Pat Leahy

Call Your Senators To Oppose Iraq Funds and Wiretap Immunity

Bob Fertik — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 12:09:03 -0400

The Senate will vote this week on two disastrous bills: $163B for the continued occupation of Iraq and immunity for George Bush and the telecoms who are illegally wiretapping our calls and emails.

On Tuesday, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) launched a filibuster against the "Warrantless Wiretapping Immunity Act" with an impassioned speech on the Senate floor. Dodd is supported by Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Ron Wyden (D-OR).

Unfortunately it takes 41 votes for a successful filibuster, and we can only count on 30, based on a similar vote on 2/12/08. These Democrats voted wrong. Call them and tell them to join the Dodd Filibuster against telecom immunity.

Max	Baucus	MT	202-224-2651
Evan	Bayh	IN	202-224-5623
Thomas	Carper	DE	202-224-2441
Robert	Casey	PA	202-224-6324
Dianne	Feinstein	CA	202-224-3841
Daniel	Inouye	HI	202-224-3934
Tim	Johnson	SD	202-224-5842
Herb	Kohl	WI	202-224-5653
Mary	Landrieu	LA	202-224-5824
Joseph	Lieberman	CT	202-224-4041
Blanche	Lincoln	AR	202-224-4843
Claire	McCaskill	MO	202-224-6154
Barbara	Mikulski	MD	202-224-4654
Ben	Nelson	NE	202-224-6551
Bill	Nelson	FL	202-224-5274
Mark	Pryor	AR	202-224-2353
Jay	Rockefeller	WV	202-224-6472
Ken	Salazar	CO	202-224-5852
James	Webb	VA	202-224-4024
Sheldon	Whitehouse	RI	202-224-2921

Sen. Pat Leahy Stands Up for Habeas Corpus

Bob Fertik — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 11:20:15 -0400

At a time when the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are being shredded in front of our eyes, what a pleasure it is to watch Sen. Pat Leahy descend from the lofty heights of Capitol Hill to give a terrific speech to a rally of The People.

The Swiftboating of Governor Kathleen Sebelius

theBlueHighwayman — Fri, 11 May 2007 01:32:13 -0400

New sign on the Highways!

Dispatch from a Hotel in Normal, IL - 12:15A CST

Karl Rove and the gang are at it again, this time it is to destroy the Democratic Governor of Kansas. Her mortal sin was to tell the truth about the Kansas National Guard equipment.

Tony Snow, living up to his name, started the snowball rolling by stating "Governor Sebelius never requested anything from the Federal Government." Today that ball was picked up by none other than Sean Hannity. He interviewed two idiots from Pittsburgh, PA, who have a morning show on 104.7 FM (a Clearchannel station) and XM Radio named Quinn and Rose, and accused Howard Dean of orchestrating the Governor's statement for political gain.

The story goes like this:

Quinn and Rose say they have a "Confidential Source" who somehow managed to hear a conversation between the Senator and the Governor. It seems the Senator was displeased with Governor Sebelius's statements concerning the National Guard. In response she repents and claims that Howard Dean got her to do it. Presumably Howard Dean planned with Speaker Pelosi, Senator Reid, Senator Durbin and Senator Leahy to use the tragedy in Kansas to launch a political attack against Bush concerning the National Guard issue.

Here is the interview on Sean Hannity (It's an MP3 file about 6 minutes long)
INTERVIEW

After listening to these morons I called the radio station in Pittsburgh and left a message for Quinn and Rose's producer Jay Bahanon who returned my call and said:

We do have a confidential source on our report about the conversation between the governor of Kansas and Senator Brownback. I'm not going to give you any names if that's what you want, that's not going to happen. But we do have a good credible source on it.

If you would like to contact Quinn and Rose:
quinn@warroom.com
rose@warroom.com

Let them know how appreciative you are that they are busy carrying out Rove's dirty work! While you're at it maybe Jay Bahanon, their producer, would like to hear from you: 412-920-2796

I also think it would be a great idea to contact Senator Brownback to let him know how disgusting it is for a Presidential Candidate to be involved in this sort of thing.

Washington Office:
303 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-1604
Phone: (202) 224-6521
Fax: (202) 228-1265

Main District Office:
612 S. Kansas Ave
Topeka, KS 66603
Phone: (785) 233-2503
Fax: (785) 233-2616

If you'd like to contact Governor Kathleen Sebelius just to let her know she has your support and that this despicable lie will never stand.

