Mark Danner makes the case against Bush’s Attorney-General-to-be:

In the next few days we are likely to hear how Mr. Gonzales recommended strongly, against the arguments of the secretary of state and military lawyers, that prisoners in Afghanistan be denied the protection of the Geneva Conventions. We are also likely to hear how, under Mr. Gonzales’s urging, lawyers in the Department of Justice contrived – when confronted with the obstacle that the United States had undertaken, by treaty and statute, to make torture illegal – simply to redefine the word to mean procedures that would produce pain “of an intensity akin to that which accompanies serious physical injury such as death or organ failure.” By this act of verbal legerdemain, interrogation techniques like water-boarding that plainly constituted torture suddenly became something less than that.

But what we are unlikely to hear, given the balance of votes in the Senate, are many voices making the obvious argument that with this record, Mr. Gonzales is unfit to serve as attorney general. So let me make it: Mr. Gonzales is unfit because the slow river of litigation is certain to bring before the next attorney general a raft of torture cases that challenge the very policies that he personally helped devise and put into practice. He is unfit because, while the attorney general is charged with upholding the law, the documents show that as White House counsel, Mr. Gonzales, in the matter of torture, helped his client to concoct strategies to circumvent it. And he is unfit, finally, because he has rightly become the symbol of the United States’ fateful departure from a body of settled international law and human rights practice for which the country claims to stand.

This had better inspire some challenging questions tomorrow:

Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel, intervened directly with Justice Department lawyers in 2002 to obtain a legal ruling on the extent of the president’s authority to permit extreme interrogation practices in the name of national security, current and former administration officials said Tuesday. Mr. Gonzales’s role in seeking a legal opinion on the definition of torture and the legal limits on the force that could be used on terrorist suspects in captivity is expected to be a central issue in the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings scheduled to begin on Thursday on Mr. Gonzales’s nomination to be attorney general.

The request by Mr. Gonzales produced the much-debated Justice Department memorandum of Aug. 1, 2002, which defined torture narrowly and said that Mr. Bush could circumvent domestic and international prohibitions against torture in the name of national security. Until now, administration officials have been unwilling to provide details about the role Mr. Gonzales had in the production of the memorandum by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. Mr. Gonzales has spoken of the memorandum as a response to questions, without saying that most of the questions were his.

Keith Olbermann says the representatives’ challenge to tomorrow’s vote count has found the necessary Senate support:

…it appeared all but certain in early evening Wednesday that House Democrats had secured the support of up to half a dozen Senators to formally challenge the Electoral College slate from Ohio, when the votes are opened before a joint session of Congress tomorrow. Congressional sources tell this reporter that the house half of the written objection — which has the declared support of more than a dozen Representatives — is expected to be signed by Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio. Republican leadership expects the Senate signatory to be Barbara Boxer of California, but this has not yet been formalized.

As it is, a written challenge would require the joint session to suspend for several hours, during which the Senate and the House would meet separately and debate the merits of the objection. The ad hoc group formed by Representative John Conyers of Michigan has also today published its staff report, concluding that before, during, and after the election in Ohio, many state laws may have been broken, in every area ranging from the allocation of voting machines, election day “anomalies,” and the recount. It recommended a formal Congressional inquiry, and additional legislation to reform voting laws.

If the challenge takes place, it will represent a crucial step in dramatizing the violations of equal protection perpetrated by the current electoral system. And no one will deserve more credit for putting heat on Democratic Senators than Michael Moore.

Barbara Boxer considers challenging the vote:

A handful of House Democrats are targeting California Sen. Barbara Boxer as part of a long-shot effort to snarl President Bush’s formal re-election by preventing Congress from counting Ohio’s pivotal votes when lawmakers tally the electoral vote on Thursday. No one expects the action to undo Bush’s victory. Instead, it seems likely to do little more than call attention to Election Day voting irregularities, a growing frustration for Democrats who blamed similar problems in Florida for Bush’s 2000 defeat of Democrat Al Gore. In a measure of the dispute’s political delicacy, proponents are considered unlikely to find a senator who will co-sign the objection, which is required to force Congress to act on the challenge. Most Democrats are reluctant to launch a serious effort to undo the election, in which Bush outpolled Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., by more than 3 million votes nationally.

Even so, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has sent letters to senators seeking their support for his plan to object to the counting of Ohio’s 20 electoral votes, which gave Bush his November victory over Kerry…The House Democrats’ chief hope of finding a supportive senator may be Boxer. Her spokesman, David Sandretti, said Tuesday that she has been asked to sign the complaint “and she is considering it.”

