Republican John Cornyn is as dirty as Bush & Delay

[Tex]

A glance of e-mails written by Ralph Reed concerning John Cornyn
By The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — A brief look at some 2001 e-mails between former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed and lobbyist Jack Abramoff concerning John Cornyn, who was Texas attorney general at the time and now is a U.S. senator.
_ NOV. 11, 2001, 5:43 p.m.: Abramoff's partner Michael Scanlon forwards Abramoff a news article in which the Alabama-Coushatta tribal leader said he was going forward with plans to open a casino. Scanlon wanted a law enforcement official, whose name was blacked out, to call the chief's "bluff" and threaten to put him in jail.
_ NOV. 11, 2001, 6:58 p.m.: Abramoff tells Reed in an e-mail: "This is CRITICAL. Can we get it?"
_ NOV. 12, 2001, 9:21 a.m.: Reed responds: "I think so. I'm scheduled to talk to Cornyn today. He has also been called by Ed Young, pastor of second Baptist, a good friend who he is counting on big time in the Senate race."
_ NOV. 12, 2001, 5:54 p.m.: Abramoff writes Reed, saying he was trying to get the National Indian Gaming Commission, which includes members of Indian tribes, to go after the Alabama-Coushatta and Tiguas, and that "Cornyn needs to get Indians to lead the way."
_ NOV. 12, 2001, 5:55 p.m.: Reed responds: "great work. get me the details so i can alert cornyn and let him know what we are doing to help him." He adds: "talked to ed young again today. incredibly engaged and excited. he is planning on hosting a breakfast with the top pastors in houston to get them all mobilized and to provide cover for cornyn. we may invite cornyn to address them."
_ NOV. 13, 2001, 9:40 a.m.: Abramoff writes to Reed: "Did you speak with Scanlon? He has a guy on the ground at the Alabama Coushatta reservation watching them unload hundreds of slot machines!! We need to get the AG arresting them RIGHT NOW!! We need to get the pastors rallying right now. This is going to be death for us. Please let us know what we are going to do. Thanks."

John Cornyn and the Abramoff Scandal

This morning, The Senate Indian Affairs Committee held a fourth hearing expected to further expose the degree to which Jack Abramoff defrauded Native American Tribes that hired him as a lobbyist. The hearing today will focus on his work for the Coshutta Tribe in Louisiana which was seeking to lobby the Department of Interior to reject the application of a rival tribe for a casino. Abramoff eventually extracted $36 million from the tribe in part to allegedly convince Texas voter not to legalize gambling.

Testimony of Coshutta Tribe Councilman David Sickey today revealed that Abramoff and Michael Scanlon obtained the contract by over-hyping the threat that gambling could be legalized in Texas, and bragging that they had "critical influence with Texas officials who could defeat Texas gambling."

Texas' chief gambling cop at the time was Attorney General John Cornyn. With the help of Abramoff, Scanlon and Ralph Reed, Cornyn rose to prominence in Texas by shutting down the Tigua casino, a client that Abramoff was simultaneously convincing to pay him millions to keep the casino open. [Washington Post, 9/25/2004]

Cornyn won final judgment in the lawsuit to close the casino in February 2002, weeks after formally kicking off his U.S. Senate campaign, saying "I will be a senator who will fight hard for true Texas values, and a conservative senator who will work for and stand beside our great president" [Houston Chronicle, 1/14/2002, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 4/17/2005]

His effort was no doubt helped along by the $4 million anti-gambling campaign funded by Abramoff and run by Ralph Reed – formerly of the Christian Coalition and currently a candidate for Lieutenant Governor in Georgia. E-mails released previously show that Reed and Abramoff were closely connected and receiving inside information from Cornyn's office and keeping him posted on their efforts over a period of months. And the campaign itself was expressly an effort to provide political cover for Cornyn's efforts. [U.S. News and World Report, 8/29/2005, Atlanta Journal Constitution, 6/19/2005]

But Cornyn's race didn't just profit from the publicity. Near the end of the campaign, Reed wrote to Abramoff saying "I think we should budget for an ataboy for cornyn" [sic]. Abramoff contributed $1,000, the maximum amount legally allowed. Cornyn also received $6,250 in contributions from Las Vegas casino interests who oppose Indian gaming, some of which were made at the same time Cornyn was pushing to close the Tigua's casino. In addition, a rival casino owner, Stanley Fulton, who was seeking to keep the Tigua casino closed, gave $1.25 million to the RNC. The RNC transferred a total of $2.8 million to the Texas Republican Party. Fulton also gave the maximum legal contribution to Cornyn's Senate campaign. [El Paso Times, 10/30/2002]

Today, Cornyn pleads amnesia, saying he has no recollection of any contact with Abramoff. [Fort Worth Star Telegram, 4/17/2005]

The hearings into Abramoff's dealings are a start, but the examination should not exclude the hard questions for the public officials and candidates who made his scams possible.

[Tex]

Jack Abramoff's insurance scheme was among the most recent revelations in an Indian gaming scandal that involves the two close associates of U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and six Indian tribes they were hired to represent in Washington. There's more to come. The Senate Indian Affairs Committee has held two hearings and released two stacks of supporting documents. Three federal grand juries, the FBI, and the Treasury and Interior departments are conducting less public investigations. When the story broke in The Washington Post 10 months ago, the money collected by Abramoff and Scanlon was estimated at $41 million. Three months ago it was up to $66 million. The current estimate is $81 million. The grand juries are still out, although sources close to the investigation predict indictments after the first of the year. Much of the money, according to what Senate Indian Affairs has thus far uncovered, was fraudulently obtained. Moving to the center of the scandal is Ohio Republican Congressman Bob Ney. Attorneys representing the tribes are preparing civil law suits to recover what they claim was stolen from them. The story will be with us for a while. The 1,250-member tribe living on the easternmost edge of El Paso wasn't the victim of the largest fraud Abramoff and Scanlon are alleged to have perpetrated. The Tiguas lost only $4.2 million ($4.5 million if political contributions the lobbyists demanded they make are included.) The Coushatta Tribe in Louisiana lost $33.5 million. (See "K Street Croupiers," November 19, 2004). But the Coushattas still have their casino, which brings in $300 million a year. The Tiguas have no casino. Median income in the tribe is $8,000 a year.

There's a qualitative difference in what Abramoff and Scanlon did to the Tiguas, and it involves conflicts of interest, and, according to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, fraud. The other tribes hired the two lobbyists to defend or expand existing gambling operations. Abramoff and Scanlon offered their services to members of Tigua tribe after John Cornyn shut down their Speaking Rock Casino. Yet before making their sales pitch to the Tiguas, both men had spent a year secretly directing the campaign that pressured John Cornyn to close the Tigua casino.

"It was the most cynical deal I've ever seen in this business," said an Austin political consultant who had represented Indian interests in Texas.

