Court Rules Against F.B.I. in Raid on Lawmaker

New York Times: By David Stout

The agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation violated the Constitution when they viewed legislative papers in Mr. Jefferson’s Capitol Hill office, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled, citing a principle that goes back hundreds of years, to the time of all-powerful English monarchs.

Accordingly, we hold that the congressman is entitled to the return of all legislative materials (originals and copies) that are protected by the Speech or Debate clause seized from Rayburn House Office Building...

The F.B.I. raid on Mr. Jefferson’s office was the first time a federal lawmaker’s office was searched in a criminal investigation. The incident ignited a debate that cut across party lines, with several members of Congress complaining that the executive branch was intruding on their domain.

Today’s ruling seems unlikely to derail the prosecution of Mr. Jefferson, who was indicted on June 4 on 16 felony counts charging that he put his office up for sale in hopes of reaping hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from nearly a dozen companies involved in oil, communications, sugar and other businesses, often for projects to be carried out in Africa. ...

The appeals court emphasized that the Speech or Debate Clause, while a formidable shield for lawmakers, is not an absolute one. The shield “does not extend beyond what is necessary to preserve the integrity of the legislative process,” and it “does not prohibit inquiry into illegal conduct simply becomes it has some nexus to legislative functions,” the court said, quoting Supreme Court language from a 1972 ruling.

There is not a lot of litigation concerning the "Speech or Debate Clause". I worked on one such, Davis v. Passman (concerning alleged sex discrimination by a Congressman against a female employee), while a law clerk; the case ultimately found its way to the Supreme Court.

So the question of the day: does the Speech or Debate clause protect The Dick (in his quasi-legislative capacity as President of the Senate) if he keeps illicit cash in his human-sized office (or residence) safes? (Rep. Jefferson apparently kept nearly $100,000 cash cooled in his home freezer--allegedly the proceeds of bribes.)

I’m Ripping You Off

I’m Ripping You Off - New York Times: By Nicholas D.Kristof

What’s especially dispiriting is how quickly the House Democrats under Speaker Nancy Pelosi have tumbled from idealism to cynicism. The Democrats had promised reform — but then the House leaders worried that scrapping welfare for farmers might hurt the re-election prospects of some newly elected Democrats. So they killed the reform proposals (which are backed by many rank-and-file Democrats).

But as a former farm kid myself, let me say what a lot of farmers and ranchers are too polite to say: Farm subsidies are a cancer on rural America itself. The subsidies have raised land costs, driving out small farmers and undermining the family farm by encouraging consolidation.

The benefits overwhelmingly go to producers of just five crops — wheat, cotton, corn, soybeans and rice — with livestock producers mostly left out. The majority of payments go to commercial farmers who earn more than $200,000 annually, while 95 percent of farmers get little or no benefit from the farm bill. That’s why my friends from my F.F.A. days speak contemptuously about those who make a living “farming the government.”"

I don't know beans about farm policy, but all I read suggests that existing policies do not line up very well with the values that support family farming in America. And this is one of many domains in which Congressional Democrats, newly restored to majority status, are rapidly falling back into bad old habits. There is the view of the apocryphal non-voter "that voting just encourages them." Given the alternative, I can't go that far, but some days are pretty discouraging. Today's report that Dems are rushing to enact a bill to legalize some warrantless surveillance activities out of fear of being branded "soft on terrorism" doesn't help. The Administration has apparently responded to calls for oversight of potential abuses of this new legislative authority by assigning the task to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

That is not a joke from The Daily Show, although it sure sounds like one.

Kristof concludes this way:

There is a familiar trajectory when a political party takes power. At first, it brims with ideals. Then it makes compromises to stay in power. Finally, it becomes devoted simply to staying in office. Can Ms. Pelosi really have compressed this downward spiral into just six months?

Democrats still pursuing prosecutor for Gonzales

Washington Post--The Talk:

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) joined Schumer and Democrats Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) on Thursday in asking the administration to appoint a special prosecutor. Feingold said today that he remains convinced that an independent investigation is needed.

'The attorney general, in my view, has at least lied to Congress and may have committed perjury, and I think we need to have somebody who's able to look at both the classified and non-classified material in a way that he can actually determine whether or not criminal charges have to be pursued,' Feingold said on 'Fox News Sunday.'...

The ranking members of the Judiciary Committee were on CBS's "Face the Nation," where Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), did not call for a special prosecutor. They said, however, that they have given Gonzales one week to amend his testimony and advised him to consult a lawyer in doing so.

"I think we ought to give the attorney general a chance to correct the record. There's no doubt, as I have said repeatedly for months now, that the Department of Justice would be much better off without him," Specter said.

Nice advice from a fellow Republican.
Looking back at past presidencies, I think Alberto has earned a place as W's "honorary brother", and should start merchandising Alberto Beer. He probably has some excellent, well-sorted lists to draw on for his mass marketing efforts, both domestic and international.

Mining of Data Prompted Fight Over Spying

New York Times: By SCOTT SHANE and DAVID JOHNSTON

WASHINGTON, July 28 — A 2004 dispute over the National Security Agency’s secret surveillance program that led top Justice Department officials to threaten resignation involved computer searches through massive electronic databases, according to current and former officials briefed on the program.

