Outrageous! Sandra Day O'Connor part of new "Iraq Panel Group"!

I didn't catch this until tonight, this outrageous me to no end. Sandra Day O'Connor, who just had to resign from SCOTUS at this extremely divisive period, to take care of her ailing husband. Bullshit!

I have nothing but absolute contempt for her, and I hope to hell i never ever hear another Democrat sing her praises again as a "Moderate".
Not ever again.. and to think that James Baker is going to be on this panel, and it's going to cost tax payers $1.3 million dollars to "fund the group" - that's at the first wack.

I'm so angry right now, i can't see straight.



Congress forms panel to study Iraq war
Panel to recommend Iraq policy to Congress, White House
From Ted Barrett
CNN Washington Bureau
Wednesday, March 15, 2006; Posted: 2:43 p.m. EST (19:43 GMT)

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/15/iraq.study/

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Congress unveiled an independent panel on Wednesday assigned to study the U.S.-led war in Iraq and to make policy recommendations for both Capitol Hill and the White House.

The bipartisan Iraq Study Group -- led by former Secretary of State James Baker, a Republican, and former Democratic congressman Lee Hamilton -- is designed to focus "fresh eyes" on the war debate from people who "love their country more than their party," said Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Virginia, during a Capitol Hill news conference.

(snip)

The group will be made up of five Republicans and five Democrats.

They include: former CIA Director Robert Gates; former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican; former Clinton adviser Vernon Jordan; former Clinton Chief of Staff Leon Panetta; former Clinton administration Defense Secretary William Perry; former Democratic Sen. Chuck Robb; and Alan Simpson, a Republican former senator from Wyoming.

Panel members said another prominent Republican will join the group but declined to say who it is. A congressional Democratic leadership aide identified that person as retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor

(snip)

Wolf said Congress will appropriate $1.3 million to fund the group, which will work under the auspices of the congressionally chartered U.S. Institute for Peace and three think tanks.


:grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr:

Pay check with no work involved....

Let's wait and see.

just because a lunatic right winger is ticked off that she's not extreme enough for their apocalyptic agenda, doesn't mean that we should give O'Connor a free pass.

The Bush vs Gore matter simply is unforgivable beyond words, and resigning is just as bad - in fact it reinforces why her decision on Bush vs Gore was despicable and unforgivable.

Had she stayed on, i might could get over it... but not now.

O'Connor isn't one of them. She is despicable.

That money could have been put to real purpose. This is disgusting.

committee. Looks to me like a bunch of retreads looking to make some cash on the side. This is a farce.

i have said yet, how much i hate these people?

:grr::grr::grr::grr::grr:

... issues regarding 9/11?

Hello!

Hello?

Maybe I'm just nuts.

Baker is bad news...whenever he shows up somewhere, expect there to be a cover-up or foul-play...and always to protect the backside of the Bush Family.

Haha. Oops. Silly me.

gotcha.. ;)

now the Chancellor of my college (The College of William and Mary). The liberal president of the college didn't pretend to hide the differences between himself and her!

Looks like a lot of people whose role it will be is to cover the tracks of the corruptness and bogus evidence that we used to get into this war. This smells like a bi-partisan whitewash. I am amazed that Clinton and Panetta would add his name to this travesty.

Just people who were formerly in his administration.

gotta slow down on the speed scanning, I guess it affects the comprehension skills.

at times. :hi:

All in one fell swoop. Vernon Jordan is there as a token liberal and Africa American with lots of connections to people who do him favors ..

Leon Panetta started up some sort of think tank here on the West Coast, in Santa Barbara i think when he left office 10 years ago.. but I haven't paid any attention to what he's been up to.

Jim Baker, good gawwd.. this is one of the the chief Puppet Masters that recruited dubya as the next Figure Head to do the bidding of Darth Cheney and the whole cabal..

Yeah, it figures that Sandra Day O'Connor is on this panel. She's was awarded this position as the one who put the chimp in office in the first place, and as a reward, she's going to be the jurist to give these Neo Con PNAC bastards the legal cover to avoid potential impeachment convictions.

gawwd dammit.

Well there it is people..

It's obvious and the sole reason she's on that "blue ribbon" panel is to assist with the cover up and legalization of Bush Crimes on this war.

these bastards have a plan and contigency for everything...

