Monday, March 27, 2006

I'm with Russ: If not Censure, how do you hold Bush accountable?

"I welcome their attempt to make a campaign issue of the question of whether there will be accountability for the president's breaking the law. They will remind people every minute that the president thumbed his nose at the law." -- Russ Feingold

I am now beyond the nay-saying DLC-types. Forget about them... too much negativity. We have a plan.

That's right! As we head into a week that will culminate in a Senate hearing over whether to Censure the President of the United States for wilfully, intentionally and repeatedly breaking the law, we should keep in mind the key point to the censure debate.

If you are not going to censure a President who breaks the law, how do you hold him accountable?

If you are not going to censure a President who illegally wiretaps, how do you hold him accountable?

If you are not going to censure a President who condones leaking CIA agent's identities, how do you hold him accountable?

If you are not going to censure a President who lies us to a 1-2 trillion dollar war with 2318 U.S. deaths, how do you hold him accountable?

If you are not going to censure a President who condones Abu Grahaib and Guantanamo, how do you hold him accountable?

If you are not going to censure a President who oversees the disaster response to Katrina, how do you hold him accountable?

If you are not going to censure a President who runs up a 9 trillion dollar debt, how do you hold him accountable?

If you are not going to censure a President who tries to obliterate social security, how do you hold him accountable?

If you are not going to censure a President who cuts taxes for the rich while deficits soar out of control, how do you hold him accountable?

If you are not going to censure a President who lobbies for and signs into law a moronic medicare drug program, how do you hold him accountable?

So stand with Russ. Ask the Republicans, "How will you hold the President accountable?"

This is a winner for us.

Sunday, March 19, 2006

Hey Dem Idiots: Censure Makes 2006 a Referendum Election

Look, I'm no genius at composing these diaries.  There are folks like Hunter and Dood Abides and emptywheel whose work blows me away.  But this censure issue is not rocket science.  Rove and the Republicans want 2006 to be what they call a "choice election."  They made 2004 a choice between Bush and Kerry, and then proceeded to trash a war hero so they could get their idiot candidate 47% of the vote and then steal the remaining 3% through election fraud.


The alternative to a "choice election" is a "referendum election" and even the "worst/stupidest president ever" can figure out how a referendum on a 33% President is going to turn out...
So all of you Dem Pro/DLC/Pudwhackers out there help me understand this...

If we want to make this election a referendum on Bush, why don't we use censure to push the Rethugs right into his arms.

If they want to defend illegal wiretapping, let them.
If they want to defend leaking CIA agent's identities, let them.
If they want to defend the lies that led us to a 1-2 trillion dollar war, let them.
If they want to defend 2318 U.S. deaths, let them.
If they want to defend Abu Grahaib and Guantanamo, let them.
If they want to defend Katrina, let them.
If they want to defend a 9 trillion dollar debt, let them.
If they want to defend trying to privatize social security, let them.
If they want to defend tax cuts for the rich, let them.
If they want to defend a moronic medicare drug program, let them.

But for CRYING OUT LOUD, don't stand there with them.

Even though Feingold's censure resolution focused on NISA, it is easy to imagine how the campaign could play out...

We don't need no stinkin' Contract with America...

IF YOU WANT TO CENSURE THE PRESIDENT FOR THE JOB HE HAS DONE, VOTE DEMOCRATIC!

Is there any easier way to make 2006 a "referendum election"?

What is so friggin hard about that?

OK, so I may not be as sharp as many if not most of my fellow diarists, but even a chimp can see that no Rethug wants to defend Bush in this election... Why are Dems making their jobs so friggin easy?  Just stand with Russ.

Sunday, January 08, 2006

Mary K. Butler: Delay's, Rove's, and Bush's Worst Nightmare.

Mary Butler, the lead prosecutor in the Abramoff scandal, is an elusive presence Google-land... While Patrick Fitzgerald, of course has been amply covered, Butler has been virtually ignored.  


But after a rigorous search I found a fascinating Symposium in which she participated entitled Who Controls Corruption? The Press, the Law, and the Public from September 12, 2000. In the course of the conference, Butler presents her philosophy for prosecuting corruption cases. This philosophy does not bode well for Delay, Blount, Rove, Norquist and perhaps some bigger fish.  


Those of us concerned about the effect of Alice Fisher and Abu Gonzalez on the investigation will take heart in a number of Butler's comments... She also provides us with a clear sense of how difficult her job is, as she describes how infuriating it can be when juries talk themselves into acquitting in a maddening way.


But the bottom line is that this seems to be a "journeyman" prosecutor who is intent on doing her job and gives ZERO consideration to the political implications, and does not expect her boss's politics to impact her work.


More below...

You can hook up to the audio here.


