NEW YORK DAILY NEWS ENDORSES HILLARY!
The editorial board calls Hillary "a superprepared warrior realist."
READ THE PAPER'S ENDORSEMENT HERE
Calls to open up the 28 hidden pages in Congress’s Joint Inquiry report about the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
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| Former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, left with Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes
The nature of the 28 pages pertaining to 9/11 can be inferred from this carefully worded sentence in the commission’s report: “We have found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded [al-Qaeda]” (emphases added). Together, those five italicized words constitute a loophole large enough to fly a hijacked airliner through.
The push to declassify the government’s secret 9/11 records got an invigorating jolt Monday with House Democratic Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s call to open up the 28 hidden pages in Congress’s Joint Inquiry report about the terrorist attacks.
Those pages, addressing “specific sources of foreign support” for the hijackers, were the focus of a 60 Minutes TV report on Sunday featuring former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, co-chairman of the government’s first investigation into 9/11.
“I agree with former Sen. Bob Graham that these documents should be declassified and made public, and that the Bush Administration’s refusal to do so was a mistake,” Pelosi said in a statement Monday. Pelosi served on both the House Intelligence Committee and the Joint Inquiry.
Saudi Arabia also responded to the 60 Minutes report, calling it “a compilation of myths and erroneous charges.”
Efforts are under way on Capitol Hill and elsewhere to open up the 28 pages and other classified 9/11 records kept out of public view by the Bush and Obama Administrations.
In the House, 41 members from 19 states and both parties have co-sponsored House Resolution 14, which urges President Obama to release the 28 pages as “necessary for a full public understanding of the events and circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 attacks upon the United States.”
A companion measure in the Senate has three co-sponsors.
For three years, the Florida Bulldog also has sought to open up the 28 pages through a process known as a Mandatory Declassification Review – an alternative to the Freedom of Information Act that’s used less by reporters and more by historians.
Miami attorney Thomas Julin represents Broward Bulldog Inc., the Florida Bulldog’s parent, and 9/11 authors Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan in the matter.
Waiting for declassification
“We stand where we’ve always stood, waiting for the U.S. to rule and no indication as to when they will rule, but I think Pelosi’s call and the 60 Minutes report and Graham’s continued work would have some impact,” said Julin of the Hunton & Williams law firm.
Miami attorney Thomas Julin
In July 2014, after the FBI and Justice Department ignored theBulldog’s request for access to the 28 pages, Julin filed an appeal with the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP), which makes recommendations to the president after conducting a review of the requested documents. Among other things, the appeal pointed out that declassification would help Americans understand how the September 11 attacks were financed.
The panel consists of senior level representatives appointed by the Departments of State, Defense and Justice, the National Archives, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Security Advisor. It is not, however, a rubberstamp.
In 2014, the agency decided 48 appeals containing a total of 451 documents. The panel affirmed prior agency decisions in a quarter of those documents, and declassified 75 percent in whole or in part, according to the most recent annual report by the National Archives and Records Administration’s Information Security Oversight Office.
In the summer of 2014, after a relative of a man killed during 9/11 accused President Obama of breaking a promise to make public the 28 pages, the National Security Council announced that the White House had asked the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to review the 28 pages for possible declassification.
CBS News reported Monday that the White House said the declassification review “is under way and that the administration hopes to complete it by the end of Mr. Obama’s presidency.’’
A recommendation by ISCAP to declassify the 28 pages would afford political cover for the president to act.
“It certainly would assure the president could tell the Saudis and the American public that all aspects of the national security apparatus has given the matter thorough consideration,” said Julin.
On Monday, Graham said was disappointed that 60 Minutes did not also report other “important information about 9/11,” including the story of the FBI’s once-secret investigation of a Saudi family living near Sarasota found to have ties to the 9/11 terrorists.
The Sarasota Saudis
The FBI investigation began after neighbors reported that the family of Abdulaziz al-Hijji had moved abruptly out of their home in an upscale, gated community two weeks before the attacks, leaving behind their cars, clothes, furniture and other belongings. Sources on and off the record said agents later used gatehouse log books and license plate photographs to establish that vehicles driven by 9/11 hijack pilots Mohamed Atta, Ziad Jarrah and other hijackers had visited the al-Hijji residence in the Prestancia development.
