Iraq- US using the military, Special Forces, Sniper teams as DEATH SQUADS in Iraq.....

Iraq's Laboratory of Repression
By Robert Parry
November 20, 2007
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/112007.html

The Bush administration is turning Iraq into a test tube for modern techniques of repression, from sophisticated biometrics that track populations to devastating weapons systems that combine night-vision optics from drone aircraft, heat resonance imaging and deadly firepower from the sky to kill suspected insurgents....

<< In other words, the evidence from these recent cases support the suspicion that President Bush and the U.S. military high command have transformed elite units, such as Special Forces and expert sniper teams, into “death squads” with a license to kill unarmed targets who are believed to be “bad guys.”

Though this reality has been the subject of whispers within the U.S. intelligence community for several years, it surfaced into public view with two attempted prosecutions of American soldiers, including Hensley, whose defense attorneys responded by citing “rules of engagement” that permit the killing of suspected insurgents.

The case of Army sniper Jorge G. Sandoval Jr., who served under Hensley, also revealed a classified program in which the Pentagon’s Asymmetric Warfare Group encouraged U.S. military snipers in Iraq to drop “bait” – such as electrical cords and ammunition – and then shoot Iraqis who pick up the items, according to evidence in the Sandoval case. [Washington Post, Sept. 24, 2007] >>
continued at http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/112007.html

Feckless Nancy Pelosi setting table for DEMOCRATIC DEFEAT in 2008...

FECKLESS Nancy Pelosi CARES ONLY ABOUT ONE THING: keeping the GRAVY TRAIN OF MONEY FLOWING to Democratic coffers, so Dems can purchase TV ad time and try to win elections with lame, fuzzy, "HEAR NO EVIL, SEE NO EVIL" campaign platforms.

While Republicans can make the Clinton's OVERNIGHT GUEST LIST into a FRONT-PAGE 'SCANDAL' (the so-called "LINCOLN BEDROOM 'SCANDAL'"), Democrats PRETEND NOT TO NOTICE SERIAL ABUSES OF POWER and CHRONIC LAWBREAKING by the Bush administration.

That is because Pelosi and the Democrats ARE BEHOLDEN TO THE SAME corporate LOBBYISTS who fuel the GOP-Bush/Cheney (and formerly DeLay or Gingrich or Trent Lott) machine.

BUT WHILE Republicans can get FREE MEDIA COVERAGE of their FAKE "SCANDAL" ACCUSATIONS AGAINST Democrats - worth TENS of MILLIONS of dollars in NEGATIVE CAMPAIGN ADS - the DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP _CAN NOT_ STAND UP AND DEFEND American workers, Citizen's rights, veterans treated to repeat, extended tours and contract extensions (a back-door draft), or American taxpayers forced to pay BILLIONS and BILLIONS and BILLIONS for REPUBLICAN CORRUPTION.

Madam Speaker, YOUR LEADERSHIP IS SO PATHETICALLY COWARDLY, THAT YOU CAN NOT EVEN BRING TO THE NATION's ATTENTION Mr. CHENEY'S FINANCIAL REWARDS for his conduct of the war, via his HALLIBURTON DEFERRED STOCK OPTIONS.

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Democrats Face a Shock in '08: They Could Lose
by David Lindorff:
Mon, 11/19/2007
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/lindorff/039


For Congressional Democrats, the train has already left the station -- and they're not on board.

A year after the election that gave them control of both houses of Congress, they are exposed as a feckless bunch of frauds posing as an opposition.

As long ago as last January, when the U.S. death toll in Iraq was almost 1,000 lower, and the civilian death toll in Iraq was over a hundred thousand lower, they could have brought an end to the conflict by simply refusing to approve any more money for the war.

Instead, they approved administration requests for several hundred billion dollars for expanding the number of troops from 140,000 to a current level of nearly 173,000 -- a post- invasion record.

They could have brought administration assaults on the Constitution to a screeching halt by initiating impeachment hearings against the president, the vice president, or against both of these criminal usurpers. Instead, the House leadership threatened anyone who might file impeachment bills with various punishments, reportedly ranging from loss of committee chairmanships to loss of access to Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee funding.

In the perverse "logic" of Democratic Party leaders, this do-nothing strategy was designed to bring Democrats a historic victory in 2008, when American voters, angry about the quagmire in Iraq, and disgusted with eight years of Republican misrule, would supposedly hand Democrats the presidency and healthy majorities in both houses of Congress.

But the American public is not that stupid. With Bush and Cheney leaving, they won't buy a campaign based on running against those two disasters.

Polls show that the majority of Americans are at least as disgusted at Democrats in Congress as they are with the Republicans -- maybe more so. Since last November, public approval of the new Democratic-led Congress has fallen from a post-election high of 65 percent to a current level of about 20 percent, depending on the poll. That's lower than President Bush's record low approval rating of 24 percent.

The only political entity with a lower approval rating than the Democrats in Congress at this point is Vice President Dick Cheney, currently at 11 percent, but being more popular than a blood-thirsty, power-crazed lunatic with a nuclear fetish is a pretty sorry claim to fame.

The dire situation facing Democrats is masked currently by the fake "excitement" being generated by all the corporate media coverage of the so-called "race" for the Democratic presidential nomination -- coverage artificially skewed towards just two or perhaps three of the candidates: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards. This coverage creates the illusion of some kind of groundswell of public excitement about the Democratic candidates. In fact none of them fares particularly well against Republican candidates, At this point, given the disastrous history of seven years of Republican rule in Washington, with the economy staggering, the dollar in freefall, oil prices at record levels, the country $8 trillion in debt, mortgage defaults at depression levels and the war in Iraq still without an end in sight, any Democrat should be trouncing any Republican candidate in the polls. Instead, the so-called "leading" Democrats are all neck-and-neck with their potential Republican opponents. (Evidence of how out-of-whack the corporate media coverage of the Democratic campaign is was provided at the CNN debate in Nevada last Sunday, when even in an auditorium packed with supporters of Clinton and Obama, the biggest applause came when Dennis Kucinich, a candidate almost ignored by moderator Wolf Blitzer, called for impeachment, and for ending the war immediately.)

The reason for this disconnect from reality is that while Democratic voters, as always, can be expected to go dutifully to the polls next November and cast their votes for whatever compromised and weak candidate their party puts up to run, the independent vote that put Democrats over the top in the 2006 off-year Congressional elections is gone.

Those voters, many of whom have long harbored a powerful antipathy towards both parties, the government, and the corporations that dominate the political process, came out in record numbers and voted Democratic in November '06 because, sick of the Bush/Cheney Administration, sick of five years of a phony "war" on terror, and sick of three years of the Iraq War, they turned to the Democrats, even in traditional "red" states and Congressional districts, in hopes that the Democrats would do what they were promising to do: end the war and defend the Constitution.

Now they have seen this hope was misplaced.

The Democrats had no intention of doing either thing, and indeed seem to be happy to see the war and the Bush Administration continue through the next election.

But 2008 will not be 2006. In 2006, those independents had reason to at least hope that the Democrats would really be different, that they would really act like an empowered opposition, that they would really do something to turn the country around.

In 2008, independents and even many Democratic voters know the Democrats will not be different from Republicans in any meaningful way on the two key issues -- ending the war and restoring the Constitution. Not only will the likely Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, not end the war in Iraq, but also because she is a woman, and has made it clear she wants to be perceived as being as tough as any guy, she is as likely as Bush to expand the war to Iraq or some other country during her first term of office -- maybe even more likely, if Bush doesn't do it first.

As for Congress, Democrats may be in for a big shock in 2008. Expecting major gains in both houses, they may find themselves surprised if the independent voters who came out for them in 2006 stay home, and leave the field to Republicans and nativist independents who base their votes on issues such as immigration and an unreasoned fear of terror -- both issues the Republican candidates plan to stoke.

There is still time for the Democrats to recover, but they won't do it on their own. The leadership of the party has lost its connection to the American people and to reality, and is living in a world of image management, corporate pandering, and inside-the-Beltway machinations.

With an overwhelming majority of Americans clearly in favor of an immediate end to the Iraq war, and a similar majority in favor of impeachment hearings against both Bush and especially Cheney, it is clear that the entire electoral situation would change overnight if Democrats in Congress announced there would be no more funding bills for the Iraq War -- only for withdrawal -- and that impeachment hearings were beginning.

This is not going to happen, though, without an even more forceful mass movement by the American people.

What we need is a tsunami of mail and phone calls to Democrats in Congress demanding both things. We need marches on the local offices of Democratic members of Congress. And finally we need mass resignations from the Democratic Party, with voters making the point directly and unambiguously that people are leaving the party until it acts decisively to end the war and to begin impeachment proceedings.

No more symbolic votes. No more posturing.

Only action.

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book, co-authored by Barbara Olshansky, is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006 and now available in paperback edition). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Dianne Feinstein, in Bowing to Grassroots, illustrates RIGHT-WING OBSTRUCTIONIST bias in Senate...

The Alpha & Omega of American politics - the ALLIANCE of so-called "liberal Democrats" in the House and Senate (and statehouses nationwide) with the RIGHT-WING REACTIONARY neo-con agenda (of which the Bush-Cheney administration is the perfect exposition, aka the "unilateral" dictatorial-powers presidency) is AT THE VERY HEART of America's 7 year march of ignomy and infamy, from STOLEN ELECTIONS to pre-9-11 INCOMPETENCE bordering on DERELICTION OF DUTY; to the still unsolved ANTHRAX ATTACKS, to the LIES-TO-WAR, to GROSS CORRUPTION in Iraq war contracts; to TORTURE and KANGAROO COURTS for female privates WHILE the president and vice president demand the 'right' TO TORTURE PRISONERS TO DEATH! - to massive economic job losses; to massive, nationwide billions-dollars credit crunch; ALL of these SCANDALS have a common denominator: THE COWARDLY DEMOCRATS in the Senate COULD NOT START and SUSTAIN A SINGLE FILIBUSTER AGAINST ANY OF THEM!

