The Political Junkies
UPDATED: FEB 14, 2008
BUSH WINS
Democrats in the US Senate broke ranks and passed a FISA Bill with immunity for telecommunication companies. For Progressive Democrats, it was a bitter defeat as 17 Democrat Senators voted with Republicans to defeat the amendment to strip telecom immunity from the bill.
[Senator] Rockefeller was one of 17 Democrats who joined 49 Republicans and one independent to reject an amendment offered by Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) that would have stripped the immunity provision from the bill.
Two-thirds of the Democratic caucus opposed immunity. "It is inconceivable that any telephone companies that allegedly cooperated with the administration's warrantless wiretapping program did not know what their obligations were. And it is just as implausible that those companies believed they were entitled to simply assume the lawfulness of a government request for assistance," said Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), who co-sponsored the amendment.
The bill goes to a Conference Committee to reconcile differences in the bill with the version passed by the House. At the same time, conservative Republicans in the House who want to pass the Senate bill and progressive Democrats joined to defeat a brief extension of the current law to permit the Conference Committee time to make the reconciliations. Both sides in the House are simply pushing a showdown for Friday of this week, when the current law expires.
Immunity for telecommunication companies is the singular issue. The showdown may well come this week. It is time.
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UPDATED: FEB 10, 2008BITTER REPUBLICAN ECONOMICS
An already sour US economy is growing bitterer.
The US Bureau of Labor has released its annual revision of job creation for 2007. The economy produced some 376,000 during 2007 than previously reported. This chart details the revised monthly figures.
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First, the American economy must produce some 150,000 new jobs every month in order to accommodate new workers entering the workforce. The economy created that number of jobs in only two months during the year. The 2007 average was only 96,000 new jobs a month, far short of the 150,000 needed.
Second, Republican stewardship of the American economy has added an average of 369,000 private-sector jobs a year during the Bush administration’s seven year tenure. During the Clinton administration some 1.7 million jobs were added each year over eight years.
Third, the economy lost jobs in January 2008 – an indication that America is in a recession.
Americans intensely experience what is happening. Consumer confidence is falling precipitously – an ominous omen for the immediate future direction of the economy. Two graphs paint current reality. The ABC Comfort Index illustrates failing public confidence in the American economy. The LA Times/Boomberg Poll illustrates that American have lost faith in Republican to deal with the faltering economy.
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A cruel twist of irony is the failure of Bush’s “ownership” society. Bush has repeatedly touted American small businesses. As the chart immediately below denotes, Republican economic policy is destroying the small businesses:
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It is indeed a bitter economy for most Americans and the worst may yet lie ahead. Bush’s vaulted policies of tax cuts and federal deficits will stand in testament of the economic ashes they leave to the next President.
The question for Americans is simple – had enough?
MORE LIES
The Bush administration perpetuates its record of lies, obfuscation and rule above law. Most recently, Bush administration officials lied to a Federal Court:
At the time that the Central Intelligence Agency destroyed videotapes of the interrogations of operatives of Al Qaeda, a federal judge was still seeking information from Bush administration lawyers about the interrogation of one of those operatives, Abu Zubaydah, according to court documents made public on Wednesday.
The court documents, filed in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, appear to contradict a statement last December by Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director, that when the tapes were destroyed in November 2005 they had no relevance to any court proceeding, including Mr. Moussaoui’s criminal trial.
It was already known that the judge in the case, Leonie M. Brinkema, had not been told about the existence or destruction of the videos. But the newly disclosed court documents, which had been classified as secret, showed the judge had still been actively seeking information about Mr. Zubaydah’s interrogation as late as Nov. 29, 2005.
The destruction of the tapes is under investigation by the Justice Department and Congress.
One of the documents, a motion filed by Mr. Moussaoui’s lawyers to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, cites several instances in 2005, including one after the videotapes were apparently destroyed, when government lawyers produced documents to the court that came from the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah.
The document states that on Nov. 29, 2005, government lawyers produced documents, including “intelligence summaries,” about Abu Zubaydah but never told the court about the existence or destruction of the tapes.
A response that was filed to the appeals court by federal prosecutors remains classified, government officials said. Mr. Moussaoui was convicted of terrorism-related charges in 2006, and the government officials said that last month an appellate judge had denied a motion by his lawyers, who argued that the destruction of the C.I.A. tapes meant the Moussaoui case should be sent back to a district court.
The tapes destroyed by the C.I.A. documented the interrogation of Mr. Zubaydah and a second Qaeda operative, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, according to current and former intelligence officials.
After The New York Times notified C.I.A. officials in December that it intended to publish an article about the destruction of the tapes, General Hayden issued a statement to employees.
In it, General Hayden said he understood that the tapes were destroyed “only after it was determined they were no longer of intelligence value and not relevant to any internal, legislative or judicial inquiries — including the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui.”
Paul Gimigliano, a C.I.A. spokesman, said Wednesday: “The rulings in this case are clear, and the director stands by his statement. Nothing has changed.” A Justice Department spokesman, Dean Boyd, said he could not comment on the unsealed documents.
When will Congressional Democrats call for an account?
Last Update: 02/15/2008
