...when I do write, it will be to say that attempting legislation designed to obsolve criminals of charges, retroactively, is an illegal act itself.

Since attempting to change FISA so people like Rockefeller and Leahy aren't considered knowing co-conspirators of BushCo's illegal acts, is a seperate crime, legally binding enforcement of these damage control laws will be impossible.

Why would you add an extra layer, to the layers of litigation we know stand before us, prior to America's reinstatement as a nation based on the rule of law?

Let the illegal damage control law of last year, stay expired. When the US Attorneys who passed Gonzo's litmus test are done, you might need as much leverage as you can get.

Spitzer found out the hard way.

Everything really IS on the table. Including your Democratic mandate from the people in November.

Like we the people said in 2006, it's the corruption stupid. It appears the GOP learned, it isn't too late for the Dems.

Allow impeachment to proceed.

sorry for the off topic, but where does this end? What will it take to make these people accountable for anything?

High-Level Officials Wrote of Punishing Philadelphia Housing Director

After Philadelphia's housing director refused a demand by President Bush's housing secretary to transfer a piece of city property to a business friend, two top political appointees at the department exchanged e-mails discussing the pain they could cause the Philadelphia director.

"Would you like me to make his life less happy? If so, how?" Orlando J. Cabrera, then-assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, wrote about Philadelphia housing director Carl R. Greene.

"Take away all of his Federal dollars?" responded Kim Kendrick, an assistant secretary who oversaw accessible housing. She typed symbols for a smiley-face, ":-D," at the end of her January 2007 note.

Cabrera wrote back a few minutes later: "Let me look into that possibility."

The e-mails, obtained by The Washington Post, came to light as a result of a lawsuit provoked by HUD's decision last September to strip the Philadelphia Housing Authority of as much as $50 million in federal funds. In December, it declared the agency in violation of rules that underpin its ability to decide precisely how it will spend federal housing funds. Kendrick was the official who formally notified the authority that she had found it in violation.

HUD E-Mails Refer to Retaliation

Just what shall my letter say, CONNEDgressman?

House fails to override torture veto

House Fails to Overturn White House Veto of Anti-Waterboarding Bill

PAMELA HESS
AP News

Mar 11, 2008 19:09 EST

House Democrats on Tuesday failed to overturn President Bush's veto of a bill that would have prohibited the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques on terrorist suspects.

The vetoed legislation would have limited the CIA to using only the 19 interrogation methods approved in the Army field manual. That guidebook bans the use of waterboarding, a technique that simulates drowning. CIA Director Michael Hayden has confirmed that the spy agency used the technique on three terrorist suspects in 2002 and 2003.

The 225-188 House roll call was 51 votes short of the two-thirds majority required to overturn a veto. Bush has vetoed seven bills during his tenure, and only once has Congress mustered the votes to override his veto.

The interrogation limits are part of a bill authorizing intelligence spending for 2008. Bush vetoed it on Saturday. It is the first intelligence authorization bill produced by Congress in three years.

White House press secretary Dana Perino hailed the House vote, saying a successful override "would have diminished the intelligence community's ability to protect our nation."

"By requiring the intelligence community to use only the interrogation methods authorized in the publicly-available Army field manual, the bill would have eliminated the legal alternative procedures in place in the CIA program to question the world's most dangerous and violent terrorists," Perino said. "The CIA program has produced critical intelligence and helped us prevent a number of attacks."

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, attempted to frame the vote as a human rights referendum. "This is about torture," he said, a refrain repeated by other Democrats who spoke in support of the override.

Republicans portrayed their support for Bush's veto as a stand against a bill they say is riddled with pork-barrel projects like a National Drug Intelligence Center and a study of the national security implications of global warming.

"This is an ill-advised bill," said Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. He likened the bill to giving al-Qaida terrorists the American "playbook" on interrogation.

"What are the priorities of this House? How are we going to keep America safe?" he said.

When he vetoed the bill, Bush said his action was not specifically about waterboarding but about wanting the CIA to have the flexibility to use legal and effective interrogation methods that are not listed in the Army field manual.

"I cannot sign into law a bill that would prevent me, and future presidents, from authorizing the CIA to conduct a separate, lawful intelligence program, and from taking all lawful actions necessary to protect Americans from attack," the president said.

Nevertheless, Bush said the attorney general has deemed waterboarding legal under domestic and international law.

Hayden has prohibited the CIA from using waterboarding since 2006, but it remains a possibility in future interrogations. It can be approved for use on a case-by-case basis by the president and attorney general.

___

The bill is H.R. 2082.

A POX ON YOUR HOUSE!

WHAT DOES CONGRESS SUPPORT AND DEFEND
IF NOT THE CONSTITUTION OF THE U.S.A.?

You weaken our National Security each day you run the clock out seeking a partisan solution to the debacle you've allowed to fester in this land thinking 2008 will be your salvation and the elections will bring this nightmare to an end.

==============
I M P E A C H
or R E S I G N !!!

John Conyers!!!
I helped you when you said the constitution was in crises! Still is John!!!
I helped you when you called for folks to do this and that on so many different occasions ,THAT I,VE LOST COUNT!!!

YOUR TURN JOHN!!!
We demanded that you do our bidding in the 2006 election!!!
What happened? You acted like a turtle and pulled your head into your shell, and ignored the mandate of the people to clean up the mess that is called the Bush administration!!!
What happened?
Quit dodging the truth; quit facilitating more murders and death of innocents!!!
Do the job you were put there for, respect the constitution that you SWORE TO UPHOLD!!! Quit acting like a senile hypocrite and JUST DO IT !!!

I M P E A C H

HELP ME JOHN! THEN I WILL START HELPING YOU AGAIN!!!

P S, At least the dems dont get caught screwing underage quireboys (<:

Congress passed a bill to fund our intelligence agencies. The President rejected that money, because it came with strings attached. The strings said, "No more Torture". The President said, "Torture makes us safe." The President said, "We need to keep on torturing, and it's totally legal."

Uh, wait a minute. I wasn't born in one of those penny ante Countries where torture is legal. I was born into a Great Country where torture is illegal. I was born in this Country. And I served in the military during what was called the Cold War, which, I assure you, occasionally warmed up. The Cold War was fought not for property rights, but for personal rights. Because, you see, the Soviets tortured people, and we don't.

