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The following is an excerpt of the transcript for Polically Incorrect from Tuesday night: Alec: Wait a second. But the problem is -- one of the problems is when you obviously get into free speech issues, when are people saying things that sound treasonous or subversive or they're rooting for the enemy or whatever you said? When do those things become viewed as dangerous and actionable by the government, and then, what's the next thing that they decide is dangerous and actionable by people in this country? This thing -- this attorney/client privilege thing that Ashcroft has cooked up is ...

I invite you all to sign the following petition..Please add your signature to this petition supporting John Ashcroft's work to end terrorism! The ACLJ will deliver this document to John Ashcroft, President George W. Bush and all members of the United States Senate. CLICK HERE TO SIGN PETITION.....

"...So it's my clear belief that the wall itself developed this culture which restrained in a substantial way the exchange of information in the intelligence and law enforcement communities. The Bellows report, which was part of some recommendations following the Wen Ho Lee case, indicated that it was part of the culture at the FBI that if one made a mistake and shared information that was later deemed to be inappropriate, it was called a career- ender, so that the risk of a person sharing information improperly was at least known in the culture of the law enforcement community to...

PORTLAND -- The Patriot Act is about to come under fire in Portland. Brandon Mayfield, the local Muslim mistakenly linked to the Madrid bombings, is fighting back. Friday he and his high profile attorneys go to court and the case is getting international attention. The federal court docket lists this case as Brandon Mayfield vs. John Ashcroft et al. Along with the former attorney general, he's also suing the FBI and the Department of Justice. Who knows if his case will ever go before a jury, but Friday a judge will hear arguments that could change the way the country...

It is no mystery why Frances Fragos Townsend, President Bush's homeland security adviser and a former mob prosecutor in Manhattan, was called The Hurricane by the Federal Bureau of Investigation agents she once worked with in New York. "You don't want to get on her bad side," said an admiring Pasquale J. D'Amuro, a former assistant director in the F.B.I.'s New York office. "If you think you're going to manipulate your way around, or not be aggressive in your approach, she'll rip you to shreds." That personality has served Ms. Townsend well since Mr. Bush gave her the job of...

With barely a word about it, workers at the Justice Department Friday removed the blue drapes that have famously covered two scantily clad statues for the past 3 1/2 years. Spirit of Justice, with her one breast exposed and her arms raised, and the bare-chested male Majesty of Law basked in the late afternoon light of Justice's ceremonial Great Hall. The drapes, installed in 2002 at a cost of $8,000, allowed then-Attorney General John Ashcroft to speak in the Great Hall without fear of a breast showing up behind him in television or newspaper pictures. They also provoked jokes about...

Jerrold Nadler's Two Faces on Terror By Jacob LaksinFrontPageMagazine.com | June 13, 2005Last Friday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing on the Patriot Act had already been adjourned, but Jerrold Nadler, the Democratic blimpish congressman from New York and one of the leftmost members of the House Judiciary Committee, was too wound up to care: “We are not besmirching the honor of the United States, we are trying to uphold it,” bellowed the hefty Nadler. By this, Nadler meant to defend his attacks on the alleged abuses of the (in fact) privileged  prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. Thanks to the efforts of the...

Civil rights lawyers Thursday praised a federal appeals ruling requiring the Department of Justice to share a secret document showing why the federal government concluded local police officers can enforce federal immigration laws. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals late Tuesday said the April 2002 report must be turned over to civil rights lawyers after then-Attorney General John Ashcroft and his representatives repeatedly cited it to justify their decision to let local police have more authority.

The White House was "troubled," according to one source, about the reported actions -- or inactions -- of the Justice Department last week as Republicans in Congress made a last ditch attempt to rescue Terri Schiavo. "You actually had Arlen Specter and his Judiciary Committee out there trying to save this woman's life, and then you have Alberto Gonzales and his crew over at Justice basically putting up roadblocks," says a White House staffer. "This was not a good way for Gonzales to start his tenure there." Gonzales has been on the job at Justice for a little over two...

