Closing in on a Constitutional showdown

So our House of Representatives passed their rebuke on Bush’s escalation — weightless, although significant in tone; if Murtha hadn’t been talking up the $$ issues, more Pubs would have jumped on, or so report the pundits. Nobody wants to be the guy who takes the $$ from the warriors, even if that brings ‘em home sooner.

The Senate tried to take up that topic today … on a Saturday, which annoyed the politico’s … and got stomped by an rush of rogue Elephants who wouldn’t even discuss the matter; word has it Dub’s boyz have been applying the thumbscrews and Dem’s couldn’t get their 60 votes to debate the issue. Politics … bah!

The Republican talking points had been handed to them early — don’t talk about the war, sprinkle yourself with Kool Aid, talk about the Ruthless Islamofascists [coming soon to a neighborhood near you if you draw down] and our valiant, patriotic and beloved soldiers who would wither, suffer and pine without their endless rotations in Iraq. The Pubs five-minute tirades weren’t even clever, as illuminated by Jon Stewart in this clip — Dance, Dance Resolution. While you’re there, watch the Mess O’ Potamia:Iran sequence — Jon’s the Man. I’ve posted commentary by Steven Weber [the actor, who blogs on Huffy] last, who will tell us how knee-deep it all is using all the ca-ca words he can think of!

We’re closing in on a big dust-up, with the Dems standing up this way … it was a given that it would happen eventually, and Bush is looking for work-around’s. I’m less concerned about what’s happening in front of our eyes than what’s going on behind the scenes … although we’re tracking that too, as the articles below indicate. Bush thinks he reigns supreme, he has Uncle Dick giving him atta’boys and the NeoCon Think Tanks encouraging him down the primrose path. We’re coming closer and closer to deciding if we want a King [or a President] and if we DON’T want one, then throwing the bum out is going to take a unified effort.

And … get this … the buzz is that 41 and 43 are pressuring Jebby to run for 44 … none of the Pub contenders are meeting the Christocrat prereq’s. Let’s see — what’s his liability factor? Jimmy had brother Billy … Big Bill had brother Roger … and Jebby has … oh, dear God, he’s got Dubby [or Uncle Bucky ... or Poppy ... or Barbara.]

Jeez — I think we’ve had enough ruling families in this nation, don’t you? Our politics are so inbred that we’re currently enduring the Missing Link in the White House as it is.

I’ll borrow from a Think Progress blogger, here:

We in America do not really have a democracy any longer, we have an Oligarchy.

Oligarchy (Greek Ὀλιγαρχία, Oligarkhía) is a form of government where political power effectively rests with a small, elite segment of society (whether distinguished by wealth, family or military prowess). The word oligarchy is from the Greek words for “few” (ὀλίγον óligon) and “rule” (ἄρχω arkho).

Here’s an excellent collection, summarizing all this, including the positioning of NeoCon lawyers as the battle looms — the worrisome Think Tank AEI [an arm of P-NAC] giving the Dubby a big squeeze love — and DO stream Bill Maher on this topic, because nobody nails it like he does; not even Jon.

Today, everything is filtered through Bush’s hijack of presumptive presidential powers … and if they’re going to continue, unchecked and illegally. If I read the public mood correctly, we’ve had about enough.

Jude

Bush, Congress Could Face Confrontation on Issue of War Powers
President’s Allies See Possible Challenges in Proposals Placing Restrictions on Funding for Iraq
Michael Abramowitz, Washington Post
Friday, February 16, 2007

President Bush has not been shy about asserting robust powers for the presidency in waging war, but lately he has seemed to concede that Congress has a role to play as well. Lawmakers, he has indicated, are within their rights to try to cap total deployments or limit where troops can go in Iraq.

“They have the right to try to use the power of the purse to determine policy,” the president told editors of the Wall Street Journal recently, in an interview that took some of his strongest conservative supporters by surprise.

For a president who has asserted broad executive authority to conduct aggressive interrogations of detainees and electronic surveillance of terrorism suspects without a court warrant, such comments may reflect as much pragmatism as any serious legal analysis. White House aides concede they are not interested in unduly antagonizing lawmakers at a time they need all the help they can get on Capitol Hill.

