"we now know that the democratic leadership knew about the illegal surveillance program almost from its inception...they were aware of an unlawful surveillance program as well as a torture program. and ever since that came out the democrats have been silently trying to kill any effort to hold anyone accountable because that list could very well include some of their own members.

Turley is correct: see my post from December 2007, citing the Washington Post:

    In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique[ly illegal and unconstitutional?] CIA program designed to wring [torture] vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the Bipartisan group, which included future-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites [gulags] and the harsh techniques [torture] interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.

    Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill [not to mention the US military**]. But on that day, no objections were raised.

    With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods [torture] during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter. The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan).

So now you know why impeachment is off the table, and why the telecoms will get immunity. It's old news, yet no less a vile and disgusting state of affairs, and I encourage all of you to take action and contribute to actblue to run ads targeting these disgusting self-serving sociopaths who have no respect for law or morals or humanity or anything other than their own skins.

Throw the bums out.

HOUSE CHAIRMAN OPEN TO REPUBLICAN COMPROMISE ON FISA

The House Intelligence Committee's top Democrat disclosed late Tuesday that he is ready to accept a Republican-brokered deal to rewrite the nation's electronic surveillance laws, signaling that a long-running congressional impasse could soon be coming to an end.

House Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes told CongressDaily that he is "fine" with language offered by Senate Intelligence ranking member Christopher (Kit) Bond and other Republicans to overhaul the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Notably, the GOP language, which was offered a day before the recent congressional recess, would leave it up to the secret FISA court to grant retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications companies that have helped the Bush administration conduct electronic surveillance on the communications of U.S. citizens without warrants.

Digby adds that this smells like a cover-up, since it's not about money but about discovery.

Silvestre Reyes can be reached at (202) 225-4831.

It's also a good idea to give Pelosi, Hoyer, and the rest of leadership an earful, as well as your own rep.

I will be reminding Mr. reyes about how the netroots took out Al Wynn and what we're doing to Chris Carney.

But to see John McCain slither out from under his rock to lob the same accusations at the Democratic candidate was too much... and also opened the door to some fun at the candidate's expense.  

Riiiing... riiiiiing
"Hello, Senator McCain's office."

While I had NOTHING to do with that one (oh how I wish I did, because "pinching the squid" is my new favorite euphemism), I had the unique pleasure of calling Patrick McHenry's office today (this by the way is cross-posted at brendan calling).

Via Atrios, it looks like we have another example of supporting our troops from Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC, oted closet case and possible murder suspect):

   We spent the night in the Green Zone, in the poolhouse of one of Saddam's palaces. A little weird, I got to be honest with you. But I felt safe. And so in the morning, I got up early -- not that I make this a great habit -- but I went to the gym because I just couldn't sleep and everything else. Well, sure enough, the guard wouldn't let me in. Said I didn't have the correct credentials.

    It's 5:00 in the morning. I haven't had sleep. I was not very happy with this two-bit security guard. So you know, I said, "I want to see your supervisor." Thirty minutes later, the supervisor wasn't happy with me, they escort me back to my room. It happens. I guess I didn't need to work out anyway.

God knows how many years the "two-bit security guard" has spent in Iraq, while 32 year old, able-bodied chickenhawk Patrick McHenry has been drawing a substantial salary and A-plus health benefits in the House, so I made a call.

Riiing.  Riiiiiiiing.

"Hello, Representative McHenry's office."

"Hi, My name's Brendan Skwire.  I heard Representative McHenry's regrettable "two-bit security guard" comments today, and I'm calling because I have several friends serving in Iraq.  One of them is on his third or fourth tour of duty, he's left behind a wife and two young children.  No one knows when he's coming back, but his marriage is strained and there's been talk of divorce.  So I did a little poking around and I noticed that Mr. McHenry's only 32 years old.

"So I'm wondering why Mr. McHenry, who seems to be able-bodied, isn't serving in the military? I mean, the military has extended the enlistment age and lowered its entry standards because they've been going through troops so fast. Maybe he can serve his country in a really helpful way, instead of shooting off his fat mouth about the soldiers he sent off to Iraq."

"Sir," the woman answered, "I assure you that Representative McHenry is serving his country in the best way he knows how."

"Oh, I'm sure he is," I responded. "Could you tell me how much money Mr. McHenry makes compared to your standard soldier?  Could you tell me how much time he spends away from his family?"