The President would have us believe that because we have a bright shiny new war, bushes war, that means we also have a new set of standards. This cannot be so. We, the People, do not have our moral standards because of the wars we have fought. We have fought the wars we have because of the moral standards we possess.

The question is simple. Torture, or no. That was easy, wasn't it.

That Mr Bush says otherwise is Impeachable, chargeable, triable, convictable and lock him up and throw away the keyable. Torture is illegal. It has been since 1791.
===========================================

There may be poetry in the fact that on the radio just now is "Somewhere, over the Rainbow..."
Frosted Flake

Postscript : Yes , I am aware of the conflation. It is not an error. Tho it might be a mistake.

Postscript, Technical feedback : Typing into textbox provided had a three second delay. Made it a bit difficult. If that can be avoided, try.

John Conyers and 19 members of the House Judiciary Committee have rejected the Bush administration case for retroactive amnesty for the telecoms.

The following Members joined Chairman Conyers in signing on to the statement: Representatives Howard L. Berman (D-CA), Rick Boucher (D-VA), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Robert C. Scott (D-VA), Melvin L. Watt (D-NC), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX), William D. Delahunt (D-MA), Robert Wexler (D-FL), Linda Sánchez (D-CA), Steve Cohen (D-TN), Hank Johnson (D-GA), Betty Sutton (D-OH), Brad Sherman (D-CA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Anthony D. Weiner (D-NY), Artur Davis (D-AL), Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL), and Keith Ellison (D-MN).

Statement of Undersigned Members of the House Judiciary Concerning the Administration’s Terrorist Surveillance Program and the Issue of Retroactive Immunity

As a result of our review of classified as well as unclassified materials concerning the Administration’s Terrorist Surveillance Program, we have concluded that blanket retroactive immunity for phone companies is not justified. However, we do recommend a course of action that would both permit the carriers the opportunity to defend themselves in court and also protect classified information – by eliminating current legal barriers and authorizing relevant carriers to present fully in court their claims that they are immune from civil liability under current law, with appropriate protections to carefully safeguard classified information. In addition, we recommend legislation to fill a current gap in liability protection for carriers, and to create a bipartisan commission to thoroughly investigate the legality of the warrantless surveillance program....

Accordingly, we support a resolution that would, notwithstanding the state secrets doctrine, authorize relevant carriers to present fully in court their claims that they are immune from civil liability under current law, with appropriate security protections to carefully safeguard classified information. This solution would ensure that carriers can fully present their arguments that they are immune under current law, while also ensuring that Americans who believe their privacy rights were violated will have the issue considered by the courts based on the applicable facts and law, consistent with our traditional system of government and checks and balances.

Our review has also led us to support two other recommendations. First, there is arguably a gap in liability protections for carriers that complied with lawful surveillance requests covering the time period between the expiration of the Protect America Act and the future enactment of more lasting FISA reform legislation. As Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid have proposed, legislation to fill that gap is justified and important. This provision is not included in the Senate FISA bill, and shoul dbe included in any final legislative product.

In addition, our review of classified information has reinforced serious concerns about the potential illegality of the Administration’s actions in authorizing and carrying out its warrantless surveillance program. We, therefore, recommend the creation of a bipartisan commission to conduct hearings and take other evidence to fully examine that program. Like the 9/11 Commission, it would make findings and recommendations in both classified and unclassified reports and thus inform and educate the American people on this troubling subject.

This statement is a solid justification for the legislation House leadership introduced yesterday. It also covers some new ground. First, it found among the telcos "a variety of actions at various times with differing justifications in response to Administration requests." So it was potentially not just Qwest. Additionally, "a variety of actions at various times with differing justifications in response to Administration requests," making the case critical to be decided by the courts, not by Congress. Furthermore, "the arguments for blanket retroactive immunity – that a decision not to enact it will irreparably harm the relevant carriers and that it will endanger our national security – have not been substantiated, either in a public or a classified setting."

This is a strong rebuke for retroactive amnesty, and provides what would be a legal, responsible, and appropriate solution to the amnesty stalemate. Which means, of course, that the Republicans (and probably Rockefeller) will oppose it.

House Judiciary members reject amnesty

Administration Has Not Made the Case for Telecom Immunity

…not that he didn't give them a lot of material to work with, but I'll bet that GOP'ers who are involved in illegal/ unethical activities aren't being monitored to the same degree as Dems. Maybe the GOP'ers aren't involved in any illegal/ unethical activities? Then again, without any tapped phone conversations, or text message records on the GOP'ers, all accusations against them are just he said/ she said, and they can just issue denials and stay in political office and/ or on the campaign trail.

That all being said, politicians, especially former prosecutors or lawyers are well aware of the "rules, laws and taboos" that politicians live or die by. They are either extremely arrogant, or extremely stupid if they believe that sooner or later their political enemies won't manage to destroy them if they willfully make themselves vulnerable by violating the rules, laws and/or taboos. It's a shame, but a politician, especially a Democratic politician who had ticked off a large number of his/her political opponents should have enough sense to know that, like Caesar's wife, they "must be above suspicion"—because they ARE out to get you.

It may not be fair, it may not even be realistic, but it's no secret that the rules of the political game are that if there is proof that a politician--especially a Democratic politician--is involved in certain sexual liaisons--like with prostitutes, or an extra-marital affair—they can pretty much kiss their careers good-bye. Politicians know this--and if they don't, after Gary Hart and Bill Clinton, etc, then, they are indeed stupid and/ or arrogant. Especially since right now, and for the past several years, bush’s DoJ has been able to spy on them without a warrant.

BTW, thank you, Mr. Chairman for the links to write LTE's re: Fixing FISA. I'll be writing my letter(s). The Dems really can't afford to back down on this one.

The GAO issued a report regarding Bush's signing statements.

Town Meeting held on March 9, 2008 at Judson Memorial Church in New York .
Pt.1

Pt. 2

Pt. 3

Pt. 4

Pt. 5

In old America they used to say, "Shit or get off the pot."
In the burgeoning America they now say, "Eat shit and smoke pot."

Which America does CONyers support and defend through inaction?

