Saturday, August 4, 2007

The Most Corrupt-To-The-Core Addminstration Ever

Bush Aide Addresses Missing RNC E-Mails

At Senate Hearing, Jennings Is Silent on U.S. Attorneys' Firings; Rove Is Absent

By Paul Kane
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Friday, August 3, 2007; A02

A young White House political aide was grilled inconclusively by the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday about the firings of U.S. attorneys after Karl Rove, the president's senior political adviser, failed to show up at the committee's hearing in response to a subpoena.

J. Scott Jennings, 29, the deputy political director for the White House, refused to address the firings but tried to explain how thousands -- or possibly millions -- of White House e-mails to and from the political office were transmitted only through communications accounts controlled by the Republican National Committee.

That use of the RNC accounts put some of the political office's messages outside the reach of the National Archives, which sought to preserve them under a federal law mandating eventual public access, and the reach of Democratic congressional investigators, who have sought to look at them for evidence of improper actions.

Jennings offered a stripped-down explanation: He wanted a White House-supplied BlackBerry and was told no, and so he got one from the RNC, as many other political affairs aides had done. "I was receiving a lot of e-mail on my official account. And I requested [a BlackBerry] at that moment, and I was told that it wasn't the custom to give political affairs staffers those devices," Jennings said.

Jennings, 29, appeared as part of the panel's ongoing investigation into the firings of nine U.S. attorneys last year as well as other allegations of politicization at the Justice Department, a probe that has created offshoot inquiries into whether the Bush White House violated laws restricting political activity by federal employees.

In e-mails among top Justice staffers, obtained by the committee months ago, Jennings figured prominently in discussions about at least two of the ousted U.S. attorneys. But Jennings cited Bush's claim of "executive privilege" in refusing to answer questions about it. Rove, whose RNC e-mail address shows up on some of the e-mails discussing the firings, cited the same privilege claim in refusing to appear.

"Where is Karl Rove? Why is he hiding? Why does he throw a young staffer like you into the line of fire while he hides behind the White House curtains?" Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) asked Jennings, who said that he spoke several times a day with Rove.

Jennings's testimony on the RNC e-mails was the most detailed explanation to date of why President Bush's top political aides had sent and received so many e-mails on their RNC accounts. House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) is probing whether the use of RNC e-mails for official purposes violated federal laws requiring presidential records to be preserved.

The RNC told Waxman recently that it has more than 200,000 e-mails sent and received by Rove, Jennings and Sara M. Taylor, the former White House political director.

Bush spokesman Scott Stanzel has said that aides such as Jennings and Rove, whose jobs required them to deal with outside political groups on a regular basis, were trying to avoid violating Hatch Act provisions forbidding federal property to be used for political purposes. But Stanzel added that the White House has issued a new policy on e-mail usage, directing aides to more carefully consider records preservation rules.

Jennings also confirmed that he has given more than 10 briefings to political appointees at federal agencies about the election prospects for Republican candidates. Jennings said the meetings were merely meant to thank the appointees and boost their morale, not to suggest they steer federal contracts and decisions for political purposes.



(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Edwards Takes Aim at Murdoch and Fox Noise

John Edwards Doesn't Want Murdoch to Buy Dow Jones

Presidential Candidate Calls on Fellow Democrats to Return News Corp. Money

WASHINGTON (AdAge.com) -- Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards has called on fellow Democrats to oppose News Corp.'s purchase of the Dow Jones Co. and "take the necessary steps to stop the merger" in a major step up of his previous criticism of Fox News Channel.

John Edwards
John Edwards
Photo Credit: Nancy Kaszerman


In an e-mail to supporters today, the former North Carolina senator said continuing media consolidation "threatens the health of our democracy."

'The last straw'

"News Corp.'s purchase of the Dow Jones Co. and The Wall Street Journal should be the last straw when it comes to media consolidation," said the e-mail.

"The basis of a strong democracy begins and ends with a strong, unbiased and fair media -- all qualities which are pretty hard to subscribe to Fox News and News Corp. (Read his full statement here.)

Mr. Edwards didn't say how the Democrats should block the merger. Commissioner Michael J. Copps of Federal Communications Commission yesterday said the agency should look closely at the cross-ownership implications in New York, where News Corp. would own the Journal, the New York Post and two TV stations.


Contributors to Democrats

Mr. Edwards also called on Democrats to refuse to take donations from News Corp. execs. Both Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. President-Chief Operating Officer Peter Chernin, while contributing to the campaigns of Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. Joe Biden and Sen. Chris Dodd, were co-hosts with Steven Spielberg and Haim Saban of a major Hollywood fundraiser in May for Sen. Hillary Clinton, Mr. Edwards' White House rival.

"I'm challenging every Democratic presidential candidate to refuse contributions from News Corp executives and return any they've already taken, beginning with Rupert Murdoch," the e-mail said. "The time has come for Democrats to stop pretending to be friends with the very people who demonize the Democratic Party."

Mr. Edwards was the first Democratic candidate to decline to participate in any Fox News Channel debates and he has used his refusal in fundraising efforts.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Top Aides At DOJ Received Political Briefings From Rove

But is anything going to be done about any of it?

Gonzales Now Says Top Aides Got Political Briefings

By Dan Eggen and Paul Kane
The Washington Post

Saturday 04 August 2007

Justice Department officials attended at least a dozen political briefings at the White House since 2001, including some meetings led by Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, and others that were focused on election trends prior to the 2006 midterm contest, according to documents released yesterday.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee last week that he did not believe that senior Justice Department officials had attended such briefings. But he clarified his testimony yesterday in a letter to Congress, emphasizing that the briefings were not held at the agency's offices.