"Sir, I understand your feelings. My father is in the military..."

"Ya know," I interrupted, "I did a lot of research on your employer and found a number of unflattering things about him on the internet, something about a murder, and something about him being a closeted homosexual. So I have some problem with Mr. McHenry attacking members of the military which he can't even join if he wanted to."

"Murder?  Wh-- Oh my god.  Oh my god," the woman said. "Look, they were unfortunate comments, I have to go now."

And she hung up the phone.

From my pal Tim:

I don't know if you knew or remember this guy, but Jay M., Mark M's little brother (both of whom worked at Christie's for a while with Joe Kelly, Bobby Cocktails, etc.), is dead.

He was a smart, loveable fuck-up a couple of years younger than us who lived for years in Newport (they grew up in Fall River) who had some issues with drugs (who fucking didn't?) and got into some trouble, but later woke up, grew up, and as part of his efforts to turn his life around and get on the straight-and-narrow, joined the US Marines. He ended up being shipped off to Iraq. He was living somewhere down south and had been back from a recent tour of duty (probably more than one, given the way the regime ruining/running the country has been abusing its American service people) and apparently had been suffering severe PTSD. A few weeks ago, he took his own life by throwing himself in front of an eighteen-wheeler on a highway. It had to be PTSD, because that guy, even in the depths of his drug problems, loved life and was too fucking cerebral to remotely fit any profile of a suicide case. Pauly told me a couple of weeks ago that he'd heard a rumor about it, but at the Fu Manchu show, Joe Kelly confirmed it. Joe, his wife, and Mike Livingston were up in Cambridge for the show, and he filled me in at the merch table. Joe still hangs out with Mark ("I've been making a point of spending as much time as I can these days," he said), so he had, sadly, the best access to the truth.

It's fucking awful, and as I said to Joe, it's not Jay's fault and it's just the tip of the fucking iceberg. I am not religious but at times like this I really hope there is a just god and a place more horrible than any existing human conception of eternal hell for the criminal warlords like Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, etc. to burn and suffer for the countless worthwhile lives like Jay's that they have and will continue to ruin. What a sad, sickening mess. Words fail to capture it.

I called up Clinton's campaign in Pennsylvania and read them this email.  They told me they were sorry for my loss, urged me to have a wonderful day, and hung up the phone quickly.  Arlen Specter's office put me on hold, and never returned to the phone.

Why should they care?  It's not their kid.  It's not their friends...

Having lived through the Bill Clintoon (th-th-th-there go your jobs, folks), and jumped off that bandwagon in 1996 after NAFTA and the PRWORA, it was still more difficult than I expected to support Obama.  

I think most of us can agree that Nancy Pelosi has been an execrable disappointment as the first female Speaker of the House.  We were all hoping for someone tough, who would stand up to Bush, and who would drive the progressive agenda forward: instead we got a collaborator, an excuse-maker, a weakling who buckles to the slightest pressure.

Here she is allowing Blue Dogs to hold the Democratic Caucus hostage on FISA:

Pelosi says that she "absolutely" opposes retroactive immunity for the telecoms, but that she "didn't want the fight to be so focused there that we neglect exclusivity." Pelosi added that the House leadership was "at the mercy of the 17 or 18 Democrats in the Senate who are voting with the Republicans on this" and said that "we are trying to work with the Dems in the Senate to come to an agreement" on exclusivity, immunity, and other issues.

"At the mercy if the 17 or 18 Democrats"?  Memo to Speaker Pelosi: it's called "arm-twisting". Or as the always-eloquent Karl Rove once said of a political operative who refused to play ball, "We will fuck him. Do you hear me? We will fuck him. We will ruin him. Like no one has ever fucked him!"

So if you want your Democrats to vote your way, Ms. Pelosi, go get Congressman Clyburn and let your Democrats and Blue Dogs know that if they don't vote down telecom immunity, that they will find themselves so utterly fucked they'll taste their own scrotums whenever they belch.

It's not that difficult a concept, especially with freshmen like Chris Carney, Jerry McNerny, and Jason Altmire who are going to need help to win re-election.  Threaten to withhold funds when they face their primaries.  Threaten to block their legislation. Threaten to defund their projects.  There's a lot you can do.

