When

the Cutting Is Corrupted By E. J. Dionne Jr.

Only the voters can render a judgment on a politics of favoritism that has

created a new Gilded Age. It’s clear that the national government has placed itself squarely on the side of the wealthy, the

privileged and the connected. …

The Medicaid cuts include increased co-payments and premiums on low-income Americans,

and the budget assumes savings because fewer poor people will visit the doctor. …

Ah, say their defenders, but

these cuts will be good for poor people. According to the New York Times, Rep. Joe L. Barton (R-Tex.), an architect of the

Medicaid proposals, said the higher co-payments were needed to “encourage personal responsibility” among low-income people.

Spoken like a congressman who never has to worry about his taxpayer-provided health coverage.

And that

is just one instance among many of corporate interests being shielded from cuts, while child support enforcement and foster care programs

were sliced.

Arch-conservative Krauthammer speaks about Bush “circumventing” the law. Where does “circumvent” lie

between enforcing and breaking the law? mjh

Charles Krauthammer Impeachment nonsense

Contrary to the

administration, I also believe that as a matter of political prudence and comity with Congress, Bush should have tried to get the law

changed rather than circumvent it. This was an error of political judgment. But that does not make it a crime. And only the most brazen

and reckless partisan could pretend it is anything approaching a high crime and misdemeanor.

Powell Speaks Out on Domestic Spy Program By STEVEN R. WEISMAN

Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said on Sunday … “My own judgment is that it didn’t seem to me, anyway, that it

would have been that hard to go get the warrants,” Mr. Powell said. “And even in the case of an emergency, you go and do it.

The law provides for that.”

But Mr. Powell added that “for reasons that the president has discussed and the

attorney general has spoken to, they chose not to do it that way.”

“I see absolutely nothing wrong with the president authorizing

these kinds of actions,” he said. …

Mr. Powell said he had not been told about the eavesdropping activity when he served as

secretary of state. … Though Mr. Powell stopped short of criticizing Mr. Bush, his suggestion that there was “another way to handle it”

was another example of his parting company on a critical issue with the president he served for four years.

I did not want to read this account

by Khaled El-Masri, who was kidnapped by Americans in Europe. I would call what he endured prolonged torture. The way his was treated

degrades us all. I refuse to endorse or tolerate a system that shrugs off this abuse. He was terrorized on our behalf. mjh

America kidnapped me – Los Angeles Times By Khaled El-Masri, KHALED EL-MASRI, a German citizen born in

Lebanon, was a car salesman before he was detained in December 2003.

THE U.S. POLICY of “extraordinary rendition” has a human

face, and it is mine.

I am still recovering from an experience that was completely beyond the pale, outside the bounds of any

legal framework and unacceptable in any civilized society. Because I believe in the American system of justice, I sued George Tenet, the

former CIA director, last week. What happened to me should never be allowed to happen again. …

Eventually my blindfold was

removed, and I saw men dressed in black, wearing black ski masks. I did not know their nationality. I was put in a diaper, a belt with

chains to my wrists and ankles, earmuffs, eye pads, a blindfold and a hood. I was thrown into a plane, and my legs and arms were spread-

eagled and secured to the floor. I felt two injections and became nearly unconscious. I felt the plane take off, land and take off. I

learned later that I had been taken to Afghanistan.

There, I was beaten again and left in a small, dirty, cold concrete cell. I

was extremely thirsty, but there was only a bottle of putrid water in the cell. I was refused fresh water. …

[read it all – America kidnapped

me By Khaled El-Masri]

America, United States, Times

Online, The Times, Sunday Times

In the end, the eagerness of a junior officer in the CIA’s Skopje office and a gut feeling on

the part of the head of the CIA’s al-Qaeda unit contrived to have Masri sent to a prison for terrorist suspects known as “The

Salt Pit” in Afghanistan.

“Masri was held for five months largely because the head of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center’s al

Qaeda unit ‘believed he was someone else’, one former CIA official said. ‘She didn’t really know. She just had a hunch,'” The

Washington Post reported.

Wrongful

Imprisonment: Anatomy of a CIA Mistake By Dana Priest, Washington Post Staff Writer

The Masri case, with new details gleaned

from interviews with current and former intelligence and diplomatic officials, offers a rare study of how pressure on the CIA to

apprehend al Qaeda members after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has led in some instances to detention based on thin or speculative

evidence. The case also shows how complicated it can be to correct errors in a system built and operated in secret.