A congressional investigation has discovered that dozens of terror suspects on federal watch lists were allowed to buy firearms legally in the United States last year. Over a nine month period, the panel discovered, 58 people suspected of ties to Islamic- based, militia-style or other groups applied to buy a gun, and 47 were approved. Yes, at the very same time U.S. troops were risking their lives to disarm terrorists in Iraq, 47 terror suspects were buying guns without so much as an official scowl. You see, it's not illegal for someone on a terrorist watch list to buy a...

"Extraordinary rendition" is the euphemism for seizing individuals and shipping them off to countries known to practice torture. By BOB HERBERT As a nation, does the United States have a conscience? Or is anything and everything O.K. in post-9/11 America? If torture and the denial of due process are O.K., why not murder? When the government can just make people vanish - which it can, and which it does - where is the line that we, as a nation, dare not cross? When I interviewed Maher Arar in Ottawa last week, it seemed clear that however thoughtful his comments, I...

Tommy Chong never was much of a stoner, but one of his most popular characters (“Man”) was. So when Tommy’s son Paris put Man’s face on the surfaces of seditiously shaped blown glass (bongs, pipes) and was blatantly entrapped into sending 5,000 bucks’ worth across state lines to undercover feds, Ashcroft’s Justice Department took the opportunity to send Tommy to the Wackenhut-managed Taft Correctional Institution for nine magical months, to punish him not only for financing and promoting his son’s glass-blowing studio but for, as the federal prosecutor put it, “glamorizing the illegal distribution and use of marijuana” in entertainment...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 19 - As George W. Bush was first moving onto the national political stage, he often turned for advice to an old friend who secretly taped some of their private conversations, creating a rare record of the future president as a politician and a personality. In the last several weeks, that friend, Doug Wead, an author and former aide to Mr. Bush's father, disclosed the tapes' existence to a reporter and played about a dozen of them. Variously earnest, confident or prickly in those conversations, Mr. Bush weighs the political risks and benefits of his religious faith, discusses...

January 30, 2005 Kofi Annan’s son admits oil dealing Robert Winnett and Jonathon Carr-Brown THE son of the United Nations secretary-general has admitted he was involved in negotiations to sell millions of barrels of Iraqi oil under the auspices of Saddam Hussein. Kojo Annan has told a close friend he became involved in negotiations to sell 2m barrels of Iraqi oil to a Moroccan company in 2001. He is understood to be co-operating with UN investigators probing the discredited oil for food programme. The alleged admission will increase pressure on Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, who is already facing...

WASHINGTON - The possibility that al-Qaida or its sympathizers could gain access to a nuclear bomb is the greatest danger facing the United States in the war on terrorism, Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites) said Thursday. U.S. officials "from time to time" uncover evidence terrorists are trying to develop nuclear capability, Ashcroft said without providing any specifics. It is not clear whether they have made any progress, but the United States must take the threat seriously, he said in an interview with The Associated Press. "If you were to have nuclear proliferation find its way into the...

Stepping Down Tuesday, January 25, 2005 By John Gibson On Monday, John Ashcroft (search) retired and all around the world legions of horrified Ashcroft-phobes breathed a sigh of relief. After all, this was the guy who not only wanted the Patriot Act (search), he wanted it beefed up. "What?" the world squawked. "Doesn't this Ashcroft know about human rights, individual rights, the rights of minorities, the rights of Arabs who happened to be in America, the rights of Muslims who happen to be passing through America? Ashcroft trampled all these rights!" At least that's what they like to say in...

Readying for a constitutional showdown over gun control, the Bush administration has issued a 109-page memorandum aiming to prove that the Second Amendment grants individuals nearly unrestricted access to firearms. The memorandum, requested by Attorney General John Ashcroft, was completed in August but made public only last month, when the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel posted on its Web site several opinions1 setting forth positions on various legal issues. Reaching deep into English legal history and the practice of the British colonies prior to the American Revolution, the memorandum represents the administration's latest legal salvo to overturn judicial interpretations...

