Daily Nonsense

In an interview with Bob Woodward of the Washington Post, Susan J. Crawford, has admitted that Mohammed al-Qahtani, the suspected 20th terrorist in the 9/11 attack on the US was brutally tortured while being detained in the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.  Brutally tortured by Americans while being held without regard for the Geneva Convention.

Tortured by us.  Tortured by Americans.

Let’s couple this with Still Vice President Cheney’s admission on December 15th that he authorized and approved of the interrogation tactics used against a so-called "high value prisoner" at the controversial Guantanamo Bay prison,.  So Cheney admitted to giving official sanctioning of torture.

Where is the moral outrage?  Where are the arrests and public humiliation of these government officials?  Why is Still Vice President Dick Cheney not locked up right now?  We know that he believes that he is above the law (or worse, a law unto himself), but surely saner minds know better.

Why has there been no action?  Why has the name Cheney not be irrevocably linked with torture like Aaron Burr has been linked with treason?

Detainee Tortured, Says U.S. Official
Trial Overseer Cites ‘Abusive’ Methods Against 9/11 Suspect

By Bob Woodward
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 14, 2009; A01

The top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial has concluded that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, interrogating him with techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold, leaving him in a "life-threatening condition."

"We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani," said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that’s why I did not refer the case" for prosecution.

Crawford, a retired judge who served as general counsel for the Army during the Reagan administration and as Pentagon inspector general when Dick Cheney was secretary of defense, is the first senior Bush administration official responsible for reviewing practices at Guantanamo to publicly state that a detainee was tortured.

Crawford, 61, said the combination of the interrogation techniques, their duration and the impact on Qahtani’s health led to her conclusion. "The techniques they used were all authorized, but the manner in which they applied them was overly aggressive and too persistent. . . . You think of torture, you think of some horrendous physical act done to an individual. This was not any one particular act; this was just a combination of things that had a medical impact on him, that hurt his health. It was abusive and uncalled for. And coercive. Clearly coercive. It was that medical impact that pushed me over the edge" to call it torture, she said.

Military prosecutors said in November that they would seek to refile charges against Qahtani, 30, based on subsequent interrogations that did not employ harsh techniques. But Crawford, who dismissed war crimes charges against him in May 2008, said in the interview that she would not allow the prosecution to go forward.

Qahtani was denied entry into the United States a month before the Sept. 11 attacks and was allegedly planning to be the plot’s 20th hijacker. He was later captured in Afghanistan and transported to Guantanamo in January 2002. His interrogation took place over 50 days from November 2002 to January 2003, though he was held in isolation until April 2003.

"For 160 days his only contact was with the interrogators," said Crawford, who personally reviewed Qahtani’s interrogation records and other military documents. "Forty-eight of 54 consecutive days of 18-to-20-hour interrogations. Standing naked in front of a female agent. Subject to strip searches. And insults to his mother and sister."

At one point he was threatened with a military working dog named Zeus, according to a military report. Qahtani "was forced to wear a woman’s bra and had a thong placed on his head during the course of his interrogation" and "was told that his mother and sister were whores." With a leash tied to his chains, he was led around the room "and forced to perform a series of dog tricks," the report shows.

The interrogation, portions of which have been previously described by other news organizations, including The Washington Post, was so intense that Qahtani had to be hospitalized twice at Guantanamo with bradycardia, a condition in which the heart rate falls below 60 beats a minute and which in extreme cases can lead to heart failure and death. At one point Qahtani’s heart rate dropped to 35 beats per minute, the record shows.

The Qahtani case underscores the challenges facing the incoming Obama administration as it seeks to close the controversial detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, including the dilemmas posed by individuals considered too dangerous to release but whose legal status is uncertain. FBI "clean teams," which gather evidence without using information gained during controversial interrogations, have established that Qahtani intended to join the 2001 hijackers. Mohamed Atta, the plot’s leader, who died steering American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Center, went to the Orlando airport to meet Qahtani on Aug. 4, 2001, but the young Saudi was denied entry by a suspicious immigration inspector.

"There’s no doubt in my mind he would’ve been on one of those planes had he gained access to the country in August 2001," Crawford said of Qahtani, who remains detained at Guantanamo. "He’s a muscle hijacker. . . . He’s a very dangerous man. What do you do with him now if you don’t charge him and try him? I would be hesitant to say, ‘Let him go.’ "

That, she said, is a decision that President-elect Barack Obama will have to make. Obama repeated Sunday that he intends to close the Guantanamo center but acknowledged the challenges involved. "It is more difficult than I think a lot of people realize," Obama said on ABC’s "This Week," "and we are going to get it done, but part of the challenge that you have is that you have a bunch of folks that have been detained, many of whom may be very dangerous, who have not been put on trial or have not gone through some adjudication. And some of the evidence against them may be tainted, even though it’s true."

President Bush and Vice President Cheney have said that interrogations never involved torture. "The United States does not torture. It’s against our laws, and it’s against our values," Bush asserted on Sept. 6, 2006, when 14 high-value detainees were transferred to Guantanamo from secret CIA prisons. And in a interview last week with the Weekly Standard, Cheney said, "And I think on the left wing of the Democratic Party, there are some people who believe that we really tortured."

"I sympathize with the intelligence gatherers in those days after 9/11, not knowing what was coming next and trying to gain information to keep us safe," said Crawford, a lifelong Republican. "But there still has to be a line that we should not cross. And unfortunately what this has done, I think, has tainted everything going forward."

"The Department has always taken allegations of abuse seriously," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said in an e-mail. "We have conducted more than a dozen investigations and reviews of our detention operations, including specifically the interrogation of Mohammed Al Qahtani, the alleged 20th hijacker. They concluded the interrogation methods used at GTMO, including the special techniques used on Qahtani in 2002, were lawful. However, subsequent to those reviews, the Department adopted new and more restrictive policies and procedures for interrogation and detention operations. Some of the aggressive questioning techniques used on Al Qahtani, although permissible at the time, are no longer allowed in the updated Army field manual."

After the Supreme Court ruled in the 2006 Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case that the original military commission system for Guantanamo Bay violated the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions, Congress rewrote the rules and passed the Military Commissions Act, creating a new structure for trials by commissions. The act bans torture but permits "coercive" testimony.

Crawford said she believes that coerced testimony should not be allowed. "You don’t allow it in a regular court," said Crawford, who served as a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces from 1991 to 2006.

Under the act, Crawford is a neutral official overseeing charges, trials and sentencing, with ultimate decision-making power over all cases coming before the military commissions.

In May 2008, Crawford ordered the war-crimes charges against Qahtani dropped but did not state publicly that the harsh interrogations were the reason. "It did shock me," Crawford said. "I was upset by it. I was embarrassed by it. If we tolerate this and allow it, then how can we object when our servicemen and women, or others in foreign service, are captured and subjected to the same techniques? How can we complain? Where is our moral authority to complain? Well, we may have lost it."

The harsh techniques used against Qahtani, she said, were approved by then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. "A lot of this happened on his watch," she said. Last month, a Senate Armed Services Committee report concluded that "Rumsfeld’s authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques for use at Guantanamo Bay was a direct cause of detainee abuse there." The committee found the interrogation techniques harsh and abusive but stopped short of calling them torture.

An aide to the former defense secretary accused the committee chairman, Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), of pursuing a politically motivated "false narrative" that is "unencumbered by the preponderance of the facts."

In June 2005, Time magazine obtained 83 pages of Qahtani’s interrogation log and published excerpts that showed some of the extreme abuse. The report of a military investigation released the same year concluded that Qahtani’s interrogations were "degrading and abusive."

Crawford said she does not know whether five other detainees accused of participating in the Sept. 11 plot, including alleged mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, were tortured. "I assume torture," she said, noting that CIA Director Michael V. Hayden has said publicly that Mohammed was one of three detainees waterboarded by the CIA. Crawford declined to say whether she considers waterboarding, a technique that simulates drowning, to be torture.

