Democatic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean spoke today at the the Annual Conference of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. He laid out the case for why Democrats have a strong national defense plan, while Republicans have shown that they cannot be trusted to secure our nation.

"The Democrats have a better idea. First we will conclude the negotiations with the Chinese and the North Koreans to disarm North Korea. Secondly, under no circumstances will a Democratic Administration ever allow Iran to become a nuclear power. Three, we will kill or capture Osama bin Laden and four, the authority and the control of the ports of the United States must be retained by American companies.

"We are not simply speaking about the United Arab Emirates -- we are also speaking about the western ports which are controlled by companies controlled by the Chinese government. Foreign governments of any kind ought not to be controlling American ports, especially when the Coast Guard already recommended that they could not guarantee the security of the ports."

"We will defend America."

"Republicans have been in power long enough to show that they can't be trusted with your money, your defense or power. The truth is today, 34% of the American people think that the President is doing a good job. So, we're not talking about a fifty-fifty country- we're simply talking about a country that wants competence and honesty in their leadership again"

"While the Republicans have done a good job winning elections the. . .way they win elections is the root cause for why they've done such a terrible job governing America. . .

"If you divide people in order to win elections, you can't govern. . .The president has to understand that they are the President of all people, not just 50.1%."

...

"So our strategy is very simple- we want to make it clear to the American people what the Republicans are about and what their discrepancies are between what they say and what they do. We also want to make sure the American people understand what we are going to do differently.

"One- we will pass ethics legislation within the first 100 days of our re-ascension to power, and eliminate the scandals and the corruption that the Republicans have brought to power. We want honest and open government in America again.

"Two- we want a strong national defense which begins with telling the truth to our citizens and our soldiers and our allies before we send troops abroad.

"Three- we want American jobs that will stay in America by creating a new energy independence industry, creating thousands of manufacturing jobs and construction jobs to retrofit our homes and businesses.

"Four- we want a health care system which works for everyone, just like 36 other countries in the world have.

"And five- we want a strong public education system so we can have opportunity and optimism back in America again. . ."

This is the message that Democratic leaders need to be spreading.

Principled leadership, strong communities, healthy families, and intelligent defense.

Investor's Business Daily features an editorial today titled, Saddam Had WMD. One might think that such a revelation would be trumpeted from much further reaching media outlets than IBD - and it might, were it true.

The IBD editorial refers to a group of secret tapes leaked to ABC News earlier this month. The tapes feature Saddam Hussein speaking with aides about how much he would like WMD.

Charles Duelfer, who led the official U.S. search for weapons of mass destruction after the war, says the tapes show extensive deception but don't prove that weapons were still hidden in Iraq at the time of the U.S.-led war in 2003. "What they do is support the conclusion in the report, which we made in the last couple of years, that the regime had the intention of building and rebuilding weapons of mass destruction, when circumstances permitted."

You know, I would really like a Rolls Royce. I really would. I think it would be awesome. And, if circumstances permit, I will get one. Of course, that doesn't mean that I have a Rolls Royce, or that I'm anywhere near obtaining one.

IBD refers to these tapes as if they contain some new information about Iraqi WMD programs. What the tapes show about Iraqi WMD programs, though, is exactly the opposite of what IBD states in the title to this piece.

What do the tapes tell us? Iraq had no WMD. The UN weapons inspection program was working - it was actively preventing Saddam from having working WMD programs. What did we learn about Saddam from these tapes? That he was a brutal dictator? That he would've liked some WMD if it weren't impossible for him to get them? We knew all of that already.

The IBD article claims that the "most chilling" part of the tapes are statements by raq Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz as to how easy it would be to set off WMD in New York. But this was obvious to everyone but the Bush administration that chose to ignore the Presidential Daily Briefing titled "Bin Laden determined to attack inside the U.S."

IBD concludes from the tapes that

We had to invade to disarm Saddam — otherwise, he would have completely reconstituted his chemical, nuclear and bio-weapons programs when inspectors left.

But this conclusion actually contradicts itself. We had to disarm Iraq, otherwise they may have armed themselves?

IDB goes on to say that Iraq had WMD, even though this was contradicted by the tapes, and that they may have been secretly moved to Syria. For this, IBD cites Georges Sada, current Iraqi National Security Advisor, who claims he was told (by some unnamed person) that Saddam secretly moved the WMD into Syria. IBD also cites former deputy undersecretary for Defense, John Snow, who has spread the unsupported conspiracy theory that Russia secreted the WMD into Syria. IBD reports both of these theories despite the fact that President Bush's senior weapons inspector, Charles Duelfer, found no evidence that any WMD were moved into Syria.

On Syria, the report said that "no information gleaned from questioning Iraqis supported the possibility" that weapons were moved out of the country before the invasion, which was one theory about why no unconventional weapons were found.

Today's Investor's Business Daily editorial is little more than a self-contradictory amalgam of previously disproven conspiracy theories and misinformation. The fact remains that there is no evidence that Saddam Hussein possessed either WMD or active WMD programs at the time of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.

National Journal's Hotline has this piece on illegal political contributions made by Mitchell Wade, founder of defense contrating firm MZM.

Wade has plead guilty to bribery charges in relation to then Republican Congressman, now convicted felon Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Wade made the illegal contributions by having his employees make contributions, then reimbursing them - a practice known as "straw contributions."

Hotline looked into the contributions coming from MZM's PAC and this is what they have found using www.fecinfo.com:

BTW: here's who MZM's PAC contributed money to in recent cycles.

In '04
Cunningham, Randy "Duke" (R-CA) $6,000
Forbes, J Randy (R-VA) $5,000
Goode, Virgil H Jr (R-VA) $10,000
Harris, Katherine (R-FL) $10,000
Hunter, Duncan (R-CA) $1,000
Renzi, Rick (R-AZ) $2,000


In '06:
Goode, Virgil H Jr (R-VA) $5,000
Hunter, Duncan (R-CA) $2,500
Tiahrt, Todd (R-KS) $1,000
Wamp, Zach (R-TN) $2,000

Notice anything consistent about these? They are all Republicans.

