The Internet

The Internet has the potential to revitalize the role played by the people in our constitutional framework. It has extremely low entry barriers for individuals. It is the most interactive medium in history and the one with the greatest potential for connecting individuals to one another and to a universe of knowledge. It's a platform for pursuing the truth, and the decentralized creation and distribution of ideas, in the same way that markets are a decentralized mechanism for the creation and distribution of goods and services. It's a platform, in other words, for reason. But the Internet must be developed and protected, in the same way we develop and protect markets—through the establishment of fair rules of engagement and the exercise of the rule of law. The same ferocity that our Founders devoted to protect the freedom and independence of the press is now appropriate for our defense of the freedom of the Internet. The stakes are the same: the survival of our Republic. We must ensure that the Internet remains open and accessible to all citizens without any limitation on the ability of individuals to choose the content they wish regardless of the Internet service provider they use to connect to the Web. We cannot take this future for granted. We must be prepared to fight for it, because of the threat of corporate consolidation and control over the Internet marketplace of ideas.

The danger arises because there is, in most markets, a very small number of broadband network operators. These operators have the structural capacity to determine the way in which information is transmitted over the Internet and the speed with which it is delivered. And the present Internet network operators—principally large telephone and cable companies—have an economic incentive to extend their control over the physical infrastructure of the network to leverage control of Internet content. If they went about it in the wrong way, these companies could institute changes that have the effect of limiting the free flow of information over the Internet in a number of troubling ways.

The democratization of knowledge by the print medium brought the Enlightenment. Now, broadband interconnection is supporting decentralized processes that reinvigorate democracy. We can see it happening before our eyes: As a society, we are getting smarter. Networked democracy is taking hold. You can feel it. We the people—as Lincoln put it, "even we here"—are collectively still the key to the survival of America's democracy.

~ Al Gore: The Assault on Reason

Edited by WestTexasBliss

Al Gore - The Assault on Reason (Full Speech)

Hispanic Groups Reconsider Their Support for Gonzales

Two years ago, major Hispanic groups broke with other civil rights organizations and supported Alberto R. Gonzales's nomination for attorney general, primarily because he would become the highest-ranking Latino ever in a presidential Cabinet.
"I have to say we were in error when we supported him to begin with," said Brent Wilkes, executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens. Gonzales, Wilkes said, has not aggressively pursued hate crimes and cases of police profiling of Hispanics. "We hoped for better. Instead it looks like he's done the bidding of the White House."
Janet Murguia, president and chief executive of the National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest Hispanic rights group, called Gonzales "a follower, not a leader." In the Hispanic community, she said, "people are conflicted. They are excited that a Latino had a chance to serve as the attorney general." But, she added, "I think we've been disappointed with his record so far."

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Poster Boys for Bad Politics

Alberto Gonzales and Paul Wolfowitz could be poster boys for what's wrong with politics today cronyism, incompetence and a brazen lack of accountability that has voters craving change.

Gonzales is the Texas pal of President Bush who led the Justice Department into political and legal trouble, then blamed subordinates and a bad memory. Wolfowitz is the unyielding conservative who underestimated the difficulty of bringing Iraq to heel, and was rewarded with a job at the World Bank that he quickly jeopardized with an ethical lapse.

Their heads may finally roll, but the public wants more than the dismissal of two failed leaders. People want an entirely new brand of leadership in Washington -- and they currently don't see it in either major party.

"Does anybody run anything any more? Does anybody hold anybody accountable for anything?" asked Republican consultant Joe Gaylord. He is one of a growing number of Democratic and Republican officials in Washington worried about the health of their parties because of a bipartisan failure of leadership. "It's a mystery to me as to why someone hasn't come down with a two-by-four and said,

'Get this crap fixed.'"

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Gonzales Pressured Ashcroft on Program, Comey Says

Gonzales holds the rule of law ``in minimum low regard,''

Alberto Gonzales pressured then- Attorney General John Ashcroft while he was hospitalized in 2004 to recertify a classified program whose legality was questioned by the Justice Department, the agency's former No. 2 official told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey testified that he and other Justice Department officials planned to resign after the visit to Ashcroft's hospital bed by Gonzales, then White House counsel, and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card. Comey was acting attorney general because of Ashcroft's illness. He wouldn't specify the program at issue, though panel members said it apparently was secret wiretapping of suspected terrorists.
``I was concerned that this was an effort to do an end-run around the acting attorney general and to get a very sick man to approve something'' that the Justice Department had concluded ``was unable to be certified as to its legality,'' Comey told the Senate panel in Washington. Comey said Vice President Dick Cheney also had told him he disagreed with the department's stance.
Comey was called before the committee today to testify about the firings of eight U.S. attorneys that have led to calls for Gonzales's resignation by Democrats and some Republicans. President George W. Bush has continued to support his attorney general.

