As you may have read, earlier today the FBI executed search warrants at the Office of the Special Counsel (OSC). The OSC is “an independent federal investigative and prosecutorial agency. Our basic authorities come from three federal statutes, the Civil Service Reform Act, the Whistleblower Protection Act, and the Hatch Act.” You can see why the OSC could be a problem for this Administration.

Fortunately, the Bush Administration came up with a solution, putting Scott Bloch in charge of the office. Putting a Bush appointee in charge of the office that’s designed to protect the career civil service against being politicized is like putting a lion in charge of protecting baby gazelles.  Read more 

Just when we needed some comic relief from the primary!
Vitter might take the Fifth; D.C. Madam trial set to kick off Monday

WASHINGTON — An attorney who has represented Sen. David Vitter, R-La., told a federal judge Friday that a client of his who was subpoenaed by the defense to testify in the so-called D.C. Madam case would assert his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination if the court insists he appear as a witness.

I am looking forward to having a good hearty laugh.

He’s a lawbreaker. That’s the fucking language we need to be using. If our Blue Laird is correct, and the battle this fall is “against the media,” let’s start with stuff like this. “John McCain is a lawbreaker and hypocrite who thinks the laws he writes only apply to other people.” You can come up with a shorter way to say that if you like. Correctly focused Jane:

Having accepted public financing last fall for the primary, then deciding to thumb his nose at it when it didn’t suit his purposes, John McCain is now laying the groundwork for accepting public financing in the general. Aided by reform groups like Democracy 21 who have hammered Obama for not accepting it but have uttered nary a peep about the fact that McCain is breaking the law, he’s obviously looking to play the “holier than thou” card in the fall — confident that a compliant press and the wouldbe watchdogs will all take a nap while he does it.

And do go on to contrast and compare Jane’s direct speech to the timid and weak writing of the Boston paper of record at the link. It’s pathetic. The press so loves this man, it’s kind of gross and sick. It’s like they are a thousand sycophantic twinks, all aiming to nail the ultimate Power Daddy. Ick.

Get ready for some sternly worded letters from the Dems.

But Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) disclosed during a hearing yesterday that the RNC has now said it “has no intention of trying to restore the missing White House e-mails.”

“The result is a potentially enormous gap in the historical record,” Waxman said, including the buildup to the Iraq war.

Mmmm. Taste the good oversight. But is anyone going to jail?

Nah, that would cause “partisan gridlock”!

“Things” (like Republican lawbreakers getting off scot free) wouldn’t “get done” in Washington.  Read more 

This is good to hear, I wish them luck. As SI notes, it’s stupid because it just encourages people to make mirror sites. Stupid suits, still too dense to understand how the intertubes operate as they War on Freedom. Lots of livelinks in the original.

Note to Bank: Don’t Wage War With the Internets

If you follow the political blogs, you probably know about the Wikileaks case. In a nutshell, last week a district court judge ruled in favor of Swiss Bank Julius Baer and ordered the Wikileaks domain name shut down because a former bank employee allegedly used the site to post proof that the bank is involved in a money laundering scheme. Wired’s Threat Level gives an excellent, thorough run-down of the story.

Last night the ACLU, the ACLU of Northern California and the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a motion to intervene in that lawsuit.  Read more 

Via Digby:

Delahunt: You said if an opinion was rendered, that would insulate him from any consequences.

[Mike Mukasey, Attorney General of the United States, before the House Judiciary Committee today]: We could not investigate or prosecute somebody for acting in reliance on a justice department opinion.

…

Delahunt: If that opinion was inaccurate and in fact violated a section of US Criminal Code, that reliance is in effect an immunity from any criminal culpability.

MM: Immunity connoted culpability. [Well, is anyone culpable? -scar]

…

Delahunt: I find that a new legal doctrine. The law is the law.  Read more 

The White House has acknowledged recycling its backup computer tapes of e-mail before October 2003, raising the possibility that many electronic messages — including those pertaining to the CIA leak case — have been taped over and are gone forever.

