The Department of Homeland Security recently updated it's threat level to include Secretary Michael Chertoff's "gut."

In an interview yesterday, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said he had a "gut feeling" about an increased risk of a terror attack here in the United States during the summer.

There's just one (MAJOR) catch.  Chertoff's dire warning wasn't based on any new intelligence.  He based his comments on his view that al Qaeda likes the summertime!  He said "Summertime seems to be appealing to them. We worry that they are rebuilding their activities."

Perhaps before Mr. Chertoff goes trying to scare the American people out of their witts, warning of attacks, he should come with some actual intelligence.

This does nothing but reinforce for me (and many others, I'm sure) that this Administration wants to keep the American public in a perpetual state of fear and paranoia.  And by extension, begin supporting this baseless war in Iraq.

Homeland Chief: "Gut Feeling" About Attack

 

So after listening to Sara Taylor appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, the most telling thing, for me, was this exchange between her and Sen. Patrick Leahy.

Taylor: "I took an oath and I take that oath to the president very seriously."

Sen. Leahy responded by giving Ms. Taylor a lesson from Civics 101. He reminded her that she took an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States; not to uphold George W. Bush. He said: "Your oath is not to uphold the president."

We've seen this same pattern in people like Alberto Gonzales and Harriet Miers. Their loyalty for George W. Bush trumps their sense of loyalty to their country. Gonzales can't seem to remember that he no longer represents George W. Bush as his personal lawyer, but that he represents the American people now.

I have no problem with a President asking people they feel they can trust, to serve in their Administration. The problem arises when that person can't separate the personal from the professional, and remember that their obligation, first and foremost, is to the American public, not the President of the United States.

That's the problem when a bright-eyed, bushy-taled 32-year old like Sara Taylor comes to Washington to serve in a political position. They're so eager to please and prove themselves as true believers and loyalists, that sometimes they end up tossing the constitution and our nation's laws aside.

Wow.....is that a backbone I see growing in Senate Democrats?  Who knew?

A Senate panel today voted to defund Dick Cheney's office, until Cheney decides to actually abide by the law and obey an executive order on the handling of classified information.

From the Associated Press:

Senate Democrats moved Tuesday to cut off funding for U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's office in a continuing battle over whether he must comply with national security disclosure rules.

A Senate appropriations panel chaired by Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin refused to fund $4.8 million in the vice president's budget until Cheney's office complies with parts of an executive order governing its handling of classified information.

At issue is a requirement that executive branch offices provide data on how much material they classify and declassify. That information is to be provided to the Information Security Oversight Office at The National Archives.

Cheney's office, with backing from the White House, argues that the offices of the president and vice president are exempt from the order because they are not executive branch "agencies."

More at: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/07/10/america/NA-GEN-US-Democrats-Cheney.php

NOTE TO DICK CHENEY: You are not a government branch unto yourself.  And if you want to say that you don't fall under the executive branch of our government, perhaps you shouldn't receive any funding for the Office of the Vice President, and you can live off of your salary as President of the Senate.

 

During an appearance on Capitol Hill today, former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona accused his former boss of putting politics before science.  Carmona says the Bush Administration muzzled him on issues such as embryonic stem cell research.

As he testified before a House committe, Carmona said:

"Anything that doesn't fit into the political appointees' ideological, theological or political agenda is ignored, marginalized or simply buried."  He added "The problem with this approach is that in public health, as in a democracy, there is nothing worse than ignoring science, or marginalizing the voice of science for reasons driven by changing political winds. The job of surgeon general is to be the doctor of the nation, not the doctor of a political party."

More at:  http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070710/pl_nm/bush_surgeongeneral_dc_3

A little over two years ago, Alberto Gonzales made a trip to Capitol Hill as Congress as he lobbied for renewal of the U.S. Patriot Act.

During that time, Gonzales (the nation's top law man, no less), assured Senators that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had NOT abused its newfound powers under the Patriot Act.   He said then "There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse."

As they say on Capitol Hill, Mr. Gonzales might want to revise his previous remarks.

It turns out that dear old Alberto wasn't exactly being truthful when he made that statement.  I'm just shocked, I tell you!

According to the Washington Post, in the three months PRIOR to his testimony, Gonzales received at least a half dozen reports of legal or procedural violations.

From the Post:

As he sought to renew the USA Patriot Act two years ago, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales assured lawmakers that the FBI had not abused its potent new terrorism-fighting powers. "There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse," Gonzales told senators on April 27, 2005.

Six days earlier, the FBI sent Gonzales a copy of a report that said its agents had obtained personal information that they were not entitled to have. It was one of at least half a dozen reports of legal or procedural violations that Gonzales received in the three months before he made his statement to the Senate intelligence committee, according to internal FBI documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.

The acts recounted in the FBI reports included unauthorized surveillance, an illegal property search and a case in which an Internet firm improperly turned over a compact disc with data that the FBI was not entitled to collect, the documents show. Gonzales was copied on each report that said administrative rules or laws protecting civil liberties and privacy had been violated.

The reports also alerted Gonzales in 2005 to problems with the FBI's use of an anti-terrorism tool known as national security letters (NSLs), well before the Justice Department's inspector general brought widespread abuse of the letters in 2004 and 2005 to light in a stinging report this past March.

More at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19685278/

Today Monica Goodling, a former Department of Justice official who is right smack dab in the middle of the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, testified before the House Judiciary Committe.

Goodling had been granted partial immunity.  And during her testimony, she said she became uncomfortable when, during a meeting, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales seemed to be trying to get the both of them to discuss their recollections of what happened during the purging of the attorneys.

From the Associated Press courtesy of MSNBC:

A former Justice Department official at the center of the uproar over prosecutor firings told House investigators Wednesday that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales tried to review his story of the dismissals with her at a time when lawmakers were homing in on conflicting accounts.