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Vietnam Vets Share Iraq War Views

For many, the fight between Congress and the president over whether to withdraw troops from Iraq is theoretical.

But the veterans of the nation's last unpopular war follow the debate closely with a strong sense of déjà vu. Vietnam veterans have always been controversial for their willingness to speak out candidly about their own military service, and the state's veterans are no different.

The Republic asked seven Arizona Vietnam vets for their reactions to the legislation that President Bush vetoed last week. They stressed their support for the men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan and they questioned the intent of the war - just as they had questioned the war they fought more than 30 years ago

But they differed on whether to pull out the troops, harking back to memories of their own arguably unwinnable mission of the 1960s and '70s.

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Former lawmakers plead not guilty

Two former Republican lawmakers pleaded NOT guilty Friday to charges of bribery, extortion and wire or mail fraud. Pete Kott of Eagle River -- a former House Speaker -- and former Representative Bruce Weyhrauch (WHY'-rock) of Juneau were arrested and arraigned Friday.
They are accused of accepting bribes and the promise of future work to benefit an oil services company, which was NOT named. They are accused of assisting the unnamed company during discussions last year of the petroleum profits tax. The combined trial was set for July 9th in Anchorage. They face up to 55 years in prison and a million-dollar fine if convicted of all charges.
Both were to be released on 20,000-dollars bail.
Kott is accused of accepting nearly nine-thousand dollars in payments, more than 2,700 dollars in campaign polling expenses and a future contract as a lobbyist in exchange for his support of a new tax structure and of helping to get a contract signed for a natural gas pipeline.
The production tax passed but the contract for the pipeline negotiated by former Governor Frank Murkowski and BP PLC, ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil was never approved. Weyhrauch is charged with helping advance the oil service company's cause in exchange for the promise of future legal work for the company.
FBI spokesman Eric Gonzalez says the arrests stemmed from an investigation that led federal agents last summer to raid the offices of at least six lawmakers, including Kott and Weyhrauch. Kott served in the state House for seven terms, starting in 1992. He lost his bid for re-election to Anna Fairclough in the August primary. Weyhrauch -- a Juneau attorney -- was first elected in 2002. He served two terms and did not run for re-election in November.

Former Supervisor Extols Fired Prosecutors

Praise Undermines Case for Dismissals

A former deputy attorney general lavished praise yesterday on most of the eight U.S. attorneys who were fired after he left the job, testifying that only one of them had serious performance problems.

James B. Comey, the Justice Department's second in command from 2003 until August 2005, also told a House Judiciary subcommittee that although he was the "direct supervisor" of all U.S attorneys, he was never informed about an effort by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and his aides to remove a large group of prosecutors that began in early 2005.

"My experience with the U.S. attorneys just listed was very positive," Comey said, referring to six of the former prosecutors who testified in Congress in March. He added that the reasons given for their firings "have not been consistent with my experience" and that "I had very positive encounters with these folks."

The testimony from Comey, a highly regarded former prosecutor who is now general counsel for Lockheed Martin, further undermines assertions by Gonzales and his aides that dissatisfaction with the prosecutors' work led to their dismissals. It also underscores the extent to which the firings, which originated in the White House, were handled outside the normal chain of command at Justice.



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Justice Department looking into prosecutor hirings

Accusations that an aide considered party politics raise more concerns of partisan practices at the agency.
The Justice Department said Wednesday that it had launched an internal probe into whether a chief figure in the U.S. attorneys affair had violated policy — and possibly federal law — by injecting party politics into the selection of career prosecutors.
The investigation of Monica M. Goodling, once the Justice Department's White House liaison, widens the probe into allegations of partisan hiring and firing at the agency and complicates the Bush administration's efforts to weather the scandal.
Goodling has become a focus of congressional investigators because she played a central role in identifying eight U.S. attorneys who were fired last year. The latest disclosure that she also was involved in the hiring of assistant U.S. attorneys shed new light on her clout at the Justice Department and raised more questions about how the agency has operated under Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales.
"This is a troubling assertion that, if true, suggests politics infected the most basic operations at the Justice Department," said Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. "This only underscores our commitment to hear directly from Ms. Goodling about her role in this process, and at the Justice Department, to establish who should be held accountable."

