The topic below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

David Iglesias is the prototype twenty first century Republican: charismatic, Hispanic, an evangelical Christian and a captain in the Navy Reserve who served for many years in the Navy's Judge Advocate General Corps ("JAG"). In  1998, Iglesias campaigned to become Attorney General of New Mexico against the heavily favored Patricia Madrid. He nearly pulled off an upset and the Republican Party took notice. In 2000, Iglesias paid his party dues and worked for George W. Bush's election.

Not long ago progressives launched a fervent effort to replace Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General.  

That effort was bolstered by communications from leading Democratic Party figures urging those concerned by Gonzales's politicization and unswerving loyalty to the Cheney-Bush neoconservative junta to petition the White House with e-mails and letters demanding justice.

I was contacted via e-mail by a highly prominent Democratic Party senator enlisting my effort by adding my name and e-mail protest toward this pursuit.

While I had earlier joined in such petition efforts to snowball the prevailing powers, I finally declined for what I believe to be the logical reason that enough misdirected effort had already been dispatched in that direction.

Jose Padilla, center, is escorted to a waiting police vechicle by federal marshals in this Jan. 5, 2006, file photo. He has been on trial in Miami for most of this year, charged with conspiring with al Qaeda to detonate a "dirty bomb" in the United States. Photo by J. Pat Carter, AP

On Thurday August 16 2007 A federal jury convicted Jose Padilla of three counts of conspiracy in a trial that was the culmination of five years of a criminal proceeding that is among the most shameful in the history of the United States justice system.

I am not an apologist for Jose Padilla, I belong to no "Free Jose" organizations nor am I a member of any "Jose Padilla defense funds," although maybe I should have been, maybe we all should have been because when they throw away the keys to Padilla's cell we will also throw away any pretense to being a nation of laws, a nation that respects human rights, we will throw away a large measure of what once made us a great and civilized nation.

I am also not a terrorist, nor am I a member of any terrorist organization and that declaration alone, in the modern, mandatory, cocoon of fear within which we are now required to live by governmental decree, is probably enough to have a tap placed on my phone and a couple of guys who look like the Blues Brothers parked in front of my house at odd hours. After all, if I have nothing to hide, why would I bring it up. Under the new Department of Justice rule book I must be indictable for something.

Jose Padilla was arrested over five years ago in May of 2002, picked up in Chicago after returning  from Europe and allegedly carrying over 10 grand in cash. He was held for  about a month as a material witness before Attorney General John Ashcroft delayed a trip to Moscow in order to announce that the US had discovered a plot to explode "dirty bombs" inside the country. Padilla was branded as the "Dirty Bomber" and George Bush declared him to be an illegal enemy combatant.

Attorney General Gonzales arrives for a review of war crimes trials at Guantanamo Bay



Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (Rotters) - An angry Alberto Gonzales flew overnight to Guantanamo Bay Cuba in an apparent effort to stave off disaster for the Bush administration after yesterday's dismissal of charges against two detainees by two military judges. Charges were dismissed against the two prisoners over what appears to be a technicality in the failure of last fall's hastily prepared Republican legislation passed by Congress to address a Supreme Court ruling over the legality of the administration's ability to prosecute detainees in Guantanamo Bay.

Scooter Libby - The former Chief of Staff to Vice-President Dick Cheney was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in a grand jury investigation into the outing of Valerie Plame.

Paul Wolfowitz, -- After using his position of former Deputy Secretary of Defense under Donald Rumsfeld, was pushing hard for the Iraq War to go forward in the fast lane.  Later Bush appointed him head of the World Bank.  He used his position to help arrange a large pay raise for his female companion.  This incident has intensified calls for his resignation.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales - Fighting to hold onto his job amid a congressional investigation into his role in firing eight U.S. prosecutors.  At a congressional hearing when asked specific questions he constantly replied, "I don't remember."  But the TV audiences that watched this evasive cover-up response would remember what a tight-lipped clipped answer as he snapped, "I don't remember" like a tape recording that got stuck.

Roger Stillwell - Former Interior Department official, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor when he never reported tickets given to him by convicted lobbyist grafter Jack Abramoff.

While progressives focus on Attorney General Gonzales and hatch strategies for subpoenas to get him on the record, along with other Administration figures, including Karl Rove, it is time to look at the broader picture.

Alberto Gonzales represents a pattern.  Before him there was John Ashcroft just as, after Donald Rumsfeld finally stepped down as Defense Secretary, Thomas Gates, who is carrying out the same policies in a less confrontational way, replaced him.  The list of grievances never end.  

