Will The House Honor Their Oath To Office, Or Follow The Senate’s Lead And Cave To Fear?

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Some of us, okay, I am referring to myself, thought that FISA was cooked yesterday (really, I have thought this from the second they announced the unanimous consent agreement and bi-partisan extension baloney) and that the fork might as well be stuck in. As I said in the last thread,

…the House is putting on what appears to be a better showing than the Senate, but I have no doubt that it is all kabuki and the deal is done. I am pretty much positive that Pelosi, Hoyer and Boehner have their skids all greased and did so in conjunction with Hanoi Harry and the Senate Stumblebums. It is good to keep in mind that ALL of the representatives are up for election (only a third, give or take a few, of the Senate), so they have a vested interest in putting on a show. When the curtain closes, the final act will have been the same though.
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Remember, we thought there was at least a fighting chance in the Senate, and then all those eloquent and moving words by Chris Dodd, all followed by a whopping 29 Senators having the one ethical bone in their bodies to protect the constitution. Depressing. There is no way the House is going to squelch this after the Senate did that.

I still believe that analysis, but I will have to say that the House has put on a better show today than I expected, even after seeing the John Conyers letter issued evidencing that a little fight might be left in the old boys after all.

Cboldt had this to say last Saturday about the interplay between the Senate and House:

This latest push by the progressives, plus the fact that they have another extension ready, give me a little hope; but not much

The number of signatories, and their general “place” in the hierarchy of power, inclines me to think they are being “humored.” Their objection and voice can’t be blocked, and while it’s good to let them express their point of view, I’m not sure there is enough weight of objection in the House as a whole.

Yes, the right things are being said. But not by many.

The procedural details are in accord with the substantive material (e.g., contents of amendments, UC agreement) and a vote breakdown that heavily favors capitulation to the DNI demands. I wouldn’t be shocked if there was another extension, as a token political concession to the objectors, but I don’t expect Congress to send another extension to the WH.

I Read more →

FISA Liveblog And Trash Talk Thread Tuesday 2/12/08

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Another day, another sellout. That may actually be a good question to ask to ask any Congresscritter you can get your hands on, or voice to, over the next eight months. "What was you personal price for selling out the Constitution and my privacy? As a taxpaying constituent and citizen, I am entitled to an honest answer; what was your price?" What are the odds that even one single critter gives an honest answer? About zero is my guess. Document the atrocities as you see them today, I will be in and out, as I believe Marcy will be. A good lawyer always makes a record for appeal, even when he or she is losing miserably. So, make a record; Phred demands it! Because we are certainly going to be appealing what our Senate, and Congress, is doing to us and our Constitution by their cancerous and derelict actions on FISA.

Working Extra Hours Is Extra-Constitutional

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I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that, according to the Tuesday-through-Thursday Republicans and the Most-Vacation-Ever President, working extra days is extra-constitutional. That’s the implication, after all, of the Administration’s little temper tantrum over the fact that the Senate stayed in session over Christmas to prevent Bush from recess appointing Steven Bradbury.

Q Tony, Reid’s quote on that was — he said he called John Bolten, who, "He called me back and said it is Bradbury or nobody. I said, you’re willing to now allow 84 of your people to get approved because of this guy? He said, yep, that’s what the President wants."

MR. FRATTO: I think what the ask of the administration was, was for the President to give up his constitutional authority to make recess appointments. The power to make recess appointments is granted to the President in the Constitution. And that’s what the President was being asked to forego.

Now, the Senate, then, went and took the extra constitutional act of — over the holidays, of engaging in speed sessions with the soul purpose of frustrating the President’s constitutional authority to make appointments.

So it’s not an offer that we make — you know, that we would find credible or appropriate. And it’s also, again, not the way this system is intended to work. The system — the way it is intended to work is the President nominates, the Senate reviews the nominee, and they can give an up or down vote on these nominees, and we can either put them in place, as the President intended, or the Senate can vote them down. That’s the power that the Constitution gives them.

Apparently somewhere between Article I and Article II of the Constitution it mandates vacations. Who knew??!

For Fear Of Fear – Part One

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It has been an exciting and fascinating two days, yesterday and today. It has been the best, and worst, of American democracy in action. The thrill of victory; the agony of a weak defeat, snatched from the strong jaws of victory. Yesterday we were giddy with the knowledge that the Democratic Senate Leadership had actually stood up, not just to the Bush/Cheney/Republican cabal of maximum everything in wiretapping and privacy invasion, but in the name or the Constitution and righteousness. Today, reality came crashing back down to earth for those of us in the reality based community.

