Sen. Chuck Grassley asked Attorney General Eric Holder in a hearing Wednesday for a list of the employees at Dept. of Justice who might have to recuse themselves due to conflicts of interest over detainees. Some DOJ employees and their former firms represented and defended detainees in the past, raising questions about how DOJ might deal with their cases in the future.
Holder was cagey, promising only to "consider the request" despite Grassley's repeated requests.
The Obama Justice Department is having problems prosecuting terrorist cases because top department attorneys have conflicts of interest.
According to documents obtained exclusively by The Washington Times, Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli, No. 3 official in the Justice Department, had to recuse himself on at least 13 active detainee cases and at least 26 cases listed as either closed or mooted...
Mr. Perrelli's recusals presumably stem from the work that either he or his former firm, Jenner & Block LLP, did on behalf of detainees while Mr. Perrelli served on the firm's management committee and on its appellate and Supreme Court practice groups. And Mr. Perrelli is just one official; a number of other Justice Department officials apparently did private-sector work on detainee cases.
DOJ has not provided a list to Grassley yet, but the list of Perelli's recusals was circulated at the department before being acquired by the Times.
John Noonan is correct in stating that NORAD will be sorely stretched by the requirement to stand alerts against incursions by Russian bombers and reconnaissance aircraft (even if these pose only a minimal objective threat, air sovereignty must be maintained). He overlooked, I think, the implications of long range Su-30 fighter/attack aircraft being acquired by Venezuela, which could pose a threat to Florida and the Gulf Coast, further increasing stress on NORAD. At the present moment, it does not appear that the administration will reverse its decision to terminate the FA-22 Raptor at just 183 aircraft, or that a larger number of F-15C Eagles will be modernized to provide front-line fighter-interceptor capabilities. The backbone of NORAD at present consists of aging F-15Cs (whose structural problems were recounted a couple of years ago), and F-16 Air Defense Variants, whose range and sensor capabilities are not really optimized for the continental air defense mission.
It is ironic, therefore, that the U.S. was sitting on a stockpile of perhaps the best bomber interceptor aircraft ever produced, the Northrop Grumman F-14 Tomcat (of "Top Gun" fame). Retired from service in the U.S. Navy in 2006, the F-14, particularly in its upgraded B and D variants, combined long range and excellent performance with a powerful AWG-9 or APG-17 multi-mode radar capable of tracking 24 incoming targets while targeting six simultaneously, and a Television Camera Set (TCS) that allows long-range visual identification of potential targets (to avoid embarrassing and tragic accidents). Originally, the primary armament of the Tomcat was six AIM-54 Phoenix air-to-air missiles, backed up by a pair of AIM-9 Sidewinders and an M61 Vulcan 20mm Gatling gun. A true beast of a missile, the 1000-lb. Phoenix has a maximum speed of Mach 5 and a range in excess of 100 nautical miles. It can attack targets flying anywhere between sea level and 100,000 feet -- and has demonstrated this capability. The ability to engage and detect very low flying targets will become more important as potential adversaries acquire or develop land attack cruise missiles.
It would have been a simple thing for DoD to transfer surviving F-14s and their Phoenix missiles to NORAD, but apparently long-range planning is not a Pentagon strong point. Instead, both missiles and aircraft were placed in the infamous "Boneyard" at Davis-Montham Air Force Base. There, they were placed in a state of preservation which could have allowed them to be reconditioned and reactivated under Air Force colors to meet the present crisis. However, in 2007, DoD decided to shred almost all of the 165 surviving F-14s to prevent spare parts from being sold to Iran (which says something about the USAF's security system, if nothing else). By the end of 2007, 23 of these magnificent aircraft had been shredded and sold for scrap; probably only a handful remain intact, mostly intended to become "gate guards" at various naval air stations.
With a little foresight, these aircraft could have been preserved and modernized to provide NORAD with a highly capable gap-filling interceptor at relatively low cost. Instead, we are likely to find ourselves short-handed just at the time when we would need them most.
