THIS JUST IN for what it's worth.....heven helpus.

Financial Times FT.com
World

Bernanke sets out jumbo mortgage plan
By Krishna Guha in Washington

Published: November 8 2007 15:36 | Last updated: November 8 2007 15:36
Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve chairman, on Thursday put forward a plan to help revive the secondary market for jumbo (large denomination) mortgages that would involve Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as credit guarantees from the federal government.
Mr Bernanke told Congress he would support raising the limit on the size of the individual loans eligible for securitisation by the government-sponsored mortgage finance entities from $417,000 to $1m (€680,000, £475,000) on a temporary basis.
He suggested that Fannie and Freddie could pay insurance premiums on these loans to the federal government, which would "act as guarantor" by taking on some of the credit risk.
Charles Schumer, the Democratic chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, enthusiastically welcomed the idea and said he would try to insert it into legislation already before Congress.
The unusually specific proposal by Mr Bernanke reflects his disappointment at the continued problems in the jumbo market, and concern that this will aggravate the US housing downturn.
It came as Mr Bernanke told Congress that estimates that set the total losses from subprime mortgages at about $150bn were probably "in the ballpark".
The Fed chairman said the US central bank would not be "dogmatic" and would respond actively to new economic and market developments, while reiterating that it presently saw the risks to inflation and growth as roughly balanced.
"As we see these risks change in one direction or another we will certainly want to respond as needed to meet our mandate," he said.
The Fed chairman's remarks leave open the possibility of further rate cuts in December and January, while making it clear that the Fed does not currently expect to be making cuts again then.
Mr Bernanke emphasised that the Fed would take the action necessary to stop import and energy price inflation becoming embedded in core inflation.
However, he also made it clear that the strong growth performance of the third quarter was not "likely to be sustained in the near term".
Mr Bernanke said the Fed expected that growth would weaken in the fourth quarter and remain "sluggish during the first part of next year" before strengthening from the second quarter onwards.
However, there were two risks to growth. The first was that "financial market conditions would fail to improve or even worsen". The second was that "house prices might weaken more than expected, which could further reduce consumers' willingness to spend".
Since the meeting on October 31, he said, economic data had continued to suggest that the overall economy remained "resilient".
However, he added that "financial market volatility and strains have persisted" and new information "has intensified investors' concerns about credit market developments and the implications of the downturn in the housing market for economic growth".
In addition, further sharp increases in the price of oil had put "renewed upward pressure on inflation and may impose further restraint on economic activity", Mr Bernanke said.
Mr Schumer and Republican Senator John Sununu meanwhile expressed serious doubts about the US Treasury-backed plan to create a superfund to provide liquidity in the market for asset-backed securities.
"To be direct, I am worried that this may just be a shell game - an attempt to move bad investments around and keep them from landing on the books," Mr Schumer said.
Mr Bernanke was noncommittal, saying the plan could help the market recover but everything would depend on how it was implemented.

© Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2007.

Schumer, Feinstein, Lieberman and company are now full members in good standing of the democratic wing of the repugnant party. They are truly disgusting.

Folks,
There has been a coup in this country. The corporate war machine has hijacked the government and bought our "representatives." Peaceful protest time is over. Civil disobedience on a massive scale is the next step, and perhaps the last step before revolution. I'm ready to do my part, are you?

I count many Jewish people as inspirations (Wellstone), intellectual/philosophical influences, entertainers, and personal friends of mine. And religion/ethnicity, or lack thereof, makes no difference to me.

But one must honestly wonder whether religion or identity is extremely important among neocons, crypto-neocons, etc.

democrats are responsible for this war as well - bottom line.
no exit strategy!!! 109 years and they still dont leave puerto rico with no OIL .
no reason for them to leave Irak

"From war funding to torture, you have to ask, If the Republicans were in the majority, would there be any difference?"

Careful, Amy: Nader got in a lot of trouble for raising this question. The answer is painfully obvious. The word is "collusion." Another word is "morally defective" - both parties.

