The last few days have brought some rather strange events. All of a sudden Bush has done an about face on his Domestic Spying Program (or has he?)
At the same time 11 U.S. Attorney's have found themselves suddenly jobless, while AG Gonzales blamed the lawyers for Bush's lack of successful terrorism prosecutions and decided yet again to threaten Judges not to mess with the President - and oh yeah - the "Scooter" Libby trial has begun selecting it's jury.
Could all this just be a coincidence?
I think not.
We already know from prior experience that Bush doesn't do anything unless he basically has no choice. He didn't go to Congress over his Military Commissions and decide to eviscerate Habeas Corpus until after the Hamdan Decision cut he previous AUMF and Unitary Executive arguments to ribbons and exposed his administration to possible War Crimes charges.
He didn't deciderer to finally run Dumpsfeld over with the Bus - despite his three previous resignations - until after the November election clearly didn't go his way and he was looking a string of democratic subpeonas square in the face.
Hamdan and Rumsfeld were his biggest potential criminal liabilities - so like any good chess player, he sacrificed those peices essentially placing his primary scapegoat for Abu Ghraib outside the government and off his table.
So just what could it be this time?
Maybe it was the fact that further evidence that U.S. has been spying on innocent Americans - who just happen to lawfully oppose the War and Bush Policy - was revealed on Tuesday.
A Defense Department database devoted to gathering information on potential threats to military facilities and personnel, known as Talon, had 13,000 entries as of a year ago -- including 2,821 reports involving American citizens, according to an internal Pentagon memo to be released today by the American Civil Liberties Union.
The Pentagon memo says an examination of the system led to the deletion of 1,131 reports involving Americans, 186 of which dealt with "anti-military protests or demonstrations in the U.S."
Titled "Review of the TALON Reporting System," the four-page memo produced in February 2006 summarizes some interim results from an inquiry ordered by then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld after disclosure in December 2005 that the system had collected and circulated data on anti-military protests and other peaceful demonstrations.
Pardon me, but when exactly did the Defense Department find a loophole around Posse Commitatus so that they could perform law enforcement on U.S. Soil?
And now that they've chosen to delete all that data, no one will be able to discover exactly where they got their information (NSA, AT&T?) who they were targetting, why, and who else they might have shared their information with (the FBI, local law enforcement, the IRS?)
All of these numerous criminal violations for torture, war crimes and domestic espionage have all stemmed from a demented interpretation of a single clause in the Constitution.
The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;
According to the Bushites this clause gives the President near absolute power to conduct War and Espionage - even against American citizens on American soil. They have told the courts that they have "No business" meddling in National Security. From Gonzales.
"We want to determine whether he understands the inherent limits that make an unelected judiciary inferior to Congress or the president in making policy judgments," Gonzales says in the prepared speech. "That, for example, a judge will never be in the best position to know what is in the national security interests of our country."
Apparently Judge Ann Diggs-Taylor vehement disagreed with this view in her NSA Wiretap ruling.
On August 17, in the first and only ruling by a federal court to strike down the controversial program, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan ruled that the warrantless wiretapping program is illegal.
"There are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution. So all ‘inherent powers’ must derive from that Constitution," Judge Anna Diggs Taylor said in a widely quoted opinion.
Now we have the revelation that Bush had decided to completely reverse himself on not going to the FISA court with his "Terrorist Surveillance Program" - sort of. From Thinkprogress.
Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) criticized the Justice Department’s new approach to warrantless domestic spying, charging that it relies "on a blanket, ‘programmatic’ approval of the president’s surveillance program, rather than approval of individual warrants." Administration officials "have convinced a single judge in a secret session, in a nonadversarial session, to issue a court order to cover the president’s terrorism surveillance program," Wilson said.
In any case, the shift yesterday "doesn’t mean the government can’t still gather personal information about Americans without a court order," a USA Today editorial states. "How? Through something called a National Security Letter. Unlike the warrantless wiretapping program, these letters don’t violate any laws, though perhaps they should."
So apparently Judges have no business involving themselves in National Security - unless the Bush administration gets them to do as their told. Interesting.
