Last night’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann did a piece on the Bush administration’s politicization of the Justice Department.  This video from MSNBC’s Countdown begins with a rundown of the events that led up to the DOJ’s release yesterday of an internal report entitled, An Investigation of Allegations of Politicized Hiring by Monica Goodling and Other Staff in the Office of the Attorney General(links to pdf of the official document).

The video includes commentary from Constitutional Law Professor, Jonathan Turley, whose perspective is always worthwhile.  If the video fails to play, click here.

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Salon’s Glenn Greenwald rolls out the online opinion & news outlet’s audio presentation.  The debut of Salon Radio features Greenwald’s interview of Daniel Ellsberg.

From the July 25, 2008, Salon Post:

Knowing that he was risking life imprisonment, Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times in an attempt to alert the public to what the Government was doing (he did so only after numerous members of Congress refused his pleas to make those documents public). The NYT then waged an epic battle with the Nixon administration for the right to publish those papers, resulting in one of the most important First Amendment victories in Supreme Court history. For his efforts, Ellsberg was subjected to extensive warrantless eavesdropping by the Nixon White House, had his psychoanalyst’s office invaded and searched at Nixon’s behest in an attempt to obtain incriminating information about him, and was arrested and then brought to trial where he faced life imprisonment for having leaked the report (though the charges were ultimately dropped as a result of the Nixon administration’s misconduct towards him).

Follow the read more link below to see the whole post and listen to the audio of the Ellsberg interview.

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Look for more podcasts of Salon Radio with Glenn Greenwald, posted at Salon.com on Mon, Wed, & Friday @ 1:PM CST.

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God bless Jon Stewart and his Daily Show staff. Last night they presented a fantastic satirical segment on how Bush administration officials, past and present, have avoided answering questions posed by Congress. Daily Show correspondent John Oliver put it best: “Classic Hall of Fame Bullshit.”

Oliver’s remarks were in response to John Ashcroft’s testimony before Congress. When the former Attorney General was asked about his recollection of discussions regarding the treatment of “enemy combatants,” Ashcroft claimed he couldn’t differentiate his own memories of events with the accounts of others.

The exchange between Stewart and Oliver is below, and lasts 3:25.  For information that is less satirical, see:

From the New York Times:  Two Testify on Memo Spelling Out Interrogation, 27 June 2008.

or this from the American Constitution Society for Law & Policy: Former AG John Ashcroft Before House Committee On Interrogation, 18 July 2008.

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From the History News Network, by way of the Chronicle of Higher Ed:

“It remains to be seen if the new law will prod more institutions to reach out to veterans or if it will transform veterans’ enrollment patterns. But history suggests a skeptical view.”

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