Entries by emptywheel

Gonzales Seems to Expect More Trouble

Or at least that’s one thing we might surmise from the news that Gonzales hired George Terwilliger to represent him just after he resigned (h/t bmaz).

No sooner did Alberto Gonzales resign as attorney general last monththan he retained a high-powered Washington criminal-defense lawyer torepresent him in continuing inquiries by Congress and the JusticeDepartment.

[snip]

The top concern for Gonzales, and now Terwilliger, is the expandinginvestigation by Glenn Fine, the Justice Department’s fiercelyindependent inspector

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Roll Call on FISA in HJC

Via email, here are the roll call votes against the Forbes amendment (favoring immunity for Telcos) and for the RESTORE legislation.

Forbes:

No: Conyers, Berman, Boucher, Nadler, Scott, Watt,Lofgren, Jackson Lee, Waters, Delahunt, Wexler, Sanchez, Cohen, Sutton,Sherman, Baldwin, Weiner, Schiff, Davis, Wasserman Schultz, Ellison

Yes: Smith, Sensenbrenner, Coble, Goodlatte, Lungren, Cannon, Keller, Pence, Forbes, King, Feeney, Franks, Gohmert, Jordan

Final Passage

Yes:

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Bartlett Targets Deadeye Dick

Remember when Dick Cheney shot an old man in the face and then attempted to cover it up by reporting it through the local press? Well, Dan Bartlett wants you to know that that whole cover-up was Dick’s idea demand.

Then there was the time Cheney shot his pal during a hunting accident in Texas.”We couldn’t get hold of him for quite a bit of time,” Bartlett said.”They were strategizing on their

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Blogger in the Eye of the Beholder?

The NYT manages to understand that the Republicans went overboard with their attacks on Graeme Frost. But there’s something else they don’t seem to understand.

In recent days, Graeme and his family have been attacked byconservative bloggers and other critics of the Democrats’ plan toexpand the insurance program, known as S-chip.

[snip]

But Michelle Malkin, one of the bloggers who have stronglycriticized the Frosts, insisted Republicans should hold their groundand not pull punches.

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The Latest Terrorism Leak

In his post on the latest Bush exposure of counter-terrorism resources, Noah Schachtman links to this long profile on the woman and firm exposed by BushCo. Two things stick out from the article:

Taking two staff members from the Investigative Project, Katz set upher own office. She got by on small government contracts.

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Society of “Professional” “Journalists” Proves It Is Neither

Via RawStory, I see that Bob Novak claims that Joe Wilson didn’t warn him strongly against outing Valerie in his column.

Columnist Robert Novak said Saturday Ambassador Joe Wilson did notforcefully object to the naming of his CIA operative wife, ValeriePlame Wilson, when Novak spoke to him prior to the publication of acolumn that sparked a federal investigation and sent White House aideI.

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Watergate, the Farce

I happen to be reading Stonewall right now. And I gotta say, I’ve already said what Bernstein said several times.

Watergate would not have played out the same way today because Congressno longer performs its oversight role, said Carl Bernstein, one of thejournalists famous for uncovering the story.

“The difference with today is that the system did its job.

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“It’s Too Expensive to Reveal Our Role in Mine Disasters”

Elaine Chao (and her acting solicitor Jonathan Snare) must have spent a lot of time with Alberto Gonzales. Because she seems to be parroting him, in an attempt to refuse to comply with Congress’ oversight requests.

The Labor Department said Friday that it could cost millions of dollarsand take months to respond to a House committee’s subpoena looking atthe agency’s oversight of the Crandall Canyon mine in Utah, site of a fatal

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Progress?

I’ll withhold judgment until I see the text of the bill, but from this story, it appears the Progressive Caucus made some progress–though not on all counts–in their efforts to ensure the permanent FISA amendment safeguards privacy and civil liberties.

House Democrats plan to introduce a bill this week that would let asecret court issue one-year “umbrella” warrants to allow the governmentto intercept e-mails and phone calls of foreign targets and would

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