The Palace Revolt at DOJ

Newsweek has the Scoop on the Palace Revolt at the DOJ - Dedicated, Career Justice Attorney's who've been speaking out about the excesses of the Bush Administration.

Feb. 6, 2006 issue - James Comey, a lanky, 6-foot-8 former prosecutor who looks a little like Jimmy Stewart, resigned as deputy attorney general in the summer of 2005. The press and public hardly noticed. Comey's farewell speech, delivered in the Great Hall of the Justice Department, contained all the predictable, if heartfelt, appreciations. But mixed in among the platitudes was an unusual passage. Comey thanked "people who came to my office, or my home, or called my cell phone late at night, to quietly tell me when I was about to make a mistake; they were the people committed to getting it right—and to doing the right thing—whatever the price. These people," said Comey, "know who they are. Some of them did pay a price for their commitment to right, but they wouldn't have it any other way."

One of those people—a former assistant attorney general named Jack Goldsmith—was absent from the festivities and did not, for many months, hear Comey's grateful praise. In the summer of 2004, Goldsmith, 43, had left his post in George W. Bush's Washington to become a professor at Harvard Law School. Stocky, rumpled, genial, though possessing an enormous intellect, Goldsmith is known for his lack of pretense; he rarely talks about his time in government. In liberal Cambridge, Mass., he was at first snubbed in the community and mocked as an atrocity-abetting war criminal by his more knee-jerk colleagues. ICY WELCOME FOR NEW LAW PROF, headlined The Harvard Crimson.

They had no idea. Goldsmith was actually the opposite of what his detractors imagined. For nine months, from October 2003 to June 2004, he had been the central figure in a secret but intense rebellion of a small coterie of Bush administration lawyers. Their insurrection, described to NEWSWEEK by current and former administration officials who did not wish to be identified discussing confidential deliberations, is one of the most significant and intriguing untold stories of the war on terror.

These Justice Department lawyers, backed by their intrepid boss Comey, had stood up to the hard-liners, centered in the office of the vice president, who wanted to give the president virtually unlimited powers in the war on terror. Demanding that the White House stop using what they saw as farfetched rationales for riding rough-shod over the law and the Constitution, Goldsmith and the others fought to bring government spying and interrogation methods within the law. They did so at their peril; ostracized, some were denied promotions, while others left for more comfortable climes in private law firms and academia. Some went so far as to line up private lawyers in 2004, anticipating that the president's eavesdropping program would draw scrutiny from Congress, if not prosecutors. These government attorneys did not always succeed, but their efforts went a long way toward vindicating the principle of a nation of laws and not men.

<>Vyan

NSA Talking Points from Wingnutsville

It's only been a few days since the President started his pro-Domestic Spying promotional campaign and already the talking points are swirling about the web in support of the program. The basic argument -- It's Always Been This Way.

I stumbled onto this via a blog called Obviously Right and a post called Leftist Ignorance Strikes Again!, prompted quite bizarrely by statements made on Fox News Watch in support of the today's New York Times Editoral on the NSA and Bush Administration Lies.

During the Revolutionary War, Ben Franklin, under orders from General Washington, monitored every piece of mail from the colonies. Every piece.

Ok, it's it beyond obvious that the revolutionary war took place before the Constitution even existed and that the arguement that the President now has powers based on what happened then makes little sense when there was no such thing as an American President at the time? You might as well make an arguement based on spying commited by Napoleon, it would be just about as relevant.

In the Civil War, President Lincoln wiretapped telegraph communications, imprisoned a U.S. Congressman without bail or trial, closed hundreds of anti-War newspapers and summarily executed- without trial- hundreds of Confederate spies.

To go step further, President Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. The problem which was well pointed out by Josh Marshall is that the Article I exception which allows for temporary suspension is a power which is granted to the Congress, not the President. And further, this Presidential suspension was eventually found to be illegal and unconstitutional.

Justice Taney concluded:

The clause of the constitution, which authorizes the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, is in the 9th section of the first article. This article is devoted to the legislative department of the United States, and has not the slightest reference to the executive department.

So yes, President Lincoln did attempt to utilize broad executive powers, but that doesn't mean that his attempts were in fact, lawful. They weren't.

In WWI, President Wilson had all cable communications with Europe intercepted.

In WWII, FDR spied on every single bit of electronic communications from the U.S. to other countries Every one.

FDR apparently did far more than that.

As political scientist Allen Weinstein pointed out in a refreshing article in the Washington Post, the recently discovered fact that Roosevelt secretly bugged the Oval Office and discussed with aides the possibility of using "dirty tricks" on Wendell Willkie in the 1940 campaign should be seen in a wider context: the use of secret agents and wiretapping to keep track of and harass his political opponents. Roosevelt, for instance, had a wiretap as well as an informer planted in the offices of the great anti-interventionist paper, the Washington Times-Herald. Other critics of Roosevelt’s war policy were similarly bugged; and J. Edgar Hoover was given instructions to monitor the affair going on between young John F. Kennedy and Inga Arvad, a young reporter on the Times-Herald. In short, many of the excesses we associate with the subsequent baddies in the Oval Office have their real origin in the "great" FDR.

These events may have occured as asserted by AG Gonzales, but that doesn't neccesarily mean that they were legal or would have reasonably withstood a challenge in court. (The rampant and clearly politically motivated surveillance projects by Hoover was a key impetous to the creation of the FISA law) By keeping these program secret, these Administrations were able to avoid such a challenge - which is precisely why the use of this kind of power under the cloak of secrecy is so dangerous.

