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Thousands of White House E-mails Deleted
kidcharles writes "The Washington Post reports that in the midst of an investigation by the U.S. Congress into the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys by the Department of Justice, numerous White House e-mails have been lost. Among them are communications from presidential adviser Karl Rove. Parallels are being drawn with the infamous '18 minutes' missing from the Nixon Watergate tapes. Also at issue is the use of Republican National Committee e-mail domains (such as gwb43.com and georgewbush.com) rather than the official White House domain. This is a violation of the Presidential Records Act."
... really come to anyone as a surprise by now?
There is a war going on for your mind.
We all know e-mails are never really deleted. They just hide a little bit harder.
Begin the left-wing conspiracy. This, Imus and Anna Nicole's baby are all I'm going to be hearing about for the next few weeks. Damn.
..Bush will still be allowed continue on this rampage without being impeached. Incredible.
Blerg.
From Crooks And Liars:
This one's a no-brainer.
The NSA has been monitoring and logging all US domestic phone and email traffic for a few years now, thanks to Bush and Cheney.
So subpoena the "lost" WH emails from the NSA. Put the domestic spying operation to some practical use.
If they don't have the emails, they aren't doing their job, and it will be time to get rid of the NSA.
Annoyed Canuck | 04.12.07 - 3:57 pm | #
I hope this helps the Federal criminal prosecution of the world's largest crime syndicate.
Patriotically as always,
Kilgore Trout, C.E.O.
And, as usual, no one will be held accountable for it. If it looks like someone may, they will claim "National Security" and halt all proceedings. It would seem that "Slick Willy" has some competition.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
gwb43.com and georgewbush.com domains are marked as spam domains. Would you keep copies of spam mails ?
...how much has to happen before impeachment proceedings? He is clearly at least as deserving as any former president, and probably far more. If you can have people impeaching you over a blowjob - which I know is a very tired statement, but bear with me - then bush's long, long list of offenses surely must qualify. As if I needed any further proof that the Democrats and Republicans are all part of the same gang...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I seriously doubt the server people in charge of email for the White House would not be keeping both full and incremental backups in addition to major redundancy. After all, they'd want to CYA for actions they did take more than actions they didn't take. Of course, this IS the government, so anything can happen!
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
The US presidental office is run by a gang of criminals. What else is new?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
What is the penalty for violating internal White House policy, I asked? "I don't believe the staff manual contains penalties for failure to preserve," the lawyer said.
Stanzel, possibly unwittingly, offered one possible explanation for why the rule on preservation was flouted so widely: Because there was apparently no prospect of personal consequences. "There are no personal violations of the Presidential Records Act, but you can have a personal violation of the Hatch Act," he said.
The lawyer criticized the crystal-clear (to me) ban on using non-White House e-mail for official purposes as being "too concise" and described a new, more extensive White House policy No accountability, no responsibility, no repercussions for stepping over the line, no penalties, maybe they'll make some new rules as a token gesture of fixing the problem, they'll be sure to leave better loopholes with even less accountability in the new rules...
Our government has become everything that the first settlers to America were trying to get away from.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
Wow. Nixon had NOTHING on the current thugs in the White House administration. It's patently absurd that these people haven't been impeached, fired, and tried for treason at this point.
I don't respond to AC's.
I'm generally a conservative -- very pro-gun, willing to try the "surge" in Iraq, generally favor Republican policies over Democratic ones -- but I'm to the point now where I think the Bush administration (which I've never really felt comfortable with) has demonstrated that it is entirely corrupt -- lying to get into Iraq, lying about Plame, and now the total fix/lie-fest of the US Attorney mess.
Bush needs to hang Rove out to dry -- let a special prosecutor send that guy to a Federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison, can Gonzalez and seal the door to Cheney's office.
that somebody learned from the mistakes from the past.
What?