"While they were on the payroll of other tribes, they worked to destroy the only real economic development program that tribe ever had. Then they went out there and told them they could pass a secret provision in the House and Senate and open the casino up. There was never any way they could do what they promised. Both senators from Texas were opposed to gambling. Phil Gramm was opposed to gambling. Kay Bailey Hutchison was opposed to gambling. How were they going to get an Indian casino bill past them?"

As Texas Attorney General, John Cornyn wasn't the first public official in Texas to oppose Indian gaming. Ann Richards declared it illegal when she was the state's governor. As did Dan Morales, when he was attorney general. But Cornyn relentlessly pursued the tribe, which had become a big contributor to Democrats after the casino opened in 1993. Shortly after taking office in 1999, he filed suit in federal court, seeking to shut the tribe's casino down. The Tiguas fought back. They claimed that once the state created a lottery, the federal Restoration Act of 1987 no longer prohibited them from gambling. Gambling had been illegal in Texas at the time they were certified as a tribe under the terms of that act. Once the state got into the gambling business, they argued, reservation gaming was legal, as it is in other states where gambling is not prohibited. It was a novel legal defense, but it failed. Yet they were determined to fight on. The tribe began a public relations campaign, focusing on the $60 million a year generated by a casino that had lifted the tribe out of the mud-hut poverty in which it had lived for generations.

Abramoff and Scanlon did not want to see Cornyn discouraged or slowed down. Their biggest paying client was the Coushatta tribe of Louisiana, which considered any casino in Texas a threat to its Interstate 10 gambling market. Cornyn's lawsuit was the quickest way to put the Tiguas out of business. If they could help Cornyn kill the Tigua casino, they would have a federal court order declaring Indian gaming in Texas illegal. The ruling would also shut down the casino the Alabama Coushatta Tribe was trying to get up and going in Livingston, Texas, 75 miles north of Houston. (The Alabama Coushattas never made it back to Alabama because Sam Houston offered them land in appreciation for their help in the Texas war of independence. They belong to the same tribal family that includes the Coushattas in Louisiana, share the same blood and customs, and sometimes intermarry with their cousins on the other side of the Sabine River. But to the Louisiana Coushatta tribe, preserving their regional Indian gaming monopoly was more important than the family ties that bind them to their Texas relatives.)

Abramoff was in a difficult situation. It was unseemly for the Coushattas in Louisiana to work openly to deny their desperately poor Texas cousins the income a casino would provide. It would be difficult for Abramoff to sign the Tiguas as clients later if they knew he had worked to shut down their casino. And he marketed himself as a pro-Indian-gaming lobbyist. For various reasons, openly leading an anti-gaming crusade in Texas on behalf of the Louisiana Coushattas was not an option.

Ralph Reed was the perfect cover.

Abramoff hired the former director of the Christian Coalition to keep the pressure on Cornyn and watch for Tigua gambling bills in the Texas Legislature. While with the Coalition, Reed had worked with a network of pastors in Texas. Under contract to Abramoff, he returned to his Texas network as the leader of a Christian anti-gambling crusade. He told no one he was working for lobbyists who were paid by gambling interests in Louisiana. For the $4.2 million Abramoff paid him, Reed led and organized a group of Texas pastors into the fight to close the Tigua's casino and watched over Abramoff's interests in the Texas Legislature. He promised Cornyn broad support and pressed him to act quickly to close the casino, according to e-mails released by Senate Indian Affairs. Reed was also soliciting phone calls from pastors and congregations across the state and patching the calls into the AG's office. He knew which pastors to call to keep the public pressure on Cornyn.

"talked to ed young again today," he wrote in one of his lower-case e-mails to Abramoff. "incredibly engaged and excited. he is planning on hosting a breakfast with the top pastors in houston to get them all mobilized and to provide cover for cornyn. we may invite cornyn to address them."

Ed Young is the pastor of Second Baptist Church, a congregation of 35,000 with three campuses spread out across suburban Houston. He hosts a national television show, Winning Walk, and has served as president of the Southern Baptist Convention. The size and wealth of his three-campus operation, which recently acquired a fourth church and congregation, are enough to make him a statewide player. When Abramoff informed Reed that the attorney general was going to "get whacked" by protestors in El Paso, Reed responded that he would send "50 pastors to give him moral support."

It also helped that Karl Rove held Reed in high regard and had brought him in to work on Bush's 2000 campaign (after first arranging for Enron CEO Ken Lay to hire Reed's consulting firm for $300,000). By the time Cornyn went to work on the Tiguas, it was widely known that Reed had both the hottest Christian rolodex in the nation and the imprimatur of G.W. Bush. He quickly got inside Cornyn's office and kept Abramoff apprised of the Tigua litigation. The director of Cornyn's criminal division, according to an e-mail from Reed, provided the dates when Cornyn expected Judge Garnet Thomas Eisle to act, and an outline of Cornyn's response to the judge's rulings. Another source in Cornyn's office assured Reed that "Cornyn is pushing to shut the casino ASAP."

Abramoff and Scanlon were doing something remarkable: directing a $4 million statewide campaign to shutter the Tigua casino and managing to stay completely out of sight. Almost $2.4 million of Reed's bill was paid by a Delaware think tank run by a yoga instructor and lifeguard. Before The Washington Post exposed the fraudulent nature of Scanlon's American International Center, it had taken in $1.1 million from the Mississippi Choctaws and $1 million from the Louisiana Coushattas and passed the money through to Reed, along with an additional $300,000. Scanlon's PR firm, Capitol Campaign Strategies, paid Reed the other $1.8 million owed to him. When Reed left the Christian Coalition in 1997 to start his own company, he announced he would only accept clients who oppose gambling, abortion, and higher taxes. Four years later he was doing deals with Jack Abramoff and Mike Scanlon, and his company, Century Strategies, was awash in money befouled by gaming tables or slot machines.

"Reed's a Christian and he's too sanctimonious to take money directly from a casino operator," said a Louisiana political consultant who works on gambling issues. "But he'll take it from lobbyists who take it from casino operators." There was no way, despite Reed's denials, the consultant said, that he could be unaware of Abramoff's clients. (The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal had both done page-one profiles on Abramoff, focusing on his Indian clients.) Tom Grey, a Methodist minister who runs the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling, agreed, telling The National Journal's Peter Stone that Reed must have known. "When you get paid big money, it's got to be gambling money," Grey said. "Ralph Reed with all his sophistication should have known where that money was coming from."

It seems they were both right. On the day before Abramoff made his pitch to the Tiguas, he sent Reed an e-mail in which he discussed the Indians' stupidity — and their money: "I wish those moronic Tiguas were smarter in their political contributions. I'd love to get my hands on that moolah!! Oh well, stupid folks get wiped out." As the various investigations unfold, Reed will find it increasingly difficult to lay claim to any moral high ground.

