You probably won’t hear me say this much, but kudos to Sen. Chuck Grassley for voting to hold Karl Rove and Josh Bolten in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with subpoenas investigating the fired US Attorneys probe. It proves that every once in a while Grassley can be a respectable Republican.
Archive for the 'Bush Administration' Category
Iowans, I need your help.
This morning, the US Senate rejected the Dodd-Leahy-Specter Amendment which would have restored habeas corpus by a vote of 56-43, four votes short of the 60 votes needed to overcome a potential Republican filibuster.
You can see the full roll call of the vote here.
I need you to call into Sen. Grassley’s state and local offices expressing your disgust and demanding an answer for Grassley’s vote.
Washington, DC: 202.224.3744
Cedar Rapids: (319) 363-6832
Council Bluffs: (712) 322-7103
Davenport: (563) 322-4331
Des Moines: (515) 288-1145
Sioux City: (712) 233-1860
Waterloo: (319) 232-6657
If you get some answers, let me know.
Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut gave what many consider to be a barn-burner of a speech on Sunday at the 30th Annual Harkin Steak Fry, and from my seat close to the stage on the press riser I’d have to agree. One of the most riveting moments was when Sen. Dodd called for the restoration of habeas corpus. You can watch the video of his speech at the bottom of this post, but we’ve got one more pressing issue right now.
We’ve got to restore habeas corpus, and Sen. Dodd and Sen. Patrick Leahy are taking the charge at Restore-Habeas.org. Matt Browner-Hamlin has got the lowdown on the effort here at Bleeding Heartland, with video from Sen. Dodd.
They’ve got the contact information for all 100 US Senators. We need 60 votes to overcome the GOP filibuster and right now we’re at 51 votes, so we need your help.
If you’re an Iowan, make sure to put the pressure on Sen. Chuck Grassley. He’s indicated he’s a ‘Maybe’ vote but that isn’t good enough. Iowans need to make sure that one of our most fundamental and core democratic principles in this nation is restored.
Contact Grassley at (202) 224-3744 and fill out this form to report his answer. Then come back here or to BH and tell us what Grassley (or his office) told you.
And here’s the video I promised:
Tracy Russo posted over at Bleeding Heartland last night with the video of Sen. John Edwards two-minute response to President Bush’s address to the nation last night. Go watch the video — it is the kind of thing all of the candidates should be doing, if they can afford it. Buying two minutes of straight advertising time during The Countdown with Keith Olbermann can’t be cheap (especially as Olbermann’s ratings keep going up and up).
As for Bush’s speech itself, I couldn’t stand to watch it and didn’t want to watch it. I had a member of the traditional media call me last night to ask if I knew of any groups that would be watching the speech and if they would be worthwhile to talk to afterward for reaction. I told them “hell no” and evidently that was the reaction they’d been getting most of the night.
Maybe the better story for them would’ve been the fact that no one gave a shit about last night’s rehash of the same failed policy over and over again, oh, and with plenty of lies.
President Bush hit a new low in his approval rating in the latest Newsweek poll — 26%!
Somebody get that guy a pony.
Oh, and the Iraq war situation and its handling only gets a 23% approval, with a 73% disapproval rating. I wonder just how much it is going to hurt to be a Republican candidate for the presidency over the next several months.
Dar Danielson of Radio Iowa brings the disappointing news that Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin is likely going to vote to confirm Jim Nussle as the next Director of the Office and Management and Budget.
I can clearly see how playing politics with his confirmation probably isn’t the best political strategy, but I was really hoping we’d at least some Democrats oppose his nomination simply because of how poorly he managed the budget as Chairman of the House Budget Committee. I mean, Bush is ultimately the figurehead who ends up responsible for the trillions of dollars of debt, but a lot of the problems can be pegged to Nussle’s leadership in the House.
I guess I can still hope and pray that the Senate grills him fast and hard during his confirmation hearings.
