strategy

Which party wears red?



I worked for a populist Senator who shied from using the word "fight."

I thought that was a stupid choice. That man is no longer a Senator.

Democrats need to brand themselves as the party that fights the robber barons.

Then, more importantly, Democrats need to FIGHT the robber barons.

Americans are a gloriously violent people. We respect fighters. Afterall, we introduced ourselves to the world by going guerrilla on The British Empire. We were only six years old when Jefferson sicced the marines on Tripoli. Hell, we committed genocide. (Which is a bad thing).

Be a fighter. Fight hard and play by the Chicago rules.

Harry and Nancy, you can't play nice anymore.

The GOP can all be dead and still be as effective (which is VERY effective).
How alive do you have to be to vote against cloture and object to unanimous consent on any motion to proceed?

The Republicans strategy is a nihilistic strategy aimed at destroying the ability of government to function legislatively - no matter who gets hurt - then blaming the Democrats for doing it.

The lack of any movement on the mortgage meltdown is a great current example. And the energy bill, SCHIP, Iraq, etc, etc, etc ... but it goes down to any and all bills.

So far, it's working. The strategy is blatant but over the heads of most Americans, it's over the head of most political reporters, even. "Roadblock Republicans" is what they should be called.

Stopping bills is not a means to an end; it's the end all by itself. Republican leadership doesn't give a shit if the government works. They truly are just roadblocks. They deserve ridicule and contempt. Not "compromise."

The GOP counts on Bush Dog Democrats peeling from the Caucus and they count on Harry and Nancy's cowardice to force filibusters or demand vetoes.

Do both, you stooges.

BTW: John Kerry deserves some credit for pushing the meme harder than any other Dem.

The intensely curious, diligent, and intelligent Senator from Rhode Island gave a great speech Friday that should get him the ability to offer subpoenas (link to speech; here's a link to video). I hope it gets him Rockefeller's Chair and I hope it shames DiFi.

Apparently, Whitehouse actually read the Office of Legal Counsel opinions that justified the warrantless wiretap program and continue to justify the Administration's wiretap authority today. Then, Whitehouse got the key concepts of some of those opinions declassified. Here's his description of what he found.

For years under the Bush Administration, the Office of Legal Counsel within the Department of Justice has issued highly classified secret legal opinions related to surveillance. This is an administration that hates answering to an American court, that wants to grade its own papers, and OLC is the inside place the administration goes to get legal support for its spying program.

As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I was given access to those opinions, and spent hours poring over them. Sitting in that secure room, as a lawyer, as a former U.S. Attorney, legal counsel to Rhode Island's Governor, and State Attorney General, I was increasingly dismayed and amazed as I read on.

To give you an example of what I read, I have gotten three legal propositions from these OLC opinions declassified. Here they are, as accurately as my note taking could reproduce them from the classified documents. Listen for yourself. I will read all three, and then discuss each one.

1. An executive order cannot limit a President. There is no constitutional requirement for a President to issue a new executive order whenever he wishes to depart from the terms of a previous executive order. Rather than violate an executive order, the President has instead modified or waived it.
2. The President, exercising his constitutional authority under Article II, can determine whether an action is a lawful exercise of the President's authority under Article II.
3. The Department of Justice is bound by the President's legal determinations. [my emphasis]

Super smart, Whitehouse next evokes Saint Reagan to argue against Bush:

Let's start with number one. Bear in mind that the so-called Protect America Act that was stampeded through this great body in August provides no - zero - statutory protections for Americans traveling abroad from government wiretapping. None if you're a businesswoman traveling on business overseas, none if you're a father taking the kids to the Caribbean, none if you're visiting uncles or aunts in Italy or Ireland, none even if you're a soldier in the uniform of the United States posted overseas. The Bush Administration provided in that hastily-passed law no statutory restrictions on their ability to wiretap you at will, to tap your cell phone, your e-mail, whatever.

The only restriction is an executive order called 12333, which limits executive branch surveillance to Americans who the Attorney General determines to be agents of a foreign power. That's what the executive order says.

But what does this administration say about executive orders?