Of course, this whole tactic would call on you to show integrity and spine, which is something you simply don't have much of, Ms. Pelosi.  Instead, Americans see the unsightly spectacle of the Speaker of the House whining like a little baby, showing that she's too weak to control her own caucus.

Is that the example you want to set?

Instead, I'm trying a new style: altbier.

The Germans are known for their crisp lagers, but lager yeast didn't come along until the mid-1800s (first used in America in Philadelphia PA, near where the remains of Ortliebs Brewery stands today).  Before that, like everyone else, the Germans made ales. Alt (or "old") is one of the few remaining German ale styles, yet like lagers, it's conditioned at colder temperatures. The cold temperatures give the beer a certain clarity and smoothness.

I'm not sure if I have the patience to age mine for up to 4 months, but I'm not too worried about it: the recipes I've found on line have secondary fermentation times that begin with as little as 2 weeks.  Join me below for this experimental recipe...

Charles Schumer (D-Torture) paid a visit to daily kos today.

The stated reason was to discuss that "Winning the Presidency Isn't Enough", but really it was... well you be the judge:

The last time I posted here on DailyKos, I asked for your help recruiting quality candidates to run for the US Senate.  The netroots responded - Web sites urging candidates to run sprung up, blog posts and emails went out, and today we have a Democratic field in the Senate that's loaded with talent.

Beating incumbent Republicans is always a challenge.   Our first goal was to recruit top-notch candidates in blue states - and today I can report that there are vibrant campaigns in states like New Hampshire, Maine, Oregon, and Minnesota.   Another goal is to remain competitive in states with retirements...

 In 2008, I expect that the netroots will play an important role in every winning Senate race - we simply can't do it without the support and passion of the grassroots...

Thank you again for your interest, I'll try and answer as many questions as possible in the time I have.

Alas, Senator Schumer answered but one question, and that just barely.  The flood began at question five (and I've deleted all the names and rec numbers since it made for crappy reading):

UPDATED AGAIN VIA TPM MUckraker, 21 Democrats in the House may sell out of FISA:

Senior congressional aides said there was no clear path to a compromise on the issue. But a series of recent defections by moderate Democrats in the House raises prospects that the White House position -- or something close to it -- eventually may prevail....

Reluctant to be portrayed as depriving the government of a key tool in the war on terrorism, 21 members of a bloc of moderate House Democrats signed a letter endorsing the Senate approach. Senior Democratic aides said those defections suggested there might be enough support in the House to pass the Senate bill.

Unfortunately, neither TPM nor the LA Times (the source) say who these 21 DemocRATS are.  I called Conyers' office, but to no avail. They transferred me to the House Judiciary Committee, which couldn't answer my question either.  

Who are these Democrats?  Constituents and citizens have a right to know who plans to sell the Fourth Amendment to the highest bidder.  

Does anyone know? UPDATE: Via Daily Kos, now we know:

* Rep. Leonard L. Boswell, D-Iowa -- Phone: (202) 225-3806, Fax: (202) 225-5608 * Rep. Marion Berry, D-Ark. -- Phone: (202) 225-4076, Fax: (202) 225-5602 * Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark. -- Phone: (202) 225-3772, Fax: (202) 225-1314 * Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D. -- Phone: (202) 225-2611, Fax: (202) 226-0893 * Rep. Robert E. "Bud" Cramer, D-Ala. -- Phone: (202) 225-4801, Fax: (202) 225-4392 * Rep. Melissa Bean, D-Ill. -- Phone: (202) 225-3711, Fax: (202) 225-7830 * Rep. Heath Shuler, D-N.C. -- Phone: (202) 225-6401, Fax: (202) 226-6422 * Rep. John Barrow, D-Ga. -- Phone: (202) 225-2823, Fax: (202) 225-3377 * Rep. Allen Boyd, D-Fla. -- Phone: (202) 225-5235, Fax: (202) 225-5615 * Rep. Joe Baca, D-Calif. -- Phone: (202) 225-6161, Fax: (202) 225-8671 * Rep. Dan Boren, D-Okla. -- Phone: (202) 225-2701, Fax: (202) 225-3038 * Rep. John Tanner, D-Tenn. -- Phone: (202) 225-4714, Fax: (202) 225-1765 * Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah -- Phone: (202) 225-3011, Fax: (202) 225-5638 * Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn. -- Phone: (202) 225-4311, Fax: (202) 226-1035 * Rep. Lincoln Davis, D-Tenn. -- Phone: (202) 225-6831, Fax: (202) 226-5172 * Rep. Brad Ellsworth, D-Ind. -- Phone: (202) 225-4636, Fax: (202) 225-3284 * Rep. Tim Holden, D-Pa. -- Phone: (202) 225-5546, Fax: (202) 226-0996 * Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-La. -- Phone: (202) 225-4031, Fax: (202) 226-3944 * Rep. Dennis Moore, D-Kan. -- Phone: (202) 225-2865, Fax: (202) 225-2807 * Rep. Christopher Carney, D-Pa. -- Phone: (202) 225-3731, Fax: (202) 225-9594 * Rep. Zack Space, D-Ohio -- Phone: (202) 225-6265, Fax: (202) 225-3394 If this bad bill is jammed through the House of Representatives, it will be their fault. Call them and tell them to support the RESTORE Act without modification, and to support the 21 day extension of the current law. Tell them to stop enabling the Republicans and Bush in taking away our civil liberties.