Currently, the Government Services Administration (specifically their administrator) is under investigation by Congress for alleged acts of pure partisanship in an agency of the federal government that is supposed to be entirely nonpartisan — basically violations of the Hatch Act. TPM Muckraker and Speaker Pelosi’s blog “The Gavel” have more on the investigations, but I thought it was worth showing this video of Rep. Bruce Braley grill the GSA Administrator, Lurita Doan, about a PowerPoint presentation given by Karl Rove’s deputy to members of the GSA on how they could help out Republicans.
As they say on the internets, pwnd.
The US Attorney controversy surrounding Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the Department of Justice, and the Bush Administration will undoubtedly get more interesting as time goes on. Sen. Charles Grassley can’t be the only Republican out there who is becoming frustrated by this president’s executive power grab and the more that’s revealed, the more we know that the White House and AG Gonzales worked together in their efforts to force out 8 US Attorneys. Liberal Oasis has a good primer on the controversy here. But what is the Iowa impact?
Well, beyond Sen. Grassley’s vote to authorize subpoenas in the Congressional investigation, it is worth considering US Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa Matt Whitaker and how he plays into or is involved in the whole issue. While it is unquestionable that Whitaker and his staff in Iowa have done some exemplary work (see the CIETC Scandal for an example), one has to wonder how his partisanship plays in his day job. This has become particularly true in recent weeks because of the indictment of State Senator Matt McCoy on charges of extortion. David Yepsen has taken a look at the matter in his usual way and Chase Martyn of Iowa Progress skims the surface of the issue of Whitaker’s investigation and work here. I plan on taking it a bit further.
Just who is Matt Whitaker? He’s a graduate of the University of Iowa and former football player there. He has his JD and MBA as well. In 2002, he ran against incumbent Democrat Michael Fitzgerald for the position of State Treasurer as the Republican candidate. He lost, garnering 43% of the vote while Fitzgerald had 55%. Contribution information and disclosure forms from the 2002 Elections aren’t available on the IECDB website, but can be requested via email. I’m sure if I were to request a copy of the files, I’d see a bevy of social conservative donors. In early February 2004, Bush nominated Whitaker to the position of US Attorney and he won Senate confirmation in June of 2004.
How partisan is Whitaker? Well, he’s quite the Republican. He’s a social conservative and supportive of the Iowa Christian Alliance (formerly the Iowa Christian Coalition but has since broken off because of the Christian Coalition’s work with Move On — for net neutrality stuff — and other issues). He was to be the emcee at their spring 2007 kickoff event, as noted here on their website, but at the last minute the DOJ told him he couldn’t go as the emcee but had to simply attend. The Associated Press published a story in the Register [available via NewsBank] on his involvement in the event on February 28, noting that the group Americans United for the Separation of Church and State had objected to his role in the event. Traditionally, US Attorneys, while political appointees, have remained largely nonpartisan in their activities outside of the workplace as to avoid the appearance of impropriety or an imposed partisanship on the job. Clearly, by choosing to attend the event Whitaker was upsetting that tradition, to some degree. Even Ted Sporer, Chair of the Polk County Republican Party, wrote on his blog that Whitaker was in attendance at the event, which drew only Republicans.
Why is Whitaker’s partisanship bad? Well, in this case, I’ll let David Yepsen explain:
“Third, Whitaker is a Republican. And not just any Republican, but a socially conservative one who ran unsuccessfully for state treasurer in 2002 and could well be a candidate for office again.
He recently was in the news when he was scheduled to emcee an event for the Iowa Christian Alliance, a successor group to the Iowa Christian Coalition.
After first granting him permission to host the event, Whitaker said the Justice Department revoked it after objections from liberal groups. Instead, he just attended the meeting.
Active involvement in ideological political action groups like that is rare for U.S. attorneys in Iowa — and even the Justice Department higher-ups seemed to think better of it. For good reason. McCoy is a Democrat. And not just any Democrat but an openly gay one.
So we now have the specter of a politically ambitious, evangelical Republican with ties to the religious right going after a gay Democrat.”
Yepsen recommends that Whitaker step aside and let career prosecutors handle the case because of the possible conflicts of interest, or even the appearance of a conflict. Finally, Yepsen offers some wise advice.
