Light blogging Monday and Tuesday, moving back into school and starting up the semester.

Josh Marshall lays the facts out regarding whether or not Democrats are involved in the Abramoff scandal, the answer of course is no.

Sure, some Democrats may have gotten donations from groups Abramoff lobbied for, but that’s more “tainted-money” then the money this scandal is concerned with. Sen. Dorgan received tainted money, but that’s because he represents Indian tribes as part of his State, and has received donations from them for years, the fact that Abramoff may have also worked for that tribe has nothing to do with the corruption case.

The case instead as blogged on earlier is regarding quid-quo-pro favors, and doesn’t pertain to the natural day to day function on Capitol Hill.

The First Lady began her trip to Africa today, and began her trip expressing disappointment in those who criticize the Bush AIDS plan for Africa. From the article:

Opponents contend that money under the Bush program is often siphoned off to faith-based groups that preach abstinence, but supporters say in Africa promoting the use of condoms has failed to halt the disease.

“I’m always a little bit irritated when I hear the criticism of abstinence, because abstinence is absolutely 100 percent effective in eradicating a sexually transmitted disease,” Bush said.

Actually from my semester spent working in an AIDS clinic, I got the crazy impression that the way to eradicate a disease like AIDS, was abstinence/safe-sex and also treatment. Treatment being the biggest lacking factor in US aid to Africa. The article also says that Bush is asking for a $15 billion emergency plan. This is the same plan he mentioned in the 2003 State of the Union address, of course it seems to have fallen off the radar as he’s about to give another SOTU in 2006.

We can only hope that a real commitment to eradicating AIDS through African will someday be made by the nations of the world with the financial and moral might to do so, but as long as we continue to talk about a $15 billion emergency plan that hasn’t happened and insist that abstinence alone is how to eradicate the disease, we’re hopeless.

That’s impeachment. Today on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulus Senator Specter had the following to say:

STEPHANOPOULOS: There was a lot of talk about that at the Alito hearings, and listening closely to you I certainly seem to take away that you believe the president does not have the right, does not have the inherent power under the Constitution to circumvent a constitutional law, and as far as you are concerned, the FISA law is constitutional, isn’t it?

SPECTER: Well, I started off by saying that he didn’t have the authority under the resolution authorizing the use of force. The president has to follow the Constitution. Where you have a law which is constitutional, like Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, there still may be collateral different powers in the president under wartime circumstances.

That’s a very knotty question that I’m not prepared to answer on a Sunday soundbite. But I do believe that it ought to be thoroughly examined. And when we were on the Patriot Act and found the disclosure of the surveillance, I immediately said the Judiciary Committee would hold hearings, and I talked to the attorney general, and we’re going to explore it in depth, George. You can count on that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, if the president did break the law or circumvent the law, what’s the remedy?

SPECTER: Well, the remedy could be a variety of things. A president ” and I’m not suggesting remotely that there’s any basis, but you’re asking, really, theory, what’s the remedy? Impeachment is a remedy. After impeachment, you could have a criminal prosecution, but the principal remedy, George, under our society is to pay a political price.

As to the legality, Think Progress points to this article in the Washington Post regarding a report by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service. The report states “that the administration’s justification for the warrantless eavesdropping authorized by President Bush conflicts with existing law and hinges on weak legal arguments.”

Wouldn’t it be a twist of fate if things moved in the direction they should? After all Stephanopolous was the first in the media to mention impeachment during the Clinton scandal, and on his show it’s been mentioned again by a member of the President’s own party.

There’s been a lot of questioning as to what the actual evidence is against lawmakers that Abramoff will be able to provide in order to implicate them for their actions. Further, there remains in some circles questions as to what actually happened, what was the nature of the corruption. This week an article in Time Magazine seeks to start that explanation.

The article focuses on the soon to be famous emails between Scanlon and Abramoff. For two such smart guys you’d figure they’d try to be a little more covert in their dealings, although I suppose when your party is doing the wiretapping you really have little to fear. The email in question here regards a donation of $10,000 to the NRCC from SunCruz Casinos.

On Oct. 20, 2000, the e-mail records show, Scanlon sent Abramoff Scanlon’s draft of a statement praising Adam Kidan, a co-owner of SunCruz Casinos, a Florida gambling-boat company that Abramoff and Kidan had bought the month before, after a public dispute with the previous owner. Abramoff and Kidan, who have since pleaded guilty in Florida to fraud in connection with their financing of the SunCruz purchase, hoped that Ney’s positive statement would “let people know that SunCruz now was in honest hands,” according to a source familiar with the case. In an Oct. 23 e-mail, Abramoff proposed throwing $10,000 at the NRCC in the form of a SunCruz check signed by Kidan. The money was sent within days, and Ney got credit within the G.O.P. for raising it. Ney then inserted praise for Kidan into the Oct. 26 Congressional Record.

The entire Abramoff scandal has raised questions as to whether this is merely a case of corruption being built upon legally reported campaign donations. In fact a conversation I recently had took this same vein. However, as the Time article continues to point out through the comments of a government expert on criminal law: “Contributions are lawful only if made in support of a lawmaker’s policies. They are clearly illegal as part of a prenegotiated deal involving a quid pro quo.”

That doesn’t sound good for the cabal of corruption atop Capitol Hill. This issue is separate from legal donations, or even the perks of being a lawmaker. This is a direct contribution for an action that had nothing to do with the legitimate function of Ney in his role in Congress and upon performing this favor, he was credited with a $10,000 check to the NRCC to which he must fundraise to certain levels in order to retain his chairmanship. Does not this also speak to a greater corruption within the GOP that runs our Congress? Are chairmanships based upon successful fundraising efforts? It would make sense to me that the best qualified person should sit on each committee, but this corruption and crooked way of doing business just goes deeper and deeper.

