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Despite the backlash from prominent conservative lawyers against Liz Cheney and Keep America Safe’s “al Qaeda 7″ ad that questions the loyalty of Justice Department lawyers who worked on behalf of detainees, some on the right have risen to Cheney’s defense. On Monday, torture advocate Marc Thiessen dedicated his new Washington Post column to defending the ad, saying that Cheney asked “legitimate questions about Obama administration lawyers who defended America’s terrorist enemies.” Keep America Safe subsequently referred reporters to Thiessen’s column when asked to comment on the conservative criticism.

Today, Thiessen is up with another defense of the Cheney-led attacks, writing on the Washington Post’s PostPartisan blog that defenders of the Justice Department lawyers are wrong to invoke John Adams’ defense of British soldiers after the Boston massacre:

Defenders of the habeas lawyers representing al-Qaeda terrorists have invoked the iconic name of John Adams to justify their actions, claiming these lawyers are only doing the same thing Adams did when he defended British soldiers accused in the Boston Massacre. The analogy is clever, but wholly inaccurate.

For starters, Adams was a British subject at the time he took up their representation. The Declaration of Independence had not yet been signed, and there was no United States of America. The British soldiers were Adams’ fellow countrymen — not foreign enemies of the state at war with his country.

Thiessen’s argument that Adams was defending “fellow countrymen” and “not foreign enemies” is clever, but it’s undermined by the fact that some of the lawyers Thiessen and the ad impugn did work on behalf of American citizens. In a National Review blog post promoting his PostPartisan column, Thiessen directly attacks a lawyer who advocated on behalf of a detained American citizen:

Eric Holder vs. John Adams [Marc Thiessen]

I have a piece up for the Washington Post explaining why the al-Qaeda lawyers are wrong to wrap themselves in the mantle of John Adams. Thanks to the spade work of Bill Burck and Dana Perino, we now know why Holder was stonewalling on the identities of the “Al Qaeda 7” — he was one of them! If Holder and co. are simply carrying on the traditions of John Adams, why were they hiding their roles in seeking the release of enemy combatants? If they are proud of their work, why don’t they stand up and say so?

Yesterday, Perino and Burck published an article on National Review Online detailing how Holder contributed to, but neglected to tell the Senate about, an amicus brief to the Supreme Court supporting Jose Padilla, an American citizen who was held as an enemy combatant. Another one of the lawyers smeared by the ad, Joseph Guerra, now Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General, worked on a brief urging that the Supreme Court hear Padilla’s case. Another DoJ lawyer, Assistant Attorney General Tony West, worked on the case of “American Taliban” Johh Walker Lindh, an American citizen.

The discrepancy between Thiessen’s PostPartisan argument and the facts is indicative of his arguments in general. In discussing another one of Thiessen’s inconsistent arguments, Time’s Michael Scherer — who considers Thiessen’s vocal crusade to defend the Bush administration’s torture policies “a good thing” — remarked that he was “disappointed with the quality of Thiessen’s arguments, which seem to be designed more for cable news soundbites than for serious discussion.”

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Mark Hosenball reports that Dianne Feinstein and other Senate Dems have accused the Department of Homeland Security’s spooks of using right wing propaganda to develop finished intelligence reports on Muslims. By looking at this paragraph from last year’s intelligence authorization…

The Committee has raised a number of concerns with reports issued by the Department of Homeland Security OIA that inappropriately analyze the legitimate activities of U.S. persons. These reports raised fundamental questions about the mission of the OIA and often used certain questionable open source information as a basis of their conclusions. The Committee recommends that the next Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis conduct a comprehensive review of the quality and relevance of the intelligence products produced by the OIA, and provide this review to the congressional intelligence committees within 180 days of enactment.

And analyzing the language from this letter from Russ Feingold and Jay Rockefeller, Hosenball credibly argues that DHS used David Horowitz’ DiscoverTheNetworks.org as a source for a least one intelligence report on a US Islamic leader. (The letter cites the tagline, “identif[y] the individuals and organizations that make up the left,” a term Horowitz has used.)

