Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Comments

  1. Kewl.

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    Quite frankly his bloviation a few weeks ago asserting that the federal constitution doesn’t include a right to habeas corpus was so inane that he should have been laughed out of his office.

    • While I grant you that a portion of the Mexican American Community loves Speedy Gonzales.  Your characterization of the Hon. Alberto Gonzales as “Speedy Gonzales” smacks of racism. 

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      I thought we were supposed to respect races here at BMG?

      • …Apparently you’ve never heard the song by Charo.  Go get onto iTunes.

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        Don’t be stupid.

      • You better come home, Speedy Gonzales
        Away from tannery row
        Stop alla your a-drinkin’
        With that floozie named Flo
        Come on home to your adobe
        And slap some mud on the wall
        The roof is leakin’ like a strainer
        There’s loadsa roaches in the hall

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        Speedy Gonzales, why dontcha come home?
        Speedy Gonzales, how come ya leave me all alone?

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        Spoken in a male Mexican accent: Hey, Rosita-I hafta go shopping downtown
        for my mudder-she needs some tortillas and chili peppers.

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        (female voice singing a series of “La-la-la’s)

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        Your doggy’s gonna have a puppy
        And we’re runnin’ outta coke
        No enchiladas in the icebox
        And the television’s broke
        I saw some lipstick on your sweatshirt
        I smelled some perfume in your ear
        Well if you’re gonna keep on messin’
        Don’t bring your business back a-here

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        Mmm, Speedy Gonzales, why dontcha come home?
        Speedy Gonzales, how come ya leave me all alone?

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        Spoken in a male Mexican accent: Hey, Rosita-come queek-down at the cantina
        they giving green stamps with tequila!!

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        (female voice singing a series of “La-la-la’s)
        (female voice singing a series of “Ya-ya-ya’s)

      • …any lawyer who opines that the US Constitution does not provide for a right to habeas corpus is a jackas.

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        Is that direct enough for you?

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        How can the US constitution provide a limitation on the bases on which a privilege that supposedly cannot be revoked, does not exist.

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        I’m sorry, but that’s stupid.  The US constitution presupposes that the privilege of habeas corpus exists.  Speedy Gonzales’s claims to the contrary are stupid.

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        Yes, I mean stupid.

    • …Ashcroft’ two major failings were his spending US$8000 on drapes just to hide some boobs of a metal statue in the foyer of the DeptJustice building and his sending Jose Padilla over to the military as an “enemy combatant.”  Those are next to nothing in comparison to Speedy Gonzales asserting that there is no constituional right to habeas corpus, wouldn’t you say?

  3. Apparently, Gonzo is “dismayed” but was completely clueless of what’s going on in the Justice Department. 

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    Well, that makes me feel a lot better.

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    So who’s fault was it?  Kyle Sampson, well let me clarify, the already resigned Kyle Sampson.  Wow!  That worked out well.  Sampson was his Chief of Staff (funny how those pesky Chief of Staffs always get in trouble).  Glad he’s gone, thanks Alberto.  You’re all set.

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    That was one of the worst attempts to coverup the DoJ lying to Congress.  John Edwards just came out to say Gonzalez must go.  Those calls will not be going away with the pile of crap he put out there today.

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    Mitt?  Any thoughts since this is your party and you’re running for president?  ehem… no comment.

  4. on a long list of lying GOP scum, it’s just that he’s the head of the U.S. Department of Justice. Not for much longer.

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    As only Glen Greenwald can put it:

    Lying to Congress is what this administration generally — and the DOJ specifically — has done continuously. They lied to Congress about the FBI’s use of NSLs in order to induce re-authorization of the Patriot Act, and — now that those lies are exposed — they are now forced to retract those statements and change their false testimony made under oath. Alberto Gonzales made repeated false statements to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the state of the President’s eavesdropping activities, some of which he had to retract and some of which he still has not. And, of course, the false statements made over the years to the Congress by the administration regarding Iraq are literally too numerous to chronicle.