When Attorney General John Ashcroft was lampooned for shrouding the bare-breasted statue at the Department of Justice, many expected he would reverse the eight-year decline in obscenity prosecutions under former President Bill Clinton. But today, as Mr. Ashcroft prepares to vacate the highest law enforcement office in the land, anti-porn advocates are deeply disappointed with the Bush administration's record -- under Mr. Ashcroft's guidance -- for pursuing peddlers of smut. President Bush "has a worse record in his first term than Clinton had," says Patrick A. Trueman, who served as chief of the Justice Department's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section...

BERLIN -- Attorney General John Ashcroft arrived Tuesday in Berlin as part of a European farewell trip for talks about fighting terrorism, the German Justice Ministry said. Ashcroft met with Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries and other German officials to discuss sharing information in terrorist prosecutions, among other topics, said ministry spokeswoman Eva Schmierer. Information sharing is a contentious issue. A court in Hamburg is pressing for the United States to allow it access to key al-Qaida suspects who may have evidence critical to the retrial of a suspect in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. So far, U.S. authorities have refused...

Attorney General John Ashcroft, in a farewell speech yesterday to Justice Department employees, praised their efforts in deterring terrorism since the September 11 attacks on America,...... -snip- "Al Qaeda has not lost its thirst for American blood. ... We know that terrorists will strike when and if they can. For three years, terrorists have not struck at America because you and people who work with you in this law-enforcement community have not let them," he said. Mr. Ashcroft's tenure as the nation's chief law-enforcement officer has been under constant attack from civil rights groups, other liberal organizations and political opponents...

AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE 12-05-04 To those who support our constitutionally limited “Republican Form of Government“, Raich v. Ashcroft is not about “medical Marijuana” but rather, the case presents a chance to correct a despotic decision made by the SCOTUS in 1942 concerning Congress’ power to regulate commerce in which the Court gave a new meaning to the word “commerce” in order to allow part of FDR’s NEW DEAL socialism [price controls] to pass as being constitutional, when it was not. The following article is worth reading, and can be found at findlaw.com.The Supreme Court Hears Oral Argument on a...

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said yesterday that federal courts have endangered national security by ruling against the Bush administration on issues related to the war on terrorism. In his first public remarks since he announced Tuesday that he would resign, Ashcroft told a meeting of conservative lawyers here that court decisions limiting President Bush's powers are part of "a profoundly disturbing trend" in which the judicial branch is injecting itself into matters that should be up to the executive branch. "The danger I see here is that intrusive judicial oversight and second-guessing of presidential determinations in these critical areas...

John Ashcroft:American Hero

One of the most grotesque calumnies came from the prominent columnist Anthony Lewis. "Certainty is the enemy of decency and humanity in people who are sure they are right," he told The New York Times in an interview, "like Osama bin Laden and John Ashcroft." In the fever swamps of the left, there is no important difference between the man who masterminded 9/11 and the man trying to ensure that the horrors of 9/11 are never repeated.

The ruins of the World Trade Center were still burning when federal agents arrested two men at Kennedy Airport who were found with more than $140,000 hidden in cardboard boxes with honey jars bound for Yemen. For the agents, aware that terrorists were said to use honey shipments to hide money, that slender lead could not be ignored. If the world was suddenly different for everybody back then, in October 2001, with federal agents and prosecutors both properly alarmed and also under sudden pressure to make terrorism cases, they still relied on old techniques developed in generations of Mafia and...

There's good news and bad news. The bad news is that Attorney General John Ashcroft has resigned. The good news is that this is the last time I'll have to offer this annoying full disclosure thingamajig: My wife works for John Ashcroft. These clunky full disclosures are frustrating, but they're nothing compared to what my wife had to endure as chief speechwriter to the most unfairly vilified public official in modern memory. Jessica's a brilliant and gifted writer, but she could be Shakespeare and the media would focus on the stodginess of Ashcroft's iambic pentameter. Conversely, the AG could read...