It's a traditional thing, much like the 18.5 minute gap in Nixon's tapes or the shredding of Enron documents:
n _scandal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_tapes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Enro
He didn't get a blowjob. He needs one direly, but he didn't get one. No blowjob, no impeachment.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
gwb43.com? WTF is that - his IQ?
(Sorry, a little too easy.)
Wouldn't it be ironic if their ISP was retaining their email?
These look to be three distinct domains. For example,
gwb43.com - 24.58.33.115
georgewbush.com - 64.203.98.31
whitehouse.gov - 205.160.212.222
And being as part of the problem is that the white housers were using those other domains, if that is where the emails are missing from, then we might not be able to blame the white house for losing the emails, as they may have been located on a different server, at a different location.
Nope... USA has become a 1st class banana republic.
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
Given these facts, you're surprised he thinks the Presidential Records Act doesn't apply to him? You're joking right? You think these people want to be held accountable 5-10 years from now? Put it in the memory hole, so we can have one of those swell state funerals like they had for Ronald Reagan, put on the rose-colored glasses and talk about how greatness of this catastrophy of a President. America wins the war on intelligence!
Also at issue is the use of Republican National Committee e-mail domains (such as gwb43.com and georgewbush.com) rather than the official White House domain.
On the plus side, I bet it will be tough to claim executive privilege on those e-mails.
#!
The problem here is that the emails were not on White House government email accounts but rather Republican Party email accounts. So technically it was a third party email system that the White House does not control. There is an issue whether the 22 aides should have used those accounts instead of their government accounts. The Republicans have countered that federal rules forbid the use of government email for anything other than government business.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
"nothing can ever be truly deleted?"
Really? Great! Could you get back my Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet from 1987? I've been looking for that sucker forever.
Look, I don't expect everyone to agree with me. It's fine if you want to ignore both history and what is going on around you, that's your prerogative and one engaged in frequently by the majority of the population of the USA. But the simple fact is that our current president has a worse record in every way than any former president! The deficit has been swelled more than ever before, and the pretext under which we went to war was a lie. (They later tried to foist the blame for the belief that Saddam was sitting on WMDs off on other countries, but you should be sure before you sign your name on the dotted line. Not being sure, but acting as if you are sure, is lying.) At least one election was stolen, although more accurately, both were. Stopping a legal recount without justification is itself an illegal act. And it is well known that many types of badness went on in Florida; listing persons from predominantly black boroughs on a list of disenfranchised felons and literally instructing the company assembling the list not to check it for validity is just one example.
In terms of freedoms lost, this has been one of the worst administrations of all time. And when caught performing a blatantly illegal act his response is "I'm the president!" and to issue a writ. Bush has issued more presidential writs explaining actions which are otherwise illegal (but apparently explaining why you did something illegal makes it okay if you are president, even if your explanation is pure bullshit) than all other presidents combined. You might not consider that cause for concern, but it seems like a big warning sign to me.
Since Bush has done so many things which are clearly impeachable offenses, and the Democrats are not interested in doing it, I must conclude that they feel they have something to gain by not doing so. In other words, as a party they are willing to compromise their convictions (As if they had any) for some temporary gain. Picking your battles is one thing - although I do believe that we let too many battles go in general - but this is just obscene.
I'd love to be proven wrong, but there was a strong groundswell of support for impeachment of Bush when the Democrats once again gained some power in Congress, and it has petered out with nary an action. I don't believe in either major party to any degree any longer. I think I'll just start voting green party to make a statement, and then when I get the cash up I'm getting the fuck out of here. I'm not willing to assassinate anyone, and I think that's about the only thing we could do to make a difference at this point (and no, I'm not talking about killing the president - it would take a lot more than that to make a difference) so if I'm not going to be part of the solution, at least I might as well not be part of the problem.