The five detainees face capital murder charges, and Crawford said she let the charges go forward because the FBI satisfied her that they gathered information without using harsh techniques. She noted that Mohammed has acknowledged his Sept. 11 role in court, whereas Qahtani has recanted his self-incriminating statements to the FBI.

"There is no doubt he was tortured," Gitanjali S. Gutierrez, Qahtani’s civilian attorney, said this week. "He has loss of concentration and memory loss, and he suffers from paranoia. . . . He wants just to get back to Saudi Arabia, get married and have a family." She said Qahtani "adamantly denies he planned to join the 9/11 attack. . . . He has no connections to extremists." Gutierrez said she believes Saudi Arabia has an effective rehabilitation program and Qahtani ought to be returned there.

When she came in as convening authority in 2007, Crawford said, "the prosecution was unprepared" to bring cases to trial. Even after four years working possible cases, "they were lacking in experience and judgment and leadership," she said. "A prosecutor has an ethical obligation to review all the evidence before making a charging decision. And they didn’t have access to all the evidence, including medical records, interrogation logs, and they were making charging decisions without looking at everything."

She noted that prosecutors are required to determine whether any evidence possessed by the government could be exculpatory; if it is, they must turn it over to defense lawyers. It took more than a year, she said — and the intervention of Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England — to ensure they had access to all the information, much of it classified.

Crawford said detainee interrogation practices are a blot on the reputation of the United States and its military judicial system. "There’s an assumption out there that everybody was tortured. And everybody wasn’t tortured. But unfortunately perception is reality." The system she oversees probably can’t function now, she said. "Certainly in the public’s mind, or politically speaking, and certainly in the international community" it may be forever tainted. "It may be too late."

She said Bush was right to create a system to try unlawful enemy combatants captured in the war on terrorism. The implementation, however, was flawed, she said. "I think he hurt his own effort. . . . I think someone should acknowledge that mistakes were made and that they hurt the effort and take responsibility for it."

"We learn as children it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than it is for permission," Crawford said. "I think the buck stops in the Oval Office."

Researchers Julie Tate and Evelyn Duffy contributed to this report.

Defense Lawyers for the Blackwater 5 had thought to influence justice by having their clients surrender in Utah.  A state that traditionally supports the military, the lawyers for the defense hoped to find a sympathetic jury there.

Those hopes were squashed like bugs underfoot when a federal judge there ordered the defendants to report to a District of Columbia courthouse on January 6th of next year.  Considering the likelihood that this will be a high profile case that is sure to set precedent, I can only applaud the judge’s decision to move venue to the capitol.

Of course, the larger issues remain.  Will the corporation itself and the legislators who approved the no-bid contract which allowed Blackwater to be in Iraq in the first place ever be called to task?  Probably not in this lifetime, but Karma is a bitch and we will certainly hope for justice.

 

Judge: Blackwater guards must report to DC court

Staff and agencies
08 December, 2008

Blackwater charges: 14 counts of manslaughter

The shooting by the largest U.S. security contractor in Iraq sparked international condemnation, launched congressional hearings and inspired anti-American insurgent propaganda.

A sixth Blackwater guard struck a deal with prosecutors, turned on his former colleagues, and pleaded guilty to killing one Iraqi and wounding another.

Prosecutors said the slain included young children, women, people fleeing in cars and a man whose arms were raised in surrender as he was shot in the chest.

Blackwater, which was not charged in the case, maintains its guards were protecting themselves from what they believed was an imminent car bomb attack.

In all, 17 Iraqis were killed in the assault. But Assistant Attorney General Patrick Rowan said evidence in the case could only prove the guards shot 14, although he left open the possibility of future charges.

The guards are Donald Ball, a former Marine from West Valley City, Utah; Dustin Heard, a former Marine from Knoxville, Tenn.; Evan Liberty, a former Marine from Rochester, N.H.; Nick Slatten, a former Army sergeant from Sparta, Tenn., and Paul Slough, an Army veteran from Keller, Texas.

The sixth guard, who is cooperating with the government, is Jeremy Ridgeway of California. He pleaded guilty to one count each of manslaughter, attempted manslaughter, and aiding and abetting. In his plea agreement with prosecutors, Ridgeway admitted there was no threat from a white Kia sedan whose driver, a medical student, was killed and his mother, in the front passenger seat, was injured.

Following a car bombing elsewhere in the city, the heavily armed Blackwater convoy sought to shut down an intersection. Prosecutors said the convoy, known by the call sign Raven 23, had violated an order not to leave the U.S.-controlled Green Zone.

Khalid Ibrahim, a 40-year-old electrician who said his father, Ibrahim Abid, 78, died in the shooting, welcomed the charges.

"The killers must pay for their crime against innocent civilians, Ibrahim said in Iraq. "Justice must be achieved so that we can have rest from the agony we are living in. We know that the conviction of the people behind the shooting will not bring my father to life, but we will have peace in our minds and hearts."

But the drama is far from over. After more than a year of investigative missteps and fierce debate, the Justice Department now faces stiff challenges to the evidence and legal grounds at the heart of its case.

Most importantly, prosecutors must prove they did not rely on protected statements the guards gave to State Department investigators within hours of the shootings.

The State Department gave limited immunity to all the guards in the four-car convoy, promising not to prosecute them based on the initial statements recounting how the violence began. The move left Justice Department and FBI investigators with a crime scene long gone cold and with limited forensic evidence to bolster their case.

"We fully expect that the defendants will raise the issue," Rowan said. "We‘ve been very careful and very painstaking in the way we have investigated this case, the way we have assembled evidence. And we fully expect to prevail when the court hears that issue."

Defense attorneys also will argue that the guards cannot be charged under a law intended to cover soldiers and military contractors since the men worked as civilian contractors for the State Department. Rowan, however, said Blackwater was supporting the military‘s mission in Baghdad and the law therefore applies to them.

It is the first time prosecutors have used that argument to prosecute contractors. The Justice Department recently lost a somewhat similar case against former Marine Jose Luis Nazario Jr., who was charged in Riverside, Calif., with killing four unarmed Iraqi detainees.

The Moyock, N.C.-based Blackwater said it stands behind the guards despite being "extremely disappointed and surprised" that one had pleaded guilty.

[Thanks, News One]

The most recent controversy to surround disgraced ex Attorney General stems from a lawsuit filed against him by 8 individuals who applied for, but were refused, positions with DOJ’s Honor Program and Summer Law Intern Program. 

A June internal investigation has revealed that certain candidates were excluded because of their liberal-leaning resumes.  Whoops!  Violating department policies and civil service law to exclude Democrats again.  That brings the total individuals wronged by Alberto due to political party collateral damage to 17.

I wonder if there is any single thing that Alberto accomplished during his brief tenure that can overshadow all of these political fuck-ups?  Probably not.  Yet another stunning legacy from the still president Bush administration.

Leahy, Conyers Want Info On DOJ Paying Gonzales’ Legal Bills

By John Bresnahan

Nov 24, 2008

(The Politico) Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) want Attorney General Michael Mukasey to give them the details on how much the Justice Department is spending to defend former AG Alberto Gonzales.

Gonzales has been sued by eight individuals who applied for, but were turned down, positions with DOJ’s Honor Program and Summer Law Intern Program. An internal investigation found that several former high-ranking DOJ officials may have improperly sought to block the hiring of liberal applicants for these prestigious entry-level positions inside Justice.

As with previous cases where former officials are sued over job-related actions, the Justice Department is paying up to $24,000 per month for Gonzales’ private attorneys, according to media reports. The two Democrats want information on the agreement between DOJ and Gonzales over the legal fees.

"Following the publication of the Inspector General [Glenn Fine's] report, several individuals whose applications for employment through these programs were turned down during the period that the hiring process was improperly politicized have filed suit against Mr. Gonzales and others who held senior positions at the Department at the time,’" Leahy and Conyers wrote. "Recent press accounts indicated that the Department of Justice has decided to pay up to $24,000 a month for a private attorney to represent Mr. Gonzales in connection with this lawsuit. As far as we can tell, the Department has thus far failed to confirm or publicly account for any aspect of this arrangement."

