Remember all of those federal prosecutors that were by the Justice Department? Just by some odd coincidence, those prosecutors had been investigating public officials in corruption cases. A in the Patriot Act allows the Attorney General to hand-nominate new prosecutors and have them appointed without Senate confirmation.
It now turns out that one of the new prosecutors being nominated is a :
The Justice Department acknowledged Tuesday that it fired the U.S.government's chief prosecutor in Little Rock for no reason except toreplace him with a lawyer who had been an aide to Karl Rove, the Bushadministration's chief political strategist.
"What happened here doesn't sound like business as usual; it appearsmore reminiscent of a different sort of Saturday night massacre,"Schumer said, referring to Watergate-era firings at Justice that wereordered by President Nixon.
They seem to have the routine down solid. Only nominate people that agree with you, live in a bubble and put your administration above the law.
From mass firings at the Justice Department to newly-found loopholes in the Patriot Act, the Congress is for some reason asleep at the wheel during this Executive power grab.
Most recently, as reported this morning in the , President Bush signed an Executive Order that "gives the White House muchgreater control over the rules and policy statements" on "public health, safety, the environment,civil rights and privacy."
This comes on the heels of all the recent firings by the Justice Department. Within the last few months, Alberto Gonzales' Justice Department started firing federal prosecutors in mass. We cannot be certain as to exactly how many have been fired. But there -- each of them with something in common: they investigated public officials for allegedly being involved in government corruption. Republican lawmakers, such as John Ensign (R-NV), lazily to question Gonzales about it. Democrats, like Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), chose to during a recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. The night before, she gave a on the Senate floor about this misuse of Executive power.
Interestingly, within the last few days, word circulated that a large quantity of new federal prosecutors have been hired by the Bush Administration. Because of an in the Patriot Act, Gonzales can hand-pick each nominee -- none of which have to be confirmed by the Senate. The nine new prosecutors that have been appointed by Gonzales just so happen to be from President Bush's inner circle.
This amounts to nothing more than a reckless consolidation of power by the Executive Branch. It happens because lawmakers and their staffers do not read bills carefully enough to notice secret provisions like the kind Gonzales is now using to personally appoint new Bush-friendly prosecutors.
In the coming weeks, Democrats may have to compromise on the minimum wage bill by allowing a line item veto amendment -- another example of how Congress is losing this battle.
Long summary short, the Democrat Democratic majority needs to stand up tall and use its muscle to stop allowing the Bush-Cheney Administration to wrestle power away from the Legislative Branch. So far, they have sent the message to the White House that it is okay to consolidate power like this without any Congressional investigation. John Conyers and Pat Leahy, who head the Judiciary Committees in either chamber of Congress, are for some reason missing in action.
Where is the Congress on this? Please email your and your two . Tell them to investigate these new Justice Department appointments, and to show some spine by investigating each misuse of Executive power.
Today, the Senate on whether Judd Gregg's line item-veto amendment will be attached to the minimum wage bill. Here is an explanation of how the line-item veto legislation is different than the one in 1996, and why it is still unconstitutional.
In 1996, Congress passed line-item veto legislation, only to have it by the Supreme Court. For those that are not familiar with what line-item veto means, it allows the President to pick and choose certain sections within a bill to veto without vetoing the entire bill at-large. The Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional because the President would have been granted power of the purse, even though purse power is supposed to be the responsibility of the Legislative Branch.
Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH), the sponsor of the newest line item veto bill, claims his legislation is constitutional. It would work a little differently than the last one, as the explains:
At issue is a watered-down GOP measure that would allow a president toscrutinize spending bills he signs into law for questionable items andthen submit cuts, or rescissions, to Congress for a vote. Unlike thecurrent system, Congress couldn't simply ignore the cuts — if bothHouses voted to approve them, they'd go into effect.
In other words, if Gregg's bill became law, the President could say, "I don't like section X of this bill. Therefore, I want Congress to vote on that section, and only that section." Only if Congress approved the section by a majority vote would the the line-item veto be overridden.
But if you would bare with me for this explanation, this bill is still unconstitutional. Remember, in Article I, Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution, it says that all vetoes can only be overridden by a two-thirds majority. Gregg's bill amends the constitution to allow the President to veto part of the bill, and send that part back to Congress where it only needs to be approved by a majority vote -- not a two-thirds vote. This bill tries to re-write the constitution.
Read of the Constitution for yourself, and you be the judge:
Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and theSenate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President ofthe United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shallreturn it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall haveoriginated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal,and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirdsof that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, togetherwith the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise bereconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shallbecome a Law.
Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) is strongly opposed to Gregg's line item veto bill, and :
"A Legislative Line-Item Veto effectively creates a third option for the president. It adds a new dimension to Executive power -- one not found in the Constitution. Instead of vetoing and returning a whole bill to the Congress before it becomes law, under the Gregg amendment, the president can resubmit only those provisions he opposes, and do so after a bill becomes law. The president can sign a bill into law, and then strip it of the provisions he does not like. Instead of the president weighing-in before a bill becomes law, he can ignore the pros and cons of debate and wait until well after it has become law. He can literally ignore both public opinion and Congressional debate and deliberation. He can pull out anything he does not like from legislation passed by both Houses of Congress, and insist on a second run through the legislative process."