I will not let this moment pass without a respectful farewell to my old friend John. John Ashcroft, that is. Among my liberal buddies, I would be more popular if I wrote a negative review of his term as U.S. attorney general. At least, I could say nothing, they might think, letting him drift out of public view as quickly and quietly as possible - good riddance. But, no. That’s not my own impression of Ashcroft’s service to the Missouri and the nation, which on balance is positive. We always knew he was an overt evangelical Christian, displaying his personal...

Some of my colleagues in the pundit business have become unhinged by the election results. The always diverting Maureen Dowd of The New York Times wrote the other day that "the forces of darkness" are taking over the country. I know that many agree with that view. But before throwing yourself over the cliff, or emigrating to Sweden, consider a couple things. George Bush was re-elected by 51 percent of the people. His first significant action following Election Day was to retain Andrew Card, a Massachusetts-based business moderate, as his chief of staff. His second was to accept the resignation...

Liberty Beat by Nat Hentoff Cuffing Bush and the FBI A serious setback to the Patriot Act, despite the victorious Bush's unstinting support November 12th, 2004 6:35 PM Bush's re-election ensures that he and John Ashcroft's designated successor, Alberto Gonzales, will press Congress hard to retain the Patriot Act in its entirety, and enact a Patriot Act II that will further disable the Constitution. There are two primary roadblocks to further assaults on our liberties. Despite continued Republican control of Congress, there is still a firm alliance there between civil-liberties Democrats and conservative Republican libertarians, especially in the Senate. That...

Ashcroft says judges threaten national security by questioning Bush decisions The Associated Press WASHINGTON - Federal judges are jeopardizing national security by issuing rulings contradictory to President Bush's decisions on America's obligations under international treaties and agreements, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Friday. In his first remarks since his resignation was announced Tuesday, Ashcroft forcefully denounced what he called "a profoundly disturbing trend" among some judges to interfere in the president's constitutional authority to make decisions during war. "The danger I see here is that intrusive judicial oversight and second-guessing of presidential determinations in these critical areas can put at...

I have had the privilege of meeting with and speaking with many of you on numerous occasions over the past four years. Today, with gratitude toward my fellow Americans, I address you near the close of my time as the Attorney General of the United States. On November 2nd, I submitted to the President my resignation from the office of Attorney General. The noble work of justice preceded my appointment to this office, and it will continue after I am gone. But my official service to this great cause is drawing to a close. We have accomplished what we set...

WASHINGTON - Federal judges are jeopardizing national security by issuing rulings contradictory to President Bush (news - web sites)'s decisions on America's obligations under international treaties and agreements, Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites) said Friday. In his first remarks since his resignation was announced Tuesday, Ashcroft forcefully denounced what he called "a profoundly disturbing trend" among some judges to interfere in the president's constitutional authority to make decisions during war. "The danger I see here is that intrusive judicial oversight and second-guessing of presidential determinations in these critical areas can put at risk the very security of...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- The American Civil Liberties Union said outgoing Attorney General John Ashcroft showed "his clear disdain for the law" in a speech Friday. In a speech to the National Lawyers Meeting of the Federalist Society, Ashcroft warned about "activist" judges who he said were "encroaching" on the president's constitutional powers.

Alberto Gonzales is a trusted friend of George W. Bush, but his challenges at the Department of Justice are sizable.IN NOMINATING Alberto Gonzales to succeed John Ashcroft as attorney general, President Bush noted that "this is the fifth time I have asked Judge Gonzales to serve his fellow citizens." The other four? In order: general counsel for Gov. Bush, Texas secretary of state, Texas Supreme Court justice, and, since 2001, White House counsel.Those are small-office jobs while that of attorney general obviously isn't. The AG presides over the Department of Justice, which, with its six litigating divisions, is the world's...