And it looks like a certain Katherine Harris received quite a chunk of change from Wade. Interestingly, this is not the first time Katherine Harris has accepted illegal campaign contributions.

It's not the first time the Longboat Key Republican has had to defend herself for accepting illegal contributions from a company. In 1994, while running for the state Senate, Harris collected $30,000 from a Sarasota company called Riscorp, which like MZM was investigated for violating campaign laws.

Katherine Harris, of course, says she had no idea that she had accepted any illegal contributions. The Washington Post, though, reports that documents relating to Wade's indictment tell a different story.

The member identifiable as Harris received $32,000 in illegal donations from Wade and his employees in 2004. Documents filed with Wade's plea say that he took Harris to dinner early last year, where they discussed the possibility of another fundraiser and the possibility of getting funding for a Navy counterintelligence program in the member's district. One source familiar with the inquiry said Harris made such a request for funding, but it was not granted.

Today's Washington Post reports that a new bill by Senator Arlen Specter will bring Bush's controversial NSA wiretap program under the authority of the FISA court.

Specter's proposal would bring the four-year-old NSA program under the authority of the court created by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The act created a mechanism for obtaining warrants to wiretap domestic suspects. But President Bush, shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks, authorized the NSA to eavesdrop on communications without such warrants. The program was revealed in news reports two months ago.

Specter's plan could put him at odds with the administration, which has praised a rival proposal that would exempt the NSA program from the surveillance law. Specter's proposal would also require the administration to give a handful of lawmakers more information about the program than they now receive, such as the number of communications intercepted and a summary of the results.

I have thought that this sort of proposal - bringing the NSA wiretap program under the authority of FISA - sounded a little strange. After all, isn't the point of the controversy that the NSA wiretaps in question should already be under the authority of FISA and that, by telling the NSA to forgo FISA authorization, President Bush acted illegally? So, why do we need a new bill to codify something that is already law?

Law professor Marty Lederman writes at Balkanization that Sen. Specter's bill may actually be an effort to ex post facto legalize Bush's illegal wiretap program.

As I read the draft bill, however, [the idea that the bill would require that the NSA program be conducted only within the FISA framework] is wrong. It's not simply a a reenactment of the "FISA framework" -- instead, it's a wholescale dismantling of that framework, a substantive amendment to FISA that would vastly increase the surveillance authority of the President. It would give the Executive branch everything it has always wanted, and much more: The punishment for having broken the law with impunity would be a wholesale repeal of the law that has governed electronic surveillance for almost 30 years (and not only with respect to Al Qaeda or terrorism). In one fell swoop, the Specter legislation would undo the detailed regulatory scheme that both political branches have so carefully calibrated over more than a quarter-century.

Lederman offers a word of caution, saying that he's only had a chance to conduct a cursory reading of the draft legislation, but his initial analysis underscores the importance of maintaining a strong public debate of this issue. The Washington Post article quotes Center for National Security Studies director Kate Martin as saying

"It's not limited to al-Qaeda or even terrorism," she said. Those who communicate with "foreign powers" could include a vast array of innocent people, Martin said.

Though the WaPo cites Martin, the subtitle to the WaPo article - "Measure Would Make Administration Seek FISA Court's Permission to Eavesdrop" - could easily mislead readers into believing that Senator Specter is proposing legislation that would reign in Bush's domestic spying program, rather than what it may really do, which is provide a legal framework for expanding it.

Update: Glenn Greenwald has an interesting take on Specter's proposed bill.

Specter's new law would be treated by the Administration as being just as irrelevant and optional as it has treated FISA. Enacting a new law which the Administration is claiming it has the right to ignore is an exercise in futility and idiocy. The Administration has seized the power to break the law. Until that problem is resolved, Specter and his distinguished colleagues and friends in the Senate can pass all of the laws they want, but those laws will continue to be viewed by the Administration as optional suggestions which can be followed if the Administration wants to, rather than actual laws that compel adherence.

On this morning's FOX News Sunday, William Kristol, editor of the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard said

We’ve been trying, and our soldiers are doing terrifically, but we have not had a serious three-year effort to fight a war in Iraq as opposed to laying the preconditions for getting out.

-via Think Progress

Kristol adds the aside that "our soldiers are doing terrifically" in an attempt to hide the fact that he is insulting the men and women who are, everyday, putting their lives on the line in Iraq - not to mention the over 2000 Americans who have died in the effort.

We have had a serious effort to fight a war in Iraq - ask any man or woman in uniform; ask their families; ask an Iraqi.

The truth is that the war has been going badly because it was based on geopolitical fiction, rushed into, executed without the necessary equipment and planning, lacks a measurable goal for success, and lacks an exit strategy. The truth is the American men and women in uniform have been making a serious and determined effort to fight a war without the real support of the Bush administration and the Republican leadership (who are in control of the government).

The effort that has truly been lacking in seriousness has been that of Republicans to provide other than symbolic support to our troops. That sticker on your car does not count.

President Bush says he didn't know about the UAE port deal until after the fact. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said the same thing. Now, Secretary of the Treasury, John Snow, also says he was unaware of the deal until after it was approved.

So, now, the question is, who was at the meeting that approved it?

Once again, Republican leaders have been derelict in their duty to protect the security of the American people.

Of course, I'm sure someone will benefit from the UAE port deal.

This is really ridiculous.

Under a part of the German legal code last revised in 1969, a person can be sentenced to a fine or up to three years in jail for "insulting confessions, religious communities or groups promoting a special world view."

I'm not one to believe the right-wing Chicken Little style ravings about Western democracies committing suicide to appease extremist groups, but the fact that Germany has a law on the books that makes it a criminal offense to insult anything really makes me depressed.

Chris Matthews said on Hardball tonight in re the UAE port deal:

"The President looks like a Democrat and Democrats look like security conscious Republicans!"

Matthews repeats the Republican campaign message that Democrats are weak on security and Republicans are strong. Matthews made this statement with no evidence that Democrats are in any way weak on security. Furthermore, he does not mention that the current Republican government has consistently failed to protect the security of Americans.

