Specter writes Gonzales
By on Jan 25th, 2006 at 3:50 pm
View Most Popular
Advertisement
What We're About
What We're Fighting For
What We're Fighting Against
Featured
Subscribe to the Progress Report
Topic CloudView topics sorted by popularity
Afghanistan
Bachmann
Beck
Boehner
Business
Civil Rights
Congress
Corporate Ethics
Dobbs
Economy
Education
Election
Energy
Environment
Ethics
Fox News
Gingrich
Global Warming
Health Care
Hoffman
Immigration
International Relations
Iraq
Justice
LGBT
Lieberman
Limbaugh
Media
Military
O'Reilly
Obama
Palin
Pelosi
Politics
Race
Radical Right
Religion
Sports
Steele
Stimulus
Tea Parties
Tea Party
Terrorism
Veterans
Women's Rights
Visit Our Affiliated Sites
Reports
In-depth studies on select topics
Got a hot tip?
Have a hot news tip? We'd love to hear from you. Use the form below to send us the latest.
ArchivesBlog Roll
did Specter use one of them newfangled “eelectronic communications” ? They’re so popular these days.
January 25th, 2006 at 3:54 pmAlberto, Arlen’s on your case: let’s see you ‘Torquemada’ anything in that letter.
January 25th, 2006 at 3:56 pmThis is traditionally a conservative/small government/less intrusive government, minimalist/ tatist issue. This will get interesting. Amazing how they have become the very kind of government they ran against, (it was a myth really, like all their bullshit, the “big gubmint myth”) to get into office.
January 25th, 2006 at 3:57 pmHas the president’s hubris become even too large for the Republicans to take? It seems to be headed that way.
January 25th, 2006 at 3:59 pmRight out of the gate, question #1:
#3:
#10:
What are the odds of any of this getting answered, and the conservative press paying any attention?
January 25th, 2006 at 4:06 pm“I would not answer those questions as it is a matter of national security”
Alberto Gonzales
January 25th, 2006 at 4:08 pm3- Kinda like “states rights,” until the GOP took control of the federal government?
January 25th, 2006 at 4:08 pmI hope Arlen knows that he will be lucky if even 2 of the most benign questions are answered.
January 25th, 2006 at 4:09 pmI think that Sen. Specter is starting to realize that the party currently in power doesn’t always stay in power.
The best response I have to all the wing-nut claims that the President NEEDS all these expansive, overreaching powers to prosecute the ‘war on terra’: So, you’ll be fine with a Democrat President having all the same powers too, right?????
Once these people realize that the next President might not be a Republican, they quickly re-think their misguided, wrong headed positions. Same goes for eliminating the filibuster on Supreme Court nominees. Once the Republicans become the minority party, suddenly the filibuster is not quite a dispensable as they originally thought!
January 25th, 2006 at 4:12 pm#8 Unless he decides to be the first Republican to put his oath to the Constitution first….talk is cheap, Arlen.
January 25th, 2006 at 4:12 pm3- Kinda like “states rights,†until the GOP took control of the federal government?
Comment by David — January 25, 2006 @ 4:08 pm
But there are still real conservatives out here. Most are independents and even Democrats now.
January 25th, 2006 at 4:16 pmOh sure! Give him the questions to the EXAM so he can go home and study the REPUBLICAN bait and switch answer strategy that has seemed to work so well…
I would hope that they put him on notice and without orchestrated responses that will undoubtedly be given by him…
January 25th, 2006 at 4:17 pm#5 – The questions give folks a rather obvious hint at how Mr. Specter thinks the pResident is in error.
If the ReichWingNuts don’t impeach BushCo, they’ll be a scourged party for years hereafter. Remember Nixon.
Maybe the WingNuts have awoken to the fact they need to do something about this out of control baboon who occupies the MonkeyPalace? OK, that’s going a little too far. But Specter knows a thing or two.
