Smooth transition expected.
By on Feb 8th, 2006 at 8:30 pm
Smooth transition expected.
Criminally-indicted Rep. Tom DeLay “scored a soft landing Wednesday as GOP leaders rewarded him” with Duke Cunningham’s former seat on the Appropriations Committee. “DeLay also claimed a seat on the subcommittee overseeing the Justice Department, which is currently investigating an influence-peddling scandal involving disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his dealings with lawmakers.”
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The duke’s buddy in crime out here in Ca, Duncan Hunter, is lovin this. See, he has this 2,000 fence he wants to build to keep the Mexicans out. Old tommy will come in quite handy. I wonder how much Hunter will be able to skim from that project?
February 8th, 2006 at 8:47 pmI thought this bunch could never amase me and then, more corruption, same o, same o.
Off point…Truth out sent alerts today, one major item. Bush slipped a privatization of Social Security bill in to his budget he submitted to the congress on Monday. Must be why he was squirming so much at Corettas funeral. He must of been thinking what all the 10,000 pasafests would have done to his cracker ass if they knew. Know what I would of done. Walked up and bitch slaped him. We must impeach now, the cancerious one’s have a free reign……Blessings
February 8th, 2006 at 8:48 pmAppropriations and judicial oversight positions for Delay, hmm?
February 8th, 2006 at 8:49 pmSNAFU
That’s it…. I’m moving to Canada.
February 8th, 2006 at 9:19 pmMeet the new boss . . . same as the old boss. Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.
February 8th, 2006 at 9:21 pmNothing ever changes in Washington DC that’s for sure
Yes Sharon bush has stolen the SSI program and noone gave a good g-ddamn.
You have to get in line behind cause I want first shot at Bithch Slapping them all. The MSM is silent about The SSI.
February 8th, 2006 at 9:30 pmRepublicans absolutely have no shame. Or more so, it looks like they revel in their shame.
February 8th, 2006 at 9:37 pmRemove: I hear you. Only problem is Canada’s new government will have a Bush apologist/follower as the new lead. See what this BASTARD has spawned. IT IS TIME TO IMPEACH and rid ourselves of this globalist.
February 8th, 2006 at 9:37 pmI think the phrase circle-jerk comes to mind…how can he be on a jusicial oversight committee if he is tengenitally being investigated?
February 8th, 2006 at 9:44 pmOh, I forgot, no checks and balances… except for the fat checks in their bank balances…
Judicial, not jusicial… darn tiny keyboard…
February 8th, 2006 at 9:44 pmWhy shouldn’t Mr. DeLay regain his former commitee seat after his abdication as Majority Leader?
Just wait until he is acquitted and he is elected Majority Leader again.
February 8th, 2006 at 9:45 pmTom DeLay you did one heck of a job, in making sure Jack Abramoff is not charged with breaking any laws.
The foxes are in charge of the hen house again.
February 8th, 2006 at 9:51 pmHopefully DeLay’s new (ejection) seat on the Appropriations committee will be his last.
February 8th, 2006 at 9:59 pmAs a Democrat, I can’t help but to be somewhat angry at such an arrogant Majority in Congress. To be yet again reminded of the stain that is Republican Randall ‘Duke’ Cunningham, and at the same time to hear that the indicted DeLay will sit on an oversight committee on Justice…
…but why preach to the choir; what concerns me right now is what appears to be a spectacular inability on the part of Congressional Democrats to hold the Majority in any way accountable, or even to check their arrogance in the least bit.
Now certainly what seems an attitude of immunity on the part of that Majority, is due to their counting on the cable and major media to act as their public relations mouthpieces, there being few exceptions to that rule; just how much play did that media give to Randall ‘Duke’ Cunningham’s crimes; the crimes of taking bribes from Defense Contractors, with U.S. Troops dieing in the field; how much play was given to Cunningham tooling around in a Rolls Royce, cruising in his yacht, and living it up in his $2.4 million dollar mansion, while troops were dieing for a war he sponsored, repeatedly and vehemently, all the while taking bribes from Defense Contractors?
Again, to dispense with preaching to this choir, and getting to my point: Why can’t Congressional Democrats get all on the same page, collectively, and start getting their message together coherently, and take to the airwaves in full force, in a timely manner, and as guests on these cable and talk shows, and start opposing this arrogance and seeming immunity; they need to start doing this NOW.
And to end on perhaps a negative tone: If Congressional Democrats think that the great Compass Needle of American Public Opinion is just going to gradually swing about, and point in their direction, as though by mere default, without their having done anything at all to help move that Public Opinion…
(again, as though by mere default, without their having done anything at all)
…then they, Congressional Democrats, may perhaps be quite wrong that such an Opinion will swing their way; and are at least not doing their job.