Website: http://www.governor.ks.gov

Contact the Governor
Office of the Governor
Capitol, 300 SW 10th Ave., Ste. 212S
Topeka, KS 66612-1590

Voice 1-877-KSWORKS (1-877-579-6757)
Local 785-296-3232
For the Hearing Impaired 1-800-766-3777

It is truly pathetic how desperate the Republicans have gotten. Don't let them get away with these grotesque attacks on Democratic politicians. This will probably not play big in NYC but out in Kansas Governor Sebelius is going to have to deal with the Rove machine.

Update 1: Media Matters has a transcript of the Hannity show and full documentation on the national guard equipment shortage.

Update 2: On Thursday, the DNC's lawyer, Joseph Sandler, sent cease and desist letters to XM Radio and FreeRepublic.com adamantly denying Gov. Dean had any such conversation with Gov. Sebelius. The letter to XM Vice President Dara Altman demands they:

immediately cease and desist, and instruct Messrs. Quinn and Rose to cease and desist, from further dissemination of the above-quoted statements or any statements similar in substance and
immediately - on tomorrow morning's show or the next morning's show, at the latest - broadcast on the Quinn & Rose show an express retraction of these statements.

The letter to FreeRepublic's James Robinson demands they:

immediately cease and desist from further dissemination of the above-quoted statements or any statements similar in substance and
immediately post a retraction of these statements in a location on its web page a[t] least as prominent as that on which the story appeared.

Update 3: Several rightwing blogs jumped on the story. HotAir published flat denials from Dean, Sebelius, and Brownback. GatewayPundit published a denial from Brownback. Wizbang has not published the denials.

Impeachment Day 16

Bob Fertik — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 09:50:54 -0500

Senator Pat Leahy led the first real oversight hearings with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who did his best to dodge and weave. Finally Leahy let Gonzales have it, blasting him over the treatment of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who was detained and sent to Syria, where he was regularly tortured for almost a year before being released uncharged.

"We knew damn well if he went to Canada he wouldn't be tortured. He'd be held and he'd be investigated. We also knew damn well if he went to Syria, he'd be tortured. And it's beneath the dignity of this country, a country that has always been a beacon of human rights, to send somebody to another country to be tortured."

Paul Krugman of the NY Times joins us in declaring a Constitutional Crisis:

The broader context is this: defeat in the midterm elections hasn’t led the Bush administration to scale back its imperial view of presidential power.
On the contrary, now that President Bush can no longer count on Congress to do his bidding, he’s more determined than ever to claim essentially unlimited authority — whether it’s the authority to send more troops into Iraq or the authority to stonewall investigations into his own administration’s conduct.
The next two years, in other words, are going to be a rolling constitutional crisis.

Senator Joe Biden has also warned repeatedly about a Constitutional Crisis, including his appearance Thursday on Hardball:

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about a constitutional question, Senator. Stephen Hadley was on “Meet The Press” this weekend and sort of dodged the question. Should the president be required to get the approval of Congress before he attacks Iran, should he decide to do so?
BIDEN: Absolutely, positively, unequivocally. I have a second resolution—a law actually—that I‘m in the process of drafting. I will be seeking bipartisan support, making it clear that the authorization for the use of force that the president got three-and-a-half years ago does not—emphasize does not—give him the authority to attack Syria or Iran. That would be a disaster.
MATTHEWS: But you don‘t expect him to sign that bill, do you?
BIDEN: No, I don‘t, but I expect it to generate a constitutional crisis were he to ignore it and to, in fact, him—for then attack Iran.

Biden is drafting legislation to prohibit military action against Iran or Syria under the terms of the 2002 Authorization of Military Force that Bush violated to invade Iraq on false pretenses. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid also drew a line in the sand on Iran, saying "The President does not have the authority to launch military action in Iran without first seeking congressional authorization."

Bush is pushing us to the brink of war with Iran because they refuse to cooperate with Bush on a variety of issues. But in 2003, Dick Cheney rejected an offer of broad cooperation from Iran, according to Colin Powell's Chief of Staff Larry Wilkerson.

