Monday, February 06, 2006

Gonzales snows Senate while New York Times continues to play "Coretta who?"

Good evening. Let's kick things off with Democracy Now!

AG Gonzales to Testify Before Senate Over Domestic Spying
On Capitol Hill, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is testifying today before the Senate over the Bush administration's domestic spying program. While Gonzales is expected to claim the Bush administration can legally carry out the warrantless spying, Senate Judiciary Committee Arlen Specter has admitted the administration's legal reasoning does not hold up. He appeared on Tim Russert's program Meet the Press on Sunday. Meanwhile a new article in the Washington Post raises questions over the effectiveness of the domestic spy program.. Intelligence officers who took part in the eavesdropping on thousands of Americans say they dismissed nearly all of them as potential suspects after hearing nothing pertinent to a terrorist threat. According to the Post, fewer than 10 U.S. citizens or residents a year have aroused enough suspicion during warrantless eavesdropping to justify interception of their domestic calls.

Wally had the funniest joke about Alberto Gonzales, saying he'd won a lookalike contest. The hearings. Russ Feinstein and Patrick Leahy showed life. Otherwise? Were they just going through the motions? Do they not get how important it is to fight for checks and balances? I'm pretty much disappointed. They don't just need a summit for strategy, they need to learn how to speak. And how to question.

Or maybe they just don't care? I'm disgusted with just about all of them. Gonzales either says he doesn't know or he twists the words (like the Court case of Hamdi) and when there is accountability, it's delivered in a weak manner or not at all. Gonzales says the White House is willing to listen to Congressional "suggestions" on legislation and everyone's too scared to say, "We don't suggest, we make the laws." Bunch of cowards.

Here's C.I. on Dianne Feinstein:

DiFi, why do you ask questions? Or why do you ask your meandering questions?
Do you want answers?
If so, why say the following when Albie refuses to answer your questions:

Fair enough, let's move along.
Okay, that's fine.
I just want to ask some others [questions], you don't have to answer if you don't want to.

If that's it, if that's the best you can do, quit wasting everyone's time.
She was useless in the Alito hearings and she's useless so far today.
Why doesn't she get called on this nonsense?

I'll call her, Feinstein you came to life slightly for about 10 seconds in your second round of questioning. Then you went back to DiFi mode, completely useless. Get it together or get off the committee and take Herbert Kohl with you. I wish Leahy had told Kohl to speak into the mike the way he told Gonzales (twice) that he couldn't hear him.

40,000 Pay Tribute to Coretta Scott King
In Georgia, over 40,000 mourners paid their respects to civil rights pioneer Coretta Scott King by filing past her open casket in the state Capitol's rotunda. She became the first woman and the first African-American person to lie in honor there. She died last Monday at the age of 78. Today's Coretta Scott King's body will lie in honor at the original Ebenezer Baptist Church where her late husband, Martin Luther King, once preached.

First, Betty's post is up at her site and it's called "The Pig Is Racism, The Pig Is The New York Times." Go read it if you haven't already. Cedric's been covering it at his site with "About the New York Times's racist silence on Coretta Scott King" and C.I.'s been all over it daily at The Common Ills, plus there's The Third Estate Sunday Review's "Editorial: Does The New York Times editorial board not know that Coretta Scott King died or do they just not care?" which we all worked on.

So here's the thing, why won't the New York Times devote an editorial or an op-ed to Coretta Scott King? What's going on? They don't think she's important? What's up with that? The editorial page editor's friend gets an editorial and massive coverage. With Coretta Scott King, the paper's basically going "Ho-hum, nothing big."

It stinks. They need to be called on it.


Now go to Elaine's blog to get her thoughts Like Maria Said Paz on that and much more.

Wally, you bastard! :D The Daily Jot is back and you got to get there. Click, people, for the love of God, click here! Now! :D Wally and C.I. are both reporting from D.C. and I hope I'm not blowing anything there. The plan was to keep that on the down low and play it like they were leaving and had left DC but I guess it's obvious now. So Wally's done two posts and I'm going to highlight his thing called "THIS JUST IN! 'GET MRS. GONZALES HERE PRONTO!'" because it's on the hearings:


BULLY BOY PRESS -- DC.
THIS JUST IN.
OFFERING THE 'RULES? WE DON'T NEED NO STINKING RULES!' DEFENSE
ALBERTO GONZALES.
ALBERTO GONZALES, WHO RECENTLY WAS AWARDED 1ST PRIZE IN A BILLIE JEAN KING LOOKALIKE CONTEST, ATTEMPTS TO WARD OFF QUESTIONS WITH THE FOLLOWING:
"I DON'T RECALL."
"I HAVE NO PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE."
THE STRATEGY IS TO PLAY DUMB AND VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY IS CONVINCED GONZALES IS PERFECT FOR THE JOB.
PROBLEMS SURFACING.
IN REPLY TO GONZALES EVASIONS, SENATOR PATRICK LEAHY SAID, "OF COURSE, I'M SORRY MISTER ATTORNEY GENERAL, I FORGOT, YOU CAN'T ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS THAT ARE RELEVANT TO THIS INQUIRY."
SENATOR ORRIN HATCH WAS HEARD TO HISS TO BOY TOY SENATOR JOHN CORNYN, "GET MRS. GONZALES HERE PRONTO!"
SENATOR JOHN CORNYN RESPONDED, "PRONTO? ORRIN, YOU KNOW I DON'T SPEAK SPANISH!"


Wally, you the man! :D For the hour! And if I didn't note this Friday, let me steer you to it now, C.I.'s "On the Dangers of an Unchecked Bully Boy" which is the best thing from last week, you gotta check it out.











Posted by at