David Sirota looks at who is really weak on national security

In other words, Americans don't buy the Rove-Hackett storyline [that Democrats are weak on national security]. They get that the defense/intelligence budget has, for years, been increasingly corrupted by bought-off politicians who have used it to enrich their defense industry campaign contributors. You have to look no further than the shenanigans of Reps. Duke Cunningham (R-CA) or Jerry Lewis (R-CA) on the Defense Appropriations Committee to know why Americans see the truth on this. In fact, it was none other than Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld who tacitly acknowledged this reality when he recently advocated for military "transformation" - a program that included major defense spending cuts to outdated weapons systems that contractors were getting fat off of, but that weren't targeted to the War on Terror. And throughout the 1980s it was Dick Cheney who pushed repeatedly to cut defense spending, again citing the wastefulness of outdated programs. These two are clearly "weak" on national security because of their decisions to send us into a war that diverted resources from pursuing the perpetrators of 9/11 - but they are not "weak" on national security because of their previous (and now abandoned) efforts to refocus national security spending.

However much Karl Rove and other Republican strategists want to make it conventional wisdom, Democrats are not weak on national security, and Republicans are not strong on national security. Chris Matthews does a disservice to his viewers and to political debate when he unquestioningly repeats partisan campaign messages.

Update: Jane Hamsher has more evidence that Republicans are not strong on security

The ability of honest men and women to put a stop to illegal actions by government officials is under attack by the Bush administration. The most recent example of this attack is outlined in today's Washington Post:

The Bush administration said that journalists can be prosecuted under current espionage laws for receiving and publishing classified information but that such a step "would raise legitimate and serious issues and would not be undertaken lightly," according to a court filing made public this week.

People like "Scooter" Libby, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and Jack Abramoff must be watching with baited breath.

Okay, one more...

The Bush administration continues their Party Before Principle attacks on liberty. Having recently worked hard to stack the court not with conservative justices but partisan ones, the Bush administration is going ahead with some pretty audacious legal moves.

Reuters and Associated Press are reporting that the Supreme Court will re-hear arguments in a whistleblower case. According to the AP article

The Bush administration wants the court to use the case to make it harder for government whistleblowers to win lawsuits claiming retaliation. Justices had seemed conflicted last October when they took up the appeal involving Los Angeles County prosecutor Richard Ceballos, who asserted he was demoted for trying to expose a lie by a sheriff's deputy.

Dogged by whistleblowers outing administration failures, incompetence, corruption, and illegal activities, the Bush administration is looking for an easier way to retaliate against honest people who take a stand on principle. The re-hearing of arguments will allow an opportunity for recently sworn-in Justice Alito to vote in favor of the GOP's Party Before Principle stance.

The Associated Press is also reporting that the White House will join Republican controlled Texas in defending Tom DeLay's redistricting map. The Bush administration will have the Department of Justice argue in favor of Tom DeLay's redistricting plan even though the Department of Justice found it to be illegal (and racist).

The memo, unanimously endorsed by six lawyers and two analysts in the department's voting section, said the redistricting plan illegally diluted black and Hispanic voting power in two congressional districts. It also said the plan eliminated several other districts in which minorities had a substantial, though not necessarily decisive, influence in elections.

"The State of Texas has not met its burden in showing that the proposed congressional redistricting plan does not have a discriminatory effect," the memo concluded.

The memo also found that Republican lawmakers and state officials who helped craft the proposal were aware it posed a high risk of being ruled discriminatory compared with other options.

The Bush administration, backed by today's Republican Party, is interested not in democracy or liberty or, even, the best interests of the American people. Though the Justice Department attorneys charged with evaluating DeLay's redistricting plan unanimously found it to be illegal and racist, the Bush White House has decided to defend the plan in front of the Supreme Court. They have their sights set on one goal - consolidation of power at any cost.

No matter how you look at it, for today's Republican leadership, it's Party Before Principle, and nothing else.

Posting will be on hold for a couple of days as we drive the moving truck through three days of snow and ice.

When it comes to courts, Republicans love to talk about strict constructionism. President Bush selected Justices Roberts and Alito in part becuase of their constructionalist credentials. Justices Scalia and Thomas, those darlings of the right, are famous for their originalist screeds. But, what happens when the unstoppable force meets the immmovable object? What happens, say, when the President wants a policy that cannot be squared with strict constructionalism?

Vikram Amar and David Brownstein take a look at Bush's secret domestic spying program and why it fails the test of strict constructionalism.

Vice President Dick Cheney to Brit Hume yesterday:

One of the problems we have as a government is our inability to keep secrets.

Yeah, Dick, would that we were more like the USSR. Open government - whose idea was that? I blame the Founding Fathers.

To be fair, here is the complete context of the above quote:

Q There have been two leaks, one that pertained to possible facilities in Europe; and another that pertained to this NSA matter. There are officials who have had various characterizations of the degree of damage done by those. How would you characterize the damage done by those two reports?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: There clearly has been damage done.

Q Which has been the more harmful, in your view?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don't want to get into just sort of ranking them, then you get into why is one more damaging than the other. One of the problems we have as a government is our inability to keep secrets. And it costs us, in terms of our relationship with other governments, in terms of the willingness of other intelligence services to work with us, in terms of revealing sources and methods. And all of those elements enter into some of these leaks.

So, really the secrets the Vice President was referring to were just offshore torture prisons and illegal domestic spying programs. I mean, seriously, how can a government and its officials be expected to function if they can't hide the fact that they're violating the law?

Kerry Howley at Reason asks a great question, and one that hasn't gotten enough attention: Who pays for Dick Cheney to go on canned hunts with expensive Italian shotguns?

Cheney's travel disclosure habits are nothing if not consistent; as Alex Knott, political editor at the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity explained to me yesterday, "Cheney has not filled any disclosure forms about any group paying for any travel since he has entered office." Under the 1989 Ethics Reform Act, President Bush and other heads of agencies are supposed to file reports with the Office of Government Ethics detailing who is paying for their travel, food, and lodging. Cheney's office doesn't. Why? The Vice President's Office, according to the Center for Public Integrity, labels all trips "official travel." It then bills taxpayers rather than accept private funds.

