The Christian Civic League of Maine's Mike Hein calls Pam's House Blend: "a leading source of radical homosexual propaganda, anti-Christian bigotry, and radical transgender advocacy."
He is "praying that Pam Spaulding will "turn away from her wicked and sinful promotion of homosexual behavior."
(CCLM's web site, 10/15/07)
Ex-gay "Christian" activist James Hartline on Pam:
"I have been mocked over and over again by ungodly and unprincipled anti-christian lesbians."
(from "Six Years In Sodom: From The Journal Of James Hartline," 9/4/2006, written from the "homosexual stronghold" of Hillcrest in San Diego).
"Pam is a 'twisted lesbian sister' and an 'embittered lesbian' of the 'self-imposed gutteral experiences of the gay ghetto.'" -- 9/5/2008
Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth Against Homosexuality heartily endorses the Blend, calling Pam:
A "vicious anti-Christian lesbian activist." (Concerned Women for America's radio show [9:15], 1/25/07)
"A nutty lesbian blogger." (MassResistance radio show [16:25], 2/3/07)
Pam's House Blend always seems to find these sick f*cks. The area of the country she is in? The home state of her wife? I know, they are everywhere. Pam just does such a great job of bringing them out into the light.
--Impeach Bush
who monitors yours Bevis ?? Just thought I would drop you a line,so the rest of your life is not wasted.
What, you mean we were seen as a danger to the government by Dear Leader's peeps!? Get me a fainting couch...(Wash Blade):
Applicants for Justice Department internships and honors programs may have been rejected based on their membership in LGBT groups during the Bush administration, the Blade has learned.
Numerous applicants were denied entry to the department's Honors Program and the summer intern program starting in 2006 because of their previous work in what were deemed to be liberal organizations, according to an internal Justice Department report issued last year. The practice occurred while Attorney General Alberto Gonzales led the department.
..."The findings of this Department of Justice investigation are disturbing," said Sean Cahill, a Gay Men's Health Crisis director. "If anything, the opportunities for interns to work on immigration law at Gay Men's Health Crisis, and provide legal services to immigrants living with HIV, makes one more qualified, not less, to serve in the Department of Justice."
Also on the sh*t list were any people affiliated with immigration issues -- that means two-for-two for Immigration Equality!
"While few gay rights groups are included on the DOJ's blacklist, immigrant advocacy groups make up 25 percent of the list," she said. "The rights of non-citizens are the canary in our constitutional coal mine, and LGBT people, both immigrants and non-immigrants, know that immigrant rights must be zealously defended for everyone's sake."
...Rachel Tiven, Immigration Equality's executive director, said in a statement that her organization was "proud to be the only national LGBT organization included in the Bush Justice Department's list of dangerous organizations" and that "opponents of equality and justice are right to fear us."
Not surprisingly, 82% of folks with ties to liberal orgs had their resumes hit the circular file while only 13% of people with conservative backgrounds were crossed off the list.
Bring out the tiny violin for all those former high-riding Bush appointees -- it's tough pounding the pavement in their former Dear Leader's economy, and even tougher when no one wants the taint of Bush anywhere near them. The wingnut welfare, Paul Krugman noted, is in short supply these days. (WSJ):
The jobless rate is hanging high -- for many of the roughly 3,000 political appointees who served President George W. Bush. Finding work has proved a far tougher task than those appointees expected.
...Only 25% to 30% of ex-Bush officials seeking full-time jobs have succeeded, estimated Eric Vautour, a Washington recruiter at Russell Reynolds Associates Inc. That "is much, much worse" than when Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton left the White House, he said. At least half those presidents' senior staffers landed employment within a month after the administration ended, Mr. Vautour recalled.
...Washington think tanks, charities and trade associations long provided fertile ground for ex-political appointees. But many lack interest in hiring high-profile Republicans when Democrats control the White House and Congress. Mr. Bush's low approval ratings at the end of his term don't help, said Leonard Pfeiffer IV, a Washington recruiter for nonprofits.
One of the best spins on his unemployment status comes from former HHS secretary Mike Leavitt -- he will "spend a few months trying to align his interests with opportunities." And the full serving of schadenfreude goes to former AG Alberto "Torture" Gonzales, who's been pounding the pavement for a while now and is sore that no one wants to hire him.
