It's Not Going To Be Chertoff, People

Not only would he not go over with liberals due to his performance during Hurricane Katrina, his closeness to the President, his lying to Congress, et al., but he was the ADMINISTRATION'S POINT PERSON ON COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM. So the hate-the-brown conservatives would go nuts as well. His constituency would be Arlen Specter and Lindsay Graham and John McCain. I don't think he'd get 20 votes.

As many have said, acting Attorney General Paul Clement, a competent version of Abu Gonzales, will be just fine with the Bush Administration. And they can string that out at least 210 days.

UPDATE: Apparently, we should all get to know the name George Terwilliger. Which is kind of a ridiculous name, so it will be easy to remember. Terwilliger was one of the leaders of Bush's legal team during the Florida recount. It's amazing how many people have been allowed to move scot-free into Administration appointments despite being involved in Florida 2000 (John Bolton being the most visible). Apparently that circus doesn't seem to taint anybody.

Quick Hits

Yes, today was busy enough that I think it warrants a "best of the rest":

• The Chertoff-to-Attorney General trial balloon has officially popped.

I think, by the time I got to this story, BushCo had already decided Chertoff was an impossible replacement candidate (though if he's not, let's not forget the allegation that Chertoff allegedly okayed Chiquita Banana's funding of right wing terrorists in Colombia). Just on the off-chance that Chertoff really is named as Gonzales' replacement, Pat Leahy had the perfect response when asked if he would support a Chertoff nomination. I can't find the quote (it was NPR), but he basically said nothing more than, "You mean the guy who was in charge of the Katrina reconstruction?"

I agree with Glenn Greenwald, the next AG must come from outside the Administration, and no insider hack can be allowed to be confirmed.

• Yes, it's hysterical that on the same day Abu Gonzales resigns, the President goes and attends a fundraiser for Pete Domenici, who of course helped push out US Attorney David Iglesias after meddling in the middle of a state corruption investigation and pressuring Iglesias to indict Democrats. When Iglesias would not politicize his office, Domenici brought the hammer down. The reward is today's event, which I guess is the price of loyalty. There's a tragic sidenote to that event, as a police officer in Bush's motorcade died after crashing his vehicle.

• Bush is in Washington State tonight at another fundraiser for Rep. Dave Reichert, and the national netroots community made a huge push to raise $100,000 for his Democratic opponent Darcy Burner. And they've reached their goal. I met Burner at Yearly Kos and found her to be piercingly intelligent and very down-to-Earth. I can't wait to see her torch Reichert next year and make the trip to DC.

• Larry Craig, not content with destroying his own credibility, is taking down the Romney campaign's as well. Romney's team tried to scrub a pro-Mitt message from Craig (a co-Senate liaison until today), but it's hard to hide anything on the Internets. It's been found. Also Hugh Hewitt is calling on Craig to resign, no doubt because he might hurt Golden Boy Mitt, who is to Hewitt as a golden statue is to an idol worshipper.

• Meanwhile, this juxtaposition is just freaky. Apparently the Idaho Values Alliance has a shout-out to Sen. Craig on their site, and just underneath, a paragraph decrying the scourge of homosexuals using airport bathrooms for anonymous sex. Is that where Sen. Craig got the idea?

• This IAFF endorsement of Chris Dodd is news for his campaign, but I think that really falls under the category of "no endorsement," since they clearly didn't want to get into a top-tier fight. The IAFF endorsed John Kerry when it looked like he was about to drop out of the race, though, so maybe this will have some import.

• Here's something I missed from last week: some wingnut actually said "You're going to look super in a burka." Out loud. On television. There is this strain that really thinks we're about to be taken over by an Islamic caliphate. Really. They think that little of the United States.

• This is worrying but unsurprising. Apparently there's a loophole in the President's recent executive order outlawing torture that you can drive a truck through.

The Judge Advocates General of all branches of the military told the senators that a July 20 executive order establishing rules for the treatment of CIA prisoners appeared to be carefully worded to allow humiliating or degrading interrogation techniques when the interrogators' objective is to protect national security rather than to satisfy sadistic impulses [...]

The JAGs cited language in the executive order in which Bush said CIA interrogators may not use "willful and outrageous acts of personal abuse done for the purpose of humiliating or degrading the individual." As an example, it lists "sexual or sexually indecent acts undertaken for the purpose of humiliation."

