just refused to investigate whether some Presidential aides to President Obama have to appear before Congress because some Republican Congressman thinks they might have something to say about why all of the deleted E-Mails suddenly appeared after a few very talented people were able to retrieve them from some tape backups that were found under Bradley Schlozman's cookie cabinet in his old office. How shrill do you think these hypocritical bastards are going to be? And how loud are we going to be laughing at them for being so shrill?

Nothing changed but the name

The new AG Michael Mukasey has shown his true loyal-Bushie colors (various shades of yellow) by refusing to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the destruction of evidence in the CIA torture tapes case.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey said Friday he doesn't plan for a special prosecutor to investigate whether the CIA broke the law when it destroyed videotapes of terror interrogations, defying some in Congress who want an independent look at the politically charged case.

Mukasey, in a 41-minute briefing with reporters, also ducked repeated questions about whether he considers waterboarding an illegal form of torture — an issue expected to be at the top of the agenda when he appears next week before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Speaking tersely and in an even, low tone, Mukasey would not discuss whether he has seen any evidence that destroying the interrogation tapes violated court orders or otherwise interfered with any case. He said the ongoing criminal investigation, headed by career federal prosecutor John Durham of Connecticut, was opened on grounds of "some indication — which is a lot less than probable cause — some indication that there was any violation of any federal statute."

"And that's the only basis on which we proceeded," Mukasey said.

Asked if he has reconsidered his decision not to put a special prosecutor in charge of the investigation, Mukasey said, simply, "No."

First of all, he should never have been confirmed. Second of all, in a conversation with my Congressman a couple of weeks ago (I voiced my disappointment that he had not joined the calls for impeachment) he told me that the CIA tapes "might be what does it."

Well Congressman Cleaver - the balls in your court.

Get that man an ITMFA™ bumper sticker!

George McGovern - who did not call for Nixon's impeachment as the watergate investigations ramped up, because it would certainly have been construed as nothing more than sour grapes - has finally spoken out against the Bush/Cheney cabal, averring that calling for their impeachment is the only honorable thing he can do. Nixon was bad, but these criminals are far, far worse.

Bush and Cheney are clearly guilty of numerous impeachable offenses. They have repeatedly violated the Constitution. They have transgressed national and international law. They have lied to the American people time after time. Their conduct and their barbaric policies have reduced our beloved country to a historic low in the eyes of people around the world. These are truly "high crimes and misdemeanors," to use the constitutional standard.

From the beginning, the Bush-Cheney team's assumption of power was the product of questionable elections that probably should have been officially challenged -- perhaps even by a congressional investigation.

In a more fundamental sense, American democracy has been derailed throughout the Bush-Cheney regime. The dominant commitment of the administration has been a murderous, illegal, nonsensical war against Iraq. That irresponsible venture has killed almost 4,000 Americans, left many times that number mentally or physically crippled, claimed the lives of an estimated 600,000 Iraqis (according to a careful October 2006 study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) and laid waste their country. The financial cost to the United States is now $250 million a day and is expected to exceed a total of $1 trillion, most of which we have borrowed from the Chinese and others as our national debt has now climbed above $9 trillion -- by far the highest in our national history.

All of this has been done without the declaration of war from Congress that the Constitution clearly requires, in defiance of the U.N. Charter and in violation of international law. This reckless disregard for life and property, as well as constitutional law, has been accompanied by the abuse of prisoners, including systematic torture, in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions of 1949.

I have not been heavily involved in singing the praises of the Nixon administration. But the case for impeaching Bush and Cheney is far stronger than was the case against Nixon and Vice President Spiro T. Agnew after the 1972 election. The nation would be much more secure and productive under a Nixon presidency than with Bush. Indeed, has any administration in our national history been so damaging as the Bush-Cheney era?

How could a once-admired, great nation fall into such a quagmire of killing, immorality and lawlessness?

All this has transpired because they are all, to a man, accomplished liars. They have lied to Congress, to the press and to the American people. They lied about the status of threat presented by Saddam Hussein, and launched an illegal war and occupation based upon those lies.

