Team Obama is now at snooping squared — the neoliberal Panopticon

The New York Times reports that NSA warrantless wiretapping is just the tip of a much bigger iceberg that Dear Leader is inflicting on us.

We've got such overkill we're now like the Tsarist Okhrana in the last years before World War I. Here’s your nut graf:

Across the federal government, undercover work has become common enough that undercover agents sometimes find themselves investigating a supposed criminal who turns out to be someone from a different agency, law enforcement officials said. In a few situations, agents have even drawn their weapons on each other before realizing that both worked for the federal government.

None of this surprises me out of Obama, who seems to be combining a neoliberal version of a nanny state in some ways with a neoliberal version of a kinder, gentler Panopticon in others.

And, as the next two grafs after that note, sometimes, it's three federal agencies. Even worse, with the trickle-down militarization and related things happening to state- or local-level law enforcement, the snooping is there, too:

“There are all sorts of stories about undercover operations gone bad,” Jeff Silk, a longtime undercover agent and supervisor at the Drug Enforcement Administration, said in an interview. “People are always tripping and falling over each other’s cases.” 

Mr. Silk, who retired this year, cited a case that he supervised in which the D.E.A. was wiretapping suspects in a drug ring in Atlanta, only to discover that undercover agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement were trying to infiltrate the same ring. The F.B.I. and the New York Police Department were involved in the case as well.

OK, as a civil libertarian liberal, tell me, "right or wrong" Democrats — why would I vote for any 2016 presidential candidate of yours who doesn't immediately repudiate this, and sound sincere in doing so?

I'm of course talking first and foremost about one "Clinton, Hilary." 

As for the neoliberal angle? Most neoliberalist thought is about making the government more efficient, with market standards, but ... that's only true until it's not:

Most federal agencies declined to discuss the number of undercover agents they employed or the types of investigations they handled. The numbers are considered confidential and are not listed in public budget documents, and even Justice Department officials say they are uncertain how many agents work undercover. 

But current and former law enforcement officials said the number of federal agents doing such work appeared to total well into the thousands, with many agencies beefing up their ranks in recent years, or starting new undercover units. An intelligence official at the Department of Homeland Security, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss classified matters, said the agency alone spent $100 million annually on its undercover operations. With large numbers of undercover agents at the F.B.I. and elsewhere, the costs could reach hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

In short, this is all black box budgeting, just like the CIA, but spreading. Actually, the costs probably reach billions a year. With no guarantee of results — other than, of course, the "results" of manufactured cases, entrapment (even if never provable in court), and likely, some "quota" system of arrests and charges now in place at many of these agencies. 

On the entrapment issue? Just because former FBI head Bob Mueller says it hasn't won in court doesn't mean that entrapment isn't happening. Since 9/11, if the charge is "terrorism," a federal prosecutor can not only indict a ham sandwich before a grand jury, he or she can get a trial jury to give it 5 to 10 in the federal pen.

And, I'm sure that departing AG Eric Holder, just like his Bushie predecessor Alberto Gonzales, signed off on any legal questions.

Unfortunately, GOP senators who grill Obama's nominee to replace him, Loretta Lynch, will for the most part do so only for political theater, not for real concern. There's a few exceptions, but not many.

And, as for getting any of this declared unconstitutional in today's climate?

At the Supreme Court, small teams of undercover officers dress as students at large demonstrations outside the courthouse and join the protests to look for suspicious activity, according to officials familiar with the practice.

Given that the chief justice, John Roberts, oversees all aspects of the federal judiciary, surely he's not ignorant about this. 

#Benghazi, #IRS, #Obamacare, #AP snooping: What Obama needs to do

Eric Hitler, er Holder has crossed a bridge too far.
Time for Dear Leader to push him out.

First of all, that political consultant is me.

And, he's going to give Obama some tough advice, starting with the guy in the picture.

Setting aside that, as a left-liberal in American terms, I've found his stimulus response to the Great Recession, the whole semi-bollocks of Obamacare, and other actions less than ideal, the constitutional law scholar president appears out of his element, even after four-plus years, at the hardball of elective politics.