Perhaps all those anti-pork, small government fiscal conservatives can take a look into this and save the American taxpayer a dollar or two?

This is the best response to the cartoon controversy I have seen yet.

JERUSALEM, Feb 16 (Reuters) - An Israeli cartoonist has launched an "anti-Semitic cartoon contest" to poke fun at fellow Jews in response to furore among Muslims over the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad.

"We thought it would be a much braver thing to do to publish cartoons about ourselves, rather than our adversaries," Sandy told Reuters. "We want to fight fire with humour."

The cartoons will be exhibited in a Tel Aviv gallery and on his Web site www.boomka.org.

Freedom of speech. The most powerful tool in the fight against terror and oppression. Earlier today, Rush Limbaugh sang the praises of the Northern Illinois University students who were suspended from the student newspaper after choosing to publish the Danish cartoons that have caused such fury in the Muslim world. But how brave is it to publish something that may be offensive to people you neither know nor, perhaps, like?

Freedom of speech is important when it comes to issues that your friends, family, and government may not be comfortable with. It's the freedom to declare that your own Emporer is naked that forms the meat of a defense of liberty. Everything else is just gravy.

Reports are coming out that Iraqi death squads are under investigation by US forces in the country.

Why is it that wherever John Negroponte goes, death squads seem to follow?

Fred Kaplan notes a chilling new strategy by the government to stop whistleblowers. The story goes back to the case of Lawrence Franklin, a former Pentagon official who was giving government secrets to AIPAC, a pro-Israel lobby. Franklin was justly convicted for his acts of espionage. Now, though, the two men to whom he was giving the information are being charged, not with espionage, but with receipt of information to which they were not entitled.

The section of the indictment titled "Ways and Means of the Conspiracy" finds that Rosen and Weissman

would cultivate relations with Franklin and others and would use their contacts within the U.S. government and elsewhere to gather sensitive information, including classified information, relating to national defense, for subsequent unlawful communication, delivery and transmission to persons not entitled to receive it.

Take a close look at those final words. They're charged with giving classified information not to foreign governments or spies but rather "to persons not entitled to receive it."

As Kaplan goes on to point out, this is what investigative journalists do. Woodward and Bernstein were not entitled to receive all of the information they did in re Watergate. The Washington Post was not entitled to receive The Pentagon Papers. And, as Kaplan notes, you, dear reader, were not entitled to receive any of that either - yet once you read the paper, you did.

Now, this really only helps those in power. After all, if the Vice President claims he can declassify information at will, then his leaks will be immune. But anything embarrassing to the government - like, say, that they were leaking the names of covert CIA operatives, or running secret torture houses, or spying on private citizens - well, that would be out of bounds.

George Will, one of my favorite conservative columnists, has an excellent column in today's Washington Post.

Besides, terrorism is not the only new danger of this era. Another is the administration's argument that because the president is commander in chief, he is the "sole organ for the nation in foreign affairs." That non sequitur is refuted by the Constitution's plain language, which empowers Congress to ratify treaties, declare war, fund and regulate military forces, and make laws "necessary and proper" for the execution of all presidential powers . Those powers do not include deciding that a law -- FISA, for example -- is somehow exempted from the presidential duty to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed."

I highly recommend taking a moment to read the entire column. Keep in mind that this column is highly critical of the Bush administration because it advocates a conservative position. Glenn Greenwald wrote an interesting piece the other day arguing that Bush supporters are not conservatives, but authoritarian cultists, preferring to follow the authority of a single strong leader over any coherent principles of government. George Will, in this column, demonstrates why one cannot be a true conservative, and support the Bush administration's audacious power grab.

Now, this is something I'd be interested to see. Save the one-on-one interview with Brit Hume on FOX News for late night Cinemax, Valentine's was yesterday.

If the Vice President had a prepared statement, why didn't he deliver it? What did he have to say right after the shooting?

You see, it's not a rabid hatred of the Bush administration that makes people not believe them - it's the secrets and lies.

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals is not known as a bastian of progressive jurisprudence. Expect it to become even more mired in the regressive thinking of the Dixiecrats turned Republicans that control the U.S. government today.

In yesterday's Houston Chronicle, Cragg Hines takes a look at Bush's most recent nominee

Some highlights: Wallace, as an aide to then-House Republican Whip Trent Lott, D-Miss., in the early 1980s fought to protect the tax-exempt status of even the most notoriously segregationist institutions. That included Bob Jones University in South Carolina, where interracial dating was banned until 2000 — and even then required written consent of parents. Also with Lott, Wallace worked to require discriminatory intent — not effect — be proved in voting rights cases.

Later in the 1980s, as a member of the board of the Legal Services Corp., Wallace attempted to gut the agency. He voted to hire outside attorneys to lobby Congress to reduce its appropriation, an action prohibited by the law creating the LSC, as a bipartisan group of lawmakers pointed out.

As an attorney for the Mississippi Republican Party, Wallace fought so strongly for a white-friendly redistricting plan that a U.S. district court accused him of going beyond spirited representation to "needless multiplication of proceedings at great waste of both the court's and the parties' time and resources."

Adding insult to injury, Bush announced the nomination the day after he attended Corretta Scott King's funeral. All class, that one. Of course, Wallace will replace Pickering, so there probably won't mean much of a change on the court.

This is something that probably won't get much attention, but it should. It's another example of Bush's desire to put fringe elements of his party over the best interests of the American people.

A new National Security Agency whistleblower has come forward and is saying that Bush's secret domestic spy program is just the tip of the iceberg.

Russell D. Tice told the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations he has concerns about a "special access" electronic surveillance program that he characterized as far more wide-ranging than the warrentless wiretapping recently exposed by the New York Times but he is forbidden from discussing the program with Congress.

Tice said he believes it violates the Constitution's protection against unlawful search and seizures but has no way of sharing the information without breaking classification laws. He is not even allowed to tell the congressional intelligence committees - members or their staff - because they lack high enough clearance.