This is a significant piece of legislation. Since the Republicans want this bill to go through at all cost, it comes as little surprise that they are trying to attach it to some larger bill to conceal it from the public.
Please your two Senators and tell them to reject Judd Gregg's line item veto amendment to the minimum wage bill. Keep in mind that the Supreme Court might not strike it down this time. So this could very well be our last chance to mount an opposition to unlimited Executive power.
I can't believe that the traditional media did not pick up on this last week. Even more so, I can't believe that blog editors like myself failed to bring this to anyone's attention.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told Senator Arlen Specter during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing a few days ago that the U.S. Constitution does not grant or assure habeas corpus to anyone. Read this closely:
GONZALES: The fact that theConstitution — again, there is no express grant of habeas in theConstitution. There is a prohibition against taking it away. But it’snever been the case, and I’m not a Supreme —
SPECTER: Now, wait a minute. Wait a minute. The constitution saysyou can’t take it away, except in the case of rebellion or invasion.Doesn’t that mean you have the right of habeas corpus, unless there isan invasion or rebellion?
GONZALES: I meant by that comment, the Constitution doesn’t say,“Every individual in the United States or every citizen is herebygranted or assured the right to habeas.†It doesn’t say that. It simplysays the right of habeas corpus shall not be suspended except by —
SPECTER: You may be treading on your interdiction and violating common sense, Mr. Attorney General.
GONZALES: Um.
That is by far the most dangerous thing I have read all week-long. Maybe the Judiciary Committee under Specter's leadership should have done a better job questioning Gonzales when he was up for confirmation a few years ago. I cannot believe that the Senate would confirm someone like Gonzales who has such a warped view of the constitution. No wonder he put laws into motion that allowed torture. He believes Bush should have a blank check.
The blog (not the official party site) is calling on Congress to impeach Gonzales. That might not be such a bad idea.
The Democrats' victory in November, coupled with the courage of some Republicans to break ranks with the President, may mark the beginning of the end of the Iraq war. Pretty soon, the House and Senate will begin debating a non-binding resolution that condemns the Administration's Iraq policy. If it survives a Senate filibuster, it will mark the first successful effort to slowly chip away at Bush's wartime power. Little by little, lawmakers will start submitting other bills that go even further to restrict the Administration's ability to continue enacting an open-ended war policy.
Eventually, likely before the end of the year, this will turn into a constitutional show-down over whether the Legislative Branch has the right to block funds for this war. Assuming Bush and Cheney continue to fight it, the matter would end up in the Supreme Court. Although the high court would not be voting precisely on whether to end the war, their decision could end up doing just that. If the Supreme Court rules that the Legislative Branch does indeed control the power of the purse, even during wartime, then Bush would lose control over how long the war could continue.
Therefore, while 2007 may become a battle between the Legislative and Executive branches over wartime authority, the Judicial Branch will have the ultimate say. Even more fascinating, all of this would unfold as each presidential contender campaigns for their party's nomination.
Signed before Christmas, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act gives the government first class access to your private information.
Many of the most vocal critics of the were outraged not just because it broke international law, but by how the bill could be used as precedent to slowly chip away at the privacy rights of American citizens. Instead of Dick Cheney and other advocates of unrestrained executive privilege throwing the hail-Mary pass and instituting martial law, it might be smarter for them to dismantle the constitution slowly, piece by piece -- that way, less people would notice. The Military Commissions Act allows the government to suspend habeas corpus for any prisoner listed as an "." This includes American citizens. This was only the first part in the Administration's ongoing effort to use national security as an excuse to curb civil liberties.
Now here comes part two. The White House said late-Thursday that the federal government has the right to without a search warrant:
A signing statement attached to postal legislation by President Bushlast month may have opened the way for the government to open mailwithout a warrant.
The White House denies any change in policy.
The law requires government agents to get warrants to open first-class letters.
But when he signed the postal reform act, Bush added a statement sayingthat his administration would construe that provision “in a mannerconsistent, to the maximum extent permissible, with the need to conductsearches in exigent circumstances.â€
The legislation was by Senator Susan Collins (R-ME).
According to the 4th Amendment in the Bill of Rights, the government cannot invade privacy in this manner:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, andeffects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath oraffirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and thepersons or things to be seized.
The bill was signed into law just before Christmas. It is called the (H.R. 6407).
If you believe this bill puts your civil liberties, or the civil liberties of those around you, at risk, please take action:
your U.S. House Representative
your Senators and tell them to sponsor legislation that repeals this bill.
the American Civil Liberties Union and urge them to challenge this in court.
Senator Specter voted for the Military Commissions Act, and then opposes it now that it is cool to do so.