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Senator subpoenas Rove's e-mails in attorney firings case

The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman issued a subpoena Wednesday to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in an attempt to get e-mails that President Bush's top political adviser sent regarding last year's firings of eight U.S. attorneys.
Gonzales will have to appear before the committee if the Department of Justice does not respond to the subpoena for Karl Rove's e-mails by May 15.
Justice Department Spokesman Dean Boyd said the department had received the subpoena and was reviewing it. (Read the subpoena, PDF:
"The Justice Department has already turned over more than 6,000 pages of documents and e-mails to House and Senate committees and voluntarily provided Congress with hours of interviews of several senior Justice Department officials," Boyd said. "Furthermore, the attorney general last month provided six hours of testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee."
In a letter to Gonzales, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, said he had asked Gonzales twice for the e-mails -- once at an April 19 hearing where the attorney general testified about the dismissals and again in an April 25 letter to the Cabinet member.
Rove's attorney said publicly that the e-mails -- many of which were reported to be "lost" -- had been turned over to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, according to Leahy.
Fitzgerald was using them in his investigation into the leak of the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame, Rove's lawyer said. That probe led to the conviction of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney.

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One Prosecutor Gets an Exemption, Another Gets Fired

Residency Clause Adds Fuel To Dispute Over U.S. Attorneys

One Prosecutor Gets an Exemption, Another Gets Fired
On Nov. 10, 2005, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales sent a letter to a federal judge in Montana, assuring him that the U.S. attorney there, William W. Mercer, was not violating federal law by spending most of his time in Washington as a senior Justice Department official.
That same day, Mercer had a GOP Senate staffer insert into a bill a provision that would change the rules so that federal prosecutors could live outside their districts to serve in other jobs, according to documents and interviews
Congress passed the provision several months later as part of the USA Patriot Act reauthorization bill, retroactively benefiting Mercer and a handful of other senior Justice officials who pull double duty as U.S. attorneys and headquarters officials. Justice officials say the measure was a necessary clarification to ensure that prosecutors could fill temporary postings in Washington, Iraq and elsewhere, and that it also applies to assistant U.S. attorneys.
But the episode, which received little notice at the time, provides another example in which Gonzales's statements appear to conflict with simultaneous actions by his aides in connection with U.S. attorney policies. Lawmakers investigating the department's handling of the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys have repeatedly accused Gonzales of being less than truthful about the roles played by himself and the White House.

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Gonzales Should Step Down

Administration Officials Say Gonzales Should Step Down

Several administration officials and the House Republican Conference chairman said Friday that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should step down, following the harsh response to his Senate testimony on last year's firing of eight U.S. attorneys.
Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee grilled Gonzales for hours Thursday about the dismissals.
The attorney general has been roundly criticized for his handling of the shakeup and for the shifting explanations Justice Department officials have given for the changes.
Gonzales said more than 60 times that he "couldn't recall" certain incidents. His former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, used that explanation 122 times during his testimony weeks ago.
Detractors say the Justice Department has not been straightforward about the reasons the attorneys were dismissed. The controversy has led to allegations of political interference with pending investigations.

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Senators Aim Stiff Criticism At Gonzales

Unsparing lawmakers question the attorney general's credibility as he minimizes his role in prosecutors' firings.
Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales, told by President Bush to repair relations with Congress over his handling of the U.S. attorneys affair, instead suffered new and withering criticism from senators of both parties Thursday, including questions about his judgment, candor and fitness to serve.

Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee in what one lawmaker called a "reconfirmation hearing," Gonzales apologized for what he described as a flawed process in which a group of young political appointees at the Justice Department led a review that resulted in the firings of eight U.S. attorneys last year.

But his credibility took a fresh hit when he tried to downplay his involvement in the dismissals even as documents and testimony from top aides in recent weeks have shown that he played a central role. His inability to recall basic facts at the hearing — he answered "I don't recall" more than 50 times — also often baffled and bewildered lawmakers.

"Your characterization of your participation is significantly, if not totally, at variance with the facts," said Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the ranking Republican on the committee.

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DOG ATE MY HOMEWORK

Senate panel seeks missing White House records A U.S. congressional panel investigating the firing of eight federal prosecutors authorized subpoenas on Thursday for e-mails the White House has declared may be missing.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, challenged the White House assertion, saying, "It's not a question of e-mails being lost, it's e-mails they don't want to retrieve."