I read an article that asks, Are We Closer to War? In it, Dan Froomkin notes:

I had a not particularly fruitful conversation yesterday with CIA Director of Public Affairs Mark Mansfield. I was trying to get a bit more clarity about his letter to the editor in the Sunday New York Times, in which he appeared to suggest that the interrogation measures banned by the Army Field Manual are now banned by the CIA, as well. That sounded to me like a big concession -- and big news.

Mansfield wrote his letter in response to a March 2 Times editorial, which listed the field manual's eight specifically prohibited practices:

* Forcing a prisoner to be naked, perform sexual acts or pose in a sexual manner.

* Placing hoods or sacks over the head of a prisoner, and using duct tape over the eyes.

* Applying beatings, electric shocks, burns or other forms of physical pain.

* Waterboarding.

* Using military working dogs.

* Inducing hypothermia or heat injury.

* Conducting mock executions.

* Depriving a prisoner of necessary food, water or medical care.

Mansfield, who in his letter mentioned only three of the prohibitions -- forcing prisoners to perform sexual acts, applying electric shocks and conducting mock executions -- wrote: "The implication [of the editorial] is that those measures would be used by the Central Intelligence Agency or other intelligence services if the intelligence authorization bill is vetoed by the president. They would not. The C.I.A. neither conducts nor condones torture."

My first question: Was Mansfield limiting his statement to the three practices he mentioned -- or was he including all eight listed in the manual, including waterboarding? He told me he meant all of them. "None of them would be used," he said. "They're not part of the CIA's program."

Waterboarding, for instance, "is not a technique that is part of the CIA's current program. It hasn't been used in five years, and it was used on a total of three hardened terrorists."

But when I asked him if that meant these practices were now officially banned by the CIA -- a statement that I think would be widely welcomed in this country and across the world -- Mansfield wouldn't say.

He repeated his language about the practices not being in the current program, and referred me to CIA Director Michael Hayden's statement last week that "the Army Field Manual does not exhaust the universe of lawful interrogation techniques."

Was Mansfield making some sort of distinction between a practice that is not currently part of the program and one that is prohibited? And if so, why? He wouldn't say.

So does that mean they could be part of the program later? It certainly sounded to me like Mansfield was keeping that possibility open.

I also asked him if there were any other restrictions in the manual that troubled the CIA -- for instance, the requirement that any technique an interrogator is considering using should pass the following, common-sense test: "If the proposed approach technique were used by the enemy against one of your fellow soldiers, would you believe the soldier had been abused?"

Mansfield wouldn't say.

So I guess all we really know is that at this particular moment -- during which, I should note, there is some reason to believe the CIA interrogation program is dormant -- practices such as sexually humiliating, waterboarding or starving detainees are not being used. But there are apparently no guarantees, should circumstances change, going forward.

ROLL CALL on VETO OVERRIDE
PRO-TORTURE LOYALISTS
Aderholt
Akin
Alexander
Bachmann
Bachus
Barrett (SC)
Barton (TX)
Biggert
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bishop (UT)
Blackburn
Blunt
Boehner
Bonner
Bono Mack
Boozman
Boustany
Brady (TX)
Broun (GA)
Brown (SC)
Brown-Waite, Ginny
Buchanan
Burgess
Burton (IN)
Buyer
Calvert
Camp (MI)
Campbell (CA)
Cannon
Cantor
Carter
Castle
Chabot
Cole (OK)
Conaway
Crenshaw
Cubin
Culberson
Davis, David
Davis, Tom
Deal (GA)
Diaz-Balart, L.
Diaz-Balart, M.
Doolittle
Drake
Dreier
Duncan
Ehlers
Emerson
English (PA)
Everett
Fallin
Feeney
Ferguson
Flake
Forbes
Fortenberry
Fossella
Foxx
Franks (AZ)
Frelinghuysen
Gallegly
Garrett (NJ)
Gerlach
Gingrey
Gohmert
Goode
Goodlatte
Granger
Graves
Hall (TX)
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Heller
Hensarling
Herger
Hobson
Hoekstra
Hulshof
Hunter
Inglis (SC)
Issa
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
Jordan
Keller
King (IA)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kirk
Kline (MN)
Knollenberg
Kucinich
Kuhl (NY)
LaHood
Lamborn
Latham
LaTourette
Latta
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (KY)
Linder
LoBiondo
Lucas
Lungren, Daniel E.
Mack
Manzullo
Marchant
Marshall
McCarthy (CA)
McCaul (TX)
McCotter
McCrery
McHenry
McHugh
McKeon
McMorris Rodgers
Mica
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Miller, Gary
Moran (KS)
Murphy, Tim
Musgrave
Myrick
Neugebauer
Nunes
Pearce
Pence
Peterson (PA)
Petri
Pickering
Pitts
Platts
Poe
Porter
Price (GA)
Putnam
Ramstad
Regula
Rehberg
Reichert
Renzi
Reynolds
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Roskam
Royce
Ryan (WI)
Sali
Saxton
Schmidt
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shadegg
Shays
Shimkus
Shuster
Simpson
Smith (NE)
Smith (TX)
Souder
Stearns
Sullivan
Terry
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Tiberi
Turner
Upton
Walberg
Walden (OR)
Walsh (NY)
Wamp
Waters
Weldon (FL)
Weller
Westmoreland
Whitfield (KY)
Wilson (NM)
Wilson (SC)
Wittman (VA)
Wolf
Young (AK)
Young (FL)

I'm up to 2.5 minutes under water. I'm working on a friend to assist me by slapping and punching me but he refuses because it's an act of torture, so he says. I laugh, "Not any more."

Well, maybe someone will help me condition for what the president admits he'll do to me.

======================================
THE PEOPLE SHALL REMEMBER...
COME VOTING TIME NOVEMBER !!!

Taxi to the Dark Side

==============
I M P E A C H
THEM BOTH !!!

Hey Congressman, you have something to do with Justice, right?

Watchdog requests FBI investigation of missing White House e-mails

Filed by Nick Juliano

CREW claims possible obstruction of justice from deleting Plame e-mails

A watchdog group is asking the FBI to investigate whether any White House officials obstructed justice in deleting internal e-mails relating to the outing of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson.

