Can we impeach Cheney now?

So - the administration has known for a year that all sixteen intelligence agencies have determined that Iran halted their nuclear weapons program in 2003, but that little bit of inconvenient truth did not deter Cheney from not only advocating for another illegal war, one that would possibly (probably) use nuclear weapons, but he didn't stop there - he also attempted to stifle the report and tried to get the parts they didn't agree with stricken.

Remember how, a couple of months ago, the meme changed? Resident Evil said that the Iranians couldn't be allowed to have the knowledge to make a nuclear weapon. In October, aWol gave a dire warning about WW III if Iran obtained a nuclear weapon, and the warmongering old prick vowed "serious consequences" if the Iranians didn't (re)abandon their nuclear program. (It's all very cartoonish, in a tragic way. Remember your Looney Tunes? Bugs: "Batten down the hatches!" Buster:"I did! I did batten 'em down!" Bugs: "Well batten 'em down again. We'll teach those hatches!")

[Keep reading...]

Gareth Porter pointed out a month ago that the NIE was being held up. (h/t Kevin Drum)

A National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran has been held up for more than a year in an effort to force the intelligence community to remove dissenting judgments on the Iranian nuclear programme, and thus make the document more supportive of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's militarily aggressive policy toward Iran, according to accounts of the process provided by participants to two former Central Intelligence Agency officers.

But this pressure on intelligence analysts, obviously instigated by Cheney himself, has not produced a draft estimate without those dissenting views, these sources say. The White House has now apparently decided to release the unsatisfactory draft NIE, but without making its key findings public.

Cheney got his knickers in a twist over more than the nuclear part of the NIE. He was also furious that there was no conclusive evidence that the Iranians were meddling in Iraq and arming Shiite militias.

So, congresscritters, especially you, Nancy Pelosi, read the god-damned NIE for yourselves, and then riddle me this:

Is it enough yet? Can we please make with impeaching the warmongering, pathological old prick? We can't risk another year with this psychotic madman at the levers.

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Six hours later, and I'm still in shock

It is six hours later, and I am still trying to make sense of that speech Resident Evil gave at the VFW convention, just a few blocks from my home...I'm still waiting for the lotus-like sluggishness of intellect to lift from my zipcode. We are deep blue here in the MO 05, and we were just inundated by more republicans downtown than Kansas City has seen since the convention in 1976.

But I was ranting about Resident Evil. Where was I?

Oh, yes....

Holy Chocolate Covered Christ, aren't we well into "fitness to serve" territory yet?!?!?!?

He just stood in front of the VFW and did a backflip with a 180 and stuck the landing - and nobody noticed! I actually think he freakin' believes his own bullshit!

After rejecting parallels with Vietnam, he is suddenly stripping to his skivvies and ready to climb into the sack with those very comparisons, albeit with a kinky twist. Now it seems he thinks that we should have stayed in Vietnam - you remember Vietnam - that was the war that he, draft-dodging, war-mongering, chickenhawk that he is - refused to fight, the draft he dodged - you remember Vietnam. I certainly do, and so do my aunt and uncle who lost their oldest son....And Veterans of that conflict embarrassed me today by clapping for that sonofabitch who so spectacularly failed the test back then.

"Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam War and how we left," Mr. Bush said. "Whatever your position in that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps' and 'killing fields."'

And the idiots who voted for this clown called Kerry a flip-flopper. None of you should EVER call a Democrat a flip-flopper in my presence again. Not with this fucking political gymnast representin' y'all.

Well - I am not the only one who was stunned speechless by the "say anything, what do I have to lose?" resident's speech. Noted UCLA historian Robert Dallek, who has written extensively about the conflict in Iraq as compared to Vietnam, accused Bush of playing fast and loose with history.

"It just boggles my mind, the distortions I feel are perpetrated here by the president," he said in a telephone interview.

"We were in Vietnam for 10 years. We dropped more bombs on Vietnam than we did in all of World War II in every theater. We lost 58,700 American lives, the second-greatest loss of lives in a foreign conflict. And we couldn't work our will," he said.

