Year: 2007

Jail Cells in U.S. Capitol Building Could Be Reopened for Rove, Miers and Bolten

Jon Ponder

Inherent contempt: Based on his behavior in the past few weeks, Pres. Bush must be hiding something really nefarious. He has forbidden his aides — including former legal counsel Harriet Miers, current chief of Staff Josh Bolten and now Karl Rove — from even showing up to testify about the firing for political reasons of U.S. attorneys.

“Perhaps it is time for Congress to dust off its rusty inherent contempt power, reopen the Capitol hoosegow, get some of the Capitol Police’s finest, and put a couple of people behind bars for a few days.”
— Norm Ornstein

When Democrats in Congress threatened the aides with contempt of Congress, Bush announced that the Justice Dept. would ignore the charges. In other words, his is an imperial presidency, and Emperor Bush is accountable to no one.

This leaves the Democrats with one option: charging the White House aides with inherent contempt:

Under this process, the procedure for holding a person in contempt involves only the chamber concerned. Following a contempt citation, the person cited for contempt is arrested by the Sergeant-at-Arms for the House or Senate, brought to the floor of the chamber, held to answer charges by the presiding officer, and then subject to punishment that the House may dictate (usually imprisonment for punishment reasons, imprisonment for coercive effect, or release from the contempt citation).

So assuming Rove, Miers, Bolten and other White House aides are found guilty, they would not be remanded into the federal justice system, which is overseen by the president, but rather would be jailed in the U.S. Capitol Building under the jurisdiction of the Legislative Branch.

Yes, there are jail cells in the Capitol Complex, and they once used quite frequently, according to congressional expert Norm Ornstein:

[…]

Senate Democrats Subpoena Rove

Jon Ponder

Frog march:

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy issued subpoena’s today for White House political director Karl Rove and one of his deputies, Jay Jennnings.

Leahy said he had tried to get information from Rove about the firing of U.S. attorneys apparently for political reasons but that the White House has refused to comply. “I’ve exhausted every avenue, sought the voluntary cooperatio of Karl Rove and J. Scott Jennings, but to no avail.”

House Dems’ Bill to Stop Permanent Bases in Iraq Passes Overwhelmingly

Jon Ponder

The bill was first proposed two years ago:

by a vote of 399-24, the House passed legislation introduced by Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) to prevent permanent military bases in Iraq and bar U.S. control over Iraqi oil resources.

Lee’s bill, H.R. 2929, declares that it is the policy of the United States not to establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing for the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq and not to exercise United States control of the oil resources of Iraq and prohibits the use of funds for these purposes.

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex.

— Valerie Solanis (1936-1988), radical feminist writer who shot artist Andy Warhol in 1968

Is Gonzales’ Perjury a Red Herring to Keep Focus off Bush’s Impeachable FISA Violations?

Jon Ponder

During his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales seemed to be inexplicably upbeat even while he endured hours of grilling and harsh criticism by senators from both parties.

One explanation for Gonzales’ blithe nonchalance while lying to the Senate is that his silence has been bought — as Scooter Libby’s was — with the foreknowledge that Bush will pardon him before he spends a minute in jail.

In the wake of his bizarre performance, both the Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Patrick Leahy and his Republican counterpart, Arlen Spector, have warned Gonzales that he is very close to facing perjury charges.

Compounding their threats, documents were produced yesterday that appear to demonstrate that Gonzales lied under oath about events leading up to his extremely inappropriate late-night visit in March 2004, when was White House counsel, to the hospital room of his predecessor, John Ashcroft, who was recuperating from surgery.

Others in the room have testified that Gonzales, along with Bush’s then-chief of staff Andrew Card, visited Ashcroft, who was heavily sedated, to try to convince him to countermand objections to the president’s illegal wiretapping scheme.

In earlier testimony, Gonzales claimed that no one in the administration objected to the illegal scheme. In fact, according to subsequent testimony, several top officials, including FBI Director Robert Mueller, threatened to resign if the scheme continued.

On Tuesday, Gonzales repeatedly denied that the purpose of his visit to Ashcroft in his hospital bed was the illegal program, claiming instead that it was another, as yet undisclosed secret program. The newly released documents, as well as statements by people present at a meeting prior to the trip to the hospital, appear to prove that Gonzales is lying.

Alberto Gonzales is following a course remarkably similar to that of John Mitchell, the only previous attorney general to face criminal charges. Like Gonzales, as Pres. Nixon’s A.G., Mitchell okayed the wiretapping of U.S. citizens (most of whom were political enemies of the president) and used security issues as an excuse to restrict civil liberties.

In 1975, Mitchell was found guilty of perjury, obstruction of justice and conspiracy and sentenced to 30 months in prison.

The fact that Gonzales is unconcerned about facing a fate similar to Mitchell’s may itself be circumstantial evidence of a continuing conspiracy to obstruct justice at the White House.

Earlier this year, Gonzales was said to have spent two weeks rehearsing for the appearance before the Senate in which he used phrases like “I don’t recall” dozens of times. Even on Tuesday, his responses were obviously coached and practiced so as to obfuscate … something. He obviously has something to hide. What is it?
[…]

Cheney Said to Consider Entering Presidential Race – Run, Dick, Run!

Jon Ponder

In a review of the new bio out on Vice Pres. Dick Cheney, an editorial writer for the rightwing New York Sun suggests Cheney may be considering getting into the 2008 presidential race:

At 18 percent, Cheney was less popular than Michael Jackson after he was tried for child molestation and less popular than O.J. Simpson after his murder trial.