FOR SHAME, DEMOCRATS! The cowering Democrats in the senate (INCLUDING ALL FOUR presidential contenders!) CAN NOT POINT TO A SINGLE POLICY FILIBUSTER in the past 7 years, DESPITE the ATROCIOUS Bush-Cheney agenda, above!

This article by Howie Klein of Alternet and DownWithTyranny.com illustrates the dynamic... of how OBSTRUCTIONIST REPUBLICANS SEANTORS GET WHAT THEY WANT, even when they are in the MINORITY to the Democrat senate majority!

FOR SHAME! Democrats! When John F. Kennedy wrote "PROFILES IN COURAGE!" there is NOT ONE SENATOR TODAY who would rate mention in his book!
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Feinstein Buckles to Grassroots Pressure, FISA Bill Passes Without Telecom Immunity
Posted by Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny!
November 16, 2007.
This post, written by Howie Klein, originally appeared on Down With Tyranny!
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/rights/68114/

Howie Klein: Bush's main Democratic ally on the Senate Judiciary Committee, grudgingly voted for a bill that doesn't allow for retroactive immunity. Post Tools

Justice Dept Reopens Warrantless Wiretapping Inquiry Stymied by Bush
Faiz Shakir Think Progress



Earlier this evening the House passed by a vote of 227-189 a bill that would strengthen court oversight of government surveillanceand refused the Bush Regime's and their Republican rubber stamp allies' demands that law breakers inside the big telecom corporations be granted retroactive immunity for criminal behavior. Bush, of course, has vowed to veto the bill. He may not have to.

Obstructionists in the Senate are determined to kill the bill in the Senate. Today they suffered a mini-setback when Dianne Feinstein, Bush's main Democratic ally on the Senate Judiciary Committee, grudgingly voted for a bill that doesn't allow for retroactive immunity. Corporate hacks like Mitch McConnell (R-KY) went bonkers and are promising to filibuster it. Just so you don't get the idea that Feinstein has seen the light, just before she voted to allow the bill without the retroactive immunity go to the ful Senate, she had voted against Russ Feingold's amendment to specifically kill retroactive immunity.


Just minutes before the vote, the committee had voted 11-to-8 in favor of immunity for the phone companies.


Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Cal., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., voted with the nine Republicans on the panel in favor of preserving the immunity clause.


But in a strange twist that left many wondering what had happened, just minutes after this vote, Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, called for a separate vote to approve the bill without the section of the legislation with the immunity provisions.


The committee approved Leahy's call 10-9, along party lines.

So pressure on Feinstein needs to be maintained and increased. Today MoveOn joined the Courage Campaign to do this. And the Courage Campaign is not backing down and not taking any sops from Feinstein or her insider allies.

Speaker Pelosi's blog has all the details of what the House did pass and why it is important.

At long last, Sen. Majority Harry Reid starts playing HARDBALL vs Bush-Cheney abuses of power..

GIVE 'em HELL, HARRY!

It has only taken the Democrats 7 - SEVEN - long years to notice that the Bush administration never "plays fair," and never misses an opportunity so push its agenda forward through secrecy, corruption, intimidation, smearing and sliming of its opponents, and outright lies - tactics which in several nation elections have resulted n the DISENFRANCHISEMENT of tens of thousands of American voters, and the frustration of tens of millions more in the past two presidential elections, alone.

Holding Congress through the Thanksgiving, and if need be Christmas holidays, is the LEAST Senator Reid and the Democratic Party can do to REPRESENT THE MILLIONS of us AMERICANS who are OPPOSED to the Bush-Cheney reactionary right-wing, "export war" agenda, and who are appalled at the serial abuses of power which the Democrats and "major media" constantly pretend not to notice.

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Reid to Keep Senate in Session to Prevent Recess Appointments
By Erin P. Billings
Roll Call Staff
Friday, Nov. 16, 2007
http://www.rollcall.com/issues/1_1/breakingnews/21044-1.html


Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has decided to keep the chamber in session over the Thanksgiving break to block President Bush from making any unsavory recess appointments while Senators are out of town.

In a statement inserted in the record Friday, the Majority Leader said he will hold the Senate in a series of pro forma or nonvoting sessions to prevent the controversial practice. In the statement, Reid argued that nominations need to get on track, and that Bush has not met the Democrats “halfway” in agreeing to Democratically backed nominees to “important commissions.”

“While an election year looms, significant progress can still be made on nominations,” Reid said. “I am committed to making that progress if the President will meet me halfway.

“But that progress can’t be made if the President seeks controversial recess appointments and fails to make Democratic appointments to important commissions.”

Senate sources said Reid made the decision after he was unable to strike a deal with White House officials that would have allowed swift consideration of several key Democratic picks for the executive branch. In his statement, Reid points to the Federal Communications Commission, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and Nuclear Regulatory Commission as examples where Democratic choices have not been moved along.

“Up until recently, the President has generally discharged that obligation,” Reid said. “In the last several months, however, the administration has been stalling progress on Democratic appointments.”

Democrats have feared Bush would look to use the upcoming break to appoint some of his own nominees that may not otherwise clear the Senate. In particular, concerns have centered on the appointment of James Holsinger as surgeon general, who has met criticism from gay rights organizations and opposition from key Senate Democrats.

Sources familiar with the talks, however, said Holsinger has never been discussed as a possible recess nominee.

Holsinger notwithstanding, one Democratic source said the administration had made clear they planned to move some nominations through over the period that were unacceptable.

"They did float a number of recess appointments," this source said. "Some of them were very problematic."


This isn’t the first time Reid has considered keeping the Senate working over a break to prevent recess appointments. Following the Easter recess in which Bush made three controversial installments, Reid threatened to hold pro forma sessions during the monthlong August break.

Later, however, he backed off that threat after reaching a deal with the White House under which Democrats would clear a host of stalled nominations in exchange for a truce over the work period.

Reid said Friday that he has worked hard since then to move quickly on Bush’s nominations, particularly in confirming Michael Mukasey as the next attorney general. Reid opposed the nominee, who narrowly cleared the chamber last week.

“With the Thanksgiving break looming, the administration informed me that they would make several recess appointments,” Reid said. “I indicated I would be willing to confirm various appointments if the administration would agree to move on Democratic appointments.

“They would not make that commitment.”

Dianne Feinstein shows the DEMOCRATIC PARTY's TRUE FACE: she ENABLES the Bush agenda AT EVERY CRITICAL TURN....

AT LAST, AT LAST, PRAISE GOD, AT LONG LAST!
The "DEMOCRATIC" Party agenda of ABJECT, COMPLICIT COLLABORATION with, and SUBSERVIENCE TO, the Bush-Cheney Reactionary Texas Republican neo-Confederate/neo-conservative agenda is OUT IN THE OPEN for even the most provincial Americans to see.

ON EVERY MAJOR ISSUE or policy fight that determines MORE WAR POWERS for the Bush-Cheney administration, and MORE TRANSFER OF WEALTH from American working taxpayers to the Military/Industrial Complex and the Wealthy... DIANNE FEINSTEIN and her DEMOCRATIC SENATORS are THERE, either OPENLY VOTING WITH the Bush Republicans, or SITTING ON THEIR HANDS, NOT FILIBUSTERING to block that vote or issue!

FOR SHAME, DEMOCRATS!

#1. ...From helping Republicans QUASH the Black Congressional Caucus demand for a SIMPLE congressional investigation into massive vote-counting fraud in Katherine Harris/Jeb Bush's Florida in 2000, a BETRAYAL of HISTORIC PROPORTIONS, since there is probaly not one Democratic senator in the past 30 years who hasn't appealed to Black voters - as a defender of their interests and rights - for their votes. This DESPICABLE action (or inaction) on the part of the Democratic Senators, who REFUSED to sign on the the Black Congressional Caucus, has become THE BASIC TEMPLATE FOR ALL SENATE DEMOCRAT ACTIONS EVER SINCE: PUT THE 'DIGNITY" and "RESPECTABILITY" and "LEGITIMACY" of the Bush-Cheney administration (and the "belly-of-the-beast" Congress itself) OVER and ABOVE THE RIGHTS and CONCERNS of American voters, and specifically of Democratic voters.

#2. .....to ALLOWING the Bush-Cheney administration to OBSTRUCT a 9-11 Commission until 9-11 widows did the heavy lifting to demand its creation...

#3. ...to PRETENDING NOT TO NOTICE the ANTHRAX ATTACK investigation DEAD-END, after ONLY Democratic leaders were targeted by the supposedly "Arab" terrorist (what Arab terrorist with an ounce of self respect would target... Tom Daschle or... Patrick Leahy? - when a few similar letters sent to the Pentagon would have shut down the US military for several weeks?)

#4. ... to ALLOWING Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney to turn the 9-11 Commission into a NOT ONE PERSON CENSURED "lunchtime meet-and-greet" farce....

#5. ...to FAILING TO PURSUE Mr. Bush's (de facto) PARDON of Scooter Libby for PERJURY and OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE re the OUTING OF A CIA AGENT during time of war....

#6. ...to PRETENDING NOT TO NOTICE Mr. Bush's CLOSE CONNECTIONS to FRAUD-CONVICTED Chairman KEN LAY of ENRON and BRIBERY CONVICTED LOBBYIST Jack Abramoff...

