Following his rumble with Wolf Blitzer, Michael Moore challengesCNN's reporting on "Sicko," and Mother Jonescuts to the chase, quoting the wife of Sen. David Vitter as having said: "I'm a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary. If he does something like that, I'm walking away with one thing, and it's not alimony, trust me." [Cursor.org]
2:14:40 PM comment []
Bob Herbert | Abusing Iraqi Civilians. Bob Herbert of The New York Times writes: "With no end yet in sight for the long dark night of the Iraq war, The Nation magazine is coming out this week with an article that goes into great and disturbing detail about the brutal treatment of Iraqi civilians by some US soldiers and marines. Based on interviews conducted on the record with dozens of American combat veterans of the war, the authors address what they describe as frequent acts of violence in which US forces have abused or killed Iraqi civilians - men, women and children - with impunity." [t r u t h o u t]
12:32:02 PM comment []
The general argument for Executive Privilege is that the President has what amounts to a "right of privacy" to discussions that occur with his subordinates and others that may give him advice. Although not in the Constitution, the Courts (the wicked "activists") have found that privilege, under certain circumstances, to be part of the Executive's needs to carry out its functions.
Although almost every Administration has argued for such a privilege, it is curious when those asserting it simultaneously deny the right to privacy that underpins the Roe v. Wade decision. In Griswold v Connecticut, the Supreme Court held that it was a violation of a married couple's privacy to forbid them from using contraceptives, based on the 9th Amendment (rights not otherwise enumerated reserved to the people) and the assertion that the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment provided individuals a continuum of rights. While the radical rightwing has never found practising the most rank hypocrisy either troubling or shameful, the case for the right of privacy for the Executive arising from the "emanations and penumbras" of the Constitution is considerably weaker than the personal right to privacy that they have challenged continuously.
The Constition was, we should remember, created by "we, the people". Hence, ANY privilege that any branch of government asserts that is not in the Constitution, or in a statute itself, can only be justified by arguing that it is of benefit to the people, not that is is beneficial to "the President".
By contrast the right of privacy for an individual goes directly to the people. Hence, finding implicit in the 9th Amendment a right to be free of government interference in using condoms (Griswold v. Connecticut, the case prior to Roe on the right to privacy) more clearly arises from the Constitution than does Executive Privilege. As Justice Harlan wrote in Poe v. Ullman, "the full scope of the liberty guaranteed by the Due Process Clause cannot be found in or limited by the precise terms of the specific guarantees elsewhere provided in the Constitution. This 'liberty' is not a series of isolated points pricked out in terms of the taking of property; the freedom of speech, press, and religion; the right to keep and bear arms; the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures; and so on. It is a rational continuum which, broadly speaking, includes a freedom from all substantial arbitrary impositions and purposeless restraints."
Moreover, the right of privacy called Executive Privilege should extend no further than what actually DOES benefit the people; and, when there are benefits and harms, those must be weighed. Does shielding Karl Rove's involvement in the firings of the US Attorneys provide a clear benefit to the people? Does shielding the considerations that went in to the Scooter Libby commutation?
Bush, Cheney, et al. are looking to their Supreme Court appointees to uphold the right to privacy of the Executive, a right not found written in the Constitution. Strict constructionists ought to find this very troubling, and certainly more troubling than the right to privacy for individuals. Of course, they will not--they will write about the Presidency as if it had "rights" apart from those that clearly benefit the people. And, when a challenge to Roe reaches their desk, they will wring their hands in horror that a right to privacy, that goes directly to the people, has been found in precedents.
A word on the clemency power---let us face it, the last three Presidents (two Bushes and a Clinton) have abused it. The remedy--a Constitutional Amendment that would fly through the Congress and Legislatures that limited that power a) to February through October so that it cannot be abused without political consequences; and b) by excluding from its purview anyone who is, or who has ever, served that President or Vice-President during their term of office. While they are at it, the amendment could include a specific limitation on Executive Privilege.
Together, these measures would make people think twice before they ran roughshod over individual rights, violated the Constitution, or lied to the American people. As Scooter showed, jail is a potent deterrent.