Yesterday, the Senate led by Harry Reid and the Democrats fought off cloture and a vote on the contemptible Jello Jay Rockefeller crafted SSCI FISA Update Bill that, in addition to other ills, provided immunity to Dick Cheney, George Bush, other Administration malefactors and, as somewhat of an afterthought, participating telcos. That was a good thing. There were already whispers and scuttlebutt of a "brief extension" of the truly contemptible Protect America Act. As I have argued for some time now, there are inherent problems with such a "routine brief extension".

I repeat what I said yesterday on this “brief extension” nonsense. It is nothing but sheer political posturing that brings us down to the level of the Repuglicans AND weakens our case at the same time. Take a stand for the proper principles, and stand behind them as opposed to injecting harmful BS for the sole sake of cornering your opponent; which is a fine and appropriate tactic, if it doesn’t undercut your core principle in the process. Here, it will weaken the core principle and argument in it’s favor and should NOT be considered; especially since it is not necessary “to protect us” in the least, and blindly saying that it is so necessary is ridiculous.

NO EXTENSION! There is no need whatsoever for an extension, because A) The Administration can order any comprehensive program, or programs, they want prior to the lapse of the PAA and that program(s) will stay in effect for one full year “to protect us”; and B) the original FISA law is reinstated. Furthermore, passage of any extension is a wolf in sheep’s clothing because is equitably removes and/or weakens many arguments and defenses that opponents, like us, to the PAA had from it’s original passage in August 2007. At the Read more →

Why the Sudden Veto of Military Pay Raises?

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Digby and Steve Benen are right. Bush’s impending veto of the military spending bill is just weird. Here’s how Pelosi and Reid describe the veto:

Despite the Administration’s earlier support for the Department of Defense authorization bill, it appears that President Bush plans to veto this legislation, which is crucial to our armed forces and their families.

The Defense bill passed both houses of Congress by overwhelming bipartisan margins and addresses urgent national security priorities, including a 3.5 percent pay raise for our troops and Wounded Warriors legislation to remedy our veterans’ health care system. It is unfortunate that the President will not sign this critical legislation.

Instead, we understand that the President is bowing to the demands of the Iraqi government, which is threatening to withdraw billions of dollars invested in U.S. banks if this bill is signed.

The Administration should have raised its objections earlier, when this issue could have been addressed without a veto. The American people will have every right to be disappointed if the President vetoes this legislation, needlessly delaying implementation of the troops’ pay raise, the Wounded Warriors Act and other critical measures.

It’s weird in that Bush has had months to push a very compliant Congress to write the bill precisely as he wants. And it’s weird because the stated reason for the impending veto doesn’t make any sense. Steve points to this Yahoo article explaining why. Bush says he’s going to veto the bill because the Iraqis are worried about getting sued, but the Iraqis are already protected by law.

Sovereign nations are normally immune from lawsuits in U.S. courts. An exception is made for state sponsors of terrorism and Iraq was designated such a nation in 1990. After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, however, Congress passed a law and Bush issued a decree stating that Iraq was exempt from such lawsuits. Read more →

The “Other” Provision Of The Records Act

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It appears the fluid and constantly evolving rationalization of the Bush Administration for their destruction of the torture tapes may be starting to congeal in an operative theory relying, at least in significant part, on a provision of the Federal Records Act allowing destruction of certain records located outside of the United States during wartime. As EW pointed out in the last post, this defense was revealed in Isikoff’s December 21, 2007 Newsweek article:

But agency officials could be relying on another provision of the records law that permits an agency, during wartime, to destroy records outside the continental United States that are judged to be "prejudicial to the interests of the United States." The CIA has argued that one reason for destroying the tapes was that agency officials feared that if the videotapes were leaked they might compromise the identity of the CIA interrogators.

It is certainly a relief that we don’t have some sort of rogue Administration running around destroying evidence material to a whole plethora of cases and forums, and that their decision was fully in compliance with United States law. That law would be the Federal Records Act, and the pertinent provision, as codified in 36 CFR Part 1228, reads:

a) Destruction of records outside the territorial limits of the continental United States is authorized whenever, during a state of war between the United States and any other nation or when hostile action by a foreign power appears imminent, the head of the agency that has custody of the records determines that their retention would be prejudicial to the interest of the United States, or that they occupy space urgently needed for military purposes and are without sufficient administrative, legal, research, or other value to warrant their continued preservation (44 U.S.C. 3311).

