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We can not have a single defection within the Democratic membership of the Senate Judiciary Committee if we want to stop Judge Mukasey’s nomination for Attorney General.

Please call your two Senators especially if they are members of the Judiciary Committee. The Committee will be voting on Tuesday November 6 to recommend the nomination go to the full floor for a vote.

Full background below but the simple message is you want your Senator to vote No on the confirmation of Judge Mukasey as Attorney General. He would not say that waterboarding is torture. An Attorney General unable to call waterboarding torture would free the hand of an administration fixated on an unconstitutional theory of Executive Privilege.

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Confirmed No:
Biden, Durbin, Whitehouse, Kennedy, Leahy, Feingold

Undecided:
Kohl, Cardin

Confirmed Yes:
Feinstein, Schumer

Democrats.com has specific information about Judiciary Committee Members and talking points.

News Hour: Senator Graham and Senator Whitehouse debate Mukasey nomination.

Crooks and Liars has Nov 2: Olbermann Coverage on Mukasey Nomination.

Background and detailed explanation by Marty Lederman of Balkinization

Judge Mukasey won’t opine on any technique that the CIA is not currently using (e.g., waterboarding). He assumes the December 2004 Office of Legal Council opinion is (and will continue to be?) the governing DOJ view on what constitutes torture. (As I’ve explained, that opinion intentionally misinterprets the term “severe physical suffering” so as to significantly and mistakenly limit the scope of prohibited torture.)

::::::::Senate Judiciary Committee Members::::::::

Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Ways and Means Approves US-Peru FTA
The measure now moves to the House Floor for consideration by the body on Thursday Nov. 8.

Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-NY) offered the following opening remarks during today’s markup:

I want to reinforce the importance of the changes that took place in our American trade policy earlier this year to make it clear that, at the end of the day, no matter what agreement we are talking about, certain basic principles would be included in a bipartisan way. The inclusion of core standards for labor and important environmental protections, including an historic agreement on logging and greater access to life-saving medicines represent the culmination of a decade-long effort to incorporate these principles into the text of US trade agreements. By including these provisions, we make it possible for members to consider these agreements on their merits and substance, rather than feel as though they have been excluded from the process.

Unfortunately all major labor and environmental groups in the United States and Peru oppose the passage of this agreement. While there were “steps forward” in the areas of environmental protections and workers rights there is still a broad base of Americans that know this trade agreement is bad for the middle class of this country and worse for the poor of Peru. There is no longer an opposition party I am afraid and corporations come before citizens in the minds of law makers. Help us stop it!

Please Contact your Representative via email and phone

The 2006 elections clearly demonstrated that the public wants a new model for trade. While the Peru Free Trade Agreement includes some significant improvements regarding labor and environmental protections and access to medicines, it still contains many of the NAFTA/CAFTA problems.

- The Peru FTA contains a NAFTA/CAFTA-style foreign investor chapter that promotes off-shoring and subjects our domestic environmental, zoning, health and other public interest policies to challenge directly by foreign investors in foreign tribunals. It allows challenges by foreign investors in foreign tribunals of timber, mining, construction and other concession contracts with the U.S. federal government, and affords foreign investors greater rights than those enjoyed by U.S. investors.
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By Paul Kiel - October 30, 2007, 4:53PM From TPMmuckraker

Last week, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) pronounced himself pleased that the administration had handed over four “previously undisclosed documents” relating to the administration’s interrogation policies. As he wrote to White House counsel Fred Fielding in a letter: “The release of these documents restarts the incremental process of providing necessary information to Congress and to the American people about the Administration’s legal justifications and policies with regard to torture and interrogation.” After months of stonewalling, it was a new day!

Well, not so much. Apparently three of the four documents, called “previously undisclosed,” in the committee’s press release at the time, were already in the public domain.

For instance, Leahy could have gone to the ACLU’s website to read the February 4, 2005 letter from Acting Assistant Attorney General Daniel Levin that the administration handed over. And the December 30, 2004, memo (pdf) from Levin that famously redefined torture? The Justice Department released that publicly itself at the time. The third document Leahy cites is private testimony (pdf) by a former Justice Department official back in July, 2004, to the House intelligence committee. That, too, is in the public record.