The White House said on Wednesday some of its staff, including President George W. Bush's senior political adviser, Karl Rove, and several of his deputies, wrote e-mail messages on official business on Republican Party accounts, and some may have wrongly been deleted.

It also said some of the e-mails may have dealt with the firing of eight of the nation's 93 U.S. attorneys last year, seven of them on December 7.

The administration insists that while the dismissals were poorly handled, they were justified and that prosecutors serve at the pleasure of a president. Critics charge that the dismissals appear to have been politically motivated.

Openly questioning if the White House wants the American people to learn "the truth about these matters," Leahy argued e-mails cannot be eliminated on a federal computer system. "These things stay forever," he said.

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Senators Press Gonzales For More Documents

They think there is more to learn about the firings of eight federal prosecutors last year.

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, indicating they think there is more to learn about the firings of eight federal prosecutors last year, asked Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales on Monday to turn over additional documents on the terminations and threatened to issue subpoenas if the materials were not forthcoming.

Specifically, the four senators want the internal rankings that the Justice Department made of all 93 U.S. attorneys over the years, as well as employment charts that Monica M. Goodling, a top aide to Gonzales, provided to Justice officials as they decided which prosecutors to fire.

The senators have also asked for the department's ratings of all 93 prosecutors in December, when seven of the eight were fired, including explanations why officials decided that certain prosecutors "might be on his or her way out" and why others were allowed to remain.

Three Democrats on the committee — Chairman Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, Dianne Feinstein of California and Charles E. Schumer of New York — and the panel's top Republican, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, asked that the documents be turned over by Wednesday so committee investigators could review them before Gonzales' scheduled testimony next Tuesday.

"We hope subpoenas will not be necessary to compel cooperation with the committee's investigation," the senators said in their letter to Gonzales.

The Justice Department had no immediate response.

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Gingrich Joins Call For Gonzales To Step Down

The former speaker is the latest Republican to break ranks with the administration, which still stands behind the attorney general.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Sunday urged Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales to resign, saying the "self-created mess" over the firings of eight U.S. attorneys last year had hampered his ability to do his job.

"I cannot imagine how he is going to be effective for the rest of this administration," Gingrich said on "Fox News Sunday." "They're going to be involved in endless hearings, which is going to take up an immense amount of time and effort.

"I think the country, in fact, would be much better served to have a new team at the Justice Department, across the board," he said.

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Gonzales Aide Quits Over US Attorneys Flap

A third US justice department official has resigned amid a mounting controversy over the firing of eight federal prosecutors, increasing pressure on Alberto Gonzales, the embattled US attorney-general.

Monica Goodling, the latest official to quit, was senior counsel to Mr. Gonzales and the main liaison between the department of justice and the White House, making her a key target of Democratic lawmakers seeking to prove the sackings were politically motivated.

The resignation came two weeks after Ms Goodling told Congress she would not testify about her role in the firings, asserting her constitutional right to avoid self-incrimination.

Her departure leaves Mr. Gonzales, a close ally and confidant of President George W. Bush, looking increasingly exposed, as he prepares to testify to Congress about the controversy in less than two weeks.

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Power Shift Puts Bush Team on Defense

For six years, President Bush weathered controversies over warrantless wiretaps, abuse at Abu Ghraib prison and the government's bungled response to Hurricane Katrina with the help of a Republican Congress that wasn't eager to probe too deeply.

But less than three months into a Congress controlled by Democrats, top administration officials are being subpoenaed to testify, grilled before multiple committees or fired to contain the damage from recent scandals. Even Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is fighting to save his job.

To Democrats, it's a sign that checks and balances have returned after six years of one-party rule in the nation's capital.

"We have decided to turn the Congress from an accountability-free zone into a place where we hold the executive branch, the Congress and the federal government accountable," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat who's leading the party's re-election efforts.

The shift in power has made it impossible for the White House to control a series of scandals in recent weeks, from the mistreatment of injured soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center to the controversial firings of eight federal prosecutors.

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Bush Administration Takes Six Blows In A Row

During a 24-hour news cycle last week there were these major stories:

01. Six of the eight recently fired United States Attorneys told Congressional committees that they believed they lost their jobs because they wouldn't play partisan politics in their handling of high profile political corruption cases. Some also claimed they'd been threatened by the Justice Department not to go public with their complaints.

02. Nine American servicemen were killed in action Iraq.

03. More than 100 Iraqi Shiites making a religious pilgrimage were killed by suicide bombers. At least 200 were injured.

04. Seriously wounded soldiers told Congress about the neglect, bad housing and bureaucratic nightmares they suffered as outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington while two top army generals accepted responsibility and apologized to the soldiers and their families.

