Sorry I’ve been a bit distracted (yes yes, I know I promised a post on those missing OLC opinions!!) But until I get undistracted, check out this video from Turdblossom.

Note how he describes the issue:

I’ve been directed again … not to respond to a subpoena, exerting privilege on behalf of a former President. 

[snip]

This issue of whether or not I should show up … 

He is still describing the issue as being whether or not he has to show up–and he’s avoiding the word "executive."

Fine. Good. That makes Roves’s position much more precarious than if he had a fresh new executive privilege claim. Dawn Johnsen, by herself, could cause Rove’s sorry Turdblossom to have to show up.

We shall see what the Obama Administration does.

I’m watching the debate over amendment adding federal whistleblower protection to the stimulus package, on CSPAN.

And thus far, I’ve seen the following explanations for why we can’t have our billions of dollars in stimulus and TARP funds protected by Federal whistleblower protections.

Crazy Pete Hoekstra says we can’t have federal whistleblower protection because it would expose sources and methods.

Think about that. We can’t allow federal employees to come forward to report waste and fraud (and subsequently have their jobs protected) because doing so would expose sources and methods. 

Apparently, we’re stimulating the economy by employing a bunch of new spooks.

Then, another Congressman (sorry, didn’t get who it was) who argued that federal whistleblower protection would make it hard for TSA to ramp up screeners quickly.

Don’t worry, though, because the amendment just passed. So apparently those spooks who are getting hired under stimulus (!) better be careful…

The IL Legislature has posted transcripts and tapes of the four conversations Fitz released to the Impeachment Committee. (Right now, the tape servers are overwhelmed, but the trasncripts give a glimpse of the sweet guys these are. Update: The Trib has working audio.)

Tape 1 Transcript 1

Tape 2 Transcript 2

Tape 3 Transcript 3

Tape 4 Transcript 4

They consist of four conversations: one on November 13, two from December 3 surrounding a visit Lon Monk paid to John Johnston at his track, and one from December 4. All conversations pertain to $100,000 that Monk, Blago, and his brother Rob seem to understand Johnston will pay, though they are concerned about the timing of the donation in relation to Blago’s signing a bill funneling a chunk of profits from casinos to track owners. 

The most damning part of this conversation actually comes from Monk, who relates telling Johnston,

And I said, "Look, there’s a concern that there’s gonna be some skittishness if your bill gets signed because of the timeliness of the commitment." He said, "Absolutely not. I mean do you want me to put some into the next quarter." I said. "No. That’s not my point. My point is this has all gotta be in now."

Suggesting that Lon was demanding Johnston’s contribution before Blago signed the bill (which he eventually did sign on December 15), because he otherwise might not get the money. 

This is all very thuggish. But particularly since Johnston replied, "I’ve always been there," it’s not at all clear that Blago wouldn’t have signed the bill without getting the money; indeed, it’s not clear whether he got his money or not. Even given the limited transcripts we saw in the complaint, this doesn’t appear to be the most damning of the conversations included in the complaint.

The other thing that’s interesting is the timing of this. The Monk visit to the track took place on December 3, just days before Fitzgerald arrested Blago (and just as Blago was apparently trying to orchestrate $1.5 million out of Jesse Jackson Jr.’s backers for the Senate seat). 

It’s not clear that Blago ever got any of his money that first weekend in December. But dang! He had a demand out for it from just about everyone in Illinois.

Thanks to MadDog for finding someone besides Gloria Borger discussing Bush’s recent letter reasserting his support for Rove to blow off Congress.

It’s unclear, from the reporting, whether the letter reasserts absolute immunity or asserts, for the first time, old-fashioned executive privilege regarding the information Conyers subpoenaed Rove to testify about. The WSJ speaks clearly in terms of "renewed assertion," suggesting Bush is making the same argument that he did earlier for Rove, that presidential aides can simply blow off Congressional subpoenas pertaining to their official duties. 

Robert Luskin, Mr. Rove’s attorney, said Mr. Rove recently received a renewed privilege assertion from President Bush, before the president left office. Mr. Luskin said he would consult with Mr. Obama’s White House counsel to determine the Obama administration’s stance.

But in an interview with the WaPo, Luskin clearly discusses executive privilege.

Robert D. Luskin, an attorney for Rove, said his client will "abide by a final decision from the courts." Luskin noted that Bush, in a letter to Rove, recently reasserted executive privilege.