The disclosure came minutes before midnight Tuesday under a court-ordered deadline that forced the White House to reveal information it has previously refused to provide.

Plame emails, US Attygate, heck everything.

Why can’t they all learn from Bush, Cheney and Hillary Clinton? You just don’t use email.

This guy is shameless. Not only is nothing beneath him regarding dirty politics, but apparently he can get away with saying any old thing that Jesus whispers into his ears.

Like shooting voters dead, or slip into a warm tub and slit your wrists, or “Paul is Dead”. Now it is the Lord’s Will that Huckabee faithful go forth and clog the wireless to prevent reporters from sending in those bad field reports from Iowa. Where do you draw the line when commanding your followers to do your bidding?

NYTimes: (h/t thinkprogress)  Read more 

Really long, but worth it. Bottom line: America has lost the War on Drugs, in every effective measure of those words. You knew that, of course, but what fascinated me about this piece was that despite the moderate, non-foily tone, it’s impossible not to come away with the conclusion that our drug policy is directed by complete idiots or corrupt players or both. More radically minded people like me will point out that a big chunk of the failure must be the result of endemic corruption, but even without that, the shift is complete. The time when we can hopefully and unabashedly speak about drug policy reform is here, even if the media has yet to realize that fact. It’s because there are three groups of people in this country, and one of them is finally in the majority.

The first, and largest, are those who believe it is time for sensible drug policy reform, from top to bottom. That group includes not only dope-smoking hippies and Rave-tripping teens, but experienced law enforcement officials and conservative politicians. One of many choice quotes from the article:

“What we learned was that in drug work, nothing ever stands still,” says Coleman, the former DEA official and current president of Drug Watch International, a law-and-order advocacy group. For every move the drug warriors made, the traffickers adapted. “The other guys were learning just as we were learning,” Coleman says. “We had this hubris.”  Read more 

Get a load of this:

The head of the federal agency investigating Karl Rove’s White House political operation is facing allegations that he improperly deleted computer files during another probe, using a private computer-help company, Geeks on Call.

Scott Bloch runs the Office of Special Counsel, an agency charged with protecting government whistleblowers and enforcing a ban on federal employees engaging in partisan political activity. Mr. Bloch’s agency is looking into whether Mr. Rove and other White House officials used government agencies to help re-elect Republicans in 2006.

At the same time, Mr. Bloch has himself been under investigation since 2005. At the direction of the White House, the federal Office of Personnel Management’s inspector general is looking into claims that Mr. Bloch improperly retaliated against employees and dismissed whistleblower cases without adequate examination.

Recently, investigators learned that Mr. Bloch erased all the files on his office personal computer late last year. They are now trying to determine whether the deletions were improper or part of a cover-up, lawyers close to the case said.

So, to recap: Karl Rove is accused of retaliating against employees and then illegally deleting the evidence. The man in charge of investigating him is accused of retaliating against employees and then deleting evidence.

Fuck. This. Shit.

Wait, though, it gets better!  Read more 

Larry Craig, Trent Lott and Mitch McConnell walk into a bar…

Sorry, I guess I’m just irresponsibly speculating. Don’t let the door hit ya, and all that. Word is he’s out now the better to avoid new ethics rules about former officeholders and lobbying.

Kucinich’s Cheney Impeachment Resolution being read by Clerk of the House, charges of misleading information used to send the country to war on lies.

This is a wonderful day.

So just one Republican is enough to hold up a bill to restore sanity to “sensitive” presidential records.

The executive order, which Mr. Gonzales drafted, made it significantly harder for historians and the public to gain access to a former president’s official records, and it provided an early glimpse of two Bush White House themes: a mania for secrecy and a dangerously inflated view of presidential authority to override existing law.  Read more 

Hello, and thank you to all the members of the members of the Mighty Corrente Building for allowing me to stop by.  Read more 

From NYT:

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Two provisions of the USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional because they allow search warrants to be issued without a showing of probable cause, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ruled that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as amended by the Patriot Act, “now permits the executive branch of government to conduct surveillance and searches of American citizens without satisfying the probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment.”