We need someone else to vote for, next year. There is no further reason to want more Democrats in Congress - or the White House.

CNN Report: 20,000 fewer chronically homeless on streets.

Hmm, well you know Uncle Sam hasn't suddenly gotten all philanthropic about this.

Disappeared torture test subjects? Who'd notice? Unless the numbers get too big. Anyone in the USA willing to take a look around their city to see if it appears a culling has been done?

What constitutes a conflict of interest these days? Mr. Mukasey is an Isreali citizen. Is it fair to ask if those Senators who belatedly rescued his nomination in committee, Feinstein, Schumer, Lieberman, and Feingold, are also Isreali citizens? With other "neo-cons", the AIPAC bloc of Likhudist Zionists have had a major impact on our recent history. The destruction of Iraq as a nation may have been a major foreign policy victory for Israel but it is an unmitigated disaster for our country. It is long past due that the influence of people with dual loyalties be debated here. By the way, Rep. Kucinich's bill to impeach Cheney was blocked today by Steny Hoyer, an AIPAC member (and perhaps an Isreali citizen?).

Being a Dem supporter, as I am, I don't know what Feinstein and Schumer are doing. Perhaps sticking out their (presumably) safe-seat necks to get the thing to the floor so other Dems can vote for or against Mukasey in ways they think are best pleasing to their individual state voter blocks. Perhaps they're trying to not give Republicans a rallying cry that Dems were so recalcitrant as to "deprive" America of any AG.
Perhaps they plan to endure Mukasey while also expecting to replace both Bush and Mukasey with Dems on 1/20/09.
Perhaps they're playing "go along to get along" for a compromise on other legislation. I don't know their real strategy, but I suspect their thinking, whether smart or not, is designed for something other than to just give Bush a pass.

"Countess" is right: if Feinstein, Schumer and Lieberman are DEMOCRATS, our country is in dire straights. We expect Republicans to betray the Constitution. Fortunately, brave dissenters--Code Pink--are shining a bright light on members of Congress, unfortunately usually Democrats, who are increasingly seen as abettors of the criminal Bush/Cheney junta, including (with the above) Pelosi, Hoyer and Obey. We can make it clear to Democrats that we will never vote for candidates like these again. If we cannot do this, we are forever locked into a one-party tyranny, as Putin has firmly established in his country.

Judge Mukasey, I am one lawyer who will be ashamed that such a morally repugnant person such as yourself will carry the title Attorney General. You are not even good enough to be a private in a dogcatcher's army. You are a disgrace to the judiciary and to the legal profession. You and I both know that Bush, Cheney, and the entire waterboard-promoting gang of neocon thugs are war criminals. Now you join their ranks. They violate the UN Charter, the US Constitution, the Geneva Conventions and the Rule of Nuremberg and you sign up with them? Whatever happened to the rule of law? When we take our country back, we will remember your complicity in the crimes of this patently lawless administration.

FIENSTEIN: I VOTED FOR MURKASEY BECAUSE BUSH WOULD APPOINT SOMEONE WORSE AS A CARETAKER. SHE COULD BE RIGHT, BUT FROM MY PERSPECTIVE, I FIND THIS STATEMENT DISINGENUOUS AND A RED HERRING. SHE SOLD OUT AND IS COVERING HER VOTE WITH SUCH AN ASININE STATEMENT.

It is quite simple. Where ever torture is used, it just confirms that the torturer is the terrorist, if for no other reason than that torture produces wholly unreliable information. "Give us the names!?" under torture produces names that means others will be tortured to also give false information too and so on. You land up with hundreds if not thousands, their brothers and their cousins, knowing the torturer is the tyrant and the terrorist.

The torturing state needs big prisons to hold thousands of innocent victims of its stupidity and tyranny.

Further more on the off chance that the tortured subject really is in fact guilty of any crime, if it can be proved with real evidence, the use of torture means that the possibility to apply legal sanction after torture is forfeited.

