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Lacking a whole hell of a lot more than just polish

QUESTION: Is there anything you would have done differently?

YOO: These memos I wrote were not for public consumption. They lack a certain polish, I think – would have been better to explain government policy rather than try to give unvarnished, straight-talk legal advice. I certainly would have done that differently, but I don’t think I would have made the basic decisions differently.

Scott Horton of Harper's:

Yesterday the Obama Administration released a series of nine previously secret legal opinions crafted by the Office of Legal Counsel to enhance the presidential powers of George W. Bush. Perhaps the most astonishing of these memos was one crafted by University of California at Berkeley law professor John Yoo. He concluded that in wartime, the President was freed from the constraints of the Bill of Rights with respect to anything he chose to label as a counterterrorism operations inside the United States.

Horton concludes his article:

We may not have realized it at the time, but in the period from late 2001-January 19, 2009, this country was a dictatorship. The constitutional rights we learned about in high school civics were suspended. That was thanks to secret memos crafted deep inside the Justice Department that effectively trashed the Constitution. What we know now is likely the least of it.

No. We don't.

I get to use this pic again:

Nancy, look what happens when you leave it on the table!

Amazing, isn't it? A country is capable of removing an incompetent and dangerous administration without destroying the government:

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, facing impeachment on charges drawn up by the governing coalition, has announced that he is resigning.

He went on national TV to say that while he was confident the charges would not stand, this was not the time for more confrontation.

He is accused of violation of the constitution and gross misconduct.

[snip]

The key issue now is whether the ruling coalition, which had pushed for Mr Musharraf's exit since winning the February election, can stay united and deliver on its promises, he says.

It will have to agree on a new president, then persuade allies like the US and UK, and its neighbours like India and Afghanistan, that it will be committed to defeating militancy and terrorism, our correspondent adds.

International reaction to Mr Musharraf's resignation was mixed, with the US hailing him as strong ally against terrorism but Afghanistan welcoming his departure as a boost to democracy.

Because the government is of the people, by the people, for the people

Dmark of Flyover Country:

As long as Nancy Pelosi hold the office of Speaker of the House, every time she appears in public someone needs to stand before her and say:

Madame Speaker, The President of the United States and the Vice-President of the United States have, by their own admission, broken the laws of the United States to a level which may be construed as Treason. They have admitted to actions which the world has deemed War Crimes. Why have you not followed the oath of office to which you swore, and brought these crimes before the body of which you are leader? Why have you shirked your duty and ignored your oath and not sought the impeachment of these officials as is required by the Constitution? Why have you stated that you will not even consider impeachment even though the oath you swore requires you to? How can you stand before the people of the United States and the world and refuse to do that to which you swore?

You can't ignore the people, Nancy. We want answers. We want justice. We want impeachment.

Even if Obama becomes president

Things will not really change unless we demand it. Fascinating video from the NetRoots Nation meeting in July.

If you have an hour and a half, listen as if your Constitution and your country depend on it, because they do.

(side note, after the speakers are through, there are odd silences. The mic did not pick up people asking questions.)

On Saturday, July 19th 2008, at the NetRoots Nation conference in Austin, Texas, Jen Nessel (CCR) moderated a panel of speakers including Vince Warren (CCR), Jameel Jaffer (ACLU), Jeremy Scahill (DemocracyNow), and Dahlia Lithwick (Slate.com) who spoke and answered questions about Constitutional Rights.

Considering the fact that the Bush administration has worked systematically over the last seven years to violate U.S. and international law, and that legal advocates and journalists have uncovered the facts and identified those responsible, this panel explored what accountability should now look like. Additionally they discussed what the courts and the next administration must do in its first 100 days to make things right.

A president should have nearly dictatorial powers

True or false?

McCain's Communication Director thinks it's a good idea....