Neither could he brief the inspector general of the NSA because that office is not cleared to hear the information, he said.

via - Volokh Conspiracy

The Washington Post is reporting today that Justice Alito hired a former Ashcroft aide to work as his clerk. Now, I don't know much (if anything) about the way this works, but the WaPo tells us that

Ciongoli's appointment, which will last about five months, is unusual: Though there has been a slight trend at the court toward hiring law clerks with a few years of work experience, the vast majority of clerks are recent law school graduates.

Among those who have come to the court after working elsewhere, none in recent memory had held a government position as senior as Ciongoli's at the Justice Department, where he was widely regarded as one of Ashcroft's closest confidants.

That, of course, made me curious. Something out of typical practice that preserves the inertia of legal thought probably has some reasoning behind it.

Having previously worked with Ashcroft in the DoJ, the potential exists that Ciongoli could, in his new position, see some of the same cases that he worked on as DoJ attorney. Is this proper? The WaPo goes on to note that

According to a 2002 federal publication, "Maintaining the Public Trust: Ethics for Federal Judicial Law Clerks," clerks should not participate in cases that they worked on "in a previous legal job," or about which they have personal knowledge of disputed facts.

Maybe Ciongoli can get a tip or two from Justice Alito on the subject of recusal.

The Supreme Court should not be a political branch of government. It should certainly not be a tool of a political party. Today's Republicans, though, seem less interested in maintaining the separation of powers and checks and balances that ensure our liberty. Republicans, for example, appear to be willing to sacrifice Congressional power for a single authoritarian leader. Kim Jong Il must be impressed.

Perhaps noting that a Townhall.com columnist totally misses the point is stating the obvious. Nevertheless, I felt annoyed enough by this column that I felt I wanted to say something.

Hynes says,

Democrats have some serious decisions to make about the future of their party and its message. The Democrat Party cannot long stand as one that demands separation of church and state in all -- even symbolic -- matters while at the same time claiming Biblical substantiation for liberal public policies. They cannot imply John Roberts’ queasiness about Roe v. Wade breaches the “impregnable wall,” as Sen. Dianne Feinstein did during Roberts’ confirmation hearings, while at the same time urge income redistribution because “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" (Mark 10:25). They cannot call Republicans “theocrats” for trying to save Terri Schiavo while they also claim John the Baptist endorsed their welfare state when he said, “He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none …” (Luke 3:11).

Hynes completely misses the point. Democrats are not "playing the God card". Democrats are not trying to find scriptural justification for policies. They are offering glaring examples of the cynical exploitation of religion by Republicans who are only concerned with religion so far as it helps consolidate their power.

Jim Carville and Paul Begala may try to play the GOP at their own game by claiming "God is a liberal", and, if they do, they will sound just as ridiculous as Kenneth Copeland talking about how Jesus wants Bush's judges to be affirmed; but does nothing to counter the sad fact illustrated by Hynes's very admonition - "Democrats misplay 'God Card'".

To cynical party loyalists like Hynes, God is simply another trump card to pull in the messy game of politics. For people like Hynes, "God" is kept for times when "9/11 Changed Everything" or "Won't Somebody Think About the Children!?!" won't do - a cynical play at pathos by people who don't really care one way or the other, as long as they are in control.

Democrats are not trying to play the God card, they are showing America that, to Republicans, God is just tool for personal gain - and that's the most blasphemous act of all.

Rob Borsellino understands what else is wrong with playing the "God card" - it makes us all look ridiculous.

A spokesman for the hospital in Corpus Christie is on CNN Live saying that birdshot has moved into Whittington's heart causing a heartattack.

I thought this was just a slight scratch on the cheek? Wasn't that the word from the White House? Now they're saying that doctors are trying to keep the shot from moving into other vital organs?

What the hell is going on?

Update: AP Report

Update 2: CNN is now reporting that White House Spokesman Scott McClellan knew about the new developments prior to the White House press briefing, but chose not to tell the White House Press Corps.

A comment just overheard here - It's interesting that the press are holding them to the fire about this, but they won't ask tough questions about things like war plans, illegal domestic spy programs, or the outing of covert CIA operatives.

Justice Scalia calls people who disagree with him "idiots", refers to self in third person.

PONCE, Puerto Rico (AP) -- People who believe the Constitution would break if it didn't change with society are "idiots," U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says.

In a speech Monday sponsored by the conservative Federalist Society, Scalia defended his long-held belief in sticking to the plain text of the Constitution "as it was originally written and intended."

"Scalia does have a philosophy, it's called originalism," he said. "That's what prevents him from doing the things he would like to do," he told more than 100 politicians and lawyers from this U.S. island territory.

Sure, stick to the Constitution "as it was originally...intended" in the 18th century. White, Christian, land-owning males should not have to pay tax on tea. That's the basis for all good juridprudence, everything else is just fluff.

The Supreme Court Justice was later heard to say, "Scalia is hungry! Euegene Meyer, bring Scalia a meatball sub! Ugh! Idiot! This sandwich contains Swiss cheese! Swiss cheese displeases Scalia! Which among you will curry favor with Scalia by bringing him a meatball sub with provalone, such as is better fitting Scalia's taste? Go forth, minions of Scalia, and returneth not until Scalia's hunger has been sated!"

Now, what I'd really like to know is, what exactly are the "things he would like to do" that only his "philosophy" prevents him from doing? Eating the hearts of unbaptized babies? Bathing in the blood of virgins? What does the real Scalia want? Thanks to the framers, we may never know.

Valerie Plame, the covert CIA operative outed by members of the Bush administration, is known to have been working undercover to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

The Raw Story is reporting that intelligence agency sources say that Plame was tracking the WMD programs in Iran.

According to current and former intelligence officials, Plame Wilson, who worked on the clandestine side of the CIA in the Directorate of Operations as a non-official cover (NOC) officer, was part of an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran.

Speaking under strict confidentiality, intelligence officials revealed heretofore unreported elements of Plame's work. Their accounts suggest that Plame's outing was more serious than has previously been reported and carries grave implications for U.S. national security and its ability to monitor Iran's burgeoning nuclear program.