January 25th, 2006 at 4:17 pmAs to whether Specter gets an answer, I don’t know. How hard will these guys buck the party? It is an election year and they could buck pretty hard if the prevailing winds are blowing the right way.
January 25th, 2006 at 4:18 pmWow… Good questions. Lets see if Gonzo the clown can answer them without using 9/11 as a pathetic pacifier.
January 25th, 2006 at 4:20 pmI’ll bet Abu G drops the 9/11 bomb within 2 minutes of the beginning of his testimony.
January 25th, 2006 at 4:23 pmoff topic yet applies to the Political BIAS we see today;\
Lets see if Gonzales USES facts;
Democrats and Republicans alike are adept at making decisions without letting the facts get in the way, a new study shows.
And they get quite a rush from ignoring information that’s contrary to their point of view.
Researchers asked staunch party members from both sides to evaluate information that threatened their preferred candidate prior to the 2004 Presidential election. The subjects’ brains were monitored while they pondered.
Story continues below ↓ advertisement
The results were announced today.
“We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning,” said Drew Westen, director of clinical psychology at Emory University. “What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up, including circuits hypothesized to be involved in regulating emotion, and circuits known to be involved in resolving conflicts.”
Bias on both sides
The test subjects on both sides of the political aisle reached totally biased conclusions by ignoring information that could not rationally be discounted, Westen and his colleagues say.
Then, with their minds made up, brain activity ceased in the areas that deal with negative emotions such as disgust. But activity spiked in the circuits involved in reward, a response similar to what addicts experience when they get a fix, Westen explained.
Explains ALOT of what we see lately…
January 25th, 2006 at 4:23 pmthese are good questions… Gonzo will find a way to avoid answering most of them, either on national security grounds, or through indirect, canned responses…
there are a few questions Specter left out… how is spying on Quakers equivalent to spying on Al Qaeda? and why did Bush insist a few years back that they got warrants to spy on terrorists?
http://blogdebogs.blogspot.com/2006/01/specter-of-impeachment.html
http://blogdebogs.blogspot.com/2006/01/gonzo-dodges-and-dances.html
January 25th, 2006 at 4:26 pmI’ll bet Abu G drops the 9/11 bomb within 2 minutes of the beginning of his testimony.
Comment by Zookeeper — January 25, 2006 @ 4:23 pm
that sounds like a drinking game! drink a pint every time Gonzo mentions 9/11… I’ll bring the Guinness!
January 25th, 2006 at 4:28 pmI think question #6 must really stick in the craw of many ReichWingNutWackJobs. And more importantly, hits at the nub of the WingNut argument that King George could do anything he liked.
Wasn’t President Carter’s signature on FISA in 1978, together with his signing statement, an explicit renunciation of any claim to inherent Executive authority under Article II of the Constitution to conduct warrantless domestic surveillance when the Act provided the exclusive procedures for such surveiallance?
January 25th, 2006 at 4:28 pmThey talk of the Resolution after 9/11.
Bushco spied before that resolution or 911.
January 25th, 2006 at 4:29 pm#19 – geez Pete. You really know how to temp a guy. Guinness? On nitro? I’m there!
January 25th, 2006 at 4:30 pmFriday 13 January 2006
The National Security Agency advised President Bush in early 2001 that it had been eavesdropping on Americans during the course of its work monitoring suspected terrorists and foreigners believed to have ties to terrorist groups, according to a declassified document.
The NSA’s vast data-mining activities began shortly after Bush was sworn in as president and the document contradicts his assertion that the 9/11 attacks prompted him to take the unprecedented step of signing a secret executive order authorizing the NSA to monitor a select number of American citizens thought to have ties to terrorist groups.
In its “Transition 2001″ report, the NSA said that the ever-changing world of global communication means that “American communication and targeted adversary communication will coexist.”
“Make no mistake, NSA can and will perform its missions consistent with the Fourth Amendment and all applicable laws,” the document says.
January 25th, 2006 at 4:32 pmBush was sworn in as president and the document contradicts his assertion that the 9/11 attacks prompted him to take the unprecedented step of signing a secret executive order authorizing the NSA to monitor a select number of American citizens thought to have ties to terrorist groups.
