Gonzales must resign now. "Mistakes were made."

Okie, it is very much the business of congress to examine how government agencies are working. When they don't work right, you can expect legislation that will correct them. One bill concerning Justice is sailing through congress, and others are pretty likely.

That opinion piece Cyclops posted is too important not to post in its entirety for those that can't access latimes. 35 years of service puts him having started during the Nixon presidency.

Here ya go:

Is anyone else thinking a self- coup?

Yes. The DoJ career employees are done with this nonsense and are going to turn on the Political appointees en masse.

Cycloptichorn

I just read that Monica Goodling is still at Justice despite her intent to take the Fifth. This is a bit incongruous inasmuch Justice urges corporations with which it deals to fire officials who take the Fifth.

I imagine they are hanging on the "intends to" and that she hasn't yet.

They would want to keep her on as long as possible to avoid having her appear before the committee as a disgruntled employee and to continue to "groom" her for her appearance.

Lieberman says Gonzales must 'look into his own heart and soul'
March 30, 2007

HARTFORD, Conn. --U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman had some tough words Friday for embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who is involved in an uproar over the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.

Lieberman, I-Conn., said Gonzales' case was hurt by testimony from his former chief of staff, who on Thursday contradicted Gonzales' earlier accounts of not being involved in the decision-making about which prosecutors should be fired.

"This is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States," Lieberman said during a taping WFSB-TV's "Face the State," which will air Sunday. "I think it's time for Attorney General Gonzales to really look into his own heart and soul, as tough as it is, and ask

All of the news about Gonzo seems to support a rejection of the Bush executive privilege claims. Also, a president, I think, can't allow testimony under oath on some ocassions and not on others. For instance, Rice testified under oath before the 9/11 commission, and Rove and Libby were under oath during the Plame-outing investigation. I think the courts would hold that the use of the claim of executive privilege must be consistent.

GOP Lawmaker Urges Gonzales to Resign

Mar 31, 1:50 PM (ET)

By JENNIFER TALHELM

WASHINGTON (AP) - A Republican congressman on Saturday urged Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign, citing what he said were Gonzales' contradictory statements about his role in the firing of eight federal prosecutors.

"I trusted him before, but I can't now," said five-term Rep. Lee Terry, whose district includes metropolitan Omaha.
link

It was quite funny to see Hatch on Meet The Press this morning complaining about investigations where there is no evidence of any criminal activity.

Maybe the sacking of eight US Attorneys was a cover for the sacking of Carol Lam.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On the Lam



Mar 24, 2007 9:41 AM By ERICA WERNER, AP


WASHINGTON - Upon learning of Sen. Dianne Feinstein's concerns about the dismissal of San Diego U.S. Attorney Carol Lam, senior Justice Department officials scrambled to react, newly released documents show.


Justice Department attorney Rebecca Seidel reported to superiors on Jan. 17 that she'd talked to Feinstein's chief counsel and learned Feinstein was "ginned up seeing press articles that quote an FBI agent as saying Lam's removal would be disruptive to their cases."

Feinstein, D-Calif. and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has since alleged that Lam's firing was connected to the corruption case centered on jailed former GOP Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Lam was prosecuting the ongoing case when she was dismissed last year along with seven other U.S. attorneys.

Justice Department officials deny the connection and point to concerns about Lam's record on immigration and gun violations.

The day after Seidel reported Feinstein's concerns to Justice officials including White House liaison Monica Goodling, Goodling fired off an e-mail to aides with the subject line "I hear there is a letter from Feinstein on Carol Lam a year or two ago."

"I need it ASAP. Can you pull from your system ASAP and e-mail to me?" says the e-mail.

It's not clear from the documents what letter Goodling was referring to. Aides sent her a Feinstein communication about an abduction case involving someone with Philippines citizenship, but Goodling replied, "This isn't the right letter. Please keep looking."

Whatever letter Goodling was looking for does not appear in the documents, part of a batch released by the Justice Department late Friday.

In recent weeks, however, Justice Department and administration officials have repeatedly pointed to criticism of Lam that Feinstein herself raised in a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales last June 15 questioning apparently low prosecution rates in Lam's district.

Feinstein has said her concerns on that front were subsequently satisfied and that it's "bogus" to use her letter as evidence supporting Lam's dismissal.

A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately respond to an e-mail message Saturday and phones were not being answered at the agency's press office.