The video archive does not seem to be working.


Here is the only photo that I could find of Ms. Butler.


Mary K. Butler from the Department of Justice was a panelist in a discussion on corruption sponsored by the Center for Ethics and World Societies. Also participating, from left, were pollster John Zogby, National Public Radio's Peter Overby and former Congressman Louis Stokes of Ohio. Courtesy Colgate U.


Before we get into what Butler said at the symposium, here is an article from the Hill dated June 15, 2005 assessing Butler as she took on the Abramoff matter...

A little-known but well-respected Justice Department trial lawyer is leading the government's high-profile criminal investigation into disgraced Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.


She is Mary K. Butler, one of 26 attorneys in the Public Integrity section and 94 U.S. attorneys around the country who investigate and prosecute cases of extortion, bribery, election crimes and criminal conflicts of interest.


Although there has been intense scrutiny of Abramoff and his associates, little is known about the career government attorneys investigating him. A Department of Justice spokesman declined to comment, but lawyers who represent a witness in the Abramoff investigation or who have dealt with Justice helped flesh out how the section operates.


Butler practiced law in Chicago before joining the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of Florida in 1987, where she prosecuted white-collar crime and public corruption. She was part of the independent counsel's office, which investigated former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt. She joined the Public Integrity section six years ago and has been considered for supervisory positions but apparently was not selected.


I am sure Ms. Butler is thrilled about that.


And here is Ms. Butler's bio on the Symposium website...

Mary K. Butler


Mary K. Butler is an honors graduate of Vassar College and the University of Wisconsin Law School.  She was a lawyer in private civil practice with the Chicago law firm of Hopkins and Sutter for six years before joining the U.S. Attorneys Office in the Southern District of Florida in Miami in the fall of 1987.  As an Assistant United States Attorney, Mary worked primarily in the areas of white collar crime and corruption until December, 1999.  She also served as Chief of the Corruption Section from June, 1997 through February, 1998.  In April, 2000, she was temporarily assigned to serve as Senior Associate Counsel for the Independent Counsel Investigation of Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt in Washington, D.C.  In December, 1999, Mary became a trial attorney in the Public Integrity Section at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.

In her career, Ms. Butler has prosecuted a Mayor, a City Manager, City Council Members and County Commissioners, a bank president, lobbyists and other businessmen and women on corruption-related offenses, including: bribery and obstruction of justice, honest services wire and mail fraud, theft of government funds and federal program fraud.  She also prosecuted a federal grand juror who leaked information and several federal and local law enforcement officers who took bribes, extorted money, stole drugs and money, smuggled drugs, bought child pornography and used unreasonable force.  

This list does not include many more investigations that did not result in prosecutions.


Shorter version, Mary Butler doesn't waste her time.


There is no transcript available for her remarks, but I have transcribed a few choice statements below.


Curiously, one of the most perceptive assessors of the wages of Bushco's political sins, Pollster John Zogby, introduces Butler and moderates the symposium panel.  (For a great assessment by Zogby go here, and for an ee cummings-esque interpretation, go here.)


Butler begins with an overview that helps us understand her priorities.  She - at that point in 2000 - was a self-described 13-year veteran "journeyman prosecutor."  And in the same vein as, say Patrick Fitzgerald, she knows why she wants to do her job...




It's important obviously to sometimes step back from the mechanics of what we do to make sure that we have not just a perspective that's healthy about what we do as prosecutors because we have the public trust in our hands, but also to be energized about our commitment to the anti-corruption problem...


I have to use the caveat that I don't speak really for the justice department.  So I'm giving you my personal views...


After a primer on the mechanics of what she does, she says...


In a more general sense I represent an institution that is the Justice Department, that I think most people think should be responsible for suppressing, for investigating, deterring and punishing corruption.


She then talks about the authority that prosecutors have to prosecute local, state and federal officials on corruption-related crimes, and lays down the gauntlet that political interference is not tolerated in the Public Integrity branch.


... the journeyman prosecutors in the Justice Department tend by and large to be career type prosecutors who are simply lawyers with an interest in being prosecutors and not people who would tend to leave the office when the US attorney changes or necessarily be responsive to the personal priorities of the U.S. Attorney and that is also a safe guard in large measure for the fair and even handed prosecution of corruption crimes...


...the core corruption statutes are... laws that punish bribery and laws that punish extortion... and there is a whole other range of prohibited conduct that is actually used more often by corruption prosecutors, and those are laws which govern the responsibility to give full and complete disclosure of financial information or of business and familial relationships and to make truthful and accurate statements to investigators... to federal.... All those types of statutes are in the arsenal of the corruption prosecutor...  As well there is a mechanism of civil sanctions and what might be called employment sanctions.  A government employee might be deemed to have committed a crime that justifies their firing but doesn't necessarily justify their criminal prosecution... and probably the vast majority of misconduct is actually handled in that civil or administrative framework... Because the core corruption crimes are difficult to prove most corruption prosecutions actually resolve themselves on crimes other than the core corruption crimes.


