Friday, May 25, 2007

Heffelfinger

from Think Progress

Is he suggesting a link to Abramoff?

"...five of nine U.S. Attorneys who were fired were among the leaders of the Native American Issues Committee."

Thursday, May 24, 2007

We The Media

via Truthbus

from TPM

Last Friday was
the fourth annual Personal Democracy Forum at Pace University in New York City. On Tuesday we brought you Part 1 of our visit to the conference. We bring you Part 2 in today's episode of TPMtv ... [which includes Josh Marshall interviewing open-source journalism maven Jay Rosen, and Yale Prof. Yochai Benkler].

















links: offthebus.net

Former USAs respond to Goodling Testimony

TPMmuckraker May 24, 2007 03:40 PM

Since they weren't subjected to the Justice Department's vigorous Why-Did-We-Fire-Them brainstorming sessions, former U.S. attorneys Thomas Heffelfinger (Minnesota) and Todd Graves (Kansas City) got their first taste of it yesterday during Monica Goodling's testimony. They didn't like it.

Of Heffelfinger, who stepped down in February of last year (he says he resigned voluntarily, though that was just a month after he appeared on one of Kyle Sampson's firing lists), Goodling said that she'd heard he "spent an extraordinary amount of time" working on his work related to his position as chairman of the subcommittee of U.S. attorneys that deals with American Indian issues.

Heffelfinger's response: "I did spent a lot of time on it... That's what I was instructed to do [by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft]". And:

"If it's true that people within the Department of Justice were critical of the amount of time I was spending on Indian issues, I'm outraged... Are they telling me I spent too much time trying to improve public safety for Native Americans, who are victims of violent crime at a rate 2½ times the national population? If they are, then shame on them."

And of Graves -- who was asked to resign in January of last year?

From The Kansas City Star:

Her testimony about Graves’ removal came after Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat, asked whether Graves was replaced because he objected to voter fraud lawsuits in Missouri.

“I don’t remember anything like that,” Goodling said. “The reason why … Mr. Graves had been asked to leave related more to the fact that he was under investigation by the inspector general, and there were some issues being looked at there.”

But no one asked her what the investigation involved, and she didn’t say. That led to a fierce argument Wednesday over the possible reasons for the inquiry.

Graves said he knew why.

In late 2005 and early 2006, he said, “A vague allegation was made against me (by a fired employee) that I had inappropriately attended a political fundraiser.”

Graves said that his picture had been taken with Vice President Dick Cheney. He said having a picture taken with a visiting president or vice president was a “normal custom.”

But the fired employee’s complaint, Graves said, led him and criminal chief Matt Whitworth to report the matter to the inspector general “out of an abundance of caution,” prompting the investigation.

He said the review showed that the complaint was without merit.

“That Ms. Goodling would adamantly disclaim any knowledge of how I or anyone else got on a (Justice Department) staff secret hit list and then casually throw out a vague memory of a routine investigation that I initiated … is beyond the pale,” Graves said in his statement.

Graves said he would try to get the inspector general’s report and supporting documents released to the public.

Friday, May 18, 2007

Chuck Schumer on Gonzales

Crooks and Liars » Chuck Schumer Rips Into Gonzales

Thursday night on "Hardball", Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) talked with Chris Matthews about Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the impending vote of no confidence in the Senate. Schumer gives what is probably the most frank and harsh criticism of Gonzales heard publicly from any member of Congress to date. Following the devastating testimony from former Deputy Attorney General James Comey this past Tuesday, Schumer, like most Americans, is stunned and disturbed by what he heard and renews his call for Gonzales to step down.

Schumer: "The Attorney General, unlike all the others, doesn't just follow the President's orders, but he's the chief law enforcement officer of the land. And the antics, what we saw went on, is reminiscent of something in a third world dicatatorship, not the United States of America and it's hard to believe that the President and his inner circle doesn't get that."

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

David Corn: Dramatic Testimony: Did the White House Break the Law?

David Corn:

It's not every day a former deputy attorney general testifies that the White House violated the law--and did so knowingly. But that seemed to happen this morning when former Deputy Attorney General James Comey testified before the Senate judiciary committee about the once-secret NSA warrantless wiretapping program that targeted citizens and residents in the United States.