Politico reporters will give right-wingers the kind of fair treatment that they can get almost nowhere else, but in this piece on McCain's shift on cap and trade includes a line that just drips with bias. Reporter Lisa Lerer, wrongly in my opinion, attributes McCain's shift on cap and trade to a changeover in staff -- in particular the departure of Mark Salter, who was always pretty green for a Republican. Lerer writes,
The staff that remains, say former aides, lacks the institutional history on the issue and the ability to steer McCain toward productive solutions.
Even if former aides said that -- and given the enormous number of former McCain aides, a reporter could find "a former McCain aide" to say almost anything -- what's with the nonsense about "productive solutions"?
If Lerer wants to assert that the current crop of McCain aides are eco-friendly incompetents who just can't manage to steer the senator toward a cap and trade compromise, fine -- though there doesn't seem much evidence for such an assertion. But "productive solutions"? I'd say the current staff is having more success at steering McCain to a "productive solution" on cap and trade than any that came before them.
As to the larger question of why McCain has dropped this issue, I'd offer a simpler answer: John McCain doesn't like Barack Obama and isn't about to spend his political capital on Obama's hugely unpopular domestic agenda. That's just a guess, but I'd bet dollars to donuts it's the truth.
What’s become of Captain Silvertongue Goldenvisage, bewitcher of men, mascot of children, icon of fools, fetish of knaves? His ship’s afloat, but barely. His sextant’s faulty. His rudder’s sluggish. His port side’s taking on water. His officers await his orders, flirt with mutiny. His crew is scurvy. Rats who followed him aboard as if he were the pied piper are clambering off. Grumbling is heard in the meeting rooms of his patrons. His coffers are shrinking, his debts increasing. The shores he seeks grow ever more distant. His dreamed-of spice route’s come a cropper. Pirates threaten. Shots fly across his bow. Disaster looms.
He has the boat but seems so terribly to regret it, to be averse to steering it, that well might his passengers be wondering: Where is he? What is he thinking? Holed up in his cabin, he’s scouring the pages of his predecessor’s log looking for a place to put the blame. It’s only human—the recourse of children and lesser men. But a captain must be more than only human. He must love the sea as much when it’s rough as when it’s glassy calm.
Is he less than he was? Was he good enough before but now, having gone off course, has he changed his mind in a surge of remorse? Or was he always less—his idolaters worshipping a chimera—just more enough, like so many of the other madly over-praised and pampered members of his class and generation, to desire the ship but not the captaining of it? Will he get it back on course, guide it away from the shoals, while there’s still time? Or will he, like the antecedent captains he is coming increasingly to resemble, Notacrook and Rabbitproof, sink it—and his passengers—in disgrace?
The New York Times has an interesting article up on the role of US and Canadian air defense in the post-9/11 world. Between 2001 and 2007, NORAD provided for regular combat air patrols over major US cities. Due to the spiraling costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, military planners swapped out those active CAPs for a Cold War style of alert posturing, where fighter aircraft are fueled and ready to scramble upon receipt of a tactical warning.
That system, it seems, is also too expensive for some in the government -- as the GAO recently launched an inquiry into the Air Force's self-evaluation processes for determining size and force structure of our air defense fleets. The Times emphasizes two points that support cutting the number of on-alert aircraft: an increasingly limited number of fighters, and cost. Both are valid -- to an extent.
But the irony is, while the internal homeland air defense load may have been mitigated by better airline security measures, the overall demands on NORAD fighter aircraft have increased. A few years ago, Russia resumed bomber flights within close-proximity of the US and Canadian borders. That upped Northern Command's alert requirement, in that they had to start looking externally as well as internally. The probability of a surprise Russian bomber attack is nil, but with 200 bombers -- many of them supersonic and all nuclear capable -- it's a threat that NORAD has to take seriously. Add that to the fact that the Air Force is working with roughly half the F-22 interceptors that they originally planned for, and you can understand why military strategists have become frustrated with what's becoming a Sisyphean task.