But like the wise man said, first, let's shoot all the lawyers. (No special offense meant to our friendly and helpful neighborhood lawyers, but the very existence of such people is part of the problem with the entire system. I'll be happy to go on a diatribe about that at a later date.) :P
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yesterday he said this:
Here are the specifics of what is required by the Hatch Act. It is clear that
A) Politicization (partisan activities) within certain Federal Agencies, such as the CIA or the Justice Department, is a felony.
B) All records relating to government business MUST be retained for investigative purposes, and later historical preservation. To destroy these documents is a felony.
This law is clear, has been on the books since the 1930s, and has passed several Supreme Court affirmations. There's no wiggle room here. This is a clear violation of the law. And note A) in relation to the Federal US Attorney firings. To fire is legal; to fire with even just partisan intent -- never mind apparent Obstruction of Justice -- is a clear felony.
We're walking right into another constitutional crisis. Comparisons to Nixon's firing of Archibold Cox (The Saturday Night Massacre) are spot on.
Wow, you are really brilliant. Whitewater documents were about Hillary Clinton, who was not an elected official, and they were destroyed before Bill Clinton was elected President. Perhaps you would like to illuminate the audience as to how those documents were covered under the Presidential Records Act?
This is a mountain out of a molehill. Read the Presidential Records Act, at least.
The law specifically excludes "materials relating to private political associations, and having no relation to or direct effect upon the carrying out of constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President;"
The last I checked, Rove was a political advisor, NOT a cabinet member and did not have any official policy-making power. He might have had an indirect effect on policy, but certainly did not have a direct effect. Heck, it's not even completely clear that his emails are covered -- the act only applies to the President, his immediate staff and units of the Executive Office. Do we know for a fact that Rove is in this category?
And, there's also the problem that the Hatch Act forbids using government-owned equipment for political purposes. Political emails are SUPPOSED to be off the While House mail system.
While it is certainly possible that some material which should have been kept wasn't kept. However, there's a large body of material which is not required to be kept. The Clinton administration also used outside mail servers to avoid the archiving of political information.
This is just a witch-hunt: the Democratic Congress is engaged in a Karl Rove witch-hunt and is trying to snoop into his political activities. They're not doing it as legitimate oversight, but just to help their own political ends. And, now they're making an issue that they can't get to Rove's email. But, this is a catch-22: if he had done what the democrats think he should have, they'd be complaining about Rove using the official While House server for political purposes.
There are plenty of reasons to dislike this administration. This is not one of them.
I can't think of no better way to refute this sort of spew than to quote one if its finest purveyors back at you. Wall Street Journal, April 6, 2005: After a long investigation, however, Justice says the picture that emerged is of a man who knowingly and recklessly violated the law in handling classified documents, but who was not trying to hide any evidence. Prosecutors believe Mr. Berger genuinely wanted to prepare for his testimony before the 9/11 Commission but felt he was somehow above having to spend numerous hours in the Archives as the rules required, and that he didn't exactly know how to return the documents once he'd taken them out.
More than a few conservatives have been crying foul, or whitewash, in part because Mr. Berger's plea means he'll likely avoid jail and lose his security clearance for only three years. So we called Justice Department Public Integrity chief prosecutor Noel Hillman, who assured us that Mr. Berger did not deny any documents to history. "There is no evidence that he intended to destroy originals," said Mr. Hillman. "There is no evidence that he did destroy originals. We have objectively and affirmatively confirmed that the contents of all the five documents at issue exist today and were made available to the 9/11 Commission." Sandy Berger was punished and the final result of his actions was, uhh, nothing. No information was permanently lost. Whichever one of Karl's minions clicked "delete" willfully and permanently erased years worth of evidence in a criminal investigation, and when the resulting obstruction charge is handed down, it's going to be extremely gratifying.