Set up a War Room, staffed with the brightest and sharpest (and most passioned) of their staffers; start working around the clock on ‘position papers’ (brief, coherent, and memorably phrased; and as amusing as possible too! humor works!); start responding to the Majority’s arrogance in a timely manner, and on behalf of the People.
Start singing as a CHORUS (if I may so preach), in tune and to a timely beat; and not as a CACOPHONY.
That big Compass Needle of American Public Opinion may not otherwise swing their way.
February 8th, 2006 at 10:04 pmo my gawd…sharon, do you suppose this is a “payback” for that standing o?
February 8th, 2006 at 10:06 pmthe nasty look he gave…he knew what was up…such a sleaze…
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020806R.shtml
Delay wants either less corruption, or more chance to participate in it.
February 8th, 2006 at 10:16 pmthe right is reporting that DeLay is just getting his old job back. When he got the House Leader job, HE was on the Appropriations Committee. So it really isn’t unheard of that he goes back, except why would it be inappropriate to maintain his House Leader job while under indictment, but not any other position? I mean, a seat on the committee overseeing the JUSTICE DEPT. is OK to grab, while under criminal indictment? Is anyone else snickering?
February 8th, 2006 at 11:09 pmO.K.
O.K
In Delay’s defense.
Innocent until proved guilty.
That’s the law, Right???
I mean, look at 95% of TP
And our commentary about following the law
And how our Administration and Congress
Don’t, Can’t, Won’t, not convent to, or fast enough to
FOLLOW THE LAW.
…
… But that’s all I got
February 9th, 2006 at 12:46 amCuz Delay “QUACKS” like a duck.
It’s the Republican Syndicate….they have no ethics.
February 9th, 2006 at 1:21 amMaybe we are being too hard on Tom DeLay - It is possible that by Republican standards, Tom DeLay is the cleanest politician they have.
God help us.
February 9th, 2006 at 1:36 amComment by Abby
Don’t you mean-
February 9th, 2006 at 2:44 amMay God bless America?!?!?!?
As a Viet nam veteran, I felt personaly betrayed by the reprehesible resignation of Mr Cunninghame even though we ae from extreme political opposites.
Becuase for the longest time it seemed that everytime a veteran of my era made the news it was because he had run amok, Cunningham was an exception.
Unfortunetly, he joined the rule instead by his underhanded shady dealings that caught up with him.
When I worked on the movie “For The Boys” and was asked how the scene where Eddie Sparks “James Cann” sya’s “we’re gonna get those bastards” his co-actor replies,
“you just dont get it?”.
When Boehner replaced De-Lay, with his record of shady dealings with lobbyists and now the revelation that Boehner’s landlord is in fact a lobbyist and who knows what is to made of that at a time when the nation seeks assurances that as jerry Brown once said
“Take Back America form Those Who would Run America as Though it Were A Private Club”
as DeLay is now slated for the appropraitons Commitee to replace a disgraced Cunningham?
I can only echo the theme from yet another movie of our time, “Apocalypse Now” where the echoed refrain calls across the land?
THEY JUST DONT GET IT!
Another Viet Vet is in the belly of the beast, John McCain, he is despised in some Republican circles as a reformer. He is “their”
(Those Who Would Run America As Though It Were A Private Club)
worst nightmare because he cant be bought, in fact he and Feingold have been coming after “them”
(Those Who Would Run America As Though It Were A Private Club)
for a long time.
Well, let them continue to play fast and loose with the court of public opinion, before hey come to play with the court of The People of their peers in a count of twelve?
There was time in this America when no party of either side would ever tolerate any such shenanigans nor dare to put forward such tainted individuals as DeLay and Boehner (who got more votes [Boehner]than voters when selected for the position)because the integrity of the Republic was the over arching directive , not as we see today the foul and rank smelling stemch of political corruption on the body politic we see in these deplorable excuses of Democracy!
February 9th, 2006 at 6:32 amComment by stewart
Very well said. Experience counts. I’ll listen and can respect someone whose been there, in some shape of form, and experienced what war is realy like.
Have you read Murtha’s latest words???
Rep. John Murtha: Is the World Safer Today?
Very articulate, direct, and too the point.
February 9th, 2006 at 7:20 amDamning at times, and still remained honest.
Bushco = Organized Crime.
February 9th, 2006 at 8:45 amActually, I’m not all that surprised. I mean, you don’t really expect ethical behavior from our elected Republicans, do you? That would be the Christian thing to expect: ethical behavior.
Unfortunately, the elected Republicans only stand for “christian” (lower-c) values. They say the words, they completely ignore the deeds.
Don’t get me wrong! The Democrats are not paragons of virtue either! They are one heck of a lot closer to actual Christian values espoused by true Christians than the so-called “christian” Republicans we have running this country.