Abdulaziz al-Hijji, right, in Sarasota prior to 9/11 and leaving his London office in 2012 Photo in London by Warren Allot for The Telegraph
FloridaBulldog.org, working with Irish author and journalist Anthony Summers, was first to report the story in September 2011, and how the FBI had not disclosed it to either Congress’s Joint Inquiry or the subsequent 9/11 Commission.
While the FBI acknowledged its investigation, it said that agents had found no evidence connecting the al-Hijjis to the terrorists. Agents declined to elaborate.
The FBI’s denial, however, was contradicted three years ago by its own document made public amid ongoing Freedom of Information litigation brought by Florida Bulldog’s parent company. One FBI report, dated April 16, 2002, said agents had determined that the Sarasota Saudis had “many connections to individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001.” The report was heavily censored, citing national security.
The FBI sought to discredit its own 2002 investigative report last year in findings released by the 9/11 Review Commission – a secretive, three-person entity whose members were paid by the FBI.
The report by the commission, whose members included Reagan-era Attorney General Ed Meese, said the FBI had disavowed the 2002 report, calling it “poorly written and wholly unsubstantiated.”
“When questioned later by others in the FBI, the special agent who wrote (it) was unable to provide any basis for the contents of the document or explain why he wrote it as he did,” the report says.
The report does not name the agent, but its language suggests the commission accepted the FBI’s statements without challenge. The report does not address why the FBI kept its Sarasota investigation a secret from two federal inquiries into 9/11.
Said Bob Graham, “You could do another 60 Minutes just on Sarasota.”
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Obama becomes Clinton defender
President Obama is emerging as a staunch supporter of Hillary Clinton in an increasingly contentious Democratic presidential primary.
Obama is officially neutral in the race between Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and he and his aides have been painstaking to show they’re not trying to tip the scales in favor of Clinton.
But the White House has defended Clinton against attacks from Sanders, and Obama has brushed aside concerns about Clinton's vulnerabilities — including an FBI investigation into her use of a private email server as secretary of State.
Read the full story here.
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ STATEMENT ON NEW ABORTION CLINIC VIOLENCE REPORT
“Today’s deeply alarming report from the National Abortion Federation shows that women’s health care, and those who practice it, are in danger. The violent and gravely irresponsible rhetoric that was a trademark of Republicans’ investigations of Planned Parenthood manifested itself in the tragic murders of three people at a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic last November. Those murders, and nearly 100 other specific threats cataloged in last year’s report, makes crystal clear the fact that anti-abortion extremists are threatening the lives of women’s health care providers everywhere. It would be very unsafe and harmful for the House Select Investigative Panel on Planned Parenthood to force abortion providers to produce names and other personal information of clinic personnel, and I call on Speaker Ryan to immediately cease this baseless and dangerous witch hunt.”
click here for more information
ALERT: Republican governors move to legalize discrimination across the country!
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Before he was President, he was a law professor. My professor.
Before he was President, he was a law professor. My professor.
Then-professor, now President Barack Obama, Ellen Fulton, Joe Khan, and me in 1999 at University of Chicago Law School.
For more than 10 years, President Obama taught at the University of Chicago Law School, an institution known for its commitment to full and vigorous debate from all sides of the intellectual spectrum. It's where the late Justice Antonin Scalia served as a professor for several years and developed his originalist view of the Constitution. It’s a school where all points of view are treated with respect and are subject to the same rigorous challenge.
And it's where President Obama will return this afternoon for the first time since moving into the White House to talk with law students about the enduring benefits of an impartial Supreme Court and how the current confirmation process holds the potential long-term consequences for some of our most important constitutional values.
For the first time in recent memory, Senate Republicans are flatly refusing to consider a Supreme Court nomination because they hope another party will win the next election. It isn't clear whether the Senate will ultimately deny the President's nominee a hearing or a vote for the entire year, so before positions harden, this is a good time for all of us to step back and think about the broader costs of this potential action to our judiciary.
Professor Obama always insisted on class discussion. He didn’t like to lecture. Rather, he liked to present difficult questions and require students to consider the logical extension of their arguments and decide whether they still maintained their positions.