#7. ...to DOING NEXT TO NOTHING to get at the heart of the PURGE-GATE SCANDAL, whereby Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and KARL ROVE SOUGHT to USE THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT to FILE FALSE PROSECUTIONS against DEMOCRATIC voter-activists and candidates to swing close elections to Republican incumbents....

#8. ...to ALLOWING the corporate "Major Media" to act as virtual PROPAGANDA MOUTHPIECES for the Republican Party, from Rush Limbaugh to Rupert Murdoch to the horrific 'reporting' of the Washington Post and New York Times, which is usually no more than a David Broder/George Will rough polish on the Rush Limbaugh/Karl Rove talking points of the day. (George Will still insists that global warming... despite the retreat of almost every glacier on earth - is nothing but a Commie/Democrat/socialist plot)....

..... AT EVERY TURN, the COMPLICIT Democratic Senators and Democratic House "leaders" ENABLE this out-of-control, rogue, extra-constitutional, DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS, police-state, keep-the-slaves-locked-down-on-the-plantation White House.

FOR SHAME! THIS IS A BETRAYAL, by the Democratic Party Leadership, of EPIC proportions.
Simply by helping the Republicans keep the REAL AGENDA of the radical right OFF of the front pages and out of the network news headlines, Democrats hope they can RUN FOR OFFICE on one agenda... and THEN RULE, ALONG WITH THE REPUBLICANS, from the DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSITE agenda.

SHEER TREACHERY! SHEER BETRAYAL! WHERE are the FILIBUSTERS?! WHERE are the DEMANDS that HARRIET MIERS and Joshua Bolton APPEAR BEFORE CONGRESS to answer Congressional subpoenaes?

WHERE is the "Democratic" Party COMMITTMENT TO EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW, to PROTECTING and PRESERVING the rights enumerated in the US Constitution, that THEY ALL SWORE an oath TO UPHOLD!

(short answer: All the above is SUBSERVIENT to the will of the BIG DONORS who fund BOTH the Democratic AND Republican Party.)

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Feinstein Faces Dem Censure After Backing Mukasey
by Max Follmer, HuffingtonPost.com
November 12, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/11/12/feinstein-faces-dem-censu_n_72342.html

One day after voting to elevate a divisive conservative judge to the federal appeals court in New Orleans, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein was the president's guest aboard Air Force One. She had been invited to survey the damage from the recent spate of Southern California wildfires.

The senator later remarked privately that she found her conversation with Bush aboard Air Force One "illuminating," a source close to Feinstein told the Huffington Post.

Two weeks later, Feinstein was one of two Democrats on the Senate judiciary committee to vote to send Michael Mukasey's nomination to be the new attorney general to the full Senate. Her support helped turn the tide in favor of a nomination that faced an uncertain future after Mukasey refused to say whether waterboarding was torture.

When the full Senate voted, Feinstein was one of only six Democrats to vote in favor of confirming Mukasey.

Now, a coalition of progressive Democrats upset with Feinstein's controversial votes will ask the California Democratic Party to censure her at its executive board meeting this weekend, the Huffington Post has learned.

The move comes as Feinstein again finds herself under fire for saying Thursday that she now supports granting legal immunity to telecom companies that shared customer email and phone messages with the federal government as part of the warrantless surveillance program.

"Dianne Feinstein does not listen to the people of California," said Rick Jacobs, president of the Courage Campaign, a progressive organization in California. "She supports George Bush's agenda time after time."

Feinstein's office did not respond to messages seeking comment.

East Bay For Democracy, a chartered Democratic Club outside San Francisco, will introduce the censure motion on Saturday at the state party's executive board meeting in Anaheim. The Governing Board of the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party and the Progressive Democrats of America are also backing the measure.

In addition to her move to back Mukasey, critics have lashed out at her decision last month to vote to confirm Judge Leslie Southwick to the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans. Southwick's opponents charged that his record on the bench in Mississippi demonstrated that he was both racist and homophobic. The Congressional Black Caucus, Human Rights Campaign and People for the American Way opposed his nomination.

The censure resolution faces an uphill battle. In order to be considered by the full executive board, it must first make it through the party's resolutions committee, which must approve the text unanimously.

The text of the resolution is below:

Whereas Senator Dianne Feinstein voted to support the nomination of Judge Michael Mukasey as United States Attorney General, thereby elevating to the highest position in law enforcement a man who refused to renounce the right of the President to resort to torture and who refused to recognize waterboarding as a form of torture, and by this action Senator Feinstein failed to oppose President Bush and failed to stand for the ideals of the Democratic Party, which abhors torture and stands firmly against its use by the United States at all times and places; and
Whereas Senator Feinstein voted to confirm Judge Leslie Southwick for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit despite his clear record of racism and gender discrimination, thus failing to stand firmly with the Democratic Party, which supports gender equality and opposes racism in any of its manifestations; and

Whereas these examples are far from the only instances where Senator Feinstein, after seeking and securing the support and endorsement of the California Democratic Party, has failed to support the policies and principles of our party

Therefore be it resolved that the California Democratic Party expresses its disappointment at, and censure of, Senator Feinstein for ignoring Democratic principles and falling so far below the standard of what we expect of our elected officials.

DIANNE FEINSTEIN FOLLOWS the LIEBERMAN path: ENABLES the REACTIONARY Right-Wing agenda of George W. Bush, BETRAYING Democratic voters and Americans..

BETRAYAL!
BETRAYAL is the SIGNATURE of the neo-con "Democrats" - "Democratic" Senator DIANNE FEINSTEIN votes for MORE WARS, MORE SURVEILLANCE, MORE REACTIONARY right-wing Bush apointees, and MORE UNLIMITED, NO OVERSIGHT, BLANK-CHECK WAR SPENDING.

Dianne Feinstein, like Senator JOE LIEBERMAN having attained the HIGHEST LEVELS OF AMERICAN POWER and influence, is no longer in the least bit interested in democratic principles, policies, voters, or even citizens.

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Dianne Feinstein -- Bush's key ally in the Senate -- to support telecom amnesty
Glenn Greenwald
Saturday November 10, 2007
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/11/10/feinstein/index.html


Two months ago, Dianne Feinstein used her position on the Senate Intelligence Committee to enable passage of Bush's FISA amendments, granting the President vast new warrantless surveillance powers.
Last month, Feinstein used her position on the Senate Judiciary Committee to ensure confirmation of Bush's highly controversial judicial nominee Leslie Southwick, by being the only Committee Democrat to vote for the nomination (The Politico: "Sen. Dianne Feinstein had emerged as a linchpin in the controversial nomination").
This week, Feinstein used her position on the Senate Judiciary Committee to enable confirmation of Bush's Attorney General nominee by ensuring that the frightened Chuck Schumer didn't have to stand alone (Fox News: "Schumer's and Feinstein's support for Mukasey virtually guarantees that a majority of the committee will recommend his confirmation").
And now, Feinstein is using her position on the Senate Judiciary Committee and Senate Intelligence Committee -- simultaneously -- to single-handedly ensure fulfillment of Bush's telecom amnesty demands, as her hometown newspaper, The San Francisco Chronicle, reports:
Feinstein backs legal immunity for telecom firms in wiretap cases
Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Thursday that she favors legal immunity for telecommunications companies that allegedly shared millions of customers' telephone and e-mail messages and records with the government, a position that could lead to the dismissal of numerous lawsuits pending in San Francisco.
In a statement at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is considering legislation to extend the Bush administration's electronic surveillance program, Feinstein said the companies should not be "held hostage to costly litigation in what is essentially a complaint about administration activities" . . .
Feinstein, D-Calif., plays a pivotal role on the Judiciary Committee, which has a 10-9 Democratic majority. If she joins committee Republicans in voting next Thursday to protect telecommunications companies from lawsuits for their roles in the surveillance program, the proposal -- a top priority of President Bush -- will become part of legislation that reaches the Senate floor.

Hillary Clinton and the Dems: SLOW ON THEIR FEET... "slow thinkers" who manage to MUDDLE EVERY ISSUE....

A TERRFIC commentary by ALEXANDER COCKBURN captures the essence of the Democratic Party's COLLAPSE vs the Republican Juggernaut of the past decade (or 15 years) - the Democrat's INABILITY to coherently, articulately, and forcefully defend 300 YEARS of increasing human progress: INCREASINGLY BROAD ENFRANCHISEMENT; increasing economic upward mobility; increasing worker rights and workplace safety and security; increasing education access; and an egalitarian ideal of equality under law and reduced economic disparity, that saw such policies enacted as the GI Bill, Social Security, civil and voting rights, workplace rights, public health for millions, regulatoin of financial markets, etc. etc. etc.

Somehow, in the face of the Republican reactionary media machine of the past 15 years (ever since the end of the Cold War robbed Right-Wingers of an enemy they could hate and focus their efforts against) DEMOCRATS HAVE BECOME VOICELESS at defending that 300 years of American progress, from the European ENLIGHTENMENT which formed the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution, to the Magna Carta which came long before even the Enlightenment!

Detailing Bill Clinton's self-inflicted follies would take a book (or three), but suffice it to say Clinton, despited his vast political and personal skills, never understood the vehemence of the Right-Wing reaction ("blowback") to his election in 1992 (which to reactionary Right-Wingers was the distilled essence of all that was evil about the 1960s, desegregation, and an open, chaotic, 'ammoral' society.) (Note: Al Capone was running an entire EMPIRE of speakesies and cat-houses, right smack in America's "Heartland," long before anyone ever heard of hippies, free-love, or war- and civil rights protesters. America's "MORAL VALUES" scolds doth protest too much.) At every turn, Clinton GAVE THE ROPE that the white-collar Republican lynch-mob (shouted cries of "rape!" and "moral values" enabled Ken Starr to switch from a FINANCIAL Whitewater real estate investigation, over to the Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky "did she, or didn't she?" scandals.)