There is a growing controversy about a politician smack in the center of the presidential nomination process. Its revelation has sent shock waves through his party. Terrifying the party's very base. The problem is ghastly. Ghastly!:
His wife is blond, beautiful and younger than him.
Okay, without even being aware of the details, you just know the party in question is the GOP.
Yes, Republicans are up in arms upon discovering that Fred Thompson has an attractive wife.
Gadzooks.
This is insane just on oh-so many levels.
It also demonstrates how ridiculous Republicans have been making Thompson a leading choices in polls without knowing almost anything about him - like, say, his political beliefs, plans and who he's married to. They do, however, enjoy the crusty character he plays on TV with lines written for him by others. ("Others" here are defined as "Hollywood types," also known as "the Hollywood Media Elite.")
And stupid as that is, it's nothing to compared to the lunacy of the "scandal" itself.
The concern, of course, is that if one is to be the Great White Hope of the conservative base of the Republican Party, having a hot, young babe for a wife is repugnant to the sensibilities.
This could only happen in the Republican Party.
Never mind that the young Mrs. Thompson is 40 years old.
By the way, if she was an actress, as many Republicans probably assume, you know what they'd call her in Hollywood? Retired. (If she was really lucky, though, she might be able to get grandmother roles.)
But no, to the horrified base, Jeri Kehn Thompson is a young bimbo.
Never mind that she is an attorney, used to be a Senate aide and was a spokesperson for the Republican National Committee. Apparently she's good enough to speak for the party, just not be its nominee's wife. Okay, in fairness, most Republicans don't know her credentials, but why should facts get in the way of their angst. It rarely has in the past.
Facts simply don't matter. To the Republican base, this is just a deplorable example to set for America. Fred Thompson, the beloved D.A. on "Law & Order," with wisdom-cracking lines written for him by liberals, tossing aside his wife for this Jezebel. Never mind that Thompson had been divorced for 17 years. Never mind that Fred and Jeri Thompson have two children of their own.
Hey, if the facts about John Kerry and Swiftboats don't matter, why should this? If President George Bush can promise harsh action against whoever outed a covert CIA agent, and then commute the sentence of the very man convicted of obstructing justice in that case, why should this matter? No, reality died a blustery death in the Republican Party years ago.
The Republican base is most-especially mortified because of a photograph. A photograph in which Mrs. Thompson dares to look very attractive in a flattering dress.
Most normal human mortals would look at that photo and say, "Gee, she looks awfully good. Way to go, Fred. Way to go, Mrs. T."
Only in the Republican Party would people be outraged.
Hey, if the G.O.P. really wants to get horrified over a photo of a dress, there's a picture of their leading candidate, Rudy Giuliani, in one. That upset people, but not nearly as much as this.
We have a war going on that has cost 3,600 American lives, 25,000 wounded and $441 billion. A $260 billion federal budget deficit. An $8.8 trillion national debt. The White House about to be subpoenaed. Scandals in the Justice Department. A president with a 26% approval. A vice-president with an 18% approval.
And the Republican Party is concerned that a man not-yet running for its leadership has a wife who is 40-years old, beautiful and accomplished.
This could only happen in the Republican Party.
This could only happen when a party has lost its soul by catering solely to its base. It's why the G.O.P. is floundering, and struggling to find a leader. This is why people identify themselves as Democrats by 15 more points than Republicans, when only two years ago it was even. The Republican Party built its house on that base, entrusted its future to that base, and this is what you get. With firestorms sucking you down, this is the kind of issue that concerns your party. This is the bed you made. These are the people you must sleep with.
There are many excellent reasons why Fred Thompson should not be President of the United States. Having an attractive wife is not one of them.
Unless, of course, you're part of the Republican base..
The Washington Post has assembled a database of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales being notified - repeatedly - of FBI violations of the law governing the use of national security letters. But here's what Gonzales told the Senate Intelligence committee on April 27, 2005: "There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse."