And let's not forget that in addition to National Security Letters, Bush still has his illegal Data-mining program up and running.
Just in case their attempts to bully Judges doesn't work, Bushites have decided to take another take - Kill the Lawyers.
First there are the ones who would dare to fullfil their obligation and oath to represent "Enemy Combatants".
CULLY STIMSON, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Somebody asked, Who are the lawyers around this country representing detainees down there? And you know what? It‘s shocking. The major law firms in this country, Pillsbury Winthrop, Jenner and Block, Wilmer Cutler Pickering, Covington and Burling here in D.C., Sutherland Asbill Brennan, Paul Weiss Rifkin, Mayer Brown, Weil Gotshal, Pepper Hamilton Venable, Alston and Bird, Perkins Coie, Hunton and Williams, Fulbright Jaworski, all the rest of them, are out there representing detainees.
And I think, quite honestly when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms. And I think that is going to have major play in the next few weeks.
Clearly this is a replay of the sacking Lt. Cmd Swift for winning the Hamdan case. Let's create a deterent for reputable and competent firms to take these cases - cause gee-whiz they just might win them and we can't have that now can we?
Now with the Libby Trial coming fully-online and the Vice-President slated to testi-lie we have Gonzales latest Gambit - knee-cap anyone who might be inclined to come after his boss for perjury (or obstruction, or war crimes) in the same way that so-to-be former US Prosecutor Carol Lam came after Duke Cunningham.
In her tenure leading the Southern District, which covers San Diego and Imperial counties, she prioritized prosecuting political corruption and health care fraud. She oversaw the government's case against Randy "Duke" Cunningham, the former Republican congressman who pleaded guilty to taking $2.4 million in bribes, and her office won corruption convictions of two San Diego city councilmen.
Not exactly the kind of prosecutor the Bush wants to keep around - not while they can circumvent Congress to get their own private hack into that position thanks to Arlen Specter.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) confirmed that as Judiciary Committee chairman last year he made a last-minute change to a bill that expanded the administration's power to install U.S. Attorneys without Senate approval.
Seizing upon the new authority granted by Congress last March, the White House has pushed out several U.S. Attorneys, and begun to replace them without the Senate's consent.
"I can confirm for you that yes, it was a Specter provision," a spokesperson for the senator wrote to me in an email earlier today, responding to repeated inquiries.
So with the lingering help of the 109th Congress, Bush is doing everything he can to dive for the finish line of his Presidency. He's implemented this surge, while defying the both the ISG and Congres merely to stall for time.
It's all part of his End-Game Strategy, which can be summed up simply - Get out without Getting Impeached and Prosecuted.
And his primary aider and abetter in this remains Alberto Gonzales. Jonathan Turley on Countdown last night.
TURLEY: Well, you know, Gonzalez has always acted more general than attorney in his position. He seems just inherently hostile to the rule of law. This administration for a long time said the problem was with these defendants. They shouldn‘t be allowed in court. And then the problem became the attorneys. And they prevented attorneys from meeting them. Then the problem became habeas corpus. And now the problem is the judges.
What‘s exactly left? I mean, everything is the problem, because they‘re acting outside the rule of law. And so, they‘re really hearing whistles down the track here, one coming from Congress, one coming from the courts, and both saying the same thing, that this president has been routinely and flagrantly violating the constitution that he took an oath to uphold.
That he has, but the game isn't over yet - there are still several moves to be made, subpeona's to be issued - witnesses to grill over a slow fire - and revelations to uncover which are far more likely to drive Bush's approval rating and the resistance to outright impeachment and removal from office ever lower and lower.
And the one thing they don't realize, is that the crazier and more desperate their tactics become - the less likely their are to win this game, especially in front of the Senate Judiciary Commitee (where Gonzales is scheduled to appear today- only under oath this time!)It ain't over till it's over Mr. Bush, and I despite all this thrashing about by AG Gonzales - it won't end well for you (particularly when you have witless dolts like Dinesh D'Souza on your team)
Now it's our move, let's make it a good one.
(My own personal recommendation would be to Impeach Gonzales First for the total B.S. he's about to unload on Congress over their off-again on-again support for the FISA Court)Vyan
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