Civil Liberties

In March, Sen. Kit Bond and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) agreed to conduct a review that would look at

• how the CIA created and operated its detention and interrogation program,
• how the CIA determined that detainees were aware of relevant intelligence,
• whether the CIA was being truthful in its description of the program to Congress and
• what kind of intelligence was gleaned through the tough interrogation tactics.

However, Bond quit the review to protest AG Eric Holder's appointment of a special prosecutor to review the legality of Bush-era interrogation techniques. Since he's quit, Politico reports, things are moving along more quickly because Bond isn't arguing over the content of the report.

More details are emerging about the secret CIA program reportedly ordered by Dick Cheney. From Taegan Goddard's Political Wire:

According to The Guardian, former Vice President Dick Cheney "ordered a highly classified CIA operation hidden from Congress because it pushed the limits of legality by planning to assassinate of al-Qaida operatives in friendly countries without the knowledge of their governments."

"The CIA apparently did not put the plan in to operation but the US military did, carrying out several assassinations including one in Kenya that proved to be a severe embarrassment and helped lead to the quashing of the programme."

As noted earlier today, Roy Blunt and Kit Bond have already rejected calls for inquiries and investigations into the program. Blunt, Roll Call reported, said the CIA didn’t do anything wrong and that an investigation is not warranted.

Late last week, members of the US House Intelligence Committee were "warring" over what to do with new information from CIA Director Leon Panetta that the CIA has been concealing a secret information-collecting program from Congress for years. Here's what Panetta is reported to have said:

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday...

Mr. Panetta, who ended the program when he first learned of its existence from subordinates on June 23, briefed the two intelligence committees about it in separate closed sessions the next day.

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The anger and fury from last week's failed abortion legislation is still boiling over. Last Thursday, Senate Republicans passed a "compromise" anti-choice bill to create new restrictions and hurdles for abortions. It was a compromise in the sense that pro-choice Senators agreed not to filibuster, but was still roundly criticized as unnecessary and unhelpful in reducing abortions. It passed 24-7. 

The House, however, refused to support the revised legislation after anti-choice lobbyists said it had been too watered down. 

And now, there are some very grumpy folks.

Don Hinkle, editor of the Missouri Baptist Convention's Pathway publication, is especially angry concerned:

It has been said of America’s two political parties that one is evil and the other is stupid.

At the risk of sounding angry (which I am not), I have to say it is an apt description for the two parties composing the Missouri General Assembly after they first gutted, then tossed a common sense pro-life bill aside like a dead carcass.

The anti-life tyrants who control the state’s Democrat Party got their way...

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Somehow lost in the MIAC report fury is MIAC director Van Godsey.  Godsey has been the MIAC director since its creation, and the Superintendent of the Highway Patrol has identified Godsey as the man who reviewed and approved the report.

Godsey has long been close with top Republican leaders.  He was appointed to his current position as Director of MIAC under Governor Blunt. He was a confidant of former Congressman and gubernatorial candidate Kenny Hulshof, and worked directly with Hulshof in the tragic Joshua Kezer case. Once, Van Godsey described himself to Matt Blunt's former chief counsel, Henry Herschel, as Blunt's "smartest hardworking asset." Herschel, in turn, called Godsey one of the Governor's "best employees."

When and how did Godsey approve the report for distribution?

David Catanese has posted video of an interview conducted yesterday with Peter Kinder, and it illustrates precisely what I was trying describe yesterday.

Catanese: The Nixon Administration points out that it [the MIAC report] does not target Christians. It targets Christian Identity, which, according the to Anti Defamation League, is a anti-Semitic, racist group that has been involved in violent actions. Eric Rudolph, the Atlanta...

Kinder: They should be watched.

Catanese: So you're not saying that the [MIAC] report targets Christians. Or are you?  In your reading of the report.

Kinder: I'm saying it could be read that way, and we need more answers on how this got focused on one side of the political spectrum.

Kinder is definitely saying that the report targets Christians.  He said it just moments earlier (see Catanese's first video from the same post). Reading the MIAC report, and then watching Kinder's responses, one can only conclude that: (1) Kinder still hasn't read the report, (2) he's completely misinformed about the Christian Identity movement, and hasn't bothered to do some homework, or (3) is intentionally misrepresenting the report to stoke the flames.

This morning, I attended Peter Kinder's Capitol press conference, at which he outlined his concerns with the controversial report by the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC).  As has been widely reported, the document has created a "firestorm among conservatives" because it includes language stating that militia members are commonly supporters of third-party political candidates like Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin and Bob Barr.

Here's what Peter Kinder said this morning: