Justice Clarence Thomas sat through 68 hours of oral arguments in the Supreme Court‘s current term without uttering a word.
In nearly 16 years on the court, Thomas typically has asked questions a couple of times a term.
But the last time Thomas asked a question in court was Feb. 22, 2006….
“It is better to be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.” — Confucius
WASHINGTON — Weeks before the 2006 midterm election, then-New Mexico U.S. Atty. David C. Iglesias was invited to dine with a well-connected Republican lawyer in Albuquerque who had been after him for years to prosecute allegations of voter fraud.
“I had a bad feeling about that lunch,” said Iglesias, describing his meeting at Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen with Patrick Rogers, a lawyer who provided occasional counsel to the New Mexico Republican Party.
When the voter fraud issue came up, Iglesias said, he explained to Rogers that in reviewing more than 100 complaints, he hadn’t found any solid enough to justify criminal charges.
Iglesias recounted the episode in an interview with The Times after meeting behind closed doors with federal investigators this week to provide new details of the events leading up to his termination as U.S. attorney. He said he now believed he was targeted because he was seen as slow to bring criminal charges that would have helped GOP election prospects.
The Comey testimony — coupled with the astonishing arrogance it takes simply to ignore congressional subpoenas as though they were something someone slipped under your windshield wiper — pushed me all the way over the edge. The president spied on Americans and thereby broke the law. Repeatedly. The president was told he was breaking the law by members of the Department of Justice who had no reason to lie to him on the subject. (John Ashcroft noticed, for pity’s sake.) The president knew he was breaking the law so he sent the White House chief of staff and the White House counsel out to behave like Mr. Wolf in Pulp Fiction. (Sorry, Andy Card. I liked you when we were both young and ambitious in Massachusetts, but it’s off to Allenwood for a spell until you come clean.) The clean-up crew failed, and he kept breaking the law anyway. Repeatedly. They spied on their political opponents. They used their steroidal view of executive powers to justify it in their tiny little minds. That’s what they’re hiding. I have no doubts any more that the administration has committed more crimes than we know. And every day they remain unpunished — hell, every day they remain in office — we become more deeply complicit in their offenses. It’s time to govern ourselves again.
Frank Bowman, writing at Slate Magazine, tells how and why:
But if Congress wants more, it need look no further than the firing of David Iglesias, former U.S. attorney in New Mexico. The evidence uncovered in Gonzales’ Senate and House testimony demonstrates that he fired Iglesias not because of a policy disagreement or a management failure, but because Iglesias would not misuse the power of the Department of Justice in the service of the Republican Party. To fire a U.S. attorney for refusing to abuse his power is the essence of an impeachable offense.
James Comey’s testimony amounts to a statement that — even according to the administration’s own loyal DOJ officials — the President ordered still-unknown spying on Americans, and engaged in that spying for a full two-and-a-half-years, that was so blatantly and shockingly illegal that they were all ready to resign over it. And the President’s Attorney General then lied to ensure that this episode remain concealed. Mere one-day calls for a Congressional investigation are woefully inadequate here.
There is clear and definitive evidence of deliberate lawbreaking. In addition to Congressional investigations, there is simply no excuse for anything other than the immediate commencement of a criminal investigation by a Special Prosecutor. And the administration ought to be pressured every day to account for what it did here. This is not a one-day or one-week fleeting scandal. These revelations amount to the most transparent and deliberate crimes — felonies — by our top government officials, not with regard to private and personal matters but with regard to how our government spies on us.
ARIVACA, Arizona Reuters – A pilot project to place a high-tech network of surveillance towers along a stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border has met boisterous opposition in this Arizona town, where some residents call it “Big Brother.”
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency is installing a network of nine towers with ground radar and night vision cameras to monitor a 28-mile (45-km) stretch of border near Arivaca, southwest of Tucson.