The Justice Department ordered the Bush administration to preserve any records relating to the exposure of the covert agent's identity, but e-mails are missing from the very day that order was delivered and other key points surrounding Plame's outing. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a plaintiff in an ongoing lawsuit brought against the White House regarding the e-mails, on Wednesday requested that FBI Director Robert Mueller open an investigation.

"The unexplained disappearance of an entire weeks' worth of emails from the OVP [Office of the Vice President] at a time when the Department of Justice was investigating the actions of top White House officials, including officials within the OVP, warrants the initiation of a criminal investigation to determine whether White House officials obstructed justice and violated other criminal statutes," CREW's cheif counsel Anne Weismann wrote in a letter to Mueller (.pdf). "Similarly, the disappearance of over 10 million White House email records also justifies an investigation into the facts surrounding the knowing failure of the White House to comply with federal record-keeping laws."

The letter to Mueller comes after Attorney General Michael Mukasey dismissed a previous CREW request to appoint a special counsel to investigate the missing e-mails.

On Sept. 30, 2003, Alberto Gonzales, who was then White House counsel, sent a letter to White House staff alerting them that the Justice Department was opening a criminal investigation into the leak of Plame's name. Conservative columnist Robert Novak had outed the CIA operative in a July 2003 column.

E-mails from Vice President Dick Cheney's office were never recovered for the week of Sept. 30 through Oct. 6, and they apparently were not preserved on a backup tape created Oct. 21, Weismann said. CREW's request is based on evidence that has emerged from its own investigations and since the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee began investigating the missing e-mails.

"It does seem that now the evidentiary record is out there now, it's more specific. ... Sometime between Sept. 30 and Oct. 21 [the e-mails] were deleted, they went missing," Weismann said in an interview with RAW STORY Wednesday.

The request for an FBI investigation comes as CREW and the National Security Archive, another open-government watchdog, are in the midst of lawsuits against the White House Office of Administration and Executive Office of the President regarding the missing e-mails.

Also on Wednesday, the Archive requested that a federal judge order an emergency deposition of Theresa Payton, the Office of Administration's chief information officer, to clear up contradictory testimony Payton gave to the court and during an Oversight Committee hearing.

DEVELOPING...
click here

--------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------
You can lead a republican to the truth, but you can't make him think it...

Can anyone say Cover up?

Report On Saddam - Al Qaeda Non-Connection Buried

Posted By Cernig

Over at Newshoggers, my co-blogger Fester mentioned just yesterday a new Pentagon report that, after a review of 600,000 pages of documents, concluded there was no meaningful connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda - contradicting the statements of Bush, Cheney, Rummie, Colin Powell and others?

Well, it's been buried.

This morning, the Pentagon cancelled plans to send out a press release announcing the report's release and will no longer make the report available online.

The report was to be posted on the Joint Forces Command website this afternoon, followed by a background briefing with the authors. No more. The report will be made available only to those who ask for it, and it will be sent via U.S. mail from Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia.

It won't be emailed to reporters and it won't be posted online.

Asked why the report would not be posted online and could not be emailed, the spokesman for Joint Forces Command said: "We're making the report available to anyone who wishes to have it, and we'll send it out via CD in the mail."

Another Pentagon official said initial press reports on the study made it "too politically sensitive."

As long as this report isn't widely available, wingnuts can console themselves with their fevered dreams of Al Qaeda conspiring with Saddam, just as they keep recycling delusional fantasies about Saddam's WMDs being spirited away to Syria.

Steve Benen adds:

And if asked, I’m certain Dana Perino would insist, with a mostly straight face, that the White House never contacted the Pentagon about this, and it was solely the decision of military officials, who, for whatever reason, preferred to hide its own report.

And no one will believe her.

Except Bush and the loyal base, who have so much psychologically invested in believing all this claptrap that their world view might collapse like a house of cards if they ever looked outside their echo chamber.
COVER UP!

--------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------
You can lead a republican to the truth, but you can't make him think it...

BUT when the dems asked for this a month ago it Was A ‘Stalling Tactic’
House GOP

House to Enter Rare Closed Session over Spy Bill

(snip)
House Judicary Committee Chair John Conyers (D-MI) is skeptical:

"The more my colleagues know, the less they believe this Administration's rhetoric. As someone who has chaired classified hearings and reviewed classified materials on this subject, I believe the more information Members receive about this Administration's actions in the area of warrantless surveillance, the more likely they are to reject the Administration's scare tactics and threats. My colleagues who joined me in the hearings and reviewed the Administration's documents have walked away with an inescapable conclusion: the Administration has not made the case for unprecedented spying powers and blanket retroactive immunity for phone companies.

"Whether this is a worthwhile exercise or mere grandstanding depends on whether Republicans have groundbreaking new information that would affect the legislative process. There must be a very high bar to urge the House into a secret session for the first time in 25 years. I eagerly await their presentation to see if it clears this threshold. As someone who has seen and heard an enormous amount of information already, I have my doubts."

Closed Session over Spy Bill

New Evidence In Siegelman Case Points To Republican Cabal

A new review of evidence suggests that an aligned group of Republican interests were pressing for -- and seeking to profit financially from -- the trial of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman on charges of bribery.

According to court documents and official testimony, months before Siegelman was charged, Rob Riley, the son of the state's governor, expressed confidence that an indictment would occur and that Siegelman's political financier, Richard Scrushy, would be drawn into case.

Around the same time, moreover, Riley managed to maneuver himself into an extremely profitable position: lead local counsel on a separate, massive civil suit against Scrushy and his company, HealthSouth.

How he received the assignment aroused some suspicion.

Riley had limited experience in securities litigation. And, for critics, his appointment gave of the appearance of legal-political insider trading: the governor's son, cognizant that Scrushy would be dragged into Siegelman's case, saw the benefits to be had from the civil suit against Scrushy's company, and positioned himself to profit.

Riley denied these charges in an interview with the Huffington Post, saying that he had no prior knowledge of Siegelman's forthcoming indictment and arguing that he had been recruited to come on board the HealthSouth case, not the other way around.

What is agreed upon, however, is that Riley earned big money from his work. Ten months after he signed onto the HealthSouth suit, Siegelman was indicted. Less than a year after that, the former governor was convicted of bribery along with Scrushy. And months later, Health South settled for $445 million one of the largest settlements in securities litigation history.