Plame, remember, was outed in retaliation for her husband's, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, writing a column in the New York Times in which he detailed his mission to Africa to determine whether nor not Iraq could have purchased Uranium from Niger as claimed by President Bush in a State of the Union speech. Wilson's mission, several months prior to Bush's speech, clearly found that Iraq could not have purchased uranium and that the evidence held by the Bush administration was a forgery.

Plame's name first appeared in a column by conservative Robert Novak on 14 July 2003. Vice President Dick Cheney's former Chief of Staff, "Scooter" Libby, has been indicted in relation to the outing and has since claimed that he was acting under authorization from his superiors. Investigation into the outing are ongoing, and may be a violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act signed by President Reagan in 1982.

Recently, Iran has resumed uranium enrichment. Unfortunately, the covert program that Plame was working with may have been hobbled, if not destroyed, due to the political machinations of members of the Bush White House.

This is just despicable:

WASHINGTON - The White House blamed the 78-year-old man whom Vice President Dick Cheney shot during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas for the incident, as officials struggled Monday to explain why they waited nearly 24 hours before making the news public.

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan tried to absolve Cheney of blame for shooting wealthy Austin lawyer Harry Whittington, saying that hunting "protocol was not followed by Mr. Whittington when it came to notifying others that he was there. And so, you know, unfortunately, these types of hunting accidents happen from time to time."

Dick Cheney is not at fault after he shot a 78-year-old man in the face?

Let's recall the scenario:

Whittington shot a bird and went to get it, breaking from Cheney and Willeford. Armstrong said Whittington then came up from behind without signaling, and as a covey flushed Cheney wheeled and fired his .28-gauge shotgun, hitting Whittington.

Dick Cheney broke one of the cardinal rules of hunting - don't spin around blasting shots without clearly identifying a safe line of fire. From the White House's own reports, Cheney was firing haphazardly, spinning around when he thought he heard a thrush. Because of his blatant irresponsibility, a 78-year-old man was put in intensive care after being shot in the face.

Hunting doesn't make one a man - accepting responsibility for one's actions does.

It's too bad Dick Cheney isn't man enough to know that.

CNN is reporting that Sen. Bill Frist (R - TN) is planning to bring up a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage this summer. Frist plans on bringing the gay marriage amendment to the Senate even though insiders say it doesn't stand a chance of passing.

Frist said he doesn't know how many votes the ban will receive, but Republican and Democratic aides privately acknowledged the vote will probably fall far short of the 67-vote supermajority needed to advance a constitutional amendment.

So why is Frist intent on pushing the issue in June? The answer is fairly obvious. This November are the mid-term elections and Republicans have nothing to run on.

Republicans failed on ethics (also here, here, here, here, and just about everywhere else)

Republicans failed on health care

Republicans failed on the economy

Republicans failed at defense

Republicans failed at national security

Republicans failed at protecting Americans

So, what's left? Well, why not go with the tried and true - distract voters and push ugly hate. Republicans have been running on the divide and conquer platform of getting Americans to judge their neighbors instead of looking at the real issues since the Dixiecrats changed their name to the GOP.

This election year, look for Republicans to, once again, ignore the real issues and run ugly smear campaign after ugly smear campaign. This time around, though, I think the American people have had enough of Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay, Duke Cunningham, "Scooter" Libby, Dick "Shooter" Cheney, George W. Bush, and Karl Rove.

It's time these folks learned that we're tired of their brand of ugly do-nothing politics and we're ready to get some serious adults to Washington to do the job right.

In re Cheney's shooting of a 78 year old man:

Growing up in Texas, you learn a lot about firearms. You learn that firearms are deadly tools that are to be respected, they are not toys. You learn that before you may use a firearm, you must learn and demonstrate an understanding of firearm safety rules. Rules such as:

Always point the muzzle in a safe direction.
Control the direction of the muzzle at all times. Do not point a firearm or bow at anything you do not intend to shoot. Never rest a muzzle on your toe or foot. Keep your finger out of the trigger guard until the instant you are ready to fire. Always keep the safety on until ready to fire; however, the safety should never be a substitute for safe firearm handling.

Be sure of your target and what is in front of and beyond your target.
Before you pull the trigger you must properly identify game animals. Until your target is fully visible and in good light, do not even raise your scope to see it. Use binoculars! Know what is in front of and behind your target. Determine that you have a safe backstop or background. Since you do not know what is on the other side, never take a shot at any animals on top of ridges or hillsides. Know how far bullets, arrows and pellets can travel. Never shoot at flat, hard surfaces, such as water, rocks or steel because of ricochets.

Know your safe zone-of-fire and stick to it.
Your safe zone-of-fire is that area or direction in which you can safely fire a shot. It is "down range" at a shooting facility. In the field it is that mental image you draw in your mind with every step you take. Be sure you know where your companions are at all times. Never swing your gun or bow out of your safe zone-of-fire. Know the safe carries when there are persons to your sides, in front of, or behind you. If in doubt, never take a shot. When hunting, wear daylight fluorescent orange so you can be seen from a distance or in heavy cover.

From accounts that have been available so far, Dick Cheney shot a man because Cheney swung around to shoot at some birds he heard and didn't expect the man to be there. Mary Matalin, a Republican political consultant, told the Washington Post

"The vice president was concerned," said Mary Matalin, a Cheney adviser who spoke with him yesterday morning. "He felt badly, obviously. On the other hand, he was not careless or incautious or violate any of the [rules]. He didn't do anything he wasn't supposed to do."

That's right - the word from Washington is that "Yeah, Cheney hopes he pulls through, but, heck, it's not Cheney's fault that he shot Mr. Whittington in the face." This is, unfortunately, yet another example of today's Republican leaders inability to take responsibility for anything.

Let's break it down:

1. Cheney was the actor in the accident. Cheney fired the weapon.

2. Cheney was careless and incautious. Cheney failed to stay within the defined safe-fire zone. Cheney failed to ensure that he had a clear shot to the target game.