And the fourth? It remains classified, although it’s general contents have already been widely reported.

Keep in mind that the administration has still not turned over any of the memos during Alberto Gonzales’ tenure as attorney general, such as the ones reported by The New York Times earlier this month.

Leahy’s statement is below.

“I was encouraged when the White House provided four documents for review concerning this Administration’s position on torture. Now we learn that three of those long-delayed documents have already been in the public domain. I am again calling on the White House to provide a declassified version of the memorandum of March 13, 2003, and to promptly fulfill my longstanding requests for documents relating to this Administration’s policies, both past and present, on torture.”

After seven years of Emperor C-Plus Augustus and his Avignon Presidency (to use Charles Pierce’s exquisitely apposite terminology), the international community has apparently decided that America, so long as Bush and the John Bolton neocons remain in positions of power, cannot be trusted to play nice, particularly when it comes to Iran.– The IAEA’s El-Baradei has said that there is no evidence that Iran is trying to make nuclear weapons. They are working on nuclear technology to supply power and electricity, which they are allowed to do under treaty. (In fact, Iran was given its first taste of nuclear energy back in the 1950s by American oil companies, who didn’t want the Iranians to waste all that lovely oil on themselves when they could be letting Americans take it from them.) Furthermore, he’s said flat-out that attacking Iran “would absolutely lead to disaster” — something our wonderful US corporate media doesn’t want to emphasize.

– Russia’s Vladimir Putin has come out and told the US to shut the bleep up with regard to Iran. In case you’re wondering why Bush might want to listen to Putin, it seems that Russia (unlike Iran) has these things called nukes. You may have heard of them. Bush won’t respond to morality, but he responds to force.

– Previous Bush efforts to isolate Iran economically have failed badly, so of course Bush is now ramping up the pressure. Europe, so far, seems to be yawning — that is, when guys like Putin aren’t telling Bush to STFU. Of course, Dick Cheney’s Halliburton has operated in Iran for decades, despite President Bill Clinton’s 1995 Executive Order forbidding American oil companies from doing business in Iran, and Cheney himself opposed sanctions while he was officially running Halliburton, so it could be that the Europeans are sick of the Bush-Cheney hypocrisy on this.

– Meanwhile, the Iranians get to look above the fray as they counsel the Turks, Kurds and Iraqis to stop attacking each other, even as Bush orders our troops to help Turkey hunt down Kurdish separatists in Iraq.

Whatever you’re hoping to accomplish, George — besides high oil prices — I don’t think you’re getting it.

The Financial Times headline this morning says it all: “Edwards’ Attack on Peru Deal Shifts Debate.” The story summarizes John Edwards (D) announcement that he is opposing not only the Peru Free Trade Agreement, but the entire package of White House-backed deals designed to expand the job-killing, wage-destroying NAFTA trade model into South America and Asia - the package of deals that a small handful of Democrats endorsed back on May 10th in a secret pact with the Bush administration. Edwards said the agreements do “not meet my standard of putting American workers and communities first, ahead of the interests of the big multinational corporations, which for too long have rigged our trade policies for themselves.” The move, consistent with Edwards’ economic populist campaign, drives a wedge right through the heart of the Democratic presidential primary.

Last week, as noted here on this site, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) announced his support for the Peru deal, and then tried to obfuscate his position under harsh questioning. Meanwhile, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) hasn’t said anything about the Peru deal.

As Public Citizen’s Lori Wallach said, Edwards move now puts the spotlight on the divide between the progressive movement and what I have called the Money Party (and Edwards has called the Corporate Democrats).

“This is where the rubber hits the road and we find out how far Hillary thinks she needs to go on trade to court the Democratic base,” she said. “Peru is about to go to a Senate vote so she can’t duck the issue.”