In Sunday editorial section the Gray Lady had some choice words for the president. The article details the growing imperialism of the current presidency, pushed forward by it’s increasing annexation of governmental power, including warrantless wiretaps, the treatment of detainees, and the make up of our judicial processes. In closing the Times says:

The administration’s behavior shows how high and immediate the stakes are in the Alito nomination, and how urgent it is for Congress to curtail Mr. Bush’s expansion of power. Nothing in the national consensus to combat terrorism after 9/11 envisioned the unilateral rewriting of more than 200 years of tradition and law by one president embarked on an ideological crusade.

Now if only the rest of the Democratic Party saw what was at stake here.

Hit the wires nearly an hour ago, Kuwait’s Emir has died.

For the first time since Kuwait gained independence from Britain in 1961, the emir in 2003 split the posts of crown prince and prime minister which had been held by the ailing crown prince Sheikh Saad al-Abdullah al-Sabah since 1978, naming Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, his half-brother, as premier.

Under the Kuwaiti constitution, crown prince Sheikh Saad, who has been ill since undergoing colon surgery in 1997, will automatically become emir of the Gulf Arab state, an
OPEC member which pumps around 2.6 million barrels of oil a day.

Governor Kaine of Virginia has stated that he will sign an amendment passed by the Virginia house. The amendment is an outright ban on equal marriage rights to gay citizens. After Kaine signs the amendment it will need to be approved by the Senate before it appears on the ballot for referendum.

Kaine’s spokesman had the following to say regarding the issue:

The governor-elect will sign the bill to call for a referendum. Kaine supports the amendment and opposes civil unions, she said. She added that he is interested in discussing measures to make sure people can still be able to contract with each other.

Huh? So the Governor not only supports a constitutional ban on gay marriage, but is also opposing civil-unions. It seems that to him all they need is a simple contract, never mind the fact that gays and lesbians in Virginia would constitutionally be relegated to second-class citizens. On Kaine’s point of wanting to make sure people can still contract with each other, I wonder what his feelings were on the two attempts to limit the scope of this amendment.

Del. Kristen J. Amundson’s (D-District 44) amendment, which received only 35 votes, would have eliminated all language except for: Only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriage valid in or recognized by this Commonwealth and its political subdivisions.

Del. Vivian Watts’ (D-District 39) amendment was also rejected by a vote of 36 to 60. She proposed including a clarification that the amendment would not change any other right, benefit, obligation or legal status pertaining to persons not married.

It seems clear that the failure to include such language is nothing more than a direct assault on Virginia’s gay and lesbian communities. What I don’t understand is Kaine has no worry of re-election, VA limits the Governor to one, five year term. If anything he should use his position as a chance to further gay and lesbian rights in a state where the chance may not come again. Instead he decides to back a movement to add subjugation and discrimination into his state’s Constitution.

Well done Governor, well done.

…And personally execute your convicted murderers and child rapists. This is the platform of Jonathan “The Impaler” Shockey. Shockey is a self described satanist, who doesn’t hate Jesus, only God the Father.

An Independent candidate, we assume The Impaler, unlike “The Body” will have a hard time getting elected to top spot in Minnesota. Additionally, perhaps it’s time the Minnesota people outlawed those running for public office to refer to themselves as “The” anything in a nickname.

Whenever the yearly tradition of American Idol comes around I wonder whether or not we’re going to hell in a handbasket.  Yet, we’re not the only nation of dolts.  A recent British survey suggests “more than one in 10 young Britons would quit school to become tomorrow’s tabloid star.”

Thank you England.

HatTip: truthout. According to a recently declassified document, available through GWU’s National Security Archive, Bush began an extensive eavesdropping and data-mining program prior to 9/11.

Jason Leopold of truthout gives the document an exhaustive review highlighting the most important parts, that Bush pushed forward these changes, and unlike in the past the NSA instead of redacting the names of Americans it would happen to drop in on in their surveillance, they would now keep track of these names.

James Risen, author of the book State of War and credited with first breaking the story about the NSA’s domestic surveillance operations, said President Bush personally authorized a change in the agency’s long-standing policies shortly after he was sworn in in 2001.

“The president personally and directly authorized new operations, like the NSA’s domestic surveillance program, that almost certainly would never have been approved under normal circumstances and that raised serious legal or political questions,” Risen wrote in the book. “Because of the fevered climate created throughout the government by the president and his senior advisers, Bush sent signals of what he wanted done, without explicit presidential orders” and “the most ambitious got the message.”

The NSA’s domestic surveillance activities that began in early 2001 reached a boiling point shortly after 9/11, when senior administration officials and top intelligence officials asked the NSA to share that data with other intelligence officials who worked for the FBI and the CIA to hunt down terrorists that might be in the United States. However the NSA, on advice from its lawyers, destroyed the records, fearing the agency could be subjected to lawsuits by American citizens identified in the agency’s raw intelligence reports.

Of course the implications here are clear. Contrary to what Bush has said the spying program was not born out of post 9/11 concerns, but instead began with his term of office. Further, the report mentioned that the Director of National Security is required to brief Congress, which of course we now know didn’t happen. Not to mention we also now know that this spying and surveillance program started before 9/11, despite claims to the contrary.

Rep. Bob Ney from Ohio has been asked by the Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, to resign his chairmanship. Ney of course has been a likely target of further investigation into the Abramoff affair. From the AP:

Ney’s committee has jurisdiction over the Republican reform agenda in the wake of the Abramoff scandal, and Hastert believes it is inappropriate to let Ney run it, said a GOP leadership aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the negotiations between Ney and the speaker.

Things just look worse and worse.