UPDATE 2: According to mcjoan at daily kos:

Update: The House Dems just prevailed, 222-196 in beating back the Rs effort to substitute the Senate version of the FISA bill for the bill currently on the floor, a 21 day extension of the Protect America Act. This was a procedural vote, but a good win. Now the vote is on extending the PAA.

Update 2: The 21 day extension fails, 191-229.

I don't know what happens next.

Powell  May Support a Democrat or Independent This Year.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a Republican who served under President Bush, said Friday he may not back the GOP presidential nominee in November, telling CNN that "I am keeping my options open at the moment."

"I have voted for members of both parties in the course of my adult life," Powell, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "And as I said earlier, I will vote for the candidate I think can do the best job for America, whether that candidate is a Republican, a Democrat, or an Independent."

Hey Colin, big fave, mmm'kay? Fuck. Off.  Don't come sidling around the Democrats, who already have PLENTY of credibility problems of their own, trying to clean up your reputation and make yourself out to be some kind of independent man of character and integrity.

No one, but NO ONE, forgotten your role in the Iraq debacle with your little vial of semen or whatever it was you were pretending was nerve gas at the UN.  Do you honestly think any Democrat with half a brain wants you showing up doling out your endorsement?  My God, NAMBLA would be preferable to you: at least they admit what they are.  Typhoid Mary would be preferable to a Powell endorsement.  ED FUCKING GEIN would be preferable to a Powell endorsement.

You are a disgrace, Mr. Powell, one of many directly responsible for the deaths of nearly 4,000 American soldiers and counting. How many of your compatriots have come home legless, armless, faceless, psychotic?  You knew the case for war was "bullshit", and yet there you were holding up your sample to the UN.

If you had any honor at all in your Mai-Lai covering-up body, you would have taken out your service revolver long ago and put that thing to good use.

But do NOT, DO NOT, come slinking around the Democratic Party's candidates or unaffiliated voters like the mangy dog you are thinking you can rehab your reputation through association.  I realize you're desperate to remove the albatross you've hung around your neck, but dude it is WAY too late for that.  You will always be that guy that prostituted what remained of his integrity to enable a war based on lies.  I hope they paid you well.

Go jump in a lake.  Preferably from off a very tall bridge, with a cinder block or two chained to your ankle.

However, given Mukasey's Refusal to Say Whether He Was Instructed Not to Enforce Subpoenas, I think it's important to take a trip down memory lane to see how Charles Schumer defended his decision to confirm Gonzo 2.0.

Op-Ed Contributor
A Vote for Justice

By CHARLES SCHUMER
Published: November 6, 2007

I AM voting today to support Michael B. Mukasey for attorney general for one critical reason: the Department of Justice -- once the crown jewel among our government institutions -- is a shambles and is in desperate need of a strong leader, committed to depoliticizing the agency's operations.

The department has been devastated under the Bush administration. Outstanding United States attorneys have been dismissed without cause; career civil-rights lawyers have been driven out in droves; people appear to have been prosecuted for political reasons; young lawyers have been rejected because they were not conservative ideologues; and politics has been allowed to infect decision-making.

We are now on the brink of a reversal. There is virtually universal agreement, even from those who oppose Judge Mukasey, that he would do a good job in turning the department around. My colleagues who oppose his confirmation have gone out of their way to praise his character and qualifications. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, for one, commended Judge Mukasey as "a brilliant lawyer, a distinguished jurist and by all accounts a good man."