It is the first trial for the communications and technology arm of the government’s Secure Border Initiative announced in 2005. Dubbed “SBInet,” authorities say it will be extended across some 6,000 miles of the Mexican and Canadian borders in segments in coming years.
Residents of this remote, high desert ranching town of 1,500 people have packed four public meetings in recent weeks to oppose the project, which is due to go live at the end of next month.
“It’s like Big Brother. It will place the whole town under surveillance,” community activist C Hues told Reuters as residents gathered for a meeting late on Tuesday with CBP and Border Patrol representatives.
“The government will be able to watch and record every movement we make, 24 hours a day. It will be like living in a prison yard,” she added.
Debby, official youngest sister of NewMexiKen, lived in Arivaca for a number of years. It’s a community not unlike Madrid, New Mexico — a place where there’s no traffic signal because they don’t like telling people what to do.
NewMexiKen’s take is that the technology is proposed ostensibly to keep people out, but that it could, just as easily, some day be used to keep us in.
“The country they want to run is fictional.”
Both New Mexico senators — Domenici, of course, and Bingaman, sadly — voted against the amendment to end money for combat operations in Iraq after March 2008.
Senators Clinton, Obama and Biden voted for the amendment.
“The overarching point here, as always, is that it is simply crystal clear that the President consciously and deliberately violated the law and committed multiple felonies by eavesdropping on Americans in violation of the law.”
Glenn Greenwald commenting on the real story behing Former Deputy Attorney General Comey’s testimony yesterday.
Even the tepid Washington Post has this:
“James B. Comey, the straight-as-an-arrow former No. 2 official at the Justice Department, yesterday offered the Senate Judiciary Committee an account of Bush administration lawlessness so shocking it would have been unbelievable coming from a less reputable source.”
Lawlessness so shocking.
It’s way beyond Nixon, folks. Way beyond.
Worst president ever.
[YouTube has Comey’s testimony — about 20 minutes.]
The Daily Show. Worth viewing for Chairman Conyers’s reaction alone.
From the testimony today of Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey about events in 2004:
[COMEY:] Told my security detail that I needed to get to George Washington Hospital immediately. They turned on the emergency equipment and drove very quickly to the hospital.
I got out of the car and ran up — literally ran up the stairs with my security detail.
SCHUMER: What was your concern? You were in obviously a huge hurry.
COMEY: I was concerned that, given how ill I knew the attorney general was, that there might be an effort to ask him to overrule me when he was in no condition to that.
SCHUMER: Right, OK.
COMEY: I was worried about him, frankly.
And so I raced to the hospital room, entered. And Mrs. Ashcroft was standing by the hospital bed, Mr. Ashcroft was lying down in the bed, the room was darkened. And I immediately began speaking to him, trying to orient him as to time and place, and try to see if he could focus on what was happening, and it wasn’t clear to me that he could. He seemed pretty bad off.
. . .I sat down in an armchair by the head of the attorney general’s bed. The two other Justice Department people stood behind me. And Mrs. Ashcroft stood by the bed holding her husband’s arm. And we waited.
And it was only a matter of minutes that the door opened and in walked Mr. Gonzales, carrying an envelope, and Mr. Card. They came over and stood by the bed. They greeted the attorney general very briefly. And then Mr. Gonzales began to discuss why they were there — to seek his approval for a matter, and explained what the matter was — which I will not do.
And Attorney General Ashcroft then stunned me. He lifted his head off the pillow and in very strong terms expressed his view of the matter, rich in both substance and fact, which stunned me — drawn from the hour-long meeting we’d had a week earlier — and in very strong terms expressed himself, and then laid his head back down on the pillow, seemed spent, and said to them, But that doesn’t matter, because I’m not the attorney general.
SCHUMER: But he expressed his reluctance or he would not sign the statement that they — give the authorization that they had asked, is that right?
COMEY: Yes.
And as he laid back down, he said, But that doesn’t matter, because I’m not the attorney general. There is the attorney general, and he pointed to me, and I was just to his left.
