Oh yeah. Those are a pain. I don't get popups unless I allow them.

The man is a disgusting maggot.




Cover-Up Exposed?

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Wednesday, July 19, 2006; 1:00 PM

Amid all the other news yesterday, the attorney general's startling revelation that President Bush personally blocked a Justice Department investigation into the administration's controversial secret domestic spying programs hasn't gotten the attention it deserves.

Bush's move -- denying the requisite security clearances to attorneys from the department's ethics office -- is unprecedented in that office's history. It also comes in stark contrast to the enthusiastic way in which security clearances were dished out to a different group of attorneys: Those charged with finding out who leaked information about the program to the press.



It is not common for a president to personally intervene to stop an investigation of his own administration. The most notorious case, of course, was the Saturday Night Massacre of 1973, during which President Richard Nixon ordered the firing of Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor who had been appointed to investigate the Watergate scandal. Among the many major differences, however: In that case, Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William D. Ruckelshaus resigned rather than follow Nixon's order.

Bush's action is also another example of what I have previously noted is a consistent White House modus operandi: That time and time again, Bush and his aides have selectively leaked or declassified secret intelligence findings that served their political agenda -- while aggressively asserting the need to keep secret the information that would tend to discredit them.

The Coverage

Richard B. Schmitt writes in the Los Angeles Times (page A15): "President Bush personally sidetracked an internal Justice Department probe into the warrantless domestic surveillance program earlier this year, even as other Justice officials were assigned to defend the program in court and investigate who may have leaked information about it to the news media, according to administration officials and documents released Tuesday.

"Raising new questions about the administration's accountability for secret anti-terrorism programs, the White House acknowledged Tuesday that Bush withheld security clearances that attorneys within the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility said they needed to investigate whether department lawyers had acted properly in approving and overseeing the controversial spy program run by the National Security Agency. . . .

"Bush's involvement -- revealed by Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales in testimony Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee and later elaborated upon by White House Press Secretary Tony Snow -- added fuel to the debate over one of the administration's most intensely debated anti-terrorism moves."

Dan Eggen writes in The Washington Post (page A4): "Bush's decision represents an unusually direct and unprecedented White House intervention into an investigation by the Office of Professional Responsibility, the internal affairs office at Justice, administration officials and legal experts said. . . .

" 'Since its creation some 31 years ago, OPR has conducted many highly sensitive investigations involving Executive Branch programs and has obtained access to information classified at the highest levels,' the office's chief lawyer, H. Marshall Jarrett, wrote in a memorandum released yesterday. 'In all those years, OPR has never been prevented from initiating or pursuing an investigation.' . . .

"Some legal experts and members of Congress who have questioned the legality of the NSA program said Bush's move to quash the Justice probe represents a politically motivated interference in Justice Department affairs. Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey (D-N.Y.), one of the lawmakers who spearheaded calls for the Justice review, said the move is an example of 'an administration that thinks it doesn't have to follow the law.' "

Neil A. Lewis writes in the New York Times (page A14): "The shutting down of Mr. Jarrett's efforts had been previously reported, but Mr. Gonzales's comments Tuesday during a hearing on oversight of the Justice Department were the first acknowledgment of Mr. Bush's direct role.

"Administration officials said Mr. Bush made the decision because he believed there were other avenues of oversight, including investigations by the inspectors general of the Justice Department and the National Security Agency as well as the Intelligence Committees of both houses.

" 'We had to draw the line somewhere,' said a senior Justice Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of lack of authorization to comment. 'There was already lots of oversight on this program, and we had to consider the interest' in protecting the program's secrecy by limiting the number of people who knew its details. . . .

"Representative Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat who had also sought an O.P.R. investigation of the surveillance program, said Tuesday that she was shocked that Mr. Bush had blocked the clearances of lawyers from that office.

" 'The president's latest action shows that he is willing to be personally involved in the cover-up of suspected illegal activity,' Ms. Lofgren said."

Murray Waas writes in the National Journal: "The statement by Gonzales stunned some senior Justice Department officials, who were led to believe that Gonzales himself had made the decision to deny the clearances after consulting with intelligence agencies whose activities would be scrutinized, a senior federal law enforcement official said in an interview."

Andrew Zajac blogs for the Chicago Tribune: "When questioned by skeptical lawmakers during confirmation hearings in early 2005 about his ability to make his own calls as Attorney General after serving as White House counsel for four years, Alberto Gonzales insisted that he had the chops to be an independent player and that he understood the difference between being on the president's team and operating as 'the peoples' lawyer' -- or at least that he could balance those roles. . . .

"Those who harbored doubts about Gonzales' willingness to buck President Bush likely had an I-told-you-so moment this morning when Gonzales said the president himself stopped a Justice Department investigation connected to the National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping program."

In a New York Sun opinion piece, Waas writes that "the government has in effect curtailed an investigation of itself" and "hardly anyone has noticed. It has not caused much interest in Congress, or on the nation's editorial pages, or the even in the blogosphere, which takes pride in causing a stir about things that should but nobody else has yet taken notice."

Keith Olbermann of MSNBC thinks the timing of Gonzales's announcement -- on such a heavy news day -- was anything but a coincidence.

Hinchey, the Democratic congressman whose letter originally sparked the investigation, wrote another letter, this one to the White House: "We respectfully request that you grant OPR the necessary security clearances and allow the oversight system to do its work. If the NSA program is justified and legal, as you yourself have indicated, then there is no reason to prevent this investigation from continuing."

About That Hearing

Here is Gonzales's prepared testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, heavy on Sept. 11 allusions.

Under tough questioning, several controversial issues came up.

Charlie Savage writes in the Boston Globe that "Gonzales defended the president's practice of issuing 'signing statements' to reserve the right to bypass laws he considers unconstitutional. Bush has issued signing statements to challenge more than 750 laws, a figure cited in a series of Globe stories.