It has little to do with armchair morality. If a state is founded in law, it cannot use torture as a method of intelligence or coercion and if it does, eventually it forfeits any legitimacy and will be defeated most likely by its own people, because it is absolutely inevitable that once torture is used as a method it will be applied to citizens and aliens alike in due course.

If you think that I'm an armchair moralist please note I was born in Iraq and brought up in Chile and Uruguay so I know what torture does, who does it, to whom, and why.

The question of why has nothing to do with ticking bombs and everything to do with power over the victim and spreading fear, in short state terrorism. Torture is the quintessence of corruption and abuse. Though it has no practical use in gathering intelligence, torture is to the sociopath, what heroin is to a junky.

Only a state lost in corruption and denial can attempt to condone such methods, but for state representatives to use semantics and linguistic obfuscation to try to change the definition of torture, if anything, goes further to prove the sheer depravity of that state.

The evidence is there. "America does not torture" is a lie on which the present administration should be impeached and imprisoned.

Actually...things could be worse. If the Dims didn't control Congress right now, we'd still have ALBERTO GONZALES as the AG. Enough said.

Daniel David,
Sorry, but with all your plausible hypotheses as to why two of your favored party's senators added their votes to the tally that puts Mukasey into the AG office, you fail to mention the only important one. It was, on the face of it, an immoral vote. The pass it gave to BUshCo was that there would be no way they could be prosecuted for laws ALREADY ON THE BOOKS that they flagrantly violated. And, by the way, Mukasey also refused to say that he would enforce the sub peonas issued by the House Judicary Committee. And he believes in the unitary executive. OH GOODY! Another AG contemptuous of the balance of powers contained in the three branch system. Just what we need. Apparently his office can block such feeble attempts at checks and balances. So why in the hell should any of us feel anything but comtempt for the Dems who enable ( and they can stop it) this man to succeed the last corrupt AG? 15 months is a great deal of time to for BushCo to do a great deal more damage to our Constitution and to the world. They coiuld have at the very least extracted a promise that he would appoint a special prosecutor in regard to the firings of the 9 Fedeal Prosecutors, although even that skirts the morality of their votes..

These sacred elections that you are so confident "the good guys" are gonna win, well let's just say that they are being rigged as we speak, by every means possible. So don't get your hopes up about the cavalry coming just over the horizon to save our Republic. Not that I accept that even a Dem landslide will solve our problems. Not with the current entrenched leadership. Rotten to the core comes to mind.

Let's see, 11 fascists in favor, 8 Democrats opposed. When do we stop pussyfooting around on this topic? If you support waterboarding, you support torture. Torture is a hallmark of fascism. If you support torture you support fascism. Perhaps you can sincerely support democracy while torturing prisoners, but I doubt it.

Oh, and at least two of the yes votes were Zionists. Predictable, not a coincidence. Symptomatic of the political realignment in this country that allows fascists to control the agenda while technically in the minority.

I remember how indignant I was when I first saw Scorcese's movie The Deer Hunter. Who could forget those VC demons torturing our boys by forcing them to play Russian Roulette? I wonder if those who voted for Mukasey would argue that Russian Roulette isn't really torture because most victims are never harmed? Or would they simply say that torture is only torture when bad guys (our enemy du jour) do it to good guys (us, naturally). When we do it to them it's not torture but enhanced interrogation. Hope the bad guys appreciate that distinction.

Personally, if I had my druthers, I'd take Russian Roulette over waterboarding any day. Just harmless fun, unless you get unlucky and die, whereas waterboarding is controlled, excruciatingly painful suffocation, unless you get lucky and die.

There are questions here which continually puzzle me.