So, he needs help.

That would start with bitch-slapping him a couple of times, or more than a couple, before he finally realizes, and admits, that "Kumbaya" ain't in the GOP hymnal, that his self-loved mellifluous voice sounds discordant to many on Capitol Hill, and that his White House staff could use somebody with more legislative experience to work the Hill.

Now, on to some specifics.

First, the AP snooping. I don't care if you're having gay sex with him on the down low, at a point not immediate, but after a reasonable amount of stonewalling, if Eric Holder was directly connected, plugged-in, etc., to the AP snooping, can his ass. Period. It's triage and you need to manage it. (As long as you weren't in the loop yourself, and nobody leaks that you were after he gets fired.)

Then, to shore yourself up with Democrats, especially more liberal ones, appoint a new AG with better civil liberties cred. Of course, Holder needs to go, anyway. And, you need to stop the snooping and leak-plugging, not that the non-political consultant me expects that.

IRS? Steven Miller is an acting commissioner. Schmooze GOP Senators about a permanent replacement while cutting the House GOP out of the loop. Hell, tell Mitch the Turtle you'll name his venal wife, Elaine Chao, to the position. (Well, that might be a bit much, but you get the idea. Schmooze.) And, it looks like Obama's made a start here by accepting Miller's resignation. That said, Holder's finger-wagging, again, about IRS criminality and investigations makes me want to fucking barf.

It makes me barf more now that we see this is less of a scandal than Benghazi, because liberal groups got the same treatment. The bigger scandal is that the IRS is overburdened, likely because the GOP wants to starve it. 

Beyond this, any other scandal is Dear Leader's reaction to what is even more a non-scandal than Benghazi is starting to look like the Shirley Sherrod fiasco when Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, with some knowledge by Obama, threw her under the bus.

Obamacare? Namely, the concerns that Kathleen Sibelius shouldn't be soliciting money from health care organizations to help pay for educating the American public about this.

Ain't this what Organizing for Action is for? To shake down rich donors but outside of of electoral politics, as it reportedly says its about? Surely there's room to launder some money in a theoretically legal way.

Benghazi? Even if you don't want to be totally honest (as Republicans don't either) about what the fuck the CIA was doing there, roll out a sacrificial lamb. Or better yet, tell the GOP that you WILL spill the full beans unless it shuts up.

And, if not me, I'll bet Bill Clinton would give you advice halfway like this. Because, if nothing else, and speculation is true, he doesn't want your fortunes to be a lead anchor around Hillary 2016.

(Of course, the left-liberalish part of me, thinking of that, says "please don't take a word of advice, but instead, drag her down with you.")

Beyond that, Ambassador Stevens himself twice rejected additional military protection. 

I am beginning to think that no "scandal" story deserves attention until McClatchy writes something and gets at least in the reasonable ballpark of reality.

Dear Leader spies on the AP

Eric Hitler, er, sorry, Holder! Attorney General
and Lord High Protectors of eroding of our
American civil liberties/SocraticGadfly Photoshop

Yes, you read that right.

Apparently as part of doubling down, or tripling down, on its witch hunt against leakers, The.Most.Transparent.Administration.In,HistoryTM sucked up phone conversations of multiple Associated Press editors and reporters.

Here's the details:

The records obtained by the Justice Department listed outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and the main number for AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP. It was not clear if the records also included incoming calls or the duration of calls.

In all, the government seized the records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown but more than 100 journalists work in the offices where phone records were targeted, on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.

Wow. Just wow. More than 100 people may have been spied on. That's pretty "unfettered," eh, Jay Carney, but "unfettered" for snoops and not the press.

And, the AP gets the non-Kumbaya back of the hand from Team Obama. (Per first link, again.)

The government would not say why it sought the records. U.S. officials have previously said in public testimony that the U.S. attorney in Washington is conducting a criminal investigation into who may have provided information contained in a May 7, 2012, AP story about a foiled terror plot. The story disclosed details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an al-Qaida plot in the spring of 2012 to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the United States.

Thinking about all this made me wonder if wingnuts aren't Photoshoppping Attorney General Eric Holder to have a much narrower moustache, and renaming him Eric Hitler. Oh, I guess somebody did that!