"Gonzales testified that the Globe had retracted the figure. The news paper has not retracted any stories or figures on Bush's signing statements. The paper corrected an editing error in one follow-up story that referred to Bush challenging 750 'bills' instead of laws; a single bill often includes many separate laws.

"As of last week, Bush's signing statements covered 807 laws, according to Christopher Kelley, a government professor at Miami University of Ohio who has studied presidents' use of signing statements through history."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...5041100879.html

Hard to imagine that some lawyers in the ethics office could not have passed security scrutiny.

Not under THIS admistration. Why would that surprise you? Seriously.

They are lawless and unaccountable.

Oh, they might have failed the new loyalty test--you know, the one to the Unitary Presidency rather than the Constitution.

Or, it could just be more lefty cowdoody.

Rosa Brooks: Terror-War Wackiness
The White House intends to comply with the Supreme Court decision on detainees by turning the truth upside down.
July 14, 2006

IN THOSE 12 terrible days following the U.S. Supreme Court's Hamdan decision — which thoroughly eviscerated the White House's Orwellian "war on terror" legal framework — the Bush administration's warrior priests went through a brief but intense period of mourning.

Donald Rumsfeld rent his garments and ordered the ritual "water-boarding" of 100 Army JAG officers. Alberto Gonzales woke screaming in the night after a chilling visitation from the Ghost of Treaties Quaint. And W pensively re-read "My Pet Goat," wondering how the story that began so sweetly that September day could have turned out so terribly wrong.


But John Yoo, a leading proponent of presidential "flexibility," refused to despair. Yoo gained notoriety as an author of the infamous "torture memo," which laid out novel legal justifications for detainee abuse. And he wasn't about to let all his handiwork be undone by a handful of activist judges.

The high court, Yoo insisted, was doing the unforgivable: It was "attempting to suppress creative thinking." Was the "bring 'em on" White House just going to knuckle under?

The warrior priests regrouped, chanting, "Quitting is not an option." And on the 13th day, the period of mourning ended and the era of creativity resumed.

At first, the renaissance of Bush administration legal creativity was not apparent to the uninitiated. On July 11, the White House released a terse statement reversing a portion of a 2002 executive order in which the president had declared that "Common Article 3 of [the Geneva Convention] does not apply to either Al Qaeda or Taliban detainees."

On the surface, the July 11 White House statement appeared ploddingly unimaginative: "As a result of the Supreme Court decision, that portion of the [2002] order no longer applies. The Supreme Court has clarified what the law is, and the executive branch will comply."

The press rushed to report the astonishing news: The president was going to obey the Supreme Court! "Bowing to Justices, Administration Says It Will Apply Treaties to Terror Suspects," trumpeted the Washington Post. No more naked detainees led around on dog leashes! No more mock executions or sadistic experiments with "dietary modification"!

The rule of law had triumphed. Contrary to the fears of many, Bush had not, after all, emulated President Andrew Jackson, who is said to have responded to an unpopular 1832 decision, handed down by the legendary Chief Justice John Marshall, with a cold shrug, saying: "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it."

But the media had forgotten that it takes far more than a Supreme Court order to kill this administration's legal creativity.

At the White House, spokesman Tony Snow swiftly declared that the apparent about-face was "not really a reversal of policy" because the Supreme Court decision is "complex."

On Capitol Hill, Daniel Dell'Orto, the principal deputy general counsel at the Pentagon, elaborated: A Defense Department order stating that Common Article 3 now "applies as a matter of law to the conflict with Al Qaeda" didn't "indicate a shift in policy." Oh, no, oh, no — the memo "just announces the decision of the court and with specificity as to the decision as it related to the commission process."




Perplexed by the gobbledygook and contradiction — had the administration agreed to obey the Supreme Court and provide the protections of the Geneva Convention's Common Article 3 to detainees, or hadn't it? — the media began to lose interest.

It was, after all, so very complex.

It was left to blogger Marty Lederman to explain the genius of it all.
"Now that the administration has lost its … fight to deny the applicability of Common Article 3" to the war on terror, Lederman explained, "its new tactic appears to be to insist that its approved detainee interrogation practices have — what do you know? — complied with Common Article 3" all along!

Here's the "logic."

• The president has always insisted that we are treating all detainees humanely.

• To the president, "humane" interrogation techniques include dog leashes, water-boarding and measures such as forcing a prisoner "to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees" while he is repeatedly "doused with cold water."

• Because Common Article 3 requires that detainees be treated "humanely," such techniques — being as the president says, humane — satisfy Common Article 3.

• And because they are "humane," such techniques obviously cannot be understood as constituting "cruel treatment and torture" or "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment," which are explicitly forbidden by the remaining language of Common Article 3.

• Which in turn means that Bush administration compliance with the Supreme Court's decision in Hamdan requires no change in policy whatsoever.

Still don't get it, do you? Maybe you're something of a philistine, incapable of appreciating great legal art?

Don't despair. During Tuesday's Senate hearings on detainee rights, Justice Department representative Steven Bradbury thoughtfully provided a Cliffs Notes version of the administration's latest creative masterpiece. "Under the law of war," he explained, "the president is always right."

Creativity means never having to say you're sorry.


http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-...nion-columnists

John Bolton: Voinovich's Bizarre Pre-Capitulation
by Red Herring
Thu Jul 20, 2006 at 04:55:35 AM PDT

Remember Sen. George Voinovich, Republican from Ohio? He was briefly a hero in these parts when he opposed the nomination of John Bolton to the post of Ambassador to the UN.

He then disappointed us when he said that although he thought Bolton would make a lousy ambassador, the Senator would not block the nomination in committee, out of "modesty" which compelled him to allow the nomination a full vote. It seemed he didn't want to piss off the GOP machine too much.