We're entering an era where our two oceans can no longer protect the US homeland. Military technology has just become too advanced to be restricted by range and distance. That means we need to be very careful about cutting our fighter forces and missile defense systems. 21st century homeland defense is too serious to do on a nickel's budget.
Another fun email from the NIAC treasure trove...Given that J Street blasted Sarah Palin for her support for the official policy of the government in Jerusalem, and given that even ADL chief Abe Foxman is questioning J Street's "pro-Israel" bona fides as a result, it's worth taking a look behind the scenes of J Street's campaign to scuttle new sanctions on Iran -- a campaign that the group coordinated with NIAC. Here's J Street political director Joel Rubin congratulating the legislative director of the National Iranian American Council, Emily Blout, on their successful push to defeat new sanctions legislation in late 2008:
From: Joel Rubin
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:30:43 -0400
To: Emily Blout
Subject: Re: Hi - get together in mid-October?
I just got airtight confirmation that no 362 language will be included in the Iran sanctions subsection of the India nuclear bill. My bet is that that subsection will get dropped in conference, if it even gets that far. Of course, who knows if they'll be back in November and if the other side makes another play. In any event, you guys did great work this year. Really great
I don't think anybody would make the claim that NIAC is on the "pro-Israel" side, so when Rubin talks about "the other side," it's the genuine pro-Israel community he's talking about, right? Sanctions are the number one priority for Israel and the pro-Israel community in the United States. Why is J Street conspiring with an organization run by an Iranian national -- an organization that Congress has asked AG Holder to investigate for violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act and lobbying disclosure laws -- to kill that legislation?
Parsi was invited to speak at J Street's conference last month. At the time, I asked Hadar Susskind, J Street's director of policy and strategy, what he was doing there. "Some people say Parsi is the regime's man in Washington," I told him. "Those people are wrong," Susskind said. He insisted that Parsi "supports the Iranian people, he is not here on behalf of the regime." Maybe, but that isn't the way the Iranian people see it. When Eli Lake first broke this story, he closed with a quote from Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the unofficial spokesman for Iran's Green Movement. "I think Trita Parsi does not belong to the Green Movement. I feel his lobbying has secretly been more for the Islamic Republic," Makhmalbaf said. It seems J Street isn't just redefining "pro-Israel" -- they're redefining "pro-Iran" as well.
It was reported this morning that Obama would not be letting us enjoy our Thanksgivings without a cameo from him, and now THE WEEKLY STANDARD has acquired this copy of the upcoming ad:
Senator Ben Nelson announced today that he will vote yes on the motion to proceed Saturday night. Politicoreports two Democrats remain undeclared: "A few moments ago, Sen. Dick Durbin walked back a statement he made earlier today that Sen. Blanche Lincoln told Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid how she is going to vote tomorrow. Lincoln and Sen. Mary Landrieu are the only two Democrats who have not yet publicly stated their intentions."
The National Iranian American Council denies it engages in lobbying, yet the organization's internal emails tell a different story. The group calls itself the National Iranian American Council, but it's run by Trita Parsi, an Iranian national who didn't even have a green card when he started the organization. NIAC claims to represent an Iranian-American community that may number a million or so, but just 500 people responded to the group's most recent membership survey. And NIAC claims to support the Obama administration's policy on Iran, but it coordinated a secret campaign to scuttle the appointment of Dennis Ross to serve as the administration's Iran envoy. The emails show why that campaign was secret -- "Our views on Ross may resemble Tehran's," Parsi wrote.
There's so much smoke here you wouldn't be able to see the fire if it was right in front of your face. Which is why Senator John Kyl has asked Attorney General Eric Holder whether there is an investigation ongoing, and if not, why not? Politicoreports on the written questions submitted by Kyl to Holder after Wednesday's hearing:
The November 13, 2009 Washington Times article, “Iran advocacy group said to skirt lobby rules” alleges that the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) may be operating as an undeclared lobby and may be guilty of violating tax laws, the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and lobbying disclosure laws.
