He Sure Loves A Klieg Light

Maybe the worst thing about Russ Feingold's czar hearing yesterday is that it got got Joe Lieberman a-thinking:

Hey, so guess who is mulling new legislation to solve the alleged problem of Obama’s “czars”? Joe Lieberman!

He may even hold hearings on the czars, as the chair of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Since this will confer legitimacy on an attack that has mostly emanated from Glenn Beck and the hothouse right, it could prompt an “I told you so” chorus from those who argued that Lieberman should be stripped of his committee slots.

Leslie Phillips, a spokesperson for Lieberman’s committee, confirms by email that Lieberman’s legislation is “in the early conceptual stage.” She also said a hearing is in the works, with its schedule up the air until the committee can nail down witnesses.

Feingold's hearing yesterday should have actually ended this debate in Congress, not begun it. The panel, assembled on a bipartisan basis by Feingold and Tom Coburn, pretty unanimously argued that the Obama Administration was within Constitutional boundaries to have Presidential advisors in the White House. But Lieberman loves those Fox klieg lights (you know, the network who gives you "what we believe to be the facts"), and so does his partner in crime on the Committee, Susan Collins:

John Harrison, a University of Virginia law professor, compared the czars to the position of White House chief of staff, saying both hold great influence and can speak for the president, but their legal powers are limited.

Their "practical authority . . . is not legal authority, and as long as the distinction is rigorously maintained there will be no legal problem," Harrison said in his written testimony.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who had also written Obama questioning the czars, said in a statement the issue was not dead. The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, where she is the ranking member, will hold a similar hearing next week.

"The appointments of so many czars have muddied the waters, causing confusion and risking miscommunication going forward," Collins said.

Lieberman's call for legislation is the first time that has come up, taking this to an additional level. And it's not surprising coming from Holy Joe. You may recall that he got Glenn Beck into Yale. Yes, that's right:

"One local politician who appreciated Beck's regular digs at the governor was the man who had defeated Weicker in a bitterly contested 1988 senate race: Democrat Joe Lieberman. Beck and the senator were friendly throughout the '90s, until they fell out over Lieberman's refusal to back the impeachment of Bill Clinton in 1998. But before they parted ways, Lieberman would play a role in Beck's search for a worldview and identity by helping Beck enroll part-time at Yale in the fall of 1996. The ADHD-diagnosed Beck didn't last long at Yale. He took one class, "Early Christology," and dropped out."

Lieberman has appeared on Beck's show in the past. And once he submits this legislation, I'm sure he will again. He loves that klieg light.

It's definitely looking like keeping Lieberman as the chair of the committee in the Senate that can investigate the executive branch was a sound decision by Democrats.

Maybe Everyone In The Country Can Send A YouTube Testimonial

Ann Minch sent a debtor's revolt video to YouTube a couple weeks ago, refusing to pay off her credit card debt with Bank of America unless the company negotiated a lower rate, which they could easily do since they are receiving interest-free loans from the Federal Reserve. After some Internet notoriety and a handful of conversations, she actually succeeded in getting BofA to lower her interest payment.

The executive "tried to get me to agree to 16.99 percent and I said, 'No, nope, I believe because you guys are getting your money from the Fed at zero percent interest... that 12.99 percent is a more than generous profit margin for you guys.' So he did finally agree to that and he also agreed to send me that in writing."

Unfortunately, it's not practical for everyone facing an exorbitant usury fee from a major bank to shame them into compliance. We need the federal government undertaking a debtor's revolt, not individuals who don't have the same leverage.

However, with respect to Bank of America we may be turning a corner. The SEC is broadening its investigation against the bank, perhaps in response to the company's foot-dragging on compliance with that probe. BofA just missed a Congressional deadline to turn over documents to the House Oversight Committee about the takeover of Merrill Lynch. And as Chris Dodd sought to hammer banks for their automatic overdraft fees to customers, BofA and other banks are moving to change their practices.

Maybe this revolt thing is catching on.

Reyes Goes After Intelligence Oversight

House Intelligence Committee chair Silvestre Reyes will seek an investigation into the CIA's hiding of operations from the Congress:

After careful consideration and consultation with the Ranking Minority Member and other members of the Committee, I am announcing an official Committee investigation into possible violations of federal law, including the National Security Act of 1974.

“This investigation will focus on the core issues of how the congressional intelligence committees and Congress are kept fully and currently informed. To this end, the investigation will examine several issues, including the program discussed during [CIA] Director [Leon] Panetta’s June 24th notification and whether there was any official decision or direction to withold information from the Committee.

Note "including the program discussed." The alleged assassination squad should be seen as the latest example of the CIA acting without oversight, not the only one. The National Security Act is pretty clear about oversight responsibilities of intelligence operations, and it's been abused time and again. The Obama Administration doesn't want to change the "Gang of Eight" style of briefing, but Democrats are seeking more transparency for their members. Marcy Wheeler notes this as well:

First, Reyes says he consulted with Crazy Pete Hoekstra. I look forward to seeing how Crazy Pete spins this.

That'll be particularly interesting given the scope here. The investigation will include the reported assassination squad. But the core issue is more general--how CIA informs Congress. Which means that, in fact, this should also include whether or not CIA fullly briefed Pelosi and Goss on torture back in 2002.

Finally, the investigation will examine whether there was any "direction" to withhold information from Congress. I do hope they look at the question generally, as well as in the context of the reported assassination squad, because I suspect we'd see a pattern of Cheney instructing the Counterterrorism folks to lie to or withhold information from Congress.

The big question here is how far up the ladder they'll reach. But it's time to end the broken system of intelligence oversight and start again, and this investigation can be a catalyst.

Most Transparent Government In History

The Obama Administration has really taken to this executive power and official secrecy thing. Duck, meet water. This has all happened in the past week:

MSNBC:

The Obama administration is fighting to block access to names of visitors to the White House, taking up the Bush administration argument that a president doesn't have to reveal who comes calling to influence policy decisions.

Despite President Barack Obama's pledge to introduce a new era of transparency to Washington, and despite two rulings by a federal judge that the records are public, the Secret Service has denied msnbc.com's request for the names of all White House visitors from Jan. 20 to the present. It also denied a narrower request by the nonpartisan watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which sought logs of visits by executives of coal companies.

The Guardian UK:

A rift has opened between the Obama administration and some of its closest allies - Democratic leaders and environmental organisations - over its refusal to publicly disclose the location of 44 coal ash dumps that have been officially designated as a "high hazard" to local populations.

