I read some of those links, too, which is why I had the reaction I did... I guess we'll have to wait and see if he gets confirmed. I would really love to think that-- for once-- Schumer was playing some kind of kabuk-feint with the WH. But not likely. [And now it appears we are to have a different acting AG than anticipate.]

OT, but really worth reading, Everyone, is this press release of a speech that John Murtha gave at the National Press Club.

http://www.house.gov/list/press/pa12_murtha/npcremarks.html

He really makes it all concrete. For example...

I am convinced that nothing in Petraeus’s testimony, nor the Jones Report, or the President’s speech will change the way the American public feels about this war. They want this war to end. Yes, many Iraqis consider us the occupier, but it is also true that Iraq is occupying us. We are bleeding money at a rate of twelve billion dollars a month.

We hear talk today about a national mortgage crisis, yet we are mortgaging our future with this war. This war is warping our priorities, disfiguring our national debates, shortchanging health care – 1,500 Americans die every day from cancer, yet the NIH only spends $5.5 Billion per year on cancer research. This war is shortchanging education – 33% of people in our nation’s capital are classified as functionally illiterate, and China is graduating 600,000 engineers per year while we graduate only 70,000. And this war is shortchanging our infrastructure – there are more than 70,000 structurally deficient bridges throughout our nation.

I frequently visit our military hospitals and bases throughout the world and speak in detail with our troops and their families. In doing so, I have come to the conclusion that our involvement in Iraq can be described as the tale of one America with two families:

The military family, stressed to the limits, who have gone without their loved ones for far too long, whose children are suddenly performing poorly in school, who live everyday in fear of that dreaded phone call or knock at the door that could forever change their lives.

Then there is the other family, clearly a majority of America. They support the troops, they display yellow ribbons, they are patriotic Americans, but they have not been asked to make the same blood sacrifice.

For the past six years, this country has funded this President’s war on credit. Down the road, both families will feel the pain when these enormous payments finally come due.

And there's a lot more, including a timeline of his own actions and attempts to get the maladministration to correct some of its errors. To little effect, of course, except to have his own patriotism and sanity questioned.

http://www.blackwaterusa.com/

The Blackwater USA website appears to be down.

"Nobody's Perfect..." As in the case of the late, great Jack Lemmon's "Daphne" in SOME LIKE IT HOT, Judge Mukasey has SOME flaws, but as Glenn Greenwald has so incisively pointed out in his commentary, Mukasey RESPECTS THE RULE OF LAW OF THE LAND AND THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, UNLIKE CHIMPya W. Bush, Torticola Cheney, and the FASCIST-NAZI WAR CRIMINALS of Bushland Uber Allies!!!!! Mukasey may be a right-leaner, but as Glenn Greenwald has remarked, he may not like the law he sees but he will respect and follow it, UNLIKE the HIGH CRIMINALS and LOWLIFES of Bushland Uber Allies like David Addington and John Yoo!!!!! If CHIMPya thinks he is getting a supporter for his DESPOTIC REGIME in his appointee as Attorney General, he is SADLY MISTAKEN unless Mukasey does a 360 degree turn on following the RULE OF LAW OF THE LAND and starts MARCHING IN GOOSE-STEP WITH Bushland Uber Allies!!!!! I would personally like to see Mukasey do a "Thomas Becket" but we know how THAT story turned out, now don't we!

The Center for American Progress quoted from GG’s Salon piece as follows:

A RECORD OF STANDING UP TO BUSH: ...Salon's Glenn Greenwald writes that in the Padilla case, "Judge Mukasey repeatedly defied the demands of the Bush administration, ruled against them, excoriated them on multiple occasions for failing to comply with his legally issued orders, and ruled that Padilla was entitled to contest the factual claims of the government and to have access to lawyers." After the Bush administration resisted his order that Padilla be granted access to counsel, Mukasey sternly wrote in a strongly-worded ruling (just a few days prior to the initiation of the Iraq invasion), "Lest any confusion remain, this is not a suggestion or a request that Padilla be permitted to consult with counsel. ... It is a ruling -- a determination -- that he will be permitted to do so." One of Padilla's lawyers, Donna Newman, said, "I admire him [Mukasey] greatly." Greenwald writes, "Whatever else may be true about him, then, Judge Mukasey was more than willing to defy the Bush administration and not be intimidated by threats that enforcing the rule of law would prevent the President from stopping the terrorists."

No I haven't, but I didn't get far into the wiki article before I realized I should. I had to stop reading for fear of spoilers:)

Thanks.

What's going to become of this Blackwater kicked out of Iraq business?

It would be fabulous if that really happens, and happens right damned quick. But what, realistically, might we expect?

In 2003, in response to a letter I wrote to him congratulating him on standing up to the Bush Administration and ordering that Padilla should have access to his lawyer, Judge Mukasey said, "I hadn't thought that letting someone in custody talk to a lawyer was a big deal either, but we live in odd times." He added, [very mistakenly as it turns out], "I hope and believe that this case will turn out to be an isolated event, a mere curiosity..."

In any case, Judge Mukasey is unquestionably the best choice we could possibly hope for. I hope and believe he will do his best to return some honor and probity to the Department of Justice.