"What is Bush suggesting? That we didn't fight hard enough, stay long enough? That's nonsense. It's a distortion," he continued. "We've been in Iraq longer than we fought in World War II. It's a disaster, and this is a political attempt to lay the blame for the disaster on his opponents. But the disaster is the consequence of going in, not getting out."

So - will the mainstream media give him a[nother] pass, or will they finally call him on his delusional bullshit? What will you bet he gets a pass? But I think I have maybe figured out why...it is that he is just so fucking wrong, wronger than anyone has ever been, so wrong that in the history of incompetence and failure he gets a special category...That there is just an air of "Holy shit. Where do I even start???"

Well - enough already with the feeling overwhelmed. Pick a point and start making sense, and don't stop.

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Some free advice to Lindsey Graham, et al - saying it doesn't make it so

Three Blind Lice

There seems to be a tremendous disconnect between the die-hard war supporters and reality.

On the one hand, you have Lindsey Graham drinking deep from the Raspberry Red and stepping up to the mike to declare that things in Iraq are definitely looking up. “The military part of the surge is working beyond my expectations,” Graham said. “We literally have the enemy on the run. The Sunni part of Iraq has really rejected al-Qaida all over the country. We’re getting more information about al-Qaida operations than we’ve ever received.”

It’s hard to tell, the way objectives shift and goalposts get moved, but I seem to recall that the purpose of the escalation was to secure Baghdad, and on that point the numbers do not lie. Violence in Baghdad is not appreciably down. In fact, 2% is a mere blip, and certainly not statistically significant. Between 20 June and 5 July, 472 civilians died in attacks in Baghdad. This represents a whopping 2 percent drop in civilian casualties from the previous 16-day period, according to a tally collected by the Associated Press from daily reports by Iraqi security and hospital officials.”

Just a brief perusal of the major news outlets would indicate that Graham is either delusional at best, or flat-out lying at worst. I’m going with the lying until proof is submitted to the contrary.

From Reuters:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Car bombs and mortar attacks killed 50 people in Iraq, police and local officials said on Saturday, while the U.S. military said six of its soldiers had been killed in the past two days.

One British soldier was also killed in the south.

The fresh violence follows a lull in Iraq, where tens of thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops are on the offensive against insurgents in a bid to halt a slide into sectarian civil war.

And the Washington Post:

BAGHDAD, July 7 -- Suicide bombings across Iraq killed nearly 150 and injured scores, including a massive truck assault in a northern Shiite village that ripped through a crowded market, officials said Saturday.

The violence came as the U.S. military on Saturday reported the deaths of eight American soldiers over the past two days, all killed in combat or by roadside bombs in Baghdad and the western province of Anbar. A British soldier was reported killed in fighting in southern Iraq.

The worst carnage unfolded in the Shiite Turkoman village of Amarly, 50 miles south of Kirkuk, when a suicide bomber rammed a truck laden with explosives into the central market, which is near a police station, officials said. The attack killed at least 115 people and wounded at least 210, according to district and hospital officials, adding that they expected the death toll to rise.

And finally, from the New York Times:

BAGHDAD, July 7 — Suicide bombers killed at least 122 people in two attacks north of Baghdad, officials said Saturday, and the strikes raised questions about whether insurgents who had fled intense military operations in Baghdad and Diyala are turning to more vulnerable targets nearby.

In the worst blast, a truck loaded with explosives demolished dozens of fragile clay-built houses and shops on Saturday in Amerli, a village of poor Shiite Turkmen about 15 miles south of Tuz Khurmato. The Iraqi police said the blast killed 1o5 people and wounded 210 more.

The American military also reported Saturday the deaths of nine soldiers and marines on Thursday and Friday, eight of them during combat or from roadside bomb attacks.

Witnesses in Amerli described a horrific scene of people running while on fire, and others shrieking for rescuers to pull them free from beneath scores of buildings that were turned into rubble by the blast.

Perhaps Lindsey will do us all a favor and next time he visits Iraq and conduct one of his patented pep-rallies outside the Green Zone, in the middle of Baghdad – without two Apache gunships, three Blackhawks, an entire company of U.S. soldiers surrounding him – and enough body armor to pass himself off as a body double for RoboCop.