There's good news and bad news. The bad news is that Attorney General John Ashcroft has resigned. The good news is that this is the last time I'll have to offer this annoying full disclosure thingamajig: My wife works for John Ashcroft. These clunky full disclosures are frustrating, but they're nothing compared to what my wife had to endure as chief speechwriter to the most unfairly vilified public official in modern memory. Jessica's a brilliant and gifted writer, but she could be Shakespeare and the media would focus on the stodginess of Ashcroft's iambic pentameter. Conversely, the AG could read...

There's good news and bad news. The bad news is that Attorney General John Ashcroft has resigned. The good news is that this is the last time I'll have to offer this annoying full disclosure thingamajig: My wife works for John Ashcroft. These clunky full disclosures are frustrating, but they're nothing compared to what my wife had to endure as chief speechwriter to the most unfairly vilified public official in modern memory. Jessica's a brilliant and gifted writer, but she could be Shakespeare and the media would focus on the stodginess of Ashcroft's iambic pentameter. Conversely, the AG could...

...Critics of the Act are not calling for full repeal. Only about a dozen of the 150 provisions need to be reformed.... The two most significant problems are sections 213 and 215. The first authorized the use of delayed-notification search warrants.... The Justice Department often claims that this new statutory "sneak and peek" power is innocuous, because the use of such warrants was commonplace before. Actually, the Patriot Act's sneak and peek authority... was available in terrorism investigations. Courts, however, put specific checks on these warrants: They could only be authorized when notice would threaten life or safety (including witness...

The election is finally over. For those of us who have had to suffer through the last 18 months of debates, primaries, polls, pundits, and attack ads, it is a blessed relief. Now, perhaps, politicians will actually start to do their jobs instead of yak-yak-yakking about how terrible (fill in the blank) is and how they'd do a much better job. Thankfully, President Bush won re-election. I say thankfully because 1) I strongly supported his candidacy and 2) I did not want a traitor in the White House. Again. America has four more years of strong, compassionate leadership to look...

The New York Times laments how "controversial" John Ashcroft was as attorney general. But who fomented the controversy?THE NEW YORK TIMES analysis of Attorney General John Ashcroft's resignation, published today, reflects the general press coverage from the left, describing him, somewhat hyperbolically, as "one of the most powerful and divisive figures ever to serve as the nation's top law enforcement official."The article's title, "Antiterror Campaign Made Ashcroft a Lightning Rod," sets the tone for the piece and establishes the angle from which the New York Times explicitly wants historians to judge Ashcroft: as an overly aggressive--perhaps even reckless--partisan conservative Christian...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 10 - President Bush on Wednesday nominated Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel and a longtime political loyalist, to be his next attorney general. The speed with which Mr. Bush acted, only a day after making public the resignation of John Ashcroft, indicated that the president wants to get his new appointees in place before the start of his second term, 10 weeks from now. The nomination of Mr. Gonzales would also put one of his most trusted aides in a post where past presidents have wanted to have a confidant, as well as someone who can...

NOTE: this was written in Jan. 2001 when the RATS like Barbara Boxer were leading the way to stop this good man from becoming the Attorney General. We should all be thanking him for the work he did for this nation. We have no idea how many terrorist attacks have been stopped. You have earned your retirement, Mr. Attorney General. ===================================================== MIDI - CANDLE IN THE WIND He has led his life trying to do things that are right Now evil forces challenge him…they’re planning for a fight To him an oath has meaning…things he’s saying you can believe He...

...The former Missouri senator decided to step down, as it was widely rumored he would, at the close of President Bush's first term. His resignation letter, running five pages, said the Justice Department would best be served by "new leadership and fresh inspiration." Perhaps so, but there's no doubting that the agency was more than well-served by Ashcroft during his historic tenure — which saw the necessary enactment of the much-maligned Patriot Act in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.... This even though Ashcroft was forced to spend an inordinate amount of time on the defensive, answering the outlandish...