CactusPat wants to impeach Bush for firing his own U.S. Attorneys who are investigating Republican crimes:

Now it it's grown to the Bush cabal dumping five to ten US Attorneys, replacing them with Repugnant cronies and bypassing the Senate confirmation process by taking advantage of a little known provision of the Patriot Act likely inserted last minute by none other than former Senate Judiciary chairman Arlen Specter

Dave Lindorff calls Bullshit on Bush's shell game to "legalize" his illegal NSA wiretapping:

Clearly Bush is hoping that the problem will now go away; that the Congress will drop plans to seriously investigate the five-year illegal NSA spying campaign he illegally ordered up. Indeed, the Justice Department has reportedly already gone to the Court of Appeals to request that the federal case finding the spying to be illegal, currently on appeal by the government, be "mooted," or ruled no longer at issue because of their new decision to operate within the law. No doubt similar arguments will be made to the House and Senate intelligence and justice committees...
What do they take us for, idiots?

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers is no idiot, and he wrote Gonzales to demand "a full briefing to Committee Members on changes in the Administration's NSA wiretapping program." He asked for "copies of the new court orders, under classified cover, so that we may be better informed on the new program." Gonzales is trying to keep the court orders away from Congress because they violate the FISA law by having a single judge grant blanket approval to wholesale wiretapping of potentially millions of innocent citizens, rather than having the FISA Court approve individual warrants for true terrorism suspects.

The Boston Globe now estimates the purely monetary cost of the Iraq War at $2 trillion

after factoring in long-term healthcare for wounded US veterans, rebuilding a worn-down military, and accounting for other unforeseen bills and economic losses, according to a new analysis to be presented today in Boston.
[..]The figure is more than four times what the war was expected to cost through 2006 — around $500 billion, according to congressional budget data.
The new study is billed as a detailed analysis not only of the potential costs of sustaining the operation in Iraq for at least several more years, but also the expenses likely to be incurred by taxpayers long after US troops withdraw.

The LA Times says purely military costs have increased from $4.4 billion per month in 2003 to $8.4 billion per month.

Senator Chuck Hagel is trying to stop Bush from escalating the Iraq Occupation over the opposition of Congress. He told Wolf Blitzer "this is not a monarchy."

PBS NOW tells the story of U.S. soldiers going back to Iraq for their second and third tours, which is pushing our military to the breaking point.

ThinkProgress reports the Pentagon unveiled new rules for detainee trials “that could allow terror suspects to be convicted and perhaps executed using hearsay testimony and coerced statements.”

Meanwhile, House Democrats blew away Kos's objection that Democrats must "prov[e] we can govern" before we can begin impeachment, by completing their 100-hour agenda in 42 hours.

Halliburton, Your Time Has Almost Expired

Bob Geiger — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 09:54:53 -0500

In yet another sign that a change has come to Capitol Hill in the form of a Democratic Congress that actually works for a living, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the new Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has introduced two bills to crack down on the war profiteers who have been fed so much money by the Bush administration.

Leahy wasted no time on the very first day of the 110th Congress last week in proposing both S.118, the Effective Corruption Prosecutions Act of 2007 and S. 119, the War Profiteering Prevention Act of 2007.

"Last year, despite the mounting evidence of widespread contractor fraud and abuse in Iraq, the Republican-controlled Senate would not act on it," said Leahy, in re-introducing the War Profiteering Prevention Act on the Senate floor. "Instead, the Congress took a terrible misstep in seeking to end the work of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction."

That bill, written "to prohibit profiteering and fraud relating to military action, relief, and reconstruction efforts," is cosponsored by 12 other Senators -- all Democrats -- and has been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is now under the control of Leahy himself. This means that cracking down on the likes of Halliburton and Bechtel for cheating the troops and ripping off the American taxpayer will actually get a hearing, instead of being killed, as it was under Republican rule.

Here's Leahy on the Senate floor last week:

"Last year, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction found that millions of U.S. taxpayer funds appropriated for Iraq reconstruction have been lost and diverted. Yet we continue to send more taxpayer funds to Iraq, without accountability.

"Too much of this money is unaccounted for, and many of the facilities and services that these funds were supposed to pay for are still nonexistent. We in Congress must ask--where did all the money go? We need to press for more accountability over the use and abuse of billions of taxpayers' dollars sent as development aid to Iraq, not less.

"A new law to combat war profiteering in Iraq and elsewhere is sorely needed and long overdue."

