Michael Kelley: Kentucky's Best-Kept Progressive Secret

Wishing you lived in Western Kentucky so you could vote for Real Democrat Heather Ryan? If you live in Kentucky's Fourth District, which runs through Northern Kentucky east from Louisville to Ashland, you're in luck!

You've got a Democratic Congressional Candidate you can be proud of.

On September 18, I sent an emailed question to the four people in Kentucky who are running as challengers on the Democratic ticket for a seat in Congress: Bruce Lunsford (Senate), Michael Kelley (KY-4), David Boswell (KY-2), and Heather Ryan (KY-1).

I asked each of them the same question:

I would be very interested in your response to the following excerpt from Senate testimony this week, particularly in how you, as a new Member of Congress, would work to restore Congress' Article One power and responsibility.

(At that link, long-time former GOP Congressman Mickey Edwards of Oklahoma testified before a Senate hearing on the rule of law and excoriated Congress for abdicating its Constitutional responsibilities of oversight and balance of power.)

Only Dr. Michael Kelley, Democratic nominee for the Fourth Congressional District seat of incumbent Geoff Davis, bothered to send an answer. In thanks and due respect, I am posting his response in full:

We have seen a failure of duty in all the branches of our government. We have seen the executive branch veer off wildly into uncharted territory. Territory in which the Constitution, human rights, civil rights, and the Geneva Convention are no longer respected.

The Judicial branch went off the rails right from the start when they selected the president in 2000 in a decision that was both bold and indefensible.

The "fourth branch" of government, the press, has similarly let us down by backing such nonsense as "Saddam masterminded 9-11" and "warrantless wire tapping is somehow needed to fight terror."

When seen in this light, it seems that Congress' failure to up hold their constitutional duty to serve as a check and balance to an administration run amok is only moderately contemptible.

The fear of being accused of "being soft on defense," being a "defeatocrat," "unpatriotic," failing to "support our troops," to name a few, turned congress into a grouping of boot-lickers. As long as the majority of congresspersons care more about their own job security than the nation's long term well-being, this will not be the last failure they will produce.

I am a family doctor who is running in hopes of straightening out some of these messes. I'm not taking PAC money, lobbyist money, or bundler money. I'm not taking one red cent of special interest money. This makes my odds longer, but if elected I'll get in with no strings attached. If elected I will not forget Congress' "power of the Purse," and I'll not ever place my own self interest before the nation's best interest.

That's how a real Democrat talks, y'all. Tomorrow, more on the outspoken Dr. Kelley.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

Why Forgiving the Crimes at Just-Us is Not Just Wrong, but Dangerous

When it comes to nailing the essential obscenity of the Smirky/Darth maldministration, no one does it better than the Rude Pundit. On the leniency given to criminals at the Department of Justice, he doesn't disappoint. (Warning: content at link is X-rated.)

Michael Mukasey Doesn't Care About the Security of Americans:
Here's what Mukasey said yesterday: not only is he not going to pursue charges against Monica Goodling et al for giving a political litmus test to candidates for ostensibly non-political jobs, but he thinks they've been punished enough ...

(SNIP)

See, as Mukasey explained, they didn't violate criminal laws, but civil service law, and he's right that that doesn't end up in criminal prosecution. But you know what is actionable in criminal law? Ordering people to violate civil service law. Conspiracy and all that shit.

(SNIP)

Yep, a systemic failure, one where others might be implicated, would seem to warrant action. But, see, that might require further investigation. And that might lead directly to Alberto Gonzales. And if people start to roll over, well, that way madness lies.

Even more (c**t)ish was what was left out of Mukasey's remarks. He did say that those who were hired won't be fired because "it would be harmful to the Department and to the country." You remember back in the day when everything was related to security? When to support the extension of civil service benefits to workers at the Department of Homeland Security meant that you wanted Osama bin Laden to force America's sons to fellate his goats? When if a Democrat happened to mention that some action of the administration was a violation of civil rights, it meant that the Democrats were ready to hand the keys to the White House to Islamonazis or whatever the word was? Wait, wasn't that like last week or so? Anyway...