Goodling has taken a leave of absence from the Justice Department, according to officials.

Finn, you might have set a record for the longest post. A summary, if possible, would be better.

I hate my boss. He isn't like Alberto at all. He keeps getting involved in discussions about what is going on. He likes to see memos. I want a boss like Alberto who just pretends to be in charge.

Joe(I am making a list of who should be fired.)Nation

I'll file that with my copy of York's "Why Scooter Libby should go free" and next to his "Why Rumsfeld must stay."

Cycloptichorn

OK

Firing the US Attorneys was all about disenfrancising Blacks.


^4/2/07: Distract and Disenfranchise

By PAUL KRUGMAN

I have a theory about the Bush administration abuses of power that are
now, finally, coming to light. Ultimately, I believe, they were driven
by rising income inequality.

Let me explain.

In 1980, when Ronald Reagan won the White House, conservative ideas
appealed to many, even most, Americans. At the time, we were truly a
middle-class nation. To white voters, at least, the vast inequalities
and social injustices of the past, which were what originally gave
liberalism its appeal, seemed like ancient history. It was easy, in that
nation, to convince many voters that Big Government was their enemy,
that they were being taxed to provide social programs for other people.

Since then, however, we have once again become a deeply unequal society.
Median income has risen only 17 percent since 1980, while the income of
the richest 0.1 percent of the population has quadrupled. The gap between
the rich and the middle class is as wide now as it was in the 1920s, when
the political coalition that would eventually become the New Deal was
taking shape.

And voters realize that society has changed. They may not pore over
income distribution tables, but they do know that today's rich are
building themselves mansions bigger than those of the robber barons.
They may not read labor statistics, but they know that wages aren't
going anywhere: according to the Pew Research Center, 59 percent of
workers believe that it's harder to earn a decent living today than it
was 20 or 30 years ago.

You know that perceptions of rising inequality have become a political
issue when even President Bush admits, as he did in January, that "some
of our citizens worry about the fact that our dynamic economy is leaving
working people behind."

But today's Republicans can't respond in any meaningful way to rising
inequality, because their activists won't let them. You could see the
dilemma just this past Friday and Saturday, when almost all the G.O.P.
presidential hopefuls traveled to Palm Beach to make obeisance to the
Club for Growth, a supply-side pressure group dedicated to tax cuts and
privatization.

The Republican Party's adherence to an outdated ideology leaves it with
big problems. It can't offer domestic policies that respond to the public's
real needs. So how can it win elections?

The answer, for a while, was a combination of distraction and
disenfranchisement.

The terrorist attacks on 9/11 were themselves a massive, providential
distraction; until then the public, realizing that Mr. Bush wasn't the
moderate he played in the 2000 election, was growing increasingly
unhappy with his administration. And they offered many opportunities for
further distractions. Rather than debating Democrats on the issues, the
G.O.P. could denounce them as soft on terror. And do you remember the
terror alert, based on old and questionable information, that was
declared right after the 2004 Democratic National Convention?

But distraction can only go so far. So the other tool was
disenfranchisement: finding ways to keep poor people, who tend to vote
for the party that might actually do something about inequality, out of
the voting booth.

Remember that disenfranchisement in the form of the 2000 Florida "felon
purge," which struck many legitimate voters from the rolls, put Mr. Bush
in the White House in the first place. And disenfranchisement seems to
be what much of the politicization of the Justice Department was about.

Several of the fired U.S. attorneys were under pressure to pursue
allegations of voter fraud -- a phrase that has become almost synonymous
with "voting while black." Former staff members of the Justice
Department's civil rights division say that they were repeatedly
overruled when they objected to Republican actions, ranging from
Georgia's voter ID law to Tom DeLay's Texas redistricting, that they
believed would effectively disenfranchise African-American voters.

The good news is that all the G.O.P.'s abuses of power weren't enough to
win the 2006 elections. And 2008 may be even harder for the Republicans,
because the Democrats -- who spent most of the Clinton years trying to
reassure rich people and corporations that they weren't really populists
-- seem to be realizing that times have changed.

A week before the Republican candidates trooped to Palm Beach to declare
their allegiance to tax cuts, the Democrats met to declare their
commitment to universal health care. And it's hard to see what the
G.O.P. can offer in response.
--------------------------------------------------------------

Wow

What did you think the conservative revolution was about? Taxes?

Joe(yeah. that was it)Nation