Well it turned out not to matter, beacuse the Senate was about to poopycan the nomination anyway. Bush, ever respectful of the separation of powers, installed Bolton with a flick of his merry wand using a recess appointment.

And now, comes this strange chapter...

* Red Herring's diary :: ::
*

Out of the blue, Voinovich writes up an Op-Ed in the Washington Post. In it, he swears that having observed and worked with Bolton, he finds that while Bolton is still kind of a douche, he's not that bad. Therfore, when the recess appointment expires this fall, we should all make sure to bend over for Bush:

Should the president choose to renominate him, I cannot imagine a worse message to send to the terrorists -- and to other nations deciding whether to engage in this effort -- than to drag out a possible renomination process or even replace the person our president has entrusted to lead our nation at the United Nations at a time when we are working on these historic objectives.

For me or my colleagues in the Senate to now question a possible renomination would jeopardize our influence in the United Nations and encourage those who oppose the United States to make Bolton the issue, thereby undermining our policies and agenda.

Now it's hard to know where to begin with this. But the line that leaps out to me is "jeopardize our influence in the United Nations". Ha! Maybe senators should worry about their influence in the United States!! To illustrate, he has this beauty:

I call on my Democratic colleagues to keep in mind the current situation in the Middle East and the rest of the world should the Senate have an opportunity to vote.

Because you know, sometimes ol' Bush just does what he pleases! But if he does graciously allow us to vote, let's make sure not to help the terrorists by opposing him!

This is the weakest, most pathetic statement I've seen in a long time from a Congressman, and that's saying a lot. The whole article has the feel of something written by a guy with a gun to his head. I don't doubt it's the result of some arm-twisting by some goons insisting that he'll lose his seat next time if he doesn't publicly fellate the Dear Leader immediately.

So, that's present-day democracy in America.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/7/20/75535/9063

What a two-faced, partisan douchebag. What'd they do, threaten to fork you like you've never been forked before or just cut your campaign funding?

Red Herring?

Sounds appropriate for Micky Kaus and the leftovers of the Red Menace.

Transformation's toll

"Grotesque" was Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's characterization of the charge that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was responsible for the current Middle East conflagration. She is correct, up to a point. This point: Hezbollah and Hamas were alive and toxic long before March 2003. Still, it is not perverse to wonder whether the spectacle of America, currently learning a lesson — one that conservatives should not have to learn on the job — about the limits of power to subdue an unruly world, has emboldened many enemies.

Speaking on ABC's "This Week," Rice called it "shortsighted" to judge the success of the administration's transformational ambitions by a "snapshot" of progress "some couple of years" into the transformation. She seems to consider today's turmoil preferable to the Middle East's "false stability" of the past 60 years, during which U.S. policy "turned a blind eye to the absence of the democratic forces."

There is, however, a sense in which that argument creates a blind eye: It makes instability, no matter how pandemic or lethal, necessarily a sign of progress. Violence is vindication: Hamas and Hezbollah have, Rice says, "determined that it is time now to try and arrest the move toward moderate democratic forces in the Middle East."

But there also is democratic movement toward extremism. America's intervention was supposed to democratize Iraq, which, by benign infection, would transform the region. Early on in the Iraq occupation, Rice argued that democratic institutions do not just spring from a hospitable political culture, they also can help create such a culture. Perhaps.

But elections have transformed Hamas into the government of the Palestinian territories, and elections have turned Hezbollah into a significant faction in Lebanon's parliament, from which it operates as a state within the state. And as a possible harbinger of future horrors, last year's elections gave the Muslim Brotherhood 19 percent of the seats in Egypt's parliament.

The Bush administration has rightly refrained from criticizing the region's only democracy, Israel, for its forceful response to a thousand rockets fired at its population. U.S. reticence is seemly, considering that terrorism has been Israel's torment for decades, and that America responded to two hours of terrorism one September morning by toppling two regimes halfway around the world with wars that show no signs of ending.



The administration, justly criticized for its Iraq premises and their execution, is suddenly receiving some criticism so untethered from reality as to defy caricature. The national, ethnic and religious dynamics of the Middle East are opaque to most people, but to the Weekly Standard — voice of a spectacularly misnamed radicalism, "neoconservatism" — everything is crystal clear: Iran is the key to everything .

"No Islamic Republic of Iran, no Hezbollah. No Islamic Republic of Iran, no one to prop up the Assad regime in Syria. No Iranian support for Syria . . ." You get the drift. So, the Weekly Standard says:

"We might consider countering this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there would be repercussions — and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement."

"Why wait?" Perhaps because the U.S. military has enough on its plate in the deteriorating wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which both border Iran. And perhaps because containment, although of uncertain success, did work against Stalin and his successors, and might be preferable to a war against a nation much larger and more formidable than Iraq. And if Bashar Assad's regime does not fall after the Weekly Standard's hoped-for third war, with Iran, does the magazine hope for a fourth?

As for the "healthy" repercussions that the Weekly Standard is so eager to experience from yet another war: One envies that publication's powers of prophecy but wishes it had exercised them on the nation's behalf before all of the surprises — all of them unpleasant — that Iraq has inflicted. And regarding the "appeasement" that the Weekly Standard decries: Does the magazine really wish the administration had heeded its earlier (Dec. 20, 2004) editorial advocating war with yet another nation — the bombing of Syria?

Neoconservatives have much to learn, even from Buddy Bell, manager of the Kansas City Royals. After his team lost its 10th consecutive game in April, Bell said, "I never say it can't get worse." In their next game, the Royals extended their losing streak to 11 and in May lost 13 in a row.

http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/will1.asp

I got your "Red Menace" right here, motherfornicator!

I've never heard of it referred to as "The Red Menace".

That's a good one.

That would be a different menace.

Contain your surprise...maybe he will show it to you again after it heals.

He's dressed like dennis!

Gee, imagine that. Another values kind of guy.