Among others targeted by Horowitz’ site–though not all Islamic leaders–are Keith Ellison, Arianna Huffington, and Kos. And, ironically enough, Janet Napolitano.

Hosenball also notes that the report on the Islamic leader using Horowitz’ site was developed for DHS’s Civil Rights Office, and from there, was circulated to other intelligence agencies.

Congressional officials say the Homeland intelligence report that particularly angered Feinstein and other committee members is still classified. Nevertheless, three current and former intelligence officials, requesting anonymity when discussing sensitive information, say the report in question is a profile of an unnamed but prominent American Islamic leader and was produced by Homeland Security’s intelligence office during the latter years of the Bush administration. The report was requested by the Department’s civil rights office, whose officials were preparing to meet with the Islamic leader. But instead of sending the civil rights office a quick bio of the individual in question, Homeland’s intelligence office issued a “finished” intel report that was circulated to other intelligence agencies and, eventually, to Congressional oversight committees.

In other words, Michael Chertoff was using the Civil Rights Office at DHS as the impetus to develop finished intelligence reports based on the First Amendment activities of Americans.

Remember the firestorm last year when wingnut groups learned DHS did a report–initiated by the Bush Administration–on right wing extremist groups?

The report, “Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment,” said right-wing extremist groups may be using the recession and the election of the nation’s first African-American president to recruit members.

The report, which was prepared in coordination with the FBI, was published last week. It was distributed to federal, state and local law enforcement officials. Mainstream media picked up the story after it was reported by conservative bloggers.

I wonder if they’ll show the same alarm with this report?

Tags: Arianna Huffington, Charles Allen, David Horowitz, Department of Homeland Security, Dianne Feinstein, Jay Rockefeller, Keith Ellison, Markos Moulitsas, Michael Chertoff, Russ Feingold

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Glaad reports that sponsors have “refused to allow” American figure skater Johnny Weir to join the Stars on Ice Tour because they deemed him “not family friendly.” While Weir — a three-time national champion — has never “officially announced his sexual orientation, he has garnered a significant amount of LGBT fans” and is also known for his flashy costumes. Weir won an online poll that asked fans who they wanted to see in the tour, but Stars on Ice seems to have barred him because of his “perceived sexual orientation”:

To say that Weir is “not family friendly” would be a clear jab at his perceived sexual orientation. Weir is extremely involved with his family. He is putting his younger brother through college, and supports the family financially because his father’s disability prohibits him from working. Weir’s dedication to his family can be clearly documented in the Sundance series, Be Good Johnny Weir, which follows him and his family and friends through his life and career as a championship skater.

After a sixth place finish at the Vancouver Olympics, Weir announced he would take a break from competitive skating, but Glaad notes that “does not release the Stars on Ice sponsors from asking him to participate.”

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Predictably, Politico piles onto the latest installment of the McCarthyist attacks on DOJ, largely repeating the attack as made by Dana Perino and Bill Burck. The one thing it does add is some discussion of what Eric Holder should have disclosed at his confirmation hearings last year.

Holder didn’t mention the brief during his confirmation hearings to be Attorney General, even though the Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire required him to list all Supreme Court amicus briefs he was party to. His questionnaire lists briefs in only three cases: Miller-El v. Cockrell, Johnson v. Bush and D.C. and Fenty v. Heller.

A Justice Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, said “the brief should have been disclosed,” but had been “ unfortunately and inadvertently” left out in the documents submitted to the committee.

“ In any event,” he said, “ the Attorney General has publicly discussed his positions on detention policy on many occasions, including at his confirmation hearings.

Justice Department officials also didn’t mention the briefs in the letter they sent to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) informing Congress that nine of the department’s political appointees either “represented detainees [or] … either contributed to amicus briefs in detainee-related cases or were otherwise involved in advocacy on behalf of detainees.”

Now, I agree that Holder should have disclosed all this.

