Common Cause Blog

Recapture the Flag: Obama on Guantanamo, Torture

Last night, 60 Minutes aired President-elect Obama's first post-election interview. Obama, his wife Michelle, and Steve Croft discussed a number of issues. Of top importance though was Obama's response to whether or not he was going to use the power of executive order to close Guantanamo Bay and outlaw torture. Obama's response was an unequivocal, yes. Watch:

Common Cause and other reform and human rights groups have been calling on the new administration to restore America's moral stature in the world by ending a practice and closing a prison that has stained our reputation across the globe. Several months ago Common Cause launched our Recapture the Flag campaign calling on elected officials to not only end torture and respect human rights, but also, respect the rule of law and challenge anyone who seeks to undermine the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, root out corruption, hold to account anyone who breaks the law of violates the public trust, and protect personal freedom by rejecting warrantless spying.

Snubbery

Karl Rove, long time senior advisor to George W. Bush, is speaking later today at a Sacramento forum. He maintains a high profile presence on Fox News Channel as a commentator. Sometimes, he even takes questions.

Yet Rove refuses to answer a congressional subpoena or answer questions under oath about his role in the firing of U.S. Attorneys and the politicization of the Department of Justice, despite a recent court ruling that dismissed the premise of his claim to "absolute immunity."

It's absurd both that Rove continues to thumb his nose at Congress with no legal grounding whatsoever and that Congress has yet to fully assert its authority, as a coequal branch of government, by compelling Rove to testify. We've called for a full vote of contempt by the House, we've called for inherent contempt, but the bottom line is: if Congress wants to learn how the Department of Justice was turned into a political weapon for the White House, if it wants to restore the core values of our democracy, if it wants to join us in Recapturing the Flag, Congress. Must. Do. Something.

We know that some folks want to see it happen -- they want accountability -- but with a week before Congress leaves town for the season, will enough of them step up?

Two hundred twenty one years later, a moment of distress

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), September 12, 2008:

It is a sad fact, as we approach Constitution Day next week, that for the past seven and a half years, and especially since 9/11, the Bush administration has treated the Constitution and the rule of law with a disrespect that I think we've never seen before in the history of this country. By now the public can be excused for being almost numb to new revelations to government wrongdoing and overreaching.

Former Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI), September 12, 2008:

I certainly was there for so many of the abuses, and was frustrated by the lack of congressional spine to stand up to this administration, particularly some of the veteran members of Congress who'd been there for years and years, and worked so hard to build this country to the status that we enjoyed at the turn of the century. I don't have a good answer for why that is; I guess we're all culpable - media, Congress, citizens alike - for not expressing more outrage.

It has been a tough few years for "We the People," as Sen. Russell Feingold (D-WI) and former Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) noted Friday on a teleconference held by Common Cause. The Bush administration has sidestepped the rule of law, thumbed its nose at congressional oversight and attempted to overwhelm the separation of powers, leaving our Constitution - as well as our democracy and our standing in the world - on a precipice.

September 17 is Constitution Day, the anniversary of the first signing of that sacred founding document 221 years ago, a critical moment not only to relearn the content of the Constitution, but to fight for it - to make sure that its laws and values do not continue to erode.

Fired U.S. attorneys, warrantless wiretaps, government-sanctioned torture, "executive privilege" - how did we get here?

Day 1 - RNC

September 1- Hurricane Gustav may have blown away the Republican National Convention's tightly constructed agenda, limiting opening day to all but the essentials, but Common Cause was still very much in St. Paul to bring our message of reform.

Today, we ran a full page ad on the "Recapture the Flag" campaign in the Minneapolis Star Tribune's special Republican National Convention section. Check it out here. The "Democracy in Distress" ad, with the upside down flag and demand for a return to constitutional principles and the rule of law, certainly was a bold complement to the Target ad with their awfully cute dog reminding everyone to register to vote. There's little doubt the ad made its nonpartisan and timely point to thousands of Republican delegates and curious Minnesotans.

Don't Cross KBR

From this morning's Times ...

The Army official who managed the Pentagon's largest contract in Iraq says he was ousted from his job when he refused to approve paying more than $1 billion in questionable charges to KBR, the Houston-based company that has provided food, housing and other services to American troops.

The official, Charles M. Smith, was the senior civilian overseeing the multibillion-dollar contract with KBR during the first two years of the war. Speaking out for the first time, Mr. Smith said that he was forced from his job in 2004 after informing KBR officials that the Army would impose escalating financial penalties if they failed to improve their chaotic Iraqi operations.

Army auditors had determined that KBR lacked credible data or records for more than $1 billion in spending, so Mr. Smith refused to sign off on the payments to the company. "They had a gigantic amount of costs they couldn't justify," he said in an interview. "Ultimately, the money that was going to KBR was money being taken away from the troops, and I wasn't going to do that."

Politicization at NASA and NOAA

Since taking office the Bush administration has made clear its distaste for regulating air and water pollution, even in the face of global warming. What is now coming out is how they took their political beliefs and forced them upon important government agencies charged with developing scientific analyses of these dangerous problems.

Today, the Inspector General reports that political appointees in the NASA press office altered the agency's findings on global warming. Yes, at the press office.

The world's most powerful country -- and its biggest polluter -- has some of the most talented and respected scientists anywhere, and yet

from the fall of 2004 through 2006, the report said, NASA's public affairs office "managed the topic of climate change in a manner that reduced, marginalized, or mischaracterized climate change science made available to the general public." It noted elsewhere that "news releases in the areas of climate change suffered from inaccuracy, factual insufficiency, and scientific dilution."

Officials of the Office of Public Affairs told investigators that they regulated communication by NASA scientists for technical rather than political reasons, but the report found "by a preponderance of the evidence, that the claims of inappropriate political interference made by the climate change scientists and career public affairs officers were more persuasive than the arguments of the senior public affairs officials that their actions were due to the volume and poor quality of the draft news releases."

The arm of the White House under this overreaching executive can apparently extend into any agency, on any subject, and bend it to their political will. The reason we have career staff at government agencies is to handle such issues without political interference -- the exact opposite of what's happening now, as this story shows.

(h/t TPM)

Karl Rove subpoenaed

House Judiciary Committee subpoenas Rove over the still-unresolved issue of the U.S. attorneys scandal.

We know that the White House believes that this falls under "executive privilege" and will compel Rove not to comply -- the same way they kept Josh Bolten and Harriet Miers from testifying before Congress.

Here's hoping this time turns out differently, and we get some accountability for once.