Just POlitics

Karen Hughes’ return

The Washington Post is reporting that Karen P. Hughes, the longtime adviser to President Bush often described as the most powerful woman ever to work in the White House, plans to return to the White House and rejoin the president's team. President Bush has set forth on an ambitious second-term agenda and Hughes’s ability to frame Bush’s words would be a plus.

The Post states that their information comes from White House officials and outside Republican advisers.

Evangelicals’ concerns

The Board of Directors of the National Association of Evangelicals unanimously voted at its annual Fall Board Meeting to adopt an historic document on public engagement called For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility. The vote, 42-0, is viewed as a milestone in the movement of evangelicals from the insularity of a revival tent mind-set in the early 20th century to the political activism of the 21st century.

The origins of the document date back to the 2001 NAE Convention in which the Executive Committee of the Association commissioned "The Evangelical Project for Public Engagement" and secured the participation of nearly two dozen leading scholars from a variety of theological traditions.

"We have a long history of distinguished political engagement that has through people like William Wilberforce, Charles Finney, and Lord Shaftsbury, deeply shaped history, promoting freedom and justice around the world. It’s time for our community to draw on this glorious heritage and write another important chapter" said Cizik, Vice President for Governmental Affairs and Project Director.

McCain’s troubles

A public policy group is calling for an investigation of Sen. John McCain for possible violations of the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform law.

The Federal Election Commission is being urged by Citizen Outreach to investigate donations to the Reform Institute, a tax-exempt organization co-founded by Mr. McCain. Citizen Outreach says Cablevision Systems Corp. donated $200,000 to the organization — at the same time that Mr. McCain was pushing for a pricing plan supported by the cable-company.

New NASA chief

President Bush said on Friday he intends to nominate Michael Griffin of Johns Hopkins University to head the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Griffin currently serves as Space Department Head at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory outside Washington.

Previously, he was president of In-Q-Tel and worked at Orbital Sciences Corporation. Earlier in his career, Dr. Griffin served as NASA's chief engineer and as deputy for technology at the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization.

Iran incentives

Sect. of State Condoleezza Rice announced the decision to allow Iran to begin talks to join the World Trade Organization and to consider letting it buy civilian airline parts.

"This is giving to the Europeans more cards to play in their negotiations with the Iranians," Rice said. "This is about unifying the international community so that it's the Iranians who are isolated, not the United States."

"I look forward to working with our European friends to make it abundantly clear to the Iranian regime that the free world will not tolerate them having a nuclear weapon," Bush said during a visit to Shreveport, Louisiana.

Transfer Guantánamo Bay detainees

The Pentagon is looking for interagency cooperation in transferring detainees from Guantanamo Bay to their countries of origin.

"Our top choice would be to win the war on terrorism and declare an end to it and repatriate everybody," a senior Defense Department official said in an interview. "The next best solution would be to work with the home governments of the detainees in order to get them to take the necessary steps to mitigate the threat these individuals pose."

527’s fate

The NY Sun offers a look at how Harold Ickes is trying to keep his 527 organization alive and able to take large contributions. Republican activist Morton Blackwell offers this reflection:

Under the law, most 527 organizations are not permitted to coordinate their activities with any candidate or political party. Still, a Republican political activist known for grassroots organizing, Morton Blackwell, said if the 527 organizations remain a part of the political landscape, Mrs. Clinton could benefit from having Mr. Ickes at America Coming Together, which spent a record-breaking $78 million on voter registration and turnout efforts in the last election.

"He is generally considered to be in her camp, and it's logical she would want to have operations that are sympathetic to her in the future," including in a possible presidential bid, Mr. Blackwell said. "It is possible to do a lot of things and not break the law. It may well be possible among close friends to break the law and never get caught at it."

Byrd accounts for KKK membership

NewsMax reports on Sen. Robert Byrd’s comments as to why he left the Ku Klux Klan:

Former Ku Klux Klansman Sen. Robert Byrd said Thursday that he decided to leave the anti-black terrorist group in 1946 after becoming a born-again Christian, adding that the only reason he used the "N"-word in a 2001 television interview is because he'd heard black leaders say it.

The Hill reports that Rep. Shelley Moore Capito is looking into the prospects of defeating Byrd and moving to the Senate.