Worse, Clinton's narcissism ENABLED Republican reactionary policies, whether standing by idly as Yugoslavia descended into madness and mass murder (by comparison, GERMANY assisted the almost bloodless seccession of Slovenia from the collapsing Yugoslavia), or doing nothing to de-energize the Rawanda genocide, or, worst of all, Republicans hot on impeachment shouted "WAG THE DOG!" as President Clinton sought to bring justice to the Al Qaida terror organization which bombed two US embassies in Africa! And... NINE YEARS LATER - the current Republican administration - so hot to BOMB IRAN - STILL ALLOWS the perpetrator of the Embassy bombings in 1998, the USS Cole bombing in 2000, AND THE 9-11 ATTACKS in 2001... to OPERATE WITH NEAR IMPUNITY in much of Afghanistan and Pakistan!

ALL THE ABOVE FOLLIES were products of the shortcomings of the Clinton administration, powerless against Reactionary Republican sabotage and financial looting.

Unfortunately, HILLARY CLINTON is even less able to dance the political dance in real-time than her husband. The 800 lb gorrilla in every American's living room is THE ABUSES OF POWER, abject corruption, and gross INCOMPETENCE of the Bush-Cheney White House... but like most of the other Democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton is FOLLOWING the DISMAL path set by Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004, GIVING the Bush-Cheney White House a FREE PASS on ISSUE AFTER ISSUE, SCANDAL AFTER SCANDAL, fraud after fraud, failure after failure, lies-to-war, and now, MORE SABER RATTLING!



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Dance of the schizophrenic Democrats
By Aalexander Cockburn
November 8, 2007
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/index.php?storyID=9470


But Hillary Clinton doesn’t have her husband’s sure political feet...

Hillary has a ton of money and the solid support of the party's bosses, which is not surprising since the Clintons picked these bosses in the first place. A great many women in America want her to be president. Recovery is a process the Clintons have been refining ever since Hillary got herself into trouble with the voters of Arkansas back in 1978 for insisting that the first lady of that state be called Hillary Rodham, a stand on feminist principle she abandoned in time for the 1980 Governor's race.

At the very moment in February 1992 when Bill Clinton was battling political extinction in New Hampshire after disclosure of his affair with Gennifer Flowers (right), Hillary made one of her worst gaffes, again as a consequence of thinking too slowly. Hillary urged her husband to go on 60 Minutes.

In front of a vast national audience Bill, visibly ill at ease, admitted to causing pain to his family while denying that their marriage was merely an arrangement. "This is a marriage..." he asserted. Then Hillary broke in. Years of effort in burnishing Bill's image as

a Son of the South went up in smoke as she declared: "You know, I'm not sitting here like some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette."

The polls promptly showed Bill's numbers plummeting south of the Mason-Dixon line. An affair with Flowers was one thing, but insulting Tammy Wynette?

So Hillary will almost certainly tack to safety out of this mini-typhoon. But the bigger problem is not going away. There's a solid slice of the Old-Glory-loving superpatriots who will never, under any conditions, vote for Hillary Clinton a year from now. Every equivocation on immigrants, on the war, will be replayed mercilessly next autumn.

Hillary's best chance is to have the Republican vote split by the Evangelical Christians - unable to stomach a pro-abortion wife-hopper like Rudy Giuliani - running a candidate of their own. Some born-again type from the South.

Now there's a job for Bill if he really wants to make it up to Hillary.

Congress FINALLY OVERRIDES WH veto! Bush veto tried to STIFF New Orleans flood victims AGAIN...

Congress Hands Bush First Veto Override

CHARLES BABINGTON
November 8, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20071108/congress-veto/

WASHINGTON — President Bush suffered the first veto override of his seven-year-old presidency Thursday as the Senate enacted a $23 billion water resources bill despite his protest that it was filled with unnecessary projects.

The 79-14 vote included 34 Republicans who defied the president. Enactment was a foregone conclusion, but it still marked a milestone for a president who spent his first six years with a much friendlier Congress controlled by his Republican Party.

Now he confronts a more hostile, Democratic-controlled legislature, and Thursday's vote showed that most of the Republicans will defy him on spending matters dear to their political careers.

The bill funds hundreds of Army Corps of Engineers projects, such as dams, sewage plants and beach restoration, that are important to local communities and their representatives. It also includes money for the hurricane-hit Gulf Coast and for Florida Everglades restoration efforts.


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The House voted 361-54 to override the veto Tuesday. Both votes easily exceeded the two-thirds majority needed in each chamber to negate a presidential veto.

The last such veto override happened when Congress dealt President Clinton the second of his two overrides in February 1998.

Bush vetoed no bills during his first five years in office. He has since vetoed a stem cell research bill twice, an Iraq spending bill that set guidelines for troop withdrawals, and a children's health insurance bill. House and Senate Republicans managed to sustain those vetoes.

But they broke ranks on the Water Resources Development Act, or WRDA, which Bush vetoed on Nov. 2, calling it too expensive. Thirty-four Republicans voted with the 43 Democrats and two independents to override the veto. Two Democrats, Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, voted with 12 Republicans to sustain Bush's veto.

His supporters have noted that the Army Corps has a backlog of $58 billion worth of projects and an annual budget of about $2 billion to address them.

The bill, the first water system restoration and flood control authorization passed by Congress since 2000, would cost $11.2 billion over the next four years, and $12 billion in the 10 years after that, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Flood protection projects along the Gulf Coast, including 100-year levee protection in New Orleans, would cost about $7 billion if fully funded. The bill approves projects but does not fund them.

Some of Bush's most ardent allies argued for the override. "This bill is enormously important, and it has been a long time coming," said Sen. David Vitter, R-La., whose state was hammered by Hurricane Katrina two years ago.

The bill "is one of the few areas where we actually do something constructive," said Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott, R-Miss. What Bush sees as pork barrel items, Lott said, "are good, deserved, justified projects."

"Almost every president opposes this type of bill," he said.

Democrats are sure to remind such Republicans of their rejection of Bush's budgetary concerns when debate turns to several spending bills he also vows to veto.

Democrats, frustrated by their inability to force Bush's hand on Iraq and other matters, clearly enjoyed their victory Thursday. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said the message to the White House was, "you can't keep rolling over us like this."

The bill would authorize the construction of navigation improvements for the Upper Mississippi River, at an estimated federal cost of $1.9 billion, and an ecosystem restoration project for the Upper Mississippi costing $1.7 billion.

The Indian River Lagoon project in the Florida Everglades would be funded at about $700 million.

The bill calls for an independent peer review process of all Army Corps projects costing $45 million or more, a bid to cut down on wasteful spending.

Nancy Pelosi JOINS the Bush-Rove-Cheney junta in TRYING TO CENSOR discussion of Administration wrongdoing from House Floor...

audio: Nancy Pelosi in her own words, AKNOWLEDGES "there is a strong body of support in the country that the president has INHERENT POWER from the constitution to... proceed [in any manner he chooses] and we're saying, 'That is just simply not so, we might as well JUST CROWN HIM KING AND GO HOME' if that were true."

EXACTLY, Speaker Pelosi! On the REAL ISSUES, YOU HAVE CROWNED Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney KING: you HAND OVER THE ENTIRE US taxpayer TREASURY to their tender mercies; YOU HAND OVER the Justice Department and enforcement of American law and the US Constitution to their tender mercies; you HAND OVER THE BLOOD OF OUR military to their CORRUPT, INCOMPETENT conduct of the war; you HAND OVER the US voting process to the CORRUPT INTIMIDATIONS of the Republican Party; and you HAND AMERICA's GOOD REPUTATION to those who, IN YOUR WORDS, operate "OUTSIDE THE LAW" - and you are NOT USING YOUR MOST POWERFUL MEANS to REIGN IN and LIMIT those abuses!


Not only are Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic "leaders" CORRUPT, COMPLICITY, COWERING, and treacherous... they are also CLUELESS as well!

For, as AferDowningStreet.com founder David Swanson explins, for the past 230 years THE PARTY THAT HAS BROUGHT IMPEACHMENT to the floor, and brougt the wrongdoings of the president then in power to the attention of the American public - HAS ALWAYS been boosted in the following election!

Whether the Republican radicals sweeping Congress after President Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868, to President Franklin D. Roosevelt having to retreat under furious public and Republican pressure for "packing the Supreme Court" to President Truman, to the Democrats sweeping the Congress after Nixon was nearly impeached, to Democrats LOSING THE WHITE HOUSE and Congress AND THE SENATE after President Clinton faced an UNPOPULAR IMPEACHMENT by the LAME DUCK Tom "Hot Tub Tom" DeLay impeachment of 1998 -
NANCY PELOSI is listening to the SAME DLC "Democrat" ADVISORS WHO HAVE LOST ELECTION after ELECTION after ELECTION - she is ALLOWING THE ISRAEL LOBBY and WAR LOBBY and the Big Business lobbies to set her Foreign Policy agenda. It was ONLY the string of REPUBLICAN CORRUPTION SCANDALS which handed the Speaker's gavel to Mrs. Pelosi - NOT inherent brilliance or commanding leadership on her part. Indeed, just as John Kerry SAT ON millions of dollars worth of campaign funds in the last days of election 2004; and just as Hillary Clinton SAT ON her multi-million dollar war chest, refusing to assist close congressional challengers in the last days of election 2006; so to Pelosi, Rahm Emmanuel, and the DLC and DCCC poured many of their resources into losing campaigns for "CENTRIST" Democratic candidates, while not assisting some more "liberal" candidates who, for the want of a few thousands late campaign dollars, may have won some very close elections.