Comey's testimony [transcript (pdf)] to the committee was dramatic--mainly because he recounted a night in 2004 when then-White House chief of staff Andrew Card and then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales barged into a hospital room where a very sick John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, was in bed, suffering from pacreatitis. The two had come to obtain Ashcroft's approval of this wiretapping program (which had to be reauthorized on a regular basis by the attorney general).

But Comey and Ashcroft a week earlier had concluded that there were legal problems with the program and that they could not recertify it unless there were changes to the program. At this moment, though, time was running out for the White House. The authorization for the program was due to expire.

Let's pick up the rest of the story with the testimony:

. . .. ... .. . .



. . .. ... .. . .

COMEY: The door opened and in walked Mr. Gonzales, carrying an envelope, and Mr. Card. They came over and stood by the bed. They greeted the attorney general very briefly. And then Mr. Gonzales began to discuss why they were there -- to seek his approval for a matter, and explained what the matter was -- which I will not do. [Editor's note: Comey refused to ID the program as the NSA warrantless wiretapping program--but that's what it was.]

And Attorney General Ashcroft then stunned me. He lifted his head off the pillow and in very strong terms expressed his view of the matter, rich in both substance and fact, which stunned me -- drawn from the hour-long meeting we'd had a week earlier -- and in very strong terms expressed himself, and then laid his head back down on the pillow, seemed spent, and said to them, "But that doesn't matter, because I'm not the attorney general."

SENATOR CHUCK SCHUMER: But he expressed his reluctance or he would not sign the statement that they -- give the authorization that they had asked, is that right?

COMEY: Yes. And as he laid back down, he said, "But that doesn't matter, because I'm not the attorney general. There is the attorney general," and he pointed to me, and I was just to his left. The two men did not acknowledge me. They turned and walked from the room.

What Ashcroft meant was that because he was sick in the hospital Comey was the acting attorney general--and only Comey could renew the authorization for the wiretapping program. Yet Comey would not.

What happened next? According to Comey, "The program was reauthorized without us and without a signature from the Department of Justice attesting as to its legality." That is, the White House continued a program that required the authorization of the attorney general without the attorney general's authorization. It was at that point conducting a surveillance program that the Justice Department considered unlawful. Shortly after this--once Ashcroft was back on the job--Comey resigned.

My friend Marty Lederman, a legal scholar, explains all this further here. "It's just about the most dramatic testimony I can recall in a congressional committee since John Dean," Lederman says. He may be right. This deserves attention.



. . .. ... .. . .

2009.07.10 TPM:

The report goes into some detail about that famous visit made by Andy Card and Alberto Gonzales to then-AG John Ashcroft, when Ashcroft was in the hospital, and essentially incapacitated .... The White House needed the Attorney General's sign-off to continue its warrantless wiretapping program.

For years, there's been a mystery about who called the hospital and informed Ashcroft's wife, over her objections, that Card and Gonzo would be coming to see the AG. And it looks like the answer is the president himself.

From the report:

According to notes from Ashcroft's FBI security detail, at 6:20 p.m. that evening Card called the hospital and spoke with an agent in Ashcroft's security detail, advising him that President Bush would be calling shortly to speak with Ashcroft. Ashcroft's wife told the agent that Ashcroft would not accept the call. Ten minutes later, the agent called Ashcroft's Chief of Staff David Ayres at DOJ to request that Ayres speak with Card about the President's intention to call Ashcroft. The agent conveyed to Ayres Mrs. Ashcroft's desire that no calls be made to Ashcroft for another day or two. However, at 6:45 p.m., Card and the President called the hospital and, according to the agent's notes, "insisted on speaking [with Attorney General Ashcroft]." According to the agent's notes, Mrs. Ashcroft took the call from Card and the President and was informed that Gonzales and Card were coming to the hospital to see Ashcroft regarding a matter involving national security. (our itals)

In other words, President Bush, apparently knowing that Ashcroft's wife did not want him seeing visitors or even speaking on the phone, nonetheless informed her that his staff would be coming to the hospital to get the sign-off they needed.

The passage essentially confirms a report from last year by Murray Waas in The Atlantic that Gonzo had told investigators that it was indeed President Bush who directed him to Ashcroft's bedside. And the president's call itself was first reported by Barton Gellman in his 2008 book Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency.