Give her office a call at (202) 224-3553.

If, against your better judgement, you want to join me in an ill-conceived attempt to trade your willingness to watch a series of ads and sign up for a trial of something else for a free I-Pod, you can do so here.

Thomas Edsall reports on the struggle over the future of the AFL-CIO:

Although he has not announced his candidacy, John Wilhelm, president of the hospitality division of Unite Here (the recently merged needle trades and hotel workers unions), is widely viewed among union leaders as a likely challenger. Wilhelm declined to comment…The combination of a contest for power and growing pressure for major restructuring has split labor into two camps. Among the unions that appear likely to support Sweeney are the Steelworkers, the American Federation of Teachers, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the Communications Workers of America. But even some Sweeney loyalists have gone public with their criticism. Harold A. Schaitberger, general president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, recently wrote in a memo to the AFL that “for the last three election cycles at the national/federal level, the only measure that is truly relevant is that labor has come up short.” Schaitberger said the AFL “must also end its practice of relegating itself to being subservient to one political party or our political and legislative influence will continue to decline.”

In an interview, Sweeney said that he has enough votes to win: “I am confident I have very significant support from the affiliates.” Among those unions likely to back Wilhelm or another insurgent are Unite Here, the Service Employees International Union, the Laborers’ International Union, the Teamsters and the United Food and Commercial Workers. Critics contend that because organized labor’s survival is in such danger, Sweeney’s cautious, consensus-building strategies have become a liability when tough leadership is needed.

The Center for American Progress catches Bill Frist rewriting history:

Speaking to the Federalist Society on November 12, Frist said filibustering judicial nominees is “radical. It is dangerous and it must be overcome.”[1] Frist called judicial filibusters “nothing less than a formula for tyranny by the minority.” When Bill Clinton was President, however, Frist engaged in the same behavior he is now condemning. In 1996 Clinton nominated Judge Richard Paez to the 9th Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals. Conservatives in Congress held up Paez’s nomination for more than four years, culminating in an attempted filibuster on March 8, 2000…Frist was directly confronted with this vote by Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation 11/21/04). Schieffer said “Senator, a group called The American Progress Action Fund sent me a question to ask you. And here’s what it says: `Senator Frist, if you oppose the use of the filibuster for judicial nominations, why did you vote to filibuster Judge Richard Paez when President Clinton nominated him to the 9th Circuit?'” Frist replied “Filibuster, cloture, it gets confusing–as a scheduling or to get more information is legitimate. But no to kill nominees.”

…On March 9, 2000, Former Senator Bob Smith (R-NH) issued a press release describing the intent of the Paez filibuster vote the day before. The release says Senator Smith “built a coalition of several moderate and conservative Senators in an effort to block” Paez’s nomination. Frist was a part of that coalition. Smith did not organize the filibuster to get more information on Paez (after all his nomination had been pending for four years). He organized the filibuster because he had already decided Paez was “out of the mainstream of political though and…should [not] be on the court”

Just remember – they were for shredding ethics standards before they were against it:

GOP leaders stressed that they didn’t want the ethics issue to sidetrack their greater legislative goals, which include lawsuit and immigration reforms as well as the president’s advocacy of allowing people to put part of their Social Security taxes into private investments. “It would have been the right thing to do, but it was becoming a distraction,” said John Feehery, spokesman for Hastert, R-Ill. Feehery was referring to a proposed relaxation in ethics rules — including one that would have made it more difficult to rebuke members whose misconduct didn’t reach the level of specific rule or law violations….The proposals would make it harder to proceed with an ethics investigation by requiring a majority vote of the evenly divided ethics committee. The current system allows an investigation to begin automatically if there is no action within 45 days. At least one prominent Republican, outgoing ethics committee chairman Joel Hefley, R-Col., voiced concerns about the rules changes because “ethics reform must be bipartisan and this package is not bipartisan.”

…First DeLay asked Republicans to overturn the party rule, enacted last November on his behalf, that allows party heads to retain their posts even if indicted. Three of DeLay’s Texas associates have been indicted by a grand jury in Austin on fund-raising violation charges. DeLay’s spokesman, Jonathan Grella, said DeLay was confident that he would not be indicted, and decided to seek the elimination of the rule protecting him because he didn’t want to give Democrats an issue.