* * *

In the early days of 2005, HealthSouth and Scrushy were in the midst of a long-waged battle over whether the company had "perpetrated an elaborate scheme to deceive HealthSouth's investors." The case alleged that the company, and its financial supporters, had "committed deceptive acts whose primary purpose and effect was to create a false appearance" of good financial results and future prospects. There were no connections to Siegelman.

On January 13, Rob Riley, a lawyer for the firm Riley & Jackson P.C. and the son of the state's governor, was abruptly added as local counsel to the New Mexico State Investment Council, a relatively new plaintiff in the case against HealthSouth. It was an interesting move. Riley, who specialized in medical malpractice law, had little history in complex securities litigation. Co-plaintiffs complained, as they often do, that his presence would simply drive up the cost of the case and cut into the pot of any settlement. But their appeal was denied.

Why did Riley come on board? According to him, it was a product of local stature and a bit of luck.

"A guy in New Mexico said, 'Hey, we are trying to get involved in this case,'" Riley recalled. "At that point, it was pretty well out in the papers that there had been fraud at HealthSouth. So I felt like it was probably a good case. I didn't know what chance we had at being lead counsel."

Another official with knowledge of the case said Riley was chosen primarily for his political connections.

But around that time, Jill Simpson, an Alabama Republican official and opposition researcher, told the House Judiciary Committee that Riley called her and said the state's legal apparatus was gearing up to re-investigate Don Siegelman. Moreover, Simpson recalled Riley as saying that Republicans would tie the former governor with Scrushy, "a reviled figure in Alabama."

Less than a year earlier, Siegelman had been indicted for conspiracy and Medicaid fraud but his trial -- which seemed politically motivated -- fell apart within a day in court.

On this new go-around, the prosecution had a more favorable judge. Mark Fuller, who had been appointed by President Bush to the U.S. District Court in the Middle District of Alabama, was well connected in Republican circles and, according to local Alabama journalist Glynn Wilson, had personal ties to Rob Riley.

Ten months after Riley signed onto the HealthSouth case, Siegelman and Scrushy were indicted on charges of political bribery. At the center of the charge was a $500,000 donation Scrushy made to the former governor's 1999 campaign. The money had gone to the state's education lottery and in exchange Scrushy got a position on a hospital regulatory board.

The connection, critics claim, was weak and prejudiced. Scrushy had been appointed to the board under several governors and his firm had no interests under the board's purview. But the trial, which began ion April 2006, reverberated throughout Alabama's political and legal circles. Siegelman's bid to become governor again was snuffed out. And the civil trial against HealthSouth was altered.

"[Riley] very aggressively he thrust himself into that suit as a late comer," said Scott Horton, a law professor at Columbia University who has written extensively on these issues for Harper's magazine. "He knew that Fuller had made statements suggesting that he felt he had once been a target of a politically motivated attack by Siegelman. He knew that this would make someone predisposed against Siegelman and perfect hanging judge. And he would reap the benefit of the class action suit on the side."

* * *

As the criminal case against Siegelman proceeded, so too did the suit against HealthSouth. And in the spring and summer of 2006, the two cases intersected.

According to the Associated Press, in May 2006, William McGahan, an official at UBS, one of HealthSouth's investment bankers, testified in the Siegelman case that he had been pressured to pony up $250,000 for the donations to the state's education lottery. The testimony had limited relevance to the class action suit. But, over objections, it found its way into the court record. McGahan, the document read, was eager to please Scrushy and "arranged for UBS to be the source of the funds for the bribe."

What affect this, and Scrushy's ongoing criminal trial, had on the proceedings is a subject of debate. Riley, pointing to earlier HealthSouth executives who had pleaded guilty to fraud, said he saw no tangible cross-over between the two cases.

"I don't believe that had anything to do with the settlement," he said. "I don't think that it aided it at all."

Two other lawyers who served with other plaintiffs on the class action suit against HealthSouth, however, offered different opinions.

"It is not common that you have criminal trials of corporate executive at the same time that a class action suit is taking place involving the same individual," said Louis Mallone, an attorney for O'Donoghue & O'Donoghue LLP and liaison counsel on the case. "It certainly didn't hurt the prospects of the [class action case]."

A second official, who declined to speak on the record, said that while the HealthSouth case was a "slam dunk" even before the Scrushy-Siegelman trial began, having Scrushy as a convicted felon "obviously helped" the suit against HealthSouth.

In June 2006, both Siegelman and Scrushy were convicted on charges of bribery. Siegelman was sentenced to seven years and four months in federal prison. Scrushy was given six years and ten months.

Months later the HealthSouth case, after years of trial, was finally settled. The company announced that it would pay a whopping $445 million. It was, said Malone, "one of the top fifteen or twenty [settlements] of all time."

Riley declined to reveal what he made from the case, saying that the amount was "evolving." But he did acknowledge that it was substantial. "It was a very good settlement," he said. "But at the same time there was a lot of work that went into it.

For critics, however, the message was clear. Riley knew Scrushy going down in the criminal trial and saw a way to reap the benefits on the separate civil suit. In other words: Good work, if you can get it.

"Rob Riley approved of the strategy of the dragging Scrushy into the [criminal] case because it would have benefits for him in the class action suit," said Horton. "It was clear that he was intently following what was going on in Fuller's court and knew that the conviction of Scrushy in that case would have strong benefits in the class action suit."

click here

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You can lead a republican to the truth, but you can't make him think it...

Spitz Out

Was the investigation of Eliot Spitzer politically motivated?

Scott Horton, The New Republic Published: Wednesday, March 12, 2008

On Monday a friend gave me a copy of a memorandum (pdf) that Attorney General Michael Mukasey had circulated inside the Justice Department admonishing staff about how to deal with politically sensitive cases. "They must be about to bag another big-time Democrat," my friend said, jokingly. Perhaps it wasn't a joke. Within hours the wires were burning with reports that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer had been linked to a prostitution ring.