[Tex]

Getting inside Cornyn's office where sources provided him a timeline for closure of the Tigua casino, Reed allowed Abramoff to make his move when the Tiguas were most desperate. Reed tracked the case for more than a year as it dragged through the courts and onto appeal. Then, on February 5, 2002, he e-mailed Abramoff to tell him that a source close to the AG said the court order closing the casino would come down February 11. By February 6, travel plans were in the works. Abramoff e-mailed Scanlon, under a subject header that read: "i'm on the phone with Tigua!" The message itself read: "Fire up the jet baby, we're going to El Paso." Scanlon replied: "I want all their MONEY!" Ralph Reed's precise information regarding dates put Abramoff in position to take it. On February 12, as the casino was being closed down, Abramoff was flying to Texas.

El Paso political consultant Marc Schwartz worked for the Tiguas and he did a background check on Abramoff, who looked good. In fact, he was a star. You could read in The Wall Street Journal that Mississippi Choctaw leaders believed they got a good return on the $7 million they paid Abramoff. He had worked for Bush on the transition team for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. "He was a star at Greenberg Traurig, who had wooed him and his $20 million book of accounts from Preston Gates. The more we checked, the more we realized that this guy's a stud," said a source familiar with the tribe's activities. He also was highly recommended: "Brian Rogers, the Mississippi Choctaws' lawyer, told us about him. He told us he was interested in helping the tribe."

When Abramoff showed up in El Paso to pitch his plan, Schwartz had one reservation, based on his background check. He wanted to know about Abramoff's relationship with Reed. They were "long-standing friends, " Abramoff said. But he reassured Schwartz that there were certain subjects about which he and Reed disagreed, according to Schwartz's testimony before Senate Indian Affairs. When a member of the Tigua Tribal Council further pressed Abramoff about his relationship with Reed and any involvement with Reed's anti-gambling work, Abramoff became defensive: "Well, we just don't agree," he said. "We just don't agree on all things."

At the initial meeting in El Paso on February 12, 2002, Abramoff offered to work for the tribe at no cost. He told them that if he got the casino reopened, he expected to be retained to represent the tribe in Washington at his $150,000-$175,000 per month fee. He insisted they hire Mike Scanlon for $5.4 million dollars, and as he had done in similar presentations to other tribes, he omitted the critical fact that he and Scanlon were partners. He evidently believed he had closed the deal. The day after the El Paso meeting, he sent Scanlon an enthusiastic e-mail about Schwartz. "This guy NEEDS us to save his ass!!" he wrote, concluding with the double exclamation mark he often used when he smelled blood. A week later Abramoff was back in El Paso, laying out the elaborate "Operation Open Doors" plan Scanlon had prepared. "He was promising us a kind of database you would see in a presidential campaign," the Tigua source said. But because Abramoff was charging presidential campaign rates, it seemed credible and the Tribal Council bought it. The whole package:
Building a National Political Organization;
Recruitment and identification;
Research and Messaging;
Education/Advocacy.

They did persuade Scanlon to lower his fee to $4.2 million from $5.4 million. Within a month of Abramoff's second visit to El Paso, the tribe had received its contract and written its first non-refundable check for $2.1 million. "The remaining balance is due upon receipt of Scanlon Gould invoices," read one clause in the contract. (Scanlon Gould is one of several companies that the two lobbyists used in their Indian schemes.) All the invoices were submitted and paid by April. The tiny Indian tribe in El Paso was buying the sort of database and national action campaign that might have made John Kerry president. It would be needed, they were told, because once they got their legislative fix in Congress, the tribe would be confronted by powerful House and Senate opponents determined to undo it. By that time, Scanlon would have a nationwide political response operation up and ready to respond.

Like most successful cons, Abramoff and Scanlon sold their scheme because the buyers wanted it so badly they believed it. Abramoff was working pro bono because his task was easy. It would happen fast because his firm didn't want him off the clock for too long. He had several prospects in the House and Senate to do the tribe's bidding. The fix was short and technical: Public Law 100-89 is amended by striking section 107. They would hide the language amending the law that prohibited Tigua gambling in a completely unrelated bill moving through the 2002 Congress. No one not closely following the process would pay any attention to the line. Tom DeLay would take care of the floor work once the language was inserted in the bill.

And like any good con, the pitch included certain elements of truth. The tribe needed help. Senator Phil Gramm hated them because a Tigua governor had called him a racist. ("Gramm shits his pants and threatens to bring the whole bill down over this," one memo read.) The tribe had given too much money to Democrats and not kept up with the changing political climate. (Abramoff would provide them with a spreadsheet to direct $300,000 in contributions to Republicans.) Abramoff had easy access to Tom DeLay and Scanlon was Washington's "go-to guy" for dealing with DeLay. All this and more, formed part of Abramoff's informal pitch to the tribe, according to a source close to the Council.

The entire process would be completed between March and December of 2002. In March, the tribe began making the $300,000 in political contributions Abramoff requested, sending checks to organizations such as Majority Leader DeLay's ARMPAC, Majority Whip Roy Blunt's Rely on Your Beliefs PAC, Bob Ney's American Liberty PAC. Abramoff informed Schwartz that Ohio Republican Ney agreed to deal with the language in the House and that Connecticut Democrat Chris Dodd would see that it was taken care of in the Senate. Ney was chair of the House committee dealing with the Help America Vote Act and would insert the innocuous line regarding the Tiguas into the bill. Dodd was carrying the bill in the Senate.

In late March, shortly after telling the Tiguas Ney would take care of their business, Abramoff requested $32,000 for the congressman. The money was forwarded through the senior director of governmental affairs in Greenberg Traurig's D.C. office.

The Tiguas had their vehicle and their two legislators. Or at least that's what they were told by Abramoff. In truth, Christopher Dodd was never in the deal. His press office confirmed that, and referred me to the written statement Dodd had entered into the record at the House Indian Affairs hearing in November of this year. In September, Dodd said he didn't know Abramoff or Scanlon and that very late in the process of passing the voting reform bill, his staff had been approached by someone from the Democratic National Committee and two Ney staffers asking about the Tigua language. Dodd dismissed the request. Clearly, some effort had been made to persuade Dodd. "hold tight," Abramoff wrote to Scanlon in October. "but get our money back from that mother fucker who was supposed to take care of dodd." Dodd refused to get involved. Ney, however, was very much involved. (His office did not respond to a list of faxed questions and phone calls regarding his involvement.)

Dodd's statement creates a problem for Abramoff, Scanlon and Congressman Ney. All three continued to tell the Tiguas that their provision would be inserted in the bill. The tribe only learned that Dodd was never on board when they contacted El Paso Congressman Sylvester Reyes, who then called Dodd. Without Dodd, there was no hope of delivering what was promised. Yet they kept the tribe invested in the process, while continuing to request political contributions and promise victory. There was a conference call with Ney in October.

If there was no chance of getting the language into the bill, then the tribe was "defrauded," as Senator Dorgan said at the Indian Affairs hearing last month. The North Dakota Democrat pursued the issue of fraud in the context of a $100,000 golfing trip Abramoff said Ney had requested.