But as the debate in Congress shifts from nonbinding resolutions of disapproval for adding troops in Iraq to attaching conditions on funding for the war, a constitutional clash between the legislative and executive branches may be inevitable, say lawmakers and legal scholars with close ties to the administration.

After a vote today on a resolution condemning the new deployments to Iraq, House Democratic leaders will serve notice that they intend to attach conditions to the coming spending bill on the war that could arguably encroach on the president’s constitutional powers as commander in chief to control tactics and operations.

These include riders that would prevent Bush from sending units to Iraq unless they are certified as combat-ready and that would require Army troops be given a year at home before an additional deployment to Iraq.

Democrats have described these conditions as part of a slow strategy to stop the war without cutting funding completely, which most parties agree would be legally permissible — but politically difficult.

White House press secretary Tony Snow declined to be drawn into a discussion with reporters yesterday about whether such provisions would be “micromanaging” the war — which some scholars think would be unconstitutional. The new White House counsel, Fred F. Fielding, is considered a pragmatist not particularly interested in new fights with Congress, but administration allies in the conservative legal world predicted that the White House would eventually chafe at such restrictions.

“The administration might try to be as accommodating as possible on issues short of a complete shutdown of the war, but if Congress clamps down on a core commander-in-chief power that the president thinks might be necessary to use in the war on terrorism, I do not think pragmatism will prevail,” said one former top administration lawyer, who conditioned his comments on anonymity.

David B. Rivkin Jr., a White House lawyer in the George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan administrations, described the proposed congressional restrictions as the “epitome of micromanagement.” He said he thinks “the White House will end up fighting the congressional micromanagement and, if it continues, will publicly articulate the view that it is unconstitutional and not binding on the executive.”

Others speculate that Bush may be backpedaling a bit from his broad assertions of presidential power, some of which the Supreme Court rejected last summer when it struck down his plan for trying terrorism suspects in military tribunals.

“He had said on quite a number of occasions that he’s the decider,” said Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee. “He [is] not the sole decider. . . . As this debate has progressed, the president is acknowledging the constitutional role of Congress.”

The administration declined to make available lawyers to discuss the constitutional issues surrounding the war debate, saying it does not want to discuss hypotheticals, but a Justice Department spokesman pointed to a number of opinions from the Office of Legal Counsel suggesting clear limits on congressional power.

In 1996, then-Assistant Attorney General Walter E. Dellinger III wrote a memo stating that congressional language prohibiting the president from placing U.S. forces under United Nations control during peacekeeping operations “would unconstitutionally constrain the President’s exercise of his authority as commander-in-chief.”

In an interview this week, Dellinger indicated that the Democratic proposals being floated on Capitol Hill — such as a cap on troops in Iraq — do not amount to that kind of tactical interference. He said there is a “striking consensus” on both the left and the right that Congress has the power to limit the scope and duration of the war — not only through the power of the purse but through other war powers.

As Dellinger suggested, there is little question among most scholars that Congress has ample constitutional authority to shut down the war. “I am not aware of a serious dispute over whether it is constitutional for Congress to defund or otherwise terminate the war in Iraq,” said Brad Berenson, who was in the White House counsel’s office from 2001 to 2003. “The big debate is over whether it is wise.”

Indeed, some Republicans seem to be baiting the Democrats to try to defund the war. John Yoo, a former Justice Department official who became well known for his expansive assertions of presidential authority, co-wrote a piece in the New York Times this week suggesting Congress has all the power it wants to stop the war but is engaging in “bluster” with nonbinding resolutions.

Dellinger said he is baffled by such arguments. “Although it does not become law, how can it possibly be considered meaningless for each house of the Congress to exercise the view in a formal recorded vote that a planned addition to U.S. forces is a mistake?” he said. “I think that the framers of the Constitution would be astonished that a president would proceed to increase U.S. involvement in a foreign war over the expressed objection of both houses of Congress.”

