Tag: Scandals

Obama Posts the Letters; See What an Ass John McCain is For Yourself

Trish

First of all, the snarky, snarly, nastiness of Sen. John “Please W., Screw Me a Little Harder Just So Long As You Let Me Be President Next” McCain (R.-Ariz.) is way understated in the news reports about his attack on Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill).

Everyone that frames this as “an exchange” in which one side is just as bad as the other, ala the Refrickinpublican Abramoff scandal, is just flat wrong.

Second, everyone including NPR’s Day to Day, that frames this as “an exchange” in which one side is just as bad as the other, a la the Refrickinpublican Abramoff scandal, is flat wrong.

Don’t take my word for it. Sen. Obama has posted the actual letters for the world to see. If you don’t walk away from reading John McCain’s sarcastic, insulting, and belittling missive feeling like he’s a complete — forgive my French — shithead then check your voter registration card. It must say “Republican.”

Here’s what Obama said that Johnny evidently took such exception to:

I know you have expressed an interest in creating a task force to further study and discuss these matters, but I and others in the Democratic Caucus believe the more effective and timely course is to allow the committees of jurisdiction to roll up their sleeves and get to work on writing ethics and lobbying reform legislation that a majority of the Senate can support.

And here’s just a sample of “Hothead” McCain’s vitriol in return:

I understand how important the opportunity to lead your party’s effort to exploit this issue must seem to a freshman Senator, and I hold no hard feelings over your earlier disingenuousness. Again, I have been around long enough to appreciate that in politics the public interest isn’t always a priority for every one of us.

Are you feeling it yet? Barack “Real Deal” Obama took all that and still turned the other cheek, in a new letter dated today.

I confess that I have no idea what has prompted your response. But let me assure you that I am not interested in typical partisan rhetoric or posturing. The fact that you have now questioned my sincerity and my desire to put aside politics for the public interest is regrettable but does not in any way diminish my deep respect for you nor my willingness to find a bipartisan solution to this problem.

Visit the site for updates, if McCain still has the heart for showing his ass to the world.

Government Considers Retrying Bush Supporter Sami Al-Arian on Terror Charges

Trish

Another picture Bush doesn’t want you to see: The American Civil Liberties Union is asking the government to give it a rest in the case of recently acquitted terror suspect Sami Al-Arian. But Bush pettiness and pandering probably won’t allow that. St. Petersburg Times:

Al-Arian campaigned in Florida with Bush during the 2000 presidential campaign and had his photo taken with Bush at the Florida Strawberry festival in Plant City.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida urged the government Monday not to retry Sami Al-Arian, who was acquitted in December on eight counts of terrorism-related charges in a federal trial in Tampa. The jury hung on nine counts, with 10 jurors favoring total acquittal on all but an immigration charge.

In a letter to federal authorities, the director of the Florida ACLU wrote: “In light of the jury’s acquittal … on the most serious charges and in light of reportedly spending millions of dollars in a trial that led to no convictions, a decision to retry (Dr. Al-Arian) would appear to be pointless and vindictive.”

But “pointless and vindictive” kind of sums up the Bush approach to fighting terror. Why, you might ask, does Bush Co. have a personal stake in this trial? The real Al-Arian/Republican story is pretty juicy. […]

Logic, History and the Facts Prove That Pres. Clinton Did Not Break FISA Laws

Jon Ponder

Gop slime machine: It’s a classic Mayberry Machiavelli maneuver right out of the Atwater/Rove/Bush playbook. When your side has done something criminally malfeasant, kick up dust by claiming your opponents have done it too.

Think about it: If the corrupt Republicans who ran the Congress in the 1990’s had even suspected that Clinton’s actions were illegal – or if they could have found a way to contort the facts to make it appear he had broken the law – they would have impeached him much sooner than they did.

Reacting to news that George Bush admitted that he spied on Americans without bothering to get the proper warrants and thereby violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) law – while also shredding the U.S. Constitution and its prohibitions against against unreasonable searches and seizures — rightwing propagandists like Drudge and Byron York have floated the claim that Democratic presidents Clinton and Carter essentially did the same thing.

You don’t even have to know the facts in the matter to know that these are Big Lies. All you have to do is apply logic and a casual knowledge of Clinton era history.

During the entirety of his presidency, President Clinton was under investigation by the Republican Congress for matters large (the death of Vince Foster) and small (who paid the postage on answer to fan mail sent to the Clintons’ cat), and everthing in between – all of which turned out to be bogus. (They finally resorted to perjury-trapping him into a sex lie.)

The actions related to warrantless seizures taken by the Clinton Administration were legal and the Republicans in Congress were fully aware that these actions were being taken. Think about it: If corrupt Gop politicians like Newt Gingrich, Dan Burton and Henry Hyde had even suspected that Clinton’s actions were illegal – or if they could have found a way to contort the facts to make it appear he had broken the law – they would have impeached him much sooner than they did.

