Petition Attorney General Eric Holder to Appoint a Special Prosecuter

Formal Petition to Attorney General-Designate Eric Holder to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute any and all government officials who have participated in War Crimes.

Sponsored by Docudharma.com and Democrats.com.

The People vs. Dick Cheney

Karen Greenberg answers the question:

"Will Obama bring the Bushies to account? Will Congress? Some local DA? A judge in Europe? Anyone...?"

Illustration: Roberto Parada (Mother Jones)

Who Will Throw the Book at the Bushies?

In a companion piece to "The People vs. Dick Cheney," Jonathan Schwarz reports:

"If Congress won't, these folks might...."

Congressman Wexler: Inherent Contempt for Rove

Congressman Robert Wexler: "

Last night, I appeared on MSNBC's Verdict with Dan Abrams to discuss Karl Rove's outrageous refusal to appear before Congress regarding serious allegations that he used the US Justice Department to take down a prominent Democratic politician. It is alleged that Mr. Rove personally instigated the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegleman. The case has been criticized by legal experts, and 52 former state attorney generals – both Republicans and Democrats – have criticized the case and called for an investigation. (You may view the clip here.)



If Rove refuses to testify voluntarily and ignores the subpoenas that will certainly be issued, he should be held in Inherent Contempt of the House of Representatives.

No American is above the law. None of us should be able to ignore Congress without consequence. If Mr. Rove ignores a subpoena from the Judiciary Committee, then the House of Representatives should pass an Inherent Contempt citation and exercise our right to send the House Sergeant-of-Arms to gather Mr. Rove and bring him before Congress to testify.

I do not advocate this option lightly, but the reality is that Congress has few options left against an Administration that totally refuses to submit to any type of reasonable Congressional oversight. Congress has both the right and obligation to investigate these matters. Never before has an Executive so upset the checks and balances inherent in our Constitution. If we back off or delay, we effectively forfeit the power of Congress to investigate the Executive branch.

Rove is not the first White House official to ignore Congress. We have seen a pattern of refusals based on laughable claims of executive privilege. First, White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers ignored subpoenas on the investigation into the firing of US Attorney Generals for partisan political motives.

Their refusal to testify was unprecedented: never before have executive officials totally refused to even show up before Congress. Bolten and Miers are the highest officials ever held in contempt of Congress. Unfortunately, Attorney General Mukasey – in a dereliction of duty – has refused to enforce the contempt decree and now Congress is suing them in District Court to demand compliance. Then, the Vice President's Chief of Staff, David Addington, refused to testify on the investigation into the Bush Administration's ordering of torture. Now, Rove continues this executive arrogance by also refusing to testify.

Enough is enough. We have a Constitutional obligation to provide accountability to a White House that is trying usurp the constitutional powers of Congress.

These are the very reasons why I have been pushing for impeachment hearings for Vice President Cheney. The Bush Administration has been running roughshod over the Constitution for eight long years. We should not allow the promise of a positive election be used as an excuse to ignore our duty to investigate crimes that weaken the very fabric of our Democracy.

I thank you again for your commitment to the causes that we hold so dear."

Also See:

• Conyers On Rove: "Someone's Got To Kick His A**" | The Huffington Post

Technorati tags: Robert Wexler, Congress, Karl Rove, Justice Department, Don Siegleman

Plame Suit Dismissed by Controversial GOP Loyalist

Jason Leopold and Matt Renner report for Truthout:

"A federal judge has dismissed the civil lawsuit filed against top Bush administration officials by former CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. The judge, John Bates of the US District Court in Washington, DC is a Bush appointee who previously dismissed a lawsuit filed by the federal government against Vice President Dick Cheney. That suit sought access to Cheney's energy task force documents.
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Since his tenure on the federal bench began six years ago, Bates's legal opinions and rulings supporting the administration's executive powers stand in stark contrast to his legal work as an assistant US attorney. He worked for Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr prosecuting President Clinton's Whitewater investment deals...."