If he did that, I might, for a couple of minutes, stop bitching about the stupidity of these dog-and-pony-shows when potentates visit the “troops in the field” to “get the real story” – oh please! You can take my first-hand account on this – any “troop in the field” who might be inclined to say something the potentates don’t want to hear, doesn’t get anywhere near the potentates. These trips are a waste of taxpayer money, and for what just one of these junkets costs, at least ten teachers could be trained for placement in inner city schools, and a couple of doctors for inner-city hospitals, too.

And I can tell you something else first-hand…when the word comes down from on high that a dignitary is coming, the cursing is voluble and eye-rolling is blatant...even from the commanders making the announcement, in a lot of cases. I can only imagine the reaction of troops in a war zone.

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Fred Fielding Goes Long

Okay, buckle up and grab the dashboard. The route of Republican logic (snort at that oxymoron) we are about to traverse is as twisted a path as any Missouri two-lane blacktop.

White House Counsel Fred Fielding has sent along a letter ‘splainin’ why the White House is refusing to let Sara Taylor and Harriet Meyers testify if there is any record of the exchange.

Writes F²

"Obviously, there has been a lot of discussion back and forth in that regard. The position that the president took and conveyed to the committees and the offer of compromise did not include transcripts. The accommodation was designed to provide information, not to appear to be having testimony without having testimony. One of the concomitants of testimony, of course, is transcripts.

"As far as the debate goes, often cited is that a transcript is not wanted because otherwise there would be a perjury trap. And, candidly, as everyone has discussed, misleading Congress is misleading Congress, whether it's under oath or not. And so a transcript may be convenient, but there's no intention to try to avoid telling the truth." (emphasis added)

Perjury trap? Are they planning to lie?

I guess if you are a part of this freakshow, it’s better to be assumed a liar than to open your mouth to prove it.

Sara Taylor was overheard explaining to a friend at lunch that “orange makes me look sallow.”

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For Dick Lugar, Party Trumps Principle

This is why I put a 24-hour-hold on reporting anything that comes close to looking encouraging if it comes from a party apparatchik Republican. They always backpedal and retract and spin and explain what they really meant to say – probably after a visit from Karl’s boyz, but that’s just speculation…

Yesterday evening, Think Progress posted the following:

In a major speech on the Senate floor, Lugar said that “victory” in Iraq as defined by President Bush is now “almost impossible.” The current course of the war “has lost contact with our vital national security interests in the Middle East and beyond,” he said.

Lugar warned that “persisting indefinitely” with Bush’s escalation strategy “will delay policy adjustments that have a better chance of protecting our vital interests over the long term.” He specifically rejected claims that withdrawing U.S. forces will increase instability. Downsizing the U.S. military presence in Iraq would “strengthen our position in the Middle East, and reduce the prospect of terrorism, regional war, and other calamities,” Lugar said.

And today, MSNBC tells us that I was smart to hold off on praising him, because he intends to take the sniveling cowards way out, and has no intention of backing up his bold rhetoric.

Lugar won't switch vote
However, [Lugar spokesman Andy] Fisher said the speech does not mean Lugar would switch his vote on the war or embrace Democratic measures setting a deadline for troop withdrawals.

In January, Lugar voted against a resolution opposing the troop buildup, contending that the nonbinding measure would have no practical effect. In spring, he voted against a Democratic bill that would have triggered troop withdrawals by Oct. 1 with the goal of completing the pull out in six months.

Next month, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., plans to force votes on several anti-war proposals as amendments to a 2008 defense policy bill. Members will decide whether to cut off money for combat, demand troop withdrawals start in four months, restrict the length of combat tours and rescind Congress' 2002 authorization of Iraqi invasion.

Expected to fall short of the 60 votes needed in the Senate to pass controversial legislation, the proposals are intended to increase pressure on Bush and play up to voters frustrated with the war.

…the proposals are intended to increase pressure on Bush and play up to voters frustrated with the war. Fisher says that like it’s a bad thing! In reality it is the only thing. Change ain’t gonna happen until this president is forced to deal with the reality that is “dealing with” ~30 Americans a week – and the only way he is going to be forced into facing facts is if members of his own party insist that he do so.