So, recapping: your analogy is flawed, your point is wrong, and my guess is you knew all of this and went ahead and said it anyways. Cuz that's how you people operate. Lie till you get caught, then go on the offensive when you do.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Congress has already demanded that the White House keep all emails, as well as all other communications, forever. This is known as the Presidential Records Act of 1978, and it was a result of the Nixon debacle. All material generated by the White House is property of the American people, and it must be turned over in its entirety to the national archivist when the administration leaves office. All records must be made available to the public 12 years after the end of the administration, except in case of national security. At the present time many George H. W. Bush and Reagan papers are secret due to an unconstitutional George W. Bush executive order.
It's not a violation of the act. You have to use separate phones/email for "political purposes" ask Al Gore about his hearing for using the White House phone to drum up donations. Get your facts right. You can't force the White House to use government owned systems for that -- THAT is illegal. They could have stored copies of of the off-site system sure... but they have no law forcing them to do that. I hate to break it to you but you also can't force staff members to turn over their home answering machines either. What a weak troll. Even if you hate Bush you shouldn't stand for the power grab the Congress is going for lately. There is a reason we have a separation of powers. If you keep heading down this road the president becomes a figurehead, and soon the people that write the laws will be enforcing them as well. More likely not enforcing them and building bridges to nowhere.
Congress already demands that the White House keep all emails. It's called the Presidential Records Act, and is the reason why this is an issue. The PRA requires the offices of the President and the VP to retain all government related communications.
The issue is that government communications which contain discourse relevant to the US Attorney firings were made on RNC owned services and devices - and while the White House systems retain everything, the claim is that the RNC ones don't. Which is a violation of the Presidential Records Act.
So.. er... Yeah, they ALREADY have to keep all emails. The problem is that they didn't. (And problem 2 is that while it's illegal, there doesn't seem to be a consequence)
"You can take our lives, but you can never take our Flerbage!!!!"
A past precident does not excuse current mistakes! If I walk up to you and punch you in the face and I get away with it, that doesn't make it right for me to walk up again and kick you in the stomach. Wrong is wrong. I'm disgusted by the lack of a sense of justice around here.
Whether they're really gone *permanently* is another story, and already being discussed elsewhere. I think the bigger story, and I was Googling like crazy but can't find the link now, is that it turns out these Republican-controlled email addresses were on some of the *same servers through which electronic voting results were being processed.* I thought I read this on DailyKos but maybe I'm wrong. If anyone has a link to more info. on this, please post. Thanks.
Fox News: "It's been recently discovered that, in fact, the Clinton Administration had deleted Bush's emails during their second term. The Democrats, as usual, are to blame and need to be held accountable."
------
On a similar note, I read this quote today by Lee Iacocca regarding the Bush administration:
"Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course."
Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!
You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don't need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we're fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you?
I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have."
The Republicans stood (when I was young and carefree) for freedom. No coddling and pampering from the state, take your life in your own hands or perish! Be strong, grasp the opportunities and you will succeed! Lean state, lean government and as little regulation as possible, the freedom of market and people as the principal goal to achive.
How does this match a government that limits and restricts every kind of freedom the US used to have? How does this sync with more and more laws, more and more regulations, more and more limitations, not only for personal freedom but also for enterprises? Where "free trade" is a farce, and instead you have more and more laws that support and fortify the leading position of a few cartels?
I not only want the country back, I want the friggin' party back!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"....Whoever...
...covers up by any trick, scheme, or device
a material fact...
in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative or judicial branch
Shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years or both."
--- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
The difference is, Clinton didn't pick and choose, he fired all of them, which is actually not rare among Presidents are of a different party than the previous.
The question with the US Attorneys' firings are more along the line of - "Did they pick and choose who to fire based on who would look more favorable at their actions over the past 8 years?" rather than "Did they just fire all them Democrat-hired lawyers?!?"
Same farm, same grove of trees, but apples and oranges, nonetheless.
PS: I'm a Democrat who commonly votes Republican when the Dem is a 'tard. Oddly enough, I had a lot of trouble deciding who to vote for in 2004.
The Democrats don't really want to impeach Bush. They LOVE the idea of having him still in office during the 2008 election. Although, one would think President Cheney could be just as awful.