It is not known precisely why searching the databases, or data mining, raised such a furious legal debate. But such databases contain records of the phone calls and e-mail messages of millions of Americans, and their examination by the government would raise privacy issues....

If the dispute chiefly involved data mining, rather than eavesdropping, Mr. Gonzales’ defenders may maintain that his narrowly crafted answers, while legalistic, were technically correct.

But members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who have been briefed on the program, called the testimony deceptive.

“I’ve had the opportunity to review the classified matters at issue here, and I believe that his testimony was misleading at best,” said Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, joining three other Democrats in calling Thursday for a perjury investigation of Mr. Gonzales.

“This has gone on long enough,” Mr. Feingold said. “It is time for a special counsel to investigate whether criminal charges should be brought.” ...

The first known assertion by administration officials that there had been no serious disagreement within the government about the legality of the N.S.A. program came in talks with New York Times editors in 2004. In an effort to persuade the editors not to disclose the eavesdropping program, senior officials repeatedly cited the lack of dissent as evidence of the program’s lawfulness. ...

Mr. Gonzales defended the surveillance in an appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee in February 2006, saying there had been no internal dispute about its legality. He told the senators: “There has not been any serious disagreement about the program that the president has confirmed. There have been disagreements about other matters regarding operations, which I cannot get into.”

By limiting his remarks to “the program the president has confirmed,” Mr. Gonzales skirted any acknowledgment of the heated arguments over the data mining. He said the Justice Department had issued a legal analysis justifying the eavesdropping program.

So maybe impeachment is more suitable than a perjury prosecution?

It has long been recognized that telling the literal truth when least expected is one of the most effective means of deception.

Specter to probe Supreme Court decisions

Politico.com: By: Carrie Budoff

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) plans to review the Senate testimony of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel A. Alito to determine if their reversal of several long-standing opinions conflicts with promises they made to senators to win confirmation.

Specter, who championed their confirmation, said Tuesday he will personally re-examine the testimony to see if their actions in court match what they told the Senate.

'There are things he has said, and I want to see how well he has complied with it,' Specter said, singling out Roberts. ...

Specter, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, who served as chairman during the hearings, said he wants to examine whether Roberts and Alito have "lived up" to their assurances that they would respect legal precedents.

Judicial independence is "so important," Specter said, but an examination could help with future nominations. "I have done a lot of analyzing and have come to the conclusion that these nominees answer just as many questions as they have to."

Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), a Judiciary Committee member who voted against both nominees, said a review "could lead us to have a different approach." He said senators need to be "more probing" with their questioning of nominees.

"Certainly Justice Roberts left a distinct impression of his service as chief justice. And his performance on the court since, I think, has been in conflict with many of the statements he has made privately, as well as to the committee," said Durbin, who was unaware of Specter's idea.

"They are off to a very disturbing start, these two new justices. I am afraid before long they will call into question some of the most established laws and precedents in our nation."

The idea for a review came to Specter when he said he ran into Justice Stephen G. Breyer at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado. ..."I only noticed it in a couple of cases," Specter said of the court overturning or undermining precedents. But Breyer, in their Aspen conversation, said "there were eight."...

"The reality is, although John Roberts and Samuel Alito promised to follow precedent, they either explicitly or implicitly overruled precedent," said Erwin Chemerinsky, a Duke University law professor.

"It is important to point out how the confirmation hearings were a sham. There is nothing you can do about it now; they are there for life. But it is important as we look to future hearings."

Duh.

Chatty Senator on Air Force One Pushes the Rules, and Buttons

New York Times: By JIM RUTENBERG

PHILADELPHIA, July 26 — Guests of President Bush aboard Air Force One generally know that he expects them to behave in a certain way: No showboating or mingling with the on-board press corps and, certainly, no criticizing the commander in chief or his team.

Senator Arlen Specter violated both points of decorum on Thursday. He visited with reporters aboard the presidential airplane before it lifted off for Philadelphia and lambasted the attorney general....

According to a pool report of the encounter, Mr. Specter expressed anew his criticism of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales but said he saw no signs that Mr. Gonzales would be forced to resign. Mr. Specter attributed Mr. Gonzales’s job security to Mr. Bush’s “personal loyalty” to him.

Mr. Specter spoke derisively of Mr. Gonzales’s appearance Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee ... “Our hearing two days ago was devastating,” Mr. Specter said. “But so was the hearing before that, and so was the hearing before that.”

Mr. Specter also waded into another uncomfortable subject, the Congressional demands for testimony from Karl Rove, the presidential adviser, and Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, among others.

He said that while he hoped “to reach an accommodation” with the White House, “I don’t see it now.” ...

White House officials seemed none too pleased with Mr. Specter’s remarks, but had no comment, either.

More on Alberto's Excellent Adventure

New York Times:

The panel’s chairman, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, and its ranking Republican, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, assailed Mr. Gonzales on a host of issues involving the Justice Department, including the firings of nine prosecutors last year and the White House’s assertion of executive privilege to keep key aides from testifying about those events.

