Anybody see a conundrum?

I do, and I think Bush’s Cheney’s lawyers do, too.

Why else would the president’s office forbid former counsel Harriet Miers from even appearing before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, just hours after former White House political director Sara Taylor was “allowed” to testify (if you can call it that) in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee?

Maybe it had something to do with the way Taylor exercised her executive privilege:

Ms. Taylor said she “did not attend any meetings with the president where the matter was discussed” and could not recall seeing any presidential directives about the firings. Asked whether Mr. Bush was involved in the firings, she replied, “I do not have any knowledge that he was.”

OK, so here’s the thing: If the matter of the attorney firings was not discussed—at least not in Taylor’s presence—and Ms. Taylor has no knowledge of Bush’s involvement in the firings, and the firings are all these hearings are investigating, then what exactly is privileged here?

Granted, even with the protection dubious claim of executive privilege, and her lawyer by her side, Sara Taylor still uttered more than her share of I-don’t-recalls and I-can’t-remembers, but if the chief executive was not involved with the matter at hand, then that executive’s claim to privilege doesn’t seem to be applicable.

Conversely, however, if the witness and the White House persist in arguing that conversations between Taylor and the president (or vice president?) are not to be discussed in the context of this hearing, then those conversations must have at least touched on the attorney firings.

By both saying that her conversations were devoid of this specific content, and still asserting Bush’s claim to privilege, Taylor has either committed perjury or abrogated the basis of the presidential order.

Which one is it, Ms. Taylor?

Now, if I can ask this question, you would think some Senator might be able to, as well. To their credit, Feinstein and Leahy came close, but they didn’t quite get there. Maybe I’m not the only guy who sees this coming; maybe somebody in close proximity to Harriet Miers thought that even if Senators didn’t quite make it, Representatives on the House Judiciary Committee would.

Given the shaky legal ground on which they already stand, maybe that’s a chance Miers’ patrons didn’t want to take. Or, to put it the way Senator Arlen Specter did when he addressed Sara Taylor (about her claim to executive privilege) at Wednesday’s hearings, “You might have been on safer legal ground if you'd said absolutely nothing.”


Update: A commenter at TPM believes that by ordering Miers not to appear before the House Committee—by ordering her to defy a subpoena rather than having her appear and assert executive privilege—President Bush has committed a felony.

(h/t DanK)


(cross-posted to Daily Kos)

What They Said, and What They Should Say

Well, surprise, surprise, President Bush has again defied Congress and again invoked a tenuous claim of executive privilege to do so:

President Bush directed former aides to defy congressional subpoenas, claiming executive privilege and prodding lawmakers closer to their first contempt citations against administration officials since Ronald Reagan was president.

It was the second time in as many weeks that Bush had cited executive privilege in resisting Congress' investigation into the firings of U.S. attorneys.

White House Counsel Fred Fielding insisted that Bush was acting in good faith in withholding documents and directing the two aides -- Fielding's predecessor, Harriet Miers, and Bush's former political director, Sara Taylor -- to defy subpoenas ordering them to explain their roles in the firings over the winter.

In the standoff between branches of government, Fielding renewed the White House offer to let Miers, Taylor and other administration officials meet with congressional investigators off the record and with no transcript. He declined to explain anew the legal underpinnings of the privilege claim as the chairmen of the House and Senate judiciary committees had directed.

Both House Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers and Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Patrick Leahy have issued responses. Conyers was stern but polite:

We are extremely disappointed with the White House letter. While we remain willing to negotiate with the White House, they adhere to their unacceptable all-or-nothing position, and now will not even seek to properly justify their privilege claims. Contrary to what the White House may believe, it is the Congress and the Courts that will decide whether an invocation of Executive Privilege is valid, not the White House unilaterally.

While Leahy exhibited a bit more piss and vinegar:

I have to wonder if the White House’s refusal to provide a detailed basis for this executive privilege claim has more to do with its inability to craft an effective one.

But I have to wonder if Democrats are not missing the best and easiest argument to make in this and the other privilege cases. It seems to me that what needs to be said is something like this:

President Bush has again demonstrated his belief that he, and anyone else he designates, is above the law, but worse, he has asserted that his administration owes nothing to the American people. In this case, the president’s continued insistence that his aids will only meet with Congressional investigators in secret and without a transcript confirms such disrespect. Why is it OK for administration officials to talk to a select few in private, but not OK for them to talk in the open, in front of the people that elect the president and pay the salaries of his entire staff?