3. Cheney violated the rules of safe hunting. See above.

4. Cheney refuses to accept responsibility for shooting a 78 year old man in the face with a shotgun. The Republican cover-up talking points are that the victim was somewhere that Cheney didn't expect him. But it's the shooters responsibility to ensure that there is no one in the line of fire. The victim didn't jump in front of the gun, Cheney acted recklessly and endangered the lives of the other members of his party.

The NRA has long insisted that a key part of the right to keep and bear arms is the personal responsibility that goes along with firearm ownership. I hope that the NRA will stand behind their convictions and speak out about Cheney's irresponsible and deadly conduct, as well as his failure to accept personal responsiblity for shooting a fellow hunter in the face.

Then there's the question that nobody seems to want to ask:

Had Cheney been drinking?

The Bush administration throws down the gauntlet

The New York Times Claims That The President Was "On Vacation In Texas" And "Feeling Relieved". "But the alert did not seem to register. Even the next morning, President Bush, on vacation in Texas, was feeling relieved that New Orleans had 'dodged the bullet,' he later recalled. Mr. Chertoff, similarly confident, flew Tuesday to Atlanta for a briefing on avian flu." (Eric Lipton, "White House Knew Of Levee's Failure On Night Of Storm," The New York Times, 2/10/06)

But The President Was Closely Monitoring The Situation And Not "On Vacation."

Think Progress picks it up

In re cartoons:

David Brooks sees a clash of civilizations, or, rather, a clash between civilization and primitivism.

Our mindset is progressive and rational. Your mindset is pre-Enlightenment and mythological. In your worldview, history doesn't move forward through gradual understanding. In your worldview, history is resolved during the apocalyptic conflict between the supernaturally pure jihadist and the supernaturally evil Jew.

You seize on any shred — even a months-old cartoon from an obscure Danish paper — to prove to yourself that the Jew and the crusader are on the offensive, that the apocalyptic confrontation is at hand. You invent primitive stories — like the one about Jews who kill children for their blood — to reinforce your image of Jewish evil. You deny the Holocaust because if the Jews were as powerful as you say, they would never have allowed it to happen.

In my world, people search for truth in their own diverse ways. In your world, the faithful and the infidel battle for survival, and words and ideas and cartoons are nothing more than weapons in that war.

Juan Cole puts things in context:

Rather than merely an East-West issue or a clash of civilizations, the caricature controversy should be seen as part of a culture war within Muslim societies. Precisely because the issue is distant and not very important, it is a cost-free bandwagon on which everyone can jump in search of greater legitimacy among Muslim publics. There is no downside in the Muslim world to defending the prophet Mohammed from Western insults. Pro-American politicians such as Abul-Gheit can use it to burnish their nationalist image, while Sistani can embrace the campaign as part of his old rivalry with the Sadr movement. The cleric Tantawi can employ it to boost his popularity among the rank and file in Egypt and to offset the popularity of the lay fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood. It can be used to mobilize Muslims in Kashmir who care a great deal more about Indian repression than about Danish newspapers.

And, today, Eugene Volokh notes how far things have spun out of control

So I guess it's not just that we aren't supposed to draw pictures of Mohammed as terrorist, or of Mohammed at all; we aren't even supposed to draw pictures that are obviously not of Mohammed, and that are meant to mock the inability to draw pictures of Mohammed.

Well, I have to admit: The folks who are offended by this have a First Amendment right to be offended. They should feel entirely free to be offended.

The rest of us should feel entirely free, as a matter of civility as well as of law, to say: Your decision to be offended by this particular cartoon gives you no rights (again, as a matter of civility as well as of law) to tell us to stop printing it.

Then, of course, there's the other side of the argument:

Perhaps Kieran Healy finds the best summation of all, though:

Andy Hamilton on this week’s News Quiz, quoted from memory: “What gets me about these hardline clerics in Iran and Iraq is how they think Sharia law should apply over here. How would people in Iran feel if they woke up one morning and found that Lambeth Council had wheel-clamped all their cars?”

This past weekend the Aged First Lady of Partisan Assclownery was heard to say

"If we find out someone is going to attack the Supreme Court next week, can't we tell Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Scalito?"

Meanwhile, a pathetic nonentity wrote of Democratic ex-Presidents at Coretta Scott King's funeral

If this is the temperature of the nation in our struggle against Islamic fascism – much less the measure of our will for morality today – we indeed are a nation deserving of not just our removal of God's favor, but actual destruction.

This is the unseemly face of Bushism - neither compassionate nor conservative, it is a movement of people openly hostile to American institutions, liberty, democracy, individual rights - indeed, anything that poses a threat to their claim on absolute power and their sad, frat boy-like displays of self worth - at times, the United States as a whole.

One wonders where the moral outrage expressed on Sunday morning talk shows when right-wing commentators spew such de facto anti-American vitriol? One looks forward to the day when reasonable men and women will declare that they have had enough, and lunatics such as Coulter and McCullough will be forgotten, relegated once again to the intellectual sewers whence they came.

Juan Cole brings up a pretty good point about coverage of the political situation in Iraq.

Wolf Blitzer's Sunday show on CNN, actually allows real live Middle Easterners to speak to the US public. Fine reporters such as Nic Roberts at CNN will set up brief clips of a Jaafari press conference or a short Q & A on a particular issue with an Iraqi official. But on the hour-long t.v. news magazines, or even just with the anchors during the day, we never see so much as an extended interview with Ibrahim Jaafari. Isn't that weird? The real UK BBC will do an hour-long interview with an Iraqi cabinet minister like Ali Allawi. But our television news almost never talks to anyone among important Iraqi politicians, with the possible exception of the Kurdish politician Jalal Talabani, the mostly ceremonial president of Iraq. Aren't the Iraqi politicians who have come to power in the celebrated purple-thumb Iraqi elections worth talking to? Don't Americans care what they think? Or are they just a blank set of canvases on which Kansas gets to paint its own preconceptions and prejudices (a process made all the easier if real Iraqis are not allowed to speak on camera to Americans)? And, with all these cable channels and satellite capabilities, why can't we see the real BBC in America? I mean, I can watch French and Italian and Egyptian and Lebanese channels. I'm not even being offered by my satellite company the possibility of the real BBC. Isn't that weird? There are so many weird things. The upshot is that if you don't have Joe Scarborough's profile, you don't get seen or heard much on US television.