January 25th, 2006 at 4:33 pmTake that Gonzales
January 25th, 2006 at 4:35 pm#18
I agree…all good questions.
And hopefully he or someone else in the hearing will ask the ones you point were left out. As the letter said, these 15 questions are just the appetizers.
January 25th, 2006 at 4:35 pmI think #6 and #13 are good questions.
#6 because this administration believes that signing statements are the holy grail and it appears as though Carter made a signing statement when he signed the FISA law. If they truly believe signing statement are valid, then Carter’s is as valid today as it was back then. Of course the whole notion of a signing statement is that it expresses what an administration believes is their interpretation of the law. The Bush administration seems to believe that the statement has the force of law, therefore previous statements should also carry the weight of the law. In the long run though we know that they will convolute an argument saying that when the president took office he began the practice of post signing statement in which he re-interprets old laws and old signing statements to be what the new administration wants them to be.
And #13 (and #14 actually) seem to be telling the president and his people that they need to get their story and legal arguments in order. These are really good questions. Of course they could also be signals to the president to “let us know where the argument should go so we can help you.”
January 25th, 2006 at 4:35 pm#13 and #14 are outstanding questions too. It will sure be interesting to hear Alberto wriggle and squiggle around the request for how BushCo justified their actions.
Do Repugs have the b**ls to impeach one of their own? They better! Or else they will rapidly become irrevelent as a party.
January 25th, 2006 at 4:41 pmOff subject(or not):
My mind frequently goes back to a WWII documentary which showed American soldiers forcing German citizens to watch the torture and experiment films made by the SS. In the video, 2 female Germans leave the theater where they’re showing the films and they’re laughing. An American soldier is upset by the sight of them laughing at the atrocities and you can see the rage in his face. He forces them back into the theater to watch the movies again.
I think of it every time I see Gonzales. And the only thing he’ll say is our enemy “doesn’t deserve due process” or “the president has special powers at the moment”.
January 25th, 2006 at 4:42 pm…I think of it every time I see Gonzales. And the only thing he’ll say is our enemy “doesn’t deserve due process†or “the president has special powers at the momentâ€.
Afterall, King George has been reported saying he was given this task (his Presidency) by God (or Jesus, I don’t recall which). That should explain everything and nothing.
January 25th, 2006 at 4:44 pm#29 My father was at the liberation of Nordhausen and his divisional commander forced the civillians from the local villages/cities to tour the place and to assist in the clean up /burial process. He did this because he locals professed to have no knowledge of what was going on right under their doorsteps. I think this became a common practice whenever we found a camp.
January 25th, 2006 at 4:50 pm#19 – I’m there, Pete.
January 25th, 2006 at 4:54 pm#30 This of course is not about due process for the enemy, that is another argument. This is about due process and privacy rights for American citizens.
As to the due process for our enemy…all too many people seem to think it is ok to kill or lock up whomever we want because they are terrorists. How do we know without some sort of investigation? We are not infalliable and can be wrong. Remember when Guantanamo was for the worst of the worst? Remember the stories about how one tribe might kidnap a member of an opposing tribe and sell them to the US as terrorists? SOme of these people were in Guantanamo. Of course they were all guilty, that’s why we have released so many.
January 25th, 2006 at 4:55 pmIf we don’t take care about due process for the accused, who are prosecuted here, under our criminal statutes, they guilty could go free on appeal or the innocent punished for crimes commited by another. This shit is important.
January 25th, 2006 at 4:57 pmI’m sure they knew these questions before they were officially sent in (if you know what I mean). Unless Specter used a manual typewriter to type this document.
January 25th, 2006 at 4:58 pmOf Course with Dick and Karl running the show who will be surprised when they start spying on their friends so that they can keep them in line?
January 25th, 2006 at 5:04 pmMark,
January 25th, 2006 at 5:05 pmI’ve been trying to find that documentary. Do you where to find footage of this kind?