==========================

Debate on Cheney Impeachment Averted November 6, 2007
By JIM ABRAMS
Associated Press Writer
http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=116&sid=1287326

WASHINGTON (AP) - House Democrats on Tuesday narrowly managed to avert a bruising debate on a proposal to impeach Dick Cheney after Republicans, in a surprise maneuver, voted in favor of taking up the measure.

Republicans, changing course midway through a vote, tried to force Democrats into a debate on the resolution sponsored by longshot presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich.

The anti-war Ohio Democrat, in his resolution, accused Cheney of purposely leading the country into war against Iraq and manipulating intelligence about Iraq's ties with al-Qaida.

The GOP tactics reversed what had been expected to be an overwhelming vote to table, or kill, the resolution.

Midway through the vote, with instructions from the GOP leadership, Republicans one by one changed their votes from yes _ to kill the resolution _ to no, trying to force the chamber into a debate and an up-or-down vote on the proposal.

At one point there were 290 votes to table. After the turnaround, the final vote was 251-162 against tabling, with 165 Republicans voting against it.

"We're going to help them out, to explain themselves," said Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas. "We're going to give them their day in court."

Democrats countered by offering a motion to refer the proposal to the House Judiciary Committee for further study, effectively preventing a debate on the House floor. That motion passed by a largely party-line vote of 218-194.

The White House, in a statement, said Democrats were shirking responsibilities on issues such as childrens' health insurance "and yet they find time to waste an afternoon on an impeachment vote against the vice president. ... This is why Americans shake their head in wonder about the priorities of this Congress."

Kucinich has long pushed for a vote to impeach Cheney, but has failed to win the backing of the Democratic leadership. After Kucinich introduced the resolution, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., immediately moved to table it.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said "impeachment is off the table" and Congress is focused on responsibly getting U.S. troops out of Iraq, covering 10 million uninsured children and meeting national priorities long neglected by the Bush administration, said her spokesman Nadeam Elshami.

The resolution said that Cheney, "in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of vice president," had "purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States by fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the use of the U.S. Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests."

The 11-page resolution also charged that Cheney purposely deceived the nation about an alleged relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida and has "openly threatened aggression against the Republic of Iran absent any real threat to the United States."

House approval of an article of impeachment sends the issue to the Senate, which has the constitutional authority to try and, with a two-thirds vote, remove a person from office.

___

The bill is H. Res 799.

On the Net:

Congress: http://thomas.loc.gov/

Schumer, Feinstein FOLLOW LIEBERMAN TREACHERY: the AIPAC senators PUT ISRAEL, and US WARS, AHEAD of the US Constitution...

MORE on the Schumer-Feinstein BETRAYAL of American constitutional law; the ENABLING of the Bush-Cheney effort to CORRUPT THE US JUSTICE DEPARMENT, here;
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071102/wl_sthasia_afp/afghanistanunrest_071102180634

Republicans were able to make the Clinton White House overnight GUEST LIST into a "scandal" - the so-called "LINCOLN BEDROOM SCANDAL"!

Yet now, when corruption, lies-to-war, treasury-looting, stolen elections, torture, obstruction of justice and other criminal conduct of the Bush-Cheney administration create a veritable MOUNTAIN CHAIN of truly impeachable offenses...

... THE DEMOCRATIC SENATORS, and the House Democrat "leadership" FOLLOW THE LIEBERMAN 'pro-war and gut-the-Constitution' template at every turn; EVERY TIME the chips are down, the Dem 'leadership" ENABLES the Bush-Cheney administration assault on the Constitution....

MORE than RUPERT MURDOCH... MORE than Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling of Enron.. MORE than Exxon-Mobile and AEI (the almost wholly Exxon funded Washington DC "think tank" that the news media loves to portray as a quasi-governmental source)... MORE than Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Bob Jones University, and all the other right-wing moral values hypocrite scolds like Ted Haggert, Newt Gingrich, and Henry Hyde.... THE DEMOCRATIC SENATORS, and the Democratic "leadership" ARE THE BIGGEST ENABLERS of the Cheney-Bush ASSAULT ON THE US CONSTITUTION in all of AMERICA!

From their TREACHEROUS REFUSAL to sign on to the Black Congressional Caucus demand for a senate-cosigner for a simple Congressional Investigation into vote fraud in Florida in 2000;
- to REFUSING to DEMAND ANSWERS to the ANTHRAX ATTACKS on congress days after the horrendous 9-11 attacks...
- to first STONE-WALLING and then WHITEWASHING the 9-11 commission;
- to LIES TO WAR...
- to KANGAROO-COURT TRIALS to blame (female private) scapegoats and other white-wash cover-ups for TORTURE ordered from whithin the White House itself!!
- to GROSS CORRUPTION in war, Iraq reconstruction, FEMA, and other government contracts;
- the TALIBAN RESURGENT in Afghanistan, as US death toll Iraq and Afghanistan ESCALATES - under the TOTALLY GROSS, INCOMPETENT, CORRUPT "leadership" of Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney....
- to STOLEN ELECTIONS 2002, 2004, 2006 (NORM COLEMAN beat FORMER VICE PRESIDENT WALTER MONDALE, who stepped in following the untimely demise of Senator Paul Wellstone and family, who was cruising to a 10-point reelection victory before their plane slammed into the ground weeks before election 2002??);
- to the politicized Justice Department (which is already preparing to file false prosecutions to influence the 2008 elections)....
- Bush-Cheney CONTINUE TO OBSTRUCT Congressional Subpoenaes!
DICK NIXON WAS IMPEACHED FOR OBSTRUCTING SUBPOENAES!
This Democratic Congress doesn't have ONE HALF the committment of the 99th Congress! http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071105/ap_on_go_co/house_contempt;_ylt=AtzzL83FqBbvTQ34Hv8FUPOs0NUE

FOR EVERY Bush administration outrage, THE DEMOCRATIC 'LEADERSHIP" is there ROLLING OUT THE RED CARPET for the NEXT Bush-Cheney assault on American rights and constitution law!

Just LISTING the Democratic TREACHERY takes a half-page, for only the biggest, most glaring, most criminal betrayals alone! (And in our above list, we didn't even mention "outing a CIA undercover NOC officer to intimidate whistleblower war critics, and the OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE which was a prerequisite for the theft of election 2004!)

SCHUMER and FEINSTEIN's BETRAYAL - a subset of the Cheney-Bush administration's POLITICIZATION of the US Justice Departmanet - is simply ANOTHER in the long line of Democrat "leadership" TREACHERY, and is all tne more PREDICTABLE, because Feinstein and Schumer are two of the 10 AIPAC Democrat senators.

FOR SHAME, Senators! Putting the War Industry and the neo-con lobby AHEAD OF YOUR OATHS to the US Constitution!

========================================


Schumer, Feinstein ‘surprise’ thwarts efforts on Mukasey
By Manu Raju
November 06, 2007
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/schumer-feinstein-surprise-thwarts-efforts-on-mukasey-2007-11-06.html



The coordinated statements released late Friday afternoon by two Democratic senators that they would break ranks and support President Bush’s attorney general nominee largely muted opposition from a Democratic base that has become increasingly frustrated with Congress, activist leaders said Monday.

Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) effectively thwarted plans by the activist left to use the weekend to mobilize ahead of Tuesday’s Judiciary Committee vote and pressure wayward senators to reject the nominee, activists said.

“It was a surprise attack,” said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the Washington legislative office for the American Civil Liberties Union, which wants the Judiciary Committee to defeat the nomination. “There was a limited opportunity to say much about what Schumer and Feinstein had done because the timing was very cleverly calculated to avoid scrutiny.”

With the support of Schumer, Feinstein and the committee’s nine Republicans, Mukasey has garnered enough support to clear the panel and move to the Senate floor.

Before Feinstein’s announcement, sent to the media by e-mail at about 4:28 p.m., the nomination had seemed in doubt, especially after Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) announced his opposition to Mukasey at a 3 p.m. news conference in Burlington, Vt. Leahy became the fifth Judiciary Committee Democrat to announce his opposition over Mukasey’s refusal to state explicitly that the interrogation technique known as waterboarding constitutes torture.

Hours before Leahy’s press conference, however, Schumer in a telephone call already had laid out his thoughts to the chairman and also relayed a message that Feinstein had planned to support the nominee, according to aides.

But Schumer and Feinstein withheld announcing their decisions until late that afternoon. For Schumer, a decisive meeting came later in the day, around the same time as Leahy’s press conference. Mukasey assured him he would enforce any law Congress passes to explicitly state that certain interrogation techniques — such as waterboarding — are illegal under U.S. torture laws.

“Judge Mukasey is a lawyer’s lawyer. He will not leap to quick judgments,” Schumer said in his statement. “When we want him to do so, such as on torture, we will be disappointed. But when he resists those in the administration who want quick and facile answers . . . it is they who will be disappointed.”

The New Yorker, one of the most outspoken critics of the Bush administration, had been in an awkward position because he recommended Mukasey for the post before Democratic opposition grew. Both Schumer and Feinstein said they believed a Mukasey Justice Department would be markedly better than the tumultuous tenure of the resigned Alberto Gonzales.

Feinstein had made up her mind Thursday that she would support the nomination, but her office was still finalizing a statement when they caught wind of Schumer’s decision on Friday, one of her aides said. They decided to withhold the statement until Schumer was ready to make his announcement after both his afternoon meeting with Mukasey and the Leahy press conference. She followed up with a guest column explaining her views in Saturday’s edition of the Los Angeles Times.