• Is DOJ investigating the allegations put forward in this article? If not, why?
• Has DOJ found the allegations in this article to be true?
• What is the proper recourse against a 501(c)(3) group that engages in lobbying activity on behalf of a foreign government without registering as a lobbyist or filing papers with DOJ indicating that the group is a local agent of a foreign government?
It's not every day that a United States senator asks the Attorney General to investigate whether a Washington-based organization is actually a front for a hostile regime. Holder is required by law to answer such questions, so we ought to have our answers soon enough, but at this point the evidence seems to indicate that NIAC has, at the very least, skirted federal lobbying disclosure laws. Of course this all leads to the more serious question of who, exactly, Parsi represents -- but that is really a question for the FBI to answer.
Here are four key facts about the costs of the Democrats' 2,074-page Senate health bill:
1. According to the CBO, only 1 percent of the bill's costs would kick in prior to the fifth year of its alleged "first ten years" (2010 to 2019). Starting in 2014, 99 percent of the bill's costs would hit -- meaning that the bill's true first 10 years are from 2014 to 2023. Before then, it wouldn't really take effect.
2. In the bills' real first decade (2014-23), it would cost $1.8 trillion, raise Americans' taxes by $892 billion, and siphon $802 billion out of already barely-solvent Medicare to spend elsewhere -- according to CBO projections.
3. According to CBO projections, in the bill's real first decade (2014-23), it would do one of two things: It would either cut doctors' pay under Medicare by $431 billion (as it claims it would but as nobody believes it would), or it would raise United States deficits by $286 billion
4. So, if the bill doesn't follow through on its pledge to cut doctors' pay by a drastic 23 percent under Medicare and never raise it back up, it would violate President Obama's very public and very emphatic pledge in his Sept. 9 speech to the joint-session of Congress that he would "not sign" any bill that "adds one dime to the deficit, now or in the future, period." This bill would raise deficits by $2.86 trillion dimes. Read my lips, what?
It is things like this that make me love the Internet. This week, MSNBC's intrepid Norah O'Donnell, with the help of a team of producers and researchers, bravely confronted a 17-year-old girl in line for a Palin book signing about the ideological consistency of her t-shirt.
The young woman is, predictably, getting a bunch of flak from liberals who are under the impression that throwing a 17-year-old slightly off her game in her first live TV appearance is a great political score for them. From the right side, Norah O'Donnell has been the one receiving flak. The video is below:
But now, O'Donnell's interview subject is responding in her own blog post, noting the behind-the-scenes machinations, her own understandably flustered state, and O'Donnell's factual inaccuracies. Unsurprisingly, she comes out looking sympathetic, sweet, and smart. Read the whole thing, if you've got the time, and if you've only got a minute, click through for the very last paragraph, which is a winner.
I was first approached by a New York Times writer who wrote what my shirt said and then asked me a couple questions. She asked me what it was I liked about Sarah Palin. I said, “As a young female she is someone I can look up to, before her the only prominent female in politics I had known about was Hilary Clinton, whom I respect don’t get me wrong, I respect her but when you don’t agree with someone it’s hard to really look up to them. I like how Sarah Palin will speak her mind, regardless of what the media will say about it.”
After that I just stood in line eagerly waiting for Sarah Palin to arrive. I then see Norah O’Donnell approach a man all decked out in Palin garb. She asked him a few questions (camera not rolling) then said she’d like to have a woman in the shot. She asked a woman who refused then pointed at me and said “Hey talk to her” So I walked over. I knew I was walking into hot water with MSNBC- thought I was prepared….Seconds later I met her… One of the many faces of liberal media bias.
She asked me my name and then before going on air asked me why I liked Sarah Palin, I repeated what I told the NYT reporter. Norah didn’t seem to like that much. So what did she do? I mean she couldn’t ask me that question on television, heaven forbid her not have a biting response.. I noticed her look down at my shirt then, she turned around blackberry in hand spoke to a man, thumbs tapping the blackberry (I don’t remember if she called or not, she may have. But she was on her blackberry), then jotted down a quick note. Little did I know that note would be used against me...