Internal guidelines forbid partisan meetings at the Justice Department and sharply restrict the ability of employees to participate directly in election campaigns or other political activities, a Justice official said yesterday. But the official, who declined to be identified publicly discussing the issue, said the type of meetings held at the White House did not appear to run afoul of department policy.

A list of briefings for Justice officials was included with a letter sent yesterday from Gonzales to Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which sought to clarify and correct parts of his testimony before the panel on July 24. The list was sent to House oversight committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) in June, but it had not been released publicly before yesterday.

At the July 24 hearing, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) asked Gonzales whether any of "the leadership of the Department of Justice" had participated in political briefings, pointing to examples involving employees from the State Department, Peace Corps and U.S. Agency for International Development.

"Not that I'm aware of.... I don't believe so, sir," Gonzales said.

Justice officials attended 12 political briefings at the White House, and another held at the Department of Agriculture, from 2001 to 2006, according to the list sent to Waxman. At least five were led by Rove or included presentations by him.

The list compiled by Justice did not include many details about the kind of information presented at those briefings. One March 2001 meeting included a "political update" from Rove and a discussion on "how we can work together to advance the President's agenda."

Political briefings by White House aides have become a political flashpoint on Capitol Hill in recent months. Waxman is investigating whether the meetings violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in partisan political activity on federal government property.

The White House has denied that the briefings were improper, saying they were merely informational meetings for political appointees. Sara M. Taylor, the former White House political director, and J. Scott Jennings, the current deputy political director, have testified that the briefings were designed to thank such appointees for their service to the president.

Other briefings given by Taylor and Jennings have included detailed PowerPoint presentations, including district-by-district analyses of critical House races. Top ambassadors in early January learned from Rove and Taylor the top 36 targets among House Democratic incumbents in the 2008 races, while State Department employees at a White House meeting in 2001 learned what the most critical media markets were for Bush's reelection in 2004.

The Office of Special Counsel, conducting its own investigation, has ruled that a briefing at the General Services Administration in late January violated the Hatch Act.

Meanwhile, Congress has questioned the role that political considerations played inside Gonzales's Justice Department in both the firing of nine U.S. attorneys last year and in the hiring of career employees, the latter an apparent violation of civil-service laws.

Most of the Justice briefings were attended by the department's White House liaisons, including Monica M. Goodling, who left that post earlier this year amid the controversy over the firings of U.S. attorneys. Others present included D. Kyle Sampson, Gonzales's former chief of staff, and several people who held the top or deputy positions in the department's legislative affairs office.

Gonzales's letter was part of a broader set of correspondence with senators in which he clarified some of his remarks of July 24 but stood by the accuracy of his testimony on a number of major issues, including his characterizations of a warrantless surveillance program and of abuses under the USA Patriot Act.


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Bush Blackmails Democrats


Senate passes Bush-backed spy bill

Sat Aug 4, 2007 6:10AM EDT

By Thomas Ferraro and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Democratic-led U.S. Senate, amid warnings of further attacks on the United States, approved a bill on Friday that would allow President George W. Bush to maintain his controversial domestic spying program.

On a vote of 60-28, the Senate sent the measure to the Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives for consideration as early as Saturday as lawmakers push to begin a month-long recess.

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said earlier he needed the legislation "in order to protect the nation from attacks that are being planned today to inflict mass casualties on the United States."

The Senate bill was needed, congressional aides said, because of restrictions recently imposed by a secret court on the ability of U.S. spy agencies to intercept telephone calls and e-mails of suspected terrorists overseas.

Offered by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, no relation to the national intelligence director, the bill would allow the administration to continue the warrant less surveillance but require it to describe to a secret federal court the procedures it uses in targeting foreign suspects.

The Senate defeated, on a 45-43 vote, a Democratic alternative, which would have placed tighter controls on the spying and provided for independent assessments of the attorney general's implementation of the measure.

The Senate votes came shortly after Republicans in the House rejected as inadequate a competing Democratic measure.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid criticized the Senate-passed bill, saying it "authorizes warrant-less searches and surveillance of American phone calls, e-mails, homes, offices and personal records for however long (it takes for) an appeal to a court of review."

If signed into law, the Senate bill would expire in six months. During that period, Congress would seek to write permanent legislation. Continued...


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Coulter Not Off The Hook In Vote Fraud Case

No wonder Karl Rove is so concerned about Voter fraud. Once Again, It's Projection.

It's not over for Coulter

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

When it comes to GOP twig Ann Coulter and her Palm Beach voting snafu, the fat lady has yet to sing.

While most expected the conservative pundit to be off the hook for good when the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office punted a voting fraud probe in April, the Florida Elections Commission now is investigating.


Coulter, a constitutional lawyer, voted in the wrong precinct in a Palm Beach town election in February 2006 after registering at an address that wasn't hers.

The Coulter voting saga is now known as FEC Case No. 07-211. The investigator assigned, Tallahassee's Margie Wade, wouldn't confirm she caught the case; FEC complaints are supposed to be confidential.

Still, Page Two is told Coulter already has been notified she's under investigation.

Who filed? WPB campaign consultant Richard Giorgio, whose stable of candidates includes mostly Democrats. His two-pronged complaint against the prolific boob-tube pontificator accuses her of false swearing and fraud.