According to the files obtained by the Post, Gonzales had in fact been notified at that point already six times in his tenure as AG that the FBI had violated department guidelines to the degree that the FBI general counsel determined the violations needed to be reported to the Inspector General and the Intelligence Oversight Board. Here are a couple of examples of notifications Gonzales received (pdf and pdf).
Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse parses the gap between the truth and what Gonzales testified to with what's become a growing collection of unfathomable statements. ( "...When Gonzales testified, he was speaking 'in the context' of reports by the department's inspector general ... that found no misconduct or specific civil liberties abuses related to the Patriot Act").
It's hard to imagine that the department Gonzales leads is comfortable with his record of misleading testimony to Congress and statements to the American public. Almost anticipating today's Post's revelations, Justice Department attorney John Koppel outlined the multiple levels of travesty in a cry of outrage that ran in the Denver Post over the weekend:
... The administration has attempted to minimize the significance of its malfeasance and misfeasance, reciting its now-customary "mistakes were made" mantra, accepting purely abstract responsibility without consequences for its actions, and making hollow vows to do better. However, the DOJ Inspector General's Patriot Act report (which would not even have existed if the administration had not been forced to grudgingly accept a very modest legislative reporting requirement, instead of being allowed to operate in its preferred secrecy), the White House-DOJ e-mails, and now the Libby commutation merely highlight yet again the lawlessness, incompetence and dishonesty of the present executive branch leadership.
They also underscore Congress' lack of wisdom in blindly trusting the administration, largely rubber-stamping its legislative proposals, and essentially abandoning the congressional oversight function for most of the last six years. These are, after all, the same leaders who brought us the WMD fiasco, the unnecessary and disastrous Iraq war, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, warrantless domestic NSA surveillance, the Valerie Wilson leak, the arrest of Brandon Mayfield, and the Katrina response failure. The last thing they deserve is trust.
The sweeping, judicially unchecked powers granted under the Patriot Act should neither have been created in the first place nor permanently renewed thereafter, and the Act - which also contributed to the ongoing contretemps regarding the replacement of U.S. attorneys, by changing the appointment process to invite political abuse - should be substantially modified, if not scrapped outright. And real, rather than symbolic, responsibility should be assigned for the manifold abuses.
It's impossible not to admire the one person from the Justice Department who seems to be willing to tell the truth -- publicly, and on the record.
In March we all took on Fox and we beat them. Bad. The Nevada Fox-sponsored presidential debates were cancelled when our videos showing Fox's distortions were spread far and wide. Local bloggers worked like crazy, activists around the country wrote and called, and MoveOn used their strategic strength and smarts to bring it all home.
Now Fox is at it again. The only surprise this time is the amount of time and energy they are putting into denying that the sun sets in the west. Okay, well not exactly, but pretty close. They are fighting the scientific truth of the climate crisis and are claiming it just isn't so! I'm not kidding. Take a look at the video evidence, you won't believe what you see. (Well, maybe you will)
Seen enough? Now it's time to get to work. Join with us, the Sierra Club, and MoveOn to put an end to this propaganda and distortion by appealing to Fox's advertisers. Specifically, Home Depot. Why? Because Home Depot says they care about the environment. So we're giving them a chance to prove it by asking them to stop advertising on Fox until it changes its lies and distortions about the climate crisis.
No responsible company claiming to support the environment should be advertising with a corporation that consistently deceives America about the climate crisis. Rupert Murdoch says he wants to "get their house in order."
Let's help him along by applying pressure to his bank accounts.
Thank you for joining us in this next FOX ATTACKS battle.
Gonzales Was Told of FBI Violations. John Solomon of the Washington Post reports: "As he sought to renew the USA Patriot Act two years ago, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales assured lawmakers that the FBI had not abused its potent new terrorism-fighting powers. 'There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse,' Gonzales told senators on April 27, 2005. Six days earlier, the FBI sent Gonzales a copy of a report that said its agents had obtained personal information that they were not entitled to have. It was one of at least half a dozen reports of legal or procedural violations that Gonzales received in the three months before he made his statement to the Senate intelligence committee, according to internal FBI documents released under the Freedom of Information Act." [t r u t h o u t]
7:52:18 AM comment []