Of course, in Ashcroft's finest moment, Card and Gonzales were unsuccessful. But they would soon find ways to get around the problem.

...

Sunday, May 13, 2007

the global brain

from Pp. 191-192 Nonzero by Robert Wright (of Bloggingheads.TV)

The locomotive, along with other rapid data carriers, accented the truth highlighted by the printing press: the more easily data can move, the larger and denser a social brain can be. The vast, fast collaboration allowed by information technologies slowly turned the multinational technical community into an almost unified consciousness. Increasingly, good ideas were "in the air" across the industrialized world.

Witness how often the same basic technological breakthrough was made independently by different people in different places at roughly the same time. And witness-as testament to the impetus behind easing communication-how often these independent breakthroughs were in information technology itself: the telegraph (Charles Wheatstone and Samuel FB Morse, 1837); color photography (Charles Cros and Louise Ducos Hauron, 1868); the phonograph (Charles Cros-again!-and Thomas Edison, 1877); the telephone (Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell, 1876)-and so on, all the way up to the microchip (Jack Kilby at Robert Noyce, 1958 to 1959).

These independent epiphanies speak of the overwhelming likelihood of various breakthroughs in modern information technology. And each such breakthrough-by further easing the transmission of data, whether by sound, print, or image-only raised the chances of further breakthroughs. Via endless positive feedback, the technological infrastructure for a global brain was, in a sense, building itself.

And this infrastructure, of course, did double duty. It sponsored not just long-range investing, but the workaday business of animating the economy; it carried the signals that allocated goods and services. As the process got faster-as, for example, locomotives, governed by telegraph signals, carried nicely illustrated Sears catalogs to small American towns and then carried order forms back to the big city-everyday economics came to resemble a kind of superorganic metabolism. In the superorganism increasingly assumed planetary scope.


Some thoughts on journalists and the blogosphere.

Daily Kos via truthbus: Some thoughts on journalists and the blogosphere.

...I was struck by this comment, containing the following quote:

You're going to be up against people who have an opinion, a modem, and a bathrobe. All of my life, developing credentials to cover my field of work, and now I'm up against a guy named Vinny in an efficiency apartment in the Bronx who hasn't left the efficiency apartment in two years" — Brian Williams, anchor of the "NBC Nightly News," speaking before New York University journalism students on the challenges traditional journalism faces from online media.

Well, that's obviously pretty annoying and insulting on its face. But it should be noted, of course, that we're guilty of some of the same generalizations. Every time we issue sweeping indictments against "the Mainstream Media," we do the same sort of injustice to most working journalists. So, OK: Sorry.

Here's the thing, though. Journalists are, I think, by the nature of their business, limited in their ability to bring a mass audience "the Truth" in doses sufficient for everyone. What I mean is that they're limited in several critical ways, most of which are beyond their control:

  1. Personal knowledge/understanding/expertise in ever-changing subject matter -- they are, of necessity, generalists
  2. Space constraints -- even if they wanted to report on every intricacy, most traditional media don't have the time or space for it
  3. Deadline pressures -- even if they knew everything there was to know and had the time/space for it, they couldn't get it all done by 5pm

This list, too, is a generalization. It's obviously not going to be true of all journalists. But it describes what I think are some of the key constraints of the trade which don't exist in the same form for bloggers, and which I think contributes to the ongoing tension between them. While bloggers are also often generalists, there are no commercial pressures requiring that they maintain a capacity for general subject matter. The other two restraints on traditional journalists simply don't exist at all for bloggers. There are no space limitations, and there are no deadlines. And as a result, bloggers can go into excruciating detail on their chosen subject matter (and it is their chosen subject matter -- no assignments from editors to unwanted stories), and keep after it forever. That can have the effect of turning them into experts, in the best cases, or extraordinarily verbose idiots, in the worst.

But I think that Williams' comment, even taken in the best possible light, misses one of the most fascinating things about the online revolution, that being that you no longer can be sure from just what corners of the known universe you'll find insight and expertise. The two-way nature of online publishing now reveals the mysteries of what's going on inside the previously anonymous and silent audience's heads. These thoughts, of course, were always present in the minds of readers. But never before have the professional journalists who inspire those thoughts really been able to know what they were. Letters to the editor? Please!

