As usual, I speak for me only

Last week I asked for the following -- Out of Iraq Blogger Caucus or Idiot Liberals of the World Unite! The response has been overwhelming . . . Ok, actually, a few bloggers do agree with me. They are, along with other organizations:Peace Action; United for Peace; Military Families Speak Out; Insitritute for Public Accuracy; Code Pink; Democracy Rising; True Majority; Labor Against the War; PDA;Drawing the Line; Take It Personally; edger; Just A Bump in the Beltway; afterdowningstreet.org; democrats.com; NION; downwithtyranny; My Left Wing; propaganda press, as well as some FPers at daily kos, and the previously mentioned corrente and Gun Toting Liberal. I am sure there are others. I just do not know who they are.

Via Democrats.com:

Call your members of Congress now toll free at 800-828-0498, 800-459-1887 or 800-614-2803.

The case of the Juneau, Alaska high school student who was suspended from school for holding up a banner "Bong Hits for Jesus" when the Olympic torch was run through the town can only be described as idiotic. I understand why Frederick is fighting the suspension and why the ACLU is fighting the case. The idiots here are the Juneau high school principal, school board and of course, the DC based idiots - Kenneth Starr, who is representing the school board and the Supreme Court justices who voted to grant cert to this case.

States that insist on using death as a sanction have a special obligation to assure that the punishment is administered fairly and that the innocent aren't sentenced to die. This editorial, authored by the ABA's president and the chairman of the Indiana Death Penalty Assessment Team, chastizes Indiana for failing to adopt procedures that assure accurate and just results in death penalty trials.

We in the ABA and the members of Indiana’s assessment team, agree that if the government is to take a life, it must first provide justice throughout every stage of the proceedings, including the trial, appeals, and clemency proceedings. Justice is not simply swift retribution — it requires accuracy, due process and fairness, and the opportunity to verify that each of those qualities was present at trial.

Among other things, justice means that all DNA and other physical evidence must be preserved for as long as a death row inmate is incarcerated. As science advances, that evidence should be available for confirming testing. Currently, however, Indiana only requires preservation of biological evidence in limited circumstances.

Fired U.S. Attorney David Iglesias has an op-ed in today's New York Times.

United States attorneys have a long history of being insulated from politics. Although we receive our appointments through the political process (I am a Republican who was recommended by Senator Pete Domenici), we are expected to be apolitical once we are in office. I will never forget John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, telling me during the summer of 2001 that politics should play no role during my tenure. I took that message to heart. Little did I know that I could be fired for not being political.

He goes on to describe the telephone calls from Sen. Peter Domenici and Congresswoman Heather Wilson.

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I've been absent a lot the past few days because I've been working on my cases in the morning so I could attend and live-blog the jury selection and opening arguments of the Joseph Nacchio insider trading trial that began this week in Denver. A big thanks to Big Tent Democrat and TChris for posting in my absence.

A few things I learned from the Nacchio trial: I'm clueless about stock trading. I don't know a recurring revenue from a one-timer, a publicly stated financial target from a growth target, a sale of stock from a sale of a stock option. Nor do I want to.

I'll take kilos of pot, the legalities of wiretapping, how to cook powder coke into crack or whether lies amount to obstruction of justice any day of the week over this stuff. It's a good thing I'm not on the Nacchio jury. The learning curve would be way too steep.

Anyway, I'm done live-blogging Nacchio until the cooperating witnesses testify. That's the juicy part to me. Did they agree to tell the Government's truth in exchange for promises of leniency for their own misdeeds?

The highlight of the day for me was getting to talk to our relatively new U.S. Attorney Troy Eid in the elevator.

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This is mostly for the trial lawyers reading TalkLeft.

We all know how important it is to use opening statements as a vehicle to humanize our clients, to show a wrong has occurred and to convey the idea of their innocence of the charges against them.

Defense attorney Herb Stern (a former federal judge and prosecutor) did an excellent job in opening arguments today of humanizing his client, former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio, charged with insider trading.

First, he told the jury, "I'm going to tell you something no one has ever known." Everyone, jurors and those of us in the media room, leaned forward. Big pause.