Domains are not IP addresses, also the first two domains use the same mail servers.
Trolling is a art,
OK, this gets a little complicated so bear with me as I try to go through it...
Summary: While the Democrats are jumping on the opportunity to bash Bush and company, it's really Bush and Company's own fault that there is any room to question the legality of it because they instituted some bad laws to begin with. In short, both sides are in the wrong on this one. The president dug himself into a mudhole to start and now the democrats are throwing more mud around to make the mess bigger.
Detail: To understand why there is any question of legality to begin with, we have to take a step back and look at the "patriot act". There is a provision of the "patriot act" that in essense allows attorneys appointed by the president to serve indefinately. It used to be attorneys had to be confirmed by congress after a period of time. This is just one very small, but significant breech of the balance of powers among many such items along with breeches of the rights of individual citizens that were dumped on us by the patriot act. Of course the patriot act was brought to us by none other then Bush and his administration. So basically the bad law making is coming back to bite him and the other side is rubbing it in. Of course the real solution to all this would be to repeal the patriot act so the balance of powers is restored...but instead all the polititions would rather mud sling and bash each other till the cows come home. So we are left with nothing more then a bunch of polititions on both sides that are more interested in politics then whats right for the country so much so that there is not even an aknowledgement of what the real root cause of this fiasco is.
Thanks for reading:)
In other words, this is Republican from beginning to end.
Whatever happened to "fiscally responsible" Republicans? Did they ever really exist?
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
I agree that although it wasn't good to lie to a grand jury he did what any person in a marriage would do who wanted protect the marriage. Anyone married knows that if you make the error of fooling around but still love your partner and want to preserve the relationship the best thing to do is bury it as deep as possible. Your partner doesn't really want to know about this, particularly if it was just a short term slip and didn't lead you to question your commitment to the relationship.
Additionally he has his child to consider. Kids want to believe their parents are happy and true to each other. No kid wants to discover one of his or her parents fooled around.
The only reason I can think of to let your partner know about your cheating is if you are really trying to say you don't want to be with him or her anymore and you cheated to make them mad enough to leave you since you don't have the courage to be the one to end the relationship. Or maybe you have some guilt and are naive enough to think spilling the beans is going to make you feel better (not very likely). In general the only times that I know of someone voluntarily telling a partner about infidelity is when that person was feeling the relationship was in trouble, to express serious unhappiness with the relationship, to indicate a desire to end the relationship, or when the person they cheated with was still in the picture in some way. Almost always it means trouble. If your partner tells you they cheated the chances are good that what they are really saying is that they don't want the relationship with you to continue.
Oh, another good reason is if you think you picked up a STD while you where fooling around. Then you have the responsibility to tell your partner so s/he can get treatment.
Anyway, from my perspective Clinton was just acting as responsible as he could in a bad situation. Sure, it was irresponsible to cheat, particular with the stakes so high, but once he got control of himself again and ended the illicit relationship he did what anyone should do in this situation by burying it. He felt he could ride it out because it was his word against her word. If it wasn't for the dress with his DNA on it there would never have been an impeachment.
Peace, or Not?
All the Dems would have to do is watch (and laugh).
Jesus christ, did you even read the fucking quote? It's right there in print. A Bush justice department official telling the Wall Street Journal nothing was permanently lost, and there was no evidence of a conspiracy. What the fuck more do you want? Cheney singing it in verse on Limbaugh?
And btw, hah. You know you've won the argument when the other side starts trotting out grievances dating back to the Civil War.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Darn that Pelosi...she hasn't singlehandedly done away with pork in Congress. You should be asking if it's better or worse than in the last Congress. I don't know the answer to that. But even if pork cleanup is important to her, I could understand having an issue like Iraq as a higher or more urgent priority. I think the minimum we should expect from Congress is a clear record of who adds what to a bill - no more anonymous additions or deletions. And it was only an "emergency" spending bill because Bush refuses to put it in the normal budgets in an apparent effort to hide the enormity of his deficits (i.e. it's really not an unexpected emergency that came up).