And so it has come to pass that the Brian Williamses of the world now have to hear from the Vinnys of the world. Only, here's the catch: what if Vinny has spent those two years inside his efficiency in the Bronx studying (after his fashion) the very issue that Williams put in -- say, to be generous -- a whole week researching?

Have you ever read, seen, or heard a mainstream media account of some event in which you've been personally involved? Or in which you have developed, under whatever circumstances, some sort of expertise? Ninety-nine times out of hundred, people with that sort of personal or specialized knowledge of the events covered will come away with some sort of substantial complaint about the quality of the coverage. Now, much of that is attributable to the three major restrictions, listed above, under which journalists are typically working. The reality is that those restrictions often make it impossible for their understanding or relating of those events to stand up to your own. But for a general audience, it is often more than sufficient.

Why, though, should the general audience settle for "sufficient?" Or perhaps more to the point, why should audience members with specific knowledge of the nuances, shortcomings, omissions, etc. have to settle for it, or keep it to themselves? As I said above, the Internet and the blogosphere now make it impossible to predict with certainty where true expertise lies. The traditional assumption that expertise -- or at least its approximation -- has its locus around a podium and a bank of microphones in the Capitol, or the editorial boards of major newspapers, or around a passed platter of hors d'oeuvres at some soiree in Georgetown is being challenged by a model in which the net is cast far wider. While Williams' complaint has merit, and we may indeed haul in a lower percentage of "keepers," we are also finding that we are catching them in greater numbers.

Who, for instance, among the battery of professional journalists sent to cover the Scooter Libby trial was able to do so with such thoroughgoing knowledge and insight as the business consultant from Ann Arbor, Michigan, known as "emptywheel?" To this day, there is simply no one on the planet with the offhand command of the facts surrounding the case that she has. Certainly Brian Williams comes nowhere close. And yet he'd have emptywheel pigeonholed with Vinny in the Bronx.

I'm not sure exactly what the point of these observations actually is, but hey, that's my prerogative as a blogger. And if I'm no more clear-headed in my conclusions, nor advanced the ball any further than your average pundit's weekend brain dump, then so be it.

The good news is, you have a forum to tell me what a waste of time this has been. And I count that as a good thing on a slow Saturday afternoon.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Think Progress » Gen. Batiste on VoteVets ad.

Think Progress » CBS fires Gen. Batiste over VoteVets ad.: "CBS fires Gen. Batiste over VoteVets ad.

Iraq veteran Gen. John Batiste “has been asked to leave his position as a consultant to CBS News” over a new VoteVets ad criticizing the Iraq war. He was interviewed tonight by MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann. Watch it:"

Digital Future of the United States: Part V: The Future of Video

The Gavel:

"Today, during a Telecommunications and the Internet hearing entitled “Digital Future of the United States: Part V: The Future of Video,” Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey demonstrated the future of video by filming the first ever YouTube video from the Chairman’s perspective. Watch:"

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

11 GOP Congressmen to Bush: You’ve Lost Credibility

Crooks & Liars

By: Logan Murphy

Countdown-Republicans-Bushtalk

On tonight's "Countdown," Keith Olberman replays an exchange between Brian Williams and Tim Russert from NBC Nightly News this evening about a stunning, closed door meeting that Keith described as a "watershed moment" between President Bush and eleven Republican members of Congress regarding Iraq. In this private meeting, the group led by Reps. Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Charlie Dent (R-PA) hammered the President on Iraq and the impact the war is having on the future of the Republican Party.

Russert: The Republican Congressmen then went on to say: "The word about the war and its progress cannot come from the White House or even you, Mr. President. There's no longer any credibility. It has to come from General Petraeus."

Fired USA: Scandal Will Get "Worse, Not Better"

Paul Kiel
TPM Muckraker

Purged U.S. attorneys John McKay of Seattle and David Iglesias of New Mexico sat down with The Seattle Times today and had a lot to say.

First, they were clear that they think the various investigations -- by Congress and the Justice Department's internal watchdogs -- will result in criminal charges, whether for trying to influence criminal investigations or for lying to Congress:

"I think there will be a criminal case that will come out of this," McKay said during his meeting with Times journalists. "This is going to get worse, not better."...