Health Secretary Said to Benefit From Charity


Filed at 2:30 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt and his relatives created a charitable foundation that allowed them to claim millions of dollars in tax deductions yet provided little to charity, according to The Washington Post.

The Internal Revenue Service has called the tax structure used to create the Leavitt foundation a Type III supporting organization, one of its ''Dirty Dozen'' tax scams. Christina Pearson, an HHS spokeswoman, said the foundation's activities are ''totally legal and proper.''

Much of the money from the foundation -- set up in 2000 with nearly $9 million from Leavitt family assets -- went into investments or loans to the family's business interests and real estate holdings, the Post reported Friday.

The Leavitt organization donated less than 1 percent of its assets in 2002, 2003 and 2004, according to the Post. Standard private foundations are required to donate at least 5 percent of their assets to charitable causes, but the Leavitts set up their foundation under a provision of the federal tax code that allows a lower level of giving, the newspaper reported.

The Leavitt Foundation donated $49,087 of its $9 million trust, or 0.5 percent, in 2002 and $52,312, or 0.6 percent, in 2003, the Post reported. Since 2000, Mike Leavitt alone has claimed about $1.2 million in tax write-offs.

''They're basically sitting on all this money, getting a charitable write-off and doing nothing with it,'' said Rick Cohen, executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. Cohen reviewed the foundation's records and tax returns at the Post's request.

Congress is considering changing the tax structure under proposals by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.


http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/washington...artner=homepage





That's the moral thing to do. Get a huge tax write-off and do next to nothing for it. Situational ethics again. and again, and again.

I'm sure it's more of a little pink "menace", likely only to scare small children.

...heh...

July 21, 2006
Pro-Life? Not When It Comes to Bombing Lebanon

Now we know where Bush stands on the dignity of human life. He cares more about frozen embryos than he does about Lebanese civilians.

He has steadfastly refused to join the call from Kofi Annan and European allies for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. Bush has decided that he should do nothing to stop the Israeli offensive, hoping that the Israelis will finally take care of Hezbollah. But this policy comes with a cost--which is paid by the Lebanese civilians who are being killed, injured and displaced. But Bush--like the Israelis--is saying, that's a cost worth the benefit. And it's easy for them to say this because they're not bearing the sacrifice.

But if Bush believes--as he said in vetoing the stem cells bill--that every life is precious and valuable, how can he treat the lives of the Lebanese civilians as barter material in a great-game strategy? (By the way, Hezbollah's rockets attack, which target Israeli civilians, are also immoral actions.)

Explaining the president's decision not to urge a halt in the violence, White House communications director Dan Bartlett said, "The president believes that unless you address the root causes of the violence that has afflicted the Middle East, you cannot forge a lasting peace. He mourns the loss of every life. Yet out of this tragic development, he believes a moment of clarity has arrived."

Yes, this is a moment of clarity. The president will veto a law to protect frozen blastocysts stored in fertility clinic freezers--to preserve the sacredness of life. He won't do anything to stop missiles raining down on men, women and children caught in a war zone. In other words, he's pro-life--except when he's not.

http://www.davidcorn.com/

If only HizBULLah and stem cells had some real connection.

They're both brainless?

That's about all. It was nice of Corn to put in a "by they way" attacking HizBULLah. Not much political mileage there though.

Tell me that if someone said this to your face you wouldn't want to punch him in the face!

WTF?

He is a pig.

Death, war, torture, death, war, torture, death, war, torture ...But he mourns the loss of every life.

Suuuuuure he does.

Government for sale to the biggest contributor


Saturday, July 22, 2006

The July 12 Journal Star contained three separate stories that should infuriate anyone with a conscience.

Story No. 1 ("Senate OKs drug plan") tells of senators approving a loophole allowing U.S. citizens to purchase prescription drugs from Canada. At its heart is Americans' ability to purchase drugs at substantial savings. Yet some lawmakers allegedly fear potential terrorists may try to poison Americans though imported drugs. What about the millions of other imported products from every region on earth?

Story No. 2 ("Genentech profits soar on cancer drug sales") was the announcement that the nation's largest biotechnology company reported second-quarter earnings had increased 79 percent, to $531 million. Much of this success comes from sales of Avastin, a colon cancer treatment that costs each patient about $4,400 a month. That's right, $4,400 a month.

Finally, there's story No. 3 ("Giuliani stumps for Topinka"), about Judy Baar Topinka raising $100,000 at a dinner and $1.2 million at a Bush-headlined fund-raiser. Who do you suppose is attending these fund-raisers? I'm pretty sure the average citizen is not coughing up $2,500 for supper. No, this money is coming from corporations and wealthy individuals.

It is painfully obvious that today, our government is for sale to the highest bidders, the richest corporations and the most well-to-do. Meanwhile, the current administration distracts us with non-issues, such as immigration and flag burning. God help us if we vote to retain these crooks in the next election.

Alan Cunningham

Washburn

http://www.pjstar.com/stories/072206/FOR_BACP58G1.059.shtml

I wonder if Alan could invent anything that saved cancer patients at any price?

(July 23, 2006 -- 07:20 AM EST // link)

A new Human Rights Watch report out today collects accounts from soldiers in Iraq who participated in and witnessed detainee abuse.

You won't be surprised by the findings, which Human Rights Watch says show that the abuse was not merely conducted by a few aberrants but was sanctioned up the chain of commnd. I was struck, however, by the existence of written documentation authorizing the abuse:

In March 2004, when Lagouranis and another interrogator voiced concerns about the techniques, their supervising MI officer provided them with an Interrogation Rules of Engagement card, authorizing the use of dogs, exposure to hot and cold temperatures, sleep deprivation, forced exercises and use of painful stress positions, and environmental manipulation (allowing strobe lights and loud music):

When we were doing that stuff it was under the direction of Chief Warrant Officer [name withheld]; he was telling us, this is what he wants. But when he told us this, you know, of course, we got a little worried. So we asked for IROE [Interrogation Rules of Engagement] and he gave us the IROE that his unit was supposedly using.