The Constitution says no:

The structure of government in the United States is laid out in the Constitution. The Constitution describes three co-equal branches of government:

• The national, or federal, legislature is called the "Congress." It is made up of elected officials from each state. These officials are responsible for enacting the laws.
• The executive branch, headed by the President, is responsible for running the government and enforcing the laws that Congress enacts.
• The Judicial branch is responsible for interpreting the laws and settling formal disputes between people or between people and the government.

Way to start out on the right foot there, John.

The gauntlet has been thrown down and your blood should run cold.

This is the very definition of a Constitutional crisis.

Digby of Hullabaloo: (my bold)

The Attorney General is saying that the President can do anything he wants, break the law any way he wants, as long as the President's own Justice Department, populated his own handpicked officials, validates it. And he's saying it directly to members of Congress, essentially telling them that they don't exist. They have no power to prosecute because the Justice Department won't take up the case, and the courts have no power to adjudicate because these are official state secrets. There is only one branch of government that matters.

[snip] David Kurtz:

President Bush has now laid down his most aggressive challenge to the very constitutional authority of Congress. It is a naked assertion of executive power. The founders would have called it tyrannical. His cards are now all on the table. This is no bluff.

Why are we not arming ourselves with pitchforks and torches? Frankenstein's monster is loose and we can't get anyone to notice. Even in Congress.

NTodd of Pax Americana quotes the Rolling Stone:

Quietly, while Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been inspiring Democrats everywhere with their rolling bitchfest, congressional superduo Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have completed one of the most awesome political collapses since Neville Chamberlain. At long last, the Democratic leaders of Congress have publicly surrendered on the Iraq War, just one year after being swept into power with a firm mandate to end it.

[snip]

The really tragic thing about the Democratic surrender on Iraq is that it's now all but guaranteed that the war will be off the table during the presidential campaign. Once again — it happened in 2002, 2004 and 2006 — the Democrats have essentially decided to rely on the voters to give them credit for being anti-war, despite the fact that, for all the noise they've made to the contrary, in the end they've done nothing but vote for war and cough up every dime they've been asked to give, every step of the way.

Even beyond the war, the Democrats have repeatedly gone limp-dick every time the Bush administration so much as raises its voice. Most recently, twelve Democrats crossed the aisle to grant immunity to phone companies who participated in Bush's notorious wiretapping program. Before that, Democrats caved in and confirmed Mike Mukasey as attorney general after he kept his middle finger extended and refused to condemn waterboarding as torture. Democrats fattened by Wall Street also got cold feet about upsetting the country's gazillionaires, refusing to close a tax loophole that rewarded hedge-fund managers with a tax rate less than half that paid by ordinary citizens.

But the war is where they showed their real mettle. Before the 2006 elections, Democrats told us we could expect more specifics on their war plans after Election Day. Nearly two years have passed since then, and now they are once again telling us to wait until after an election to see real action to stop the war. In the meantime, of course, we're to remember that they're the good guys, the Republicans are the real enemy, and, well, go Hillary! Semper fi! Yay, team!

How much of this bullshit are we going to take? How long are we supposed to give the Reids and Pelosis and Hillarys of the world credit for wanting, deep down in their moldy hearts, to do the right thing?

Look, fuck your hearts, OK? Just get it done. Because if you don't, sooner or later this con is going to run dry. It may not be in '08, but it'll be soon. Even Americans can't be fooled forever.

Except there are some people awake and unafraid of the Bush cabal. Emptywheel notes that Steven Bradbury's nomination is being forestalled in the Senate because of this very thing. I chose just one of the many links: (my bold)

And the Politico:

While there are scores of pending appointments, much of the acrimony can be traced back to Steven Bradbury, nominated to the post of assistant attorney general, office of legal counsel.

Despite the banal title, the office issues legal opinions which are binding on the executive branch. While serving in the position as acting assistant attorney general, Bradbury signed memorandums authorizing the use of harsh CIA interrogation techniques, which Democrats have characterized as torture.

In December, Reid offered to confirm 84 stalled administration nominees in exchange for the withdrawal of Bradbury's nomination, but the White House declined, according to Reid.