Mr. Gonzales, the former attorney general, who was forced to resign last year, has been unable to interest law firms in adding his name to their roster, Washington lawyers and his associates said in recent interviews.
He has, through friends, put out inquiries, they said, and has not found any takers. What makes Mr. Gonzales's case extraordinary is that former attorneys general, the government's chief lawyer, are typically highly sought.
...The greatest impediment to Mr. Gonzales's being offered the kind of high-salary job being snagged these days by lesser Justice Department officials, many lawyers agree, is his performance during his last few months in office. In that period, he was openly criticized by lawmakers for being untruthful in his sworn testimony. His conduct is being investigated by the Office of the Inspector General of the Justice Department, which could recommend actions from exonerating him to recommending criminal charges. Friends set up a fund to help pay his legal bills.
For some reason, I am portrayed as the one who is evil in formulating policies that people disagree with. I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror.
Just pathetic. The loyal Bushies -- count among them Karl Rove, Margaret Spellings and tool Alberto Gonzales -- flew to Texas for Bush's "welcome home" fete after he passed the torch to Obama and became a former president. Apparently there was a little emotional man-love on the flight. Here's Gonzo reliving the moment and sharing it with Cox News reporter Ken Herman.
GONZALES: The last thing he said as he was getting off the plane - he kissed me on the forehead - and he said, "Just stay strong." [...]
HERMAN: Any tears shed on the plane by anybody? GONZALES: By me, yeah. There were a few.
HERMAN: Why?
GONZALES: Just pride. Just love and appreciation for the man and what he did, Ken. I feel - being on this trip did a lot for me, in terms of just making me realize - it was a small part, but I played a part in protecting our country, and I take a great deal of pride in that.
Watch this pathetic video of Gonzo; there's serious denial that all these Bush loyalists earned a paycheck on our dime as we watched them f*ck up the country.
Brass balls award for this mind-blower. Former Constitution shredder Alberto Gonzalestold the WSJ that he hasn't found gainful employment (or a publisher for this fish wrapper) and blames everyone except himself for f*cking up and politicizing the Justice Department.
The onetime Bush Attorney General admitted Tuesday that "skittish" law firms won't hire him after his departure under fire from the Justice Department surrounding his role in the political firings of nine US Attorneys. He says he considers himself a victim of the "war on terror," though his firing actually came after what seemed to be a war on US Attorneys who didn't cleave to Administration policies.
Sounding dumbfounded, the 53-year-old former judge and corporate lawyer told the Wall Street Journal, "What is it that I did that is so fundamentally wrong, that deserves this kind of response to my service?"
He says he's delivered a few paid speeches, done mediation work and arbitration.
In the interview, he also said he's writing a book but hasn't yet found a publisher. He also sounded flummoxed by the amount of rancor leveled at his stewardship of the Justice Department, saying he wasn't the one to blame.
"For some reason, I am portrayed as the one who is evil in formulating policies that people disagree with," Gonzales said. "I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror."
Jon Perr over at Perrspectives does a nice summary on this, including Gonzales' view of the infamous thuggish visit to "extremely ill and disoriented" former Attorney General John Ashcroft's hospital bed (following) emergency gall bladder surgery trying to get the ailing man's John Hancock on renewal of Bush's illegal domestic surveillance program.
He has a lot to offer a company like Wal-Mart. If someone asks him where to return merchandise, he could tell them he doesn't recall, or better yet, say something like, "You did not buy that here; you built it in your garage," or "Uh, you're at the wrong place. This isn't Wal-Mart. Nancy Pelosi switched our signs during the night."
This is big news, particularly for people who think that you can't be fired because your sexual orientation in this country. Even when you think you are protected, you may not be.
Monica Goodling and D. Kyle Sampson, key aides to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, violated federal law and departmental policy by considering political affiliation and other improper factors in Justice Department hiring decisions, according to another devastating report from DOJ's Inspector General and the department's Office of Professional Responsibility, issued this morning.