I think it was sort of an outdated IROE now that I think about it, because I felt—because I saw others later that were different. I think he was using one from Afghanistan or something like that. But everything that he said, as far as I could tell, was it was legal on the IROE [i.e., the techniques were detailed in the IROE:] that we could use dogs, we could use environmental manipulation, sleep deprivation, sort of stress positions. But who knows—I don't know if it was legal or not, what we were doing.

Then there's this account:

There was an authorization template on a computer, a sheet that you would print out, or actually just type it in. And it was a checklist. And it was all already typed out for you, environmental controls, hot and cold, you know, strobe lights, music, so forth. Working dogs, which, when I was there, wasn’t being used. But you would just check what you want to use off, and if you planned on using a harsh interrogation you’d just get it signed off.

I never saw a sheet that wasn’t signed. It would be signed off by the commander, whoever that was, whether it was 03 [captain] or 06 [colonel], whoever was in charge at the time. . . . When the 06 was there, yeah, he would sign off on that. . . . He would sign off on that every time it was done.

The bureaucracy of torture.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

(all)
http://www.bobbarr.org/default.asp?pt=newsdescr&RI=766

Bob is a traditional conservative. I admire his willingness to speak out.

Thank you Bob. Maybe there are a few who aren't afraid to speak out.

Bob used to be considered a wing-nut.

I'm sure he'll be considered one again soon enough.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200504210004

CNN featured Bob Barr defending DeLay without disclosing their financial ties

CNN's Live From... invited CNN contributor and former Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA) to discuss ethical questions surrounding House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX), but failed to note Barr's significant financial ties to DeLay. Barr defended DeLay's activities and attacked comments made by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) while identified only as a "CNN contributor"; however, Barr has received campaign contributions from DeLay's Leadership PAC and has contributed to DeLay's legal defense fund.

Between 1998 and his electoral defeat in a 2002 congressional primary, Barr received more than $10,000 from Americans for a Republican Majority (ARMPAC), DeLay's leadership PAC. According to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), Barr accepted $8,709 from ARMPAC during the 2000 campaign cycle and $1,341 during the 1998 cycle.

Barr also contributed $1,000 to the Tom DeLay Legal Expense Fund in 2001.

People sure are pissed at LaHood. From what I understand his grandfather's farm is in Lebanon and he has many relatives there.



LaHood hasn't criticized Hezbollah for targeting civilians


Sunday, July 23, 2006

Ray LaHood makes me sick. One minute he says he supports Israel, and the next he gets upset because Israel bombs his ancestral homeland. What is the difference?

If a man murders another man, and then comes to me and I hide him, am I not harboring a fugitive? I am if I don't do anything about it. Lebanon is harboring Hezbollah. There are no if, ands or buts about it.

LaHood needs to decide if he is an American or if he is Lebanese. It cannot be both ways. What irritates me most is how he complains about Israel attacking Lebanon. Isn't it war? I have not heard him say one word about Hezbollah purposely targeting Israeli civilians with its new rockets.

LaHood is one of 19 congressmen from a bankrupt state, Illinois. Maybe he should focus on that instead of what is going on in the Middle East.

Also, don't give any guff about taking care of our citizens over there. Since the beginning of time, the Middle East has been the most volatile place on Earth. I say, people who want to go there go at their own risk and they are responsible for themselves.

Nick Poehlman

Washington




LaHood picking sides


Friday, July 21, 2006

Congressman Ray LaHood is pretty quick to tell Israel to show restraint as it is being shelled with Syrian buck-shot missiles from a group of terrorists inside of Lebanon.

Ray should try not to be so obvious as to which side he is on.

Don Rennau

East Peoria





Was U.S. response to 9-11 attacks disproportionate?


Friday, July 21, 2006

With consternation, I read U.S. Rep. Ray LaHood's statements in the July 16 Journal Star stating that Israel "has just gone overboard" with attacks in Lebanon.

Lebanon promised to rid its nation of Hezbollah's military force and secure its southern border after Israel's promised and completed withdrawal. Hezbollah is very frank about its aims to obliterate Israel. It boasts of tens of thousands of rockets.

Claiming responsibility for terrorist attacks on innocent women and children, it purposely targets them for deaths too gruesome to describe. Hezbollah's crossing of the border into the sovereign state of Israel and its killing and kidnapping of soldiers are acts of war, as viewed by any nation.

As rockets are fired at Israel from Lebanon into housing areas, Israel has responded by dropping warning leaflets to Lebanese citizens in areas populated by an enemy seeking to use its own innocent people as human shields. Only after people have been given opportunity to leave have these enclaves been struck.

Much of the destruction has not been directed at people, but at bridges, roads and airports via which weapons dedicated to destroying Israel are transported from Syria and Iran. Many Americans in Lebanon and Israel are tragically put in harm's way by these events.

Representative LaHood witnessed 9-11 and approved the use of force in Afghanistan and Iraq as a result. Was this disproportionate, inappropriate use of force? Is Israel to wait until its cities are in ruin before responding to heinous threats and macabre attacks on its innocents?

Ed Pritzker

Peoria

http://www.pjstar.com/opinion/forum/index.shtml


I can't remember it, but I'd bet he's criticized Hezbollah.

What's missing from this picture is whether or not a court has ever given weight to one of these signing statements, as opposed to the legislative history of a law.

Does anyone know if SCOTUS or an appeals court has ever taken formal notice of a signing statement in interpreting a law?

No, I don't. But I don't see how they could, since the President signed the law to begin with. His constitutional option is to veto the law if he thinks it is unconstitutional, or challenge it in court.

The Lesson of July 21


Modern terrorism has marked another date with blood: Mumbei 7/11 joins New York 9/11 and London 7/7. But democracies everywhere might do better to remember another date as its anniversary approaches - London 7/21 - for the lesson it teaches in how to fight modern terrorism.