"I actually saw her vote at St. Edward's (Church), and she looked in a hurry,"?Giorgio said. The church is reserved for voters from the north side of the island, while Coulter lives south near Worth Avenue.

"I didn't realize that she had tried to vote somewhere else and was turned back. This was willful. Anyone else would have been prosecuted."

But Coulter hasn't been, even after Palm Beach cops, the PBC supervisor of elections and sheriff's office looked into it. Coulter hired Republican 2000 election recount lawyer Marcos Jimenez to rep her and refused to talk.

He did not return calls.

According to FEC rules, Wade has subpoena powers and could force Coulter to sing.

So, what does best-selling author Coulter risk? The FEC could impose $2,000 in fines. And it could refer the case to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement or the state attorney's office for criminal prosecution.

The decision is left to the commission, whose seven members all were appointed by former Republican Gov. Jeb Bush.


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Friday, August 3, 2007

A FISA Judge Ruled A Part of Bush's Wiretapping Program Illegal


I doubt that anyone seriously cares about genuine terrorists being wiretapped, because that would be pure insanity. So, what's really up with this, and why is Boehner running his mouth about it in public? God only knows what would happen to a Democrat who did the same thing.

If the FISA Judge ruled on this at the first of the year, why is it just now coming up?

Ruling Limited Spying Efforts

Move to Amend FISA Sparked by Judge's Decision

By Carol D. Leonnig and Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, August 3, 2007; A01

A federal intelligence court judge earlier this year secretly declared a key element of the Bush administration's wiretapping efforts illegal, according to a lawmaker and government sources, providing a previously unstated rationale for fevered efforts by congressional lawmakers this week to expand the president's spying powers.

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) disclosed elements of the court's decision in remarks Tuesday to Fox News as he was promoting the administration-backed wiretapping legislation. Boehner has denied revealing classified information, but two government officials privy to the details confirmed that his remarks concerned classified information.

The judge, whose name could not be learned, concluded early this year that the government had overstepped its authority in attempting to broadly surveil communications between two locations overseas that are passed through routing stations in the United States, according to two other government sources familiar with the decision.

The decision was both a political and practical blow to the administration, which had long held that all of the National Security Agency's enhanced surveillance efforts since 2001 were legal. The administration for years had declined to subject those efforts to the jurisdiction of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and after it finally did so in January the court ruled that the administration's legal judgment was at least partly wrong.

The practical effect has been to block the NSA's efforts to collect information from a large volume of foreign calls and e-mails that passes through U.S. communications nodes clustered around New York and California. Both Democrats and Republicans have signaled they are eager to fix that problem through amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

"There's been a ruling, over the last four or five months, that prohibits the ability of our intelligence services and our counterintelligence people from listening in to two terrorists in other parts of the world where the communication could come through the United States," Boehner told Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto in a Tuesday interview.

"This means that our intelligence agencies are missing a wide swath of potential information that could help protect the American people," he said. Boehner added that some Democrats are aware of the problems caused by the judge's restrictive ruling and the problems it has caused for the administration's surveillance of terrorism suspects.

"The Democrats have known about this for months," Boehner said. "We have had private conversations, we have had public conversations that this needs to be fixed. And Republicans are not going to leave this week until this problem is addressed."

Commenting on Boehner's remarks, Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), the House Democratic Caucus chairman, said yesterday that "John should remember the old adage: Loose lips very much sink ships." But Kevin Smith, Boehner's spokesman, denied that the House Republican leader had disclosed classified information.

Any assertion that Boehner spilled secrets "is just plain wrong and distracts from the critical task at hand -- fixing FISA to close the serious intelligence gaps that are jeopardizing our national security," Smith said.

Smith said that Boehner's comments were based on a public, Jan. 17 letter to Congress by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, in which the administration announced that it would allow the NSA program to be reviewed by the intelligence court. That letter said that an intelligence court judge had issued orders "authorizing the Government to target for collection into or out of the United States where there is probable cause to believe" one of the parties is a terrorist.

But the letter referred only to "approval" of a government surveillance request and did not refer, as Boehner did, to the court's rejection of surveillance of specific foreign communications routed through the United States. The NSA surveillance at issue is part of a broader program authorized by President Bush shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said this week in a public letter that the order covered "various intelligence activities" that he did not describe. "The details of the activities changed in certain respects over time," he said.

Since the existence of the warrantless wiretapping program was leaked to the public in late 2005, civil libertarians and legal experts have accused the administration of violating FISA and engaging in illegally broad data mining of telephone and e-mail records.

The effect of the judge's decision to curtail some of that surveillance was to limit the flow of information about possible terrorism suspects, according to congressional staffers briefed on the ruling. Last week, McConnell told the Center for Strategic and International Studies that the government faces "this huge backlog trying to get warrants for things that are totally foreign that are threatening to this country."

Gaining access to the foreign communications at issue would allow the NSA to tap into the huge volume of calls, faxes and e-mails that pass from one foreign country to another by way of fiber-optic connections in the United States.

"If you're calling from Germany to Japan or China, it's very possible that the call gets routed through the United States, despite the fact that there are geographically much more direct routes to Asia," said Stephan Beckert of Telegeography Inc.

That was not true when Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978. The law established much stricter limits on intercepting communications involving people or facilities in the United States. If those limits apply now, for example, to calls from Pakistan to Yemen that pass through U.S. switches, the NSA could lose access to a substantial portion of global communications traffic.

Since March, the administration has quickly tried to build a case for the legislation, while concealing from the public and many in Congress a key event that appears to have driven the effort.

