Saturday, June 30, 2007

NY Times Condemns Bush’s Abuse of Executive Privilege, Applauds Democratic Challenge (10:10 pm)

The editors of the New York Times find that Bush’s claims of Executive Privilege lack merit, and they are pleased that Democrats in Congress are aggressively exercising their oversight responsibilities.

After six years of kowtowing to the White House, Congress is finally challenging President Bush’s campaign to trample all legal and constitutional restraints on his power.

Congressional committees have issued subpoenas for documents and witnesses in two major cases and have asked for the first — and likely not the last — criminal investigation of an executive branch official who might have lied to Congress.
(…)
Mr. Bush’s claim of executive privilege in the attorneys scandal is especially ludicrous. The White House has said repeatedly that Mr. Bush was not involved in the firings of nine United States attorneys. If that’s true, he can hardly argue that he has the right to conceal conversations and e-mail exchanges that his aides had with one another and the Justice Department.
(…)
[E]xecutive privilege cannot be used to cover up actions and policies that involve an outright violation of the law, as the spying program did.

posted by Brian Zick | start the discussion

Saturday Cartoon (11:25 am)

Steamboat Willie

Steamboat Willie was the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, but the first in which Disney incorporated the new technology of synchronized sound. The first two (Plane Crazy and Gallopin’ Gaucho) were silent films, and they hadn’t met with any interest from distributors. But the enthusiastic public reaction to The Jazz Singer in 1928 captured Walt’s attention, and Steamboat Willie became the first sound cartoon. It was first screened on November 18, 1928, at New York’s Colony Theater. Mickey was soon enormously popular, and he became an unprecedented global phenomenon.

Leonard Maltin, in his book Of Mice and Magic, reports that it was harmonica player Wilfred Jackson who showed Walt a metronome and suggested that music could be scored to the playback speed of the film. And this meant that the music did not have to be written first, only the meter needed to be determined. Disney hired Carl Stalling to compose and supervise production of the music for Steamboat Willie. Stalling next proposed the idea of using music not just as background, but to build cartoon action directly on the music, which was done in The Skeleton Dance, the first of Disney’s Silly Symphony series.

It is worthy of ironic note - given the contemporary reputation of the Disney corporation for diligently crafted inoffensiveness - that Mickey had his detractors. Mickey was deemed vulgar and crude, due to the barnyard humor, and he suffered demands for censorship from self-appointed moral superiors of the times.

Mickey subsequenly evolved a great deal, in personality and appearance, and with the cast of supporting players that were developed. And Disney built an empire. But Steamboat Willie was the historical landmark upon which Disney built all the success that followed.

Direction: Walt Disney
Animation: Ub Iwerks, Les Clark, Johnny Cannon, Wilfred Jackson

posted by Brian Zick | 1 comment

Fighting Back Against the Obstructionists (10:44 am)

The Congress has low public approval ratings these days, because the corporate news media keeps telling the public that Congress isn’t accomplishing much - as if the Congress is a monolithic operation working with a singular political mind rather than one of competing philosophical views, and that only one side of the political divide is working to prevent the passage of bills wanted by the public which the other side is trying to pass.

The Campaign for America’s Future has created a petition urging Harry Reid to expose Republican obstructionism of important legislation which is supported by large majorities of the public.

American voters elected a new Congress to bury the failed conservative policies of the Bush Era and chart a new course for our nation. The majority in Congress has voted for bold reforms — including a date to remove troops from Iraq, deep investments in renewable energy, affordable prescription drugs and empowered unions. But a minority of conservatives has blocked these reforms — pushing their narrow interests, and thwarting the will of most Americans.

It’s time to take the gloves off! Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has the power to force the hand of these conservative obstructionists. Please sign the petition below, and urge Senator Reid to do so.

The petition is here.

via Digby

posted by Brian Zick | start the discussion

NY Times Urges Congress Investigate Siegelman Prosecution (1:53 am)

The editors of the NY Times have written an editorial titled “Questions About a Governor’s Fall.”

It is extremely disturbing that Don Siegelman, the former governor of Alabama, was hauled off to jail this week. There is reason to believe his prosecution may have been a political hit, intended to take out the state’s most prominent Democrat, a serious charge that has not been adequately investigated. The appeals court that hears his case should demand answers, as should Congress.