On July 21, 2005, two weeks after the devastating 7 July bombing of the London subways, five men planted bombs on London buses and trains.
Fortunately, their bombs failed to explode and the bombers ran away. What is really important is that the police nabbed all five suspects in ten days. One of them was Mukhtar Said-Ibrahim. His parents, Mohammed and Esha, turned him in after seeing his picture on surveillance tapes.

And that is the lesson: research has shown that public cooperation is the key to solving crimes --and the public must be confident in the police to come forward with good information. No parent would hand over his child knowing he would be tortured.

Cracking a terror cell is not unlike infiltrating organized crime. The trick is to cultivate informers in communities where terrorists operate. Technology is no substitute for this. Nor is torture. Torturing for information destroys bonds of loyalty that keep information flowing, causing remaining sources of information to dry up.

On their own, police are relatively helpless against criminals and terrorists. Since the 1970s, researchers have shown again and again that unless the public specifically identifies suspects to the police, the chances that a crime will be solved falls to about 10 percent. Contrary to popular evening police television shows, only a small percentage of crimes are solved with fingerprinting, forensics and DNA sampling. In England, this constitutes as little as 5% of all detections.

Police captured the 21 July bombers using accurate public information. Tanya Wright, Ibrahim's neighbor, helped the police locate Ibrahim and a second suspect, Yasin Hassan Omar, on July 22. Police then traced Omar to Birmingham where he was arrested six days later. Police arrested a third bomb suspect, Ramsi Muhammad, in the same flat as Omar. Three commuters had followed Muhammad through London until they lost him. Police identified Hussein Osman, the fourth bomber, by releasing video surveillance. They tapped his brother in law's phone and Italian authorities arrested him.

Police captured their suspects without torture or an American-style Patriot Act. The Parliament passed no new laws and gave the police no new special powers. They did not have to arrest thousands, set up a network of secret prisons worldwide, or send prisoners to countries that torture for interrogation. In the full sweep, police arrested only 44 people, including the four alleged bombers and 13 others who they suspect harbored them. They released most others in 24 hours or less. Their only misstep came when police identified a suspect acting on their own suspicions and, tragically, ended up killing an illegal Brazilian immigrant with no connection to the bombings.

There was also a feared fifth bomber who had a live bomb packed with explosives, nails and bolts, as clear a ticking time bomb case in recent history as anyone can remember. Police found the bomb on July 25 searching the bushes near where other arrests had been made. Five days later, police arrested the fifth bomb suspect, Manfo Kwaku Asiedu.

Would the police have been anywhere near that bomb without the help of parents, commuters and neighbors? The answer clearly is no.

Police in long-term dictatorships like China and the Soviet Union knows the lessons of 21 July all too well. Although these states use torture for intimidation and false confessions, they are aware that when it comes to useful information, good intelligence requires humans willing to go to the government and work with it. During World War II, the Soviets completely shutdown German counterintelligence with a dense network of informants, including 2 million military informers and 1.4 million civilian "resident agents."

The French won the real Battle of Algiers with deadly informers called the blues, not through torture. The blues tracked down "Mourad" and "Kamel" (the FLN bomb squad chief and his military deputy), cornered Yacef Saadi (the mastermind of the bombing plans), identified the last FLN refuge of Ali la Pointe, and snared the last FLN leader at large, Ben Hamida. Two of the deadliest were a betrayed wife of a FLN militant ("Ourhia the Brown") and a former FLN chief of east Algiers ("Safy the Pure"), who joined voluntarily. But no one has heard of them; they don't have big parts in the famous movie, The Battle of Algiers.

Even terrorists know the importance of public co-operation and informers for intelligence. The Iraqi insurgency is deadly because many eyes tell it where soldiers normally go. As an internal US government report said in 2004, their "strategic and operational intelligence has proven to be quite good" because the Iraqi police force "is rife with sympathy for the insurgents."

Democracies cannot completely stop terrorism. Weapons are cheap and our societies are too trusting. But if absolute victory will always be beyond our reach, justice is not. Democracies can capture the terrorists and disrupt their plots if they apply the lessons of July 21. Those that cultivate public cooperation with professional policing will succeed. Those who want to watch movies on torture inherit the wind.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/darius-rejal...21_b_25492.html

July 24, 2006
Danger! Legacy Ahead!
There's a reason the Middle East is heating up
by Justin Raimondo

The Israelis are conducting not only a shooting war but also a propaganda war: if there is a way to "spin" the deaths of Lebanese civilians, the smashing of the infrastructure, and even the bombing of an anti-Hezbollah Christian-owned television station, then surely Israel's skillful propagandists – here and in Israel proper – are bound to find it. The idea is to shape the narrative of the conflict so that Israel is portrayed as a reluctant warrior.

In America, this is easy: the "mainstream" media, always attentive to the powerful Israel lobby, refrains from showing pictures that might upset the carefully nurtured image of the Jewish state as a heroic David up against an Arab-Muslim giant. Whenever there is an "expert" to be consulted, half the time it's an Israeli, or someone from Israel's amen corner, who explains to the TV audience that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization along the lines of al-Qaeda – without mentioning that this is no guerrilla group, but a highly organized political party, which, as President Lahoud of Lebanon reminded us the other day, is "part of the government of Lebanon." The other day on MSNBC's Scarborough Country, I had to laugh when Joe Scarborough announced the guests on an upcoming segment about the Lebanon crisis: Bibi Netanyahu, Mort Zuckerman, and Pat Buchanan.

If anyone else but Buchanan had been involved it would have been the onscreen equivalent of a mugging, but Pat acquitted himself quite well. The point, however, is that there is no question of "balance" when it comes to media portrayals of the July war, or of any topics having to do with Israel. It's all pro-Israel, all the time, and it is nothing short of miraculous that a trenchant critic like Buchanan is allowed to give his opinion at all.