In New York, the tabloid press and comedians are having a field day with the sudden, spectacular fall of Eliot Spitzer. He had been cast as a Democratic remake of Thomas E. Dewey, the state's legendary Republican prosecutor-governor. Under his leadership, Democrats were increasingly confident of breaking a logjam in Albany by wresting the state senate from the Republicans, who viewed Spitzer as a mortal threat. But Monday's disclosures linking Spitzer to a prostitution ring brought the state to a standstill, and he announced his resignation Wednesday morning.

Spitzer's public statements did not include protestations of innocence, as might have been expected if he were to vigorously contest the claims circulating in the media. Moreover, media accounts point to a damning case. Spitzer, known for an aggressive prosecutorial style that earned him enmity in key Wall Street financial circles, had as attorney general gone after a prostitution ring or two, so a charge of hypocrisy has been added to the mix.

All of this makes for excellent copy, particularly for the cable news networks and other outlets that feed off just this sort of tale of personal fall. But there may well be a story-behind-the-story. How did the case against Spitzer get launched? Was he brought down by a politically motivated investigation?

The integrity of our criminal justice system rests on the notion that we investigate crimes, not people. As Robert Jackson, probably the greatest attorney general of the last century, put it:

If the prosecutor is obliged to choose his cases, it follows that he can choose his defendants. Therein is the most dangerous power of the prosecutor: that he will pick people that he thinks he should get, rather than pick cases that need to be prosecuted. With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone. In such a case, it is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who has committed it, it is a question of picking the man and then searching the law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him.

The way prosecutorial power is wielded divides a real democracy from a banana republic.

The story emerging around the fall of Eliot Spitzer suggests that the case did not start with the report of a crime. Rather it started with a decision to look into Spitzer and his financial dealings. In the course of an open-ended investigation, information about a prostitution circle surfaced. That looks abusive. An investigation like that provides no basis to acquit Spitzer. But it suggests that when his case is done, the public should be pressing some tough questions about why this investigation was launched and pushed forward.
A lot more here

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You can lead a republican to the truth, but you can't make him think it...

A film made in 2007, LEADING TO WAR captures the LIES that lead to invasion and subsequent invasion of a nation that posed no threat to the U.S.A. It's in four parts(88 min.) and available for free straming download and in in different languages. This film is pure documentation, NO SPIN or editorial infusion of opinion to create the illusion of being Fair ond/or Ballanced.

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Winter Soldier
Report 1

Report 2

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A joke

And a plea

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I M P E A C H
THEM BOTH !!!

Excuse me, is that the way that works?

US public losing interest in Iraq as news coverage wanes

Americans' war focus fades as media switch off

The Success of the Surge

Iraq War Could Help GOP Win in November

Pentagon Buries Controversial Iraq Report

Dang that liberal bias !

Question : Do I live on the wrong Planet?
Frosted Flake

Earlier thread of mine I refered to a penny thief at the five and dime...

Eliot’s Mess
The $200 billion bail-out for predator banks and Spitzer charges are intimately linked
By Greg Palast
Reporting for Air America Radio’s Clout
March 14th, 2008

While New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was paying an ‘escort’ $4,300 in a hotel room in Washington, just down the road, George Bush’s new Federal Reserve Board Chairman, Ben Bernanke, was secretly handing over $200 billion in a tryst with mortgage bank industry speculators.

Both acts were wanton, wicked and lewd. But there’s a BIG difference. The Governor was using his own checkbook. Bush’s man Bernanke was using ours.

This week, Bernanke’s Fed, for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks’ mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.

Up until Wednesday, there was one single, lonely politician who stood in the way of this creepy little assignation at the bankers’ bordello: Eliot Spitzer.

Who are they kidding? Spitzer’s lynching and the bankers’ enriching are intimately tied.

How? Follow the money.

The press has swallowed Wall Street’s line that millions of US families are about to lose their homes because they bought homes they couldn’t afford or took loans too big for their wallets. Ba-LON-ey. That’s blaming the victim.

Here’s what happened. Since the Bush regime came to power, a new species of loan became the norm, the ‘sub-prime’ mortgage and its variants including loans with teeny “introductory” interest rates. From out of nowhere, a company called ‘Countrywide’ became America’s top mortgage lender, accounting for one in five home loans, a large chunk of these ‘sub-prime.’

Here’s how it worked: The Grinning Family, with US average household income, gets a $200,000 mortgage at 4% for two years. Their $955 monthly payment is 25% of their income. No problem. Their banker promises them a new mortgage, again at the cheap rate, in two years. But in two years, the promise ain’t worth a can of spam and the Grinnings are told to scram - because their house is now worth less than the mortgage. Now, the mortgage hits 9% or $1,609 plus fees to recover the “discount” they had for two years. Suddenly, payments equal 42% to 50% of pre-tax income. The Grinnings move into their Toyota.

Now, what kind of American is ‘sub-prime.’ Guess. No peeking. Here’s a hint: 73% of HIGH INCOME Black and Hispanic borrowers were given sub-prime loans versus 17% of similar-income Whites. Dark-skinned borrowers aren’t stupid – they had no choice. They were ‘steered’ as it’s called in the mortgage sharking business.

‘Steering,’ sub-prime loans with usurious kickers, fake inducements to over-borrow, called ‘fraudulent conveyance’ or ‘predatory lending’ under US law, were almost completely forbidden in the olden days (Clinton Administration and earlier) by federal regulators and state laws as nothing more than fancy loan-sharking.

But when the Bush regime took over, Countrywide and its banking brethren were told to party hearty – it was OK now to steer’m, fake’m, charge’m and take’m.

But there was this annoying party-pooper. The Attorney General of New York, Eliot Spitzer, who sued these guys to a fare-thee-well. Or tried to.

Instead of regulating the banks that had run amok, Bush’s regulators went on the warpath against Spitzer and states attempting to stop predatory practices. Making an unprecedented use of the legal power of “federal pre-emption,” Bush-bots ordered the states to NOT enforce their consumer protection laws.

Indeed, the feds actually filed a lawsuit to block Spitzer’s investigation of ugly racial mortgage steering. Bush’s banking buddies were especially steamed that Spitzer hammered bank practices across the nation using New York State laws.

Spitzer not only took on Countrywide, he took on their predatory enablers in the investment banking community. Behind Countrywide was the Mother Shark, its funder and now owner, Bank of America. Others joined the sharkfest: Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Citigroup’s Citibank made mortgage usury their major profit centers. They did this through a bit of financial legerdemain called “securitization.”