Dick Lugar should hang his head in shame. And he should also attend the funeral of every Indianan who falls and explain to the grieving family members why he puts party and politics above the lives of their loved ones.

[Crossposted from Blue Girl, Red State and OOIBC]

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Welcome to America, 2.0

“I wasn’t angry about what he said but disappointed that he would say that to me,” Taguba said. “I’d been in the Army thirty-two years by then, and it was the first time that I thought I was in the Mafia.”

Sometimes you have to hang back. You become aware of something, and you go charging hell-bent-for-leather into the topic. And by god – you are preachin’ the gospel. That is what I was doing when I first read the Seymour Hersch article on Saturday evening.

And then it hit me. The reason I was so fucking mad is because what I was writing about is the invalidation of my entire life, spent in service to the Constitution of this nation.

That is the net effect of what is revealed in Seymour Hersch’s article in The New Yorker. Everything my life has stood for up to now is null and void. I’ve suspected for quite some time, but now I know for sure. I feel stateless. You might as well revoke my god-damned citizenship, because I am a woman without a country.

The perfidy of the Bush administration, well documented and so vast as to be overwhelming, has undermined the Honor Code and the confidence of – and in – the officer corps.

At this point, I don’t have to rehash the article. Everyone has read it who is going to. But I am going to excerpt the passage that made me livid and enraged me:

When Taguba urged one lieutenant general to look at the photographs, he rebuffed him, saying, “I don’t want to get involved by looking, because what do you do with that information, once you know what they show?”

(Let me answer that for you, General. You stand the fuck up for the ideals that your uniform represent, and you stand up for what is right because you are a god damned General, and by definition a leader of men, and when you act like a punk you are a disgrace. You stand the fuck up and you aren’t too chickenshit to even look at some god-damned photographs.)

Here is how I see it. We have destroyed the military and trashed the Honor Code, and as far as I can tell, the chain of command is as quaint as the Geneva Conventions, the Great Writ, and the Constitutional guarantee of Due Process (rooted in the Great Writ “Set forth in the Meadow Runnyemead”) – all of which have been sacrificed on the altar of the “Global War On Terror™”

Rumsfeld lied to Congress – under oath. He needs to face the consequences of that action. Plausible deniability my ass. Common sense needs to trump weasel-words in this instance.

If these bastards get away with this – then the American experiment is over. It is that simple, and that much is at stake.

Constituents, what say you?

There's more: "Welcome to America, 2.0" >>

So the reich-wing wants a piece of the internet pie, eh?

This is our turf.

Deal.

You know how for all those years the GOP had the GOTV handbook?

Well, when something came along to rival that advantage, it totally took them by surprise.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Welcome to the netroots, Republicans, and let us know what you think of 1997 once you catch your breath, won’t you?

When David All, a former Republican congressional aide, launched a blog recently that he hopes will spur his fellow Republicans to bridge the digital divide, he did his best to sound upbeat. "Today our Revolution begins," he wrote. "Tomorrow we fight."

But implicit in his cheerleading was the acknowledgment that there is a widening gap between Democrats and Republicans on the Internet, and that his party will have to scramble to catch up. "For the most part Republicans are stuck in Internet circa 2000," he said in an interview.

Michael Turk, who was in charge of Internet strategy for President Bush's 2004 campaign -- puts the problem his party faces more bluntly: "We're losing the Web right now."

But implicit in his cheerleading was the acknowledgment that there is a widening gap between Democrats and Republicans on the Internet, and that his party will have to scramble to catch up. "For the most part Republicans are stuck in Internet circa 2000," he said in an interview.

Sweet. Mother. of. God. (can a Jewess even say that and not get struck by lightning? Apparently so…)

THEY. JUST. DON’T. GET. IT.

The way they do things – top down – is simply antithetical to the way the blogosphere works – bottom up – if you can afford an internet connection, you can be a player…And that just blows their minds. It's a true meritocracy. It doesn't matter who your momma *ahem* kept company with (so Jonah Goldberg loses his advantage) and it doesn't matter who your daddy was (so Bill Kristol is just a babbling idiot with a gap-toothed grin) – No, in Blogsylvania, if you have firing neurons, you have equal footing.

And they can't stand it.

The reich-wing is suckin’ hind tit on every front.