February 9th, 2006 at 8:54 amOne aspect of maturity and wisdom is knowing that even though you can do something, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you should do it. The Republican Party still does not see that they are perceived by all Americans, not just liberals, as being arrogant, power-hungry and greedy. They have put Tom DeLay on two important committees where he could potentially wield a lot of power and influence, and some of it, possibly, over the investigation into his friend Jack Abramoff. For them to believe this would be a wise thing to do amply demonstrates their lack of familiarity with the entire concept of “ethics”.
February 9th, 2006 at 8:55 amIn “Bushiva’s world” this appointment makes perfect sense…
Whose better qualified to sniff out corruption than the “dawg” that started it?
Just think of this as the U.S. Congress being a credit card company that hires a former convicted felon/ computer hacker (Duuumb DeLay) to develop security software to prevent future hackers from breaking into their databases…
Now, feel better America?
February 9th, 2006 at 8:56 amProgram May Have Led Improperly to Warrants
By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 9, 2006; A01
Twice in the past four years, a top Justice Department lawyer warned the presiding judge of a secret surveillance court that information overheard in President Bush’s eavesdropping program may have been improperly used to obtain wiretap warrants in the court, according to two sources with knowledge of those events.
The revelations infuriated U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly — who, like her predecessor, Royce C. Lamberth, had expressed serious doubts about whether the warrantless monitoring of phone calls and e-mails ordered by Bush was legal. Both judges had insisted that no information obtained this way be used to gain warrants from their court, according to government sources, and both had been assured by administration officials it would never happen.
The two heads of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court were the only judges in the country briefed by the administration on Bush’s program. The president’s secret order, issued sometime after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, allows the National Security Agency to monitor telephone calls and e-mails between people in the United States and contacts overseas.
James A. Baker, the counsel for intelligence policy in the Justice Department’s Office of Intelligence Policy and Review, discovered in 2004 that the government’s failure to share information about its spying program had rendered useless a federal screening system that the judges had insisted upon to shield the court from tainted information. He alerted Kollar-Kotelly, who complained to Justice, prompting a temporary suspension of the NSA spying program, the sources said.
Yet another problem in a 2005 warrant application prompted Kollar-Kotelly to issue a stern order to government lawyers to create a better firewall or face more difficulty obtaining warrants.
The two judges’ discomfort with the NSA spying program was previously known. But this new account reveals the depth of their doubts about its legality and their behind-the-scenes efforts to protect the court from what they considered potentially tainted evidence. The new accounts also show the degree to which Baker, a top intelligence expert at Justice, shared their reservations and aided the judges.
Both judges expressed concern to senior officials that the president’s program, if ever made public and challenged in court, ran a significant risk of being declared unconstitutional, according to sources familiar with their actions. Yet the judges believed they did not have the authority to rule on the president’s power to order the eavesdropping, government sources said, and focused instead on protecting the integrity of the FISA process.
It was an odd position for the presiding judges of the FISA court, the secret panel created in 1978 in response to a public outcry over warrantless domestic spying by J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI. The court’s appointees, chosen by then-Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, were generally veteran jurists with a pro-government bent, and their classified work is considered a powerful tool for catching spies and terrorists.
The FISA court secretly grants warrants for wiretaps, telephone record traces and physical searches to the Justice Department, whose lawyers must show they have probable cause to believe that a person in the United States is the agent of a foreign power or government. Between 1979 and 2004, it approved 18,748 warrants and rejected five.
Lamberth, the presiding judge at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks, and Kollar-Kotelly, who took over in May 2002, have repeatedly declined to comment on the program or their efforts to protect the FISA court. A Justice Department spokesman also declined to comment.
Both presiding judges agreed not to disclose the secret program to the 10 other FISA judges, who routinely handled some of the government’s most highly classified secrets.
So early in 2002, the wary court and government lawyers developed a compromise. Any case in which the government listened to someone’s calls without a warrant, and later developed information to seek a FISA warrant for that same suspect, was to be carefully “tagged” as having involved some NSA information. Generally, there were fewer than 10 cases each year, the sources said.
According to government officials familiar with the program, the presiding FISA judges insisted that information obtained through NSA surveillance not form the basis for obtaining a warrant and that, instead, independently gathered information provide the justification for FISA monitoring in such cases. They also insisted that these cases be presented only to the presiding judge.
Lamberth and Kollar-Kotelly derived significant comfort from the trust they had in Baker, the government’s liaison to the FISA court. He was a stickler-for-rules career lawyer steeped in foreign intelligence law, and had served as deputy director of the office before becoming the chief in 2001.