Photo Credit: Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA agent was leaked to the press. (Getty Images/Via BBC News)

Also See:

• Judge throws out Plame's lawsuit - Los Angeles Times

Technorati tags: Jason Leopold, Truthout, Plamegate, Valerie Plame Wilson, Judge John Bates, US District Court, Cheney, Bush, news

Conflict Over Executive Privilege Looms

LegalTimes.com reports:

Congressional Democrats have always believed that the Justice Department's plan to fire eight US attorneys began in the White House, and last week they proved willing to take their investigation to its doorstep by subpoenaing two former Bush aides....

...Many legal observers say the subpoenas are more likely to force the White House to find some sort of middle ground - even if it takes a protracted legal fight to get there...."

Technorati tags: Legal Times, Congress, Executive Privilege, Democrats, Attorney Generals, US Justice Department, news

Bordergate: The Story The Government Doesn't Want You To Read

By Darlene Fitzgerald
June 2, 2007

My name is Darlene Fitzgerald and I have over 20 years of combined law enforcement experience in the military, private industry and as a Special Agent, and in 1999 I resigned in protest because I refused to work for an agency that is worse than the people I put in jail.

In 1998 I was in charge of a U.S. Customs task force operating an extensive investigation called Operation Rite Rail. We uncovered tons of narcotics and contraband being facilitated into the U.S. from Mexico via railroad tanker cars - with the apparent approval of U.S. Customs managers. Just a little over a year ago this resulted in the landmark civil case in federal court: Fitzgerald - Nunn Vs. Department of Homeland Security.

At this trial supervised by now-fired US Attorney Carol Lam, Superior Court Judge Yvette Palazuelos took the stand and made history by being the first sitting Judge ever to testify against the U.S. Government.

The essential fact of my testimony, corroborated by other credible Special Agents and managers, is that high-level Customs managers shut down my investigation into narcotics smuggling.

I had already seized 8000 pounds of marijuana and 34 kilos of uncut cocaine in just one pressurized railroad tanker car. I had in my grasp five cars imported from Mexico that were improperly manifested as "empty", yet contained 25 to 40 tons of suspect contraband. They had been sent from the same front company in Mexico where the previously seized tanker car was from, and I had high-level information from a reliable informant as to the contents of these five cars. Yet I was ordered off the case and told to shut down my operation.

At the trial, Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAIC) Gary Pinkava took the stand for Customs and admitted without elaboration that he would not allow me or my supervisor to pressure test, at no charge to the government, these highly suspected tanker cars. This would have been the largest seizure on record for any agency (25 to 40 tons), and it was under the command and control of ASAIC Pinkava.

Subsequently, as testified to by numerous witnesses, these tanker cars were released into the commerce of the U.S., uninspected by anyone.

Evidence of the following was most certainly exposed at the trial: Witness tampering, Facilitation of the importation of 25 to 40 tons of contraband into the U.S., Perjury, Misprision of Felony, and possible Subornation of Perjury.

This evidence was sufficient to warrant the initiation of a grand jury investigation -- yet there was none. All of these crimes remain Un-investigated! Complete transcripts of this trial testimony may be read at www.BorderGate.net.

What my task force and I also exposed is the horrendous national security terrorist threat that these tanker cars pose to our nation. Timothy McVey blew up the Federal Murrah Building in Oklahoma City with about one ton of ammonium nitrate in an unsealed-cargo truck. This cowardly attack killed scores of people and resulted in over eleven damaged buildings being torn down. Yet a terrorist can put forty times this amount of ammonium nitrate in a railroad tanker car and pressurize it. This would create what is essentially the world's largest "pipe bomb."

It is important to note that there have been no other rail tanker car seizures since that done by my task force in 1998. Have the drug smugglers and terrorists simply quit trying to enter the U.S., or have they been operating freely with the assistance of corrupt managers within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The real victims here are all of the brave whistleblowers who have come forward with important information that exposes threats to our national security in which I have chronicled in my recently released book entitled "BorderGate." Most recently my fellow Whistleblower John Carman was arrested by the FBI for what appears to many to be a clear case of entrapment in order to shut him up.

This is the same FBI office that John and I have repeatedly exposed in the media for failing to investigate the facts revealed in "BorderGate."

What has happened, and continues to happen to all of the Whistleblowers in the BorderGate story is not only wrong, but it places our country at grave risk as well. All we can do is put the facts before you. Henceforth, nobody can say they were unaware of what is going on.