First, as to legality: Sen. Kennedy's statement, which Amy Goodman refers to, answers some of this, namely "What makes waterboarding illegal"? This needs to be spelled out comprehensively: once that is done, Mukasey's opinion counts for little. What about the United Nations charter? Which specific provisions of the Geneva conventions? Which judgments from U.S. courts dealing with such cases (Sen. Durbin recently referred to a post-World War II against a Japanese combatant found to have done this - what are the specifics?) Does not the 8th Amendment to the Constitution, regarding "cruel and unusual punishment" apply here? - One cannot imagine that these words apply only to post-sentencing punishment; they must apply also to the investigative process which led up to a court's judgment.

Second, as to efficacy (regrettably, this too needs to be asked): In recent weeks a number of ex-intelligence and ex-military personnel have testified that neither waterboarding nor other forms of torture produce useful information, because the subject being tortured is so desperate with fear that he/she will say anything, in order to make the torture stop.
What, then, about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? He has been identified as the "mastermind" behind the 9/11 attacks. On what basis: information which he provided when he himself was waterboarded? What about information which he provided about other participants in the attacks? This is a crucial question: if, in fact, viable information came from him as a result of waterboarding or similar techniques, then the statements from the ex-intel and ex-military people are open to question.

If, on the other hand, their position is correct - and thus Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's statements are untrue or undependable - it appears that a number of the conclusions about the participants in the 9/11 attacks, including himself, are incorrect. And if that is true, the people who actually should be incarcerated over this are not the ones who are presently being held.

Could someone please enlighten me on these two points, or anything which relates to them?

Too bad. We don't need any more anti-semitism.

I think this demonstrates how much power the executive branch really has, with vetos, appoinments, and power plays (making us except Mukasey, or settle for worse). Yes I can blame the Democrates for being week, but what can they really do against a demogoge? If we don't take note at who's fault this really is, and put another Republican in office so this continues, it really shows how stupid the American public really is.

Daniel David, invoke all the flights of fancy that you might. Then there's the evidence.

"Too bad. We don''t need any more anti-semitism."

Ezeflyer, if your talking to me, I'd have to say we don't need any more anti-semitism but we can always use more anti-Zionism as well as more anti-fascism. Thanks.

catbutt, what they CAN do, and what those of us who once supported them DEMAND that they do, is show us that whether or not they can actually stop these thugs, they can, AT THE VERY LEAST stop collaborating with them. It's a copout to say they are too weak to do anything. And it is a MONSTROUS lie. They have a great deal of power, but the truth is, and it saddens me to say it, they just aren't that unhappy with the staus quo. Take off your partisan rose colored glasses and see what IS. We have nothing remotely close to an opposition party. It's all just " a play, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Shakespeare had it right. The drama we watch to make us feel that we have something to say. Well, I say, let's close thiS play down--it's run has gone on too long and it is not just stale, it's rotten.

Senators Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif) need to recuse themselves from the 2008 elections and they need to do this now so appropriate, Democratic Party candidates, prepared to uphold the Constitution, can be readied and presented to the voters.

Their recent actions, supporting torture and unbridled Executive power, are 'Poster Behaviors' people are pointing to for not voting Democratic in the next election. These Senators are a drag on their Party, on their Country and on the vision all Americans have of a world respectful of human rights.

The disingenuous political rationales these Senators have provided for putting their needs ahead of their responsibilities under the Constitution undermine the confidence of all Americans in their party and in the Senate of the United States.

Schumer, Feinstein, Lie-berman: charter members of the American Likud Party. Can these guys for once do what's good for the US of A and not for the relatives out in Judea and Samaria? I am hoping that Webb, Leahy, and Kennedy will join forces to filibuster the Muckster.

Mukasey also added that he wasn't too clear on the definition of "children's health care"; he was a bit foggy on the whole "global warming debate"; he wasn't 100% sure the Bill of Rights actually ever existed; and he suggested that our Founding Fathers really meant "Unitary Executive" when they accidentally quilled "President Of The United States."

Mukasey also noted that the Fourth branch of government - the heretofore unknown Vice President Branch - is, in fact, above all laws in the known universe, although he is prohibited from explaining why due to the harm his explanation would cause to "national security."