Also, there is a golfing trip to Scotland by a private jet. And my understanding is that our records disclosed that trip includes passengers Mr. Scanlon, Mr. Abramoff, Representative Ney and Ralph Reed. Would that suggest to you that at least some participants knew most of what was happening here?

The trip to Scotland occurred in the summer of 2002, when everyone but the Tiguas already seemed to know that Dodd never agreed to the Tigua provision in the Help America Vote Act. Yet Abramoff requested that the Tiguas pay for the trip, asking in an e-mail, "if you guys could do 50K." Abramoff warned that the trip would be expensive because two years ago "we did this for another member – you know who." (You know who, it was revealed in the Senate hearings, was Tom DeLay, who changed the House rule that prohibited members from accepting golf trips and other favors from lobbyists.)

While it is assumed the Tiguas paid for the trip, the truth has yet to come out in court. Abramoff's e-mail to Schwartz certainly implied that the Tiguas paid. "BN had a great time and is very grateful, but he is not going to mention the trip to Scotland for obvious reasons," Abramoff wrote, urging Schwartz to avoid the topic at an August meeting in Ney's office. "He said he'll show his thanks in other ways, which is what we want."

Ney never got around to showing the thanks, though he did discuss the golf trip at the August 2002 meeting, according to a Tigua source. At the November committee hearing, Dorgan brought the meeting into high relief. He said he couldn't recall any constituent meeting in any Capitol office that lasted two hours, as did the gathering of Ney, Abramoff, Schwartz, and three members of the Tigua Tribal Council. Dorgan was concerned that much of the two hours was given over to Ney praising Abramoff and reassuring the El Paso delegation that their casino would be taken care of.

There is a certain element of Kabuki in congressional hearings, where small gestures imply large meaning. Chris Dodd was warned well in advance that his good name had been impugned, and he was allowed to prepare a written statement to read at the open hearing on November 17. Bob Ney learned about the committee's interest in his role in the Tigua affair when a Washington Post reporter asked him about it an hour after the hearing adjourned. A source at the committee hearing said there was something more than senatorial courtesy informing the senators' less than deferential treatment of Ney.

In the end, Abramoff did not tell his clients until after it passed out of conference committee that their critical nine words were not inserted in the voting bill. There was no other "vehicle," though there was some discussion of hiding the Tigua provision in an appropriations bill. Nor was there a database, described as late as January 2003 by Scanlon as a "political matrix…designed to hold and make usable all of the data associated with your political army." The $1.8 million line item in Scanlon's budget was contracted out for $100,000 and the "political army" was the list of voters, venders, and representatives the tribe itself had given to Scanlon.

But Abramoff couldn't stop squeezing. In March 2003, after his Tigua revenue stream dried up, he proposed the term-life deal for the tribe's elders. Within a year his entire Indian gaming scheme would fall apart, after tribal council elections in Louisiana and Michigan elected reform candidates who began leaking documents and talking to federal prosecutors. Lately those prosecutors, according to one source close to the investigation, have expanded their interest from just Abramoff and Scanlon to questions about Congressman Ney.

[Tex]

From Senator John Cornyn that speaks for itself: "And finally, I – I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. Certainly nothing new, but we seem to have run through a spate of courthouse violence recently that's been on the news. And I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in -- engage in violence. Certainly without any justification but a concern that I have that I wanted to share."

This apparent effort to rationalize violence against judges is deplorable. On its face, while it contains doubletalk that simultaneously offers a justification for such violence and then claims not to, the fundamental core of the statement seems to be that judges have somehow brought this violence on themselves. This also carries an implicit threat: that if judges do not do what the far right wants them to do (thus becoming the "judicial activists" the far right claims to deplore), the violence may well continue.

If this is what Senator Cornyn meant to say, it is outrageous, irresponsible and unbecoming of our leaders. To be sure, I have disagreed with many, many court rulings. (For example, Bush v. Gore may well be the single greatest example of judicial activism we have seen in our lifetime.) But there is no excuse, no excuse, for a Member of Congress to take our discourse to this ugly and dangerous extreme.

[Not right]

Just why would a U.S. Senator John Cornyn excuse violence against sitting judges? Why would a duly-elected public official condone and support murdering judges?

[Tex]

So, who are the Republican torture masters that voted against McCain’s amendment?

"Danger! The following Senators are unpatriotic"

Senator Wayne Allard (R-CO)

Senator Christopher Bond (R-MO)

Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK)

Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS)

Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) This one sticks his tongue so far up President Bush asshole, it's not even funny!

Senator James Inhofe (R-OK)

Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS)

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL)

Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK)

Since these senators will never resign in disgrace like they should, every Republican in these states should vote them out of office when they come up for reelection. Even Republicans who believe in Bush’s "war on terror" should join in defeating these Republican senators.

[Looker]

Remember this vote when the really nasty Abu Ghraib photos and videos of boys being raped come out. Imagine their ads for reelection "I'm Senator John Cornyn I approve of this boy being tortured and raped."

[Mia]

As far as Senator John Cornyn voting record goes, he doesn't believe in clean air, he loves that money he gets from factories that pollute the air.

Senator John Cornyn doesn't believe in "Human Rights Abuse", he doesn't mind if people are raped or tortured.

Senator John Cornyn doesn't believe in "Individual Rights."

[Tex]

How Big Industry's Pet Politicians
Are Choking Our Clean Air Laws

(Washington, D.C. March 11, 2003) - They consistently vote against clean air. They receive huge campaign contributions from big polluting industries. And now these same "Filthy Four" lawmakers are leading the charge for the Bush Administration's effort to weaken the Clean Air Act, according to a new report by environmentalists.

The report points out that this small congressional clique from the "Toxic Triangle" states of Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma is in charge of Congressional clean-air policy. And, based on their past performance, public health is at risk.

"What we have here is a perfect storm for big polluters. It may be their once-in-a generation chance to sink the Clean Air Act. And their dirty-air allies in Congress are steering the ship onto the rocks," said Pete Altman, executive director of the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) Coalition of Texas and author of the report. "What will happen in this Congress could shape the regulatory landscape for clean air for a generation," Altman said, adding, "It should be of great concern that these 'Toxic Triangle' lawmakers are the champions of the Bush Administration's pollution plan. Collectively they have raked in millions of bucks from big polluters in just the past several years -- and they consistently vote in favor of the polluters -- and against the breathers."

Altman noted that three of the four in question -- Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-LA) and Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) chair Congressional panels with purview over the Clean Air Act. All three have introduced the Bush Administration plan to weaken the Clean Air Act -- with the Orwellian label of "Clear Skies." The fourth -- Rep. Tom DeLay -- is House Majority Leader, perhaps the single most influential member of Congress and another arch-foe of clean air standards.

The report examines recent voting records and campaign contributions of these four, as well as two other "Toxic Triangle" members who sit on the key congressional panels -- Rep. Ralph Hall (D-TX) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX).