Read the report for yourself here; and the summary (Goodling.doc). The relevant section:
In another matter, we found that Goodling violated Department policy and federal law, and committed misconduct, when she refused to extend the detail of a career AUSA, and later tried to block the AUSA from obtaining other details, at least in part because of rumors regarding the AUSA's sexual orientation.
The discrimination charge in the document is notable because of the interpretation of the protection in Civil Service Reform Act; there is no specific clause on sexual orientation. Read this passage from the report (below the fold) carefully...
If Gonzales is replaced by Homeland Insecurity head Michael Chertoff, CNN's sources say that DHS will be headed up by Clay Johnson III, the Deputy Director for Management at the Office of Management and Budget.
It would be yet another hack appointment, a friend of Bush, completely unqualified to defend the homeland, as it were. Think Progress:
Johnson, who has no homeland security experience, is a professional Bush loyalist. While Johnson may have familiarity with some aspects of DHS's budget, he appears to have no experience in the many responsibilities of the department, including immigration, air travel security, disaster response, and other aspects of our nation's homeland defense.
He's just the tip of the iceberg; the entire administration is corrupt to the core. (AP):
Embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, under fire from congressional Democrats, has resigned, senior Bush administration officials said Monday.
A senior Justice Department official said that a likely temporary replacement for Gonzales is Solicitor General Paul Clement, who would take over until a permanent replacement is found.
Another official, also speaking on grounds of anonymity, said that Gonzales had submitted a resignation letter last Friday. These officials declined to be identified because the formal announcement about Gonzales was still pending.
When shall we expect to see him to receive a Medal of Freedom from Dear Leader?
This weekend there were rumors that master-of-Katrina-disaster Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff would eventually take over for Gonzo, which is simply high comedy. (US News & World Report):
Why Chertoff? Officials say he's got fans on Capitol Hill, is untouched by the Justice prosecutor scandal, and has more experience than Gonzales did, having served as a federal judge and assistant attorney general.
It's not often I get to post something good about Oregon's Republican Senator Gordon Smith. So, it's only fair that I note he was one of the 53 senators who voted for cloture on the resolution to call for "no confidence" on Alberto Gonzalez.
Conservatives kill Gonzales no-confidence vote. Moments ago, the no-confidence measure on Alberto Gonzales came up seven votes short of a procedural hurdle, passing 53-38. The vote was largely down party lines, except for seven Republicans who supported the measure (Coleman, Collins, Hagel, Smith, Snowe, Specter, Sununu) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), who opposed it.
So seven Republicans voted for it, and there are 51 Democatic votes... hey, the math's wrong! Where's all the Dem votes?
Oh. I see. Presidential candidates Biden (D-MBNA), Obama (D-IL), and Dodd (D-CT) couldn't be bothered to vote on the measure. At least Tim Johnson (D-SD) had a legitimate excuse. And good ol' Holy Joe Lieberman (CFL-Israel) voted with the Republicans.
Oh yeah! It was her job to get the intelligence in the run up to Iraq right, and as we know now, she blew it, or even better, let it get fudged. One committee issued a subpoena for Condi, another gave immunity to Gonzales aide, Regent University graduate Monica Goodling.
In rapid succession, congressional committees Wednesday ramped up their investigations of the Bush administration by approving a subpoena for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and granting immunity to a former key aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
By 21-10, the House oversight committee voted to issue a subpoena to Rice to compel her story on the Bush administration's claim, now discredited, that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa.
...Moments earlier in the committee chamber next door, the House Judiciary Committee voted 32-6 to grant immunity to Monica Goodling, Gonzales' White House liaison, for her testimony on why the administration fired eight federal prosecutors. The panel also unanimously approved - but did not issue - a subpoena to compel her to appear.
Let's see, will Condi come down with a case of faulty memory, like Gonzo?
LIAR. That's what protestors shouted behind Alberto Gonzales as he testified before Judiciary Committee for seven hours yesterday.
The short description of it all is that no matter how many times Alberto Gonzales and dissembled about not recalling significant recent conversations, or even worse, trying to weasel out of being caught in a lie with a new spin on "mistakes were made," he self-destructed in his testimony.
