Well, that's it folks, nothing to see here, move along. The USA is officially dead, all they have to do now is make Bush, President for Life and that will be happening shortly.

Q. When the new pres is elected and the shrub refuses to leave the White House will you, Mr. Mucasky, order his eviction.

A. No.

Well there you have it, we have finally gone full circle and are now ruled by ole King George again...Happy repugnants..

WEXLER "...With that context, I'm curious, have you been instructed by the president of the United States to enforce or not to enforce contempt citations issued by the Congress?"

MUKASEY: Respectfully, I cannot go into and will not go into, by way of affirmant or denial, any conversations that I've had with any other member of the executive on that subject or related subjects.

Golly. Here's a puzzler.

Thanks Shurmer (sp) and Fienstien.

Congress has just had its face spit upon,its nose pulled and its butt kicked.

Bush, via yet "another" compliant Attorney General, who is supposed to inforce the laws of the United States and selectively refuses, has drawn a line in the sand and has dared Congress to cross it and take its case to the Supreme Court.

Watch Congress back down. Not just Republicans who already support Bush, but Democrats, too.

You don't have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.

Dennis

AG won't help you in Congress with your agenda; why should you help the President with "his agenda"?

Congress is an independent branch of government. If Congress will not -- through impeachment -- enforce it's power, then it's [wait for it ] powerless, making the "new power of subpoena" in re 2006 DNC victory meaningless. Let's have some state-level enforcement action against the AG. Inaction by Congress in not using impeachment to enforce the power of Congress, sends the message: "We're not serious about asserting power, and agree to be marginalized despite the 2006 voter mandate to the contrary."

Congress, if it doesn't impeach, is sending the message: "We only want to have the option -- in theiry, not practice -- to conduct investigations; but we aren't willing to take any action to see that our investigations are respected by way of subpoenas."

Congress is free to go home. Not doing anything to defend the Constitution. It's showing it's not serious about defending it's Article I powers from encroachment. Clear evidence of no fully asserting one's oath to defend the Constitution against domestic enemies, in alleged violation of 5 USC 3331. If the AG won't enforce the Contempt citations, and Congress does nothing, let's proseucte Members of Congress for 5 USC 3331 violations.

"Mukasey's simple answer was "no." Enforcing the contempt citation is "not permitted when the president directs a direct adviser of his, somebody who directly advises him, not to appear or when he directs any member of the executive not to produce document."

Isn't this decision the purview of a court?

Maybe Mukasey is having flashbacks to his time on the bench.

Doesn't basic civics say that the justice department is supposed to be enforcing the law and the judicial makes decisions on the merit of the case?

CIA Boss: Waterboarding May Be Illegal
By LARA JAKES JORDAN and PAMELA HESS

"I didn't do anything wrong, and I won't do it again." (From the Top 100 April Fool's Day jokes)

This is a joke isn't this?

Read The Top 10 Worst April Fool's Day Hoaxes Ever at museumofhoaxes and you get an idea of the intellect that we are dealing with.

So will anyone in the media go back to Chuck Schumer on this one? Schumer was a prominent Democrat who went for confirmation, in the face of opposition by his constituents. Now, everything that people told Schumer would happen has happened.

TPM has contacts with Schumer. He did a book club here once. Maybe you all should find out if the Senator now sees the error of his mistake?

I think the only recourse then is to ask the inspector general to investigate the decisions themselves. Given what Goldsmith said about "advanced pardons," it was clear that these were not objective legal opinions but that the authors of the opinions were part of a criminal conspiracy to allow activities they knew were illegal.

However, I obviously find Mukasey's argument ridiculous--nobody else can use advice of a lawyer to justify their illegal acts, why should the government be able to? They can however sue that lawyer for malpractice. And if Mukasey doesn't believe the rulings from the OLC were legally sound, he has an obligation to enforce the law as it is *now* understood and let the courts decide whether getting bad legal advice from the OLC is a mitigating circumstance that should result in a more lenient sentence.

Fascism watch: Truthout reporting the FBI has a nationwide civilian militia, InfraGard, in industry with more chapters than there are states, incepted in 1996.
'Today, more than 23,000 representatives of private industry are working quietly with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The members of this rapidly growing group, called InfraGard, receive secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public does - and, at least on one occasion, before elected officials. In return, they provide information to the government, which alarms the ACLU. But there may be more to it than that. One business executive, who showed me his InfraGard card, told me they have permission to "shoot to kill" in the event of martial law.'
Read it and weep:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020708T.shtml

InfraGard's site: http://www.infragard.net/membership/

Schumer should have just jumped the float at the parade wherever it was going and not returned.