Complaining about her going to Syria seems a bit ridiculous. The Logan Act has had 2 indictments in 200+ years and both were dismissed. With so little judicial precedent, the question of whether there's any technicality there is uncertain. Who knows how the current Supreme Court would rule, but I can't imagine them discounting the First Amendment altogether. If there is a technical breach, well there are plenty of Republicans that would be caught in the same technicality, including ones on the same trip with Speaker Pelosi, Speaker Gingrich on his trip to China and Speaker Delay in his dealings with Israel regarding Palestine. Not to mention thousands of other Americans that deal with foreign governments.
>You mean like engaging in unauthorized diplomatic negotiations with a foreign power? That's treason.
Oops. Careful. Before accusing the Speaker of the House of a capital crime, you might want to be sure you are on a solid legal footing.
There has been a flurry lately, among people who have discovered the Logan Act -- a piece of legislation that has NEVER been used. And they give it a cursory reading, and accept when they are told that it applies in the case of Madame Speaker's recent trip to Syria. They completely miss the fact that the Logan Act, even if it were enforceable, and even if it were enforceable against a sitting Member of Congress, is predicated on "authority." The problem, that the Fox news people et al fail to mention, is that she had authority to do what she did, and furthermore, any restrictions on that authority would have to come from an Act of Congress in the first place.
Now, if you can show that Madame Speaker violated a LAWFUL ORDER, we can discuss the validity of that order, and if you can establish that the order was violated, then we can talk about authority, the Logan Act, and treason.
However, you are putting forth an idea that the President's word is law at all times. You are actually going much further -- you are suggesting that just because the President has an opinion, or even, something that a person in the media might assume that opinion would be, THAT OPINION becomes law.
And so, by some extension that I follow not at all, the Speaker of the House did something without authority. And ONLY the Speaker, as a member of a bipartisan delegation together with representatives of the State Department, did something wrong. And nobody seems to be able to articulate, in a manner that would be acceptable to bring a criminal charge, exactly what that wrong thing was. They certainly have not brought evidence of a crime to the table of anyone with any authority to prosecute such a crime.
All they have done is cause those people who already hate the Speaker, and presumably everyone who is not a member of the Bush party, to continue to hate them.
In other words, no net effect.
I would like to think they have educated themselves in the process, on a historical legal curiosity, but sadly, they have not.
Please, before you publicly accuse an elected official of a capital crime, do have your evidence in hand. Otherwise you are simply calling for an assassination; a serious crime.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
All emails were first printed, shredded then burnt. You are not going to get any more deleted than that!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
This tired GOP talking point is completely untrue.
A USA can be replaced by the President. But the President cannot replace a USA in order to obstruct justice.
In the Carol Lam case the alleged reasons for firing her have all proven to be lies. The only credible explanation for her being fired was to prevent her continuing her investigation of corrupt Republicans - an investigation that had already resulted in two top House Republicans pleading guilty. When Lam was fired it appeared that an indictment of Jerry Lewis was likely to occur.
Two senior members of the GOP house leadership are in jail here. There is nothing remotely similar that occured during the Clinton admin.
Other USAs appear to have been fired for refusing to bring bogus charges against political opponents. This is also a form of obstruction of justice and is again a criminal offense.
There is more than enough evidence here to impeach Gonzalez. Any successor who did not immediately appoint a special counsel to investigate the corrpution allegations against Rove, Lewis, Foggo, Gonzalez and their subordinates should also be impeached.
Reno appointed independent prosecutors in cases where there was a clear conflict of interest. This administration should stop stalling and do likewise.
Also Bush should immediately pledge not to pardon any person who was a member of his administration. There is a strong suspicion that many are keeping quiet here in the hope that Bush will issue a blanket pardon after the November 2008 election.
