Politics

Talking Points Memo has a list of reasons Giuliani shouldn’t be president based on his association with and continued giving of high-profile jobs to Bernie Kerik: They seem to be stipulating to their knowing about and being untroubled by a) Kerik’s long-standing ties to an allegedly mobbed-up Jersey construction company (see yesterday’s piece in the Daily News and tomorrow’s in the Times), sub-a) that Kerik received numerous unreported cash gifts from Lawrence Ray, an executive at said Jersey construction company (Ray was later indicted along with Edward Garafola, Sammy “The Bull” Gravano’s brother-in-law, and Daniel Persico, nephew of Colombo Family Godfather Carmine “The Snake” Persico and others on unrelated federal charges tied to what the Daily News called a “$40 million, mob-run, pump-and-dump stock swindle.” b) that Riker’s Island prison became a hotbed of political corruption and cronyism on his watch, c) that he is accused by nine employees of the hospital he worked at providing security in Saudi Arabia of using his policing powers to pursue the personal agenda of his immediate boss, d) that a warrant for his arrest (albeit in a civil case) was issued in New Jersey as recently as six years ago, e) that as recently as last week he was forced to testify in a civil suit in a case covering the period in which he was New York City correction commissioner, in which the plaintiff, “former deputy warden Eric DeRavin III contends Kerik kept him from getting promoted because he had reprimanded the woman [Kerik was allegedly having an affair with], Correction Officer Jeanette Pinero,” or f) his rapid and unexplained departure from Baghdad. … Pretty much the most generous interpretation of all this is that Giuliani was guilty of amazingly poor judgment in giving Kerik all these plum assignments. And it strongly points to a tendency on Giuliani’s part of bad judgment with a strong penchant for surrounding himself with cronies and yes-men. … TPM Reader RR notes that the list above is by no means exhaustive. And he’s definitely right. This was just the most convenient catalog of sins and ridiculousness that I found with the TPM search function. For instance it doesn’t include the Judith Regan/Luv Shack scandal that broke I think the day after post above ran. This was the case in which an apartment near ground zero – made available by a New York real estate developer – for off-duty cops to relax while taking a break from clean up duties ended up being commandered by Kerik so he could use it as his off the books bachelor pad for doing the wild thing with celebrity book editor Judith Regan.To add to that list, The Smoking Gun obtained a copy of the April 8, 1993 “Rudolph W. Giuliani Vulnerability Study” which was commissioned by Giuliani’s NYC mayoral campaign, all copies of which were supposed to be destroyed. The Smoking Gun comments: He surely could not have been pleased to read that his “personal life raises questions about a ‘weirdness factor.’” That weirdness, aides reported, stemmed from Giuliani’s 14-year marriage to his second cousin, a union that he got annulled by claiming to have never received proper dispensation from the Catholic Church for the unorthodox nuptials. “When asked about his personal life, Giuliani gives a wide array of conflicting answers,” the campaign report stated. “All of this brings the soundness of his judgement into question–and the veracity of his answers.” The internal study also addresses prospective charges that Giuliani dodged the Vietnam draft and was a “man without convictions” because of his transformation from George McGovern voter to a Reagan-era Justice Department appointee. “In many ways Rudy Giuliani is a political contradiction…He doesn’t really fit with the Republicans. Too liberal. Giuliani has troubles with the Democrats, too."Also at The Smoking Gun is a summary of some of the revelations in Wayne Barrett’s biography of Giuliani.