O'Donnell asked the man identified as Joe in the video the same question she asked him on-air, so he was prepared, before she moved onto the young woman, whom she proceeded to debate on the history of bailout politics:
She had me read my shirt and then proceeded to ask me “Did you know Sarah Palin supported the bailout” to be 100% honest I was like, are you kidding me? She is trying to use my shirt against me...
Immediately after the interview I said to my dad “Oh man, I have so many great responses now about my shirt” I could have said, well my shirt doesn’t say anything about Sarah Palin supporting the bailout or “Hey Norah, have you read the book? She talks about how during her debate prep she was handed a list of note cards that had questions and ‘non-answers’” Of course they told Sarah Palin to support everything McCain did. Call me crazy but it would have looked pretty bad had Sarah Palin been against something John McCain was against while they were running together.
The teenager also claims a factual inaccuracy on O'Donnell's part:
Norah also claims I told her I voted (on her twitter). That is not true. She never asked my age or if I voted. I’m 17 I couldn’t have voted…and I don’t live in an ACORN district so I didn’t have a chance to even register illegally.
The University of Georgia is mourning its mascot, Uga VII, who unexpectedly died of a heart attack yesterday at four years old. He had served fewer than two seasons as the football team's mascot, the shortest tenure of any in the long line of English Bulldogs who represent the university, and are owned by the Seiler family of Savannah.
Frum criticizes Palin: "This is a woman who has got into a position of leadership by sending very powerful sexual signals." Sheesh, what a demagogue that Palin is, always relying on tired talking points and whingy personal attacks, huh?
Mary Landrieu drives a much better bargain. Watch and learn, AARP.
Krauthammer: "'Failure is not an option,' replied Holder. Not an option? Doesn't the presumption of innocence, er, presume that prosecutorial failure -- acquittal, hung jury -- is an option? By undermining that presumption, Holder is undermining the fairness of the trial, the demonstration of which is the alleged rationale for putting on this show in the first place."
When Sarah Palin offered her unqualified support for the Israeli government's policy of settlement expansion in Jerusalem and the West Bank, the self-described "pro-Israel, pro-peace" J Street blasted her for "pandering to her right-wing base . . . at the expense of the security of the State of Israel." The group added that "the majority of Israelis and pro-Israel Americans . . . view the growing settlement enterprise as a threat to Israel’s very future as a Jewish democracy." So according to J Street, Palin's support for the official policy of the Israeli government raised questions about Palin's pro-Israel bona fides.
Anti-Defamation League chief Abe Foxman sees things differently. JTA reports:
he head of the Anti-Defamation League says J Street's attack on Sarah Palin's defense of Israeli settlements was "over the line" and questioned whether the group should be calling itself "pro-Israel."
In a call to JTA late Thursday, ADL national director Abraham Foxman called "the height of chutzpah" J Street's statement Wednesday which said "Palin's pandering to her right-wing base comes at the expense of the security of the State of Israel" and her remarks "reveal a glaring ignorance of damaging facts."
"Who authorizes them to detemine what the security of Israel is?" Foxman asked of J Street. "Israel determines its security."
"They're attacking a celebrity for supporting Israel, but not in the way they want her to support Israel," he said referring to the former governor of Alaska.
Two days ago J Street flacks were promoting the ADL's attack on Glenn Beck, now they're on defense -- J Street chief Jeremy Ben-Ami responds in a statement this morning that takes the form of an open-letter to Foxman:
You, of course, have every right to disagree with us. It’s a free country.
But you have no right to decide who is and is not pro-Israel based on whether they agree with your views.
Anyone who's been following the travails of J Street over the last few months has to be amused by that. Questions have been raised from all sides about J Street's claim to be "pro-Israel," including from those featured at J Street's conference, some of whom refused to self-identify as pro-Israel and others of whom went so far as to declare themselves anti-Zionist. And all the while, J Street has questioned the pro-Israel credentials of legitimate and well established pro-Israel organizations like Christians United for Israel.