Subsequent to these events President Truman attempted to exert similar power during the Korean War and seize control of the nations steel mills in order to prevent a shortage of vital materials. His action was found completely unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the 1952 Youngstown v Sawyer decision. Logic dictates that this results of this decision supercede the Constitutionality of the secret actions of prior Administrations.

President Clinton broke into people's houses without a warrant, to investigate a spy ring.

This has already been heavily discussed, but the point is that the 1978 FISA law did not cover physical searches at the time and following this event the Clinton Administration took steps to change to change the law so that these searches would be included within FISA. At any rate, electronic and telephonic searches - which is the subject at hand - are absolute included within FISA and that law is current the exclusive controlling authority on the issue.

The Bush Administration can make claims that this President or that President has previous done the same thing (some have and some haven't) -- but so far, they haven't shown that any of them have been able to succesfully survive a true Constitutional Challenge on the issue. Trying to use one illegal act by one President to justify another illegal by another President simply doesn't fly.

Lastly in the most recent test of Article II powers, President Bush was defeated on the issue of whether those powers could be executed without Judicial Review in Hamdi v Rumsfeld. The Supremes found in Hamdi that.

We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation ’s citizens. Youngstown Sheet &Tube ,343 U.S.,at 587. Whatever power the United States Constitution envisions for the Executive in its exchanges with other nations or with enemy organizations in times of conflict,it most assuredly envisions a role for all three branches when individual liberties are at stake. Mistretta v.United States, 488 U.S.361,380 (1989)(it was “the central judgment of the Framers of the Constitution that,within our political scheme,the separation of governmental powers into three coordinate Branches is essential to the preservation of liberty ”);Home Building &Loan Assn.v.Blaisdell,290 U.S.398,426 (1934)(The war power “is a power to wage war successfully,and thus it permits the harnessing of the entire energies of the people in a supreme cooperative effort to preserve the nation.But even the war power does not remove constitutional limitations safeguarding essential liberties ”).Likewise,we have made clear that,unless Congress acts to suspend it,the Great Writ of habeas corpus allows the Judicial Branch to play a necessary role in maintaining this delicate balance of governance,serving as an important judicial check on the Executive ’s discretion in the realm of detentions.

Transferring the rules established by Hamdi to the NSA situation would clearly indicate that probable cause, judicial review. and a warrant are still required before subjecting American citizens to the same treatment as foreign terrorist targets.

Sorry guys, you lose this round.

Vyan

Hopeless Causes and other Windmills of Conviction

We stand at a crossroads. A pivotal moment in history where we will either see the true beginnings of an strong and committed opposition party - or continued aquiencense to the Boy King George.

Both the State of the Union and the critical vote either confirming or filibustering Judge Sam Alito to the Supreme Court will take place in two days. It's clear that Bush will continue to play the "Fear the Osama" card and argue that he is "protecting Americans" from losing their life and liberties, by taking away their liberties. What is less clear is whether he will attempt to put forward yet another bold far-reaching policy objective like say -- Reforming Social Security, or possibly confronting those "Evildoers" in Iran who continue to persue Nuclear (power) ambitions.

Many moderate Democrats and pundits have argued that a filibuster of Alito is "Pointless and doomed to fail". But maybe the point is that worthy battles need to be fought, simply because the battle itself is worthy.

Today on Meet the Press (Video from Crooks and Liars), in the midst of stammering and dodging his way through questions about Iraq, his support of the Domestic Spying Program despite it's clear illegality, his flat-out-wrong arm-chair diagnosis of Terry Schiavo, and allegations of insider stock trading Senate Majority Leader Dr. Bill Frist claimed that Democrats "don't have very much in the way of Principles and Ideas - they want to raise your taxes".

Well, no actually - they want to reverse the Bush tax cuts for the top %1 of earners. That change alone would pay for the War, properly armor and protect our troops, as well as properly fund the rebuilding of Katrini and restore $28 billion that's been cut to Student Aid - but it wouldn't would raise your taxes, or my taxes, it would raise Bill Frist's (and his family which happens to own one of the largest chains of for-profit Hospitals in the nations) taxes.

Democrats certainly do have principles, convictions and ideas.

• We don't think it's right let the man who killed 3,000 Americans get away so that you can start a second war using false pretenses, out a CIA agent in order to cover your ass, then fail to provide proper troop levels, fail to provide them adequate protection and then completely botch the reconstruction process of the nation we've just blown half-way to hell.
  
  
• We don't think it's right to emasculate regulatory and oversight agencies to the point that you have not just one company commiting massive fraud and theft, you have an epidemic of them from Enron to Tyco and AlDelphia.
  


• We don't think ignoring safety regulation enforcement promotes good business strategie, nor does it protect lives for that matter.
  
  
• We don't think it's right for companies to raid their pension funds.
  
  
• We don't think our seniors living on a fixed income should be forced into a drug program that bleeds them dry.
  
  
• We don't think it's right to spy on American Citizens without probable cause or a Warrant.
  
  
• We don't think it's right to indefinately detain American Citizens without a hearing.
  
  
• We don't think it's right to Torture detainees, particularly when over 100 of them have died in custody as a result and the information they've provided has been shaky at best.
  
