Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee today urged Attorney General Eric Holder to stick to his initial determination that the alleged 9/11 plotters should be tried in civilian court, and not bow to partisan politics on what should be a legal determination.
Much has been written about the thousands of people denied access to Barack Obama's inauguration -- including the plight of those in the purple ticket line who stood in the 3rd Street tunnel for hours and others (including myself) in the blue line who saw the gates shut on them right before Obama's historic event.
Inaugural Chair Dianne Feinstein has promised an investigation. But, in reading over the quotes coming from various people, it appears that Feinstein will soon face a choice: accept the true version of what happened and hold the appropriate people accountable or allow history to be re-written in a way that covers up some gross incompetence.
The [inaugural] committee said it had based its plan on “historic precedent” and “calculations of the number of guests that could safely be accommodated in each area.” But the crowds were “unprecedented,” the committee said, and a “huge flow of unticketed people” made matters worse. [Bold added.]
Senate Sergeant At Arms Terry Gainer said he thinks there were a number of problems that led to the chaos. He said there may have been more tickets issued than they could handle. [Bold added.]
This narrative basically implies that the inaugural committee planned as well as could be expected, but so many members of the public came out that some folks at the back of the line inevitably got cut. Kind of sucks, but since 2 million people won't be coming to any events in the foreseeable future, no need to "blame" anyone...let's just move on.
While including mortgage modification powers in bankruptcy court to prevent foreclosures sounds like a great idea, here are a couple other bills introduced last week to address economic stress points and help Americans rebuild their lives faster once the economy gets better.
Both of them were sponsored by Dianne Feinstein in the Senate and referred to the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee. I have to give her major credit for putting out what sound like smart, forward-thinking bills on a first read. Both of them also make use of the (I think rightly) maligned TARP appropriation such that the rest of it might not be a total waste.
Unfortunately, she doesn't presently sit on the Banking Committee, so I review this legislation with somewhat limited expectations that it will see the light of day.
The FISA bill is in play today. I've been working on telecom issues over the past few days, but you should check out Glenn Greenwald and Christy Hardin Smith's updates. Greenwald comments upon the censure resolution proposed by progressive party activists in California against Dianne Feinstein, and the stonewall reaction from party hacks.
So, in other words, they'll blindly support Feinstein no matter what she does. And she'll continue to support the Bush administration no matter what. That means, by virtue of the transitive property, that the Democratic Party apparatus will continue to support the Bush administration no matter what -- which is, of course, what explains what has been happening the last several years, and particularly this year.
Tomorrow I'm going to a breakfast with Nancy Pelosi. I'll be sure to ask her about immunity for telecom companies.
Last weekend, I did a couple of diaries about how Democrats could challenge the customary rules of the game without becoming "just like them." This was part of the longer series constrasting the policy ineptitude and political prowess of conservatives with the policy prowess and political ineptitude of liberals. I did this under the rubris of "'Breaking The Rules' To Fix The System." The first one used the example of Thoreau's civil disobedience (going to jail rather than helping to finance the Mexican-American War) as a touchstone, and considered how it might have been applied in response to the lawlessness of Bush v. Gore. The second one, looked at how impeachment could have been used to delegitimize Bush-and conservatism more generally-if removing Bush from office had been set aside from the beginning.
This weekend, I'm taking a doubly-related tack-talking about conventional wisdom. First, this is directly related to what I was suggesting should have been the primary purpose of impeachment proceeding, to delegitimate Bush and conservative rule. Second, I want to discuss how conventional wisdom functions as part of the Level 3 infrastructure that liberals and Democrats allow themselves to be trapped and defined by. The irony here is particularly deep, since the term "conventional wisdom" was originally coined by John Kenneth Galbraith, one of the great liberal public intellectuals of the last half of the 20th Century. He first recognized and articulated the concept, but over time it increasingly became a tool of conservative power. So we'll start with a brief look at some of Galbraith's ideas, and how they've been messed with, then we'll take a look at what it means today.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) on Thursday condemned Intelligence Committee Democrats for brokering a deal with the White House that would provide retroactive immunity for telephone companies that assisted the Bush administration's controversial warrantless wiretapping program.
At the second day of confirmation hearings for President Bush's Attorney General-nominee Michael Mukasey, Leahy warned that "the Intelligence Committee is about to cave on this," citing pressure from the White House and press reports suggesting the administration had gotten its way.
Administration officials] know that it was illegal conduct and that there is no saving grace for the president to say, 'Well, I was acting with authority,' " said Leahy. "Otherwise there wouldn't be so much pressure on us to immunize illegal conduct by either people acting within our government or within the private industry."
That Leahy heard about this in the press and from the White House might give you some idea of how poor the communication lines actually are in the Senate. And then there's this, from Senator Feinstein.
Not all Democrats on the Judiciary Committee appeared to share Leahy's concerns. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who sits on both the Judiciary and Intelligence panels, signaled she was likely to support the bipartisan approach.
"At this stage, it is a bipartisan bill," Feinstein said. "I'm absolutely convinced that the only way we can legislate on this is on a bipartisan basis. This bill so far is bipartisan - that's good news."
I guess that's the expectation. So here we have Rockefeller and Feinstein versus Dodd and Leahy on amnesty for the telecom companies.
From the Senate, at least, the complaint from leading Dems seems to be Petraeus stole our clothes!
The surge is that gift that keeps on giving - for the GOP. I'd twigged (fairly) early on that it was meant to destabilize the opening months of the Dem-controlled Congress. But not how it provided the WH with an elegant arc by which, having declared that the surge was a success, they could trumpet a troop withdrawal that would completely obscure the similarly half-hearted withdrawal plans of the Dems.
Bush may have created the Mother of All Fubars in Iraq; but when it comes to the Congressional Dems, he can kick ass.
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