"It clearly shows that Congress has been playing with half a deck," said Jim Dempsey, policy director for the Center for Democracy and Technology. "The administration is asking lawmakers to vote on a very important piece of legislation based upon selective declassification of intelligence."

In April, McConnell proposed a much broader revision of FISA than what the administration is pressing Congress to approve this week. Under the new plan, the attorney general would have sole authority to authorize the warrantless surveillance of people "reasonably believed to be outside the United States" and to compel telecommunications carriers to turn over the information in real time or after it has been stored.

An unstated facet of the program is that anyone the foreigner is calling inside the United States, as long as that person is not the primary target, would also be wiretapped. On Saturday, Bush in his radio address argued more narrowly that "one of the most important ways we can gather that information is by monitoring terrorist communications." FISA, he said, "provides a critical legal foundation" in allowing the government to collect that information while protecting Americans' civil liberties.

Testifying on the Hill in May, McConnell argued that the law needed to be updated to accommodate technology's advance. "Today a single communication can transit the world, even if the two people communicating are only a few miles apart," he said, alluding to the fact that a significant volume of e-mails and phone calls are routed through the United States.

Democrats announced this week a proposal that would also expand the government's wiretapping authority but would keep it under FISA court supervision. The authority would expire in six months.

This week, McConnell spent hours on the Hill briefing lawmakers. On Tuesday, he gave about 50 senators a classified briefing making the case for the legislation. That briefing included the change in the threat environment, as well as a description of the court development, according to a government source who requested anonymity because the briefing was classified.

"He was not complaining about one judge or another," the source said. "He was saying, 'I need to collect X, but I can only collect Y and we need to change the law on that.' "

Washington Post staff writers Dan Eggen and Barton Gellman and washingtonpost.com staff writer Paul Kane contributed to this report.


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Thursday, August 2, 2007

Bush Wants to Re-Write FISA Laws

How can we trust an administration, the members of which, have lied to us non-stop, betrayed us and in on the verge of wrecking this country beyond repair?

A Push to Rewrite Wiretap Law
By Ellen Nakashima
The Washington Post

Wednesday 01 August 2007

White House seeks warrantless authority from Congress.

The Bush administration is pressing Congress this week for the authority to intercept, without a court order, any international phone call or e-mail between a surveillance target outside the United States and any person in the United States.

The proposal, submitted by Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell to congressional leaders on Friday, would amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) for the first time since 2006 so that a court order would no longer be needed before wiretapping anyone "reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States."

It would also give the attorney general sole authority to order the interception of communications for up to one year as long as he certifies that the surveillance is directed at a person outside the United States.

The administration and its Republican allies on Capitol Hill have mounted a full-court press to get the Democratic-controlled Congress to pass the measure before lawmakers leave town this week for the August recess, trying to portray reluctant Democrats as weak on terrorism.

Democratic lawmakers favor a narrower approach that would allow the government to wiretap foreign terrorists talking to other foreign terrorists overseas without a warrant if the communication is routed through the United States. They are also willing to give the administration some latitude to intercept foreign-to-domestic communications as long as there is oversight by the FISA court.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) suggested yesterday that a compromise could be reached this week. "The only question," he told reporters, "is how much involvement the attorney general will have" in approving the wiretapping "as compared to the FISA court itself."

The measure faces a number of procedural roadblocks due to the crowded congressional calendar. But the administration, in an effort to speed the process, separated its immediate demands from a more sweeping proposal to rewrite FISA that became tangled in a debate between Congress and the executive branch over access to related Justice Department legal documents.

Civil liberties and privacy groups have denounced the administration's proposal, which they say would effectively allow the National Security Agency to revive a warrantless surveillance program conducted in secret from 2001 until late 2005. They say it would also give the government authority to force carriers to turn over any international communications into and out of the United States without a court order.

In January, the administration announced that the surveillance program was under the supervision of a special FISA court that Congress set up to independently review and judge wiretap requests when it passed FISA in 1978. But critics said that if the proposal succeeds, the court's supervision will no longer be required for many wiretaps.

"It's the president's surveillance program on steroids," said Jim Dempsey, policy director at the Center for Democracy and Technology. Dempsey said that under the new law the government would no longer have to allege that one party to the call was a member of al-Qaeda or another terrorist group. An unstated facet of the program is that anyone the foreigner is calling inside the United States, as long as that person is not the primary target, would also be wiretapped.

"They're hiding the ball here," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU's Washington legislative office. "What the administration is really going after is the Americans. Even if the primary target is overseas, they want to be able to wiretap Americans without a warrant."

The measure is intended as an "interim proposal" to close short-term "critical gaps in our intelligence capability," McConnell said in a letter to congressional leaders. It would make clear that court orders are not necessary to "effectively collect foreign intelligence about foreign targets overseas."

Bush, in his Saturday radio address, said that rewriting FISA is necessary because the "the terrorist network that struck America on September the 11th wants to strike our country again." GOP leaders have accused Democrats of blocking changes, suggesting that if another attack happens, Democrats will be to blame.

"With heightened risk of terror attack, why are Democrats holding up critical FISA changes?" read a news release issued yesterday by House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). "It's time for Democrats to stop ignoring, downplaying and sidestepping our FISA problem and start working with Republicans to keep America safe."

Democratic leaders have been working with administration officials on altering FISA, aides said. "I am committed to giving our intelligence community the tools they need to fight terrorism and am working very hard with the most senior members of the administration to do that as soon as possible," Reid said.