Ibrahim Jaafari, by the way, was just elected PM of Iraq. I'd much rather watch an extended interview with him than listen to the first wives club's petty bickering.

I write letters...

Dear Editors:

I was disappointed by Michael Hedges's article "Dem leader faces increasing scrutiny in lobbyist scandal" in Saturday's edition. The article is, quite frankly, misleading.

Mr. Hedges ignores the fact that Harry Reid represents Nevada (home of Las Vegas), and thus has a direct interest in legislation pertaining to gambling. The legislation alluded to in the article would have allowed certain Indian tribes to build off-reservation casinos - something Senator Reid called "a bad precedent", and one that certianly would be a bad precedent for his constituents. Senator Reid was not acting inappropriately, he was representing the people who elected him.

Furthermore, Hedges writes "Reid's staff had extensive contacts with lobbyists working for Abramoff, according to documents and e-mails disclosed by the Associated Press." But Hedges fails to tell us what these "contacts" were regarding. If Mr. Hedges is referring to the conversations between lobbyist Ron Platt and members of Reid's staff, he should know that Mr. Platt has publicly stated that all of his contacts with Reid's staff were routine questions such as those pertaining to questions regarding bill schedules. There is no evidence that anyone from Abramoff's firm ever influenced Reid or a member of his staff.

Mr. Hedges fails to provide important information, resulting in a misleading article. I expect better from the Houston Chronicle, and I hope that, in the future, I can count on your staff for reliable information - not half-truths and innuendo.

If this administration was really concerned about protecting our troops and bringing some hope for normality to the people of Iraq, the President and his cabinet would be working tirelessly to make sure that incidents like this were quickly and thoroughly investigated and anyone responsible for crimes against Iraqi civilians would be brought to swift and legitimate justice. Unfortunately, this administration, by all accounts, cares less about doing the right thing than covering up anything embarrassing. Because of this, a positive result in a reasonable timeframe is less and less likely every day.

There are new allegations that heavily armed private security contractors in Iraq are brutalizing Iraqi civilians. In an exclusive interview, four former security contractors told NBC News that they watched as innocent Iraqi civilians were fired upon, and one crushed by a truck. The contractors worked for an American company paid by U.S. taxpayers. The Army is looking into the allegations.

- via MSNBC

This is another example of why it's important to let America's professional military forces do their jobs, and not try to outsource security on the cheap. Of course, this is exactly why Don Rumsfeld was lauded by the Bush camp when he was originally tapped for Sec. of Defense - his desire to cut costs at the expense of quality defense. If anything is a glaring example of the Bush legacy, it is the utter screw-up that is Bush's Iraq.

!!!

Joe Scarborough on Hardball just now:

The buck stops in the oval office...Ten years from now nobody is going to remember Michael Brown. The responsibility for the failures in Louisiana and Mississippi is the President's.

Update: Transcript finally available

MATTHEWS: Let me go right now to Joe Scarborough. We‘re having problems with Tucker.

Joe, is Michael Brown still going to be the real Mrs. O‘Leary‘s cow in this affair, the one blamed for the mistakes?

JOE SCARBOROUGH, HOST, “SCARBOROUGH COUNTY”: Not if you agree with Harry Truman that the buck stops in the Oval Office. Rita was talking about going over the storm zone, as I think you know, Chris, I was over there the morning after it hit. And I went over there every day for the next three weeks.

And, you know, I never saw a National Guardsman there for two weeks. You had FEMA failing, but you also had the local authorities in New Orleans and Mississippi failing. You had, you know, the federal government failing.

And in the end, it all goes to the president of the United States. The president was responsible for the federal response just like Haley Barber was responsible for the state response in Mississippi and Blanco in Louisiana.

There is no way ten years from now people are going to remember Michael Brown. He will be a footnote. It will be the governor‘s fault and the president‘s fault.

via Hardball

In re Michael Brown's battle with Norm Coleman earlier today: Crooks & Liars has the video.

Some interesting tidbits, in case you haven't heard elsewhere -

Republicans elected John Boehner to replace Tom DeLay, supposedly in an attempt to distance the party from the stench of corruption that permeated everything around "Hot-Tub Tom". The election that put Boehner in the House Majority Leader spot was not without, shall we say, irregularities. As Roll Call reported:

House Republicans are taking a mulligan on the first ballot for Majority Leader. The first count showed more votes cast than Republicans present at the Conference meeting.

Ah, Boehner the Reformer. Perhaps you have heard the story about Boehner handing out tobacco lobby checks on the House floor? Yesterday, we learned that Boehner

"rents a basement apartment from a lobbyist whose clients had an interest in legislation overseen or sponsored by Boehner."

Joe Conason has more on Boehner the Reformer at Salon. I highly recommend taking a minute to read it, though you might want a stiff drink as you do.

Meanwhile, another example of serious Republican reform: Deborah Price (R - OH) appointed Rachel Robinson - a registered lobbyist - as Chief of Staff of the House Republican Conference.

And what would a day be without more revelations about the GOP's love affair with Jack Abramoff? President Bush claimed that he had never met Abramoff. Of course, when a photo of the two shaking hands was produced, Bush resorted to the old Presidential standby - he just couldn't remember. Now it appears that Bush and Abramoff may have been quite close - the President even extending an invitation to his exclusive Neverland Crawford ranch.

Yessir, the GOP is bent on reform. My only fear is whether or not the nation can take much more Republican reform at this point. If the Bush Republicans reform government as well as they balanced the budget, shrunk the deficit, bolstered the economy, fixed Medicare, and liberated Iraq - we could be in for a heck of a ride.

Wow. Are you watching the Katrina hearings? You should be. The exchange between Michael Brown and Norm Coleman was entertaining, if, perhaps, not co