J Street has explicitly worked to change the definition of what it means to be pro-Israel by pushing people like Palin out of the tent and letting self-described anti-Zionists in -- so is Ben-Ami the only one who gets to decide who is and who is not pro-Israel based on whether they agree with his views? Palin is without a doubt pro-Israel, and yet Ben-Ami blasted her -- why? Because she doesn't agree with his views, and because J Street is not a pro-Israel group but a partisan political organization that, in Ben-Ami's own words, seeks only to be Obama's "blocking back" in Congress.
Ben-Ami's writes today,
To quote the most recent Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Olmert – if the two-state solution collapses and Israel faces a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, the state of Israel is finished.
Perhaps you believe the former Prime Minister is not pro-Israel either?
Of course Olmert supported precisely the policies of settlement expansion that Palin was defending. And of course the current government of Israel has publicly denounced J Street, refusing to send its ambassador or any other government official to its recent conference on the grounds that J Street's policies threaten to "impair Israel's interests."
So just to be clear: nobody's saying the Prime Minister of Israel is not pro-Israel, the Prime Minister of Israel is saying that J Street is not pro-Israel. And now he's being joined by the head of the ADL, Abe Foxman. And that's what J Street gets for opposing sanctions on Iran, questioning Israel's right to self-defense, and supporting the Goldstone report.
Last week, the West Virginia Supreme Court issued a well-deserved slap in the face to a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court, which all too often makes up the law out of whole cloth to meet its latest view of what is socially and politically correct.
In June, the Court issued what may have been one of the worst opinions of the term in Caperton v. Massey Coal Company, a case I wrote about previously. In a 5 to 4 decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy joined with the liberals on the Court to opine that if there was an appearance of possible bias by a judge, it violated the right to a fair trial under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. It didn’t matter that there was no actual or real bias in the case, no financial impropriety, or that even the Court’s analysis of the “appearance” of bias was completely wrong. Instead, the majority conjured up a vague standard so broad and undefined that Chief Justice Roberts said in his dissent that it provides “no guidance to judges and litigants about when recusal will be constitutionally required.”
The end result of this decision was that West Virginia Chief Justice Brent Benjamin was forced to recuse himself from a case involving a $50 million judgment against Massey Coal. Benjamin had been part of a three-judge majority that had overturned the $50 million judgment, with two other judges of the West Virginia Supreme Court dissenting. This was actually unusual--Benjamin had voted against Massey Coal on 15 prior occasions.
Benjamin had been elected to the court after receiving the endorsement of almost every newspaper in the state. He defeated the incumbent, a judge who had refused interviews, ignored debates and gave a speech that the media characterized as “deeply disturbing.” But Benjamin had received a (shudder) $1,000 contribution from the owner of Massey Coal, who had also spent large sums of money in a totally independent campaign to defeat the incumbent, a well-known ally of the plaintiffs’ bar which itself spent huge sums trying to get him reelected.
After the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in June, the case was remanded to the West Virginia Supreme Court. With Benjamin disqualified from the case and another West Virginia judge sitting in his place by special designation, the West Virginia Supreme Court overturned the $50 million judgment against Massey Coal last week again, but this time by a 4 to 1 vote. This is exactly what one would expect since no one had ever presented any evidence in the U.S. Supreme Court case--and the majority opinion certainly did not point to any at all--that there had been any factual or legal errors in the original decision that was the basis of the “bias” claim.
So once again, we have a bad decision from the Supreme Court establishing a new legal right that does not actually exist in the Constitution that will live on forever, causing far-ranging and damaging consequences that the majority failed to adequately anticipate. It is an expansion of a “constitutional mandate in a manner ungoverned by any discernable rule.” Just more evidence of how important Supreme Court nominations are and how bad the liberal justices can be on far too many cases.