She then goes on to explain that it is very rare to get a public citizen to be a whistleblower.  Usually it is someone with a problem who participates in helping prosecutors build the case.  She also recognizes the problem of selling the truthfulness of a tainted cooperating witness....


The job for the prosecutor then is to corroborate in everyway possible the statements that this accuser, this cooperator makes.


She then goes on to describe the tecniques used to shore up the credibility of these tainted witnesses, including, e-mail, financial records, and audio and video surveillance.


At the beginning of the Q&A she explores the tension between the press and the prosecutor saying that at times the Press raises expectations about what can be proven without regards to constitutional rights and the rules of evidence at other times the press can "stiffen the back" of a prosecutor who is under pressure from the public to show leniency.


Later in the Q&A, she tells a "cynical" story illustrating a pattern of jurors refusing to convict in the face of overwhelming evidence.


"Judges stuffing money in their shirts under their shirts in their belts in the car and all you here is audio tape of the conversation... `Give me that money.  I can fit some more over here. When do you want me to make that decision about the bail reduction?' All this is going on in the car... The judge gets out, walks across the parking lot with his shirttails flapping.  The jury acquits.  And they ask the jury, "What happened there?"  And the jury says, "We couldn't see the money."...

It's just mind-boggling and wildly depressing to see the same people who demand that the corruption problem be addressed, not have the will... to convict in corruption cases.


She said this pattern is prevalent around the country among all demographics.  That is certainly the kind of story that illustrates why these prosecutors take forever to pain-stakingly make their cases.


One of the most controversial things that she says is this...


As it stands now campaign contributions are what prosecutors call legalized bribes.  Because you are allowed to give money hoping for access, and no one give money hoping for access.  They want more.


Congressman Louis Stokes almost had a conniption when she said that.  Afterall it was Democrats that had been on the hotseat for the previous 8 years on charges of corruption.


Butler concludes her remarks by reaffirming her passion for her work and her expectation that she will be left alone to do her job by political appointees.


In thirteen years in several different offices and I share this experience with many many of my colleagues, I have never been asked to anything but the right thing as quickly as possible.  And I know sometimes people find that hard to believe because think that the prosecution system or the investigation system is influenced by the political agendas of people who have power in those structures, but I have to say that I have never met in my career a prosecutor who said that they were pressured to do a particular case or to not do a particular case, but only to do the right thing and do it as quickly as possible.  And I think that is probably an unlikely (experience) but an experience that I am proud to report.


Now, 18 years into Ms. Butler's service in the Justice Department, I wonder if Alice Fisher and Abu Gonzalez will try to spoil Ms. Butler's experience of politically unfettered ability to do her job.  If they do, something tells me that she will not take it lying down.

Sunday, November 27, 2005

MTP: Not a bad days work.

You know, I am usually one to avoid the Talk Shows, for fear of the bullshit wind tunnel effect of the insular belt-way hot air. But I watched Russer today after Biden was done, and, while Timmy tried to veer towards Democratic responsibility, Woodruff, Gregory, Broder and Robinson were all painting a bleak picture for the Administration and for Republicans generally. Heck Judy even said the blogs linked Melon-head to Woodward - who they had just shit all over - and he had to respond, "I'm no Bob Woodward." Given expectations, not a bad days work.

And what is this about?

Tim Russert... Let me turn to the CIA leak investigation. Time magazine reports that Viveca Novak of Time magazine has now been subpoenaed to testify.

Saturday, November 19, 2005

Why Fitz is focused on Perjury and Obstruction.

In the affidavit that Fitz just posted, he has indicated that his narrow focus on perjury - while putatively necessary because there is "sand in his eyes" - may be intended to steer clear of having to deal extensively in classified information.

Check this out...

(Because it is far easier for the parties and the court to deal with declassified materials than to deal with classified information,we will be seeking a classification review wherever appropriate,though those reviews can be cumbersome.) Because the indictment in this case charges obstruction offenses rather than substantive national security crimes, it is hoped that the case can be tried with a minimum ofissues concerning classified information needing to be resolved, and thus that the trial may be conducted in as public a manner as possible.

Did Rove sell out Hadley to give Fitz pause?

The night before the Libby Indictment, ISIKOFF AND WOODWARD were. Here is a key exchange...

ISIKOFF: I talked to a source at the White House late this afternoon who told me that Bob [Woodward] is going to have a bombshell in tomorrow's paper identifying the Mr. X source who is behind the whole thing. So, I don't know, maybe this is Bob's opportunity.

