White House Is Leaning on Interim Appointments

[kskiska]

Source: NYT

WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 — For now, the most powerful law enforcement official in the federal government is a 47-year-old lawyer little known outside Washington.

Or inside Washington, for that matter.

He is acting Attorney General Peter D. Keisler, who is running the Justice Department until a new attorney general is confirmed by the Senate to replace Alberto R. Gonzales. Mr. Keisler had been in charge of the department’s civil division.

The No. 2 and No. 3 officials are also acting — Deputy Attorney General Craig S. Morford and Associate Attorney General Gregory G. Katsas. More than a quarter of the department’s 93 United States attorneys around the country are “acting.”

At the top of the Department of Homeland Security, there is an acting general counsel, acting under secretary for national protection and acting assistant secretary for strategic plans. At the Department of Health and Human Services, the $600 billion-a-year Medicare and Medicaid programs have had an acting administrator since last fall.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/washington/15interim.html?hp

[ellaydubya]

1. WOW!! That is shocking!

Things just keep getting crazier and crazier. What in the world is happening?

[EST]

2. This is sickening.

The badass in the whole country, the meanest sombitch in the valley, the hot dog cop, responsible for showing everybody and telling everybody how to do it, is a political clown!
He has less than zero experience in anything to do with law enforcement...his whole schtick is a law clerk, some passing mumbled reference to a nebulous "practice," obviously nothing to be proud of, and helping found the Federalist Society.

Jeebus H Keeryste on a shingle! How could any repuke, any conservative, any pedophiliac sodomite with an IQ above freezing and a faint cloud of conscience even admit who they are?? Not only could nobody with any conscience even lift their heads in public, but, if there were any honor or grace left at all, they'd utter their final prayers and do a home-school course on hari-kari. Take a long walk on a short pier. Ride an elevator to the top floor of the wtc.

The steady parade of utter incompetence at all levels, corruption, scandal, double-dealing, political hackery and bottom of the settling pond behind the pig barn vile, evil unhumanity simply has to be trumpeted from every megaphone there is.

If the volume and scale can be achieved, the squealing, squalling puckering piggies, whose giant intellectual leap of their entire careers is a constant refrain about "them meany o'l demicrits who hate father George and his creation of the universe in only six years." " All them lying ol' demicrits do is just to keep trying to destroy this wonderful man who has to work as hard as he can just to undo the terrible mess that Bill Clinton left the country in" --and we have the audacity to badmouth his every effort and tear him down.
Those people will have to be so overwhelmed with the blasting noise of truth to the point they have to shut up because they can't hear themselves, anyway, with their ears flapping so! Maybe a teeny bit will penetrate to their brains.

These worthless twits, scatterbrained hooligans still believe they have something positive to contribute and deserve to run all three branches of the fed and every damn state government there is.
OUTRAGE OVERLOAD!

slightly ot-
There are some recent studies of a phenomenon, little known but detected and suspected since the '70s, that looks like temporal epilepsy. An area of the brain that defines self/not self, religious experience (murdering your kids 'cause god told you to,) and a host of other symptoms are connected to it.

Apparently temporal epilepsy is very common, affecting millions. I begin to wonder if it's possible that TE might actually be the normal condition for humanity--a result of an unfortunate mutation, not immediately fatal, afflicting our common ancestors. Shiver.

[pinto]

3. A failure of an Administration on all fronts. They have stonewalled,

and crippled, the federal bureaucratic system they 'manage' at the alter of a unitary executive.

[annabanana]

4. I agree that Peter D. Keisler ought to be sent packing asap. .

He oversaw the admins fight over the rights of prisoners at Gitmo. . .

From Alliance for Justice website:

http://www.afj.org/check-the-facts/nominees/peter-d-keisler.html

Peter D. Keisler's nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit is remarkable. Mr. Keisler has no judicial experience. And although he arguably possesses the professional credentials to serve as a federal appellate judge, he clearly possesses the bona fides as an extremely well-connected partisan conservative. What is probably most remarkable about the nomination, is that in a mere 32 days after President Bush nominated Mr. Keisler, he was scheduled for a hearing before the judiciary committee.

Mr. Keisler's early career shows his commitment to conservative philosophy and institutions. He was a founding member of the Federalist Society. Before he graduated from law school, he was noticed by the Reagan Administration and appointed to an advisory panel after his nomination was rejected. He also worked closely with Judge Bork's failed nomination to the United States Supreme Court.

Since 2002, Mr. Keisler has worked as the Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Division of the Department of Justice. In this position he has come under scrutiny for the Department's abrupt change in position in recent tobacco litigation when the Department abruptly changed its demand from $130 billion to $10 billion. Mr. Keisler also has been involved in litigation aimed at preserving the Bush administration's secret NSA wiretapping program.

The speed with which Mr. Keisler's nomination has progressed has raised concerns. With the inordinately short time between nomination and hearing, the senators have not been afforded the necessary time to review Mr. Keisler's history. In addition, hundreds of documents from Mr. Keisler's tenure in the Reagan White House were not disclosed before his hearing.

The sooner he's outta there, the happier I am!