(b) Within 6 months after the destruction of any records under this authorization, a written statement describing the character of the records and showing when and where the disposal was accomplished shall be submitted to NARA (NWML) by the agency official who directed the disposal. (ed. note: see also 44 U.S.C. 3311).

Well, hold on a minute here. Is that their final answer? Of course it’s not their final answer; there is never a final answer, on anything, with the Bush Administration; just a continuing series of intentionally disingenuous obfuscations. It takes no more than a cursory inspection of the foreign war records exception to expect Read more →

What Do They Say About Cookies Crumbling?

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For the moment, we’re just talking about the singular cookie, the guy in charge of making sure no one was stealing money from our Baghdad Embassy project and also making sure that some jacked up contractors don’t kill Iraqi civilians.

Embattled State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard, under fire for allegedly impeding probes into problems with construction of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and with security firm Blackwater Worldwide, submitted his resignation Friday.

[snip]

In an e-mail to his staff, obtained by McClatchy, Krongard said that he plans to leave the government by Jan. 15.

In a reference to the upheaval in the inspector general’s office in recent months, he told his staff: "I also ask you, frankly, to make an effort to reduce the static that interferes with the harmony we would like to achieve."

There was no immediate comment from the State Department.

Though it’s beginning to feel like the big cookie is finally beginning to give way itself.

Fran Townsend Resigns

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News via TP. Actually, you should click through and read the AP report, which is stark in its brevity (at least as of 8:49 today). I think they had to use a soft return to get the announcement long enough to take up two lines.

Which suggests it’s not clear WTF to think of this. Recall that before she was appointed, Libby (back in his halcyon pre-felon days) and Addington launched a smear campaign to get Bush to appoint someone else. They were worried that Townsend might oppose some of their more, um, creative methods, particularly extraordinary rendition. But apparently she had no such moral qualms.

But don’t worry about Townsend. Given that Homeland Security is the most frequent career path for White House employees turned lobbyists, I’m sure she’ll land on her feet in the burgeoning Homeland Security industry. I’m just curious who they’ll get to do Dick’s dirty work.

Mukasey Confirmed

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From which we can take the following lessons:

  • It’s unclear that our political system has the fortitude to save itself anymore.
  • If you’re running for President, it’s dangerous to take a stand against torture–even if, like John McCain, you’ve been tortured yourself.
  • It takes a real beating–like the one Alberto Gonzales gave Richard (one good reason not to blog before coffee) Mark Pryor when he AGAG appointed Tim Griffin and attempted to "gum to death" that nomination–to convince a Senator that these votes matter (Pryor voted against confirmation).

And consider this: Muksaey, who played the same word games Gonzales did in his nomination hearings and who refused to say waterboarding is illegal, had a much greater margin of comfort than Gonzales had when he was approved for the same position (the difference is mostly due to the Presidentials not voting).

Update: pronoun clarified per JGabriel.

Pakistan and the Serious People, One

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I’m going to do a series on Pakistan–and how the blindness of the "serious people" got us into big trouble there. I’m going to use Matt Bai’s inaccurate slam on me as a foil to show how the serious people allowed themselves to get distracted from a brewing crisis that carries real consequences. I’ll start, then, by showing you the slam, and explaining what Matt got wrong. MissLaura (who wrote an insightful review of this exchange) sent along this excerpt from Matt’s book; I haven’t read the book, so if you have, let me know if there’s more to this. [Update: This exchange happened at a post-keynote bloggers chat with former VA Governor and likely future VA Senator Mark Warner.]

Marcy Wheeler, who blogged as "emptywheel" on Daily Kos, jumped infirst.  Why, she wanted to know, had Warner pointed to Iran as such abig threat to national security?  Wasn’t Pakistan a bigger problem?After all, they already had nukes.

Warner had been spending hours in private tutoring sessions on foreignpolicy, and he talked confidently about Iran’s president, MahmoudAmahdinejad, and his "whole approach toward regional hegemony."  Thismade him dangerous, Warner said.

"On what grounds?" Marcy demanded.  She had short hair and glasses anda serious demeanor.  Read more →