"It’s generally agreed that former presidents retain executive privilege as to matters occurring during their term," Luskin said. "We’ll solicit the views of the new White House counsel and, if there is a disagreement, assume that the matter will be resolved among the courts, the president and the former president."

I wouldn’t make too much of that, though, because Luskin has very consistently tried to normalize the radical assertion of absolute immunity Rove relied on last year by talking in more general terms of privilege.

So thus far, we know Rove has a new piece of paper, but we don’t know what is on that paper.

And that could make all the difference between whether we get Rove testimony within hours of Holder taking over at DOJ, or whether Rove’s testimony gets litigated for some time going forward. Here’s why (for background read this post and this post). What follows is my NAL description–those of you with real credentials here, feel free to correct me where I screw this up.

Executive privilege is a constitutionally recognized privilege for the President to shield certain topics from the scrutiny of the other branches, the idea being that Courts or Congress should not be able to snoop into the Executive’s doings in matters that they have no constitutionally recognized business snooping in. There is some debate about what the Executive has to do to properly invoke executive privilege (is a letter good enough, for example), but there is no debate that executive privilege must be balanced with the needs of the other branches. Thus, if Courts need stuff from the President for a case, they can overcome an executive privilege claim. Or, if Congress needs stuff from the President so as to conduct legitimate oversight or legislate, they can overcome an executive privilege claim. When there’s a dispute about whether the Executive has properly balanced these claims, it goes to court and you fight about it.

Absolute immunity, though based in the principle that the President gets certain privileges from being bothered unnecessarily by the Courts or Congress, is something else entirely. It claims there is a privilege above and beyond all this balancing privilege (which is where the "absolute" comes from), one that says the President and his aides can simply refuse to show up before Congress when subpoenaed about matters pertaining to their official duties, regardless of whether Congress has an interest in those duties too. Absolute immunity has never been endorsed by a Court. In fact, it exists solely in the fantastic scribblings of three OLC opinions, originally a Rehnquist opinion written under Reagan, used again under Clinton, and most recently in a Stephen Bradbury opinion written to prevent Harriet Miers from showing up before HJC. To make things even more sketchy, Bradbury’s opinion contradicted Rehnquist’s on one key point–Rehnquist only imagined absolute immunity to extend to current aides (the logic being Congress had to be prevented from dragging them away from their service to the President), whereas Bradbury claimed absolute immunity extended to former aides. It is, in short, an audacious power grab that exists, thus far, only in the minds of more expansive OLC lawyers.

Which is why the question of whether Rove’s new letter says "absolute immunity" or "executive privilege" makes such a big difference.

Let’s assume, for the moment, that it says, "absolute immunity" but mentions nothing about garden variety executive privilege. I said no Court had recognized absolute immunity. But one Court has, in fact, weighed in on this absolute immunity garbage: John Bates laughed it out of his court room back in July.

Indeed, the aspect of this lawsuit that is unprecedented is the notion that Ms. Miers is absolutely immune from compelled congressional process. The Supreme Court has reserved absolute immunity for very narrow circumstances, involving the President’s personal exposure to suits for money damages based on his official conduct or concerning matters of national security or foreign affairs. The Executive’s current claim of absolute immunity from compelled congressional process for senior presidential aides is without any support in the case law. The fallacy of that claim was presaged in United States v. Nixon itself (id. at 706):

neither the doctrine of separation of powers, nor the need for confidentiality of high level communications, without more, can sustain an absolute, unqualified Presidential privilege of immunity from judicial [or congressional] process under all circumstances.

Now, Bush appealed Bates’ ruling and that case is ongoing (thanks to Conyers’ jujitsu with the rules this year).  Who knows what will happen, though, once Holder and Dawn Johnsen take over at DOJ? They might enthusiastly support Bush’s appeal, believing that this absolute immunity sounds nifty–though I doubt it, not in the expansive, Bradbury-form in which Bush is claiming it. Johnsen might, conservatively, say, "golly, Bradbury sure screwed up this notion of absolute immunity when he claimed it worked for former aides. That opinion can’t be let stand" and withdraw it (in which case the general idea, invented by Rehnquist, but not Bradbury’s audacious expansion of the idea, would remain). This would moot the HJC suit against Miers and (now) Rove, since they only ever "qualified" for absolute immunity under Bradbury’s crazy expansion to include former aides. Or, they could simply decide to drop the appeal, in which case Bates’ very narrow reading of absolute immunity would stand.