  
• We don't think it's right to ignore clear warnings of an impending national disaster, then completely foul up the recovery and cleanup.
  
  
• We don't think it's right for U.S. Congressmen, who outwardly pretend to be pious and deeply religious, to use their position to protect the Saipan Sex Trade.
  
  
• We don't think it's right to ask the most vulnerable of us to shoulder the greatest burden, in order to further enrich those who want for practically nothing, while creating a stealth tax increase for everyone else.
  
  
• We don't think it's right to ignore rampant election fraud, twice.
  
  
• We don't think it's right to accept and give bribes to Congressmen.
  
  
• And most importantly, we don't think it's right for the President to sign a law, them immediately claim the law doesn't apply to him.

Apparently the Republicans who control both Congress and the Whitehouse think there's nothing wrong with any of the above. That this is an acceptable way to run a country. We don't.

On Tuesday a majority of Senate Democrats are going to stand up for their principles, ideas and convictions by asking for a filibuster of Sam Alito. At this point in time we don't know whether that filibuster will be succesful or not, we don't know if it will trigger the pulling of the "nuclear trigger" or not -- but we will certainly know what it means to be called...

A Democrat.

Sometimes what you truly believe in becomes clear - what truly defines you - is what you're willing to stand up and oppose. Especially when all the odds are against you, because that is the very definition of "Principle", is it not? I think standing up against this type of malfeasance, incompetent and blatant power-whore facism - is what it mean to be, an American.

You never know, there might still be a few Republican and/or Conservatives who remember what that used to be like...

Vyan

Over the Wingnut Rainbow

Darksyde - is rapidly becoming one of my favorite Dkos Diarists. Today he let forth a blistering attack on Wingnuttery that simply left my jaw dropped in awe. Extensive excerpts follow:

Naturally, pointing out with precise references and thorough documentation that some White House contortionists are conflating authorized spying of foreigners with illegal domestic snooping is sure to elicit cries from the extreme right. When accuracy intrudes into their fantasy, the chorus of shrill voices from Wingerville rises to a deafening crescendo, like an auditorium full of drunken howler monkeys juiced on steroids.

....

Let's pretend for a moment, with all the ideality of an exceptionally creative five-year old, that the NSA domestic spying program has not been misused or mismanaged. Imagine: Hundreds of government officials in darkened rooms quietly manning electronic gizmos and softly glowing plasma screens, watching, reading, recording... YOU. Sure, maybe from time to time they breathe heavy and their pulse quickens when they overhear you discuss the most intimate details of your personal love life with a trusted friend, or e-mail your significant other a racy pic. Perhaps they run across some hotties in particular who are always good for an eavesdropping thrill, deserving of a little 'extra' surveillance if you know what I mean. But by and large, let's say your juiciest, most embarrassing communiqués are not widely passed around the backrooms of Spy HQ for kicks, or used to create secret files to act as future blackmail material.

...

And as long as we're spinning a yarn, lets go whole hog and say that the intel thus acquired is quickly and clearly brought to the attention of every double super-secret official that 'needs to know' ... with the singular exception being the double super-secret FISA Court the WH is lawfully required to notify and seek permission from. I know that's an awful lot of "if's" and "assume's". But this isn't reality; it's over the wingnut rainbow, so bear with me. That's where we need to be to ask the bush-base the obvious question:

Who thinks even with all that going for the powers that be, that we could confidently infer the White House gang would, from that point on, competently multitask and execute a coordinated interagency response so as to Protect Us From Danger?


..

Bush & Co. were warned an attack was coming in a Presidential Daily Briefing with the (Apparently confusing and cryptic) title of "Bin Laden determined to strike in the US" a month in advance of 9-11. Condi clarified that with something along the lines that the PDB didn't really mean bin Laden is determined to strike in the US, only that bin Laden is determined to strike in the US. You can see there's a world of difference hinging on what the meaning of the word is is.

The White House and the Republican House and Senate were warned, extensively, that not strengthening the levees in New Orleans was a gamble, the solution they came to was to slash funding for the whole project. They were warned over and over that allowing the wetland buffers to disappear would make the impact of any storm worse, they happily ignored that and enacted policies that accelerated the process.

They were warned days ahead of time that Katrina was gonna be the 'big one' by pretty much anyone who knew anything. Including the senior NOAA storm meteorologists, who were sitting in the Miami Office watching Katrina on the screen issuing urgent bulletins full of terms like 'unprecedented strength', "catastrophic', and 'record storm surge', while telling the national media it was going to be worse than any storm in living memory.

...

As the flood waters first ravaged the coast and then filled up New Orleans, the White House did nothing, they were all on vacation. Well, maybe they did something; Bush did do a little brush clearing and some guitar strumm'n. A vacationing Condi thought it would be a good time catch a Broadway Show and go shopping for new shoes. Michael Brown, head of FEMA, was bragging that he looked like a fashion God.

And of course, once again, after the fact, Bush and the whole crew showed up days late and a few tens of billions of dollars short. And of course, once again, he and his bumbling cronies du jour proceeded to appear in a series of hastily scheduled interviews and photo-ops in operation Cover Bush's Ass. Meanwhile, people stranded in apocalyptic disaster zones fought over rancid candy bars and soggy loaves of moldy bread; AKA "looting". The tragicomic highlights included Bush claiming 'No one could have anticipated' the disaster on national television and later assuring us that "Brownie was doing a heckuva a job", a few weeks before Brownie resigned under a black cloud of disgrace for utterly screwing up the job. Just this week we found out that several departments specifically warned the White House and predicted the city would be flooded before the storm hit:

...