Baker also had privately expressed hesitation to his bosses about whether the domestic spying program conflicted with the FISA law, a government official said. Justice higher-ups viewed him as suspect, but they also recognized that he had the judges’ confidence and kept him in the pivotal position of obtaining warrants to spy on possible terrorists.
In 2004, Baker warned Kollar-Kotelly he had a problem with the tagging system. He had concluded that the NSA was not providing him with a complete and updated list of the people it had monitored, so Justice could not definitively know — and could not alert the court — if it was seeking FISA warrants for people already spied on, government officials said.
Kollar-Kotelly complained to then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, and her concerns led to a temporary suspension of the program. The judge required that high-level Justice officials certify the information was complete — or face possible perjury charges.
In 2005, Baker learned that at least one government application for a FISA warrant probably contained NSA information that was not made clear to the judges, the government officials said. Some administration officials explained to Kollar-Kotelly that a low-level Defense Department employee unfamiliar with court disclosure procedures had made a mistake.
Kollar-Kotelly asked Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to ensure that wouldn’t happen again, government officials said.
Baker declined to comment through an office assistant, who referred questions about his FISA work to a Justice Department spokesman. Pentagon spokeswoman Cynthia Smith also declined to comment and referred questions to Justice officials. Justice spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the department could not discuss its work with the FISA court.
“The department always strives to meet the highest ethical and professional standards in its appearances before any court, including the FISA court,” Roehrkasse said. “This is especially true when department attorneys appear before a court on an ex parte basis, as is the case in the FISA court.”
Shortly after the warrantless eavesdropping program began, then-NSA Director Michael V. Hayden and Ashcroft made clear in private meetings that the president wanted to detect possible terrorist activity before another attack. They also made clear that, in such a broad hunt for suspicious patterns and activities, the government could never meet the FISA court’s probable-cause requirement, government officials said.
So it confused the FISA court judges when, in their recent public defense of the program, Hayden and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales insisted that NSA analysts do not listen to calls unless they have a reasonable belief that someone with a known link to terrorism is on one end of the call. At a hearing Monday, Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the “reasonable belief” standard is merely the “probable cause” standard by another name.
Several FISA judges said they also remain puzzled by Bush’s assertion that the court was not “agile” or “nimble” enough to help catch terrorists. The court had routinely approved emergency wiretaps 72 hours after they had begun, as FISA allows, and the court’s actions in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks suggested that its judges were hardly unsympathetic to the needs of their nation at war.
February 9th, 2006 at 8:59 amSo much for Republican ethics!
http://bobgeiger.blogspot.com/ 2006/ 02/ senate-republicans-screw-veterans.html
The top one-fifth of the top one percent get tax cuts at the expense of our Veterans. Where are all the trolls and ultra-radical R’s who spout the words “We support the troops!”???? Huh? Why aren’t they shouting from the rooftops about their political party is screwing our honored Veterans? So, NOW who’s the self proclaimed party of “support the troops”? It sure as heck aint the Republicans! Their words do NOT match their deeds!
I guess it would take “ethics” and “honor” to stand up to the Republican party in control of our nation to ask them why they care for the ultra-rich over the needs of our Veterans.
February 9th, 2006 at 9:06 amWow
Delay over the justice department? after his “Charitable” organizations?
why thats just dumb.
February 9th, 2006 at 9:07 ammakes the congress and justice dept subcomm look real ‘credible’
simply replacing one corrupt legislator with another??? wtf?
February 9th, 2006 at 9:11 amThey have put Tom DeLay on two important committees where he could potentially wield a lot of power and influence, and some of it, possibly, over the investigation into his friend Jack Abramoff. For them to believe this would be a wise thing to do amply demonstrates their lack of familiarity with the entire concept of “ethicsâ€.
Comment by Wayne A. Schneider #26
Wayne,
That was certainly an eloquent recitation of the facts…
…now tell us something we DON’t know…
February 9th, 2006 at 9:21 am#32 big papa,
Okay. I’m six feet tall.
February 9th, 2006 at 9:34 amDeLay will proudly hold that seat until January of 07 when the winner of his districts election is sworn in.
It won’t be the hammer. His poll #’s suck in his district. He’s goin’ down.
February 9th, 2006 at 9:59 amThis is a gift. They just can’t stop themselves from doing stupid things. I figure Tom has something on just about everyone and it is his turn to get his back scratched. I’m thinking he probably has some pretty heavy dirt he has saved up. I couldn’t imagine such a mafiosio type figure not having “back up.”
Like I say though, this is a gift for progressives. Republicans obviously cannot shake this guy or they would. Believe it, Delay is NOT an asset, but they own him. Good.
February 9th, 2006 at 10:22 amLet’s dance now… doing the Republican shuffle.
They don’t get rid of the corruption, they just shuffle it.
February 9th, 2006 at 10:31 amThere will be some major shuffling come November.
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