Score one for the Constitution!  Read more 

Once, His Lordship the Grey One put up a post comparing stats for his Mighty Blue Implement of Power and that of some Potter fanzine site. The difference was truly Awesome, and the Potterites showed what “dedication” and “popularity” really look like in online communities/causes. In that spirit, I offer the following. Do read the whole thing:

The results suggest a startling conclusion: On average, companies generated roughly $28 in earmark revenue for every dollar they spent lobbying. And those at the very top did far better than the average: More than 20 companies pulled in $100 or more for every dollar spent.  Read more 

WASHINGTON (AP) — A GOP leader Sunday denied a double standard in pushing Sen. Larry Craig to resign after a sex sting guilty plea, while remaining silent over GOP Sen. David Vitter’s involvement with an escort service.

He said.

A senior Democrat said a double standard by Republican leaders is exactly what occurred.

He said.  Read more 

Ian does all the hard work, so just go read his excellent recap about drugs and why there is only one answer in the drug “war.” Legalization, in some form or another, is going to happen. It’s simply a matter of time. No matter how entrenched the Drug War MIC establishment, eventually it’s going to be so ugly, corrupt and not effectual that taxpayers around the world will say, “enough.” I think I’ll begin to see it in this country in my lifetime; kids today really don’t care about that Great Evil in the same way as folks my age and older have been brainwashed to be.

I just had a conversation with a friend, and I reminded him: it’s always a good time to advocate sensible drug policy/legalization. Always. That is, as far as that political battle goes, our side is always going to lose. Pushing for drug legalization is a guaranteed no-go, as far as causes are concerned. Until that day that it is not.  Read more 

Read this AP report at the commie-pinko forbes.com site and tell me again why the Republicans are considered the law-and-order, fiscally responsible, small-government party.

Every attempt at whistleblowing on Iraq War fraud is thwarted, including literally torturing the whistleblowers.

(via)

The ACLU says it all:

 Read more 

To be this dumb.

Ruth Marcus has at it regarding the on-going saga of our Attorney-General, and if I tell you that she carves out a idiosyncratic place for herself from the rocky heights of beltway profundity, (using a tooth pick because this is the only experience of tool-using folks like Marcus ever get), you could probably come pretty close to sketching out the column without ever reading it.

Here’s her opening:

I find myself in an unaccustomed and unexpected position: defending Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Gonzales fans, if there are Gonzales fans left, except for the only fan who counts: Don’t take any comfort from my assessment.

Unaccustomed and unexpected only because she doesn’t remember any of her previous columns; that’s part of the curriculum in that secret class, “How to Become A Consumate Media Asshole,” I am now convinced has to exist out there somewhere.

Her caution to Gonzales fans is given because Marcus is willing to concede the undeniable; that Gonzales is a fool and a knave, a deceiver and a dissembler in his sworn testimony before the Senate, and he deserved the brutal treatment he got from both sides of the aisle.

However, ah, yes, the inevitable “however,” the inescapable “but,”…you knew it was coming, but can you guess what “the but” is?  Read more 

In Texas we really have a place in court for crooks. As Justice of the Supreme Court, that is. Justice Hecht got a bit of attention when he broke precedents by testifying in favor of his pal Harriet Miers’ nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. Supreme Court justices are supposed to be apolitical, if you recall from your high school courses in civics and government.

With the crooks in the executive branch of government the politicization has occured on so many levels that we are forgetting about the standards we used to have. This Texas Justice has reached all sorts of new peaks, of the downward sort, in behavior. Now he’s being charged with accepting bribes. It seems he gets a deep discount from the law firm that’s defending him against charges of misbehavior - and making favorable rulings on their cases before the Texas Supreme Court, from which he should be recused.  Read more