The administration turned down a request from a powerful Democratic senator to make public the list of 44 dumps, which contain a toxic soup of arsenic and heavy metals from coal-fired electricity plants, citing terrorism fears.

The LA Times:

He was appointed with fanfare in December as public watchdog over the government's multibillion-dollar bailout of the nation's financial system. But now Neil Barofsky, inspector general of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, is embroiled in a dispute with the Obama administration that delayed one recent inquiry and sparked questions about his ability to investigate without interference.

The Treasury Department contends that Barofsky does not have a completely independent role. That claim prompted a stern letter from a Republican senator, who warns that Obama administration officials are encroaching on the integrity of an office created to protect taxpayers.

The Washington Post:

A federal judge yesterday sharply questioned an assertion by the Obama administration that former Vice President Richard B. Cheney's statements to a special prosecutor about the Valerie Plame case must be kept secret, partly so they do not become fodder for Cheney's political enemies or late-night commentary on "The Daily Show."

U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan expressed surprise during a hearing here that the Justice Department, in asserting that Cheney's voluntary statements to U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald were exempt from disclosure, relied on legal claims put forward last October by a Bush administration political appointee, Stephen Bradbury. The department asserted then that the disclosure would make presidents and vice presidents reluctant to cooperate voluntarily with future criminal investigations.

The Plum Line:

On Friday, there may be a major development in the torture wars: The CIA is set to release portions of a 2004 report that reportedly found no proof that torture foiled any terror plots, which would dramatically undercut Dick Cheney’s claims that torture worked.

But a news story this morning raises the question: Is the CIA trying to keep chunks that would undermine Cheney under wraps?

That last one may concern the CIA, but I'm pretty sure they work for somebody in the White House. And that's just from this week, there are countless other examples of using the state secrets privilege to shut down lawsuits, breaking a campaign promise to post every bill passed by Congress on the White House website for public comment before signing, and on and on and on.

Progressives battled George W. Bush and Dick Cheney on their unprecedented offical secrecy on the merits, but also out of a recognition that there is such a thing as Presidential precedent. If one President can get away with aggrandizing their power, the successor would certainly watch and learn. Which is exactly what has happened.

COP on the Beat

As we see today the life insurance industry set to get in on the bailout act and receive TARP money, the Congressional Oversight Panel, charged with actually overseeing the Treasury Department's TARP strategy, has released their latest report, which is unsparing. Elizabeth Warren, the chair of the COP, delivers a video introduction.



The report looks back at how these types of financial crises have been traditionally handled over time. Warren offers three choices to policymakers: liquidation (essentially what we did in S&L crisis), receivership (the Swedish option), and subsidization (what we're doing to keep zombie banks alive, like in Japan). As you can see above, Warren handles each of these options expertly, and finds four crucial actions needed to successfully resolve banking crises:

• Transparency. Swift action to ensure the integrity of bank accounting, particularly with respect to the ability of regulators and investors to ascertain the value of bank assets and hence assess bank solvency

• Assertiveness. Willingness to take aggressive action to address failing financial institutions by (1) taking early aggressive action to improve capital ratios of banks that can be rescued, and (2) shutting down those banks that are irreparably insolvent.

• Accountability. Willingness to hold management accountable by replacing – and, in cases of criminal conduct, prosecuting – failed managers.

• Clarity. Transparency in the government response with forthright measurement and reporting of all forms of assistance being provided and clearly explained criteria for the use of public sector funds.

Warren concludes that the TARP bailouts failed to provide transparency, accountability or clarity. The Geithner Treasury Department plans, including PPIP and increased transparency, still fall short. "Bottom line: Treasury's efforts to date could be enough, but we will continue to press Treasury about these four tests." Essentially, Warren gives a mixed review, and she thinks that the Treasury efforts are based on the idea that the problems are temporary and not systemic.

One key assumption that underlies Treasury’s approach is its belief that the system-wide deleveraging resulting from the decline in asset values, leading to an accompanying drop in net wealth across the country, is in large part the product of temporary liquidity constraints resulting from nonfunctioning markets for troubled assets. The debate turns on whether current prices, particularly for mortgage-related assets, reflect fundamental values or whether prices are artificially depressed by a liquidity discount due to frozen markets – or some combination of the two.

If its assumptions are correct, Treasury’s current approach may prove a reasonable response to the current crisis. Current prices may, in fact, prove not to be explainable without the liquidity factor. Even in areas of the country where home prices have declined precipitously, the collateral behind mortgage-related assets still retains substantial value. In a liquid market, even under-collateralized assets should not be trading at pennies on the dollar. Prices are being partially subjected to a downward self-reinforcing cycle. It is this notion of a liquidity discount that supports the potential of future gain for taxpayers and makes transactions under the CAP and the PPIP viable mechanisms for recovery of asset values while recouping a gain for taxpayers. On the other hand, it is possible that Treasury’s approach fails to acknowledge the depth of the current downturn and the degree to which the low valuation of troubled assets accurately reflects their worth. The actions undertaken by Treasury, the Federal Reserve Board and the FDIC are unprecedented. But if the economic crisis is deeper than anticipated, it is possible that Treasury will need to take very different actions in order to restore financial stability.

I think Warren is being overly polite, but she's saying all the right things. And I think she's informing some of Congress' moves in this area. The House Oversight Committee is examining the "special purpose vehicles" allegedly used to skirt executive pay restrictions, which contain elements of accountability and clarity. Geithner and the Treasury Department are clearly acting assertively, but to what end? I think Warren's report is spot-on, and needs a wide audience.

Goldman Will Shut It Down

As exasperated as I am with Congress, they do seem to know how to investigate, if they don't always get the follow-through right. And they seem to be looking in the right places. For instance, Elijah Cummings wants to know about the counter-party payments from AIG:

He's currently circulating (and I have obtained) a letter to colleagues, seeking their support for a TARP inspector general investigation into every aspect of the payments AIG made, with government money, to counterparties whose risky investments it had insured.

"Goldman Sachs claimed in September that they had no material exposure to AIG; however, after AIG released the counterparty information on March 15, we found out that Goldman Sachs received almost $13 billion in counterparty payments.

The Special Inspector General for the Troubled Assets Relief Program was created to ensure that transparency and accountability stay firmly rooted in the government's efforts to revive and sustain the American economy. This letter proposes that the Special Inspector General examine the nature of the counterparty payments - including the recipients, the process by which they were made whole, and the justification, if any, for that level of payment."

In addition, investigators for the House Oversight Committee are delving into Joseph Cassano, the former head of the AIG Financial Products unit and essentially Patient Zero of the global financial crisis.