To quote the famous French free thinker Voltaire, "Being right is dangerous when it is government that is wrong."

How sad is it that so many years later this is still true today.

Editor's Note: Ms. Fitzgerald urges all who choose to do so to contact the House Judiciary Committee and urge them to investigate this lack of action.

Darlene Fitzgerald has more than 20 years of successful experience in criminal justice: Military, federal law enforcement, and private industry. She is an honorably discharged, decorated veteran who served her country not only as a Captain in the U.S. Army Military Police Corps, but as a U.S. Customs Special Agent fighting on the front lines of the War on Drugs.

Technorati tags: US Department of Justice, Homeland Security, BorderGate, Darlene Fitzgerald, Whistleblowers, Corruption, US Government, news, activism

Monica's Smoking Gun

Unreported in Monica Goodling's testimony yesterday was evidence of felonious activities conducted by none other than Karl Rove. BBC Reporter Greg Palast has the story and the emails to prove it:

BBC Reporter Has Rove Office Emails - Goodling/Sampson Obstruction of Justice evidence?

Greg Palast reports:

BBC Television’s Newsnight has 500 “missing” Rove office emails including a series of self-incriminating notes which provide “the keys to the kingdom” behind the prosecutor firings.

In the opening to today’s testimony before Congress, Monica Goodling, former Department of Justice White House Liaison, testified that Kyle Sampson, the Chief of Staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales lied. At issue was, says Goodling, Sampson’s denial “that he had some knowledge of allegations that Tim Griffin had been involved in vote ‘caging’ during the work on the President’s 2004 campaign.”

What is ‘caging’? Why is it so important that it lead Goodling’s testimony? Why is Tim Griffin’s involvement kept secret? And what are ‘the allegations’?

Goodling, in her testimony (and in several subpoenaed emails) identifies the source of the allegation as BBC investigative reporter Greg Palast - who, in October 2004, first broke open the ‘caging’ story on BBC’s Television’s premier current affairs show, Newsnight. (Watch it here)

The BBC reporter explained that ‘vote caging’ is a crime; Tim Griffin directed it; Karl Rove, Goodling and Sampson knew it, yet Rove demanded the appointment of Griffin as the US Attorney for Arkansas.

‘Caging’ was a 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign scheme to challenge, on false evidence, the right to vote of tens of thousand of Black voters.

Was Tim Griffin involved? Palast showed, on camera, the email he intercepted from the Bush campaign, “Subject: caging,” written by Griffin himself, making clear that Griffin was not just involved, the but the director of this vote fixing scheme.

The allegation is based on an email, re-produced on page 207 of Palast’s book, “Armed Madhouse,” currently a New York Times bestseller (published by Penguin).

In several emails obtained by subpoena by Congressional investigators, Goodling and Griffin complain about ‘that British reporter Palast’ (an American working with BBC London). In a February 5, 2006 email, Griffin gloats to Goodling that “no [US] national media” has picked up Palast’s discovery of the ‘caging’ operation.

Here’s how caging works: [...]

Read the entire story at GregPalast.com.

Photo Credits: (1) Caging List (© Greg Palast) Click on Image for source view. (2) Tim Griffin Emails (© Greg Palast) Click on image for source view.

Related Articles:

• Ex-Justice Aide Admits Politics Affected Hiring | New York Times

  "Monica M. Goodling said that she had “crossed the line” in considering the political beliefs of Justice Department applicants...."

• Witness for the Prosecutors | New York Times Editorial:

  "It would have been naïve to think that Monica Goodling, a right-wing true believer and onetime Republican opposition researcher, was going to blow the whistle on the United States attorney scandal. But Ms. Goodling made some disturbing admissions yesterday, even as she strained to present every fact in the most favorable light to her Bush administration allies and claimed convenient memory lapses. Ms. Goodling admitted to politicizing the Justice Department in ways that certainly seem illegal; she made clear that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales lied at a critical point in the investigation; and she gave Congress all the reason it needs to compel Karl Rove and Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, to testify about what they know...."