You can be sure we’ll be hearing a lot of noise about how this deal is supposedly great for average Americans and Peruvians alike. But remember, no major labor, human rights, anti-poverty, environmental, consumer protection or religious group in either the United States or Peru have endorsed the deal. In its international version (not online) the Financial Times, in fact, points out that Edwards announcement was welcomed by, among others, “the heads of Peru’s labor movement and Pedro Barretto, the country’s archbishop.”

Iowa is a state that has been hard hit by lobbyist-written trade deals and that has a history of trade/globalization issues roiling presidential primaries. Edwards’ move will likely ensure that’s the case again this year, especially considering how split the the Democratic cardidates are in terms of their allegiances to the progressive movement and the Money Party in Washington.

FRIENDLY REMINDER: To the conspiracy theorists, let me reiterate what I have said often in the past: I do not work for nor get paid by nor have officially endorsed any candidate. Please debate the issue, rather than whipping up wild theories unsubstantiated by any evidence.

Dodd Speaks About FISA Hold on Floor of U.S. Senate

Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) today spoke on the Senate floor about his efforts to stop the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) reform legislation, in its current form, from being considered by the full Senate and from receiving a vote on the Senate floor. Last week Dodd announced he has placed a hold on the bill, a tool available to Senators to stop legislation from moving forward.

By granting immunity to telecommunications companies that participated in the President’s terrorist surveillance program, even though such participation may have been illegal, the FISA reform bill sets a dangerous precedent by allowing companies to ignore their legal responsibilities to protect the privacy of their companies without any basis in law for doing so.

Tim Goodrich, Ron Kovic, Blaze Bonpane

Los Angeles Citizens in the Streets

Stop Wars Kids

Democracy Now

The complaint was filed with the Paris prosecutor’s office as Rumsfeld arrived in France for a visit. This is the fifth time Rumsfeld has been charged with direct involvement in torture since 9/11. We speak with two attorneys with the plaintiffs — Center for Constitutional Rights president Michael Ratner and Jeanne Sulzer of the International Federation of Human Rights. [includes rush transcript] U.S. and European human rights groups filed a lawsuit in France today charging former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with ordering and authorizing torture. The plaintiffs include the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights and the Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights. They say Rumsfeld authorized interrogation techniques that led to abuses at US-run prisons in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.

The complaint was filed with the Paris prosecutor’s office as Rumsfeld arrived in France for a visit. This is the fifth time Rumsfeld has been charged with direct involvement in torture since 9/11. Michael Ratner is the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. He joins me in the firehouse studio. Jeanne Sulzer is a French attorney with the International Federation of Human Rights. She joins me on the line from Paris.

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Brave New Foundation is pleased to release this video promoting a historical and momentous event that is about to occur.

Watch it and see how you can participate in a gathering that can help change the world.

On Saturday, October 27th there will be 11 massive demonstrations for peace throughout the United States. In Boston, Chicago, Jonesborough, Tennessee, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York City, Orlando, Philadelphia, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, and Seattle, people from all walks of life will join together to express their anti-war sentiments and to call for an immediate end to the conflict in Iraq.

With each passing day the human and financial cost of this unnecessary war grows more and more painful. It’s time for the American people to speak out; to collectively let our government know that it’s time for this war to end. October 27th provides just that opportunity and the world will be watching.

Take a look at the mobilization web site to get details on the marches October 27th and join your family, friends and neighbors in making sure that your voice is heard. It’s time.

Working together with our partners at United For Peace And Justice, Brave New Films has demonstrated again just how effective an advocacy tool video can be. As this video spreads throughout cyberspace, help it on its essential journey by spreading the word to friends and family. The power is in your hands, please use it and help the cause of peace now.

The video is presented by Robert Greenwald and the entire team at Brave New Foundation. It was produced by John Ehrenfeld and Chris Gordon, who also edited the piece.

The original song “People” was written by Alex Dickson and produced and mixed by Alex Elena. Featured musicians were Alex Elena on drums, Alex Dicksonon bass and guitar, Riley Geare on the Wurlitzer organ and Milena Mepris, Darren Geare and Alex Dickson on vocals.