Investigators for the House Oversight committee intend to interview Cassano about his role in the firm's collapse, and have already contacted his lawyer, a committee staffer told TPMmuckraker.

As CEO of AIG Financial Products, Cassano, based in the unit's London office, was the prime mover behind the credit default swaps, whose implosion brought the firm to its knees. He stepped down in March 2008, signing a $1 million-a-month "consulting" contract with the firm. (The contract was canceled last September.)

Federal investigators, as well as Britain's Serious Fraud Office, are also probing AIGFP. The Feds are reportedly focused in particular on whether Cassano and then-AIG CEO Martin Sullivan made false or misleading pubic statements about the company's potential exposure to losses on its credit default swaps. A December 2007 shareholder presentation the two men made is said to be of special interest.

The focus appears to be those counter-party payments from AIG, and how they made big international banks whole on their CDS bets. What worries me is that all roads lead to Goldman Sachs, which clearly has its tentacles around the Administration. Goldman vowed yesterday to return all the TARP money it received while neglecting to mention that they received even more government relief from AIG and other sources. And Goldman is a linchpin to the Geithner plan for toxic assets:

Tim Geithner suggested that Goldman Sachs could be one of five institutions helping to manage the public-private partnership program to buy up a bunch of toxic legacy assets from ailing banks.

Goldman has played a central role in this drama. As an institution, it's been extremely close to the Treasury department. And, as Josh noted, it's also about to pay off all of its TARP money (with the help, perhaps, of the other government money it received as an AIG counterparty) which will free it up to return to a status quo of paying enormous bonuses.

It's also, of course, one of the institutions that helped bring the financial system to its knees--it holds many of the toxic assets in question and may be well placed to bid them up and inflate their prices at auction. (How you manage the fund to rescue financial institutions with toxic assets while you yourself hold those same assets has yet to be sussed out by committee members.)

My point is that Goldman may be the eventual white whale for Congressional investigators, but the Treasury Department as currently structured will work overtime to shield them from any harm.

Sigh.

More Regulatory Authority? How About Using What You've Got

At their joint hearing with the House Financial Services Committee, both Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke advocated for regulatory authority over non-bank financial institutions. I'm trying to get a handle on this. First of all, the investment banks all went under this past fall, so Goldman Sachs, under current law, is a bank. JP Morgan is a bank. So is Merrill Lynch. AIG stands out as the exception to the rule, but regulating their PRODUCTS would seem to be the key, not granting emergency authority to seize them. What's more, states regulate insurance companies, and while I think there ought to be a federal overseeing authority, that could get messy. And as you'll read below, the financial products unit did have federal oversight. Then there are hedge funds and the like, but again, I see the regulatory needs in the product line and not necessarily the ability to seize. FWIW here's Bernanke's argument:

The decision by the Federal Reserve on September 16, 2008, with the full support of the Treasury, to lend up to $85 billion to AIG should be viewed with this background in mind. At that time, no federal entity could provide capital to stabilize AIG and no federal or state entity outside of a bankruptcy court could wind down AIG. Unfortunately, federal bankruptcy laws do not sufficiently protect the public's strong interest in ensuring the orderly resolution of nondepository financial institutions when a failure would pose substantial systemic risks, which is why I have called on the Congress to develop new emergency resolution procedures. However, the Federal Reserve did have the authority to lend on a fully secured basis, consistent with our emergency lending authority provided by the Congress and our responsibility as central bank to maintain financial stability. We took as collateral for our loan AIG's pledge of a substantial portion of its assets, including its ownership interests in its domestic and foreign insurance subsidiaries. This decision bought time for subsequent actions by the Congress, the Treasury, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Federal Reserve that have avoided further failures of systemically important institutions and have supported improvements in key credit markets.

Yves Smith sounds the right notes in her skepticism.

AIG, poster child of insufficient regulation, was overseen at the parent level (which is where the black hole creating Financial Products unit sat) by the Office of Thrift Supervision (no joke), which is an agency of the Treasury! So the Treasury is acting like it needs more authority to prevent future AIG's when its own agency was responsible for the doomsday machine part of AIG.

And the hedge fund supervision bit probably means less than meets the eye. Even if a lot of them have operations in Fairfield County or Manhattan, a lot are domiciled in the Caymans or Luxembourg. You do need to observe certain forms to make sure the designation sticks (have local counsel, have annual meeting there, etc.) but after the Bear Stearns hedge funds screwed up on that front (setting up funds there but not taking other steps consistent with having them domiciled offshore), other funds may have cleaned up their act [...] The problem is not regulatory authority, the problem is the lack of a special resolution regime of the sort the UK has for putting big complex financial firms into receivership. Merely giving Treasury authority is insufficient without putting in place needed bankruptcy type provisions [...] Given the lack of any mention of a special resolution regime, or intent to develop one, the point of this bill is NOT, appearances to the contrary, to be able to put more firms into receivership. It is to get broader authority to bail them out.

After the events of last week, Congress has little appetite for giving Treasury or the Fed more authority. Steny Hoyer shot it down today. Regulations are nice, but regulatory will appears to be what's lacking here, and giving the same people who want to bail out the whole sector with no strings attached more power doesn't seem advisable.

Hunger Strike For CEO Parnell

I thought that the banksters' hearing would be the best in the House yesterday, but actually the hearing with the Georgia peanut plant owner was much more interesting - and enlightening.

As salmonella illness began spreading across the country last fall, the owner of a Georgia peanut plant that was causing the outbreak railed against the cost and delays that the contamination was causing his businesses, according to internal company documents obtained by Congress.

Stewart Parnell, president of Peanut Corporation of America, also pressed federal regulators to allow him to continue using peanuts from the tainted plant and shipped contaminated products to customers with a homemade certificate that falsely attested to their purity, according to e-mails and memos made public yesterday at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Parnell, whose Virginia-based company is at the center of a massive food-contamination scandal and a federal criminal investigation, was compelled by subpoena to appear before lawmakers but refused to answer questions [...]

Federal regulators at the hearing called Parnell's actions "unconscionable"; several lawmakers called them criminal.

"This is a company that cared more about the financial bottom line than it did about the safety of its customers," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), the committee chairman.

Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) held up a large jar wrapped in yellow police tape stamped "Caution" and filled with some of the 1,900 peanut products that have been recalled as a result of the contamination. "I'm going to ask Mr. Parnell if he'd like to open this and sample some of the products that he thought it was okay for others to eat," Walden said.