We think the American people deserve to hear what these Bush aids have to say. We believe that Americans are capable of understanding the facts of this case, and, more importantly, understanding right from wrong. Judging from the position taken by President Bush, either he believes that the people are incapable of understanding, or he is deeply afraid that they will understand all too well.

(cross-posted from guy2k)

Time to Play Offense

If events of the last week or so have not convinced congressional Democrats that the ball is in their court, I really can’t fathom what will.

Perhaps, to some, at first blush, it doesn’t look so sanguine. The President nullified a jury decision in the Libby case. The Bush-packed Supreme Court and the Sixth Circuit assumed the rubberstamping duties previously exercised by the last Republican congressional majority. The White House continues to discount and dismiss congressional inquiries and, now, subpoenas. The Pentagon continues to force-feed American troops into an Iraqi meat grinder while administration officials saber rattle in the direction of Iran. And it has become ever more clear that a vice president who considers himself above the law and outside the Constitution has unparalleled sway over an ignorant, incurious, and un-analytical president.

But look past the Beltway, and you might see something different. Call me a cockeyed optimist, but I see it. . . or at least feel it.

Overwhelming numbers of Americans disapprove of the commutation of Libby’s sentence. Not just Democrats, but the much-coveted independent voters see the president’s move as wrong, if not downright cynical. Even Republicans are deeply split—some actually offended by the unequal administration of presidential clemency, others feeling betrayed because The Decider didn’t decide to pardon their “fallen comrade.”

In fact, several on the right have labeled the commutation as political and “Machiavellian,” while most on the left and many in the establishment have come to realize what I argued almost immediately after Bush’s move: The Scooter buyout wasn’t merely a profile in cowardice or an exercise in splitting the baby—it was a carefully crafted decision designed to most optimally guarantee Libby’s silence.

Decisions in the courts, be they SCOTUS or the Court of Appeals, stand as a shock to the conscience. From wage equity, to illegal surveillance, to habeas corpus and military commissions, an increasingly uneasy country has been further stirred and a sluggish Congress has been put on notice: Where the courts have been allowed to interpret bad laws badly, it is time for legislators to rewrite those laws for the better.

The House Judiciary Committee has issued subpoenas for information pertaining to the illegal domestic surveillance program; in both the House and Senate, many other subpoenas sit approved but un-issued. Sen. Leahy and Rep. Conyers, et al., need to send up those subpoenas, and when those legally binding demands for evidence or testimony are ignored or defied, then it is time for Congress to hold the President and his cohorts in contempt—at minimum.

On the war in Iraq, the Majority failed to hold its ground in the spring, and it saw its approval ratings plummet. Since then, the administration’s splurge has demonstrated its tactical ineffectiveness with buckets of American and Iraqi blood, while the strategy of providing time for the Iraqi government to stabilize has proved so tragically flawed that it will be a miracle to see Iraqi PM Malawi survive the summer.

And people—in the ivory towers and in the heartland—have noticed. Last week saw the staunchly pro-military paper The Olympian in Olympia, Washington advocate a troop withdrawal, and Sunday’s New York Times finally relented and admitted “it is time for the United States to leave Iraq.” Those papers are only playing catch-up to their readerships, whom for many, many months have been telling pollsters that Bush’s fiasco should never have been started, is not going in the right direction, and is overdue to end.

The Times has even checked itself on its recent parroting of some current White House rhetoric. Public Editor Clark Hoyt questioned recent reliance by Times’ reporters on the administration’s assertions that the lion’s share of violence in Iraq can be blamed on al Qaeda. His inquiries seem to have spurred news editors to exercise more care in explaining the difference between the al Qaeda that engineered the 9/11 attacks, and the vaguely affiliated, al Qaeda-inspired groups that might have a role in the ongoing Iraqi mayhem. This fix is still belated, but is indeed a much faster correction than was seen vis-à-vis the lies that led up to the initial invasion.