BushCo was warned the Medicare Drug Plan would be a fiscal nightmare, the warning went unheeded. The WH was warned by senior, seasoned, combat military officers that the plan to invade Iraq was deeply flawed, they ignored them, too. Now the US Army is nearing the breaking point. Although in the interests of balance I should mention the Pentagon says the Pentagon can't be trusted on that.

Record deficit predictions? Ignored. Terrorist attacks increasing over seas against US allies? Pooh-poohed with contempt. Iraq would be far more costly than the rosy estimates from the White House minions? Laughed at and dismissed.

And in case there's any doubt at all about how these clowns approach serious threats and looming disasters, what was the response from the GOP and their media mannequins when it turned out both Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri were alive, merrily making new tapes, mocking the US, bragging about attacks elsewhere, and promising us we're next on the list? A renewed focus on bin Laden? Stepped up terror alerts and exercises? Cracking some heads at the DHS to get their asses in gear fixing the documented shortcomings from the bipartisan committee that gave them a failing grade on a half-dozen critical tasks? Did they express the slightest concern that the years elapsed since 9-11 have exceeded the time it took the US to march from the destruction of Pearl Harbor to victory in Tokyo?

Nope. Their reaction was: Let's go get Howard Dean and Michael Moore! Attack the Democrats!

I understand cutting our leaders some slack and standing behind them in the months following 9-11. But seriously, at what point do we admit the only single, overriding, consistent White House characteristic for five years straight has been to ignore or discredit warning signs until it's too late, and then totally fucking up what's left beyond all recognition, while lying about it and hoping the trouble just goes away?

I'm curious, in a lab rat kind of way, about the behavior and internal mental processing of people who think it's just dandy to flush the Bill of Rights down the toilet, ignore the law, and turn over our precious liberties to any administration's arbitrary judgment. Most especially this White House given their record of failure piled on top of failure. Hoping they can protect us from anything, let alone nukes or nerve gas, is wishful thinking in the extreme, considering they couldn't protect the residents of the gulf coast from standing water. Forget about protection, I'd be happy if they just voluntarily told the goddamn truth once, without having to wait for it to leak out of someone's slimy ass months later, or be subpoenaed out of their zombie-like death grip after two years of legal maneuvering. In fact, strike even that modest hope; it would be a nice change of pace if Bush Inc. said nothing at all instead of blatantly lying from the get go.

<>
Hope springs eternal, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for that one.

Vyan

NYT: Spies, Lies and Wiretaps

Today's New York Times has an editorial that finally and completely blows the lid off this tragicomedy of errors, arrogance and incompetence that is the Bush Administration.

A bit over a week ago, President Bush and his men promised to provide the legal, constitutional and moral justifications for the sort of warrantless spying on Americans that has been illegal for nearly 30 years. Instead, we got the familiar mix of political spin, clumsy historical misinformation, contemptuous dismissals of civil liberties concerns, cynical attempts to paint dissents as anti-American and pro-terrorist, and a couple of big, dangerous lies.

The first was that the domestic spying program is carefully aimed only at people who are actively working with Al Qaeda, when actually it has violated the rights of countless innocent Americans. And the second was that the Bush team could have prevented the 9/11 attacks if only they had thought of eavesdropping without a warrant.

Sept. 11 could have been prevented. This is breathtakingly cynical. The nation's guardians did not miss the 9/11 plot because it takes a few hours to get a warrant to eavesdrop on phone calls and e-mail messages. They missed the plot because they were not looking. The same officials who now say 9/11 could have been prevented said at the time that no one could possibly have foreseen the attacks. We keep hoping that Mr. Bush will finally lay down the bloody banner of 9/11, but Karl Rove, who emerged from hiding recently to talk about domestic spying, made it clear that will not happen — because the White House thinks it can make Democrats look as though they do not want to defend America. "President Bush believes if Al Qaeda is calling somebody in America, it is in our national security interest to know who they're calling and why," he told Republican officials. "Some important Democrats clearly disagree."

Mr. Rove knows perfectly well that no Democrat has ever said any such thing — and that nothing prevented American intelligence from listening to a call from Al Qaeda to the United States, or a call from the United States to Al Qaeda, before Sept. 11, 2001, or since. The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act simply required the government to obey the Constitution in doing so. And FISA was amended after 9/11 to make the job much easier.

Yes, but making the job of protecting the nation easier, isn't really what they want is it? I think not. Moving on to the rest of those dangerous lies (shown in bold).

Only bad guys are spied on. Bush officials have said the surveillance is tightly focused only on contacts between people in this country and Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Vice President Dick Cheney claimed it saved thousands of lives by preventing attacks. But reporting in this paper has shown that the National Security Agency swept up vast quantities of e-mail messages and telephone calls and used computer searches to generate thousands of leads. F.B.I. officials said virtually all of these led to dead ends or to innocent Americans. The biggest fish the administration has claimed so far has been a crackpot who wanted to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch — a case that F.B.I. officials said was not connected to the spying operation anyway.

The spying is legal. The secret program violates the law as currently written. It's that simple. In fact, FISA was enacted in 1978 to avoid just this sort of abuse. It said that the government could not spy on Americans by reading their mail (or now their e-mail) or listening to their telephone conversations without obtaining a warrant from a special court created for this purpose. The court has approved tens of thousands of warrants over the years and rejected a handful.