“It made me a little uncomfortable,” Monica Goodling, Gonzales’ former White House liaison, said of her conversation with the attorney general just before she took a leave of absence in March. “I just did not know if it was appropriate for us to both be discussing our recollections of what had happened.”

-snip-

Goodling said for the first time Wednesday that Gonzales did review the story of the firings with her at an impromptu meeting she requested in his office a few days before she took a leave of absence.

“I was somewhat paralyzed. I was distraught, and I felt like I wanted to make a transfer,” Goodling recalled during a packed hearing of the House Judiciary Committee.

Gonzales, she said, indicated he would think about Goodling’s request.

“He then proceeded to say, ‘Let me tell you what I can remember,’ and he laid out for me his general recollection ... of some of the process” of the firings, Goodling added. When Gonzales finished, “he asked me if I had any reaction to his iteration.”

Goodling said the conversation made her uncomfortable because she was aware that she, Gonzales and others would be called by Congress to testify.

It should also be noted that last month, Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he steered clear of aides who might be called to testify about the attorney purge. 

From the AP courtesy of MSNBC:

Goodling’s dramatic story about her final conversation with Gonzales brought questions from panel members about whether he had tried to align her story with his and whether he was truthful in his own congressional testimony.

Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee last month that he didn’t know the answers to some questions about the firings because he was steering clear of aides — such as Goodling — who were likely to be questioned.

“I haven’t talked to witnesses because of the fact that I haven’t wanted to interfere with this investigation and department investigations,” Gonzales told the panel.

One other additional note from today's hearing: Monica Goodling admitted that she "crossed the line" (read: BROKE THE LAW) because she tood into consideration the party affiliations of candidates who were being considered for career prosecutor positions. 

Ex-aide says Gonzales talked about firings

Goodling also says she 'crossed the line' and that McNulty was inaccurate

According to an article by Murry Waas in the National Journal, the White House and the Department of Justice worked together to conceal from Congress, Karl Rove's involvement in getting his protege Timothy Griffin installed as a U.S. attorney.

From the National Journal:

The Bush administration has withheld a series of e-mails from Congress showing that senior White House and Justice Department officials worked together to conceal the role of Karl Rove in installing Timothy Griffin, a protégé of Rove's, as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas.

The withheld records show that D. Kyle Sampson, who was then-chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, consulted with White House officials in drafting two letters to Congress that appear to have misrepresented the circumstances of Griffin's appointment as U.S. attorney and of Rove's role in supporting Griffin.

Administration Withheld E-Mails About Rove

Of course one of the big news items over the weekend was the devistation in parts of Kansas due to tornados.

And the Governor of Kansas says that much of the equipment needed for the recovery effort is in Iraq.

From CNN.com:

Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius expressed concern that rescue and recovery efforts were being strained because much of the needed equipment has been sent to Iraq.

"When the troops get deployed, the equipment goes with them. So here in Kansas about 50 percent of our trucks are gone. We need trucks. We are missing Humvees, we're missing all kinds of equipment that could help us respond in this kind of emergency," she said.

-snip-

"National Guard are our first responders. They don't have the equipment they need to come in, and it'll just make it that much slower," she said.

The National Guard has said for years that it is short of equipment at home because of deployments to Iraq.

"We weren't fully equipped with all the resources we need before the war started," said Maj. Gen. Tod Bunting of the Kansas National Guard, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan "further depleted us."

Source:  http://www.cnn.com/2007/WEATHER/05/07/severe.weather/index.html

Thomas Frank wrote a book entitled What's The Matter With Kansas?  How Conservatives Won The Heart of America.  Basically, the book explores how some blue-collar workers in places like Kansas have continued to vote against their own best interests by supporting the GOP.

Perhaps now they will learn the importance of voting FOR their own best interests, not against.

Under no circumstances can anyone think it appropriate for Karl Rove, nothing more than Bushie's glorified political guru, to be participating in a meeting at the White House in which he coached a top DOJ official on their upcoming testimony before Congress regarding the purge of U.S. attorneys. The White House is clueless if they can't see how inappropriate this is. And even more importantly, the Congress is clueless if they don't subpoena Rove ASAP and compell him to testify.

From Newsweek:

Deputy chief of staff Karl Rove participated in a hastily called meeting at the White House two months ago. The subject: The firing of eight U.S. attorneys last year. The purpose: to coach a top Justice Department official heading to Capitol Hill to testify on the prosecutorial purge on what he should say.

Now some investigators are saying that Rove’s attendance at the meeting shows that the president’s chief political adviser may have been involved in an attempt to mislead Congress—one more reason they are demanding to see his e-mails and force him to testify under oath.

At the March 5, 2007, meeting, White House aides, including counsel Fred Fielding and deputy counsel William Kelley, sought to shape testimony that Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General William Moschella was to give the next day before the House Judiciary Committee.

Although the existence of the White House meeting had been previously disclosed by the Justice Department, Rove’s attendance at the strategy session was not—until both Moschella and Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty talked about it in confidential testimony with congressional investigators last week. Portions of their testimony were read to NEWSWEEK by a Democratic aide who asked not to be identified talking about private matters.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18479265/site/newsweek /

What a difference a few years make!  Courtesy of Political Wire, check out these quotes from George W. Bush when Bill Clinton was Commander-in-Chief.  Seems like Dear Leader has done a little flipping and flopping when it comes to exit strategies and timetables.

"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is."

-- George W. Bush, 4/9/99, criticizing President Clinton for not setting a timetable for exiting Kosovo.

"I think it's also important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long they will be involved and when they will be withdrawn."

-- George W. Bush, 6/5/99

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/05/01/historical_quotes_of_the_day.html