->Gonzales Vote This Week: 'speak now or forever hold your peace!'

[G_j]

(from MoveOn)

This week, the full Senate will vote on the nomination of Alberto Gonzales for Attorney General. Far from the rubber stamp Bush expected, the outcry from groups like Amnesty International, Win Without War, FaithfulAmerica, TrueMajority, People for the American Way and tens of thousands of MoveOn members has created a powerful opposition -- making this vote a real opportunity to hold the Administration accountable for the torture scandal in Iraq.

Last week, we scored a huge victory when every Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee bravely voted to oppose Gonzales. This week, we need every Senator of conscience to do the same.

Please call your Senators today and ask them to vote against the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales for Attorney General.

In January, 150,000 MoveOn members and a broad coalition of faith groups, human rights advocates, and national security experts called on Gonzales to clearly repudiate his position that torture is a legally acceptable practice for the United States. He refused.

During his confirmation hearing, Gonzales insisted that the President had the authority to order torture.<1> He defended the memos he wrote and approved while serving as White House counsel authorizing the use of torture to interrogate prisoners and declaring the Geneva Conventions "quaint".<2> Gonzales' appalling legal equivocations are in direct violation of international laws ratified by Congress, including the Geneva Conventions and the United Nations Convention Against Torture.<3>

As chief White House counsel, Gonzales' disregard for the law shamed our nation and outraged the world at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. As a judge on the Texas Supreme Court, he took tens of thousands of dollars from Enron and handed down historic decisions in the company's favor.<4> As chief legal counsel to the State of Texas, he pushed for then-Governor Bush to sign the most death warrants of any governor in history, even executing the mentally retarded and foreign nationals who were not accorded their rights under international law.<5>

Simply put, the record and positions of Alberto Gonzales have already cost our nation dearly and render him unfit for the office of Attorney General. Please call your Senator today and urge them to oppose his nomination and show the world what America stands for.

Thanks for all that you do.

--Ben Brandzel, Eli Pariser, and the whole MoveOn.org Team
Monday, January 31st, 2005

(1) When asked by Senator Durbin whether the President could bypass the law to authorize torture, he replied "I guess I would have to say that hypothetically that authority may exist."
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=635

(2) When asked by Senator Leahy if he still supported the memo written at his request authorizing extreme measures such as "waterboarding" and unlimited psychological humiliation such as occurred at Abu Ghraib, Gonzales responded "I don't have a disagreement with the conclusions then reached by the Department."
http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200501/012605.html

(3) The Convention on Torture clearly states: "no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability, or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture". While one of Gonzales' memos read "Gonzales' legal memo advised the president he had the authority "to approve almost any physical or psychological action during interrogation, up to and including torture."
http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cat.html
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/91.htm

(4) New York Daily News, February 2, 2002

(5) Center for American Progress
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=636

[G_j]

1. Capitol switchboard: 202.224.3121 n/t

[BrotherBuzz]

2. I've got one of my Senators in our camp (Boxer)....

unfortunately, the other one will probably introduce him to the Senate (Feinstein). Damn, I call it a wash.

[G_j]

3. then I guess it is official

Feinstein supports torture

[Disturbed]

4. Any Dem that votes for Gonzales...

does not deserve another term in office, period!

[gottaB]

6. Feinstein voted "no" in committee

http://feinstein.senate.gov/05releases/r-gonzales12605.htm

[G_j]

9. that is good to hear

I'll take back what I said :-)

[Vadem]

5. The vote on Gonzales is Tues. morning, 2/1, 10:45 am.....CALL

your Senators if you haven't already.

[G_j]

10. KICK!

[gottaB]

7. kick

:kick:

[G_j]

8. NO More Torture!

http://action.humanrightsfirst.org/campaign/etn_gonzales_oppose?source=etn_gonzales_mojo


Dear friends,

As White House Counsel, Alberto Gonzales helped open the door to abuses at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. He approved a definition of torture so narrow that it undermined discipline in the military, put American fighting men and women at greater risk, and compromised the ability of the United States Government to hold the moral high ground.


Gonzales advised the President that human rights laws and essential elements of the Geneva Conventions do not bind U.S. officials in the fight against terrorism. He took the extreme position that the President could ignore laws if he thought they infringed on his powers as commander¿in-chief. In a nation committed to observing the rule of law as it is, not as those in power find it convenient to be, we must urge our Senators to reject confirming Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General.

Please urge your Senators to send a message to the rest of the world that the United States does not condone torture and abides by the rule of law. Click here to take action.


This is the first time in Human Rights First's 27-year history that we have opposed a Presidential cabinet nominee.


Please join us in urging your Senators to oppose Alberto Gonzales¿ confirmation. Take action now, before the Senate votes this week.


After you have taken action, please ask your friends and family to get involved.


Sincerely,


Jill Savitt