Among lawyers, "for the purpose" language is often used to mean that a person must specifically intend to do something, such as causing humiliation, in order to violate a statute. The JAGs said Bush's wording appears to make it legal for interrogators to undertake that same abusive action if they had some other motive, such as gaining information.

I try to refuse to be shocked anymore and I always fail.

• Finally, Fred Thompson is trying to set the record for most people fired from a campaign that hasn't even started yet.

There's A Way To Start The Week

Mr. "I'm Doing It For The Kids" has resigned.

WACO, Texas - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resigned, officials said Monday, ending a monthslong standoff with critics who questioned his honesty and competence at the helm of the Justice Department.

Republicans and Democrats alike had demanded his resignation over the botched handling of FBI terror investigations and the firings of U.S. attorneys, but President Bush had defiantly stood by his Texas friend until accepting his resignation Friday, according to senior administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Justice Department planned a news conference for 10:30 a.m. EDT, in Washington. Bush planned to discuss Gonzales' departure at his Crawford, Texas, ranch shortly thereafter.

There was some talk about this over the weekend, that Michael Chertoff was in line to replace him (because of his stellar work as Brownie's boss during Hurricane Katrina, I'm guessing). And the word is that Bush's college buddy Clay Johnson would be the new Homeland Security chief, his experience for the job being his knowing how to recite the Yale fight song.

Gonzales was not only morally unqualified for the job of Attorney General, but completely inattentive, if not actively engaged, in the politicization of the Justice Department. He is a known perjurer who has done more to set back the cause of justice than maybe anyone in the Bush Administration.

It is clear that the Administration is trying to clear the decks of everyone who's been under investigation or had anything to do with the US Attorney scandal. Gonzales follows Rove, Bradley Schlozman, Sara Taylor, Harriet Miers, Paul McNulty, and a handful of others. Don't you dare say this is a do-nothing Congress. They have totally scattered some of the worst actors of the executive branch, all because they are undergoing their constitutionally mandated power of oversight.

(by the way, Fox News is talking about the Michael Vick plea bargain and the fires in Greece. It's like you can see the fingers in their ears yelling "I can't hear you!")

UPDATE: The man still perjured himself and still needs to be held to justice.

Also, this made me laugh: Gonzales Does Not Remember Resigning

FEAR Unit - Feeling Its Way Into Action

Michael Chertoff's got a feeling:

Fearing complacency among the American people over possible terror threats, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said in Chicago Tuesday that the nation faces a heightened chance of an attack this summer.

"I believe we are entering a period this summer of increased risk," Chertoff told the Chicago Tribune's editorial board in an unusually blunt and frank assessment of America's terror threat level.

"Summertime seems to be appealing to them," he said of al-Qaeda. "We do worry that they are rebuilding their activities."

Still, Chertoff said there are not enough indications of an imminent plot to raise the current threat levels nationwide. And he indicated that his remarks were based on "a gut feeling" formed by past seasonal patterns of terrorist attacks, recent al-Qaeda statements, and intelligence he did not disclose.

Apparently the Department of Homeland Security runs on mood rings. Feelings are how they operate, and gut feelings are how they're going to save us all.

If you want to see these feelings in poll form, the number is 29% and it's next to President Bush.

They Just Hate People

The Bush Administration and 36 Republican Senators showed their true colors today when they saw fit to hijack our nation's security to ensure that airline screeners remain underpaid and overworked. It is embarrassingly clear that the Republican Party is a party that hates people, and would rather expose them to risk from terrorism than allow them to get ahead. Indeed they save their angriest, most vicious and hateful threats for the working people that built and sustain this country. If Democrats simply let people know about this, raised awareness of the Republican contempt for anyone who gets their hands dirty or cashes a paycheck every week, they would never lose an election again.

President Bush and his Senate allies will kill a Sept. 11 antiterror bill if Congress sends it to the White House with a provision to let airport screeners unionize, the White House and 36 Republicans said Tuesday.

"As the legislation currently stands, the president's senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bill," said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel.

Senate Republicans swiftly backed up the threat with a pledge by more than enough senators to block any veto override attempt.

"If the final bill contains such a provision, forcing you to veto it, we pledge to sustain your veto," they wrote to the president. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., planned to offer an amendment to strip the provision from the bill.

Listen to what the Republicans are saying here. If you allow screeners to collectively bargain with their employers, to give them the opportunity to leverage their labor the same way all federal employees can, to utilize the free market in the same way businesses and governments do every day, we will stop all attempts to make the country more safe.