In spite of Bush's little breakfast theater yesterday, everyone seems to get that this argument is about Steven Bradbury, and only secondarily about Bush's neanderthal choices for a number of his other nominations.

But no one seems to get the reason why Bush has forced this stand-off with the Senate. As I pointed out several weeks ago, the re-appointment of Bradbury--whether or not he is confirmed--serves as a control on Mukasey from now until the end of Bush's Adminstration.

...the re-appointment guarantees that Bradbury can continue to act as OLC head through the end of Bush's term. It ensures that Dick and Addington have their stool (in both senses of the word, I suspect) in the heart of DOJ, preventing any real roll-back of Dick's Constitutional atrocities.

No matter what Mukasey's intentions, it seems, Bush and Dick now have their insurance that Mukasey can only do so much to fix this Administration's shredding of the Constitution.

More importantly, as yesterday's HJC hearing proves, having Bradbury in OLC authorizing whatever atrocities BushCo dream up gives them immunity from federal prosecution for those atrocities; Attorney General Mukasey has made it clear that he will not investigate or prosecute anything that has OLC sanction. (And read Marty Lederman for why Mukasey's stance, though logically atrocious, is legally justifiable.) The very best we can wish for, from Mukasey, is that he won't sign off on any more Pixie Dust and Waterboarding opinions (though that assumes that Addington and Bradbury will show him the opinions, which may not be a safe assumption).

George Bush would forgo all his other 84 appointments because he wants to remain safe from prosecution and probably would like the insurance of immunity for any of his actions going forward. Democrats need to make this clear--Bradbury is about more than a personnel dispute, it's about whether the President is above the law.

Avendon Carol of The Sideshow quotes Charles Pierce of Media Matters:

For the past couple of weeks, they've just gotten blatant about it. The administration of George W. Bush is bound by no law, bound by no precedent, bound not even by the forms of democratic self-government, let alone its actual substance, which is being used as a throw-rug in John Yoo's den these days. They will torture and the Congress can do nothing. Their powers to spy, to search, and to seize are unlimited and Congress is not remotely entitled to know even what those powers are. They can imprison without trial. They can force corporations -- and, indeed, individuals within the government -- to violate the law. They are not subject to treaties. They are not subject to oversight, nor even subpoenas. Read this swill from yesterday. Through his actions, and from the mouths of his minions, George Bush is now claiming fully the powers of a tyrant, by any reasonable definition of the term.

This is the only issue in the presidential campaign. It is the only truly existential threat to the country.

Above the law?

Steve Bates of The Yellow Doggerel Democrat:

This is about the failure of either of the other two branches of government to curb the Bushists' appetite for unchecked executive power.

If Mukasey will not investigate, Congress must investigate Mukasey, along with anyone else involved in this transparently unconstitutional exercise of executive power. To all appearances, Mukasey forswore himself in his confirmation hearings. Now it is time for Congress to pursue his misdeed. He must not be allowed to insulate higher officials in the executive branch, especially but not limited to Messrs. Bush and Cheney, from responsibility for their unconstitutional acts. If obtaining a priori DoJ approval to commit acts prohibited under established international law and to violate the Fourth Amendment rights of every American who picks up a telephone or writes an email isn't evidence of criminal and likely even unconstitutional acts, what protections of our fundamental rights and civil liberties do we have left? Either this matter is pursued, probably by Congress, or we have nothing, and our supposed rights and liberties mean nothing.

I'll take Kurtz's assertions a step further, and reiterate my call for impeachment of at least Bush and Cheney, along with every other high executive branch official who participated in the decision that the executive is permitted to freelance. The Constitution says otherwise. I stand by the Constitution's plain language... and I stand by its prescribed remedy.

Amen.

Bhutto was shot

Via JJ of Unrepentant Old Hippie, the horrible video of the shooting with two different perspectives.