      • that all presidents do at start of their term.  bush did too.

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        whereas the 8 were we are discussing were fired because they were just too damn diligent about prosecuting criminals in bush’s party. can’t have that!  must keep those crooks in position to donate money, lots and lots of money to the rethuglican party!

        • They would have followed the advice of Harriet Meirs (!) and fired them all at the start of the second term.  Dumb.

            • The start of a second term is often accompanied by a large scale shuffle of the administration, to keep things fresh.  They could have easily sought resignations from all the US Attys, and kept some, replacing others.  There would have been no reason to personally attack the competence of the 8, and no one would have noticed.

              • …the start of the second Bush malAdministration term was two years ago.

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                Your comment makes no sense.

              • …what it appears that you were saying was that the proper time for the Bush malAdministration to have fired the US Attorneys was at the beginning of the 2d term.  True.  The fact that they waited until after the midterm election during the 2d term, and after a number of Republicon politicians had been indicted and thrown into prison, is highly suspicious.

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                I wonder if Patrick Fitzgerald’s days are numbered, now that he’s secured a conviction of Scooter.

                • My understanding is that was exactly the proposal that was rejected.  They might even have done it right after the midterm, given the results, to “shake things up.”  The only reason that this is now an issue is because they decided to attack the USAttys personally.

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                  I don’t think Fitzgerald can be fired; he’s a special prosecutor.  He certainly can’t be fired without causing a political fiasco.

                • …he is an actual US Attorney out of the Northern DIstrict of Illinois, who was brought into the Plame leak issue* on a special basis.  He can certainly be fired from his Illinois position.

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                  *One of the reasons that the Plame investigation took so long is that he also had to attend to his duties as prosecutor in Illinois during the Plame investigation.

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                  More on Fitzgerald here http://www.usdoj.gov…

      • been shot down, so please spare the pixels.

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        TPM has this nice recap by Sen.Chuck Schumer:

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        Schumer: Here are some of the falsehoods we’ve been told that are now unraveling.

        First, we were told that the seven of the eight U.S. attorneys were fired for performance reasons.

        It now turns out this was a falsehood, as the glowing performance evaluations attest.

        Second, we were told by the attorney general that he would, quote, “never, ever make a change for political reasons.”

        It now turns out that this was a falsehood, as all the evidence makes clear that this purge was based purely on politics, to punish prosecutors who were perceived to be too light on Democrats or too tough on Republicans.

        Third, we were told by the attorney general that this was just an overblown personnel matter.

        It now turns out that far from being a low-level personnel matter, this was a longstanding plan to exact political vendettas or to make political pay-offs.

        Fourth, we were told that the White House was not really involved in the plan to fire U.S. attorneys. This, too, turns out to be false.

        Harriet Miers was one of the masterminds of this plan, as demonstrated by numerous e-mails made public today. She communicated extensively with Kyle Sampson about the firings of the U.S. attorneys. In fact, she originally wanted to fire and replace the top prosecutors in all 93 districts across the country.

        Fifth,………

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        Abu Gonzalez is done. Could be jail time.

      • …when a new administration comes in it requests the resignations of all of the political appointees of the previous administration.  That is what the Clinton administration did.  Whether it accepted the resignations is another issue.

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        It is, however, unusual, for an administration to request, and accept, resignations of political appointees, not only mid-stream, but further advanced than that–six years into an administration.

  5. so when Congress comes a callin’ for evidence against
    the entire outfit, the competent us attorneys will be gone.

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    I want the names of who is still picking up a paycheck in these agencies.

  6. According to this story in today’s Seattle Times, fmr US Atty McKay explains how then-Chair of the Washington GOP contacted him regarding the status of the pending 2004 gubenatorial election.  There had been allegations by the GOP of voter fraud in an election that was won by less than 300 votes.  McKay was the one to decide whether to investigate such allegations.  The GOP guy was way out of line in making this phone call, as were the various GOP members of congress who made calls to the later-fired US Attys with cases pending.

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    tsk tsk.

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