This is what is less important than the scourage of letting airline screeners unionize:

Other measures in the bill would improve rail and aviation security, provide funds for state and local emergency communications systems, improve intelligence sharing between federal, state and local officials, and expand a visa waiver benefit for favored countries.

The Republicans would rather NOT improve rail and aviation security.

They would rather NOT give funding to state and local emergency communications systems, systems which would be deployed first in the event of any incident or catastrophe, either natural or man-made.

They would rather NOT improve intelligence sharing at all levels.

They would forego all of these efforts to actually make America safer, if it means that a security screener might make $2 more an hour and get better health care. They would rather deprive security screeners who are on the front lines the peace of mind that comes with knowing you can pay your bills.

And this is not isolated. The Bush Administration has vowed to veto The Employee Free Choice Act, which would allow any worker to join a union without fear of intimidation or harrassment or losing their job. The bill will also likely face resistance in the Senate to reach a filibuster-proof majority. The vast majority of Republicans hate people who work. The trade policies they favor sell working people out and eliminate their jobs. The labor policies they favor reward union busting and mass firings of union organizers and sympathizers and practices designed to hinder free choice. The business policies they favor increase the stratification between rich and poor, doling out billions in corporate welfare while shrinking the social safety net. The bankruptcy policies they favor essentially eliminate bankruptcy protections for working people. The health care policies they favor do little more than create tax shelters for the wealthy, doing nothing for the 47 million uninsured. The anti-poverty policies they favor do nothing to alleviate poverty, and indeed have left record numbers of Americans in severe poverty, the highest levels in 32 years, and have created a culture of meanness toward poor people that indirectly leads to things like sport killings of the homeless.

But this is the last straw. The Republicans would make us less safe to guard the bottom line of the corporate paymaster to whom they subcontract out the airline screening operation. They could not stomach the sight of a working man or woman being able to own a house or a car, or provide for their children. They HATE PEOPLE, anyone who works for a living.

Let me show you Michael Chertoff's defense of this absurdity, and while I don't think any commentary is needed I'll provide some.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said that allowing screeners to unionize would impede the department's quick response to possible threats. (because they've been so quick to respond so far -ed.) Fast redeployment of screeners, such as in response to Hurricane Rita and the failed London plot to blow up airliners, cannot wait for negotiations, he said. (see, it's been negotiations slowing them down all along! Or not.)

Chertoff said screeners are as much on the front lines in the war against terror as military troops (and we need to treat them just as badly by depriving them of equipment and health care).

"Marines don't collectively bargain over whether they're going to wind up, you know, being deployed in Anbar province or in Baghdad," (and that's why they're still in Iraq at all, since most of them agree with the American people in wanting redeployment) Chertoff told reporters after a briefing with senators. "We can't negotiate over terms and conditions of work that goes to the heart of our ability to move rapidly in order to deal with the threats that are emerging."

The talking point here is that screeners have to be quickly deployed to places where threats emerge. So they can screen the wreckage, you see. I don't even know what this means. Is the plan to shuttle screeners all around the country when a threat alert goes to red? Are screeners on 24-hour alert?

No, of course not, the answer is explained in one sentence.

Other federal employees have collective bargaining and whistle-blower protection rights.

Other federal employees have the right to organize, and the Republicans want to keep it away from airline screeners. They don't want to have to pay anyone what they're worth. And they'd rather torpedo pending antiterror legislation than do it.

This is an embarrassment that we live in a country where this isn't the only news. Democrats should be talking about this for the next three weeks and shaming these Republicans who put profit over security. The campaign ads should be cut. Democrats are not perfect in this regard; we have our own corporate wing. But Republicans are BOUGHT AND PAID FOR by corporate interests. Anyone who isn't on the side of working people in this country ought to make that fact well-known. And the Democrats can do it for them.

Fortunately, Howard Dean is calling out those who don't support working Americans.

Regardless of where you live or what you do, labor unions are our first line of defense for worker's rights. What do they fight for? Raising the minimum wage. Improving labor standards. Expanding health care benefits. Every day, millions of Americans work hard and play by the rules but are still struggling to get by. Democrats understand the important role that labor unions play to fix this crisis.

Congress is set to debate a bill that will restore American workers' right to freely choose whether or not to form a union. Call on the White House to join the Democratic majority and support the Employee Free Choice Act.

We should be shaming the Republicans at every opportunity with this, over the EFCA and the threatened veto of 9-11 legislation. We have two major parties in this country, and one of them actively hates the vast majority of people who live here.

I'd say that's a campaign issue.