If Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer raced toward the same MSNBC camera at the same velocity from converging angles, would they...a) Bounce off each other upon point of collision
b) Fuse upon impact (smack) into one super-talkative, tele-addicted, Kali-armed, dual-cam ego'd uber-Senator?
I say we test this proposition.
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The nation's top law enforcement officer, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, speaking on the subject of politicized hiring at the DOJ:
But not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime[.]
Given that the very definition of the word "crime" means a violation of the law, this is, to say the least, a curious thing for an AG to say.
Maybe Dem. Sen Chuck Schumer can explain it to us.
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When President Bush tapped Michael B. Mukasey to lead the scandal-plagued Justice Department nine months ago, Senator Charles E. Schumer could not say enough good things about his fellow New Yorker. Mr. Schumer ran out of time in ticking off Mr. Mukasey’s accomplishments at his Senate hearing, and the senator’s vote of support ensured his confirmation as attorney general.[...]
Mr. Schumer was still fuming a short time later as he went to the Senate floor for a vote. “That was terrible,” Mr. Schumer told a colleague privately in assessing Mr. Mukasey’s performance, an official privy to the conversation said.
It's not like anyone tried to warn Chuck about Mukasey.
Idiot.
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You can't head into a depression without a good bank failure.
And a note to federal "regulators": I very much doubt that a skeptical senator has the power to cause a bank to collapse. Correlation doesn't necessarily equal causation.
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Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson takes a look at the pathetic Senate Democrats and finds that it ain't pretty:
In a recent interview with Reid in his opulently chandeliered suite in the Capitol, I ask why the Democrats had not used their majority in the Senate to close the hedge-fund loophole. He greets the question with dead silence. When he finally speaks, he tells me something I never thought I would hear from a Democrat: that it would be wrong to single out the nation's wealthiest investors simply because they are bilking the treasury out of billions."The only difference between hedge-fund operators and other folks similarly situated," Reid argues, "is that they make more money." He and Schumer would be "totally in favor" of taxing them, he adds — so long as the same tax rates were brought to bear on thousands of far less profitable business partnerships whose activities the tax break was intended to boost. The "fairness" stance appears reasonable, until you consider that Reid and Schumer used it to transform a modest tax reform — one co-sponsored by the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee — into a far more sweeping measure that was easily blocked by the GOP minority in the Senate.
[...]
As the hedge-fund fiasco demonstrates, Democrats have turned the Senate into the chamber where good legislation goes to die. Since regaining the majority in 2006, the Democrats have granted the Bush administration and big telephone companies immunity for illegal wiretapping, declared a branch of the Iranian military a terrorist organization and stuffed the recent Foreclosure Prevention Act with far more goodies for big lenders than for struggling homeowners. They also confirmed Attorney General Michael Mukasey despite his refusal to disavow torture — a move engineered by Schumer. "You really want to like the Democrats," says Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "Then they go and do shit like this."
Reid on warrentless wiretapping:
The bill was terrible from its birth, the spawn of negotiations between Dick Cheney and Sen. Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Reid insists that he bitterly opposed the bill, so I press him on why it ever made it to the floor of the Senate — especially given that the Judiciary Committee had introduced a competing measure that didn't bypass the courts. Reid's answer suggests that he values his precious Senate protocols over the Constitution. "Because of our rules," he says, "primary jurisdiction of this bill belonged to the Intelligence Committee." But couldn't Reid have used his discretionary powers as majority leader to call a vote on the alternate bill — particularly given that the rights of Americans were at stake? "I couldn't do that because it was wrong," Reid says. Besides, he adds, "the committee chairs would have been upset."
Well boo-hoo. Being a leader means sometimes twisting arms and even bloodying noses, Harry.