05. According to a new USA Today/Gallup Poll, six in 10 Americans want Congress to set a time table to withdraw all American troops from Iraq by the end of 2008.

06. And, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney and a national security aide to President George W. Bush, was found guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice in the case of the leak of the identity of a CIA operative in the summer of 2003.

Any one of these stories would have been bad news for the Bush White House. As a group they represent a devastating political "perfect storm" because they paint a vivid picture of corruption, neglect and incompetence even while things continue to go badly in a war that a significant majority of Americans no longer supports and wants to end. It was enough to make the White House spokesman want to hide from the press, which Tony Snow tried to do by taking the day off. But neither he nor his boss can hide from the reality that Bush administration policies have created at home and abroad – a reality that seems about as bad as it can be but promises to get worse.

March 11, 2007

Edited By WestTexasBliss

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Fall Guy

Jury finds Libby guilty on 4 of 5 counts in case of unmasking of CIA operative

I. Lewis Libby Jr., the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was convicted Tuesday of lying to FBI agents and grand jurors who were investigating the unmasking of a CIA operative amid a burning dispute over the war in Iraq.

The jurors rejected Libby's claims of memory lapses as they convicted him of obstruction of justice, giving false statements to the FBI and perjuring himself, charges embodied in four of the five counts of the indictment. The jury acquitted him on an additional count of making false statements to the FBI.

The verdict brought to a dramatic conclusion what has been among the most politically charged criminal trials in the capital since the Iran-contra affair in the 1980s and the Watergate prosecutions of the 1970s. The trial involved some of the most powerful figures in the White House and in Washington journalism.

A juror who met afterward with reporters, Denis Collins, said there was some sympathy on the jury for Libby. Indeed, several jurors agreed with defense lawyers that Libby was in effect a "fall guy" for more senior members of the administration.

During the trial, Wells tried to show that his client was being made a scapegoat to protect Rove, who was considered vital to Bush's re-election campaign in 2004.

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Vietnam War: Gore and Bush.

Vietnam War: Gore
Although opposed to the Vietnam War, on August 7, 1969, Gore enlisted in the United States Army in order to participate in the war. After basic training at Fort Dix, Gore was assigned as a military journalist writing for The Army Flier, the base newspaper at Fort Rucker. With seven months remaining in his enlistment, he was shipped to Vietnam, arriving January 2, 1971. He served for four months with the 20th Engineer Brigade in Bien Hoa and for another month at the Army Engineer Command in Long Binh. As his unit was standing down, he applied for and received a non-essential personnel discharge two months early in order to attend divinity school at Vanderbilt University.

The chronology of Gore's military service is:

August 1969: Enlisted at the Newark, New Jersey recruiting office.

August to October 1969: Eight weeks of basic training at Fort Dix, New Jersey.

Late October 1969 to December 1970: writer for the Army Flier newspaper at Fort Rucker, Alabama.

January 2, 1971 to May 22, 1971: field reporter in Vietnam, part of the 20th Engineer Brigade, stationed primarily at Bien Hoa Air Base northeast of Saigon.

May 24, 1971: Given an honorable discharge, after his early discharge request was granted. Gore opposed the Vietnam War, but chose to volunteer anyway though he could have avoided serving in Vietnam in a number of ways. A friend of the Gore family reserved a spot for him in the National Guard, which he turned down. Gore has stated that his sense of civic duty compelled him to serve.


Vietnam War: Bush
In May 1968, at the height of the ongoing Vietnam War, Bush was accepted into the Texas Air National Guard. After training, he was assigned to duty in Houston, flying Convair F-102s out of Ellington Air Force Base. Critics have alleged that Bush was favorably treated during his time of service due to his father's political standing, and that he was irregular in attendance. Bush took a transfer to the Alabama Air National Guard in 1972 to work on a Republican senate campaign, and in 1974 he obtained permission to end his six-year service obligation six months early to attend Harvard Business School, receiving an honorable discharge.

There are a number of accounts of substance abuse and otherwise disorderly conduct by Bush from this time. Bush has admitted to drinking "too much" in those years and described this period of his life as his "nomadic" period of "irresponsible youth". On September 4, 1976, at the age of 30, Bush was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol near his family's summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine. He pleaded guilty, was fined $150, and had his driver's license suspended until 1978 in Maine.