War changes everything. Mr. Bush says Congress gave him the authority to do anything he wanted when it authorized the invasion of Afghanistan. There is simply nothing in the record to support this ridiculous argument.

The administration also says that the vote was the start of a war against terrorism and that the spying operation is what Mr. Cheney calls a "wartime measure." That just doesn't hold up. The Constitution does suggest expanded presidential powers in a time of war. But the men who wrote it had in mind wars with a beginning and an end. The war Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney keep trying to sell to Americans goes on forever and excuses everything.

Looks to me like the NYT just fired a great big elephant gun and burst the Bush Administrations hopes of making this whole "NSA spying thing" just go away like an an exploding Macy's Day balloon. Pffhhhhhbbbbbbzzzzzzzzzzzzzzttttttttttt!!! So much for his barnstorming multi-state promo tour of Red-State strongholds to defend the plan....

Vyan

Bush's most famous Flip-Flops

The Center for American Progress has compiled a list of Bush's most famous position flip-flops.

1. Social Security Surplus

BUSH PLEDGES NOT TO TOUCH SOCIAL SECURITY SURPLUS... "We're going to keep the promise of Social Security and keep the government from raiding the Social Security surplus." [President Bush, 3/3/01]

...BUSH SPENDS SOCIAL SECURITY SURPLUS The New York Times reported that "the president's new budget uses Social Security surpluses to pay for other programs every year through 2013, ultimately diverting more than $1.4 trillion in Social Security funds to other purposes." [The New York Times, 2/6/02]

2. Patient's Right to Sue

GOVERNOR BUSH VETOES PATIENTS' RIGHT TO SUE... "Despite his campaign rhetoric in favor of a patients' bill of rights, Bush fought such a bill tooth and nail as Texas governor, vetoing a bill coauthored by Republican state Rep. John Smithee in 1995. He... constantly opposed a patient's right to sue an HMO over coverage denied that resulted in adverse health effects." [Salon, 2/7/01]

...CANDIDATE BUSH PRAISES TEXAS PATIENTS' RIGHT TO SUE... "We're one of the first states that said you can sue an HMO for denying you proper coverage... It's time for our nation to come together and do what's right for the people. And I think this is right for the people. You know, I support a national patients' bill of rights, Mr. Vice President. And I want all people covered. I don't want the law to supersede good law like we've got in Texas." [Governor Bush, 10/17/00]

...PRESIDENT BUSH'S ADMINISTRATION ARGUES AGAINST RIGHT TO SUE "To let two Texas consumers, Juan Davila and Ruby R. Calad, sue their managed-care companies for wrongful denials of medical benefits ‘would be to completely undermine' federal law regulating employee benefits, Assistant Solicitor General James A. Feldman said at oral argument March 23. Moreover, the administration's brief attacked the policy rationale for Texas's law, which is similar to statutes on the books in nine other states." [Washington Post, 4/5/04]

3. Tobacco Buyout

BUSH SUPPORTS CURRENT TOBACCO FARMERS' QUOTA SYSTEM... "They've got the quota system in place -- the allotment system -- and I don't think that needs to be changed." [President Bush, 5/04]

...BUSH ADMINISTRATION WILL SUPPORT FEDERAL BUYOUT OF TOBACCO QUOTAS "The administration is open to a buyout." [White House spokeswoman Jeanie Mamo, 6/18/04]

4. North Korea

BUSH WILL NOT OFFER NUCLEAR NORTH KOREA INCENTIVES TO DISARM... "We developed a bold approach under which, if the North addressed our long-standing concerns, the United States was prepared to take important steps that would have significantly improved the lives of the North Korean people. Now that North Korea's covert nuclear weapons program has come to light, we are unable to pursue this approach." [President's Statement, 11/15/02]

...BUSH ADMINISTRATION OFFERS NORTH KOREA INCENTIVES TO DISARM"Well, we will work to take steps to ease their political and economic isolation. So there would be -- what you would see would be some provisional or temporary proposals that would only lead to lasting benefit after North Korea dismantles its nuclear programs. So there would be some provisional or temporary efforts of that nature." [White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, 6/23/04]

5. Abortion

BUSH SUPPORTS A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO CHOOSE... "Bush said he...favors leaving up to a woman and her doctor the abortion question." [The Nation, 6/15/00, quoting the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, 5/78]

...BUSH OPPOSES A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO CHOOSE "I am pro-life." [Governor Bush, 10/3/00]

6. OPEC

BUSH PROMISES TO FORCE OPEC TO LOWER PRICES... "What I think the president ought to do [when gas prices spike] is he ought to get on the phone with the OPEC cartel and say we expect you to open your spigots...And the president of the United States must jawbone OPEC members to lower the price." [President Bush, 1/26/00]

...BUSH REFUSES TO LOBBY OPEC LEADERS With gas prices soaring in the United States at the beginning of 2004, the Miami Herald reported the president refused to "personally lobby oil cartel leaders to change their minds." [Miami Herald, 4/1/04]

7. Iraq Funding

BUSH SPOKESMAN DENIES NEED FOR ADDITIONAL FUNDS FOR THE REST OF 2004... "We do not anticipate requesting supplemental funding for '04" [White House Budget Director Joshua Bolton, 2/2/04]