What that means is that they took a bunch of junk mortgages, like the Grinning’s, loans about to go down the toilet and re-packaged them into “tranches” of bonds which were stamped “AAA” - top grade - by bond rating agencies. These gold-painted turds were sold as sparkling safe investments to US school district pension funds and town governments in Finland (really).

When the housing bubble burst and the paint flaked off, investors were left with the poop and the bankers were left with bonuses. Countrywide’s top man, Angelo Mozilo, will ‘earn’ a $77 million buy-out bonus this year on top of the $656 million - over half a billion dollars – he pulled in from 1998 through 2007.

But there were rumblings that the party would soon be over. Angry regulators, burned investors and the weight of millions of homes about to be boarded up were causing the sharks to sink. Countrywide’s stock was down 50%, and Citigroup was off 38%, not pleasing to the Gulf sheiks who now control its biggest share blocks.

Then, on Wednesday of this week, the unthinkable happened. Carlyle Capital went bankrupt. Who? That’s Carlyle as in Carlyle Group. James Baker, Senior Counsel. Notable partners, former and past: George Bush, the Bin Laden family and more dictators, potentates, pirates and presidents than you can count.

The Fed had to act. Bernanke opened the vault and dumped $200 billion on the poor little suffering bankers. They got the public treasure – and got to keep the Grinning’s house. There was no ‘quid’ of a foreclosure moratorium for the ‘pro quo’ of public bailout. Not one family was saved – but not one banker was left behind.

Every mortgage sharking operation shot up in value. Mozilo’s Countrywide stock rose 17% in one day. The Citi sheiks saw their company’s stock rise $10 billion in an afternoon.

And that very same day the bail-out was decided – what a coinkydink! – the man called, ‘The Sheriff of Wall Street’ was cuffed. Spitzer was silenced.

Do I believe the banks called Justice and said, “Take him down today!” Naw, that’s not how the system works. But the big players knew that unless Spitzer was taken out, he would create enough ruckus to spoil the party. Headlines in the financial press – one was “Wall Street Declares War on Spitzer” - made clear to Bush’s enforcers at Justice who their number one target should be. And it wasn’t Bin Laden.

It was the night of February 13 when Spitzer made the bone-headed choice to order take-out in his Washington Hotel room. He had just finished signing these words for the Washington Post about predatory loans:

“Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.”

Bush, Spitzer said right in the headline, was the “Predator Lenders’ Partner in Crime.” The President, said Spitzer, was a fugitive from justice. And Spitzer was in Washington to launch a campaign to take on the Bush regime and the biggest financial powers on the planet.

Spitzer wrote, “When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners the Bush administration will not be judged favorably.”

But now, the Administration can rest assured that this love story – of Bush and his bankers - will not be told by history at all – now that the Sheriff of Wall Street has fallen on his own gun.

A note on “Prosecutorial Indiscretion.”

Back in the day when I was an investigator of racketeers for government, the federal prosecutor I was assisting was deciding whether to launch a case based on his negotiations for airtime with 60 Minutes. I’m not allowed to tell you the prosecutor’s name, but I want to mention he was recently seen shouting, “Florida is Rudi country! Florida is Rudi country!”

Not all crimes lead to federal bust or even public exposure. It’s up to something called “prosecutorial discretion.”

Funny thing, this ‘discretion.’ For example, Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, paid Washington DC prostitutes to put him in diapers (ewww!), yet the Senator was not exposed by the US prosecutors busting the pimp-ring that pampered him.
Naming and shaming and ruining Spitzer – rarely done in these cases - was made at the ‘discretion’ of Bush’s Justice Department.

Or maybe we should say, ‘indiscretion.’

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I M P E A C H
THEM BOTH !!!

Threats of adverse action are all well and good, but we have to think of practical consequences. The progressives among us have VERY limited choices. In those States that still have primaries, there are SOME choices, but most of us are going to have to wait for November. Where there ARE still primaries, there are a few limited choices. If your "Representative" is a Bu$h Dog, there MAY be a progressive Democrat opposing him/her, and the vote is a no-brainer; but where you have ONLY the traitor to think about, LEAVE THE SPACE BLANK TO SHOW YOUR DISAPPROVAL! If the Congresscritter runs a few thousand votes behind Barack or Hillary, he/she may understand that the electorate is displeased, and MAY mend his/her ways. A slim hope, but at least the possibility is there. Come November, we HAVE NO CHOICE! The philosophical point that it is better to have an enemy you know about than a false or dubious friend is simply not true. Vote DEMOCRATIC! Be counted! Refusal to vote because you resent the actions of your "Representative" could result in the election of the enemy of everything we stand for. if you happen to live in the right part of San Francisco, vote for Cindy to give Nancy a scare, but the odds are against actually defeating her. HOWEVER; Returning a "Democratic" Congress is paramount. Even if the Blue Dogs take a number of seats, they won't have Bu$h to back them, and Party discipline will tend to keep them in line - When a member has his/her power stripped, he/she becomes quite slavish to the leadership. After all, if Nancy had not threatened to strip JC of his power, Cheney would have been impeached long ago! So - THIMK! It is better to have a wishy-washy friend in a Congressional seat than it is to have an avowed enemy. Threaten all you want, but ACT responsibly!

Nadler Disses Voters on Impeachment

By Ray McGovern
March 11, 2008

You would not know it for the news blackout, but New Yorkers of Congressman Jerrold Nadler’s district held a Town Hall/Impeachment Forum on Sunday to encourage Nadler, chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, to begin impeachment proceedings against Vice President Dick Cheney.

Panelists included former congresswoman Liz Holtzman, former Reagan Justice Department attorney Bruce Fein, human rights attorney and Harpers commentator Scott Horton, and John Nirenberg, the activist who at the turn of the year walked from Boston to Washington, D.C., in a futile attempt to meet with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on impeachment.

The organizers had asked me to be on the panel, but I had to send regrets and submitted a statement instead (see below). A video of the proceedings will be posted on afterdowningstreet.org.

Taking Stock

In a post mortem Sunday evening, the organizers reportedly painted a mixed picture of good and bad news.