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Via Glenn Greenwald:

Evidently, [the President] wants to shield virtually any communications that take place within the White House compound on the theory that all such talk contributes in some way, shape or form to the continuing success and harmony of an administration. Taken to its logical extreme, that position would make it impossible for citizens to hold a chief executive accountable for anything. He would have a constitutional right to cover up. . . . Most of us want no part of a president who is cynical enough to use the majesty of his office to evade the one thing he is sworn to uphold -- the rule of law.

Hear hear Tony! . . . Oh wait . . . Signing off folks. Until tomorrow.

Progressives are saps. Blue Dogs know how to fight better. Case in point:

The Blue Dogs get an Iraq funding bill tailored for them and one of their leaders says:

Tanner, the Blue Dog representative on the chief deputy whip's team, had been undecided until yesterday morning. Now that he is on board, he hastened to add that he is not about to start leaning on his Blue Dog colleagues. "I don't ask people to vote on the leadership's behalf, particularly on a vote like this," he said.

A progressive, who got figuratively spat on by the Dem leadership, says:

Schakowsky, like Waters, is one of nine chief deputy whips, and her early statements of opposition had stunned leaders. She pledged yesterday to press liberal members of the House Out of Iraq Caucus and Progressive Caucus to fall into line.

On February 26, I wrote a post titled Fast Forward: 2008 . . . What have Dems Done To End the War in Iraq?, I said:

And now we come to some practical realities - the Congress can only end the Iraq Debacle by NOT FUNDING IT. It may scare some people to say those words - I think it is an unfounded fear as I have explained many times. But let me give them a political scenario that is scarier -- come 2008 -- when faced with the question "What did a Democratic Congress do to end the Iraq Debacle?", when the answer is nothing, what do you think the voters are going to say? Spineless Dems ALWAYS lose. Always.

Recent polling should send a shiver down the Dems' spine:

A new poll finds that the approval rating of the Dem-controlled Congress is on the skids among not just Republicans, but Democrats, too -- and the pollster speculates that the Dems failure to "do anything substantive" on Iraq could be the reason why.

So here we are:

President Bush and Senate Democrats clashed angrily this afternoon, as the president said he would not allow his key aides to testify under oath about the dismissal of United States attorneys, while the Democrats insisted they would settle for no less.

So Congress issues the subpoenas. BushCo officials defy them. What next? Congress seeks to enforce them in United States District Court for the District of Columbia. But if this to be fought in the court, it'll end up in the Supreme Court. Kagro notes it is the Department of Justice that usually represents the Congress in cases of enforcing subpoenas. Obviously, it won't here. Independent counsel will be retained or current Congressional lawyers will. What is the state of the law on this issue? And the issue will be executive privilege. I wrote a post on this a few days ago. Short version - it won't be decided by law. It will be the politics of this that decides it. To wit - who ever loses the political battle with the American People will give in the most. Right now, the Dems have a great hand to play. Let's hope they don't screw it up. But if you insist on a little more law on the matter, I have some on the flip.

As always I speak for me only and kudos to Bob Fertik for speaking the truth

Chris Bowers continues the MYDD approach of arguing by assertion the DC Dem Establishment position, while, to his credit, NOW acknowledging that he is not arguing the PROGRESSIVE position:

At this point, there are very few Republicans who will vote in favor. From what I hear, there are also currently more Progressives opposed to the bill than there are Blue Dogs. Given this, the politics of the supplemental fight, which will continue for some time even after the House votes on this bill, now make it clear that it is extremely important progressives do not join with Republicans in order to defeat this legislation at this time. The simple fact is that if this bill is defeated in the House, then there will be another--weaker--funding bill. . . .

It is ironic that while reporting that THIS bill is in grave danger of not passing, Chris assures us that a WEAKER bill WILL pass. What is he saying here? It is this - the DEMOCRATIC Leadership will accomodate REPUBLICANS before it will accomodate Progressives. What an indictment of the Dem leadership in the House. I could not have said anything more damning than Chris has just done.

The jury was sworn in this morning in the insider trading trial of Qwest former CEO Joseph Nacchio.

I'm over at 5280.com live-blogging opening arguments from the courthouse.