And now, Dear Leader is saying the White House knows nothing about Holder's snooping. Yeah, right. And, in a later presser, the White House is saying "no comment" because, you know, there's an investigation. And Holder continues to defend this.

Also, in an NPR interview I just heard, the plot thickens. (Also covered in second link, about Carney and his and Holder's pressers.)

Holder said he was interviewed last year by the FBI over leaks issues, so he had his assistant, Jim Cole, handle the AP snooping. But, he says he saw himself one letter Cole sent to AP. Either you recuse yourself or you don't.

The latest? Dear Leader revives calls for a media shield law, which he has never pushed for in the past himself, and which still probably wouldn't put actions like the Justice Department's totally in the out of bounds anyway, the way this administration works.

Here's why:

It is not clear whether such a law would have changed the outcome of the subpoena involving The A.P. But it might have reduced the chances that the Justice Department would have demanded the records in secret, without any advance notice to the news organization, and it may have allowed a judge to review whether the scope of the request was justified by the facts.  

Under the 2009 bill, which was negotiated between the newspaper industry, the White House and the Judiciary Committee, the scope of protection for reporters seeking to shield the identities of their confidential sources or the calling records showing with whom they had communicated would vary according to whether it was a civil case, an ordinary criminal case or a national security case. 

The most protection would be given to civil cases, in which litigants seeking to force reporters to testify or seeking their information would first have to exhaust other means of obtaining the information before making the request. The burden would be on the information seekers to show why their need for the information outweighed the public’s interest in unfettered news gathering. 

Ordinary criminal cases would work in a similar fashion, except the burden would be on the reporter seeking to quash the subpoena to show by a “clear and convincing” standard that the public interest in the free flow of information should prevail over the needs of law enforcement. 

Cases involving the disclosure of classified information — as in the investigation into The A.P.'s disclosure of a failed bomb plot in Yemen last spring — would be even more heavily tilted toward the government. Judges could not quash a subpoena through a balancing test if prosecutors could show that the information sought might help prevent a future terrorist attack or other acts likely to harm national security. 

However, the prospect that a confidential source might leak something else in the future would not be enough to invoke that exception under the 2009 compromise legislation. 

It remains unclear what kind of legal device the Justice Department used to obtain The A.P.'s calling records from phone companies. It is not clear how the standards established by the media shield legislation would apply to administrative subpoenas called “national security letters” that the F.B.I. may issue to obtain customer records from a business without a judge’s permission. 

Hence, the AP would be in limbo, and in the journalism equivalent of a FISA court, the burden would fall in it, not Team Obama.

And, for people who think this is a tempest in a teapot, National Journal says this has implications for the general public.

Also, to guard against the snoops, the New Yorker has launched a new electronic system for leakers.

Meanwhile, the whole Benghazi brouhaha?

Both Tweedledee Congressional Republicans and Tweedledum White House Democrats refuse to address what should be the real brouhaha, and that's that Benghazi site wasn't an embassy or consulate, but was a CIA operation through and through. What was the CIA doing there? Did the terrorists who attacked it have some inkling it was a CIA operation?

These are serious questions not being asked, let alone answered, by either "mainstream" party.

And, on the IRS rifling through Tea Partier type returns? Uhh, in the 1960s, it happened to the Sierra Club, before it ultimately had its nonprofit status jerked. Liberals should always take such things seriously, no matter who the target was. I'm not saying that the Obama Administration was involved on that one, because I know it wasn't. But, Democrats should welcome any reasonable investigation. That said, such investigation is not likely to come from House Republicans.

Rand Paul, hypocrite, meet David Corn, idiot / #Obamiac

I agree to some degree with David Corn that Rand Paul comes off as some degree of hypocrite for accepting part of Attorney General Eric Holder's explanation about the use of drones inside US borders, for things like shooting down rogue planes.

That said, if it was a political move, it seems to have worked.

But note that I only agree to some degree.

I disagree with this:

But decrying the administration for possible drone assaults against noncombatant American citizens within the United States is a phony issue, a modern-day equivalent of black-helicopter-phobia.

