This is nothing new. The US Navy Seals have been “sponsoring” the Stennis visitors center for years. The people who complain loudly about earmarks in NASA’s budget never said a word about NASA swiping money from the special forces budget.

What surprises me is the fact that they didn’t press the advantage and also slap a couple billion dollars worth of medicaid or education funding onto the bottom of it.

To get back on topic. It is interesting that Bush rails against earmarks but has for six years signed bills chock full of them, including this war provision that somehow includes NASA money. His igornance of this is excused by some people. Cant expect him to understand what he’s signing. However, members of Congress are pillored for not knowing all the provisions of the massive Patriot Act, including one apparently put in at the last minute.

“USA PATRIOT Act revisions

On March 9, 2006, The USA PATRIOT Act Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 was signed into law. Included in this revision to the USA PATRIOT Act is a change in the interim appointment process of U.S. Attorneys. Both the provisions for the 120-day term expiration period for the Attorney General’s interim appointees, and the subsequent appointment authority of district courts were stricken from the U.S. Code. The interim appointee may serve indefinitely, if the president declines to nominate a U.S. Attorney for a vacancy. The change was written into the bill by Republican Senator Arlen Specter.[71] The change is worded as follows:

SEC. 502. INTERIM APPOINTMENT OF UNITED STATES ATTORNEYS. Section 546 of title 28, United States Code, is amended by striking subsections (c) and (d) and inserting the following new subsection: ‘(c) A person appointed as United States attorney under this section may serve until the qualification of a United States Attorney for such district appointed by the President under section 541 of this title.'[72]

Therefore, the resulting statutory provision currently in effect (which is has not yet been reflected in published versions of the United States Code) reads as follows:

§ 546. Vacancies

(a) Except as provided in subsection (b), the Attorney General may appoint a United States attorney for the district in which the office of United States attorney is vacant.
(b) The Attorney General shall not appoint as United States attorney a person to whose appointment by the President to that office the Senate refused to give advice and consent.
(c) A person appointed as United States attorney under this section may serve until the qualification of a United States Attorney for such district appointed by the President under section 541 of this title.

28 U.S.C. § 546 (2007).”

S. 109-1389—”A bill to reauthorize and improve the USA PATRIOT Act”—was introduced July 13, 2005, in the U.S. Senate by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Penn.). Cosponsors were Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.).

A similar bill by Sensenbrenner in the house was also introduced. After passage by both the House and Senate, conference committee reconciliation, the final bill was passed in the Senate by a 89 (Yea) to 10 (Nay) vote. Voting in favor were Sen.’s Clinton, Schumer,Boxer, Feinstein, Dodd, Biden, Obama, Kennedy, Kerry, and Reid, among other Senate Dems.

Any idiot, including you D. Messier, can look this up on the internet in a matter of five minutes. Instead, you demonstrate your obvious intellect with name calling and avoidance of fact.

So Turd Blossom, let me start by saying how honored we are by your presence here. It’s not often that you come down to converse with the common folks, so thank you for this.

Turd, this is an excellent recitation of the bushcheney admin’s official position on this topic. Clearly the administration believes Congress should have no role in such activities. Otherwise, it would never have slipped a provision into the Patriot Act to allow the AG to appoint U.S. attorneys indefinitely with no Senate confirmation. So, that’s clear enough.

It’s interesting, though Turd, that pressure from Congress seems to have played a role in some of the firings. Clearly, you believe that Congress as an institution should play no role. But, individual Congressmen should be able to have a say in who stays and who goes. Especially when they are FOTBs (Friends of Turd Blossom).

How much to Bush know, Turd? That’s an interesting question, because he’s made a career out of being out of the loop (as did his father, on fewer occasions). It’s interesting that one of the last emails that’s been released from November questions whether to inform the president. Then there’s a fairly long gap until just before the firings in December. Almost as if there’s an attempt to shield him from involvement in this mess, Turd. Hard to believe you’d do that.

Well, we’ll see what happens. Thanks again, Turd Blossom, for your inputs here. This is a fascinating discussion.