Any Congressional Democrat, Republican, Indi, or Repuglocrat
(as in Leiberman), who votes for Mukasey must be regarded as a Traitor of American Justice and International Law; and suggests
they support a Dictatorship.

It would seem beneficial to Republicans and Democrats to Impeach Bush, Cheney and others in their regime, and hold them truly accountable in a court of law for crimes against American citizens and humanity in general.

It would seem a distinct advantage for both parties to remove the ROT, level the playing field (as it were), and ernestly begin to restore order, peace, and confidence in citizens and our allies around the world.

We honest and good American citizens are ready to do all we can to help those whose lives and lands have been destroyed by those who have sold democracy short (least of all the lives of well over a million, mostly innocent people).

Please Remove The ROT and restore the spirit of Christmas, of Peace and Goodwill, to everyone everywhere in the world.

Please forgive me for being uninformed.

TonyVodvarka [quote] "Mr. Mukasey is an Isreali citizen." I didn't know that. I've read before about Feinstein, Lieberman, Pelosi, Wolfowitz, Feith, French president Sarkozy (and many others that I'm not listing here), having ties to Isreal. I don't put much stock in Zionism or apocolyptic Christianity and I usually just let the references to Isreal pass because I have many Jewish friends who are very good people.

And I'm not being anti-semetic here but it's stopped being coincidental. Where's the best place to get educated about the seeming coincidence of Isreali connections in top government positions all over the world? And, if I may hazard a guess, top media positions ???

We all know about the connection between Bush and House of Saud. But I can't quite reconcile this closeness with the Isreali influence. I thought Saudi-Arab-Muslims and Isreali Jews weren't a good mix. Or is this not an irreconcilble difference at all when viewed through the lens of 'oil & opium=money=power'? Who cares who has the money as long as it's kept within the inner circle?

this article is a distraction from the real issue: Mukasey is a kook who thinks that the executive is above the law. The media is playing up the torture thing to distract us from the other.

jld: It's bad however this ultimately plays out. Either there's a genuine fifth column -- or else we're being false-flagged into thinking it as such.

Amy Goodman wrote: Judiciary Committee has voted 11 to 8 to recommend his (Mukasey) appointment as attorney general to the full Senate.

I don't hold much hope for Kucinich's HR 333 (impeachement proceedings against Cheney) to survive the Judiciary Committee.

Why not? Pelosi is there!

I can't get the Wannsee Conference out of my mind, the meeting Heydrich and Eichmann ran in 1942 to inform the top Nazi administrators about the Final Solution (there are two movies about it, one German, one American, and Arendt gives an account in Eichmann in Jerusalem). Many of the administrators present found the notion of the Final Solution "repugnant," but no one present dared to voice opposition or refuse to go along with it.

So…what is the difference between the "Democrats" and the "Republicans" again? From here, I can't see any. Did the Democrats just approve a top law enforcement officer that won't say that partially drowning people repeatedly is torture?

You realize that people around the world are hearing all this, right? How much do Americans spend on, what do you call it, democracy promotion, or is it human rights initiatives? All that is down the drain. Not to mention tourism - "Gee, let's go to Disneyland and risk being tasered and waterboarded."

…But it's not all bad. You could have got a top cop who thought electrodes on the genitals was acceptable as well,…oh wait, nobody asked? Well, hope for the best!

[quote]Paul Bramscher November 7th, 2007 3:13 pm -- jld: It's bad however this ultimately plays out. Either there's a genuine fifth column — or else we're being false-flagged into thinking it as such.[/quote]

Perhaps, but there is a third possibility called 'coincident interests', sometimes expressed as 'politics makes strange bedfellows.'

In the broad geopolitical gamesmanship context, peoples don't have to share the same ideology, nor even the same purposes, to find common ground for acting together strategically. Often, such alliances fall apart very quickly once a particular mission has been accomplished, but they can last for longer periods when they involve a strategic series of more complex activities.

onlooker wrote: ...ex-intelligence and ex-military personnel have testified that neither waterboarding nor other forms of torture produce useful information...