The United States attorneys scandal has made clear that partisan politics is a driving force in the Bush Justice Department. Top prosecutors were fired for refusing to prosecute Democrats or for not bringing baseless vote-fraud cases to help Republicans. Lawyers were improperly hired based on party affiliation.
(…)
The charges Mr. Siegelman was convicted of suggest that he may have been a victim of selective prosecution.
(…)
The idea of federal prosecutors putting someone in jail for partisan gain is shocking. But the United States attorneys scandal has made clear that the Bush Justice Department acts in shocking ways. We hope that the appeals court that hears Mr. Siegelman’s case will give it the same hard look that another appeals court recently gave the case of Georgia Thompson.

posted by Brian Zick | 2 comments

Friday, June 29, 2007

Olbermann (2:09 pm)

Keith Olbermann speaks with David Shuster about the “subpoena showdown.”
Crooks and Liars has the video.

posted by Brian Zick | start the discussion

Conyers and Leahy to Bush: Specify Precisely Your Argument for Privilege or Face Contempt (1:47 pm)

Spencer Ackerman at TPM Muckraker reports:

In a just-released letter (posted in full below) to White House Counsel Fred Fielding, Conyers and Leahy signal their intent to hit back against the White House’s claim yesterday that its internal discussions about the firings of nine U.S. attorneys are outside congressional scrutiny. The two chairman write that unless Fielding specifies the claim of privilege for each document being withheld by July 9, they’ll “consider whether the White House is in contempt of Congress.” A contempt vote in committee is the first step, to be followed by a vote in the full House or Senate. Experts say the process has never gotten further. But if the clash between Congress and the White House continued, the next step would be a referral to the District of Columbia’s U.S. attorney to enforce the subpoena by seeking an indictment from a grand jury.

The letter:

June 29, 2007

Fred Fielding, Esq.
Counsel to the President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. Fielding:

The return date and time for the White House Chief of Staff, Joshua Bolten, to appear before our Committees on behalf of the White House and bring with him the documents compelled by the subpoenas we issued on June 13 was yesterday at 10 a.m. Mr. Bolten did not do so. Instead, you wrote us that, despite conceding that you have responsive documents in your possession, you refuse to produce even a single one based on a blanket... read more

posted by Brian Zick | 19 comments

Supremes Reverse, Will Hear Gitmo Detainee Appeal (11:14 am)

Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog reports:

In a startling turn of events in the legal combat over the war on terrorism, the Supreme Court on Friday agreed to reconsider the appeals in the Guantanamo Bay detainee cases. It vacated its April 2 order denying review of the two packets of cases. The Court then granted review, consolidated the cases, and said they would be heard in a one-hour argument in the new Term starting Oct. 1. Such a switch by the Court — from denial to rehearing and new argument and decision — may not have occurred previously, legal sources said Friday.

The order also said that new briefs will be sought, after the D.C. Circuit rules in pending cases on how judicial review is to work for detainees under the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005. The cases to be reheard by the Supreme Court are Boumediene v. Bush (06-1195) and Al Odah v. U.S. (06-1196). In those cases, the D.C. Circuit ruled that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 had stripped detainees of their rights to bring habeas challenges to their confinement. That is the ruling that the Supreme Court left intact in April, but now will move forward to review.

Under the Court’s Rules and precedents, it would have taken the votes of five Justices to grant rehearing, compared with the requirement of four votes to initially grant an appeal. When the Court denied review in April, only three Justices voted to hear the cases. But two of the... read more

posted by Brian Zick | start the discussion

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Calvinball Constitutionalism (4:24 pm)

Steve Benen at The Washington Monthly (guesting for Kevin) calls attention to the news that “Mr. Cheney did not necessarily agree with” the 4th Branch of Government claim he has been using all this time to avoid compliance with a variety of security and oversight responsibilities. Steve suggests that

if the argument has genuinely fallen out of favor at the White House, maybe someone can tell the Justice Department? Gonzales & Co. have apparently been struggling with the question for several months. Maybe Cheney can give them a hand.