Gonzales recalled an Oct. 11 conversation with Bush and White House political adviser Karl Rove about voter fraud concerns during which Iglesias, who was later fired, came up.
"I now understand that there was a conversation between myself and the president," Gonzales said.
He had to choose between being perceived as a cipher and admitting to lying about his prior testimony -- plus declaring that the firing of the U.S. attorneys was a political act coordinated with the likes of Karl Rove. Gonzo has selected to be seen as an empty vessel or perhaps suffering from senility.
Seventy-one times Gonzales claimed a faulty memory when members of the Senate committee asked such questions as who decided on the ousted eight, and whether Gonzales was or was not involved in the evaluation process.
It was not the performance President Bush seemed to be seeking when he said last March that "Al's got work to do up there." Still, White House officials said the president continued to support his longtime friend. Bush spokesman Tony Fratto said that Gonzales "can be effective going forward."
For his part, the attorney general insisted he had committed no wrongdoing.
"The moment I believe I can no longer be effective, I will resign," he said.
...At the end, Gonzales shook hands with the senators remaining in the room and strode out, ignoring reporters' questions. Protesters at the back of the room sang a rock tune popular with sports fans when a rival basketball player fouls out of a game: "Hey, hey, hey, goodbye."
He pleased no one, including two Bush loyalists, Sen. John Cornyn (TX), who, called the handling of the firings "deplorable," and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina who said:
"It's clear to me that some of these people just had personality conflicts with people in your office or the White House and (they) just made up reasons to fire them. You have a tremendous credibility problem with the American people and the Congress."
In any event, Gonzo made the case that he should step down, but he's obviously been told by the White House to take the fall, lest he leave Bush exposed.
(I asked Autumn to write this post because I've been at the Full Frame Documentary Film Fest and offline most of the day. Isn't it mind-blowing how far the fundies go to infiltrate the government -- you've got to admire the vile diligence. - promoted by pam)
If more Americans would read works like Michelle Goldberg's Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, the longevity of our democracy, as we know it, would be more assured. I say this because the more people who understand the thinking and agenda of the growing forces of "Christian nationalism," the less likely it will be that these forces will succeed. Not many people want to go where Christian nationalists want to take the country.
Where do Christian Nationalists want to take the country? Dean further writes:
Michelle Goldberg, a journalist who writes for Salon, defines Christian nationalism as the "Christian worldview" that envisions Christianity governing "every aspect of public and private life, and [holds] that all -- government, science, history, culture, and relationships -- must be understood according to the dictates of scripture." Christian nationalists have "biblically correct positions on every issue, from gay marriage to income tax rates."
These believers are also known as dominionists. Dominionism is a theology drawn from God's instruction to Adam in Genesis (1:26-27) to take dominion over the animate and inanimate world. As Goldberg explains, "dominionism is derived from a theocratic sect called Christian Reconstructionism, which advocates replacing American civil law with Old Testament biblical law." . . .
Christian Nationalists are a small but highly influential minority. They certainly do not represent a majority of Americans, or even a majority of evangelicals. Rather, when chatting, Goldberg compared them to neoconservatives, who are a small minority of conservatives, but a highly (if not a disproportionately) influential one. By way of further comparison, she explained that Christian nationalists operate and proselytize in ways not unlike those American Communists once used. (Based on my own research, I agree with her analogy.)
Christian Nationalists dominate today's Republican Party. Goldberg conducted her research much as an anthropologist might; she traveled to Texas, Colorado, West Virginia and other places to mix and mingle with Christian nationalists at the grass- roots level, in their churches, conventions and other places where they congregate. She asked questions and listened to answers. In her book, Goldberg cites a 2002 study regarding the "strong influence" of the religious right "in eighteen state Republican parties" and "moderate influence in twenty-six others." As she no doubt correctly suspects, "their control has only expanded since then."
This particular Christian viewpoint of the world has again been brought to the attention of the mainstream media, yet the most recent story of conservative this theology's influence in throughout the Bush administration has been lost to the sea of press coverage of Imus's racist comments about Rutgers' University women's basketball players. The alumni of Regent University, especially it's law school, are found throughout the Justice Department.