And while a recent ARG poll shows that roughly half of America believes President Bush should be impeached (a remarkable number, really, and more than enough of a sign that congressional hearings should at least begin), the same survey records overwhelming majorities in favor of Vice President Cheney’s removal. Bush’s overall approval rating, averaged across all major polls, has now dipped below 30% 28%; while Cheney can’t drag his numbers out of the teens. These men are not liked, trusted, nor respected, and Dick Cheney provokes disgust, as much in so-called independents as in Democrats, and increasingly in his own party.

So, again, I posit, the ball is in the Democrats’ court. In fact, it is a sporting goods mega-store worth of balls, each served up like a friendly toss in a game of slow-pitch softball.

And there are signs that congressional Democrats, if not yet ready to swing for the fences, at least know it's their ups.

Rep. Henry Waxman has been dogged all year, starting many balls rolling on many oversight investigations. House Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers appeared on ABC’s This Week demanding President Bush waive executive privilege—as President Bill Clinton did when his pardons came under scrutiny—to allow a full and free investigation of the commutation of Libby’s sentence. Conyers also stated that if the White House refuses to comply with congressional subpoenas relating to the firing of US Attorneys, he could move to hold Bush and Cheney in contempt of Congress, and also acknowledged that Americans have now come to see impeachment as a favorable option.

On the Senate side, Judiciary Committee Chair Patrick Leahy is considering calling Libby prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to testify, not about what happened before the grand jury, which would not be proper, but about his interviews with Bush and Cheney, which, at the insistence of the White House, occurred outside the protective cover of the grand jury room.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently acknowledged that his party “hasn’t done enough” to oppose the president’s Iraq policy, and is now sounding like he wants to make up for this error. Seeing a mini-wave of half-hearted “defections” by respected Republicans, Reid wants to give them the chance to put their votes where their rhetoric is. The Nevada Senator is proposing a series of votes on troop drawdowns and spending restrictions in the next couple of weeks.

Reid even has the feckless former Secretary of State on his side. The opinion-shy Colin Powell has now decided it is safe to announce that he argued with the president for a whole “two-an-a-half hours” in an attempt to head off the US invasion.

The balls are indeed drifting, the tide is most certainly shifting, but, like the ghost of Christmas yet to come, I show you shadows not of what will be, but only of what could be. The balls will not play themselves; the future is what Democrats will make of it. The opportunities are now there and manifold, but it is necessary to take advantage of them.

Now is the time. Time to fix the laws and require the executive branch to honor them. Time to demand accountability and transparency. Time to withdraw from Iraq. Time to enforce subpoenas and begin hearings on impeachment (for the vice president, at the very least). It is time for Democrats in Congress to realize that for their own fortunes, as well as for America’s as a whole, when it comes to upholding our laws and defending our Constitution, when it comes to defending our personal liberties and our national interests, when it comes to these times and this White House, the best defense is a good offense.


Update: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, noting a new congressional analysis on the costs of the Bush/Cheney war machine, has added her voice to the reawakening chorus on Iraq:

Think about what $10 billion a month would mean to protecting Americans from terrorism, improving security at our ports and airports, and increasing border security. Think about what $10 billion a month would mean for the 47 million Americans who don’t have health insurance, for the survivors of Hurricane Katrina, and for the education of our children. Think about what $10 billion a month would mean to lowering the deficit so that future generations are not burdened with debt.

The American people are outraged at the Bush Administration’s misplaced priorities -- that is why Congress will hold the Administration accountable with votes this month to end the war and redeploy the troops. This will include a vote on legislation to begin redeployment of our troops within 120 days and to conclude by April 1, 2008, with the exception of those remaining in Iraq to fight terrorists and protect our diplomats.

The date-certain legislation gives our Republican colleagues another opportunity to join Democrats in heeding the wishes of the American people, who want to wind down this war and bring our troops home.

(cross-posted to Daily Kos)

[What, you don’t take my word for it? I have links to back up all of the above, and I will try to insert them later if my time allows. Done.]

The Base Stench of High Crime

Let’s face it—this one fails the smell test.

Forgive me if you’ve heard some of this before, but humor me a moment. To the best of my recollection, as they say, the timeline goes something like this:

Fall 2006—The Republican-lead Congress passes a provision secretly slipped into the Patriot Act renewal that gives the Attorney General the power to appoint interim US attorneys on an indefinite basis, thus avoiding the usual Senate confirmation process. President Bush signs that provision into law.