Since 1995, these "sooty six" lawmakers "have committed 50 serious dirty air actions -- either casting votes or introducing anti-clean air legislation," said Altman. "And in just the past four years they have collectively received more than $3 million dollars from big polluters." The report notes that each received far more in polluter cash than the "average" member of Congress.

Rep. Joe Barton, who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality, is the "darling" of electric power companies, the cement industry and other smokestack industries, noted Katy Hubener, executive director of the Blue Skies Alliance of Texas. "In fact, he is so well known for his dirty-air activities that the conservative Dallas Morning News recently christened him 'Smokey Joe,' " said Hubener. Barton has recently signaled that he would not only push the President's pollution plan, but also seek a special "fix" to "help his polluter friends in the cement industry," Hubener added. The fix would entail overturning court decisions that could require quicker cleanup in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area and other parts of the country. Barton received $562,363 in polluter campaign contributions during the last two election cycles (1999-2000 and 2001-2002)

Looming over Barton is Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-LA), chairman of the Full House Energy and Commerce Committee. Tauzin "has consistently done the bidding of big polluters while turning a deaf ear to the suffering of minority communities poisoned by polluters," said Anne Rolfes, director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade. Tauzin received $506,310 in polluter cash in the last two campaign cycles, most of it from the oil and gas and electric power industries.

Another member of the "filthy four" is Rep. Tom DeLay, the House Majority Leader who once introduced a bill to repeal the entire Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. "DeLay -- a former exterminator who got into politics because of what he saw as too much government oversight over his spreading of poisons, wields enormous power behind the scenes to weaken environmental protections," said Denny Larson of the Refinery Reform Campaign. DeLay received $383,919 in polluter money during the past four years.

Rounding out the "filthy four" is Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Inhofe received $560,729 in polluter money during the past four years. "Inhofe is eager to do the polluters' bidding to gut the Clean Air Act," said researcher John Hartman of Oklahoma's Environmental Awareness Group. "If he succeeds, coal plants will be let off the hook for pollution they should reduce and the health of Oklahomans will suffer."

The report also examines the dirty-air voting records of and campaign contributions to two other "Toxic Triangle" lawmakers on the key congressional panels -- Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Rep. Ralph Hall (D-TX). Cornyn, who received a staggering $737,942 in polluter money during his 2002 Senate race has cast only one dirty-air vote so far, but it was a big one -- permitting the Bush administration to move ahead with a plan to weaken "new source review," a Clean Air Act requirement designed to require modern pollution controls on old smokestack industries that want to increase their pollution. "That vote is an ominous sign that Cornyn will do whatever the White House tells him to do when it involves dirty air," said Karen Hadden, also of the SEED Coalition.

Hall is a low-key but senior member of Barton's subcommittee and has consistently sided with polluters in recent years. He received $278,637 in polluter cash during the last four years even though he faced only token opposition.

[Tex]

Dec 02, 2005 - The federal case against lobbyist Jack Abramoff has expanded to entangle former congressional aides of powerful Republican lawmakers, and by extension some of the lawmakers themselves, the New York Times reports today in a major report on the growing scandal.

Investigators are interested in how Tony Rudy, a former deputy chief of staff to Tom DeLay (R-TX), and Neil Volz, former chief of staff to Bob Ney (R-OH), obtained cushy jobs with big K Street lobbying firms. The feds are also focusing on Rudy's wife, Lisa, whose firm, Liberty Consulting, had numerous dealings with Abramoff.

As many as a dozen members of Congress are in the cross-hairs of investigators, with an additional dozen or more former aides under scrutiny to determine whether they gave Abramoff legislative help in exchange for campaign donations, luxury trips and lavish gifts.

[tex]

Dec 21, 2005

Sen. John Cornyn "Our intelligence and law enforcement officials should not be left wondering, yet again, whether the Congress will manage to agree to reauthorize the tools that protect our nation."

John Cornyn said this after he voted again to keep spying on innocent American citizens.

Your so called Nazi "tool's" haven't protected this country yet, sir.

One suggestion if I may make for you Mr. Cornyn, stop kissing Bush's ass and wipe the shit off you nose and lips and try to represent your country for a change.

You do want to be voted back as a Senator don't you?

[tex]

Sen. John Cornyn is a pussy!

That's right he's a pussy, he certainly no Crocket, Travis or Bowie. Those guys didn't fight and die so that cowards like Cornyn and Bush could destroy this country and what it stands for!

No Senator John Cornyn is just a diehard Bush cheerleader and a pussy to boot!


December 30, 2005 - Senators launched new salvos in the battle over national security and civil liberties yesterday as recent revelations of domestic spying continued to color the chamber’s stalemate on an extension of the anti-terrorism law known as the Patriot Act.

“None of your civil liberties matter much after you’re dead,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a former judge and close ally of the president who sits on the Judiciary Committee.

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), who has led a bipartisan filibuster against a reauthorization of the Patriot Act, quoted Patrick Henry, an icon of the American Revolution, in response: “Give me liberty or give me death.”

He called Cornyn’s comments “a retreat from who we are and who we should be.”

The New York Times reported last week that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been spying on American citizens in the United States for several years without court permission under authority granted in executive orders signed by President Bush.

“This authorization is a vital tool in our war against the terrorists. It is critical to saving American lives,” Bush said in a rare live weekly radio address Saturday in which he acknowledged giving the NSA electronic-eavesdropping power without court approval.

Bush said yesterday that the authority derives from presidential powers granted under the Constitution and a congressional “use of force” resolution adopted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist assault.

“I believe this interpretation of the Constitution is both incorrect and dangerous, and I am requesting an inquiry into this issue,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).

“The president’s justification … is without merit,” said Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.).

Cornyn, who agreed with the White House analysis of the president’s powers, called for an investigation into how the Times obtained its information.

A small band of Republicans has joined most Senate Democrats in a filibuster of the Patriot Act reauthorization.

On Friday, the Senate rejected 52-47 a motion to cut off debate and turn to an immediate vote on the underlying legislation. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) sided with the filibusterers for procedural reasons. Under Senate rules, the motion needed 60 votes to be approved.

Since that motion went down Friday, Democrats have attempted several times by unanimous consent to extend current law for a short period, but Republicans objected to that approach each time. Bush has repeatedly called on the Senate to approve the reauthorization and has said he would not sign a short-term extension.

“If people want to play politics with the Patriot Act, it’s … not in the best interests of the country,” Bush said at a press conference yesterday.

But Feingold said blame should be directed toward Bush if provisions set to expire at the end of the year lapse.
“It’s the president who wants to play chicken here,” Feingold said.

[lss]

CREW Files Texas Public Information Request Regarding US Senator Cornyn's Involvement With Indian Gaming Scandal Cornyn Claims to Have Never Met GOP Activist Ralph Reed

April 2005 - Washington, D.C. – Earlier today, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed Texas Public Information Act requests with both the Texas Office of the Attorney General and with the Texas Governor’s Office. CREW has asked the Attorney General’s Office for information regarding contacts between former Attorney General (now U.S. Senator) John Cornyn and Jack Abramoff, Michael Scanlon and Ralph Reed as well as for all documents related to the Tigua Tribe of El Paso, Texas. CREW also asked the Governor’s Office for information documents generated and received regarding the Tigua Tribe.