Sorry, it's not.

Given that the Texas Department of Public Safety used a helicopter to lethally fire on a truck allegedly carrying illegal immigrants last year, it's not a phony issue at all. We know Obama is, at bottom line, as nutbar about the War on Drugs as most Republicans, and is like a weather vane on immigration issues.

Besides, as the Guardian notes, Holder carefully couched his language:

Attorney general Eric Holder then clarified the administration's policy on Thursday and said that Obama would not use his authority to order a drone to kill an American on US soil who was "not engaged in combat."

But it's still the White House that defines, on American soil as well as outside, who's a "combatant."

And, as the New York Times notes, that's just the tip of the iceberg.

What, exactly, does the Obama administration mean by “engaged in combat”? The extraordinary secrecy of this White House makes the answer difficult to know. We have some clues, and they are troubling. 

Troubling indeed, given everything in Afghanistan.

What if the Texas DPS said: "We believed that truck had illegal immigrants in it, therefore everybody we shot is an illegal immigrant"? Well, that's what Obama has consistently claimed about "combatants" and drone strikes in Afghanistan, and it's a claim that Holder very carefully refused to surrender inside US borders.

As Ryan Goodman notes in that New York Times piece:

Is there any reason to believe that military drones will soon be hovering over Manhattan, aiming to kill Americans believed to be involved in terrorist financing? No. 

But is it well past time for the United States government to specify, precisely, its views on whom it thinks it can kill in the struggle against Al Qaeda and other terrorist forces? The answer is yes.

The Obama administration’s continued refusal to do so should alarm any American concerned about the constitutional right of our citizens — no matter what evil they may or may not be engaged in — to due process under the law. For those Americans, Mr. Holder’s seemingly simple but maddeningly vague letter offers no reassurance.

And David Corn gave Obama and Holder a "pass" for another refusal to offer such specificity.

This is also why, for years, I've considered David Corn overrated. As an investigative journalist, he's good at getting tips, but not so good, a lot of times, on connecting the dots.

And, here's Glenn Greenwald, actually connecting the dots while calling shenanigans on the likes of Corn, his scoffing at Paul, and his apparently deliberate misreading of Holder.

And, the Economist calls shenanigans on Paul. Great takedown here:

The problem with Mr Paul's filibuster was that it was small. He is a man of tender conscience with some legitimate concerns about the legal mess that is the war on terror. But though he may claim, as here to Fox News, that he has clarified those questions, he has not....

He secured no answers at all about the legality of drone strikes overseas (which are, let us not forget, the only drone strikes to have ever happened, outside the feverish imaginations of the black-helicopters crowd). Nor did he extract any information from the government about the wider legality of that post September 11th assertion of world-wide war powers. ...

There is an urgent need for better oversight of America's war on terror. ... Ignore the praise for Mr Paul this week. He has proved nothing about the right's appetite for such hard, risky work, and shown instead a movement excited by any chance to rally round a popular cause, and feel good about itself.

Bingo. And, David Corn, in halfway recognizing that, at the same time, underscored what the Economist said about liberals having even weaker knees on this issue:

Conservatives are well placed to provide that oversight, because most Democrats are disinclined to criticise Mr Obama in public over his use of drones, secret detentions and intelligence sharing with legally dodgy foreign agencies.

That's you being criticized, David Corn.

Meanwhile, the Times now has an in-depth story about the US hunt for Anwar Al-Awlaki, speaking of US citizens killed by drones without legal due process. As Greenwald notes, it's pretty "sympathetic" to Team Obama, especially in the legal rationalizations area.

Obama tries to criminalize political speech

Glenn Greenwald points out Reason No. 4,072 not to vote for Obama: The Department of Justice attempting to criminalize political speech.

First, the not just legal, but constitutional fact:

The Constitution -- specifically the Free Speech clause of the First Amendment -- prohibits the U.S. Government from punishing someone for the political views they express, even if those views include the advocacy of violence against the U.S. and its leaders. 