The book quotes Senator McCain as saying, “Dick doesn’t like campaigning.” Nothing in the Hayes book suggests that Mr. Cheney is about to do it — except for that the vice president spent nearly 30 hours cooperating with the author and apparently gave the okay for many of his friends and colleagues to grant similar access. The Richard Cheney described in this book isn’t vain enough to do that simply for his reputation in history. My own guess — okay, hope — is that Mr. Cheney has taken a look at the Republican presidential field and sees an opening. If Iowa and New Hampshire Republicans start receiving copies of ” Cheney” in their mailboxes, Mr. Cheney’s popularity may yet begin to climb.

If Cheney gets in, I would seriously consider switching my support for the most beatable GOP nominee from Newt Gingrich to the vice president.

Meanwhile, back in reality:

The Washington Post’s polling expert, Richard Morin, noted that at 18 percent approval, Vice President Cheney was less popular than Michael Jackson after he was tried for child abuse and O.J. Simpson after he was tried for murder. Mr. Hayes quotes Mr. Morin as reporting that Mr. Cheney was “less popular with Americans than Joseph Stalin is with Russians.”

O’Reilly Blunders, Unintentionally Ratchets Up Netroots Support for Sen. Clinton

Jon Ponder


Via: Blogometer: Howard Wolfson, spokesman for Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, went on Bill O’Reilly’s show Tuesday night to defend DailyKos from O’Reilly’s recent attacks. This line stands out:

Hey Bill: We’ve been attacking you for years, so, how about it? Show us some hate. It’s good for business.

Unfortunately with all due respect for you, the days where you can dictate where Senator Clinton and other Democrats go, who we talk to, are over.

Bill O’Reilly just can’t get it through his head that he is seen as such a bully that it actually helps his opponents when he attacks them. Just ask Al Franken, whose book, “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them,” made millions more than it would have if Bill hadn’t sued over Franken’s depiction of him.

Or ask Keith Olbermann, whose almost daily attacks on O’Reilly as the “Worst Person in the World” have helped make “Countdown” the most popular live show on MSNBC.

Now O’Reilly has turned his guns on DailyKos, labeling it a “hate speech” site, a charge he bases on a few vile and nasty statements cherrypicked from the site’s comments section — one of the largest boards on the Internets. O’Reilly’s campaign against DailyKos has had some success. He forced JetBlue to reneg on its promised level of sponsorship for the upcoming YearlyKos conference. Now he’s trying to bully the presidential candidates into skipping the event.

Predictably (to everyone but Bill), his attacks on the Kos community have had the unintended consequence of improving Sen. Clinton’s popularity among the Netroots. Until now, conventional wisdom considered the online left to be a big obstacle for Clinton in the primaries because of her conservative positions.

That dynamic appears to be shifting — thanks entirely to Bill O’Reilly. As a DailyKos member put it:

[O’Reilly] thinks he’s destroying kos’ credibility when in fact what he is doing is causing all the candidates to stand behind the [YearlyKos] conference and the web site, and by Hillary being so up front in defending Daily Kos, he is helping people here who don’t like her start to rally around her.

Hey Bill: We’ve been attacking you for years (the cartoon of your big giant head with a loofah background is a little something we worked up in 2005) — so, how about it? Show us some hate. There’s some pretty salty stuff — and some of it is about you — in our comments section, so please feel free to call us a hate speech site. It’s good for business.

Dems Pass Contempt Citation against Bolten and Miers in Committee

Jon Ponder

A House Judiciary Committee cited two top loyal Bushies with contempt of Congress charges today:

The Democratic-controlled House Judiciary Committee, on a 22-17 party-line vote, approved citations against Joshua Bolten, White House chief of staff, and former counsel Harriet Miers. Bolten refused to turn over documents related to the dismissals, and Miers disobeyed a subpoena to appear before the panel and answer questions about her role in the firings.

The issuance of contempt citations, which also requires approval by the full House of Representatives, would escalate the dispute between Bush and Congress over the president’s assertion of executive privilege to forbid testimony by his aides.

Ignoring the fact that the refusal of the White House to turn over evidence had led to the citation, Republicans argued that the citation was unnecessary because there was no evidence of wrongdoing.

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

We are a long way from the glory days of Mission Accomplished, when the Iraq war was over before it was over — indeed before it really began — and the president could dress up like a fighter pilot and land on an aircraft carrier, and the nation, led by a pliable media, would applaud. Now, late in this sad, terribly diminished presidency, mired in an unwinnable war of their own making, and increasingly on the defensive about events which, to their surprise, they do not control, the president and his men have turned, with some degree of desperation, to history.

— David Halberstam (1934-2007), Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author

How Appropos — FlaDems Meeting at Disney World

Buck Banks

I can’t think of a more appropriate place for a Mickey Mouse organization to convene than the fantasy land of Disney World. Between their ineffectual Five Point Plan and lead cheerleader Karen Thurman (the Annette Funicello of the Florida Democratic Party), these folks believe it’s a small world after all and they are living in their own Cinderella’s castle if they think they actually will be a factor in the upcoming elections.

Surprisingly, they are running out of blocked hotel space for the Oct. 25-29 statewide party convention, and have booked more space at Disney’s Yacht & Beachfront Resort, which is an ersatz New England coastal village (think Kennebunkport).

Seems a perfect venue for a faux political party.