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A Cloud Over the Constitution
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace:
The Department of Labor in the Bush Years: A Damage Assessment
Rep. George Miller
Democracy and Elections:
Seven Ways Your Vote Might Not Count This November
Steven Rosenfeld
DrugReporter:
New Drug Survey Demolishes Drug Czar's Claims
Bruce Mirken
Election 2008:
Palin Pick Is GOP Hypocrisy at its Best
Laura Flanders
Environment:
Boatloads of Trouble: How We Are Importing Our Way to Destruction
Stan Cox
ForeignPolicy:
The Bush Administration Checkmated in Georgia
Michael T. Klare
Health and Wellness:
Earning Less and Dying Younger: How the Growing Strain on America's Middle Class Is Pummeling Our Health
Maggie Mahar
Hurricane Katrina:
From the Bayou to Baghdad: Mission Not Accomplished
Amy Goodman
Immigration:
Leader of Anti-Immigration Movement Calls Issue a "Skirmish in a Wider War"
Eric Ward
Media and Technology:
How the Media's Tarring of Hillary Hurt Obama Too
Eric Boehlert
Movie Mix:
Hollywood Gets Muslims Wrong, Again
Wajahat Ali
Reproductive Justice and Gender:
An Open Letter to Gov. Sarah Palin on Women's Rights
Lynn Paltrow
Rights and Liberties:
Amy Goodman: Why We Were Falsely Arrested
Amy Goodman
Sex and Relationships:
Why Do We Need to Talk About the Female Orgasm?
Susan Crain Bakos
War on Iraq:
The VA Continues to Abandon Returning Vets
Joshua Kors
Water:
Is California on the Brink of Environmental Collapse?
Rachel Olivieri
The problem with Gonzales is that he has been deeply involved in developing some of the most sweeping claims of near-dictatorial presidential power in our nation's history. These claims put President George W. Bush literally above the law, allowing him to imprison and even (at least in theory) torture anyone in the world, at any time, for any reason that Bush associates with national security ... Stuart Taylor Jr., former New York Times Supreme Court reporter, "America's Best Choice?," Legal Times, Nov. 15, 2004
In a scathing lead editorial (Nov. 22), "Mr. Gonzales' Record," The Washington Post challenged the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will soon hold a confirmation hearing on the president's appointment of Alberto Gonzales to be this nation's chief law enforcement officer, the daily protector of the Constitution: "Above all, Mr. Gonzales should answer this question [before the Senate Judiciary Committee]: Why is a lawyer whose opinions have produced such disastrous results for his governmentin their practical application, in their effect on U.S. international standing and in their repeated reversal by U.S. courtsqualified to serve as attorney general?"
As I wrote in my last two columns, the editorial summarized some of the disastrous advice from this man without any law enforcement experience, who always tells George W. Bush what he wants to hear: authorization for torture of noncitizen detainees; approval of violations of international law; and the breathtaking assertion that the president, without going to the courts or to Congress, can imprison American citizens indefinitely, without charges, and without access to lawyers.
Actually, The Washington Post's challenge is to the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Republican members will vote, in lockstep, for Gonzales. But I have found out that most, if not all, of the Democrats will also cave inafter harrumphing at Gonzales for some hours.
I know this from an inside source whom I cannot name. I very rarely use blind sources, but there are times when to report on what's actually going on, I have to protect a source. The Democrats on the committee know what I, and others, have been telling you about Gonzales. In their possession, for instance, is a copy of the July/August 2003 Atlantic Monthly article by Alan Berlow that documents how Gonzales, as legal counsel to then Texas governor George W. Bush, sent 56 death row inmates to be executed after giving three-to-seven-page memos on their cases to Bush that rubber-stamped the lethal decision of the notoriously murderous Texas courts.
Even the Democrats' attack dog on the Judiciary Committee, Charles Schumer, has said he prefers Gonzales to John Ashcroft. That's like saying you prefer Torquemada to Attila the Hun. Indeed, the ranking minority member on the committee, Patrick Leahy, has said that with Bush re-elected, if he sent up Attila the Hun to replace Ashcroft, he'd get his way.
The Democrats prefer to hold their fire until the next Supreme Court nominee. As a result, for the next four years, the manipulative Alberto Gonzales will be finding additional ways to expand the Patriot Act, integrate the further surveillance of us all into government data banks, and, as he already has, make the Bush administration the most secretive in American history.
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Boatloads of Trouble: How We Are Importing Our Way to Destruction Health and Wellness: As our consumer goods travel thousands of miles by boat, train and truck, they're leaving a trail of soot and cancer in their wake. By Stan Cox, AlterNet. September 5, 2008. |
Palin Pick Is GOP Hypocrisy at its Best Reproductive Justice and Gender: Will the media test her on substance or let her play "Ms. Congeniality?" It is up to the public to see through the fact-free diet we're being fed. By Laura Flanders, AlterNet. September 5, 2008. |
McCain Uses His Big Speech to Give Us a Tour of His Vietnamese Prison Cell Election 2008: Number of sentences in John McCain's RNC speech about being a POW in Vietnam: 43. Number about his 25 years in the House and Senate: 8. By David Corn, MotherJones.com. September 5, 2008. |