But, if you're a Muslim, and you've ever breathed the same air molecules as Hezbollah or a similar group, and say one word that doesn't spit on that group's grave, Obama wants to treat you like a criminal.

And no, not a metaphorical "criminal." A criminal. Obama wants to arrest you and try you for giving material support to terrorists.

Seriously, nothing, nothing, nothing Obama does, especially in foreign policy in general and above all, in the foreign-domestic policy intersection of the War on Terra, even comes close to surprising me any more.

And please, don't pull the the "fear the GOP" bogeyman on me to try to defend Obama. Once again, if Republicans did this, Democrats would be mentioning words like impeachment.

That said ....

Besides, as Glenn notes, there's a big bipartisan hypocrisy alert here:

Numerous prominent politicians from both political parties -- Michael Mukasey, Howard Dean, Wes Clark, Tom Ridge, Ed Rendell, Fran Townsend, Rudy Giuliani, and many others -- have not only been enthusiasticaly promoting and advocating on behalf of a designated terrorist organization (MEK of Iran), but they have been receiving substantial amounts of cash from that Terrorist group as they do so.  There is only one list of "designated Terrorist organizations" under the law, and MEK is every bit as much on that list as (Lashkar-e-Tayyiba) or Al Qaeda are. 

That's the allegedly "liberal" Howard Dean and the Obama toady Ed Rendell. Fixed it for you, Glenn.

The fact that, in comments at Glenn's blog, people try to find precedent in a previous Supreme Court decision, one based on a previous case brought by AG Eric Holder, is itself problematic.

Holder is more a toady to Obama than Colin Powell was to Bush.

Does Obama mean it on DOMA nondefense?

It's a good question indeed. President Obama has walked a tightrope, to put it politely, with defending the indefensible Defense of Marriage Act in federal courts.

That said, new suits in federal court in New York, where there's no recent precedent on gay rights, forced his hand — and he let his hand be carefully forced.

First, the nondefense applies only to Section 3 of DOMA, to be technical. And, not even fully to that.

Jonathan Turley does a good job of both legal and political parsing of the announcement and says, "It's pretty much a political decision." Having had time to read more since this afternoon, I'd tend to agree.

The more obvious explanation is that it didn't feel it could politically oppose DOMA before the midterm elections. I found Holder's statement to be rather forced and unconvincing. ...

Everyone that I've spoken to believes this decision was motivated by political considerations and not legal considerations. Eric Holder has proven an extremely political attorney general, much in the same way as the Bush attorneys general. His position not to prosecute torture, his decision to defend DOMA, and his prior decisions on DOMA were all driven by political considerations in the view of his critics. So I think that's what the motivation is.

And, although he just comments in passing as a first draft, looks like Greenwald's skeptic meter was left idling at the curb on this one. I mean, in light of Turley's comments, and as much as Greenwald has been skeptical of Obama and Holder before, there's a fair amount of wishful thinking on his part, perhaps.

Now, Turley notes, rightfully, that this is better than nothing.

But, a lot better? Well, maybe not.

Meanwhile, Greenwald has now fully addressed the Holder/Obama decision. And, basically, he expands on his defense of Obama on DOMA. And that's despite mentioning how Obama has politicized other civil liberties issues! I know this is a hugely personal issue to you, Glenn, but read Jonathan Turley, then take off the blinders.

So, the claim of Lisa Hirschman in this other Salon story, that Obama's setting a trap for the GOP? It rings hollow; if anything else, he's setting a trap for people who don't parse his words, and who aren't well-informed gay rights activists.

So, Obama wants a criminal probe of BP?

First, will this vaunted probe lead into Minerals Management Service as well as BP? If so, will it lead not just to career staff, but anybody appointed after Obama and Kenny Boy Salazar took over?

Answer: Not likely. DOJ will have a tough time proving criminality on BP's part. MMS won't get a look at, lest post-Obama MMS actions come on the radar.

Second, will Obama ask the Securities and Exchange Commission to get involved as well as Justice?

Answer: Not likely. That would mean that this was something serious, not just grandstanding.

Let's start with BP's claim it can shut off the Deepwater Horizon gush with relief wells, by August. Is that believable? It took 10 months to shut off the huge 1979 Mexican well blowout. Yes, technology has advanced in 31 years, but that was a shallow-water well.