The CIA,

working with other intelligence agencies, has captured an estimated 3,000 people, including several key leaders of al

Qaeda, in its campaign to dismantle terrorist networks. It is impossible to know, however, how many mistakes the CIA and its

foreign partners have made. [mjh: Because just reading this is giving aid to the enemy. Or so BushCo

claims.] …

Members of the Rendition Group follow a simple but standard procedure: Dressed head to toe in

black, including masks, they blindfold and cut the clothes off their new captives, then administer an enema and sleeping drugs. They

outfit detainees in a diaper and jumpsuit for what can be a day-long trip. Their destinations: either a detention facility operated by

cooperative countries in the Middle East and Central Asia, including Afghanistan, or one of the CIA’s own covert prisons — referred to

in classified documents as “black sites,” which at various times have been operated in eight countries, including several in Eastern

Europe.

In the months after the Sept. 11 attacks, the CTC was the place to be for CIA officers wanting in on the fight. The staff

ballooned from 300 to 1,200 nearly overnight.

“It was the Camelot of counterterrorism,” a former counterterrorism official said.

“We didn’t have to mess with others — and it was fun.” [mjh: Join the CIA. See the World. Torture for fun.]

…

The process of vetting and evaluating information suffered greatly, former and current intelligence officials said.

“Whatever quality control mechanisms were in play on September 10th were eliminated on September 11th,” a former senior

intelligence official said. …

[I]n line with the responsibility Bush bestowed on the CIA when he signed a top secret

presidential finding six days after the 9/11 attacks. It authorized an unprecedented range of covert action, including lethal measures

and renditions, disinformation campaigns and cyber attacks…. [It] played well at the White House, where the president was keeping a

scorecard of captured or killed terrorists.

Clash Is Latest Chapter in Bush Effort to Widen Executive Power

By Peter Baker and Jim VandeHei, Washington Post Staff Writers

The clash over the secret domestic spying program is one slice of a

broader struggle over the power of the presidency that has animated the Bush administration. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney came

to office convinced that the authority of the presidency had eroded and have spent the past five years trying to reclaim it.

…

The vice president entered the fray yesterday, rejecting the criticism and expounding on the philosophy that has driven so

many of the administration’s actions. “I believe in a strong, robust executive authority, and I think that the world we

live in demands it — and to some extent that we have an obligation as the administration to pass on the offices we hold to our

successors in as good of shape as we found them,” Cheney said. In wartime, he said, the president “needs to have his constitutional

powers unimpaired.”

Speaking with reporters traveling with him aboard Air Force Two to Oman, Cheney said the period after the

Watergate scandal and Vietnam War proved to be “the nadir of the modern presidency in terms of authority and legitimacy” and harmed the

chief executive’s ability to lead in a complicated, dangerous era. “But I do think that to some extent now we’ve been able to restore

the legitimate authority of the presidency.” …

“He’s living in a time warp,” said Bruce Fein, a constitutional

lawyer and Reagan administration official. “The great irony is Bush inherited the strongest presidency of anyone since Franklin

Roosevelt, and Cheney acts as if he’s still under the constraints of 1973 or 1974.”

Sen. John E. Sununu (R-N.H.) said:

“The vice president may be the only person I know of that believes the executive has somehow lost power over the last 30

years.” …

“The problem is, where do you stop rebalancing the power and go too far in the other direction?” asked David

A. Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union. “I think in some instances [Bush] has gone too far.”

Donors underwrite life of luxury for DeLay

As Tom DeLay became a

king of campaign fundraising, he lived like one too. He visited cliff-top Caribbean resorts, golf courses designed by PGA champions and

four-star restaurants — all courtesy of donors who bankrolled his political money empire.

Over the past six years, the former

House majority leader and his associates have visited places of luxury most Americans have never seen, often getting there aboard

corporate jets arranged by lobbyists and other special interests.

Public documents reviewed by The Associated Press tell the

story: at least 48 visits to golf clubs and resorts; 100 flights aboard company planes; 200 stays at hotels, many world-class; and 500

meals at restaurants, some averaging nearly $200 for a dinner for two.

Since he joined the House leadership as majority whip in 1995, DeLay has raised at least $35 million for his campaign, PACs,

foundation and legal defense fund. He hasn’t faced a serious re-election threat in recent years, giving him more leeway than candidates

in close races to spend campaign money.

AP’s review found DeLay’s various organizations spent at least $1 million over the last

six years on hotels, restaurants, golf resorts and corporate jet flights for their boss and his associates.

While it’s illegal for

a lawmaker to tap political donations for a family vacation, it is perfectly legal to spend it in luxury if the stated purpose is raising

more money or talking politics. …

Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., a Republican author of legislation that reformed campaign

finance, was just as critical of DeLay’s spending habits.

“It’s excessive, it’s obscene, it distorts someone’s

ability to have good judgment,” said Shays, a longtime critic of DeLay. “It’s an abuse of campaign finance law and of our ethics law.

It’s harmful to Congress in general and the Republican Party in particular. We need a new leader.”