...BUSH REQUESTS ADDITIONAL FUNDS FOR IRAQ FOR 2004 "I am requesting that Congress establish a $25 billion contingency reserve fund for the coming fiscal year to meet all commitments to our troops." [President Bush, Statement by President, 5/5/04]

8. Condoleeza Rice Testimony

BUSH SPOKESMAN SAYS RICE WON'T TESTIFY AS 'A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE'... "Again, this is not her personal preference; this goes back to a matter of principle. There is a separation of powers issue involved here. Historically, White House staffers do not testify before legislative bodies. So it's a matter of principle, not a matter of preference." [White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, 3/9/04]

...BUSH ORDERS RICE TO TESTIFY: "Today I have informed the Commission on Terrorist Attacks Against the United States that my National Security Advisor, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, will provide public testimony." [President Bush, 3/30/04]

9. Science

BUSH PLEDGES TO ISSUE REGULATIONS BASED ON SCIENCE..."I think we ought to have high standards set by agencies that rely upon science, not by what may feel good or what sounds good." [then-Governor George W. Bush, 1/15/00]

...BUSH ADMINISTRATION REGULATIONS IGNORE SCIENCE "60 leading scientists—including Nobel laureates, leading medical experts, former federal agency directors and university chairs and presidents—issued a statement calling for regulatory and legislative action to restore scientific integrity to federal policymaking. According to the scientists, the Bush administration has, among other abuses, suppressed and distorted scientific analysis from federal agencies, and taken actions that have undermined the quality of scientific advisory panels." [Union of Concerned Scientists, 2/18/04]

10. Ahmed Chalabi

BUSH INVITES CHALABI TO STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS...President Bush also met with Chalabi during his brief trip to Iraq last Thanksgiving [White House Documents 1/20/04, 11/27/03]

...BUSH MILITARY ASSISTS IN RAID OF CHALABI'S HOUSE "U.S. soldiers raided the home of America's one-time ally Ahmad Chalabi on Thursday and seized documents and computers." [Washington Post, 5/20/04]

11. Department of Homeland Security

BUSH OPPOSES THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY..."So, creating a Cabinet office doesn't solve the problem. You still will have agencies within the federal government that have to be coordinated. So the answer is that creating a Cabinet post doesn't solve anything." [White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, 3/19/02]

...BUSH SUPPORTS THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY "So tonight, I ask the Congress to join me in creating a single, permanent department with an overriding and urgent mission: securing the homeland of America and protecting the American people." [President Bush, Address to the Nation, 6/6/02]

12. Weapons of Mass Destruction

BUSH SAYS WE FOUND THE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION..."We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories...for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them." [President Bush, Interview in Poland, 5/29/03]

...BUSH SAYS WE HAVEN'T FOUND WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION "David Kay has found the capacity to produce weapons.And when David Kay goes in and says we haven't found stockpiles yet, and there's theories as to where the weapons went. They could have been destroyed during the war. Saddam and his henchmen could have destroyed them as we entered into Iraq. They could be hidden. They could have been transported to another country, and we'll find out." [President Bush, Meet the Press, 2/7/04]

13. Free Trade

BUSH SUPPORTS FREE TRADE... "I believe strongly that if we promote trade, and when we promote trade, it will help workers on both sides of this issue." [President Bush in Peru, 3/23/02]

...BUSH SUPPORTS RESTRICTIONS ON TRADE "In a decision largely driven by his political advisers, President Bush set aside his free-trade principles last year and imposed heavy tariffs on imported steel to help out struggling mills in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, two states crucial for his reelection." [Washington Post, 9/19/03]

14. Osama Bin Laden

BUSH WANTS OSAMA DEAD OR ALIVE... "I want justice. And there's an old poster out West, I recall, that says, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive.'" [President Bush, on Osama Bin Laden, 09/17/01]

...BUSH DOESN'T CARE ABOUT OSAMA "I don't know where he is.You know, I just don't spend that much time on him... I truly am not that concerned about him."[President Bush, Press Conference, 3/13/02]

15. The Environment

BUSH SUPPORTS MANDATORY CAPS ON CARBON DIOXIDE... "[If elected], Governor Bush will work to...establish mandatory reduction targets for emissions of four main pollutants: sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury and carbon dioxide." [Bush Environmental Plan, 9/29/00]

...BUSH OPPOSES MANDATORY CAPS ON CARBON DIOXIDE "I do not believe, however, that the government should impose on power plants mandatory emissions reductions for carbon dioxide, which is not a 'pollutant' under the Clean Air Act." [President Bush, Letter to Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), 3/13/03]

16. WMD Commission

BUSH RESISTS AN OUTSIDE INVESTIGATION ON WMD INTELLIGENCE FAILURE... "The White House immediately turned aside the calls from Kay and many Democrats for an immediate outside investigation, seeking to head off any new wide-ranging election-year inquiry that might go beyond reports already being assembled by congressional committees and the Central Intelligence Agency." [NY Times, 1/29/04]

...BUSH SUPPORTS AN OUTSIDE INVESTIGATION ON WMD INTELLIGENCE FAILURE "Today, by executive order, I am creating an independent commission, chaired by Governor and former Senator Chuck Robb, Judge Laurence Silberman, to look at American intelligence capabilities, especially our intelligence about weapons of mass destruction." [President Bush, 2/6/04]