A lie, if not under oath, is not criminal in the legal sense, but you know it is. So, is this another lie by BP to prop up its ever-fading stock value?

Seriously, if everybody knew it would take, say, 6 months not 2 for BP to fix this, and knowing this is affecting the U.S., not Mexico, unlike 1979, with attendant lawsuits, etc., where would you price BP's stock at? Ten bucks? Right in the heart of ExxonMobil or Shell takeover territory? Or by CNOOC or another Chinese oil company? Of course, if the suits and claims get thick enough, that could actually lessen BP's desirability as a takeover target.

In light of this, I think Robert Reich is right: We need to freeze BP's assets, at the least.

Third: That all said, a criminal probe is not the same as an incompetency probe. From President Obama through Rep. Ed Markey, the incompetence of Democratic elected officials in believing BP in specific and Big Oil in general also needs to be probed but probably won't be.

Answer: Of course not.

Obama continues to sell out Constitution

This time, it's via the agency of Attorney General Eric Holder, who wants to do a "carve-out" of Miranda rights for terrorism suspects.

The comments of Holder, on Meet the Press, and "terrorism czar" John Brennen both were blanket statements; that is, they did not exclude from this desired Miranda carve-out terrorism suspects American citizens like alleged would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad.

Part of the problem here is that, in the Shahzad case, we're relying on information from Pakistani intelligence agencies that surely were none too queasy about how they got the intelligence. Picture a future case, where the foreign side, in a country like Pakistan, supplies the first intelligence, and the U.S. then uses that possibly flimsy and definitely tainted information to justify not Mirandizing someone.

Or, let's go a step further.

Suppose a Shahzad is arrested abroad. And, then, he either actually is "rendered" to Pakistan, or at least the threat is made of that.

THEN, the U.S. government uses information gained from that to interrogate him here in the U.S. without Miranda protections.

Orwellian, no?

Oh, and if this isn't a lead-pipe cinch "tell" that Elena Kagan is Obama's next SCOTUS nominee, I'll eat my hat.

Not so fast on Kagan for SCOTUS

As this NYT opinion blog notes, as Solicitor General, she argued in favor of the Kentucky Supreme Court's finding that a lawyer is not required to tell an immigrant that pleading guilty to a certain offense could require his or her deportation.

Yeah, yeah, I know. She was doing the bidding of bosses Eric Holder and Barack Obama. Still, did she try to talk them out of this stance? Obama, and, AFAIK, Holder, aren't so "soft" in the nonsense of the War on Drugs as the mainstream media portrays.

Yawn – Holder about to name CIA special prosecutor

Beyond what the LA Times notes, that, among other things, convictions will be hard to obtain, we know he’s only going after small fry anyway, so no big deal.
-END-

Holder ‘torture probe’ a sham and head fake?

The Washington Post mentions the details of what would — and would not — get investigated if Attorney General Eric Holder names a special prosecutor to investigate torture allegations against BushCo members — something Newsweek, in what looks more like a fluff piece, omitted.

(Hat tip to Greenwald, among others.)

Here’s the bottom line:

Sources said an inquiry would apply only to activities by interrogators, working in bad faith, that fell outside the "four corners" of the legal memos. . . . The actions of higher-level Bush policymakers are not under consideration for possible investigation.

So, this would be a bottom-feeder investigation, fishing up minnows while deliberately ignoring the sharks — and while pretending the minnows actually are sharks.

Per other links within his post, Greenwald notes that letting John Yoo’s opinion stand as final is essentially Nixonian: “If the president does it, it’s not illegal.” (Tim at Balloon Juice has more.)

Scott Horton claims Holder plans a real investigation, but his claim is undercut by the New York Times, which agrees in broad outline with the Post story linked at top.

Scott, like Glenn, is too smart to fall for sandbagging, at least I think he is, so I don’t know what’s up.

Anyway, to tie back to the Newsweek fluff, rather than this being a sign of Holder’s independence, you have to wonder if this was discussed in detail with the Obama White House.