I may be wrong about this, but if they dropped the appeal, then Bates’ opinion would become a precedent, and Turdblossom would have zero grounds not to testify before Congress. And unless Bush has already or then invoked proper executive privilege, the Rove couldn’t even refuse to answer individual questions on those grounds. He could still invoke the 5th, mind you. But I’d expect him to come in and do one of his certified spin jobs, which have gotten him through sworn testimony in at least two prior cases (remember, he spoke to Fitz five times in the Plame investigation). 

And contrary to what you’re reading in just about every story on this, all of this has very little to do with Obama’s Executive Opinion on Presidential Records. Obviously, it’s different because the EO talks exclusively about records, and not testimony from human beings. But more importantly, the EO deals with a totally different kind of privilege (the garden variety kind) than Rove has relied on thus far in his subpoenas from HJC. The EO certainly suggests that Obama won’t endorse anything as extreme as Bradbury has put together, but it is a separate issue.

Which brings us to what happens if Bush has, for the first time, invoked garden variety executive privilege for Rove in this case, in addition to or instead of absolute immunity. That would set off two different sets of potential litigation. First, if Bush wanted, he might choose to fight the principle espoused in Obama’s EO and insist that former Presidents retain their own privilege, and an incumbent President–and his Attorney General–cannot override that. This might happen–but consider the irony if it does. After all, Bush’s first act as President was to write his own Executive Order to protect Poppy’s records giving Presidents control over their own records. If he wants Jeb or Jenna to–when they become President–reverse Obama’s most recent Executive Order via Executive Order, he’s going to have to accept the authority of an incumbent President’s Executive Order to override a former President’s Executive Order. Suffice it to say, if Dick Cheney is lurking anywhere in Bush’s vicinity, I don’t think this is going to happen.

The other litigation that could (and arguably rightly should) happen is a legal test of whether or not HJC has a good reason to need Rove’s testimony about the USA Purge and Siegelman. While this is a legitimate thing to litigate, I think Bush’s claim here will be thrown out eventually in any case. Not only is there an established basis for Congressional oversight, but one of the things Congress was (trying to) do in all of this was figure out whether their response to the PATRIOT Provision (which had, briefly, given the AG power to appoint interim US Attorneys) was sufficient. That is, Congress was engaged in legislating in an area reserved to them by the Constitution. So while Bush might be able to shield some details about why he fired who he did (but it’ll be harder in the case of Bud Cummins, since Bush had a PATRIOT provision appointment selected well before Cummins was fired, suggesting that the now defunct law drove that decision), Congress has pretty significant authority in this area.

All of which remains speculative and hypothetical until we see Rove’s letter and get an Obama DOJ into place.

Update: backed of "settled law" per scribe’s comments. 

While some of us were busy in DC meeting Roland Burris this week, there were three data points of note in the Blagojevich scandal.

Genson Gone

First and foremost, Blago defense attorney Edward Genson quit his criminal trial.

Powerhouse lawyer Edward Genson, who most recently helped singer R. Kelly beat a child-pornography rap, said he will be "formally off" Blagojevich’s criminal case "when the next court hearing comes along.

"I wish him luck, and I hope he wins," Genson said. 

Now this is different from Genson’s earlier refusal to defend Blago in his impeachment trial. In that action, Genson was joined by co-counsels Sam Adam Sr. and Jr. This decision, however, appears to stem from disagreements with the Adams.

Genson, sources said, had been frustrated over a lack of communication with other attorneys for Blagojevich. That dissension boiled over Thursday when lawyer Sam Adam Sr. and his son Sam Adam Jr. said they planned to file a lawsuit to block the governor’s upcoming Senate impeachment trial. Genson had said there was no chance a lawsuit would be filed.

The Genson announcement is interesting for a couple of other reasons. Recall that Sam Adam Jr. was the one who brokered the Burris appointment–even after Genson had announced that Blago would not appoint anyone for the seat. When asked by the legislative committee whether having one’s defense attorney negotiate the appointment of a senate seat described in the criminal complaint tainted that appointment, Genson insisted that Sam Adam Jr. was not a part of the defense team.

And here we are, just a few weeks later, and Adam is a part of the team and Genson is not.