Technorati tags: BBC, Greg Palast, Carl Rove, Monica Goodling, Alberto Gonzales, Kyle Sampson, Vote Fraud, Vote Caging, US Depart of Justice, Congress, Tim Griffin, 2004 Presidential Campaign, Congressional Investigations, news

Missing Rove Emails Point to Violation of Records Act

Missing Rove Emails Point to Violation of Records Act
Jason Leopold and Matt Renner report:

"The story has deja vu written all over it as Rove finds himself smack in the middle of the latest high-profile scandal plaguing the White House - the apparent politically motivated firings of nine US attorneys last year. Once again, lawmakers are doing their darnedest to obtain copies of Rove's emails linking him directly to the US attorney scandal, and once again serious questions are being raised about the lengths to which Gonzales, as head of the Justice Department, and the Bush administration are willing to go to insulate Rove...."

Photo Credit: Baltimore.indymedia.org

Related Articles:

• McClatchy | Efforts to stop `voter fraud' may have curbed legitimate voting

Technorati tags: Jason Leopold, Matt Renner, Karl Rove, Bush Administration, Justice Department, Attorney Generals, news

Why This Scandal Matters

New York Times editorial:

"As Monica Goodling, a key player in the United States attorney scandal, prepares to testify before Congress on Wednesday, the administration's strategy is clear. It has offered up implausible excuses, hidden the most damaging evidence and feigned memory lapses, while hoping that the public's attention moves on. But this scandal is too important for the public or Congress to move on. This story should not end until Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is gone, and the serious damage that has been done to the Justice Department is repaired...."

Technorati tags: New York Times, Justice Department, Alberto Gonzales, Monica Goodling, US Attorneys, news, commentary

Failing by Example

If you can manage to overlook Tom-Tom's chronic inability to recognize his own complicity in instigating the Iraq War, today's op ed does manage to make a few salient points about the Bushies' subsequent strategic political blunders.

Failing by Example
Thomas L. Friedman
The New York Times

If you want to know why we are losing in Iraq, go back and read this story that ran on the front page of The Times on Saturday. It began like this:

“Two years ago, Robin C. Ashton, a seasoned criminal prosecutor at the Department of Justice, learned from her boss that a promised promotion was no longer hers. ‘You have a Monica problem,’ Ms. Ashton was told. Referring to Monica M. Goodling, a 31-year-old, relatively inexperienced lawyer who had only recently arrived in the office, the boss added, ‘She believes you’re a Democrat and doesn’t feel you can be trusted.’ Ms. Ashton’s ouster — she left for another Justice Department post two weeks later — was a critical early step in a plan that would later culminate in the ouster of nine United States attorneys last year.

“Ms. Goodling would soon be quizzing applicants for civil service jobs at Justice Department headquarters with questions that several United States attorneys said were inappropriate, like who was their favorite president and Supreme Court justice. One department official said an applicant was even asked, ‘Have you ever cheated on your wife?’ Ms. Goodling also moved to block the hiring of prosecutors with résumés that suggested they might be Democrats, even though they were seeking posts that were supposed to be nonpartisan.”

What does this have to do with Iraq? A lot. One benchmark the Bush team has been urging the Iraqi government to meet is to rescind its broad “de-Baathification” program — the wholesale purging of Baathists after the fall of Saddam — which has alienated many Sunnis and hampered national reconciliation.

But while the Bush team has been lecturing the Iraqi Shiites to limit de-Baathification in Baghdad, it was carrying out its own de-Democratization in the Justice Department in Washington. We would feel that we had failed in Iraq if we read that Sunnis were being purged from Iraq’s Ministry of Justice by Shiite hard-liners loyal to Moktada al-Sadr — but the moral equivalent of that is exactly what the Bush administration was doing here. What kind of example does that set for Iraqis?

And this wasn’t only a Washington problem. Read Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s outstanding “Imperial Life in the Emerald City,” which details the extent to which Americans recruited to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad were chosen, at times, for their loyalty toward Republicanism rather than expertise on Islamism. “Two C.P.A. staffers said that they were asked if they supported Roe v. Wade and if they had voted for George W. Bush,” he wrote.

But this degree of partisanship — loyalty over competence — was destructive in a much bigger way. It also deprived the Bush team of the support it needed when things in Iraq didn’t turn out to be as easy as it expected.