As background, Regent University was founded by televangelist Pat Robertson, and the university's slogans are "The nation's academic center for Christian thought and action" and "Christian leadership to change the world." Regent's law school per a US News & World Report ranking, a "tier four" school -- essentially in a tie for 136th place among all law schools. It's been in existance for only ten years.
Yet, Regent University's law school has many graduates in policy positions throughout President Bush's administration. How many? Per the Boston Globe, more than one-hundred-fifty -- more than one-hundred-fifty Regent University alumni have been hired to federal government positions since President Bush took office in 2001.
Approximately one out of every six Regent alumni is employed in some form of government work. And more frequently, students who attend Regent are convinced that they want to enter government practice in positions such as district attorneys, public defenders, attorneys in the Department of Justice, JAG corps, working on Capitol Hill, or other government positions.
Bush administration officials have been conducting official business using unofficial e-mail addresses -- Republican Party-sponsored e-mail accounts to avoid violations of the Hatch Act which among other things, bars federal employees from engaging in political activities with government resources or while on the clock, There is also a legal responsibility to archive all official records of communication.
Some of the matters discussed using those accounts revolve around the Gonzales prosecutor-firing scandal -- and now look at what has happened.
The White House said Wednesday it had mishandled Republican Party-sponsored e-mail accounts used by nearly two dozen presidential aides, resulting in the loss of an undetermined number of e-mails concerning official White House business.
Congressional investigators looking into the administration's firing of eight federal prosecutors already had the nongovernmental e-mail accounts in their sights because some White House aides used them to help plan the U.S. attorneys' ouster. Democrats were questioning whether the use of the GOP-provided e-mail accounts was proof that the firings were political.
Democrats also have been asking if White House officials are purposely conducting sensitive official presidential business via nongovernmental accounts to get around a law requiring preservation - and eventual disclosure - of presidential records. The announcement of the lost e-mails - a rare admission of error from the Bush White House at a delicate time for the administration's relations with Democratically controlled Capitol Hill - gave new fodder for inquiry on this front.
"This sounds like the administration's version of the dog ate my homework," said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. "I am deeply disturbed that just when this administration is finally subjected to meaningful oversight, it cannot produce the necessary information."
If you aren't up to speed on the issue of the underground White House e-communications, I highly recommend reading The Hidden Scandal Within the Prosecutor Purge, a post by Shakes Sis (Melissa McEwan) and Joseph Hughes of Hughes for America. There's another trend -- Bush, Gonzales, Condi, Chertoff, Rumsfeld don't use email. Was this a runaround to avoid the record-keeping required by the Presidential Records Act (PRA)? See more after the flip.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, both already under siege for other matters, are now being accused of failing to prosecute officers of the Texas Youth Commission after a Texas Ranger investigation documented that guards and administrators were sexually abusing the institution's minor boy inmates.
Among the charges in the Texas Ranger report were that administrators would rouse boys from their sleep for the purpose of conducting all-night sex parties.
Ray Brookins, one of the officials named in the report, was a Texas prison guard before being hired at the youth commission school. As a prison guard, Brookins had a history of disciplinary and petty criminal records dating back 21 years. He retained his job despite charges of using pornography on the job, including viewing nude photos of men and women on state computers.
..."This case demonstrates that a partisan political agenda, with Karl Rove in an orchestrating role, has penetrated the Justice Department and subverted fair-minded administration of the law," Matt Angle, director of the Lone Star Project, told WND.
You won't believe the reasons given for not prosecuting the case of these perverts. How about the minor boys wanted it. See after the jump.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales approved plans to fire several U.S. attorneys according to documents released Friday, the Associated Press is now reporting.
"Attorney General Alberto Gonzales approved plans to fire several U.S. attorneys in a November meeting, according to documents released Friday that contradict earlier claims that he was not closely involved in the dismissals," reports the AP.
The report continues, "The Nov. 27 meeting, in which the attorney general and at least five top Justice Department officials participated, focused on a five-step plan for carrying out the firings of the prosecutors, Justice Department officials said late Friday."
"There, Gonzales signed off on the plan, which was crafted by his chief of staff, Kyle Sampson. Sampson resigned last week in the wake of the political firestorm surrounding the firings."