Conservatives to Bush: Issue More Executive Orders
Kenneth T. Walsh, US News
2/15/07

With President Bush unable to get much traction so far in moving his agenda through Congress or in improving his job-approval ratings with the public, White House advisers are casting about for ways to jump-start his final two years, including issuing executive orders to get things done without having to ask for support from the Democratic-controlled Congress.

“He should get a list of the executive orders for the last 200 years, as a guide, and choose what he wants to do,” says an informal Bush adviser. One proposal that fiscal conservatives are pushing is to halve all capital-gains taxes, as a way to encourage investment and job creation.

Some conservatives argue that even if Bush somehow regains his political footing, whatever he might work out with the Democratic majority in Congress wouldn’t be very good legislation, so he should go the executive-order route and bypass Congress altogether.

White House Is Reported to Be Linked to a Dismissal
DAVID JOHNSTON, NYT
February 16, 2007

WASHINGTON, Feb. 15 — A United States attorney in Arkansas who was dismissed from his job last year by the Justice Department was ousted after Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, intervened on behalf of the man who replaced him, according to Congressional aides briefed on the matter.

Ms. Miers, the aides said, phoned an aide to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales suggesting the appointment of J. Timothy Griffin, a former military and civilian prosecutor who was a political director for the Republican National Committee and a deputy to Karl Rove, the White House political adviser.

Later, the incumbent United States attorney, H. E. Cummins III, was removed without explanation and replaced on an interim basis by Mr. Griffin. Officials at the White House and Justice Department declined to comment on Ms. Miers’s role in the matter.

Paul J. McNulty, the deputy attorney general, said at a hearing last week that Mr. Cummins had done nothing wrong but was removed to make room for Mr. Griffin. It was not known at the time Mr. McNulty testified that Ms. Miers had intervened on Mr. Griffin’s behalf.

Her involvement was disclosed on Wednesday by Justice Department officials led by Mr. McNulty, who held a closed-door briefing for senators on the Judiciary Committee after Democrats criticized the dismissals of 7 to 10 United States attorneys as politically motivated.

Ms. Miers, whose resignation as White House counsel was effective Jan. 31, could not be reached for comment Thursday.

At the briefing, Justice Department officials denied that the White House had been involved in any of the other dismissals, suggesting that the department had acted on its own after advising the White House of its intention to remove incumbents.

Democrats have said the removals represented an effort to make room for rising political favorites of the Bush administration and to be rid of independent-minded prosecutors, all of whom had been appointed by President Bush.

Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said that he was not satisfied by the Justice Department’s explanations at the briefing.

“Yesterday’s briefing by the deputy attorney general did little to alleviate our concerns that politics was involved and, in fact, raised those concerns,” Mr. Schumer said. “Some may have been fired for political reasons because they may have not done what Justice Department wanted them to do.”

Justice Department officials have said that because United States attorneys are presidential appointees they may be replaced at any time without a specific reason, although they have said that none were removed for pursuing politically sensitive cases.

Another United States attorney asked to resign was Carol C. Lam of San Diego, who departed on Thursday at the request of the Justice Department. Two days earlier, Ms. Lam announced two indictments, including one against a former high-ranking Central Intelligence Agency official, in a corruption inquiry that began with last year’s guilty plea by a former Republican representative, Randy Cunningham, who was sentenced to more than eight years in prison.

Karen P. Hewitt, an assistant in Ms. Lam’s office, was named Thursday to serve as the interim United States attorney in the Southern District, while Scott N. Schools, a general counsel in the Justice Department, will fill the interim role in the Northern District, in San Francisco.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said in a statement on the Senate floor Thursday that Ms. Lam had been dismissed despite a strong record of prosecutions.

“Ms. Lam has had a distinguished career, and she served the southern district of San Diego well and everyone in that district knows that,” Ms. Feinstein said. “I regret that main Justice does not. I am quite disappointed that main Justice chose to remove her, especially given the ongoing work in which the office is involved.”