Information obtained from torture is irrelevant, whether correct or otherwise.
1) It is important for the Administration to have it known that it does torture, the more horrific the technique, the better. Fear, remember, is the great controller for terrorists and honest citizens alike.
2) Valid or otherwise intel obtained through torture is always put to use. A midnight raid on a house with the arrest/killing of suspects (whether innocent or otherwise) looks good on the daily factoids, informing everyone what a successful job we are doing. "Insurgent" body counts is the only metric of success the Administration has.

It's not about the technique or the individual, it is about the mass manipulation of fear.

Daniel:

"Being a Dem supporter, as I am, I don't know what Feinstein and Schumer are doing. Perhaps sticking out their (presumably) safe-seat necks to get the thing to the floor so other Dems can vote for or against Mukasey in ways they think are best pleasing to their individual state voter blocks. Perhaps they're trying to not give Republicans a rallying cry that Dems were so recalcitrant as to "deprive" America of any AG.
Perhaps they plan to endure Mukasey while also expecting to replace both Bush and Mukasey with Dems on 1/20/09.
Perhaps they're playing "go along to get along" for a compromise on other legislation. I don't know their real strategy, but I suspect their thinking, whether smart or not, is designed for something other than to just give Bush a pass."

Can you see why we find this so frustrating? Even if any of your speculations are true, why can't they just do what is right? What a sorry state of affairs our politcal system has become.

Dear jld_overseas, I am not referring to the general influence of Jewish people across the globe. Such a question is meaningless and has to drift into anti-semitism. The question is, has a powerful political faction, which represents few Americans (and probably few Jewish Americans), with the strongest ties to a foreign country, achieved a strangle-hold on our foreign policy and a veto power on attempts to change it? Dual citizenship of high office holders should be discussed in relation to this.

[quote]WTF November 7th, 2007 3:33 pm -- It is important for the Administration to have it known that it does torture, the more horrific the technique, the better. Fear, remember, is the great controller for terrorists and honest citizens alike.[/quote]

And, from what I'm able to observe, that strategy (combined with industrial-sized portions of media induced apathy) seems to be working quite well for the latter group. Not so sure about the terr'ists, however. At least the ones who are willing to blow themselves up don't seem much deterred by the prospect of post mortum torture.

Bidelo, why they can't do the right thing is the $64,000 question, eh? It doesn't matter what reasons we come up for their immoral behavior. It still comes out immoral. DDavid's pragmatism rings hollow when moral questions are so glaringly obvious. Perhaps it comforts him to feel that he will vote for the lesser of two evils, but I don't even necessarily agree with that premise. To what degree exactly is it lesser?

Compromise/pragmatism may be useful when one is actually welcome at the negotiating table. The only participation any of us seem to have these days is here on CD. Our elected officials are not listening. So I will vote my dreams and my conscience from here on forward. They are better company on this dark journey than regret and a sense of moral failure for ignoring my heart's truth. To forsake those things would trail me like an icy shadow.

I live in California and am so disgusted with Feinstein, I just don't know what to do anymore. I call her office nearly every day, and e-mail her constantly. She has always been on the wrong side of the issues as far as I'm concerned - she voted for the war, supported the Patriot Act, supports deportation of immigrants, and now this. The woman has got to go. We need to start recalling our representatives who don't represent us.

Starofthesea,

don't get me wrong, I wouldn't vote in Mukasey, I would "close the play down." but, if they didn't accept him, the "temp" AG will give bush a bigger free pass, hurt more people, etc.. This acceptance will hold the administration to a slight check and balance. Like I said the Democrates are WEEK, but let's not forget who the real criminals are.