That contradicts statements made by Gonzales on Martch 13 asserting that he was not involved directly with those plans.
It's Rose Mary Woods all over again (for those of you too young to remember her place in history, click here)...
Can you believe this -- there's an 18-day gap in the email data dump released by the Justice Department regarding the Gonzales/U.S. attorney firing scandal. The gap is between November 15 and December 4, 2006. The calls to fire the U.S. attorneys went out on December 7th, but the original idea was for those calls to occur on November 15th, according to Josh Marshall. Emails during that period clearly would be of interest to the House Judiciary Committee.
Tony Snow didn't handle the question of the gap very well at the press briefing.
Q Now there's one e-mail from November 15th that says, from Mr. Sampson to Harriet Miers, I believe, who will determine whether this requires the president's attention?
MR. SNOW: Right.
Q And then there's a gap in e-mails. Was there any, perhaps any e-mails about the president in there? And did the president have to sign off on this? Because the question was raised --
MR. SNOW: The president has no recollection of this ever being raised with him.
...Q Tony, just for the record, this gap between mid-November and early December, is there a gap because there are no e-mails pertaining to this situation between then, or are there more e-mails to come out between then?
MR. SNOW: That I don't know. Like I said, that's why I think you need to go back and ask the Department of Justice. They've done the document production. We have not been in charge of it. I would refer questions to them.
Q Just to follow, could you say again for the record that the president has no recollection of ever being asked about any of this?
MR. SNOW: Yeah, the removal of -- yes, that is correct.
He didn't handle the rest of the questions about the response to the prospect of subpoenas, or what the President has to hide either. It's laughable.
Q So were his advisers really advising him on this, or is this really privileged communication involving the president and his advisers if the president wasn't looped in, you're saying, on this decision. So were other people --
MR. SNOW: Well, that's -- that also falls into the "intriguing question" category.
Q Well -- but I mean --
MR. SNOW: No, you're asking -- you're asking me to -- look, Ed, there are a number of complex legal considerations in here and I'm not going to try to play junior lawyer. These are the sort of things that people are going to have an opportunity to talk about.
Q Well, you have it both ways. You're saying the president wasn't in the loop --
MR. SNOW: No --
Q -- but you just cite executive privilege for the president's communications.
MR. SNOW: No, what you are saying is are conversations that didn't take place privileged? Well, no, they didn't take place.
Q So what are you protecting?
MR. SNOW: No, we're not -- what we're trying to do is to protect the ability of the American people see folks in Washington get at the truth without, in fact, engaging in the kind of unseemly partisanship that has too often been a factor in recent political life.
Checking out the Blend archives, it looks like the White House has a penchant for delay (and destroy?) when it comes producing evidence when their asses are in the fire. Read more after the flip.
"This Congress respects White House prerogatives as a safeguard for the internal deliberations on the legitimate creation of policy, but they are not a 'get out of jail free' card. There must be accountability." -- Rep. Linda Sánchez, Chairwoman of the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, to Raw Story
The House said no oto ff-the-record testimony without a transcript or oath for Harriet, Karl, and the rest of the dissemblers in the White House connected to the Gonzales/U.S. attorney firing scandal. Bush's whining press conference didn't scare anyone. (Raw Story):
The House Committee investigating the firing of US Attorneys by the Justice Department authorized the issuing of subpoenas of top aides to President George W. Bush today in a voice vote. They stopped short of issuing the subpoenas themselves.
...The authorization provided for subpoenas to "secure testimony at a hearing, and to obtain documents from these individuals, as well as unredacted documents from the Department of Justice and the White House, pursuant to the Committee's investigation concerning the recent termination of United States Attorneys and related subjects" according to a notice at the House Judiciary Committee website.
Subpoenas for the following individuals would be covered by the authorization: D. Kyle Sampson, Karl Rove, Harriet Miers, William Kelley, and Scott Jennings.
Look at the limp response by Republican Chris Cannon (R-UT) after the flip.
That's just about pointless. It's the f*cking living end with these liars and crooks, isn't it? What's the problem with Harriet and Karl going before Congress, on the record, to say what did and didn't happen with the firings of federal prosecutors? Obviously, the documentation from the DOJ shows so far that they can't keep their stories straight -- wouldn't he want them to clear their names and set the record straight?