And via Chet Scoville of Vanity Press, the fact that Bhutto's group was begging the US State Department for more security detail for months before the assassination.

So, what are we going to do about this?

Based on previous actions, absolutely nothing.

Musharraf supports democracy and respects our freedoms and liberties and stuff.... and also has socked away about 10 billion dollars of our foreign aid.



Update: Via Avedon Carol of Sideshow, Charles of Through the Looking Glass shows the history of Bhutto and her family 'dynasty'.

Pakistani police attack lawyers

I'll suspend my usual jokes about lawyers to appreciate thousands of these people standing up for the rule of law:

Pakistani police have used batons and tear gas against thousands of lawyers and political activists protesting against the emergency rule imposed by Pervez Musharraf, the president.

The clashes on Monday came ahead of an announcement by Shaukat Aziz, the prime minister, that elections planned for January would go ahead "on schedule".

The United States, and Musharraf's other western allies, have sought reassurances that the national and local assembly elections would take place despite the constitution being suspended on Saturday.

About 1,500 people have been detained in a crackdown on opposition to the president's decision.

Around 2,000 lawyers gathered in the eastern city of Lahore despite police warning them not to violate a ban on rallies across the country.

Hundreds of police entered the city's high court and fired tear gas as they attacked lawyers inside the building.

Several lawyers were wounded when police launched a baton charge, witnesses said.

"Police lobbed more than a dozen tear gas shells at lawyers who had gathered in the high court and then beat them with batons," Sheikh Faisal, a lawyer at the court, told the reporters by telephone.

And from the BBC:

Lawyers' associations across the country said they were calling three days of protests and boycotts of courts.

Media reports, citing police and interior ministry sources, said some 1,500 people had been arrested in the past 48 hours, while many top judges were effectively under house arrest.

The Islamic party Jamaat-e-Islami was among the groups targeted.

Its leader, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, was under arrest, as were hundreds of members, the party said.

Information Minister Tariq Azim called those figures an exaggeration.

He told the BBC that it was up to protesters to remain calm, or deal with the consequences.

"If people take the law into their [own] hands, obviously, they have to be dealt with," he told the World Today.

Pakistani TV news channels, which have huge audiences, are being prevented from broadcasting within the country, and at least one newspaper press was raided by police.

We've seen this coming for months. One more country in the region experiencing a meltdown. I'm sure the neocons are just delighted....

Update: Picture from Reuters:


Civil rights activists (R) scuffle with police during a protest against emergency rule in Islamabad, Pakistan, November 4, 2007. REUTERS/Faisal Mahmood

Update: Video of lawyers in Lahore.

What a constitutional crisis

Looks like. Bush declares executive privilege makes him and all those connected to him above the law. Mustang Bobby at Bark Bark Woof Woof explains:

A couple of thoughts come to mind. First, I'm trying to imagine the thermonuclear reaction this would have caused among the Republicans and the wingnutosphere if President Clinton -- or any Democratic president, for that matter -- had tried to assert this level of executive privilege. Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House would have been littered with the bloody remnants of exploded heads of Republicans and all the punditry who would proclaim that Mr. Clinton is a rogue and a charlatan and all sorts of other Victorian terms that they dredged up from the Newt Gingrich list of naughty words.

The second thought is that this, along with the Iraq war funding, will be the true test of the Democrats in the Senate and the Congress. If they don't stand up and fight back with all the forces they can muster and make every attempt to win this battle, then there is little hope for them. All of the energy that they put in to winning the election in 2006 and all of the effort they're putting in to winning back the White House and a larger majority in the House and Senate won't mean anything.

It's clear that Mr. Bush and his administration are calling out the Democrats -- and anyone else who believes in the balance of power -- to defend the role of Congress and its equal place in our nation. If they don't rise to the challenge, we might as well just give up now and let the comfortable numbness of dictatorship and one-party rule lull us gently to our doom because we don't deserve to have our republic any longer.