Professor Obama, like most law professors, used hypotheticals to illustrate his point. So consider this one: What if the next Senate declared that absolutely no Supreme Court appointments would be considered not just in the last year of the President's term, but for the President's entire term, regardless of how many vacancies might pile up, because they hoped someone else would be elected four years later?
We all want judges that are respected, independent, nonpartisan, and fair to everyone. It's not easy to create an impartial judicial system when the people who select and confirm our judges are elected and inherently partisan, especially when it requires collaboration between the President and Senate leadership, who often represent different parties. Thus, we rely on political leaders overcoming the political calculations of the moment in order to preserve something that benefits all of us: a truly independent system of justice.
There is something precious and powerful about an independent judiciary, a branch of government that can and must maintain its impartiality in our political system. It’s hard to do.
I don't think we want future law professors to explain how 2016 began a cycle of blatant partisanship in judicial appointments and confirmations. An independent judiciary, born from the heart of our Constitution, is too important to imperil.
That's one of the lessons I learned from Professor Obama. I hope our Senators take that lesson to heart as well.
Thanks,
Dan
Dan Johnson
Class of 2000
University of Chicago Law
Chicago, IL
Class of 2000
University of Chicago Law
Chicago, IL
BLOWHARD LEPAGE REFUSES TO SWEAR IN NEW SENATOR
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Maine's Republican Gov. Paul LePage—a miniature version of Donald Trump, as The Daily Beast has reported—canceled a swearing-in ceremony Friday for a newly elected senator in response to Democrats voting against one of his nominees. Senator-elect Susan Deschambault, a Democrat, showed up with her family for the planned event, but was told it had been abruptly canceled after it was scheduled to start. As it turned out, LePage nixed the event after he found out his nominee to the Maine Unemployment Insurance Commission was rejected.
MORE FROM THE BEAST
Faulty Clinton Story Collapses
  Rumors that over a hundred FBI agents were looking into Hillary Clinton's email began to circulate in January on Fox News and elsewhere in right-wing media. The chatter jumped to the mainstream this week when The Washington Post cited an "anonymous lawmaker" who said that there were 147 agents on the case. At that point, the story exploded and was picked up by multiple mainstream outlets. But a day later it collapsed when Politico reported that the number was "greatly exaggerated." NBC News later reported only about 12 agents were on the case. Even after being burned by its source, the Post shrugged at the mistake. But it's clear that fundamental changes are necessary at the paper. To start with, don't give Republicans anonymity in an election year to attack Hillary Clinton. | ||
Right-Wing Obstruction Finally Noticed
 | Right-Wing Obstruction Finally NoticedOn the night of Barack Obama's first inauguration, pollster and pundit Frank Luntz reportedly organized a dinner of Republicans to craft a strategy on how the right would stop Barack Obama. They settled on radical obstructionism. Like a cancer, this obstruction would grow and metastasize, eventually including Obama nominees to the stimulus to Obamacare to judges to common sense measures on gun violence and even to funds for 9/11 first responders. And yet time and time again the media turned a blind eye to the obstruction. Congressional experts Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann eventually pointed out that it was the Republican Party that made Washington so broken, but the media ignored them too. So it was quite a shock this week when a Washington Post columnist admitted that Mann and Ornstein were right all along. Seven years into the Obama presidency, it took the rise of Donald Trump to show the media that the GOP is fundamentally broken. | |
source:MediaMatters.org |
Hillary Clinton Sits Down with Rachel Maddow
On Wednesday, Hillary Clinton sat down with Rachel Maddow at the Apollo Theater for an interview which aired last night on MSNBC. During the interview, Clinton and Maddow spoke about a number of topics including Republican front-runner Donald Trump and his recent comments about abortion, her primary battle against Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, and a number of her platform points and positions. One of the interesting distinctions that is becoming clear between Clinton and Sanders is that while Clinton is focused on the Democratic party and ensuring that other Democrats are elected, Sanders is only concerned about the primary and winning the nomination. Clinton understand the broader importance of the election and is fighting for Democratic successes in Congress as well. A full transcript of the interview can be read HERE, and a video from the interview can be watched below
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