The two men did not acknowledge me. They turned and walked from the room. And within just a few moments after that, Director Mueller arrived. I told him quickly what had happened. He had a brief — a memorable brief exchange with the attorney general and then we went outside in the hallway.
…COMEY: I was concerned that this was an effort to do an end-run around the acting attorney general and to get a very sick man to approve something that the Department of Justice had already concluded — the department as a whole — was unable to be certified as to its legality. And that was my concern.
According to The Lede:
Mr. Comey said that several officials, including himself, Mr. Ashcroft, the F.B.I. director and other senior staffers were willing to resign [rather than approve the program].
President Bush relented, according to Mr. Comey, asking the Justice Department to formulate a wiretapping program that they could approve.
But Gonzales’ behavior is simply embarrassing to us as a nation. He must be removed from office.
Do you think there should be an upper age limit on senators, representatives and the president just as there is a minimum age requirement in the Constitution?
If so, what should it be?
Is there anyone who thinks Senator Domenici at 75 (today) and John McCain at 70 don’t show some reduced capacity already? Reagan was nearly 78 when he left office; surely (without regard to his policies) his capacity was diminished. Don’t even get me started on Ted Stevens (83) or Robert Byrd (89). And it isn’t the same thing that a Senator has a distinguished staff. We don’t elect the staff.
Forced retirement at age 65 or 70 was common in American society until recently. Age discrimination cases got these limits removed in many instances (though law enforcement officers and pilots are still limited). Did the pendulum swing too far?
The Sanguine Sex by Caitlin Flanagan, as good a piece as I’ve ever read about abortion.
Much of the intense dissatisfaction I have with the American media arises out of the fact that these extraordinary developments — the dominant political movement advocating lawlessness and tyranny out in the open in The Wall St. Journal and Weekly Standard — receive almost no attention.
While the Bush administration expressly adopts these theories to detain American citizens without charges, engage in domestic surveillance on Americans in clear violation of the laws we enacted to limit that power, and asserts a general right to disregard laws which interfere with the President’s will, our media still barely discusses those issues.
They write about John Edwards’ haircut and John Kerry’s windsurfing and which political consultant has whispered what gossip to them about some painfully petty matter, but the extraordinary fact that our nation’s dominant political movement is openly advocating the most radical theories of tyranny — that “liberties are dangerous and law does not apply” — is barely noticed by our most prestigious and self-loving national journalists. Merely to take note of that failure is to demonstrate how profoundly dysfunctional our political press is.
Today Greenwald has published an even stronger take on “our broken political press.” Yesterdays column quoted above was about an essay in the Wall Street Journal and the “right’s explicit and candid rejection of ‘the rule of law’.”
According to a report in the Deseret News, there is a bill in Congress to create a U.S. representative for the District of Columbia. But, because the likely winner of that seat would be a Democrat, the bill adds an at-large district in Utah, seen likely to be won by a Republican.
The fight for Utah’s potential fourth seat in Congress moves to the Senate today as Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., introduce the bill that creates the new seat and grants voting rights for the District of Columbia.
The bill passed the House last month . . . .
My Constitutional history is a little vague on this, but do you suppose this is what the founders had it mind?
U.S. combat deaths before “Mission Accomplished” — 139
U.S. combat deaths after “Mission Accomplished” — 3,212
Jon Stewart on Bill Moyers Journal Friday evening.
JON STEWART: For instance, Alberto Gonzales, and you’ve been watching the hearings. He is either a perjurer, or a low-functioning pinhead. And he allowed himself to be portrayed in those hearings as a low-functioning pinhead, rather than give the Congressional Committee charged with oversight, any information as to his decision-making process at the Department of Justice.
And I used to think, “They’re doing this based on a certain arrogance.” And now, I realize that it’s because they believe there is one accountability moment for a President, and that is the four year election. And once you get that election, you’re done.