17. Creation of the 9/11 Commission

BUSH OPPOSES CREATION OF INDEPENDENT 9/11 COMMISSION... "President Bush took a few minutes during his trip to Europe Thursday to voice his opposition to establishing a special commission to probe how the government dealt with terror warnings before Sept. 11." [CBS News, 5/23/02]

...BUSH SUPPORTS CREATION OF INDEPENDENT 9/11 COMMISSION "President Bush said today he now supports establishing an independent commission to investigate the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks." [ABC News, 09/20/02]

18. Time Extension for 9/11 Commission

BUSH OPPOSES TIME EXTENSION FOR 9/11 COMMISSION... "President Bush and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) have decided to oppose granting more time to an independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks." [Washington Post, 1/19/04]

...BUSH SUPPORTS TIME EXTENSION FOR 9/11 COMMISSION "The White House announced Wednesday its support for a request from the commission investigating the September 11, 2001 attacks for more time to complete its work." [CNN, 2/4/04]

19. One Hour Limit for 9/11 Commission Testimony

BUSH LIMITS TESTIMONY IN FRONT OF 9/11 COMMISSION TO ONE HOUR... "President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have placed strict limits on the private interviews they will grant to the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, saying that they will meet only with the panel's top two officials and that Mr. Bush will submit to only a single hour of questioning, commission members said Wednesday." [NY Times, 2/26/04]

...BUSH SETS NO TIMELIMIT FOR TESTIMONY "The president's going to answer all of the questions they want to raise. Nobody's watching the clock." [White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 3/10/04]

20. Gay Marriage

BUSH SAYS GAY MARRIAGE IS A STATE ISSUE... "The state can do what they want to do. Don't try to trap me in this state's issue like you're trying to get me into." [Gov. George W. Bush on Gay Marriage, Larry King Live, 2/15/00]

...BUSH SUPPORTS CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT BANNING GAY MARRIAGE "Today I call upon the Congress to promptly pass, and to send to the states for ratification, an amendment to our Constitution defining and protecting marriage as a union of man and woman as husband and wife." [President Bush, 2/24/04]

21. Nation Building

BUSH OPPOSES NATION BUILDING... "If we don't stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, then we're going to have a serious problem coming down the road." [Gov. George W. Bush, 10/3/00]

...BUSH SUPPORTS NATION BUILDING "We will be changing the regime of Iraq, for the good of the Iraqi people." [President Bush, 3/6/03]

22. Saddam/al Qaeda Link

BUSH SAYS IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEEN AL QAEDA AND SADDAM... "You can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror." [President Bush, 9/25/02]

...BUSH SAYS SADDAM HAD NO ROLE IN AL QAEDA PLOT "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in Sept. 11." [President Bush, 9/17/03]

23. U.N. Resolution

BUSH VOWS TO HAVE A UN VOTE NO MATTER WHAT... "No matter what the whip count is, we're calling for the vote. We want to see people stand up and say what their opinion is about Saddam Hussein and the utility of the United Nations Security Council. And so, you bet. It's time for people to show their cards, to let the world know where they stand when it comes to Saddam." [President Bush 3/6/03]

...BUSH WITHDRAWS REQUEST FOR VOTE "At a National Security Council meeting convened at the White House at 8:55 a.m., Bush finalized the decision to withdraw the resolution from consideration and prepared to deliver an address to the nation that had already been written." [Washington Post, 3/18/03]

24. Involvement in the Palestinian Conflict

BUSH OPPOSES SUMMITS... "Well, we've tried summits in the past, as you may remember. It wasn't all that long ago where a summit was called and nothing happened, and as a result we had significant intifada in the area." [President Bush, 04/05/02]

...BUSH SUPPORTS SUMMITS "If a meeting advances progress toward two states living side by side in peace, I will strongly consider such a meeting. I'm committed to working toward peace in the Middle East." [President Bush, 5/23/03]

25. Campaign Finance

BUSH OPPOSES MCCAIN-FEINGOLD... "George W. Bush opposes McCain-Feingold...as an infringement on free expression." [Washington Post, 3/28/2000]

...BUSH SIGNS MCCAIN-FEINGOLD INTO LAW "[T]his bill improves the current system of financing for Federal campaigns, and therefore I have signed it into law." [President Bush, at the McCain-Feingold signing ceremony, 03/27/02]

26. 527s

Bush opposes restrictions on 527s: "I also have reservations about the constitutionality of the broad ban on issue advertising [in McCain Feingold], which restrains the speech of a wide variety of groups on issues of public import." [President Bush, 3/27/02]

…Bush says 527s bad for system: "I don't think we ought to have 527s. I can't be more plain about it…I think they're bad for the system. That's why I signed the bill, McCain-Feingold." [President Bush, 8/23/04]

27. Medical Records

Bush says medical records must remain private: "I believe that we must protect…the right of every American to have confidence that his or her personal medical records will remain private." [President Bush, 4/12/01]

…Bush says patients' histories are not confidntial: The Justice Department…asserts that patients "no longer possess a reasonable expectation that their histories will remain completely confidential." [BusinessWeek, 4/30/04]

28. Timelines For Dictators

Bush sets timeline for Saddam: "If Iraq does not accept the terms within a week of passage or fails to disclose required information within 30 days, the resolution authorizes 'all necessary means' to force compliance--in other words, a military attack." [LA Times, 10/3/02]