Democrats have said for more than a year that they are willing to make targeted changes, such as making explicit that wiretapping a call between two suspects overseas, where the call that happens to pass through the United States, needs no court order.

But Reid said, "We hope our Republican counterparts will work together with us to fix the problem, rather than try again to gain partisan political advantage at the expense of our national security."

The proposal would also allow the NSA to "sit on the wire" and have access to the entire stream of communications without the phone company sorting, said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies.

"It's a 'trust us' system," she said. "Give us access and trust us."

--------

Staff writer Dan Eggen contributed to this report.


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

The Very Untouchable Mr. Rove


Bush Won't Let Rove Testify to Congress
Reuters

Wednesday 01 August 2007

Citing executive privilege, President George W. Bush on Wednesday rejected a subpoena for his close adviser Karl Rove to testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee in a probe over fired federal prosecutors.

The committee had subpoenaed Rove to testify at a hearing on Thursday morning in its investigation of the firing last year of nine federal prosecutors, which critics said was prompted by partisan politics.

"Mr. Rove, as an immediate presidential advisor, is immune from compelled congressional testimony about matters that arose during his tenure and that relate to his official duties in that capacity," White House Counsel Fred Fielding wrote in a letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat. Leahy made the letter available to Reuters.

Bush's move sets up a possible court showdown between the White House and Democratic lawmakers, who have also sought to force other Bush aides to testify and demanded documents it says the White House is not releasing.

Democrats say the firings may have been intended to influence investigations of Democratic or Republican lawmakers.

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who signed off on the firings, also faces a possible perjury investigation over the truthfulness of his testimony to Congress.

Bush and Gonzales have said the dismissals were justified but mishandled. With the support of Bush, Gonzales has rejected bipartisan calls to resign.


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

More On The Coming Economic Meltdown


August 1, 2007

Extreme Capitalism and the Financialization of America

By randyholhut

DUMMERSTON, Vt. — It seems hard to believe, but the finance, insurance and real estate sector (FIRE, for short) now constitutes about 20 percent of our nation's gross domestic product, while manufacturing contributes less than 13 percent. By comparison, in 1950, manufacturing was 29.3 percent of GDP and financial services contributed 10.9 percent.

In other words, more money is made today by shifting money around than in making things. And the FIRE sector no longer represents a group of institutions designed to raise capital for investment in productive activities. It is wealth generated from activities that contribute little to the actual economy.

Conservative writer Kevin Phillips calls it "financialization," or the process by which the FIRE sector assumes the dominant economic, cultural and political role in a national economy.

For example, energy prices. Last summer, commodities traders bid up the price of oil to $78 per barrel last summer on fears of more unrest in the Middle East after the Israel/Hezbollah dustup and another season of severe hurricanes. Neither thing happened, and oil prices slid down to about $50 per barrel by the end of 2006. Fear-based speculation drove up oil prices, and reality drove them back down.

If you invested in oil futures and got out at the top of the market, you made money. But what did it contribute to the larger economy? The rest of us paid more than we needed to for most of 2006 for heating oil, propane and gasoline, based on a possibility that some disruption of petroleum supplies might happen. That's what you get when the financial sector is totally divorced from reality.

Now, oil prices have crept back up to that level this summer, without an suitable alibi such as a hurricane or a war to justify $78 a barrel oil. Who is profiting and does this profit provide a good for the economy at large?


An equally good question is the long-term viability of an economy based on shuffling around financial assets.


It's hard to say whether the sharp swings in the stock market over the past week has been just a minor correction in stock values or the start of what could be a bigger problem.


The Dow Jones Industrial Average went all the way up to 14,000 on July 19 based on the hope that the collapse of the subprime lending market would not have an effect on the larger economy and that higher energy prices would not have an effect on consumer spending.


The reality, however, is that as much as $2.5 trillion could be at risk in bad mortgages and the frenzy of mergers and leveraged buyouts of companies fueled by borrowed money.


According recent figures from Moody's, the bond rating firm, nearly 20 percent of all mortgage debt is at risk, or about $2.5 trillion of sub-prime mortgages. About $1.4 trillion is at high risk of default, as many as 2.5 million mortgages will default in the next two years and about 20 percent of sub-prime loans written in the last half of 2006 will default. Investor losses could run into hundreds of billions of dollars.

On July 26, a record 10.59 billion shares changed hands on the three major U.S. markets. Several big deals — from Chrysler to Tyco Electronics — have been postponed in the last couple of weeks because of rapidly tightening credit. There's an estimated backlog of more than $300 billion in unsold bonds and bank loans. That's almost as big as the backlog of unsold homes in the United States right now, as housing inventories in some part of the country are at levels not seen in decades.

The implosion of the sub-prime mortgage market, where people with little or no savings took huge mortgages with little or no money down, has been well documented. While it was inevitable that money lent to people without the means to pay it back would lead to a massive number of defaults and foreclosures, the investors who fueled this market never seemed to think that all those risky loans might go bad at all once.

It's truly amazing to see how deeply Wall Street has been involved in what's known as collateralized debt obligations (CDO), or the bundling of mortgages, home equity loans, car loans and credit card debt by hedge funds.

A major Wall Street investment house, Bear Stearns, saw about $10 billion of value disappear from two of its CDO hedge funds last month, and the market barely blinked an eye. But once other investment houses came to the realization that they are holding hundreds of billions of dollars of bad loans that they are now unable to sell to other investors, they started to realize that you can only ignore reality for so long before it comes back to bite you — hard.