He won't of course because he is as corrupt as they come, as well as being incompetent.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
The biggest difference is that the Clinton's were actually investigated. Quite thoroughly. The republicans climbed up Bill's ass and the only thing they could find was Monica's lips.
That was the result of MILLIONS of dollars of INVESTIGATIONS.
All we've EVER gotten out of GWB is "executive privilege". And to think that the two presidents come close to being comprable when it comes to investigating their actions, is laughable.
Secondly, Whitewater wasn't something that "the president" did during office.
It was actually something the guy that eventually ended up being president did BEFORE he was president.
Big difference, IMHO.
--Phillip
Can you say BIRTH TAX
Why is it that to refute the firing of the 8 U.S. Attorneys, the conservatives always say "But Clinton did it! He fired all 93 at the start of his administration", as if we're leaving out some key fact. But if you want all the facts in play, you can't stop half way. Every president, Reagan, Bush #1, Clinton, and Bush #2, all fired the U.S. Attorney's at the start of their terms. Its customary.
What is not customary is firing 8 of them - the same ones you appointed, no less - in the middle of your term, for dubious reasons which may have included, but not been limitted to the fact that many of these 8 attorney's apparently either refused to back off on investigations of Republicans, or refused to vigorously persue investigations of Democrats - probably because in both scenario's they acted based on what they felt was warranted by the available evidence. In other words they acted as they were supposed to, as unbiased officers of the law, not as political shrills which is what Bush wanted them to be.
By the way, has anyone besides me realised that with 8 of the 93 attornies fired for not doing enough to go after the Democrats or too much to go after the Republicans, that leaves 85 who, by implication, are doing plenty to go after the Democrats and ignoring the mis-steps of the Republicans. Shudder.
Understanding is a three edged sword. - Ambassador Kosh Naranek, Babylon 5
when all you had to worry about were blow jobs and firing the travel office!
Their consistent MO has been to spout brazen nonsense, then rely on the sheer effrontery to keep the truth hidden until it is covered in a pile of bullshit so deep it will never be brought to light. And the damned thing is that it worked -- a least for a while. Seriously, who has time to think about the truth behind the Iraq WMD lie?
Actually, if you go back to early 2003 and look at the propaganda leading up to the invasion of Iraq, you'll see that the Bush gang pretty much gave up on the WMD argument during the last month or so. The reason was that it had been so thoroughly debunked by so many people that they realized they needed a new pretext. They had pretty much run through all that were even remotely credible, so they pulled out their trump card: They had to stage a pre-emptive attack to prevent whatever Saddam's government might do in the future.
This pretty much stopped the attempts to debunk their arguments, because this one can't be debunked. Unless you are blind, deaf and quadraplegic, you could be planning an attack on anyone, no matter who you are or how peaceful you've been in the past. It's a challenge-proof excuse for attacking anyone anywhere anytime.
This is still remembered by a fair number of people in the world. It became clear that the people running the US government weren't joking when they used the phrase "sole remaining super-power". They did consider themselves in charge of the world, and they were prepared to attack anyone who challenged them. Or even people who didn't challenge them. They don't need evidence; all they need is to think that you might attack them.
A lot of us still remember this. And we remember that roughly half of the Americans who bothered to vote in 2004 voted to give these people four more years.
(The WMD concept does keep rearing its ugly head, of course. This is partly because of the discovery that, despite several more years of debunking, around half the voting American population still believes it. But it's also routinely used by American comedians, so it's not so good as a theme song any more. The real future is in worrying about what you and I might do in the future if we're not stopped now.)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
>...almost certainly legal.
Why do you qualify it? Until someone comes forward with a lawful order, issued prior to the trip, that stipulates what she did was proscribed, there is no argument.