December 2006—The Department of Justice fires seven US attorneys without cause. The reason for their dismissals later surfaces: they were deemed by the White House and DoJ not to be “loyal Bushies.” More specifically, the fired attorneys had either pursued corruption investigations against Republicans, or had failed to pursue Democrats or charges of so-called voter fraud aggressively enough to satisfy the executive. (Several other US attorneys, though not officially fired, appear to have been forced to resign over the Summer and Fall of 2006.)

Winter-Spring 2007—Purge-gate, AKA the US Attorney scandal, blossoms to reveal a web of Justice and White House officials working in concert to fill the ranks of the US Attorneys with partisan hatchet-men and women and former associates of Karl Rove using the new authority granted by the shady provision in the Patriot Act.

Spring 2007—Responding to the rush of revelations about the scandal, both the Senate and House vote in overwhelming numbers to strip the interim appointment authority from the law and restore the previous checks and balances to the process.

June 4, 2007—Congress sends S.214, the Preserving United States Attorney Independence Act of 2007, to President Bush for his signature. Bush takes no immediate action.

June 13, 2007—Senate Judiciary Chair Patrick Leahy (D-VT) is notified by DoJ that Acting US Attorney for the Central District of California, George Cardona, will be appointed to the post on an interim basis by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales using the authority granted under the 2006 USA Patriot Act. Cardona will be able to serve indefinitely without Senate scrutiny. (The Central District was run by Debra Wong Yang until she resigned last October. Yang had been leading an investigation into “lucrative ties” between a lobbying firm and Republican Representative Jerry Lewis, and is believed to have been targeted for ouster by White House Counsel Harriet Miers.)

Senator Leahy reacted this way:

That bill, the Preserving United States Attorney Independence Act of 2007, has been on the president’s desk since June 4th. Do you know it seems he just can’t bring himself to sign it? Instead, we were informed yesterday through the Justice Department that the attorney general has used the power that we voted to repeal again.

It’s almost like they live in an alternate world, as though they’re not realizing the reaction of Democrats and Republicans about this misuse of this power. That’s wrong.

June 14, 2007—Late Thursday night, The White House released this two-line statement:

On June 14, 2007, the President signed into law:

S. 214, the “Preserving United States Attorney Independence Act of 2007.”

Which brings us to today. . . .

Gosh, when you put it all out there like that, it kind of stinks, don’t it? Kind of looks like the President and the Attorney General conspired to subvert the will of Congress, right? People might get upset if they knew how this went down. . . .

If they knew.

Now, what I just did wasn’t hard; I was able to research and type it up in a relatively short time. Indeed, if you are even a semi-regular reader of political blogs, you probably knew most of this already. Yet, a quick look at today’s papers’ on-line editions—including a couple from Central California—reveals no such chronology—in fact, I can’t even find anything on Cardona’s interim appointment beyond the blog work I link to above.

Will tomorrow’s network newscasts deal with this? I doubt it. Will it even show up as a blip on the cable news channels? I’m not holding my breath.

Now, it’s not like no one has noticed. Leahy’s office has, Think Progress and Raw Story have, but that seems to be the full extent of it. Granted, Thursday was a bit full of news (Gaza, Iraq, Lebanon. . . a nasty Supreme Court decision no one has noticed much, either), but this—this clearly intentional foot-dragging to do an end-run around Congress, this collusion between the White House and Justice to pack the ranks of the US attorneys with one more partisan hack, this conscious counteraction to the desire of the American people, this aggressive deceit—this is not trivial, folks!

In fact, this is exactly the kind of stuff that runs afoul of this:

Article II, Section 4: The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

Like I said, it fails the smell test, but, in doing so, it passes the Constitutional one. Maybe if members of the establishment media took the short time to explain this scandal, as I did above, then the logical next step wouldn’t be so difficult to comprehend. I mean, c’mon, what drives ratings and sells papers better than a good scandal—especially one that leads to impeachment proceeding for the nation’s top cop and the nation’s top crook?