Parnell, who showed no emotion, did not respond to Walden's invitation. Instead, he repeated the only line he spoke at the hearing: "Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, on advice of my counsel, I respectfully decline to answer your questions based on the protections afforded me under the U.S. Constitution." (emphasis mine)

Parnell was actually on an advisory board on PEANUT QUALITY under Bush's Department of Agriculture.

If nothing else, the change in Administration portends a return to federal agencies and watchdogs actually performing their core functions again. President Obama has already called for a full review of the FDA and said that the government is too slow in tracking tainted food. I believe the President values competence and will do his best to remedy this.

One thing, though... this hearing took place in Henry Waxman's House Energy and Commerce Committee. Clearly it's more of a job for the Oversight Committee, though obviously the commerce of food makes it germane. These are the types of hearings Waxman held all the time at Oversight. Does he have to hold two gavels now? Is Ed Towns alive?

Lack Of Blockage

So Obama will get his bailout money after a Senate effort to stop it didn't pass.

The Senate voted narrowly today to permit President-elect Barack Obama to spend another $350 billion to stabilize the fragile U.S. financial system.

On a vote of 52 to 42, the Senate defeated a resolution that would have blocked the second half of the money from a $700 billion financial rescue program from flowing to the U.S. Treasury Department.

The vote was a victory for Obama, who made personal appeals to deeply skeptical lawmakers in recent days to try to rally support. Obama's economic team says the money is urgently needed, along with a massive spending package, to restore health to financial markets and the slumping economy.

The Senate's defeat of the resolution to disapprove the funds means the money will be available to Obama about a week after he takes office Tuesday.

Elena Schor at TPM has a good rundown of who voted what way, including the release of the "a-hole caucus" in the Senate, as Evan Bayh and Blanche Lincoln voted for the bailout under Bush but against giving Obama the money. I don't think that's totally defensible.

Meanwhile, the House is set to pass a pretty strong oversight bill, written by Barney Frank, that would restrict how this new batch of TARP money would be spent. One very good amendment to the bill just passed:

I sound like a broken record, but it's a shame that the Senate didn't take up its own bill setting conditions on the new administration as it spends the cash. Especially since one of the two amendments adopted this afternoon was Rep. Patrick Murphy's (D-PA) plan to require the Federal Reserve to reveal the mysterious terms and contracts governing its purchase of mortgage-backed securities.

"We are only just starting to get details about the contracts with the Troubled Asset Relief Program and that is only after the threat of a subpoena - we cannot let history repeat itself," Murphy said after his amendment was unanimously approved.

The Senate is not bothering to pass such a bill. If there's still time, they ought to be pushed to have a vote.

America, Your Stimulus Package

I'm sorry, American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan.

In the next two weeks, the House will consider the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan, which makes long-term investments that are worthy, needed, fully-screened, and based on merit, not politics. Developed with priorities shared by President-elect Obama, the plan will create or save 3 to 4 million American jobs, with an estimated 90 percent of the jobs created in the private sector—getting the American economy moving in the short term and making investments for a stronger economy in the long term. The Chairman’s mark (draft legislation) will be circulated and posted online later today and next week the Ways and Means Committee, Energy and Commerce Committee, and Appropriations Committee will mark-up the legislation.

The bill is actually up here, and if you don't speak Congress, a more readable report is here. The big takeaway is that we're up to an $825 billion dollar package, with 2/3 for investment and 1/3 for tax cuts. That's less than before, and the taxes are more focused on energy and middle-class tax relief than broad corporate cuts, but my sense is that's still a bit out of balance.

There are quite a bit of safeguards in the plan. It mandates no pet projects or earmarks (for now), with full transparency. In addition to Inspector General reviews, monthly reporting, whistleblower protections and competitive bidding, there will be a government website showing where all the stimulus money is headed, and the public will be able to oversee the spending. In addition, all the contracts will be going online, leading to this funny exchange:

ORSZAG: We plan to create a Web site that will contain information about the contracts and include PDFs or contracts themselves, and also financial information about the contracts.

LIEBERMAN: Define PDFs.

Sigh.

Chris Bowers has a very good rundown of where the spending is headed, and so does the aforementioned report from the Appropriations Committee. Practically every sector is going to be seeing a portion of this money, with major expenditures for health care, education, energy and the environment. There is unemployment relief and food stamp increases in the bill, which is good. There is a section called the "State Fiscal Stabilization Fund" that earmarks $79 billion to help the states. That too is good. But overall, this looks more like an omnibus appropriations bill than a targeted spending effort. That's not necessarily bad. But it has people like David Sirota upset.

The Post says the package "includes about $85 billion worth of infrastructure spending, most for highway and bridge construction." That's it - $85 billion in an $850 billion bill.

$85 billion for infrastructure in a nation that now regularly sees bridge collapses, steam pipe explosions, sink holes, dam failures, levee breaks and blackouts.

$85 billion at a time when Obama is demanding another $350 billion blank check for Wall Street.

$85 billion when the American Society of Civil Engineers says we need $1.6 trillion.

$85 billion in the same package that could include hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate tax cuts - many for the banks that created the economic mess. This, at a time when U.S. News & World Report notes that a new poll shows 81 percent of Americans are ready to pay higher taxes to fund significant infrastructure investments.

As Matt Yglesias notes, there is an error in thinking that the stimulus bill alone can solve our infrastructure problem - it can't, and we need to be thinking long-term about how we fund infrastructure (reforming the highway bill to get more money for transit and rail would be a good start). Also, flood control, a key infrastructure need, is included in the energy and environment spending, so there's some overlap here.

In general, this is decent but could be better, and given the drift already in the direction of more spending and less taxes, I would hope for that to continue. However, it's worth noting that everyone and his mother is going to be looking for a piece of the action here, and so "stimulus" could start to look a lot like "bailout" as it grows. Diligence is required.

Cheney Taunts, Democrats Can Disclose

Over the weekend, Fourthbranch Cheney tried to make it sound like he was very worried about needing Congressional authorization for the illegal wiretapping program, but top Congressional leaders, Republicans and Democrats, talked him down.

CHENEY: We briefed them on the program and what we’d achieved and how it worked and asked them should we continue the program. They were unanimous, Republican and Democrat alike. All agreed: Absolutely essential to continue the program. I then said, Do we need to come to the Congress and get additional legislating authorization to continue what we’re doing? They said absolutely not. Don’t do it.

This just doesn't make a lot of sense, just purely in terms of Congress giving up its own power. But that's happened before, of course. What really calls this into question is that it came out of the mouth of Dick Cheney. In fact, Nancy Pelosi, Jay Rockefeller, Jane Harman and Bob Graham have all denied this, claiming in fairly common language that the Administration gave only the barest outlines of the plan and not the details that these wiretaps would be used against Americans.

