Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

Late on Friday, two Democratic senators on the Judiciary Committee announced that they intend to vote to confirm Michael Mukasey, Bush's nominee to replace Alberto Gonzales as attorney general of the United States.

Mukasey has indicated that while he finds the Bush administration's use of waterboarding on suspects to be personally repugnant, he will not object to its use when he becomes the nation's top law enforcement officer.

The Judiciary Committee's vote on Mukasey is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2007.

If you find the use of torture by the United States to be abhorrent, please call these two Democratic senators on Monday to urge them to vote against torture --- and vote against Mukasey.

UPDATE FROM BRAD: Feinstein op/eds her reasons for giving Mukasey her vote in the LATimes today. She believes he's "the best nominee we are going to get from this administration", and says she "hopes" for the best, believing that Congress can race to have legislation passed outlawing waterboarding by the CIA (and have it signed by Bush) before Mukasey can rule it to be legal as the previous AG did. She also, apparently, is ignoring the fact that Mukasey is in favor of disenfranchising Photo ID laws, as we reported here last week. What must this woman be thinking?! Is this her first day on Planet Bush?!

The phone numbers for the offices of Feinstein and Schumer in D.C. and in-state follow below...Call them...

Guest blogged by David Edwards

The New York Times reports that in 2004 Deputy Attorney General James Comey refused to sign off on renewal of Bush's warrantless NSA spying program. Instead of addressing Comey's concerns, Bush Administration officials took the desperate move of actually visiting Attorney General Ashcroft in the hospital to get his authorization for renewal of the program. Ashcroft was, at the time, in intensive care recovering from pancreatitis.

Comey refused to approve renewal of the program based on concerns over "whether the president had the legal and constitutional authority to conduct such an operation."

In light of these new revelations, Senator Charles Schumer, appearing on Fox News Sunday, demanded that Bush Administration officials testify before congress.

Mitch McConnel, who appeared along with Schumer, chastised The Times for continuing to report on details of the wiretap program. While Schumer said that any investigation should consider a possible whistle-blower status for anyone who leaked this information, Senator McConnel was more interested in punishing the whistleblower.

Because the NSA shared the wiretap information with many federal agencies, it will be very difficult to assign blame to a specific leaker.

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