Whereas in the past we were told that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself - these people only have fear to offer.

They have used it to their most cynical advantage.

They have violated the public trust by tapping our phones, and they have violated the American ideals of justice and due process. Even after learning that Iran had abandoned their quest for nuclear weapons, the president and vice president continued to beat the drum for war with Iran, using the same strategy of dishonesty that led us to an intractable war in Iraq.

Even as the current administration made counterterrorism the rallying cry and their very raison d'etre, they have pursued policies that have amplified the terrorist threat, and made the United States and our interests less secure. Iraq has become a breeding ground of terrorism and bloody civil strife.

McGovern does not just point to the inept way the war has been prosecuted. He also blasts the way the Katrina disaster was mishandled.

In addition to the shocking breakdown of presidential legal and moral responsibility, there is the scandalous neglect and mishandling of the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe. The veteran CNN commentator Jack Cafferty condenses it to a sentence: "I have never ever seen anything as badly bungled and poorly handled as this situation in New Orleans." Any impeachment proceeding must include a careful and critical look at the collapse of presidential leadership in response to perhaps the worst natural disaster in U.S. history.

Impeachment is not a Constitutional crisis. It is the answer to a Constitutional crisis, and we are in a Constitutional crisis right now. My Congressman has lost my respect and my support by feebly insisting that "history will impeach" this administration.

He is wrong. Wrong, wronger, wrongest. A perfect specimen of "not right at all." History renders judements. What we demand is Justice. Congressman Cleaver and the rest of the spineless cowards in Congress need to learn the difference and step the hell up. If they don't we need to find some real Democrats to run against them in the congressional primaries.

Where I come from, they call lying to a senate committee “Perjury”

Two years ago, when AG Abu G went before the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify on behalf of not letting the Partiot Apostasy Act sunset, he looked the Senators in the eye and lied. Blatantly and flat-out, he chose to not tell the truth to the Senators impaneled before him. He assured the lawmakers that the FBI had not abused its potent new terrorism-fighting powers. "There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse," Gonzo insisted.

Except – that was a lie, and he knew it when he told it. Less than a week before (even his notoriously feeble memory should go back six days) the FBI had sent a copy of a report to Gonzalez, and that report confirmed that agents had obtained personal information that they were not entitled to possess. That report was one of at least a half dozen that detailed abuses of the Patriot Act that had been received in the three months before Gonzalez appeared before the panel to lie his ass off. The reports he conveniently ignored detailed instances of “unauthorized surveillance, an illegal property search and a case in which an Internet firm improperly turned over a compact disc with data that the FBI was not entitled to collect, the documents show. Gonzales was copied on each report that said administrative rules or laws protecting civil liberties and privacy had been violated.”

Additionally, the reports detailed the abuse and over-use of the specious anti-terror tool, the national security letter (NSL). This was well before the Justice Department's inspector general brought widespread abuse of the letters in 2004 and 2005 to light in a scathing report this past March.

You might recall, this was all happening about the time they were touting him as a possible successor to the Supreme Court – which given what we know now and they knew then is especially sickening. Jolly Roberts and Scalito are bad enough – can you imagine a Supreme Court with Bush’s Chihuahua enjoying a lifetime appointment? I’m reaching for a valium at the mere thought…

So – have you had enough yet? It is time to bring these feckless traitors to heel.

To that end…

It's time to

ITMFA!!!

Wanted: One War Czar

Desperate to salvage some semblance of his legacy and reputation, George Bush's latest grand scheme involves appointing a Grand Poobah War Czar to oversee operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and coordinate efforts between the State and Defense departments with the military.

Only problem is, nobody wants the billet.

"The very fundamental issue is, they don't know where the hell they're going," said retired Marine Gen. John J. "Jack" Sheehan, a former top NATO commander who was among those rejecting the job. Sheehan said he believes that Vice President Cheney and his hawkish allies remain more powerful within the administration than pragmatists looking for a way out of Iraq. "So rather than go over there, develop an ulcer and eventually leave, I said, 'No, thanks,' " he said.