Holder to name BushCo special prosecutor?

Newsweek says Attorney General Eric Holder is considering appointing a special prosecutor to investigate Bush Administration torture of detainees, though Newsweek uses the euphemistic “brutal interrogation practices.” Four sources spoke on background, saying a decision one way or the other could come in a few weeks.

But, but, but…

Earlier, the story opens by noting AGs have in general stuggled to find the line between serving their country and serving their presidential bosses.

Color me skeptical, but, especially without knowing who these four sources are, it’s possible this is a deliberate leak, even as President Barack Obama himself battles Congress over a new intelligence bill’s parameters. A leak intended to be a sop to increasingly restless left-liberals and progressives, because of that, because of his expanse of “presidentialism” beyond even President Bush, and more.

(Update: Hold on, hold on indeed; evidence is mounting that Holder’s plan might be a sham and a head fake and this Newsweek story a bit of a fluff piece.)

In short, without knowing whether the four backgrounders are career civil service or political appointees, or a mix, I don’t know what angle the leak is from. And, Newsweek doesn’t enlighten us.

However, to be a bit less skeptical, it appears at least some of the four might be careerists. And, he supposedly has gotten him staff to compile a list of 10 potential nominees, five inside Justice and five outside.

So, what changed Holder’s mind, after he had seemed to let go of the idea a couple of months ago? Looking at the CIA IG’s report late last month.

And, he appears to have learned his “Marc Rich” lesson about maintaining independence from the White House, the story notes.

It’s a long, four-page story that talks about Holder’s first six months on the job in general, as well, so, give it a read.

Spain will drop case against BushCo torture enablers…

IF, IF, IF the Barack Obama Department of Justice will open an official investigation.

That’s one of several interesting items on the torture issue offered by Scott Horton. He also tells us AG Eric Holder and top staff are irate at how White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel et al (presumably acting on “higher orders,” irony, hypocrisy both intended) so politicized this issue.

Obama and Israel pander alert? Or, more ‘presidentialism’?

Federal prosecutors are looking at dropping spying charges against two former pro-Israel lobbyists who worked for American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Democratic Congresswoman Jane Harmon is journalistically accused of alleging she would go to bat legally for the two. Even if Justice’s decision to drop the charges, should it do that, is unconnected with l’affaire Harmon, it’s bad, bad timing anyway. Not just domestically, but abroad.

The story doesn’t directly say why charges might be dropped, but leaves a huge hint about halfway down the first page:

Defense lawyers recently again subpoenaed a number of prominent former government officials who are expected to testify for the defense. They include former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, former national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley and former high-level Defense Department officials Paul D. Wolfowitz and Douglas J. Feith. Sources said defense lawyers recently interviewed several of these former officials.

It’s called “presidentialism.” The decision to drop this baby isn’t even AG Eric Holder’s alone to make.

Obama does head fake on medical marijuana

Counterpunch has the details. Are you surprised

Will Obama Admin defend BushCo renditions?

Given that President Barack Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, has so far not withdrawn a BushCo request that an appeals court dismiss a lawsuit against CIA air flight itinerary coordinator Jeppesen Dataplan, so far, it looks like the answer to the headline is, sadly, yes.

Both the New York Times and LA Times editorial boards have asked the new administration to change position, but to no avail.

That surely relates to the coolness of Obama to prosecuting BushCo members, or even investigating them.

UPDATE: The answer to the rhetorical question is No; Obama supports rendition AND supports Bush’s “aggressive” idea of state secrets.

And, this isn't just a question of Obama's Justice Department not being "up to speed" yet.

In fact, DOJ lawyer, Doug Letter said BushCo positions on the state secrets claim had been, actively reviewed and vetted.

Just to make sure she understood correctly, Circuit Judge Mary M. Schroeder asked:

“The change in administration has no bearing?”

And, Letter repeated a No response.

Read Greenwald for much more on this issue.

Once again, it’s Change He’s Trying to Force Us to Believe In.

And, waiting for all the Obamiacs to speak about how "the good is NOT the enemy of the better," etc., all I hear right now is... crickets.