“Judge Mukasey’s answers were quick and to the point, and reflected an independent mind,” Feinstein said in the column. “I truly believe he will be a strong advocate for the American people.”

By issuing coordinated statements late on a Friday afternoon, the senators employed the old Washington trick of breaking news at the end of a news cycle. Simultaneously, they undermined efforts by both the left and the right to pressure them into voting either for or against the nominee.

But they also undermined Leahy’s announcement, which would have dominated the weekend’s news. A Judiciary Committee aide, however, said there was no ill-will towards the senators for doing that.

“As you know, Sen. Leahy and Sen. Reid have not made this a caucus vote,
and as chairman, Sen. Leahy has not twisted any arms,” the aide said, referring to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). What he does feel strongly about is knocking down, during this debate, the falsehood that waterboarding is not already torture and illegal.”

One leader of an activist group opposed to the nomination said the coordinated statements by the senators had a “chilling effect” on efforts to drum up opposition over the weekend.

“They wanted to decrease the intense focus on the two of them, and each reinforces the other by doing this together,” said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond. “It takes some of the heat off of each of them.”

Feinstein is familiar with being the lone Democrat to side with Republicans on the Judiciary Committee. She did so in August by joining all nine Republicans in voting for the nomination of Leslie Southwick for a lifetime seat on a New Orleans-based appeals court – over the strong objections of the other nine committee Democrats because of the nominee’s civil rights record.

Among some activist groups, the feelings are still raw with Feinstein for not joining Democrats to defeat the Southwick nomination in the committee. More broadly, the base has grown increasingly angry at Democrats for capitulating to Republicans on major issues, such as the Iraq war and Bush’s domestic spying program.

One leading Democratic activist expected Schumer to get earfuls during fundraisers for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which he chairs. Also, one grassroots group, Democrats.com, has called for a moratorium on donations to the committee, which is trying to expand the Democratic majority in the Senate.

It’s unlikely that calls to cut off donating to the DSCC will pick up steam, activists said.

Even though Mukasey’s nomination is virtually assured, activists are still planning on airing their concerns. The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights is putting together a letter laying out its opposition and the concerns of a slew of other left-leaning groups.

GUTLESS Pelosi, Reid, Leahy, Rockefeller Schumer, Feinstein BETRAY America, Democratic voters YET AGAIN.....

GUTLESS 'Democratic' 'leaders' Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Senator Patrick Leahy, Senator Jay Rockefeller, Senators Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein, (et al, ad naseum) are UP TO THEIR DIRTY OLD TRICK AGAIN: they TALK "opposition!" to the GROSS ABUSES OF POWER (up to abject corruption and criminality) of the Bush-Cheney adminstration..... but then when it comes time to stand up, they instead ROLL OVER, effectively ROLLING OUT THE RED CARPET for the NEXT Bush-Cheney atrocity.

As remarked in our previous post, DIANNE FEINSTEIN and CHUCK SCHUMER have ROLLED OUT THE RED CARPET for Bush's "DROWNING IS GOOD ENOUGH FOR WITCHES!" Attorney General nominee. NICE TO SEE YOUR 'leadership' TAKE AMERICA BACK TO THE SALEM WITH TRIALS, Chuck and Dianne! "If a woman DROWNS when she is dunked in the water, she is innocent... but if she survives, she is a witch and must be killed forthwith!" Senators, you should be proud of yourselves!

For that matter, JUDICIARY COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN PAT LEAHY should also be PROUD OF HIMSELF - he is the so-called "chairman" of the so called "JUDICIARY COMMITTEE" but his real title should be "SERVANT TO THE NAKED EMPEROR," for letting Feinstein and Schumer kiss Mr. Bush's derriere in such grotesque fashion.

AND AS USUAL, NANCY PELOSI and HARRY REID PRETEND that there is NOTHING THEY CAN DO... they, too, are SERVANTS TO THE NAKED EMPEROR.

Will American democracy survive the gutless cowards and treacherous politicians who 'lead' the Democratic Party?

=============================
Whose Congress Is It?
http://www.populist.com/07.20.edit.html

President George W. Bush has shown that with support from his dead-ender Republican allies in Congress he can prevent good bills from becoming law. Now let’s hope that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid can stop bad bills from becoming law.

BUT DON'T COUNT ON IT AFTER the Democratic "leaders'" GUTLESS PERFORMANCES in the last week.

House Democrats from the Judiciary and Intelligence committees drafted a bill that would revise the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to replace a stopgap measure that was hurriedly passed this summer. The new bill would maintain court jurisdiction over domestic wiretaps. The Dems refused to consider the White House’s demand of immunity for US phone companies that cooperated with the administration’s illegal wiretaps, at least until the White House produces long-sought documents on the origin and extent of the eavesdropping.....

As we predicted, Treacherous AIPAC Senators FEINSTEIN, SCHUMER gut the fight against GESTAPO TORTURE tactics...

Dianne Feinstein, Charles Schumer, and AIPAC - the end of American democracy?

THEY'RE AT IT AGAIN!
THE TREACHEROUS 'Democratic' Senators GUT OPPOSITION to the Bush-Cheney administration AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY, because the AIPAC (Israel-American Jewish) lobby loves having the US military in the Mideast waging wars and killing people.

In this case, senators CHARLES SCHUMER and DIANNE FEINSTEIN pick up the "PRO TORTURE, PRO WAR" baton from Senator Joe Lieberman. AS we here at DemNation have PREDICTED, AT EVERY CRITICAL OPPORTUNITY, another AIPAC SENATOR comes out of the woodwork to GUT the building OPPOSITION to Bush-Cheney abuses of power, and as usual, the Democrat 'LEADERSHIP' falls right in line, PRETENDING that they are PUTTING UP an OPPPOSITON FIGHT to Bush co, while they know damn well they are MERELY GOING THROUGH THE MOTIONS of opposition, BUT ARE ACTUALLY _ENABLING_ Bush Co policies, in this case ILLEGAL SPYING, TORTURE, and POLITICIZATION OF THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT IN ADVANCE OF the 2008 elections.

THIS IS SHEER TREACHERY on a world-class scale, on the part of SCHUMER, FEINSTEIN, and America's treacherous, craven, ENABLING Democrat Party.... ENABLING, that is, the Bush-Cheney administration to TRASH THE US CONSTITUTION,TORTURE, arrest, and intimidate anyone they please, and STEAL YET ANOTHER ELECTION.

THE TREACHEROUS AIPAC SENATORS (and the entire Democrat 'leadership') GIVE Mr. BUSH WHAT HE WANTS - even as they PRETEND to offer an opposition party.
SHEER TREACHERY!

MORE on Schumer's "ISRAEL uber America" bias...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-clemons/benchmarking-schumer-on-j_b_70910.html

Two Democratic Senators involved in that part of the Bolton battle -- one on the Foreign Relations Committee and one not -- told me personally that Senator Schumer called them to say "a vote against Bolton is a vote against Israel."

Well, who does Schumer work for? The United States or Israel? And how ridiculous is that statement anyway?! Democrats and Republicans both have been excellent stewards of the US-Israel relationship in the United Nations.

=========================================

MORE on Schumer's COMPLICITY with the CORRUPTION of JUSTICE in America under Bush: In announcing his intention to confirm Mukasey for AG, Schumer PRETENDS NOT TO NOTICE that White House is WITHHOLDING, CENSORING, OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE on 600 pages of ABRAMOFF DOCUMENTS, lobbyist JACK ABRAMOFF _CONVICTED OF BRIBERY_ and CORRUPTION, SENATOR CHARLES SCHUMER an ENABLER of OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE in a CRIMINAL CONVICTION full accounting to the American people!

CORRUPTION, THY NAME IS CHARLES SCHUMER!

===============================
MORE on Schumer, Feinstein's PLAYING ALONG with BUSH CORRUPTION of justice!

White House Withholds 600 Pages of Abramoff Documents.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/31/white-house-withholds-600-pages-of-abramoff-docs/
Today, House Oversight Committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) wrote to White House Counsel Fred Fielding and requested that the administration hand over more than 600 pages of documents relating to the White House’s activities with fallen lobbyist Jack Abramoff. From Waxman’s letter

========================================
MORE on Feinstein, Pelosi's WHITEWASHING Bush-Cheney-Rove CORRUPTION of Justice Department!! The Bush Dept. of Justice is a snake-pit of corruption, up to and including possibly FRAUDULENT PROSECUTIONS against Democratic activists and candidates in close elections; i.e. USING the US Justice Department as a MAFIA ENFORCEMENT RACKET to steal elections!!

GOP lawyer ties Rove to Siegelman case
THE HILL Thu Oct 11, 2007
96% Average Credibility
http://www.newsique.com/politics/gop_lawyer_ties_rove_to_siegelma/

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) on Wednesday released an interview with GOP lawyer Dana Jill Simpson implicating former White House adviser Karl Rove in the prosecution and conviction of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman (D) on corruption charges.


==================================

Mukasey Wins Support from Key Senators
NPR.org, November 2, 2007 ·
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15883844


President Bush on Friday kept up a spirited defense of Michael Mukasey's nomination, saying "he's plenty qualified to be attorney general" just after landing in Columbia, S.C. The president was helping to raise money for the re-election of Sen. Lindsey Graham (left) and to make a speech about the war against terrorism. AP


NPR.org, November 2, 2007 · Two key Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sens. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), say they will support Judge Michael Mukasey to be the next attorney general. That makes Mukasey's confirmation almost certain.

His confirmation has been in doubt the past few days, and looked particularly doomed Friday after Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said he'd join some of his Democratic colleagues in voting "no" on Mukasey.