Only a united America could have the patience and fortitude to heal a divided Iraq — and we simply don’t have that today. Why? Because George Bush and Dick Cheney asked everyone to check their politics at the door when it came to Iraq, because victory there was so important — everyone but themselves. They argued that the war in Iraq was the central front of the central struggle of our age — an unusual war, a war against terrorism and the pathologies that produce it — but then they indulged in the most rancid politics as usual at home.

They actually thought they could unite Iraq, while dividing America.

Whenever Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney had a choice between seeking political advantage at home or acting in a bipartisan fashion to buy more unity, time and space to do all the heavy lifting needed in Iraq, they opted for political advantage.

When Franklin Roosevelt fought World War II, he made a conservative Republican, Henry Stimson, his secretary of war and did all he could to hold the country together. The Bush- Cheney team, by contrast, summoned us to D-Day and then treated it like it was just another political wedge issue, whenever it suited them.

It has not worked. As Leon Wieseltier, literary editor of The New Republic, put it: “You cannot govern like Winston Churchill some of the time and like Grover Norquist most of the time.”

Democrats need to be careful, though, that they don’t let their rage with the hypocrisy of Mr. Bush make them totally crazy, and blind them to the fact that they — we — still need a credible plan to deal with the very real threat to open societies posed by Islamist terrorism. But I understand that rage. After all, who can ask more soldiers to sacrifice their lives in Iraq for an administration that wouldn’t even sacrifice its politics?

Photo Credit: Thomas Friedman. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

Also See:

• How to win the Iraq war:

  "Success can still be achieved in Iraq along historic precedents of Ireland, South Africa and El Salvador when armed combatants ended their wars and joined the political process...."

Technorati tags: Thomas Friedman, New York Times, Monica Goodling, Democratic Party, Bush, Justice Department, Iraq, news, commentary, op ed

Gonzales Giggles Through Testimony, Ignores Even More New Evidence

From Jonathan Stein at MotherJones' MoJo Blog:

"Yesterday I wrote that a ninth purged U.S. Attorney had been found and that Alberto Gonzales, who was going before the House Judiciary Committee, was going to have to answer some tough questions.

Well, as it happens, Gonzales displayed the same combination of (feigned) cluelessness and (unwarranted) chutzpah as he did when appearing before the Senate last month in order to avoid saying much of anything at all. A major difference? No defensiveness -- Gonzales seems to know he can't or won't be fired, and has stopped caring what Congress or the American people think of him. He giggled throughout his testimony, in the face of weighty and sometimes damning questions.

He might want to get serious. McClatchy reports new evidence that Karl Rove essentially used Gonzales' Department of Justice as the enforcement arm for his Machiavellian schemes. Just weeks before the November 2006 elections, Karl Rove and his deputies twice urged the Department of Justice (using Gonzo's chief-of-staff Kyle Sampson as a primary contact) to investigate voter fraud in New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin -- even though it is DOJ policy not to open such investigations shortly before elections because of the possibility of influencing votes.

But that was the point. The cases that Rove wanted investigated where shams -- the allegations of voter fraud in Wisconsin, for example, were two years old and had already been thoroughly investigated, with no results. And obviously the voter fraud Rove wanted investigated was all one-sided stuff -- Republicans being disenfranchised by Democrats and not the other way around. How do we know? Rove's evidence of voter fraud came from a 30-page report compiled by Republican activists.

That's right -- conservative activists on the ground were in direct contact with the president's top political adviser, who in turn tried to turn the activists' loony schemes into official Department of Justice policy. Are we a banana republic yet?"

Technorati tags: Mother Jones, Bush Lies, Alberto Gonzales, Karl Rove, Vote Fraud, Politics, news

So What Else in New....

Bush Administration Withheld E-Mails About Rove
By Murray Waas
National Journal

"The Bush administration has withheld a series of e-mails from Congress showing that senior White House and Justice Department officials worked together to conceal the role of Karl Rove in installing Timothy Griffin, a protégé of Rove's, as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas.