The Secular Coalition of America is throwing its support behind the one member of Congress who has expressed a willingness to be identified as not having a belief in God or gods. It’s Rep. Pete Stark (D-California, District 13, which covers the east Bay–Oakland, Fremont, Alameda, Union City, etc.). Stark, born in 1931, was first elected to Congress in 1973. He earned a B.S. in general engineering from MIT in 1953 and an M.B.A. from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley in 1960. Prior to entering politics, he served in the Air Force and was a bank executive. He is currently a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee and chairman of the Health subcommittee. He’s pro-choice, anti-war, he opposed making the USA PATRIOT Act permanent, he supports medical marijuana, opposes the death penalty, and opposes Internet gambling bans. He’s unfortunately also a big advocate of regulation, opposes free trade, advocates gun control, supports network neutrality, and appears to oppose both legal and tax reform. A list of his positions on issues as of 2000 may be found here. His Wikipedia entry gives the following ratings that he’s received from various groups on the basis of his voting record, from Project Vote Smart: American Civil Liberties Union-100% for 2003-2004.Americans for Democratic Action-90% for 2004 and 2005.AFL-CIO-93% in 2005.Drum Major Institute-100% for 2003-2005League of Conservation Voters-100% for 2005.NARAL Pro-Choice America-100% for 2003-2005.National Education Association-100% for 2005.National Journal-Composite liberal score of 98% for 2005 and 91% for 2003.National Organization for Women-100% for 2005.Population Connection-100% for 2000-2005.Republican Liberty Caucus-41% for 2005.The Center for Public Integrity’s “Well Connected” project has a record of contributions Stark has received from media companies. (Via Pharyngula.) UPDATE: Wonkette offers snarky comment.

A Justice Department review of 293 National Security Letters issued by the FBI found 22 instances (7.5%) of apparent violations of FBI and Justice Department regulations. The FBI issued more than 19,000 National Security Letters in 2005. UPDATE: This story has now hit CNN, which has more details. The Justice Department’s inspector general says the FBI is guilty of “serious misuse” of National Security Letters and that use of them may be underreported by as much as 20%. The audit found that more than half of NSLs were used to get information about U.S. citizens. CNN reports 26 violations, of which 22 were the FBI’s fault and 4 were caused by errors by the recipients of the National Security Letters. UPDATE (March 10, 2007): FBI Director Robert Mueller and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales have acknowledged that the FBI broke the law, apologized, and promised to stop further such intrusions. Gonzales left open the possibility of criminal prosecutions against FBI agents or lawyers who misused their PATRIOT Act powers. UPDATE (June 14, 2007): An audit has discovered that the above-reported 26 violations were the tip of the iceberg. 10% of National Security Letters have been reviewed, and the total number of violations is now over 1,000. UPDATE (March 7, 2008): This year’s audit has shown that the NSL abuses continued through 2006 and that the FBI underreported to Congress the number of NSLs by more than 4,600. UPDATE (January 20, 2010): Yet further evidence of FBI abuses in collecting telephone records has been uncovered.

Alberto Santos, the mayor of Kearny, New Jersey, has spoken out on the David Paszkiewicz affair, with a cogent statement. Historical Comments Einzige (2007-03-09): I note with some dismay (but no real surprise) that the Mayor's recommendations don't seem to include any sort of disciplinary action against Mr. Paszkiewicz.

The blogosphere has been making fun of absurdities at Conservapedia, Andrew Schlafly’s attempt to create a conservative-oriented version of Wikipedia. Orac points out that Conservapeia promotes the anti-vaccination Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (Schlafly is their legal counsel). Mark Chu-Carroll points out that even math has a liberal bias, according to Conservapedia. P.Z. Myers looks at some of Conservapedia’s coverage of evolution. Perhaps most entertaining is Jon Swift’s coverage of Conservapedia, which contains links to many of the Science Bloggers’ commentaries. ...

Ed Brayton points out Jesselyn Radack’s account of the Bush administration’s dishonest and sleazy retaliation against her whistleblowing about the Justice Department’s deception in the so-called “American Taliban” case of John Walker Lindh. Radack was an ethics advisor for the Department of Justice who was called about whether Lindh could be interrogated without an attorney present. She pointed out that Lindh’s father had already retained counsel, and that counsel needed to be present. The FBI interrogated him without counsel anyway, so she advised that that interview would need to be sealed and used only for national security purposes, not for criminal prosecution. She was ignored, Attorney General John Ashcroft lied about Lindh’s rights being respected, and the DOJ tried to destroy evidence of Radack’s correspondence. She recovered her emails and submitted them in a memo with her resignation. As the DOJ continued to lie, Radack went public. The DOJ responded by applying pressure on Radack’s law firm to fire her; they put her on an unpaid leave which turned into a constructive discharge, which the DOJ assisted her law firm in contesting. The government placed her under a bogus criminal investigation (later dropped with no charges), brought multiple state bar complaints against her (one of which she’s still fighting), and put her on the no-fly list (she’s still on it). She finally managed to find a law firm willing to hire her, after three years. Her story is a horrifying tale of an out-of-control government. Now that the Democratic Party runs Congress, will they take some action with respect to this case?