Nobody's going to listen to them anyway.

the Middle Class to rich people that are part of the Ruling Class.

Maybe she knows what's coming for the SC and didn't want to be a part of the process. (She did say at one point that she would now vote voted differently on the 2000 elections.) Maybe this is what "moderate" is now - letting others do what you know they will anyway. Radical is when you want to do it yourself - that's the likes of Scalia, Alito and Roberts.

But it's too late now isn't it? And i can't quite make out if tongue is firmly planted in cheek, on your definition of "moderate", but certainly, you can't be serious?

Yes, I was being sarcastic witbout the dripping smiley :)

The bit about Sandra Day o'Connor wishing she could change her vote comes from a comment at Daily Kos - it _might_ be apocryphal:

...a year or two AFTER selecting King George the Turd she said that, had she had another day (ONE MORE F#*@!ING DAY!) to think about it she probably would have voted otherwise. Good for her that she is speaking out now, but she has a long way to go before her sin is even remotely forgivable.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/3/10/82512/7603

in my mind, she is completely untrustworthy, i don't care what concerns she raised in that talk she gave to lawyers convention a few weeks ago.

she played an important role in helping to create it. I don't blame the entirity of the rise of fascism on her shoulders, however she is an important actor in this history.

And now, she's going to play an important role in revising history by mopping up the crimes of Bush's blood bath in her role on this so called 'blue ribbon' panel.

I don't have a source anymore, but a few years ago, i either had read or heard about a cocktail party she was holding with all of the usual suspects in attendence on the night of the 2000 elections, when someone came in and announced that Gore had won... she was reported to then have rolled her eyes and said something like "oh my god" , as if was the worse thing that could have happened to this country. I'm paraphrasing because i no longer have the exact quote, and i can't remember the name of the reporter in attendence.

I'd love to be able to have a sit down with her and confront her actions, her comments and her decision on that election.

She only did that because she's been trying desperately to save her historical legacy. Didn't she hire a PR firm, too?

of W's dictatorial scheme, which she recently vilified.

The idiot Atty Gen. Alberto Gonzalez and other loyal legal advisors have given Bush really bad advice, stupid moronic and just plain illegal advice. O'Connor is there to supervise the mop op operation.

was just for the sake of plausible credibility, or some such?

the direct threats being made from Congress certain members against Judges - so when we take another look at the written reports, the only place her her remarks were directed, were at certain members of Congress, not at the Executive.

I know we've been thinking along the lines of one party rule and uber authority, but she was ranting on about the threats to judges.

a dictatorship implies a dictator.
Though O'Connor didn't say it in so many words, she was implicating W - and the rest of the govt for that matter. Not that i think it will be of much consequence.

whether or not her thoughts and/or remarks extended to the WH or not, we'll never know... since it wasn't video taped..

but what i intuit, the sole purpose of her being on this panel is to cover up for his crimes and mistakes on a legal level - which goes to issues of basic charges and case for impeachment..

I think her apparent criticism of * probably gained her some 'plausible credibility' which presumably makes her more effective as a member of that panel.

http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/denton/wb/wb/xp-57341

DemEx

The guy legally representing the Saudi Royal family against the 9/11 families is a pair of fresh eyes?!

It boggles the mind.

if james baker and rudy giuliani are involved, it can come to no good.

and o'connor is a partisan hack.

and alan simpson is wrong--it is not the time for ending recriminations and "the
emotion of it". not even close.

hypocrite, idiot, liar and a kermudgen to boot..

you think...

Do you know the level of work involved in being a jurist? It's a hell of a lot more than the work involved sitting on a bs blue ribbon panel.

And her husband *is* ill.

is hard work to.

(As is being president W.)

What does the "level of work" have to do with this?

And what does her husband's illness have to do with this?

"another prominent Republican"???

F*ck her.

TC

She was elected to the Arizona state senate as a repub for cryin' out loud. Do you think justices magically stop being repubs or Democrats when they get appointed to the bench? Do you think William O Douglas wasn't a Democrat until the day he died?

onenote

That's why her vote on Bush v Gore was viewed as considered conflict of interests and partisan ..

and it's why i still have so much contempt for her.

