Worst Job in the World

Former Vice-President Dick Cheney's international travel agent.

As If We Needed His Word On It

Via DailyKos and a whole chain of other blogs is this video of Chicago's own Mancow being waterboarded. Even though he's conservative, he has to admit that it's torture:

For Future Reference

DanK is Back, a diarist at Daily Kos, has done us all the service of putting together the known timeline of the legal non-justifications of torture that occurred under the Bush administration, and the denials that came after.

What Do You Mean, "Not Your Job"?

Gov. Blagojevich was impeached today by the IL State House, 114-1. The one against was Rep. Milton Patterson, D-Chicago, who the tribune reports said that it "wasn't his job to vote to impeach the governor," saying things about the criminal process needing to take place instead.

Well, excuse us, Rep. Patterson, but one of your admittedly rarely exercised powers as a state representative is to vote on articles of impeachment of state officers that are put before the Illinois State House. As Archpundit has repeatedly stated, impeachment is a political process, not a criminal one. The object of impeachment is to send to the State Senate a recommendation remove state officers who have manifestly demonstrated their inability to follow the law while doing their jobs, with or without actual criminal charges being filed. If you think part of your job is not your job, you and your constituents need to have a conversation come primary time, hopefully one ending with you not appearing on the November 2010 ballot.

And besides, if you really thought that it "wasn't your job", Rep. Patterson, you could always have abstained.

The Sad State of Illinois Politics

I've long said that citizens of Illinois are disappointed, but never surprised, when we find out that yet another of our politicians is corrupt. But still...damn, a sitting governor arrested for trying to sell Barack Obama's former senate seat, among a long list of charges.

I'm not surprised at the corruption, just that the man's that stupid.

At least we'll have an open Democratic primary in 2010.

EDIT: Subject-verb agreement is a good thing.

Someone Said the "I" Phrase!

Former presidential advisor Karl Rove refused to respond to a subpoena from the House Judiciary Committee and this time they're not pussyfooting around.

"A refusal to appear in violation of the subpoena could subject Mr. Rove to contempt proceedings, including statutory contempt under federal law and proceedings under the inherent contempt authority of the House of Representatives," Conyers and Sanchez wrote.

Normally, contempt proceedings against the executive branch fail, since congress chooses to let the Justice dept handle prosecutions in Federal courts under statutory contempt rules and most administrations will call off their lawyers rather than prosecute themselves. However, statutory contempt is merely congress fobbing its contempt powers off on the other two branches of government. Each house also has inherent contempt powers, which means that the body of congress so defied can try the case themselves and hold that person until the end of the session. This can be repeated at the beginning of each session, and the Supreme Court has upheld this power as valid and integral to the functioning of the Legislative Branch.

Unsurprisingly, his lawyer is playing dumb with the media (who, for the most part, is likely dumb themselves on the issue):

Luskin noted in May that his client had already received a separate subpoena from the Senate Judiciary Committee. "While the [House] committee has the authority to issue a subpoena, it is hard to see what this will accomplish, apart from a 'Groundhog Day' replay of the same issues that are already the subject of litigation," the lawyer wrote, referring to a movie in which a person lives the same day over and over again.

As Mr. Luskin knows full well (or should, if he's taking Rove's money), the reason for the House to issue its own subpoena is that it allows the inherent contempt proceedings to occur in that house. Inherent contempt trials are conducted by the presiding officer of the house so offended. Cases in the senate are presided over by the President of the Senate, a.k.a. VP Dick Cheney, who has political reasons to oppose letting anything Rove's done come to light. Inherent contempt trials in the House of Representatives are presided over by the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, who is much more likely to play ball on the issue. Knowing those to things, which venue would Democrats prefer such a trial to occur in? I'll give you two guesses, but if the first isn't the House of Representatives you have a moral obligation to strike yourself in the head with a brick.

Right now, though, while I listen to the sound of a thousand bricks thumping, all I can hope for is to see this threat of Inherent Contempt be acted upon.

Bush Administration Outrage Number 3.56 Billion

Teresa Nielsen-Hayden at Making Light has a post up on how the Secret Service is systematically underprotecting the Democratic candidates. It's too long and excerpt-heavy already for me to give you a snippet, so go read it yourselves.

My Congressman has Cohones

They may require a micrometer to measure their diameter, but Rep. Tim Johnson (R-IL15) definitely has at least a pee-wee pair, as evinced by his actually staying in the chamber to vote "Nay" on the contempt resolution against Harriet Miers, former White House Counsel, and Joshua Bolten, the White House Chief of Staff. It looks like he managed to overcome his day-job as Bush Administration lapdog and actually stand up for something. Maybe next time he can stand up for what's right, but at least he's taking steps to improve himself.

Too bad that it looks like the House leadership isn't being smart about the contempt citation and exercising the chamber's Inherent Contempt powers. Rather than waiting for the courts to sort things out, Inherent Contempt would toss their asses in jail a lot faster, barring any sudden desire on their parts to cooperate.

Signs of Life in the Democratic Congress

TPMMuckraker is reporting, via the Washington Post, that the House is set to actually move on Contempt of Congress charges "against White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet E. Miers for their refusal to appear before Congress for questioning about the 2006 removal of nine U.S. attorneys."

Hopefully the Democratic Leadership will use Congress' Inherent Contempt powers, as Bush has already instructed the Justice Department to ignore any Statutory Contempt charges filed by Congress. That the proceedings are being pursued in the House of Representatives is a good sign that this may be so: Inherent Contempt trials are held by the chamber pressing the charges, and are run by the presiding officer of that chamber. Speaker Pelosi would be the best to handle this, as I doubt that Dick Cheney would let the President Pro Temp of the Senate deal with a contempt trial against an administration official.