Sens. Schumer and Feinstein announced their support for Mukasey shortly after, saying the Justice Department is in desperate need of effective leadership.

The biggest snag for Mukasey was his refusal to categorically define waterboarding as torture. Waterboarding is an interrogation technique that simulates drowning. Mukasey has said he finds it personally repugnant, but he would not say it's illegal.

That caused Leahy to announce his opposition to the nominee Friday. "No American should need a classified briefing to determine whether waterboarding is torture," Leahy said.

"I like Michael Mukasey. I wish that I could support his nomination. But I cannot," Leahy said. "America needs to be certain and confident of the bedrock principle — deeply embedded in our laws and our values — that no one, not even the president, is above the law."

Leahy's chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee gives him considerable power to influence the outcome of the vote. But with the support of Sens. Schumer and Feinstein, Mukasey's confirmation is almost certain.

The Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on Tuesday, after which it will go to the full Senate.

Schumer has taken credit for getting Mukasey's name before President Bush as an acceptable nominee after the troubled tenure of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

But declining support among the panel's Democrats threatened to prevent Mukasey's nomination from making it to the full Senate for a vote. Four other Democrats on Leahy's committee have already said they will not support the former judge.

On Thursday, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), also a member of the Judiciary Committee, said he would vote against Mukasey.

Kennedy said Mukasey's unwillingness to equate the interrogation practice of waterboarding with torture increases the chances that it will be used against U.S. troops.

Meanwhile, President Bush on Friday kept up a spirited defense of Mukasey's nomination.

"He's a good man. He's a fair man. He's an independent man and he's plenty qualified to be attorney general," Bush said of Mukasey, just after landing in Columbia, S.C.

It was the second day in a row that Bush has pleaded with senators to approve the man he chose to succeed Gonzales as the nation's top law enforcement official.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a member of the Judiciary Committee who is backing the embattled judge, joined Bush on the airport tarmac for the president's statement. The president was in South Carolina to help raise money for Graham's re-election and make a speech about the war against terrorism.

A day earlier, Bush warned that the Justice Department would go without a leader in a time of war if Democrats thwarted Mukasey.

Bush said Thursday that if the Judiciary Committee were to block Mukasey because of his noncommittal stance on waterboarding, it would set a new standard for confirmation that could not be met by any responsible nominee for attorney general.

There is a way for Mukasey to get a full Senate vote even if committee Democrats unite in opposing him. The Senate Judiciary Committee could agree to advance the nomination with "no recommendation," allowing Mukasey the chance to be confirmed by a majority of the 100-member Senate. Several vote-counters in each party have said Mukasey probably would get 70 "yes" votes in such a scenario.

From NPR reports and The Associated Press

Nancy Pelosi ROBS America of the CONSTITUTIONAL EXAMINATION that Impeachment hearings would bring....

Nancy Pelosi takes herself too seriously, as Al Gore did after election 2000, and indeed, Pelosi PERFECTLY REPEATS Gore's dismal ENABLING of the Bush-Cheney administration.
After he had surrendered the Florida election recount battle, Gore was ironically forced to preside (as Vice President, and thereby as President of the Senate in session) at the CERTIFICATION of the election 2000 electoral college results. It was at this time that Gore REPEATEDLY REJECTED the Black Congressional Caucus demands for A SINGLE SENATOR to SIGN ON TO a SIMPLE REQUEST, for a SIMPLE CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION into widespread voter disenfranchisement in Florida (175,000 uncounted votes according to this Washington Post article)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/elections2000/recount/front.htm
Gore repeatedly REFUSED to allow the Black Congressmen and women to hold up the certification process.... the man who presumed to be "THE LEADER" of the Democratic Party was POWERLESS to get ONE LOUSY SENATOR to sign on to the demands for a congressional investigation. In so doing, Gore became THE BIGGEST ENABLER of the Bush-Cheney White House's long reign of abuses, for Mr. Gore had GIVEN the Bush-Cheney administration a LEGITIMACY they DID NOT DESERVE.

(The reason is, Mr. Gore at the time thought the election WAS ABOUT HIMSELF... he didn't realize that millions of voters came out and voted, NOT FOR AL GORE, but to keep the REACTIONARY RIGHT Bush-Cheney duo out of the White House. Indeed, in selection Senator Joe Lieberman, the most vocal Democratic Clinton scold (he of "second marriage/trophy wife," at that!) to be his VP running mate, Gore BOUGHT IN TO the Right-Wing "moral values" horse manure, Gore too much of a stuffed-shirt Vice President to realize that the same "moral values" logic had been used by bible thumpers to defend first chattel slavery in America, and ,in defiance of the 15h Amendment, for almost 100 years after the end of the Civil War.)

In a similar vein, Nancy Pelosi's tenure as Speaker of the House is worth tens of millions of dollars in PROPAGANDA VALUE to the Republican Party. The chronic ABUSES OF POWER, deceptions, and even HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS of the Bush administration should be topic number one of American political discourse, but instead Nancy and her fellow "leaders" ALLOW the media to talk about celebrity and personality (covering the presidential candidates as a horse race, instead of talking about the issues)over in-depth examination, not only of issues such as health care, and the war, but the question "how many billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent rebuilding New Orleans since the Katrina disaster 2 years ago.. and why, after ALL THOSE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS - are ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOODS in New Orleans still filled with trash and wrecked homes?" is never even asked or answered!

BY KEEPING IMPEACHMENT 'off the table,' NANCY PELOSI _ALLOWS_ the Republicans and their corporate-friendly media to KEEP THE GROSS ABUSES of the Bush-Cheney White House OFF the front pages... if they get any mention at all.

Being able to smother, white-wash, and cover-up scandals is worth tens of millions of dollars of media coverage. THANK YOU, NANCY, for GIVING THE REPUBLICAN PARTY that mulit-million dollar free pass, that ability to, in the future, DEFINE THE IRAQ WAR as a DEMOCRATIC FOUL UP and surrender... instead of as a product of REPUBLICAN CORRUPTION and ABUSE OF POWER.
_____________________________________________________


The Power of Inspection and the Claim of Impeachment
[DENIED to America by Pelosi and the Democrat 'leadership']
by David Bromwhich
Posted October 31, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bromwich/the-power-of-inspection-a_b_70594.html

Last night's Democratic debate marked the FIRST TIME [!] a number of candidates have
spoken sanely and frankly about the Cheney-Bush design for a world war. Tim
Russert asked each candidate to "pledge" to prevent Iran from developing the
capacity to make a nuclear weapon. A mindless and demagogic request, and an
attempt to corral the Democratic party into the militarism which holds the
Republican candidates (with the exception of Ron Paul) captive and cheering.
Russert was out of line and someone should have told him so. Yet the responses
were instructive. Hillary Clinton vowed to do all she could to prevent Iran
from acquiring a weapon; when that proved not ripe enough for her questioner,
she made it clear she would not please him by upping the ante. What he was
after was a pledge to initiate a war by bombing Iran.

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Joe Biden explained to Russert that the Middle East holds perils more ominous
than the possible attainment of a nuclear weapon by Iran some years from now.
Biden did not mention Israel's 200 nuclear weapons, or its second-strike
capacity from submarines. He did bring up Pakistan: another nuclear power, and
one whose upheaval would have consequences the U.S. cannot possibly reckon. By
his answer, Biden was contributing to the education of the public. They surely
hadn't heard before a sober comparison of Pakistan with Iran, whether from Tim
Russert or his colleagues at ABC or what remains of CBS.

The education continued with a fine response by John Edwards that addressed the
Cheney-Bush pattern of saber-rattling against Iran. Edwards showed how the pair
were following the same protocol that created a stupefied popular consensus
against Iraq in 2003. He also used the word "neocon": a word that many of his
listeners might have a broad idea of; more of them, probably, a dim and faint
idea. The mere mention of this faction constitutes of a public service, now
that they are running not only the president's foreign policy but the policy
apparatus of four Republican candidacies (Giuliani, McCain, Romney, Thompson).
Next time, Edwards ought to give a name or two, and connect it with a policy.
For the individuals he has in mind are as persistent and remorseless as they
are destructive. Their previous field of exercise was Nicaragua.

Chris Dodd offered a vivid recollection of the disaster of Iran-Contra when he
recalled his part in negotiating a diplomatic end to the artificially induced
civil war in Nicaragua: a war that was begun in America's name but funded and
commandeered in defiance of the law. If Dodd alludes to Nicaragua again, he
might mention that the earlier war was fought by American proxies with the
tactics of terrorism; that it was a war that ripped apart a society and by its
end had killed 30,000; and that it was run from the department of state by the
same reckless functionary, Elliott Abrams, who pulls the levers now on American
policy in the Middle East. The next time you hear (Dodd could easily say) about
an assassination that heats up civil strife in Lebanon with profit to no party
in Lebanon, or the latest speculative charge against Iran by the White House,
or reports of advanced armaments suddenly in use by Fatah militias, or an
Israeli bombing of a supposed nuclear site in Syria, where no evidence is given
and no radioactive residue appears--be forewarned that you are seeing the
handiwork of Elliott Abrams. This is an administration that has everything to
fear from the diffusion of facts. But the facts need to be recited slowly, and
the history needs to be recounted with patience.

Dennis Kucinich spoke the word impeachment. Whatever the Democrats may do, it is
an idea the party would be irresponsible not to consider. No one who has read
the Constitution through the minds of the founders, and followed the history of
the past seven years, can doubt that the vice president and the president have
committed impeachable offenses. The violation of FISA and the development of a
secret policy for circumventing the FISA court are only the clearest instances.
The withdrawal of the U.S., in secret, from the Geneva conventions, embodies the
same insolence and arrogation. The power of inspection by the Senate and the
claim of impeachment have long been understood as the indispensable checks
against abuse of power by an ambitious executive.