Nevertheless, it's pretty clear that Democrats Congressional leaders have been less than forthcoming about what they heard from the Administration on this issue. I agree with Spackerman - there's one way to clear up all the confusion, and that's with a full investigation by a commission outside of politics.

If there’s ever a solid argument for an independent commission into the illegal surveillance and torture programs, here it is: the public is owed a thorough accounting of what the administration did; what it told Congress; and what Congress approved.

But still still. Cheney might not be acting in good faith, but he’s nevertheless pointing to something barometrically significant. In Washington, the phrase “bipartisan” is supposed to cash out to something like “legal” or “wise” or “no longer controversial” or “kosher.” The Germans probably have a word that’s a more acceptable translation. In any event, that’s self-evidently foolish: lots of people can make mistakes and lots of people can make venal decisions, and it’s not a function of belonging to one political party or the other. Cheney doesn’t get off the hook if Nancy Pelosi is on it with him. Naturally, what I imagine Cheney’s doing is warning the Democrats off creating an independent commission into the abuses of the administration, lest it go after them too, but that’s all the more reason one should be created.

Absolutely. What we know right now is troubling enough - Rockefeller, Harman and the rest offered extremely weak resistance to the Administration, and didn't want the extent of the program to be disclosed. As Glenn Greenwald notes, the best way not to be seen as complicit in this and other perversions of justice pulled off by Cheney and company is to allow for full disclosure of all the activities. I'm not particularly concerned about the results - the chips can fall where they may.

The reason the law requires that Congressional leaders be briefed on intelligence programs is not because it's nice in the abstract for someone to know. It's because Congressional leaders have the right and the obligation to take action to stop illegal intelligence programs -- something all briefed Democrats clearly failed to do. Cheney, on his way out the door, is answering questions about what he knew and approved. It's way past time for Pelosi, Harman and Rockefeller, at the very least, to do the same.

Let's get an independent prosecutor.

Stealing 'Til 11:59AM January 20

At first, I considered the shift in the TARP program from the deeply flawed "trash for cash" scheme to partial nationalization to be a good thing. Treasury wasn't getting the optimal price for the exchange, but it certainly had a better chance for success. Now we learn that the whole "feint left, move right" maneuver was designed to allow financial firms to escape executive pay limits:

Congress wanted to guarantee that the $700 billion financial bailout would limit the eye-popping pay of Wall Street executives, so lawmakers included a mechanism for reviewing executive compensation and penalizing firms that break the rules.

But at the last minute, the Bush administration insisted on a one-sentence change to the provision, congressional aides said. The change stipulated that the penalty would apply only to firms that received bailout funds by selling troubled assets to the government in an auction, which was the way the Treasury Department had said it planned to use the money.

Now, however, the small change looks more like a giant loophole, according to lawmakers and legal experts. In a reversal, the Bush administration has not used auctions for any of the $335 billion committed so far from the rescue package, nor does it plan to use them in the future. Lawmakers and legal experts say the change has effectively repealed the only enforcement mechanism in the law dealing with lavish pay for top executives.

Wow. And there are strong hints that Emperor Paulson was planning on using this loophole all along:

Meanwhile, Paulson repeatedly told lawmakers that he did not plan to use bailout funds to inject capital directly into financial institutions. Privately, however, his staff was developing plans to do just that, Paulson acknowledged in an interview.

As usual, you cannot expect government "oversight" with the input of business interests to serve the public. What there needs to be is more activism in shareholder meetings and in the public sphere, to make it completely toxic for a firm that accepted TARP money to offer these generous pay packages. That may sound like nothing, but it's what has turned AIG into a pariah. At the end of the day, these companies still have to do a little business with the public, so damaging their public profile seems to me to be the way to go. Certainly this Treasury Department is thoroughly uninterested in what TARP money recipients are doing with their cash. And it's pretty clear that Congress wanted little more than a fig leaf in the bill about executive compensation to prove that they "cared" about the issue. Read this article about Chuck Schumer and you'd know that we have a bipartisan problem.

What both parties know is that the optics of fat bonuses and CEO pay for any company who got a handout from the government is poison. Time to take it to the board meetings.

Magnificent Disaster

As Emperor Paulson dithers and shuffles papers pretending to look busy implementing the bailout, the lobbyists are lining up for their piece of the bailout cash, and apparently, nobody is keeping tabs on them:

In the six weeks since lawmakers approved the Treasury's massive bailout of financial firms, the government has poured money into the country's largest banks, recruited smaller banks into the program and repeatedly widened its scope to cover yet other types of businesses, from insurers to consumer lenders.

Along the way, the Bush administration has committed $290 billion of the $700 billion rescue package.

Yet for all this activity, no formal action has been taken to fill the independent oversight posts established by Congress when it approved the bailout to prevent corruption and government waste. Nor has the first monitoring report required by lawmakers been completed, though the initial deadline has passed.

"It's a mess," said Eric M. Thorson, the Treasury Department's inspector general, who has been working to oversee the bailout program until the newly created position of special inspector general is filled. "I don't think anyone understands right now how we're going to do proper oversight of this thing."

Considering that the Treasury Secretary can hold press conferences pledging to do the exact opposite of what he initially asked for in the bill, considering that his department can change the tax code to provide a huge windfall to banks, telling me there's "no oversight" seems a bit self-evident.

In fact, the bailout plan itself appears to be working just as the Bush Administration hoped - as a "free-fraud zone" for moneyed interests to get paid off during an economic collapse. They even staffed it with one of the same guys that handed out bricks of cash to contractors in Iraq, before deciding that was too on the nose.

Under cover of an emergency, Treasury is rapidly turning into an economic Green Zone, overrun with private companies collecting lucrative contracts. Fittingly, one of the first to line up at the new trough was none other than the law firm of Bracewell & Giuliani — yes, that Giuliani. The firm's chairman, Patrick Oxford, could scarcely conceal his glee over the prospect of cashing in on the bailout. "This one," he told reporters, "is very, very big." At least four times bigger, in fact, than the post-9/11 homeland-security bubble, from which Giuliani and his various outfits have profited so extravagantly. Even bigger, potentially, than the price tag for the Iraq War itself.