(cross-posted to Daily Kos)

What to write about—a day filled with scandals, or a "very special ER"

Thursday was a day so full of real news, it made my head spin. More fallout from James Comey’s testimony (and more fallout still), Paul Wolfowitz’s resignation, Cheney’s lawyers claiming total immunity in the Plame civil suit, Bush not answering one question, and smirking at another—I wanted to write a piece that pulled it all together, culminating in one or two undeniable conclusions. But, I’ll leave that to your imagination for now, that post is growing very long, and there is something else that I just can’t get off of my mind.

It’s kind of a small thing, really, but in another way, kind of not. It involves, of all things, last night’s episode of the long-running NBC hospital drama ER. The show, the season finale, itself wasn’t great (I’m not sure there has been a “great” episode of ER in a very, very long time), but some of the things in it really struck me. Struck me not so much because they were rendered that artfully, but rather, it struck me because they were rendered at all.

Over the years (and I am not a regular, each and every week viewer, but I see my share), ER has been good about bringing the outside world into the TV one—adding a line or a short subplot about the state of healthcare in America, or about other social issues—but last night, well. . . .

Most notable was a storyline about a guy in the emergency room for treatment of a lacerated arm. He’s a little touchy, and through some awkward dialog, it is revealed that he is an Iraq vet, but not one that saw any combat duty. Instead, he was a translator. After he exhibits drug-seeking behavior, however, and then attempts to swallow a room full of pills (it’s too much for me to explain how that happened), one of the regular characters suggests the vet has PTSD.

But, how can that be, another wonders—he didn’t see any combat. No, he didn’t, but it turns out he was an interpreter for interrogations.

As the drugged-up vet babbles in Arabic what we learn is something like “please don’t hurt me! I don’t know anything!” it is revealed that he has witnessed US interrogators beating, burning, cutting, and maiming Iraqi detainees. Many serious and strained looks are exchanged among all the doctors and nurses in the room.

And that’s it. There is no counter argument. There is no doubting his story. There is, indeed, no need for what the establishment media calls “balance” (but what is really just the airing of a contrary viewpoint, whether or not it is a serious one). This soldier saw Americans torture Iraqis. Americans torture Iraqis—it is simply understood.

There are other subplots that also intensify the sense that America is touched by this war and occupation more than it or its government let on (veterans working in the ER, reminders of a character that was killed “in country,” a peace march, and a portrayal of a double amputee that, although not a war injury, visually cannot help but refer to the large numbers of limbless veterans now back among us), but the story concerning PTSD caused by witnessing American-engineered torture made me reflect on how far we have come in the last four years.

And yes, while we have come a long way in recognizing the horrors of this occupation and the collateral damage of this conflict—and even in the understanding of post-traumatic stress—the long way I am thinking about is a less hopeful road. In fact, it is a sad one.

What I can’t help but realize from this dramatized portrayal is that we not only are a country that tortures people (for this I already knew), but that we are a country that knows it tortures people. And there is no national outrage, as best I can see—not really. In fact, as the audience at Tuesday’s Republican presidential debate demonstrated, there is at least an excitable minority that is quite proud and energized by the knowledge that we torture.

That behavior, and the behavior of the candidates that pandered to that group, horrifies me, but it does not surprise me. In any large group—in this case, an entire country—there are going to be some very scary subgroups. The episode of ER, however, saddened me. Primetime big three TV, after all, is designed to speak to a much larger and broader audience than an early Republican debate on FOX. If there were something obscure in an ER script, something too inside the beltway, it would likely be cut, or at least would be explained and argued.

Thursday’s torture story was not cut, however, and the narrative was not interrupted by longwinded explanations. It was understood that we would all understand.

And perhaps that says as much about the last six years as any of the other scandals and horrors I could have written about today.

How sad is that?


(cross-posted to Daily Kos)

Swimming with Donkeys, Kicking Some Ass, Playing for Keeps (and a host of other metaphors)

This is a watershed moment for Democrats. At first blush, it might not feel that wet—the partisan Republicans packing the executive and judiciary branches are, after all, strong bulwarks against a progressive tide—or it might only feel that certain kind of wet one might get in a pissing match (a frame the establishment media is all too eager to put around the conflict between the new majority party in Congress and the dead-enders in the White House). But, this is not a pissing match, nor is it a time to tread water—how the congressional Democrats behave during the remainder of this session will define this generation of politicians for scores of Americans and set the tone for the ’08 election cycle.