The ACLU and People for the American Way held a press conference today regarding the David Paszkiewicz situation at Kearny High School. On Tuesday, February 13, a tort claims notice was filed with the federal court to preserve the LaClair’s right to file a civil suit should the district not resolve their complaints. Predictably, Kearny education board president Bernadette McDonald was quoted as saying, “It is unfortunate that public dollars will be spent in defending our school district when this matter is already being addressed through dialogue and action.” Those actions included banning taping in the classroom without the teacher’s permission (which would have prevented Paszkiewicz from being caught lying about what he said in the classroom) and switching Paszkiewicz’s U.S. History class with another (so that he no longer has Matthew LaClair in his classroom). More information at the Jersey Journal and 1010 WINS web pages. The Jersey Journal story emphasizes the education board’s position, while the 1010 WINS story emphasizes Matthew LaClair’s. UPDATE (February 20, 2007): The audio of the ACLU/PFAW/LaClair press conference and the text of the Kearny education board’s response may be found at Kevin Canessa’s Corner at The Observer blog. UPDATE (February 21, 2007): Looks like CNN picked up the story yesterday. ...

Arizona Senate Majority Leader Thayer Verschoor (R-Gilbert) is at it again, with a bill that prohibits any public school or college instructor from advocating or opposing a political candidate or issue. This is the same legislator who last year proposed a bill that would have required colleges and universities to “provide a student with alternative coursework if the student deems regular coursework to be personally offensive” where “a course, coursework, learning material or activity is personally offensive if it conflicts with the student’s beliefs or practices in sex, morality or religion." While it is appropriate to define limits on partisan advocacy in public primary and secondary schools (where state educational standards define the curriculum and individual school districts set policy on appropriate classroom behavior), it doesn’t make sense to do it at the college level, where professors have much broader freedom to create their own course curricula. Verschoor was also one of several legislators accepting gifts from the Church of Scientology and sponsoring legislation for Scientology’s Citizens Commission on Human Rights last year.

A Freedom of Information Act request has yielded a 2002 plan from U.S. Central Command about the invasion of Iraq. A planning group convened by Gen. Tommy Franks under the coded compartment POLO STEP (a coded compartment created under Clinton for counter-terrorism plans including the targeting of Osama bin Laden) produced this PowerPoint of briefing slides. The slides show that “key planning assumptions” included that “a broad-based, credible provisional government” would be in place “prior to D-Day,” that “Iraqi regime has WMD capability,” that “co-opted Iraqi units will occupy garrisons and not fight either U.S. forces or other Iraqi units,” and that “Operations in Afghanistan transition to phase III (minimal air support over Afghanistan." According to the plan, there would only be 5,000 U.S. troops left in Iraq as of December 2006. (Hat tip to Jacob Sullum at the Reason Blog.)

The Bush administration is trying to use innuendo and statements carefully crafted to imply falsehoods (or at least, things not known to be true) in order to justify war against Iran. Where the Department of Defense presented evidence that explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) used in Iraq were manufactured in Iran, Bush has made statements designed to imply, without explicitly stating, that the Iranian government is behind them. Reporters are also being told that the U.S. government has some solid evidence, but that it cannot be shared. For specific details and criticisms, see: Talking Points Memo (February 14, 2007) TPM Muckraker (February 14, 2007) Outside the Beltway (February 12, 2007) The Pentagon’s briefing PowerPoint on the EFPs can be found here. Interesting that the labels on the weapons shown in photographs include English wording, but that’s not a sign that they weren’t made in Iran, but only a consequence of the fact that English is the lingua franca of the arms trade. UPDATE (February 27, 2007): A factory producing EFPs has been captured in Southern Iraq–and the parts that have identifiable origins did not come from Iran.