After most Missourians voted for a dead man rather than send John D. Ashcroft back to the U.S. Senate, Ashcroft returned to Washington as the Bush administration's attorney general - where he won over critics with just about as much success. Nearly four, tumultuous years later, Ashcroft finally has hit upon a people-pleasing strategy: He's resigning. He may soon be gone, but Ashcroft is not likely to be forgotten. As the American Civil Liberties Union's Anthony D. Romero put it, Ashcroft may rank as "one of the worst attorney generals in American history, with an outright hostility for civil liberties...

...Ashcroft.... will go down in history as the Attorney General who led the legal fight against terrorism. Every wartime AG has had to make tough calls about the balance between civil liberties and national security, and in a better world Mr. Ashcroft would be retiring to bipartisan accolades for taking on these difficult issues.... Yet no one in this Administration has endured more personal and political abuse. Granted Mr. Ashcroft isn't the smoothest public spokesman, and his cultural conservatism and strict interpretations of the law on the death penalty, partial-birth abortion and sentencing guidelines incensed liberals.... The irony is that...

...Mr. Gonzales has many things going for him, not least his relationship with the President, whom he has served for more than a decade starting in Texas. These personal ties -- much like those between Californians Ed Meese and Ronald Reagan -- will give him a stronger influence in the Cabinet than Mr. Ashcroft had. But his job will nonetheless be to build on the Ashcroft legacy. That includes moving ahead with terror cases, riding hard on the FBI as it reshapes itself to fight terrorists, and working for the renewal of the Patriot Act, portions of which expire next...

Attorney General John Ashcroft, who on Tuesday announced his resignation, will be best remembered for his role in overseeing federal law enforcement's vigorous response to September 11. A deeply religious man and a blunt-spoken prosecutor, he became a lightning rod for critics of the Bush administration's response to the attacks. Mr. Ashcroft deserves to be remembered as one of the most important, successful attorneys general. Indeed, his single-minded determination to prevent more terrorist attacks on this country -- and the Justice Department's many successful prosecutions against terrorist networks operating on U.S. soil -- are the most important successes of Mr....

Gonzales' past is inspiring, critics on left and right By RON HUTCHESON Knight Ridder Newspapers WASHINGTON - Attorney general nominee Alberto Gonzales is an American success story, the son of migrant workers who grew up in a two-bedroom house with seven brothers and sisters, no hot water and no telephone. His climb from poverty to legal prominence is inspiring, but along the way he has accumulated critics at both ends of the political spectrum. Partisans combing through his record as a member of the Texas Supreme Court and more recent work as White House counsel are less than thrilled by...

Ashcroft’s Watch A record of success. Attorney General John Ashcroft's resignation announcementTuesday came as no surprise to official Washington. Ashcroft had overseen the enforcement of our nation's laws during one of the most demanding times in our history. He had done so at great cost to his own health, having been hospitalized last year for an extended period of time with severe and painful pancreatitis. So it was only natural that the man who stood as our bulwark of domestic security and our defender of life and liberty in the face of a threat both unimaginable and unimagined before September...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites), a lightning rod of criticism by civil liberties groups for his anti-terror policies after the Sept. 11 attacks and who once even ordered the robing of two partially nude statues in his department, resigned on Tuesday. A leading candidate to replace Ashcroft is former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, who once ran the department under Ashcroft and faithfully implemented his policies. Others likely candidates were White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, President Bush (news - web sites)'s election campaign chairman Marc Racicot and former New York City Mayor Rudolph...

Attorney General John Ashcroft, a leader in the Bush strategy for the war on terror, and Commerce Secretary Don Evans, one of President Bush's closest friends, resigned Tuesday, the first members of the Cabinet to leave as Bush heads from re-election into his second term. Both Ashcroft and Evans served in Bush's Cabinet from the start of the administration. "The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved," said Ashcroft, in a five-page, handwritten letter to President Bush dated Nov. 2. "Yet I believe that the Department of Justice would be well served by...