Just how partisan are US Attorneys becoming? Well, McClatchy Newspapers has an amazing story on just how political and partisan the attorneys have become in recent years, thanks to Bush Administration efforts. Here is just a tid-bit:
“Since 2005, McClatchy Newspapers has found, Bush has appointed at least three U.S. attorneys who had worked in the Justice Department’s civil rights division when it was rolling back longstanding voting-rights policies aimed at protecting predominantly poor, minority voters.
[…] Taken together, critics say, the replacement of the U.S. attorneys, the voter-fraud campaign and the changes in Justice Department voting rights policies suggest that the Bush administration may have been using its law enforcement powers for partisan political purposes.
The Bush administration’s emphasis on voter fraud is drawing scrutiny from the Democratic Congress, which has begun investigating the firings of eight U.S. attorneys - two of whom say that their ousters may have been prompted by the Bush administration’s dissatisfaction with their investigations of alleged Democratic voter fraud.
Bush has said he’s heard complaints from Republicans about some U.S. attorneys’ “lack of vigorous prosecution of election fraud cases,” and administration e-mails have shown that Rove and other White House officials were involved in the dismissals and in selecting a Rove aide to replace one of the U.S. attorneys. Nonetheless, Bush has refused to permit congressional investigators to question Rove and others under oath.
[…] A third former civil rights division employee, Matt Dummermuth, 33, was nominated to be U.S. attorney in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, last December. Before his appointment, he was counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights. He was a special assistant to the civil rights chief from 2002 to 2004.
Details of his involvement in reviewing voter rights couldn’t be determined, and Dummermuth, a Harvard Law School graduate, didn’t return calls seeking comment.
Bush administration officials have said that no single reason led to the firings of the eight U.S. attorneys. But two of those who were forced to resign said they thought they might have been punished for failing to prosecute Democrats prior to the 2006 congressional elections or for not vigorously pursuing Republican allegations of voter irregularities in Washington state and New Mexico.
Former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias of New Mexico has said he thought that “the voter fraud issue was the foundation” for his firing and that complaints about his failure to pursue corruption matters involving Democrats were “the icing on the cake.”"
Clearly, partisanship and ulterior motives have begun to become the emphasis in the selection of US Attorneys and efforts to find some kind of documented voter fraud by the federal government has become the news means for Republicans to find a way to disenfranchise American voters. Read the full story from McClatchy for the full grasp of the situation.
Clearly, Whitaker’s partisanship could become an issue in this case and will likely lead to more criticism from those observing the process. Now, don’t get me wrong, I want to investigate this matter thoroughly. I just don’t want it to be a partisan effort to bring down Democrats. And Whitaker’s role in these cases — because of his active Republican party involvement — complicates the matter so much. The Polk County Democratic Party passed a resolution on Wednesday stating their support for Sen. Matt McCoy as well as noting the partisanship of the Justice Department. You can find the full release and resolution below the fold.
And one more thing to keep in mind: If allegations of voter fraud and other electoral issues are becoming the focal point of selecting US Attorneys, as it seems to be the case even with the Northern District of Iowa’s Matt Dummermuth, then Iowans should be on the lookout for investigations in other parts of Iowa, particularly with Election Day registration passing in the House and likely becoming law, should it pass the Senate. Maybe this Matt is just as partisan as the Matt from the Southern District.
Continue reading ‘Matt Whitaker: Just another partisan US Attorney?’
There is a lot of intrigue and there are a lot of details surround the dismissal of eight US Attorneys by the Justice Department and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. And it seems like there is a lot of detail missing as well, which is what led to the DOJ releasing thousands of pages of documents and emails — and also led to House and Senate Committees to issue subpoenas to White House staff about the decision to fire the attorneys. On the Senate Judiciary Committee, only one Republican Senator voted in favor of issuing the subpoenas: Iowa’s own Chuck Grassley.