McKay said he believes obstruction-of-justice charges will be filed if investigators conclude that the dismissal of any of the eight prosecutors was motivated by an attempt to influence ongoing public-corruption or voter-fraud investigations....

Additionally, McKay and Iglesias said they believe Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty lied under oath when they testified before Congress that the eight prosecutors were fired for performance-related reasons and because of policy disputes with Justice Department headquarters.

But McKay also told an anecdote that shows what has recently become painfully apparent -- that Alberto Gonzales never stopped being White House counsel when he became attorney general. He never stopped thinking of himself as the president's lawyer. From the Times:

McKay said he began to have concerns about politics entering the Justice Department in early 2005, when Gonzales addressed all of the country's U.S. attorneys in Scottsdale, Ariz., shortly after he took over as attorney general.

"His first speech to us was a 'you work for the White House' speech," McKay recalled. " 'I work for the White House, you work for the White House.' "

McKay said he thought at the time, "He couldn't have meant that speech," given the traditional independence of U.S. Attorneys. "It turns out he did."

He looked around the meeting room and caught the eyes of his colleagues, who gave him looks of surprise at Gonzales' remarks. "We were stunned at what he was saying."

General Batiste: "Protect America, Not George Bush"

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

quote

I'm reading Robert Wright's Nonzero. Page 132:

When a civilization such as Rome dominates its neighbors, it typically possesses some sort of cultural edge: better weapons, say, or, better economic organization. Yet this dominance is hard to maintain precisely because these valuable memes tend naturally to spread beyond its borders, empowering rivals. In the case of Rome, the barbarian-empowering memes included military strategy. But the exact memes will differ from case to case.

As the historian Mark Elvin has observed, the diffusion of Chinese ironmaking technology to the Mongols during the thirteenth century would come back to haunt China. Elvin was among the first to clearly see that this is a general dynamic of history: the very advancement of advanced societies can bring the seeds of their destruction. As Elman Service put the matter: “The precocious developing society broadcasts its seeds, so to speak, outside its own area, and some of them root and grow vigorously in new soil, sometimes becoming stringer than the parent stock, finally to dominate both their environments.”

The point can scarcely be overemphasized: the turbulence that characterizes world history is not only consistent with a “progressivist” view of history; it is integral to it. The turbulence itself – including the sometimes devastating empowerment of barbarians – is a result of the fact that technology evolves, with the fittest technologies spreading rapidly. Hegemony can bring stasis such as Pax Romana, but in the long run such imbalances of power naturally undermine themselves, and stasis ends.

The ensuing turbulence may look for all the world like regression, but it is ultimately progressive; it reflects – and, as we've seen, often furthers – the globalization of new and improved memes, on which the next stasis will rest.



. . .. ... ..... ........ oOo ........ ..... ... .. . .

Author Robert Wright argues that history has an arrow: That humans have continued to evolve -- if not biologically, than culturally and technologically -- toward greater complexity and intelligence. He also explains the concept behind his book, "Nonzero": That life is a nonzero sum game, where there can be more than one winner, and that civilization evolved thanks to such endeavors, which reward cooperation, rather than competition. His guarded optimism is tinged with a deep worry over the growing prevalence of grass-roots hatred. His hope: that the intelligent pursuit of self-interest will actually be the world's salvation.

(Recorded February 2006 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 19:54)

Thursday, May 03, 2007

Attorney General

(THIS IS A DRAFT...WE ARE WORKING ON FINISHING IT)


G: Tell me about delegation of Presidential authority?

T: I've been trying to figure that out myself. Here's the main federal statute that governs the president's general authorization to delegate functions. Feel free to follow the links to the source documents.


Title 3, United States Code:

§ 301. General authorization to delegate functions; publication of delegations:

The President of the United States is authorized to designate and empower the head of any department or agency in the executive branch, or any official thereof who is required to be appointed by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to perform without approval, ratification, or other action by the President
(1) any function which is vested in the President by law, or

(2) any function which such officer is required or authorized by law to perform only with or subject to the approval, ratification, or other action of the President:
G: So, the President can delegate to any head of a department or agency who has to be nominated and approved by the Senate. Is that right?

T: That is right.