Drew Weston, writing for the American Prospect, puts it like this:

The way Democrats handle their confrontation with the White House on the firing of the U.S. attorneys is as important to the party's brand on national defense as the way they handle the confrontation on the funding of the Iraq War itself. Why? Because it sends a meta-message about how they handle confrontations. The willingness of Democratic leaders such as Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi to stare down the president has done far more to reassure the American people that Democrats know how to deal with aggression than all the efforts over the last five years to show that they, too, "support our troops."

I will take Weston’s insight a step further: How the Democrats confront the White House on all matters of oversight—investigating the administration’s deception in the run-up to the Iraq war, uncovering the warrantless domestic spying program(s), closing Guantanamo, ending torture and extraordinary rendition, restoring habeas rights, exposing the failures that lead to the Katrina disaster and continue to hamper Gulf Coast recovery, attempting to correct the partisan politicization of the civil rights division at the Department of Justice and the General Services Administration, prosecuting the influence peddling, cronyism, and outright larceny that has touched the Pentagon, the CIA, Commerce, DHS, the Department of the Interior, the EPA, and many more—will go a very long way to defining the Democrats as a positive force, and not just an opposition party.

Perhaps that seems strange at first—by opposing the Republican agenda, the Democrats transcend their oppositional branding—but if framed, communicated, and executed with the American people (dare I say, “the consumer”) in mind, Democrats can quickly move past saying “no,” move past being perceived as “not Republicans,” and gain brand equity as a force for constructive and noticeable change.

In other words, simply being a “not” brand is not a good positioning for Democrats. “Not” brands are weak brands—defined by their antagonist, reactive at best, reactionary at their worst. There is little that is aspirational in such a positioning; you are the lesser of two evils.

But by standing up for our Constitution, for the rule of law, for a guarantee that every vote counts, for a government for and by the people, for the right to privacy, for accountability and an honest government, the Democratic Party marries itself to the sort of iconic American values that countless beltway strategists have (wrongly) ceded to Republicans for the last decade. Being the party of the country that we set out to be two-and-a-quarter centuries ago, the country that we can be proud to be today, will go further to garner the support of so-called “values voters” than any twisted triangulation on the role of the New Testament in civil society.

And, by standing firm for the ideals laid out in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and against the Republican executive’s attempts to degrade them, Democrats not only show what they are fighting for and who they are fighting for, but, that, when the fighting gets tough, they will stand their ground.

By continuing to hammer the Bush Administration and its enablers on the issues outlined above—as well as on the need for national healthcare and a living wage—Democrats will show that Americans have an ally in the everyday struggle for a better life—an ally that won’t cut and run or compromise on core values. There is no negotiating Liberty, after all, and it doesn’t look good to try.

And, by continuing to investigate, hold hearings, reign in the executive—to check and balance—by continuing to pass legislation that benefits hardworking Americans, that represents the beliefs of the majority, even if these bills just meet with a presidential veto, then Democrats will demonstrate strength far more effectively than any photo-op on an aircraft carrier.

If they can do this, Democrats will not only shed light on and throw up roadblocks to the rightwing agenda, and win the hearts of voters, they will do something almost as satisfying—they will disarm beltway blowhards. When you are acting on the instructions of the American majority, when you are advocating for the broad interests of the American people, then you are no longer engaged in a simple pissing match. When your special interest is the Constitution and the people it protects, it is not politics as usual.

Fail to stand tall, however, and you confirm every prejudice of the Paleolithic punditocracy. Talk loudly, but eventually whittle down your stick to something smaller than a souvenir miniature baseball bat, all in the interest of being seen as a team player, and you will soon find yourself handling the leather instead of the wood. You will be back on defense. It’s all a game; you’ll get ‘em next time.

Or, to go back and torture my opening metaphor, if Democrats lack the strong kick to swim with the progressive current, they will again be back to carrying the Republicans’ water, and 2006 will look like just another unremarkable high tide, rather than a defining sea change.

Or, let me put it yet another way: Don’t play for time—play for keeps.


(cross-posted to Daily Kos)