Oh, My God!

Aren't these the same shoes that Al Bundy from "Married with Children" thought up when he was hit on the head and dreamed of meeting God. :.)

Five-toed athletic sandals for barefoot comfort

Inherent Contempt

Think Progress » DoJ blocks voting section chief from testifying.

DoJ blocks voting section chief from testifying. The House Judiciary Committee’s scheduled hearing tomorrow on the Civil Rights Division’s voting rights section has been canceled because “the Justice Department has refused to allow the chief of the section, John Tanner, to testify.” Read More...

At point does this congress say, "Enough!! All already!" And start Inherent Contempt proceedings against anyone not coming before the presiding oversight committees. Last night I caught part of one of the discussions on MSNBC on what congress can do about a contemptuous Executive Branch.


I found out that congress can under Inherent contempt:

The procedure for holding a person in contempt involves only the chamber concerned. Following a contempt citation, the person cited for contempt is arrested by the Sergeant-at-Arms for the House or Senate, brought to the floor of the chamber, held to answer charges by the presiding officer, and then subject to punishment that the House may dictate (usually imprisonment for punishment reasons, imprisonment for coercive effect, or release from the contempt citation.)

Concerned with the time-consuming nature of a contempt proceeding and the inability to extend punishment further than the session of the Congress concerned (under Supreme Court rulings), Congress created a statutory process in 1857. While Congress retains its "inherent contempt" authority and may exercise it at any time, this inherent contempt process was last used by the Senate in 1934, against a U.S. Postmaster. After a one-week trial on the Senate floor (presided by the Vice-President of the United States, acting as Senate President), a former Postmaster, William P. MacCracken, was found guilty and sentenced to 10 days imprisonment.

The Postmaster had filed a petition of Habeas Corpus in federal courts to overturn his arrest, but after litigation, the US Supreme Court ruled that Congress had acted constitutionally, and denied the petition in the case Jurney v. MacCracken, 294 U.S. 125 (1935). [1]

Excepted from Wikipedia Contempt of Congress Section

Technorati Tags: Inherent Contempt, Congress, Constitutional Law

Libby on Parole

It's simply unbelievable that these people are running this country. Everything they touch turns around and bites them in the end. The question that I have is just how long can they keep this house of cards up before congress grows some and starts impeachment of this administration. The rule of law should mean something.

Photo Credit: gmarcelo

Judge: Libby order surrounded by doubt

A federal judge suggested on Thursday that President Bush had come very close to acting unconstitutionally in the way he fashioned legal relief for former vice presidential aide I. Lewis Lobby, but the judge ultimately concluded that he had to uphold the President's clemency action. In a ten-page opinion bristling with actual and implied criticism of the President's handling of the Libby commutation Read More...

Technorati Tags: Libby, POTUS, Commutation, Law, Scandal

Fredo must go!!

If Bush won't fire Gonzales then Congress should impeach him out of office. With these new allegations that he has yet again given false testimony. His contempt of congress is beyond don't at this point. Hell, at this point I think it is hard to find anyone connected with this White House that will have their reputations intact at the end of this administration.

Nadler: Attorney General Gonzales Must Resign, Special Prosecutor Needed

"Attorney General Gonzales has shown an apparent reckless disregard for the rule of law and a fundamental lack of respect for the oversight responsibilities of Congress," said Rep. Nadler. "The man entrusted with enforcing our nation’s laws must also abide by them – and Mr. Gonzales has apparently failed in that duty. Providing false, misleading or inaccurate statements to Congress is a serious crime, and the man who may have committed those acts cannot be trusted to investigate himself. A Special Prosecutor is necessary to investigate this and the countless other violations of the law apparently committed by this Executive Branch." Read more...

Technorati Tags: Gonzales, DOJ, Congress, Scandal

Worse Than Watergate

So says an editorial in the Denver Post. I agree with is, but what amazes me is that no one has pulled the trigger in congress.  Here we sit with arguably on of the most corrupt administrations in are history.  If you don't believe that just look at how many people connected with this administration are already in jail.  Not counting those like Libby who should be in a cell now.

List compiled in 2005! on Salon.com

1. Memogate: The Senate Computer Theft
2. Doctor Detroit: The DOJ's Bungled Terrorism Case
3. Dark Matter: The Energy Task Force
4. The Indian Gaming Scandal
5. Halliburton's No-Bid Bonanza
6. Halliburton: Pumping Up Prices
7. Halliburton's Vanishing Iraq Money
8. The Halliburton Bribe-apalooza
9. Halliburton: One Fine Company
10. Halliburton's Iran End Run
11. Money Order: Afghanistan's Missing $700 Million Turns Up in Iraq
12. Wiretapping the United Nations
13. The Boeing Boondoggle
14. The Medicare Bribe Scandal
15. Tom DeLay's PAC Problems
16. Tom DeLay's FAA: Following Americans Anywhere
17. Tom DeLay's Golf Fundraiser
18. The Medicare Money Scandal
19. Ground Zero's Unsafe Air
20. Intel Inside ... The White House
21. Iraq: The Case for War
22. Niger Forgeries: Whodunit?
23. In Plame Sight
24. Abu Ghraib
25. Guantánamo Bay Torture?

