Think it’s time to start referring to it as the DOOOJ — Department of the Obstruction of Justice.

The way I recall Comey’s speech there were a few interesting references to prior ceremonious presentations; while looking for a local copy, I found one of the references he made, to a talk by Robert H. Jackson in 1940 delivered a few months after Jackson became AG; it is pretty idealistic; a version 2pp long photocopied from the Journal of American Judicature Society is available there. Given the early politicization of Department of Justice and problems occuring after Patriot, before most of the related scandals emerged, I glanced at Sen. C.Levin’s site for his in chamber comments on the nomination of K.Wainstein to be Nat.Sec.AUSA, a full page of interesting allusions about A.Fisher nomination related nonProduction of documents by DoJ stonewalling. Clearly, Levin has tempered his remarks by that September 2006 floor vote timeframe, compared with his incisive questioning in SCSI in May 2006, an interchange in which Wainstein already avows forgetfulness about his tenure at FBI during the time when Mueller told agents not to witness tortcha at Gitmo when DoD and specialist Tortcha-erers were maltreating prisoners whom FBI wanted to interview but could not once the evidence was pre-tainted from tortcha. The Levin-Wainstein interchange at pp9-11 covers OIPR and Gitmo tortcha in some depth with considerable evasiveness by the witness, there. This is more national than NewEngland, but speaks to that early time at DoJ before worries about oversight and the IG construct became prominent news.

Sure is a whole lot of poop hitting the Establishment fan all at once over the past few days — the Iowa upsets (did you see Bobo on NewsHour afterwards? Scared shitless), the McGovern impeachment call, the news about Israeli requests for US intervention in Israel, formation of the Obama+Edwards bloc against Hil, the AQ tape calling for attacks on W during his upcoming Middle East trip, the Times voting machine article, the Sibel article in the Times (and this may turn out to be the biggest). I worry about desperate, irrational reactions… cornered rats, etc.

I hope Chief Judge Wolf’s letter inspires other judges to write and act, too. Wonder whether retired Supreme Court Justice O’Connor has any updates about America’s commute down the path of fascism.

I was reading the Newsweek article by Hosenball and Isikoff about CIA veterans seeking defense lawyers in response to Durham’s appointment to investigate the 2005 destruction of the torture tapes.

The main point of the article is this:

“For the CIA spooks involved, cost is a serious issue. Krieger says legal expenses for each employee could reach “hundreds of thousands” of dollars; the CIA will not foot the bill. “

What caught my eye, however, was the next line:

“In anticipation of just such a scenario, however, the agency some years ago began encouraging its employees to purchase special liability-insurance policies from Wright & Co., a Virginia firm that specializes in coverage for government investigators.”

http://www.newsweek.com/id/84572

Tell me that this ’special liability insurance company’ WRIGHT & CO is not owned by some neocon crony.

I want to know one thing!

How did the horse that Valerie Plame rode get raised from the dead again?

Haven’t we whipped it enough?

Can’t we just let it rest in peace?

Re: Sibel Edmonds

If Marc Grossman is as involved as Edmonds says he is, then ‘Outing’ Valerie Plame Wilson:

– Classified CIA Counter-Proliferation Division Manager
– Assigned to Joint Task Force Iraq
– Operating as a NOC (cover: Energy Anaylyst for Brewster-Jennings)
– Familiar with AQ Khan’s activities

Looks A Lot more like an Act of Espionage than Political Spite.

Irving Lewis Libby committed multiple, lying-related felonies to cover his criminal behavior. He had worked for Cheney for twenty years, shared his Ivy League background, was his chief of staff and close confidant. He had been tasked by both the president and vice president to defend them against the truth coming out about their claims for going to war in Iraq – during the 2004 campaign that would decide whether both would be re-elected. Libby’s lies were not his personally, nor were they about his future. They were by and for his administration’s survival.

The “journalists” who revealed their talks with Libby were forced to do so by appropriate legal process. But they were not protecting the first amendment, except in their rhetoric. They were protecting a government source who had lied to them and used them to promote personal attacks against knowledgable and credible critics. Those attacks included the outing of a covert intelligence expert on WMD’s.

Those are not sources to whom protection is owed. Rather, those journalists had a duty to out Libby for his lies, for his misuse of the press and its first amendment protections.

was just kind of taken aback by how awestruck many were with stuff that has been around for so long.

Yeah, I can see how that reaction would come about. Since I sorta know the author, as she’s involved in dKos’ nightly Diary Rescue with me, I’m possibly overly impressed with the thoroughness of the diary and glad to see so many awestruck comments as they represent an awakening that needs to get much bigger to be able to dent the foreheads of our least prized Dem Senators before they sell us down the river.

I read pretty much everything here every day, and have linked her stuff and encouraged Kossacks to come over here and read it fairly often (just following in Kagro X and Meteor Blades’ footsteps), as there’s more uncovering of what’s under the rocks here than any three other sites that I visit frequently (I’m lovin’ the timelines). But for sheer power to move politicians to take action, there needs to be a wide and responsive audience that’s willing to take the time to write/fax/email/call not only their own Rep or Sen, but every damn one on the target committee, if not the whole Congress. There will likely be a few more ‘call to action’ diaries on this in the near future. Thanks to AT&T’s assumption of the Cingular ‘rollover minutes’ idea, I’ve got a few thousand free minutes to devote to raising a little hell inside the beltway. It always helps to know that there are good reasons for the line being busy, too. 8^)

Anyway, thanks for the responses (both of them), no offense taken…