But the split here may represent larger disagreements about the proper course for Blago. If Genson fought unsuccessfully to prevent Blago from appointing anyone, and if he is now implicitly accepting the legal basis for the impeachment (or at least the inadvisability of challenging its legality), it is possible his defense strategy more closely resembled what a sane person’s would be: for Blago resign without appointing to the seat before an impeachment and get the best deal from Fitz you can. And, as a reminder, Blago’s team (or at least his team prior to Genson quitting) readily agreed to a 90 day delay of Blago’s indictment. Not that his new, Genson-less team could change their mind or would. But the quick acceptance of the 90 day deadline might have signaled an attempt on Genson’s part to start negotiating with Fitz. Or, it might represent an effort to play to the jury pool for a while to discredit the case. Or both. Particularly given yesterday’s media blitz from Blago, I’m guessing it is now exclusively the latter.

Patti Fired

In other news, Blago’s wife Patricia was fired from her job as a fundraiser for a homeless charity.

Illinois First Lady Patti Blagojevich is out of a job.

Blagojevich — who started Sept. 1 as development director of the 100-year-old Chicago Christian Industrial League — was quietly dismissed from her $100,000-a-year job on Tuesday.

The reason for her firing is almost certainly because she wasn’t doing what they needed her to do, even before her husband got arrested.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported Jan. 8 that the charity raises about $1 million a year but needed to increase that to $2 million.

[snip]

The Sun-Times reported that, in each of Patti Blagojevich’s first three months on the job, the Christian Industrial League brought in $10,000 to $15,000 a month — the same as it did before she started, according to president William Good.

But it coincidentally breaks a tie between Blago and Burris–Burris’ lobbying partner, Fred Lebed, is on the board of the charity. And it also breaks a tie between Blago and Richard Daley–the charity is broke because it moved out of its older location in Greek Town to make way for a condo development built by a Daley crony.

It was supposed to be a quintessential City Hall deal.

Help the homeless. Remove an eyesore from a booming neighborhood.

And help Mayor Daley’s pal build a multi-million-dollar condo development.

The deal cost Chicago taxpayers at least $13.5 million. But it hasn’t worked out as planned:

One of the city’s oldest homeless shelters left its crumbling home in Greektown for a new $25 million, state-of-the-art building. But the deal left the homeless shelter on the verge of bankruptcy, desperate to raise millions of dollars to continue its 100-year-old mission.

So the charity — the Chicago Christian Industrial League — hired someone to raise money: Illinois First Lady Patti Blagojevich. But that hasn’t worked out, either. She’s raised little, if any, money since she started four months ago. And her job has gotten tougher since her husband’s arrest on corruption charges last month.

And the mayor’s friend? Developer Michael Marchese and his partners, including indicted businessman William F. Cellini, built their luxury condo development where the homeless shelter once stood. But the recession has hurt them. They’ve sold just half the 212 condos.

Incidentally, seemingly Daley agrees with Genson, or at least seems to think Blago is "cuckoo" for some of his claims about the impeachment. 

Daley turned into an amateur psychiatrist Friday when asked about the governor’s claim that the state Senate’s upcoming impeachment trial is a plot to get Blagojevich out of the way to pave the wave for a massive tax increase.

Finally, worthy of note, the charity has to pay off a loan made available via the same Illinois Finance Authority Blago was going to use to put through the Wrigley Park deal.

Its big hurdle: repaying a $10.8 million loan it obtained from ShoreBank with help from the Illinois Finance Authority — a state agency created by Blagojevich’s husband, the governor — to build the $25 million homeless shelter.

Now, as I said, there’s no reason to believe that Patti got fired for any other reason than she wasn’t raising enough money–and her ability to do so only got more and more limited when her husband was arrested. But it is worth noting how her firing breaks on link between a lot of the players in this story.

Four Tapes

And, finally, the judge in this case has authorized the release of the four tapes pertaining to the horse-racing deal, over the procedural objections of Blago and Lon Monk; Blago’s brother Rob initially objected verbally but ultimately did not ask the Court to suppress the tapes, and John Johnston, the track owner in question, appears not to have filed a motion at all. Both Monk, who has his own ties to Burris, and Rob Blago reserved their right to object if they are indicted in this case.

Given those positions, it seems like we’re going to hear some interesting conversations between Blago and Monk–while I expect we’ll hear Johnston pretty refuse their extortion attempts. 

Much of this is Greek to me–and it’ll take a while to upload it all–but I’m sure MadDog and WO can make some sense out of what the Bush Administration says is proof they’re complying with requirements to save their emails. Here’s the document explaining what this inventory is.

Copy Set Inventory

Damaged Tapes

EDM

Geneva 1

First off, President Obama has already drafted the order to close Gitmo, as he had promised. The AOL News is reporting:

The Obama administration is circulating a draft executive order that calls for closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay within a year.

