Where’s the Outrage?

President Bush’s nominee for Attorney General Michael Mukasey is getting some thoughtful questions. I’m not sure that we are going to like his answers. Senator Leahy and Senator Whitehouse have asked questions about torture and Executive Power. Mukasey’s answers have been less than heart warming.

I’m thinking that if you can’t agree that waterboarding is torture then, you shouldn’t be confirmed. He is just stonewalling. We can’t have that. Reject him!

Update: Before I finish with this topic, I have to get a huge high five to Glenn Greenwald. He has been blogging on FISA and the president wanting to give amnesty to the telecommunication companies for the last couple of weeks. No one in the progressive bloggosphere is bringing the heat on Congress not to cave into the Bush administration like Glenn. Here’s just a portion of what he said today.

To his credit, Chris Dodd has been, by far, the most vocal Democratic presidential candidate on the issues of executive power abuses and restoring our constitutional framework. Unsurprisingly, he has issued a very strong condemnation of telecom amnesty along with a vow to try to stop it:

While the President may think that it’s right to offer immunity to those who break the law and violate the right to privacy of thousands of law-abiding Americans, I want to assure him it is not a value we have in common and I hope the same can be said of my fellow Democrats in the Senate.

For too long we have failed to respect the rule of law and failed to protect our fundamental civil liberties. I will do what I can to see to it that no telecommunications giant that was complicit in this Administration’s assault on the Constitution is given a get-out-of-jail-free card.

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From WaPo:

Attorney general nominee Michael B. Mukasey suggested today that the president could ignore federal surveillance law if it infringes on his constitutional authority as commander in chief.

Under sharp questioning about the Bush administration’s warrantless eavesdropping program, Mukasey said there may be occasions when the president’s wartime powers would supersede legal requirements to obtain a warrant to conduct wiretaps. (more…)

 

 Mukasey on Waterboarding [0:56m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Bush Administration, Congress, Domestic Spying by ecthompson
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Senator Brownback will be the latest presidential candidate to throw in the towel.  Sam Brownback simply wasn’t able to raise enough money.  He raised about $3.4 million and spent over $4.1 million.

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From TPM:

The lower tier of Republican candidates is reportedly about to shrink a little bit — Sam Brownback is expected to drop out of the race tomorrow.

Brownback’s campaign had never really caught fire, with him raising only $4 million and coming in third at the Iowa Straw Poll behind Mike Huckabee, a rival for the social conservative vote.

So where will Brownback’s support, such as it was, end up going? That’s a good question. On the one hand, Romney’s campaign has been trying to consolidate the Christian right into a unified anybody-but-Rudy campaign. On the other hand, Brownback’s camp had been bashing Romney to no end, taking every opportunity to call him a phony.

Tags: Election 2008 by ecthompson
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Joey Bishop has died. Many looked at the Rat Pack as a bunch of guys who drank too much, smoked too much and chased skirts. I see it different. Think about it. You are successful. Your pals are successful. You get together in Las Vegas to hang out. I can’t think of anything that could be a better picture of success than the Rat Pack. Originally, they were guys that hung around Humphrey Bogart. Look at the line up - Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis and Peter Lawford. I see it as GREAT livin’. I see it as something that every guy in America wish that they could do with their pals. Think of it - Guys, let’s hang out in Vegas for 2 weeks. Money is no object. Man, that’s sweet.

Joey Bishop was a funny man in his own right. He was successful at Vegas. He sang and told jokes. He had a TV talk show in the early and late sixties that was very successful.

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From CNN.com:

Joey Bishop, the stone-faced comedian who found success in nightclubs, television and movies but became most famous as a member of Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack, has died at 89.He was the group’s last surviving member. Peter Lawford died in 1984, Sammy Davis Jr. in 1990, Dean Martin in 1995, and Sinatra in 1998.

The Rat Pack — originally a social group surrounding Humphrey Bogart — became a show business sensation in the early 1960s, appearing at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas in shows that combined music and comedy in a seemingly chaotic manner. (more…)

Tags: Entertainment by ecthompson
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Oh no, Mr. Bill. It’s Michael O’Hanlon. Mr. O’Hanlon is the liberal hawk who went to Iraq stayed about 6 hours and came back and wrote a major OpEd saying how great things were over there. The liberal hawks are the ones that bent over for President Bush. They were the ones that supported the war from the start. Why is Michael O’Hanlon a Hillary Clinton adviser?

Tags: Election 2008, Foreign Affairs by ecthompson
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I’m sorry that I don’t follow the crowd.  I almost always ask questions.  If my questions are answered to my satisfaction then I’ll be happy to follow.

So, why have many folks jumped on Rudy Giuliani’s band wagon.  What did he do?  He was the mayor of New York on 9-11.  He walked in the streets after the attack while our president was flying around in Air Force One.  What did Rudy do to make New York or the Firefighters or the Police safer?  Did he move the command center?  No.  Did he change the radios which didn’t work in the first World Trade Center attack?  No.  These are simple planning ideas that would have made Rudy a hero on 9/11.
Finally, if Rudy was so great then why do the Firefighters in New York universally hate him?

For more information check out.

 

 Rudy's Radios [6:32m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Election 2008 by ecthompson
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