The Minnesota U.S. Attorney declined comment to the local paper about the inquiry into whether she violated laws governing treatment of federal employees, although she did confirm the existence of the investigation.
I have to say writing the headline above still feels like a Twilight Zone moment.
Senate Democrats were unable to overcome a GOP filibuster of a bill to restore habeas corpus rights for enemy combatants detained at Guantanamo and elsewhere.
Habeas rights were expressly stripped from detainees by Congress late last year.
Late Update: In its original version, this post erroneously reported that Arlen Specter was the lone Republican voting with the Democrats. Five other GOP senators supported the proposal: Snowe, Sununu, Lugar, Hagel, and Smith.
Over at the TPMCafe Book Club, we are giving conservatives a chance to tee off on Greg Anrig’s new book, The Conservatives Have No Clothes: Why Right-Wing Ideas Keep Failing. Yesterday, Cato Institute Chairman William A. Niskanen had a turn. Today, it’s Bruce Bartlett.
TPM Reader ZK makes a good catch. The AP story I linked to below in the post on habeas corpus rights for detainees being rejected by the Senate says the vote was 56-43 “against the bill.” ZK writes, “Last I checked that meant 56 Senators voted FOR the bill. You should put up a warning about that – the media sure has changed how they report these votes.” Indeed it has, as we noted back in July.
Sen. Joe Biden, on the GOP’s successful filibuster of legislation restoring habeas corpus for enemy combatants:
âAs Iâve said before, the terrorists win when we abandon our civil liberties. The way we win is to show them that we can fight this war without changing our character as a nation. I hope the Senate reconsiders this issue once again.â . . .
âThe position urged by the Administration, that we must choose between Constitutional rights and fighting terrorism effectively, is simply wrong. Our strength as a nation, and our status as a world leader, is based in part on the fact that Americans do not choose between national security and liberty; we demand both,â said Sen. Biden.
Sen. John Warner (R-VA) will introduce a non-binding “sense of the Senate” resolution supporting the gist of the Webb Amendment on troop readiness. The effect is to undermine Sen. Jim Webb’s effort to make the troop readiness changes legally binding. And as Greg Sargent reports, Warner didn’t even bother to alert his fellow Virginian Webb of the move.
Late Update: Webb responds to Warner’s move.
Monday I observed that Solicitor General Paul Clement was the acting attorney general who never was. Well, not quite.
Even though President Bush originally had announced Clement as his choice to replace Alberto Gonzales until a permanent AG was confirmed by the Senate, Clement was edged out by conservative diehard Peter Keisler, in a politically calculated sleight of hand from Bush that has received remarkably little scrutiny.
Turns out though that Clement did actually serve as acting AG, for 24 hours. From the WaPo:
Clement, who was publicly tagged last month as the temporary replacement for Gonzales, wound up officially taking the helm at 12:01 a.m. Monday and relinquishing it 24 hours later, officials said.
The switch was made on Sunday by the White House with no input from Justice Department officials, said two sources with knowledge of the matter. The change added another level of uncertainty to life at the Justice Department, where nearly every top senior official has resigned in the wake of controversies under Gonzales….
That would explain why Clement’s photo appeared on the attorney general webpage for a brief time Monday even after Keisler had been announced as acting attorney general by the President. But it still does not entirely explain why Keisler was shuffled into the post. The President said it was so that Clement could prepare for the upcoming Supreme Court term, as if that was a surprise development the President had not foreseen when he first tapped Clement, which was most certainly not the case.
Former CIA official Cofer Black is now a vice president for the security contractor Blackwater and last week was named as Mitt Romney’s top counterterrorism adviser.
Sen. Craig’s (R-ID) swirling down the bowl. But even though a high-profile prosecution witness has testified under oath that he bribed Sen. Stevens (R-AK), no one seems to care.
We bring you up to speed in today’s episode of TPMtv …
As you can see, we’re all over today’s developments in the Webb-Warner imbroglio. But I want to zero in on Sen. McCain’s (R-AZ) claim that Webb’s amendment is not just wrong-headed but plainly unconstitutional. People talk a lot of crap and a lot of trash up on Capitol Hill. But this seems worth addressing. The idea that the United States Congress cannot make laws governing the organization, regulation and laws governing the US military is as plainly ridiculous as it is shocking.
The organization of the branches, the order of ranks and the chain of command, the Uniform Code of Military Justice all come from laws passed by Congress. What McCain must be claiming is that these regulations about lengths of troop deployments amount to de facto limitations on his operational control of the Army. But all sorts of those regs and laws I just mentioned do that in one sense of another. And of course cutting off funds would do the same thing (something the GOP talking points claim would be an appropriate, if ill-advised, assertion of congressional power).
As I said, people spout off about a lot of crap on Capitol Hill. But McCain’s claim is part of a increasingly common Republican claim that the president is a virtual dictator on all questions regarding the American military.