Mortgage lenders stopped caring if borrowers were qualified. Bankers stopped caring if borrowers couldn't repay loans. And all these bad loans got repackaged and resold to other investors — all gussied up so that you'd never know that you were buying into funds based on assets that didn't exist.

This has been the state of our financial markets over the past few years. Greed has seemingly blinded people to fundamental economic principles, and the transfer of more of this nation's wealth into the hands of fewer and fewer people is celebrated as capitalism's highest achievement.

The total net worth of American households climbed to $54.1 trillion last year, or more than $3 trillion higher than it was in 2005, and tax revenues managed to increase despite lower rates on wealthy Americans. Meanwhile, over the past five years, inflation-adjusted weekly wages for workers have been up about 0.5 percent per year.


Unfortunately, the people who have profited from wrecking the American economy will walk away with bulging pockets and seemingly clear consciences. The rest of us will be stuck with cleaning up when every comes tumbling down.

Authors Bio: Randolph T. Holhut has been a journalist in New England for more than 25 years. He edited "The George Seldes Reader" (Barricade Books). He can be reached at randyholhut@yahoo.com.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Constitution in Peril

August 1, 2007

Death imminent for United States Constitution

By P. A. Triot


Twenty or so years ago there was quite a public discussion about whether or not God was dead.


Of course, God was not dead then, and is not dead now, nor will God ever be dead.


The same cannot be said for the Constitution of the United States of America.
That document, and all it stands for, is in imminent danger of demise.


George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have done their utmost to kill the precepts of that august document. But those two outlaws alone are not treacherous enough to succeed.


Bush and Cheney are but two of a host of outlaws currently conspiring to kill the Constitution.


Others in the current administration share the death-eater moniker, among them are Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales and Harriet Myers.


Several justices of the U. S. Supreme Court also are candidates for distain for their actions in whittling away at the Constitution.


These outlaws, and hundreds of others are guilty of acts of commission in helping kill the Constitution. However, they are not the only culprits in the ebbing death of that hallowed document.


Members of congress, including the leadership, are party to the Constitution’s slide to oblivion through acts of omission. So are many, many average citizens.


Here is the point: failure to enforce the provisions of the Constitution by one branch of government that curb the excesses of another branch is is simply allowing the Constitutional to die. It is the old bromide of “use it or lose it,” in reference to one’s power.


I submit that no administration in the history of this country has abused and misused the authority granted the executive branch of government by the Constitution as grievously as the Bush-Cheney administration.


They have committed war crimes. They have trampled individuals’ rights. They have condoned torture. They have ignored the often-expressed will of the people. They have lied to congress and the American people. They are, collectively, an outlaw regime.


I furthermore submit that no group of justices have so abused the Constitution as have several in the past seven years.


Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas subverted the Constitution with their decision (along with Sandra Day O’Connor and the late William Rehnquist) to short-circuit the Constitutional provisions for electing a president and thereby interfering with the Florida election count in 2000.


Justice Samuel Alito conceived the theory of a “unitary executive” when he was a Justice Department lawyer a few years ago. The “unitary executive” theory essentially allows the president to proclaim that he is a law unto himself and not subject to question by congress, the courts or even the citizenry.


Anyone who advocates such an anti-Constitutional theory, or is capable of dreaming up such a scheme, is unqualified to serve in government, let alone be a justice of the Supreme Court.


Congress, on the other hand, has done virtually nothing to uphold its own authority to curb executive and judicial excesses.


Authority granted to the legislative branch consists of:


Power of the purse, i.e., cut off funds to the other two branches.

Override presidential vetoes.


Advice and consent of presidential appointments of senior administration officials and federal court justices.


Impeachment and removal from office of the president, vice president, court justices and all civil officers of government.


Not once has congress seriously exercised its authority to reign in the president or to call for an accounting by the justices. By acts of omission, congress and its leaders are helping kill the Constitution.


If the Constitutional provision for impeachment and removal from office is not invoked now against Bush and Cheney, it never can be in the future. That provision will be dead forever, never to be used no matter the crime because no president or vice president could ever be such outlaws as these men have been and still are.


The American citizenry is also culpable in this Constitutional murder, either through of ignorance or indifference.


Until recently, there have been few calls for removal of any of the outlaws. Now, some 54% of the populace believe Cheney should be impeached (not a bad sign), but far fewer want Bush dumped.


I’m told by those who disagree with me that “it would take too long,” or “it would only accomplish more bitterness and polarization,” or “it would be more productive to pass some decent legislation.”


I believe there is no more important task for any citizen, elected official or appointed judge than to take all the time needed, endure all the vitriol that can be spewed or forego any single law to keep the U. S. Constitution alive, well and vigorously exercised.


After all, without a vibrant Constitution, there can be no meaning to any aspect of our government.


In short, we owe it to the founding fathers, ourselves and future generations to preserve and protect the Constitution. It’s simply the law.


Authors Bio: P. A. Triot is the pen name of a retired jounalist.


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Is It Not Bad Enough that Bush is A War Crminal?

Does he have to be a jackass to the foreign press corps and a national embarrassment as well?

Bush Insults BBC Political Editor at Press Conference

By E&P Staff

Published: August 01, 2007 10:50 AM ET

NEW YORK:
At a recent press conference at Camp David, President George Bush insulted BBC political editor Nick Robinson, the Daily Mirror reports.

Robinson, who has asked Bush pointed questions in the past such as whether the president was “in denial” over the Iraq war, posed a question to Bush about whether he could trust visiting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown not to “cut and run” from Iraq.