Leahy's legislation, which in the past never stood a chance with the war profiteers themselves providing financial backing for the Republican Congress, would accomplish some of the following goals:

Criminalize war profiteering, which is defined as materially overvaluing any good or service with the specific intent to excessively profit from the war and relief or reconstruction activities.

Strengthen the tools available to federal prosecutors to combat war profiteering by providing clear authority for the Government to seek criminal penalties and to recover excessive profits for war profiteering overseas.

Prohibit any fraud against the United States, Iraq, or any other foreign country involving a contract for the provision of any goods or services in connection with a war, military action, or relief or reconstruction activities.

Prohibit making a false statement in any matter involving a contract for the provision of any goods or services in connection with a war, military action, or relief or reconstruction activities.

Those found in violation of the War Profiteering Prevention Act of 2007 would be subject to as much as 20 years imprisonment and a fine of up to $1 million, twice the amount of any illegal gross profits, or both.

Leahy's Effective Corruption Prosecutions Act of 2007, cosponsored so far by Mark Pryor (D-AR), is another anti-corruption measure designed specifically to give federal prosecutors the tools to aggressively prosecute companies and individuals who attempt to illegally profit from America's wars.

"If we are serious about addressing the egregious misconduct that we have recently witnessed, Congress must enact meaningful legislation to give investigators and prosecutors the resources they need to enforce our public corruption laws," said Leahy. "I strongly urge Congress to do more to restore the public's trust in their government."

The legislation would do much to broaden the power of prosecutors to try war profiteers, including extending the statute of limitations for the most serious public corruption offenses and authorizing $25 million over each of the next four years to give federal investigators and prosecutors greater resources to go after public corruption.

While the Bush administration has had well-known improprieties going on with defense contractors in Iraq and they have been subject to tremendous public criticism for things like a no-bid procurement process for Dick Cheney's boys at Halliburton, the Republican Congress added this to the long list of things ignored and deemed unworthy of an ounce of oversight on their watch.

But Leahy makes it very clear that, on the powerful Judiciary Committee, a new day has indeed dawned.

“Americans want the culture of corruption to end. From war profiteers and corrupt officials in Iraq, to convicted Administration officials, to influence-peddling lobbyists and, regrettably, even members of Congress, too many supposed public servants have been serving their own interests, rather than the public interest,” he said. "The American people staged an intervention during the November elections and made it clear that they would not stand for it any longer. They expect the Congress to take action, and these bills are a good first step toward meeting that call.”

You can read more from Bob at BobGeiger.com.

Obstruction of Justice: Day 1

Bob Fertik — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 10:34:09 -0500

The new Congress hasn't even been sworn in, but the White House is already obstructing justice, according to Justin Rood at TPMMuckraker:

Justice Dept. Rebuffs Leahy Request for Secret Docs

The Justice Department has declined to provide documents on the CIA's detention and interrogation of terror suspects that were requested by a Democratic Senator.

In a letter to incoming Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the Justice Department said it "was not in a position" to give him copies of the the two documents he had requested in November.

"We remain committed to continuing these discussions," the Dec. 22 letter stated. "We must do so, however, in a manner that protects classified information and the confidentiality of legal advice and internal deliberations within the Executive Branch."

In a statement e-mailed to reporters, Leahy said he was disappointed by the administration's decision to "brush off" his request, but wasn't dropping the matter. "I have advised the Attorney General that I plan to pursue this matter further at the Committee’s first oversight hearing of the Department of Justice."

It appears the Democratic sweep of Congress has changed the Busheviks' attitude in only one way: instead of telling Leahy to go fuck himself directly, the Busheviks now say it indirectly.

Unfortunately for the Busheviks, Leahy now has the power of subpoena.

Since Election Day, I have said repeatedly that impeachment is inevitable because the White House will create a Constitutional crisis by refusing to answer Congressional subpoenas for documents and witnesses.

It looks like Bush is going to prove me right.

Help us deliver 1 million impeachment emails to Congress:
http://www.democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/88?ad=d4

Update 1: Bush's puppeteers used the Wall Street Journal's editorial page to issue an ultimatum to Congressional Democrats: it's my way or the highway.

If the Congress chooses to pass bills that are simply political statements, they will have chosen stalemate. If a different approach is taken, the next two years can be fruitful ones for our nation.

There goes bi-partisanship!