The two chairmen want to know who at DOJ approved the agreement with Gonzales, and why, if IG Fine found that the alleged politiicization of the hiring process may have violated DOJ policy, "did the Department determine that the conduct at issue in this lawsuit was within the scope of Mr. Gonzales’s employment and that his representation is in the interest of the United States? "

Copyright 2008 POLITICO

[Thanks, CBS News]

I’m so overjoyed I’m incapable of commenting!

Cheney, Gonzales indicted for alleged prisoner abuse

(CNN) – Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales have been indicted on separate charges related to alleged prisoner abuse in federal detention centers, Willacy County, Texas, District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra told CNN Tuesday.

The indictment stems from Cheney’s investment in the Vanguard Group — an investment management company that reportedly has interests in the prison companies in charge of the detention centers, according to The Associated Press. It also charges Gonzales halted an investigation into abuse at the detention centers while he was attorney general.

Democratic state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. also is charged in the indictment.

Michael R. Cowen, an attorney for Lucio, issued a statement calling Guerra a "one man circus."

"In the March 2008 Democratic Primary, 70 percent of the Willacy County voters elected to remove Juan Guerra as Willacy County District Attorney," Cowen said. "Now, with only a few weeks left in his term, Mr. Guerra has again chosen to misuse his position in an attempt to seek revenge on those who he sees as political enemies."

Cheney spokeswoman Megan Mitchell said, "The vice president has not received an indictment."

Willacy is near the United States-Mexico border.

[Thanks, CNN]

CNN is reporting that the controversial Senate race between convicted Republican incumbent Ted Stevens and Democratic challenger Mark Begich is still up for grabs.  At last count, Begich was leading Stevens by a margin of 1,022 votes.

But will that be enough to ensure victory?  Apparently, in Alaska there is a 15 day grace period, the longest in the nation, for the arrival of absentee ballots mailed outside of the US.  Could there be enough votes to straggle in to let the ethically challenged Stevens gain victory over Begich?

Remember just how far reaching these results are.  If Stevens wins, Palin could demand his resignation and hold a special election on which she would figure prominently on the ballot.  the book-buring witch could end up in Washington after all, rather than in Hollywood where she belongs.

Alaska, Minnesota set for key steps in unresolved Senate races

• Story Highlights
• U.S. Senate races in Alaska, Minnesota still too close to call
• Wednesday is deadline for Alaska officials to receive absentee ballots
• Minnesota officials mull status of rejected ballots for recount
• Georgia will have runoff election on December 2

(CNN) — Officials in Alaska, one of three states yet to certify winners in the November 4 U.S. Senate races, say they hope to have nearly all ballots counted on Tuesday.

And officials in Minnesota, home of one of the other unresolved races, intend to rule Tuesday whether certain rejected absentee ballots should be considered in a recount scheduled to start Wednesday.

In the Alaska race between embattled Republican Sen. Ted Stevens and Democratic challenger Mark Begich, about 24,000 ballots remained to be counted on Tuesday, said the state’s elections director, Gail Fenumiai.

However, it’s possible a few straggling absentee votes might come in Wednesday in time to be added to the tallies.

The race drew national attention, especially after Stevens was convicted in October of filing false statements on Senate financial disclosure forms. In early returns in the days after the election, Stevens — the Senate’s longest serving Republican — held a narrow lead over Begich, who is mayor of Anchorage.

But Begich took a slim lead last week as officials sorted some 90,000 additional votes — nearly a third of all ballots cast in the state. Those votes included about 60,000 absentee ballots, 9,500 early votes and another 20,000 "questioned" or provisional ballots being checking for validity.

By Friday, when vote counting was stopped for the weekend, Begich had 47.37 percent of votes counted; Stevens had 47.02 percent. The two were separated by 1,022 votes out of more than 290,000 cast, according to the Alaska Division of Elections Web site.

Alaska allows up to 15 days, longer than any other state, after Election Day for absentee ballots to arrive and be counted if they were postmarked by Election Day and mailed from outside the United States. Absentee ballots mailed inside the United States are accepted up to 10 days after the election.

Election officials said that schedule was adopted in consideration of Alaska’s sprawling geography, sparse population and sometimes spotty mail service in remote areas.

"Wednesday is the last day we will accept absentee ballots, but we really don’t expect many to come in," Fenumiai said Monday.

In Minnesota, vote totals last week showed Republican Sen. Norm Coleman 206 votes ahead of his Democratic challenger, Al Franken.

On Tuesday, the secretary of state’s canvassing board is scheduled to hear a request by Franken’s campaign that certain already-rejected absentee ballots be counted during a statewide hand recount scheduled to start Wednesday.

Asked what the campaign plans to do if the board decides it will not count rejected ballots, Franken spokeswoman Colleen Murray said the campaign hasn’t ruled out anything, including asking for a postponement of the recount.

Georgia is the other state with a Senate race yet to be resolved. Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss will face Democrat Jim Martin in a December 2 runoff.

[Thanks, CNN]

Well, Alaska has certainly been in the news quite a bit recently.  First we’ve got the ethics challenged, book-burning, anti-abortion creationist clogging up the media with her stupid and inane comments as she single-handedly tanks the Republican run for the White House. 

And now we’ve got yet another Republican from Alaska in the news.  Senator Ted Stevens was just found guilty Monday on seven counts of failing to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gifts and free work on his home in Alaska.  Another corrupt Republican government official.

I’ve heard that party leaders are actually relieved that Sen. Stevens ’stance’ was not an issue in this most recent Republican foible.

Top Republicans call for Sen. Stevens to resign

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has joined other top Republicans in calling for convicted Sen. Ted Stevens to resign.

Earlier on Tuesday both members of the Republican presidential ticket — Sen. John McCain and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin — as well as other Republican senators called on Stevens, R-Alaska, to step down.

While campaigning for re-election on Tuesday, McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, told reporters that Stevens should step down immediately, according to McConnell’s spokesman Dom Stewart.

McConnell is in a tight race with his Democratic challenger Bruce Lunsford.

Earlier in the day, McConnell said in a statement that Stevens "will be held accountable so the public trust can be restored."

Sen. John Ensign, the Nevada Republican who heads the National Republican Senatorial Committee, also issued a strongly worded statement Tuesday.

"I am disappointed to see his career end in disgrace," Ensign said. "Sen. Stevens had his day in court and the jury found he violated the public’s trust — as a result he is properly being held accountable."

[Thanks, CNN]

We all know that George W. Bush isn’t the man we elected as president.  But with the manipulation of the results from overseas voters and the residents of Ohio, Bush was determined to be the winner yet again in 2004.

One of the cornerstones of his theft of the office of the president was in Ohio.  Using voting machines which have now proven to be inaccurate, George W. and his puppet-master Dick Cheney were able to prevent more than 350,000 individuals from having their votes count.

350,000 votes was just enough to manipulate the results of the Electoral Congress and assure the continued reign of the true ‘Axis of Evil’.

Hey, guess what?  The Bush-Cheney administration has their eyes set on Ohio voters once again.  Choosing an influential battleground state and manipulating the votes might just be enough to get McCain and the warthog elected.

Bush Undermines Democracy with Attack on 200,000 New Ohio Voters

By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet. Posted October 27, 2008.

How far will an already politicized Justice Department go to assist Republicans win on November 4?

As the 2008 presidential election heads into its final week, the current president threw a political wild card on table late Friday, when he asked Attorney General Michael Mukasey to investigate the status of 200,000 Ohio voters.

George W. Bush’s request, if honored, could be politically explosive. It would remind voters of the Department of Justice’s partisan abuses of power in the scandal surrounding the firing of seven U.S. attorneys in 2006 who did not deliver ‘voter fraud’ convictions.

It could be a big distraction, drawing attention away from issues that call for legitimate DOJ intervention, such as shortages of voting machines in minority precincts in Virginia and Pennsylvania, compared to nearby white precincts. That disparity would violate existing civil rights law.

Or it could interject a complicating dynamic into the already heavily litigated Ohio general election, by adding the Department’s weight to GOP legal claims that pre-emptively question the legitimacy of a close vote count in a key battleground state.

