Category Archives: Politics: The Party of Sleaze

The first wheel comes off

I have a lot to say about the NSA spy case, but am finding it hard to say properly.

Spy Court Judge Quits In Protest

[U.S. District Judge James] Robertson indicated privately to colleagues in recent conversations that he was concerned that information gained from warrantless NSA surveillance could have then been used to obtain FISA warrants. FISA court Presiding Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who had been briefed on the spying program by the administration, raised the same concern in 2004 and insisted that the Justice Department certify in writing that it was not occurring.

“They just don’t know if the product of wiretaps were used for FISA warrants — to kind of cleanse the information,” said one source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the FISA warrants. “What I’ve heard some of the judges say is they feel they’ve participated in a Potemkin court.”

Posted in Civil Liberties, Law: Privacy, Politics: The Party of Sleaze | 8 Comments

Ros-Lehtinen Drops Another Political Slur

The Representative elected from the district I live in said yesterday that some (unspecified, in the way of many slurs) Democrats are traitors and secretly hope that our soldiers are killed in battle. Yes, although not her exact words, that is the exact meaning of what she said.

Bid for Prewar Iraq Files Raises Political Heat – New York Times: Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Republican of Florida, declared that some Democrats “do not want us to win in Iraq” for fear that it would give the administration a political victory.

Will no one serious come forward to rid us of this embarrassing incumbent? It would be an uphill race, but she is much more vulnerable and unpopular around here than she seems.

Previous relevant post: Who Will Run Against Ros-Lehtinen? (All Politics Is Local).

Posted in Politics: FL-18, Politics: The Party of Sleaze | 5 Comments

Mystery Solved: It’s Just More Bush Sleaze

The other day my eyebrows shot up when I read that the US government had awarded a $750,000 contract to Creighton University School of Law in Nebraska, to study issues relating to seized property in Cuba. It seemed like the sort of thing that UM might have had an interest in and would be uniquely qualified for (and if not UM, then maybe FIU) — and it was the first I’d heard of it (although, since it has nothing to do with the work I do, that in itself isn’t so odd).

It may be that Creighton in fact has an expertise in expropriation, restoration, and Caribbean or Latin American property rules. Then again, it may be that there’s another explanation…According to the Washington Post, there’s A Grateful Student behind the contract award:

Tired of those whining letters from your alma mater, the ones telling you that only your $200 check will keep the endowment from falling below $20 billion?

Well, maybe Adolfo Franco, assistant administrator of the Agency for International Development for Latin America, might get a reprieve for a couple of years from Creighton University School of Law in Nebraska, his alma mater.

An AID panel of career folks has decided to give the law school, which has no expertise in Cuba policy, a $750,000 grant over two years to study what is to be done about the properties Cuban dictator Fidel Castro seized from Americans some 45 years ago. We’re told this was a highly competitive process.

Franco even went out to Omaha last week to hand over the award, reestablishing the long-standing Havana-Omaha linkage.

Posted in Politics: The Party of Sleaze | 1 Comment

Bet He Fit Right In

American Charged in Iraq Scheme an Ex-Con: U.S. occupation officials gave a man with a federal fraud conviction control of millions of dollars for Iraqi reconstruction. Now the man is charged with accepting kickbacks to steer contracts to a businessman. …

At one point, Bloom was allegedly paying at least $200,000 a month to [Coalition Provisional Authority] officials and others, …

It’s really true: no matter how bad you think they are, this administration is actually substantially worse.

Posted in Politics: The Party of Sleaze | Comments Off on Bet He Fit Right In

Steven Clemons Is Shrill (For Good Reason)

Steven Clemons, who managed almost single-handedly to block the Bolton nomination in the Senate without ever getting shrill, has been pushed over the edge into shrillness by the GOP’s latest evil, ham-handed, maneuvering:

Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert have asked House Intel Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra and Senate Intel Committee Chairman Pat Roberts NOT to look into the subject of the hidden sites America has for secretly holding prisoners and detainees — but to look into who LEAKED that information to Dana Priest at the Washington Post.

This just makes me sick. Frist still has not learned that the White House has burned him over and over again. And now he is playing their shill once more.

But though I have opposed Frist’s general take on the war and these issues for some time — it’s still very difficult for me, just as an American citizen — to watch any leader, Republican or Democrat, implicitly endorse the notion that America has the right to indefinitely hold without due process any prisoners or detainees in some systemized fashion.

This is what the Soviet Union did. This is what Maoist China did. This is what America fought the Cold War against! Yes, we are fighting and dealing with horribly dangerous people in the world — but they must be brought to justice in courts of law before American and global peers.

Frist and Hastert have both blighted their careers with this letter. It’s outrageous — and they should immediately retract this effort to lynch leakers rather than holding the Executive Branch accountable for serious infractions of human rights and our legal norms.

I need a new category for this post. Like ‘Sickening Irony’ or ‘Total Lack of Shame’ or something.

Posted in Politics: The Party of Sleaze, Torture | 2 Comments

The Smoking Gun in the Plame Case

According to ABC, the smoking gun in the Plame case has Rove’s and Libby’s fingerprints.

More reason to believe we have not heard the last from Fitzgerald…

Posted in Politics: The Party of Sleaze | 3 Comments