See if any of this sounds familiar: As soon as the bailout was announced, it became clear that Treasury officials would hire outsiders to perform their jobs for them — at a profit. Private companies wanting to help manage the bailout were given just two days to apply for massive, multiyear contracts. Since it was such a mad rush — after all, the entire economy was about to implode — there was no time for an open bidding process. Nor was there time to draft rigorous rules to make sure that those applying don't have serious conflicts of interest. Instead, applicants were asked to disclose their conflicts and to explain — and this is not a joke — their "philosophy in fulfilling your duty to the Treasury and the U.S. taxpayer in light of your proprietary interests and those of other clients." In other words, an open invitation to bullshit about how much they love their country and how they can be trusted to regulate themselves.

I guess there's one positive - at least Treasury is hiring!

Meanwhile, Bush is headed to a meeting of world leaders to tell them they'd better not get any funny ideas about fixing his mess.

Nov. 13 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush today will urge leaders of the world's biggest industrial and developing economies not to abandon principles of free-market capitalism as they seek an escape from the international financial crisis, calling it the "best system'' for delivering growth.

In a speech in New York before weekend talks among leaders from the Group of 20 nations, Bush will say policy makers "should fix the problems we have rather than dismantle a system that has improved the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world,'' according to a statement released by the White House [...]

For all his defense of markets, Bush this year extended the reach of government by backing bailouts of American International Group Inc., Bear Stearns Cos., Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. His administration is also implementing a $700 billion financial rescue program which U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson yesterday shifted toward relieving pressure on consumer credit, scrapping an effort to buy devalued mortgage assets.

Of course, corporate welfare and socialism for the rich IS the "free-market system" that Bush is defending. It's the only type of economy he has ever known.

Negotiating With Himself

It's funny, Joe Lieberman thinks he's some kind of bonus baby who can get a luxury car and a sweet penthouse apartment overlooking the National Mall out of either caucus in the Senate. At this rate he won't be satisfied until he's Majority Leader. The only problem is that nobody wants to offer him anything.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has reached out to Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) about the prospect of joining the Republican Conference, but Lieberman is still bargaining with Democratic leaders to keep his chairmanship, according to Senate aides in both parties.

“Sen. Lieberman’s preference is to stay in the caucus, but he’s going to keep all his options open,” a Lieberman aide said. “McConnell has reached out to him, and at this stage, his position is he wants to remain in the caucus but losing the chairmanship is unacceptable.”

A Republican Senate aide said Friday morning that there was little McConnell could offer in terms of high-ranking committee slots, which is why Lieberman is resisting overtures from the Republican side [...]

Lieberman’s aide told Politico on Friday morning that “essentially what transpired is that Sen. Reid talked about taking away his position perhaps for another position, and Sen. Lieberman indicated that was unacceptable.”

A person with direct knowledge of the Reid-Lieberman meeting yesterday on Capitol Hill said Reid turned to Lieberman at one point and said, "I prefer to work this out" after Lieberman hinted he would "explore his options" with Republicans if he was stripped of the committee.

Hilarious. Like he has clout. Lieberman would end up being a headache on either side of the aisle - a mole on the Democratic side, a Judas on the increasingly extremist Republican side. What's more, Republicans don't have any committee chairmanships to hand out, either. And nobody's going to put their seniority aside for him.

Of course, his operatives have one goal - to make it look like bolting for the Republicans would make any difference whatsoever, fooling accommodationist Dems into reverting to measures of conciliation and healing. They've already snookered Evan Bayh, who's eminently snooker-able.

BAYH: And I think if Joe came before the caucus and said look, if I said some things that came as offensive, I’m sorry, but they were, you know heartfelt in my support of John McCain. I think we had to just let bygones be bygones. We’re going to need him on healthcare and energy independence and education and a whole lot of other things.

Bayh concluded that Lieberman is “strong on national security.” “And we’re going to prove that there is a place for Democrats who are strong on national security in the Democratic Party,” he said.

I hope I miss when I try to shoot myself shortly after posting this.

If we do nothing, Lieberman will be welcomed back into the party, and they'll probably throw a brunch in his honor. If we call these Senators and let them know that a mole chairing the main oversight committee in the Senate is unacceptable, maybe they won't be so keen to allow it. If after getting stripped on his chairmanship, Lieberman wants to stay in the party, I personally think that's up to him. But making sure he isn't a one-man subpoena machine is the bare minimum of accountability that we should expect.

The number for the Capitol switchboard is (202) 224-3121. Start with your own Senator, but call the more conservative members of the caucus too. Ask whether they support Lieberman remaining as Chair of the Homeland Security committee, given his unfair attacks on President-elect Obama. Be polite, and calm. The young people who answer the phones are entry-level staffers.

Post what you hear in the comments. Let's outflank Lieberman.

On Bended Knee

Joe Lieberman is begging to stay relevant:

Bolstered by a newly expanded majority, Harry Reid met with Joe Lieberman on Thursday to sketch out the conditions by which the Connecticut independent could continue to caucus with Senate Democrats. But Lieberman did not accept Reid's initial offers, leaving his future in the caucus uncertain, and potentially setting off a campaign to pressure the Democratic steering committee to decide Lieberman's fate.

Reid offered Lieberman a deal to step down as chairman of the homeland security committee but take over the reins of another subcommittee, likely overseeing economic or small business issues officials said.

Immediately after his meeting with Reid, Lieberman told reporters that he had not made a decision about his future in the caucus, and appeared to launch his first public appeal to members of the Democratic steering committee, whose members decide committee chair assignments.

"I completely agree with President-elect Obama that we must now unite to get our economy going again and to keep the American people safe. that is exactly what I intend to do with my colleagues here in the Senate in support of our new president, and those are the standards I will use in considering the options that I have before me," Lieberman told reporters.

The thing is that Lieberman has very little leverage. There is no reason that Reid could possibly keep someone who continually defamed Barack Obama in the chairmanship of the committee that would oversee the White House. What's more, he was terrible at his job in the 110th Congress, practically never holding any oversight hearings. He's dead weight on the committee.

Lieberman is in no position to demand anything. He's not the crucial 60th vote, and he's never going to get re-elected in Connecticut. In the Republican caucus he'd be a minority of the minority, and the mouth-breathers would quickly tire of his moderate positions on certain issues. Reid has all the leverage and he ought to pull the trigger.

Here's Jane Hamsher:

My guess? Reid told him he can stay in the caucus if he steps down from his committee chairmanship (a campaign we started shortly after the 2006 election, thanks to everyone who participated with pitchforks and torches). I imagine Reid told him they'll wait to do anything until the other Senate races are decided, but that's the way it's going to go down. Those are the rather well-source rumors circulating, anyway.

Joe now goes to see if he can get a better deal from the GOP, knowing his chances of winning in Connecticut as a Republican in 2012 are about "zero."