Either way, the Department must choose if it will remain silent or get involved in an action that would go well beyond its historic role of quietly monitoring elections and avoiding messages to voters.

"This is taking the politicization of this to a new level, and the last thing we need is for the elections officials and voters of Ohio to be put in a chaotic situation in the last days before the election," Jon Greenbaum of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, told the Washington Post, reacting to the White House request.

The White House, according to the same Post report, described its actions as a routine referral to a federal agency as requested by a member of Congress, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH). Boehner had written to Mukasey early last week but received no response.

The Obama campaign reaction was to send the fourth letter this month to Mukasey urging he ensure the Department does not interfere "to satisfy desperate partisan political demands."

"For the Department now, in response to the intense politics of the moment, to abruptly intercede in the current work of state and local officials would inflict incalculable damage — further and irreparable damage — to your office and to the reputation of senior federal law enforcement," said Robert Bauer, Obama campaign counsel.

Bauer’s "further" damage was a reference to media leaks by FBI officials confirming it was investigating ACORN, a low-income advocacy group, for voter registration issues. That disclosure violated Department rules and Bauer asked Mukasey to instruct a special prosecutor in the U.S. attorney firing scandal to investigate the leak. Like Beohner’s request, Mukasey also did not respond to Bauer’s request.

The Real Issue

At issue in the White House pressure tactics is how the GOP may be able to contest the vote count if the results are close.

Republicans in several battleground states have sought to challenge the validity of hundreds of thousands of voter registrations using a gray area of federal election law and error-prone databases.

The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) instructs states to use Social Security and driver’s license databases to verify voter registrations, but leaves it up to states how to specifically do that. In Ohio, for example, the Secretary of State, Democrat Jennifer Brunner, has issued for local officials to follow.

The absence of specific federal guidelines on using the Social Security and state motor vehicle databases to verify registrations is compounded by another factor: the fact that these records, especially Social Security data, have error rates as high as 28.5 percent when used for verifying voter registrations.

These factors are behind the GOP’s assertions that key battleground states like Ohio and Pennsylvania are facing major ballot security crises that threaten the legitimacy of the vote.

In various lawsuits, the GOP has argued that registrations that did not match these databases be segregated and treated as a separate class of voters. The GOP said these voters should receive provisional ballots, which would have to be verified before being counted.

But, so far, most state and federal courts have rejected the GOP’s legal arguments. Late last week, a Wisconsin court told that state’s attorney general, a McCain campaign co-chair, that he did not have the authority to sue on this issue. Moreover, in Ohio, the GOP’s lawsuit went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where it sided with Brunner. The Ohio secretary of state, a former judge, said her office had met HAVA’s requirements by promulgating its own procedures to verify voter registrations.

Soon after the Supreme Court ruling, several Republican House members started lobbying the Justice Department to intervene. At the same time, Brunner issued new directives — which have the force of law — telling Ohio’s 88 county election boards they count not bar anyone from voting because of ‘no-match’ voter registration issues.

The White House then asked the Justice Department to intervene after Brunner’s latest directives.

[Thanks, AlterNet]

Wow!  150,000 dollars!

$150,000.00 of Republican donations going to clothe the pit bull.  Wow………  I’ll say it again, WOW!

Albert Einstein once said “If most of us are ashamed of shabby clothes and shoddy furniture, let us be more ashamed of shabby ideas and shoddy philosophies… It would be a sad situation if the wrapper were better than the meat wrapped inside it.” .  And in this case I would say that the wrapper around Palin is much, much better than the ‘meat’.

Or, to put it another way, there is a proverb that says “A pretty face and fine clothes do not make character” and as we race toward the November 4 finish line we see that Sarah Palin is characterless indeed.

As to the last statement in the article below, that the clothes will go to charity after the campaign, I don’t believe that for an instant.  For someone who has lied and stolen in the past to give up all the swanky clothes would be unbearable for her.

Ethics campaigners cry foul over Palin shopping spree

17 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Political ethics campaigners lodged a formal complaint Thursday over the 150,000 dollars the Republican Party spent to dress vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin in fashionable new clothes.

In a submission to the Federal Election Commission, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington alleged that the shopping spree was a violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act by Palin, the Republican National Committee and RNC "operatives".

"It is ridiculous that the RNC would spend 150,000 dollars to outfit a vice presidential nominee and her family at any time," said the group’s executive director Melanie Sloan on its website (www.citizensforethics.org).

"But it is more outrageous given the dire financial straights of so many Americans and the state of our economy."

With the November 4 election less than a fortnight away, it emerged Wednesday that the Republicans splashed out for Palin — the moose-hunting governor of Alaska and self-described "hockey mom" — after John McCain picked her as his running mate.

The Politico website said chic designer outfits from such top-end retailers as Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue, plus hair care and make-up, cropped up as "campaign accessories" in a monthly RNC financial disclosure statement.

McCain’s campaign said the clothes will go to charity after the November 4 election.

[Thanks, Google News]

In overnight trading European and Japanese stocks fell so sharply that futures of US stocks quickly lost value as to reach their maximum permissible free-fall loss of 6%.  Apparently we are not the only nation to be facing economic recession.

But we are the nation who is at the root of the global issue and the blame can be squarely placed on the shoulders of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.  How’s that for a legacy Georgie?  You not only bring down the American economy simply to further line your pockets and those of your corporate buddies, but now your bringing down Europe and Asia as well.

Well done you piece of filth.  God has a special place in mind for you, it’s called hell.

Global Shares Plummet on Gloomy Data
By ALAN COWELL and JULIA WERDIGIER

Published: October 24, 2008

PARIS — Stocks plummeted worldwide on Friday, and United States futures fell so steeply that they reached their daily permissible limits, indicating a sharp decline in share prices when official trading opens in New York.

Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 550 points and both it and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index were locked, although the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq said trading in the official market would open as normal at 9:30 a.m., Eastern time.

The global rout was propelled by dismal corporate earnings and economic data around the world pointing to a profound global slowdown.

In Europe, major exchanges opened with falls of around 5 percent that then turned even lower.

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 index plunged 9.6 percent, hitting its lowest level since April 2003.

[Thanks, NY Times]

The RIAA has been targeting a vast assortment of individuals for copyright infringement.  From handicapped single Moms to 15 year-old girls through what seems like half the college students in the U.S. the RIAA has tried to leave no stone unturned in its pitiful attempts to extort money from those least able to defend themselves.

Apparently John McCain and the McCain campaign are guilty of breaking some of the same laws as those people as well as breaking the laws that got Muxtape shut down!  Playing songs at their hate-fests rallies which they have no legal right or license to play.

There is a growing list of artists who have stood up and complained about McCain’s copyright infringement that include Heart, Van Halen, John Cougar Mellencamp, and Jackson Browne.  Jackson Browne has gone so far as to file suit against both John McCain himself and his campaign organization.

I’ve been scanning the headlines and listening to the news radio, but I haven’t heard anything about the RIAA filing suit against McCain & company, but it’s only a matter of time, right?  Right??

McCain’s Musical Copyright Infringement Continues

Posted on October 10th, 2008 by ZP Heller

It’s getting to the point where the only songs the McCain campaign will be able to use at rallies are the ones written specifically for them, like John Rich’s pseudo-country trifle “Raisin’ McCain.”  A couple of days ago, the Foo Fighters issued a statement telling McCain to stop using their song, “My Hero.”

The band said in a statement:

“The saddest thing about this is that `My Hero’ was written as a celebration of the common man and his extraordinary potential.  To have it appropriated without our knowledge and used in a manner that perverts the original sentiment of the lyric just tarnishes the song.”

The Foo Fighters join a slew of artists who have complained of McCain’s copyright infringement.  Others who have told McCain to quit usurping their music for political gains include Van Halen, John Mellencamp, Heart (sorry Sarah “Barracuda”), Frankie Valli, the owners of the theme song from “Rocky,” and Jackson Browne, who even filed a suit against the campaign.

