Chuck Schumer

History Lesson: And These Are the People We Expect to Fix Things Now?

dlindorff — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 13:03:54 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

George Santayana once famously said, “Those who cannot learn from
history are doomed to repeat it.” But what about those who don’t just
ignore history, but who hire and take counsel from those who committed
historic follies in the past?

Back in November 1999, Congress passed legislation pushed by then
Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX), rescinding the Depression-era Glass-Steagall
Act. The measure, backed by the Clinton administration, and
overwhelmingly passed by the Senate (90-8) and the House (362-57),
opened the way for banks to merge with investment banks and insurance
companies, and led directly to the current financial cataclysm.

A report on that Congressional action written by reporter Stephen
Labaton and published in the New York Times on Nov. 5, 1999 under the
headline “Congress Passes Wide-Ranging Bill Easing Bank Laws,” includes some remarkable quotes from key players in that sellout to the financial sector.

Here’s Larry Summers, a chief architect of the current financial
industry multi-trillion-dollar bailout giveaway being orchestrated by
the Obama administration, where he serves as director of President
Obama’s National Economic Council:

''Today Congress voted to update the rules that have governed
financial services since the Great Depression and replace them with a
system for the 21st century. This historic legislation will better
enable American companies to compete in the new economy.''

And here’s what Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), awash in Financial
industry campaign donations but currently in high dudgeon over the Wall
Street’s bonus payments to executives, speaking about the ’99 measure
eliminating Glass-Steagall:

''If we don't pass this bill, we could find London or Frankfurt
or years down the road Shanghai becoming the financial capital of the
world. 'There are many reasons for this bill, but first and foremost is
to ensure that U.S. financial firms remain competitive.”

The article quotes the Clinton administration and Summers’ Treasury
Department as predicting that revoking Glass-Steagall and permitting
banks to expand into investment banking and insurance would save
consumers “$18 billion a year” through economies of scale—a figure that
seems rather quaint as taxpayers now pony up trillions of dollars to
rescue those same institutions. (The article notes that critics of
deregulation argued that even those paltry savings, probably
overstated, would flow to financial sector investors, not to consumers.)

The old Times clip (brought to my attention by alert
veteran radical writer and activist Bert Schultz of Philadelphia), does
highlight a couple of prophetic heroes, too.

Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND), one of seven Senate Democrats who voted against revoking Glass-Steagall, said:

“I think we will look back in 10 years' time and say we should not
have done this but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past,
and that that which is true in the 1930's is true in 2010. I wasn't
around during the 1930's or the debate over Glass-Steagall. But I was
here in the early 1980's when it was decided to allow the expansion of
savings and loans. We have now decided in the name of modernization to
forget the lessons of the past, of safety and of soundness.''

And then there’s the late Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-MN), who died in a
tragic and still unexplained plane crash during his campaign for re-election in 2002. Congress, he
said, seemed:

“…determined to unlearn the lessons from our past mistakes.
Scores of banks failed in the Great Depression as a result of unsound
banking practices, and their failure only deepened the crisis.
Glass-Steagall was intended to protect our financial system by
insulating commercial banking from other forms of risk. It was one of
several stabilizers designed to keep a similar tragedy from recurring.
Now Congress is about to repeal that economic stabilizer without
putting any comparable safeguard in its place.''

For the record, also voting against Glass-Steagall repeal in the
Senate were lone Republican Richard Shelby of Alabama, and six other
Democrats: Barbara Boxer (CA), Richard Bryan (NV), Russ Feingold (WI),
Tom Harkin (IA), and Barbara Mikulski (MD). 51 Democrats, 5 Republicans
and 1 independent voted against the measure in the House.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, a key player in the current bailout
scheme, isn’t mentioned in the Times article about Glass-Steagall, but
at the time was a protégé of Summers, working as undersecretary of the
treasury for international affairs.

While they are thankfully well out of the loop in the current
scramble in Washington to both reverse the economic collapse
and try and help financial companies and financiers profit from it,
it’s worth reading too in this 10-year-old clip what Phil Gram and then
Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-NE and now embattled president of the New School in
New York City) had to say about ending Glass-Steagall.

Sen. Gramm:

'The world changes, and we have to change with it. We have a new
century coming, and we have an opportunity to dominate that century the
same way we dominated this century. Glass-Steagall, in the midst of the
Great Depression, came at a time when the thinking was that the
government was the answer. In this era of economic prosperity, we have
decided that freedom is the answer.''