My tech-savvy ass – which saw a digital age of pseudo anarchy coming 30 years ago – is laughing heartily – and blogging daily.

…it takes a certain level of technical skill and understanding to be an online strategist, and Republicans admit that "the pool of talent in the Democrats' side is much bigger than ours."

But an underlying cause may be the nature of the Republican Party and its traditional discipline -- the antithesis of the often chaotic, bottom-up, user-generated atmosphere of the Internet.

"We've always been a party of staying on message," All said. "It's the Rush Limbaugh model. What Tony Snow says in the White House filters down to talk radio, which makes its way to the blogs."

“What Tony Snow says in the White House filters down to talk radio, which makes its way to the blogs."

And therein lies the rub…

Have you read this site ? –(Or any other liberal blog, for that fact.)– Can you imagine any of the bloggers here (or any other liberal bloggers, for that fact) taking marching orders from any damned body?

Seriously! Not gonna happen. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.

I beg of all you ‘wingers – cling to that model that has served you adequately – after all, it is the nature of the conservative, their essential Modus Operandi, to look backward for answers to current problems, rather than forward.

And so long as they embrace the past and cling to models of irrelevancy…

We… Win…

And we will continue to win – and as long as you embrace the past, you will continue to lose.

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More Ashcroft Mythbusting

"To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to . . . enemies and pause to . . . friends." appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Dec. 6, 2001.

Seriously…Let’s hold the phone for a sec. Gonzales is a dangerous Constitutional criminal and needs to be held accountable – and those who touted him for the Supreme Court should be chained in the public square and pelted with overripe produce – but let’s not forget who blazed the trail.

I have not forgotten that in the wake of that horrible day five years ago that stripping away those pesky civil liberties Americans have traditionally held was the default position for the Ashcroft-led Department of Justice. Trampling the Constitution was the first thing they thought to do in their quest to combat terrorism, not the last.

Ashcroft was the chief merchant of fear and he sold that bill of goods to a frightened, weak-minded populace that had actually bought into the myth of American Exceptionalism. His insidious efforts furthered the powers of the FBI to infiltrate every aspect of your life and mine. And he was the first to equate patriotism with marching in lockstep with the authoritarian agenda. Dissenters were unpatriotic and un-American. He planted those poisonous seeds of division, and pitted American against American for political gain. Don't forget his perfidy as you rush to lionize.

It was under Ashcroft that groups like the Quaker's were "infiltrated" - shades of COINTELPRO - by law enforcement agents for the purpose of collecting information on Americans who exercised their Constitutional prerogative to dissent - which pretty much obviates the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

He was the sleazy bastard who first cast aspersions on your patriotism because you had the temerity to value our Constitution and raise questions about the unlawful methods they were so eager to apply.

Let’s take a stroll down Memory Lane before we commission a bust of Ashcroft for the lobby of the ACLU local, whaddya say?

Everyone knows about the Patriot Act, and the abuses that have flowed from that assault on civil liberties, but doesn't anyone else remember TIA?

TIA stands for Total Information Awareness. It was a data-mining operation designed to allow the federal government to track all credit card purchases, listen in on telephone conversations, read your emails, check your medical records and track your movements.

No warrant required. Hell, they didn’t even really need to have a suspicion. They could do it just for giggles. TIA basically set the Fourth Amendment alight. In case you don’t have your copy of the Constitution handy (and why the hell don’t you?) or you can’t recite the Ten Commandments, er, the Bill of Rights from memory (and why the hell can’t you?) let me refresh your memory on just exactly what the Fourth Amendment guarantees:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

And remember TIPS? The spy-on-the-neighbors-and-report-those-Thought-Criminals!!! program that he tried to get attached to the legislation authorizing the creation of the Department of Homeland Security? (That effort failed)

TIPS stood for Terrorism Information and Prevention System (it morphed into the John Doe protection act while you weren’t paying attention to the mendacious authoritarian bastards on the right).

TIPS was designed to encourage citizens to snoop for the government. Mail carriers, UPS drivers, teachers, utility installers – people whose jobs involve interacting with the public, would have received training on *how to spot and report suspicious behavior.* (Like receiving mail from the ACLU or the SPLC, or having an anti-war bumper sticker, presumably.)