I fear everyone will go along with thinking Democrates are week and vote in another republican because they don't waver and look strong. Mukasey is the lesser of two evils, yes make a stand and vote against, but giving Bush a free pass for the rest of his term may be worse. That's all I'm saying. But, don't forget who is giving us Mukasey as an only option...

Is Feinstein up for re-election in 08?

If so, good - it will be her last run for office.

She and her industrialist (member of the MIC) husband are parasites, sucking liberty from the whitering body of America.

I honestly don't know who to trust anymore.

We've all been betrayed.

[quote]catbutt November 7th, 2007 4:17 pm -- Starofthesea, don't get me wrong, I wouldn't vote in Mukasey, I would "close the play down." but, if they didn't accept him, the "temp" AG will give bush a bigger free pass, hurt more people, etc.. [/quote]

Leaving aside the inherent uncertainties of any such prognostication, it sounds very much like that vast majority of 'appeasement' tactics. If we just give Hitler half of Czechoslovakia, he'll be content to let the other half live in peace. Like HELL he will!

Starofthesea,

okay, let's play this out. We know what will happen if we don't appoint Mukasey. Bush will not appoint another AG and detainees will suffer more atrocities because we are playing politics.

It is apparant that the Democrats are much more interested in getting reelected than to do the right thing.

Whether it be Feinstein on this or Pelosi on impeachment, they are looking at the next election instead of doing the people's business.

At this point all we can do is call our Senators and let them know that we are opposed to Mukasey. Being from Iowa I know that our Senator Harkin will oppose the nomination!

The next thing is to watch to see how the Senators who are running for President vote. The only one that I have heard about is Senator Dodd & he is voting against.

Don't give up hope, keep calling your representatives. They can't turn a deff ear forever.

Amy Goodman wrote "Maybe at least one senator will step up and filibuster the confirmation, just long enough for Mukasey to research and announce his opinion on whether waterboarding amounts to torture. If a U.S. citizen,"

It seems she and many commentators (except Kloro) above here do not seem to get the point that this is not about water-boarding being torture or not. It is obvious to the entire world that it is torture. This is about the highest justice official to be in the administration, refusing to put himself in a position where he may have to necessarily apply existing laws to find members of that same administration complicit in authorizing said torture.

Mukasey is protecting himself and his bosses to be; Bush and Cheney, while Senators Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca) are acting in total complicity to allow crimes already committed to go unchecked and to continue to be perpetrated under this evasive self delusive Senate afraid .

What? The prevarication, turning a blind eye to his "peccadillo" of not being committal on whether water-boarding is or is not torture, because Mukasey is the best AG that the country can expect from this lying and corrupt administration, is not going to avoid the necessary and inevitable conflict that your country needs to redeem your Constitution.

That impeachment is not on the table gives the administration a free pass. Your government as a whole is down the toilet, politicians and parties are pawns owned by giant corporations and pressure groups like AIPAC backed by commercial and global power interests, your constitution is being shredded and Americans will continue deluding themselves and remain in denial until they start to find that people they know are being put on lists, spied on, locked up and tortured, and by then…. Well in fact it's already too late.

"okay, let''s play this out. We know what will happen if we don''t appoint Mukasey. Bush will not appoint another AG and detainees will suffer more atrocities because we are playing politics."

Catbutt, Are you serious? If Bush wants to play politics and hurt people because he can't get Torquemada II approved as AG, that's his fault, not ours. Better to have no AG than a torturing yes-man AG.

Didn't The Romanoffs consider themselves "above the law"?

Same for King Louis and Marie Antoinette?

When we have nothing left, we'll have nothing to lose.

One word: RECALL

Senators Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif)

Start the "Recall Feinstein and Shumer" Campaign today.

You don't need flaming torches and lying down in the street. You need a website, someone to organize the campaign and a bank account.

RECALL

Here's someone talking about it now --

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/11/3/11479/9338

A vote for Mukasey is a vote for money.

Oh, turns out that a federal elected official cannot be recalled. Apparently. But some R's have tried to recall Dems and made the case that it is possible.