Most important, Judge Mukasey has demonstrated his fidelity to the rule of law, saying that if he believed the president were violating the law he would resign.

Should we reject Judge Mukasey, President Bush has said he would install an acting, caretaker attorney general who could serve for the rest of his term without the advice and consent of the Senate. To accept such an unaccountable attorney general, I believe, would be to surrender the department to the extreme ideology of Vice President Dick Cheney and his chief of staff, David Addington. All the work we did to pressure Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign would be undone in a moment.

I deeply oppose this administration's opaque policy on the use of torture -- its refusal to reveal what forms of interrogation it considers acceptable. In particular, I believe that the cruel and inhumane technique of waterboarding is not only repugnant but also illegal under current laws and conventions. I also support Congress's efforts to pass additional measures that would explicitly ban this and other forms of torture. I voted for Senator Ted Kennedy's anti-torture amendment in 2006 and am a co-sponsor of his similar bill in this Congress.

Judge Mukasey's refusal to state that waterboarding is illegal was unsatisfactory to me and many other members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. But Congress is now considering -- and I hope we will soon pass -- a law that would explicitly ban the use of waterboarding and other abusive interrogation techniques. And I am confident that Judge Mukasey would enforce that law.

On Friday, he personally made clear to me that if the law were in place, the president would have no legal authority to ignore it -- not even under some theory of inherent authority granted by Article II of the Constitution, as Vice President Cheney might argue. Nor would the president be able to evade a clear pronouncement on the subject from the courts. Judge Mukasey also pledged to enforce such a law.

From a Bush nominee, this is no small commitment. In many aspects, Judge Mukasey reminds me of Jim Comey, a former deputy attorney general in the Bush administration who has been widely praised for his independence; he did not always agree with us on the issues, but was willing to fight administration officials when he thought they were wrong.

Even without the proposed law in place, Judge Mukasey would be more likely than a caretaker attorney general to find on his own that waterboarding and other techniques are illegal. Indeed, his written answers to our questions have demonstrated more openness to ending the practices we abhor than either of this president's previous attorney general nominees have had.

I understand and respect my colleagues who believe that Judge Mukasey's view on torture should trump all other considerations. For the Senate to make a bold declaration about torture and waterboarding by rejecting him is appealing. But if we block Judge Mukasey's nomination and then learn in six months that waterboarding has continued unabated, that victory will seem much less valuable.

To defeat him would be to abandon the hope of instituting the many reforms called for by our investigation. No one questions that Judge Mukasey would do much to remove the stench of politics from the Justice Department. I believe we should give him that chance.

Charles Schumer, a Democrat, is a senator from New York.

Senator Schumer can be reached at 202-224-6542.  I've been calling his office every day since last week to find out if he plans to issue a retraction, an explanation, and a plan for rectifying his mistake.  I have been told repeatedly that no such editorial will be forthcoming.

Also, take note: after writing an editorial replete with Mukasey's personal assurances and a reference to his "independence", Schumer is "not surprised" by the stonewalling.  Does that make any sense?

After taking the time to write an op-ed for the Times that makes a strong (if flawed) case for Mukasey that points to the man's independence, forthrightness, and personal assurances, the least Schumer could do is be surprised that he was obviously lied to and bamboozled.  What does that say about his judgement?

His staff didn't have much of an answer for THAT question either.  In fact, they admitted they were flummoxed as well.

Right now, we're almost out of extract, and there's not too much going on in the kitchen.  There's a 5-gallon carboy filled with an ESB of some sort in the kitchen, and the keg of porter just ran out.  We're talking about doing a red ale of some sort, but I might begin investigating Baltic Porters after having a couple with dinner the other night.  

Of all the Baltic porters, Poland has the best variety and the easiest to acquire, perhaps owing to the country's brewing history and geographic location. The middle of the 19th century is generally regarded as a watershed for refined brewing technology. Chief among these advances was a more thorough understanding of bottom fermentation and lager beer production, which became the standard method in Germany, Bohemia and Austria. Polish breweries adopted this lager technology from their neighbors (much of Poland was actually under German and Austrian control during this period)...Be wary; they are the strongest as well, reaching 9.1 percent ABV.