But I’m also interested in the tizzy surrounding whether Holder should have disclosed himself in response the questions Chuck Grassley posed on terrorist sympathizers at DOJ. Granted, originally asked were definitely targeted toward creating this witchhunt–that is, to detainees at Gitmo, rather than to the representation of terrorists and their affiliates generally.

But if we’re going to discuss Holder’s “biases,” shouldn’t we start with Holder’s representation of Chiquita, and particularly his success at getting several white Republican men off of charges that they knowing supported right wing Colombian terrorists? Particularly given the way Bush’s DOJ facilitated that process?

The investigation was run by Roscoe Howard, then USA for DC, the guy who believes his warrant was served. But Main DOJ was closely involved. In particular, David Nahmias, then the Deputy Assistant Attorney General in charge of Counter-Terrorism and now the USA in Atlanta, got involved; he and Howard had some disagreements about the case, including on the warrant in question. Nahmias’ boss, Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division Michael Chertoff, was even involved until he left in June 2003 to become a Judge and shortly thereafter Secretary of Homeland Security. In May 2004–just after the two critical events–Howard resigned and went into private practice. Ken Wainstein, then Robert Mueller’s Chief of Staff at FBI, moved to take over as interim and then Senate-approved USA for DC; he is now the Assistant Attorney General for National Security. In short, it’s all a mess, but the guy trying to throw the book at Chiquita moved into private practice right when rotton bananas started hitting the fan, whereas three of the guys working closely with Chiquita at DOJ have had some serious promotions since 2004.Meanwhile, Chiquita brought in former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh to help them out. According to an LAT article now behind firewall, Ford’s Assistant Attorney General Dick Thornburgh and Ford’s White House Counsel Roderick Hills started working their DC network.

Chiquita’s “lawyers went all over D.C. to have meetings” with top officials at the Justice Department, the Treasury Department and elsewhere, often without the front-line prosecutors knowing about it, one of the senior Justice Department officials said. “They were trying to cause political pressure.”

That pressure seems to have worked. Because Howard prepared to serve the warrant in question, but Nahmias tried to stop him. The warrant was dated March 24, 2004 and–as we see here–it’s not really clear whether it was served or whether it disappeared into a big Republican black hole. On April 26, 2004, Thornburgh wrote a letter to Nahmias, Christopher Wray (AAG for Criminal Division at DOJ, who replaced Chertoff) and Attorney General John Ashcroft. Thornburgh asked for a meeting before DOJ charged anyone–though it’s unclear whether that meeting ever happened. And then, almost three years later in March of this year, Chiquita settled for a big fine. But none of its executives were ever charged.

All this talk about disclosure and yet we’re still not talking about the inherent racism and double standard that people like Chuck Grassley seem okay with.

Ah well. I have a great idea how to fix the problem of Eric Holder’s non-disclosure of this brief.

Let’s have a dual re-hearing, Eric Holder and Jay Bybee, for their respective positions. Republicans can grill Holder about how, faced with a bunch of detainees collected under the auspices of unlimited presidential power because the evidence relating to those detainees was tainted by torture, he proposes to deal with those detainees. But at the same time, Democrats will be able to ask the questions they should have been able to ask years ago, about why it is that Jay Bybee was too busy protecting Cheney’s Energy Task Force from oversight to notice that his subordinates were claiming to give the President that unlimited power.

Let’s have the guy stuck with the mess Jay Bybee created explain to him the problems that he caused.

Update: Thanks to MinnesotaChuck for the corrections for clarity.

Tags: Abu Zubaydah, Chuck Grassley, Eric Holder, Jay Bybee, Jose Padilla

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In September, ThinkProgress reported that, despite its public support for health care reform, the insurance industry was engaged in a “duplicitous” campaign to undermine the effort. Recently, the National Journal confirmed our reporting by revealing that six of the top health insurance corporations had secretly pumped up to million dollars into the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for a 0-million-dollar attack ad campaign against health reform last year. This week, insurers purchased a new round of attack ads, again with millions laundered through the Chamber.