Bush replied with a dismissal: “Are you still hanging around?”

Later on, Bush poked fun at the bare-pate of Robinson, joking, “You’d better cover up your bald head, it’s getting hot out.”

The respected British reporter shot back, “I didn’t know you cared.”

Bush responded with a cool, “I don’t.” The Mirror reports that Bush then “snorted disdainfully” and “walked away to laughter.”


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Time Mag Finally Figures Out Why W. Won't Dump Gonzo

Why Bush Won't Ax Gonzales



If cabinet members were perishable goods, Alberto Gonzales would have passed his "sell by" date sometime last spring. Since January, when he first faced sharp questioning over the firing of U.S. Attorneys, the Attorney General has earned disastrous reviews for his inconsistent testimony, poor judgment and for appearing to place loyalty to the White House above service to the public. By June it was hard to find a Republican willing to defend him. Now Gonzales' dissembling testimony about a controversial domestic-spying program has raised suspicions about what he is hiding and fueled new calls for him to go. Senate Democrats have called for a special prosecutor to investigate his activities as Attorney General, and a group of moderate House Democrats has called for the House to weigh impeachment proceedings against him.

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Yet the embattled Gonzales' grip on his job seems unshakable. Bush tossed Donald Rumsfeld last fall despite support from conservatives for the then Defense Secretary, and the President chucked Joint Chiefs Chairman Peter Pace at the first sign of congressional resistance to his renomination. So why the extraordinary support for Gonzales in the face of a protracted meltdown at the Department of Justice (DOJ)? Here are four reasons why Bush can't afford to let Gonzales go:

1. Gonzales is all that stands between the White House and special prosecutors. As dicey as things are for Bush right now, his advisers know that they could get much worse. In private, Democrats say that if Gonzales did step down, his replacement would be required to agree to an independent investigation of Gonzales' tenure in order to be confirmed by the Senate.

Without Gonzales at the helm, the Justice Department would be more likely to approve requests for investigations into White House activities on everything from misuse of prewar Iraq intelligence to allegations of political interference in tobacco litigation. And the DOJ could be less likely to block contempt charges against former White House aides who have refused to testify before Congress. "Bush needs someone at Justice who's going to watch the White House's back," says a Senate Democratic Judiciary Committee staffer. If Gonzales steps down, Bush would lose his most reliable shield.

2. A post-Gonzales DOJ would be in the hands of a nonpartisan, tough prosecutor, not a political hand. Newly appointed Deputy Attorney General Craig Morford is in line to take over until a new Attorney General could be confirmed. Morford, a 20-year veteran of the department, was brought in to investigate the botched trial of the first major federal antiterrorism case after 9/11. He is in the mold of James Comey, the former Deputy Attorney General who stood up to the White House over its domestic-eavesdropping program. Even New York Senator Charles Schumer, one of Gonzales' harshest critics, called Morford's appointment a positive step. Over the past six months, more than half a dozen top political appointees have left the department amid scandal. The unprecedented coziness that once existed between the Justice Department and the White House now remains solely in the person of Gonzales.

3. If Gonzales goes, the White House fears that other losses will follow. Top Bush advisers argue that Democrats are after scalps and would not stop at Gonzales. Congressional judiciary committees have already subpoenaed Harriet Miers and Karl Rove in the firings of U.S. Attorneys last year. Republicans are loath to hand Democrats some high-profile casualties to use in the 2008 campaign. Stonewalling, they believe, is their best way to avoid another election focused on corruption issues.

4. Nobody at the White House wants the legal bills and headaches that come with being a target of investigations. In backing Gonzales, Bush is influenced by advisers whose future depends on the survival of their political bodyguard. Gonzales remains the last line of defense protecting Bush, Rove and other top White House officials from the personal consequences of litigation. A high-profile probe would hobble the White House politically, and could mean sky-high legal bills and turmoil for Bush's closest aides.

Keeping Gonzales isn't cost-free. But for now, Bush seems to have decided that the importance of running out the clock on investigations by keeping his loyal Attorney General in place is worth any amount of criticism.


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Independent Counsel?

Yeah, like that's gonna happen.

August 1, 2007

Time for an Independent Counsel

By Marjorie Cohn

Congressional leaders are calling for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate possible perjury charges against Alberto Gonzales. As we saw during the Watergate scandal, the executive branch cannot be counted on to investigate itself.

Watergate led to the enactment of the Ethics in Government Act. Three years after Richard Nixon resigned rather than face impeachment, President Jimmy Carter asked Congress to pass a law authorizing the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate and prosecute unlawful acts by high government officials. The bill empowered the attorney general to conduct a preliminary 90-day investigation when serious allegations arose involving a high government official. President Carter, who signed the bill in 1978, declared, “I believe that this act will help to restore confidence in the integrity of our government.”

Under the act, the attorney general could drop the investigation if he determined it was unsupported by the evidence. But if he found some merit to the charges, he was required to apply to a three-judge panel of federal court judges who would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate, prosecute, and issue a report.

The referral clause of the independent counsel statute provided, "An independent counsel shall advise the House of Representatives of any substantial and credible information which such independent counsel receives, in carrying out the independent counsel’s responsibilities under this chapter, that may constitute grounds for an impeachment.” But Congress, reacting to Kenneth Starr's witch hunt which led to Bill Clinton's impeachment, allowed the independent counsel statute to expire by its own terms in 1999.