Let me quote you all just one sentence from Greenwald:

It will be extremely difficult for even the most loyal Obama followers to deny that this was an active and conscious decision on the part of the Obama DOJ to embrace one of the most extreme abuses of the Bush presidency.

And, that's why I'm hearing crickets right now.

John Cornyn 'hearts' torture

I guess that he's worried that Attorney General-designee Eric Holder might actually prosecute some of Big John's BushCo buddies for waterboarding or other torturous activities, so he just had to vote against Holder's nomination at the Senate Judiciary Committee level, joining fellow nutbar Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.

Obama has no excuse now not to prosecute BushCo war crimes

But he won’t, anyway

President-elect Barack Obama’s Attorney General-designee, Eric Holder told Congress today that waterboarding is torture and that we prosecuted it in the past as a war crime.

Military commissions overseer Susan J. Crawford said we tortured Mohammad Qahtani in other ways.

We’re a signatory to, conventions against torture that are now, per the Constitution that Barack Obama will swear to preserve and protect next Tuesday, the “law of the land.”

So, no excuses. Other than being Just.Another.Politician.™

I’m not going to repost the petition to get Obama to appoint a special prosecutor. It’s clear that he won’t do it. It’s clear he can’t be shamed into doing it. It’s clear that he wants to keep at least some of the expanded presidential power that Bush arrogated to himself.

Therefore, it’s clear he will NOT prosecute, or even look into prosecuting, former executive branch individuals in this area.

Obama again says NO to war-crimes special prosecutor

I and other progressive and left-liberal bloggers have been pushing for this for some time, with petition drives and more, to get a special prosecutor to investigate all potential illegalities in the Iraq War, up through and including war crimes and/or crimes against humanity.

Well, without President-elect Barack Obama himself saying anything, or his transition team talking directly, it's clear the answer is No.

When asked about this issue Friday, Obama's transition team recycled an old Veep-elect Biden non-answer answer from a month ago. (Gee, isn't Obama's campaign/transition team good about those?)

“The questions of whether or not a criminal act has been committed or a very, very, very bad judgment has been engaged in is — is something the Justice Department decides,” Mr. Biden said, adding that he was not ruling prosecution in or out. “Barack Obama and I are — President-elect Obama and I are not sitting thinking about the past. We’re focusing on the future.”

In other words, no special prosecutor. (The NYT notes incoming White House press secretary Robert Gibbs tackled other questions directly.

And further proof that Obama intends to do nothing came out Sunday in his Meet the Pres appearance, further confirmed with yet another weaselly “we’re looking to the future” answer that George Stephanopoulos notes on his blog.

And, while Obama may look to the future, in many other parts of the world, as the Israel-Hamas conflict shows, they don’t.

And "discomfort" doesn't cut the mustard or feed the bulldog.

For people touting John Conyers’ "truth and reconciliation" bill? It has only 10 House sponsors and not a word of support from Pelosi OR B.O. himself; sadly, that ain't going anywhere either.

Why?

1. Too many Democratic hands have their own amount of blood on them.

2. As I expected months ago, and as Uncle Fester also said after the election, Obama isn't necessarily ready to give up all that BushCo accumulation of power. As with Obama’s flip-flop on the FISA amendment bill, Obama wants the power that Shrub and Uncle Fester accumulated. Don’t you dare think otherwise.

Have another glass of Kool-Aid, true believers.

Among other things, a special prosecutor could still work around Bush pardons by pursuing civil suits, against which pardon is no recourse, and which have a lower burden of proof in court.

And, folks like Obama and Holder, or somebody in Obama’s list of DOJ appointees, know that’s an option too.

The mask continues to slip...

Another Obama-Blago connection – Eric Holder

Obama’s Attorney General nominee “forgot to mention” on his Senate Judiciary Committee vetting form that he once did some casino license flak work for Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Forgot?

Sure. He was probably out undercover crime fighting with Jesse Jackson Jr.

How do you forget having been at a state-televised presser with Blago, having been specifically tapped for the position by him?

And, Holder might well have not finished filling this out until AFTER Blago’s arrest. Didn’t that “jog your memory”?