Continuing:
A look back at the Senate debate over the bill, however, reveals that Reid is not always the stickler for the rules he claims to be. Dodd, who made his opposition to the measure a centerpiece of his presidential bid, had placed a "hold" on the Rockefeller-Cheney bill — a parliamentary procedure that lets a single senator block debate. Reid, who routinely honors the holds used by archconservative Sen. Tom Coburn to block funding for breast cancer research and other bills, refused to honor Dodd's move. "A 'hold' is a word that's meaningless," he tells me.
I'll let Glenn Greenwald take care of this.
The last word goes the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi:
But what if that day doesn't come? What if the Democrats fail to win the presidency in November? Will the majority in Congress continue to wimp out, giving the Republican minority free rein over America's future?Sadly, the answer appears to be a resounding yes. With a slight wince, Pelosi offers up the scariest truth of all: an admission that her party has no Plan B.
"I don't know what I'm going to do," Pelosi says, "if we don't win the White House."
You'll have to read the article to get the skinny on the odious Chuck Schumer.
Good job by RS and Dickinson, however dispiriting.
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The AP's Lara Jakes Jordan has a lightweight profile of Attorney General Michael Mukasey which includes this bit:
In San Francisco the next day, he choked up mentioning the Sept. 11 attacks to illustrate what might happen if the government cannot eavesdrop on the phone calls of suspected terrorists. "You've got 3,000 people who went to work that day and didn't come home to show for that," he said, pausing first to compose himself. The federal courthouse where he served as chief judge at the time of the attacks is just blocks from ground zero in lower Manhattan.
Perhaps this intrepid reporter should read Glennzilla here and here.
Good work, Chuck and Di.
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Gee, Schumer and Feinstein, are you happy?
Attorney General Michael Mukasey on Friday refused to refer the House's contempt citations against two of President Bush's top aides to a federal grand jury. Mukasey says they committed no crime.Mukasey said White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former presidential counsel Harriet Miers were right in refusing to provide Congress White House documents or testify about the firings of federal prosecutors.
[...]
"The contempt of Congress statute was not intended to apply and could not constitutionally be applied to an executive branch official who asserts the president's claim of executive privilege," Mukasey wrote, quoting Justice policy.
"Accordingly," Mukasey concluded, "the department has determined that the noncompliance by Mr. Bolten and Ms. Miers with the Judiciary Committee subpoenas did not constitute a crime."
Marcy has the reaction from Pelosi and Conyers.
Not to state the obvious but there are too many Republicans in the Democratic* caucus.
*At first I accidentally spelled this "Demoncratic." Freudian slip? You decide!
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The head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), still won't say if he'll vote for Michael Mukasey or not.
Given Schumer's position, raising money for Democratic Senate candidates and, indeed, playing a major part in selecting the candidates, voting to approve Mukasey should result in Schumer's immediate resignation from the DSCC.
If he can't get this right then he can't be trusted with such power.
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ADDED: Et tu, Russ Feingold?
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UPDATE: Time to go, Chuckles. Feinstein? No surprise there. She joined the Lieberman caucus years ago.
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Two Senate Democrats said Thursday they will seek a no-confidence vote on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales over accusations that he carried out President Bush's political agenda at the expense of the Justice Department's independence.Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York and Dianne Feinstein of California, who have led the investigation into the conduct of White House officials and Gonzales, said the attorney general has been too weakened to run the department. Just when such a vote might occur in the Senate was uncertain.
But as I keep saying, resignation or impeachment is the only proper remedy.
And George's opinion on the whole mess?
Asked twice during a news conference Thursday if he personally ordered Gonzales and then-White House chief of staff Andrew Card to Ashcroft's hospital room, Bush refused to answer "There's a lot of speculation about what happened and what didn't happen. I'm not going to talk about it," Bush said.
Says Atrios:
Back in those happy days in the 90s, if Clinton had refused to answer a question like this a shitstorm would've erupted. Ted Koppel would've put up a "17 days and still no answer" clock. Tweety would have had 37 blond conservative lawyers on every night to demand "accountability." etc... etc...
Yep.
The Liberal Media. Still not liberal.
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