Clearly, fewer and fewer artists want to be associated in any way with McCain.  But what’s particularly ironic in the case of the Foo Fighters is that McCain couldn’t be further from the ordinary hero mentioned in the song.  He continues to put himself before the country, which we saw most recently with his closing remarks at the second debate (as compared to Barack Obama’s) and his theatrics with the economic crisis.  He’s desperate to prove himself as the common man who rises to the occasion, but the reality is that he has NEVER been the common man and he has RARELY IF EVER risen to the occasion.

If you want to know what I mean, read Tim Dickinson’s scathing Rolling Stone piece on McCain, “Make-Believe Maverick.” Use that evidence, race it around.  There goes my hero, he’s ordinary.

[Thanks, The REAL McCain]

We either have a faux Fox News story that it trying to diminish the impact of any "Incite to Riot" litigation against Palin or we have a cover-up.  What’s your guess??

Report: Secret Service Says ‘Kill Him’ Allegations at Palin Rally Unfounded

A Secret Service agent called charges that a man yelled "kill him" in reference to Barack Obama during a Sarah Palin rally "unfounded," .  

FOXNews.com

A senior Secret Service agent said allegations that a man yelled ‘kill him" when Barack Obama’s name was referenced Tuesday during a Sarah Palin rally are "unfounded," reports the Timesleader.com, a Northeastern Pennsylvania news agency.

Agent Bill Slavoski — who was standing in the audience along with other Secret Service agents during the rally in Scranton, Pa. — said neither he nor the other officers heard the comment, according to the report published Thursday.

The charges — first reported Tuesday on the Scranton Times-Tribune’s Web site — claimed that a male audience member shouted "kill him" after congressional candidate Chris Hackett mentioned Barack Obama’s name at the rally. 

Slavoski reportedly said he was "baffled" after first reading the report on Wednesday. 

Slavoski — who is charge of the Secret Service’s field office in Scranton — launched an official investigation into the charge and said he could not find anyone other than the Scranton Times-Tribune’s reporter to corroborate the story.

A Secret Service spokesman told FOXNews.com that the investigation is not closed and asks for anyone with information on the allegations to contact the agency.

[Thanks, FauxFoxNews]

Yikes, I seem have been a little quick off the mark yesterday when I mentioned that the only real critical reports on the Republican VP candidate were from outside of our borders.  I’ll assume that Alaska is still part of the US for the purposes of this discussion, much to the chagrin of Todd, Alaska’s otherwise unemployed First Dude, member in good standing of the separationist movement in Alaska.

Here are a flurry of stories responding to the official reaction by Sarah to the Alaska Legislature’s Troopergate report.  They range from editorials in her local daily paper, which since she can’t name as a news source I can only guess she has never read, and include a scathing analysis on MSNBCs ‘First Read’ site.

But let us start with an article from Editor & Publisher:

Anchorage Paper Calls Palin Response to Troopergate ‘An Embarrassment’
By E&P Staff
Published: October 14, 2008 10:10 AM ET

NEW YORK Since its release late last Friday, the Alaska legislatures "Troopergate" has drawn much attention, and Gov. Sarah Palin has claimed numerous times that it actually found no ethical misdeeds on her part — even as it charged her with a serious "abuse of power." The main paper in her home state is not buying it.

The Anchorage Daily News’ angry editorial today was topped with the headline: "Palin vindicated? Governor offers Orwellian spin." It opens: "Sarah Palin’s reaction to the Legislature’s Troopergate report is an embarrassment to Alaskans and the nation.

"She claims the report ‘vindicates’ her. She said that the investigation found ‘no unlawful or unethical activity on my part.’

"Her response is either astoundingly ignorant or downright Orwellian."

An excerpt follows.
*
In plain English, she did something "unlawful." She broke the state ethics law.

Perhaps Gov. Palin has been too busy to actually read the Troopergate report. Perhaps she is relying on briefings from McCain campaign spinmeisters.

That’s the charitable interpretation.

Because if she had actually read it, she couldn’t claim "vindication" with a straight face.

Palin asserted that the report found "there was no abuse of authority at all in trying to get Officer Wooten fired."

In fact, the report concluded that "impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda, to wit: to get Trooper Michael Wooten fired."

Palin’s response is the kind of political "big lie" that George Orwell warned against. War is peace. Black is white. Up is down.

Gov. Palin and her camp trumpeted the report’s second finding: that she was within her legal authority to fire Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. But the report also said it’s likely one of the reasons she fired him was his failure to get rid of her ex-brother-in-law trooper.

That’s not "vindication," and surely Gov. Palin knows it.

[Thanks, Editor & Publisher]

And let’s quickly segue into that original article from the Anchorage Daily News:

Palin vindicated?

Governor offers Orwellian spin

Published: October 13th, 2008 10:02 PM
Last Modified: October 13th, 2008 10:17 PM

Sarah Palin’s reaction to the Legislature’s Troopergate report is an embarrassment to Alaskans and the nation.

She claims the report "vindicates" her. She said that the investigation found "no unlawful or unethical activity on my part."

Her response is either astoundingly ignorant or downright Orwellian.

Page 8, Finding Number One of the report says: "I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act."

In plain English, she did something "unlawful." She broke the state ethics law.

Perhaps Gov. Palin has been too busy to actually read the Troopergate report. Perhaps she is relying on briefings from McCain campaign spinmeisters.

That’s the charitable interpretation.

Because if she had actually read it, she couldn’t claim "vindication" with a straight face.

Palin asserted that the report found "there was no abuse of authority at all in trying to get Officer Wooten fired."

In fact, the report concluded that "impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda, to wit: to get Trooper Michael Wooten fired."

Palin’s response is the kind of political "big lie" that George Orwell warned against. War is peace. Black is white. Up is down.

Gov. Palin and her camp trumpeted the report’s second finding: that she was within her legal authority to fire Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. But the report also said it’s likely one of the reasons she fired him was his failure to get rid of her ex-brother-in-law trooper.

That’s not "vindication," and surely Gov. Palin knows it.

Gov. Palin does have a defense. She could have said:

"I’m gratified that the report confirmed what I said all along, that I had the authority to terminate Walt Monegan as public safety commissioner.

"I absolutely disagree that I violated state ethics law. In repeatedly complaining about trooper Mike Wooten, Todd and I were not pursuing a personal vendetta. We were trying to protect the integrity of the Alaska State Troopers from having an arrogant, almost-out-of-control law-breaker in their ranks. Because the action we were seeking was in the public interest, not purely our personal interest, there is no ethics law violation."

Gov. Palin and her husband felt so passionately about Wooten because the case was so personal to them. Their passion blinded them to any other considerations.

They had no sense that the power of the governor’s office carries a special responsibility not to use it to settle family scores. They had no sense that legal restrictions might prevent the troopers from firing Wooten. They had no sense that persistent queries from the governor’s office might be perceived as pressure to bend state personnel laws.

Gov. Palin and her husband were obsessed with Wooten the way Capt. Ahab was obsessed with the Great White Whale. No Wooten, no peace.

Has Gov. Palin committed an impeachable offense? Hardly.

Is what she did indictable? No.

But it wasn’t appropriate, especially for someone elected as an ethical reformer. And her Orwellian claims of "vindication" make this blemish on her record look even worse.

You asked us to hold you accountable, Gov. Palin. Did you mean it?

Bottom line: Gov. Palin, read the report. It says you violated the ethics law.

[Thanks, Anchorage Daily News]

And let’s flesh out this round of condemnation with MSNBC’s First Read:

Palin: Anchorage paper not happy

Posted: Tuesday, October 14, 2008 9:16 AM by Mark Murray

It’s not good when your home-state paper’s editorial page puts your name and "embarrassment" to the state in the same sentence. "Sarah Palin’s reaction to the Legislature’s Troopergate report is an embarrassment to Alaskans and the nation. She claims the report ‘vindicates’ her. She said that the investigation found ‘no unlawful or unethical activity on my part.’ Her response is either astoundingly ignorant or downright Orwellian." 

But wait, there’s more. Another independent investigator is looking into more ethics complaints against the guv.