CREW filed its requests in response to a statement by Sen. John Cornyn that, while working to close down the Tigua’s Speaking Rock Casino, he never met with Ralph Reed, who had been paid by the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana to close down the Tigua’s casino. E-mail correspondence between Jack Abramoff and Ralph Reed, however, suggest otherwise.

For example, on November 12, 2001, Reed sent Abramoff an e-mail stating, “get me details so I can alert cornyn and let him know what we are doing to help him” (sic). Similarly, on November 13, 2001, Reed wrote “I strongly suggest we start doing patch-throughs to perry and cornyn (sic). We’re getting killed on the phone.” Also, on January 7, 2002, Reed sent an e-mail to Abramoff stating “I think we should budget for an ataboy for cornyn” (sic).

Melanie Sloan, CREW’s executive director, stated “e-mail correspondence between Jack Abramoff and Ralph Reed shows that Senator Cornyn was clearly more involved with Ralph Reed than he is willing to admit. Thanks to Texas’ open records act, we will soon have proof that in his efforts to distance himself from Jack Abramoff and the unfolding scandal involving the Tigua, Senator Cornyn is lying. It will also be interesting to discover what role, if any, Governor Perry played in closing the casino.”

The Texas Public Information Act allows citizens for request information from the Texas government. Both the Attorney General’s Office and the Governor’s Office have ten days to respond to CREW’s request.

[lss]

I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. Certainly nothing new, but we seem to have run through a spate of courthouse violence recently that's been on the news and I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in - engage in violence.


This man has a little common sense it seems, he knows of the truth.

[tex]

Cornyn aide defends free plane ride

WASHINGTON - A $22,000 private flight that U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, took to a South Texas dinner last year was necessary to limit time away from Washington and not a lobbying trip that bought access, an aide to the lawmaker said.

The one-day trip, paid by the Hidalgo Chamber of Commerce for an event honoring Cornyn, ranks among the costliest privately funded trips by lawmakers in recent years.

Records of the trip surfaced this week after the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity released an analysis of $50 million in congressional travel since 2000. The 23,000 trips for members of Congress or aides were all funded privately.

Getting a commercial flight to attend the dinner wasn't feasible for the Republican lawmaker, said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Cornyn.

He pointed out that the jet wasn't paid for by a corporation and that several thousand constituents were at the dinner.

"The event was in his honor. He thought he should be there," Stewart said.

But the Senate Majority Project, a Democratic group, criticized the cost.

"This is a little crazy," spokeswoman Christy Setzer said. "We just haven't seen anything of this magnitude."

Democrats also figured prominently in the report. One of the biggest recipients was Rep. Gene Green, D-Houston, who accepted more than $175,000 worth of trips.

Also among the top Texas recipients were Rep. Joe Barton, R-Ennis, who has accepted about $369,000 for himself and staff. Most of those trips came after Barton became House Energy and Commerce Chairman in 2004. Among the $304,000 worth of trips his aides took were energy studies in Alaska, Costa Rica, France and Sweden.

In all, corporations and other groups have spent $3.67 million sending Texas lawmakers and aides on 1,773 trips. Among the most notorious was Rep. Tom DeLay's trip to Scotland that prompted claims of ethics violations.

[tex]

10 other reasons not to like John Cornyn


1. The son of a U.S. Air Force officer, Cornyn attended the American School in Tokyo when his dad was stationed nearby, and in 1968 he was the loudest student voice in favor of racial demogogue George Wallace. He wrote in the student paper urging support for the man who'd stood in the schoolhouse door at the University of Alabama just five years earlier.

The young Cornyn's views, salvaged by classmate -- and future writer for The Nation -- Tim Shorrock:

"With the Supreme Court’s recent rulings and increased federal legislation, the government has become increasingly dictatorial and oppressive while the state and local governments have become more weak," he wrote. Here he is on law and order: "Mr. Wallace is convinced that no innocent man should be punished… [But] many criminals never receive the punishment due them because they have clever lawyers, or the case takes so long to go through the slow court schedules and lengthy appeals cases." On the urban crisis: "The existence of poverty has been fact since the beginning of mankind. Statistics show us that it is not the poor element that riots and rebels, but others who hold complete disrespect for property and the rights of others (socialists?)" And, finally, on Vietnam: "It only seems reasonable that a cure (victory) for this Asian illness is most desirable even if the measures necessary are drastic."

2. Thirty-four years later, when Cornyn successfully ran for the Senate, two of his poll watchers were accused of voter intimidation in Hidalgo County, Texas, the heavily Hispanic area near the border. According to a Nov. 2, 2002, Associated Press story:

In McAllen, a voter reported [Joseph] Hopkins to an early voting supervisor for making a "racist remark." Hopkins is said to have joked, "I'm just a poll watcher but I don't see many Poles. I just see a lot of Mexicans."

In Edinburg, [Laura] Mason was accused of "repeatedly talking to and harassing" voters, including an elderly woman who said she was "confronted." An early voting supervisor warned Mason and later removed her. When Mason came back to the polling place Friday, Navarro asked her to leave.

3. The use of the death penalty in Texas has been condemned by human rights groups around the world, but that's not how Cornyn sees it. This is what he told Bob Herbert in 2000:

The attorney general of Texas, John Cornyn, has said that Texas provides "super due process" to defendants in death penalty cases, and that the Texas way of administering capital punishment is "a model for the nation."

4. When Cornyn was Texas attorney general, his largest energy donor was the now-disgraced Enron Corp., whose PAC and executives forked over a whopping $193,000, according to a 2002 report by Texans for Public Justice. Some 60 percent of the funds came from CEO Kenneth Lay, now indicted for financial shenanigans related to Enron's fall. As AG, Cornyn would have represented the state in bankruptcy proceeding or other lawsuits.

5. Last August, Michael Crowley wrote in the New Republic that "he is particularly close to Karl Rove, who ran his winning 1996 reelection campaign for the Texas Supreme Court and convinced him to run for state attorney general two years later. When Phil Gramm gave up his Texas Senate seat in 2002, Rove again recruited Cornyn and reportedly cleared the GOP primary field for him."

6. In 1999, as attorney general, Cornyn founded a group called the Republican Attorneys General Association, or RAGA, that aggressively raised money from many of the big business that attorney generals might normally be expected to take on, including tobacco companies, insurance firms, and Microsoft, which was facing anti-trust suits at the time.

“This is absolutely an effort by people with special interests to stop attorneys general from pursuing their traditional role as protectors of the public interest,” said Scott Harshbarger, the former Massachusetts attorney general who heads Common Cause.

