Joe Lieberman, chairman of the senate homeland security committee, may be delighted with Amazon for cutting off access for Wikileaks, but its customers are not. There are growing calls for a boycott of the company — particularly as a review of the Wikileaks material has disclosed important information such as the efforts of the Obama Administration to block investigations into torture.
Continue reading “Amazon Facing Growing Calls For Boycott After Cutting Off Wikileaks”
Category: Congress
It is that time of the year for our annual blawgletting — the ABA top blog competition. We have once again been selected as one of the top 100 legal blogs (of over 3000) and nominated for the IMHO (opinion) category and it is time to release our minions upon the field of blog battle. Vote here to defend our way of life and the future of the planet.
While the world is reacting to leaks indicating that Saudi Arabia is funding Al Qaeda and Clinton ordered diplomats to engage in espionage, Sens. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) have called for the prosecution of those responsible for the leaks.
Continue reading “McCaskill and Graham Call For Prosecution in Wikileaks Case”
Boris Johnson, the conservative Mayor of London, has declared George Bush a persona non grata — asking him to stay out of London with his new torture-touting memoir. The question is whether such international shunning will become actual effort to prosecute Bush, who just confessed to war crimes. I discussed the controversy on Countdown.
In this video, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) suggests that he would like to see both FOX and MSNBC taken off the air so that people felt better about Congress and their government. This is coming from a Senator who led the effort to kill dozens of public interest lawsuits suing telecommunication companies for violations of their privacy and supported the effort to bar any investigation into the torture program. The problem, it seems, is the new coverage.
The trial of alleged Al Qaeda accomplice Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani has resulted in an acquittal on all major terrorism charges in New York. Ghailani was charged with crimes related to the 1998 suicide bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans. I will be discussing the verdict tonight on Hardball.
As expected, outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has prevailed in retaining the top leadership position — a surprise move after many, if not most, pundits expected she would resign after the devastating loss of at least 61 seats and record low popularity ratings for both herself and Congress.
Minnesota Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann has a knack for saying just the right thing. She famously educated Chris Matthews on the merits of guilt by association saying “…usually we associate with people who have similar ideas to us, and it seems that it calls into questions what Barack Obama’s true beliefs, and values, and thoughts are…I am very concerned that he [Barack Obama] may have anti-American views.” Now, Bachman is inviting conservative commentator Sean Hannity and Christian evangelical author David Barton to teach lawmakers the nuances of Constitutional law. Bachmann originally considered Supreme Court Justices Scalia or Clarence Thomas but neither could match Hannity’s honorary degree (he dropped out of two colleges) from the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, or Barton’s religious education BA degree from Oral Roberts Univerity.
Continue reading “Hannity & Barton on Con Law: Required Reading at Tea Parties”
Another report (this time from the Inspector General’s Office of the Interior Department) has been published detailing the Obama Administration’s editing of a scientific report to downplay the damage caused by the BP oil spill. The new information also reaffirms the clearly misleading statements made by Obama’s energy adviser, Carol Browner — an issue previously discussed on this blog.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi was criticized on this blog and other sites for her failure to end various corrupt practices such as pork and congressional travel. Indeed, Pelosi added jets to ferry members abroad on junkets and used a personal governmental jet to go back and forward to California. Now, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) has announced that he will take commercial flights. Regardless of whether you opposed the GOP in the elections, it is important to give credit to such reforms. Boehner is to be commended for this symbolic change.
Continue reading “Boehner Promises To Fly Commercial As Speaker”
President Barack Obama continued his effort to preserve the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in a filing before the United States Supreme Court. A trial court had imposed an injunction to halt the discriminatory policy. The Administration could have allowed the injunction to stand pending an appeal but succeeded in getting the order reversed. Now, it is defending its intention to continue to discriminate against gays and lesbians in an appeal to the Supreme Court.
Continue reading “Obama Fights To Preserve Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Before Supreme Court”
We have filed our post-trial brief in the Senate Impeachment Trial of United States District Court Judge Thomas Porteous. The brief, linked below, presents the factual record on each of the articles of impeachment after the conclusion of the Senate trial. We are expecting final arguments to be heard in December before all 100 Senators on the Senate floor.
Continue reading “The Porteous Impeachment: Post-Trial Brief”
Step into my time machine. I’ll take you back to March of 2009 when Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann of Minnesota said the following:
“I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us, having a revolution every now and then is a good thing, and the people — we the people — are going to have to fight back hard if we’re not going to lose our country. And I think this has the potential of changing the dynamic of freedom forever in the United States.”
The Tea Party made lots of noise and woke the neighbors, but precious few in-roads into the political system. True, Marc Rubio and Rand Paul were big winners but each benefited from some peculiar circumstances. Rubio won in a three way race punctuated by former spurned Repub Governor Crist’s independent bid along with a Democratic challenger who won just enough to split the vote of the rational and give Rubio the nod. Rand benefited from the strong conservative sentiment in Kentucky and what Mark Twain best described this way: “When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Kentucky because it’s always twenty years behind the times.”
Other Party guests did not fair so well — even in a time of popular disenchantment with government and a bad economy. Unpopular Senator Harry Reid survived a bid from Sharon Angle of “there is no separation of church and state” fame. First Amendment scholar, former Wiccan, and Angle devotee, Christine O’Donnell, sank against Chris Coons by 18 points. Even in far off Alaska, Palin-approved candidate Joe Miller looks to be a loser in a three way race to a write-in candidate and incumbent, Lisa Murkowski.
How did that poster child for The Movement and likely 2012 Presidential candidate, Sarah Plain, do with her endorsements? Well, that sprinkling of Alaskan tea resulted in 33 loses and 27 wins. Not exactly the “Golden Touch.” All in all, the Tea Party can claim some measure of victory, but the win is less than satisfying. After the Party’s hangover, the realization will set in that “winning” requires “fixing” else-wise the fickle electorate will turn you out like yesterday’s newspaper. And that, my revolutionary friends, is the hardest tea to swallow of all.
–Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
The Obama Administration has succeeded in securing a stay of a federal court’s injunction on the don’t ask, don’t tell policy. The Ninth Circuit agreed to the demand of the Administration that it should be able to continue to bar openly gay military personnel and continue to discharge those who reveal that they are gay. The policy is now again active pending review of the lower court decision.