Mustang Bobby then links to Greenwald:

Yes, it is true that, as various Democratic statements are claiming, this theory poses a constitutional crisis since, yet again, the President declares the other two branches of government impotent and himself omnipotent. But we have had such a crisis for the last five years. We have just chosen to ignore it, to acquiesce to it, to allow it to fester.

There is no magic force that is going to descend from the sky and strike with lighting at George Bush and Dick Cheney for so flagrantly subverting our constitutional order. The Founders created various checks for confronting tyrannical abuses of power, but they have to be activated by political will and the courage to confront it. That has been lacking. Hence, they have seized omnipotent powers with impunity.

At this point, the blame rests not with the Bush administration. They have long made clear what they believe and, especially, what they are. They have been rubbing in our faces for several years the fact that they believe they can ignore the law and do what they want because nobody is willing to do anything about it. Thus far, they have been right, and the blame rests with those who have acquiesced to it.

It has been six months since the Democrats took over Congress. Yes, they have commenced some investigations and highlighted some wrongdoing. But that is but the first step, not the ultimate step, which we desperately need. Where are the real confrontations needed to vindicate the rule of law and restore constitutional order? No reasonable person can dispute that in the absence of genuine compulsion (and perhaps even then), the administration will continue to treat "the law" as something optional, and their power as absolute. Their wrongdoing is extreme, and only equally extreme corrective measures will suffice.

It is up to the Democratic Congress to win or lose this fight. It is one that we cannot afford to lose.

Like the undead zombies

Here's proof that if you don't stake them through the heart, they keep on coming back to life:

A few months ago, Seymour Hersh reported that a White House official and Iran Contra alum, Elliot Abrams, had recently led a "lessons learned" discussion about Iran Contra:

Iran-Contra was the subject of an informal “lessons learned” discussion two years ago among veterans of the scandal. Abrams led the discussion. One conclusion was that even though the program was eventually exposed, it had been possible to execute it without telling Congress. As to what the experience taught them, in terms of future covert operations, the participants found: “One, you can’t trust our friends. Two, the C.I.A. has got to be totally out of it. Three, you can’t trust the uniformed military, and four, it’s got to be run out of the Vice-President’s office”—a reference to Cheney’s role, the former senior intelligence official said.

Today the Washington Post reports that the White House may have taken that lesson to heart. It has determined, the Post reports, that in legal disputes between the Congress and the White House over executive privilege, game over, because the White House has decided no US attorney can uphold a contempt of Congress decree:

Bush administration officials unveiled a bold new assertion of executive authority yesterday in the dispute over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, saying that the Justice Department will never be allowed to pursue contempt charges initiated by Congress against White House officials once the president has invoked executive privilege.

What do you mean: may?

How about WILL?:

In a letter sent to House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers (D-MI), George Manning, the attorney for former White House Counsel Harriet Miers, said that because of President Bush’s claim of executive privilege, “Ms. Miers will not appear before the Committee or otherwise produce documents or provide testimony as set forth in the Committee’s subpoena.” The Committee has previously warned that if Miers does not comply with the subpoena, she may face contempt of Congress.

Will the Democrats follow through? They cannot let this contempt of Congress stand without challenge. If they don't they have shown Congress is not an equal branch of government with the Executive.

Read the Constitution, Congress, if you haven't yet.

Helping us realize what is at stake

John Dean discusses the showdown with Harriet Miers:

By not responding to the subpoena, the President and Ms. Miers all but invited the House Judiciary Committee and, in turn, the House of Representatives to vote to deem her in contempt of Congress. It was a defiant, in-your-face insult to Congress. No president would do this unless he was quite confident of the outcome. Clearly, Bush's White House and Justice Department lawyers believe that the solidly conservative federal judiciary will grant them a favorable ruling, and that, in the process, they will greatly weaken congressional oversight powers, to the advantage of the White House.