7. In 2003, according to the New Republic piece, Cornyn "called in Roy Moore--the former Alabama Supreme Court justice unseated last year for displaying a monument to the Ten Commandments--for a June hearing on 'Hostility to Religious Expression in the Public Square.'" Only Cornyn and ultraconservative Jeff Sessions of Alabama attended.

8. In July 2004, Cornyn's staff prepared a speech for the Heritage Foundation that contained this bizzare analogy about gay marriage: "It does not affect your daily life very much if your neighbor marries a box turtle. But that does not mean it is right. . . . Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife." This time, even Cornyn had enough sense not to deliver the remark.

9. When Cornyn won the GOP Senate nod in 2002, his rival was Dallas mayor Ron Kirk, seeking to become the first African-American senator from Texas. Cornyn never overtly pushed race in that contest, but he raised some hackles when his campaign called the Democratic ticket, with a Latino candidate for governor and a white lieutenant governor candidate, "a crass appeal for racial bloc voting."

10. Remember GOPUSA, the group that created Talon News Service and brought in gay hooker J.D. "Jeff Gannon" Guckert to be its White House correspondent? When the group held its GOPUSA Conservative Conference in 2003, Cornyn was the only U.S. Senator to address the group. Some of the other speakers were ex-Rep. Bob Barr, conservative activist Grover Norquist, and FBI agent/Clinton foe Gary Aldrich.

[Brian]

I recently wrote Senator John Cornyn and ask how he felt about "torture" and "wiretapping." This is the reply from his office.


Fri, 7 Jul 2006

Dear Mr. American

Thank you for contacting me about several issues of national importance. I appreciate having the benefit of your comments on these matters.

In regard to torture, President George W. Bush has unequivocally and repeatedly articulated and enforced a policy that rejects the use of torture. I share the President's strong opposition to torture, and as a member of the Senate Judiciary and Armed Services Committees, I am committed to ensuring that all detainees are treated humanely and in accordance with our laws and treaty obligations.

Like all Americans, I am appalled at instances of abuse such as those that occurred at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Such acts are un-American and contrary to the dedication and professionalism of the vast majority of our military personnel. I was encouraged that the Army took decisive action immediately upon receiving complaints of prisoner abuse, and that it is in the process of prosecuting the responsible individuals. We also must remember the dedication and hard work of our many honorable men and women in uniform who are prosecuting the War on Terror with integrity.

Furthermore, as you know, on December 16, 2005, The New York Times reported on a classified NSA program to intercept communications between suspected terrorists overseas and potential operatives within the United States without a court warrant. The purpose of this program is to serve as an early warning system and prevent another terrorist attack such as the tragedy that occurred on September 11, 2001. Some critics maintain that President George W. Bush did not have authority to conduct warrant-less electronic foreign intelligence surveillance. In fact, both the Constitution and the Authorization for the Use of Military Force"which was overwhelmingly passed by Congress and signed into law on September 18, 2001"grant the President broad authorities to protect and defend the nation. Based on our current knowledge of the NSA program, the President was acting within his legal authorities and obligations as Commander-in-Chief.

As a member of the Senate Armed Services and Judiciary Committees, I am committed to ensuring that we appropriately balance our national security needs and the protection of our civil liberties. I support congressional oversight hearings that will provide a better understanding of this important program and determine whether any legislative action is required. However, I remain concerned that the unauthorized release of classified information, such as occurred in The New York Times story, could damage national security. Individuals who divulge classified information without proper authorization"especially when such information can undermine ongoing intelligence operations"should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Finally, regarding ethics, members of Congress represent their constituents"not special interests. As a member of the United States Senate, I focus on the issues confronting the people of Texas and America and not on the next election. You may be interested to know that the Senate and the House of Representatives have standing Ethics committees to investigate accusations of improper behavior by members of Congress. You may be certain that, during my tenure in the Senate, I will keep the concerns of the voters foremost in mind.

As you know, a variety of issues will be considered during the 109th Congress, and it is important that I remain abreast of the concerns of Texans. I appreciate your interest in these matters. Thank you for taking the time to contact me.

Sincerely,

JOHN CORNYN
United States Senator


517 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Tel: [phone]
Fax: [phone]

[Jimmy]

September 17, 2006 - BAGHDAD, Iraq - In the few short years since the first shackled Afghan shuffled off to Guantanamo, the U.S. military has created a global network of overseas prisons, its islands of high security keeping 14,000 detainees beyond the reach of established law.

Disclosures of torture and long-term arbitrary detentions have won rebuke from leading voices including the U.N. secretary-general and the U.S. Supreme Court. But the bitterest words come from inside the system, the size of several major U.S. penitentiaries.

"It was hard to believe I'd get out," Baghdad shopkeeper Amjad Qassim al-Aliyawi told The Associated Press after his release — without charge — last month. "I lived with the Americans for one year and eight months as if I was living in hell."

Captured on battlefields, pulled from beds at midnight, grabbed off streets as suspected insurgents, tens of thousands now have passed through U.S. detention, the vast majority in Iraq.

Many say they were caught up in U.S. military sweeps, often interrogated around the clock, then released months or years later without apology, compensation or any word on why they were taken. Seventy to 90 percent of the Iraq detentions in 2003 were "mistakes," U.S. officers once told the international Red Cross.

Defenders of the system, which has only grown since soldiers' photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib shocked the world, say it's an unfortunate necessity in the battles to pacify Iraq and Afghanistan, and to keep suspected terrorists out of action.

Every U.S. detainee in Iraq "is detained because he poses a security threat to the government of Iraq, the people of Iraq or coalition forces," said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Keir-Kevin Curry, a spokesman for U.S.-led military detainee operations in Iraq.

But dozens of ex-detainees, government ministers, lawmakers, human rights activists, lawyers and scholars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the United States said the detention system often is unjust and hurts the war on terror by inflaming anti-Americanism in Iraq and elsewhere.

Building for the Long Term

Reports of extreme physical and mental abuse, symbolized by the notorious Abu Ghraib prison photos of 2004, have abated as the Pentagon has rejected torture-like treatment of the inmates. Most recently, on Sept. 6, the Pentagon issued a new interrogation manual banning forced nakedness, hooding, stress positions and other abusive techniques.

The same day, President Bush said the CIA's secret outposts in the prison network had been emptied, and 14 terror suspects from them sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to face trial in military tribunals. The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down the tribunal system, however, and the White House and Congress are now wrestling over the legal structure of such trials.

Living conditions for detainees may be improving as well. The U.S. military cites the toilets of Bagram, Afghanistan: In a cavernous old building at that air base, hundreds of detainees in their communal cages now have indoor plumbing and privacy screens, instead of exposed chamber pots.

Whatever the progress, small or significant, grim realities persist.

Human rights groups count dozens of detainee deaths for which no one has been punished or that were never explained. The secret prisons — unknown in number and location — remain available for future detainees. The new manual banning torture doesn't cover CIA interrogators. And thousands of people still languish in a limbo, deprived of one of common law's oldest rights, habeas corpus, the right to know why you are imprisoned.