G: So it sounds like the President is allowed to delegate authority to the Attorney General.

T: Right. But there's more. Read on.
Provided, That nothing contained herein shall relieve the President of his responsibility in office for the acts of any such head or other official designated by him to perform such functions. Such designation and authorization shall be in writing, shall be published in the Federal Register, shall be subject to such terms, conditions, and limitations as the President may deem advisable, and shall be revocable at any time by the President in whole or in part.
G: So this part says that even if the President delegates his authority, he's still ultimately responsible for the decisions that are made. Do I have that right?

T: Yes.

G: And it has to be in writing, published in the Federal Register.

T: Yes. In the form of Executive Orders.

G: And the delegation may be to someone other than a department or agency head, so long as the delegee is also required to be appointed by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. Right?

T: Right. You are reading 3 USC § 301 correctly.

See Memorandum for Richard W. McLaren, Assistant Attorney General, Antitrust Division, from William H. Rehnquist, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, Re: Revision of Proclamation 3279 (Oil Import Controls) and Implementing Regulations at 1 (Jan. 4, 1971), cited in this Nov. 5, 2001 AG Opinion ("When the President uses [3 USC § 301] to delegate a function, we have concluded that the power may be redelegated only to officials who occupy Senate-confirmed positions and would also qualify under the statute to receive delegations directly from the President.")

§ 302. Scope of delegation of functions
The authority conferred by this chapter shall apply to any function vested in the President by law if such law does not affirmatively prohibit delegation of the performance of such function as herein provided for, or specifically designate the officer or officers to whom it may be delegated.
G: So sometimes the law prohibits delegations of presidential functions. And sometimes the law constrains the President's choice of delegee.

T: Correct.

This chapter shall not be deemed to limit or derogate from any existing or inherent right of the President to delegate the performance of functions vested in him by law, and nothing herein shall be deemed to require express authorization in any case in which such an official would be presumed in law to have acted by authority or direction of the President.
G: This is a little more ambiguous, isn't it.

T: Yes. I don't know the scope of this "inherent right" business. Let's look into that separately and update later. I think it goes like this: The President obviously cannot run the whole country by him or herself. The constitutional grant of executive authority implies the ability to make appropriate delegations of authority. This statute imposes a governance framework to control the exercise of the President's authority, but should not be read to limit or derogate the President's authority deriving from the Constitution.

G: Which begs the question of the scope of this inherent delegation authority.

T: It does.

G: And in some circumstances, no express delegation of authority is required?

T: The statute contemplates circumstances in which it would be presumed as a matter of law that an executive function was performed pursuant to an appropriate delegation of presidential authority. I don't know off-hand any examples of this. That's another thing we should look at.

§ 303. Definitions
As used in this chapter, the term “function” embraces any duty, power, responsibility, authority, or discretion vested in the President or other officer concerned, and the terms “perform” and “performance” may be construed to mean “exercise.”

oOo

Title 28, United States Code

§ 503. Attorney General
The President shall appoint, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, an Attorney General of the United States. The Attorney General is the head of the Department of Justice.

§ 509. Functions of the Attorney General
All functions of other officers of the Department of Justice and all functions of agencies and employees of the Department of Justice are vested in the Attorney General ....

[with a few exceptions for the functions of administrative law judges and Federal Prison Industries, Inc., aka UNICOR]
§ 510. Delegation of authority
The Attorney General may from time to time make such provisions as he considers appropriate authorizing the performance by any other officer, employee, or agency of the Department of Justice of any function of the Attorney General.
oOo

Title 28, Code of Federal Regulations (Judicial Administration)

§ 0.15 Deputy Attorney General.
(h) Notwithstanding paragraphs (a) and (b) of this section [which allow delegation and redelegation of the AG's authority], authority to take final action in matters pertaining to the appointment, employment, pay, separation, and general administration of the following Department employees is reserved to the Attorney General:

(1) Employees in the Offices of the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General;

(2) Employees appointed to a Schedule C position established under 5 CFR part 213, or to a position that meets the same criteria as a Schedule C position [i.e., positions of a confidential or policy-determining nature]; and

(3) Any Senior Executive Service position in which the incumbent serves under other than a career appointment.

The only thing necessary for the triumph [of evil] is for good men to do nothing