The U.S. government, therefore, has a lot of leeway when it comes to its relationship with Israel. It can get away with pursuing Israel's interests, to the detriment of our own, simply on account of the blindness of most people to the nature of the "special relationship" – and its geopolitical and financial repercussions. Very few know, for example, that Israel gets over $3 billion a year from the U.S. in "foreign aid," and that we subsidize the Israeli military budget to the tune of some 20 percent. Any news that puts Israel in a bad light is downplayed, or else completely ignored. For example, the shocking charges against two lobbyists for Israel, AIPAC honcho Steve Rosen and the group's Iran analyst, Keith Weissman – spying for Israel – should have generated front-page headlines; instead, the case has puttered along pretty much beneath the media radar.

In Europe, it is quite different: the pictures of the slaughter are getting through via the mass media, and people are less naïve about the true nature of the Israeli state. Even the British government broke with the Yanks on this one, as Foreign Office official Kim Howells looked askance at the rape of Lebanon:

"The destruction of the infrastructure, the death of so many children and so many people: these have not been surgical strikes. If they are chasing Hezbollah, then go for Hezbollah. You don't go for the entire Lebanese nation…. I very much hope that the Americans understand what's happening to Lebanon."

The sheer brazenness of this operation, and the American complicity, is shocking – and here I thought nothing could shock me anymore. After all, Israel has invaded a sovereign nation, attacked communities that are hostile to Hezbollah (such as the Christian Maronites), bombed Lebanese army barracks, and tried to shut down the Lebanese media – all of which are roughly comparable to, say, Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. Not that any of this is surprising, coming from the Israelis – but the Americans have not caviled in the slightest. If anything, George W. Bush is more pro-Israel than many Israelis, and his support for the invasion has been unequivocal, even enthusiastic.

This enthusiasm is partly explained by the president's fulsome support for the Jewish state: no American administration has been quite as pro-Israel as this one. Yet one could imagine that, behind the scenes, there would be tensions between the U.S. and Israel, at least over the timetable of the Lebanese incursion. The longer Israel stays in and keeps up the merciless bombardment, the more pressure Washington faces from its Arab allies in the region, who fear their populations' outrage at the continuing carnage. U.S. support for the invasion is also having repercussions in Iraq, where the ruling Shi'ite coalition is not exactly friendly to Tel Aviv, Shi'ite radicals are up in arms, and the speaker of the Parliament is now calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

The U.S. is provoking all sorts of negative reactions to its endorsement of Israeli brutality, and so why, one has to ask, are they doing it?

Aside from the usual reasons – this administration's pro-Israel orientation, the hijacking of American foreign policy by the neoconservatives, and the support for Israel coming from important Republican constituencies, such as the evangelical Christians – the decisive factor is George W. Bush's growing fixation on his legacy as president.

Every occupant of the White House who approaches the end of his second term has similar concerns, naturally enough: they all want to ensure that they not go down in the history books as a failure. But this president, who has had to endure a merciless mocking from the chattering classes over his relative lack of sophistication and general state of unpreparedness for the role of chief executive, has a lot more invested in this than most. He has prided himself on not taking the easy road, swimming against the tide in the hope that history will prove him right – and now, as the end of his reign approaches, he must take history by the throat or else forever lose the opportunity.

The Israeli invasion is one such opportunity. What was surprising about the American response to Tel Aviv's untrammeled aggression was not that they wholeheartedly endorsed it, but how quickly and pointedly they used the occasion to turn up the heat on Damascus and score points against Tehran. Can they really be thinking about taking on Syria and Iran – even as the Iraqi "model" explodes in a maelstrom of sectarian strife?

Yes, they can, and it's due, in large degree, to one man's vanity. In George W. Bush's case, this is one of his most striking characteristics, which, entwined with his arrogance and stubbornness, seems to define his personality. He doesn't want to go down in history as George the Clueless: he dreams of being George the Conqueror, the man who had the vision to defy the experts, the media, and the American public, and "liberate" not only Iraq but the entire Middle East.

George W. Bush bears all the ominous hallmarks of a True Believer. Here is a president who, in his last inaugural address, proclaimed "the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world." Grandiosity doesn't even begin to describe the presidential mindset – it is more like megalomania – and the abundant danger of such ambition on the part of such a man is all too apparent.

"By our efforts we have lit a fire as well, a fire in the minds of men. It warms those who feel its power; it burns those who fight its progress."

The neocons thrilled to those words as the president uttered them in his second inaugural address, but lately, it seemed, the fire had gone out of George. Before the Israelis unleashed their fury on the hapless civilians of Beirut, the War Party, you'll remember, was in full retreat. Chastened by the failure of the Iraqi misadventure, beleaguered by legal and political problems on the home front – a few indictments, the growing unpopularity of the war – and weakened by defections from their own ranks, the neoconservatives were on the run. In the administration, they were getting out of government – Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith – and in the public square they were keeping a low profile.

Not anymore. A week or so before the invasion, Richard Perle attacked Condi Rice in the Washington Post, signaling neocon disaffection with an administration that seemed to have fallen prey to a paralyzing realism. Iran was being allowed to get away with thumbing its nose at U.S. demands that the mullahs dismantle their nascent nuclear industry. The regime-change campaign aimed at Syria seemed to have fizzled out. In short: the Revolution had been betrayed.

The Israelis changed all that when they started bombing Beirut. The regime-changers once again had their agenda front and center, and the prospect of a conflict with Syria and/or Iran gained instant momentum.

The Revolution, once badly stalled, is revving up its motors, and the War Party is back in its full fighting stance. What is appalling and frightening is that the Democrats are in many cases worse than the Republicans on the Lebanon invasion question: this means there will be no brake on the administration in taking this road to further "regime change" in the Middle East.

