"If the committees just want the facts, then they should withdraw the subpoenas and accept the president's offer, instead of this continued pattern of gross overreach and confrontation," said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.

I'm sorry, but after this week's series in the Post and the history of the administration of feeding complete bullshit to Congress (see Fredo's appearances before both the senate and house judiciary committees, the Katrina video, the WMD bunk, Scooter Libby lying to a grand jury to block the investigation into the Plame affair as a short list) accepting the Preznit's offer would be like thanking someone for handing you a blivet.

On a completely separate point, it's nice that the folks at Huffpo are now an AP distributor. Takes less hunting for real news minus what Paris Hilton had for lunch (which Yahoo can be pretty bad about).

Dems Call White House Out on Subpoenas - The Huffington Post

At every stage since his capture, in a taxi bound for the Afghan-Pakistan border, Hicks had crossed a legal landscape that Cheney did more than anyone to reshape. He was Detainee 002 at Guantanamo Bay, arriving on opening day at an asserted no man's land beyond the reach of sovereign law. Interrogators questioned him under guidelines that gave legal cover to the infliction of pain and fear -- and, according to an affidavit filed by British lawyer Steven Grosz, Hicks was subjected to beatings, sodomy with a foreign object, sensory deprivation, disorienting drugs and prolonged shackling in painful positions.

The U.S. government denied those claims, and before accepting Hicks's guilty plea it required him to affirm that he had "never been illegally treated."

Part 2 of the Washington Post's piece on Cheney and where we are now. Required reading.

Pushing the Envelope on Presidential Power | Cheney | washingtonpost.com

While the U.S. military searches for a soldier missing in Iraq, kidnapped by insurgents possibly allied with al Qaeda, his wife back home in Massachusetts may be deported by the U.S. government.

No pithy remarks this time. This is just offensive.

Missing Soldier's Wife Faces Deportation, As Military Searches For Kidnapped Soldier In Iraq, U.S. Threatens To Send Wife Back To Dominican Republic - CBS News

Karen Stevens, Tovah Calderon and Teresa Kwong had a lot in common. They had good performance ratings as career lawyers in the Justice Department's civil rights division. And they were minority women transferred out of their jobs two years ago -- over the objections of their immediate supervisors -- by Bradley Schlozman, then the acting assistant attorney general for civil rights.

Schlozman ordered supervisors to tell the women that they had performance problems or that the office was overstaffed. But one lawyer, Conor Dugan, told colleagues that the recent Bush appointee had confided that his real motive was to "make room for some good Americans"

This sort of thing is WHY there's a civil rights division, and now these vermin are running it. Jim Crow is back.

Political Hiring in Justice Division Probed - washingtonpost.com

Bush chose former Iowa Rep. Jim Nussle, one-time chairman of the House Budget Committee, as Portman's successor.

That's right, Jim Nussle, the guy who pulled a paper bag over his head on the floor of Congress. Jim Nussle, the guy who lost the race for Iowa governor 54-44. Didn't they already try this strategery with Ashcroft?

White House Budget Director Resigns - The Huffington Post

The conservative jurist stuck up for Agent Bauer, arguing that fictional or not, federal agents require latitude in times of great crisis. "Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. ... He saved hundreds of thousands of lives," Judge Scalia said. Then, recalling Season 2, where the agent's rough interrogation tactics saved California from a terrorist nuke, the Supreme Court judge etched a line in the sand.

"Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?" Judge Scalia challenged his fellow judges. "Say that criminal law is against him? 'You have the right to a jury trial?' Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don't think so.

"So the question is really whether we believe in these absolutes. And ought we believe in these absolutes."

I wish I were making this up, but he really said it. Tony Scalia manages to argue in favor of torture and jury nullification. Oh, and uses a TV show as his source of jurisprudence. If I could make this shit up, I still wouldn't have a better job because no one would find it believable.

globeandmail.com: What would Jack Bauer do?

With President Bush’s 61st birthday a little over two weeks away, first lady Laura Bush is soliciting $61 donations from supporters of the Republican National Committee.

Fuck that. Send him a blivet.

CNN.com - CNN Political Ticker Laura Bush asks for birthday cash «

Defense lawyers in a growing number of cases are raising questions about the motives of government lawyers who have brought charges against their clients. In court papers, they are citing the furor over the U.S. attorney dismissals as evidence that their cases may have been infected by politics.

Justice officials say those concerns are unfounded and constitute desperate measures by desperate defendants. But the affair has given defendants and their lawyers some new energy, which is complicating life for the prosecutors.

This is going to get worse.

U.S. attorneys fallout seeps into courts - Los Angeles Times

A Justice Department investigation into the firings of U.S. attorneys is looking at whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales inappropriately discussed the ousters in a meeting his former White House liaison called "uncomfortable."

The two Justice officials leading the probe confirmed, in a letter released Thursday by the Senate Judiciary Committee, that they were examining the March meeting between Gonzales and former aide Monica M. Goodling.

"This is to confirm that the scope of our investigation does include this matter,"

Oops, can you say "Obstruction of Justice?"
Obstukshin.... ummm..
hmmm... How about "Witness tampering?"
"Witness Tampering!"

Probe Looks at Gonzales' Talk With Aide - The Huffington Post

An internal FBI audit has found that the bureau potentially violated the law or agency rules more than 1,000 times while collecting data about domestic phone calls, e-mails and financial transactions in recent years, far more than was documented in a Justice Department report in March that ignited bipartisan congressional criticism.

The new audit covers just 10 percent of the bureau's national security investigations since 2002, and so the mistakes in the FBI's domestic surveillance efforts probably number several thousand, bureau officials said in interviews.

Do we need another reason to reel the PATRIOT Act back in? I'm sure they're out there, but this all by itself seems to be sufficient.

FBI Finds It Frequently Overstepped in Collecting Data - washingtonpost.com