Military tribunals, and immigrant detentions in the absence of crime, indefinite detention without due process; these were more than the products of his right-wing authoritarian MO, they were where he went automatically. The Attorney General of the United States default setting was to ignore the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution, which reads:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Let’s remember the assaults on liberty that were perpetrated at this mans hand before we enshrine him as a Guardian of Liberty.

Put in perspective just who it is that is looking so good by comparison, and get properly pissed already!

[Cross-posted from Blue Girl, Red State]

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Calm down everyone...Ashcroft is not a moderate!!!

If anyone had told me five years ago that people on the left would be not merely defending John Ashcroft, but pining for the days when he was the Attorney General, I would quite possibly done myself an injury, so raucous would the laughter have been. And as soon as it subsided, I would have initiated the steps to start your involuntary commitment to a secure mental health facility.

So what did he do that is so rare and unique, that has his former political opponents fawning all over him like he was the second coming? He upheld the rule of law and the Constitution when he was the Attorney General.

That we are all gaga at the very notion is a sad commentary indeed on the tenure of the hapless, inept Gonzo.

Pardon me, but I’m supposed to get all atwitter about this? About the fact that the cabinet level appointment constitutionally charged with overseeing the Constitution actually drew the line somewhere short of total Constitutional abrogation?

Is the bar really that low after two years of the feckless and faithless Alberto Gonzales? I am afraid the answer to that query is a resounding “yes.”

Before we enshrine the portrait of John Ashcroft with a square halo on the stationery of the ACLU, let’s remember that Ashcroft oversaw the widest expansion of government power over the lives of ordinary Americans than this country has ever witnessed.

He was a primary force behind the USA Patriot Act, which was used to snoop into the lives and reading habits of ordinary Americans. In the days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 he pushed the INS to use their power to deport foreigners, and he cast the die for the “harsh treatment” of detainees – who had no rights to due process, thanks to Ashcroft.

In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, John Ashcroft was willing to err on the side of public safety at the expense of the Constitution and diminish our Civil Liberties to a footnote.

Begging John Ashcroft’s forgiveness for all the mean things you said about him is not the appropriate reaction here. The appropriate response is outrage at the perfidy of the Gonzales department of injustice. Outrage that the department has been so sullied by his banality and fecklessness that his predecessor – John Ashcroft!!! – looks like a card-carrying member of the ACLU by contrast…

[Cross-posted from Blue Girl, Red State]

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How much longer do we have to abide this joker?

Of course we know why AGAG is still on the job...Anyone Bush found acceptable would not get past the confirmation process, and anyone the Democratically controlled congress would confirm...would burn the Bush maladministration to the ground.

It sure looks to me like the Attorney General of the United States should face perjury charges for lying to the House Judiciary Committee last week when he told the committee that the firing of U.S. Attorneys for political purposes was limited to the eight attorneys in the original inquiry.

The Washington Post reports this morning that he was lyin’ like a rug when he told that (tall) tale. It turns out that fully 25% of the U.S Attorneys were considered for dismissal.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales testified last week that the effort was limited to eight U.S. attorneys fired since last June, and other administration officials have said that only a few others were suggested for removal.

In fact, D. Kyle Sampson, then Gonzales's chief of staff, considered more than two dozen U.S. attorneys for termination, according to lists compiled by him and his colleagues, the sources said.

They amounted to more than a quarter of the nation's 93 U.S. attorneys. Thirteen of those known to have been targeted are still in their posts.

I can’t see Representative Conyers having much of a sense of humor about it all. Senator Schumer does not appear to be mollified. "When you start firing people for invalid reasons, just about anyone can end up on a list," he said. "It looks like the process was out of control, and if it hadn't been discovered, more would have been fired."

At least one of the targeted attorneys is not going to be placated by platitudes. Christopher J. Christie, U.S. Attorney for New Jersey and a major GOP fundraiser, is steamed about his name appearing on Mr. Sampson’s hit list.

He has a stellar record and is not accepting apologies. "I was completely shocked. No one had ever told me that my performance had been anything but good," Christie said. "I specifically asked him why he put my name on the list. He said he couldn't give me an explanation." (Because there was no legal one to offer, perhaps?)