Iran is their ultimate goal, but the road to Tehran runs through Damascus, and the preparations for the Syrian campaign have been extensive and very well thought out. They succeeded in pinning the blame for the assassination of Rafik Hariri on the Syrians, even though the evidence seems to contradict this conclusion. The U.S.-Israeli campaign to get the Syrian army kicked out of Lebanon achieved its goal just over a year before the Israelis marched in. This could be serendipity, but here's another "coincidence" – a week or so before the invasion, the Lebanese announced they had busted a cell of Israeli agents who had been carrying out assassinations in the country. One wonders what a full investigation of their activities would have revealed – if the war hadn't delayed or obscured it. After all, someone killed Hariri…

The Israelis, in any case, are now destroying Hariri's legacy – the Beirut he rebuilt after the ravages of the last Israeli assault – and they won't stop until their masters in Washington start to get antsy. And maybe not even then. In the case of the "special relationship" between Washington and Tel Aviv, it is hard to tell, very often, who is the master and who is the slave. As Professor Paul W. Schroeder put it in The American Conservative, the Iraq war represented "something unique in history":

"It is common for great powers to try to fight wars by proxy, getting smaller powers to fight for their interests. This would be the first instance I know where a great power (in fact, a superpower) would do the fighting as the proxy of a small client state."

Israel is doing its own fighting – for once – but don't worry, relief is on the way. The American secretary of state has a plan for a "robust" international force that will take on the job of cleaning out Hezbollah and administering the occupation of a "buffer zone" within Lebanon. We are assured there will be no Americans in this force, but that seems highly improbable. If ever such a force comes into existence and is sent to police the mean streets of south Lebanon, then you can bet your bottom dollar the Yanks are coming, too.

In the meantime, it will take months to organize an international "peacekeeping" mission: this will give the Israelis plenty of time to continue their terror campaign, and perhaps come right to the gates of Beirut. The drama has yet to play itself out, but whatever the outcome, we can be sure that the script was written well in advance.


http://www.antiwar.com/justin/

People sure are pissed at LaHood for stating his opinion about the heavy-handed response by Israeli with the invasion.


Unleash Israel

Monday, July 24, 2006

In a July 19 Journal Star article, Congressman Ray Lahood was admonishing Israel to exercise restraint.

In my opinion, Israel has exercised tremendous restraint. The reason we have world terrorism at the level it is today is because the U.S. has insisted that Israel restrain itself. All along, it should have been going after those who are a threat and ignoring world opinion. You don't get rid of cancer by just excising the edges of it, you have to get at the root.

In this article, Lahood pointed out that his ancestors were from Lebanon. This hyphenated Americanism is destroying this country. You are either an American or you are not.

Duane L. Mitchell

Trivoli

But I notice it's perfectly alright to be an Israeli-American and even show more loyalty to the "holy land" than the US. Hell, you don't even have to be Israeli, you can be an evangelical and do the same. And THAT is considered proper. It's even worse. This administration's followers have been doing that for years. Mention it and you're an anti-Semite. Then the guy here has the audacity to assume that as an American you owe allegiance to Israel and whatever they do.

Imagine that.

ABA blasts Bush for law interpretations



WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush's penchant for writing exceptions to laws he has just signed violates the Constitution, an American Bar Association task force says in a report highly critical of the practice.

The ABA group, which includes a one-time FBI director and former federal appeals court judge, said the president has overstepped his authority in attaching challenges to hundreds of new laws.

The attachments, known as bill-signing statements, say Bush reserves a right to revise, interpret or disregard measures on national security and constitutional grounds.

"This report raises serious concerns crucial to the survival of our democracy," said the ABA's president, Michael Greco. "If left unchecked, the president's practice does grave harm to the separation of powers doctrine, and the system of checks and balances that have sustained our democracy for more than two centuries."

Some congressional leaders had questioned the practice. The task force's recommendations, being released Monday in Washington, will be presented to the 410,000-member group next month at its annual meeting in Hawaii.

ABA policymakers will decide whether to denounce the statements and encourage a legal fight over them.

The task force said the statements suggest the president will decline to enforce some laws. Bush has had more than 800 signing statement challenges, compared with about 600 signing statements combined for all other presidents, the group said.

Noel J. Francisco, a former Bush administration attorney who practices law in Washington, said the president is doing nothing unusual or inappropriate.

"Presidents have always issued signing statements," he said. "This administration believes that it should make clear ... when the Congress is getting close to the lines that our Constitution draws."

Francisco said the administration's input is part of the give and take between the branches of government. "I think it's good that the debate is taking place at a public level," he added.

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said last month that "it's important for the president at least to express reservations about the constitutionality of certain provisions."

The ABA report said President Reagan was the first to use the statements as a strategic weapon, and that it was encouraged by then-administration lawyer Samuel Alito — now the newest Supreme Court justice.

The task force included former prosecutor Neal Sonnett of Miami; former FBI Director William Sessions; Patricia Wald, former chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; former Republican Rep. Mickey Edwards; and former Reagan administration lawyer Bruce Fein; and law school professors and other lawyers.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/20...yers-bush_x.htm


Lawless and unacountable by this yesman congress. Republicans would destroy our system of government in their quest for absolute domination of everything.

Mark all posts as read

While your party drags the world into chaos and destruction. You should be proud.

Mark all posts as read

True.

Surveillance, 24/7 of the subway trains was also the key.

The executive branch is charged with enforcing the law. With these Signing Statements, the courts never address the issue, because the law is never put into any real effect? Wasn't this the premise of the argument?

Right, everything in the middle east was just great until Bush came along. No Cole, Khobar towers WTC bombing, suicide attacks.

I didn't say that. However, Bush has made it much, much worse.

Bush quit pretending. We were at war from the first WTC bombing. The Islamic nuts started it, and aren't just going to give up over any acts of appeasement.