KING (to WOODWARD): Come clean.

Who was Isikoff's source? I have heard that when Isikoff quotes someone in the White House on something juicy, it is usually Rove...

Does that mean that Rove tipped Fitzgerald about the leak to Woodward as well?

Is that what gave Fitzgerald pause on indicting Rove?

Did Rove give up Hadley to steer clear of being indicted himself in the first round?

Did he use it to explain the e-mail to Hadley?

"Matt Cooper called to give me a heads-up that he's got a welfare-reform story coming," Rove wrote Hadley. "When he finished his brief heads-up, he immediately launched into Niger. Isn't this damaging? Hasn't the president been hurt? I didn't take the bait, but I said if I were him, I wouldn't get Time far out in front on this."

So - in the eleventh hour - does Rove explain to Fitz that this e-mail was his response to Hadley's request to let the press know about Wilson's wife?

Was this Rove's way of confirming that he had done that job?

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Grand Theft Ohio: Neither Hackett nor Brown have a chance.

Forgive me if there has been attention to this already, but the discrpancy between the last poll by the Columbus Dispatch and 4 of the 5 ballot initatives is TRULY FUCKING STAGGERING.  I know we were all crying foul in 2004, and I was right there with everyone, but where are Congressmen Conyers and his colleagues now?  Check out these discrepancies...


ISSUE 1 ($2 Billion State Bond initiative)
PRE-POLLING: 53% Yes, 27% No, 20% Undecided
FINAL RESULT: 54% Yes, 45% No


ISSUE 2 (Allow easier absentee balloting)
PRE-POLLING: 59% Yes, 33% No, 9% Undecided
FINAL RESULT: 36% Yes, 63% No


ISSUE 3 (Revise campaign contribution limits)
PRE-POLLING: 61% Yes, 25% No, 14% Undecided
FINAL RESULT: 33% Yes, 66% No


ISSUE 4 (Ind. Comm. to draw Congressional Districts)
PRE-POLLING: 31% Yes, 45% No, 25% Undecided
FINAL RESULT: 30% Yes, 69% No


ISSUE 5 (Ind. Board instead of Sec. of State to oversee elections)
PRE-POLLING: 41% Yes, 43% No, 16% Undecided
FINAL RESULT: 29% Yes, 70% No


The original reporting on this comes from  Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman at the Free Press, with some amplification and illumination by  Brad Friedman at The Huffington Post.


Folks put a fork in our democracy.  Dewine and Balckwell will win in '06 and Cheney will be President in '08.  I mean look at this...


...the Sunday Dispatch also carried another headline: "44 counties will break in new voting machines." Forty-one of those counties "will be using new electronic touch screens from Diebold Election System," the Dispatch added.


Diebold's controversial CEO Walden O'Dell, a major GOP donor, made national headlines in 2003 with a fundraising letter pledging to deliver Ohio's 2004 electoral votes to Bush.


Every vote in Ohio 2004 was cast or counted on an electronic device. About 15%---some 800,000 votes---were cast on electronic touchscreen machines with no paper trail. The number was about seven times higher than Bush's official 118,775-vote margin of victory. Nearly all the rest of the votes were cast on punch cards or scantron ballots counted by opti-scan devices---some of them made by Diebold---then tallied at central computer stations in each of Ohio's 88 counties.


According to a recent General Accountability Office report, all such technologies are easily hacked. Vote skimming and tipping are readily available to those who would manipulate the vote. Vote switching could be especially easy for those with access to networks by which many of the computers are linked. Such machines and networks, said the GAO, had widespread problems with "security and reliability." Among them were "weak security controls, system design flaws, inadequate security testing, incorrect system configuration, poor security management and vague or incomplete voting system standards, among other issues."


With the 2005 expansion of paperless touch-screen machines into 41 more Ohio counties, this year's election was more vulnerable than ever to centralized manipulation. The outcomes on Issues 2-5 would indicate just that.


The new touchscreen machines were brought in by Blackwell, who had vowed to take the state to an entirely e-based voting regime.


As in 2004, there were instances of chaos. In inner city, heavily Democratic precincts in Montgomery County, the Dayton Daily News reported: "Vote count goes on all night: Errors, unfamiliarity with computerized voting at heart of problem." Among other things, 186 memory cards from the e-voting machines went missing, prompting election workers in some cases to search for them with flashlights before all were allegedly found.


Read the articles in full AND BRING THIS TO THE ATTENTION OF Sherrod Brown, Paul Hackett, Hillary Clinton, Mark Warner and anyone else who hopes to have a chance of winning an election in Ohio in the near future..

Saturday, November 05, 2005

Picture of the Day