In short, the Bush White House is not bluffing with this act of defiance. Rather, the White House truly wants to test, and attempt to expand, presidential power. Bush's White House is ready, willing, and able to play hardball. Indeed, the White House may actually be trying to bait the House Judiciary Committee and the House of Representatives into voting to deem Ms. Miers in contempt of congress.
[snip]
As a result of Miers's "no show," the full House Judiciary Committee will no doubt support the subcommittee, and vote to deem Miers in contempt. One can only hope - but probably this hope is in vain -- that Republicans may realize this is not a partisan issue, but an institutional matter, and thus will either abstain or vote to support the dignity of the committee on which they serve. Republicans should remember that they will one day be back in control, and may then be confronted by a Democratic president defying their subpoenas - and relying on this very precedent to do so. Realistically, however, there is zero chance that Republicans will place their constitutional interest ahead of their partisan interests.

The House Judiciary Committee itself cannot hold Miers in contempt; rather, the Committee can only report its request that this be done to the full House, which must then vote to deem her in contempt. Before the full House turns to this question, however, its members should not only carefully consider what they are doing, but also consider what they are not doing. At this stage, it is unclear how far this conflict will progress. The White House appears to have given this matter much more thought than Congressional leaders have thus far.

Long ago, Congress should have oiled up its most powerful tool to require Executive cooperation. No one who follows these matters is surprised that Bush is again pushing the envelope of presidential powers. But it continues to mystify me why Congress does not get its act together, and remind the White House that they are constitutional co-equals.

Update 7/17: Steve Bates of The Yellow Doggerel Democrat catches another viewpoint which is less scary:

The always essential Crooks and Liars supplies video of Keith Olbermann's interview with constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley, who sees matters quite differently: reminding us that Congress has the power to try individuals for contempt directly, bringing them before Congress rather than the courts, Turley sees the Bush administration's approach as extremely foolish. Maybe no one told Gonzo or John Yoo or even Dick Cheney about that congressional power?

Impeachment

Is not the Constitutional crisis, it is a cure for the Constitutional crisis.

Updated 7/14 and edited: The link now has Bill Moyer's PBS journal on impeachment, watch it there. Skippy at skippy the bush kangaroo has some YouTube sections.

TOUGH TALK ON IMPEACHMENT
BILL MOYERS JOURNAL explores the talk of impeachment with Constitutional scholar Bruce Fein, who wrote the first article of impeachment against President Bill Clinton, and THE NATION's John Nichols, author of THE GENIUS OF IMPEACHMENT

Both these men were saying that impeachment is necessary to prevent the contamination from the actions of Bush and Cheney spreading to the next president. It's not just these two lawless men and their administration, it is that we stand to lose everything to the next person in power, whoever it may be. Those who hold power will not willingly give it up.

Impeachment is the cure.

Impeach Bush and Cheney for the sake of the Constitution.

Update 7/14: Here is John Nichols in an opinion piece for The Nation via Yahoo News:

The Nation -- Four more members of the U.S. House signed on this week as cosponsors of H. Res. 333, the measure that outlines articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney for actively and systematically seeking to deceive citizens and Congress about an alleged threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and an alleged relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda and for openly threatening aggression against Iran.

Congressman Bob Filner, the chair of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, added his name, along with another veteran Democratic representative from California, Sam Farr.

The additional cosponsorships from Washington Democrat Jim McDermott, a Vietnam-era veteran who has been one of the House's sharpest critics of the war in Iraq, and Virginia Democrat James Moran bring the number of supporters for the articles to 14, including sponsor Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio.

House Members are backing impeachment for a number of reasons, including anger with Cheney's involvement with manipulations of intelligence regarding Iraq, illegal spying on Americans and the promotion of torture, as well his recent attempt to avoid scrutiny by claiming that the Office of the Vice President was not part of the executive branch. And then there was President Bush's decision to commute the 30-month prison sentence of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff and co-conspirator in moves to punish former Ambassador Joe Wilson for exposing the deceptions that led to war.

Impeach.