Of the many issues that Democrats say they want to address, the Military Commissions Act is definitely one of them. Last month, Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), a 2008 presidential candidate, announced his plan to unveil legislation that would repeal the entire , which was passed earlier this year. Senator Leahy has , which is very similar. The dispute is over a certain section of the Military Commissions Act that suspends habeas corpus for anyone, including U.S. citizens, that the government declares an .
With the momentum swinging in the favor of the opposition, former Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Arlen Specter (R-PA), a Republican, and admitted yesterday that the part of the Military Commissions Act that suspends habeas corpus is unconstitutional:
"I think the courts are going to declare that part of the legislationunconstitutional," Specter said in an interview this month.
What makes this quote jaw-dropping was the fact that Specter the Military Commissions Act just a few months ago. With the pressure gone after he lost he chairman position, as a result of the Democrats' victory in November, Specter has the luxury of flip-flopping changing his mind without worrying about being threatened by his own party.
The way I see it, it is convenient for spineless people when situations arise that don't require them to have one. I can never remember Arlen Specter taking a strong position on anything. He claims to be pro-choice, pro-environment and pro-minority rights -- yet he prevented the opposition in his committee from critically questioning two right-wing Supreme Court justices. Sorry, but although he is a proud moderate Republican, that Senator needs to develop his own positions and stop going whichever way the political wind blows.
A U.S. citizen by the name of Donald Vance served as a contractor in Iraq, but was put in a maximum security U.S. prison in Iraq. Although Vance is a U.S. citizen, he was still subjected to all this without even being charged for a crime. His story was published in Monday's :
American guards arrived at the man’s cell periodically over the nextseveral days, shackled his hands and feet, blindfolded him and took himto a padded room for interrogation, the detainee said. After an hour ortwo, he was returned to his cell, fatigued but unable to sleep.
Thefluorescent lights in his cell were never turned off, he said. At mosthours, heavy metal or country music blared in the corridor. He said hewas rousted at random times without explanation and made to stand inhis cell. Even lying down, he said, he was kept from covering his faceto block out the light, noise and cold. And when he was released after97 days he was exhausted, depressed and scared.
Detainee 200343 was among thousands of people who have been held and released by the American military in Iraq,and his account of his ordeal has provided one of the few detailedviews of the Pentagon’s detention operations since the abuse scandalsat Abu Ghraib. Yet in many respects his case is unusual.
The detainee was Donald Vance, a 29-year-old Navy veteran from Chicago who went to Iraq as a security contractor.
Vance was held without charges or legal representation. He took notes on his detention experience in a bible, and smuggled the bible out when he was released 97 days later.
As yesterday, the suspension of habeas corpus turns the clock back to the days before the Magna Carta. And we think that we have any business trying to spread democracy when we can't even live up to our own constitution?
Columnist Fareed Zakaria has been a routine guest on the Daily Show, including . On Sunday, he wrote a that I hope all of you will read and put some thought into. In the first paragraph, he quoted one of the most famous documents in human history: the Magna Carta of 1215.
“No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rightsor possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing inany other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or sendothers to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by thelaw of the land.â€
This is really an important quote, especially when we look at how the of 2006 completely wiped out habeas corpus. Not just any alleged terrorist, but anyone in the United States, including any U.S. citizen, who is listed as an "enemy combatant", no longer has the right to a fair trial.
Again, this is the year 2006. Yet, lawfully speaking, we are journeying back before the year 1215 when habeas corpus did not apply. It's amazing that the Republican Senate stood around and let this happen. This is why John McCain will not get my vote in 2008. Sure, he voted for the war. But in the end, nothing even compares to the compromise he made with President Bush that tore a hole in our judicial process -- a process that had been in the making ever since 1215.
Former Attorney General is coming out of political hibernation. After sitting on the sidelines and watching Executive power increase to the point that the Administration can now hold prisoners for an indefinite amount of time without charging them, Reno has finally seen enough. The soft-spoken, polite former Clinton official is now voicing her strong opposition to the . She and seven other former Justice Department officials are taking this matter to the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
This is from Wednesday's :
Reno, reached at her Florida home yesterday, said she would let thebrief "speak for itself. I've been following this, and it reflects myconcerns about the detention and treatment of people who have beendetermined to be enemy combatants in a manner that is not clear how itis being done."
In their brief, Reno and the other former JusticeDepartment officials said: "The government is essentially asserting theright to hold putative enemy combatants arrested in the United Statesindefinitely whenever it decides not to prosecute those peoplecriminally -- perhaps because it would be too difficult to obtain aconviction, perhaps because a motion to suppress evidence would raiseembarrassing facts about the government's conduct, or perhaps for otherreasons."
This comes on the heels of a pledge by Senator (D-CT) to repeal the Military Commissions Act. The added scrutiny of the Bush policy by former Justice Department officials, such as Reno, will only help Dodd generate more momentum to get this bill through.
If approached correctly, this is a debate that we can win, even if Bush vetoes the bill. It would ensure that this bill will be on the desk of the next president in January of 2009 so habeas corpus can finally be restored.
Remember what it says in Article I, Section 9 of our :
The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended,unless whenin cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety mayrequire it.
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