Have we seen enough of this guy yet? Good lord – just this week we have learned about more than enough stuff to meet the burden of proof to initiate impeachment proceedings against the Attorney General.

The removal of Gonzales from his post is mandatory if we are to restore the concept of justice to Justice.

[Cross-posted from Blue Girl, Red State]

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So much for 'stare decisis'

STARE DECISIS - Lat. "to stand by that which is decided." The principal that the precedent decisions are to be followed by the courts; To abide or adhere to decided cases. It is a general maxim that when a point has been settled by decision, it forms a precedent which is not afterwards to be departed from.

If you Google Stare Decisis + Alito confirmation, you get over 30,000 hits. I recall him using that phrase exactly when he was facing the Senate and confirmation to the court.

I bet Senator Durbin does too:

SEN. DURBIN: Most of us are troubled by this 1985 memo. You said yesterday, you would have an open mind when it came to this issue. I'm sorry to report that your memo seeking a job in the Reagan administration does not evidence an open mind. It evidences a mind that sadly is closed in some areas. And yet, when we have tried to press you on this critical statement that you made in that application, a statement which was made by you that said the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion, you've been unwilling to distance yourself and to say that you disagree with that.

ALITO: The things that I said in the 1985 memo were a true expression of my views at the time from my vantage point as an attorney in the Solicitor General's office. But that was 20 years ago and a great deal has happened in the case law since then. Thornburg was decided and Webster and then Casey and a number of other decisions. So the stare decisis analysis would have to take account of that entire line of case law.

I knew that little weasel wasn’t trustworthy. I knew it. And today, he proved me right.

I am confident that one of the attorneys who post here will address today’s Supreme Court decision after they read the opinions in much more detail and context than I can, but that doesn’t make me any less pissed off right now.

My anger comes from being female, and a health care professional. I know that Intact Dilation and Extraction is a medical procedure that is never undertaken lightly, and is indeed quite rare. When it is exercised, it is a last resort option. It is never an afterthought form of birth control. It is only exercised in the event of danger to the life and health of the mother or in the case of a doomed fetus.

Many years ago, I used to work in a high-risk obstetrics and fertility practice. Our goal was always a live birth and a healthy outcome. But in that practice, we didn’t always get what we wanted. Sometimes parents were faced with heart-wrenching decisions. The kind of decision where you have to decide which option is less bad, because none of them are good. Horrible decisions that no one should ever have to make.

Today, some of those couples just got dealt a sucker-punch.

Now, there will be women forced to carry doomed fetuses to term. To remain pregnant knowing that they are not bringing home a healthy baby at the end of it all. And worse still, there are the physical dangers to the mother.

I could write a thesis in laboratory medicine about what can go wrong at the end of a failed pregnancy. But instead I am going to tell you about one disorder, DIC, or Disseminated intravascular coagulation. It is a terribly nasty disorder, and quite often fatal. Fortunately it is quite rare.

The leading cause of the disorder in reproductive-age females is intrauterine fetal demise.

On Mother’s Day of last year, a woman came in to the labor and delivery unit of the hospital where I was working at the time, and delivered a stillborn infant. Two days later, she was critical, suffering from DIC. Frankly, I don’t know if she made it or not. She was still alive when I finished my last shift that week, and she was gone when I returned. But I never looked in the computer to check the details of her demise. I didn’t want to know if she left horizontal.

I don’t care if it is only five additional women a year who end up contracting DIC, and I don’t care if all five recover…The fact remains that they should have the right to control their own bodies and make the decisions that are best for them and their families.

This SCOTUS decision smacks of misogyny and willful ignorance. And it is condescending as hell. Families faced with the tragedies that lead to the decision to opt for the procedure are not making flip, split-second, devil-may-care decisions. They do not deserve to have a heartbreaking decision that could save the womans life denied them.

And we won't even get into compromise of future fertility. That was quite a position for the "pro-family" conservatives to take...

I hope this issue is revisited soon and this bad decision is overturned in short order.

If it is not, ladies and Gentlemen, meet President Hillary Clinton.

There's more: "So much for 'stare decisis'" >>