The withheld records show that D. Kyle Sampson, who was then-chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, consulted with White House officials in drafting two letters to Congress that appear to have misrepresented the circumstances of Griffin's appointment as U.S. attorney and of Rove's role in supporting Griffin...."

Also See:

• NY Times: House Democrats Raise New Criticism of Gonzales

  "Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales endured new criticism on Capitol Hill today as House Democrats questioned his leadership of the Department of Justice and his personal candor. Mr. Gonzales, appearing before the House Judiciary Committee, was questioned again about the dismissals of United States attorneys - amid a new assertion that, in effect, nine of them were let go, rather than eight as previously reported - and about his awareness of what is going on in his huge department...."

Technorati tags: Murray Waas, National Journal, Karl Rove, Bush Administration, Timothy Griffin, D. Kyle Sampson, Alberto Gonzales, U.S. Justice Department, news

Congress probes allegations of politicized hiring

CNN reports:

Congressional investigators are looking into new allegations a top official at the Justice Department illegally hired career lawyers based on their political affiliations.

Investigators are focusing on Bradley Schlozman, a former top official in the department's Civil Rights Division, who recently returned to Washington after serving as interim U.S. attorney in Kansas City, Missouri.

The Justice Department denies violating federal law, saying an applicant's political affiliation "is not a criterion solicited or considered in the hiring process."

The claims have surfaced amid the congressional investigation of the firings of federal prosecutors in eight cities in 2006 -- allegedly for political rather than professional reasons....

Photo: (Getty via CNN.com) Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which on Monday questioned Bradley Schlozman about his handling of voter-fraud cases.

Technorati tags: Congress, Justice Department, Gonzales, Leahy, news

Justice Department In New Fight Over Papers on Firings

The Washington Post reports:

"The Justice Department is refusing to release hundreds of pages of additional documents related to the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, setting up a fresh clash with Capitol Hill in a controversy that continues to threaten Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales's hold on his position.

The Senate Judiciary Committee, whose investigators have been allowed to view, but not obtain copies of, the records in question, is preparing subpoenas for those papers as well as for all e-mails or documents from the Justice Department and the White House connected to the dismissals of the prosecutors.

The new sparring comes as Senate Democrats postponed a long-planned budgetary appearance by Gonzales that had been scheduled for next week. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (Md.), chairman of the Appropriations Committee panel overseeing the Justice Department budget, blamed Gonzales's 'leadership failures' yesterday for the postponement and demanded that the prosecutor controversy be settled before he makes his plea for a budget increase...."

Photo Credit: Alberto Gonzales. The Washington Post

Technorati tags: Washington Post, Alberto Gonzales, Justice Department, Senate, Senator Barbara Mikulski, Senator Charles Schumer, Patrick Leahy, news

Bush DOJ Has Orders to Sic Dems

MotherJones.com | MoJo Blog:

"Not only has the Bush administration been purging out-of-favor U.S. attorneys across the nation, it has also been using its DOJ to investigate Democrats far more frequently than Republicans, according to TPMmuckraker. From 2001 to 2006, when Democrats made up just half of all elected officials (local and national) in the country, 79 percent of the DOJ's investigations targeted Dems. The data comes from a study by two retired professors, Dr. Donald C. Shields of University of Missouri-St. Louis and Dr. John F. Cragan of Illinois State University. "The chance of such a heavy Democratic-Republican imbalance occurring at random is 1 in 10,000," reported the study's authors."

Technorati tags: Bush, Dept. of Justice, Mother Jones, TPM Muckraker, news

A Snake Oil President

TomPaine.com:

"The White House has squandered your tax dollars on illegal propaganda. So why isn't the Justice Department investigating? ..."

The Trouble with Authority

Should just people obey unjust laws?

By Charles Sullivan

"In our desire to appear reasonable we have lost the willingness to fight for what is good and decent. We have marginalized and prostituted ourselves. We cannot expect any help from either the Democratic or the Republican parties—they are a part of the problem...."

Justice Department Releases List of Pardons Granted by President Bush

Take a peek: CLICK HERE.

Most Disappointing Vote for John Roberts

The Nation reports:

"Of all the votes by Democratic senators in favor of the nomination of John Roberts to serve as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, none is likely to be more disappointing to progressives than that of Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold...."