Shorter Bush White House

I am the law!!!!

The White House, moving toward a constitutional showdown with Congress, asserted executive privilege Thursday and rejected lawmakers' demands for documents that could shed light on the firings of federal prosecutors.

President Bush's attorney told Congress the White House would not turn over subpoenaed documents for former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor.

"With respect, it is with much regret that we are forced down this unfortunate path which we sought to avoid by finding grounds for mutual accommodation," White House counsel Fred Fielding said in a letter to the chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. "We had hoped this matter could conclude with your committees receiving information in lieu of having to invoke executive privilege. Instead, we are at this conclusion."

The Bush administration's definition of mutual accomodation is the same as its definiton of bipartisanship: you accomodate us.

Boy am I glad Henry Waxman is around.

Kagro X discusses some options.

Racism Is Not Dead

Anyone who says otherwise is either ignorant or... a racist.

In September 2006, a group of African American high school students in Jena, Louisiana, asked the school for permission to sit beneath a "whites only" shade tree. There was an unwritten rule that blacks couldn't sit beneath the tree. The school said they didn't care where students sat. The next day, students arrived at school to see three nooses (in school colors) hanging from the tree.

The boys who hung the nooses were suspended from school for a few days. The school administration chalked it up as a harmless prank, but Jena's black population didn't take it so lightly. Fights and unrest started breaking out at school. The District Attorney, Reed Walters, was called in to directly address black students at the school and told them all he could "end their life with a stroke of the pen."

Black students were assaulted at white parties. A white man drew a loaded rifle on three black teens at a local convenience store. (They wrestled it from him and ran away.) Someone tried to burn down the school, and on December 4th, a fight broke out that led to six black students being charged with attempted murder. To his word, the D.A. pushed for maximum charges, which carry sentences of eighty years. Four of the six are being tried as adults (ages 17 & 18) and two are juveniles.

We still have much work to do.

Update: The Supreme Court is not helping:

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected public school assignment plans that take account of students' race.

The decision in cases affecting schools in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle could imperil similar plans in hundreds of districts nationwide, and it leaves public school systems with limited means to maintain racial diversity.

The court split, 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts announcing the court's judgment. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote a dissent that was joined by the court's other three liberals. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote a concurring opinion in which he said race may be a component of school district plans designed to achieve diversity. But he agreed with Justice Roberts that the plans in Louisville and Seattle went too far.

Thanks, gang of 14! Thanks, Joe Lieberman! Thanks, bipartisan sensible centrist David broder! This is what the good bipartisans in the Senate have brought us!

Later update: Yes, this means the Supreme Court just gutted Brown v. Board of Ed.

Preaching to the Choir

Bush:

President George W. Bush said on Wednesday that he was creating a special envoy to the largest grouping of Islamic nations and called on moderate Muslims to speak out against extremists who are Islam's "true enemy."

Though I think that Bush and many Muslims disagree about who "extremists who are Islam's true enem[ies]" are.

PS - OOOoooohhh look, another czar! Now we know everything will be peaches and gravy. How long before we get a President czar?

Don't Cry for Me, Broderella

Boehlert on Libby's apologists at the WaPo.

h/t Atrios.

Bush's Court

One decision at a time.

All of these decisions are split 5-4, it's not even funny.

Astoundingly Even More Poop

Al-Qaeda.

More Poop

Fired prosecutors.

Poop

Iraq.

What's in a Name?

That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.

Not this time. Via Jessica at Feministing:

It's not enough that rape survivors are re-victimized in the courtroom by having their sexual histories brought up or are accused of "wanting it." Now they can't even call their assaults, well...assaults.

From Dahlia Lithwick at Slate:

...a Nebraska district judge, Jeffre Cheuvront, suddenly finds himself in a war of words with attorneys on both sides of a sexual assault trial. More worrisome, he appears to be at war with language itself, and his paradoxical answer is to ban it: Last fall, Cheuvront granted a motion by defense attorneys barring the use of the words rape, sexual assault, victim, assailant, and sexual assault kit from the trial of Pamir Safi—accused of raping Tory Bowen in October 2004.

The first trial resulted in a hung jury last year, and in the retrial the words will once again be banned. The only word left to use by both the defense and the prosecution to describe what happened? Sex. Uh huh, that's lovely.

From here on, I will refer to anything I think is bad as poop. More descriptive words are prohibited.

Day of the Purple Fingers

Iraq elected a government and all was Good in the eyes of the President.

Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi, a senior Shiite politician often mentioned as a potential prime minister, tendered his resignation last week in a move that reflects deepening frustration inside the Iraqi government with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Other senior Iraqi officials have considered resigning in recent weeks over the failures of their government to make progress after more than a year in power, according to Iraqi and U.S. officials.

Or was it?