The New York Times writes, “Here is the thing about Gov. Sarah Palin: She loves America. Really loves it. She loves the smell of cut grass and hay, as she told Ohio voters Sunday. She loves Navy bases, she said in Virginia Beach on Monday morning. She loves America’s ‘most beautiful national anthem,’ she told a crowd here a few hours later.”

“Apparently there are people who do not feel the same way about America as Ms. Palin does, she said at campaign rallies over the last two days. Those people just do not get it.”

The AP: “Gov. Sarah Palin’s rural adviser resigned Monday amid criticism of the governor’s record on hiring Alaska Natives.” 

"Palin mistook some of her own fans for hecklers Monday at a rally that drew thousands" in Virginia, the AP writes. " ‘Louder! Louder!’ they began chanting, and the cry spread across the crowd to Palin’s left. Some pointed skyward, urging that the volume be increased. Palin stopped her remarks briefly and looked toward the commotion. ‘I hope those protesters have the courage and honor to give veterans thanks for their right to protest,’ she said. Some in the crowd tried to shout toward her what was really being said, but she couldn’t hear them."

[Thanks, MSNBC]

Wow, if you want to read critical reviews of the Republican Vice Presidential candidate you apparently have to cross outside of our national borders.  Foreign media outlets could care less about protecting Palin’s fragile ego and are reporting the news and not the spin.

Last week I was lucky enough to have found an article in the Irish Times that discussed Palin’s deserved lack of respect and her ‘performance’ in the debate against Joe Biden.  Today I found this gem on the Ottawa Citizen web-site which again points out Palin’s utter lack of skills which could enable her to be ready to lead this country on her day one.

And that’s something I haven’t seen any reference to in the mass media, there has been no discussion of Palin’s ‘Day One’ ability to lead.  Why have Barack and Hillary been subjected to intense scrutiny regarding this and Palin ignored?  Is it because everyone KNOWS she’s been brought on for something less than her political acumen?  Is Sarah Palin just all legs and a tawdry wink with so substance? 

Palin is pitifully unprepared

Lorne Gunter, The Ottawa Citizen

Published: Monday, October 13, 2008

An American friend with a long history of involvement in presidential races once told me (and there is nothing new about this), "The only thing you want from a vice-presidential nominee is someone who doesn’t scare voters when they ask ‘Could I imagine X as president?’"

Regional balance doesn’t matter as much as American voters’ comfort level with the idea of the VP nominee perhaps someday becoming president.

Regional balance was once crucial. John Kennedy likely wouldn’t have won in 1960 without Lyndon Johnson as his No. 2. But the shift of manufacturing from the northeast and Midwest to the Sun Belt and West Coast has helped hammer the sharp edges off the regional differences that used to define America. Now the big geographic difference is the infamous red state-blue state divide. Starbucks nation versus Budweiser nation.

It is less important now that a southern presidential candidate, for instance, pick a northeastern, Midwestern or western running mate to "balance" the ticket than it is for him to pick someone who can help carry a large swing state — such as Florida, Ohio, Illinois or Pennsylvania — or energize the party’s base.

No candidate since Kennedy has won the White House without carrying Ohio, for instance. And few have won without Florida. So it’s a wonder Americans don’t see Veep nominees from one or the other of these two states every election.

Vice-presidential candidates are also often selected because they reassure essential groups of voters who are somewhat dubious of the person at the head of the ticket. George Bush, Sr. was made Ronald Reagan’s running mate because the worry was that the Western conservative Reagan would not appeal to what used to be known as the Rockefeller wing of the Republican party — northeastern, patrician, socially liberal.

But all of these considerations are secondary to voters’ willingness to accept the vice-presidential candidate as a possible stand-in president. In the postwar era, three vice-presidents — Truman, Johnson and Ford — have become president because the presidents they served were unable to complete their terms in office. So a vice-president’s credibility for the higher job is critical.

Presidential candidates so seldom pick running mates who don’t possess at least the basic skills to be commander-in-chief that the secondary factors — geography, demographic, ideology — are now mistakenly assumed to be the most important considerations. But Americans are only too aware that their president may not finish his term, so even if only in the back of their minds, they must satisfy the nagging concern about every VP candidate’s fitness for the Oval Office.

This is why Sarah Palin, the Alaska governor who is the Republican nominee for vice-president, is such a puzzling choice. There is no question she energizes the Republican base. She is a red-state shoo-in. Without her presence on the ticket, John McCain would have been an also-ran a month ago.

Having played legislative footsie with Democrats all his political life, McCain never energized his party’s bedrock supporters — the kind of people Republicans need to spend long, volunteer hours with to get their candidate elected.

McCain is not reliably pro-family. He co-sponsored a campaign spending law that most conservatives view as anti-democratic. He is a global warming true believer and he thwarted efforts to appoint more conservative justices to the U.S. Supreme Court.

But from the moment Gov. Palin opened her mouth at the Republican convention in early September, the party’s base has rushed to help the ticket. Her performance in the vice-presidential debate gave the base a booster shot.

Still, that is about the extent of her positive contributions, mostly because a lot of swing voters — independents and conservative Democrats — simply can’t see her as president.

When she is before the media and not scripted, she is dreadful. This is not a real slam on her. Until two years ago she had never aspired to be anything more than the mayor of a town of 10,000. Until a month ago, she was the governor of a state with a population just two-thirds that of Edmonton.

She simply has no preparation for national office. Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, about a naive, but pure neophyte going to D.C. and setting the whole system on its head is only a movie.

It was once joked that if an aide came in to tell Dick Cheney that George W. Bush had died and he was now president, Cheney would have replied, "But I thought I already was the president."

As much as I understand Palin’s appeal, I can imagine an aide telling her President McCain was dead and her replying, "Oh, who’s president now?"

If you want to know why McCain is now trailing in all the key swing states, it’s because voters are answering "No" to the silent question, "Could Sarah Palin take over as president?"

Lorne Gunter is a columnist with the Edmonton Journal.

Thanks, OttawaCitizen.com]

Or at least there will be an attempt at bringing the criminal mastermind behind ‘Troopergate’ to justice.  The Alaska Supreme Court has heard the evidence and decided that the ethics investigation against the Republican Vice Presidential candidate can continue.

Palin is being investigated by an independent investigator, hired by a unanimous vote of a bipartisan committee of the Legislature, to investigate the circumstances surrounding Walt Monegan’s termination as the Public Safety Commissioner for the State of Alaska. Also under investigation, potential abuses of power and/or improper actions by members of the executive branch. The results of a probe conducted by independent investigator Steve Branchwater will be presented to a legislative hearing later today.

It’s interesting reading about all of the allegations.  You can get a pretty good summary over at Wikipedia.

Court allows Sarah Palin Troopergate inquiry

October 11, 2008

ANCHORAGE: The Alaska Supreme Court has refused to halt an ethics investigation into US vice-presidential contender Sarah Palin.

The ruling clears the way for legislators to release a report on their probe into whether Ms Palin abused her power as Alaska Governor by firing her public safety commissioner.

Legislators are investigating whether the Republican candidate used her position to settle a family dispute. The former commissioner says he was sacked after resisting pressure to fire a state trooper who had gone through a divorce from Ms Palin’s sister.

Republicans had sued to block the report. Ms Palin refused to join that lawsuit. Her husband, Todd, and some of her top aides are co-operating in the inquiry.

In affidavits submitted on Wednesday, Mr Palin and two top aides for his wife’s administration portrayed the firing as the result of wrangling between the Governor and her public safety commissioner over control of the agency.

The affidavits portray Ms Palin as uninvolved while her husband repeatedly tried to spread the word that their former brother-in-law was unfit to be a state trooper.

In yesterday’s ruling, the Supreme Court refused to block the legislative investigation.

For years – before his wife became governor – Mr Palin told state officials and the couple’s advisers stories about Mike Wooten, their former brother-in-law, allegedly threatening and emotionally abusing his family.

Walter Monegan says he was fired as commissioner for not dismissing Mr Wooten, a claim that led to the probe just before Republican presidential candidate John McCain chose Ms Palin as his running mate in late August.