BILL MOYERS: They’re right, are they not?
JON STEWART: They’re completely not right. The election moment is merely the American public saying, “We’d rather you be President than that guy.” That’s it. The next four years, though, you still have to abide by the oversight process that is there to prevent this kind of bizarre sort of cult-like atmosphere that falls along. I mean, I accept that kind of veil of secrecy around Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, but I don’t accept that around our government.
. . .
JON STEWART: And for the President to come out after that and say, “Everything I saw there gave me more confidence in him,” that solidified my notion that, “Oh, it’s because what he expected of Gonzalez was” it’s sort of like, do you remember in GOODFELLAS? When Henry Hill got arrested for the first time and Robert DeNiro met him at the courthouse and Henry Hill was really upset, ’cause he thought Robert DeNiro would be really mad at him. And DeNiro comes up to him and he gives him a $100 and he goes, “You got pinched. We all get pinched, but you did it right, you didn’t say nothing.”
Video excerpt that includes the segment above.
As the Bush administration’s so-called “AIDS czar,” Tobias was criticized for emphasizing faithfulness and abstinence over condom use to prevent the spread of AIDS.
On Thursday, Tobias told ABC News he had several times called the “Pamela Martin and Associates” escort service “to have gals come over to the condo to give me a massage.” Tobias, who is married, said there had been “no sex,” and that recently he had been using another service “with Central Americans” to provide massages.
ABC News: The Blotter [excerpts out of sequence]
This guy was an ambassador, a deputy secretary of state, and director of all U.S. foreign aid. What a jackass, though at least he had the class to resign, unlike some others.
Update: Timothy Noah has a little bit more.
Guardian Unlimited has a column by Naomi Wolf that notes that from “Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And…George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all.”
Slate Magazine has a column by Jack Shafer that takes a less worshipful view of David Halberstam. NewMexiKen tends to agree that Halberstam desperately needed a good editor. I began many of his books over the decades and believe I only finished one of them. Halberstam was the James Michener of non-fiction.
Which is not to detract from Halberstam’s willingness to dig deep and tell truth to power, something few if any journalists do today. See Glenn Greenwald’s tribute.
At Swampland Joe Klein translates Darth Cheney.
Every nation has violent loners, and they tend to have remarkably similar profiles from one country and culture to the next. And every country has known the horror of having a lunatic get his hands on a gun and kill innocent people. But on a recent list of the fourteen worst mass shootings in Western democracies since the nineteen-sixties the United States claimed seven, and, just as important, no other country on the list has had a repeat performance as severe as the first.
Adam Gopnik on Virginia Tech and gun control. Read it.
On The Daily Show Jon Stewart and John Oliver explain the Bush Administration. Funny, but accurate.
There’s a 30-second ad first.
Worth waiting through Tony Snow’s introduction.
NewMexiKen means absolutely no disrespect to the victims at Virginia Tech and their families — I think I have made quite clear my strong sense of loss over this tragedy at a place I know.
But if journalists, essayists and bloggers are going to continue to call this the worst shooting in American history, then I am going to have to suggest that they read a little about Wounded Knee, 1890, when as many as 350 Lakota men, women and children were killed.
American Horse: There was a woman with an infant in her arms who was killed as she almost touched the flag of truce, and the women and children of course were strewn all along the circular village until they were dispatched. Right near the flag of truce a mother was shot down with her infant; the child not knowing that its mother was dead was still nursing, and that especially was a very sad sight. The women as they were fleeing with their babes were killed together, shot right through, and the women who were very heavy with child were also killed. All the Indians fled in these three directions, and after most all of them had been killed a cry was made that all those who were not killed wounded should come forth and they would be safe. Little boys who were not wounded came out of their places of refuge, and as soon as they came in sight a number of soldiers surrounded them and butchered them there.
The Daily Show reports on the Gonzales testimony (there may be a brief ad first).