Michael Mukasey has insulted the United States Senate once again. When asked by Senators whether he will consider, as Attorney General, the horrific act of waterboarding to be a form of torture, Mukasey has refused to answer over and over again – three times now, by my count.
Mukasey’s latest refusal to answer the question comes in this form: Mukasey says he will decide whether to count waterboarding as torture after the United States Senate confirms him as Attorney General. Then he’ll let the Senate know the answer to the question.
That’s an answer in itself. It’s clear that Michael Mukasey intends to continue the practice of torturing prisoners by waterboarding, authorizing the torture, and claiming that it doesn’t break the many laws against torture, merely by declaring that waterboarding is, in fact, not torture.
That’s like saying that decapitation is not murder, and then saying that, while the government may chop people’s heads off, it does not murder.
George W. Bush’s pick for Attorney General has, in effect, declared that he intends to help the President continue to break the law.
Michael Mukasey must not be confirmed as Attorney General.
Thanksgiving will be a holiday of specific thanks this year for Americans who care about the rule of law. Dennis Kucinich has promised that he will take to the floor of the House of Representatives and make a motion to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney, and do it before Thanksgiving. Kucinich has already introduced an impeachment resolution to the House. Now, Kucinich will force a vote by formally moving impeachment to consideration through the power of of personal privilege.
It’s about time. Actually, it’s long past time.
Please call your member of Congress, and him or her to support Kucinich, and vote in favor of the impeachment of Cheney.
Yet more criminal activity in the Bush Administration: The House of Representatives Science and Technology Committee has sent a letter to NASA Adminsitator Michael Griffin, ordering him, under the authority of federal law 18 U.S.C. 1505, to stop destroying information about commercial airline safety that has been requested by Congress.
Why is this letter necessary? It seems that, after Congress requested information about a secret survey of airline safety conducted by a contractor for NASA, NASA officials ordered the contractor to give them all the survey information, and then to destroy their own files with information about the survey.
This isn’t the first time this year that evidence of a criminal cover-up at NASA has emerged. The congressional letter to Griffin explains, “As I am sure you know, this is not the first time this year that we have written regarding a report that NASA was involved in the destruction of materials. In that prior instance, your own General Counsel destroyed video records of your appearance before the staff of the Inspector General. The evidence of misconduct was so clear that the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee sent a bipartisan referral letter to the Department of Justice seeking the prosecution of your General Counsel.”
Earlier this month, it was revealed that NASA Associate Administrator Thomas Luedtke denied a Freedom of Information Act request for the results of a survey of airline pilots about commercial airline safety because, Luedtke said, allowing the public to know the results of the survey “could materially affect the public confidence in, and the commercial welfare of, the air carriers and general aviation companies whose pilots participated in the survey.”
It seems that NASA has information that should lead the American public to lose confidence in the safety of commercial flights within the United States, yet is refusing to give that information to the American public, and is allowing people to fly on commercial airlines in apparently unsafe conditions, all in order to protect the financial interests of airline corporations.
When did government of the people, by the people, for the people change into government of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations?
What involvement was there of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in this criminal cover up? What did they know and when did they know it?
At the end of last week, the right wing played Nancy Pelosi like a marionette.
The right wing got outraged. Nancy Pelosi cowered. The right wing demanded action. Nancy Pelosi obeyed.
Why was the right wing so angry? A Democrat in Congress dared to call it like it is. Congressman Peter Stark criticized George W. Bush for keeping American troops in Iraq to “have their heads blown off for the President’s amusement”.
It sounds harsh, but is it not so? Is the Iraq War not an amusement for President Bush? Wasn’t the war unnecessary from the start, with President Bush’s knowledge that there was no real threat from Iraq to any other nation? Isn’t it equally unnecessary for the Iraq War to continue? Isn’t the Iraq War continuing so that George W. Bush can avoid feeling bad about himself, so that he can continue to feel amused by his power?
Maybe Congressman Stark’s exact words were undiplomatic, but so what? After all these years of profound failure from the Bush Republicans and the Pelosi Democrats, isn’t it about time that a member of Congress stood up spoke plainly, without the soft tones of diplomacy? Isn’t it time we stop pretending that reasonable people can disagree about the crimes of the Bush presidency?
Reasonable people cannot disagree any more on this subject. The facts are out there, and anyone who says that George W. Bush has not broken the law is in severe denial.
I might have more sympathy for Nancy Pelosi’s rebuke of Peter Stark if she had ever directed one fraction of the wrath she has shown to Congressman Stark to the person who really deserves it: George W. Bush.