An executive order cannot limit a President. There is no constitutional requirement for a President to issue a new executive order whenever he wishes to depart from the terms of a previous executive order. Rather than violate an executive order, the President has instead modified or waived it.

"Whenever (the President) wishes to depart from the terms of a previous executive order," he may do so because "an executive order cannot limit a President." And he doesn't have to change the executive order, or give notice that he's violating it, because by "depart(ing) from the executive order," the President "has instead modified or waived it."

So unless Congress acts, here is what legally prevents this President from wiretapping Americans traveling abroad at will: nothing. Nothing.

That was among the most egregious flaws in the bill passed during the August stampede they orchestrated by the Bush Administration - and this OLC opinion shows why we need to correct it.

Obviously, the implications of this OLC opinion go far beyond the warrantless wiretapping of Americans. The OLC opinion governs all Executive Orders. So in other words, the President can declassify at will and act contrary to a valid executive order.

This is why Whitehouse specifically asked Michael Mukasey about EOs in his confirmation.

WHITEHOUSE: Do you believe that the President may act contrary to a valid executive order? In the event he does, need he amend the executive order or provide any notice that he is acting contrary to the executive order?

MUKASEY: Executive orders reflect the directives of the President. Should an executive order apply to the President and he determines that the order should be modified, the appropriate course would be for him to issue a new order or to amend the prior order.

As emptywheel summarized "So Mukasey, unaware that Bush had set aside all common sense, gave the common sense, legally sound answer. 'Of course the President can't violate his own EOs! He would need to change them first!'"

Our Attorney General is on record agreeing with Whitehouse that the web Bush weaved when first he practiced to deceive is tangled. And rank.

Freshman Senator Jim Webb of Virginia understands warfare. Former Secretary of the Navy under Reagan, an assistant Secretary of Defense, a decorated Marine Corps infantry officer from Vietnam, Webb understands that he's in battle with a petulant little bitch of a president.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid issued a statement saying the White House has told him it planned on making "several" recess appointments — generally frowned upon by lawmakers who balk when their "advise and consent" role is circumvented. (Pravda/FOX)

After the Senate wrapped up its business and the Senators went home for the Thanksgiving recess, Sen. Webb remained. He went up to the the rostrum as the Presiding Officer, called the empty chamber to order and said: "Under the previous order, the Senate stands in recess until Friday." He banged the gavel twice, and then he left. It took 22 seconds.

That middle finger in the face of George Bush formally set in motion the procedures that will keep the Senate open. It's called a pro-forma session. And I love it.

By keeping the Senate in session, Democrats prevent President Bush from skirting around the Constitution by making high-level appointments while Congress is in recess (thus avoiding the process of Senate confirmation).

No more insane judges. No more neo-confederate, anti-gay, anti-women, pro-corporate ideologues getting wingnut welfare jobs in our government.

"We're preserving the Constitution," Senator Webb said, after the pro-forma session. "It's appropriate given how [the Bush administration] is abusing the confirmation process."

Bingo. Webb is from Virginia, he doesn't have to travel as far as any other Democratic Senator. And knowing Webb, he's more than happy to do it.

This is procedural trench warfare. Democrats are playing defense since they lack 60 votes to prevent a Senate filibuster or the two-thirds in both chambers needed to overturn a presidential veto.

"It's one of those small things that can be instantly effective," says Thomas Mann, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "It also reflects the utter lack of trust that Democrats have vis-à-vis the president and the belief that he will exploit every opportunity provided him." (source)

The other smart thing Democrats are doing is playing to our retarded media clowns addiction to the "a pox on both your houses" easy explanation for everything political.

When hours after Webb's gavel banged twice, the White House issued a statement whining about the Senate's failure to act on a number of Bush's batshit insane judicial nominees, including a statement by Bush on Thursday adding seven more judges to his list of judges he hopes to confirm, Democrats shot right back:

Reid said that the White house has stalled on Reid's requests for appointments to certain boards that require bipartisan splits such as the Federal Communications Committee, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and others.... (Pravda/FOX)

The media is totally confused about how to tell this story. They're scratching their heads; is this preventing Bush's agenda, or is it because Bush is preventing the Democrats agenda? They're stupid, '...Let's call the whole thing off...'