The focus is the same.  Contact progressives and rally them around the cause of the moment targeting that specific individual.  The questions that remain are:  Who is in charge?  Does anything change if targeted individuals leave?  

The forces of Cheney and Bush continue unleashing a tenacious, full court press. A reactionary neocon agenda adhering to the Project for the New American Century guidelines will remain in place.  The foot soldiers might change but the game plan remains the same.

Nothing fills a Cheney-Bush Republican with swelling pride more than running the stars and stripes up the flagpole.  This act is performed with a glorious declaration that their form of Republicanism holds a monopoly on traditional American values.

The issue comes down to what is a definable American value and if Bushies qualify as standard bearers for the tried, true, and ultimately patriotic.  Does the Cheney-Bush brand of Republicanism fit the historical definition of conservatism?

What neo-con chairman of the board Cheney along with perpetual preppy cheerleader Bush and company do not want you to know is that on certain basic issues, particularly those that relate to human liberties, traditional conservatives are closely akin to liberals in promoting and perpetuating rights of privacy.  

A true conservative of the Edwin Burke mold would fulminate loudly and lengthily against allowing authorities to arrest and indefinitely detain someone suspected of committing a crime while refusing to prefer charges or even allow that individual to see an attorney.

http://actionalert.blogspot .com/2006/02/feingold-gonza les-perjury.html

 On Monday, Senator Russ Feingold will resume his questioning of Alberto Gonzales in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on "Wartime Executive Power and Surveillance Authory.  You may recall that Gonzales appears to have perjured himself in his responses to Feingold's previous round of questioning on the administration's warrantless wiretapping of American citizens.  

This note is a call for action requesting bloggers to help shape the terms of the debate in the media both before and after the hearing by contacting editorial boards at major daily newspapers in your local community to encourage them to take a position against attempts by the Executive Branch to circumvent the law.

Media contacts

On August 28th, John McCain committed a howler on Face the Nation when he said, "I'm not knowledgeable" when asked how many more troops were needed in Iraq, given the fact that he had repeatedly called for them:

The howler came when he called for the escalation of the Iraq War in the face of increasing violence. When asked how many more troops were necessary by Bob Schieffer, he said, "About 20,000 more; I'm not that knowledgeable." Then, if John McCain is not that knowledgeable about what must be done in the Iraq Conflict, then what the heck is he doing considering a run for President in 2008? And what the heck is he doing going on all the talk shows shilling for the administration?

This howler led me to wonder what else John McCain is not knowledgeable about. Now, I think I have an answer: John McCain is not knowledgeable about how Bush operates or acts. This was most evident on the torture deal where Bush supposedly caved in on the torture ban.

[cross-posted at And, yes, I DO take it personally]

first we have condi doing some fast talking...

European foreign ministers said Thursday that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had assured the NATO allies that the United States does not allow torture of terrorist suspects and respects principles of the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war.

[...]

Rice "addressed the principles that guide United States policy with regards to respect for international law," Belgian Foreign Minister Karel de Gucht said.

Rice assured the U.S. allies "that at no time did the United States agree to inhumane acts or torture, that they have always respected the sovereignty of the states concerned and even if terrorists are not covered by the Geneva Conventions, they have still applied the principles governing those Geneva Conventions," de Gucht told Belgian RTBf radio network.

The fall-out from recently-released Justice Department memos pertaining to Tom DeLay's gerrymandering of Texas continues:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Friday said that the Justice Department was not motivated by politics when it approved a controversial Texas congressional redistricting plan in 2003, overriding objections within the Civil Rights Division that minority voters would be harmed.

...Gonzales' insistence that politics played no role wasn't shared by some Civil Rights Division veterans. They say the Texas case, joined by the department's recent approval of a Georgia voter ID law later rejected by the court, suggests a troubling trend of politics trumping Voting Rights Act considerations.

"The decisions are politically driven," said American University law professor Richard Ugelow, a 29-year Civil Rights Division veteran who joined the exodus of career staff from Justice in recent years.

William Yeomans, a senior voting-rights expert who left the Justice Department earlier this year, said: "It's clear who benefits from those decisions."

He and other division veterans say it is highly unusual for political appointees to override a unanimous recommendation by career lawyers.

"It's probably not an overstatement to say it's unprecedented for that kind of overruling of the career staff to occur," said David Becker, who left the division last April after seven years.

Nancy Pelosi is now working to create an independent commission to investigate the Justice Department's actions, as well as a disturbing pattern within the DOJ of putting the desires of the Republican Party before the law of the land.