Before being appointed to the judiciary, he was a very active Democrat, working for Ted Kennedy. I think the decision in Bush v. Gore was wrong and the court shouldn't have taken the case, but its hard for me to single out any particular justice as having a greater "conflict" of interest than any other judge.

onenote

and that was by the way, the opinion of the dissenting opinions, the "liberals" and Democrats sitting on the bench pointed out at the time.

my point in bringing up Sandra Day O'Connor is that decision puts the lie to her touted role as a "moderate", i.e. reasonable, rational etc.

she undid any pro-choice vote she ever made by clearing the way for Bush to steal the presidency (and now appoint two anti-choicers and maybe more) in her 2000 Florida "equal protection" this-time-only vote and bringing to office a man who allowed 3,000 to die on 9/11 and 103,000 or more to die in Iraq based on lies.

now she's going to go about mopping up her appointed chimp's messes he's made all over the world, on the legal front.

:grr:

blah blah blah, but she was a judge, blah blah blah, she's a political hack in my book.

she talks about the potential for dictatorship, she says she has to leave the bench to take care of hubby, blah blah blah. And now we are surprised she turned out to be another grand bullshit artist? oh please, I don't trust anyone of these political wanna-be posers. except for a handful, most of our elected officials are totally full of shit.

that's how i understand it

is a lack of sacrifice. IF she really believed we were heading for a dictatorship and she's smart enough to realize the threat this current admin poses-she could have sacrificed. Yes, that's right Americans-there is such a thing. She could have put the welfare of millions above her own feelings and her own husband. SHOCKING concept isn't it? Those that feel such danger often put that-before themselves. Well anyway-I've seen her defended on DU-she has ever right to retire-well sure she does-but every action has a consequence. And of course-who knows what her real motives are on anything. The one thing the last five years has taught me is trust almost no one in public life.

"Iraq Panel Group"

Translation: the White House has no ideas and no plan, and this is hopefully a life-preserver.

"We're going to be starting it all over again from scratch"

makes ya feel real safe and secure don't it?

She knew damn well that her vote would lead to the SC being stacked with hard right judges. She went with her RW leanings to prevent a Dem Admin, period. Now she is trying to clean up her resume and move on to other lucrative work.

that's why she appointed Bush, and that's why she stepped down..

and now, she get's to help clean up Bush's legacy, help strategize how he can avoid conviction for high crimes and misdeamors...

and, which Think Tanks are they???? The article ended without naming them.

what a farce

oh, but Vernon Jordan, Clinton's buddy, is on the team ... along with Lee Hamilton, that makes the panel independent and bi-partisan :sarcasm:


Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. is a Senior Managing Director of Lazard Frères & Co. LLC in New York. .

Prior to joining Lazard, Mr. Jordan was a senior executive partner with the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, L.L.P., where he remains Of Counsel.

Mr. Jordan's corporate and other directorships include (or have included): America Online Latin America, Inc.; American Express Company; Asbury Automotive Group, Inc.; Callaway Golf Company; Clear Channel Communications, Inc. - he left that post IIRC, replaced by the former Congressman from OK, J.C. Watts; Dow Jones & Company, Inc.; Howard University (Trustee); J.C. Penney Company, Inc.; Revlon, Inc.; Sara Lee Corporation; Shinsei Bank, Ltd. (Senior Advisor); Xerox Corporation; International Advisory Board of DaimlerChrysler; Fuji Bank and Barrick Gold.

Barrick Gold see Greg Palast, Poppy Strikes Gold

... and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Oh, yeah, he's bi-partisan and independent ... not.

Edited to ask: Where is John and Jane Q. Public?? Whey aren't they ever named to such panels? Why can't we have a system of recommending the John and Jane we want representing us? Almost 300 million Americans, and, it's the same names over and over again.

Republican Congressman Wolf said the panel is designed to focus "fresh eyes" on the war debate from people who "love their country more than their party" ... James Baker has fresh eyes and doesn't love Bu$h more than country?

Who submits the so-called Democrats to be on the panel?

these factoids though will be considered as not significant by a lot of people, (unfortunately) but it is still important none the less.

O'Connor's and Spectre's life in the falling heavy objects. Don't have the link right now but the larger issue is how to protect people in public office from the BFEE murder attempts and very real threats.