How can Nancy Pelosi rebuke Peter Stark for saying something not nice when she has refused to even consider holding George W. Bush accountable for his high crimes against the Constitution and federal law?
How can Nancy Pelosi rebuke Pete Stark and not even support censure for George W. Bush?
Shame on you, Nancy Pelosi.
Instead of attacking those who would hold George W. Bush accountable to the law, Pelosi ought to aiming her fire at the White House.
Good news for the survival of the American constitution. There is one United States Senator who is refusing to follow Harry Reid’s plan to cave in to George W. Bush and grant legal immunity to telecommunications corporations that helped Bush violate federal law and spy on the private communications of millions of innocent Americans – without any search warrant.
Unlike other politicians, Senator Dodd doesn’t just talk about how much loves liberty. Christopher Dodd is willing to put it all on the line. He’s standing up in the Senate, and saying that the Bush-Republican-Democratic plan to help George W. Bush cover up the spying on Americans BEFORE September 11, 2001 will be passed only over his dead body.
“I’ll begin with a hold. If the hold doesn’t work, then I’ll go with a filibuster.”
The leadership Chris Dodd is giving us now is the kind of leadership that America needs right now. Senator Dodd explains his stand in the following video. Please, help spread the word. Defend the Constitution! Support Chris Dodd!
The Washington Post reported this news this morning: “Senate Democrats and Republicans reached agreement with the Bush administration yesterday on the terms of new legislation to control the federal government’s domestic surveillance program, which includes a highly controversial grant of legal immunity to telecommunications companies that have assisted the program, according to congressional sources.”
What the HELL is wrong with the Senate Democrats? Why are they even negotiating with George W. Bush on the renewal of the Protect America Act?
Senate Democrats should just say NO. No renewal of the Protect America Act. Let it expire. In fact, kill it now. All of it.
Don’t these Democrats understand why George W. Bush wants retroactive legal immunity for telecommunications corporations for warrantless electronic spying against American citizens?
Congress has just learned from the former CEO of Qwest that George W. Bush had begun his illegal spying on Americans’ telephone calls – warrantless wiretapping – half a year before the attacks of September 11! There is absolutely no security justification for this espionage against American citizens. It was a crime, a high crime, an impeachable crime, pure and simple.
George W. Bush wants retroactive legal immunity for AT&T, Verizon and Bell South, corporations known to have helped Bush engage in his illegal spying against Americans, because George W. Bush himself has become a criminal suspect. George W. Bush is using the Protect America Act to protect himself from being impeached and going to prison. The Protect America Act ought to be renamed the Protect Bush’s Ass Act.
Shame on the Senate Democrats for going along with this charade. They ought to be coming together to impeach Bush, not give him immunity for crimes against the American people.
I got this nugget of news related to the Qwest court case from JustAnotherCoverup:
“New evidence conclusively demonstrates that Bush began the illegal surveillance of Americans long before September the 11th, 2001 – and in fact began as early as February 27th, 2001. This new evidence suggests that Bush began illegally wiretapping Americans shortly after he was installed in office by the Supreme Court.”
This quote refers to the court case of Joseph Nacchio, former CEO of Qwest, who is using in his defense, information indicating that George W. Bush began pushing Qwest to participate in warrantless surveillance of Americans’ private communications on February 27, 2001, just one month after becoming President, and before there was any reason at all to conduct the illegal spying for the sake of security.
This is a clear high crime. It’s against FISA, and Bush knew it, and has tried to cover his behind with the Protect America Act.
Will that maneuver work?
Will the Democrats in Congress be too weak to investigate this clear evidence of high crimes?
If they won’t stand against this, they won’t stand against anything.
Reminder came this week of what’s at stake in the movement to impeach Bush and restore the rule of law.
Former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio may or may not be an inside trader, but he is also a patriot. Nacchio is on trial on allegations of insider trading, but during his trial, he plans on bringing up the fact that, when the Bush White House came to Qwest demanding, without a search warrant, huge databases including records of Americans’ private telephone calls, Qwest said no.
CBS reports that “While AT&T Corp., Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. complied, Qwest refused after deciding the request violated privacy law,”
Thank you Qwest, for standing up against Big Brother attempts by George W. Bush to watch over the private communications of law-abiding American citizens in violation of the law.
As for Verizon, AT&T, and BellSouth, well, they’ve proven to their customers that they aren’t willing to stand up against illegal government operations to spy on Americans. If these other telecommunications companies won’t protect their customers from Big Brother, why should their customers stay on?