The White House has not publicly disclosed its interest in creating the position, hoping to find someone President Bush can anoint and announce for the post all at once. Officials said they are still considering options for how to reorganize the White House's management of the two conflicts. If they cannot find a person suited for the sort of specially empowered office they envision, they said, they may have to retain the current structure.

When I say nobody wants the billet, I mean nobody. Not even Keane, and the Splurge was his idea. (Dave Petraeus has been charged with implementing it, but it is not his idea. He advocated an entirely different strategy in his thesis.)

Should they find a patsy someone to take the job, the new czar would report directly to Bush and (DCI) Steven Hadley, and would have the title of assistant to the president, just as Hadley and the other highest-ranking White House officials have. The new czar would also have "tasking authority," or the power to issue directions, over other agencies, they said.

General Sheehan offered up his exact reason for declining the job: Dick Cheney.

"There's the residue of the Cheney view -- 'We're going to win, al-Qaeda's there' -- that justifies anything we did," he said. "And then there's the pragmatist view -- how the hell do we get out of Dodge and survive? Unfortunately, the people with the former view are still in the positions of most influence." Sheehan said he wrote a note March 27 declining interest.

Enough already...

It's time to

ITMFA!!!

What a disturbing display that presser was...

I take it this is the showdown. He is stepping up deployment of additional brigades to get them in the field before the funding in the pipeline runs out.

He is holding the troops hostage and placing them in harms way, and threatening to leave them there longer because Congress has the temerity to speak up in the voice of the people who elected them.

Troops are being sent back to the war zone with as little as seven months stateside.

This is it folks. That little display was the line in the sand.

So see his bet and raise him...

*****

It's time to

ITMFA!!!

Emboldened, Democrats hang tough on deadlines

The showdown over war funding continued Wednesday, with dubya getting more and more shrill, and Nancy Pelosi chiding him like the petulant spoiled child he is.

Speaking to a group of cattle ranchers on Wednesday, the president threatened to veto any legislation that specified withdrawal dates and timelines, and tried to shift blame for any future funding delays to the congress.

"Members of Congress need to stop making political statements and start providing vital funds for our troops," the president said

"Now, some of them believe that by delaying funding for our troops, they can force me to accept restrictions on our commanders that I believe would make withdrawal and defeat more likely," Bush continued. "That's not going to happen. If Congress fails to pass a bill to fund our troops on the front lines, the American people will know who to hold responsible."

(Catch that? I only have a bachelors education here - in other words enough psych to make me dangerous - but that right there comes from god-damned delusional thinking. Seventy percent of the country agrees with the congress on this one. Look it up.)

Nancy Pelosi, mean time, was in no mood to deal with a spoiled brat throwing a hissy-fit.

"Calm down with the threats," Pelosi said. "There's a new Congress in town. We respect your constitutional role. We want you to respect ours."

Hehehehehe…BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

*****

It's time to

ITMFA!!!

Initial Pentagon Protest Coverage

I am listening to NPR coverage of todays protests at the Pentagon and the counter protest. A counter-protester said he had been over there and those who protest are free to buy a plane ticket. Some bitch from California openly said "The patriots told the traitors to get out."

Yep. 30% just told 70% of us we aren't real Americans and we should leave. To which I say "How very Soviet of them."

I didn't dedicate a career to defeating an authoritarian regime to stand idly by while America turns into one.

I would suggest that young man - and that hateful harridan - read the Constitution, the document he took an oath to uphold. It says nothing about people who disagree getting the fuck out. It says that we the people have the right to peaceably assemble. It says we are supposed to hold our government accountable.

Hmmmm. I think I know who the traitors are...

I wonder at the intelligence of arming people and sending them out to enforce democracy, but they don’t bother to make sure they know what the fuck it is.

Fucking surreal.

*****

Turn out, tune in, and turn it up.

It's time to bring on the politicians because

there is no military solution.

It's time to stop the war.

It's time to bring the troops home.

It's time to fully fund the VA.

It's time to

ITMFA!!!