And then Sen. Kerrey, with a line that should probably be etched someday on his tombstone as his most memorable line:

“The concerns that we will have a meltdown like 1929 are dramatically overblown.”
__________________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist. His latest book
is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006). His work is
available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Liz Holtzman for Senate

davidswanson — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 20:48:06 -0500

New York State could soon be represented in the U.S. Senate by a woman with more respect for and understanding of democratic representation, the Constitution, and the rule of law than we've grown accustomed to finding in Washington, D.C., a woman who has done more to oppose the abuses of power of the Bush administration than have most current members of the House or Senate.

Elizabeth Holtzman has asked the Governor of New York, David Paterson, to consider appointing her to fill a seat that may be vacated by Senator Hillary Clinton, whom President elect Obama intends to nominate for Secretary of State. I encourage you to ask everyone you know in the state of New York to contact the Governor and ask him to choose Liz.

Liz Holtzman served four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and was the youngest woman elected to Congress, where she quickly took a leading role in the impeachment of President Richard Nixon. She served two terms as the first woman elected District Attorney of Kings County (Brooklyn) and served as the first woman elected New York City Comptroller.

Before any of that, she co-founded Law Students Civil Rights Research Council, which recruited law students to work in the civil rights movement in the South. In 1963 she worked for a civil rights lawyer in Georgia. In 1964 she interned for the NAACP and helped write a brief on the first anti-miscegenation case.

Holtzman entered Congress in 1973 and took a seat on the House Judiciary Committee, just in time to pursue the impeachment of a lawless president. She gained national attention for her work on that impeachment, and for her questioning of President Gerald Ford about his pardoning of Nixon. She then gained international attention by exposing the presence of Nazi war criminals in the United States and forcing the creation of a special Justice Department unit to bring them to justice. Holtzman led committee work and passed legislation on a wide range of issues in Congress, but in the area of justice alone it is worth noting that she co-authored the special prosecutor law and brought a lawsuit challenging Nixon's unauthorized bombing of Cambodia.

Serving as District Attorney in Brooklyn from 1982 to 1989, Holtzman played a key role in ending racial discrimination in jury selection, led the effort to reform New York's rape and child molestation laws, persuaded the Court of Appeals to allow prosecution for marital rape, and created the first environmental crimes bureau in the state.

I didn't know Liz for most of this history, but I can understand how she got so much done everywhere she went, because I have seen her advocacy work during the Bush-Cheney era. She has been one of the most articulate, authoritative, persuasive, and energizing speakers, writers, and agitators against warrantless spying, torture, the occupation of Iraq, and the erosion of the rule of law in our federal government. In 2006, she published, together with Cynthia Cooper, "The Impeachment of George W. Bush: A Practical Guide for Concerned Citizens." Whether or not you want Bush impeached, this book is worth reading for a refreshingly different view of the law and the balance of power in our government. Here's a video clip of Liz testifying in Congress on this topic earlier this year: http://youtube.com/watch?v=dohgkV53tBQ

If you would like to see her in the United States Senate, please send your comments and your name and New York address to Governor David A. Paterson, State Capitol, Albany, NY 12224, or call 518-474-8390 or Email at http://161.11.121.121/govemail

Neo-Cons Demand Mukasey's Criminal Complicity

Chip — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 04:09:25 -0500

Harper's Scott Horton just dropped da turd in da tank. Seems as though a few "movement conservatives" got some "private time" with the "independently minded" Judge Mukasey. They made two offers he couldn't refuse. First, don't appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the US Attorneys scandal - that's essential to protect the Bush toadies Rove and Miers. Secondly, they wanted Mukasey's assurance that he would continue the protection of the authors of the waterboarding torture program.

Welcome, folks, to the world of Alice in Wonderland, as we peer down into the rabbit's hole, reading Senator Schumer's (ir)rationalization for endorsing Mukasey:

"...the job will not be finished until we get a strong and independent attorney general. I believe Judge Mukasey is that type of person. Should we reject him, it is almost certain that an acting, caretaker attorney general will take office without the advice and consent of the Senate. Inevitably, that would enable those in this administration, who do not believe in the rule of law, and have done things that caused even former Attorney General Ashcroft to threaten resignation, to have the complete upper hand.

Only a strong and independent attorney general can return the Justice Department to what it once was and should always be. Under this administration, that nominee will certainly never share our views on issues like torture and wiretapping.