"Democrats face a tough situation: a Republican president who is just unwilling to compromise on many policies, even if it meant plummeting popular ratings, and a very effective and disciplined Republican minority," says Julian Zelizer, a congressional historian at Princeton University in Princeton, N.J.

This is what America elected Democrats to do - oppose and repel the Bush agenda. We need pro-forma sessions every four days to screw Bush even on weekends. We need more and better Democrats and a Democratic President. But this will do until 2009.

Usually when this Conservative Administration does something illegal there is some huffing and puffing from Democrats, but no Houses are ever blown down.  Today, a story came out about another crime of Bush's and while I figured that this news would be met with awkward thumb twiddling by Democrats (akin to when a transcript of a Downing St. meeting from July, 2002 was leaked to The Sunday Times stating that Bush and Blair conspired to get an Iraq war no matter what, and that it effectively began a year before the March 2003 invasion)

Well, I was wrong: Chris Dodd is demanding our new "non political" Attorney General Mukasey investigate a White House cover up that goes right to Bush himself.  I'll tell you why this is important in a moment.  First, the outrage.

It started when I read this post over at Wonkette about former WH spokesman Scott McClellan's "my job as a liar" memoir and the oopsie bombshell he drops in the book.  Which specific lies, you ask?  There are so very many to choose from -- no, the big one Scottie describes in his book is the about the CIA leak case.  Where our Executive Branch jeopardized National Security...

“I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president’s chief of staff and the president himself.”

Hey, whoa, what? Our bitter snitch explains that he trusted this president: "The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.” Cry me a fucking river, asshole. 

Wait, but what?  George Bush thought that lying about him breaking the law...  would get his credibility ...back? 

So George Bush made the decision to break laws and undermine the security of the nation in a time of war by exposing the identity of an operative working in South Asian nuclear non-proliferation - and by extension, he cut loose all of of the operative's associates and informants.  All to get his credibility ...back?

Holy retarded Texan shit.

And that's the thing.  If any of us hope to survive another year we have to keep this posse in the White House occupied.  This is a great way to do it.  Because if we leave them alone, they are going to take an ax to everything on their way out.  The next president will find a government wholly dismantled with key screws missing - safeguards removed, you name it... 

The big things will be the plants, conservative movement loyalists plugged into key offices, there will be moles, rules changed by executive order, holes opened up in the framework.  Dozens of executive orders destroying everything from our national parks, to regulatory agencies, to international treaties, to vital Departments in government like Justice, for God's sake. 

The mind boggles. The forces of destruction work much faster than the forces of creation.  It takes longer to build a city on a hill than it does for a Tsunami to wash it away.

The other thing is that we can't allow these criminals to shred every piece of paper in the place - an investigation with an subpoenas will save much of it.  We also can't let this conservative presidency get away with not being remembered as the most hated, criminal, and destructive band of crooks since, well, ever.  This will help. 

America needs to have daily reminders that if you put conservatives in government, they destroy everything.  Too often, Democrats complain that the country is being destroyed by conservative policy, but let it happen anyway.  

Guys, follow Dodd's lead: investigate everything.  Bush already made clear he is going to veto any legislation constructive in nature, he's hell bent on destruction...  so tie him to a chair under oath and grill him for the next 425 days.  Hell, waterboard him.
 

He will fail because the man puts on a shitty show. Remember his all-night-session on Reed-Levin, the Amendment that would have begun to bring our troops home last spring?

The night merely confused America about who was filibustering. Our retarded news media helped confuse America, yes, but can you blame people for not knowing who was being obstructionist? Consider the footage if one tuned into the debate on TV or the local news station took a clip of the debate to Voice Over:

• 21 Democratic Senators standing at the "Call to Action by Candlelight" rally in Upper Senate Park where many croaked out long speeches to an audience of protesters and staff.
• 57 Democratic House members who attended the "Call to "Action by Candlelight," many of whom also blathered long, wandering speeches.
• 33 Democratic Senators who spoke long, boring, unfocused speeches on the floor of the Senate.

Why! The goal of the night was NOT to change course in Iraq. Reid knew he picked up 2 votes. The goal was to tell America that Republicans are the problem. Bad run-of-show.