The draft order also would declare a halt to all trials currently under way at the facility, where roughly 800 detainees in the war on terror are held.
…
Word of the draft order comes on the same day that a judge granted Obama’s request to suspend the war crimes trial of a young Canadian in what may be the beginning of the end for the Bush administration’s system of trying alleged terrorists.
The judge, Army Col. Patrick Parrish, issued a written order for the 120-day continuance, without even holding a hearing on the question. Another judge was expected to rule later Wednesday on a similar motion to suspend the trial of five men charged in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Secondly, as I explained in the last post, President Obama has moved to suspend tribunal proceedings at Gitmo, and the military panels have started entering the orders. As further evidence of the determination to immediately address, and bring a new sense of enlightened justice to, the detainees in Guantanamo, the Administration has imposed analogous continuance motions in pending Habeas cases in United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

Specifically via a motion in Bostan v. Bush et. al, (DC Dist. 05-CV-00883), and a similar motion filed in Mohammon v. Bush et. al (DC Dist. 05-CV-02386), the Administration has moved to continue two hearings scheduled for this afternoon in respective Habeas Corpus cases.

The gist of the motions in both cases can be gleaned from the operative language in the Bostan case motion:

1. The Court previously scheduled a hearing on petitioners’ motions for expedited
judgment on the record for Wednesday, January 21, 2009, at 2:00 p.m. See, e.g., Bostan v.
Obama, No. 05-cv-0883, Order (Jan. 12, 2009, dkt. no. 109). The argument will involve issues
such as the appropriate nature and scope of the Executive’s detention authority during wartime.

2. Earlier today, Barack Obama assumed the office of the President of the United
States.

3. The Government is now assessing how it will proceed in the above-captioned
Guantanamo Bay detainee habeas corpus cases. Time is needed to make that assessment and
determination. Accordingly, the Government requests a short, two-week continuance of
tomorrow’s hearing to permit the assessment to move forward without an intervening argument
on the first full day of the new Administration as to the Government’s legal and other merits-
related positions in these cases.

4. Counsel for respondents has conferred with counsel for petitioners in these cases,
who do not oppose a continuance of limited duration.

5. Respondents, therefore, request a continuance of two weeks, subject to the
Court’s schedule and without prejudice to any request for additional relief that may be
subsequently sought.

Our new President Obama is moving at light speed to set things on a more rational and even keel on the detainee cases. This is change i believe in. For once. It may not turn out perfect, but it sure is a breath of fresh air from where we were a mere 24 hours ago. Booyah!

Oh, and one other thing, if you are thinking we might need to find a place for some of these innocuous detainees we have been wrongfully holding all these years based on no evidence and manufactured evidence, often through torture, Switzerland is offering to help. Via Reuters:

Switzerland is ready to consider taking in detainees from the U.S. prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba if that helps to shut it down, the Swiss government said on Wednesday.

"For Switzerland, the detention of people in Guantanamo is in conflict with international law. Switzerland is ready to consider how it can contribute to the solution of the Guantanamo problem," the government said in a statement.

Switzerland said it welcomed the expressed intention of U.S. President Barack Obama to close the prison and would investigate security and legal implications of possibly taking in detainees.

Again, breath in the justice. This is what a real President can accomplish in a mere 24 hours. Makes you wonder what the, ahem, previous administration was doing for seven plus years. Once again, Booyah!

h/t Amnesty International

President Obama has ordered an abrupt halt in the Gitmo Show Trials. From Peter Finn at the Washington Post:

In one of its first actions, the Obama administration instructed military prosecutors late Tuesday to seek a 120-day suspension of legal proceedings involving detainees at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — a clear break with the approach of the outgoing Bush administration.

The instruction came in a motion filed late Tuesday with a military court handling the case of five defendants accused of organizing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. The motion called for "a continuance of the proceedings" until May 20 so that "the newly inaugurated president and his administration [can] review the military commissions process, generally, and the cases currently pending before military commissions, specifically."

In the legal field, this is known as an act taken "in the interests of justice". An incredibly welcome move by an administration literally only hours into its initial term. You have to hand it to President Obama, Guantanamo is a sensitive topic, especially with the neocon screechers, yet he proved the courage of his convictions and acted immediately upon being sworn in.