Now This is just part of one list from 2005 more have been added in the last few years like Katerina, Dick Cheney's Hunting accident.

Drudge Retort

DOJ Attorney: Bush Worse Than Watergate

John S. Koppel: As a longtime attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, I can honestly say that I have never been as ashamed of the department and government that I serve as I am at this time. The public record now plainly demonstrates that both the DOJ and the government as a whole have been thoroughly politicized in a manner that is inappropriate, unethical and indeed unlawful.

Technorati Tags: Scandal, White House, Potus, VPotus

Hezbollah in Lebanon

Photo Credit: ortonesque

If this is correct? it is definitely something to watch for this summer. 

Counterterrorism Blog: A Hezbollah Coup Attempt This Summer?

This week, MEMRI issued a report entitled "Possible eruption of violent crisis in Lebanon after July 15." The report either cites or quotes previous reports published by Lebanese and Arab media, both pro and anti-Syro-Iranian.  Read More...

Technorati Tags: Middle East, International Affairs, Hezbollah

Others are thinking the same thing, as I am.

Daily Kos: A Pardon on the Installment Plan; An Investigation Sabotaged

It should be noted, for future record, that the President of the United States has just used his power of clemency to sabotage an active criminal investigation into the office of his own Vice President. In some parallel universes, I have heard tell that such a thing was once itself considered corruption, or obstruction. Read more...

Technorati Tags: White House, Scandal, Pardon

Independence Day: 1939

Photo Credit: Shorpy|The 100-year-Old Photo Blog

Shrub even srewed up the commutation, possibly.

Now Scooter might not even have the supervised probation that Shrub mentioned in his commutation. In essence, even the handicap of supervision in his life for 2 ½ years may be gone, because the federal law states that you must sever some amount of time in order for him to have supervised probation.

SCOTUSblog

Judge questions supervision of Libby

Lawyers were ordered to file papers by Monday on "whether the defendant should be required to report to the Probation Office immediately, whether he should be allowed to remain free of supervision until some later, more appropriate time, or, indeed, whether the plain meaning of [the statute] precludes the application of a term of supervised release altogether now that the prison sentence has been commuted." Read More....

Technorati Tags: Scandal, Scooter Libby, Commutation

My current take on Scooter

After listening to pendents for the last 24 hrs. I now feel that this is all part of the cover-up that has been in place from the beginning for Scooter's silence. This Commutation of his sentence now keeps him from testifying before congress because since all charges are still their in appeal, he can still take the 5^th before them, blocking any testimony he could have given. Further, now the President himself has stated today, that he could still pardon him at the end of his term. Reseting his legal status and potentially even getting his law license back.

All in all. This just increases my dissatisfaction for our current government.

Technorati Tags: Scandal, White House, Scooter Libby

Preparing for the 4th: 1936

Photo Credit: Shorpy|The 100-year-Old Photo Blog

Up and Down

I thought that we were going to actually have some accountability, but no we get this White House commuting the sentence of Libby to no time served. How the hell is that right in a national security scandal of the outing of Valerie Wilson.

This disgusts me.


Technorati Tags: Scandal, White House

Mechanical Fingers

This is very cool!!

Mechanical Fingers Give Strength, Speed to Amputees

If the X-Finger looks like a prop from The Terminator, relax. It isn't out to kill you, and it isn't robotic. In fact, it's a mechanical prosthetic finger so effective it provides articulation as fast and flexible as the real thing.

Libby going to Jail. Do not Pass Go.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

Court Refuses To Delay Libby Prison Term, Decision Raises Pressure On Bush To Pardon Ex-White House Aide - CBS News

A federal appeals court refused on Monday to step in and delay former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison sentence in the CIA leak case.

I can't be more happy that Libby is going to see some jail time before any of the Neo-Con's can get the Shrub to pardon him. I feel, that in some ways, we are watching the beginings of a long slow death of the Republican Party.

And that like the Wig Party that they came from, some new national party may come out of the ruin that these fools have created for themselves and the country. I really believe that in the next 5-7 years that party will not be anything like what we see now.


Technorati Tags: Scandal, White House, VPOTUS