On the positive side, Judson Memorial Church was crammed to overflowing, with 300 folks to hear the panelists. And this, despite the fact that most were already aware that Nadler had announced (late Friday afternoon) that he would be a no-show. He did not even send a representative.

The panelists’ remarks were compelling. Blame for inaction on impeachment was laid squarely on our invertebrate Congress (but, I’m sorry, that familiar whining can get a bit tiresome). The audience was described as well-educated, non-fringe, and polite.

On the negative side, despite Herculean efforts to interest the “mainstream media,” no one showed.

And the enthusiasm of those trying to spur action on impeachment was dampened by continuing frustration at the obstacles, as politicians like Nadler continue to put political expedience above their sworn duty to protect and defend the Constitution.

Tories Back in Charge

It took some 230 years, but the Tories are back in charge—I mean the Nadlers, the Conyers, the Pelosis, who so clearly lack the courage of our forebears to defy a new King George, preferring to let him dis us the people and trash the Constitution.

Remember the final words of the Declaration of Independence? “We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”

Many of our forebears were also well-educated and non-fringe; fortunately, they were NOT polite.

Is it not clear, finally, that the time for politeness is over?

It is up to us, now, whether we shall have Constitutional separation of powers or shall have kings. It is up to us whether an unrestrained Executive will be able to march our children and grandchildren off to an endless series of resource wars likely to dominate this century.

The time for talking is over. Impeachment proceedings must begin. And no one is going to get that done but we.

One of the hurdles is outrage fatigue; it is hard to decide where to start among the many high crimes and misdemeanors of which Vice President Cheney is demonstrably culpable.

From my perspective as a former intelligence analyst, we certainly cannot allow to escape censure his conjuring up false “intelligence” to justify what Nuremberg defined as the “supreme international crime”—a war of aggression—in Iraq.

The Founders knew that, human nature being what it is, such abuses would be inevitable somewhere down the line. That’s why they took such pains to provide an orderly political procedure to enable us to deal promptly and responsibly with such high crimes and misdemeanors.

The process is called impeachment; the rules are clear.

All it takes is courage. And I do not refer here to the invertebrates in Congress.

I mean us.

The statement I prepared for Sunday’s event follows:

Is Impeachment Necessary to Protect the Constitution?
Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square South, NYC
March 9, 2008

Statement by Ray McGovern

Congressman Nadler, I am Ray McGovern, born and bred in the Bronx a bit north of your district.

I regret not being able to be with you in person to give my perspective on whether impeachment is necessary to protect the Constitution—and specifically, whether the manufacturing of false intelligence to “justify” an unprovoked war fits the category of “high crime or misdemeanor.”

I was an analyst at the CIA for 27 years, after serving as an Army infantry/intelligence officer in the early Sixties. You may recall that we first met on June 16, 2005, in the basement of the Capitol, the only room made available to Congressman John Conyers to take testimony on the Downing Street Minutes.

The minutes were the official British record of a briefing of then-Prime Minister Tony Blair on July 23, 2002. At that briefing, the chief of British intelligence reported on his discussions with his counterpart in Washington, who told him three days earlier that, President George W. Bush had decided to make war on Iraq, and that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”

In my testimony in the Capitol that day I drew attention to the words of Vice President Dick Cheney on August 26, 2002—words that framed the discussion for the next 45 days during which Congress was deliberately misled into giving the president approval to make war on Iraq.

This is what Cheney said:

“We now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. Among other sources, we’ve gotten this from the firsthand testimony of defectors—including Saddam’s own son-in-law.”

This was a lie.

Saddam’s son-in-law told us just the opposite when he defected in 1995.

You can find it on page 13 of his debriefing report. He said: “All weapons – biological, chemical, missile, nuclear were destroyed.”

Cheney continued:

“Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction...Many of us are convinced that [Saddam] will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon.”

In a memoir published last year, then-CIA director George Tenet complained that Cheney did not follow the usual practice of clearing the speech with the CIA, and that what Cheney said “went well beyond what our analysis could support.”

Tenet added his “impression” that “the president really wasn’t any more aware of what his number-two was going to say.” Yet, Tenet admits that he did not raise the issue with either the president or vice president. Tenet was all too well aware that the intelligence was being “fixed around the policy.”

The Power to Intimidate

Intimidated by the vice president, Tenet ended up ordering his analysts, my former colleagues, to prepare a National Intelligence Estimate to Cheney’s terms of reference—you remember, the one that said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and ties with al-Qaeda; the NIE that appeared just ten days before Congress voted to give the president the power to make war on Iraq.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, and who chaired the preparation of Powell’s Feb. 5, 2003, speech at the UN, was asked about all this when Wilkerson testified before Congress on June 26, 2006.

The question came from Republican Congressman Walter Jones of North Carolina: Why was it that a small number of individuals got so much power in the administration that they “had more influence than the professionals?”

Wilkerson gave a three-word answer: “The Vice President.”

Torture

It is an open secret that Vice President Cheney was, and continues to be the prime mover behind torture. As some will recall, speaking on open radio Cheney called the use of waterboarding a “no-brainer.”

It was his lawyer, David Addington, who prepared the Jan. 25, 2002, memorandum signed by then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales recommending that the laws against torture could be circumvented.

George Bush applied that advice in his own presidential memorandum of Feb. 7, 2002, launching our country onto “the dark side,” as Cheney has put it.

That memorandum opened the gaping loophole through which the administration drove the Mack truck of torture.

High crimes? Misdemeanors? Who will argue the point?

The Constitution

Congressman Nadler, articles of impeachment for Dick Cheney have sat in your in-box since last November. You are Chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution; you have refused to take action.

As an Army officer I took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic. You took that same basic oath as a congressman.

With all due respect, let me suggest you have a duty to act on that oath—and not on some promise you may have made to avoid anything that could be viewed as divisive and thus jeopardize Democratic Party election wins in November.

I hope you will agree that the transcendent value is to protect the Constitution, and for that, impeachment is indeed necessary. Please take the articles of impeachment regarding Dick Cheney out of your in-box and launch the investigation.

Thank you.

Ray McGovern
Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
click here

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You can lead a republican to the truth, but you can't make him think it...