Former Rove Aide Won’t Seek Nomination in Ark.
Dan Eggen, Washington Post
Friday, February 16, 2007

Tim Griffin, the former aide to presidential adviser Karl Rove who has been at the center of a political storm over U.S. attorney firings, says he will not seek the nomination to be chief prosecutor in Little Rock, Ark.

Griffin, 38, a former military lawyer who worked for Rove and the Republican National Committee, said last night that opposition from Democrats, including Arkansas Sens. Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, made it unlikely he could be confirmed for the job.

“I don’t think there’s any way I could get fair treatment by Sen. Pryor or others on the Judiciary Committee,” Griffin told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, which first reported Griffin’s decision. He added that submitting his name to the Senate for confirmation “would be like volunteering to stand in front of a firing squad in the middle of a three-ring circus.”

Griffin’s decision to step aside is the latest development in an ongoing controversy over the firings of seven U.S. attorneys by the Justice Department, which has angered lawmakers of both parties and prompted a battle over the attorney general’s power to name replacements.

Justice Department officials have said that six of the attorneys were fired for “performance-related” reasons.

But Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty acknowledged in testimony earlier this month that in the case of Little Rock, former U.S. attorney Bud Cummins was asked to leave to make way for Griffin. The department had said it intended to nominate Griffin for the permanent job but had not formally submitted his name to the Senate.

Griffin was recommended for the job by Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, according to congressional aides who were briefed on the issue this week.
Michael Teague, a spokesman for Pryor, said today that Miers told Pryor in December that Griffin “is our person” for the Little Rock job.

Teague said Griffin’s barbed comments about Democrats and the Senate underscore the need for a confirmation process for top federal prosecutors.

“Tim Griffin attacked Mark Pryor in the paper, but what we’ve said from the beginning is that this isn’t about Tim Griffin or one position,” Teague said. “It’s about the process and the institution.”

Griffin could still legally serve as the Little Rock U.S. attorney indefinitely, and he said he will remain in the job for “as long as they need me.”

But Gonzales and other Justice officials have repeatedly promised to provide nominees for all vacant U.S. attorney positions to the Senate. The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.

The firing of Cummins and the others has drawn particular attention from lawmakers because of a little-noticed provision of the USA Patriot Act reauthorization bill, which allows Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to appoint interim U.S. attorneys for an indefinite period of time.

Senate Republicans yesterday blocked a bill approved by the judiciary committee that would limit Gonzales’s powers to name a replacement prosecutor and return to a system in which district courts name a replacement if a permanent U.S. attorney is not selected in 120 days.

AEI: The Root of Bush’s Right-Wing Ideology
Payson, Think Progress
February 15, 2007

Today, President Bush delivered a speech on Afghanistan at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C. AEI and the Bush administration are deeply entwined, something Bush admitted during his speech. “I admire AEI a lot,” Bush said. “After all, I have been consistently borrowing some of your best people. More than 20 AEI scholars have worked in my administration.”

Below are a few examples of the people and ideas that AEI has shared — or tried to share — with the Bush White House over recent years:

– Escalation. President Bush’s escalation plan is based on a report by AEI scholar Frederick Kagan. CNN reporter Suzanne Malveaux said of AEI’s influence on Iraq policy: “One conservative policy group that has the president’s ear and is influencing his thinking is the American Enterprise Institute.”

– The Cheneys. Dick Cheney served as AEI Senior Fellow from 1993-1995, and his wife Lynn currently serves as Senior Fellow studying education and children. “Both Lynne and I have a long history with the American Enterprise Institute, and we value the association,” Vice President Cheney said in 2005.

– Bomb Iran. “We must bomb Iran,” AEI Resident Scholar Joshua Muravchik wrote in an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times. Muravchik called for an “air campaign against Tehran’s nuclear facilities”

– Richard Perle. Perle has been at AEI since 1987, and currently serves as a Resident Fellow. A leading neoconservative, Perle was a fierce proponent of regime change in Iraq. He served as Chairman of the Defense Policy Board from 2001 to 2003.

