Based on a series of leaked White House memos, Human Rights First and other civil rights groups have strong reservations about Alberto Gonzales' record on human rights and adherence to established domestic and international law. Human Rights First, has launched a campaign to ensure that the Senate obtains all the necessary information regarding Mr. Gonzales.

As the New York Times reported today, the Red Cross is calling the U.S. treatment of detainees “tantamount to torture”. Yale law prof Jack Balkin weighs in, as does law prof Michael Froomkin of Discourse.net.

As White House Counsel, HRF says the leaked memos show:

Tis the Season. Tom Ridge resigns as Chief of Homeland Security. Kwesi Mfume resigns as head of the NAACP. Mr. Mfume's departure is a loss.

by TChris

The filibuster protects the minority party from the tyranny of the majority party, and Republicans did not hesitate to use it (most famously, to keep Abe Fortas off the Supreme Court) when they were out of power.

Republican senators, including Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Mike DeWine of Ohio, used a filibuster in 1995 to block President Bill Clinton's nominee for surgeon general. Bill Frist, now the Senate majority leader, supported a filibuster of a Clinton appeals court nomination.

But now that Republicans command a Senate majority, some of the same senators view the filibuster as antithetical to democracy. Frist now considers the filibuster of a judicial confirmation to be "intolerable." Apart from being a hypocrite, he's wrong.

The Republicans see the filibuster as an annoying obstacle. But it is actually one of the checks and balances that the founders, who worried greatly about concentration of power, built into our system of government. It is also, right now, the main means by which the 48 percent of Americans who voted for John Kerry can influence federal policy. People who call themselves conservatives should find a way of achieving their goals without declaring war on one of the oldest traditions in American democracy.

Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack says "no thanks" to the DNC chairship and withdraws his name from consideration. Will it go to Howard Dean?

This is way too close for comfort.....not to mention three people lost their lives in a air tragedy today near Houston.

A private jet that was en route to Houston to pick up former President Bush clipped a light pole and crashed Monday as it approached Hobby Airport in thick fog, killing all three people aboard. The Gulfstream G-1159A jet, coming into Houston, went down about 6:15 a.m. in an undeveloped area 1 1/2 miles south of the airport, officials said. The former president had been scheduled to travel to Ecuador for a conference.

"I was deeply saddened to learn of the plane crash this morning," Bush said through spokesman Tom Frechette. "I'd flown with this group before and know them well. I join in sending heartfelt condolences to each and every member of their families."

Our condolences go out to their families as well. We may not agree with the former President on politics, but we're very glad he's safe and not in harm's way.

Don't miss cartoonist Mark Fiore's "Hello Alberto" about Attorney General-in-waiting Alberto Gonzales in the San Francisco Chronicle--watch the whole thing, it's less than a minute long but packs as much punch as a long article. [hat tip Peter Goldberger.]

The $388 billion spending bill passed by Congress Saturday may be 3,000 pages, but there's one page missing. It's the page that protected student loans, particularly those known as Pell Grants,the country's primary scholarship program.

The government moved to change its formula for college aid last year, but was blocked by Congress. Now, however, no such language appears in the appropriations bill lawmakers are considering, clearing the way for the government to scale back college grants for hundreds of thousands of low-income students.

Nearly 100,000 more students may lose their federal grants entirely, as Congress considers legislation that could place more of the financial burden for college on students and their families.

Who's responsible for this? Bush and the Republicans:

...the bill approved yesterday, brokered by Congressional leaders in a conference committee, eliminates a provision that would have barred the Education Department from changing the eligibility formula. A Senate staff member who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that the White House insisted the provision be dropped, citing the shortfall, and House Republicans were adamant in their agreement to do so.

In dollars and cents, it means:

Check this out--great message, great graphics--Brand Democrat via Oliver Willis.

by TChris

The House ethics committee, perhaps desiring to appear even-handed, found that Chris Bell's ethics complaint against Tom DeLay contained "excessive" and "inflammatory" language. But that seems to be what it took to prod the moribund committee to do its job.

DeLay is crowing that the committee's finding "vindicates" him, and other Republicans are engaging in the same kind of "excessive" and "inflammatory" rhetoric for which Bell was admonished.

Rep. Henry Bonilla (R-Tex.) absurdly termed the Bell complaint "one of the greatest abuses of the ethics process that the House of Representatives has ever seen" -- as if the ethics committee had not found grounds to admonish Mr. DeLay. Mr. DeLay himself insisted that he had simply been given a routine "mild warning" from the ethics committee. This transparent effort to rewrite history doesn't withstand scrutiny.

As the Washington Post points out, the committee's action against Bell can only have a chilling effect upon the willingness of other House members to complain of ethics violations -- and that may be exactly what the committee intended.

Meantime, the rules for the 109th Congress may be rewritten to make it even harder or riskier to bring ethics complaints. The last thing the House ethics process needs is less vigor.

Good for Clinton. Check out this exchange between Bill Clinton and Peter Jennings last night on ABC...Paula Zahn has played it twice tonight already:

Clinton added that he doesn't care about what his detractors think about him. Jennings then said it seemed to him that Clinton did care.

The former president responded, "You don't want to go here, Peter. You don't want to go here. Not after what you people did and the way you, your network, what you did with Kenneth Starr. The way your people repeated every, little sleazy thing he leaked. No one has any idea what that's like."

"You never had to live in a time when people you knew and cared about were being indicted, carted off to jail, bankrupted, ruined, because they were Democrats and because they would not lie," he said. "So, I think we showed a lot of moral fiber to stand up to that. To stand up to these constant investigations, to this constant bodyguard of lies, this avalanche that was thrown at all of us. And, yes, I failed once. And I sure paid for it. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry for the American people. And I'm sorry for the embarrassment they performed."

Gov. Arnold is homeless in Sacramento. He's been staying at the Presidential suite at the Hyatt for $6,000 a month, paid for by campaign funds. No more. The law limits him using such funds to a year after election, and that's now over. So where does he go? What does he envision in a Governor's home?

"This is California, and we should have a really fantastic place where we can entertain world leaders," Mr. Schwarzenegger said in a recent interview, describing imaginary grounds with a fountain, a circular driveway and hedgerows.

"It should have a room for dining and dancing and a place for after dinner,'' he said. "We could invite world leaders like the chancellor of Germany or the prime minister of South Africa."

To be fair, the people of California probably wouldn't foot the bill, private donations take care of it. Still, with his state in such a fiscal crisis, perhaps he should keep these dreams to himself.

Uber-right family values chief James Dobson had this to say about Arlen Specter's approval for Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee:

We are disappointed by the announcement that Sen. Specter will become the Judiciary chairman; however, he will assume his new position on a very short leash. The senator will have ample opportunity in his new position to follow through on his pledged support for the values of the Bush administration, the Senate leadership and the majority of this nation's voters. As the outcry of the past two weeks demonstrates, neither the Republican Party nor the American people will tolerate obstructionist politics when it comes to the confirmation of judicial nominees.