In order to make this case against Pelosi, three things are required:
1. State the case explicitly. What is it, precisely, that she is accused of doing? This information must be supported by evidence, such as testimony from eyewitnesses. If she visited some place that she was prohibited from going, please show us the order from the State Department indicating that. If she said something to someone which was forbidden on the basis of some compelling state interest, show us where this has been alleged in some lawful way, by someone with the authority to do so. Authority, under our system of government, does not take the form of "everything not expressly permitted, is forbidden." This is fundamental. State the case describing what the person is accused of doing, and show the evidence to support the accusation.
2. State the law that was broken. The only law that has been mentioned in the Pelosi visit to Syria, to my knowledge, is the Logan Act. If you have satisfied requirement #1, then you may have an argument in terms of the Logan Act's predicate of "authority." But there is more that must be done. You need to be prepared to explain to a Federal Grand Jury that you seek to press charges based on a law that has no judicial history whatsoever. You will be asking for the first indictment in history, using a law that has no case law history at all, and you want that first indictment to be against an elected official who holds the highest legislative office in government -- having authority co-equal to that of the President of the United States and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
3. Demonstrate that your evidence supports your conclusion without violating the Constitutional Rights of any individual, and without making any procedural errors. This may be difficult to do, as all arguments I have seen thus far, single out the current Speaker of the House individually, and as far as I can tell, accuse her of some crime while broad immunity is granted to all others who have done precisely the same thing. It may take a considerable amount of effort to make a criminal case against one individual who has done something that others do routinely, but without such criminal exposure.
So, are you just being cautious with your "almost certainly legal" remark? Because the "almost" aspect of that, might become a factor if the entire foundation of the rule of law in the US is set aside for this one argument. I'm going with "was absolutely, 100% not illegal," and I would go further, the very few lawful means of preventing the Speaker from doing what she did, would themselves have created a much more significant controversy than the one we are discussing. Can you imagine the outrage that would ensue if the President had ordered the State Department to revoke the passports of Members of Congress, including the Speaker of the House? How do you think it would go over if *only* the Democrats in Congress had their passports revoked?
Please realize that without some specific lawful order that existed prior to the Congressional Delegation to Syria, there can be no valid argument that a crime was committed.
Fortunately, it is not yet the law of the land that an action which might run counter to the personal opinions of the President is a crime of treason.
And that, when you get down to it, is the basic premise of the argument the right wing is trying to make against Madame Speaker.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
The difference was the Democratic controlled congress, particularly Democrats sitting as chairmen of committees (like the Judicial Committee) that can issue subpoenas. And the funny thing is, had it been 10 months ago, the bald face lying would have worked, because the republic congress had already shown time and time again that they would take the Bush Administration's word at face value, and not look further. Gonzales would have said that the firings had nothing to do with politics or a peversion of the Judicial branch, Bush would have said Gonzales is a good man and I trust him, Democrats and many American would scream murder, but no subpoenas would be issued, and the truth would never be found. The news would stop reporting on it after a week, and that would be the end of it. Watch how much the shape of American politics changes when we have actual checks and balances.
Relax I just want some peanuts.
Carol Lam got fired after getting a $4.7 million settlement against the Golden State Co. for using illegal immigrants to build the border fence. If you can explain how her firing was above reproach, I'll give you a cookie. My guess- punishment for putting Duke Cunningham behind bars.
Sig cannot be found.
He run the government exactly like a business: cheating his way to the top, minimizing social and health care costs, making deals under the table that promoted his buddies over the competition, made rich people richer and poor people poorer, gave no $h1t for the environment, managed to piss off all other businesses etc.
Everybody deletes e-mail messages. But the sort of thing that the Clinton White House would delete is at a much more human and benign level than anything that goes on in the Bush White House. Torture, the attack on the Constitution, subversion of the intelligence process, appointment of incompetent cronies and coverup of failures, awards of contracts to profiteers, etc. This is a more honest and open White House?
You were lied to, son. So were we all. This administration will go down in history as the most corrupt and dangerous ever -- that is, if it does not succeed in rewriting the history books to suit its purposes.