What the heck could he possibly "get" from an even more ideologically rigid GOP? A ranking membership? The internal dissension would be enormous.

Reid is walking down the right path here, but he'd better watch it. It's bad enough that a swing-state Senator is in charge of the caucus to begin with. If he cozies up to Lieberman after all this, the outrage would be palpable.

Sayonara Joe

It looks like the Senate drive for 60 votes is going to come down to the wire, with Jim Martin in Georgia being the crucial swing vote. Nate at 538 says his support is being undercounted, and the other crucial factor is that a race ending with nobody reaching 50% in Georgia would go to a runoff. With a Libertarian candidate in the race, that's a definite possibility. So we could see Martin vs. Saxby Chambliss in December with 60 votes on the line. Wow.

Now 60 votes is not a talisman. It breaks a filibuster in theory, but on a vote-by-vote basis you're going to gain Republicans and lose Democrats. Mary Landrieu is not a reliable vote on energy. Max Baucus is not a reliable vote on investment spending. Ben Nelson is not a reliable vote on much of anything. Alternatively, Olympia Snowe is gettable. Susan Collins can be gettable at times. Arlen Specter can be gettable. And there are a whole bunch of Senators who will be threatened in 2010 who will have to vote in a more moderate fashion.

Which is to say that all the focus on whether Joe Lieberman will be the crucial swing vote in a Democratic Senate, because he'd have the power to end filibusters all by himself, is misplaced. There is nothing that Democrats actually need to do to keep him happy. And having him running a government oversight committee when he campaigned against the Democratic nominee for President is unacceptable. Senate Democrats are putting out hints that it's unacceptable to them, too.

Democratic leaders are discussing a major reshuffling of Senate committee chairmanships, according to multiple sources, and the proposed changes include ousting Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) from his coveted chairmanship.

Lieberman, a former Democrat who supports Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for president, is likely to lose his gavel on the Homeland Security Committee he has chaired since January 2007, say the sources who see him being replaced by Sen. Daniel Akaka (Hawaii), the committee’s third-ranking Democrat.

Lieberman spokesman Marshall Witmann dismissed the speculation, saying Lieberman “is focused on doing all he can to elect John McCain as president rather than post-election Washington politics.”

One Democratic source said Lieberman is not likely to lose his position in the Democratic caucus, even if the party picks up several seats in next week’s election. While Democrats could approach or exceed the filibuster-proof threshold of 60 votes, they may still need Lieberman’s vote often.

“There’s no sense in cutting off our nose to spite our face,” one source said.

I think talk about expelling him from the caucus is kind of weird. He's an independent and he gets to make the decision about who to caucus with. He can do whatever he wants. But seniority and chairmanships is something that the Democrats have control over. And he shouldn't have any of them.

But don't be taken in by this idea that he holds the filibuster in his hands. He doesn't. Democrats can ask for his vote, but they don't have to bend over backwards to please him.

Slouching Toward Washington

Can you believe the nerve of this guy?

In a conference call with Connecticut reporters on Friday, Lieberman bristled at the media's coverage of the McCain campaign's negativity. "You guys are going down a road, you have contributed to the demeaning of our politics by this kind of focus," Lieberman said. "I mean, give me a break. Have any of you been out listening to me?"

"When I go out, I say, 'I have a lot of respect for Sen. Obama. He's bright. He's eloquent.' Someday, I might even support him for president," Lieberman told a conference call of Connecticut reporters. "But now in the midst of this series of crises, John McCain is simply so much better prepared that that's who I am proud to support."

Lieberman also said that if McCain doesn't, "I'm going to do everything I can to be bringing people ... together across party lines to support the new president so he can succeed."

Actually, sure I can. Lieberman is a suck-up to power as much as the rest of them. But the revisionism - a week before the election - is a little too much to take. He has spent the entire election questioning Obama's patriotism and pushing the basest smears and lies.

The chairmanship that Lieberman now holds has the authority to conduct oversight on the federal government. There is absolutely no reason to believe that Lieberman wouldn't abuse that power in the event of an Obama Administration. Regardless of the number of Democrats in the Senate, there is no way that Lieberman should be allowed to maintain that chairmanship. His choice of caucus partners is his decision. But his seniority should be gone. This weasel move to get back in everybody's good graces is pathetic.

Still President Bush

There are 19 days until a general election replacing George Bush (I'll wait for the cheers to die down). We all know he can still cause a lot of pain, and not just to 401(k) accounts. But there are things occurring in the shadows that aren't getting enough attention.

• He's still making signing statements exempting himself from current law.

President Bush asserted on Tuesday that he had the executive power to bypass several parts of two bills: a military authorization act and a measure giving inspectors general greater independence from White House control.

Mr. Bush signed the two measures into law. But he then issued a so-called signing statement in which he instructed the executive branch to view parts of each as unconstitutional constraints on presidential power.

• The laws he doesn't amend are really crappy.

President Bush on Monday signed into law legislation creating a copyright czar, a cabinet-level position on par with the nation's drug czar.

Two weeks ago, the House sent the president the "Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act" (.pdf), a measure the Senate approved days before creating a cabinet-level copyright czar charged with implementing a nationwide plan to combat piracy and "report directly to the president and Congress regarding domestic international intellectual property enforcement programs."

• He continues to break the law and ignore Congressional oversight.

Oversight Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) came together today to criticize the White House for their use of executive privilege in the Valerie Plame leak scandal.

The two lawmakers called Bush's refusal to disclose the report of the FBI interview with Vice President Cheney "legally unprecedented" and "inappropriate." The committee seeks the document in order to establish the White House's role in the leak of Plame's name to the media.

• Like I said, he continues to break the law.

A draft Committee report circulated by Chairman Waxman finds that in the months before the 2006 elections, the White House Office of Political Affairs “enlisted agency heads across government in a coordinated effort to elect Republican candidates to Congress,” directing them “to make hundreds of trips – most at taxpayer expense – for the purpose of increasing the electability of Republicans.”

• And he's making rules that could have deleterious effects far into the future.

WASHINGTON -- Bush administration officials, in their last weeks in office, are pushing to rewrite a wide array of federal rules with changes or additions that could block product-safety lawsuits by consumers and states.

The administration has written language aimed at pre-empting product-liability litigation into 50 rules governing everything from motorcycle brakes to pain medicine. The latest changes cap a multiyear effort that could be one of the administration's lasting legacies, depending in part on how the underlying principle of pre-emption fares in a case the Supreme Court will hear next month [...]

