All well and good, Senator Specter

But this time, don't capitulate, do it.

Surprise surprise surprise....

How on earth can Senator Specter be surprised? We all could see what was coming, where was he?

During their nomination hearings, Roberts said he had “no agenda.” Alito said he would rule in a “neutral fashion.” Yet the two Bush nominees have sided with one another approximately 90 percent of the time.

The Senate is frustrated that the two justices have not lived up to their promises. Yesterday, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) said that the Senate “should not confirm another U.S. Supreme Court nominee under President Bush ‘except in extraordinary circumstances.’” Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), who championed the nominations of Alito and Roberts, plans to review their Senate testimony to “determine if their reversal of several long-standing opinions conflicts with promises they made to senators to win confirmation.”

This could get really interesting...

Patrick Fitzgerald to be called before the Senate?

Today on CNN’s Late Edition, Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Arlen Specter (R-PA), the committee’s top Republican, announced that they were interested in calling Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to testify about the CIA leak investigation.

Habeas Corpus

Via whig at cannablog, this video:



Sign the petition.

Also

The Senate Judiciary Committee [] voted for the Specter/Leahy habeas restoration bill. The committee sent it to the floor with no amendments, no debate and on almost a party line vote (with the GOP sponsor, Senator Arlen Specter from Pennsylvania voting in favor).

Kudos to all the Democratic senators who showed up and waited for a quorum (critical mass for a vote); Senator Feinstein came in just under the buzzer.

Senators voting aye: Leahy (D-Vt.), Specter (R-Pa.), Kennedy (D-Ma.), Biden (D-Del.), Kohl (D-Wis.), Feinstein (D-Cal.), Feingold (D-Wis.), Schumer (D-N.Y.), Durbin (D-Ill.), Cardin (D-Md.), Whitehouse (D-R.I.).

Senators voting nay: all the other Republicans (Hatch, Grassley, Kyl, Sessions, Graham, Cornyn, Brownback, Coburn).

Hatch, Grassley, Kyl, Sessions, Graham, Cornyn, Brownback, Coburn voted AGAINST the Constitution. Remember that.

Pelosi is evil and bad because she visits Syria part 2

Chester of Vanity Press discusses the Logan act and provides a list of all the other Speakers of the House and errant Congressmen who have stepped over the line:

The clear intent of this provision [Logan Act] is to prohibit unauthorized persons from intervening in disputes between the United States and foreign governments. Nothing in section 953 [Logan Act], however, would appear to restrict members of the Congress from engaging in discussions with foreign officials in pursuance of their legislative duties under the Constitution.

But, let's pretend for a moment that Pelosi's trip really did violate this act that has never been enforced and which does not apply to members of Congress in pursuit of their responsibilities. All right: let's look who else would have to be arrested for violation of the act:

• Newt Gingrich, for interfering with the Clinton administration's policy in China in 1997, and in Israel in 1998.
• Dennis Hastert, for interfering with the Clinton administration's policy in Columbia in 1998.
• Arlen Specter, for interfering with the Bush administration's policy in Syria in 2006, and offering to meet with the president of Iran.
• "Representatives Frank Wolf of Virginia, Joseph Pitts of Pennsylvania and Robert Aderholt of Alabama," for interfering with the Bush administration's policy in Syria three days before Pelosi.
  
• Jesse Helms, for undermining the Clinton administration's policy before the UN Security Council in 2000 (h/t John).
  
• Darrell Issa, for undermining the Bush administration's policy in Syria one day after Pelosi.
• David Hobson, for undermining the Bush administration's policy in Syria at the same time as Pelosi.
• Condoleeza Rice, whose State Department facilitated the visit, and thereby collaborated in the commission of a felony.
  
• George W. Bush, who specifically permitted the visit, and thereby aided and abetted the commission of a felony.

Would that be all right? Can we get these ten prominent Republicans in prison right away?

Update: Olvlzl of Echidne of the Snakes notes that Bush blocked Carter from visiting Syria; Issa (R) criticized Bush after visiting Syria right after Pelosi had been there and Pelosi had not said anything negative about Bush, and Pelosi has shown world class leadership. Thank god.

Somebody's gone to the library

And actually read the Constitution:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Senate Republican on Tuesday directly challenged President Bush's declaration that "I am the decision-maker" on issues of war.

"I would suggest respectfully to the president that he is not the sole decider," Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said during a hearing on Congress' war powers amid an increasingly harsh debate over Iraq war policy. "The decider is a shared and joint responsibility," Specter said.

The question of whether to use its power over the government's purse strings to force an end to the war in Iraq, and under what conditions, is among the issues faced by the newly empowered Democratic majority in Congress, and even some of the president's political allies as well.

[snip]

"The Constitution makes Congress a coequal branch of government. It's time we start acting like it," said Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., who is chairing a hearing Tuesday on Congress' war powers and forwarding legislation to eventually prohibit funding for the deployment of troops to Iraq.

His proposal, like many others designed to force an end to U.S. involvement in the bloody conflict, is far from having enough support even to come up for a vote on the Senate floor.

Closer to that threshold is a nonbinding resolution declaring that Bush's proposal to send 21,500 more troops to Baghdad and Anbar province is "not in the national interest." The Senate could take up that measure early next month.

But some senators, complaining that the resolution is symbolic, are forwarding tougher bills.

Update: Glenn Greenwald lists a few quotes from Republicans when they were protesting Clinton maintaining troops into Somalia, and declaring that Congress had such the right to remove them.

When Bill Clinton was President, most of the country's leading Republicans did not seem to have any problem at all with Congressional "interference" in the President's decisions to deploy troops (really to maintain troop deployments, since President Bush 41 first deployed in Somalia). There wasn't any talk back then (at least from them) about the burden of "535 Commanders-in-Chief" or "Congressional incursions" into the President's constitutional warmaking authority. They debated restrictions that ought to be legislatively imposed on President Clinton's military deployments and then imposed them.

And Sen. McCain in particular made arguments in favor of Congressionally-mandated withdraw that are patently applicable to Iraq today. And he specifically argued with regard to forcible troop withdrawal that "responsibilities for that lie with the Congress of the United States." The Constitution hasn't changed since 1993, so I wonder what has prompted such a fundamental shift in Republican views on the proper role of Congressional war powers.

Quick! Bush has only two years left

To destroy our legal system!

"Attorney General Alberto Gonzales says federal judges are unqualified to make rulings affecting national security policy, ramping up his criticism of how they handle terrorism cases.

In remarks prepared for delivery Wednesday, Gonzales says judges generally should defer to the will of the president and Congress when deciding national security cases. He also raps jurists who “apply an activist philosophy that stretches the law to suit policy preferences.”"

Later Gonzales declared his warrantless wiretapping was now legal because it's being overseen by one FISA judge. "Happy now?" demanded Abu Gonzales as he checked off yet another item on the list....

Arlen Specter sold out the Senate in its ability to choose U.S. Attorneys.

"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. Earlier we reported that Specter had been fingered for the last-minute change, made in a select Republicans-only meeting after the House and Senate had voted on earlier version."


Update:

Democratic Daily has more on the Bush shift to FISA:

"Did BushCo bow under the pressure of the new Democratic Congress on his domestic wiretapping program? Tony Snow sounded a tad but defensive when he insisted to reporters that “the move was neither politically motivated, in response to any criticism or tied to any court action.”"

Patrick Leahy beats up Gonzales about torture.