Ms Palin said she fired Mr Monegan over a budget dispute.

Mr Palin said he had not pressured anyone. He says that after repeatedly talking with her about the matter, she finally told him to "drop it".

"Anyone who knows Sarah knows she is the Governor and she calls the shots," Mr Palin wrote. "I make no apologies for wanting to protect my family andwanting to publicise the injustice of a violent trooper keeping his badge."

[Thanks, The Australian]

It’s a crime to incite a riot.  Covered under US Code 18, ‘Urging or instigating other persons to riot’ is apparently a no-no.

I wonder when Governor Palin is going to be arrested by either the FBI or the Secret Service?  It’s a foregone conclusion, isn’t it?  While Sarah was blindly vomiting Party Dogma in speeches this week, her rabid followers started screaming racial epithets and death threats against Barack.

I wonder if this makes her an accessory or co-conspirator to the crime of making death threats against a presidential candidate?  Really, is this who we want in the white house?  Someone who lacks so much substance as a candidate that she needs to stoop this low to make the news?  And do we want the senile old man who chose her in the first place to take office this January?

Biden Calls Palin’s Comments ‘Mildly Dangerous’

October 08, 2008 1:05 PM

Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., today began criticizing the GOP ticket for the tone they’re setting by attacking the character of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.

At rallies this week where Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin made sinister insinuations about Obama, attendees yelled out "Treason!" "Terrorist" and "Kill him!" in reference to Obama. At a Florida rally for Palin, a supporter used a racial epithet to attack an African-American member of the media.

In Tampa, Fla., this morning, Biden said, "to have a vice presidential candidate raise the most outrageous inferences, the ones that John McCain’s campaign is condoning, is simply wrong…..This is beyond disappointing. This is wrong."

Paraphrasing a pledge McCain once made of something he would not do, Biden said of the Republican ticket, "they’re gonna try and take the low road to the highest office in the land, and that’s exactly what they’re doing."

"I think it goes way too far," Biden told Diane Sawyer on ABC News’ "Good Morning America." "Look, this really is a case where when you don’t have anything to talk about, attack.  And it gets really over the edge.  I mean, some of the stuff she’s saying about Barack Obama and the stuff that people are yelling from the crowd, if she hears it, she should be at least saying, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa; that’s overboard.’"

Biden added "this is volatile stuff."

Asked on NBC’s "Today" show to explain what’s going on, Biden said, "They’re losing.  She’s been told to go out and pull out all the stops. … I think it is ugly."

Biden said he "heard that a couple of people hollering from the audience, you know, semi-vile things about, you know, ‘terrorist’ and things like that. And the idea that a leading American politician who might be vice president of the United States would not just stop mid-sentence and turn and condemn that, you know, I just — this is — this is a slippery slope.  This is a place we shouldn’t be going."

On the CBS "Early Show" this morning, Harry Smith noted that Palin has "been going to these rallies, tens of thousands of people showing up, talking about a friend of your running mate’s as a domestic terrorist. Does your campaign have an answer for that?"

"Yes," said Biden, "It’s just malarkey, flat malarkey.  Barack Obama was 8 years old when this guy was engaging in activities he was engaged in.  He is no part of our campaign.  He will be no part of anything having to do with the White House.  The guy Barack Obama is going to turn and ask opinion is me, not that guy.
"You know, the idea here that somehow these guys are, once again, injecting fear and loathing into this campaign, is — is — it’s — is — I think is mildly dangerous," Biden continued.

"I mean, here you have out there these kinds of, you know, incitements out there — a guy introducing Barack, using his middle name as if it’s some epitaph or something," Biden said. "This is over the top."

Presumably, Biden meant "epithet," not "epitaph." Though perhaps it was a Freudian slip indicating larger, unspoken fear of Biden’s.

– Jake Tapper and Matthew Jaffe

Thanks, ABC News]

Very interesting discussion at AlterNet about the drivel that Sarah Palin was spewing during a speech in Colorado after her ‘debate’ with Joe Biden.  The big question to me is just how much of the ‘information’ that is being force fed to her does she understand?

The arrogance of America on the world stage is ignored by many countries yet feared by many as well.  For America to get away with the violent overthrow of foreign governments without censure has been amazing to me.  A short list of US insurrections include Iraq, Panama, and Grenada.  And these are just the ones YOU know about.

But when Sarah, a community college graduate, starts dropping phrases like "We see an America of exceptionalism." in speeches and you should be asking yourself if she understands the ramifications of that idea?  She doesn’t seem like much of a critical thinker to me. 

Sarah Palin spends a lot of time attacking the Democratic campaign and using smoke and mirrors to conceal the role that her party has had in bringing Americans to their economic knees.  She would be better served to start thinking about what her tutors are cramming into her head.

How Low Will Palin Go in Her Mudslinging?

By Robert Parry, Consortium News. Posted October 8, 2008.

Palin may not even understand the significance of her baseless attacks on Obama that are straight out of the neocon playbook.

Sarah Palin’s charge that Barack Obama is "palling around with terrorists" may mark the descent of Campaign 2008 into the sewer that has marked so many other recent U.S. elections. But her comments operate on another level, too, continuing to brand anyone who criticizes George W. Bush’s neoconservative foreign policy as un-American.

The Alaska governor’s larger point — made in her Oct. 2 debate and on the campaign stump since then — is that Obama is a person who dares to find fault with U.S. policies overseas and thus deserves to have his patriotism questioned.

"Our opponent," Palin told Republican supporters during a post-debate speech in Colorado, "is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."

Palin added about Obama, "This is not a man who sees America like you and I see America. We see America as a force of good in this world. We see an America of exceptionalism."

It’s unclear if Palin understood the full significance of her reference to American "exceptionalism," the theory preached by the neoconservatives who led her debate prep. They argue that the United States has the exceptional right to operate outside international law. But Palin does grasp the political usefulness of smearing an opponent in the style of Jeane Kirkpatrick, who in 1984 famously defined critics of Ronald Reagan’s aggressive foreign policy as people who would "blame America first."

Palin is, in effect, labeling Obama a blame-America-firster. In the vice presidential debate, Palin twisted Obama’s 2007 analysis of U.S. military strategy in Afghanistan — which called for more troops on the ground to reduce reliance on air strikes that had killed civilians — into him condemning everything the U.S. military has done in Afghanistan.

[Thanks, AlterNet.com]

Which one you might ask?  If you guessed Fox, you won the booby prize, take you pick of any of the ‘journalists’.  They are all boobies.

It seems that the near infamous and certainly parodied Katie Couric – Sarah Palin interview didn’t go quite like Sarah Planned.  For some odd reason she seemed to think that the interview was to have been a venue for HER to vent like some kind of rabid dog on topics like the Republican views on Barack’s plan to raise the taxes of the rich, or what values are represented in our ticket, or just what the Vice President does all day.

Instead, Katie asked the kind of questions we, the people, wanted her to answer.  We were not tuned in to judge her ability to spew party jargon, we were tuned in to hear what SHE thought about some of the topical news.

I guess she doesn’t think too much about those issues since she couldn’t comment on them.  I wonder if SHE has any opinions on anything other than Anti-Choice and Creationism? She spent a lot of time evading questions and changing the topic.

Kudos to Katie for trying to keep things on track and allowing me to see just what a vapid air-head she really is.

Palin On Fox News: Couric Annoyed Me

October 3, 2008 12:06 PM

Appearing on a friendlier news outlet, Gov. Sarah Palin said she was "annoyed" with the way Katie Couric handled their interview and complained that the CBS Evening News host failed to give her the opportunity to take a proverbial axe to Barack Obama.

In a portion of her sit-down with Fox News correspondent Carl Cameron, Palin claimed that Couric’s questions — which produced a series of staggeringly embarrassing responses — put her in a lose-lose position.

"The Sarah Palin in those interviews was a little bit annoyed," she said. "It’s like, man, no matter what you say, you are going to get clobbered. If you choose to answer a question, you are going to get clobbered on the answer. If you choose to try to pivot and go to another subject that you believe that Americans want to hear about, you get clobbered for that too."