It’s not just the Chamber. As we have detailed, the health insurance industry also funds Newt Gingrich’s lobbying firm, which has helped to draft health legislation for Republican lawmakers — including bills aimed at deregulating the health insurance market — and advises GOP leaders on ways to kill reform.

Yesterday at the annual conference for America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the lobbying juggernaut for the health insurance industry, the industry again falsely claimed that it is fully behind health reform. ThinkProgress spoke to industry spokesman Robert Zirkelbach, who refused to acknowledge any other attack groups the industry may be funding. He also oddly claimed that funding attack ads and Gingrich is somehow consistent with the industry’s promise “to play, to contribute and to help pass health-care reform”:

TP: But you’ve been funding attack ads as well. … But it’s not just your individual members, AHIP funds Newt Gingrich’s group as well, directly. And he’s against health reform, he says ‘let’s kill the bill.’ That’s kind of contradicting your public statements that you support reform. I just don’t understand why you would fund an attack group if you’re really on board.

ZIRKELBACH: I think there’s broad agreement from stakeholders across the board that we need health care reform. But I think there’s also broad agreement that we need health care reform that’s actually going to work and health care reform that’s actually going to bring down health care costs. This legislation doesn’t do that. [...]

TP: But in the spirit of transparency, we didn’t find out about this million dollars you gave to the Chamber to run these attack ads until a month ago, and these things have been going on for a year. So I’m just asking, are there any other groups, other than Newt Gingrich and the Chamber of Commerce that you’re funding, that are attacking health reform? That premium dollars are going to.

ZIRKELBACH: No. … Well, I don’t agree with your premise that we’re funding groups that you know are trying to you know that aren’t trying to make a health care system that’s going to work and bring down costs. [...] Every thing we’ve done throughout this debate has been focused on what can we do to advance health reform.

Watch it:

Former CIGNA executive Wendell Potter, who for years helped the health insurance industry kill reform before becoming a whistle blower, explained that AHIP regularly works behind closed doors to orchestrate a massive right-wing campaign against reform. In the past, health insurers have used third party PR firms to coordinate attack ads, talking points to conservative radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh, and organizing efforts akin to today’s tea parties. As insurers continue to hike premiums for patients across the country, much of that money is not being spent on actual medical care. Instead, up to 20 percent (or 40 percent in the individual market) goes to profits, administrative costs, and lobbying to kill reform.

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The Associated Press reports that Los Angeles Angels center fielder Torii Hunter “insists he meant no harm toward Latino players when he referred to them as ‘impostors.’” Hunter’s controversial remarks were made two weeks ago during a series of USA Today roundtables about baseball:

People see dark faces out there, and the perception is that they’re African American,” Los Angeles Angels center fielder Torii Hunter says. “They’re not us. They’re impostors.”

“As African-American players, we have a theory that baseball can go get an imitator and pass them off as us,” Hunter says. “It’s like they had to get some kind of dark faces, so they go to the Dominican or Venezuela because you can get them cheaper. It’s like, ‘Why should I get this kid from the South Side of Chicago and have Scott Boras represent him and pay him million when you can get a Dominican guy for a bag of chips?’ I’m telling you, it’s sad.”

Now Hunter is describing his remarks as a “wrong word choice” and what he “meant to say” is that “there is a difference culturally. But on the field, we’re all brothers.” In an entry posted on his Angels-sponsored blog, Hunter wrote:

I am hurt by how the comments attributed to me went off the track and misrepresented how I feel. My whole identity has been about bringing people together, from my neighborhood to the clubhouse. The point I was trying to make was that there is a difference between black players coming from American neighborhoods and players from Latin America. In the clubhouse, there is no difference at all. We’re all the same.