As Media Matters documents here, most major news outlets neglected to report that Grassley voted to issue the subpoenas. Instead, they should have noted that this wasn’t just a partisan hunt by Democrats to get White House staffers like Karl Rove to testify under oath, but a bipartisan effort for the truth. As Grassley said in his own press release about his vote:
“I wanted to express my support for getting the facts out on the table. The sooner we do that, the better. The executive branch — no matter who is President — is almost always extremely resistant to oversight requests from Congress.
For example, I’ve been very frustrated in my efforts of the last year to get information about the Food and Drug Administration’s actions with regard to an antibiotic. The FBI has continued to stonewall several of my requests.
Congress has a constitutional responsibility to conduct oversight. I’ve worked to meet that responsibility both when the spotlight is on an issue and when it’s not. Congress’ inquiries need to be legitimate oversight. I want to make sure that we do the right thing for the American people.”
Whatever differences I have with Sen. Grassley (and there are many), I do sincerely thank him for his responsible vote in this endeavor.
The Des Moines Register did also note Grassley’s vote with Democrats to issue the subpoenas, but again, reporter Jane Norman misses the truth in her piece. She writes:
“President Bush has offered to turn over White House correspondence on the firings to Congress and make his aides available for private interviews under oath, but does not want his aides to testify in public hearings.”
That’s not true. If you examine this briefing he did with the press from March 20th, Bush specifically responds to a question about aides testifying under oath by saying that if he allows them to be placed under oath, then he’ll have to worry about getting good advice from them in the future when they come into the Oval Office. Basically, he’s just making it possible for his aides and staffers to say one thing in the Oval Office and then come testify before Congress and say they said something different. If you’re going to recommend something in the Oval Office, then you should be prepared to defend it before Congress, plain and simple.
This morning, on a vote of 218-212, the US House passed the Iraq Accountability Act, which sits a pullout date for troops in Iraq by August of 2008 at the latest. It also approves more funding for the war, which has been a major point of contention among those members of the Progressive and Out-of-Iraq Caucuses in the House. In the end, House Democrats achieved a major victory by hitting 218 votes, the exact number needed for the bill to pass. Two Republicans voted for the bill while the rest voted against; 14 Democrats opposed the legislation as well (most being members of the two above caucuses) and one voted present.
Iowa’s three Democratic Representatives voted for the bill, while Reps. Steve King and Tom Latham declared, essentially, that they were troop killers.
Currently, President Bush is preparing to make a statement about the bill, where he’ll likely indicate his opposition to it again and signify that if the bill were to pass the Senate as well that he would veto the bill — declaring himself as Commander in Chief Troop Killer. The bill has been extremely divisive both in the real world and how Democrats online are responding to the bill.
The key takeaway point from this whole debate: Democrats have taken a small first step in a political minefield. The Progressive and Out-of-Iraq Caucuses have made significant gains and gotten significant strength in the process. Now, with these kind of bargaining chips, they’ve got to keep pushing harder and even more fiercely. This is the first step of many, let’s keep working.
This is what a never-ending war, as well as war that we went into unprepared, has cost the Iowa National Guard:
“The Iowa National Guard has one of the worst equipment shortages of National Guard organizations in the country for responding to large-scale terror attacks or natural disasters, a federal report released today shows.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said the Iowa National Guard had 42.5 percent of its authorized inventory as of November 2006. That was seventh-worst among the 50 states, the District of Columbia and three U.S. territories.
Examples of such equipment includes dump trucks, diesel generators, radios, cargo trailers, Humvees, and satellite communications equipment.”
WHO-TV has a quick text story here with a link to a video report that is more educational and informative. Essentially, they were forced to leave their trucks and equipment in Iraq because they had had armor attached that protected them in the environment that existed in wartime Iraq. The transportation costs for the equipment that had to be retrofitted in the field almost makes it worthless to transport the equipment back to the states — it’d be cheaper to simply purchase new equipment.
Now, I’m not criticizing leaving the equipment in the field — that was the right call to protect and save more American lives in Iraq. What I’m critical of is the fact that as we train guardsmen and women to replace those serving overseas, as well as prepare them to help in times of natural disasters in Iowa, they’re being forced to use equipment that is over 20-30 years old and doesn’t necessarily prepare them for real field exercises. And when you hear reports about $108 billion in fraud and misspent money in Iraq, you understand why the US Army can’t uphold its end of the bargain and replace the equipment.