And the idea that Jimmy Carter – the last truly decent and honorable man to serve as president – would break the law is simply laughable.

Drudge, York et al are simply lying:

[…]

Out of 18,761 FISA Requests, Only Five Were Rejected

Jon Ponder

According to USA Today, the government made 18,761 request for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens between 1979 and 2004. Only five requests were rejected. Fewer than 100 had to be modified.

The assertion that the President Bush had to break the law because getting a FISA warrant would have been too slow or burdensome is simply false.

Presdent Bush willfully broke the law, and now he’s lying about his motives. And, just for good measure, he’s also casting blame for his own transgressions onto the poor luckless Democrats in Congress: “It’s their fault because they didn’t stop me! Maybe you should investigate them.”

Cheney Admits Role in Apparently Illegal Domestic Spying

Jon Ponder

Constitution in the shredder: No one could seriously believe that President Bush thought up the idea of trashing the Constitution and spying on U.S. citizens himself. This anti-democratic move has Cheney’s fingerprints all over it – but the only thing that would cause him to admit is his need to score political points against former Sen. Bob Graham:

Vice President Dick Cheney separately disclosed that he played a direct role in the controversial surveillance program.

In an interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC’s “Nightline,” Cheney denied charges by former Sen. Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat, that the White House did not disclose the scope of the secret program when administration officials briefed Graham, then head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, in 2002.

“He knew,” Cheney said.

“I sat in my office” with Lt. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, who was then head of the National Security Agency and is now deputy director of national intelligence, to brief Graham at the time, Cheney said.

He said the program was reviewed every 45 days by the president, the attorney general, the CIA director, the president’s legal counsel and the office of legal counsel in the Justice Department.

But key members of the Republican Party expressed doubts Sunday about the legality of Bush’s action. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he would conduct hearings on the monitoring of international phone calls, faxes and e-mails of as many as 500 U.S. citizens or residents since 2002, all done without warrants.

Another BS Speech from the Bush – But the BS Appears to Be Working

Jon Ponder

Propaganda by repetition: The campaign by the White House to boost public opinion of President Bush by repeating key words like “victory,” “terrorism” and “9/11” in his speeches over and over – and over – is working. His poll numbers have spiked four points! As usual, Buzzflash speaks for us all:

Frankly, we don’t give a damn if Bush was a little “more candid” in his script Sunday night. It’s all written for him based on polls anyways.

(An academic pollster from Duke has been hired by the White House to conform Bush speeches and Republican message points — that includes FOX GOP News — to polling results the guy has developed. These results show that the American public will put up with increasing U.S. military casualties if Bush promises “Victory” as the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s that simple; it’s all propaganda based on the polling of some “pointy headed” professor. It has nothing to do with reality. How’s that for irony?)

To us, for Bush to be completely candid, he would have to admit to crimes against the nation, the Constitution and humanity — and accept his judgment before the American courts and the World Court.

For us, if the president would just resign – and take Cheney with him – we would advocate letting them both off the hook, with the proviso that, like Nixon in exile, they must both stay off the political stage. With Bush in exile working on his abs in Crawford, and Cheney in exile in a nondisclosed location, the world would be a safer place.

(And yes, we’d have President Hastert to deal with, but the GOP would be chastened and it would find it harder to win congressional seats than the last time they disgraced themselves, with Nixon in 1974 – or the time before that, with McCarthy in the 1950’s – or the time before that, with Hoover at the dawn of the Great Depression.)

Ralph Reed: Poster Boy for the Abramoff Effect

Trish

Surprisingly good commentary from the MSM on Ralph Reed’s troubled run for the Number Two spot in Georgia next year. CBS:

Reed is an example of what Jack Abramoff will mean to the GOP next year

For Reed, this run for lieutenant governor is part of an assault on greatness: lieutenant governor in 2006, governor in 2010, and president after that. But Reed is an example of what Jack Abramoff will mean to the GOP next year. Reed was an integral part of the Abramoff gambling swindle in Texas in 2002, in which the former super lobbyist worked both sides of the gambling debate, working for one client to get a casino shut down, with Reed’s help, then signing up the vanquished Indian tribe for more than $4 million to get the casino reopened, which he tried to do with the help of the now embattled Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio.

It is hard to measure but impossible to deny the damage that Abramoff has done to the GOP’s chance in 2006, and Reed may become the poster boy for the Abramoff Effect in the 2006 midterms. If Republicans can’t pull off the political reversal they need in the wake of Iraq and Katrina and get rid of the scandal cloud over the Congress, the 2006 elections may go down in history as the end of the GOP revolution of 1994, a 12-year period during which they not only ran the government, but developed a pugnacious, unsentimental way of doing business and an overconfidence that Democrats still have not figured out how to match. And in a lot of ways, Reed and Abramoff were archetypes of the times, and weaved into the collapse of their personal and political fortunes, is the demise of a political movement.