USA Today’s Bob Nightengale, the journalist who quoted Hunter, said he spoke to Hunter after his blog post went up and that Hunter affirmed, “I’m not going to apologize. I told the truth. I’m sorry if I used the wrong choice of words, but impostor is not a racist word.” Meanwhile, Latino sports journalist Tony Menendez wrote, “Torii Hunter next time should think what he wants to say or get a dictionary…I really would like to know if on a similar interview a Latino player in a similar context would have said the word negro and then calling them ‘impostors’ in the majors.”

However, many Latinos in the baseball industry didn’t take Hunter’s comments to heart. “To me, it was a funny context. I know what he wanted to say, what he meant to say. I hope Latin players, and whoever speaks Spanish, and whoever feels Latino, doesn’t take this context in a different way,” said Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, a Venezuelan. Angels broadcaster Jose Mota, a Dominican, said he wasn’t offended and that “no Latin player would be offended either.” Hunter’s long-time agent cited Hunter’s impressive “record of giving,” which includes providing college scholarships to students and fostering youth inner-city baseball.

For the record, Alex Rodriguez, a third base player of Dominican descent, tops the list of the 35 Highest-Paid Major League Baseball players, which includes several Latinos. In December 2007, Rodriguez agreed to a 10-year 5 million contract with the Yankees, the richest contract in baseball history.

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John Kyl has officially announced he intends to waste an oversight hearing on March 23 beating up Eric Holder because he did not disclose an amicus brief opposing unlimited Presidential power.

Kyl told members of the committee that panel Republicans will question the Attorney General about his 2004 amicus brief that recommended the Supreme Court stop the Bush administration’s efforts to try Jose Padilla as an enemy combatant.

[snip]

Kyl called the non-disclosure of the brief “rather distressing.”

“Are we expected to believe that then-nominee Holder…forgot about his role in one of this country’s most politicized terrorism cases?” Kyl asked.

And the other Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are practicing their pout-rage, as well.

Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the committee, said he was “deeply concerned” by Mr. Holder’s failure to disclose the brief during his confirmation.

“Not only was the Attorney General required to provide the brief as part of his confirmation, but the opinions expressed in it go to the heart of his responsibilities in matters of national security,” Mr. Sessions said in a statement. “This is an extremely serious matter and the Attorney general will have to address it.”

Now, as I said earlier, Holder clearly should have disclosed this brief–though his views were already well known.

But he’s not the first nominee to go before SJC who failed to disclose key legal writings. After all, Jay Bybee secured a lifetime appointment as an Appeals Court Judge without disclosing the fact that he rubber stamped legal sanction for torture. And unlike Holder, Bybee’s actions were totally unknown at the time. At the time, just one Democrat, Jane Harman, had even been briefed that CIA was doing the torture (though Pelosi had been briefed that they were considering torture), the memos specifically had not even been revealed to her, and even if she knew about it, she would not have been permitted to share it with SJC.

And yet, barring Bybee’s resignation or prosecution in some international court, Bybee will be serving on the 9th Circuit long after Holder has moved on as Attorney General.

So whose non-disclosure is more of a problem? Jay Bybee, who failed to hint that he had authorized torture? Or Eric Holder, whose views were well-known and tested during his confirmation hearing?

Tags: Eric Holder, Jay Bybee, Jeff Sessions, John Kyl

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Where employers are most optimistic, and pessimistic

IN 27 out of 36 countries surveyed by Manpower, an employment-services firm, more companies said they expected to add jobs in the three months to the end of June than said they reckoned on reducing their workforce. The difference between the proportion of hirers and firers was highest in Brazil and India. Throughout Asia companies have become more optimistic about hiring than they were a year ago, most dramatically in Singapore but only slightly in Japan. Things look less rosy in Europe. In several countries, including Spain and Ireland, more companies expect to see cuts to their workforce than expect it to grow. Of the four countries where the outlook has darkened, three are in Europe.

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For once, the anniversary of a wartime battle in Latvia should pass off peacefully

THAT March follows February is not a state secret, but it sometimes seems to come as a surprise to Latvian officials. Sometime in February, they notice that March 16th is approaching and start worrying, belatedly, about what outsiders will think.

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