It appears that the action was foreshadowed at Camp Delta, as Carol Rosenberg of McClatchy already had reported, even before Obama was sworn in, that the trial of Omar Khadr had been put on hold:

A military judge on Tuesday postponed next week’s trial of Canadian captive Omar Khadr, easing pressure on the new occupant of the White House to make a swift decision on military commissions.
…
Until Tuesday, the Khadr case was shaping up to be an early test of Obama’s pledge to close the prison camps.
…
But Parrish’s indefinite delay — he set no new trial date — also derailed Pentagon plans to airlift a jury panel of U.S. military officers to this remote base this weekend.

The stay of all proceedings at Guantanamo for at least 120 days is, as stated, wonderful news; however, the better question is what it portends for the future disposition of the legal cases of the detainees including Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his co-defendants accused of organizing the 9/11 attacks.

Notably, the defense teams do not appear quite as thrilled as one might would expect by the move, citing fears that the government is simply trying to clean up the tribunal process minimally in order to continue on. Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, who represents Khadr, said:

“It appears to be an ongoing last ditch effort to save this disgusting mess,” he told The Associated Press.
….
Kuebler says the defense wants to have all pending charges formally withdrawn by the Department of Defense and says they could be refiled again under the military courts martial system or in civilian courts. The military has charges pending against 21 men.

“That’s the only way you effectively freeze the system,” he said.

Ultimately, of course, Kuebler is correct. But I think President Obama is headed in the right direction here, and immediately entered an interim order to buy the necessary time and headroom to sort through the mess and provide for the correct adjudication process, exactly as Kuebler seeks.

Less than 24 hours in, and already justice feels cleaner, less politicized and more equitable. Booyah!

[ERRATA UPDATE: As skdadl points out in comments, I may not have been clear enough that while Khadr’s lawyer William Kuebler objects to the delay that will be occasioned by the motion Obama caused the prosecution to lodge, Kuebler’s objection was technically made in response to a directly analogous delay specific to Khadr’s case that was at issue hours before Obama’s general action.]

Inauguration Day was not kind to the Bush/Cheney cabal (nor should it have been for that matter). The sheer enormity of the crowds on the Capitol Mall and in the streets of Washington DC was a powerful message on the joy of the new and the disdain of the old.

From the subtle pricks of President Obama’s words proclaiming an "end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics", to the massive crowd on the mall chanting and singing "Na-na-na-nah, hey, hey, goodbye" as Bush fled tail between his legs on Marine Executive One, it was really a fairly overt slap in the face to the banished cabal.

But, as Steve Benen points out, it’s pretty devastating when even you own men are blistering your backsides like former Bush Secretary of State Colin Powell did with Bush/Cheney today. From an Interview with CBS anchor Katie Couric:

…Barack Obama’s election to the nation’s highest office a "reaffirmation of American principles values that will help us overcome some of the difficulties of recent years with respect to the attitude of the world toward us."

Speaking with CBS News Managing Editor Katie Couric, Powell said America’s prestige abroad has improved since Mr. Obama won a decisive victory over Senator John McCain.

"I think it has really, really been an remarkable event in terms of getting everybody to stand back and say, look at what we have seen here in America," Powell said. "The America we remember is back again."

Ouch. That’s a cold shot baby.

And, guess what, the cold shots were fired across the bow of Republicans in general today. From McClatchy:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and fellow Republicans received a reception Tuesday that rivaled the frigid winter weather, as hundreds of attendees greeted GOP lawmakers with boos, chants, hisses and — in some cases — stony silence.

The chilly display toward McConnell, who was flanked by other high-ranking Republicans as he took the stage at President Barack Obama’s swearing-in ceremony, was a momentary break in the otherwise jubilant spirit of the day.

Well, what do you know, the people have it all figured out as to the degraded state of America and who is to blame; I wonder when the big media sources, their blathering heads and pin head pundits will catch on?

photo by michael foley

Today is the day. Now is the time. Change is in the air. Marcy is on the ground, we will update as she checks in. Consider this an open thread for anything you have to say. Spill your thoughts, emotions and hopes. Post any breaking news you see that I, and all of of us, might need to know.

I can just feel the difference already, can you?

Let’s get it on people!

UPDATE:

Loo Hoo reminded me of Marie Roget. Although I knew her only from the blog, I loved Marie Roget. I know many others did as well. She was a self proclaimed "fire breathing progressive". She lived to see the day today, and tragically, was not able to complete the journey with us. Marie lives on through us today, and this video was one of her favorites. It is wonderful.