These new rules can't quickly be undone by order of the next president. Federal rules usually must go through lengthy review processes before they are changed. Rulemaking at the Food and Drug Administration, where most of the new pre-emption rules have appeared, can take a year or more.

We haven't even come to the inevitable pardons. Or the illegal programs he has started and continues to run. Or the failed policies.

What a terrible President. No wonder nobody wants anything to do with him.

You Don't Get Your Oversight - DC Circuit Puts Off Miers/Bolten Subpoenas Until Bush Leaves Office

Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten won't be testifying to Congress anytime soon. Not until their Dear Leader is on an island somewhere:

Time will run out on this year's congressional session before the battle between two branches of government can be resolved, according to the ruling by a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The ruling essentially pushes any resolution on the politically charged case until next year.

"The present dispute is of potentially great significance for the balance of power between the legislative and executive branches," wrote the panel of judges, two of whom were appointed by Republicans.

Still, the judges wrote, "Even if expedited, this controversy will not be fully and finally resolved by the judicial branch ... before the 110th Congress ends on January 3, 2009. At that time, the 110th House of Representatives will cease to exist as a legal entity, and the subpoenas it has issued will expire."

There you have it, folks. The White House has basically altered the relationship between the executive and legislative branch permanently. Future Presidents now know that if they push aggressively enough, if they evade oversight and subpoenas and dare the Congress to stop them, nothing will come of their actions, no matter how illegal they are.

It's worth going back and understanding what the White House actually did in this case, a series of events now illuminated by the recent OIG report on Justice Department politicization, the facts of which did nothing to persuade the circuit court that decisive action needed to be taken. We now know that the executive branch, led by Karl Rove, absolutely played a role in the firing of US Attorneys in 2006. There are emails between Rove and officials in New Mexico proving his role in the firing of David Iglesias, for example, because of Iglesias' refusal to swiftly prosecute Democrats and bogus voter fraud cases. They made room for a political friend of Rove's, Tim Griffin, at the US Attorney's office in Arkansas by firing Bud Cummins. And they conspired with Senator Kit Bond to remove the federal prosecutor in Missouri:

In Missouri, evidently, Republican politics are exceptionally bloody, with clans fighting like rival mobs whose carnage spreads to other locales and sweeps in innocent civilians.

This is what former U.S. attorney Todd P. Graves discovered when he was ousted in January 2006 by the Justice Department. He got his first inkling of trouble in 2004 not from the department, but from an aide to Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.), whose office was then embroiled in a bitter dispute with Graves's brother, a U.S. congressman.

In a telephone call, the aide angrily warned Graves that if he did not intervene on Bond's behalf -- against his brother's chief of staff -- the senator "could no longer protect [his] job." Graves refused, and a little over a year later, he was bounced from his Kansas City office after Bond's staff made repeated complaints to the White House counsel's office.

More on the Graves firing here.

This is all out in the open despite pervasive, continuous stonewalling on the part of White House officials, refusing to comply with any and all investigations into their conduct, including the OIG report put together by their own Justice Department. But the evidence is nonetheless clear and thorough.

The White House's active involvement in the firings, as depicted in the report, can be divided into two broad categories: First, its role in initiating and promoting the overall plan to remove an unspecified number of U.S. attorneys -- traditionally treated as apolitical prosecutors who operate independently from the political agenda of the administration -- deemed insufficiently committed to the Bush agenda. And second, its apparent work in pushing specifically for several of the most high-profile dismissals.

You can see the wealth of evidence at the handy link from TPM Muckraker. It need not be repeated here.

What must be repeated is how easily the White House has evaded any accountability for these clear crimes of politicization of the Justice Department. They took advantage of the lack of teeth in such federal statutes like the Hatch Act, which offers remedies only to the firing of those responsible, by having the perpetrators resign. They allowed an investigation to be released but only one coming from an internal monitor, not an independent investigation from Congress or a special counsel. The report was so damning that the Attorney General was forced to name a prosecutor to investigate the crimes further, but he refused to make her independent from the DoJ, and he gave her a 60 day mandate so that the investigation could not spread beyond the current Presidential term in office, after the election and before the new President begins his term. And now, as that investigation will be wrapped up before Miers, Bolten or anyone else would ever have to testify, their testimony will not factor into this accelerated timeline.

Indeed, in order to get Miers and Bolten on the record, the House Judiciary Committee would have to file subpoenas all over again, as they will have expired, and go through the exact same stonewalling. Thus far absolutely nobody has paid even the smallest price for the US Attorney purges, other than moving from their cushy jobs to some other cushy wingnut welfare sinecure.

This is the crisis of accountability we are facing due to the expansiveness of executive power over decades and consistent enabling from the Congress as they fail time and again to enact basic oversight in real time. This scandal represents the failure of our system, a loophole in the Constitution that extremists have successfully exploited.

When Government Breaks Down

Here are just a few stories I've collected over merely the past week, the little outrages that aren't as substantial as, say, killing over a million Iraqis in an unnecessary war or leaving 47 million without health insurance or torturing prisoners at Guantanamo. But they provide shocks to the conscience nonetheless.

• The Department of Labor is rushing to make rules that would make it tougher for the government agency to regulate the amount of chemicals and toxins in the workplace.

• The Wage And Hour division of the Labor Department has been charged by the GAO with delaying and misplacing hundreds of overtime and minimum-wage complaints from individuals being shortchanged.

• Fifteen percent of all women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan who have visited a VA facility have tested positive for sexual trauma through rape, assault or harrassment.

• An immigrant was handcuffed while giving birth in jail and separated from her infant within two days and she continued her imprisonment.

• In Louisiana, Baron Pikes was tasered nine times and killed after failing to comply swiftly enough with police demands. He wasn't resisting arrest, he just didn't comply fast enough.

• Supplies designed to go to victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were massively undercounted due to a math error, resulting in a reduction of $70 million worth of aid.

• Pentagon auditors, whose role is to conduct oversight over government military contracts, were pressured by superiors to produce reports favorable to the contractors and shielding them from wrongdoing and overbilling, according to a GAO report. And at that time, the Air Force was spending counterterrorism funds on comfort capsules that can spirit them around the world in the height of luxury.

Now mind you, this is simply a partial list of the last week or so. This kind of venality, callousness and contempt for anyone but the rich and connected has characterized the last eight years. Corporations are to be protected instead of the poor. Authority is to be demanded but assaults on the downtrodden tolerated. Regulations are eliminated and help for the needy denied. This has become America in the first decade of the 21st century - an authoritarian kleptocracy. The level of rot is so great that the next President won't be able to get at all of it. Remember that these are just some of the LESSER stories.