This war has got to end.
I’m heading to campus for some Drake Dems activities in honor of the state of the union address. Who knows how much we’ll actually watch. While you’re either watching the SOTU or Veronica Mars, you can also check out Governor Tom Vilsack’s pre-buttal interview with Radio Iowa here.
It came as a surprise (to me, at least) to remember that the State of the Union address is tomorrow night. There has been little to no coverage, little to no discussion, little to no effort. In the lead up to the President’s recent announcement on Iraq a few weeks ago, this country’s political apparatus was concerned, mainly, with the question of whether the President grasped the same reality that was apparent to nearly everyone else.
John McCain was on the first half of Meet the Press yesterday and looked tired. While the senator may be old, its apparent the burden of the war has aged him. Ted Kennedy, Russert’s second guest, was similarly muted, quiet. I don’t think we can blame either man. The war has aged all of us. There are protests - a major march in DC this weekend, events surrounding the anniversary of the war, a renewed examination of the anti-war policies of Dr. Martin Luther King on his birthday. However, for the majority of us, even for the majority of politicians, we seem to lack even the energy to argue, even the energy to disagree. I confess I am as guilty as anyone of skimming past the news stories on Iraq.
I have pled many times publically and privately, in this space and in others, for a greater diversity of thought and direction in this administration and in this country. I fear I have only one plea left. I hope desperately that I am wrong.
I will watch the State of the Union, probably in the background while I type an English paper. I will watch the Democratic rebuttal by Sen. Jim Webb, hopeful that one of the last truly passionate politicians in this country has some to share with me. I plea with either of them, with both of them, to offer some kind of hope. I plea for some thought beyond stay or go. I plea for some action beyond rhetoric gone five years stale. I plea for peace. And I plea for the energy to carry it out. Most importantly, I plea and I pray for the men and women involved in this conflict who don’t have the luxury to be exhausted.
I don’t remember the exact date when David Yepsen finally realized that he was on the wrong side of the Iraq War equation and began to realize just how bad the situation was, but he’s emerged from the dark side now and at least deserves to be removed of the “idiot” moniker with regards to things dealing with Iraq. In his post entitled “Bushed” on his Register blog tonight, he writes:
“President Bush gave a good speech Wednesday night. The only problem is it comes about two years late.
Americans are tired of this war. Bone tired. This latest Iraq strategy most likely assures a Democrat will win the White House in 2008.”
He gives a small hint to a profile in courage scenario, but that isn’t going to happen. Bush is committed to losing and killing more American men and women, whether he recognizes it as such or not. In the long-run, it may be politically beneficial to the Democrats, but that is the least of my concerns and it should be the least of the concerns of the party. I’d much rather see this war end and watch a Republican be elected in 2008 than watch the war continue and see Democrats win the presidency.
According to ABC News, President Bush has said “screw you” to the American people and to working with Congress by sending the leading edge of troops for his surge (to be announced to tonight to the nation) over to Iraq already. Bush is going to try and appear bipartisan and appeal to a stronger sense of virtue, but it will be the same old story from a man not listening to his advisors, the generals on the field, the Congress, or the American people.
Over at Daily Kos, Governor Vilsack has a new diary up asking people around the nation to help take the lead in getting “Vilsack Resolutions” — an alternative to the McCain Doctrine — passed in their states and communities by expressing their opposition to escalation.
As for here on the homefront in Iowa, I haven’t heard much more talk about bringing a resolution up for debate in the legislature. However, I did email my State Senator Dick Dearden and this is what he had to say:
“If there is a resolution I will certainly vote to adopt it.”
So, there is at least one vote in the Iowa Senate. Let’s just hope that someone will take the effort to bring the resolution to the floor.
Finally, Governor Vilsack will be on Hannity and Colmes tonight offering a Democratic reaction to the shit that Bush is expected to spew tonight in his address. He’ll be on at 9 PM Central time. This should be an interesting conversation.