In that bullshit, overwrought context, what Mukasey left out was that the actions of Monica Goodling et al in Alberto Gonzales's Justice Department placed all of us in greater danger. If you're more concerned with whether or not Johnny or Jenny Civil Servant would take a bullet for aborted fetuses than if they have the skills to do the goddamn jobs at the goddamn Department of goddamn Justice, then you are saying that you don't give a happy monkey fuck about the security of the country.

(SNIP)

Mukasey's right that to fire people because the interview process was fucked is unfair, especially since the Rude Pundit would like to think that more than one of them stared for a moment when, in an interview for a job dealing with immigration, Goodling might ask them what they think about the homosexuals and their desire for marriage before answering in a lie that'd get them the job. (If the Rude Pundit had been asked, as Goodling did, "What is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?" he'd have answered, "He smells like lime and coca leaves.")

(SNIP)

No, Mr. Former Judge Attorney General Mukasey, as you say, "Two wrongs don't make a right." But you lead the fuckin' Justice Department. You know that to right a wrong means you might have to actually pursue justice. Or don't you give a damn about the safety of the United States?

George Bush, Dick Cheney, all their loyal minions, and wingnut freakazoid repugs in general: Always wrong, always harming the country, all the time.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

Attorney General Admits Bush Let 9/11 Happen

In San Francisco this week, U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey got so desperate to prove that we have to let Smirky/Darth break every law and stomp on every civil right, he actually admitted that this maladministration let Al Qaeda attack on 9/11.

Officials "shouldn't need a warrant when somebody with a phone in Iraq picks up a phone and calls somebody in the United States because that's the call that we may really want to know about. And before 9/11, that's the call that we didn't know about. We knew that there has been a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn't know precisely where it went."

As Glenn Greenwald makes clear, this is both a lie and an admission of culpability.

Even under the "old" FISA, no warrants are required where the targeted person is outside the U.S. (Afghanistan) and calls into the U.S. Thus, if it's really true, as Mukasey now claims, that the Bush administration knew about a Terrorist in an Afghan safe house making Terrorist-planning calls into the U.S., then they could have -- and should have -- eavesdropped on that call and didn't need a warrant to do so. So why didn't they? Mukasey's new claim that FISA's warrant requirements prevented discovery of the 9/11 attacks and caused the deaths of 3,000 Americans is disgusting and reckless, because it's all based on the lie that FISA required a warrant for targeting the "Afghan safe house." It just didn't.

Greenwald exposes many other despicable Mukasey lies, but don't let the cascade of lies obscure the truth that slipped out:

We knew that there has been a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn't know precisely where it went.

Hard to imagine a more blatant failure to keep the nation safe, a more blatant provision of aid and comfort to an enemy, a more blatant example of "high crimes and misdemeanors."

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

New AG, Same as the Old AG

You thought Gonzales was bad.

Our soon-to-be-confirmed new Attorney General has told the United States Congress, under oath, live on the tee-vee, essentially the following:

- Torture is perfectly fine and hunky-dory, as long as we don't repeat the "mistake" of writing down in memos how cool it is to play Jack Bauer. And as long as Smirky keeps lying to the world by saying we never torture.

- Habeas Corpus, the 900-year-old foundation of Democracy that you can't just lock people up for no reason, is a silly luxury we can't afford any more.

- Smirky is perfectly entitled to declare any U.S. citizen an enemy combatant and send them away to Guantanamo to be anally raped and waterboarded, for no reason whatsoever. As long as you are a Smirky-fellating, sky-wizard worshipping, loyal republican lemming, you have nothing to worry about.

- The Rule of Law - the only thing standing between us and utter chaos - is for wimps.

- The U.S. Constitution - the founding document of principles that gives Congress precedence over both the presidency and the courts - is stupid.

Although the Washington Post, like a good little lapdog, is suggesting that Mukasey made clear his opposition to torture, Glenn Greenwald in Salon live-blogged the hearings and proves otherwise.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.