For the record, Couric asked her, among other things, what type of news sources she turns to for information, which Supreme Court decisions she disagreed with, why Alaska’s proximity to Russia gave her foreign policy experience, her opinion of the bailout package for Wall Street, and where she thought Vice President Dick Cheney erred. Which one of those questions was designed to trip her up (as opposed to, say, give viewers a better sense of her character and views) is tough to ascertain.

Later in her interview with Cameron, Palin offered a sense of what she thinks would have been a fairer set of questions. Unsurprisingly, they all would have provided her the opportunity to rail against Obama.

"In those Katie Couric interviews, I did feel that there were lot of things that she was missing in terms of an opportunity to ask what a VP candidate stands for, what the values are represented in our ticket. I wanted to talk about Barack Obama increasing taxes, which would lead to killing jobs. I wanted to talk about his proposal to increase government spending by another trillion dollars. Some of his comments that he’s made about the war, that I think may, in my world, disqualify someone from consideration as the next commander in chief. Some of the comments that he has made about Afghanistan — what we are doing there, supposedly just air raiding villages and killing civilians. That’s reckless. I want to talk about things like that. So I guess I have to apologize for being a bit annoyed, but that’s also an indication of being outside the Washington elite, outside of the media elite also. I just wanted to talk to Americans without the filter and let them know what we stand for."

[Thanks, Huffington Post]

Bowing to what must have been enormous pressure from all corners, still Attorney General (sAG) Michael Mukasey has finally appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the illegal firings of several U.S. Attorneys in 2006.  The selected special prosecutor, Nora R. Dannehy, is pictured at right.  (Let’s hope we start seeing a lot more of her!!)

Although sAG Mukasey has maintained that the firings were performance based (parroting the one of the few things then Attorney General Alberto Gonzales managed to remember during the original Congressional investigations ), the report by the DoJ’s own Office of the Inspector General has a different opinion.

This might just lead to the first of hopefully many indictments, trials, and prison sentences for not only the puppets in this current administration, but the puppet masters as well.  I hope I live to see the day that Bush, Cheney, Gonzales, and all the other jackholes are violated in some maximum security federal penitentiary somewhere.

The 392 page DoJ report can be downloaded here:

An Investigation into the Removal of Nine U.S. Attorneys in 2006 (pdf)

(I love the part in the last paragraph in the story below about ‘Berto being unable to find a full time job.  You reap what you sow I guess…..)

Mukasey Appoints Special Prosecutor to Investigate U.S. Attorney Firings

Joe Palazzolo
Legal Times
September 30, 2008

Attorney General Michael Mukasey has appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the firings of several U.S. Attorneys in 2006, as a report released Monday by Justice Department watchdogs found "significant evidence" that several of the attorneys fired in 2006 were let go for partisan or political reasons (pdf). The report recommended the appointment of a prosecutor with subpoena powers to continue the investigation.

Top department officials had said the firings were performance-related, but the report, by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine and Office of Professional Responsibility Director H. Marshall Jarrett, found otherwise. It also describes the department’s top two officials at the time, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, as "remarkably unengaged" in the firing process and cites both for making "inconsistent, misleading and inaccurate" public statements about the firings.

The report found that the White House was involved in three of nine firings, though it could not determine to what extent. Investigators say they were stymied by the lack of cooperation from key witnesses, including former White House adviser Karl Rove and White House counsel Harriet Miers. Both are subjects of congressional subpoenas by committees investigating the matter. The report found the Justice Department "had reasonable concerns" about only two of the fired U.S. Attorneys.

On Tuesday, Gonzales’ lawyer, George Terwilliger III, a partner at White & Case, said the report "makes clear that Judge Gonzales engaged in no wrongful or improper conduct while recognizing, as he has acknowledged many times, that the process for evaluating U.S. attorney performance in this instance was flawed." Gonzales released a statement saying that he and his family "are glad to have the investigation of my conduct in this matter behind us and we look forward to moving on to new challenges."

But it isn’t clear, especially with the appointment of a special prosecutor, that Gonzales can leave the investigation behind.

Mukasey announced the appointment of career prosecutor Nora Dannehy to investigate the firings as the report was released Monday. Dannehy, currently the acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut and a veteran of the office’s white-collar and public-corruption section, will be able to subpoena witnesses to help her investigation, something the authors of the report couldn’t do.

The report specifically recommends that Dannehy investigate whether Justice Department officials made false statements to Congress or to investigators or violated other federal criminal statutes, including obstruction of justice or wire fraud.

The report says Gonzales and McNulty deferred to D. Kyle Sampson, Gonzales’ former chief of staff, in the firings, despite their responsibility to oversee the department. The report describes Sampson as the architect of the firing plan, and cites him for inappropriately advocating the use of internal appointments to bypass the Senate confirmation process for U.S. Attorneys.

"We believe that the primary responsibility for these serious failures rest with senior department leaders — Gonzales and McNulty — who abdicated their responsibility to adequately oversee the process," the report says.

In the most extreme example of partisan influence cited in the report, David Iglesias, the former U.S. Attorney in New Mexico, was fired after Sen. Pete Domenici, Rep. Heather Wilson and other New Mexico Republicans complained of his refusal to prosecute a local Democrat or and voter fraud cases on the eve of the 2006 elections.

Another U.S. Attorney, Bud Cummins of Arkansas, was sacked because the White House wanted to give the job to its then-director of political affairs, Tim Griffin.

Talk of firing the U.S. Attorneys began shortly after Bush’s re-election campaign in 2004, the report says. At different points, Miers, and later White House adviser Karl Rove, asked about firing all 93 U.S. Attorneys, but Sampson argued via e-mail that senators would likely resist the firing of U.S. Attorneys they had recommended for appointment in their home states, and it would draw too much attention.

Instead, Sampson proposed firing a few of the "underperforming" U.S. Attorneys, and after Gonzales was confirmed as attorney general and Miers replaced him as White House counsel in early 2005, Sampson began cobbling together the first of several lists.

Some of those named in the report, including Sampson, say they have cooperated with the investigation. Sampson is now a partner at Hunton & Williams.

Sampson’s lawyer, Bradford Berenson, a partner at Sidley Austin, said: "It is mystifying and disappointing that the Inspector General chose to impugn Mr. Sampson’s candor and integrity when, virtually alone among significant participants in this matter, Mr. Sampson at all times cooperated fully and voluntarily with any and all investigators, without preconditions, and provided his best, most honest and complete recollection of these events. He has behaved with honor and dignity throughout this difficult episode and has never attempted to shirk his responsibility for problems in the U.S. Attorney firings."

Gonzales, who has not held a full-time job since resigning, took work in June as an assistant to a special master on a patent case in Texas. McNulty, who resigned in May 2007, joined Baker & McKenzie’s Washington office.

[Thanks, Law.com]

Sarah Palin, Republican eye candy and Vice Presidential candidate tried her best to hold a good, old fashioned book burning back in Alaska a couple of years ago.  Thankfully, her Nazi-esque aspirations were rejected out of hand by the school librarian.

This weekend, Fox news had no librarian to hinder them and was able to hold the online equivalent to a book burning with one of their own stories!

Yesterday morning I stumbled across an Associated Press article that had been published on the Fox News Elections site.  This article was honest criticism regarding the ill advised selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s vice presidential running mate.  I was so astounded to find the AP piece on the Fox web site that I posted about it.

Citing and quoting from an impressive list of rabid, far right neo-conservative republican personalities, Sarah Palin was hung out to dry.  I guess the truth of the matter is, she’s gonna’ be useless as a Veep and god forbid and have mercy on us all shouldMcCain should draw his last breath as president….

But I digress.

Apparently someone higher in the food chain than the original poster decided that the truth stings a little too much.  The result?  They pulled the article!  What a bunch of jackholes.  If you are one of the thirteen people left in America that believes you can get fair, un-biased news from anything Fox, please think again.

1. In case you missed it, my original article is HERE.
2. A note over at the Daily KOS that references the Amazing Disappearing Criticism.