Wake up, you're not going to get a strong and independent attorney general. You're going to get another puppet whose primary function will be to hold the damn mess together for another year, until the corporate fascists can bail out to their K Street golden parachutes. If Mukasey has an ounce of integrity and a lick of sense, he'll bolt for the door.

But the really startling admission in Schumer's statement is his defeatist handwringing: "When an administration, so political, so out of touch with the realities of governing and so contemptuous of the rule of law is in charge, we are never left with an ideal choice..." Schumer must be tone deaf to his own words to be so accepting of the administration's lawlessness.

But, sadly, it gets worse. Mukasey either is waffling (hardly the stuff needed to manage the in-disarray DOJ) or he's scamming someone. Which is it? Or, Who is it? Schumer or the neo-cons? Here's what Schumer says Mukasey promised:

The judge made clear to me that were Congress to pass a law banning certain interrogation techniques, we would clearly be acting within our constitutional authority. And he flatly told me that the president would have absolutely no legal authority to ignore such a law, not even under some theory of inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution. He also pledged to enforce such a law and repeated his willingness to leave office rather than participate in a violation of law.

But according to Scott Horton, Mukasey also shined on the neo-cons. "Mukasey, I am told, gave vague reassurances on both points, 'without completely giving away the shop.'”

Strong and independent? Or vague and waffling? And isn't conspiring to cover up crimes - even at the highest level - also a crime? Maybe not, down in Wonderland's rabbit's hole.

Schumer Supports Torture

Bob Fertik — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 08:07:41 -0400

Here is Chuck Schumer's justification for supporting Mukasey:

This afternoon, I met with Judge Michael Mukasey one more time. I requested the meeting to address, in person, some of my concerns. The judge made clear to me that were Congress to pass a law banning certain interrogation techniques, we would clearly be acting within our constitutional authority. And he flatly told me that the president would have absolutely no legal authority to ignore such a law, not even under some theory of inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution. He also pledged to enforce such a law and repeated his willingness to leave office rather than participate in a violation of law.

Congress did pass a law banning "certain interrogation techniques" - it banned all forms of torture.

What is torture? Under international law it is

"any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person."

Congress explicitly prohibited torture twice.

First, the Senate ratified the Third Geneva Convention (GCIII) on July 6, 1955, which protects prisoners of war against torture. And those who say Al Qaeda is not covered by the Geneva Conventions are wrong. GCIII includes Common Article 3, which protects all prisoners, including "enemy combatants." According to the Center for Defense Information,

The U.S. Supreme Court’s June 29, 2006, decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld applied Common Article 3 to a global conflict with a non-state actor, al-Qaeda, taking place within the territory of a country that is a party to the Geneva Conventions, Afghanistan. Its implications are that Common Article 3 applies to the global conflict with terrorists anywhere on earth involving the territory of a party to the Geneva Conventions.

Second, in 1996 Congress (then led by Republicans Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott) enacted the War Crimes Act of 1996, which defines a war crime to include a "grave breach of the Geneva Conventions," specifically including torture.

In the wake of the Supreme Court's Hamdan ruling, Congress adopted the Military Commissions Act of 2006 to remove habeas corpus protection from "alien unlawful enemy combatants." It also amended the War Crimes Act of 1996

so that only actions specificly defined as "grave breaches" of Common Article 3 could be the basis for a prosecution, and it made that definition retroactive to November 26, 1997. The specific actions defined in section 6 of the Military Commissions Act include torture, cruel or inhumane treatment, murder, mutilation or maiming, intentionally causing serious bodily harm, rape, sexual assault or abuse, and the taking of hostages.

So despite MCA, torture is still a crime, and the definition of torture has never been changed so it still covers "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person."

And does this include waterboarding? Here's a description by Malcolm Nance, who trains American soldiers how to resist waterboarding.

“Waterboarding is slow-motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the inevitability of blackout and expiration. When done right, it is controlled death. When performed with even moderate intensity over an extended time on an unsuspecting prisoner – it is torture, without doubt. Most people cannot stand to watch a high-intensity, kinetic interrogation. One has to overcome basic human decency to endure watching or causing the effects. The brutality would force you into a personal moral dilemma between humanity and hatred. It would leave you to question the meaning of what it is to be an American."

If Chuck Schumer doesn't think waterboarding is covered under current law, he needs to resign from the Senate immediately.