NOT. The arrogance of this administration is simply appalling. Dear Leader got up and did a ridiculous presser and basically through the gauntlet down. (AP):
A defiant President Bush warned Democrats Tuesday to accept his offer to have top aides testify about the firings of federal prosecutors only privately and not under oath or risk a constitutional showdown from which he would not back down.
Democrats' response to his proposal was swift and firm: They said they would start authorizing subpoenas as soon as Wednesday for the White House aides.
"Testimony should be on the record and under oath. That's the formula for true accountability," said Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
...The Senate, meanwhile, voted to strip Gonzales of his authority to fill U.S. attorney vacancies without Senate confirmation. Democrats contend the Justice Department and White House purged eight federal prosecutors, some of whom were leading political corruption investigations, after a change in the Patriot Act gave Gonzales the new authority.
You should take a look at Glenn Greenwald's column, The president's oh-so-noble reliance on "executive privilege," which explains why Bush has no legal leg to stand on if he tries to assert exec priv on this matter. The courts have been clear -- it only applies "to military, diplomatic, or sensitive national security secrets."
First, the President began his Press Conference by admitting that the administration's explanations as to what happened here have been -- to use his own words -- "confusing" and "incomplete." Why, then, would Congress possibly trust Bush officials to provide more explanations in an off-the-record, no-transcript setting where there are no legal consequences from failing to tell the truth?
Once a party demonstrates a propensity to issue false explanations and refuses to tell the truth voluntarily, no rational person would trust that party to make voluntary disclosures. One could trust (if at all) only on-the-record testimony, under oath, where there are criminal penalties for lying (if they have questions about that motivational dynamic, they can ask Lewis Libby).
You have to read Glenn; he pulls up some laff riot quotes from Tony Snow back in 1998, who called executive privilege "a dodge" when it was Clinton on the hot seat because of La Lewinsky.
***
Shakes Sis has been commenting on the use (or lack of use) of email by principal figures in this administration, and that there are no emails from Gonzales in the document dump from the DOJ. Bush has been on the record that he doesn't use email and is paranoid about the paper trail it creates. Read what he said about it after the jump.
Apparently the White House knows the paper trail leads up to the top, so it is already floating names of possible replacements for Alberto Gonzales. The Justice Department just released more internal communications surrounding the firing of eight U.S. attorneys last year that suggest the firings were politically motivated.
One prominent Republican, who earlier had predicted that Gonzales would survive the controversy, said he expected both Gonzales and Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty to resign soon. Another well-connected Republican said that White House officials have launched an aggressive search for Gonzales' replacement, though Bush hadn't decided whether to ask for his resignation.
Support for Gonzales appeared to be collapsing under the weight of questions about his truthfulness and his management ability. White House spokesman Tony Snow offered a tepid defense when asked if Gonzales would stay on the job until the end of President Bush's term.
... Possible replacements for Gonzales include Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, Security and Exchange Commission chairman Chris Cox, White House anti-terrorism adviser Fran Townsend, former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson and former solicitor general Theodore B. Olson.
U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, appeared at a press conference today to save his job (and avoid the clink), but said he wouldn't resign. All he will say that "mistakes were made." This is getting old.
The White House suggested two years ago that the Justice Department fire all 93 U.S. attorneys, a proposal that eventually resulted in the dismissals of eight prosecutors last year, according to e-mails and internal documents that the administration will provide to Congress today.
...Gonzales approved the idea of firing a smaller group of U.S. attorneys shortly after taking office in February 2005. The aide in charge of the dismissals -- his chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson -- resigned yesterday, officials said, after acknowledging that he did not tell key Justice officials about the extent of his communications with the White House, leading them to provide incomplete information to Congress.
...Seven U.S. attorneys were fired on Dec. 7 and another was fired months earlier, with little explanation from the Justice Department. Several former prosecutors have since alleged intimidation, including improper telephone calls from GOP lawmakers or their aides, and have alleged threats of retaliation by a Justice Department official.
It's Rose Mary Woods all over again (for those of you too young to remember her place in history, 