Perhaps, Mr. Specter suggested, it was time for the appointment of a special prosecutor to look into the firings of the prosecutors. “There is evidence of low morale, very low morale, lack of credibility,” Mr. Specter said, scoffing at Mr. Gonzales’s promise to repair his agency. “Candidly, your personal credibility.”

“What is this White House so desperate to hide?” Mr. Leahy asked early on, alluding to the administration’s invocation of executive privilege. “This White House claims to be above the law.”...

Mr. Specter signaled that he did not accept Mr. Gonzales’s explanation about the hospital incident. “What credibility is left for you?” the senator asked at one point.

Mr. Specter has accused Mr. Gonzales before of dodging questions, and he did so again today. At one point, the senator said, “I see it’s hopeless.” At another point, he said acidly, “Let’s see if somewhere, somehow we can find a question that you’ll answer.”

Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, also expressed exasperation. “I listen to you,” she said. “Nothing gets answered directly. Everything gets obfuscated.”

Yet for all the hostility vented at Mr. Gonzales, there was no sign that today’s hearing would change anything. ...

And Mr. Gonzales, besides promising that he “will not tolerate any improper politicization of this department,” said he would not leave under a cloud.

Actually, it's the politicization that he considers proper that worries me. That, and the Class Five hurricane swirling around his head.

A Movable Beast: Asian Pythons Thrive in Florida

New York Times:By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Invasive Snakes:Click for photo

EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK, Fla. — Skip Snow, a federal biologist in Everglades National Park, would love to spend his days monitoring the dizzying array of native wildlife across this 1.5-million-acre “river of grass” west of the ever-expanding Miami metropolis.

Lately, however, he has been spending ever more time studying the remains of the park’s birds and animals, extracted from the stomachs of captured or road-killed Burmese pythons, the latest — and most spectacular — addition to Florida’s growing list of biological interlopers....

Lori Williams, the executive director of the federal invasive species council, said Florida’s growing focus on snakes and other terrestrial introduced species could raise the profile of the issue in Congress....

Well, one could set a python free in the halls of Congress...Only problem would be deciding with whom to mate, now that Tom DeLay is gone.

While Mr. Snow is hunting whatever pythons he can find and pushing for new laws and more money for preventive programs, he is also working at the grass-roots level.

In frequent slide presentations to community groups, he pulls no punches, describing how the snakes seize prey with small sharp teeth and suffocate it with muscular coils. There are several recorded deaths of pet owners in the United States strangled or suffocated by pythons.

One slide says: “Do you really want a snake that may grow more than 20 feet long or weigh 200 pounds, urinate and defecate like a horse, live more than 25 years and for whom you will have to kill mice, rats and, eventually, rabbits?”

Now I admit that I've been critical of the Congress. But this, I think, is going too far...

The Return of Alberto: It's Your Fault, Congress

New York Times:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales denied Tuesday that he and former White House chief of staff Andy Card pressured then-Attorney General John Ashcroft to recertify President Bush's domestic surveillance program during a now-famous 2004 hospital visit.

Gonzales said that he and Card had been urged by congressional leaders of both parties to ensure that the terrorist surveillance program survive a looming deadline for its expiration. To do that, Gonzales said, he needed the permission of Ashcroft, then the attorney general. Ashcroft at the time was in an intensive care unit recovering from gall bladder surgery.

''We went there because we thought it was important for him to know where the congressional leadership was on this,'' Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee in his first public explanation of the meeting....

Gonzales' version conflicts with that of James Comey, Ashcroft's deputy at the time. ...''I was angry,'' Comey testified in May, releasing details of the meeting for the first time. ''I thought I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man who did not have the powers of the attorney general.''

Sometimes you've got to admire this guy's balls. Putting this disgusting episode on the Congressional leadership is a master stroke of the black arts.

When do they impeach this guy?

Is that even possible?

Truthout: Senate Work Held Up by Republican Filibusters:

Washington - This year Senate Republicans are threatening filibusters to block more legislation than ever before, a pattern that's rooted in - and could increase - the pettiness and dysfunction in Congress.

The mouse that roared (well...)

By Dahlia Lithwick - Slate Magazine:

...[Monica] Goodling takes complete blame for having 'crossed the line'—even the legal line, i.e., the civil-service rules—by asking 'political questions of applicants for career positions.' In response to a question from Bobby Scott, D-Va., she adds, 'But I didn't mean to.' Oh. Well then, that's OK. For Goodling, this exchange is key, because she has a grant of immunity to testify today, so presumably anything she gets in, she can't be prosecuted for. She cops to breaking the law with enough charm to sway Republicans on the committee into repeatedly thanking her for her noble and selfless service to the nation. I think they want to offer her McNulty's old job....

It's not just that Goodling comes across as better, smarter, and more honest than Gonzales, Sampson, and McNulty put together, although she does. It's that the committee, in expecting to question the Great Exploding Idiot Barbie today, is completely underprepared and overmatched.

Chalk up another one to the soft bigotry of low expectations.

Mostly, Lithwick tees off on the Committee. The Republicans were noxious, most of the Dems, pathetic...