From CBS’s lips to God’s ears.

Congress Has No One But Itself to Blame for Coronation of King George

Trish

As lawmakers and Sunday show pundits finally began to notice that Pres. Don’t Bother Me With the Constitution is out of control vis a vis domestic spying, there is proof that it’s not all in our minds. A.P. interviewed Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, who admitted Congress has abdicated its Founding Father-envisioned role of checking and balancing the other two branches.

The panel issued 1,052 subpoenas to probe alleged misconduct by the Clinton administration and the Democratic Party between 1997 and 2002 [which] cost more than $35 million. By contrast, the committee under Davis has issued three subpoenas to the Bush administration

“Republican Congresses tend to overinvestigate Democratic administrations and underinvestigate their own,” said Davis, who added that he has tried to pick up some of the slack with his committee. “I get concerned we lose our separation of powers when one party controls both branches.”

Democrats on the committee said the panel issued 1,052 subpoenas to probe alleged misconduct by the Clinton administration and the Democratic Party between 1997 and 2002. The Democratic analysis found that those congressional probes cost more than $35 million. By contrast, the committee under Davis has issued three subpoenas to the Bush administration, two to the Energy Department over nuclear waste disposal at Yucca Mountain, and one last week to the Defense Department over Hurricane Katrina documents…

“I do not think you can argue today that Congress is a coequal branch of government; it is not,” said Lee Hamilton, president of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman and vice chairman of the Sept. 11 commission…

A partial list of egregious, no-brainer starting points for investigations includes:

…14 areas where the GOP majority has “failed to investigate” the administration, including: the role of senior officials in the abuse of detainees; the leaking of the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame; the role of Vice President Dick Cheney’s office in the awarding of contracts to Cheney’s former employer, Halliburton; the White House’s withholding from Congress the cost of a Medicare prescription drug plan; the administration’s relationship with Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi; and the influence of corporate interests on energy policy, environmental regulation and tobacco policy.

Meanwhile, the House ethics committee has not opened a new case or launched an investigation in the past 12 months, despite an array of outside investigations involving, among others, [California Rep. Duke] Cunningham and Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Rightwinger Barr Says Bush’s Spying Is Impeachable So Freepers Attack Dems and Media

Jon Ponder

You can’t make this stuff up: Pam Spaulding went to Freeper Country looking for reaction to former GOP Rep. Bob Barr’s statement on Friday that President Bush was “apparently in violation of federal laws” when he authorized domestic spying.

“The problem isn’t the spying; it’s the secrecy. Surely that’s something conservatives can wrap their heads around, as Bob Barr seems to have done.”
— Shakespeare’s Sister

After first refusing to confirm or deny that he had ordered spying on U.S. citizens, President Bush came out swinging yesterday, using national security (9/11) to justify (9/11) his shredding (9/11) of the Constitution (9/11) . The White House strategy now is to muddy the waters. They cite newer laws that contradict the 1978 law Bush allegedly broke that requires the government to obtain special court orders before wiretapping Americans.

Of course, these complexities are too large to fit in the Freepers’ walnut-sized brainpan. Here are a few of Pam’s Actual Freeper Quotes�:

“There is nothing I’d like to see more than a Democrat attempt to impeach GWB for doing his duty to proetct America. The backlash would be incredible. 58-60 Republican Senators in 2006. The true colors of the America haters and Al Quaida sympathizers would be out for all to see. Let the debate go on…”

[…]

More Trouble on the Right for Bush – Bob ‘Impeachment’ Barr Says Domestic Spying Is a ‘Violation of Federal Laws’

Jon Ponder

Complete Transcript: Barr Debates Rohrabacher – here.

Thunder on the right – again: I happened to catch former Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA) duking it out with current Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) on CNN yesterday over news that President Bush has been spying on U.S. citizens, which Barr said has been done “apparently in violation of federal laws.”

“Well, gee, I guess then the president should be able to ignore whatever provision in the Constitution as long as there’s something after the fact that justifies it.”
— Bob Barr

The president’s poll numbers are just now starting to inch up as conservatives who lost faith with him over Iraq and Katrina – and because he nominated his secretary to the Supreme Court – are starting to “come home.”

The last thing the White House needs now is another big internecine row. And they cannot want a fight with a pit bull like Barr – who as a Congressman filed charges against President Clinton long before the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke. ( During the actual impeachment, he was one of the House Managers who tried the case against the president. )

Thrice divorced, Barr drafted the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 which bans federal recognition of same sex marriages. A strong opponent of abortion, his second wife says that Barr footed the bill when she terminated a pregnancy. A vocal advocate of “family values,” he was once photographed licking whipped cream off a woman’s naked chest.

All this hypocritical extremity aside, Barr is a strident conservative well to the right of the Big Government neocons who are running the government. So it is significant that he has come out so strongly against the charges of domestic spying – which, if proven to be illegal, are impeachable:

[…]