"If you, God forbid, are an innocent Afghan who gets sold down the river by some warlord rival, you can end up at Bagram and you have absolutely no way of clearing your name," said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch in New York. "You can't have a lawyer present evidence, or do anything organized to get yourself out of there."

The U.S. government has contended it can hold detainees until the "war on terror" ends — as it determines.

"I don't think we've gotten to the question of how long," said retired admiral John D. Hutson, former top lawyer for the U.S. Navy. "When we get up to 'forever,' I think it will be tested" in court, he said.

The Navy is planning long-term at Guantanamo. This fall it expects to open a new, $30-million maximum-security wing at its prison complex there, a concrete-and-steel structure replacing more temporary camps.

In Iraq, Army jailers are a step ahead. Last month they opened a $60-million, state-of-the-art detention center at Camp Cropper, near Baghdad's airport. The Army oversees about 13,000 prisoners in Iraq at Cropper, Camp Bucca in the southern desert, and Fort Suse in the Kurdish north.

Neither prisoners of war nor criminal defendants, they are just "security detainees" held "for imperative reasons of security," spokesman Curry said, using language from an annex to a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing the U.S. presence here.

[CC]

(Washington, D.C., December 16, 2005) – Even as the U.S. Congress has passed a prohibition against the use of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, it is set to adopt legislation that would strip the judiciary’s ability to enforce the ban, Human Rights Watch warned today.

After months of opposition, President Bush yesterday accepted Senator John McCain’s amendment banning the use of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by U.S. personnel anywhere in the world, and prohibiting U.S. military interrogators from using interrogation techniques not listed in the U.S. Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation.

But the legislation containing the McCain Amendment currently includes another provision – the Graham-Levin Amendment – that would deny the five hundred-some detainees in Guantánamo Bay the ability to bring legal action seeking relief from the use of torture or cruel and inhumane treatment. And it implicitly authorizes the Department of Defense to consider evidence obtained through torture or other inhumane treatment in assessing the status of detainees held in Guantánamo Bay.

If passed into law, this would be the first time in American history that Congress has effectively permitted the use of evidence obtained through torture.

“With the McCain amendment, Congress has clearly said that anyone who authorizes or engages in cruel techniques like water boarding is violating the law,” said Tom Malinowski, Washington Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch. “But the Graham-Levin amendment leaves Guantánamo detainees no legal recourse if they are, in fact, tortured or mistreated. The treatment of Guantánamo Bay detainees will be shrouded in secrecy, placing detainees at risk for future abuse.”

These provisions have been added by House and Senate conferees to language that originally passed the Senate as part of the Defense Authorization legislation. The language in the original Senate version already placed new and significant restrictions on Guantánamo Bay detainees’ access to federal court. It eliminated the right for detainees to bring habeas corpus claims challenging the legality of their ongoing detention and asserting their innocence. Instead, detainees would be allowed to seek independent court review of their detention at just two points in time – after their initial designation as an enemy combatant by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal and after conviction by a military commission – and would be allowed to raise only a very narrow set of claims. They could challenge the procedures and constitutionality of the tribunals and commissions, but would be precluded from seeking an independent review of the factual basis for their detention or conviction.

The new language would expand the prohibition on habeas review to cover all other claims – making it almost impossible for detainees at Guantánamo to seek relief from torture or cruel treatment.

The original language passed by the Senate also sought to restrict the use of evidence obtained through “undue coercion” by the Combatant Status Review Tribunals. The language approved by conferees would reverse this prohibition. It would require these tribunals to assess the probative value of evidence obtained through coercion, but would not prohibit the use of such evidence.

Another addition redefines the United States to explicitly exclude Guantánamo Bay. This is an attempt to ensure that the constitutional protections – including the prohibition on the use of evidence obtained through torture – do not extend to detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Human Rights Watch said.

Human Rights Watch also remains concerned that the administration has not disavowed certain abusive interrogation methods, such as “water boarding,” a form of mock execution.

“If the McCain law demonstrates to the world that the United States really opposes torture, the Graham-Levin amendment risks telling the world the opposite,” said Malinowski.

[CC]

Brian said:

I recently wrote Senator John Cornyn and ask how he felt about "torture" and "wiretapping." This is the reply from his office.


Fri, 7 Jul 2006

Dear Mr. American

Thank you for contacting me about several issues of national importance. I appreciate having the benefit of your comments on these matters.

In regard to torture, President George W. Bush has unequivocally and repeatedly articulated and enforced a policy that rejects the use of torture. I share the President's strong opposition to torture, and as a member of the Senate Judiciary and Armed Services Committees, I am committed to ensuring that all detainees are treated humanely and in accordance with our laws and treaty obligations.

Like all Americans, I am appalled at instances of abuse such as those that occurred at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Such acts are un-American and contrary to the dedication and professionalism of the vast majority of our military personnel. I was encouraged that the Army took decisive action immediately upon receiving complaints of prisoner abuse, and that it is in the process of prosecuting the responsible individuals. We also must remember the dedication and hard work of our many honorable men and women in uniform who are prosecuting the War on Terror with integrity.

Furthermore, as you know, on December 16, 2005, The New York Times reported on a classified NSA program to intercept communications between suspected terrorists overseas and potential operatives within the United States without a court warrant. The purpose of this program is to serve as an early warning system and prevent another terrorist attack such as the tragedy that occurred on September 11, 2001. Some critics maintain that President George W. Bush did not have authority to conduct warrant-less electronic foreign intelligence surveillance. In fact, both the Constitution and the Authorization for the Use of Military Force"which was overwhelmingly passed by Congress and signed into law on September 18, 2001"grant the President broad authorities to protect and defend the nation. Based on our current knowledge of the NSA program, the President was acting within his legal authorities and obligations as Commander-in-Chief.

As a member of the Senate Armed Services and Judiciary Committees, I am committed to ensuring that we appropriately balance our national security needs and the protection of our civil liberties. I support congressional oversight hearings that will provide a better understanding of this important program and determine whether any legislative action is required. However, I remain concerned that the unauthorized release of classified information, such as occurred in The New York Times story, could damage national security. Individuals who divulge classified information without proper authorization"especially when such information can undermine ongoing intelligence operations"should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Finally, regarding ethics, members of Congress represent their constituents"not special interests. As a member of the United States Senate, I focus on the issues confronting the people of Texas and America and not on the next election. You may be interested to know that the Senate and the House of Representatives have standing Ethics committees to investigate accusations of improper behavior by members of Congress. You may be certain that, during my tenure in the Senate, I will keep the concerns of the voters foremost in mind.

As you know, a variety of issues will be considered during the 109th Congress, and it is important that I remain abreast of the concerns of Texans. I appreciate your interest in these matters. Thank you for taking the time to contact me.

Sincerely,

JOHN CORNYN
United States Senator


517 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Tel: [phone]
Fax: [phone]

Is Senator John Cornyn a LIAR or what? Senator John Cornyn was one the few Senators to vote in favor of torture.