This shit is important.
It’s even more than that. It’s one of the cornerstones of our formerly great republic.
If government (read; ReichWingNutWackJobs currently in power in all branches) won’t control itself by the Constitution, then We The People have nothing. Nothing at all. And then we’re no better than the former Soviet Union. Or Germany 1938, for that matter.
January 25th, 2006 at 5:07 pmWe all know that Gonzo will not answer any question that pertains to an on-going investigation, even his own. I suspect that Specter knows that the meeting room will just be filled with smoke if he asks these questions. What better strategy than send Bushco the list of questions that we all know the answer to but which the Bushco will never admit. Then when Gonzo is subpoenaed for not answering the questions hit him with the hard ones. 1. What are the names of every participant in every communication monitored and what is the justification for designation one a terrorist and the other a sympathizer? 2. How many terrorists have been arrested, tried, convicted, and incarcerated as a result of this program? 3. How many terrorist sympathizing American citizens have been arrested, tried, convicted, and incarcerated as a result of this program? 4. If the answers to 2 and 3 above are none please explain why. 5. If the answer to 2 and 3 above is a finite number how many would not have been convicted if the law had been followed and warrants obtained? 6. How many of those arrested under 2 and 3 above were released because the information leading to their arrest was illegally obtained? 7. What legal justification do you have for the House and Senate not to proceed with impeachment of the fraudulent President and criminal charges of all his staff and appointees, yourself included?
Failure to answer these questions will serve as “None” to question number 7 and we shall proceed accordingly.
January 25th, 2006 at 5:28 pmIt’s all theatre baby! Don’t think for a second that anything meaningful will come from it. The Bushies are already drunk on unchecked power. We all awe at the secrecy and discipline of Bushco. Certainly unimagineable deeds have been exposed, and the world is thankful for it. Raise your hand though if you think that the Bushies are not doing other dastardly deeds. It is frightening to think of what they may be doing but have not been caught for.
January 25th, 2006 at 5:47 pmThink politics, not money here.
#37, not sure what documentary you are talking about. I was describing what my father saw. On occasion you can catch stuff like this on the history channel. World at war used to have film footage of it too.
January 25th, 2006 at 5:53 pmHolding the proverbial NOSE TO THE FIRE
Thank you Mr. Spector for stepping up and holding the Attorney General accountable for his claims in defense of the Presidential Warrentless Domestic Wire Tapping Program.
Mr. Spector knows that in order to catch the big fish to fry, one must first fish for the smaller bait.
January 25th, 2006 at 7:11 pm#39 Love it. Why hasn’t the idiot media asked the same questions.
January 25th, 2006 at 8:53 pmLast sentence in #7
The FISA Court is at least as reliable, if not more so, than the Executive Branch on avoiding disclosure or leaks.
January 25th, 2006 at 9:32 pmBoned Stupid
January 25, 2006
At this point of time it’s important to surmise whether we Americans are boned stupid or that the mainstream media still fail to qualify President Bush’s psycho-babble in convincing us that his act and reasoning for the warrantless wiretapping was legit. In “Gonzales defend wiretapping†by Dan Eggen reveals that the U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is making the rounds on the college circuit, desperately promoting the president’s position that superseding FISA was necessary in obtaining life-saving search warrants, which is a tiresome lie. FISA will automatically okay a 72 hour warrant without delay. Gonzales’s other idiocy is his deception in misinterpreting the Fourth Amendment: Gonzales dispute that the 4th Amendment requires probable cause to receive a warrant. His pet squirrel, General Michael Hayden had enforced Gonzales’s misinterpretation, prompting “we reasonably believe†as oppose to “we have probable cause†to justified of going around the 4th Amendment and FISA. Their contradiction and the breaching of the Amendment are oblivious as night and day. But are we still in denial that we can gut our civil rights just so we die in our sleep? I guess it depends how boned stupid we really are.
January 26th, 2006 at 3:22 am