Against impeachment, there is this to be said, that the majority apparently lack
the votes to make it succeed. Yet Nancy Pelosi showed a remarkable absence of
political mind when, as the leader of a new majority in a critical time, facing
a president out of control, she declared that impeachment was not an option. You
don't reassure an opponent--especially an opponent who understands nothing but
the language of force--that the one weapon he rightly fears has been taken out
of your arsenal. Besides, there are powers of inspection short of impeachment,
which the Democratic Congress has been inexplicably backward in using. Dick
Cheney has never held a press conference, and has seldom been asked to answer a
question. His chief of staff, David Addington, is unknown on Capitol Hill. Why
have they never been called to testify? Say by the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee (for misconduct in the control of post-invasion Iraq)? Or the Senate
Intelligence Committee (for the slanting of estimates on Iraq in 2002-03, on
Iran in 2006, on Syria in 2007)? Or by the Judiciary Committee (for overturning
in secret the constitutional ban on torture and the legal restrictions on
domestic surveillance)? When one thinks of the public education on the war in
Vietnam that was supplied by the Foreign Relations Committee under Senator
William Fulbright, nothing except timidity and a failure of self-respect can
explain the omission of such hearings today.

The preferred way in to a world war, as Alastair Crooke pointed out in a recent
and disturbing article, may not be a direct attack on Iran, but a "back door"
through any of the potential flash-points the vice president has been preparing
in the region. It may come from Lebanon, or from the Kurds, or an alarm set off
by Israel and the argument that we have to cover what Israel "had" to do. All
fanatics are dangerous; and not all of them know this about themselves; but the
fanatics of this administration and their propagandists, do indeed know it, and
they have begun to turn "dangerous" into a term of praise. They truly believe
the surest way to reform the Middle East is to revolutionize the entire region
through the engineered collapse of several governments at once, or in close
succession. A much larger war triggered by accident, and a mounting series of
escalations, would also bury their responsibility in the confusion, chaos, and
desolation that followed.

But to carry it off they need the American people to be their accomplices. And
that is where the salutary shadow of impeachment may matter. Even if it remains
a discussion only, the threat could remind the public, and give notice to TV
presenters innocent of political knowledge, that there is an unpleasant smell,
a suspicion probably worth exploring, about the familiar crooked path to the
next war. There is something finally neither admirable nor laughable about the
men who have done these things to our country.

Senate Dems ALL TALK, little RESULTS: they need to KILL the Mukasy pro-torture nomination to AG in Senate...

Our vainglorious Senate Democrats TALK TOUGH, but time after time after time, they reveal themselves as not being qualified to shine Senator JESSE HELMS' shoes, the dictatorial demagogue senator who ran the SENATE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE as his personal feifdom, and who could KILL Democratic NOMINATIONS before breakfast as effortlessly as eating a bite of toast or putting that nomination 'in his pocket' never to see the light of day. (As he did to fellow REPUBLICAN Gov. William Weld, who President Clinton had nominated to be Ambassador to Mexico, but whose nomination never saw the light of committee hearing, thanks to the autocratic Helms.)

WHY don't the Democrats get some of their staffers to COMPILE A LIST of DEMOCRATIC NOMINEES who have been BLOCKED BY Republican filibusters and pocket (committee) vetoes? WHY dont't the Dems DEMAND that the network news morons (hired flunkies of the media moguls) AIR SUCH A LIST when they discuss the Mukasy nomination?

Because the Senate Democrats are ALL TALK and LITTLE ACTION, if not outright COMPLICIT in the Republican efforts to make democracy subservient to K St. corruption. The Democrat Senators need to KILL the Mukasy pro-torture nomination to Attorney General in the Senate, and show SOME RESULTS for being the MAJORITY PARTY, instead of continually and repeatedly BOWING DOWN to the Bush-Cheney White House's serial abuses of power (if not High Crimes & Misdemeanors.

The Democrats NEED TO SHOW SOME FIGHT, and STOP CONFIRMING such no-account miscreants as our WHINING Supreme Court 'Justice' Clarence Thomas, who despite his LIFETIME APPOINTMENT TO THE US SUPREME COURT, snivels that his Yale law degree (which made his legal career possible) "isn't worth 15 cents." (Because Thomas was hoping to get a huge-dollar career at a big, prominent law firm straight out of Yale, and he never got such an offer.)

=============================

Ending Torture And Putting Mukasey Out Of His Misery
by Bob Cesca, Huffington Post
October 31, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/ending-torture-and-puttin_b_70538.html

It's one thing to vote against a torture enabler only to see that torture enabler confirmed anyway, but it's another thing to actually kill the nomination.

Who among the Senate Democrats is willing to end Michael Mukasey's nomination and confirmation process right here and now? Outright block it -- filibuster it -- stop it in committee or on the floor when (and if) it comes up for a full senate vote.

Some of the Democrats, including most recently Senator Clinton, have declared their intention to vote against Mukasey for attorney general. That's awesome, but so what. Many of the very same Democrats we're hearing from this week also voted against Alberto Gonzales. But Gonzales was confirmed despite widespread protest. And the president won the day... anyway. But at least they voted against Gonzales. That shut the president right the fuck up, didn't it?

And now, almost three years after voting to confirm the Gonzales Disaster for attorney general, we're staring down the barrel -- or in this case, the water jug -- of another attorney general who obfuscates the truth about torture, and who, once confirmed, will continue to subversively retain America's franchise of torture hostels.

For too many years now, we've watched the president in plain sight, and despite his reputation in certain media circles for "knowing where he stands," dance around both the English language and the rule of law in order to justify torture.

We've watched his administration erode any remaining dignity and honor our nation possessed.

We've watched this regime affirm many of our conspiratorial suspicions about the demons lurking in America's citadels.

We've watched them transform a decade of peace followed by a brief era of world unity into a dark age of fear, distrust, paranoia, hatred and corruption.....

Nancy Pelosi's approval PLUMMETS among CA Democratic voters.. because she is SUBVERTING the US Constitution

Nancy Pelosi is FOLLOWING int the LOSING footsteps of Al Gore, John Kerry, Tom Daschle, Harry Reid, and for that matter the entire Dem. senate: she is ALLOWING Bush-Cheney administration GROSS ABUSES OF POWER - CRIMES, HIGH CRIMES, and CRIMINAL CONDUCT - to go UNPUNISHED.

Like the Senate Democrats, Nancy thinks that politics is about COURTING DONORS, making good commercials, NOT BEING 'too' PARTISAN.

HOW could Democrats FAIL TO NOTICE that the Repubicans WON CONTROL of the White House, Congress and Senate because of FIERCELY PARTISAN demagoguery (Karl Rove's infamous smear, slime, and Swift-boat tactics), and that the Republicans ONLY lost control of the House and Senate, NOT because of Democratic brilliance, but BECAUSE OF A STREAM OF REPUBLICAN CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS - Abramoff, Cunningham, Ney, Libby prosecution - followed by HYPOCRISY SCANDALS? (Mark Foley, Ted Haggard, Tom DeLay, Dennis Hastert, etc)

Nancy Pelosi is REFUSING to HIGHLIGHT THAT CRIMINAL CORRUPTION of the Bush-Cheney administration and their Republican sychophants, and as a result, she is UNDERMINING the US CONSTITUTION, which is to say, AMERICAN DEMOCRACY ITSELF.

===================================


Voters' views of Pelosi, Congress have dimmed
By John Hill - jhill@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PDT Saturday, October 27, 2007
Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A3
http://www.sacbee.com/341/story/456858.html

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's own party is turning on her, apparently because of a perception among California Democrats that she has not done enough to shake up the status quo in Washington, D.C., according to a Field Poll released Friday.

Congress overall is doing even worse with California voters, with an approval rating sagging to 30 percent or below for only the seventh time in the past 15 years, the poll of 1,201 registered voters found. Both Pelosi, the San Francisco Democrat who became speaker this year, and Congress as a whole have fallen short of voter expectations since taking over both houses, poll director Mark DiCamillo said.

"I think the reason for her decline and the low ratings Congress is getting is that voters here are not seeing any change," DiCamillo said.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein's approval rating of 51 percent is down 10 percentage points since March, but consistent with her average over the years. Sen. Barbara Boxer's rating also has slumped, from 54 percent in March to 44 percent. Both Boxer and Feinstein, however, still enjoy the approval of more voters than disapproval of them.

For Pelosi, it was the first time the poll showed more people disapproving than approving of her performance – 40 percent to 35 percent, with 25 percent having no opinion.

Other polls since 2003 have shown larger numbers of voters with no opinion, but Pelosi always won more approval than disapproval. As recently as March, California Democrats approved of Pelosi by a 5-to-1 ratio, DiCamillo said. Now it's less than 2-to-1. Nonpartisan voters also have soured on her.

Only 22 percent of voters approve of the job Congress is doing, the poll found, while 64 percent disapprove.

The six other times that congressional approval has dipped to 30 percent or below can be tied to specific events, such as the impeachment of President Clinton or the economic downturn of the early 1990s that hit California particularly hard, DiCamillo said.

During tough times, he said, voters saw Congress as a convenient target. "They were taking it out on anybody and everybody," he said.

Still, the Democrats now in charge of Congress fared better than Republicans, with a 34 percent approval rating compared to 20 percent for the GOP. California Republicans are more critical of their own party, the poll found, with only 29 percent approving of the performance of congressional Republicans.