With the death of the independent counsel statute, the pendulum had swung back. By failing to renew the act, Congress returned the investigation of high government officials to pre-Watergate policies. Once again, the power to appoint an independent counsel would rest with the executive branch, that is, the attorney general. The Department of Justice drafted a set of regulations to guide future investigations.



Now the attorney general, not a three-judge panel, has the authority to appoint and remove special counsel to investigate top government officials. He exercises power over indictments and other prosecutorial actions, and the special counsel remains accountable to the attorney general. He can block “any investigative or prosecutorial step” he deems “inappropriate or unwarranted."

Justice Department regulations call for the appointment of an outside special counsel when (1) a criminal investigation of a person or matter is warranted, (2) the investigation or prosecution of that person or matter by a United States Attorney's Office or litigating division of the Department of Justice would present a conflict of interest for the Department, and (3) under the circumstances it would be in the public interest to appoint an outside Special Counsel to assume responsibility for the matter. When these three conditions are satisfied, the attorney general must select a special counsel from outside the government. (28 C.F.R. 600.1, 600.3 (2007).)

In light of material inconsistencies in Alberto Gonzales's testimony before Congress, a criminal investigation is warranted. Gonzales, who is suspected of committing perjury, has a conflict of interest. The public interest requires that the highest prosecutor in the land be brought to justice.

Congress should appoint a permanent special counsel to investigate and advise Congress about misconduct by high government officials, beginning with Alberto Gonzales. That procedure should lead the House Judiciary Committee to initiate impeachment proceedings against Gonzales.



Authors Website: http://www.marjoriecohn.com

Authors Bio: Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and President of the National Lawyers Guild. Her new book, Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law, was just published by PoliPointPress.



(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

War Powers Rest With Congress!!!

How freakin' hard can that be to figure out?

War Powers Rest With Congress
The Constitution gives a clear vision of the Founders’ intentions. If Only Congress Hadn’t Ceded Its Authority To A War-Bound President.

by Mario Cuomo
The Congress shall have power … to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water.”

- Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 11 of the U.S. Constitution

If Congress had paid closer attention to our Constitution when dealing with Iraq, the nation would be much better off than we are today. The frustrating political paralysis that prevents us from pulling our forces out of harm’s way in Iraq might have been avoided in 2002 when President Bush first made clear his desire to declare war.

Congress could have - and should have - immediately insisted that by virtue of the unmistakably clear language of our Constitution, the power to declare war resides in the Congress and not the presidency. It was our Founding Fathers’ wise rationale that something as significant as war should not be determined by one individual but by many, deliberating the issue in Congress.

This remains true, although since World War II timid Congresses and eager presidents have ignored the Constitution several times, occasionally even explicitly handing over their authority to the president, as it did in the case of the Iraq war. That unfortunate trend relegated the issue of war from a constitutional one to a political one, and today we are paying the price for that lapse.

Had Congress accepted in 2002 the responsibility imposed upon it by the Founding Fathers and conducted its own deliberations instead of ceding authority to Bush and depending heavily on the president’s “proof,” including the 2003 testimony of then-secretary of State Colin Powell before the United Nations, it might have concluded that the war was not necessary. Now, however, it is virtually impossible for it to end by legislation.

Because Congress deferred to the president, no matter what bills Congress is able to pass with respect to funding or otherwise, the president would reject the legislation and continue to claim it is his right as commander in chief to run the war and Congress’ duty to sign the checks.

That would create a constitutional issue that could be resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court. Unfortunately, the justices are very reluctant to intervene in any dispute between Congress and the president over war powers, particularly when Congress has made the mistake of authorizing it. In fact, a wartime delegation of power has never been held unconstitutional.

Two federal courts have already held that the judiciary should not intervene in the ongoing dispute over the war in Iraq, in cases brought by a number of individuals, including members of the current Congress.

The courts’ opinions make clear there is no likelihood that the Supreme Court, which is even more distinctly conservative than the court that made George W. Bush president in Bush v. Gore, would make history by being the first to intervene in such a disagreement.

As a result - like it or not - the only way to extricate ourselves from the Iraq debacle is for the president and Congress to agree on a new strategy. To achieve that, the Democratic congressional leadership and GOP stalwarts such as Sens. Richard Lugar and John Warner should forge a bipartisan strategy that would remove our troops in Iraq from their roles as targets, in stages, replacing the military option with political and economic options, and doing it as soon as possible.

Six months ago, it would have seemed foolish to expect any bipartisan effort, or any agreement between Congress and the president, but today it appears that over the next several months that will be plausible. It’s hard to believe that in September the surge will prove to be achieving what more than four years and more than 150,000 troops have failed to accomplish.

Aware of that, more Republicans are joining Democrats in pushing for a change in tactics, in part because the war’s unpopularity continues to diminish Republican prospects for regaining control of Congress or keeping the number of seats they currently hold.

That reality puts more pressure on Bush to change course on Iraq. Because it’s possible that unless Bush changes direction, he will be memorialized as the Republican president who brought the GOP to the lowest level of prestige and power in its modern history. That, added to the other pathetically failed efforts that will be part of his legacy, might be the straw that breaks the back of his painful obstinacy.

As long as Bush is intent on rejecting whatever legislation is passed, and the Supreme Court will not intervene, there is no better alternative.

The tragedy of Iraq might have been avoided by simply complying with the clear language of the Constitution. We should keep that in mind every time we hear another warmonger whisper that we should start getting tougher with Iran.

Mario M. Cuomo, former three-term governor of New York, practices law with the international firm of Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP.


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.