…Bush says he's against timelines: "I don't think you give timelines to dictators." [President Bush, 8/27/04]

29. The Great Lakes

Bush wants to divert great lakes: "Even though experts say 'diverting any water from the Great Lakes region sets a bad precedent' Bush 'said he wants to talk to Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien about piping water to parched states in the west and southwest.'– [AP, 7/19/01]

Bush says he'll never divert Great Lakes: "We've got to use our resources wisely, like water. It starts with keeping the Great Lakes water in the Great Lakes Basin...My position is clear: We're never going to allow diversion of Great Lakes water." [President Bush, 8/16/04]

30. Winning The War On Terror

Bush claims he can win the war on terror: "One of the interesting things people ask me, now that we're asking questions, is, can you ever win the war on terror? Of course, you can." [President Bush, 4/13/04]

…Bush says war on terror is unwinnable: "I don't think you can win [the war on terror]." [President Bush, 8/30/04]

…Bush says he will win the war on terror: "Make no mistake about it, we are winning and we will win [the war on terror]." [President Bush, 8/31/04

Posted in it's entirety because it's only by listing it all that the impact can truly sink in. Now, I don't begrudge anyone honestly changing their mind, or finding a better arguement more compelling - but for someone who claims to be "stedfast and resolute" this record is stunningly flaccid and flexible.

Vyan

Memo to Matt, Katie and Timmeh!

From TAP:

A new and extensive analysis of campaign donations from all of Jack Abramoff's tribal clients, done by a nonpartisan research firm, shows that a great majority of contributions made by those clients went to Republicans. The analysis undercuts the claim that Abramoff directed sums to Democrats at anywhere near the same rate.

The analysis, which was commissioned by The American Prospect and completed on Jan. 25, was done by Dwight L. Morris and Associates, a for-profit firm specializing in campaign finance that has done research for many media outlets [...]

The analysis shows:

in total, the donations of Abramoff's tribal clients to Democrats dropped by nine percent after they hired him, while their donations to Republicans more than doubled, increasing by 135 percent after they signed him up;

five out of seven of Abramoff's tribal clients vastly favored Republican candidates over Democratic ones;

four of the seven began giving substantially more to Republicans than Democrats after he took them on;

Abramoff's clients gave well over twice as much to Republicans than Democrats, while tribes not affiliated with Abramoff gave well over twice as much to Democrats than the GOP -- exactly the reverse pattern.

"It's very hard to see the donations of Abramoff's clients as a bipartisan greasing of the wheels," Morris, the firm's founder and a former investigations editor at the Los Angeles Times, told The Prospect.

George10 Brings it home.

The media has had a field day villanizing Indian tribes, implying that any donation by an Indian tribe is a bribe. Of course Democrats accepted funds from tribes. But there is no evidence whatsoever that any Democrats are involved in this scandal. Jack Abramoff, an admitted felon, is a Republican lobbyist. This is Republican scandal, through and through.

So will the newsreaders (I refuse to call them "reporters") like Katie Couric and Matt Lauer eat crow on national television? Of course not. The smear is out there, their deed is done.

Draft Patriot Act Show NSA Spying is Illegal

From Georgia10

The Washington Post reports on draft legislation proposed in 2003 which would have expanded the President's power for warrantless spying:

Legislation drafted by Justice Department lawyers in 2003 to strengthen the USA Patriot Act would have provided legal backing for several aspects of the administration's warrantless eavesdropping program. But officials said yesterday that was not the intent. [...]

Some critics of the NSA program said the draft legislation raises questions about recent administration claims that Bush had clear legal authority to order warrantless domestic spying in late 2001 and had no need to go to Congress for explicit approval.

"It's rather damning to their current view that they didn't need legislation," said Timothy H. Edgar, a national security lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union. "Clearly the lawyers at the Justice Department, or some of them, felt that legislation was needed to allow the government to do what it was doing."

FISA allows the president to conduct warrantless surveillance, without FISA approval, for 15 days after a declaration of war. This draft legislation sought to amend that section and expand its application to authorizations for the use of force, not just formal declarations. It may be that the 2003 draft legislation was a type of pre-emptive measure to protect the program. My suspicion is that the language was ultimately dropped because the administration feared the debate that would have resulted. I suspect the administration balanced the odds. Option #1: Kill the amendment, continue without the cover of law, and hope no one would find out about the program. Option #2: Proceed with the amendment, and hope it passes for legal cover. But if it failed to pass, then the administration would truly be screwed. If Congress rejected this amendment, it would have explicitly rejected the very conduct the administration was engaged in. Perhaps the administration went with Option #1 and rolled the dice.

Some bloggers were emphasizing this shortly after the story broke. For example, I highlighted this amendment in Patriot Act II back on January 1st (link). Back then, I pointed out that the administration sought to include this language in the Patriot Act revival:

The 2001 resolution was not a declaration of war formal enough to trigger Section 1811 and its warrantless searches. Indeed, the dept. argued to expand the section specifically to include "authorizations for use of force".

The draft legislation was included in what's been dubbed "Patriot Act II". You can find a copy of it here. While the Justice Department dismisses the proposed legislation as being drafted by a few low level staffers, it stands as a key indicator of the concerns which permeated the DOJ about this program. Recall that the deputy Attorney General would not sign off on the program. This is a critical fact which must be repeated as often as possible. Doubts about the legality of the program reached the very top of the DOJ.