If any of you Republicans believe Congress is looking out for you... remember- Congress is not passing laws preventing this in the future.

For the Democrats who believe Congress is looking out for you, see the paragraph above.

"We the People" need to kick them ALL out and get some new blood in there who is NOT indebted to these two mob parties....IMHO

I don't suppose writing some strongly worded letters of our own would make Pelosi put impeachment back on the table. Nonetheless, in my naivete, Mukasey has inspired me to do just that. For the first time, I wrote to Pelosi expressing my outrage. One letter won't do anything, I know. Maybe 10,000? 100,000?

And why is impeachment off the table? Too much trouble? A backroom deal? Is she worried about the polls (as though they could go any lower)?

At least Bush is straightforward about subverting the Constitution. He puts it right out there. What is it that's behind Pelosi's subversion of the rule of law? It's the great mystery of our time.

That was a "sharp" pain.

Impeachment is maybe one percent about the law and 99 percent about political clout. The ONLY reason Clinton was impeached was the Republican Party had enough clout at the time and would have picked anything at all or made something up if need be to try to trash Clinton. Clinton was lame enough to hook up with a talkative intern to provide them with ammunition. The Democrats, who seem to be stymied at every conceivable juncture by the minority party, apparently have no clout, or not enough in any event to get impeachment off of square one for anyone in the Bush Criminal Enterprise despite prima facia evidence that a wide variety of crimes and misdemeanors have been perpetrated for the last 7 years. This whole process now gives me the sense of the hoops fan whose second rate team has been pounded by the visitors from Maryland for three quarters, the score is 98 to 37, the stands cleared out before the second half, the starters are all sitting, and the only people remaining are the die-hard fans who want desparately to cheer for something.

DOJ AG assertion that he will "not" enforce the subpoenas/contempt citations with prosecutions is meaningless drivel. "Inherent contempt" is something Congress alone, outside the prosecutor's office, can enforce. DoJ AG has no power to thwart Congress on the issue of "inherent contempt" unless Congress wants to pretend it is thwarted.

Why isn't Congress using "inherent contempt" so it can bypass the DOJ AG and directly enforce its power against those who defied the subpoenas? Congress isn't serious about enforcing it's power, nor in fully ensuring it's investigations are supported. The 2006 voter mandates -- of "change" and "now that we have subpoena power, the Committees will do something" -- are meaningless drivel. Congress pretends it is thwarted, when it is not; and the DOJ AG pretend he can block Congress, when it is Congress that is choosing not to assert all lawful options to enforce its power. Congress isn't serious, and showing evidence it has mental reservations about fully doing its job, in alleged breach of 5 USC 3331.

If the DoJ AG refuses to enforce 5 USC 3331, the State AGs have the power to enforce this against all US government personnel. That oath is something the AGs can enforce also against a sitting President and Vice President.

"Why isn't Congress using "inherent contempt" so it can bypass the DOJ AG and directly enforce its power against those who defied the subpoenas?"

Because a corrupt, easily bribed Congress is a part of the problem. For example, look how both Republicans and crossover Democrats have given retro-active immunity to the telecom industry for spying on Americans even prior to 0/11.

You don't have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.

OK, he's committed a crime. A felony I'd guess.

First find the son of a bitch in contempt of Congress.

Then impeach the son of a bitch. Then indict him for treason. Then jail him in Gitmo.

It's too good for him, but it'll do for now.

A.G. Mukasey is a little tricky in his explanation of why he could not prosecute the contempt case. He says:

MUKASEY: If you're talking about a contempt citation based on Mr. Bolten's failure to appear ... in response to a direction by the president that he not appear, the answer is no. Because he can't violate that request.

It sounds fair, doesn't it? It wouldn't be cricket to put Bolton in jail for obeying the President's order. But that's not really how it works in practice.

When a person has been ordered to disobey a subpeona, that order may or may not be legal. The purpose of the contempt proceeding is to make that determination, not to put the person in jail. The person appears in court, explains his justification, and the court decides if the refusal is legal. If it is, fine. If not, the court tells the person they must appear. If the person then declines, jail is in order.

The trick Mukasey is pulling is that he is pretending to protect someone who is only following orders -- which seems fair -- but what he is really doing is shielding those orders from judicial review. It seems the Bush administration will go to any length to make sure no court every gets to rule on administrative lawbreaking.

MESSAGE

If Mukasey won't do his job, Congress should take matters into their own hands and hire Dog the Bounty Hunter to bring 'em in. If Pelosi and Reid's strategy is to preserve the unitary executive for an Obama Presidency, they are doing a fantastic job.