More urgent

Ramsey Clark and his impeach Bush movement says that impeachment is more urgent than ever. Here is his latest e-mail:

Dear VoteToImpeach / ImpeachBush.org Members,

We are urging all of those who are part of the impeachment movement to participate and bring the message of impeachment with signs and banners to the hundreds of local demonstrations that will be taking place on March 19/20, the second anniversary of the beginning of the criminal war against Iraq.

Between March 19 and April 3, Congressional representatives are scheduled to be back in their home district. It has never been more important for all people of conscience to hold demonstrations and rallies, and to lobby those representatives in their home districts during the March 19 - April 3 period. We are certain that impeachment activists from around the country will join us in organizing activities in the March 19 - April 3 period. Please notify the VoteToImpeach / ImpeachBush.org campaign about your local activity, and send in a report and photos, to ImpeachBush@VotetoImpeach.org.

The duty of the American People to compel the Impeachment of George W. Bush and his principal aides becomes ever more urgent as his mounting crimes take more lives daily, and threaten irreparable injury to Constitutional government, irreconcilable division within the nation and isolation of the U.S. in the community of nations.

Two years after the commencement of his War of Aggression, judged to be the "Supreme International Crime" at Nuremberg, the flow of blood in Iraq continues to rise and the threat of death is omnipresent.

The criminal policies of the Bush Administration which violate fundamental human rights are etched in memory worldwide in names like:

·        Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo as symbols of torture;

·        Falluja and Najaf as symbols of the indiscriminate destruction of civilian life;

·        Nicola Calipari, the Italian officer killed shielding the Italian reporter, Giuliana Sgrena, with his body, and scores of Iraqi families gunned down on highways as symbols of summary execution;

·        Unknown numbers of persons seized in the U.S., Canada, anywhere in the world and victimized by "Rendition" to abuse by foreign police as symbols of kidnapping.

A year after democratically elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide of Haiti was told by President Bush he "has to go" and was forced on to a U.S. plane and flown to Central African Republic, violence continues to grow in Haiti and deaths rise into the thousands as Aristide supporters are systematically targeted and no relief is in sight for the people of Haiti.

Today President Bush threatens Iran ("all options" are available), North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela, among others. He tells Syria it must completely withdraw its troops from Lebanon even as 500,000 Lebanese, 12 percent of the entire population, take to the streets to protest U.S. intervention and a pro-Syrian Lebanese leader is reelected Prime Minister by the Parliament of Lebanon, which fears a U.S.-Israel occupation and wants Syria to stay and maintain stability finally established after years of Civil War and bedlam.

For those who doubt President Bush's determination to continue his criminal enterprise consider only his three most important recent appointments: John Negroponte as director for all foreign intelligence where he can control information about foreign weapons of mass destruction and terrorist threats to the U.S.; John Bolton as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations to assure U.S. commitment to unilateral aggression and weaken UN opposition to U.S. aggression; and Alberto Gonzalez as Attorney General to validate violations of international human rights, the rule of law and the Constitution of the United States.

In his determination to be above all law, President Bush insists on U.S. power to continue violations of fundamental human rights in his war on terrorism; to violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by developing a new generation of extremely dangerous and usable tactical nuclear weapons while threatening to attack Iran, North Korea and others based on unverified claims that they are developing nuclear weapons; by direct obstruction of justice through bilateral agreements to refuse cooperation with the International Criminal Court; and by the U.S. withdrawal in March 2005 from International Court of Justice jurisdiction following a decision by that Court that State Courts in the U.S. must individually review the death sentences of 51 Mexican citizens following trials in which the U.S. violated rights of the accused under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.

The continuing boastful commitment of the Bush Administration to criminal aggression is a clear and present danger to the Constitution of the United States and the security of its peoples. The highest duty of the American people is to demand faithful performance of Constitutional duty by their elected

representatives to assure that they uphold Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution which states "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."

We must organize and act for the impeachment of George W. Bush and his principal aides by the House of Representatives and their trial by the Senate.

Vote to Impeach Now. Contribute to this national campaign. Organize meetings with your representative and present petitions from voters in your Congressional District demanding impeachment.

Action Now is Essential.

Ramsey Clark

Biden aide sentenced

A former aide to U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden has been sentenced to three years in prison for stealing more than $400,000 in campaign funds part of which went to buy gifts for men he met through the Internet.

Roger Blevins III, 34, a former assistant campaign treasurer for Biden, was sentenced in federal court Thursday after pleading guilty last year to two charges, including interstate transportation of stolen property.