– John Bolton. Served as Senior Vice President of AEI before coming to the Bush administration. Bolton currently serves as a Senior Fellow at AEI. “There is no such thing as the United Nations,” Bolton said. “If the U.N. secretary building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”

– Climate change inaction. AEI offered $10,000 to climate change deniers to speak out against the recent IPCC climate change study.

– Karl Zinsmeister. Worked for 12 years at the American Enterprise magazine. He became Bush’s top domestic policy adviser, but only after he admitted to padding his resume.

– Social Security privatization. AEI has long been a vocal supporter of Social Security privatization.

– Greg Mankiw. A visiting scholar at AEI, Mankiw served as Bush’s chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers from 2003 to 2005. In 2004, Mankiw said the outsourcing of U.S. jobs overseas was “probably a plus for the economy in the long run.”

– John Yoo. Currently a visiting scholar for AEI, and a former deputy assistant attorney general in the office of legal counsel of the Department of Justice. Yoo authored the infamous torture memo that argued interrogation techniques only constituted torture if they are “equivalent in intensity to…organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.”

Bill Maher “New Rule - Tanks But No Tanks” video on P-NAC and Think Tanks

Duck!
Steven Weber, HuffPo
02.17.2007

Okay, people! Get your hazmat suits on, seal your cuffs with duct tape, tighten those goggle straps and get in your horse-stance: here comes the Elephant Shit!

The Republican’t power junkies are rolling big, acrid, hay-prickled spheres down the congressional halls. They’re caroming off the alabaster walls, hooking and spinning on the marble floors, smearing everyone and everything standing in the way, knocking truth and justice into a 7-10 split!

Dick Weber’s jaw is slack! Johnny Petraglia’s gone weak in the knees! The Elephants are spewing again, once more counting on the unflinching, lemming-like fealty of those American Idiot Sleeper Cells to get good and scared, never doubt what their nefarious, double-deaaling leaders say and buy the snake oil, even though it’s been eating away at their gizzards since 2000.

With their scary-ass chop-logic that turns truth inside out and shifts blame with a stunningly brazen lack of subtlety they have converted the nation’s capitol into one gigantic cistern and, doodiful soldiers all, have begun the big flush. During this last meaningless/meaningful debate as to whether to send 21,000 troops to Iraq, the Republican’t’s fretted like children throwing tantrums when faced with certain discipline; a conniption of historic proportions, mewling and puking and kicking up all the botheration their little colic-ridden brains could muster. Wielding their favorite tool—deliberately using our fighting men and women as puppets and pawns to perpetuate their hold on power—the Repooplicans stated that a vote for the resolution would be the first step toward complete defunding, putting our men in the field in harm’s way and sending a “cut and run” message that would have our enemies dancing and Osama slapping his crutches in laughter (note the same thought process that extrapolates fornicating with dogs and goats from gay people having the legal right to marriage). A vote against the resolution would give our Commander in Chief the tools to spread democracy to those scimitar shaking Muslims and reassert the American Way in that crazy, mixed up part of the world (so that when Jesus finally comes back—you forgot about Him in this whole mess, didn’t you?—He’ll at least have a McDonald’s to slake his thirst at before starting His surge). And even after years of underfunding, bad planning, murky objectives, obfuscation, arrogance—all during the watch of a completely empowered Republican congress and administration which proved it cannot govern competantly—this surge will right all that went “wrong”. And all the while standing at their lecterns, the Republicons pass the congressional bedpan silently from party member to party member, taking their handfuls, molding and packing the putrid contents into a perfect, gooey orb and at the signal (cue Karl blowing his chrome-plated whistle) heave their lies aloft.

Elephant Shit, as well as fouling our hallowed institutions, traditions and credibility, also kills hope and corrodes this country’s spirit. Foggy Bottom ain’t foggy for nothing—it’s enveloped in a shimmering, putrid mist that clings to everything Republican these days, emanating from the constant flow of money and greed and Neo-Con ideology washing down the funnels of our nation’s capitol and sloshing onto the feet of every American.

Duck, everyone! Here it comes!

“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

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